Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Cornerstone and welcome to our online audience as well.

I'm going to suspend our study through the Gospel of Luke just for today. We're going to carry on with it next Sunday, Lord willing.

But instead, this morning, I felt led to teach on this subject of life, on this sanctity of human life Sunday.

On January the 22nd, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion across this country

in the Roe v. Wade decision.

11 years after that, President Ronald Reagan issued the first proclamation declaring the third Sunday or the fourth, whatever is closest to January 22nd, as the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. And for the last 38 years since then,

we have been honoring and talking about the importance of life on the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.

Now, normally I will at least mention it,

but rarely have I devoted the teaching time like I'm going to today

to this subject of the Sanctity of Human Life.

But I felt led to do it for three reasons.

Number one, I don't think the church has always done a good job

navigating this sensitive and controversial

subjects like abortion, like same-sex marriage, like gender dysphoria.

And I think the reason why the church hasn't done the best job navigating these sensitive topics

is because either some churches lean into the compassion and love and grace for people

and in the process often denied the truth of God's word on the topic in an effort

to care about people or or the church has really leaned into the truth of the Bible on a topic

and denied people the kind of love and compassion and grace that they need

in an effort to be right. And my question is, why can't it be both? Why can't, on the topic of

abortion, we talk with grace towards women and what I call the forgotten fathers affected by abortion.

And at the same time, also talk about truth.

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