This coming Sunday is a very special Lord’s Day. All across our land, in many like-minded Churches, it is the Sanctity of Life Sunday.

This week we will step aside from our normal course of preaching to address a very important issue that we both need to know more about, and that we must speak to most clearly and courageously as believers in Christ. And that is, of course, what we call the ‘sanctity of human life.’ It is the Biblical teaching, the essential doctrine, of the special and unique nature of human beings who have been created by God in His very own “image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26-27).

We will approach this subject from a portion of one of the most beloved of all the 150 Psalms, Psalm 139:13-18. This beautiful and familiar Psalm, authored by king David, is composed of a prayer of gratitude for God’s comprehensive watch-care over those He has personally and purposefully created. It is here, in these ancient and inspired words, that we will find our text for confronting what the late Dr. R. C. Sproul called “the greatest evil of our time,” abortion.

With hearts that are broken over this perpetual holocaust, and with Gospel-mercy extended to those who have participated in it, we will discover how God’s Holy Word affirms the inestimable value that our Creator has placed upon human life. I appreciate the words of Baptist theologian Dr. Russell Moore, who explains why an emphasis like this is both appropriate and important for the Church:

“But the reason why we need Sundays like this is because human dignity is a spiritual issue. It’s a spiritual issue because the gospel grounds human dignity in Jesus Christ himself. In Christ, God has forever joined deity with flesh. Jesus did not merely become human once; he is human to this day, and God’s purposes in Christ center on the humanity that bears the Creator’s divine image. To deny human dignity, then, is to deny Christ himself.”

I look forward to this Lord’s Day, and I hope you will take some time to study Psalm 139:13-18 as we prepare for worship.