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Suppose you are fifty-two years old. Sixteen years earlier you adopted a daughter. She was nine. Both her parents were dead. You couldn’t know all the circumstances of her birth and life. But you believed with all your heart you were doing the right thing. God’s glorious, Father-like grace, you knew, would shine in this. And so you took her into your home.

Now at age twenty-five, your daughter is single, has a child, has aborted four children, and is pregnant again. And suppose that now in her sin and despair, she has one last abortion by committing suicide. And there you are, in the rubble of your dreams for her, grandparents now facing the choice of becoming parents of your grandchild. And again, you believe, deep in your bones, that is the right thing to do. And you do it, embracing the child in whom the effects of trauma radically change your life again. Forever.

That’s a true situation, and a handful of you know who I’m talking about. One of the reasons that I start with that story is to make clear at the outset that the ripple effect of abortion goes far beyond a woman with an unintended pregnancy, or a husband, or a boyfriend, or a moment in life. The ripple effect goes for years and years, and cuts through extended families and friends in ways nobody can predict.

Another reason I start with this story is to make plain that what I’m about to say is designed not only to prevent hundreds of abortions, but also to bring hope and stability — indeed, serious, tear-stained joy — to those of you who have done the right thing for Jesus’s sake, and paid dearly.

To read the rest of this sermon click here.

desiringGod, Doing the Right Thing Never Ruins Your Life. January 24, 2021. John Piper. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/doing-the-right-thing-never-ruins-your-life