A True Religion: Loving Life

September 7th, 2025

This week we are taking a break from the genealogy of Matthew because next Saturday, 8/13/25, our church is participating in the Love Life Prayer Walk, an event sponsored by the Love Life ministry. In response, Pastor Ben shares how the elements of true religion in James’ epistle compels us to act.

The Love Life ministry desires to mobilize churches and bring awareness to the realities of abortion in our area. It's a walk of prayer, and not a walk of loud protest. It's a walk that is engaging in a spiritual battle in a spiritual way, first and foremost, through prayer itself.  We will show up at the gravel parking lot by the Greenway in Raleigh, where we'll all gather together and have a word or two, a charge. We might sing a song, then walk together up the sidewalk to where the abortion clinic is located. There's a roundabout of sorts across from the abortion clinic, a big green area under trees that provide shade.  In that area we'll be led in different segments of prayer. We'll get into groups and pray, much like a Sunday Night Prayer Service we have each month. We will be praying along the sidewalk.

The question has been asked and rightly so:  Why are we now participating in a ministry like this, when in the past we, as a church, we haven't really been this active? While we have been supportive of local ministries, such as I Choose (a crisis pregnancy center which we continue to support), we have not gone to this extent in our actions. So, where is this change in activity coming from?  The answer is: Conviction, based upon information and understanding of Scripture. Earlier this year we participated in a walk called 4000 steps, which is confusing because they use the word “walk”, but it’s not necessarily a walk. During our participation in this we were given statistics about our area that were striking.

As leaders, we began prayerfully considering who God is, and His sovereignty. In the last seven years, we have been through the books of Ephesians, John, Romans, and Habakkuk. Now we're in the book of Matthew.  If there's anything that's clear out of all of those texts of Scripture, it is that God is absolutely sovereign and over everything that He does. Given that, and the reality of what's happening in our area, I believe that there's a call for us to be more involved.

Here are the stark statistics:

• In 2020 there were over 30,000 abortions performed in North Carolina, and those included abortions for those who live out-of-state.
  • In contrast to North Carolina, South Carolina has stricter abortion laws, where there were only a little over 5400 abortions.

• Since 2020, abortions in North Carolina have increased over 45%, from 31,850 to almost 45,940.
  • This is clinician provided abortions, which does not include self- managed procedures (e.g. the abortion pill), which is changing the entire landscape of the abortion industry now that you can buy a pill on Amazon instead of going to a clinic. The church is going to have to prayerfully consider what our response and our responsibility should be regarding that problem.

• In 2023 around 35% of the abortions (nearly 16,000 cases) were for women who were coming to North Carolina from out of state because of stricter abortion laws in those states.
  • What that statistic means is that our area is now a regional hub for abortions. It's at our back door. This includes Raleigh, Charlotte, and other NC clinics (Durham, Chapel Hill).

• For every 5 births in North Carolina, there's 1.1 abortions.

• Planned Parenthood, which exists right here in Raleigh, aborts a baby every 78 seconds (nationally).

• Nearly half the women in our country will have an abortion in their lifetime, and many will multiple abortions.    

This is a critical moment for the church, because these are not just figures. These are human lives. These are babies without a voice.  When you understand the darkness that surrounds the murder of children, and you understand the reality of where we're positioned nationally and how our numbers compare nationally, God has sovereignly placed us in one of the darkest regions of our nation. We know from the study of Scripture that we live in this time and in this place not by chance, but by design.  God has placed Southside Church in this area, with the expectation that we, at a minimum, are to be involved by prayer, as well as to come alongside ministries who are striving in their own way to try and stamp out abortion.  The church needs to look at this, not as the unforgivable sin (which is blasphemy) but a sin from which one can have repentance, recovery, and reconciliation with the Lord.  These statistics also mean that there's half the women in our country that need the gospel, and the ministry of the gospel, as North Carolina has become one of the darkest places in our region.

God has placed us here, and I believe He's done it intentionally. Again, if we understand Scripture, we understand that this is not new either. God has always done this with His church. When you think about the churches of Corinth and Ephesus, they were placed strategically. If you look at the churches in Rome, they were rescuing babies from trash heaps as people would discard them. The church would come alongside these babies to take them in and raise them. God never places His people for their comfort. He places them for His mission. And this is what brought me to James chapter one for our text.

For context, James is writing this epistle, and as he writes, he's confronting what he sees as worthless religion, empty religion, false religion, or religion that is all outward observance but one lacking the inward reality of the heart. This empty religion is busy with activity in worship services and programs, as well as safe activities such as food pantries, but are activities that miss the heart of worship. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul refers to this as religion that appears godly but is actually one that denies power, and one that denies that God can actually work and move in a way that shows His miraculous hand in this world.  The problem, then, is an absence of true religion. We hold activity and tradition highly, but they often lack transformation, and even love and affection. That is, instead, false religion. James writes with utmost clarity as to what true religion is.

As we look at this idea in light of our Prayer Walk coming up, it's really important for us to understand what we're doing, and why we do what we do, not because this is what Christians do, or that it’s something that might look good. Instead, we expose ourselves to things like this that might be scary. In doing so, we need to be informed, and I think that that information comes from the foundation of a true understanding of what true religion really is. Looking at religion itself, as James uses it, we see that it's faith working itself out in love. It's the embodiment of what we believe. It's the expression of belief. You could say it's the fruit of what you believe. The questions to ask yourself as we approach the text are:

• What kind of religion do I have?

• What does my life prove? Does my life prove that I have the religion that I think according to Scripture, which is true religion, or do I actually have false religion?

In James 1:27, then, James, coupled with the power of the Holy Spirit, will help us understand where we stand as far as our religion. We must remember that this is written to believers: “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

1. True Religion is Devotion (v.27a)

First of all, James states that true religion begins with devotion: “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father…”. As we think about the book of James, it’s helpful to remember who James is, and the context. Galatians 1:19 says he's the half-brother of Jesus. Acts 15 states that he was the leader of the Jerusalem church, and that he's best known for his piety. In fact, Josephus calls him “James the Just” because of his piety. This letter is written to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion, or Jewish Christians that were scattered throughout Palestine because of the persecution that began to happen in Acts 12:1-3. We see that, about that time Herod the King (Herod of Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great) had racked up debt against Rome resulting in imprisonment. Following this imprisonment, he was released and installed as the ruler of northern Palestine. While there “…he laid hands on them who belonged to the church in order to harm them.

Why would he do this? For one, he wanted to be back in good relationship with Rome. He also noticed that while he did this the Jewish people responded positively, and he leaned into it in order to repair that relationship. He also had James, the brother of John, put to death by the sword, and, when he saw it pleased the Jews, he also proceeded to arrest Peter. By this point, Stephen had already been martyred, as indicated back in Acts 7.

There had been a long time of building momentum of persecution, which is why James writes in his letter that the persecution was growing within the Christian community. They were facing hostility, poverty, death, and all kinds of horrific things. They were scattered geographically like sheep, but they were also being scattered spiritually, which James noticed in the church. They were tempted in their loyalty to the Lord and they were wavering in their devotion to God because they were tempted to be compromising with what the world was pleased with or agreeable to. That increasing persecution brought with it, then, spiritual instability into the church.

James, in chapter 1, tells them that they can't be double minded. They can't have fresh and salt water out of the same fountain. The believers were torn there between living for God and living like the world.  He challenges them to be doers of the word, not just hearers only. Don't just come in, sit and listen to the teaching, then walk back out and join up with the world and begin living like the world, or excuse the world, or tolerate the world. This is what he was addressing.

In the church, social divisions and materialism had crept in. That's why in Chapter 2, he said to stop showing partiality to the rich, the men with the gold rings. Don't let them sit in the front while pushing the poor people to the back. In the community, the people saw that wealth had status and a comfort that was attractive. They started running after that because they wanted that security instead of security in Christ. We see that in chapter 5 of James where they began to oppress their own brothers in the church.  He says in chapter 5,” Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields—that which has been withheld by you—cries out against you…” (James 5:4) There's no generosity. There was this moral compromise that was settling in, and it was happening internally and externally.

James is watching this happen inside the church, while outwardly appearing to be righteous. Therefore, he writes to these people trying to correct what he sees within the church. He writes like the prophet Amos, in James 5:5. “You have lived luxuriously on the earth and lived in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a DAY OF SLAUGHTER.” The wealthy of the church in James’ time were feasting while watching the poor starve: “Those who lay down on beds of ivory And sprawl on their couches And eat lambs from the flock And calves from the midst of the stall,  Who improvise to the sound of the harp, And like David have composed songs for themselves, Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls While they anoint themselves with the first pick of the oils, Yet they have not grieved over the destruction of Joseph Therefore, they will now go into exile among the first of the exiles, And the sprawlers’ banqueting will turn aside.” (Amos 6:4-7). James’ desire, like Amos, was to turn the church back. He sees this testing, and he's seeing that the testing isn't necessarily producing the steadfastness and the righteousness that it should.  He addresses that in chapter 1. He sees that the hearing is not equaling the doing, the faith is not equaling the works, and the humility is not equaling exaltation.  His concern, then, is that they have substituted a show of devotion for true religion. And this was burdening the heart of James.

James says true religion isn't looking religious… It's about being wholly devoted to God on the inside. It's pure: kathara (pure, unmixed, sincere). It means opposite of the double- mindedness that he addressed in 1:8. It's a mind split between trusting in God and His word versus trusting in your own efforts and the world's philosophies. The word picture that James has given us is like somebody who's trying to step onto a boat from a pier. It’s difficult, because one is sliding away from the other, and you're going to end up falling in. For example:

• When we say we trust God, we affirm things like life is sacred and marriage is holy and wealth is a gift, and words matter. We say these things, we agree to these things, yet we remain silent and absent from the public square on issues like abortion because it's messy.

• We ignore sexual and emotional sin, even in our own marriages or even in our own families, even in our own children, because we don't know how to address it, and it looks like it would be difficult. We pray that God just works it out.

• We chase materialism and comfort and financial status and we neglect the needy and we neglect generosity. We give out of excess, and we say that that's giving to the Lord, but that's not sacrifice.

• We participate in gossip and slander and give excuse to our outrage. We accept patterns of selfishness in our own relationships instead of addressing them.

James has already pointed to purity earlier in verse 5, and he tethers purity to the wisdom of God.  He says he's going to echo it again in in James 4:8, where he says our hearts are double minded. He's pulling all of these things together to show that it's God's Word that's going to lead us. And he's not expecting perfection, but what he is expecting is wholehearted devotion. That's what he desires. It's it comes down to the motives, and this mirrors what we see in Romans chapter 12:1-2, “Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.” We're supposed to present our bodies…this is what purity is at its core, just presenting your whole self to God. It starts there. There's not a part of your life that's untouched by the truth of Scripture and the gospel. And you take that entire part of your life and you put that on the altar before God. You say, “This is my sacrifice to You. This is pure. My devotion to You is pure.”  Purity and true religion is giving God all of you, all of your motives, all of your desires, and all of your actions. James, then, is looking at the church, he's seeing the interactions in the body, and he not seeing purity in their devotion and actions, or their trusting in God's way.

So, how do we accomplish this purity, this true religion? Romans 12:2 tells us: Renew our minds.  That's the same thing he says in verse 5. It's tethered to the wisdom of God. He says you need to ask for wisdom, and I'm going to give it to you. James essentially tells us: “You study the Scriptures, and I'm going to let you understand what discernment is and what wisdom looks like”.  Purity, then, begins in the heart. True religion begins in the heart. It's an integrity that flows from a love of God to the love of others. It's from faith to faith, from the work of God through the work of man to others, which is why he ties in works and faith.  Purity is both a gift of God through the new birth (which James talks about in verse 18), and a pursuit, where we set our minds on him and we set our bodies, our whole self on him. True religion is devotion, and that devotion is first pure and undefiled. Undefiled is means unblemished, or unstained.  He brings in sacrificial language here, the same thing Paul does in Romans 12. He brings in this same idea. He looks at this burnt offering. He uses the same word. We need to bring an offering before the Lord that's without blemish, without stain. It means complete. It means wholehearted, without effect, no scars, no broken bones, no deformities, no disease. He says we need to do this, why? Because this is what Christ did for you. That's exactly what Hebrews says. Christ sacrifice was the same. It was undefiled, it was without blemish, it wasn't mixed with anything else.

And then what does Christ secure for us?  An inheritance that is also described as undefiled, unmixed. It's pure.  What does James mean when he says that we need to be undefiled? He means the same thing as 2 Peter 1:5, where Peter tells us to add to our faith virtue, and to our virtue, knowledge. It's that taking something to the pitch of excellence, it's doing something in a morally excellent way. When it comes to true religion, it begins by a sole devotion to God, and then it moves into saying, “God, I want to give you my absolute best of everything”. No blemish, no broken leg, no looking back like Lot's wife, looking back at the luxurious life that she had in Sodom, before she turned into a pillar of salt. It's not looking back. Devotion is a resolve to look forward and resolve to serve God wholeheartedly with excellence with nothing less, absolutely nothing less, than your absolute very best.  it's your best energy, it's your best effort, it's your best time, it's your best resources, and it’s regardless of your comfort, your schedule, or your personal plans. It's not what you have left if it's convenient and if it doesn't cost you much. Instead, It's in spite of those things. You see, you look at the way in which we live our Christian lives, and all too often it looks like inviting Jesus over for dinner, then giving him the leftovers from last week, and saving the aged rib eye in the fridge for when he's gone so that you can feast on it yourself. That's what James is addressing. That's not devotion. That's not pure. That's not undefiled.  Devotion doesn't give God the scraps of our time or energy or money. It gives the best and the finest.  James helps us understand that devotion is evaluated not in human sight. Only by God. Only before Him. It's not human approval, it's not human opinion, it's not cultural approval. It's not any external show.  False devotion looks outward. False devotion begins with the approval of others and then it slides naturally into cultural approval.

When we look at living before the Father, this is the same picture we get from the Old Testament, Genesis 17. God told Abraham, “I am God Almighty”.  He also told him to walk before Him and be blameless. He didn't say walk before the world, He said walk before Me and be blameless. God told Joshua, as he led the people in Joshua 1:7, to be strong and courageous. How is he going to be strong and courageous? He says don't turn to the right (legalism), or to the left (temptation), but go live before me. Hebrews 12:2 says to lay aside every weight that holds us down and, instead, “Looking to Jesus…who for the joy set before him endured the cross.” If we don't look to Jesus, and we look to the people around us instead, we begin to be weighted down. When we get into temptation, we begin to be weighted down by the weights that we carry (our comfort, the applause of men, and the pleasure of ourselves and others). Instead, we should live, as the Reformers phrased, coram deo (before the face of God). We need to live our lives before the face of God and no one else.  Our upward gaze is transformative in nature as we behold the glory of the Lord.  That's beholding the glory of the Lord: Looking at our salvation, the mercy of God which flows into grace, and then seeing that inheritance and the abundance of love which God gave us. And as we behold the glory of glory, we are being transformed, as 2 Corinthians says.  We're exhorted in Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, and not for men”. It looks with a steady gaze and a receptive heart, and it's implying reflection. Beholding is not a passing glance. It's a sustained vision, and that's what God wants us to have. That's why we have communion every Sunday.

What, then, does my Father see in my devotion? Is it pure? Is it unmixed? What is my motive? Do I desire excellence? Am I giving Him everything? Am I giving Him my best? If I sit before him at night, and I'm praying to Him alone, does He affirm within my spirit that I'm giving Him my absolute best in every single area of my life? If not, what are those areas I need to confess? Is my devotion for Him and Him alone, or is it for other people around me?  Devotion isn't about looking busy, or doing “churchy” things. It's not making sure that you affirm on social media the things that Christians affirm, deny the things that Christians deny, or making sure that other people see that you do this or don't do that, or you shop here or don't shop there, whatever it may be. It's simply living out our life, pleasing before the Father's eyes alone, and that's it. Sometimes that's going to line up with other people, and sometimes it’s not.

2. True Religion Visits (v.27b)

Secondly, James says that true religion visits: “Pure and undefiled religion is this: to visit orphans and widows...” The word for visit, here, is fascinating (episkeptomai): It means to show concern, care for, to come to help. With your eyes solely fixed on the glory of God, true religion begins to take shape and faith begins to take movement in your life by this idea of visiting. This term visiting is not like a dropping by, or showing up to say hello, but instead means to look upon with concern, and then act accordingly, bringing in a flavor of mercy with it. Everything should taste like mercy whenever you're in this visiting process.  It's used of God visiting his own people to bring them redemption. Luke 1:68:“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He visited and accomplished redemption for His people…” God visits us in our distress, and gives us hope, He does things for us, gives us the Spirit, helps us overcome sin, strengthens us, encourages us, allows us to come before the throne of God, allows us to plead for wisdom, grants us wisdom and works things out in our lives. It's hope and it's help.

What does it mean for us to visit? Well, it means the same thing: It means for us to grant hope and to offer help to others. Jesus offers a poignant example in Luke 7, where He visits the funeral procession of this widow woman who lost her only son. The disciples are wondering what He's doing. As the crowds are gathering around He went up and touched the coffin. The child sits up, and Jesus gives the child back to his mother. He grants that mother that gift. And what did the people say? In the King James Version it says that “God hath visited his people”.  Whenever we show up in situations and we offer hope and help, it's God working through us, that others might understand and know the love of God through the church, and that's what we are to do.

When James says visit, he means to step into the affliction of others in their in presence and to help, imitating God's own redemptive care for us in the way that He responded to us.  God never visits neutrally. He always comes with purpose and an aim. And what is He doing? He's trying to reorder the disorder that happened at the fall. That's the same ministry that we have, the ministry of reconciliation, bringing people back into a right relationship with God, helping them understand the distorted way in which the world works. It’s the distorted way in which the world operates, so we help them have that reconciliation in their own heart, as we teach them the truths of Scripture.  Visiting, then, is just gospel-infused practice. It's God entering into these moments of suffering in Christ.  We do the same thing in the name of Christ, for His name and for His glory.  When we begin to wrap our minds around this word, we realize that it's not observation, but it is intervention. That's what it is. It's intervention. And, paradoxically, it's intervention that ministers not to others.

This is where we get distracted. We get distracted by showing up to somebody who's in need and saying, “This poor person. I just need to be there for them. They need me right now.” That’s a true statement. But what we miss is that sometimes, if that person doesn't respond in the way that we think that they should, we have these expectations as we go and sacrifice our time for somebody. What we miss is that we're just God showing up to extend love to them regardless of response.  we go and we minister to them, we help them understand and know the love of Christ. That's what God wants us to do. It's not us ministering to them, it's actually us ministering to Christ Himself from Christ Himself. It's from Him, through Him, and to Him. It's all for Him. That's why in Matthew 25:36 Jesus includes “…I was sick, and you visited Me…”.  The person that was sick, the person that is naked and needs clothes, the person that's hungry and that you feed, the person that needs a drink of water, your actions are not to them. They are to Christ Himself, because of Christ Himself, and show someone a beautiful, glorious picture of people that are called out of the world by God the Father and sent to them. The person recognizes these people. John says there are gift of God and as these people minister in the world, the praise is going from God the Father back to God the Father through us as we minister in these times of need. That's the global picture of what's happening with the gospel.

True religion isn't content just to feel sympathy, though. Oftentimes this is this is where we stop. We may have a feeling of sympathy, and then a feeling of empathy, and maybe even a brief prayer. And we're like, “I've been involved in that situation. I'm done.” But whenever we think of just feeling sympathy and empathy for somebody as an act, that's virtual faith. That's not true faith. That's not a visiting faith. It's not a real faith. Sympathy that lacks action and compassion is false faith/belief. That's false religion.  What does it really look like? Well, it looks like pregnancy care. It looks like stepping up for moms in risk of abortion, praying that they would not give their kids up to Molech, that they would instead sacrifice for them, or even allow them to go to Christian adoption agencies.  It looks like foster and adoption. Visiting the fatherless in tangible ways is something that's very difficult. But as a culture, when we look at a couple who might not be able to have children and then they adopt, some are tempted to believe that they had to go “Plan B” because “Plan A” didn't work. We may look on them with pity, when in reality is there are kids out there that need adopting, there's kids out there that need fostering, they need homes. God is calling us, the Church, to do it. And we're neglecting that. Instead, we're hoarding all of these things to ourselves, knowing that there's all of these people out there that need our help. Remember the church at Rome whose kids were being left on trash heaps? Kids were often put into areas where prostitution was prevalent, and the church would be hiding in the bushes, run out and grab the child, bringing it into the church, and then raise it in the church. We look at things like adoption, and things like that, as a “second option” instead of what God is calling the church to do: to rescue kids out of the world that need a home. And He's put us in a country where we have luxury and the resources and space to be able to do that.

It looks like our church becoming a house of refuge. That's one of the things that we're in the process of becoming. We have to go through some more training, but then if a woman in our area chooses life, we're a place where she can come and receive the ministry of the gospel, where people rally to meet her needs, and we can minister to her as families. It means a community presence. It means we go to where the hurting are, like in Luke 14. It seems as though there are some who just want to take this passage out of the Bible and just throw it away. We would never say that when we read it, but this is kind of practically what we do. Luke 14:21 says, “…‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame…’” Bring in who? The people that you ignore every day. All the people that are unwanted by society, all the people that are dirty and gross, all the people have bad habits and manners, all the people who we would never associate with. I want you to go out and get them. I want you to go out to the highways, into the hedges and compel them to come in. Not just passing glance, compel them to come in. That my house may be full.  God's heart is not satisfied with an empty table, He tells his servants to go out and get them and bring them into me, the neglected and the hurting. False religion says, “Go in peace, be warm, be filled.” (James 2). False religion knows you have time and resources, and you choose to not spend it on the things that God would want you to spend it on. False religion sees messiness and sacrifice, and says, “That's a little bit too much for me. I'm a little overwhelmed in life. I'm not going to step into that.” True religion visits, it gets dirty, it's in the muck and mire, it smells like the sheep, and it's in there pulling the sheep out. It's walking beside, it's placing themselves in front of the issue and it gives themselves to the problem. It lays down its life for Christ, because Christ laid down His life for us. This is taking up the cross daily, and following after Him.

It's convicting to admit, isn’t it? An excellent example of this depth of commitment were the ladies that Jen and I went and prayed with at the Human Coalition. These ladies are on the front lines of this ministry in this dark place, and never once have we showed up to pray with them where there is not just weeping because of the weight that they're carrying as they answer the phone, and minister to ladies as they come into this crisis pregnancy center.  When others like us come in, they just feel like it's a breath of fresh air…a relief for a moment. But they're not going to stop doing what they're doing. They're not going to stop whether people show up or do not show up, if people pray for them or not, because they're living coram deo. They’re not looking to the right or to the left, but there's this immense relief that they have as we come in alongside them for a moment.  that's a ministry that we can easily be a part of. It was convicting for me the first time we went and did that, to know that there's people ministering that needs something as simple as a couple hours a day of help, or a cup of coffee to help encourage them along the way, as they deal with the things that nobody would want to deal with day in and day out, hour after hour, week after week. True religion doesn't stand at a distance, it moves in to care.

3. True Religion Cares (v.27b)

James continues in verse 27, pointing out two examples of need, “…to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.”   He ends here by saying that this is the epitome of human need…this is what need looks like. At the time of his writing these widows had no social standing, no legal rights, no financial protection. They didn't have anything. They were basically voiceless in the culture. But God did not overlook them. Exodus 22:22-24: “You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. And if you indeed afflict him, and if he earnestly cries out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; and My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.” God becomes their advocate, and it says in Psalm 68:5: “A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows,
Is God in His holy habitation”.  God sets Himself in their place, and He becomes their judge. He stands as their advocate, and He executes justice for them because He knows they have no voice.  God's care is expressed in that advocacy. Today we have elderly widows without families, and those who are isolated in nursing homes, or recovering like Lisa Kaull within our own fellowship. She's in Goldsboro, which is a drive, but she needs people to come and to pray with her, or just sit with her, encourage her. We have single Moms and Dads in our congregation who need you to come around and help them. True religion cares as it enters into these people’s world, providing tangible help and encouraging them in the truth. And that's a glorious picture of the gospel. And that's why he brings orphans into this.

The orphans of the world, especially in the time of James, were also defenseless. They were left for dead, reduced to poverty, or often just sold into slavery. The Bible, again, provides a witness: Deuteronomy 24:17: “Do not pervert the justice due the fatherless.” Psalm 82:3: “Give justice to the weak and to the fatherless.” John addresses Jesus's relationship with us in John 14:18: “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” That's mercy. That's why all of this has this flavor of mercy with it, and grace. He says, “I will come to you.” What were we sentenced to? We were all sentenced to death like an orphan left on the street or like an aborted baby left in a trashcan. He comes and he rescues us from that. The gospel itself is adoption because that adoption mirrors the Father's heart.  Caring for orphans is the same thing. It's true. True religion advocates. It fosters and adopts, it mentors, it prays, it pleads, and it steps in where parents are absent.  It's compassion and action. It's a voice to the voiceless.

As you watch mothers walk into the abortion clinic, the babies inside their womb cannot cry out. They have no financial protection, no federal laws that help them. They're left alone. The absence of their voice does not equate to a lack of need, or marginalize the urgency. I went into a hospital a while ago where there was a baby that was a part of our fellowship at that time, and they were trying to save her. It was amazing. There was an entire wall of just medication and life support for this child, and the alarm went off and the people rushed into the room and everyone's trying to save that baby. You see that in hospitals, you see it on the roads after car accidents. You see it in pregnant women who are being assaulted. If you hear about a baby who's left in a dumpster at a fire station, you watch a crowd of people react compassionately. When children in a flood are literally washed downstream in a flood we grieve over that. Millions of dollars are spent while people try to save these lives. And they're crying and they're praying.

The same thing in my mind should be true when we see a woman walking to have her child aborted out of her stomach, yet we look at that differently, as if that child inside her doesn't need the same kind of rescue. Even spiritually. We don't necessarily approach it with that same kind of urgency.  In our culture, it's “…out of sight, out of mind…”, because we're distracted and self-absorbed. It's often hard for us to step out of our comfort zone for one minute, and to try to put ourselves into the shoes of somebody else, to have a little bit of empathy and sympathy for what they might be going through, and why they might be making the decision that they do. Essentially, anyone who's walking into a situation like that just feels hopeless and they need hope. We need to pray for that discrepancy, and we need to act differently. True religion can't stand by. Instead, it joins the resistance. It cares.

4. True Religion Resists (v.27c)

James finishes up verse 1:27 with an ongoing action: “…and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”   The word used for “keep” (tereo) means “to watch constantly over”. It is this frantic action around something that you're guarding and keeping, or protecting. It is elsewhere used in Scripture for guarding prisoners (Peter was “kept in prison” in Acts 12:5), obeying commandments (“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” in John 14:15, and preserving purity (“keep the commandment unstained” in 1 Timothy 6:14).  James says we are to have this vigilance, tirelessly working to keep resisting anything that could defile a believer. We must be doing something, and rather than nothing.

This protecting is what’s missing in our culture from the church. That's why James goes on to say “…to keep oneself unstained from the world”.  James strategically brings in this sacrificial imagery using the same word (aspilon) Peter uses in 1 Peter 1:19 to describe Christ as “…without blemish or spot”. Paul also uses it to describe the church, which is to be presented by Christ as “…unblemished…” in Ephesians 5:27, and believers, who are to “…keep the commandment unstained” in 1 Timothy 6:14. Believers are supposed to keep the commandments, and remain unstained by the world.  James calls believers to live holy lives that reflect Christ, not polluted by the world's ideas and philosophies. And Jude 23 says to “…hate even the garment that's stained by the flesh”, referring to the influence of false teachers. Just throw the whole garment away.  True religion resists compromise. There's no mixture with the world's definitions of love, justice, identity, or morality. There's no mixture of comfort and conviction. There's no mixture of wants versus worship, of convenience over commitment. There's no mixture of striving for personal success over personal sacrifice, or appearance over authenticity. True religion resists compromise with action.  We stand out. We don't blend in. In fact, if you think about the Christian life, you can't blend in. If you understand who God is and who the world is, if you represent God pure and undefiled, you're going to stick out in the world. You have to stick out in the world because you are representatives of the King. And light stands amidst darkness. Those who practice true religion walk into any given situation, and when they leave, people should say “God was just in this place”. To me, it's an aroma of life versus an aroma of death.  We resist the culture’s rebellion by living in obedience to the Word. And we know from Scripture that obedience is active, not passive. Resisting is not passive, it's engagement.

The early church was positioned in the shadow of the darkness of Rome. And as they are positioned in this way, they acted on behalf of God in ways that they saw fit. They didn't blend in. They kept active by loving the people around them and sharing the gospel. With them.  The early Church saw this, and even in the decay, as the early Church began to form the teaching of the apostles that we read about in Acts, one of the commandments in the early Christian manual Didache stated “You shall not murder a child by abortion, nor kill what is begotten”. Justin Martyr, describing the Pagan practices, states, “We've been taught that it is wicked to expose newborn children; for we would then be murderers.” That's why some would leave them abandoned because, whenever they left them abandoned, they couldn't be charged with murder in that way, even though they would often leave them to die. Holiness is not withdrawal, but shining light in the dark places.

What can we do? Well, first and foremost, we can pray, because we know that God hears the prayers of His saints. We pray all times in the Spirit, because this is not a battle against flesh and blood. It's not against the moms who are having abortions. It's a spiritual battle. We need to approach it first on our knees. We can approach it by walking. Proverbs 31:8 instructs us to open our mouths for the mute, and all who are destitute. We're commanded to open our mouths for the people who can't speak.  We join in prayer walks and public witnesses to life and we care. 1 John 3:18: “Let us not love in word or talk, but indeed in truth.”  We serve single moms and dads, widows, foster children, and orphans, and we enter into dark places with love and peace. We stand firm on what we know. God teaches us in Scripture that we are the light of the world. And he says then in Matthew 5:16 to let your light shine.  We need to let our light shine. We step into ministries like trafficking, rescue and outreach.  True religion is really, as we understand it, loving life.

Selah:

1. There are numerous questions asked in this sermon. Go back and review them, taking time to truthfully answer them, and respond however is appropriate.

2. Given what you’ve learned about true and false religion, which do you have? If it is less than you what you desire, what are you willing to do about it?

3. Examine truthfully whether or not your complacency to speak out on the sanctity of human life has contributed to the abortion epidemic. If needed, confess this to your Savior, seek forgiveness, and ask for empowerment to be more bold in your witness for the defenseless babies and orphans.