The Purpose and Value of Life in This World
A Sermon by the Rev . Michael D . Gladish
Lessons : I Kings 3:5-15 ; Matthew 6:25-34 ; Heaven and Hell 304
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hroughout the literal sense of the Word we find dramatic examples of people seeing , hearing , touching , tasting and smelling certain things , or doing things in such a way that they would be seen , heard , felt , tasted or smelled . Of course , every one of these incidents has an important spiritual meaning , or spiritual sense . Seeing , for example , corresponds to understanding , and hearing to obedience . But the power of the natural senses , and so the importance of the natural life in general , is also a critical feature of these stories .
Our topic today is that natural life : why our sensory experience in this world is so important as a foundation for our spiritual lives ; why we should value and appreciate it ; and how we can take full advantage of it in appropriate ways even when things may seem bleak or threatening .
The lessons in 1 Kings 3 and Matthew 6 are similar in that they stress and illustrate the principle that when we turn to the Lord first of all and ask Him for heavenly things He also provides for us on the material plane – maybe not everything we want , but everything we need to live a heavenly life even in this world . Our third lesson , then , gives us some preliminary ideas about why we must be born into this world first , rather than just being born into heaven – thus why angels were not created as a race separate from the human race , but all began life as we do on earth .
To summarize and condense a lot of information : in creating life , or rather forms of life , God always acts from the highest , most refined principles of love and wisdom directly down into the lowest , most inert physical substances so that what He creates can exist in a fixed , stable form having a unique identity defined by time and space . We might compare this to our own creations , which begin as abstract wishes or ideas which are then expressed in some physical embodiment , like a shoe or a pencil or a refrigerator . But once these things
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