#STRask - Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Questions about reasons to think human beings are the most valuable things in the universe, how terms like “identity in Christ” and “child of God” can help someone who feels like a failure, and how to “give it to God” when you’re being consumed by worry.   Can you expand on your belief that human beings are the most valuable things in the universe? People use terms like “identity in Christ” and “child of God” to help me in my struggle with low self-esteem and feeling like a failure. Can you help me understand what those terms mean? How do you lay something at God’s feet? When I'm being consumed by worry, how do I “give it to God”?

This is the hashtag SCRask podcast with Greg Kockel and Amy Hall. Thank you for joining us. Greg? You almost missed the button there, Amy. I was watching that. Sorry. All right. It's good to start with a smile.

That's a good way to start. What do you got? We're starting with a question from Keith C. I once heard a pastor say that human beings are the most valuable things in the universe. I believe Greg makes the same statement in the story of reality. Please expand on this. Well, value is a word that describes worth. I mean that's a synonym, but when you try to define things, a lot of times you give other words that we're very familiar with

that are meant to capture this meaning. And so what has worth? If there is no God, then nothing has worth objectively. It's just there. I think that's pretty obvious. Now, it can be valuable to a person, so it isn't like metal, molecules of metal and paint and gasoline have any worth in themselves, but when put together in a Porsche, it's valuable to someone. So it's subjectively valuable though, it's just based on the individual, but in a transcendent sense that doesn't have any value, not in a world that is just molecules in motion. All right, so, but if the world is created by a perfect being, I think the notion of moral perfection, which would be included, or any of the other perfections, it intimates value of that individual.

And goodness, that's the moral factor. And so there is value there when that being makes other creatures like him, then there is a transfer of value because we being like him, human beings in this case, and unlike anything else in the universe, being like him, we have value bearing his image and value to him. He values us, and so if he values us, it's in virtue of our value, and this is the ground then for the value of human beings. Now, not even angels are described as being made in the image of God, and the text says that we humans will eventually rule over angels. I'm not saying they don't have any worth or value. Actually, I think everything that God makes has

worth and value, but it's in grades. It's graduated, depending, and the unique quality of human beings being like God in a certain fashion, not being God or being God's, but having the imprint of God that transfers value to them. And also, I and also that creates their value and then God's value of human beings over the rest. We know they're valuable because Jesus didn't die for junk, right? You were redeemed not with gold and silver, but rather with the blood of Christ, Peter says. And so that intimates our own value relative to God. And there's nothing else in the universe that's like this. So if you're going to assign value to anything that is not subjective value, well, I value it, doesn't mean it's valuable. If it's not just that, then you're going to have to have some kind of narrative that makes sense out of the value

you say that thing intrinsically has or objectively has. And I've just done that by tying the value of the things in creation to God himself who made them and then made human beings with a much higher level of value than the other things, the most valuable things in the universe. You mentioned Jesus dying for us, and this is the simplest way to look at this. The fact that he came to earth and suffered and died to save us shows our significance in that, first of all, the fact that we needed redemption shows our moral significance as agents who make right and wrong choices that are meaningful and need to be brought to justice, but also the fact that He did suffer for us to save us and tie this in with the fact that we are made in the image of God,

and our objective value comes because we reflect his objective value. All of these things point to that, and you're right, nothing else in the universe even comes close to that. And it would be good if we remembered what is actually most important in this universe, and we forget that often, don't we? People, not things. By the way, our founders put it this way, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

Their fundamental human rights are grounded in the way they were made by God. And if they were not created by God, then there is no way of arguing for any equality, because there's nothing equal between human beings that is simply imminent in their physical characteristics. It's something transcended about human beings. And that's what our founders understood and that's the foundation for human rights. So let's go to a question from Anonymous.

You know, Greg, sometimes as Christians and pastors, we'll use phrases that especially new Christians may not understand. And this still happens to me where I'm thinking, what does that mean? I can think of a few, but I don't want to distract from the one that's being asked about here by anonymous. Struggling with feeling like a failure and low self-esteem, people use terms like, quote, identity in Christ and, quote, child of God to try to help me. Can you help me understand what those terms mean?

Sure. Well, one's identity is the way, speaking in this way, is a subjective element, is the way one views oneself. Okay? We're talking about the viewer side. And if people, for example, as characterized by some worldviews, think of themselves, in other words, their identity, what defines them as cosmic junk. They're just stuff caught in the cogs of the universe. Then this is going to have a ramification

on the way they feel about themselves, all right? However, if they understand themselves to be special, and I know, I think it's John Noyes who asks his daughters every night when he puts them to bed, who are you? They say, I'm a child of the king or something to that effect. What he's doing is schooling them in an accurate understanding of their place in the universe, that this is who you are. As a Christian, you are now adopted as children of God. As many as received him, Jesus, to them he gave the right

become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. So there's a special category of God's closest relatives that are close to him in virtue of their relationship with Jesus. And when we think of ourselves not as cosmic junk, but as valuable sons or daughters, that changes our feelings about ourselves. Okay, so the question now is not just, how do we see ourselves? That's the subject,ive. But what is the truth of the matter? That's the objective. The truth of the matter is there is a God who made human beings in his image. And that confers significant value to us as we were just discussing.

All right? We are valuable. We are not cosmic junk. Okay? But if you're a follower of Christ, it gets better. We belong to God's family. And I don't mean the brotherhood of man here, because there is no sense in Scripture of this notion, the brotherhood of man. It is nowhere, all right? And there is the brotherhood of the body of Christ, or God's people in the Hebrew scriptures, though many people who were Jewish weren't God's people because they weren't following him the way he asked. So they weren't included. There was a covenant relationship with the nation, but there

wasn't, they weren't what might be called now Old Testament saints and the believing remnant, all right? And so now if we are followers of Christ, we are not just valuable human beings, but we are now included in his family. And when we remember, when we remind ourselves that the fact of our identity is that we are regenerate and holy, we are new creatures made in Christ, Whoever's in Christ is a new creature. Old things have passed away, new things have come. That's somewhere in Corinthians. And a lot of other passages like that, this begins to affect our subjective perspective of ourselves when we remind ourselves of the truth. And by the way, this,

it just doesn't happen automatically. This is something that we remind ourselves of, either actively verbally or by, as we read through the scripture, we absorb this understanding of our place in the big picture, which is important. Holy Spirit has given us gifts. For example, we all have something to offer. We're special. We are all cleansed. We can go fully in the presence of the Father now and make a request to him.

These are all different notions that are taught clearly in the text about our identity. So when people say we should see ourselves, our identity in Christ, that we are children of God, that's the kind of thing they're talking about. We might feel awful understandably because there is a dark side to every human being. But there's more to us if we're followers of Christ. Even if we're out, we are still valuable, made in the image of God. And then when we become Christians, we enter into God's family. He's not angry at us anymore. Romans chapter 5, first couple of verses, we have peace with God, and we can then embark on a journey with God in which he will be helping us to renew our minds, which includes this very issue, who are we now?

In fact, not what we feel, not some trick we're playing ourselves. I'm Mr. Wonderful. It's not positive mind. It's the fact of what the scriptures say about us that begins to change the way we think about ourselves. Also I would say there is a danger in getting your view of yourself from other people around you. They have all sorts of reasons to reflect bad things back to you that aren't necessarily true or maybe they are true. But that is not, that's not the core of who you are now as new creatures in Christ. So you need to find out what God says about you as you were saying.

And I think also there's something, probably the chapter you need to read over and over right now is Romans 8. Because there's so much in there about who we are now that we are in Christ. In the Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit, we are adopted as children, we are, there's no one to accuse us. And this is a big deal because— And we could never be separated, right? Yeah. Because, Anonymous, you said you feel like a failure and you have low self-esteem.

But Romans 8 is very clear that no one can accuse us. The only person who could possibly accuse us would be God. And guess what? He's not accusing you because he's adopted you and Jesus is not accusing you because he died for you and he's praying for you. So there's nothing standing between you and God. If he did not withhold his own son from you, there's nothing he will withhold from you. Now here's another thing. Maybe you haven't done a whole lot of things in your life, but another thing that happens when you are in Christ and you're getting your identity from Him is that your whole

goal is to reflect His glory and value. You don't have to worry about yours. We no longer have to defend our names or make a name for ourselves or anything like that. The whole purpose of what we're doing is bringing glory to God, and He's perfect. So if your whole goal, after having been adopted, chosen and adopted by God, and you're an heir, if your whole goal is to glorify Him and to magnify His glory and to increase His name, and you have much less worry about your own name because you're completely secure in God's

grace and His forgiveness and His fatherhood over you, then what other people think about you isn't going to matter. You can focus on magnifying God and make that your focus rather than trying to make yourself feel better. And I think maybe sometimes people focus on having their identity in Christ, and they do focus on just making themselves feel better, and it does do that. But I think you need to shift your focus with your new identity in Christ to be on God's glory, and I think that will help you a lot. Being a child of God, again, that means you don't have to do, because

you mentioned you feel like a failure. Well, lucky for you, you don't have to earn anything to become a child. You are adopted. You will not be unadopted. You are a failure in some things just as we all are, you know, and this is the whole point of grace. And in fact, recognizing that you're a failure only increases your love for God and the fact that He has adopted you and made you His and justified you even though you didn't deserve it. So you can be open even about your failure, and that will also bring glory to God and

lift you out of your, of feeling bad about it. We can be open about the fact that we're failures. That actually brings Christ more glory because it points to His sufficiency. So basically, you're just attaching yourself to His sufficiency and His glory and pointing people towards Him, and then your failures won't matter as much and they won't distract you as much from what's important. Well put, Amy. Okay, here's another question about a phrase that we often hear and this one comes from Laney. How do you lay something at God's feet? Quote, give it to God.

I'm a mom of three and I worry about my kids and their lives. Sometimes the worry consumes me. I don't want it to. I want to trust God with their lives. I can say the words, God, I'm giving this to you, but the worry doesn't go away. Well, Lainey, that's a tough one. Because we're human beings that are not always successful in attempting to do the right thing, the good thing. There are psychological elements involved. I'm a dad, I got two girls, I'm a husband, I've got a wife, got a family, and there's so many things about my whole family in lots of different ways, just like everyone else, that I'm deeply concerned about.

And I do want to leave things at Jesus' feet, or at God's feet, so to speak, trust in him. And I think I do in some measure, but here's one thing that we want to be careful of. There is kind of a slogan called 100% God. Let's see, let me back up, put it, all of God and none of me. All of God and none of me. It's very spiritual sounding, but it's not sound. It's not spiritually sound, because the New Testament doesn't teach this radical surrender,

and God takes over and does everything. If it did, the New Testament would be a lot shorter than it is, but it's thick with exhortations for us to act in certain ways to seek to develop our godliness. Now we're not doing it on our own. The Holy Spirit's there to help us. But when it comes to relationships, there's a role that we play. And with my daughters and with my wife, I can't just say, okay, I'm giving them to God. I'm giving them to God.

I'm going to give them to God for the things that I can't make any difference in. Now ultimately, you can't change people, and that's good to know. Only God can change them. But there are a lot of things that we can do to be more virtuous in those relationships that may have a salutary effect in those relationships. And that's where our focus comes in, not just praying that God would act in ways that we can't influence them, but only he can, but also committing ourselves to being the kind of people that we are obliged to be before God in these relationships. Because a lot of times we're creating more trouble. I mean, this is true of me. Just in my family relationships, because a lot of times we're creating more trouble. I mean, this is true of me, just in my family relationships,

there are difficulties that others need to address, but I got my own things in the way I address their difficulties isn't always virtuous. So I'm just, I guess I'm just saying there's a process here, the way I characterize it, it's 100% God and 100% me. God is 100% responsible for his side of the equation and I'm 100% responsible for mine. So I do what I'm able to do in obedience to Christ, and then, such as it is, it's always going to be an imperfect

offering, and then I have to end the process of doing that, trust that God is going to work his purposes out, not necessarily solve my problems, because that may not be his purpose, but trust that I'm in his hands. And I had mentioned before about reading Psalms at night, and there's a number of Psalms where David is anguishing, but he'll ultimately say, but my, I'm in your hands. He does it in different ways, but that's what it amounts to, I'm in your hands. And you need to act. You need to act to rescue me.

I can't do this. I'm not able to do this. My enemies are too great. I'm overwhelmed. Rescue me. And so there's part of the equation. I would say there are a few things going on here. First of all, you can fight your worry, but I don't know that we will completely conquer

our worry. But I do think there are ways to fight. And one way was a way that Gary Habermas taught to me in a class one time, and he went to Philippians 4, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, rejoice in the Lord always, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And then he talks about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, etc. Think about those things.

In other words, we come to God, we pray, we give thanksgiving, then we think about what is true. And this is where we have to replace our false beliefs with true ones and work to replace those false beliefs with true ones. And in this case, I think what's true, there are two aspects to what I think you need to reflect on. And the first one is you have to have the right goals in mind. And I think you mentioned this, Greg, that God's goal is not necessarily to make everything

work out. So you have to let go of that goal right away. If you're worrying that things might go badly for your children, then the answer is yes, they will. There will be suffering. God has promised that to us and it will happen. But your goal needs to be that God will make them like Christ. That is what he's working towards if your children are his. And I'm just going to assume that right now, just for the sake of this discussion, but that is the goal. So, I don't think we always know what will best accomplish that. And it's not necessarily comfort. So, maybe start to direct your concerns more towards their character and their love for

God than for comfort and ease and things working out and lack of pain. So try to align what you are seeking and longing for with what God's goals are. So that would be the first thing I would say. Secondly, I would say that if you want to lower your level of worry and you accept that there are certain goals, the other thing you have to do is increase your trust that God is good. Because as long as you know God is good and that He's promised to make His people like Christ, it's a lot easier to take the bad things that happen because you know that they are planned and they have a purpose

and they're accomplishing this goal. All things are working together for good. So that's also in Romans 8. Yes, yes. So you, but you need to really believe that God is good. And this, I think you develop by thinking about the cross, thinking about how he proved his goodness and his love and his justice there, and reading the whole Bible and thinking about how he is good.

Because if you can trust that he's good and that our pain has a purpose, I think you can have a lot less fear about what is coming for you and for your children. But this is a long process and I think we have to be really intentional about it. Lifelong. Yes. All right. We are out of time. Thank you, Keith C and Anonymous and Lainey.

We love to hear from you. Send us your question on X with the hashtag STRask or go to our website at str.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kockel for Stand to Reason.