Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) believed the cannonball that broke his leg was essential to his spiritual awakening. For Martin Luther, it was the threat of lightning. What unites them is that they are part of a common Christian tradition that teaches an uncomfortable lesson: suffering sanctifies.

The stories can be found throughout Scripture and in every church on almost any day. We might wish that faith grew especially during prosperity, but the voice of faith says, “Jesus, help!” And those words come most naturally when we are weak and unable to manage on our own. Growth can be judged, in part, by the number of words we speak to our Lord, and we tend to speak more words when we are at the end of ourselves.

Suffering sanctifies. God tests us in order to refine us. This is true, and knowing this might help us face the inconveniences and challenges of everyday life. But this knowledge feels less satisfying in the face of the death of a child, betrayal by a loved one, or victimization that leaves you undone. Then the nexus between trouble and God’s sanctifying goodness can gradually give way to a relationship in which you and God seem to live in the same house, but you rarely acknowledge him.

We expect some types of sanctifying suffering, but not those sufferings that border on the unspeakable. When these come, the idea that they sanctify us may feel unhelpful. Though we might say to a friend who had a flat tire, “How is God growing you through that?” we know that we should never ask such a question to someone when “the waters have come up to my neck” (Psalm 69:1). The basic principle is true — God sanctifies us through suffering — but there are more elegant and personal ways to talk about it.

Sanctification Is Closeness

A more helpful approach first refreshes our understanding of sanctification.

Let’s begin with a common definition: sanctification is growth in obedience. The problem is when this definition drifts from its intensely personal moorings. As it does, suffering becomes God’s plan to make us better people — stronger, seasoned soldiers who don’t retreat after a mere flesh wound. All of this, of course, sounds suspiciously like a father who is preparing his children to move out and become independent, which is the exact opposite of what God desires for us. Left in this form, the principle that “suffering sanctifies” will erode faith.

Sanctification, of course, is much more intimate. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus died to draw us near to God, and our obedience serves that closeness. From this perspective, sin and any form of uncleanness distance us from God. Holiness, or sanctification, brings us closer.

Progressive Nearness

Think of the Old Testament tabernacle. The unclean, which included the foreign nations and those contaminated by the sins of others, were farthest from the place of God’s presence in the Most Holy Place. The clean were closer. They camped around God’s house and could freely come near to worship and offer sacrifices. The priests, however — the ones made holy — were closer still. They were invited daily, in turn, into the Holy Place, and, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest dared to enter the Most Holy Place. The high priest offers a picture of humanity as God intended — purified and close to him.

For us, we have been sanctified once for all by the obedience of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:10) and our faith in him. We now are holy ones. From that place, in the Most Holy Place, God invites us closer still, and our obedience and love for him are means by which we draw nearer. In his book on Leviticus, Michael Morales helpfully suggests progressive nearness as an alternative to progressive sanctification (Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?, 18).

This heavenly pattern of nearness through obedience overflows into the very fabric of marriage: a married couple has been brought near in their declarations of commitment to each other, and then, for the rest of their lives, they draw nearer still through their growth in covenant love.

Sovereignty Has Mysteries

With sanctification understood more personally, we turn to our understanding of God’s sovereignty. “Suffering sanctifies” suggests that God purposely brings suffering into our lives. He ordains every detail. This is true, but some ways of talking about God’s sovereignty can be misleading and miss the emphasis of Scripture.

“God’s sovereignty invites us to trust in our Father who will make everything right, even in creation itself.”

God’s sovereignty is not an invitation to make perfect sense of how his power and love coexist with every detail of our suffering. Instead, his sovereignty reminds us to approach him as children who trust their Father and his love. A child understands love, and God’s love is, indeed, a fathomless expanse that he welcomes us to explore. He gives help and wisdom as we consider, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

The most shameful abuse will not separate us from God, which is certainly counterintuitive when we feel like an outcast who is among the unclean. When we see him face-to-face, we will rest in (and even rejoice in) his righteous judgement against oppressors, and we will be thoroughly cleansed from the wicked acts done against us. In other words, God’s sovereignty invites us to trust in our Father who will make everything right, even in creation itself.

How Suffering Draws Us

So, how does suffering sanctify? How does God sanctify us in the midst of suffering?

In this way: with boundless compassion, God rushes to us. He comes close and enters into our burdens. He hears the cries of his people, which means that he will take action (Psalm 10:14). This is all true. Satan would have you think otherwise, but this is true.

“I am the suffering servant. Talk to me.” The Spirit invites you to see and hear Jesus, the suffering servant. The misery of a mysterious servant in Isaiah 52–53 foretells his story. The last week of Jesus’s life in John 10–21 reveals him most fully. In Jesus, you find a kindred spirit who knows your experience through his own. He understands you without you explaining the details. As you watch him, you will notice how the list of abuses against him gathered momentum every day. Perhaps you will be stunned by his universal rejection and shame.

“In Jesus, you find a kindred spirit who knows your experience through his own.”

Next, there is an unexpected turn. “He was pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), which is to say, for your transgressions. What does your sin have to do with your suffering? When Jesus took your sin, he assured you that nothing can separate you from the love of God, and he breached the wall of pain in which Satan, death, shame, sin, and misery dwelt. To this stronghold, Jesus announced their demise.

Then Jesus makes all this even more personal. He brings you closer. He invites you to speak to him. “Pour out your heart” (Psalm 62:8), he says. Prayer, of course, can be much more difficult than it sounds, so he gives you words to replace those unspeakable silences. When you read the Psalms, you can almost overhear Jesus ask you, “Is this how you feel?” His request that you speak to him is a sincere request, and he patiently waits for your words.

In response, you break your silence. Perhaps your words jar you, not because of their honesty but simply because your recent words to him have been so few.

“But how could evil have been given such liberty in my life? Why did you hide your face from me? How could you have allowed . . .” With these words, he has drawn you closer. They are expressions of your faith in God. You are being sanctified. You have listened to him. Unbelief turns away or simply rages; faith responds to God, presses in, and inquires, with words shaped by Scripture. Jesus himself has asked these very questions to his Father.

After more words back-and-forth, God invites you to grow as his child. “I am your God and Father. You can trust me.” He has given you evidence that he is trustworthy. He certainly will not forget you or the acts done against you (Isaiah 49:16). Do you believe? This is the truth.

He says, “Come closer, as my child, and trust me.” You respond, “Yes, I believe; help my unbelief. I trust you, but please give me more faith.”

This is one way suffering sanctifies: it brings us closer to God.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech. (1 Timothy 4:12)

My brother pastor, you don’t have to wait until your latter years to have the gravitas of a saint. Your personal moral authority can exceed your years. Right now, in the church where you are serving, you can cut a wide swathe of deserved, unforced influence — not by your position, or your charisma, or your cool, but by your exemplary conduct.

The power of personal example is what gives any pastor true stature in the people’s eyes. And you can be that inspiration even at your present age. No one can keep you from it. Indeed, the more some people might disparage you, the greater your opportunity for Christlike magnificence. Paul’s charge in 1 Timothy 4:12 opens that door to every young pastor.

The power of setting a mature example in your church has long-term inevitability built into it. People who ignore what you say might well be won by who you are. Your calm courage, your gentle restraint, your steady faithfulness, your cheerful resilience, your selfless love, and so forth — it becomes harder and harder to resist pastoral beauty, especially over time. In the movie The Intern, Jules, the boss, says to Ben, the intern, “How is it you always manage to say the right thing, do the right thing, be the right thing? It’s uncanny.” And when the younger man is that grownup in the room, it’s especially uncanny — and convincing. Yes, your preaching matters. And when the people listening to your sermon admire your life beyond the pulpit, your preaching will matter even more. Far more.

Set an Example in Speech

Let’s think through together the first mark of exemplary pastoral conduct in 1 Timothy 4:12. What does it look like to “set the believers an example in speech”?

For that matter, what does any seasoned, profound Christian man look and sound like? The Bible paints the picture: “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled” (Titus 2:2). So let’s connect Titus 2:2 with 1 Timothy 4:12 and see what happens. An exemplary pastor’s speech will sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.

Sober-Minded Speech

Sober-minded describes a mentality, a mindset — literally, sober as opposed to drunk. There is a real difference. In our times of crazy extremism, with even pastors building their “platforms” by making outlandish claims or enlarging their following through grandiose denunciations, the exemplary pastor soberly refuses. He has no stomach for the intoxicating euphoria of being oh-so-right on all the issues.

“When this pastor speaks, it can feel like Jesus is in the room.”

The mature pastor, however young, is distinguished by moderation. He is calmly restrained in his speech. He builds unity because he isn’t drawing people’s attention to his “brand”; he is honestly serving the Lord, gathering people to the only Savior (Luke 11:23). He is not self-referential. He does not vent. He avoids words with sharp edges, words that cut and injure. He has the self-awareness to pray before he opens his mouth, “Lord, may my every word, without a single exception, be of you.” And it shows. When this pastor speaks, it can feel like Jesus is in the room.

The mature pastor’s sober-minded speech isn’t about this or that particular issue. His whole mentality sets him apart as Christlike. Sadly, in some churches, that will be the pastor’s crime. Some churches do not want Jesus, his ways, his humility. Until our Lord returns, there will be church people who dig in against the presence of Christlikeness. Despite, or even because of, the exemplary conduct of the pastor, a church might reject him, casting him out. But they will know — eventually, they will surely know — that a man of God was in their midst.

God will vindicate his true-hearted servant, who speaks with the mind of Christ. And the younger that pastor is, the more years he will have to enjoy the smile of God upon his ministry. Our Lord is faithful to his pastors who, setting their whole souls on following him, keep their speech exemplary.

Dignified Speech

I love this word dignified. It describes the kind of man I want to be. The word is talking about gravitas. It suggests nobility and honor, like a chivalrous knight of old.

Dignified speech is the opposite of glib, shallow, and silly. Are there humorous moments in a healthy church? Yes. The Lord himself makes sure that our ridiculousness shows through now and then. Truly hilarious things can happen, and the saints throw their heads back and roar with the most wonderful laughter. Such grace!

“Dignified speech is the opposite of glib, shallow, and silly.”

And of course, an exemplary pastor will never be pompous or tedious, dragging people down with fakey seriousness. He is too human and too real for that. But he understands what Neil Postman explained in Amusing Ourselves to Death: “Americans no longer talk to each other; they entertain each other” (92). And a pastor truly called by God knows he is not in the entertainment business. So his words carry weight. His dignified words stand out with especially sacred gravitas at Holy Communion, at weddings and funerals, at prayer meetings, and when he counsels brokenhearted people.

How precious, in this world of giggly cuteness saturating the media 24/7, are profound pastoral words gently offered to sinners and sufferers! When a young man shows that he is sensitive to the dignity the moment calls for, his people will revere him as exemplary.

Self-Controlled Speech

With the word self-control, we’re thinking of the qualities of reason, judgment, taste — just plain old solid thinking and good sense. Not impulsive or erratic, but careful and judicious. Not barfing out whatever comes to mind at the moment, but pausing and thinking and showing discernment.

For example, in a difficult congregational meeting, an exemplary pastor guards himself from speaking out of his own frustration and calls silently upon the Lord for the grace to speak out of the fullness of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God is not raw energy. He is “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel . . . the Spirit of knowledge” (Isaiah 11:2). An inspiring pastor knows to slow down, inhale, and think — until he has something to say that can make the moment better for everyone. That pastor, even if young, will be taken seriously by church members of all ages.

God-Given Words

Here is a wonderful promise from God for every pastor who longs to grow as an example to his people of speech that is sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled:

If you call out for insight,     and raise your voice for understanding,if you seek for it like silver     and search for it as for hidden treasures . . .wisdom will come into your heart,     and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. (Proverbs 2:3–4, 10)

The wisdom all of us pastors need is not a script we can follow. It is deeper. It is a God-given intuition, a new instinct that comes into our hearts by his grace. And it sure comes in handy when we’re deciding on the fly what to say and how to say it. Why not ask God for it? He loves to give us his best.

Finally, if you want to follow up with a next step, here are two resources of rich historical depth. One is The Westminster Larger Catechism on the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). Questions 143–145 of the Catechism explain that commandment with amazing insight, helping us use our words not to injure but to bless one another. The other resource is “A Sermon against Contention and Brawling” in The First Book of Homilies, the old treasure chest of sermons from Reformation England.

In our age of words doing great harm, both on social media and face to face, this old Presbyterian wisdom in the Catechism, with this old Anglican wisdom in the Homily, can equip and strengthen all of us today. Maybe your church’s leadership team would benefit from reading and discussing these wonderful resources. I promise you will enjoy them.

Audio Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to this special episode of the podcast. I just returned home from Brazil. There we launched my new technology book in Portuguese at a conference hosted by our friends at Fiel. In fact, I discovered that thousands of Brazilians listen regularly to this podcast. There’s even a Portuguese version of APJ. So hello to all of you listening right now. It was a delight to meet so many of you in Atibaia, and to receive your gratitude for APJ, which you wanted me to pass along to Pastor John, which I do now. So on behalf of at least the hundreds of Brazilian Christians that I met, thank you, Pastor John, for your decade-long investment in this podcast.

While I was in Brazil, big news broke here in the States. Roe v. Wade has been overturned by the Supreme Court. On Friday, the SCOTUS ruling was made official. We knew it was coming. Back on May 2, a draft opinion of the decision was leaked. I texted you immediately when that news broke, Pastor John. That’s now official. Roe was overruled Friday, on June 24.

This is not the end of abortion. This simply turns the legal status of abortion back to individual states. The work of defending the unborn is far from over. Discerning Christians will continue to ask, “What should Christians be doing?” Our work is urgent. And our work is now more local. So it might be helpful for our listeners to know something of what you have done, Pastor John, over the past four decades. As the work continues, what has been your answer to the question “What should I do?” How have you answered that question in your own life and ministry?

Well, I don’t see myself as the ideal pro-life person because I am fallible. I am sinful. There are things I’ve left undone in the last forty years. Things could have been done better. But as you and I have reflected on this, and as I’ve thought about my own life, looking at imperfect examples has often proved very helpful, very inspiring to me in my Christian walk. So I will go ahead and venture to say some things that I’ve done, imperfect though they have been. And hope that they will be a help to others. So here are the sorts of things that I’ve done in the last forty years or so, and I think they are the sorts of things that will probably need to be done now for years to come, long after I’m gone.

Thirteen Pro-Life Efforts

Beginning in 1987, I preached at least one explicitly pro-life message every year — with, I think, two exceptions along the way in my pastoral trek — until my stepping away from pastoral leadership in 2013. The last one I preached was January 2021 because the church invited me back for that Sunday. It was called “Doing the Right Thing Never Ruins Your Life.” I looked at it the other day, and I’m really persuaded that message is super important. It’s there at Desiring God. That’s about 25 morning messages on Sanctity of Life Sunday over my pastoral life. I recall the very first pro-life sermon I preached was from James 4:2: “You desire and do not have, so you murder.” I still think that text is one of the most penetrating biblical texts about the origin of abortion in the Bible.

Second, I tried to spread those messages by putting a few of them in a little book called Exposing the Dark Work of Abortion, which I think is free at Desiring God. Then when Desiring God came into existence in the mid-1990s, we put all these sermons online, where they are today.

Third, I wrote articles for Desiring God and for other outlets. The one that I think is still about the most helpful is “Fifteen Pro-Life Truths to Speak,” which I think is available there at Desiring God.

Fourth, since we started this podcast ten years ago, there are at least ten episodes related to abortion.

Fifth, I love to write poetry about the things that move me — and I mean move me positively and move me negatively. I’ve written two relating to the pro-life cause. One is called “It?” about a young woman who goes in for an abortion and they keep referring to her baby as “it.” Then after the procedure, she lifts up her head and sees this little tiny torso on the tray and notices it’s unmistakably female. And this overwhelmed her. This is not an “it.” This was not an “it.” Experiences like that, hearing things like that, have moved me over the years to write poetry about the cause of life.

Sixth, I’ve tried to pray and lead our people in praying against the sin of child-killing and for the spiritual miracles that will have to happen in people’s lives so that it is overcome in what they want, not just what they do.

Seventh, I mobilized our people to be part of major rallies, and I participated in them myself, like the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) rally at the capitol here in Minnesota every year. Usually, it’s below zero. It’s just absolutely unforgettable to march with five thousand or ten thousand other people when the wind is howling and everybody is bundled up like Eskimos, and you’re walking in the cause of prayerful support for the opposition to child-killing in this country.

Eighth, there was a season of about three years where I was part of direct action and civil disobedience, sitting in front of abortion clinics to block the way into the place of death. I was arrested several times and spent one night in jail.

Ninth, I encouraged and shared in sidewalk counseling, where you simply stand peacefully outside abortion clinics and offer literature and conversation to anyone entering, in the hopes that perhaps one last obstacle to overcome would help and might change their minds.

Tenth, I took an abortionist doctor out to lunch. This is one of the most memorable things in my life. I felt so inauthentic not dealing directly with abortionists. So I found a way to contact a local abortionist doctor about four blocks from my house. I took him out to lunch. I told him, “I’m a local pastor. I’m pro-life. I want to understand you. Would you go out to lunch?” And he was willing. I went with my ten points to make the case that he was killing children. And he disarmed me immediately by saying, “I know I’m killing children. It’s the lesser of two evils. The other evil,” he said, “is that it’s unjust that men can have sex and bear no consequences, but women can have sex and have to bear all the consequences. That’s unjust. Killing the child is the solution to that injustice.” He really was unbelievably honest with me. He said, “I wouldn’t be doing it except my wife pressures me to do it. She believes it’s the path of justice.”

Eleventh, I give financially, regularly, to several pro-life organizations.

Twelfth, while I was a pastor, I tried to cultivate a life-affirming culture, which included things like a strong, positive view of adoption as a beautiful and normal thing, and a strong ministry to the disabled to combat any notion that it would have been better if they’d been aborted. I tried to encourage the most pro-life-engaged people so that they didn’t feel like they were marginal in this church, but crucial. And generally, I tried to create the atmosphere that this church community is unashamedly pro-life and anti-abortion, without any fear that this would have offensive effects on some people. I’m sure those people just migrated to other churches where this issue was completely neglected. And that was sad. I would rather have them change their mind. But we weren’t going to mute this crucial reality.

And finally — and this may be the most important thing, Tony — we did not turn the church into a political or social think tank or action group for the sake of any earthly cause, including the cause of pro-life. For the sake of preserving the power and effectiveness of our prophetic witness, we did not make the pro-life cause the main thing. The main thing is the glory of God — and under the glory of God, the salvation of sinners from the wrath of God through the glorious substitutionary work of Jesus Christ dying for sinners on the cross. The glory of God — shining through the salvation of sinners by the blood of Jesus — is the main thing.

Far greater than the danger of abortion is the danger of hell. Rescuing people for eternal life is more crucial and more loving than rescuing babies from abortion. In other words, we care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. I think it is precisely this maintenance of spiritual proportion that keeps in clear view that our citizenship is in heaven, and we’re rescuing lost people as we wait for our Savior. That spiritual proportion, that maintenance of spiritual priority and proportion, is what gave us Christian credibility over decades in the cause of life, rather than simply sinking down to the level of being a world-oriented band of do-gooders.

“The aim for us is not just the end of abortion, but the eternal joy of forgiven sinners.”

We are Christians before we are pro-life. We are Christ-exalting before we are life-exalting. We want to save souls, the souls of mothers and fathers, as much as we want to save the bodies of the babies. The aim for us is not just the end of abortion, but the eternal joy of forgiven sinners.

Unknown Future

Amen. You’ve been in the fight against abortion for a very long time. So now the court has effectively struck down Roe v. Wade, making it possible for states to legally protect the unborn. Many states are doing that very thing right now. So what’s your own reaction to the SCOTUS decision and this most recent news?

I am thankful. And the reason I am thankful is mainly because this was the right thing to do. A federal law that prevents the legal protection of children from being killed is an evil law. An evil law has been in place for fifty years. It is a good thing that the evil law is gone, and I am thankful to God — thankful to God in his glorious providence — that it is gone.

If someone says to me — which I thought they might, so I say it — “Aren’t you thankful, John, because lives are going to be saved? You seem distressed. ‘It’s the right thing.’ Aren’t you thankful that lives are going to be saved?” My answer is that I hope they are, and I will be thankful if they are. But there are too many variables at play here for me to know what is really going to happen in America as far as the loss of life goes.

For all I know, we may be entering an era of such visceral rage, and coldness of love, and multiplication of wickedness — both on the right and on the left — that a civil war right here in America could take hundreds of thousands of lives. It happened just 160 years ago. The issue of killing millions of children is as explosive as the horrors of slavery.

Or another upshot could be, over the next ten or twenty years, that the morning-after pill — or some new pill for weeks after or months after — becomes so cheap, so effective, so free from side effects, that abortions may double, triple, quadruple in their frequency over what they are now, with no need for Planned Parenthood at all. I don’t know whether that’s going to happen or not. It could.

Or another possible scenario is that this kind of freedom from consequences of pregnancy unleashes a new tidal wave of premarital sex, and some new lethal strain of venereal disease arises with hundreds of thousands of young people dying every year. That’s an easy possibility.

In other words, I don’t know. I don’t know if the overturning of Roe v. Wade will save lives. I hope so. I pray so. It was absolutely the right thing to do, whether more lives are saved or not. But the wickedness afoot in America is very deep. Where it will take us as a culture, I do not know.

Lives are destroyed by sin. Abortion, whether with suction or a pill, is only one kind of sin that destroys life. There are so many more. Over 100,000 people, for example, just recently now are dying every year from drug overdoses. And most of those people are not people on the street anymore; they’re middle-class opioid users who can’t find meaning in life. There will, I don’t doubt, arise other new ways of destroying ourselves as wickedness multiplies.

New Birth Needed

Yeah, the dark side of our potent technologies, amplifying our self-destructiveness. And this leads to my last question as we wrap up this special episode. I heard you say recently, in a meeting, that the real post-Roe challenge will not be how to make abortions hard to get, but how to make them hard to approve of in the human heart. Explain that. What did you mean?

I meant that the main battle for human righteousness is not fought at the level of human behavior but at the level of human desire. Jesus said in Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

“An evil law is gone, and I am thankful to God in his glorious providence.”

Now, at least four of those sins relate directly to abortion. “Murder”: that’s what abortion is. “Adultery and sexual immorality”: at least 85 percent of abortions are owing to sexual immorality, because 83 percent of abortions are done on single women, not counting the cases of rape and incest. Those women and their boyfriends sinned by having sex, which God has protected by putting it in the happy bounds of covenant-keeping marriage. “False witness”: that too comes from the heart, and the entire abortion industry is built on false witness — namely, that the unborn are not human persons.

We can build legal dams to keep the river of sin that pours out of the human heart from flooding the world with actual behaviors like abortion. And that’s a good thing; that’s a good thing to build those dams with laws. That’s what all good laws do — they make it harder for the sinful heart to overflow in outward crimes. That just happened with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. It was a good thing.

But we should remember that if the river of sin that flows from the human heart is simply dammed up, and nothing changes the heart, that river is going to build behind the dam until the reservoir is so deep and so heavy that no legal dam, no mere law, can hold it back. And a tidal wave of wickedness will overflow the land.

So what I meant — and I’m thinking of Christians now, especially pastors — is that’s our job: preaching to change those hearts. That’s our job: to portray the glories of Jesus Christ so clearly, with such spiritual power, that people will see and their hearts will be changed. Second Corinthians 3:18 describes that miracle. It says, “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed . . . from one degree of glory to another.” Our main job is not new laws, good as they may be, but new hearts. That’s our main job. If that doesn’t happen, new laws will collapse under the pressure of unchanged hearts. It’s only a matter of time.

But even that way of saying it bothers me. It skews the reality in an unbiblical direction. It gives the impression that we want to change hearts mainly to preserve good laws. That’s not the main reason. The main reason, to quote Jesus in John 3:3, is this: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Without a Christ-exalting heart change, people perish. We perish.

It is a loving thing to work for good laws. It is more loving to help people enter the kingdom of God. The overturning of Roe v. Wade will have its greatest effect if its limitations give life to the Christian truth “you must be born again” (John 3:7).