220703 Sermon on the overturning of Roe vs. Wade

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

Our goal as Christians is to inherit heaven. Since this is our goal, we should be heavenly minded people. We should not seek to please ourselves or our fellow human beings. If we or others are pleased, then that is all well and good, but it is not what we are to be after. We seek to be pleasing to God. What is pleasing to him is his commandments. God’s commandments are good, and they are always for the good.

However, it does not always seem that God’s commandments are for the good. Take, for example, “Honor your father and your mother.” We don’t always agree with our parents and other authorities. Honoring father and mother often means that we can’t do what we want to do. Or, on the other hand, we have to do what we don’t want to do. That’s no fun. So even though God’s commandments are for our good, they often don’t seem that way to us. That disconnect is maybe the primary reason why we don’t do what God’s commands us to do.

Since our flesh often doesn’t see the value of God’s commandments, and since every human being has this sinful flesh, it isn’t surprising that the same kind of thing that happens with us as individuals also ends up happening with groups of people, such as with states or with nations.

Let’s consider our own nation. God commands us not to steal. Folks know this because he has written this truth on everyone’s heart. But there is no end to the swindling, corruption, fraud, and so on that happens on a daily basis.

This has gotten quite sophisticated, in fact. The worst criminals among us are not the petty thieves or embezzlers that make it into the papers. They end up getting 10 year prison sentences. The worst thieves are the ones that never get prosecuted. The real big shots, throwing around billions, take whatever they can get while accomplishing nothing productive or helpful to others. They are basically a bunch of gamblers. When they win with their rigged bets in stocks and trades they are happy to take the profits. When they lose they get the government to bail them out.

These thieves do not go to jail. They are highly exalted. They are hailed as great philanthropists. After their life of crime, screwing over whomever they possibly could, they hand out a small portion of their ill-gotten gains as charity. They get buildings named after them.

To summon a nation to take up such fraud and corruption is a huge ask. Only the most youthful and vigorous of nations—nations that still have a sense for right and wrong—will dare to do it. Fighting wealthy and powerful people who can bribe and appoint and finagle, with the best lawyers helping them all along the way—that is dangerous and thankless. It is much easier to let things slide. So that’s what we’ve done. That is what we will continue to do. We’ll let things continue to decompose.

That’s how it is with so many other matters of right and wrong too. When it comes to marriage and family our nation has almost completely checked out of its responsibility to regulate that area of life. Judges used to be involved in keeping marriages together. There used to be no such thing as a no-fault divorce. People were not allowed to publicly present themselves as sexual partners with whomever they wanted.

But, you know what? That’s a lot of work! Getting involved in such matters is messy. It’s dangerous and thankless. For several generations now parents, as God-given authorities, have also not wanted to touch the issue of their children fornicating or living together with someone to whom they are not married. God’s commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” is for our good, but it often does not seem that way. It often seems much more sensible to say, “Live, and let live.” There’s no question that “Live, and let live,” is vastly easier.

This laziness and apathy are also what is most important when it comes to the fifth commandment: “You shall not murder.” It seems much easier to terminate the life of an unwanted, unborn child than to be saddled with the burden of raising such a child. Unborn children who suffer from diseases are especially prone to being unwanted, and therefore murdered. A horrifying statistic that I learned when Edith was still in the womb is that 90% or more of the children who are identified as possibly to having Downs Syndrome are aborted. Caring for a child who has that condition is certainly daunting, but that is no excuse for strangling them or poisoning them.

The same thing is true also at the other end of life. Several states in our nation already have laws legalizing physician-assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is when physicians prescribe poison to people who no longer want to live. When a disease is terminal it can seem easiest for everyone involved to just “get it over with” when it comes to a person dying. Why should family or friends waste their time keeping vigil at the death bed when they could be making money?

The commandment stands: “You shall not murder.” But it doesn’t seem like it is for our good. Ending lives quickly, easily, painlessly, and privately seems to be better for everyone involved.

This nation has grown old and tired. The nation, of course, hasn’t grown tired of making money, but that is how it is with people, too, in their old age. Greed is a vice that afflicts the elderly. We as a nation are zealous for money, but care very little about what is right and wrong. This makes us very utilitarian about moral issues. If it doesn’t appear as though some activity is harmful to others, then, by all means, indulge. Anybody who would dare to make judgments about such things is unhelpful, because we all know that what is really important is the economy. So long as we continue to be the richest, most powerful, first-in-the-world nation, then we must have our priorities straight.

This, however, is a very earth-bound judgment, purposely neglecting the one who is in heaven. God does not care if a person lives in America or if a person lives in Haiti. Neither being an American nor a Haitian matters. What matters is being a new creation, created by the Holy Spirit. Greatness is not defined by the amount of money or influence a person has. Greatness is a matter of keeping God’s commandments. We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

To make America great again we do not need this politician or that politician, but a deep change of heart. We need to learn, perhaps for the first time, what true greatness is. True greatness is not democracy or earthly peace. True greatness is following after our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to deny ourselves, study God’s commandments and keep them, and bear the cross that will inevitably come as a result of keeping God’s commands.

There’s no way of accomplishing this with some political movement. There’s no way to compel anyone to live as a Christian. This is only dealing with individuals. We all, as individuals, must repent of our cold, lazy, apathy towards God’s commandments—the cold, lazy apathy that I hope you have seen in yourself even with the few commandments that have been pointed out today. We as individuals are guilty in such matters. We must leave behind our old, selfish attitudes and seek anew the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Let’s finally get to the topic I promised you I’d speak about today: Since we have such deeply entrenched spiritual problems in our country, I can’t get overly excited about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Overturning Roe vs. Wade was a very good thing. Roe vs. Wade was wrong. There is no such thing as a constitutional right to end another person’s life. Now states are allowed to decide for themselves whether abortion is legal and under what circumstances. That might save some babies’ lives. That’s good. But this ruling hasn’t done much to change the overall downhill direction our country has been going, spiritually speaking.

I’ve included in your bulletin a letter from our Synod’s president, Matthew Harrison. It seems to me that he struck the right tone that we should have as Christians regarding this ruling. He says we should rejoice that something which has done so much to bolster the unjust killing of innocent people has been torn down.

He says we should also not be intimidated by those who gnash their teeth and will be working hard to make the murdering of the unwanted easier. Some people will never be convinced that God alone has the right to determine who lives and who dies, and that we should not take that into our own hands.

Finally, president Harrison’s letter tells us that we should repent. In a way, very little has changed with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Our lovelessness and spiritual bankruptcy has not been altered. Our failure to care for troubled and helpless women is just as egregious as it ever was. He ended his letter with: “Lord, have mercy.”

This is the way it is with Christianity. We must stay the course that we have been given as Christians. We fight against evil, not just by looking for evil people over there, but by seeing that same evil within ourselves. We repent, believe the Gospel of forgiveness for Jesus’s sake, and, God willing, walk by the Spirit.

The source of true blessing and happiness has been the same ever since the beginning of creation. That source has always been the Lord our God. He is the one from whom all blessings flow. Adam and Eve were harmed by breaking his commandments, just as anyone and everyone inevitably and always will be harmed by breaking his commandments, even if it doesn’t seem so. Adam and Eve were saved through faith in the Lord’s promise of a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

As it was then, so it is now, and so it ever shall be for each one of us individually, as well as collectively as a state or a nation. A nation, however, cannot repent. Only individuals can repent and believe. If you really want to be helpful and patriotic on this holiday weekend, you would do better to examine your life according to the Ten Commandments than to read the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was written by mere men. The commands and promises by which we live as Christians were given to us by God.

God’s Word is a sure and certain path for us Christians. It is impossible for us not to be blessed if we follow God’s commandments and believe his promises. God is God. He will bring it about. No such promise can be made concerning politics or even our fine American system of government. No human measures can ever get deep enough to strangle the evil at its source.

God’s working is quite different. He makes a new creation. You, as Christians, are new creations. You have been raised with Christ. You are the salt of the earth. See to it that you don’t lose your saltiness. Continue on loving and forgiving your family and your friends. Continue with your work, not working for money or for praise, but for the good of those whom God puts into your life.

As a summary we might close with these words from Paul: “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”