To bear the wrath of God in our place. To become for us a righteousness that God would honor as the basis of our acceptance. The most important thing that could happen this morning in this room is not that anyone become prolife, but that everyone be justified before God by faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified and risen. But I speak mainly to believers this morning and the aim of the believer s life in Christ, as a justified, forgiven, accepted child of God, is to become, in attitude and practice, what we are in Christ Jesus. So I want to urge us, because of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and for the glory of God, to greater and greater passion and sacrifice and love in the cause of life born and unborn, male and female, mother and father, temporal and eternal.
Eternal life is more important than temporal life.
But the effect of really believing that we have eternal life in Christ is that we spend ourselves in this life not maximizing our comforts here, but showing his love here especially for the weak and helpless. If someone says, Let s concern ourselves with eternal life, not with doing justice for the weak and the fatherless, they don t have the spirit of Jesus. The hope of eternal life is to make us aliens and exiles here doing as much justice and love as we can, not comfortable citizens here who live as if heaven had arrived. Well, I have gotten carried away from our text. I will try to address the issue of slavery in our racial harmony seminar in coming Wednesday nights.