James 4:1-4 (NIV)
¹ What causes fights (wars) and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires (used 5 times, always negative, lust), that battle within you? ² You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 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.

Today is sanctity of life Sunday and its interesting, I think, that this Sunday follows our discussion last week of sin. It was my goal last week to expand our view of sin. As one might expect, our tendency is to understand sin as the overt, occasional mistake. The bad things we do once in a while. That outburst in word or deed that takes place when I deviate from my normal controlled behavior – or something like that. Defining sin that way is sin.

Sin is ANY failure to align with the moral law of God in act, attitude, or even nature. Sin is pervasive. It is the environment we live in.

The way we understand sin and who we are, connects with everything. It connects with how we see our need for Jesus – we marginalize our dependence on God when sin is simply action that we can learn to control with age. Our understanding of sin and how it merges with humanity effects everything. It effects how we look at the person who walks in the bookstore across the street. It effects how we look at the neighbor who hates Christians because they have the audacity to believe that abortion is wrong. It effects how we look at the one who has an abortion. Our understanding of sin connects with how we see ourselves. We are all swimming in water that is over our heads.

One of the reason this country is degenerating is that “Christians” here have, willingly, bought in to a feel-good definition of sin, and a feel-good understanding of how God views sin, and a feel-good understanding of God’s kindness to us through the death of Jesus, and a feel-good understanding of what God would want for us here (lives where we live as if our treasure is Christ and this world holds nothing for us).

We also talked, last week, about something I’m calling cultural sin. When sinful people get together they develop a culture that has sin as its lifeblood. Sin permeates its entertainment. Sin permeates its economics. Sin permeates its educational philosophy. Sin permeates its government. The culture develops a system that dictates how it’s members function, how they survive, what’s acceptable, and what is “right”. While cultural sin does not excuse the individual, it is a powerful force.

Slavery is an example of how humanity can create a culture that makes cruelty to humans easy, acceptable, and “necessary”. And in its wake are unthinkable and far reaching consequences. The institution of slavery was integrated into education, government, entertainment, economics… (William Wilberforce 1759-1833 – Amazing Grace) I find it interesting that today we all think of ourselves as merged with And today we see ourselves as those who would have led the charge against slavery 200 years ago.

Abortion has much in common with slavery. We have a culture that, at best, accommodates a none-of-my-business attitude. But more realistically our culture has created a cause that flows with money, jobs, political careers, sexuality, etc. And in its wake is unthinkable, far reaching devastation.

The killing of children in the womb is a massive sin that gives us a glimpse into our depravity. We are so depraved that not only do we kill our children, many of us are only occasionally bothered by it.

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The Bible speaks of in-the-womb babies like any other child:

In Luke 1 we read of the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary. Gabriel explained that Mary had found favor God and would soon be pregnant with Jesus – the Son of God. Gabriel also mentioned that Elizabeth (old and barren), a relative of Mary’s, was miraculously pregnant as well (she was in her 6^th month). So, as you might expect, the first thing Mary does is get to Elizabeth.

Luke 1:39-44 (NIV)
³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Luke 2:12 (NIV)
¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Biblical Greek is an amazingly precise language.  The neuance it contains is sufficiant to convey precise meaning.  Here the author used the very same word for a baby in the womb and a baby out of the womb.  A baby is a baby.

Others:

Genesis 25:22 (NIV) – Jacob & Esau in Rachel’s womb
²² The babies jostled each other within her…

Psalm 139:13 (NIV)
¹³ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I think one of the most amazing things was how my wife would speak of and think of our children while she was pregnant.

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There is so much work to do. How should we respond?

Fight for Justice

Pray! – Pray for ourselves in this that we might get this right. Pray that we might see sin as we should. Pray that we might live for Jesus in our daily lives. Pray for opportunity in this. Pray for our leaders in this:

President Obama -

Proverbs 21:1 (NIV)
¹ The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.

Support alternatives - New Life Family Services

Work for the protection of the unborn

Deuteronomy 10:14-19, “Pursuing Justice: defending the weak” [Listen]

Today is “Sanctity of Life Sunday”. Many set this day aside to focus on the value of human life – we are going to do that. Next Sunday we are going to talk about “racial reconciliation” and our tendency to devalue God when we devalue the image of God through racism and prejudice. While there are many ways to approach these topics, I’d like to look at them through the concept of “justice”.

Deuteronomy 10:14-19 (NIV)

To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless (executes justice for the fathersess-ESV) and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

The concept of biblical justice, and how I should connect with it, avoided me for many years (I still have a long way to go). I understood justice in a narrow way. I saw God’s call to pursue justice as a call to think about, debate, and vote on issues that connected with law enforcement. It was a national thing for me. As a good Christian I should make sure we put criminals in jail. While putting criminals in jail is important, it is far from a complete discussion of justice.

When the Bible speaks of justice it’s important for us to remember that our form of government didn’t exist 2,000 years ago. People did not think about how they might change the standards of their country’s judicial system through electoral voting – it didn’t work that way. This was not the frame of reference for the prophets or for Jesus.

Since life’s highest standards are derived from the character of God, what is right and  what is just flows from God. God’s will and those activities that result from God’s will is what is right, what is just. To fight against whatever moves against God’s will is is to pursue justice. Disease, poverty, hunger, racism and bigotry is a form of injustice. When you fight against these things you are pursuing justice.

Micah 6:8 (NIV)

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Jeremiah 22:3 (NIV)

This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

Isaiah 1:17 (ESV)

…learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

Christians have often been less than God-honering as it relates to pursuing justice. It is common for those who would follow God to be intimidated or captured by the sinful designs of the culture they live in. We just don’t want to stand alone or give our lives for the Kingdom.

Slavery is an example of this. For years Christians accommodated slavery. They were enslaved by a culture that cares nothing for God. To stand in the face of this cultural, economic Goliath and say, “This must stop!”, was dangerous.

Today most cannot imagine owning slaves. We think, “If I was there 200 years ago I would have stood up to Goliath”. Really?

Abortion is somewhat like this. Abortion is a topic that, in this culture, can polarize any conversation and be dangerous to take a stand on.

Justice, for the Christian, is not only/primarily a political vote. It is something we must pursue and live for because it reflects the heart of God!  We are called to move against those things that move against God’s design for us.

The cancer of sin that flows through the veins of this world produces death all around us. To fight against this is to pursue justice. Slavery still exists throughout the world – sexual slavery, ethnic slavery, racial slavery, economic slavery – to fight against this is to pursue justice. When you fight for those that are disadvantaged – the orphans, the widows, those with no homes – you are pursuing justice. When you speak for those who cannot speak for themselves you are pursuing justice.

Amos 5:21-24 (NIV)

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grainofferings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like an ever-failing stream!“

As we embrace Jesus as our savior and king and treasure, we are called to fight for justice. I am not calling us to political action this morning. Political action is, at best, a small and partial answer. We must come along side those in trouble and help them. We must give ourselves to the cause – not just our vote and money. (see Luke 10:25-37)

This was posted in the Christian Post on Friday, Oct 12, 2007

One in five pregnancies worldwide and more than half of pregnancies in eastern Europe end un abortion, according to a new study that examined abortion trends from 1995 to 2003.

The study, published Friday in a special maternal health edition of The Lancet medical journal, also found that a vast majority of abortions (35 million) were in the developing world and that nearly 97 percent of the estimated 70,000 women who die every year from unsafe abortions were in poor countries.Furthermore, while more countries are allowing women to have abortions legally and the number of worldwide abortions has dipped from about 46 million in 1995 to just under 42 million in 2003, there was no change in the rate of unsafe abortions. “The only way to decrease unsafe abortion is to increase contraception,” concluded Sharon Camp, president and chief executive officer of the Guttmacher Institute in the United States, according to The Associated Press.

Eric Young
Christian Post Reporter