“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.”
A church is made up of people who know they are sinners. A vigorous church is made up of people who are correctable regarding their sin. There is a difference. A church in which everyone knows they are sinners but no one is correctable regarding sin is much more of a club than a church.
When a friend names a behavior of yours as sin, how do you respond? When your parents name a behavior as sin, how do you respond? When a sermon names a behavior of yours as sin, how do you respond?
None of us are sinners merely in general. ‘Oh, yes. I’m a sinner.’ We are sinners who commit specific sins. ‘I’m a sinner who is prone to grumbling.’ ‘I’m a sinner who is entangled in sins of lust.’ If you are fine admitting that you are a sinner in general, how do you respond when a Christian brother or sister points out a specific area of sin? Are you correctable when it comes to the sins you actually commit or are you just a sinner in general who is unwilling to be corrected?
I have never thought less of anyone who acknowledged that what we both know is a sin is, in fact, sin. I can’t imagine you have ever though less of any man who owned up to the fact that his behavior was sinful and that he was sorry. My guess is you would have quite a high view of such an individual. My thought is that if someone genuinely repents, you never give a second thought to whatever sin you pointed out. Rather, you focus on the repentance and you honor the man for it.
James closes this letter urging these first century church members to call each other back to repentance. Any of them might wander. Any of us might wander. How will you respond when someone in this sanctuary tries to bring you back? I might wander. How will I respond when you try to bring me back?
Christians must love each other enough to correct each other. That’s the claim of this sermon: Christians must love each other enough to correct each other.
We see this in two points. First: wandering from the truth. Second: bringing us back. Both the verses involve these two points: wandering from the truth and bringing the sinner back.
First: wandering from the truth. James wrote this letter, in part, to correct sin. It is a letter of wisdom in a foolish age and humility in a proud age. Foolishness and pride had made their way into the church and James was calling for repentance. The very act of writing this letter was an act of putting verse 19 into practice, “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth… someone should bring him back.”
Some of the first readers of this book were wandering from the truth by failing to put it into practice. They bore the name Christian, but they were not following Christ. They were assuming they could follow the way of the world and follow Jesus.
Now this can happen today. Simply because a man belongs to a church does not mean that he will put his faith into practice. Simply because a man is part of church doesn’t make him a disciple of Christ any more than something being in a garage makes it a car, to paraphrase Billy Sunday.
There were people affiliated with the church in that day who were wandering from the truth just like there are today. You might be one of them. You might be living something of a double life. You are here but your heart is not in this. You would rather not follow Jesus and in some ways you wish you never were affiliated with Christ to begin with because that would make the break easier. You would love to jettison the faith altogether but there is always the matter of what would people say.
If this describes you, recognize that you are wandering away from the truth. If you have made peace with sin by breaking the commandments recognize that you are wandering away from the truth. Sin has a way of making truth irrelevant. If you are abusing someone in your family, that has a way of making truth irrelevant. You might agree with all of the doctrines of the faith, but they are simply irrelevant to you because your sin has made them so and your sin shows that they are irrelevant to your practice. You are wandering from the truth.
If you live with no fear of the Lord, recognize that you are wandering. There is a reason that Proverbs equates a life without the fear of the Lord with a foolish life. The man who has no sense that God is the center around which his life must rotate, will invariably wander. He will live for himself which is part and parcel of wandering.
Now those two—breaking the commandments and living without the fear of the Lord—are, by definition, wandering. Ecclesiastes is right, “fear God and keep His commandments for this is whole duty of man.”
We will now look at that which makes a man prone to wander. If a man has no one to whom he is accountable, that man is prone to wander. Solomon wisely said, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Do you have anyone in your life who is willing to ask you the hard questions?
If a man rarely reads God’s word for himself, he is prone to wander. The author of Hebrews put it this way, “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” If you do not open that word, you will not come under its proper inspection and that will make you very prone to wander.
If a man rarely prays, he is prone to wander. What Jesus said to his disciples on the night he was betrayed is applicable to us in an evil world, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” You won’t be aware of the temptations to wander unless you pray. A man who seldom prays is most likely wandering in ways of which he is unaware much like a man who rarely drinks water is unhealthy in ways of which he is unaware.
If a man rarely serves others, he is prone to wander. Peter told the churches, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” You will either use the gifts that God has given you to serve others or you will use what God has given you to serve yourself. Serving yourself is the path to wandering. Serving others keeps from that path.
If a man happily submits to being formed by the world, he is prone to wander. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world,” wrote Paul, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” If your mind is formed by the world, you won’t be able to know God’s will let alone do it; in short, you will wander.
If a man is rarely involved in gathered worship, he is prone to wander. The author of Hebrews said as much; “do not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
If you find yourself either wandering in that you are disregarding God’s commandments or living without fear of Him or if you find yourself prone to wander in that you are largely unaccountable, rarely read God’s word, rarely pray, do little in the way of service to others, or rarely worship—and any of those individually can make you prone to wander—then take what you have already heard as an attempt to turn you from the error of your ways. “My brothers, 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.”
Take this as an attempt to save you from death. Wandering from the way of Jesus leads to death. Jesus was clear, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Now God doesn’t delight in such crashes. He sent His Son so that you might be saved from such disaster, but don’t wander from the way of salvation. Jesus didn’t come so that you might wander from him. He came so that you might follow him.
James wrote these words to call wanderers back. Hopefully you, like James, have a sense of obligation to wanderers. I dare say that you love people. I dare say that you want the best for people. Wandering is not good for anyone. It leads to death. It leads to hell. How can you call such people back to God? That is our second point: bringing us back.
I included the word ‘us’ in this heading of ‘bringing us back’ because none of us is above wandering. None of us is above falling into sin. None of us is above letting Jesus go his way while we go ours. Peter thought he was. He boasted that he was willing to die with Jesus. He boasted that even if everyone else left Jesus, he would not. He didn’t make it twenty-four hours before he let Jesus go his own way while he went his. None of us is above needing to be called back. None of us is above wandering.
What can you do if you know someone who is wandering? First, remember that correcting such wandering is noble. As James says, “My brothers, 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.”
You want call a wanderer back and that is a noble thing to do. As Calvin said, “Nothing is better or more desirable than to deliver a soul from eternal death.” You need to remember that this is noble because your correction might not be well received. You need to remember that this is noble because the world will not applaud this correction. You need to remember that correction is noble. In fact, it is so noble that Jesus did it. He told the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more.”
First, remember that correcting a man wandering towards destruction is noble. Second, inspect your motives for correcting. Why do you want to correct this man? Do you want to correct him because you love him? Do you want to correct him because this sin will destroy his life?
Sometimes a man’s motives for correcting are improper. Perhaps he has feels compelled to correct to puff himself up. Perhaps he feels compelled to correct because he has felt judged by this other man before. You see this sort of correction in marriage. A husband will calmly bring up an area of sin in his wife and rather than responding humbly she will correct areas of sin in his life. David submitted himself to the Lord when he spoke of his enemies. He said, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” How much more should we inspect our motives when speaking of those to we love enough to correct?
Second, inspect your motives for correcting. Third, inspect the sin in question. Once you are satisfied that you want to correct for the good of the other person, be sure that what you are correcting is sin.
There is a good deal that offends you that is not sin. Sin is what is offensive to God. The problem is that you and I are often offended by that which is not sin and unoffended by that which is sin. You must ask yourself if this person who is wandering from the truth is truly sinning.
You want to be very careful about correcting someone for something which God does not correct for in His word. James calls us to correct those who are wandering from the truth not wandering from our own list of ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots.’ Many a church and many a Christian have been guilty of the sin of the Pharisees. Jesus told them, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” You doubtlessly have all sorts of thoughts on what a man should do or what a woman should do or how a child should behave or what decisions a child’s parents should make on his behalf or how a man should or shouldn’t spend his free time. If you are going to correct someone, be sure that the person in question is wandering from the truth not simply wandering from your opinions or traditions.
You only know what sin is based on God’s word. You only know what the truth is based on God’s word. If you are going to address a man as if he is wandering, make sure he is, in fact, wandering from the word of God before you do so.
Third, inspect the sin in question. Fourth, inspect your own morality. Jesus calls you to inspect your own morality before correcting a brother. He said, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Now if you are corrected by a man who has made peace with some sort of sin, that does not make his correction invalid. He might drink way too much, but that doesn’t mean that his observation about your behavior is incorrect. Don’t use Jesus’ words as an excuse to immediately deny the validity of a man’s correction of you. These words are a reminder for you to repent of your own sin before correcting a brother.
Once you do repent of your sin, remember the call to correct your brother. It is very possible that someone here has recognized and removed the plank in his own eye, but now feels disqualified from removing the speck from his brother’s eye. If that is you, please recognize that the way you are thinking would disqualify anyone from ever correcting anyone else from the way which leads to death, which is precisely what Satan wants. Jesus didn’t say, ‘if you’ve ever had a plank in your own eye, you have no business removing a speck from your brother’s eye.’ He told us to remove the plank first and then help the brother.
Fourth, inspect your own morality. Fifth, assess your connection with the one who is wandering. How close are you to this person? You will take correction better from a friend than you will from an acquaintance. So will she. You will take correction better from someone who has invested in you for years than from someone whom you’ve only recently met. So would she.
In some ways, you earn the right to correct. You earn it through connecting. As someone put it, “You cannot correct or change behavior unless you are connected.” That’s why we learn so much from our parents and our grandparents. We aren’t formed so powerfully by them because they know exactly what to say; we are formed by them because they take the time to connect.
Ask yourself if your connection will bear the correction. If not, you would be wise to strengthen that connection first. As you do so, you might find out why your brother is involved in this sin. You might better understand how to approach him on this matter.
It makes sense that the first to correct will be family members and loved ones. If the wayward brother is still a child, the parents are called to correct. If the wayward brother is an adult, a spouse or close friend is called to correct. If you don’t have anyone that knows you well enough to lovingly correct you in your sin, you have an accountability problem. Find someone who can correct you and be that person for someone else.
Fifth, assess your connection with the one who is wandering. Sixth, pray for the person and the conversation. You are not the Holy Spirit. You cannot change any man’s heart. Paul not only wrote many letters urging people to repent, he also prayed for these people. As he wrote the Thessalonians, “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.” You want this man to repent. Pray that he would.
Sixth, pray for the person and the conversation. Seventh, when you speak with the brother, speak in a way that is helpful to him. Nathan did that with David. He knew that a head on approach wouldn’t work and so he spoke in a parable. You parents know that confronting different children requires different strategies.
While this wasn’t a matter of correction, you see Jesus’ different responses to different people in his attention to Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus. Martha told him, “if you had been here my brother would not have died,” and Jesus explained the resurrection to her. Mary told him, “if you had been here my brother would not have died,” and Jesus wept with her. Again, that is not a matter of correcting these women in sin, but it is wisdom to treat people in a way that is peculiarly helpful to them.
Seventh, when you speak with the brother, speak in a way that is helpful to him. Eighth, when you speak with the brother, ask questions. You see Jesus asking questions throughout the gospels, “why did you doubt?” “Why do you call me good?” “Why are you trying to kill me?”
Sin is a lot like an iceberg. The vast majority of is it is underneath the surface. You get under the surface by asking questions.
By asking questions, you show that you recognize that the man before you is more than his sin.
There is a difference between a young lady who is intimate with her boyfriend because she is scared to lose him and a young lady who is intimate with her boyfriend because she is in the bondage of lust. Now the act of sin is the same, but the reasons are different and therefore your approach in correction will be different. You deal differently with a child who has lied to save face than you do with a child who has lied to be malicious. You deal differently with a man who getting drunk out of revelry and a man who is getting drunk out of loneliness.
Eighth, when you speak with the brother, ask questions. Ninth, bring God into the conversation. You aren’t interested in correcting this brother merely for the sake of his own reputation. You aren’t interested in correcting this brother merely for the sake of his own happiness. You are interested in correcting this brother because he is sinning before God.
By bringing God into the conversation you make clear that the man hasn’t so much offended you as he has offended God. The man doesn’t need repent before you. He needs to repent before God. David’s words are proper in this regard, “against You and You only have I sinned.” The man doesn’t need you to fix the situation because you can’t. He needs to return to the cross.
Ninth, you bring God into the conversation. Tenth and finally for our purposes, follow Matthew 18 when necessary. ‘If your brother sins, go and point out his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won him over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If he still refuses to listen, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.’
I think Jesus’ words entail a certain amount of accountability not just upon the wanderer but also upon the one doing the correcting. Just as you should be convinced that what you are addressing is sin before speaking one-on-one, so you should be convinced that it merits bringing someone else along you if needs come to be. You should also be convinced of the seriousness of the matter before you bring it to the church.
Bringing it to the church is the last step, not the first step. Please don’t bring a pastor or elder concerns about a member unless you have followed Matthew 18. Such a situation only leaves us with hearsay. The church thrives on the direct communication which James envisions. Secondhand and thirdhand information does no one any good—not the one spoken about, not the one spoken to, and not the one who is doing the speaking.
James calls us to bring back the wanderers. “My brothers, 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.”
Calling back the wanderers can be uncomfortable. It wasn’t comfortable for Jesus and yet he cared enough to do so. He cared enough to go to great lengths—the manger, the palace of Herod, the place of the skull called Golgotha, and the grave—to bring you back from your sin. He did so because the way in which you were walking would lead to death. He calls you to do for others what he has done for you. “Just as I have loved you,” said Jesus, “you should love each other.” Amen.