Praying With Power, Part Three
James 5:19-20
There is a story about a guy who applied for a job as an usher at a theater in the mall. As a part of the interview process, the manager asked him, "What would you do in case a fire breaks out? “The young guy answered, "Don’t worry about me. I can get out fine.” While not as apparent as a real fire, there is a spiritual fire in our midst. The flames of hell are literally engulfing people all around us. The question is—are we as concerned about others as we are about ourselves, or are we content to run out of this burning building and not look back. As we conclude our study in the book of James this morning, we get one last glimpse into the heart of this leader of the first century church and brother of Jesus. Several of you have commented that this has been a helpful study for you, so it is important to understand the final words of wisdom that James left for us.
19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
At the very end of this powerful book we see that James is concerned about turning sinners from the error of his way—literally, rescuing them from the flames of hell. James was not content to let his fellow believers run out of the burning building with no thought of rescuing others. But why did James add this at the end of his book? Is he introducing a new topic in the last two verses? At first glance it may appear to be a new topic, but actually it is closely related with the topic of prayer in the last chapter and to the topic of wisdom in the whole book.
According
to chapter five, who has prayers that are powerful and effective? James said the
prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. So who is a righteous
person? James said that a righteous person is one who confesses their sins to
one another and prays for one another. Therefore, if more people are confessing
their sins there is an increase in righteousness which leads to prayers which
are powerful and effective. Then more powerful and effective prayers leads to
more confession and the process continues to move forward. Confession then is
the key to righteousness and effective prayers. Confession is wonderful if it
comes all by itself, but oftentimes people need help to understand their need
for confession. In vv. 19-20 James encourages believers to warn those who are
straying from the Lord. Here we have part of a pattern for knowing how to
minister to and pray for unbelievers. I want to combine James teaching with a
short section from Paul’s letter to Timothy in order to understand a complete
pattern for praying for unbelievers.
2 Timothy 2 reads, 24 And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. Here we have six principles for praying for and ministering to unbelievers. Verse 19 of James gives us our first of six principles, My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth. Principle one: God dwells in and communicates absolute truth. This immediately flies in the face of modern day relativism which says things like: “all paths leads to God”,and “what’s true for you is not necessarily true for me”. Relativism is so convenient because if there is no absolute standard by which God fairly and perfectly judges all people, then I can do whatever I want. James warns us that some people will stray from the truth—therefore it clearly implies that truth can be ignored.
But relativism and truth-bashing are hardly modern notions. Listen to what Herman Melville, author of the classic book, Moby Dick, had to say about truth 150 years ago.. “Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth—and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister.” http://www.bartleby.com/66/85/38685.html Then of course recall what Pontius Pilate said to Jesus when he was questioning him—“What is truth?” Is there such a thing as absolute truth? If you waver on this then the absolute truth of the gospel goes down the tubes. God is the beginning and the end of truth.
Principle #2: Not all “Christians” are Christian. James said, My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth, implying that someone within their fellowship could have wandered from the truth. The next verse says that a sinner who turns from his sin will be saved from death, meaning eternal death. Therefore, James is clearly saying that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is actually a Christian. This agrees perfectly with Jesus’ parables of the wheat and the tares. From our human perspective is it sometimes impossible to distinguish a genuine believer from one who claims to be a Christian but is not. This is not said to make genuine believers doubt their salvation, but to remind everyone that only those who persevere until the end are truly saved.
Principle #3: Be kind and gentle, not quarrelsome and resentful. Recently another Christian was telling me how he was witnessing to a Jehovah’s Witness who had come to his house. He was explaining to me how he had beaten this person in a theological argument. It was said with an air of pride and superiority that really made me uncomfortable. Paul warned us to be gentle and not to be quarrelsome and argumentative. Several years ago I watched a live debate between a Christian and an atheist. Of course I thought the Christian easily defeated the atheist and afterwards I approached the stage area when many people had gathered. I got into a discussion with two university students who clearly thought the atheist had won the debate. We threw some of our best arguments and when it was all over I realized how incredibly fruitless our little debate had been. I wonder to this day what might have happened if I had taken the time to get to know these two guys and speak more respectively to them. No matter how strongly you stand on the side of truth, a quarrelsome or competitive spirit will do more harm than good.
Principle #4: Instruct with the truth. Paul said that if anyone opposes you we must be able to
gently
instruct them. This implies that we give them the truth. When I showed you this
diagram earlier I left out a key component. Our goal is not mere confession of
sins, but a confession of sins that is grounded in the truth of God’s word and
the gospel. Do you have an unshakable confidence in the truth and authority of
the Bible? If you don’t unhesitatingly trust the truth of the Bible, then you
have no truth to share with your unsaved friends and family. I am not saying you
should pretend that you have the whole Bible figured out, but you need to have
great confidence in the truth of the gospel. If you have great confidence then
great conviction will follow. Our entire faith and our lives stand or fall on
the truthfulness of Scripture. Your goal is to turn others away from error and
toward the truth. Do it gently and respectfully, but do not budge on the truth.
Principle #5: God alone grants repentance. When we are praying for and ministering to unbelievers, there are two parts—our part and God’s part. Our part is very clear—pray diligently for people, turn sinners from the wrong path and gently guide them back to the truth. Our part ends there. There is nothing more we can do. It is not possible to drag someone into the kingdom of God. You cannot save someone from death by the sheer power of your intellect. God alone grants repentance. Salvation is his domain. He graciously allows us to be involved in the process, but he alone can grant repentance and rescue sinners from the trap of the devil.
So if salvation is ultimately up to God, why should we do anything? Why should we pray? Why should we tell them the truth? Why should we be gentle? Cannot God save someone if we get into an argument with them? This is certainly a valid question to ask, but it arises out of a fatalism and laziness. Yes, God can save someone without our help, but he wants our help. Think about the big picture. We were once trapped by the devil, captive to doing his will and headed for eternal life in the devil’s domain. God graciously and miraculously saved us from eternal destruction. We have been pulled from the burning building. If we look back we see hundreds of people around us still trapped in the burning building. God invites us to help to save these people. God asks us to pray for them; God asks us to gently lead them to the truth—and we aren’t willing to do this because what we do doesn’t matter anyway? I am telling you, it does matter. If it did not matter to God he would have said, “Don’t fret, my children. I plucked you from the burning building, now all you need to do is sit over there and relax and watch me pluck others from the burning building. This is ridiculous!
We make two opposite errors here. One error is to assume too much responsibility and try to argue or force someone to receive the truth of the gospel. The other error, which I am certain is far more common, is to do little or nothing. Yes, I am sure you are concerned about your unsaved neighbors and friends, but do your actions demonstrate your true concern for their eternal soul? The beauty of this teaching in 2 Timothy is that we have the privilege of sharing in God’s truth by sharing this truth with others. In the process we learn perseverance, we experience joy, we learn more about God, and we grow in our dependence on God. But we are only responsible for our part. God steps in and does the rescuing.
Since we recently passed the third anniversary of 9/11, perhaps an analogy from that tragedy will help. Let’s assume that you and I knew about the terrorist attacks years in advance. What would you have done with this knowledge? If you the slightest hint of goodness within you, you would have traveled to New York and tried to talk to the workers in the building. And how might you have spoken to them? Would you have jumped up and down and said, “Hurry up and get out of the building! A jet is going to crash into the building and this entire structure is going to be crushed under its own weight!” They would have looked at you, picked up the phone and called security. You would have tried to calmly show them the truth. You would have given all of your evidence you had which pointed to an attack. You would have stated your position with confidence and care. That’s all you could do. There is no danger for us. We don’t have to walk up to the fiftieth floor just minutes before the building collapses. We have done our part. In this analogy, God is the one who enters the building and carries them to safety. We cannot carry them to safety, but we must do our part.
Principle #6: Warn all sinners—some will be saved. So if I don’t know who God will rescue, to whom do I share the truth? Again, this is not our concern. Salvation belongs to God. Our job is to warn all sinners in the hope that God will grant repentance to many. God spoke to Paul while he was in Corinth and said, “Keep on speaking, do not be silent…for I have many people in this city.” Paul continued turning sinner to the truth in the city of Corinth for a 1 ½ years after that. Why did Paul stay? Because God said many people were to believe in Christ. Why didn’t Paul just say to God—“Since you know all of these people, why don’t you just give me a list of all of their addresses and I will get to them right away so I can move on to the next city.”? God knows who will come to him, but he does not let us in on the secret. Therefore our responsibility is to warn all sinners, knowing that some will be saved.
This is our responsibility to non-Christians, but we also have a similar responsibility to fellow believers. One verse summarizes this for us. Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:1)
No one likes to confront another person about their sin. If you enjoy such a thing you have serious problems of your own. Most of us routinely look the other way when we know that a fellow believer is caught in a sin. But we need to understand that this is not good for the person who is sinning and ultimately it is harmful to the body of Christ. Here are the principles of Biblical confrontation.
1. When do we confront? Continually—if someone is caught in a sin. Loving confrontation of sin should be a regular part of the Christian life. Now I don’t mean that it is necessarily a daily practice, but a regular, continual practice. If we shirk the responsibility to confront one another we are guilty of a sin of omission. James said it this way in 4:17, Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
2. Who should confront? Carefully—you who are spiritual. Only spiritual people should confront someone about their sin. Now you might be thinking that would rule you and me and every other Christian out, after all, who among us is truly a spiritual person? A spiritual person is one who has a regular practice of confession and repentance of their own sin. Recall that Jesus instructed us to check for the log in our own eye before we look to the speck in another’s eye. Can you see how confrontation is good for everyone? The person doing the confronting has to deal first with their own sin before they can approach anyone else. If confrontation is done carefully everyone becomes more spiritual as a result.
3. What do we do? What exactly are we doing when we confront another Christian? This verse tells us we are restoring him/her to the truth. Our goal in confronting is NOT to win the person to our way of thinking, but to restore them to the truth. But in order to restore them to the truth we must first love the truth. Do you know God’s truth and love it so much that you are willing to risk lovingly confronting someone. Do you love that person enough to confront them? Do you love God enough to first confront yourself?
4. How do we confront? Gently! How many people enjoy being yelled at? How many people like to be forced to do the right thing? We have this running joke on the elder board that you know you are in trouble if two or more elders show up at your house in a suit and dark sunglasses. The necessity of gentleness cannot be overstated. If you are not gentle you are falling into your own sin when you are trying to confront another person’s sin. A young man once described going astray from God “like he was at sea in deep water, deep trouble, and all his friends were on the shoreline hurling biblical accusations at him about justice, penalty and wrong …but there was one Christian brother who actually swam out to get me and would not let me go. I fought him, but he pushed aside my fighting, grasped me, put a life jacket around me, and took me to shore. By the grace of God, he was the reason I was restored. He would not let me go” (Swindoll 195)
5. Why should we confront? We confront in order to carry each other’s burdens. See, our temptation is to see confrontation of a sin as an extra burden we are imposing on ourselves and especially on the other person. You will never be able to effectively confront another person unless you understand that you are relieving that person’s burden, not adding to their burden.
Let me officially open myself up to genuine Biblical confrontation. You don’t need my permission to confront me, but if it helps, then I want to give each of you permission to confront me at any time for any reason—that is as long as you follow these principles. You are spiritual—meaning you first confessed your own sins; you are restoration minded—you want to restore me to God’s truth, not your personal ideas or opinions; you are gentle—you pray about your attitude before you talk with me, you think through your words so as not to unnecessarily offend; finally, confront me with a view to relieving my burden. If you can work according to these principles, I invite you to confront me any time about anything. Now, would you give the same permission to others? Are you willing to open yourself to anyone else who would follow these principles?
Remember this section in James is about effective and powerful prayers. If we want our prayers to be powerful and effective, then we need to confess our own sins and warn Christians and non-Christians about their sin.
Rich Maurer
September 26, 2004