The Image of God and the Sanctity of Human Life

What I want to do this this morning with it being sanctity of Life Sundays, we do want to devote our time this morning to the subject of abortion. And so if you brought your Bibles with you, you're welcome to turn to Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter one, if you want to give a title to What we'll be talking about this morning, it would be the image of God and the sanctity of human life. The image of God and the sanctity of, of human life. What we're going to do this morning is essentially develop a train of thought.

that consist of 5 truths that, serve to shape our perspective as Christians to the abortion issue. So maybe you're wondering what, what do we as Christians think about the abortion issue, and why? what we'll talk about this morning may help provide you some perspective about that. Maybe you're here today and you're not a Christian, but you're wondering where are these Christians coming from on this subject, and I hope that what we talk about this morning will provide some answers and some perspective for you.

If someone were to come to me and just say, as a Christian, why is it that That you are pro-life and against abortion, I would essentially take them on this train of thought. This is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject of abortion by any means. It's just maybe looking at one aspect of this and looking at some truths that essentially compose a critical part of a Christian worldview and what it is that causes us to think and believe the way we do on this subject. This is essentially what we would bring to the table in our culture, as our culture is engaging in a dialogue on the subject of abortion.

If they would allow us as Christians to have a seat at the table to offer our input, this is the thing that we would say. And some may respond by saying, Well, that's the thing about you Christians. You're religious people and therefore you don't have a right to a seat at the table as we as us neutral people, scientific people are discussing the abortion issue. Whenever anyone might say that, what I would suggest that they do is to realize every person is a religious person, even the secular humanist, atheists.

The three most critical questions that human beings ask is where did we come from? What has gone wrong with our world? What is wrong with me and with the world? And what is the solution to that problem?

Those are the three burning questions that essentially any worldview. Whether it's quote unquote religious or not, we'll seek to answer. Even atheists and evolutionists have answers to those questions. And so, you may believe, well, we just came from matter.

We came from star stuff, and there is no, no God, and what's wrong with the world is we're not done evolving. whatever you, so you may not believe there's a God, but if you have an answer to those three questions, it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or a Buddhist or a Hindu, you're a religious person, and you are a high priest, or, or you are a priest or a priestess of that religion. And so everyone that's seated at the table of our culture discussing this issue, just needs to understand that there are faith assumptions that lie underneath their worldview that they're bringing to the table.

And we as Christians have every right to sit at that table with them and say, hey, here's our worldview.

Here's the biblical worldview, and we would like to bring this to bear on the discussion and engage in this dialogue from a Christian perspective. And here's 5 truths in our train of thought that would just help people to understand where we're coming from as Christians on this issue. This will help you to know how to think. I think it also, if you really internalize these five truths, it'll give shape, not only to your thinking, guys, but also to your tone and your posture, as you do speak to, to this issue.

So let's look at these, these truths that compose this train of thought. Truth number one, why are we pro-life and advocates for the child that's in the womb? Well, number one, we believe that human beings were created by God in the image of God. This is what the Bible teaches.

That we were created by God and we were created by Him in His image. We are not the product of evolutionary random chaotic chance. We are not the products of natural selection. We are not accidents.

We were created by God in the image of God. In Genesis 1:27 in the creation account that we find in the Bible, that answers the question, where did we come from? It says in a summary statement, Genesis 1:27, God created man in His own image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, he created them. So according to this passage, God created man.

He's the one who thought us up and brought us into existence, and he created us in His image, and James 3:9. It stated again that men have been made in the likeness of God. Speaking of people, men and women, human beings have been made in the likeness of God. Genesis 9:6, in the image of God, He made man, He made mankind.

He made men and women in His image. this is not said of any other part of God's creation. Everything else was created by him, but, man and woman was uniquely created in the image of God. A second truth in this train of thought is this, and that is that even after the fall, human beings still bear the image of God.

We all know that something is wrong with us and with this world. What is it that is wrong? Well, it's sin. Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God and go their own way.

And as a result of that, death entered into the world, sin entered into the world and all of its varied expressions, and we now live in a broken world, and we ourselves are broken. And one might then wonder, well, yes, we were created in the image of God, but now because sin is here and mankind is so diminished, has the image of God been obliterated in men and women. Well, the answer of Scripture is no, we still, even on this side of the fall, bear the image of God. In 1 Corinthians 11:7, Paul says he, man, is, and this is the present tense, the image of God.

So not just he was created in the image of God, but he is the image of God. In James 3:9, James says that men have been made in the likeness of God, and the tense of that verb, not just man was made in the likeness of God, but men have been made perfect tense, meaning we were created in the image of God in the past with the abiding continuous result to the present time being. That we are right now today in the image of God. And so we would say that man still bears the image of God, though in a marred and diminished way.

We do not display his image as beautifully, perfectly as Adam and Eve did before the fall, but nonetheless, the image of God is in us, and we are bearers of His glorious image. For us as Christians, God's image is being restored, beautifully day by day in us. but we would also say that even people that don't know Christ, they're not Christians, they may be atheists, they may oppose us on every imaginable issue and disagree with us and fight against us. They may be Buddhist or Muslim or Hindu, whatever their religion.

the, the teaching of scripture is that every human being, is a bearer of the image of God, though in a scarred, marred, and diminished capacity. Therefore, we can, we can celebrate the image of God in, in others. and a non-believing. A musician may put together beautiful music, and we can, we can relish the image of God being displayed in their musical genius.

An artist may do something beautifully on a canvas, and we can, we can admire the image of God and their artistic genius. And so the image of God is still in man, even on this side of the fall. There's a third truth that is a part of this train of thought that brings us a little bit closer to the abortion issue, and that is that because humans bear God's image, it is wrong to murder or to mistreat a fellow human being. Guys, we're actually taught in Scripture to look at our fellow men.

Observe the fact that they were created in the image of God, and then to reason from that fact, how it is that we then go about treating them. We need to treat one another as image bearers of God. In Genesis 9:6, the text says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God, he made man. In this passage, God is saying, don't murder each other.

Don't murder your fellow human being. And here's the reason why, because I created your fellow human beings in my image. You need to observe my image and your fellow human beings and infer from that that you are not to kill them and to kill them, to murder them, is to do violence to my image. It's an attack on my image that is displayed.

In them. You may say, OK, so based on this passage, I'm not supposed to murder my fellow man. The image of God is in them. Therefore, I will refrain from killing them.

Is, is that it? Well, actually, it's interesting. In the New Testament, James in James chapter 3 takes this thought even further. in James chapter 3, James is talking about what we do with our tongues and the way that we speak about other people and speak to other people, and he basically is teaching us, amongst other things, that the image of God and your fellow man needs to shape the way you talk to people and about people.

He's observing. In this passage, the inconsistency of what we do with our tongue, and, and look at the inconsistency. He says, with our tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. So we bless God, and then we curse men who are made in the likeness of this God.

And James says these things ought not to be this way. There should not be this inconsistency. We need to recognize the fact that the image of God is in our fellow human beings, and that gives shape to the way that we speak about them and speak to them. So because the image of God is in our fellow man, we don't kill them, we don't murder them, and we also don't curse them.

It's interesting James is speaking of situations like the people we curse. They're not the people who are really good to us and agree with us on everything, and yet nonetheless we still feel an urge to just curse them. That's people who disagree with us. who passionately disagree, wrongly disagree with us on issues that are of great and vital importance to us even as Christians, and yet James says they are image bearers of God, and that needs to factor into and give shape to the way that you speak to them and about them.

You're speaking to them and about them needs to be Influenced by your recognition that the image of God is in them. So someone that may even disagree with us on the abortion issue. They bear the image of God, though in a diminished and marred way just as we do, and that should affect and give some shape to how we speak to them and about them, and that we don't curse them. There may be somebody that has made the choice to abort their child.

We need to recognize that even though they have committed this sin, they still, in a marred and diminished way. bear the image of God, and we need to treat them with some recognition of that reality. Timothy Keller in a sermon not too long ago, was talking about how the image of God does end up giving shape to our perspective on the abortion issue, but he says it also should give shape to the way that we treat those who disagree with us and treat those who have wrongly decided for abortion.

He says James 3:9 says, you don't disdain, you don't demonize, you don't curse, you offer grace.

You see, if we believed in the image of God and say abortion is wrong, we also would refrain from making those who have had abortions feel like scum. So we're still being governed by a recognition. Yes, there's sin, and we call sin what it is, but somewhere in the mix that gives shape to our tone and our posture is a recognition that this is a person who bears the image. Of God, and we don't treat them or speak to them like scum who are beyond the reach of the love of God and and the grace of God.

So from a Christian worldview, we, we would say to people, why are we pro-life? Why are we advocates for the child that is in the womb of its mother? Well, we believe that human beings were created in the image of God, by God, in the image of God, and we believe that even though we're in a fallen, broken world, and we as a race are a fallen and a broken race, we still bear the image of God. And we also believe that Because humans bear the image of God, it is wrong to murder or to mistreat a fellow human being, and that includes the unborn.

There's 1/4 thought in this train of thought that leads us to, I think, sound thinking on this subject, and we can say it this way. Because preborn human beings are created by God in the image of God. They are entitled to the full rights of personhood. The child in the womb, according to Christian theology is created by God.

And in the image of God, and therefore we grant, we recognize the right of that child in the womb, full rights of personhood. We can infer this from a number of passages, but one of them is Psalm 139 that was alluded to earlier in the video we saw. The psalmist David says, contemplating on his time in the womb of his mother and God's handiwork in fashioning and creating him, and he says, God, you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb, literally.

You formed my kidneys. And he's not saying, God, you didn't form anything else in me, just my kidneys, but the kidneys were viewed as the deepest organs in the human body and the seat of a person's emotions. So showing the extent of God's creative handiwork, you wove me in my mother's womb. Therefore, I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. He goes on to say, My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret and skilfully wrought in the depths of the earth, your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them. So here is the psalmist David. And he's reflecting back upon God's amazing love and handiwork, God's involvement in fashioning him in the womb of his mother.

And as he contemplates that, there's some exclamations that come out of his mouth. One of them is Wonderful are your works, Oh Lord, and my soul knows it very well. There's another exclamation that comes from the psalmist, and that is, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. That's what a lot of English translations say.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. That's a decent translation of this expression. If we try to translate literally from the Hebrew texts what the psalmist is saying, We could translate it and paraphrase it this way, and I'm going to warn you right now it's going to strike you as unusual. that someone would speak this way, but here's more literally what he is saying, on account of contemplating God's creation of him in the womb, on account of your awe inspiring deeds in fashioning me, I am wonderful.

This is not the I am wonderful type of ego trip that you might associate that expression with, this is a, this is the self-esteem that emerges from a deeply rooted, deeply grounded understanding of where David came from, who created him, And how wonderfully intricately God was involved in fashioning him in his mother's womb. This is a, this is a healthy self-esteem. What he's saying is, I am wonderful. I am a distinguished product of your creation.

And no glory comes to me. You're the one who made me. I'm a wonderful product of your handiwork. This is a healthy self-esteem that comes from a biblical worldview.

It's amazing today that the powers that be are speaking to our young children and saying there's no God, you're just a product of random chaotic chance. You came from primates. And then they look at the children that they're teaching and say, well, they've got a self-esteem problem. So let's spend billions of dollars on, to help build up their self-esteem.

Well, look at how much you've demeaned them. And here's David without the help of any therapist or any of our modern day self-esteem programs. who is contemplating the fact that I have come from God, and God lovingly was so amazingly intricately involved in fashioning me in my mother's womb, taking me from one cell to 15 trillion cells, weaving me together and all of this amazing complexity. What God has done in fashioning me is awe inspiring, and I am a distinguished and wonderful product of God's creative handiwork.

And then he says, wonderful are your works, to you be the glory, not to me. This is how David thought about himself thinking biblically. but we can look at the way that he's thinking and find that useful to us because based on what he's saying here, we can look at a child in the womb of its mother and say that that child is created by God, and God is fashioning that child with awe inspiring deeds. Therefore, that life, that child in the womb of his mother is wonderful, a distinguished product of the creative handiwork of Almighty God.

This is how we view life in the womb and to, to come into that womb and do violence to the child that that God is creating in this amazing, intricate and loving way is basically to do violence to the handiwork of God. It's to interrupt the creative handiwork of God and destroy it. But instead we view This child in the womb. As an amazing product of God's creative handiwork and distinguished and wonderful.

It's amazing that, guys, we look at it from this perspective, but if you read the literature that's out there amongst pro-abortion advocates, they're not quite so amazed by what happens in the womb of the mother. They're not quite so exulting in the way that they described, described the baby that is in. His mother's womb. They use expressions.

Here's the things you find in the literature out there. They refer to it as a blob of tissue, tissue mass, clump of cells, potential life, non-viable tissue mass. On one occasion I read fetal infestation. How unflattering.

One writer describes a baby in the womb of his mother as a massive intrusion on a woman's body, expropriating or stealing her liberty. And this writer goes on to say there as an invasion into this woman's body, stealing her, her liberty, the woman has the right to meet that invasion with brute, deadly force if she does not want that child. That's the language that pro-abortion advocates are using and And just compare that to the way the scripture describes. The life that is in the womb.

One of the things that has happened in the last 40 years, beginning with Roe v. Wade, preceding that, but it became enshrined into law, is what Nancy Percy in her book Saving Leonardo describes as splitting the atom. A A D A M. where what is, it used to be that if you were a human, you were a person.

People didn't really debate that. but basically with Roe v. Wade, it was enshrined into law that to be human is not automatically to be a person. You can be a human.

But you're not granted the moral worth of personhood. And so a split occurred between being human and being a person. Nancy Percy says it this way, virtually no ethicist. Today denies that the fetus is human biologically, genetically, scientifically human.

No one questions this, but simply being human does not confer any moral status. The turning point is said to be the stage at which the fetus becomes a person. So there's humans and then there's human persons, and there is such a thing as a human. That is not a person.

As you read the literature that's out there amongst pro-abortion advocates, you see them making this distinction all the time. Let me give you some examples. Hans Kong, a pro-abortion advocate, says a fertilized ovum evidently is human life but is not a person. Peter Singer of Princeton University, who, by the way, is not only an advocate for abortion, in the womb, but is an advocate, he believes parents should have the right to terminate the life of their child after the child is born, and I'll talk about that in just a second.

But he says the life of a human organism begins at conception, the life of a person. Which he defines as a being with some level of self-awareness does not begin so early. He goes on to say, I use the term person to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. See, once you, if you don't ground your definition of a person as a human being created in the image of God, if you don't ground that definition of personhood in the image of God, then you have to ground it in something, and what these writers do is they, they ground their definition of a person in capacities.

Things that the child is able to do. It's a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. Now, apparently he thinks that a child in the womb does not have wants or desires for the future. I don't know how he knows that, but what's really being said is you need to have wants and desires for the future that we are able to measure and discern.

Joseph Fletcher of situational ethics fame says regarding the abortion issue, what is critical is personal status, not merely human status. It's like it's not enough. Don't, don't try to persuade me that a child in the womb is human. I know that, but that's not the issue.

The issue is, is the child a person? John Harris, another pro-abortion advocate, Says that this way 9 months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person. A person is a creature capable of valuing its own existence. Where did he get that definition?

He had to make that up because he's not grounding the definition of a person in just simply being human. It's amazing the places that some of these writers go with this. 11 guy, John Watson, a biological ethicist, believes that not only should their parents have total freedom to abort their child during the 9 months that they're in the womb, but even after the child is born, parents should be allowed to have their child undergo 3 days of genetic and medical testing. And they would have that window to decide whether they want to terminate the life of that child.

That's what he is pushing for. Peter Singer of Princeton University is himself unsure of whether a human reaches personhood even up to 3 years of age. He would argue for a much longer window. Than 3 days for parents to have the right to terminate the life of their child if they so desired.

Two medical ethicists from Australia who are advocates actually not just for abortion but infanticide. They believe parents should have the right to terminate the life of their child well after birth. They say all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. And one more definition from a pro-abortion advocate.

Listen to this. This is chilling. Susan Sherwin. defines persons in this way.

Persons are members of a social community that shapes and values them. You realize what she's saying there. That if you're born into a community that does not value you, you may be human, but you are not a person. We can call this performance driven personhood where the message is it's not enough to be human.

If you want to be a person, then you need to be a human being, plus. To use their definitions, exhibit neural activity. To be a person, you must be a human being plus be able to feel pain. To be a person, you must be a human being.

Plus possess cognitive function or consciousness as some would say is necessary to be a person. Peter Singer says to be a person you must be a human being, plus have wants or desires for the future. Susan Sherwin says to be a person, you must be a human being, plus be valued by your community. Others would say to be a person, you must be a human, plus have a desire to live, to be a person, you must be a human being, plus be capable of valuing your own existence.

You must be a human being plus have a mother who has the financial resources to raise you. You must be a human being plus not be viewed as a threat to the mental health of your mother. Performance driven personhood. Our society has left its moorings in a biblical Christian worldview, we're not grounding the definition of personhood and just simply being a human being created in the image of God.

No, you have to be a human being plus, Live up to These descriptions that are being added to just simply being human. liberals. If we view liberalism in the absolute most gracious way possible, giving them the benefit of the doubt, liberalism is supposed to be all about inclusion. Everyone gets the same opportunity.

And yet this issue of abortion exposes the hypocrisy of those who would call themselves liberals who are for inclusion and equal opportunity for everybody, and it's the pro-life position that is the most liberal. In its definition of personhood, Nancy Pearcey expresses this beautifully. She says the pro-choice position. The pro-abortion position is exclusive.

It says that some people don't measure up, they don't make the cut. They don't qualify for the rights of personhood. By contrast, the pro-life position is inclusive. If you are a member of the human race, you're in.

You have the dignity and the status of a full member of the moral community. That's the pro-life position, which is, far more satisfying to the highest and the noblest of liberal ideals than anything that the pro-choice or pro-abortion position could ever measure up to. And all of this is grounded in a Christian worldview based on the teaching of Scripture as we speak to this issue in our culture and we're granted a seat at the table. These are the things that we bring to the table to reason others and help others to see the beauty, the attractiveness, and the truth, the rightness of a Christian perspective on the life of the unborn.

Well, there's a 5th and a final truth in this train of thought that this will not only inform us intellectually, but it really ought to shape our tone and our posture as we do speak to this issue. To our culture today. And let's say it this way, as Christians, we know from experience, that there is forgiveness for killing an innocent human who bears the image of God. We of all people know that there is forgiveness, there is healing, there is grace.

For those who are guilty of taking an innocent life, human life, that bears the image of God. why we know that from experience? Because we have been guilty of killing the only truly innocent person who ever lived. We have participated in the abortion, in the killing of the person who was the ultimate image bearer of God.

In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul is speaking about Christ and describes him as one who is the image of God. Jesus is the God, man, God in the flesh, and he came into this world and lived a life of utter and perfect innocence, and displayed the image of God more perfectly than any human being ever has. And we killed him. We killed him.

I can stand in front of any abortion clinic and hold a sign. That basically makes this confession. I myself have aborted an innocent life. I have killed.

The ultimate image bearer of God, and I have found forgiveness. See, it's important for us to think this way because what it does is it knocks us off of our high horse. If we're going to speak to this issue, we can't speak to our culture from a position of superiority. But we speak as fellow sinners who ourselves have been guilty of the same thing.

We ought to be able to sit down with someone who has committed the sin of abortion, of taking the life of her unborn child, and look at that person in the face and say, I've done something worse than what you have done. I participated in the killing of Jesus, the only innocent and the ultimate image bearer of God. And yet in that same location, where I committed that awful sin, God moved towards me with grace and with love and with healing and forgiveness. If you've been a part of Cornerstone for any length of time, you don't really need for me to demonstrate to you that we are all murderers of God.

But if we honestly read the scriptures, we would see that this is the case. Friedrich Nietzsche, a guy I don't normally quote from the pulpit, but he, he was searchingly honest as he looked at what was going on around him and the philosophies that were prevailing that had removed God. from the public square, and he said back in 1889, whither is God? Where is God?

I will tell you, we have killed him. You and I, all of us are his murderers. That's actually a very telling and true admission. When Isaiah looked into the future and saw Jesus Christ being crucified on the cross, there's a variety of ways of looking at what it was that killed Jesus.

The Father smote his son, the wrath of God, and a variety of ways of looking at the death of Jesus. But one of the ways of looking at what happened at the cross is that our sins killed him. Our sins were the instruments of his death, and Isaiah 53:4, literally the Hebrew can be translated this way. He was pierced through from our transgressions.

He was crushed from our iniquities. It was our sins that pierced him through. It was our sins that, that crushed him. At the cross and therefore we turn from the cross and we see sin differently than we ever saw it before.

Sin is not an innocent thing, that the DNA inside of every sin we ever commit, whether it's a white lie or some big sin in our books, every sin, if you could take every sin and open it up, cut into it, and pull out the nucleus, and then cut into that nucleus and find the DNA of that sin and pull out that DNA. It would spell the murder of God. Charles Spurgeon said years ago, contemplating this, sin is deci. Every sinner, if he could, would kill God.

Sin in its essence is the murderer of Emmanuel, God with us. What the cross showed is that if God came into this world and displayed His glory before us, we would kill Him. There's no arguing that anymore, because that's exactly what we did. That's why Peter could stand before a massive crowd on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and say, this man Jesus, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men, and you put him To death.

He goes on to say, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Martin Luther said, don't try to deny your guilt in killing Christ. You have the nails in your pocket. And if you were searched, those nails would be found.

That's the essence of sin. what guys, we, as we speak to our culture today, we have an opportunity to give them the truth of a Christian worldview, but we don't speak from a position of moral superiority. We speak as broken sinners ourselves. who have, who have killed the innocent and killed the ultimate image bearer of God.

And yet we are stunned in amazement that at the very location at the cross, where we committed that horrible act, God moved towards us and forgave us and loved us and embraced us, and began to bring us healing. And we now go to the world and we see people making sinful choices such as abortion. And we speak to them as broken sinners ourselves. And we can give them hope.

And give them the message of grace saying, hey, We've, we've done this also. And here's the one who came to be our savior, and we would like to tell you. About him. Just in closing, back in 2007, leading up to Easter Sunday, I was thinking about the resurrection of Christ and how, Christ was, was slain, he was aborted, and he was, his broken body was buried in, in the tomb that then became something of a womb.

And on resurrection day, that womb was travailing and quaking, almost like the womb of a woman in the pangs of delivery, and Christ came forth from that tomb, and Paul says he came forth the firstborn from the dead. And I was thinking about what hope that could give to somebody who has chosen to abort their, their child. And sat down and just, I just wrote a poem. This isn't professional poetry, but, but I wrote a poem that week that, if I, if I, encounter a woman who has made the choice to abort her child, this is, this is my heartbeat to her.

This is what I would love to be able to say to her as I point her to Jesus. It goes like this Aborted your baby. Your child in heaven will always live, and God stands ready to forgive. Christ died to take your guilt away and give you love that will not stray.

When on the cross, he felt your pain, he bore your sin. absorbed your stain. Then he lay dead inside Earth's womb till raised, he came forth from the tomb. Triumphant now, he turns to raise and free you from your dying ways.

With tenderest voice he calls to you. Come unto me and be made new. This is our Savior. This is our message.

We live in the good of this. We, we do not do well to enjoy this grace by ourselves. There are broken people. In the Inland Empire and beyond.

Who are making the choice to abort and having made that choice, they have no hope, no place of healing. And, and we have the Savior that we can bring to them and let them know that there is grace, there is forgiveness, there is healing. I remember Lisa telling us about A woman who came into their pregnancy center, she, she was wanting her 8th abortion. 8th, And as they spent time with her, they began to understand that she had had an abortion and was so seized with the guilt.

And the burden of that, that she felt forever disqualified from being a mother. And so she aborted again and again and again. And again and again. And it was largely guilt.

That was driving her to that. Listen, you don't, if you've, if you've made this choice, you've aborted your child, you don't have to live in that guilt that serves to only perpetuate the sin. A few years ago, a woman in England had aborted the twin children that were in her womb. She was pressured by her boyfriend to terminate their lives, and she, against her better judgment, did so.

And it wasn't too long after that that she hung herself. She was so seized with guilt and didn't know what to do with that and where to go with that. And as we saw this morning in the video, 43% of women in our culture have made this choice. To abort.

And these people are in our midst and all around us. They are us, and we ourselves are guilty of the same thing and even worse. And if we have found grace and forgiveness through Christ, then we owe it to them to go to them and say, there is grace, there is love, there's healing. In Jesus Christ.

You don't have to live in guilt one day longer. Please don't minimize your sin, don't rationalize it, just give up. You, that's not working. See it for what it is.

Do what we've all had to do. Confess your sin for what it is. It's a big deal. But know that Jesus And His grace is greater than all of your sin.

And Jesus would say to you, I died so that I could be the one to love you and embrace you and to heal you, and to make you whole again. Let's pray together We're talking about things of utterly massive. Consequence. If you're here this morning and And you've made sinful choices, just there.

Please run to Jesus. Jesus says, anyone who comes to me, I will never, I will never, I will never cast them out. Just call upon him. Come talk to us afterwards.

We'd love to help you and Help you understand Christ and how you can find healing, forgiveness in Him. If you're a believer here today, you're a Christian, and You have abortion in your history. Hold your chin high and walk in grace. You are forgiven.

Walk in the good of this. And be telling others about this amazing grace that you are experiencing in Christ. Father, we just thank you for your word. Not only the truth of it, but the beauty of it.

Help us to be Appropriate spokespersons of these truths and bring them to bear upon the issues that rage in our culture today, make us wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Maybe be willing to pay whatever price to speak your truth. May we see the hurting around us and speak to them of the love and the grace of Jesus. We thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you also, Lord, receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of Jesus.

We give ourselves to you. In Christ's name, and all God's people sin.