Bible Text: John 3:16 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“As a carpenter,” writes Roy Lessin, “Jesus worked with a hammer, nails, and wood. When He picked up a hammer, He knew that one day a hammer would be raised up against Him; when His hand drove in a nail, He knew that one day nails would be driven into Him; when He worked with wood, He knew that one day there would be a tree where He would offer up His life.

“Why the hammer? Why the nails? Why the wood? It all has to do with worth…not His worth, but yours. Jesus knew your true value, and that’s why He died” (Roy Lessin, “Do You Know How Valued You Are?” http://www.dayspring.com/easter/).

But how much are you, a single individual perhaps without power, influence, money or education, really worth? There is a great deal of difference between value and worth. In my file is an article which assesses the chemicals and elements found in a human body and tells what their monetary value is, yet combined they constitute an individual, one of a kind, made in the image of God, and all the gold in a Swiss bank can’t balance the worth of an individual.

A Sunday school teacher ended her Bible story and wanted some discussion to see if her point had gotten across. “Why does God love us so very much?” she asked. Nobody responded. She asked the second time. Finally a hand went up. “Yes,” encouraged the teacher. “Because He has only one of us,” replied the little girl.

When it comes to your existence in relationship to God, the relationship is strictly one-on-one. No one else sees with your eyes, feels what you feel, and thinks what you think. You are unique–one of a kind without duplication. So this brings up the issue, “What is your true worth in God’s sight?”

On the Internet is a web site known as E-bay.com, and when people want to sell something, they can post a picture of what they would like to dispose of along with a starting price. Then people bid for the item. It’s a great way to get rid of things you no longer want but which may be valuable to someone else.

Recently, my daughter, the mother of two wonderful boys, gave up on having a daughter and decided it was time to get rid of her dolls–now some thirty-something years old. A “Sassy doll,” which Bonnie had been given when she was a little girl and had kept hoping someday to give to her daughter, sold for over $150. Unbelievable!

Why so much for a little girl’s doll that had cost only a small fraction of what it sold for? It was worth that to the person who bought it.

That’s why your true worth can be assessed only in terms of what God was willing to sacrifice to bring you back into fellowship with Him, namely His own Son.

The cross is not an abstract idea or theological concept. It is the bottom line picture of sacrifice, the hard cold price of what God paid because He loves you as an individual. You are not a mistake, a quirk of human nature, a reject cast-off on the restless tide of humanity. When you were conceived, you were endowed with a human soul and were made in the image of God.

Any worship which removes the cross to make it more palatable to the general public not only eviscerates Christianity but takes away the only true representation of how God views your worth. When you want to know what your worth is in God’s sight, take a look at the cross and say, “That’s the answer!” He came to rescue me and show me the way back to heaven.

Resource reading: Luke 8:40-48.