Cancelled Conversations: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

All right, MetaCurch, how you guys doing?

Yeah.

I want to welcome you back to our series Canceled Conversations.

Starting today and then over the next four weeks, we're gonna go on a journey together exploring what God has to say about some of the trickiest, most controversial, and most importantly, spiritually significant hot topics in our culture today.

Before we get going though, let me remind you why we are doing this series and how we are going to navigate these complex issues.

First, why we are doing this.

Number one, we're doing this because we believe that scripture speaks into every aspect of our life.

And if you are a believer in Jesus, then it is the expectation that believers submit their lives to the authority of Scripture.

We should want to know what it reveals to us.

The apostle Paul wrote to a younger pastor, Timothy, and said, All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

Second, Scripture brings us clarity, and clarity is something that we believe in deeply.

There was a time where I was convinced we shouldn't address these topics from stage because that was the kindest thing to do.

But culture continues to move forward and further and further away from the truths of Scripture, and now I am convinced that being unclear is being unkind.

It is always kind to tell the truth.

So that's why we are doing it.

Now a reminder of how we are going to navigate this.

We will follow the example of Jesus.

John's gospel described Jesus as coming this way.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

100% grace and 100% truth.

We must have grace for one another, and I am asking, as the person leading us through these conversations, that you will have some grace for me as well.

And at the same time, we must prioritize the truth of Scripture, even when it costs us.

And my message today is pro-choice or pro-life.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we ask for an extra helping of grace today.

We are looking at one of the most contentious topics in our culture, and I pray that we can handle it fairly.

God, I trust that your word is clear and that we will handle it appropriately.

That you would help us no matter what beliefs or ideas or cultural paradigms we walked into the room with, that we would be humble enough to lay them down and to really listen to what you have said to us in your word.

Our hearts and minds are open, Holy Spirit, we know that you're here, so speak to us now.

And we pray all this in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to go, say amen.

Amen.

Now, before we dive into our topic, I want to remind you that last week we used a template to illustrate how life and faith works.

And this will be the template that guides us through every one of our conversations.

And so let me remind you really quickly what Scripture says is the goal of our faith and how we believe Scripture asks us to respond to the good news of Jesus.

And to understand the good news of what Jesus brought for us, we first have to understand the bad news.

And the bad news is that humanity is separated from God, our Heavenly Father.

And we're separated because of our sin.

All of the ways we miss the mark on God's design and desire for our life.

And in a real sense, there's a barrier between us and God.

Jesus came to do something about that.

And one of the ways the Christian scriptures talk about Jesus' work on the cross is that he destroyed the barrier that divided us from our heavenly Father, which means that we can confidently approach Jesus, confidently approach the work that he did on the cross, and by simply believing that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's done what he says that he's done, we receive eternal life.

We don't have to jump through any hoops, we don't have to clean up, we don't have to get right, we don't have to memorize anything.

Jesus meets us exactly where we are, and yet he loves us enough to not leave us where we are.

We believe and receive eternal life, and then we suffer.

And Jesus makes it very clear that we have to count the cost in order to follow Him.

Do we want to save the version of life we have been living pre-Jesus, or are we willing to die to our old ways of life in order to experience the fullness of the life that Jesus desires for us?

Do we want to get our way or do we want to live God's way?

The invitation to believe in Jesus is to come to the cross and gain eternal life.

To believe, you come to the cross and you gain eternal life.

But the invitation to then follow Jesus is to carry your cross and to die to yourself.

Jesus made this clear when he gave instructions on how to follow him in Matthew 16.

Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone, and that anyone includes you and I, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and only then are you ready to follow.

And in a real sense, following Jesus into all that he has for you, there is a cross in the way.

You must be willing to carry this cross.

And in order to carry this cross, you must deny yourself.

And then you follow Jesus, and even though it will cost you, and even though there will be suffering, following Jesus is how you attain the quality of life, the power, purpose, and impact that we all desire at the deepest part of who we are.

And following Jesus, even at great cost to yourself, is how we are rewarded richly on the other side of this life.

Now, in almost every series, the first weekend's an introductory weekend, and I say, I'd really love it.

If you missed week one, if you might think about possibly entertaining the thought that you could go back and watch it again, I'm gonna say this stronger than I've ever said it before.

If you missed week one of Canceled Conversations, you have to go watch it.

Now, I'm not the grand dictator of the world, so you don't actually have to, right?

But if in this series you're frustrated or have questions or you're mad at me because of one of these controversial topics, my first question to the email you send me will be Did you watch week one?

And if you haven't, I'm not responding to you, okay?

You have to go watch week one in order to understand what we're doing in this series.

And this was a little review of week one.

So this is how faith works believing in and following Jesus.

And so what does that mean for the issue of abortion?

Last year, Roe v.

Wade was overturned.

It sparked protests all over the country.

It almost felt like half of the country was mourning and protesting, and the other half of the country was celebrating.

And statistically, that's about right, we're somewhat split down the middle.

It's also worth acknowledging that even last week, pro-life bills were on the ballot in many states, and every pro-life proposition lost.

And not only that, but since the overturning of Roe v.

Wade, there have been many, many states who have pushed pro-life legislation, and every single one of them, I think, every single one without exception, has lost.

And so while the country is divided by polling statistics, the broader culture has spoken, and it has spoken pretty clearly.

The celebrity class, the elite class, the corporations, everyone has taken a pro-choice position.

And if you're paying attention, which that's what we're here to do, to really pay attention today, what you'll quickly realize, and by pay attention, what I mean, is not just listen to mainstream media.

Because if all you're doing is listening to mainstream media, then depending on the outlet you choose, what they're doing is selecting from the fringes of society and highlighting it as the norm.

And so if you listen to one side of mainstream media, then you will think that pro-life people hate women and are all fascists.

And if you listen to another side of mainstream media, then you will think that pro-choice people hate babies and love to murder them, right?

They pick people from the fringes and they highlight it as the main.

But if you actually pay attention, you quickly realize that both sides are using wildly different language to support their points.

And in a real sense, the pro-choice and the pro-life arguments are talking right past each other.

And so let's talk about what these arguments actually espouse.

Because if you don't understand the argument, then you're not really ready to form an opinion on it.

Those who believe in a fundamental right to abortion do not call themselves pro-abortion.

They chose the label pro-choice.

Now, something you need to realize is that within the pro-choice camp, it is far from a monolith.

In other words, there's a lot of varying ideas inside this one side of the argument.

The supporters vary from a large percentage who see abortion as a devastating choice, but still support it so that women have a right to choose and a right to bodily autonomy, which is like the argument, my body, my choice.

Then you have the other side of the spectrum, what I believe is a much smaller percentage that gets highlighted very often, which are people who celebrate abortion and use the hashtag shout your abortion, and you'll see on social media they bake a cake and have a post-abortion celebration.

Regardless of the variance, on the pro-choice side, the emphasis, you gotta realize this, is not on the child in the womb near as much as the emphasis is on the woman carrying that child.

The call is for the protection of the rights of women and the medical necessity of each woman choosing whether she should have to carry a pregnancy to term, with all of those life-changing implications.

On the pro-life side, the emphasis is primarily and almost exclusively on the baby in the womb.

The call is for the protection of the life of the unborn, the most vulnerable of our population.

You can see the way that these two sides are talking past each other by the way they use language.

Now, these are generalizations, but generally, here's some of the language that people use.

On the pro-choice side, they will talk about the broad issue as women's health care.

Again, the emphasis on women.

On the pro-life side, they will just talk about it as abortion.

When it comes to the actual procedure that happens in an abortion, on the pro-choice side, they'll use a term like fetal extraction, while on the pro-life side, they will just simply call it murder.

On the pro-choice side, when you talk about what is actually in the womb, they'll use terms like zygote, fetus, potential person, embryo.

Or when I was growing up, euphemistically a clump of cells, on the pro-life side, they will call it things like a baby or a child or a human.

Not only are the two sides of the debate focused on different areas and using different language, like everything else in our politically polarized society, the positions of each side are boiled down by their opponents to the most dumbed down, one-line version of a simple talking point.

Here's some of those dumbed-down talking points.

Pro-choice is pro-murder.

While there are a growing number of abortion advocates who are very clear they do believe it's a human and that they should still have the right to end that life, which by the legal definition is murder, that is by far the minority of the pro-choice position, regardless of what you hear in the mainstream media.

Many people are pro-choice because of a deep concern for the rights of women.

A large contingent of pro-choice people have also a very different view and maybe have been sheltered from some of the scientific literature and don't believe they're doing any harm when a fetus is still in the first or second trimester.

That is the majority of pro-choice advocates.

The other side will say pro-life is anti-woman.

Do you see the difference?

One focuses primarily on the woman and one focuses primarily on the baby.

Pro-life is anti-woman.

Yes, on the fringes of society, there are still some people who want women in the kitchen, barefooted pregnant.

However, that represents virtually none of the people who make up the pro-life movement, regardless of what you see in the media where the fringe is highlighted as the norm.

Most pro-life advocates are also advocates for the rights and the uplifting of women, except, of course, the right to an abortion.

Pro-lifers have started in the United States over 3,000 pregnancy resource centers where they provide for pregnant women at little to no cost.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are given by pro-life advocates for the uplifting of women who find themselves pregnant without having planned for it.

Pro-lifers make up the vast, vast majority of adoptive families putting their money where their mouth is.

And don't forget, a pro-lifer, by definition, believes that abortion is murdering a child, and more than half of those children who end up aborted are female.

If you are a feminist, Alice Paul is someone you know very well.

She was the leader of the suffrage movement.

Alice Paul said abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.

The truth is, both sides believe that they are fighting a just cause.

Both sides believe they are fighting a just cause.

And if you don't approach the conversation that way, you're not going to get anywhere.

Pro-choice see themselves as fighting for the liberty of women everywhere.

Pro-lifers see themselves as fighting for the lives of babies everywhere.

So the question is, who is right?

Who is right?

And the implications of that question, I believe, have the highest stakes of any question in our world today.

This is a conversation that matters greatly.

Since Roe v.

Wade was passed in 1973, there have been over 60 million, now I believe 65 million abortions in the United States alone.

The abortion industry is a$500 million a year industry in the United States annually and$10 billion worldwide.

Those are the stakes.

60 million.

And so, if abortion is not murder, and it is actually how we protect women, then that is over 60 million women who may not have been protected if pro-choicers weren't there fighting for them.

If it is, as pro-lifers say, the murder of 60 plus million lives, the stakes are going to be higher.

That's 10 Holocausts in our country in the last 50 years.

That's 20,000 911s.

The stakes could not be higher.

This is a conversation that matters greatly.

Because there are hundreds of thousands of women a year who become pregnant when they weren't planning on it.

These women and sometimes young girls are scared and confused and often ashamed, and they live in a world that largely, in a culture that largely will point them to an abortion clinic as the easy answer to their problem.

Now, this is uh a subject that I can understand intellectually and I can understand at some level emotionally, but I cannot fully empathize with.

And my staff helps me plan and put together these series, and as we were going through the planning of this series, my good friend Nori shared her story.

And she asked if she could have the opportunity to share a part of that story going through this very situation.

You guys check this out.

I was in the pregnant college, living on campus, and preparing to study around the film for the next month, really getting ready to figure out my future and all the possibilities I had as well.

I felt like I was just starting to live my life and now everything.

I began sharing I was pregnant with those around me.

And the first question most people asked was are you going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit?

I was reminded time and time again that I was a promising feature, and that there was a comedy down the road that helped me with my situation.

I never felt that I feel like because of the world around us, telling us how simple it is to get an abortion.

It was assumed by the community I was in.

And there was no other option for me moving forward on that point.

I know firsthand that the culture we live in assumes that abortion is often the best half of the world.

But as I've grown closer to Jesus, I have learned that God always chooses life.

God always chooses life.

I want to thank Nori for being so vulnerable and sharing her story.

I have no doubt that there are some in this service and streaming online and watching this in the archive who do hold a pro-choice position, uh, maybe very proudly so.

I have no doubt across our three services, where we have hundreds and hundreds of people streaming online and watching in the archive, that some of you found yourself in the same position as Nori, but you made a different decision.

And so I need you to hear me say, as we get into what God has to say about this topic, I want to remind you that Jesus came full of grace and full of truth.

That no one is here to condemn you today.

What the scriptures do is they bring clarity, and that clarity, if you allow it, will bring you even closer to your God, your father, who loves you more than you can imagine.

With that said, when you read scripture, one thing is shockingly clear.

From Genesis, the very first book that opens the word all the way to Revelation, the very last book, it prioritize life as the first blessing that leads to all other blessings.

Life is the first blessing that leads to all other blessings.

We'll go through a little bit of the early history of scripture.

In Genesis 2, it is telling the story of creation.

It says the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils.

And then the man became a living being.

Later, when the first siblings were on earth, Cain and Abel, Cain killed his brother, and God came and said that Abel's blood cried out to him from the ground.

His life actually mattered.

All the way back, right after the flood of Noah, God institutes retribution for murder in the form of capital punishment.

This would show up later in the Ten Commandments as a law against taking anyone's life, the same thing we define to this day as murder.

Later, God calls his people into relationship with himself, and here's the message he gives them.

In Deuteronomy 30, God says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

I love that.

Choose life.

This is a command from God.

God is not anti choice.

He has given us freedom.

He doesn't operate us as puppets or robots, robots.

He allows us to choose, but when you believe in Jesus, he expects you to submit your Life to the commandments of scripture, and he makes it clear you have choice, but you're expected to choose life.

So God is pro as an absolutely for life.

But the question remains: is a 15-week fetus life?

Is a five-week zygote actually considered life?

And when you look at scripture, it isn't silent on this and it isn't unclear on this.

It sees even before conception that that baby is in fact life.

And Jeremiah 1, the word of the Lord came to me and said, I chose you before I formed you in the womb.

I set you apart before you were born.

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Before Jeremiah was even conceived, he was chosen and set apart and appointed by God.

King David wrote in the Psalms, For it was you, God, who created my inward parts.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will praise you because I've been remarkably and wondrously made.

Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.

My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw me when I was formless.

And all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them happened.

God knew David when he was formless, a simple zygote.

It was God who knit David together in utero.

Jeremiah was known by God in the womb.

This means he had a soul.

God saw himself in these fetus.

They already bore the image of God.

In Luke's gospel, Mary is in her first trimester, and she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who's in her second trimester.

Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, is pregnant with the prophet John the Baptist.

And Mary, of course, is pregnant with Jesus.

In Luke chapter 1, it says, In those days, Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered Zechariah's house and greeted her cousin Elizabeth.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

And when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped inside of her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And then she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and your child will be blessed.

How could this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside of me.

Earlier in that same chapter, Luke chapter 1, it prophesied this of John the Baptist.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will never drink wine or beer.

He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb.

Verse 41 is the fulfillment of verse 15.

John the Baptist as a fetus was filled with the Holy Spirit just by being in the presence of his Lord when Jesus was still just an embryo.

According to Scripture, in the first trimester, Jesus was already the Lord.

According to Scripture, in the second trimester, John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit.

They were not potential people, they were not developing fetus, waiting to be assigned a soul or the image of God upon delivery.

They were John and they were Jesus, and they were in the womb.

And I wonder, because the story of Mary is a very heartbreaking story.

And we celebrate it, you know, and we dress her real nice and we put a halo over her in our in our nativity scenes.

And it's a heartbreaking story.

I'm reminded how in the middle of Jesus' ministry in John's gospel, there are these people who are rejecting Jesus.

And they're saying he's doing works in the name of Satan, and they're just throwing all these insults at them, and it's easy to miss.

But in the middle of their insults, they call him a bastard.

The rumors of Mary's pregnancy never left her.

Who's the actual father?

Mary, who got pregnant before she was married, was heartbreaking and devastating.

Mary was young, somewhere between 19 and as young as 15, common in that culture.

If ancient Jerusalem had the same cultural ideology as our world today, or had Mary become pregnant with Jesus in the West today, the majority of people surrounding her in the culture and in her community would have seen abortion as the obvious right choice for her.

And what she would have aborted would have been, according to Scripture, Jesus Christ.

Okay, so you might be thinking, uh, these scriptures, written thousands of years ago, they make a good point, but the scriptures are far from a scientific textbook.

Like these are poetry and mythology and a very barbaric understanding of what actually happens in the womb.

And so here's what I've learned over the years, because when I was a young man, I wrestled with those exact same thoughts.

And I bought into this idea that science and scripture are always in conflict and competition with one another.

And what I have found as I begin to genuinely look at what science is telling us as it continues to progress, and what scripture shows us is that these are not in conflict with one another.

In fact, science is consistently in almost every regard catching up to the truth of scripture thousands of years ago.

And if we believe that God is who we say we believe He is, and if we believe the Word of God is what we claim for it to be, then that is how it should function, because the same God who inspired the Word created the world.

The same God who inspired the Word created the world.

One of my favorite authors, Greg Kukel, brings a lot of clarity to the issue of abortion with a simple analogy.

If you have a five-year-old and they walk into the house and they're standing behind you, and all they ask is, hey, can I kill this?

What's your first question gonna be?

Well, what is it?

I mean, if it's a cockroach, you have my blessing, you know?

If it's your sister, I'm calling a counselor, right?

Like two very different things.

That's the question with the issue of abortion.

What is it?

Because if it is a life and that life is taken, then by the definition of our law and the definition of scripture, it is murder.

If it is not life, then there is a hypothetical where abortion would be permissible.

So what is it?

If at 20 weeks or 12 weeks or two days it is a human life, it must be protected.

Now, most people are sheltered at some level from the scientific realities of conception and life, and I do believe that we are sheltered from that largely because of the immensely large influence of the pro-choice movement.

And I I hope you don't doubt the influence it is having.

We have bought this wholesale as a culture, it has huge ramifications.

However, the scientific realities behind conception in the beginning of life are not remotely scientifically controversial.

You need to know that.

Since the discovery of DNA, every biology textbook that you could find in every college library has the same definition of when life begins, and it is at conception.

People will try to make you sound crazy for believing that.

You need to know that is not remotely scientifically controversial.

At fertilization, when the sperm and egg combine, a unique set of DNA is formed.

It is not the mother's DNA, it is not the father's DNA, it is a unique set of DNA.

This DNA contains the complete genetic information that will determine the individual's physical and biological characteristics.

And this genetic uniqueness is a defining feature of a new human life.

The fertilized egg, known as a zygote, begins a process of rapid cell division and development that ultimately leads to a fully developed human being.

The zygote is distinct from both the sperm and the egg and represents the beginning of a brand new, genetically unique human organism.

At fertilization, the zygote possesses biological attributes that are characteristic of living organisms.

It exhibits metabolism, growth, responsiveness to stimuli, and the ability to undergo cellular division, which is the hallmark of what we consider life.

Human development is a continuous process.

There is no clear, arbitrary point past conception where you can definitively say, now, this is where life begins.

Yes, a six-day old in utero looks very different than a six-week-old in the womb.

At the same time, a six-week-old in the womb looks very different than a six-week-old after birth is given.

Of course, the trend continues.

A 16-year-old looks very different than a six-week-old newborn, and a 76-year-old looks very different than that same 16-year-old.

The moment of conception, life begins.

The DNA of that zygote will perfectly match the DNA of that human 50 years down the road.

Whether or not they will be tall or short, blonde or brunette, have curly hair, straight hair, sorry guys, male pattern baldness.

All of that genetic information is there from the start.

At the beginning of the year, I did 23 in me.

I sent my DNA off.

It told me everything about myself.

I mean, not just like, you know, where I'm from and my family lineage.

It told me I don't like Brussels sprouts.

How did it know that?

I'm gonna tell you right now, Adam and Eve ate that fruit and the first Brussels sprout popped out of the ground.

That's how I feel about them, and just my DNA knew that.

And they could have taken a DNA sample from me in the womb and gotten those same results.

It's shocking.

The question that matters most is what is it?

At every level, at every stage of development, both scripture, which is our guiding truth, our authority, and science say that at any and every stage of development, it is a life.

And that should potentially settle the issue, but it doesn't.

Not in our culture today.

And I've already told you the reason that it doesn't settle the issue.

It doesn't settle the issue because the pro-choice and the pro-life side are having two very different conversations.

Let me remind you, the pro-choice side is fighting for the rights of liberty.

The pro-life side is fighting for the rights of life.

When we misunderstand that, we misunderstand the conversation, it's right in the names, pro-choice, liberty, and of course, pro-life is fighting for life.

So once we've answered the question, what is it?

With the clear answer that at conception we are dealing with a life, the question becomes which right should be prioritized?

The life of the baby or the liberty of the woman.

That is actually the heart of the debate that most people don't even know they're having.

Which right is prioritized?

The life of the baby or the liberty of the woman.

The current conversation from pro-choice advocates make clear that this question is the defining issue.

And here's the reality of many women and girls who become pregnant.

They have to sacrifice career opportunities.

They have to sacrifice social flexibility, oftentimes educational advancement.

They'll have 18 years of financial burden and family stress.

They will potentially, many of them suffer as single moms if they're unwed at the time of pregnancy or if the father of the child isn't interested in raising it.

And all of that, in different circumstances, is true.

And I need you to hear that if you came in today already on the pro-life side of the argument, if you cannot have empathy for these situations, if you believe in a God whose heart doesn't break when he sees people struggling through these questions, just like our friend, my friend Nori, struggled through these, then you don't understand the heart of God.

And you're not quite equipped to have these conversations.

Because what you're doing is weaponizing truth instead of leading with grace and demonstrating with your life that it's the truth of God that brings them into the fullness of their life.

So fundamentally, how do we answer this question?

What wins?

What is the priority of rights?

Is it life or is it liberty?

John Adams, who was our second president, remarking on the founding documents of our country, said, the right to life is the first and most fundamental of all rights.

Now, John Adams was a believer, he was a Christian, he understood what scripture lays out that life is the first blessing that all other blessings flow from.

And he's remarking on this famous line from the Declaration of Independence that says they are endowed, that's us, by their creator, that's God, with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And where we misunderstand these rights and their application and their understanding is the founders and our legal system do not understand these as co-equal rights.

Like you have the right equally of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Rather, these are seen as concentric rights, one relying on the one prior to it.

So, in other words, life is the most fundamental right, which is obvious because if you're not alive, you don't have any rights.

Liberty is the second most important right.

And what we're given is the right to life and the right to liberty, and you gotta understand this too.

We're not given the right to happiness.

We are given the right to pursue happiness.

And it is the foundational rights of life and liberty, when you have both, that give you what you need to pursue the life that you desire.

You cannot pursue happiness if you don't have your liberty, and you cannot have liberty if you don't have life.

Nod your head if that makes sense so far.

Good.

And so I want to use an analogy from another dark moment in our history to help us understand this.

Slavery was against our founding ideas.

That is how Martin Luther King Jr.

talked about the freedom of people who are oppressed by Jim Crow.

That is how Frederick Douglass talked about the men and women who were enslaved.

He said, y'all are not living up to what our founding documents say.

Slavery was against our founding ideas because you cannot have the pursuit of happiness, a God-given right, when you do not have your liberty.

And so remember, the argument against emancipation was primarily from plantations in the South.

And their biggest argument, and why we fought a civil war where 600,000 Americans died, their biggest argument was that they fully relied on slave labor for their entire economy.

And without slavery, the South was going to suffer and suffer tremendously.

Their entire economy would collapse if slaves were set free.

And you probably hear that argument from the South and go, who cares?

People were in slavery.

You'll be aight, you know?

We gotta set people free.

We have the right to liberty.

If that pricks your conscience, if that's obvious to you, then you do understand the pro-life position.

Because the argument against it is people, and most specifically women, will suffer.

And they will.

And if you can't acknowledge that and embrace that and be there for that and be the church in those women's life and create cultures and communities and faith communities where people can come and be served and be loved and uplifted, then we're not ready for this fight.

But at the same time, it's like we do understand that that's the reality.

And we've killed 60 million babies.

You see, the debate about slavery in the South could have been framed in the exact same way.

Which right is prioritized?

The liberty of those enslaved or the happiness, the affluence, the economic prosperity of the South.

And we decided that half of the country would have to give up some happiness and prosperity and economic collapse for others to have their liberty.

Because liberty is a more fundamental right than happiness.

And half of the country had to suffer so that we could come into proper alignment with these concentric fundamental rights.

And so when someone becomes pregnant, what is the more fundamental right?

Which right is prioritized?

The life of the baby or the liberty of the woman.

And I want to suggest that when framed properly, and I do believe this is the proper way to frame this conversation, the answer does become obvious.

I actually think the answer is revealed to our hearts by God.

Like Nori said, God always chooses life.

There's a lot of arguments on the pro-choice side, like viability, bodily autonomy, the size or age of the child in utero, even the really difficult, heartbreaking issues.

Like women who have become pregnant through sexual assault or rape.

Or situations of incest, heartbreaking, very complex, very, very difficult situations.

But situations that ultimately do not change the fundamental question which right is prioritized.

In Deuteronomy 30, God said, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

So choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

We have gone deep into the weeds, we have looked at what scripture says, how scripture and science stand hand in hand, and the philosophical outcome of what scripture and science show us.

And now I want to speak plainly as your pastor.

Millions of young women have had abortions, and many of those women have been deceived into thinking that the baby was not a baby and the abortion was not a murder, and that they would be able to live their life free of regret.

And none of those things are true.

Odds are, if you have had an abortion, most people in your life encouraged you to do it, and few people, if anyone, was honest with you about what it was or what it would cause in your mind and in your heart moving forward.

So let me assure you again, there is forgiveness.

And if you are willing to take this decision and lay it down at the foot of the cross, God will draw you closer and closer to Himself.

You need to know this on a theological level.

We believe that every child aborted goes directly to eternity with God.

Which means if you are a believer in Jesus and you have had an abortion, you will see your child again.

And there will be reconciliation and there will be ultimate forgiveness.

And I believe the best way that you can honor that child's legacy is to fight for life today and create cultures of grace that don't just go at the political issues, but actually speak to people's hearts and their minds.

For those who are pro-choice, maybe even proudly so, I pray that you will wrestle with what we have seen in scripture today.

Honestly, what I think or believe doesn't really matter.

However, what God has revealed is our authority as believers.

I owe it to you for you to know where I stand.

I do believe abortion is murder, that it is an offense to the God who knows those children and chose those children and gave life and his image to them from the very moment of conception.

I also believe that because of the sheer number of abortions in our history, that this issue is the greatest transgression against God.

In human history.

If the people of God cannot, full of grace and truth, stand up for the most vulnerable lives in our world, then I'm not sure we are equipped for the work that is ahead of us.

I also know this is a losing issue right now.

And the numbers of people who are pro-life are dwindling.

And people are questioning whether it's a fight worth having.

And I think some of that is in our approach.

And it reminds me of how Christianity started.

At one point, there were about 40 people who believed Jesus had rose from the dead.

That was it.

There are now 2.3 billion Christians on earth, the largest movement the world has ever known.

And they did not make their way by fighting, by engaging in war.

They did not spread their movement by force.

In fact, Christianity has been under persecution virtually its entire existence.

They didn't try to change people's minds politically.

They didn't try to beat people over the head with the truth that they possess.

They loved people.

They lived their life differently.

They let their light shine before man.

In the ancient world, child sacrifice was a common practice.

Israel was a tiny nation compared to the nations around them.

And in the Old Testament, which is the Jewish scriptures, you'll read these commandments against offering your children to Molech.

And Molech was an ancient God, a false God, who people would sacrifice their children.

It was a large metal idol, and they would literally take their newborns and roll their idols into the metal idol that was filled with fire.

And they did this because the promise was financial prosperity, advancement of your own life, more freedom, more happiness.

In other words, they sacrificed their children to a demon who promised them prosperity.

And God says, we will be different.

We're one tiny nation, but we will let our light shine among the other nations.

And because of God and how he called his people to live, we now live in a world where that seems like an abomination.

Unless the baby is still in the womb.

And so let me remind you how life works.

We all have sin, and that sin separates us from God.

And yet there is nothing, because of the work that Jesus did on the cross, nothing that can keep us from our Heavenly Father.

And if you've had an abortion or you have facilitated an abortion or you have cheered on abortion, and today you are realizing what that actually means, there is nothing that can separate you from God.

And if something has convinced you that because of decisions you've made in your past, that you are unqualified to be a child of God, that is not the Holy Spirit talking to you, that is the deceiver talking to you.

God loves you and he loves you so much that he gave his life to buy your liberty.

Anyone can come to Christ, wherever you've been, whatever you've done.

And then we're called to follow Christ.

Let me remind you: the invitation to believe in Jesus is to come to the cross and to gain eternal life, to move from spiritual death to spiritual life.

The invitation to follow Jesus is to carry your cross and to die to yourself.

To carry your cross, you must deny yourself, your own ideas, your own worldviews, your own version of truth.

And we cling and submit ourselves to what God has asked us to be, and we discover that in God's word.

And so, what does it mean to deny yourself?

And what does it mean to carry your cross?

If you would, right where you are, bow your head and close your eyes.

I want to give us some time to process a very heavy conversation.

I want to talk in some categories.

And everyone's eyes are closed, no one's looking around.

I first want to tell you that wherever you sit in this conversation, we have asked a group of people to be here after every service who specialize in helping, especially women who are going through or have gone through an abortion.

If you are pro-choice, what it looks like to deny yourself and carry your cross is of course to seek God.

Scripture says it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.

To repent is to change your mind.

If you're pro-choice, I'm gonna ask you to wrestle with this message.

Go back and listen to it.

Listen to it twice.

Wrestle with it.

Open the word.

The warning for all of us is to not try and fit scripture into our worldview.

That makes you God, and we make terrible gods.

Our job is to fit our worldview into scripture, to submit ourselves to what scripture says.

You can go to scripture and you will find the uplifting of the vulnerable and the protection of minority and the protection of women, but you will not find that trumping the first blessing that leads to all blessings, the blessing of life.

If you're pro-life, and if you're honest, you have hatred in your heart towards others.

Your call is to repent, to change your mind.

You have truth, you're right on the issue, but we must model Jesus full of truth and full of grace.

We are allowed to have righteous anger for the protection of people, but when we move into unrighteous anger, hatred towards others, we must confess.

God will forgive you and equip you and empower you to be the brightest light that you can.

If you're here or you're watching online and you are pregnant now and you're considering your options, choose life.

If you're young or incapable of raising that child, you need to know there are millions, literally millions of couples praying and waiting to adopt.

For you to carry this child would be an act of sacrifice.

It would be a way for you to carry your cross and be like Jesus.

And I promise you that God will ritually reward you for that sacrifice someday.

If you've had an abortion or you have facilitated an abortion, perhaps you fell for the deception of a culture who says that a baby's not a baby and abortion is not murder and you're gonna be fine, you won't have any regrets.

Maybe only today you're realizing fully the truth of the decision you made.

Perhaps you're in the camp who knew full well what you were doing.

You just believed that your liberty trumped the life that you were carrying.

Regardless of your circumstance, scripture calls us to repent, to change your mind, confess your sin to Jesus who loves you, who is ready and waiting to forgive you.

Embrace truth, and that truth will set you free.

And I want you all to hear from me that I love you and I care about you.

I believe you were created on purpose, and you were created with purpose, and that God has massive plans for your life.

Believe in and follow Jesus.

Let me pray for us.

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your grace, for your mercy, your care for us, your intention, knowing us from the moment we are born, the moment we are conceived, knowing us, calling us, planning a great future for us.

That our greatest concern would be standing on your truth.

And we believe that ultimately your truth will win.

Pray that we would be bright lights of who you are to a lost and hurting world.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.