Sorry for the lateness of the Monday message. This weekend has been an emotional & spiritual roller coaster in processing current events.

  • Multiple friends losing a loved one
  • The craziness of the reactions to the inauguration
  • Madonna saying in a televised, public speech “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”
  • Hundreds of thousands of women march for the right to have an abortion
  • Unexpected death of Royals ace Yordano Ventura in a car accident
  • storms killing 20 across the Southeast U.S.

All of this and more had me wrestling in prayer about this message as I kept seeing division and death.  Life is not fair and we will all experience physical death at some point.

Then Sunday I heard my Pastor preach the message below and I felt this is where the Lord wanted me to go:

RIGHT TO LIFE (from Pastor Orion Berridge, Pastor at The Avenue Church, http://www.walktheavenue.com)

Today I am going to talk to you about Freedom in Christ, specifically the title today is “LIVE FREE”. Freedom is an important topic in general right now. We as a free people have just watched the transition of power from one President to another President. We have new Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and mayors all across the country who have been sworn in on a holy bible to uphold the Constitution of the United States which is our document of freedom. The Constitution proclaims the freedom that we have, and it ensures as long as we protect it that we live in a free society.

On the day the Constitution was born James McHenry, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin departed Independence Hall together. Benjamin Franklin was approached by a Mrs. Powell who asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”   Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

History warns us that to one generation in five falls the duty – the highest duty and the most difficult duty of this Republic – to preserve the liberty of its citizens.   It is most difficult, because as Abraham Lincoln warned, [the threat to liberty] springs up not on a foreign shore where we can see it – it springs up amongst us.   It cannot be defeated by force of arms.   It must be defeated by reason.

I often ask myself as a Pastor, how can we be faithful to the gospel and yet be good citizens? How can I preach the gospel being a citizen of heaven and yet be a citizen of the United States? I feel like I have an answer to that more clear than ever and that is FREEDOM AND JUSTICE are not an American attribute, they are an attribute of GOD Himself. AND so anytime you see the need for freedom it is worth your time, when you see injustice, it is worth your voice, and it doesn’t matter if it is part of your political parties platform. The Church needs to rise and be a voice of grace, a voice of truth, a voice of reason.

So I want to use this pulpit to fight for freedom and the rights of those who do not have a voice and are oppressed, and in view of yesterday’s call to continue killing the unborn thru abortion we say “no”.

Now you may be pro-life, or pro-choice or undecided, but I want to challenge you to listen to me for a minute and keep an open mind-  on January 22, 1973. The Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case Roe v. Wade. Nine men determined that every state had the duty to give women unfettered access to abortion up until the birth of the child.

Yesterday a few hundred thousand women marched in Washington, about that many marched in different cities around the country, many of them for the right to have an abortion, to have control over their reproductive choices. Now I want you to know that as Pastors we support a man or a women’s right to make choices for themselves, that they should not be told how to manage their own health or medical choices. I think that is exactly what our constitution guarantees, it is what our soldiers have died for and are still dying for today. We are a free people and we have the right to do as we please, we have the right to discern our moral code, to eat what we like, to do what we like.

And listen to me now…. those rights have only one limitation and that limitation is this; your rights and personal freedoms end, where mine begin. Let me explain…

It is your right to make a fist and swing it to your hearts content, as a free person it is your right and no one should take that right away from you. But when you come toward me swinging your fist, your right to swing about free and happy comes to an end where my nose begins or to be honest even at the threat.

There is no balancing act of my rights versus your rights, this is not moral relativism, it is established law, it is absolute truth. The same is true about abortion, men and women have the full right of reproductive choices until those choices infringe upon the rights of another life. Thankfully in the past 40 years science and medicine have progressed and we can clearly see now that a baby has a heartbeat, and to have an abortion is to stop the heartbeat of a human, that human we can clearly see has its senses already, it can feel pain, it has emotions and it has thoughts. Because in the womb a baby is alive. This is not news to Christians, we read our bibles and we see that God knew this; look at these passages here…

Psalm 139:13-15

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Psalm 22:10

10On you was I cast from my birth,
    and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Isaiah 49:15

15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget you.

It was a day whose infamy overshadows December 7, 1941 in the memory of the church in America. Since that time in 1973 – 50,000,000 babies have been murdered in the womb with the full protection of the state and the knowledge of the church.

Abortion in America is, in the judgment of many, the greatest evil in our history. This American holocaust dwarves the evil of Nazi Germany in both numbers of the dead, and the numbers of we who know what is happening.

I am grateful that abortion rates are at a historical low, I am thankful that the debate has raged on and that the church has had to own failing to address issues that contribute to abortion. That Christians have had to see that we cannot be against killing the unborn without being for the lives of the born.

I am thankful that science has caught up to the bible again- and that we might see this end. Our role is to speak out, to repent for the past, to love those effected and to make a stand for FREEDOM and JUSTICE!

Let me pray for this: Lord we want to say that we are all for life! We are for Justice and freedom this morning. We are for the life of the unborn and the life of the born. We want to stand against abortion and see them end. We also want to be used by you oh God to be a solution to the reasons why this evil exists. To push back darkness and let your light shine in. Help us to genuinely say to those who have had abortions that we do not condemn you, we love you, come experience the grace of God that we have experienced. In Jesus name Amen.

So simply: Cherish the ones you love. Invest in them, love them & hug them as much as you can. Share with them about the Lord Jesus Christ and his amazing love. Discover & experience the greatness of the gospel. Don’t get so bogged down in the busyness of life that you lose sight of this. No one ever said on there deathbed, “Gee I wish I would have spent more time at work.”