Sermon Transcript
Hey, breaking news! The Parkmans, Jessa and Barrett, had their baby last night. Well, actually this morning.
So let’s see here, Xander Fritz Parkman. Did I get that right? Fitz? Fitz. Forget the R, I’m sorry.
But here’s the interesting part. 4 hours of labor, 2 minutes in the hospital, which is crazy. I mean, if you guys happen to remember our story, uh, just— we had Maddie a couple months ago, 8 minutes in the hospital. That was enough to like make me go crazy. 2 minutes.
I’m thinking about the Abishants. Where are the Abishants? You guys here? Oh, they’re in the nursery. It’s like, don’t beat that record, let that one stand.
Actually, I think they’re already scheduled to beat the record because I’m planning to do it at home, so they won’t get that record. No time at all spent on Spotify. Anyways, if you guys have your Bibles, go ahead and open up to the end of James, James chapter 5, starting in verse 13. We’re finishing the series today, which is very exciting.
Knock this down here. I don’t want to go all Baptist preaching and end up knocking this down. Yeah, so we’re finishing the series today, which I’m very excited about. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and Go ahead and open there. I’m going to go ahead and start reading.
It’ll be up on the top. Is anyone, anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for 3 and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sin. Okay, so this text is about God wanting to involve us in supernatural healing. This flyer really looks good. God wants to involve us in bringing supernatural healing. One of the most mind-boggling statements in the Bible to me is when Jesus said this to his disciples.
He said, I tell you the truth, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these. I mean, you think about that. Jesus, all the things that he did, that his disciples would do greater things. I mean, Jesus was doing miracle after miracle of supernatural healing, right? But what he said proved true.
I mean, look in the account of Acts, which incidentally we’re gonna study in the fall. You compare the supernatural healings of Jesus to the supernatural healings he did through the apostles, it was even greater. Whereas in the Gospels, Jesus You remember when the sick would come up and touch his cloak and be healed? Well, in the book of Acts, all it took was the disciples’ shadow passing over the sick and they would be healed. But you know what’s even crazier to me than that is that Jesus promised not only to those apostles, those disciples, but to those— whoever believes in him today is what his promise was, for you and for me today, that he wants to use us in supernatural healing.
Now Do you buy that? Do you believe that God wants to use you to bring supernatural healing? Or for that matter, that God wants— makes available supernatural healing to you through other Christ followers? You know, I think for a number of us, that’s hard to swallow, right? I mean, we think about supernatural healings, we think, oh, you know what, that just happens in remote places in China.
Right, please, we can’t verify it. You know, it happens, but not here, not now. But you know what the text would say to that? What James would say to that from this text, he’d say, don’t you do that. Don’t you dare discount the supernatural healing God wants to do for you and through you.
To put another way, if you need supernatural healing in your life, either physical or spiritual Do you know anybody in your life who needs supernatural healing, either physical or spiritual, that God might want to use you to help? That’s what this text is about. What James gives us are 3 ways. He shows us 3 ways that God wants to use us to bring supernatural healing. And at the end of this letter, these 3 ways he commissions us as a church to carry it out.
So that’s what we look at— 3 ways God wants to use us to bring supernatural healing to this world. And I would just say at the top before we get into it, there is a lot in this text, okay? There’s easily 2, 3 more sermons. So we’re just gonna do high level and just, just touch what we can, okay? So verse 13, first way God wants to use the supernatural anointing is here.
Is anyone among you troubled? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick?
Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person and well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Then latter part of verse 16, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Now the first way God wants to involve us, you and me, if we’re his followers, in bringing supernatural healing is of course through prayer. James’s big point here is that prayer changes things. It changes the world. Recently when I was on vacation, I read the newspaper and And the front page of USA Today a week or so ago was of 2 US patients who had pretty miraculously healed from the Ebola virus. They were 2 Christian missionaries in West Africa bringing humanitarian aid there, and one of them, a physician named Kent Brantly, was quoted saying, God saved my life, said a gaunt Brantly, who arrived at a news conference Thursday and drew the applause from the crowd, he thanked his medical team and the millions of people around the world praying for his recovery.
Please do not stop praying, he said, for the people of West Africa. Brantly believes what James is saying here in this text, that God changes things through prayer supernaturally, brings supernatural healing through prayer. That, for instance, it was through prayer that his body was healed. And that it’s through prayer that God can bring healing to the people of West Africa. But here’s an objection that a lot of people have with this text, a struggle that a lot of Christians who take the Bible seriously have with this text when they look at it.
I told you we don’t have a lot of time, so we’re gonna get right into it. But verse 14, you know, what about the times when prayers seemingly go unanswered? That could be a struggle for a lot of Christians. About those times? Verse 14 says, anyone among you sick, let them call the elders of the church to pray over them, anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
Verse 15, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. It makes me think of what my parents— my parents lost my oldest, my oldest brother.
He was born prematurely and only lived a few days in the And my parents, bless them, shielded us from a lot of the heart-wrenching that this was for us as kids growing up. They let us know a little bit about it as we grew up. And of course, it was incredibly hard for them to go through. But you can believe that through this time, people were praying for them, that they were praying like crazy.
What of that? You know, many people, they see this verse and they say, okay, the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Okay, this is what this means. We need to bottle up, we need to concentrate really hard, get our faith into just this fury, then pray and God will answer that. And if we’re short of that, maybe He won’t answer.
Some people look at this text and they say that. In other words, the prayer of faith is having no doubts. But I would humbly say to you that that’s a terrible mistake.
Because when we pray and the prayer seemingly goes unanswered, let’s say the person’s physical being doesn’t recover, the only conclusion is therefore, okay, which of you didn’t pray with all your heart, right? Can you think about how damaging that is for the people who pray?
For the person who receives that prayer, it can be damaging. But you know, I can think of a prayer, or an example of a prayer of faith from the scriptures. You remember the time when this guy brought his son who was demon-possessed to Jesus for healing? You remember that story? And this guy brings his son and asks, he prays that Jesus would heal him.
And what does Jesus ask him? Do you have faith? What does the guy say? I don’t know. What he actually says is, I believe, help my unbelief.
Remember this story? That’s a— that’s like a way of saying, I sort of believe, I sort of don’t, please help, right? Jesus says that’s faith.
I think when we look at a prayer of faith, it seems to me from this text what James is saying is that he’s praying for something specifically and trusting it to God. You know, praying, God, please heal Kent Brantley of the Ebola virus. God, please heal Samantha Stenfort of her Lyme disease. Prayers that we’ve been praying, right? I think of Eddie, his mother and sister, right?
A lot of people, they’ll say, you know, you know, some prayers just go unanswered. But you know, I don’t know if I buy that, because at least from what James is talking about here is he doesn’t give room for that. In this particular case, with the sick person, he says the sick person will be healed. What about the time when we were praying that my father-in-law would be healed from lung cancer? Or what about the time that my parents were praying for my oldest brother, who didn’t make it?
What’s going on? How do we reconcile these things? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’ve been praying about it a lot. And I’m just going to humbly present this to you.
Maybe it’s helpful. Okay, this is what the Lord’s given to me. You guys remember that story when those guys bring their friend who’s a paralytic to Jesus? It’s in Mark 2 if you want to leaf there. They, you know, they pick this guy up.
They’ve heard that Jesus can heal, right? He’s built up this reputation early on in his ministry. So they take this guy on a mat, they walk who knows how far And they bring their friend to Jesus. Well, Jesus, it’s the middle of the day, is in the middle of a sermon, and there’s this house he’s in, and you just can’t get to him because there’s too many crowds. The crowd’s just too great.
So what they do, you guys remember the story, is they, they get— they take this, their friend, carry him up, up onto the roof, burrow through the ceiling, and lower the guy on a mat in front of Jesus. And what an awesome scene, right? I mean, you got to figure, here’s this guy who’s obviously paralytic. And then here’s Jesus, who everybody knows he has this reputation for healing people in a supernatural way. So everybody’s eyes are like, okay, I’ll just do the school sermon, but what’s gonna happen, right?
That’s the scene. And then one of the coolest things happens. It’s just a remarkable statement. What does Jesus say? You think he’d heal him.
What does he say? Son, your sins are forgiven, right? You know, this is not in the text. But I almost bet that everybody, virtually everybody’s mouth just dropped. Everybody’s jaw just dropped.
I think of the Pharisees. Their jaws were dropped. Why? Well, they were thinking he was saying blasphemy, right? That how dare you forgive sins?
You can’t do that. Only God can do that, right? And that plays out in the text. But I also think that his friends, the paralytic’s friends, had their jaws dropped too. Why?
Because they’re sitting there like, Jesus, We just brought this dude all the way here, went through all this effort, put him before you to heal him physically, and you’re gonna say, son, your sins are forgiven?
And I bet you, if everybody else had their jaws dropped, it’s my guess the only person who didn’t have their jaws dropped— their jaw dropped was the guy on the mat. Do you know why I think I could say that, even though I’m obviously taking a lot of liberties with your text? Sorry, you know why I think I could say that his jaw wasn’t dry? He wasn’t surprised by that because it’s something all Christians have experienced at least one time in our life. He experienced the, the spiritual supernatural healing in that moment that far exceeded the healing of his physical body, right?
If you’re a Christian here today, you’ve experienced this, that one moment where you’re like, God, you forgive my sins, all of them, and just the overwhelming love and joy that gives us.
You know, if you read the rest of that account, Mark 2, if you want to look at it, Jesus goes on to heal that guy physically, doesn’t he? But I almost feel like the physical healing is anticlimactic at that point because Jesus is going after something far greater. That was the healing of this guy’s soul. Not only does this matter for us when we become believers, but also it’s important— this kind of spiritual healing matters in our spiritual walk. And that’s often what Jesus is doing.
Look at what— look at again at the verse that James writes here, the entire verse, actually 2 verses. Verse 14: Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up.
If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Here’s what I think James is saying, is Jesus is interested in holistic healing. Sometimes we won’t receive the answers to a prayer that we expect. Sometimes we will, but he is faithful and he will answer, and he’s always working it out for our good. Look, I am a product of many people praying, okay?
You know, my parents, when they went through that horrible circumstance, they could have thrown up their hands and said, you know what, we’re done. Actually, we have some good friends of ours who weren’t believers at the time, same life stage as my parents, didn’t know them at that time, but went through the exact same situation. Weren’t Christians then, but weren’t praying this thing through. And they decided when they went through that hard thing, that hard time, you know what, we can’t have kids. It’s too much.
Even adoption, that idea, we can’t do it. If my parents had decided that, I would literally not be here today. You know, I believe that God raised them up, raised my family up through those prayers, answered those prayers in a way that they didn’t expect or maybe hope for, but a way that even exceeds it. You know, my parents were very early on in their ministry years. My dad, you know, they could have said, you know what, this is too much, God.
Why would you ever do this? I’m done with this. No more. Let’s find another profession. No, I believe it’s the grace of God answering prayers to make their faith stronger because of this.
They went on to have 35 years of pastoral ministry, including planting 2 gospel-believing churches. They’re still bearing a lot of fruit today. The Lord raised them up. You know, they went on to have 6 kids. You know, I’m number 4, in case you’re wondering.
Right? A number of whom are in full-time ministry, all of whom are fully committed to the Lord. The Lord will raise you up. It’s not always in the ways that we expect or think, but it’s always for our good. You know, I think— I don’t know how this works, but I think my older brother, he looks down on us, he smiles.
I think he’s happy with how things are turning about, as horrible it was, but seeing big picture. You know, for what it’s worth, my son actually bears his name, Caleb Jonathan. But did you know that Jesus himself suffered through this tension, this tension of praying for something and the answer to that prayer coming in a different way. Do you remember when Jesus was facing the weight of the cross in the Garden of Gethsemane? What did he pray?
What was the first part of that prayer? He said, Father, may this cup pass from me. You remember that? You know what that’s saying, right? It’s saying, Father, this is about to be crazy.
I don’t have to go through this, all the pain, the torment. Are you kidding?
Right? Yet how did he end that prayer? Nevertheless, your will be done, not mine. And the Lord lifted him up. I mean, if you read Philippians 2, it’s a picture.
Jesus, he gave him the name that is above all names, that every knee should bow, every tongue confess that he is Lord. That is lifting him above, above the heavens. But before lifting him up, he first lifted up onto the cross. Now, this is not always the case for us, but sometimes it is. But the promise is there of supernatural healing, that God hears our prayers and will bring supernatural healing, even in ways that we don’t necessarily expect.
You know, I forgot to bring it, but hopefully I have this picture of these oil flasks. You know, if you want prayer, the elders come and lay their hands on you in prayer, you know, talk to one of the pastors, talk to the elders. We’d love to do this for you. I was talking to Jason, he was like, you know, he made the good point of like a lot of people think these are the sorts of things in the Old Testament, we don’t really do anymore. No, this is, you know, this is New Testament stuff.
We take this, we will lay hands on you and put oil on your head, and we will pray for you. Okay, but the reason why I want to show you this picture was, uh, you know, here on the left is this box that my my dad gave to me. It was originally with my great-grandfather. He was a pastor, my grandfather’s pastor, kind of passed through. And on the front of the box, which you obviously can’t see, it says 1890, which is just incredible.
He built this kit. It’s for whenever he did homeschool visitations. It’s communion cups and a place where you can put a little bread if you wanted to. But I was getting ready for the sermon and I showed Pastor Dave this. I was like, hey, check out, you know, this cool thing.
He came back, he’s like, here’s my old flask. I was like, Mine’s totally holier than yours. He’s like, well, I use extra virgin oil.
No, the point, um, the point is, uh, the point is, if you want us to pray over you, anoint your head with oil, we are more than willing to do that. But real quickly before moving on, well, actually a couple things here, um, because I think this is worth, you know, you don’t often teach scripture here. The oil in the Bible had really 2 purposes, 2 meanings. A lot of people think the oil took on like magical properties, you know, became holy and something happened. There’s nothing in the text, as you see.
I just— it’s not there. But what the oil represented in the Bible, really 2 things. Number one, God’s presence, his Holy Spirit. This in a way was— it is our way of saying, God, you’re everywhere, you know all, you see all, you’re here in this place, but in a special way that we don’t fully understand, we commit this person and this body to you for healing. That’s part of what’s going on.
The other thing with oil is it has medicinal properties back in the Old Testament, biblical times. Did you know that? I mean, there’s the Good Samaritan, when he picks the guy out of the ditch, he puts oil and wine, which is always funny. It’s like he’s making a salad with the guy. But anyways.
He puts oil on it, it’s for soothing wounds, right? And what’s really happening here, I love this, the Bible affirms medicine. The Bible affirms science for that matter. But that’s why, for example, when we come and we pray as Christians, we’re saying, God, please use the surgeons, use their hands to heal their body. You know, the medicine that they’re taking, use that to heal their body.
And this is why Christians do and should seek out good medical care. There’s nothing wrong with that. That should be, you know, that’s freedom that we have. But then the rest of that prayer is, but God, if you want to, you can work outside the laws of nature. You can act directly, heal this person’s life outside of any physician’s care.
You’re the Great Physician. So that’s what’s happening, and that’s what James makes available to us. Now, before moving on, I will just highlight real quickly in verse 15, it says that the elders— or 14, I think it is— that the elders will pray over you. And the only reason why I say that is it’s generally— one of my fears is we’ll just start everybody coming and asking for oil to come on over. I don’t think James is talking about prayer over the common cold.
But the idea of praying over is this idea of this person’s either bedridden or in serious trouble. Now use your discernment. If you want the Lord’s, you know, you want us to pray for you in this way, we’d be more than happy to. But the bigger overarching point that James is making is not so much the elders’ prayer, but that all Christians need to be praying for everybody else. We need to be, you know, life groups, friends, we need to be praying for healing.
And the promise is supernatural healing. Okay, there’s much, much more we could say about prayer from this text, but we’re gonna press forward. The second way God involves us in supernatural healing is through confession. It’s kind of tucked in there in verse 16. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Now I think the first thing here to notice is the link that confession has to being sick. That verse 16 starts with the word therefore. It’s building off the thought of verses 14 and 15 when the person’s sick. Confess your sins. And here’s what I think James is saying.
Thing. People in the medical field often tell you something that I’ve noticed in my limited experience of hospital visitations, and that is that when people are in a hospital bed, when they’re sick, they’re often much more introspective than they otherwise would be. And what James is saying is utilize that. I mean, have you— I know I’ve experienced this just with the flu. You guys ever been knocked out by sickness?
You can’t read, you can’t do anything, and you just are totally overcome by your frailty, you know, your vulnerability, how human we are. My mind tends to drift to often, how— what are the wrongs I’ve committed? And I think what James is saying is that’s a good thing. That could be God’s doing. Now that’s not to say that when you’re sick, if you’re sick, it’s because you’ve done something wrong.
There’s plenty of places in the Bible that say that’s not always the case. But I think what James is saying is the sobriety of being sick, if you will, what that affords us to being introspective and having a spiritual self-diagnosis— do that. And what he says specifically is confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. Now, I do want to mention this. It says confess to each other.
Not before each other. And the reason why I say that is because I’ve heard any number of times this verse said this way: therefore, go and spill your guts to other Christians, right? And I don’t think that’s what he’s actually— you know, when you read up on this, nobody says that’s what they’re saying. Because when it says to and not before, he’s saying we need to come into agreement. That’s what the word there, confession, means actually.
Come into agreement. Come into agreement with someone who says they’ve wronged you, or you’ve wronged them. The word confession, for what it’s worth, the root word is homo, logos, same, logos, logic, you know, so it’s the same kind of thinking, coming in agreement. So in other words, how this plays out is you go to someone, you have to be in agreement with the wrong you’ve committed to them, then you become in agreement with them. And the promise is supernatural healing.
When I was in college, I had a buddy who had broken up with his girlfriend a long time in the past, and I was spending a little bit of time with her. Now again, this was long— it happened— he had broken up a while ago, and there weren’t really actually feelings that much. But he caught wind of this, and he came to me, and he was offended. Well, being the overly principled guy I was in college, I was offended that he was offended. You know, it’s like, like, what’s up?
You know, it’s like there’s no, you know, feelings happening here. And by the way, dude, you like broke up with her. It’s like free game.
It’s not Cindy, by the way.
I’ll hear about that one. But anyway, so, but anyway, you know, okay. So having said that, I mean, I still responded in a way that probably wasn’t the healthiest or biblical, right? And as a result, you know, there was a rift in our relationship. It caused some real trouble.
And yeah, he felt that I had wronged him. I felt that he had wronged me. And we were just both out of agreement, okay? And the result was we were both miserable, okay? Long story short, I finally got over myself and I went and talked to the dude, okay?
And I believe this is a gift of the Lord, okay? I wouldn’t have gone and talked to him if it hadn’t been for the Lord stirring that up. But I went and talked to the dude and said, you know what, I’ve wronged you. And it was a pretty amazing experience because he said, you know what, I’ve wronged you too. And, you know, it was kind of a funny scene.
We were out in the street, but we were hugging each other, and, you know, it was kind of one of those things. And this is like a dude’s dude, so it wasn’t— it was, you know, I even remember— the only reason why I mentioned it— I even remember we cheered up a little bit. The reason I mentioned that is because we both felt that there was something deeper happening than just our relationship being restored. There was truly supernatural healing happen beyond just the relationship. Confession is a way that God involves us in supernatural healing.
But the thing is, we downplay it, don’t we? Or more often than not, we put it out of our minds. Why? Because we’re proud. We have a lot of pride.
I’m not gonna go confess, you know, that person has this and this.
But what can happen is it can imprison us, can burden us, even if we, like suppress the feeling, it can taint our character. There are plenty of papers in the field of medicine that affects us physically. For example, things like ulcers. If you leave these things unattended to— and what James is saying is it’s so important, vital, the church exercise confession for a means of supernatural healing to happen. We’re commissioned to do it.
Okay, the third way God involves the supernatural healing is in the last 2 verses. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. The, the third way and last way James says God wants to involve supernatural healing is through reclamation. Okay, and I don’t love this word, it’s a bit of a mouthful and all that, but it gets across what James is saying. God calls us to reclaim those who have wandered or are wandering away from the faith.
You know, have you ever experienced this? Maybe you’ve wandered from your faith for a time, whatever the circumstances are. I know there’s a number of stories actually from this room being the case, and how powerful it was that someone came alongside, put an arm around you, brought you back into the faith. These are powerful times. Times of great supernatural healing.
You know, I know for me, even thinking about this story that I just shared with you with my buddy, somebody came along, you know, a number of folks came alongside me and brought me back into the faith. I mean, for example, some folks were saying, hey Dave, do you realize that it’s not only affecting your relationship with this guy but relationship with others? I mean, you guys are in the same circle of friends. Do you think it’s also affecting your relationship with the Lord? And you know, I’ll be honest, when I first heard that, I didn’t want to hear it.
I didn’t want anything of it. But as I thought about it, as they kept coming, their persistence, and finally I said, you know what? And that Lord used that to help bring me to a place of confession, right? It’s worth noting that reclamation was extremely important to Jesus. I mean, 3 of his most famous parables are about reclamation.
Luke 15. Look at them. You know, it’s the first one’s the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus is talking about this guy who has 100 sheep, loses one, leaves all 99 just to find that one sheep. He gets so excited, it says, and when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulder and goes home.
Then he calls his friends and neighbors together, says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. Jesus goes on to say, I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. There’s these string of parables. The next one he just goes straight into is about the woman with the 10 coins of great value. Loses one.
What’s she do? She upends her whole house looking for it. When she finds it, same response, calls her friend, big party. And then of course the most famous parable of them all, parable of the lost son, prodigal son. You know, it’s of this guy who just says, you know what, I can’t stand living with my father and brother anymore.
Give me my inheritance. You know, which was of course a slap in the face because their culture worked the same way our culture does today. If you have inheritance, you get it after, you know, your parents pass away. But he said, you know what, I want mine now. The father said, okay.
And he went off and he spent it on the fast life. Ruined his life. Didn’t know it at first, but finally he ended up in what amounts to be the slums. And finally decided, you know what, even going back and being a servant for my father would be better than this. So he starts making his way back to his father.
He doesn’t know how it’s going to go, but he prepares this little speech. Here’s the speech he’s preparing. Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.
I imagine him like, Saying this over and over as he comes to his father so he’ll be able to say it. And when his father sees him from a distance off, you know the story, he comes and tackles him with love. The father puts a new robe on him, a new ring, and throws a feast in his honor. And he says, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He is lost— he was lost and is found.
This is, of course, the story Jesus is communicating to say this is how much the Father loves us, even when we’ve wandered wandered from him. It’s of course how he loves us if we’ve yet to put our faith in him. But even if we’ve wandered from him, he still loves us just cup running over.
And this is what he calls us— James is saying— into reclaiming those who are wandering. That’s supernatural healing. Maybe you’re here today and you’ve wandered, you are wandering. The Lord wants you to come back to the fold. He stands with arms open.
And then for those of us who have people who are wandering or have wandered off from the truth in our life, James calls us to reclaim them. He says in verse 20, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sin. Now you may say, I thought only Jesus could save from death and cover over a multitude of sin. And I would say, you’re right, but God wants to use you to help make that happen. That’s just amazing when you think about it.
The supernatural healing he wants to do through you and me is just, is just ridiculous. There’s no way else of putting that. Now, the reality is though, when we think about this in our lives, it’s really hard. You know, I know there’s a number of parents here, grandparents, maybe ex-roommates, friends we have who have wandered from the faith, and it can be really heart-wrenching, right?
But James gives us some opportunity, shows us a little bit when we look a little deeper on how we can help bring about, how we can bring folks back into the faith. And 2 things I’ll say. The first are what we’ve already talked about, prayer and confession. When he talks about reclamation here, it’s couched in prayer and confession. Prayer, you know, we need to be praying for them.
Now some of you will be saying, are you kidding, David? I pray every day, morning and night, for this person. But others, other of us will say, you know what, I’ve given up praying. We need to keep praying. Do we have others praying for them?
You know, one of the things I love about working at this church is If you go on the website, I think there’s ways through the bullets and you can send us prayer requests and we get them. Like, you know, you send those off into the abyss, we actually pray for those, right? So send them our way. Staff, the elders, we pray. Are you praying?
Are we praying for them? And the other one is confession. You know, oftentimes— well, not oftentimes— sometimes, you know, when people have wandered from the faith, it might be partly because of our doing. You know, I shared a story a couple weeks ago of a family friend in my life, a woman whose son post-college has wandered from his faith. And she realized after years of struggling with this that she’s, she has played a part in his wandering.
And so she’s wanted to go to him and say, you know what, I’ve played a part. And God can use some of that part of the supernatural healing. The only other thing I would say is undoubtedly in most cases it takes time. I mean, you know, he says in verse 20 to turn a sinner from their ways. How many of us turn from our, you know, sinful ways easily or quickly?
I mean, right? No way. And yet there’s a God who loves them, is more patient with them than we are, loves them more than we are, is longing to bring them back. Fulfilled and wants to use you and me to bring them back. Okay, so there you have it.
God wants to involve us in supernatural healing in these 3 ways: prayer, confession, and reclamation. And here’s the funny thing about James’ book. He’s going, he’s going, he’s going, and all of a sudden just stops. You ever notice that about James’ book? He’s like, he’s going full steam and it’s just like, period, end of story.
There’s no, like, send holy kisses to Eutyches, and, you know, may God bless you and the peace of— you know, there’s none of that. He just goes like verse 20, you know, remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of their ways will save them from death and cover over multiple sins, period. Thanks, James. But you know, I think that’s actually very appropriate for James in this book, wouldn’t you say? Because his is a book of action, right?
And its theme is faith does. And so I think we need to keep this in mind as we reflect on today’s today’s message, but even the message of the entire book. Because I think if James were to speak to our church today, the modern church, I’m guessing he would come with a warning. I mean, I feel like a lot of what— there’s an implicit warning in the book of James. And the warning is this: don’t just go through the motions.
Don’t just play church. I think that’s the very serious warning he would have for you and me today. Because faith must be accompanied by action. That’s his whole point. That’s his whole argument.
In the big themes of the book, you know, how we speak, how we treat the poor and the oppressed, how we use our finances— you know the major themes. And then even today, bringing supernatural healing through prayer, confession, and reclamation. Faith must be accompanied by action. You know, prayer, okay, that takes faith obviously, but it also takes action with persistence, diligence, resolve to continue to pray. Confession, that takes faith, but it also takes action of, you know, eating humble pie, right?
And actually boldly going to that person not knowing how they’re gonna respond, how it’s gonna make you feel, feel. And then reclamation— that takes faith, of course, but also action in the sense of looking for ways to bring opportunities, wisdom, and of course patience.
It’s my prayer that this series that we’ve been going through wouldn’t just be, you know, a nice summer lesson, but it would be the beginning of God better, more us into a church of gospel action. Would you pray with me?
Father, thank you so much for your exceedingly gracious love that you pour out on us. Lord, that you reclaimed us if we put our faith in you. You came on a rescue mission. Those parables that you talked about, that you call us into, really they start with your love. You’re exiting heaven to come and be among us that you might offer forgiveness of sins and grace, eternal life in your name.
Lord, who are we? And not only that you would save us, but that you would call us to help save others. You’d call us to bring supernatural healing to others.
Lord, it’s a struggle.
We often get things wrong. We’re selfish and all that. Forgive us when we’re this way, but Lord, use us individually and as a church. May we be a church of gospel action that takes our faith and puts our hands and feet to work. Lord, if there are people here today who don’t yet know you, Lord, may today be the day.
And just speaking to you now, if you would like prayer today, if you’d like to put your faith in Christ, I’m going to be over off to the side. You can come to me, come to me, and I’d love to pray with you, for you. If you’re here today and you’ve wandered from the truth, that resonates with you, and you’d like to come back, Jesus has his arms open, pierced hands hands, arms open, wanting to receive. You can come and pray with me. I’d love to pray with you.
But Lord, may we bring supernatural healing through prayer, confession, reclamation, not only in our church but to the community around us. And it’s your precious name we pray. Amen. At this time, the musicians are going to come back up and we’re going to conclude our time in worship. I just want to point out that there’s 2 tables on the side here with communion.
If you’re a follower of Christ and you would like to participate in communion, that’s available to you. The bread represents his body broken for you. His blood symbolized in the cup poured out for you on the cross. We’re remembering what he’s done for us, that he came to claim us. And if you’d like to receive that, the next 3 songs, we have that available to you.
And then I will make myself available over here. If there’s a deaconess, maybe you can meet me over here too. We’ll make ourselves available to you to pray, to pray with you. But would you please stand as we conclude our time of worship?
