© Eric M Schumacher — Preached January 20, 2012 at Northbrook Baptist Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion—which has since resulted in the lives of over 50,000,000 unborn children being lost.
Every year since I have been at Northbrook, I have used this Sunday to either address the issue of abortion and sanctity of life directly or have meditated on how the topic of the sermon applies to our response to abortion.
My sermon this morning will not be a defense of the idea that abortion as murder. I have already addressed that issue in previous sermons, which you can download to read or listen to.
Neither will my sermon be training in how to argue persuasively in our culture. I have also done that in previous sermons. (For excellent resources, see: The Case for Life, Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Abort73.)
Rather, what I want to do this morning is this: I want to examine how the Exodus informs how we should respond to abortion. I want to ask the big questions: How do we respond as Christians? Does Exodus speak to this today? And I want to pursue and answer by meditating on this text, asking three questions:
(1) What does this text tell about God?(2) What does this text tell us about being God’s people?(3) How then should we respond to abortion?
Our first question then is, “What does this text tell us about God?”
And, the answer, our first main idea is: The Lord sees the afflicted, hears their cries and provides for them.
This has been a theme in Exodus so far, hasn’t it? In our text, the Lord has appeared to Moses and is speaking to him from out of the burning bush. He is speaking promises of redemption and provision for a people suffering under slavery.
What has motivated the Lord’s appearance at this point? What was the turning point in the storyline thus far? Exodus 2:23-25: God heard, saw and knew their afflictions.
And what is the Lord’s message for Moses to give to the elders of Israel in Exodus 3:16-17? Yahweh is the God who hears the cry of the poor, sees and knows their affliction—and is about to provide for them. The Lord promises that he will bring them out of affliction into a land of plenty.
And, in our text, the Lord provides for them richly. He says, “When you go, you shall not go out empty-handed.” Instead, he will grant them favor in the eyes of the Egyptians so that, when the women ask, they will be given silver and gold jewelry and clothing, for them and their children.
Mercy in the Law
God’s concern for the vulnerable shows up in the Mosaic Law, as the Lord outlines what life will look like for Israel as a nation in the promised land. The Law is very emphatic about how the vulnerable (the poor, the widow, the orphan) were to be treated. And that even extends to the foreigner, the sojourner. Listen to a few commands from the Law:
Exodus 23:9 You shall not oppress a sojourner.Leviticus 19:33-34 When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself…Deuteronomy 10:18-19 Love the sojourner…Deuteronomy 24:17-22 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner …
A “sojourner” was a “stranger,” a foreigner, who was temporarily residing in the land of Israel. Being a foreigner, outside the people of God, they would have been vulnerable to injustice and mistreatment. It would have been easy for a Jew to say, “They’re not one of us. They’re not an Israelite. They are dirty Gentiles. Therefore, we can afflict them, mistreat them, and overlook them.”
The Lord would not allow it. Part of the being “the people of God” meant caring for “the image of God,” in which all persons are created.
This, however, was not a kindness that Israel delighted in in their history.
Mercy in Christ
This is the mercy, however, that Jesus delighted in. Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them. He saw the sick, the poor, the outcast, the sinner.
He was found eating with them, providing for them. He was found touching the unclean, showing mercy to the Gentiles dogs, healing their sicknesses and raising their children from the dead.
In Jesus, the mercy of God was personified, made visible in the flesh. Ultimately, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He dies on the cross for the sins of Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor, slave and free—so that through his death and resurrection, they might have life and receive the riches of heaven.
See Them!
James (1:27) writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
Jesus calls us, his people, to be a people who see and hear the cause of the vulnerable, of those being led away into death and provide for them in their need. The unborn fall into that category, if any does!
So let me ask you: Do you see how abortion preys upon the weak and the vulnerable, the overlooked, the despised, the marginalized and the unwanted?
Abortion is an issue that is interwoven with several issues, each of which strikes at what it means to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” at the heart of what it means for all human beings to be created “in the image of God.”
Abortion strikes at the worth of women. In America, abortion is often presented as an issue of “women’s rights.” Merle Hoffman, founder of Choices, a New York City abortion center, states that, “The act of abortion positions women at their most powerful.” (source)
Abortion is a women’s rights issue. But, only someone with blinders on could argue that abortion is about empowering women. Rather, abortion is quite often used to prevent women from simply existing, using abortion for sex-selection in pregnancy—a fact often ignored by the media. Today, India and China eliminate more girls every year than the total number of girls born in America during the same period. The United Nations estimates that over 200 million girls are “missing” due to “gendercide” (source). If we care about the equality and value of women as created in “the image of God,” then we must care about abortion.
Abortion strikes at the worth of varied ethnicities. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, initiated “The Negro Project” in 1939. It was a eugenics project. (Eugenics is “the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species.”) There was a certain type of black person that Sanger believed was “tainted,” and should be eliminated, sterilized, or segregated onto farms.
That was 1939. But today, nearly 40% of all African American pregnancies end in induced abortion. This makes abortion the leading cause of death of black people—more than the other seven leading causes of death combined (heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases). If we care about the equality and value of persons of all ethnicities as created in “the image of God,” then we must care about abortion. (source)
Abortion strikes at the worth of those with “genetic defects.” The New York Times reported that with the rise of genetic testing, more than 9 out of 10 babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. This sends a clear message about what we think, as a culture, about the desirability, worth and value of those with genetic defects. (source)
There are persons in our church who, if they had been conceived in the womb of a different mother, would not be with us today—for us to see the glory of God in them and in the resurrection that he gives. If we care about the value of persons with Down Syndrome and other genetic and chromosomal issues, then we must care about abortion.
But those are not the only reasons I address it. I address it because it affects us immediately—Northbrook Baptist Church, our neighbors, our families. In Congressional testimonies during the debate over the Obama Administration’s health care proposal, the fact was stated that, in some recent years, abortion has been the most common surgical procedure performed on American adults. This has led Merle Hoffman, founder of Choices, a New York City abortion center, to state that “Abortion is as American as apple pie.” (source)
1 in every 3 women will have at least one abortion. Statistically, this means that if there are 60 women in this room, 20 of you have had at least one abortion. This means that, statistically, if there are 30 little girls in our Big Idea Kids ministry, 10 of them will grow up to have at least one abortion. If there are 6 young women in our youth group, 2 of them have had or will have at least one abortion. If you have 3 daughters, statistics would suggest that one of them will have at least one abortion.
My working assumption as a pastor is that a third of the women in our church have had an abortion. I assume that there are women in this room who have had one or more abortions. I assume that there are men in this room, who have taken a girlfriend or wife or daughter to an abortion clinic to “get rid of the problem”—or who will face that situation.
I have seen the pain and guilt that this causes to those who live. I have sat and wept and prayed with women who, as young teenagers (and pre-teens) who were unaware of what was even happening at the time, were taken by parents to have an abortion.
I have hugged and wept and prayed with men who, decades later, are wracked with guilt over having taken their girlfriend to the clinic and paid to have their firstborn sons killed.
I want to say: If that is you: I care. I love you. I will not reject you. I will listen. I will weep with you. I will pray with you. I will struggle with you to rest in the mercy and grace given to us in Jesus Christ. And so will many at Northbrook.
Do you see and hear how abortion preys upon, not just the unborn, but upon all these groups of people created in the image of God? If we care about the souls of those who have had or enabled abortions, then we must care about abortion.
Question #2
Our second question is: What does this text tell us about being God’s people? To some extent, I just answered that. I said what we should do—but not why we should do it.
So, here is my second main point from Exodus 3:21-22: When God’s grace appears, bringing salvation to his people, it trains them in how to live as a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.
I take that language intentionally from Titus 2:11-14:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
The grace of God that has appeared bringing salvation (that is, the person and work of Jesus Christ) is what trains us in how to live as God’s possession, how to be zealous for good works. The Gospel—the Good News of what God has done in Christ—is what informs, shapes and motivates how we live as Christians.
This concept is not, however, new with the arrival of Christ. God’s “grace” in “redemption” has always been what was supposed to inform, shape and motivate how his people live. Let me demonstrate, by asking the question: At each stage in the Bible’s storyline, what informs, shapes and motivates how God’s people are to live?
Creation.
Beginning with creation is appropriate, since redemption is ultimately “new creation.”
Who is God revealed as in creation? In Genesis 1, the first thing God does is he creates a place—whether earth or sky, dry land or sea—and makes provision—he causes vegetation to grow. Once the place and provisions are prepared, he creates animals and people to live in it. And then, he specifically creates a Garden home for his special creatures, humans, where he provides for them. What is God revealed as? Essentially, a place-creating, provision ensuring gardener, who cares for his living things.
Who is man supposed to do? Man is to fill the earth, subdue it and exercise dominion over it. He is to tend and keep the Garden. Essentially—man is to do exactly what God was just revealed as doing—to care for a place and provide for God’s creatures. Who God has revealed himself to be in the creation event informs and shaped how man was to live.
Post-flood. After the flood, God explicitly institutes the death penalty, lining-out how man is to respond to the destruction of human life. What has preceded this instruction? God has instituted the death penalty for the whole earth in a flood! Because of their great wickedness, God put them to death, though giving salvation through the ark. Who God has revealed himself to be in the salvation event of the Ark, informed and shaped how man was to live.
The Exodus and Ethics
Does that hold true in the Exodus event? Absolutely. In verse 21, the Lord says, “And when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.” When God’s grace appears bring redemption to his people, God is revealed as the God who does not send out slaves empty-handed.
The Exodus event informs Israelite ethics. That word, “empty-handed” is the same word that shows up in Deuteronomy 15:13, a text regarding how a Hebrew slave is to be treated when he is freed from his slavery. The text says:
If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
Slaves could not be sent out “empty-handed,” but should be provided for liberally.
Why is this? What informs, shapes and motivates this ethical behavior? Verse 15 is key:
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.
Their ethical behavior, specifically their treatment of slaves, is informed by how God redeemed them when they were slaves. In our text, they were not sent out empty-handed, but liberally supplied with wealth. Therefore, they should treat others as God had graciously treated them.
And this logic flows all the way through the Mosaic Law. I read for you earlier about God’s concern for the widow, orphan and sojourner. But now, let me read what informs, shapes and motivates each of those commands:
Exodus 23:9 You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Leviticus 19:33-34 …for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."Deuteronomy 10:18-19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Deuteronomy 24:17-22 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
What’s the lesson? Who Yahweh revealed himself to be in the redemption of Israel, informed, shaped and motivated how Israel was to behave under the Law.
Now, I’m not an Israelite. I am not a part of the ethnic people of Israel brought out of Egypt. I am not living in the Promised Land in Palestine, under the rule of the Mosaic Law. So what does this mean for me? This text reminds me that I am to treat others the way God treated me in my redemption in Christ.
The Rule of Christ
And don’t we see this laid out for us in the New Testament? In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul is encouraging the church to give generously to support the Jewish Christians suffering in a famine. He encourages them to excel in generosity. And how does he inform, shape and motivate that generosity? He writes:
I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
In the Gospel, Jesus Christ (who was rich) made himself poor so that you might become rich through his poverty. Seeing and savoring that, should cause you to be happy to excel in using your literal earthly riches to provide for those who are in need.
In Ephesians 4:32-5:1-2, Paul writes:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
How should we live as Christians? We should imitate God! We should love each other as Christ loved us. When another person has insulted us, overlooked us, wronged us, harmed us, sinned against us—we should forgive as God in Christ forgave us.
In 1 John 4:10-11, we read:
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Jesus laid down his own life to satisfy the anger of God against our sin. That is love. And this is how we ought to love one another.
What’s the lesson then, of Exodus 3:21-22? How God reveals himself in redemption should inform, shape and motivate how his people live.
How do I apply this as a Christian? I let it remind of the fact that: How God has revealed himself to me in redemption through Jesus Christ his Son should inform, shape and motivate me—train me—in how to live as a person who now belongs to him, how to be zealous for good works.
Question #3
Our third question is this: How then should we respond to abortion?
We should rescue those being led away to death.
Before you were saved, you were as good as dead. Ephesians 2 says that we were “dead in trespasses and sins.” We followed “the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air.” We were dead—and being led away to death by the world, the devil and our own flesh. We were headed for eternal destruction.
But what did God do? God “made us alive.” 1 Peter says that God “caused us to be born.”
That is why we care for orphans and widows in their distress. When we were dying, he caused us to be born (1 Pet 1). When we were orphans, he adopted us as his children in Christ (Gal 3-4). When we were husbandless, Christ made us his bride (Eph 5).
Defending the lives of the unborn is a visible manifestation of the Gospel. It is not the Gospel. But, it imitates the Gospel. And, it gives us opportunity to preach the Gospel.
When your co-worker asks you, “Why are you Christians so concerned about abortion?” You could say, “Because children in the womb are human beings. And God hates murder.” Or, “Steve Jobs was adopted. That child could invent the next iThing!” That is true enough. But, that answer could be a squandering of an opportunity to preach the Gospel.
How much better might it be to say, “Let me tell you what God has done for me in Jesus. Here’s who I was. Here’s what God did. Here’s why that makes me want to imitate that in how I love others.”
How should we work to end abortions?
There are a lot of typical answers that are all good: vote pro-life, adopt, support single-mothers, be a business owner who accommodates the needs of unwed mothers generously, pray, etc. But, let me give you one application that I have too often overlooked: Be a healthy church, one that extends grace to and lives in peace with one another.
This past week, Russell Moore wrote:
In your congregation this Sunday, and in the neighborhoods around you right now, there are women vulnerable to abortionist propaganda, not because they reject the church but because they’re afraid they’ll lose the church. Pregnant young women are scared they will scandalize church people when they start to show, so they keep it secret. Parents are fearful their pregnant daughter, or their son’s pregnant girlfriend, will prompt the rest of the congregation to see them as bad families.
When a young pregnant woman is scared and looking for help, what will she see in the church? When a Christian father finds out his teen-aged daughter is pregnant, what will he expect from his church?
Will they see a community of sinners who are forgiven and so quickly forgive? Will they see a community of struggling imperfect people who receive grace from God and so extend grace to other struggling imperfect people? Will they see a community of former enemies reconciled to God, who are strive to be reconciled with one another?
Or will they find people stirring up division though the “foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law,” that Paul says are unprofitable, worthless and to be avoided (both the person and the issue). Will they find self-righteous people, who heap up burdens on others that they won’t lift a finger to carry themselves? Will they find a people who let a year’s worth of suns set on their anger, unwilling to strive for peace quickly? Will they find exclusive cliques, people obsessively demanding their rights? Will they overhear murmuring, gossiping, grumbling, petty-arguments?
They can smell us.
You see that hurting, scared single-mother, who is contemplating an abortion, but decided to maybe turn to the church for some help (because she heard that Jesus was kind)—that woman can sniff out the aroma of the church faster than my dog can sniff out bacon.
That father, worried about his daughter’s reputation and future, can sniff out quickly how she will be received when her sin becomes apparent.
And if they sniff out that aroma of division, of unforgiveness, of grudge-bearing—and they will be gone in a heartbeat (and so will the heartbeat). They will conclude that there is no love and no grace for sinners among these people—they are too caught up in themselves and their petty quarrels to love. They bite, tear and devour each other.
And so she will turn to the soft, smiling, warm embrace of the abortion clinic. And the father will decide (wrongly) it is more loving to take an out-of-state vacation with his daughter and make the problem go away.
What’s our scent?
Which aroma—that of life or death—is wafting through Northbrook Baptist Church? Which aroma are you cultivating? Is it that of Christ—or of the rotten tomb you used to lie in?
Brothers and sisters, when we were in sin and headed off to death, but Christ loved us, paid for us, saved us. We were once murderers, but we were washed, sanctified and made new. Let us be a church that happily and humbly displays as much in our love for one another, so that those who are grieving past abortions or considering one now might know Northbrook to be a place where they can find grace in time of need.
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