“I Had An Abortion”
00:00:00.000 | An unidentified woman who listens to the podcast writes in, "Pastor John, I had an abortion.
00:00:12.040 | That is the one and only thing I knew I would never ever do, but I did it.
00:00:16.720 | I can't begin to detail here the grief and damage it has caused me, and I know I deserve
00:00:21.160 | every bit of it.
00:00:22.960 | I feel as though I will always be a low-class Christian because of what I've done.
00:00:27.480 | I was a believer when I committed this sin, and I didn't do it to avoid disruption in
00:00:31.800 | my life but because I had no confidence that I could offer any quality of life to this
00:00:36.320 | child at the time.
00:00:38.160 | In my twisted mind, I felt I was doing the child better by preventing him or her from
00:00:42.780 | having to suffer in a broken family or a foster home.
00:00:46.360 | I understand that way of thinking is absurd.
00:00:49.200 | I just didn't understand that at the time.
00:00:52.120 | I grew up in a family that was split before I was born, and I feared that my child would
00:00:55.360 | have that kind of life.
00:00:56.880 | I just couldn't handle the thought of this.
00:00:59.240 | Now, I feel this is something I should always be punished for.
00:01:03.680 | I haven't been back to church in the years since this happened.
00:01:06.840 | I know I don't belong there.
00:01:08.320 | I don't deserve to go.
00:01:10.000 | I know I can be forgiven, but does God even want to forgive me for this?
00:01:14.440 | Does he want me and still have the plans for me that he did before?
00:01:18.380 | Or are those plans gone?
00:01:20.800 | I am disgusted with myself.
00:01:22.800 | I just hope that there's still hope for me, which I know that even wanting that is selfish
00:01:28.240 | and unwarranted at this point.
00:01:32.680 | When I hear this question that's so filled with self-recrimination and doubt and fear
00:01:40.480 | and guilt, I want very much to introduce this woman.
00:01:46.080 | I wish I knew her name.
00:01:47.080 | I could call her by name.
00:01:48.800 | I want to introduce this woman to what I have for many years called gutsy guilt.
00:01:57.280 | I base that term, gutsy guilt, on Micah, the prophet Micah, chapter 7, verses 8 and 9.
00:02:07.800 | "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy.
00:02:10.560 | When I fall, I shall rise.
00:02:13.940 | When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.
00:02:19.120 | I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him.
00:02:25.360 | Until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me, he will bring me out to the light.
00:02:33.560 | I shall look upon his vindication."
00:02:37.000 | Micah owns his sin.
00:02:39.240 | He owns his guilt.
00:02:42.040 | And the fact that he's in darkness, he's sitting there, it's under the Lord.
00:02:46.640 | The Lord is disciplining him.
00:02:48.360 | He's under God's judgment.
00:02:50.000 | He knows it's because of his sin.
00:02:51.840 | He says, "I sit in darkness.
00:02:54.120 | I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned."
00:03:00.920 | He's not making any excuses.
00:03:02.760 | He's not pretending this is from the devil.
00:03:04.800 | He knows this is from the Lord and it's awful.
00:03:08.400 | So he owns his sin.
00:03:09.560 | He owns his guilt.
00:03:10.560 | And then he says that, "I will sit in this darkness under the Lord's displeasure until
00:03:18.640 | he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me."
00:03:24.800 | Not against me, for me.
00:03:26.400 | "He will bring me out to the light.
00:03:29.520 | I shall look upon his vindication."
00:03:32.080 | Now that's amazing.
00:03:33.160 | This is incredibly gutsy.
00:03:36.600 | I am under the Lord's dark judgment and I still trust him to be my God and vindicate
00:03:42.880 | me.
00:03:43.880 | "So rejoice not over me, O my enemy.
00:03:47.120 | When I fall, I shall rise."
00:03:51.200 | That's the only way I know how to survive as a saved sinner.
00:03:58.520 | Real guilt, real sorrow, real pain, real darkness under God's discipline and real gutsy faith
00:04:07.080 | that the very God who is disciplining me and displeased with me is on my side and will
00:04:14.880 | vindicate me.
00:04:16.680 | So that's the basic truth I'd love to build into her life.
00:04:23.360 | And with that as a background, what I'd like to do, and I think might be helpful, is to
00:04:27.800 | just take, I don't know, maybe six or seven of her little statements about herself and
00:04:35.640 | make a comment about them.
00:04:38.160 | Number one, "I feel this is something I should always be punished for."
00:04:43.680 | Well, yes, it is.
00:04:48.120 | Abortion and every other sin is something we should always be punished for.
00:04:53.440 | And there is a universe of difference between "should be punished for" and "will be punished
00:05:00.760 | for."
00:05:01.760 | Gutsy gospel guilt says, "I am guilty.
00:05:05.920 | I should be punished now and forever."
00:05:10.000 | That is the very meaning of sin and justice.
00:05:13.960 | And gutsy gospel guilt says, "But I will not be punished.
00:05:19.560 | I will not be punished because Jesus bore my punishment for me.
00:05:26.000 | And I have forsaken all my self-reliance and I throw myself wholly on his mercy."
00:05:33.520 | I think of Isaiah 53, 5, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
00:05:40.280 | curse for us."
00:05:41.280 | Now that's Galatians 3, 13.
00:05:43.360 | And then here's Isaiah 53, "He was pierced for our transgressions.
00:05:47.640 | He was crushed for our iniquities.
00:05:49.960 | Upon him, upon him was the punishment that brought us peace.
00:05:55.040 | And with his wounds, we are healed."
00:05:56.760 | So yes, you should always be punished for your abortion.
00:06:03.160 | Own that guilt and then be gutsy and embrace the gospel.
00:06:08.760 | And that Christ bore our sins on his body, on the cross.
00:06:14.460 | And now in him, God is for me, not against me.
00:06:18.480 | I should be punished and I won't be punished.
00:06:23.520 | That's my response to that first comment.
00:06:25.080 | Here's the second one.
00:06:27.160 | I know I don't belong at church.
00:06:29.520 | I don't deserve to go.
00:06:32.600 | If the only people who belong at church are those who deserve to be with God's people
00:06:37.080 | in his presence, worshiping and growing in him, nobody would belong to church.
00:06:42.200 | Nobody would go to church.
00:06:43.720 | When Paul described the members of the church in Corinth, he listed their sins like this.
00:06:51.960 | The sexually immoral, the idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy
00:07:02.320 | drunkards, revilers, swindlers, none of them will inherit the kingdom of God.
00:07:09.080 | And such were some of you.
00:07:13.240 | But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord
00:07:17.040 | Jesus.
00:07:18.040 | The only people who belong in church are sinners who are washed and justified by faith.
00:07:27.160 | So no, you don't deserve to go to church.
00:07:31.160 | That's why you should go, because church is the one institution in the universe designed
00:07:39.040 | for people who don't deserve to be there.
00:07:41.560 | That's the meaning, that's the meaning of gospel churches.
00:07:46.920 | Number three, I'm disgusted with myself.
00:07:50.840 | Well that's fine.
00:07:52.800 | To look back on abortion and not be disgusted would be a sign of sickness.
00:07:58.360 | To see it with disgust is a sign of health.
00:08:02.040 | Unless there is gutsy disgust, you'll collapse.
00:08:07.920 | See, gospel disgust is not paralyzed.
00:08:13.080 | It gives up on self and walks into the power of grace.
00:08:18.920 | All of us are disgusting and we should not run from it, but through it into God's grace.
00:08:28.400 | Number four, I just hope that there's still hope for me.
00:08:34.160 | Good, because there is hope for you.
00:08:37.320 | Paul says in Romans 15, "For everything in the scriptures is written so that sinners
00:08:44.160 | might have hope."
00:08:46.680 | Hope is the one thing you can always be sure pleases the Lord.
00:08:53.040 | I love Psalm 147.11.
00:08:55.560 | The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.
00:09:02.600 | He loves people, he delights in people who turn away from themselves and hoping in the
00:09:08.880 | strength of the horse or the legs of a man and hope in him.
00:09:12.880 | Number five, hoping that there is hope is selfish.
00:09:20.200 | Well, it would be selfish if you just wanted to use God to get a relieved conscience.
00:09:29.720 | But if you want forgiveness because you want God, that's not selfish.
00:09:34.880 | That's what you were made for.
00:09:37.160 | And it honors God, not you.
00:09:39.000 | It honors God.
00:09:41.160 | God is glorified when you want to be satisfied in God.
00:09:46.760 | Number six, hoping that there's hope is unwarranted.
00:09:51.520 | No, that's false.
00:09:54.000 | That's just false.
00:09:56.640 | Hope is not unwarranted.
00:10:00.400 | It is infinitely warranted, but not by your goodness, but by the blood of Jesus.
00:10:09.360 | If you stand before God and hope to get into his presence with joy forever, and he says
00:10:17.320 | this, "What warrant can you have for hoping that I would receive you?"
00:10:24.600 | The answer is the blood and righteousness of your son.
00:10:31.200 | My Savior is my only warrant.
00:10:36.520 | That's true.
00:10:37.960 | There is no warrant for hope in us.
00:10:40.720 | There is infinite warrant in the blood of Jesus.
00:10:45.660 | So that's a false statement that your hope is unwarranted.
00:10:48.800 | It is not unwarranted.
00:10:50.320 | And here's the last statement.
00:10:52.880 | Does God want me and have good plans for me?
00:10:59.320 | And the answer is in the last chapter of the Bible, as though God wanted it to be the last
00:11:04.840 | thing ringing in our ears.
00:11:08.440 | Last chapter of the Bible, verse 17, Revelation 22.
00:11:12.400 | The Spirit and the bride say to you, "Come, and let the one who is thirsty come.
00:11:20.920 | Let the one who desires take the water of life without price."
00:11:26.560 | So if you're thirsty for God, he invites you.
00:11:29.400 | He wants you.
00:11:31.360 | And when you come to him, he has plans for you.
00:11:35.920 | Your life will not be wasted if you come to him.
00:11:42.440 | I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
00:11:45.840 | Plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
00:11:52.600 | Amen.
00:11:53.600 | Gutsy, gospel, guilt.
00:11:56.080 | This is so very relevant for every single listener of this podcast.
00:11:59.360 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that, and to the woman who was brave enough, really, to write
00:12:03.640 | it in and to share this story from her life.
00:12:07.320 | We thank you for asking this question and for being honest with how you worded what
00:12:12.840 | you're struggling with.
00:12:13.920 | This is the type of situation we address in the podcast.
00:12:15.960 | We deal with things honestly and with gospel hope.
00:12:19.640 | And of course, we publish three times a week.
00:12:21.120 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds to keep up with what we're talking about, and you
00:12:25.040 | can search our episode archive, even reach us by email with a difficult question you
00:12:28.560 | might be facing in life.
00:12:29.800 | You can do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:12:33.160 | Well, we're going to break for the weekend, and we return on Monday to look at 1 Corinthians
00:12:40.960 | chapter 7, verse 5.
00:12:42.800 | The passage says that a husband and wife should, quote, "not deprive one another except perhaps
00:12:47.960 | by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer."
00:12:52.600 | End quote.
00:12:54.080 | So a listener has a gutsy question from that passage.
00:12:57.800 | Does that mean that a sex life can intrude on our prayer life?
00:13:02.200 | You've asked the question, and it's worth taking a closer look.
00:13:05.200 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:06.200 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:13:07.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:13:16.380 | [ Silence ]