When Shepherds Lead
This past April I addressed a large gathering of pastors at a luncheon hosted by a pregnancy care center. During this time, I addressed 4 primary duties of a pastor in an abortion-infatuated culture like ours and challenged them to look to Christ for the compassion and courage needed to thunder from their pulpits both the evil of abortion and the grace of God for those who’ve had them. A few weeks later I received an email from the director of the center who had hosted the event. In it, she linked me to a sermon one of the pastors who attended the luncheon and accepted my challenge had given. Interestingly, he decided to address the subject of abortion during his Mother’s Day sermon. While this may seem like an ill-timed Mother’s Day theme, I was struck by both this pastor’s compassion and boldness, as well as his biblical clarity.
I was so blessed by his message and the skill with which he delivered it that I emailed him to thank him for his faithfulness. The next day he emailed me back, at which time he shared the following heartwarming story:
“Just a couple hours ago, I sat down with an ‘almost 80-year-old’ (her words) woman who asked to talk to me today after our weekly prayer group. She was looking for words and then just came out and said that what I shared on Mother's Day was for her. She mentioned that she got up and left the service that day before the end of it so she could go and be alone with God in the church Prayer Room. She told me about her abortion experience 60 years ago, something she had neatly categorized in her brain as a necessity because of her age and because of the demands of professional training she was undergoing. One of her instructors at that time told her what she needed to do, helped make sure the abortion happened, and assured her there were ‘no other alternatives.’ A decade later, she came to faith in Jesus as her Lord and Savior, was married and had children, but always kept that event put away...until this Mother's Day when she had an epiphany that what she had categorized as necessity, God categorizes as wicked. She also had a strong realization that her treatment of it was not bringing it under the cleansing blood of Jesus, and that had been impacting her all this time. We prayed together, thanked God for His amazing grace and mercy, and thanked Him that even after all these years, He wants to make her healthy and free. She read several scriptures to me, through which God had been speaking to her, and as she did, I was blessed to see before me a woman who was stepping into a newer, deeper, more trusting love with her Savior. Praise God!”
He closed his email to me by expressing his deep satisfaction in knowing God had used his message so powerfully. He also stated that other women from his flock had expressed appreciation for his message as well.
This story powerfully illustrates that there is no conflict between loving innocent children and loving guilty adults. When pastors speak the truth in love, as commanded in Ephesians 4:15, they can do both. In fact, to fail at either of these duties is to fail to love as Christ has called us to love. Indeed, the gospel is precisely what everyone in the abortion debate needs, from the child in utero who needs our protective gospel influence, to the abortionist who needs our prophetic gospel witness, to the abortion-minded couple who feels cornered by life’s circumstances, to those burdened with guilt over past abortion decisions who need the forgiveness only the gospel provides.
I am thankful for faithful shepherds and for the tender words of our Chief Shepherd, who beckons each of us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls,” (Matthew 11:28-29).