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Acceptable Religion
1993 Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
Sermon Outline
By
Gary L. Thomas
James 1:27: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Introduction
We are looking at James 1:27 through the lens of how it applies to one of the most controversial issues of our day - the sanctity of human life. Though James was not thinking of abortion when he wrote this verse, he certainly laid down some principles that will point a way out of the stalemate that our country is in.
The stalemate has arisen because the two sides, prolife and prochoice, or antiabortion and proabortion, whichever you prefer to call them, have often pitted mother against child, and urged us to choose between the two. This is a false dichotomy. Scripture points to another way, a way in which we do not have to choose between a mother and a child, a way in which we can love them both.
I. Acceptable Religion "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless..."
Perhaps you've heard of "Dalmatian theology," accepting the Bible "in spots." There is also Dalmatian religion: accepting a spot of this faith, and a spot of that faith. And I'm not just talking about false religions like Ba'hai that ostensibly try to incorporate every religion; we have our own Christianized versions of accepting a spot of this teaching and a spot of that teaching; emphasizing this, and emphasizing that.
The problem with this approach is that it bases everything on our opinion. James completely circumvents such relativism by emphasizing a religion that is acceptable to God our Father. This implies that there is religion that is not acceptable to God. Now, James is not attempting to give the final, stand-alone definition of Christianity in this one verse. But he is saying that, while acceptable religion may involve more than what he mentions here, it can certainly never involve less.
James urges us to seek a religion that is pure (true) and faultless (undefiled). These words speak of authenticity - an undefiled faith, purely passed down, without adulteration, without pollution. In fact, the purity and faultlessness mentioned in the first half of this verse stand in direct opposition to the pollution of the world in the latter half of this verse.
But let us read on so that we can see how James defines a religion that is acceptable to God - that is, one that is "pure" and "faultless."
II. Religion with Hands and Feet "...look after orphans and widows in their distress..."
Religion that is acceptable to God is religion that has hands and feet. Now, again, it may involve more than this, but it cannot involve less. The NIV translates episkeptesthai as "to look after." The King James and Revised Standard versions translate it as, "to visit." The Good News Bible translates is as, "to take care." The reason I've mentioned all these translations is because together, they pretty much get it right. It's more than visiting and it's more than taking care of; literally, it's to visit in order to help. It's taking the initiative to go to someone who needs our assistance.
The Early church actively addressed legitimate social concerns (Acts 6:1ff; 9:39; 1 Tim. 5:3). This was in keeping with Old Testament exhortations to care for the needy (Deut. 14;28,19; 16:11; 26:12). The witness of the Early church has in turn been carried on for the almost 2,000 years. William Booth, for example, founder of the Salvation Army, described his work this way: "We will wash (our money) in the tears of widows and orphans and lay it on the altar of humanity."
In looking at this verse as it might apply to the life issues facing us today, it is interesting that the two groups James charges us with looking after are single (widowed) women and parentless children (orphans). The church is not called to choose between the two, but to love them both. Truly, the most God-honoring solution to the abortion problem today is a solution in which both the mother and child are ministered to, not pitted against each other in a battle of rights.
If a child becomes an orphan, James asks the church to care for that child. If a woman loses her husband, James asks the church to take care of her. The practical implications for the abortion issue are obvious. If both mother and father abandon their child, even an unborn child, it is the church's responsibility to present an alternative and to speak up for that child. If a man abandons a pregnant woman, the church must step in and take responsibility.
Just before founding the Nurturing Network, a ministry to pregnant women, Mary Cunningham Agee surveyed one hundred women who had recently undergone an abortion. She found that 91 percent of the women surveyed would have preferred to find an alternative to abortion if one had been available. Ninety-one percent. This leads us to believe that most abortions are caused by women who feel socially "widowed" - abandoned either by the father society, and forced to face a difficult situation alone. This in turn leads to "orphaned" unborn children. The father turns away from the mother and the mother turns away from the child. The unborn child has no one to speak up for him or her, and the tragic result is often an abortion.
Notice, now, that James urges us to "visit in order to help." That is, James urges us to take the initiative. We are not called to minister to people only if they approach us. On the contrary, we are to go to them and offer our ministry.
We can do this by offering alternatives through a local crisis pregnancy center, becoming a sheltering church, and volunteering time for prolife efforts. When we take a stand against abortion, we are taking a stand for women as well - we will support them, encourage them, and help them when help is needed, enabling them to do what most of them want to do: keep their babies alive until they are ready to be born. We will do this because Scripture calls us to do this.
III. Worldly Pollution "...keep oneself from being polluted by the world"
The threat to life today goes beyond the threat represented by abortion, however. In many ways, abortion is merely a symptom of a society that has devalued life and glorified death. How do we do this? We could mention the sickening "slasher" movies, glorifying blood, murder and the wanton wastage of human life. Some people might say, "It's only a movie; people aren't really being killed," but to that I answer, "Maybe so, but death is really being glorified; gore and murder are really being sensationalized; human life is really being cheapened."
The entertainment industry is just one segment of our society. Death is on the march politically, as well. Virtually every year for the next decade you can expect to see at least one state voting on a bill that will allow doctors to kill their patients. These bills will be given euphemistic names, such as the "Right to Die Act" or the "Death with Dignity Initiative," but whatever you call them, the result will be the same if they are passed: legally sanctioned killing.
This morning, as we affirm the sanctity of human life, we must denounce the pollution of the world that glorifies death. We serve a God who proclaims life, not death. We serve a God who opposes death, who Himself died so that we could live. On the cross Christ did not glorify death, He affirmed life.
Proverbs 8:36 says, "all who hate me love death." Compare this with James' own words in 4:4: "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." When we surround ourselves with the world's pollution, when we accept the world's values, we become enemies of God.
Now, many may try to use the world's approval as a justification for their acts. We have our one and a half million abortions performed every year in the United States, and an additional 100,000 performed annually in Canada. We might be tempted to use this as a defense: With so many people choosing abortion, can it really be wrong?
Yes, it can! And it is. Exodus 23:2 says, "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong." If anything, the world's approval should cause us as Christians to be suspicious, not complacent!
The choice is clear: a religion that God finds acceptable, that God declares pure and faultless, or a worldly religion that glorifies death and tries to make us believe that death, including abortion, is a "solution." Which will we choose today?
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