SPEAKER_00: David.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: My voice is a little bit weak this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You'll have to blame that on Mike Dolin.
SPEAKER_00: Mike took Jane and myself down to uh the bison game last night.
SPEAKER_00: And and and uh what what's it you know uh and we kind of screamed our heads off, and I screamed my voice away, and they won.
SPEAKER_00: So uh who knows if there's a connection.
SPEAKER_00: Um last year we had the opportunity to go to uh a UND hockey game, and that was like entering into another world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so we're getting another part of uh this wonderful culture of where God has brought us.
SPEAKER_00: Um so if my voice uh does that a lot, then you'll have to forgive me, and you'll have to forgive Mike.
SPEAKER_00: Today is Sunday, the uh the 28th of August, 2016, and as I love to remind myself and you, God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was all week long.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happened in your life this week.
SPEAKER_00: Might have been wonderful, it might have been awful.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't change who God is.
SPEAKER_00: God is still good and he is still with us, and he still rules and he reigns.
SPEAKER_00: And God is on the throne today, is here with us.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks to us through his word, he speaks to us through his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He's involved, he's here, he's trustworthy, and he will be on the throne all week long.
SPEAKER_00: And for that I am incredibly grateful, and I trust you are too.
SPEAKER_00: We come as needy, simple people.
SPEAKER_00: Just needy, simple people.
SPEAKER_00: We act like we have it all together, and we don't fool ourselves, and we don't fool God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we are needy people, and we need our God.
SPEAKER_00: That's just what we sang.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I need you, and we need a God who rules and reigns.
SPEAKER_00: A God whose name is great and whose heart is kind.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of God that we have.
SPEAKER_00: For all his goodness, we will keep on singing 10,000 reasons for our hearts to find.
SPEAKER_00: What a joy to gather together as God's messed up people in this place.
SPEAKER_00: We are messed up people and we serve this wonderful and this mighty God.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me, please?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we want to leave all pretension aside.
SPEAKER_00: We want to stop trying to be frantically someone we're not, or trying frantically to please you we cannot.
SPEAKER_00: You have sent a Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who died for the mess that we are and the mess that we're in, and all that which separates us from you has been placed on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And the righteousness of Christ has been given to us as we come to you by faith.
SPEAKER_00: So we come needy and we come small, and we come, Father, with a desire to hear and to listen and to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, I pray, in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is the twenty-sixth time that I have uh stood here and together with you on a Sunday morning looked at the book of James.
SPEAKER_00: I'll bet you you thought we would never finish it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um probably thought, I wish I would be done with this, because when God speaks to us, and He does, and especially in a writing like the book of James, um, God speaks to us and it is penetrating and it is forceful, it's in our face, it's practical, and it's often somewhat disconcerting.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the nature of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't leave us alone.
SPEAKER_00: He's not someone who is just there saying, oh, everything's wonderful and you're wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying he is he loves us too much to not get involved.
SPEAKER_00: And he got involved on the cross and he continues to get involved in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And we need him.
SPEAKER_00: How we need him.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's never take it or leave it with God.
SPEAKER_00: As though when God speaks and when God speaks to you personally, in the quietness of your heart, um, it's not as though that can be a take it or leaving it.
SPEAKER_00: Taking it has consequences, leaving it has consequences.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the nature of us before our God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have sought week after week after week after week after week to simply take a portion of this book of James and in the first place to ask myself, Lord, what are you saying here?
SPEAKER_00: And to try to bring that to light here in our midst, to expose that.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, what are you saying?
SPEAKER_00: What are you meaning by what are you saying?
SPEAKER_00: And what in the world am I to do with it?
SPEAKER_00: And to help you, that's the question I ask myself, and by God's grace, perhaps to help you reflect on some of those questions yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Today we uh we come to the final section.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking at verses 16 through 20 of James chapter 5, really focusing primarily on the last couple of verses.
SPEAKER_00: And in this passage, um James makes it clear that we have an assignment as we leave here to restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: And that can be in our own hearts, it can be in our own families, it can be in others around here.
SPEAKER_00: Almost every Sunday I finish with a benediction.
SPEAKER_00: Now go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_00: And the benediction is intended to remind us kind of as we're going, what kinds of things should we be keeping in mind?
SPEAKER_00: So go into the world in peace, have courage, hold on to that which is good, and honor all men, strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, comfort the grieving, and restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a fitting conclusion to James' book, James' writing, how God led James to communicate to the first century church and to communicate to us.
SPEAKER_00: I have used that benediction in various settings for a good number of years, and at one point, as I was meditating on this closing part of the book of James, I said, I've got to add, restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is part of what God wants us to be involved in.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of what we need because we wander.
SPEAKER_00: And it's part of what we're to be doing with and for one another.
SPEAKER_00: So it is a very fitting ending.
SPEAKER_00: Um let me read for you and please follow along in your Bible, James chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me begin with the middle of verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, James, and we saw last week, is talking about prayer, and um he gives a number numerous applications, and here is one of the applications.
SPEAKER_00: The middle of verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
SPEAKER_00: Um as a new believer, I learned that one, not many of them in the King James, most of them in the New American Standard, but that one, for some reason, in the King James.
SPEAKER_00: The fervent and effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
SPEAKER_00: I don't suppose I've ever used the term availeth other than in that verse.
SPEAKER_00: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives an illustration of that application of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain.
SPEAKER_00: Then he prayed again, and heaven, the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Um, where we really want to go is the next two verses.
SPEAKER_00: So let me read those now, but I want to come back briefly and share some thoughts about uh this matter of a man like us who prayed and then all kinds of things happened.
SPEAKER_00: And what is this when it doesn't happen in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: How are we to understand that?
SPEAKER_00: But where I would really like to spend most of our time is verses 19 and 20.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers, friends, family members here at Faith, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know, the one who brings another back, that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
SPEAKER_00: Restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just for a moment, since uh I didn't get there last week, uh the clock ran out before James, no, actually, the clock ran out before Walt did.
SPEAKER_00: Um this matter of uh of prayer, and what he has been talking about is that it's always time to pray.
SPEAKER_00: When troubles come, pray.
SPEAKER_00: And who among us is not at some level in some way in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: I sure am.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't there things in your life that hold us down and bind us and somehow or another it just doesn't seem like it ought to be this way?
SPEAKER_00: Now there's times where we don't experience that, but despite despite, despite our smiling faces, and it's not wrong to smile, um, there's issues in your life where you desperately need help or you're in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And if there aren't today, this is a new week.
SPEAKER_00: And when troubles come, we're supposed to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Not as a last resort, but as a first resort.
SPEAKER_00: It's always time to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Um, now that's the main point, and we saw that last week.
SPEAKER_00: But then James takes this and he gives various examples, and we looked at one of those, and that is when we are weary and burdened and not able to move forward, whether it be physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, he says, if you are sick, and it's a very general, uh very general term, when we are sick, uh one of the options, one of the applications of always pray is we can call the elders and have them come.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that last week.
SPEAKER_00: That was one example of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And he then gives a couple more, and then he makes this statement the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
SPEAKER_00: So the examples given are when we pray, God answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's what it said about when the elders gather together and with a soothing touch, picturing the touch of God, the presence of God, the compassion of God, uh, rubbing gently and compassionately on the fevered forehead, whether it's a physical fever or not, that God will answer.
SPEAKER_00: And and yet sometimes he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives an example of um, well, he says the prayer of a righteous person has great power and it's working.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what what what's that because my prayers don't often don't always work?
SPEAKER_00: How about yours?
SPEAKER_00: Now, without getting distracted too much by this question, I'd like to just give some thoughts very briefly without all of the detail, and it has to do with what happens when prayer doesn't work, and I'm kind of putting that between quotation marks, when prayer doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say you have a friend who's wrestling with something, a major issue, and wrestling and wrestling and wrestling, and he prays or she prays and you pray, and nothing happens.
SPEAKER_00: What do we how do we bring this uh in line with what God says?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what God says is that the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what happens for most of us when we pray, and pray for something really important, and it doesn't seem to work, we begin to say, what's the problem?
SPEAKER_00: And we're too, hopefully, too disinclined to accuse God of having failed, although, if you're honest, some of those questions come up in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: But we would normally say, Well, I just didn't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what James is talking about here, as though the quantity of our faith, as though faith is all about us being really strong in faith and having enough faith that we can get God to do what we want, and if we just pray enough and really pray and pray with enough faith, then God will accomplish that which we're asking for.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a very human way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the way the scriptures really approach it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me suggest some simple things here.
SPEAKER_00: God answers prayer that is aligned with his will, his ways, and his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe a good way to think about this is with the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: We begin with God.
SPEAKER_00: Your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to align ourselves with who God is.
SPEAKER_00: That's where prayer begins.
SPEAKER_00: And once we're really aligned with who God is, his will, and his ways, we begin to pray differently.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just say, I want this.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to realize that we have other wants.
SPEAKER_00: We may really want this, but that may not really be what God is doing at this particular moment.
SPEAKER_00: And so we learn to align ourselves with His will, His way, and His purposes.
SPEAKER_00: James already touched on this in chapter 4, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Just take a look at it here.
SPEAKER_00: James 4, 2.
SPEAKER_00: Just turn over, turn the other side of the page.
SPEAKER_00: You desire and you do not have.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: You ask and do not receive.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Got it?
SPEAKER_00: You're asking in prayer and you don't receive.
SPEAKER_00: You ask and you ask and do not receive because you pray wrongly.
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, it apparently was a prayer for material resources.
SPEAKER_00: And James says, sometimes we don't get what we pray for because we're praying with the wrong motive or toward the wrong end.
SPEAKER_00: And he said in this case, and he apparently knew the situation, they were praying because they just wanted to have something, and what they got they just wanted to use for themselves or just to have a good time, or uh we don't know the details, but there was a wrong motive in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just, Lord, I want, I want, I want, but are our wants aligned with what God wants?
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times we're not 100% sure what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: We know pretty well what we want, but prayer is not just saying, God, I want this.
SPEAKER_00: It really boils down to saying, Lord, I want what you want far more than I just want this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to align myself with who you are, with your character, your purposes, and your ways are not my ways, and I'm not going to sit here and demand, God, that you do what I want as though you're some kind of a genie, and I just rub the bottle the right way, and I can say, well, this is my desire and this is what I want.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible that unanswered prayer, even if we're praying for good things, it's possible that sometimes it has to do with how we're approaching it.
SPEAKER_00: The righteous person here, and we need just a thought, the right, the fervent and effectual prayer of a righteous man.
SPEAKER_00: What's a righteous man?
SPEAKER_00: All right, that term has wide, wide usage in the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's what we would call forensic righteousness, where the righteousness of Christ is credited to your account as your sins are credited to his account.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way of understanding one of the most solidly biblical ways of understanding the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness of God is given to us because of what Christ had done.
SPEAKER_00: That is a major theme of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But particularly in the Old Testament, and James is thinking largely in Old Testament terms, righteousness is a righteous man, is a man after God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: A man whose heart is right.
SPEAKER_00: A man who loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, to use that New Testament terminology.
SPEAKER_00: And James is not talking about perfect people get prayers answered.
SPEAKER_00: And if our prayers aren't answered, then our faith is deficient, even though Jesus also said faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't approach it, that it's the quantity of our faith and the strength of our faith, it's who God is and our alignment with God.
SPEAKER_00: But he is saying that a person whose heart is increasingly, as we walk on this sod, aligned with God, we're living Godward, we're being changed.
SPEAKER_00: And our desires and our values are being changed.
SPEAKER_00: And we begin to pray more and more in line with who God is and what we're beginning to understand of God's purposes.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't demand, we express our wishes, but we also recognize that God wishes many things.
SPEAKER_00: And it may not be for me to be healed of this particular situation, whether it be an illness or a circumstance right now.
SPEAKER_00: There's many more things God is doing that we have to keep in mind.
SPEAKER_00: The righteous person gets what he wants in prayer because he wants what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: I could take a lot more time to go into that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really want to, except maybe perhaps to point you to Psalm 37, 4.
SPEAKER_00: Delight yourselves in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I desire a new car, therefore, if I pray, and if I pray real fervently, God will give me a new car.
SPEAKER_00: Delight yourself, have your desires be the desires of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of Your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens as we grow in Christ, and that, my friends, is a lifelong process.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen overnight.
SPEAKER_00: As we grow in Christ and our understanding of God begins to change from a God who is there to serve me to me who is here to serve him, a God who knows what he's doing and I don't know what I'm doing, a God who can do all things and I can only do all things through Christ who gives me the strength, as our understanding of who God is, our prayers begin to change.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to suggest that the prayer of a person whose heart is increasingly aligned with God accomplishes a great deal, and he gives the example of Elijah, and Elijah was a super saint in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We barely know where the story of Elijah in the Old Testament is found, but to James readers, that was kind of the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: That was the big guy.
SPEAKER_00: He was the one, and Elijah, but that's not what James says about Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: James says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
SPEAKER_00: He's just like us.
SPEAKER_00: But he prayed and God gave answers to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty clear that God's prayer, or that Elijah's prayer was aligned with what God wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: So it's an illustration.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot more I could say about unanswered prayers.
SPEAKER_00: It is not this simple.
SPEAKER_00: This is just what James leads us to see and say about it.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Restore the wandering, verses 19 and 20.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say each week, go into the world, this and this and this and this, and restore the wandering, this is what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And it is expressed in this way, in this verse, and expressed other ways in other contexts.
SPEAKER_00: But it's part of what God is calling us to.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of what faith alive accomplishes in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of what a faith that works works.
SPEAKER_00: It's just part of who God helps us and sends us to be.
SPEAKER_00: So three very simple things in these two verses that I want to focus on.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual truth is not simply to be believed, it's to be walked, it's to be lived.
SPEAKER_00: Second of all, people, people in our midst, and sometimes that's you, and sometimes that's me.
SPEAKER_00: People in our midst are at risk of wandering off the right path.
SPEAKER_00: And as we get off of the right path, we get ourselves into mortal danger.
SPEAKER_00: That's the second point that he makes.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, we're called, we're called to restore and rescue.
SPEAKER_00: What an incredible privilege.
SPEAKER_00: People in need of restoration, restoring people in need of restoration, people in need of help helping people in need of help.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the way the body of Christ functions.
SPEAKER_00: So let me try as simply and as quickly as possible to move through this first point.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual truth is not simply to believe, be believed, but it is to be walked.
SPEAKER_00: We already saw this in James chapter 2, 26.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone, um, sorry, that was 126, that says it as well.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he's religious and doesn't bridle his tongue, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But chapter 2, uh, verse 26 makes it very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Except I have the wrong reference, so it's not very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's move right along.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that was an edifying moment for you.
SPEAKER_00: It was not for me.
SPEAKER_00: Um faith is not something that we just intellectually believe.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not primarily a set of things to appropriate intellectually.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a set of doctrines.
SPEAKER_00: There is intellectual truth to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just something philosophical, it's not just something abstract.
SPEAKER_00: Faith, real faith, living faith, is practical, it's existential, it deals with our being, and it's moral.
SPEAKER_00: It affects and it finds its center in the way we live.
SPEAKER_00: And you can approach faith intellectually, and you can approach faith philosophically, and you can approach faith abstractly.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not what the Bible does.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible helps us approach faith very, very practically with our lives and says it is something that we walk in, something that we live out.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 1, verse 6 makes it very clear, I hope.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, boy.
SPEAKER_00: If we walk in the light as he is in the light, chapter 1, verse 6, 1 John, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: If we say we are related to God and are good with God and have fellowship with God and don't practice the truth, we lie.
SPEAKER_00: If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.
SPEAKER_00: But we can't say that we're rightly related to God if we just believe certain things.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not just believing, faith involves walking in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritual journey.
SPEAKER_00: The first term that was used in the New Testament to describe Christians when Saul, who became the Apostle Paul later, Saul was out to destroy those pesky followers of Christ, he talked about those who are of the way.
SPEAKER_00: The way.
SPEAKER_00: We're changing, we're being transformed, we're more and more beginning to understand who God is and who we are, and our lives begin to change.
SPEAKER_00: That's what faith does.
SPEAKER_00: Don't talk about faith as, well, in ought for I raised my hand in a meeting, or at my mother's knee I made a decision, or I came forward.
SPEAKER_00: Those are very likely real things that happen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not putting those down, but is that what your faith is based upon?
SPEAKER_00: Is our faith based upon a decision we made long ago?
SPEAKER_00: What James says is our faith, the way we know it's real, is that we're being changed.
SPEAKER_00: We're being changed.
SPEAKER_00: We're learning and changing and growing and developing.
SPEAKER_00: One of the many reasons why next week we're going to have just a time to share is we want to be encouraged by what God is teaching us together.
SPEAKER_00: Not just from James, but in life and in the world.
SPEAKER_00: If God isn't saying something to you and changing you and causing lights to go on and causing you to say, oh, I wow, I could hardly put it into words.
SPEAKER_00: If that's not happening, then you don't have the faith that the Bible talks about.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly not the faith as James portrays it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not simply to be believed, uh, but it's to be lived out and walked.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that people in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in our midst?
SPEAKER_00: Duh.
SPEAKER_00: Just read again what he actually says in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, now he's talking about individuals here.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about individuals within the gathering of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Um he's saying that we, we are at risk of wandering off.
SPEAKER_00: That's clearly what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about them out there, he's talking about us in here.
SPEAKER_00: There was a um a writing, an early set of writings for the early church, 30, 40, 50 years after the New Testament called the Didake, or the Instruction of Believers.
SPEAKER_00: And it opens with this biblically informed statement.
SPEAKER_00: There are two ways, one of life and one of death.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a great difference between the two.
SPEAKER_00: James has already told us that the way of the world and the way of God are mutually exclusive.
SPEAKER_00: James 4, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity towards God?
SPEAKER_00: We don't use the word enmity, basically hostility or hatred towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Fellowship with the world, living the way the world lives, is living in opposition to God and his ways for us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, there is a the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it, the gate is small, the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
SPEAKER_00: These are matters of life and death.
SPEAKER_00: They're not just, and it's an either-or.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like either-or things in our culture anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We want we want to find a little bit, we we want everybody to be happy.
SPEAKER_00: We want everybody who participates to get an award.
SPEAKER_00: And we really want everybody's view of God and life and everything to have a measure of truth to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way the scriptures approach it.
SPEAKER_00: It's black and white, it's either or.
SPEAKER_00: It's life, it's death.
SPEAKER_00: There's following God or following the world.
SPEAKER_00: The one brings life, the other brings mortal danger, death, destruction, despair.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want binary options, either or.
SPEAKER_00: We want tolerance.
SPEAKER_00: You can barely in a public venue anymore say anything definitive about right and wrong without getting in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not the way God talks.
SPEAKER_00: And who do you suppose is right?
SPEAKER_00: The way we talk or the way God talks?
SPEAKER_00: The way our society views things or the way God views things?
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
SPEAKER_00: But if you name the name of Christ, then in essence you've already decided.
SPEAKER_00: I have decided to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the 70s when my hair was dark and a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_00: One way, Jesus! One way, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Should have seen me then.
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't a pretty sight.
SPEAKER_00: Not that this is.
SPEAKER_00: But there was a time in which we said, there's one way.
SPEAKER_00: There is a way, a truth, a life.
SPEAKER_00: And that way is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we are running the risk of wanting it both ways.
SPEAKER_00: Those who wander off the path get themselves onto an alternative path, and the paths are diverging, they are not crossing.
SPEAKER_00: Friendship with the world is enmity towards God.
SPEAKER_00: The word wander that is used here calls up to our mind a different image.
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of bumbling around, like I wake up in the morning and I'm trying to get the sleep out of my eyes, and I'm trying to find exactly where the coffee pot is.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, for me, it never works.
SPEAKER_00: I always know exactly where the coffee pot is.
SPEAKER_00: So that's maybe a bad illustration.
SPEAKER_00: But the idea of wandering means we're just kind of aimlessly moving around without point or purpose or direction.
SPEAKER_00: The word that is used here means to deviate from the path.
SPEAKER_00: It's a deviant path, it's a diverging path, it's going astray, it's getting derailed, it's going off course.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, if, and the specific wording that he uses doesn't come across real well in most of our English translations, he says, if, and it's true, there are those among you who are wandering, and if, and it's true, some one of you goes to them, then this will.
SPEAKER_00: So this he's assuming, he's assuming that we have a danger of wandering.
SPEAKER_00: Not those out there, but us in here.
SPEAKER_00: And he makes it very clear that we are to restore and rescue him.
SPEAKER_00: He assumes that some in our midst will wander, and that some in our midst will go and help them.
SPEAKER_00: And the interesting reality is sometimes you may be wandering and someone comes and helps you, and other times someone else, maybe the one who was wandering, you're able to go and help them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't stand above, we don't stand in judgmental with judgmentalism.
SPEAKER_00: We are people in need of restoration, helping restore people who are in need of restoration.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it is portrayed.
SPEAKER_00: To restore is to turn or to bring back.
SPEAKER_00: We are not supposed to just be aware of people who are getting themselves into trouble and wandering off into places that they shouldn't go and just passively say, oh my goodness, that's really too bad, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: As though we have no responsibility to lovingly and gently and come alongside and help them, not standing above and looking down, but standing next to and loving and embracing and saying, let's talk, let's talk.
SPEAKER_00: And the assumption is we don't simply we don't simply accept the way they're going and say, oh well, that's just not a very good choice they're making.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a bad choice.
SPEAKER_00: It's a choice that leads to death, danger, and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just an alternative, it's a wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: But in our culture, in our culture, we're afraid to say that.
SPEAKER_00: And we're also afraid if we go to someone lovingly, with compassion, caring, that they're going to turn to us and say, well, you're not so great either.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I'm so much better than you, it's that we're all in need of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And we're all in need of being brought back and kept together on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Um we're not to be silent, we're not to simply accept, we're not to simply shrink back out of fear of what they might think.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the many one-another passages that are given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Galatians 6.1, let me uh read that for you.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6.1, brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if anyone is caught in any transgression, and that's happening, you who are spiritual, not you who are perfect, but you who have God's Spirit and are growing and developing in the faith, you who are righteous, you whose hearts are increasingly aligned with God's will and God's purposes, not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: You are not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't require perfection.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is spiritual in that sense, should rescue the other in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourself lest you yourself be tempted, bear one another's burdens, and fulfill the law of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
SPEAKER_00: So much more I would like to say.
SPEAKER_00: What I I simply want to do as we wrap up this message and this series on James is I want to just I wanna I want to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Does your faith really work?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that that's a question that we have to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Is your faith alive?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Really alive?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that and raise those questions to make you feel guilty or to be condemning any more than God does.
SPEAKER_00: God approaches us and he gets in our face because he loves us and he cares about us enough to say some things that challenge us.
SPEAKER_00: And we cannot and must not spend 26 messages looking at the book of James of all books of the Bible, and not ask ourselves the question, how's it going with my faith?
SPEAKER_00: Am I changing?
SPEAKER_00: Am I growing?
SPEAKER_00: Is God really working in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have one great fear that I will probably awake with in the middle of the night this week.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a sharing service next week.
SPEAKER_00: And what if no one?
SPEAKER_00: What if no one has seen God doing anything in their lives that's worth talking about?
SPEAKER_00: What if no one has been being instructed by God, being being helped to see some things, being challenged?
SPEAKER_00: What if no one is seeing God working in their lives, helping them in particular situations?
SPEAKER_00: So it's with a matter of fear and trepidation that we just throw it open and say, Lord, what are you doing in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing, folks?
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: A faith that is alive works.
SPEAKER_00: We are not saved by works, we are saved by grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: But saving grace makes a difference.
SPEAKER_00: Saving grace works, saving grace changes us.
SPEAKER_00: Are you changing?
SPEAKER_00: Are we changing?
SPEAKER_00: Am I changing?
SPEAKER_00: Just this week I found myself in deep weeds.
SPEAKER_00: And I came home and I talked to Jane about it, and I said, I'm in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I really screwed up badly here.
SPEAKER_00: And Jane patiently listened to me and then came and said, Well, what was this about that I heard about uh when you're in trouble, pray?
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: I needed, I needed that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm changing and growing as well.
SPEAKER_00: Are you?
SPEAKER_00: We better stop here.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, you are the one who changes us.
SPEAKER_00: We don't change ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: You are the one who keeps us on the path, the narrow way.
SPEAKER_00: You are the one who perseveres.
SPEAKER_00: We talk about believers persevering.
SPEAKER_00: If we persevere, it's because you persevere with us.
SPEAKER_00: You hold our hands and you don't let us go, and yet you say, hold tight to me.
SPEAKER_00: Just as a father crossing a street with a toddler, hold on tight.
SPEAKER_00: But we are secure in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, have your way with us.
SPEAKER_00: We need you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we need you.
SPEAKER_00: Every hour we need you.
SPEAKER_00: And may we have the joy of seeing in ways that may not be visible to other people around us, but we know in the core of our being that we are not who we once were, and we long to be who more than who we are now, but by your grace, your gospel is alive and well within our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, have your way with us, I pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you to stand.
SPEAKER_00: And let me once again repeat the benediction.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, brothers and sisters, dear papal of Faith Evangelical Free Church, go into the world in peace, have courage, hold on to that which is good, and honor all men, strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, comfort the grieving, share the gospel and restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.