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James 5:12-20 | Faith Together - Mark Dever | Exposit The Word | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: James 5:12-20 | Faith Together - Mark Dever
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This content argues that while Christianity, particularly Protestantism and even more so Baptism, emphasizes individual faith and accountability before God, true Christian faith is inherently social and cannot be purely private. It explores the implications of this social dimension through an interpretation of the Book of James, focusing on the interconnectedness of speech, sickness, sin, and prayer within the Christian community.
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nothing that I have perceived of the
American religion is more persuasive
than the image of the Southern Baptists
alone in the garden with Jesus even if
as I have to believe the Baptist
ultimately is alone with herself she
knows the two truths of spirituality
that are most worth knowing
she knows beyond knowing that she is no
part of the creation and she possesses
the other American knowledge also the
freedom that is wildness total spiritual
solitude so wrote Harold Bloom in his
fairly recent and uh Nilima nating book
called the American religion though
mistaken in fact a Bloom has hit on
something that is often thought about
Christianity and that is that it's an
individualistic religion that is that
it's a religion that doesn't say so much
about us as a community or families but
it speaks very much about us as
individuals Christianity has often been
misunderstood as a religion of
individualism reflecting Greek influence
people would often say rather than the
more community oriented religions of
Africa or Asia and certainly
Christianity does teach the
accountability of each individual before
God well if people make that charge
about Christianity it's even more so
made about Protestantism in particular
after all isn't it we Protestant to take
our identity from the fact that we
believe that we are justified by God
through faith alone the individual
stands before God with no need of a
human mediator other than the god man
Jesus Christ and well if it's true of
Protestants how much more is this true
of angelicus
Evangelical Protestant who stress so
much that individual experience of the
new birth where we come to realize our
own sin personally and where we pray to
God for forgiveness and where he gives
us new life in crime
and if that's true of Aven Jellicle
Protestants well how much more of
Baptists most of all
after all we Baptists are the one who
stressed that there is no infant baptism
there is baptism for believers only
churches are to be composed of those who
have not been coerced but it is a
voluntary cooperation of people who in
following Jesus as they understand it
feel they are called to covenant
together to follow him together but how
we have to make that statement and that
decision individually and so therefore
with Baptist there's no possibility of a
state Church when you have infant
baptism in a Lutheran Church certainly a
Roman Catholic a Greek Orthodox Church
in a Presbyterian or Methodist Church
there you can have a state Church infant
baptism can be as wide as the population
of a geographic area but Baptists well
there's no chance of a state religion
with Baptists Baptists know that only
those who choose individually to be a
part of the church can be a part of the
church and so Baptists have historically
in this country been great champions of
religious liberty in the earlier part of
this century the historic Protestant
belief in the priesthood of the believer
became twisted into what was called soul
competency by some Christians in America
which essentially was the demand of one
Christian to others you keep your nose
out of my life just as every tub stands
on its own bottom so every man is his
own Pope each of us is our own religion
Robert Bellah and his book habits of the
heart noted this as he interviewed
people around America about their
understanding of Christianity he kept
noting how everybody was individually
tailoring it to fit themselves he called
the phenomena Sheila ISM after this one
person that he interviewed named Sheila
who liked to think of God this way but
not this way in this way but then
particularly like this and that bit of
Christianity as well he said he found
this kind of design or religion typical
of the people that he interviewed and
it's not just academics and analysts who
look and think and say these things how
many times have you heard
someone say who is a member of a
Christian Church religion is a private
matter of course it is a very personal matter
matter
Christianity it must be if it's going to
be genuine often people though who say
religion is a private matter simply mean
that they don't want to talk about it
it's something you keep very much to yourself
yourself
Tennessee Williams explaining why he had
given up visiting a psychoanalyst said
he was meddling too much in my private
life we do have a tendency to think of
our religion our private lives as like
our ambitions part of our private
fantasies or fears and that's where this
little letter of James in the New
Testament that we've been studying for a
month now on Sunday mornings and for the
last two years in this church on
Wednesday nights that we come to our
last study of this morning as we say
goodbye to the book of James as a church
for a while that's where this last
section of James's letter shows us that
any saving faith any truly Christian
faith can't be private personal yes but
not finally private because both God and
his people are involved any religion
which isn't just thoughts and opinions
but which includes actions can never
finally be completely private just to
refresh your mind what James has done in
this letter up to this point is he sort
of penned these early Christians he's
writing to against the wall he's told
them in the first chapter that they're
not to despise trials because they're
hard things they shouldn't try to avoid
something simply because it's difficult
and then on the other hand he's shown
them in the end of chapter one and in
chapter two that they're supposed to
obey Scripture all of Scripture not just
those parts that they particularly like
but all of it and then when he's made
that clear he gets to what I think is
the main bulk of the letter in chapters
three and four and five and that is
about how
this applies to their stress ridden
faction prone Church having shown the
goodness of trials and the active nature
of faith James and his concluding part
of his letter tells him that faith is
social that it has to be lived out
together and their understanding of
speech and sickness and sin and in their
practice of Prayer well our passage is
James chapter 5 the last eight verses of
the book found verses 13 to 20 on page
1200 and I think it's 69 of your pew
Bible 1269 listen to these last few
verses in James's letter and follow
along because I think this sermon more
than most of them from James is going to
be a bit of a detective novel as we try
to figure something out in this passage
it may seem strange to us upon first
reading James chapter 5 beginning in
verse 13 as any one of you in trouble
he should pray is anyone happy I'll let
him sing songs of praise
is any one of you sick he should call
the elders of the church to pray over
him and anoint him with oil in the name
of the Lord and the prayer offered in
faith will make the sick person well the
Lord will raise him up if he has sinned
he will be forgiven
therefore confess your sins to each
other and pray for each other so that
you may be healed the prayer of a
righteous man is powerful and effective
Elijah was a man just like us
he prayed earnestly that it would not
rain and it did not rain on the land for
three and a half years again he prayed
and the heavens gave rain and the earth
produced its crops my brother's if one
of you should wander from the truth and
someone should bring him back remember
this whoever turns a sinner from the
error of his way will save him from
well the first topic from this passage
I'll simply mention and that is their
practice of speech in verse 13 he says
as any one of you in trouble he should
pray is anyone happy let him sing songs
of praise he's essentially exhorting
them there to be God centered in their
speech and in their communication so he
says are you feeling bad well would you
like some specific application here are
you feeling bad
pray to God are you feeling good praise God
God
he's saying they should be God centered
in their speech in life really I think
this goes more with the the previous
section that we were thinking of last
week where they were looking at how all
of life has to do with our being
dependent on God and how we need to
recognize that so that's all I'm gonna
say about verse 13 moving on to
something that probably brings a few
more questions to us when we read it on
matters which I think are probably most
interest us and confused us here and
that is their understanding of sickness
in verses 14 to 16 and how they're to
deal with it you know at first force
verse 14 may look like just another one
of those is anyone of you passages
because you see in verse 13 you've got
two of those and then verse 14 begins
like that but really though the word
prey makes verse 13 seems like it goes
with all this as I said I think it goes
with more verse 12 about our speech and
indeed that whole section about being
dependent on God but verse 14 is any of
you sick this seems to open up another
topic which really has continued
throughout the rest of the passage
throughout the rest of the book this is
how James finishes with this question is
any of you sick he should call the
elders of the church to pray over him
and anoint him with oil in the name of
the Lord and the prayer offered in faith
will make the sick person well the Lord
will raise him up if he has sinned he
will be forgiven therefore confess your
sins to each other and pray for each
other so that you may be healed now some
of this we Christians have no problem
with a for example the basic
here in this passage that we see in
verse 15 but God answers prayer for the
sick those of us who are here this
morning as Christians have no problem
with this we know this is true we don't
have to bend and break our worldview to
try to fit this and we we understand
this afterall we Christians are not
natural ists that is we don't deny the
supernatural we know there are things
going on that we that are above us in
our powers so prayer to God makes
complete sense
we're not Deus they don't believe the
deity that God is some cold removed
being who's not caring and concerned for
us now we Christians aren't like that at
all we know that God has chosen to
involve himself in our world that he
cares about us that he invites us to
make our cares known to him and to
entrust ourselves fully to him and in
this case here with our physical health
just as much with other concerns we may
have we're invited to do this all right
no doubt that many of us who are sitting
here this morning right now
could give testimonies even personal
testimonies to the way that God has
involved himself in our lives in
extraordinary ways when we've been sick
perhaps when we prayed for ourselves or
for others and God has granted a
recovery of health I remember one time
soon after I became a Christian when I
was limping around and one of my legs a
lot because the doctor said I had
growing pains I didn't know what it was
I went to the doctor and he just
explained the bones were growing faster
than the cartilage at that point well I
I went to this Bible study that I just
started to attend that night and I'm
when they were asking for prayer
requests I just innocently shared well
that you know my knees had been hurting
for a while and and the doctor when I'd
asked about I'd seen him actually that
afternoon when I'd asked him about it
and said what should I do he said well
there's nothing you can do you know you
just have to wait a few months until
your ligaments catch up and then you'll
be fine again okay and well I was I was
I was embarrassed mortified really to
find at the end of the meeting the lady
who was leading the Bible study asked me
to get in the middle of the circle
they were then gonna lay hands on me and
pray for me I hadn't intended to have
that happen at all I mean I felt that
that happened then I was gonna have to somehow
somehow
hope I could feel better or something
you know if they were gonna be praying
for me in front of everybody else so I
got in the middle of the circle and they
laid hands on me and pray a very simple
prayer and I was thinking oh my goodness
what am I supposed to do now I stood up
my knees were absolutely fine for the
first time in months they weren't
hurting at all now maybe that was
psychosomatic I leave it to you we can
sort it out in heaven but I have no
doubt that God answers prayer for things
like this and I'm not going to spend a
lot of time on this because I think most
of you who are sitting here believe this
as well we know that God hears and
answers prayer well we may believe that
God sometimes heals but I think it's the
assurance that James has here that God
will say that he will heal that he will
raise up in verse 15 and that's the
thing that gives us pause this air of
certainty in the verse look at verse 15
again and the prayer offered in faith
will make the sick person well the Lord
will raise him up now that is more a
problem to us that's where we start to
go wow I don't know about this I mean
when we look back at our own experience
and we can see times when we've prayed
or others we now have prayed for someone
to be healed and it doesn't seem that
they are James seems to be saying here
that this prayer for healing is one
which we can know will be answered
unlike so may our prayers which are a
little more than wishes this prayer
seems to be one which is prayed with no
doubt with no hesitancy or uncertainty
about the answer the prayer seems to
know that God will raise up this sick one
one
now perhaps that means the final
resurrection that's the case and there's
no problem here perhaps that's all it
means here by saving the sick person or
making them whole or well and if we're
Christians we do have that assurance
that whatever bodily malady we have well
we have a new body to inherit one day if
you want to know more about that go read
1st Corinthians 15 in 2nd Corinthians 5
and you could read this passage in James that
that
now would eliminate as I say all kinds
of difficulties that we have with the
certainty that there seems to be in this
verse which seems to clash with our own
experience yet it seems to me as I read
this honestly if I'm not trying to make
it fit and I'm just trying to listen to
what James is saying it seems like he's
clearly talking about a health or
raising up which happens in this life if
we're honest we're probably also a bit
puzzled by this idea of turning to
others like he tells us to do here to us
both the instruction to bring the elders
and what the elders themselves then do
to affect this physical healing it seems
strange verse 14 he says as any one of
you sick he should call the elders of
the church to pray over him and anoint
him with oil in the name of the Lord now
let's be honest and when we're sick
calling the elders is not our first
thought we tend to think of what Health
Plan do we have who do we call
particularly at first for this malady is
there some way I get a prescription for
this this afternoon so that I'll be okay
by work tomorrow
our first thought is not calling to the
church office and seeing if somebody's
there who can come and join us with oil
and pray for us but James may be telling
them to do so not so much because of the
sickness but because of the sin that
seems to be involved and look at what
the elders do what they do they do in
the name of the Lord they pray for the
sick one well that's obvious to us we
have no trouble with that but then they
anoint the sick one with oil that's
alien to the traditions of many of us
who are sitting here this morning it was
quite commonplace in the culture that
James is writing to some commentators
say that this anointing with oil was
medicinal but this was actually a way of
bringing physical healing that was
looked at as we would look at a
prescription of a drug today well that's
kind of true but you're not gonna find
many statements about how oil was viewed
as an all-purpose healing agent they may
have thought olive oil was good for this
or good for that but there wasn't a lot
there weren't people around saying it
was just good for everything now this
seems to be a bit more than that it
seems to be like in the Old Testament
where you have someone actually being consecrated
consecrated
especially to God handed over
particularly to him and entrusted to him
being set aside where his special
providential care that seems to be
what's going on here with this anointing
with oil it's important to note I think
that these elders in both the things
they do praying and anointing with oil
don't do it in their own name or even in
the name of the church they do it as
emissaries of a higher power they do it
strangest of all to us perhaps is this
whole connection of dealing with sin and
dealing with sickness together look at
the end of verse 15 if he has sinned he
will be forgiven therefore confess your
sins to each other and pray for each
other so that you may be healed we're
not surprised by the thought of people
getting sick or of us appealing to God
for physical healing as I say most of us
here this morning probably even believe
that God not only sustains our health
but sometimes grants us reprieve from
sickness in response to our heartfelt
prayers but it is this connection of sin
and sickness that seems so alien to the
way we think I mean sin seems so
immaterial so spiritual and ethereal and
invisible whereas sickness well it seems
so concrete so physical if you had the
right implements you can see it going on
in the body it seems so material and
observable maybe at one time we would
have ascribed sickness to some higher
supernatural cause but since van
Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope and
pastor on his theory about germs I mean
hasn't all that been left with belief in
ghosts and witches and hobgoblins of the
tooth fairy well it seems not the Bible
very clearly presents an awareness that
David presents them in parallel when he
wrote in Psalm 103 verse 3
he forgives all my sins and heals all my
diseases and again when he prayed in
psalm 41 oh lord have mercy on me heal
me for I have sinned against you I could
go through finding lots of little proof
texts but I don't have to do that the
whole warpin will for the Bible story
presumes this from the garden where you
have in Genesis the fall of man and with
the introduction of sin comes death to
the very end in consummation in the book
of Revelation we're in the heavenly City
with the abolition of sin you have the
abolition of physical suffering and
death as well the whole Bible assumes a
connection between sin and sickness
between holiness and health not
perfectly in this world we know that we
get to lots of troubles when we try to
do that I'm not gonna go down that road
very long in the sermon you can come and
talk to me about that afterwards if you
want but we know there's not a
connection it's perfectly obvious to us
if you're taking notes and you want
scriptures on that the blind man in John
9 the disciples say who sinned this man
or his parents that he should be born
blind and Jesus said neither had nothing
to do with that it was said that God
would be glorified or the story of Paul
in 2nd Corinthians 12 where that thorn
in his flesh we don't read this Rennie
sin it's so that God's strength may be
perfected in his weakness or the whole
story of job in the Old Testament when
all the people around it thought that he
was suffering because of sin in his life
but in fact ironically it was because of
his very righteousness that God was
allowing job to undergo these trials and
of course supremely we had the example
of Jesus whose suffering was the most
unjust in the history of the world but
in our passage here it seems clear that
unconfessed sin can lead to physical
sickness now that's gonna give you
something to talk about over coffee
today it seems clear that unconfessed
sin can lead to physical
sickness though he says there in verse
15 if he has sinned I don't think that's
because James had any doubt that the
ones in this church who were sick had
sinned rather I think he was indicating
that even such sins that were so serious
that they would lead to immediate
physical punishment by God even those
kinds of sins could be forgiven when
confessed and repented of that's why
James exhorts them here to confess and
to pray so that you may be healed
you see God is Lord of the physical as
well health and sickness are from his
hand health and virtue sickness and sin
do not invariably go together I just
gave you a list of scriptures that show
exceptions to that but this is what we
need to hear today they do sometimes I
know that can be a platform for the
worst kind of psychological paranoia I
know that can be an excuse for the most
manipulative program of behaviorism a
church could ever come up with
but I'm sorry I didn't write this thing
I'm simply telling you what God is
inspired and he has said here that
sometimes sin can lead to sickness pain
you know is useful as an indicator pain
tells us something that's going on in
our bodies and it may be that pain and
our health can also give us good
direction in our spiritual lives
sometimes as Thomas Manton the Puritans
said when God takes away the disease and
does not take away the guilt it is not
deliverance but a reprieve
you see it's dangerous to us when God
allows us to have physical health when
our souls are sick and therefore when
there is physical sickness that God and
His grace will use to turn our minds eye
through our sin to cause us to examine
ourselves that is His grace to us
therefore there's love in the provision
of pain in a world that's fallen and
sinful it would not have been loving of
God to anesthetize the world to the
effects of sin when our first parents
fell if the wages of sin is death it is
no surprise and in fact it is God's love
that he sends messengers of pain and
sickness on in front of death to warn us
of the account that we will give to
remind us that these bodies we trust in
so innately will dissolve most certainly
and that we will stand and give account
before the great judge so how can we
tell when our sickness is directly
related to sin no there's only one
answer that I know together we need to
know God and we need to know his word we
need to know what he says is right and
what he says is wrong we need to examine
Scripture and our own consciences
honestly and our own lives and we should
pray for willingness to admit our sins
to confess them and to repent of them
and so then to pray for forgiveness and
for healing then this is one whole
category of motivation which Christians
used to have which we've now laid aside
by our trust in medicine we feel that if
we can have antibiotics and some videos
to keep our mind going while we're sick
in bed then we'll be fine and we may be
physically for a while but if you've
read any Christian literature from an
earlier age than our own you realize
that Christians before have all together
been United very much against us in the
way they would take sickness as an
occasion for self-examination not in an
unhealthy paranoid fashion of knowing
that if I could just find the sin to
repent up then this heart trouble will
leave me no not necessarily that at all
but knowing that sometimes
God uses sickness to put his finger on a
particular sin in our lives and so when
he lays this aside we should examine
ourselves we should not simply call the
doctor and read a book or watch a video
though those things can be fine we
should also learn from what James is
saying here and from what Christians
have done for 2,000 years before
entertainment and medicine was less easy
to come by we should examine our lives
we should use these things as times for
God to speak clearly to us so much for
their understanding of sickness for now
on to the third aspect of their faith
together James brings their attention to
and that is the practice of prayer and
verse the end of verse 16 the prayer of
a righteous man is powerful and
effective he gives the example there of
Elijah Elisha was a man just like us he
prayed earnestly that it would not rain
and it did not rain on the land for
three and a half years again he prayed
and the heavens gave rain and the earth
produced its crops well you may know
this part of Elijah's story from first
Kings 17 and 18 you don't I don't need
to recount it here enough of it is right
there in James in verses 17 and 18
that's the story I think the reason
James brings this up now is because this
is an example of the prayer of faith
that he just said they had in verse 15
that should be offered for the one who's
sick here is a prayer of faith here we
see in in 1st Kings 17 Elisha
prophesized about there being no rain in
the land for the next few years and then
in 1st Kings 18 verse 2 God told Elisha
after over three years that he wanted it
to rain again
so Elijah's prayers were based upon what
he knew God wanted and that my friend I
think is a prayer of faith a prayer of
faith is not something that you work up
faith is a sure and certain perception
of God's will so it's not something that
we generate ourselves it's a gift from God
God
as we know from Ephesians 2
as we see very clearly from Hebrews 10
and 11 and 12 it is a perception of
spiritual reality well such was Elijah's
experience perhaps you see whatever this
sin was and the sickness was in the
church that James was writing to perhaps
it was so serious that some people
thought they should not even pray for it
that it would be in vain even to offer
prayer for such a situation as this we
know after all that John wrote in first
John about some sense about which you
should not pray well maybe this was one
of those particularly serious sins so
serious that had brought on this
sickness in the body
I think this exhortation to the power of
prayer shows us that people must have
been balking at it in view of the
serious situation they were encountering
so much for the practice of prayer but
to understand more what that serious
sickness causing sin was look at the
last two verses of James's letter look
about to find there the specific sin
that James was writing about verse 19 my
brother's if one of you should wander
from the truth
and someone should bring him back
remember this whoever turns a sinner
from the error of his way will save him
from death and cover over a multitude of
sins the situation he's described as
clearly one of one of them wandering
it's described negatively there is
wandering from the truth positively as
being an error so this one is wandering
off from the truth he's wandering off
from it he's wandering off from the church
church
he's differing with them perhaps over
what God says in his word it's where we
get the idea of heresy from he's
choosing to believe something other than
the truth and that's where this one here
is doing so having left them he was in
error he says here in verse 20 if a
wanderer is brought back or turned so
James envisioned one who has been
wandering being brought to repentance of
their errors literally
turning aside from the false course they
were on to the true course and what are
the results of that repentance well for
the sinner it says he will be saved from
death that is spiritually I think after
all of this error is going to lead to
ultimate spiritual death turning from it
repenting is part of what leads to
salvation and forgiveness of sins just
as James said up in verse 15 perhaps
also an interim sense he'll even be
saved from physical death if this has
been a kind of sin that has been causing
physical suffering well then if
confessing confessing and turning from
it may cause God to relent of allowing
the sickness in this one and so the
result is for the sinner being saved
from death and the result for the church
body is that his sins will be covered
over is he turning a sinner from the
error of his ways also seems to have a
good effect on the church body as a
whole that last phrase in the book this
covering a multitude of sins we may at
first glance take to be a kind of
covering over which we have Angelica's
talked about some time with the word
expiation in which our sins are covered
over from the gaze of a holy God so that
we are spared his wrath but two things
make me think that's not what James is
talking about here first while it's a
good thing for someone to bring back
somebody from wandering to turn them
from error such turning as never
elsewhere said in Scripture to hide our
sins from God never in Scripture do we
read that mere human virtue can obscure
human vice from the searching gaze of
God but second also and I think this is
a key to understanding our whole passage
on sin and sickness that phrase to cover
over a multitude of sins I think is a
quote I think James is quoting from
Proverbs in fact from proverbs chapter
10 verse 12 I think he's alluding to it
proverbs 10 verse 12 that we will hear
more about tonight
Lord willing says hatred stirs up dissent
dissent
but love covers over all wrongs James
here seems to have known that proverb
and seems to have been alluding to it in
the conclusion of this letter when a
similar phrase of covering over is used
in proverbs 17:9 it is in a similarly
social exhortation he who covers over an
offence promotes love but whoever
repeats the matter separates close
friends there's only one other time in
the New Testament this phrase cover over
a multitude of sins is used if you turn
over a couple of pages from james's in
1st Peter 4 verse 8 he says above all
love each other deeply because love
covers over a multitude of sins see
there's not a reference to Christ's
expiatory death on the cross but to the
action of a believer Peter's not
teaching there that we can make
atonement before God for each other's
actions but rather that love can go a
long way to protecting the body from
your stupidity in your sin that's what
proverbs is teaching and that's what I
think James and Peter were teaching so
it seems that hatred and dissension
tale-bearing and slandering are the
kinds of evils which James here is
saying can be covered over within the body
body
insofar as they have an effect on others
by them coming to an end it seems that
some in the church that James is writing
to had accepted a kind of hellish wisdom
we read about back in chapter 3 which
bore this fruit of divisive miss and
dissension in their speech and actions
toward each other
I mean think back over the whole letter
James what do we see going on they were
struggling with discriminating against
the poor among them poisonous curses
from their mouths bitter Envy selfish
ambition boasting denying the truth
disorder every evil practice fights
quarrels self-centeredness worldliness
pride slander speaking against your
brother judging your neighbor bragging ignore
ignore
good grumbling against each other
swearing all of these sins mentioned by
James sins which we may perhaps can
assume were occurring in that body now
that doesn't sound like a very peaceful
harmonious united body does it it
doesn't sound like the kind of church
that can have the first half of our
worship service in there but this
morning we thought about the unity of us
as a family of faith and how that gives
testimony to the world about what God is
like now they were engaging in spiritual
fratricide ever killing one another
spiritually so it's not very surprising
that turning someone from this kind of
selfish pseudo wisdom which encourages
all of this self-destructive behavior
it's not very surprising that would
benefit the body if you get someone
who's being like a cancerous cell in the
body to stop of course that's going to
be a benefit to the body you see true
heavenly wisdom is the kind of wisdom
that Paul wrote about love is patient
love is kind it does not envy it does
not boast it is not proud it is not rude
it is not self-seeking it is not easily
angered it keeps no record of wrongs
love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth that always
protects always trusts always hopes
always perseveres this is the kind of
wisdom that James and written these
Christians exhorting them to have so
turning this kind of erring one from the
error of his ways will lead not only to
his own salvation but to the protection
of the body from the negative effects
their sins was having on others the
believing community will then no longer
be ripped apart by hatred and strife
caused by this kind of hellish wisdom
that they had been following medicine
verses 19 and 20 there it's not said
James as a Wright does to the one who
turns whom themselves repents like I
mean rather to the one who gets others
to turn like Paul and Galatians 6 saying
to those of you who are spiritual I say
go to those who are sinning it's not
that at all he's written to the actual
ones who are in error
just like up in verse 14 it's actually
written the one who is sick and that is
this wanderer and verse 19 is called a
sinner in verse 20 you see as I studied
this past as I'm come to the conclusion
that this sin of wandering in verses 19
and 20 it's very likely the sin of verse
15 that James has in mind for the whole
passage so if you're here today is a
real Bible soon you want to try to
figure this out I've just given you the
key to understanding it I think that the
sin of dissension that he's talking
about in 1920 he's the very sin that
he's talking about specifically up in
verse 15 if anyone is sinned I think
that's what's causing the passage the
sickness in the body if this is so then
this helps explain how James can be so
certain that God will raise a person up
if they have recognized their divisive
attitudes and actions as sins and have
confessed them as such before the elders
of the body and have repented of them
then we can be certain that God wants to
forgive such a repentant sinner we have
no reason to think he would withhold as
healing from one who has been afflicted
specifically because their sins were
selfishly wounding the body if the
sickness was not simply to punish them
but if it was to teach them then its
purpose would have been accomplished
when the sinner repents so it's not
surprising that God would restore them
to help and you could know that when you
pray for such a one who's repented and
if this is so then this helps explain
why James would tell them to go to the
elders you see if James has every
sickness in mind the elders would do
little else the elders would spend all
their time going to whichever members of
the body are sick and praying for them
in anointing him with oil there would
have been time to do anything else but
if he was exhorting them to go to the
elders when they had this sickness
because they had this sickness because
of sins against the body well then it
would be appropriate for them to confess
them to the elders and to have the
elders of the whole body pray for their
restoration spiritually and physically
and finally if this is so it helps to
show the connection between sickness and
sin you know God so often seems to work by
by
types so that we can easily understand
him so with his people in the Old
Testament he would speak to them about
his relationship with them often through
a prophet and the prophets wife as a
picture so the whole sacrificial system
in the Old Testament is a shadow of what
Christ would do on the cross so here
isn't it an appropriate thing that the
illness that one is causing the body of
Christ be represented by the illness in
one's own body but if there was no other
way of hearing and understanding that
this would be a way that God in His
mercy shows this in God's goodness there
is often a suitableness between the
trial that we experience and the lesson
that God wants us to learn so if other
ways of teaching have been exhausted who
here of us this morning can say that God
should not go to such measures in his
searching love after all we know he
takes a special concern for his church
he considers the church's bride wearied
and like the good husband what good
husband does not consider his bride his
own body so when Paul is struck down on
the road to Damascus when he's going
there to persecute the church what is it
Jesus asks him Saul Saul why do you
persecute me in fact as we think of this
connection between sin and sickness
what is the one other place in New
Testament letters where we see this kind
of clear connection it's in Paul's first
letter to the Corinthian church where
there was gross sin so much so that Paul
warns your meetings are doing more harm
than good I hear that when you come
together as a church there are divisions
among you and to some extent I believe
it no doubt there have to be differences
among you to show which of you have
God's approval when you come together it
is not the Lord's Supper you eat for as
you eat each of you goes ahead without
waiting for anybody else one remains
hungry another gets drunk don't you have
homes to eat and drink in or do you
despise the Church of God and humiliate
those who have nothing sounds like James
chapter 2 about favoritism what shall I
say to you shall I praise you for this
certainly not whoever eats the bread or
drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of
sinning against the body and blood of
the Lord a man ought to examine himself
before he eats of the bread and drinks
of the cup for anyone who eats and
drinks without recognizing the body of
the Lord eats and drinks judgment on
himself that is why many among you are
weak and sick and a number of you have
fallen asleep the euphemism for have
died but if we judge ourselves we would
not come under judgment when we are
judged by the Lord we are being
disciplined so that we will not be
condemned with the world so even as the
sickness in the Corinthian church was
being caused by divisive nough switch
was hurting the body so it seems that
the sins of dissension were causing
sickness in this church James was
addressing even on a human level I think
there's some understanding of this we
know that stress and interpersonal
relationships can lower the immune
system make it less effective whatever
our human understanding of it may be
though James is clear here that sins
against the body of Christ seem to merit
God's special judgment that don't
misunderstand me all sin is offensive to
God and all of a sin Phil Jensen said in
the meeting I was had a few years ago
the basic reason people don't sin is
lack of opportunity that's the sad truth
all of us would probably send more if
the right or wrong opportunities
presented themselves to us no question
about that but there's no getting around
the fact that God seems to care in a
special way about sins against his body
you see we show much of the truth about
our relationship with God by the way we
relate to one another as a Christian I
should know that my primary obligation
in this life is not to myself but it's a
God into the body of Christ I am to use
myself for others you know they always
tell you in marriage counseling when
you're getting ready to marry someone
else you need to know that you're not
just marrying them you're marrying their
whole family well those of you who are
married know it's true yeah I see all
the single people are the ones that laughed
laughed
it's like that when you become a
Christian you cannot take God as your
God without taking his people as your
people I'm sorry you can't do it that's
why it's so vital you commit yourself to
a church lest you be deceiving yourself
with some idea of a God that I love I
support but when it comes to his very
children that you find difficult then
friends that's exactly where God is
intending to show you the truth about
your own love for him our Christianity
if it would live up to its name must
affect other people in a loving and
godly way what does it mean to say that
we're followers of Jesus Christ if we
don't give our lives and love for one
another if we don't do that and care for
each other so religion is personal but
it is also very public and social very
much about how we live together the
father of lies as he was tempting at him
in the garden probably told him
something like don't worry if you get it
wrong won't hurt anybody else
but of course religion is a private
matter is a lie plain and simple
a lie so watch your words watch the
kinds of divisive nasaw in this church
or any other because I'm simply telling
you from studying Scripture God seems to
have a special concern for his church
one day the telephone rang in the office
of st. Thomas Episcopal Church over in
Northwest DC here in Washington where
President Franklin Roosevelt attended
church at the time and an eager voice
inquired tell me do you expect the
President to be in church this Sunday
the rector who had had a lot of calls
like this explained patiently but I
cannot promise but we do expect God to
be there and we fancy that will be
reason enough to have a tolerably large
audience the church is God's special
concern the church is where Christ
displays his glory God cares especially
about his church the very thing which
God meant to be a model for what he
intends to do with his whole
creation that which God has made for a
special glorious church must not become
a theater to disgrace him by the actions
of any of us and I warn you of that as a
minister of one who fiercely loves his
bride and as an ambassador of the
approaching king we will give an account
each one of us individually for how we
have treated one another as James said
earlier the Lord's coming is near the
judge is standing at the door let's pray
together dear father you know the truth
of your word and the truth of our lives
like none of us do here we pray that
your Holy Spirit would search our hearts
and would cause up to cause us to render
out that last bit of selfishness which
prevents us from loving each other in a
way that shows your good love and mercy
and just character thank you for the way
you have tolerated us for the way you
have shown love to us continually for
the way you've delighted in the smallest
steps of our obedience or thank you even
for the patient ways in which you
correct us through your word and through
rebuke and through sin and sickness we
pray Lord that you would continue that
you would get glory to yourself through
each one of us as we live together in
this covenant and community as we try to
show our love for you by a love for each
other while there help us to be mindful
of each other's needs concerned about
each other's cares and loving as we have
opportunity to be or give us a
greediness about seizing opportunities
for showing love and doing kindness Lord
we thank you for the care and concern
that you have for us we pray we would
reflect that to each other to your glory
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