Sometimes people in great distress come to pastors, and that is certainly appropriate. Though we do not always have precise solutions for their dilemmas, we certainly can provide a safe and confidential place to share troubles, and we can connect them with our loving, all-wise, all-powerful God.

Often these folks coming to my office feely crushed down by life. They sometimes make statements like the following:

• My mistakes have been so awful that there is no way to repair the damage; or,
• My illness is so serious, and the prognosis so dismal, that I ought to save everybody lots of trouble and expense and just end it all; or,
• Everything I attempt fails; I am just a jinxed person; or,
• I am not useful or needed by anyone; I am just good for nothing.

Faced with such pessimism and depression, I sometimes ask, gently but clearly, “Who gave you the right to evaluate yourself?”

Then I explain. “Only our God has a right to make a final evaluation of you. You are not your own maker. I know who your Maker is. He is God Almighty. Our God loves his children unconditionally. Let’s consider what God has to say about you.”

Do you really matter to God? Yes, of course, without a doubt. How do I know?

Let me give you four biblical reasons for believing that you are special in God’s sight.

FIRST, YOU WERE GOD’S IDEA BEFORE YOUR MOTHER CONCEIVED YOU. God spoke these words to his servant Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:5) Because every person is originally God’s idea, no one is ordinary.

You are special in the sight of God—YOU BEAR AN AMAZING RESEMBLANCE TO GOD. You were made in the image of God. That does not mean that we are miniature gods. But it does mean that human beings have some godly capacities. We are spiritual, rational, moral, and immortal creatures. Though sin has soiled and distorted our godly image, we are still reflections of Almighty God.

We are as different from other creatures as animals are different from vegetables. In Genesis 1, verse 26, we read, “Then God said, Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness, and let them have stewardship over…all the earth.”

The Psalmist declared, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Ps. 139:14) Indeed we are!

Do you realize that if the DNA strands from your body were stretched out in sequence, they would reach to the sun and back (93 million miles) 400 times!

If you cut your finger while peeling an apple, your flesh will heal by itself, automatically. Each living person is a complex, marvelous creation, made in the image of God.

Here is the third reason for believing that you are special in the sight of God—For God so sent Christ into the world… According to Genesis, Adam and Eve forfeited their godly heritage in a misguided attempt to seize the prerogatives of God.

Adam and Eve wanted to be equal to God rather than servants of God. All generations since then have come into this world with sin-tainted DNA. But God loved us so much that God offered a way for us to reclaim our rightful places as children of God.

It cost him enormously. The Son of God agonized and died on a cross in order to pay the penalty for our sin. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…

Romans 5, Christ died for us while we were sinners, enemies, hopeless… And how much more does God love us now as a child of God… You matter to God. You are loved.

Lastly you should know how special you are in God’s sight—EVEN THE LEAST OF US IS OF ENORMOUS VALUE TO GOD.

Luke in his Gospel tells of the day when Jesus was on the way to the home of Jairus, the equivalent of a Jewish Bishop. His only daughter was dying.

A large crowd was on the road with Jesus. Suddenly Jesus stopped the parade. Why?

Because he wanted to deal with a person who was regarded to be at the very bottom of the social totem pole.

Legend has it that this woman was a Gentile from Caesarea-Philippi. If so, she was regarded as of little or no value by the Jewish, patriarchal society. Furthermore, she was suffering from internal bleeding, and that made her ceremonially unclean according to Jewish law. She was not even supposed to be out in public.

Jesus said, “Somebody touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Somehow this woman knew immediately that she had been healed. It must have been embarrassing for her to step forward. You see, this woman believed that her suffering was due to some sin in her life.

But Jesus responded in love. Jesus was not content to just solve her physical problem. He wanted to heal her spirit too. He wanted her to know that she was forgiven.

Jesus said, “Daughter (what a beautiful way to speak to the lowest person on society’s totem pole), your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Isn’t it wonderful that Jesus made that Jewish dignitary wait until he first dealt with a nobody who discovered that she was really somebody?

You see, if you remove our Triune God from the picture, human values sink like a rock. If you are just an accident, as Darwin theorized, you have little value. Just as a Jew was worthless in the eyes of Hitler. Just as some Israelis and some Palestinians regard each other as the scum of the earth. If you remove God from the picture, none of us has any inherent worth. Our worth becomes not one penny more than their usefulness.

In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel “The Cancer Ward,” a young political prisoner named Oleg is talking to a nurse named Zoya. Reading from patient records in the cancer war, Oleg notices that hardly any people actually die in the ward. He asks Zoya about this.

She says, “We discharge the patients before they die. Once we see that the patient is beyond help, we move him out and make room for people we can help.”

That made sense under the Soviet Socialist’s system that declared that God was dead. If God was dead, you see, human worth was not established by God. Therefore, the government or the system could establish human worth.

Now contrast that cancer ward with the ministry of the late Mother Teresa in India. She provided shelter and help for the homeless, the AIDS victims, the poor, the dying. When she was asked why, she explained, “They are created by God. That’s why they deserve to die with dignity.”

Christianity never measures people by how useful they are. They are children of God! They matter to God.

Do you matter to God? Of course you do. He made you in his image and redeemed you on the cross.

Pastoral Prayer

You are the ultimate Gift-Giver O God. From the first breath we take to the last one we release, we are blessed by your constant presence. Overwhelmed by your extravagant gifts, we gather in praise this day. We celebrate the joys that fill our senses – the humming buzz of honeybees, the swirling tide pools teeming with life, landscapes washed with brilliant color. When we pause for a Sabbath rest to drink in your bounty with grateful hearts, we are renewed and refreshed.

Compassionate Lord, you hear the sigh of each one who reaches out to you today. It is no accident that we have found ourselves here in this place this morning. Your concern reaches to wherever we might have been and wherever we might be in this moment.

O Lord, we find that you are the one who communicates in countless ways – in a surprising word in a casual conversation, a glimmer of a new thought, or in a prompting that helps us to see as you see. Grant us the courage to be willing to go wherever you lead us, even into the edges of our comfort.

O Lord, for some of us, our needs have drawn us here. We offer to you our concerns –Lord, we offer all our burdens to you in a moment of silence

Remind us, O God, that you invite us not only to the comfort of prayer, but also to the place of care, where our lives can offer the gift of great compassion. This week, give us the courage to speak a word of grace when it may not be easy to speak, to be a listening ear when we are tempted to give easy advice, to reach out with a secret act of service that may never be discovered.

We pray all these things in the name of the one who showed us a life built and sustained by prayer, in Jesus the Christ, who gave us these words in prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.