Father in heaven, we give you thanks for
the life of Jesus Christ.
And we give thanks, oh Lord, that there's
the promise in the word of God that
there's no sin, there's no action that can
ever ultimately separate us from Jesus when we
will confess and come close to him.
And I just pray now, oh Lord, that
you would come and that your love would
be made known through every heart here, illumine
our hearts, illumine our minds, Lord, set us
into that clear, clear way.
I'm seeing your face, and we pray this
in Jesus's name.
Amen.
You may be seated.
I was recently talking with a new friend,
and he asked me a question that surprised
me a little bit.
He just said, so when was the last
time you felt close to Jesus?
I guess I was surprised, because I often
ask other people that question, but I haven't
had it asked of me for a while.
So I thought about it, and immediately I
knew.
I had been away a few weeks prior
to this conversation and had spent some time
on prayer retreat, and this doesn't happen at
every prayer retreat I go on, but I
was in a chapel, and I'd been praying
for a while, and I just had a
meeting with Jesus that was very tangible, it
was very profound.
I felt him close, I sensed him speaking
to me.
Indeed, his closeness grew and grew and grew
to the point where I had to get
down on the floor because it felt so
heavy, the sense of his presence and his
closeness, and I communed with him.
I spent time with the Lord, and I
shared that experience with his friend.
I said, this is what happened.
And then he said, so how do you
think Jesus viewed you in that moment?
That was a question I've never heard asked
ever.
How did Jesus view me in that moment?
I'm always thinking about, how am I looking
at Jesus, and how am I doing by
Jesus, and am I doing okay by Jesus?
And I said, I gotta take a minute
and think about that.
And then I knew.
I said, I think he viewed me as
a cherished son.
And when I said that, and this was
a new friend, something very unexpected happened to
me, and I burst into tears.
There was something about recalling that profound time
with the Lord, and then about imagining that
as the Lord saw me there in that
little chapel where no one else was, and
no one else saw, he actually saw a
cherished son, that the love of God broke
into me at that moment.
And I realized, I really am a cherished
son.
Could it be that God actually loves me
the way that the Bible tells me he
loves me?
And it all just flooded in, and I
was just filled with God's love, with his
cherishing as his son.
I keep thinking about that conversation, and I've
been different since that conversation, because I've carried
with me something even more fully of the
love of Jesus Christ, the cherishing of God.
I'm gonna speak about legalized abortion today.
I'm gonna speak about the verse from John
chapter 15 in which Jesus says, love one
another as I have loved you.
And I wanna be clear that you have
to understand the premise of teaching on this
is the premise of Jesus' call to love
one another, which is the premise as I
have loved you.
I wanna be very, very clear.
If you are here, or you are listening
to this, and you have had an abortion,
or you were the father of the child
that was aborted, and you were complicit in
the abortion, or you were a friend who
drove someone to the abortion clinic, or counseled
someone to have an abortion, you are cherished
by God.
Your sin can be forgiven by the Lord.
There is a way of confession and cleansing,
and you are cherished by God, and he
is seeking you out.
Indeed, it may be this very morning, or
this very sermon when you're hearing it that
he's finally able to reach you and get
that message to you.
I wanna speak today about this call to
love the unborn child, and to love the
pregnant mother who's considering an abortion, and the
father who's considering an abortion.
I've been very clear that the perspective of
our leadership team, the perspective of our archbishop,
the perspective that I carry, that this is
the great social injustice of our day.
I think it's the most urgent.
In saying that, though, I'm not saying that
there aren't other urgent and critical social injustices
in our day, for there are.
We're clearly not a racially reconciled country, nor
racially reconciled church.
That's urgent.
There are clear and profound issues of compassion
being ministered to the refugee and to the
immigrant.
Trafficking, often of women who don't know what
they're getting themselves into in regards to sexual
practice is also an urgent issue.
All those issues, we are engaged in in
one way or another here at Resurrection.
But I hope it'll become clear why we
call this the greatest, most urgent social injustice
issue of our day.
Here's what I hope will happen for you.
I hope two changes will happen.
I hope as you listen, this will change
how you pray.
And I hope as you listen, this will
change how you practice compassion in regard to
the issue of legalized abortion.
Why are we called to love the unborn
child?
It's important to understand that since 1973, when
abortion at any stage in the child's life,
in the unborn child's life, at any stage,
is legal, that since 1973, when that was
made legal, there have been 55 million children
who have been killed through abortion.
If all of, let's do a macro on
that, if all of those people existed today,
that would be the population of England.
So our country has been radically altered in
ways we'll never fully understand by the loss
of a massive percentage of our population.
We don't know of what that means, but
certainly it could mean that one of those
people might have had the gift and the
ability to discover cures to particular cancers, perhaps
stave off the profound disease of diabetes, perhaps
have written a worship song that we would
have loved as a church to sing together,
composed a glorious symphony, written an important poem,
discovered things as a journalist that were not
discovered before.
Raised a daughter, raised a son, raised a
daughter.
While this has macro and sweeping implications to
have lost 55 million Americans in 42 years,
it also has very personal implications, right?
Some of you don't have a brother or
a sister living that you would have had,
a cousin, auntie, uncle, roommate, business partner.
The loss is actually very, very personal.
I think this is important for us to
pray in a more connected and different way
and to understand how it's truly and profoundly
affected our lives.
It's also important to understand what happens to
the unborn baby in an abortion.
It's important that we know when we drive
by the Anchor Abortion Clinic on Roosevelt Road,
what's going on inside of there.
I'm gonna walk you through what happens, and
this comes actually from Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood is the key abortion provider in
our country.
It's come from Planned Parenthood's website.
There are two main methods of abortion.
One is vacuum and one is evacuation.
In the vacuum method, the woman is sedated
first.
Her cervix is dilated, and then once it's
dilated enough, there's a handheld vacuum or a
machine vacuum that's placed within the cervix.
The unborn child is killed by the vacuum
and then removed.
If the child is 20 weeks or older,
and by the way, medical science has improved
to such a degree that it doesn't have
to be a 20-week child can be
born and survive in almost all cases as
a premature baby.
Then the method of evacuation is used where
the mother is sedated.
The dilation is far more complicated, takes more
time.
Often a shot is given through the mother's
abdomen to reach the unborn child to kill
it.
Then because the child is larger, the child
is dismembered within the womb and then removed
part by part.
Now I've given this to you almost exactly
as the Planned Parenthood website would give it
to you, but I didn't use an adverb
that they use.
They speak of gently removing the contents of
the womb.
I didn't use that because another report has
been given by an abortion doctor who has
eschewed abortion practice, but he practiced for decades
as an abortion doctor, and he actually gave
and testified before Congress a year and a
half ago in May of 2013.
And he gave a clear testifying testimony as
to what happens in the evacuation method.
And he detailed the details I just gave
you.
And clearly there's nothing gentle about that.
His name is Dr. Leventino, and I would
encourage you to consider listening to his objective,
straightforward, non-emotional testifying before Congress of what
happens in an abortion.
It's just so hard to hear.
It's hard to write these words on a
page.
What do we do as Christians and as
Christian Americans?
What do we do?
If you don't really believe in the power
of prayer to pray in the promises of
God, then what I'm about to say will
sound casual and cavalier and impotent.
But if you've truly become convinced of the
power of prayer, then you'll understand that when
I say that the first thing we must
do, and continue to do, and regularly do,
like a widow that keeps going to a
judge begging for justice, is that we pray
and we continue to give our hearts in
prayer.
It's fascinating to note that in Illinois, a
bright spot amidst this dreary and tragic news
that I'm giving you, is that abortions have
gone down in 2013 for the first time
since 1974.
I think in large part, and I can't
give you a polling or a data piece
to prove this, that has a great deal
to do with the fact that churches, Roman
Catholic churches, Orthodox churches, Evangelical churches, Anglican churches,
have begun to join in a kind of
unity in prayer.
It is displayed often in front of the
abortion clinic, displayed in little chapels like ours
throughout Illinois and throughout DuPage County.
DuPage County has the second highest rate of
abortions next to Cook County in Illinois, but
those are also dropping.
And I think it has to do in
large part to God's people praying.
So pray for the end of legalized abortion.
Pray as well, if you might, that your
heart might connect with how Jesus sees this.
The cherishing of the unborn child, the cherishing
of the pregnant mother, and the grief, the
absolute grief, and so much loss.
Ask for that heart.
You must then practice even more compassion in
your life and in your ministry.
It might be that you'll be stirred to
work with Karenette, a partner in ministry here
in DuPage County that we're very close to,
and very connected with.
Indeed, our postulant, Brett Kroll, who'll be ordained
the diaconate in February is an employee of
that team at Karenette.
We love Karenette, and you may wanna work
with Karenette.
They do phenomenal work.
You can come work with us in our
sanctity of life ministry.
Simply go to our webpage on our website,
churchofresurrection.org slash compassion.
You may wanna march, as we'll do this
afternoon.
You may wanna find different ways of being
engaged.
But also, and perhaps one of the most
important practices of compassion can be to understand
confession.
Indeed, even if you've not been involved in
an abortion in any way, the importance of
confession for yourself, as well as if you
have been involved with abortion, and sinned in
that way, for abortion is a sin, the
power of confession.
Let me say more about that.
As we love the unborn child, so we
also, as Jesus has loved us, we love
the pregnant mother and the father.
I think it's really important to ask this
question in any situation of significant sin in
our own lives or someone else's life, and
that is why.
Why does a woman have an abortion?
It's actually really clear among several different kinds
of polls, polls both done by pro-choice
groups and polls done by pro-life groups,
that almost every woman that has an abortion
has a sense that it's wrong.
She may not articulate it as sin, although
many will, but there's a sense that it's
wrong and it's not right.
The Caring Foundation did a remarkable poll several
years ago that's been supported by other more
recent polls, in which it asked women after
their abortion, why did you have an abortion?
This is absolutely critical.
Those women categorically responded in this way.
It was the lesser of two evils.
It was the lesser of two hardships.
I faced an impossible situation where I viewed
motherhood as the greater hardship to abortion, which
I viewed as wrong.
And what became clear is that these women
said very clearly to have had that baby
would have been to give up my life.
Not necessarily literally, although they were afraid of
the medical procedure, but more than that, emotionally,
spiritually.
They were saying, I have no financial future.
The man who I had this baby with
is absolutely gone already.
I faced two impossible hardships, two impossible evils,
and I viewed motherhood as the greater evil
because it meant the losing of my life
and the giving up of all that I've
planned for and all that I've hoped for
and all that I've wanted.
And so I chose what I thought to
be the lesser evil, which was abortion.
Paul Swope, a writer on this matter, quotes
from this very specific study.
Unplanned motherhood, according to the study, represents a
threat so great to modern women that it
is perceived as equivalent to a death of
self.
While the woman may rationally understand this is
not her literal death, her emotional, psychological reaction
to carrying the child is that her life
will be over.
This is because many young women simply have
developed a self-identity that does not include,
doesn't prepare them or they're not ready to
be a mother.
And of course, the same can be said
of men and fatherhood.
And of course, the same can be said
of me and of you.
Because what's the crisis behind abortion?
Well, first we see that it's a crisis
of love.
Love one another as I have cherished you.
We see it's a crisis of not being
able to give up your life for a
friend, as Jesus talks about there in verse
14 and 13.
Greater love has no one than this, as
someone laid down his life for his friends.
Is there any greater picture and human experience
of giving up your life for a friend
than of a woman giving birth to a
child?
Any greater moment where joy and terror and
life and death, they all come together.
There's all these fine lines, all these moments
in which you're not sure which way things
are gonna go, in which one truly lays
down their life.
In this case, for their child.
There's a crisis of love.
There's a crisis of knowing the love and
the cherishing of God as I have loved
you.
There's a crisis of understanding choice.
The choice is actually first and foremost in
scripture and in Jesus and in God.
Choice is always positioned as you didn't choose
me, but I chose you.
That you are a person of choice.
We as Christians love choice.
We say choose this day whom you will
serve, but we say it knowing that God
is always the first chooser.
That God always makes the first choice and
his choice has been to love you and
to send Jesus to reach you and to
give you the fullness and the power of
the crucifixion and the resurrection.
That indeed we have a crisis of choice
and a crisis of love and a crisis
of knowing love.
And at the heart of it is a
seed of sin that says I will protect
my life at all costs.
I cannot lose my life because it's all
that I have.
Don't you know that too?
I mean, are we any different than that?
If you've not been part of an abortion,
have you not been a part of saying
I will have my life and my life
alone?
I've had six children.
I love children.
I love the call of life.
I love the call to be pro-love,
but it has turned me inside out.
So often I don't want to give up
my life anymore.
I don't want to give up my time
or the finances that I thought I finally
had settled and then they go away again.
I know that same impulse so deeply in
my own heart and don't you as well?
It's the same sin.
The results are different, but the seed of
it is the same.
It's the same sin that St. Paul committed
when he said I will protect my life
as a Pharisee and I will do everything
I can, including murdering others to do away
with these Jesus followers.
It's the same sin of Peter who said
I will protect my life and not give
it away and I will betray the one
I told I would never betray because I
will protect my life and preserve my life
and not give it up.
It's the same.
The manifest sins are different and sins have
to be confessed in particular, confessed in specific.
If you have suffered abortion and you've committed
abortion, you've committed a sin that needs particular
ministry, but be very clear here.
If you're in this room and you've been
a part of abortion, that same seed of
sin, I've committed as well.
It just looked different.
But it's in my heart and it was
in Paul's heart and it was in Peter's
heart.
And here's the phenomenal news of Jesus.
He came for that.
He came precisely for this seed of sin.
He came precisely and said in Mark chapter
eight, if you seek to save your life,
you will lose it, but if you lose
your life for my sake, if you give
up your life for my sake, the very
impulse of those women honestly said they couldn't
overcome because they didn't have Jesus and they
didn't have the gospel and they didn't have
the power of faith and they didn't have
the community of the church.
We have.
And we can be freed from that and
released from that and absolutely cleansed from that
and stand shoulder to shoulder with Peter and
shoulder to shoulder with Paul who happen to
be absolutely notorious sinners who were forgiven by
the power of Jesus Christ.
We need not let the reality of abortion
as overwhelming as it is overwhelm us as
Christians because we have an answer.
We have a very clear response and it
is Jesus and Jesus alone and the forgiveness
of sin and the good news of God
in Christ.
We have it and we have to give
it.
One of the most profound things that we
can do in the face of legalized abortion,
and by the way, before I say that,
let me say political advocacy, absolutely.
Sanctity of life ministries outside the church, absolutely.
They're an extension of the church.
Carry Nut is one, again, that we're very
engaged with.
Please be involved, be engaged there.
But the church as a pro-love movement.
We have everything in Jesus that is needed.
It's the work of prayer.
It's the work of discipleship.
It's the work of evangelism.
It's at the heart of the work that
we're called to do as the church.
I don't mean that abstractly.
There's a glorious ministry here at Resurrection called
Replanted.
I love this ministry.
I get choked up when I read stuff
about it because it's our people saying, we
will be engaged in the fostering and adopting
of children that others cannot have, that others
cannot raise.
Extremely concrete, extremely hands-on.
The church doing discipleship, the church doing evangelism.
We have five families praying about, will I
foster, will I raise, will I adopt a
child?
And we're helping those families financially, personally, pastorally
as I go about and do that work
in something like Replanted.
This is very real.
There's very many ways.
If you try to save your life, Jesus
said in Mark chapter eight, you will lose
it.
But if you lose your life for his
sake and the gospel, you will find it.
I hope your prayer life will change, more
connected, more engaged.
Praying for the end of legalized abortion, praying
for the unborn child, praying for the pregnant
mother, father.
I hope your practice will change.
I hope you'll confess wherever you too know
the sin of self-preservation and self-protection.
I plead with you to confess the sin
of abortion if you've had an abortion.
And to know the profound love that is
waiting for you here at Church of the
Resurrection.
In the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.