Select A Radio Button With ActionScript Attached To A Group By Group Name

I have a set of radio buttons that are apart of the same group (radioGroup), and 1 of the radio buttons I gave an instance name of "first".

I have been able to access which radio buttons are selected by using the following: first.radioGroup.group.selection.value

That part works fine, however, I cannot seem to figure out how to select a radio button by coding something like, first.radioGroup.group.selection = THE LABEL/VALUE OF ONE OF MY BUTTONS

I'm trying to simply having to use a ton of "if statements"  and having to assign a instance name to all my radio buttons. I would think there is a way to select a radio button based on the group it is in?