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[00:00] All right, well, this is it.
[00:03] James, we're done after today.
[00:06] Bye James.
[00:08] We've been in it since January, all right?
[00:11] It's now June and man, what a journey.
[00:16] So we're gonna talk about the last couple of verses,
[00:19] all right, and James.
[00:21] And then we're gonna go around
[00:23] and I'm not gonna probably pick on anybody.
[00:27] I would say probably 'cause you always need to leave that,
[00:29] give yourself some freedom.
[00:30] And I want you to give me something
[00:33] or give us something, I should say.
[00:34] Give us something that stood out to you and James.
[00:38] And you can use today's passage,
[00:40] but then you'd have to use something else too
[00:41] 'cause that's not really fair.
[00:43] Just one thing, we used to do one thing
[00:46] and something that maybe it's you were convicted on,
[00:50] maybe something that was new to you,
[00:52] maybe something that you didn't,
[00:54] you're like, I'm still struggling with that,
[00:55] understanding it or putting it in practice or whatever.
[00:58] Just one thing about James.
[01:00] And if obviously we're not gonna call you
[01:02] and make you, you don't have anything,
[01:04] it's put you on the spot, that's okay.
[01:06] So don't worry about it.
[01:09] We're not gonna, we'll try not to embarrass you.
[01:12] We're family, we don't get embarrassed, right?
[01:16] Right? (laughs)
[01:18] He's like, no, I don't know about that.
[01:19] All right, question for you.
[01:20] Let's start off with this.
[01:22] How many have heard the quote,
[01:26] not all who wander are lost?
[01:28] Ever hear that quote?
[01:30] Big on Instagram social media, right?
[01:33] On Instagram travel social sites,
[01:35] like the influencers, right?
[01:38] See that a lot out there.
[01:39] Not all who wander are lost.
[01:42] Anybody know where that quote came from, by the way?
[01:43] (indistinct)
[01:46] - Wasn't James.
[01:47] - No, no, it wasn't James.
[01:48] (laughs)
[01:50] It's interesting because it's actually
[01:51] from Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring.
[01:53] J.R. Tolkien wrote that in a poem called,
[01:58] what was the poem called?
[01:58] Something about Strider.
[02:00] I think it was, man, I don't even know what the quote was
[02:05] or what the, I think it was Riddle of Strider.
[02:08] Remember that Raymond?
[02:09] Do you know Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring,
[02:10] Riddle of Strider?
[02:11] Do you remember that poem or Riddle?
[02:13] Where he says, not all who wander are lost.
[02:15] - Yeah, people think you're a Bible man before, right?
[02:16] - Yeah, it's Lord of the thing, there you go.
[02:18] I knew you would know.
[02:19] That's why I was glad you weren't here when I asked.
[02:22] I read you what I answered.
[02:22] (laughs)
[02:24] I just got called a nerd, ah, all right.
[02:30] And maybe that's true, right?
[02:33] I mean, in the case of Lord of the Rings,
[02:35] there's kind of some hidden meaning in there.
[02:37] Strider is Aragorn and Aragorn is a wanderer,
[02:40] but is he lost or not, right?
[02:45] Same kind of with Frodo and Gandalf.
[02:48] There's some wandering in there,
[02:49] but are they really lost or, you know?
[02:51] But anyway, James kind of says the same thing today
[02:55] to some degree.
[02:56] And as we wrap up this series in James,
[03:01] I think it's fascinating how he ends his letter, right?
[03:06] 'Cause he's kind of been going, you know, do this,
[03:09] don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this,
[03:12] don't do this kind of thing all the way through.
[03:14] And he says, and he's gonna give one exhortation
[03:17] to the brothers and sisters in Christ
[03:20] about a specific group of people, all right?
[03:23] So if you have your Bibles, turn to James, chapter five,
[03:27] verses 19 and 20, all right?
[03:30] Says this, James five, 19, 20.
[03:35] "My brothers," we've heard that before.
[03:38] James loves to say, "My brothers are my brothers and sisters."
[03:41] You know, he's speaking, right, to the body.
[03:45] And he wants you to know that.
[03:46] "My brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth
[03:51] and someone brings him back,
[03:53] let him know that whoever brings back a sinner
[03:57] from his wandering will save his soul from death
[04:01] and will cover a multitude of sins."
[04:03] I guess if I were to ask you how many of you have wandered
[04:07] from the faith to some degree,
[04:09] we used to call it back in my day, backsliding, right?
[04:13] You know, you're living for Christ
[04:15] and then you decided, you know,
[04:16] you kind of want to do your own thing
[04:18] and live for the world and, you know.
[04:20] (indistinct)
[04:22] Yeah, backsliding was it, man, that was a term.
[04:25] I don't know if some of you have other terms,
[04:27] but that was it for us in our churches.
[04:29] You know, you were backslidden Christian.
[04:30] You really, if you wandered from the faith.
[04:34] Now, if I were to ask you, how many of you have wandered?
[04:37] How many of you ever backslidden
[04:39] or have a time in life that were backslidden?
[04:41] Yes, right, almost, I mean, probably, probably should.
[04:46] Everybody would raise their hand to some degree, right?
[04:49] We've all wandered because we are sinners, right?
[04:53] We sin.
[04:54] Now, here's the thing about this passage
[04:56] and like some other passages in James,
[04:58] it's not, there's not unanimous consent
[05:00] on what James is talking about.
[05:02] And not every preacher or theologian says that,
[05:06] this is what he's talking about.
[05:07] Because, you know, if you look at it, it says, you know,
[05:10] it's pretty easy, if any of you wanders from the truth
[05:12] and someone brings him back, okay, well, that, we get that.
[05:15] You know, 'cause we've all wandered from the truth
[05:17] and we maybe have had people help us come back.
[05:20] But then it says, let him know that whoever brings back
[05:22] a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death
[05:27] and cover a multitude of sins.
[05:29] Well, first of all, only Christ, right, can save, right?
[05:35] Only Christ's blood covers our sin, right?
[05:38] So what does he mean there?
[05:40] And who's he talking to?
[05:41] We can get into, we'll probably talk about it again,
[05:43] but I kind of want to get right off,
[05:46] get right off the bat or talk right off the bat on it
[05:47] about who he's talking to or what he's talking about.
[05:51] Because he says, you know, some people say
[05:53] he's just talking about those who are Christians
[05:54] in the church and they wander a little away,
[05:57] away from the Lord through some sin and some other things
[06:00] and go get them, like go bring them back.
[06:03] The problem with that is that he says,
[06:07] from his wandering will save his soul from death, right?
[06:12] And so he's speaking of not your first death,
[06:16] but of your second death, right?
[06:19] He's speaking of your second death,
[06:21] meaning your soul being cast into hell
[06:23] if you're in for eternal death.
[06:27] If you don't know, if you don't know Christ, right?
[06:29] So there's this idea then that he's talking to people
[06:33] within the church who really aren't saved.
[06:37] Right?
[06:38] People who come to church,
[06:39] and we'll talk about that a little bit,
[06:40] but really aren't saved.
[06:42] So I kind of broke this 'cause I want to do it kind of quick
[06:44] 'cause we want to do the one thing
[06:45] and we're gonna, we want to share,
[06:47] we'll take, you know, the Lord's table today
[06:49] and so we want to save time,
[06:50] but I did it in three sections.
[06:53] All right, number one is the reality.
[06:56] Number one is the reality.
[06:58] The reality is this, everybody wanders,
[07:01] eventually at some point in their life
[07:03] in their Christian walk, everybody wanders.
[07:05] Right?
[07:06] 'Cause we wander, we sit straight, we sin, right?
[07:10] We like to take what the world offers, right?
[07:13] But others wanders, other people wander in from the church
[07:17] because they were never really of the faith, right?
[07:20] That's the reality.
[07:22] They may be in the church, but the Bible is clear
[07:24] that people can drift away
[07:27] and that could show that they aren't one of us.
[07:30] You say, "Oh, that's pretty strong words."
[07:32] Let's look at some other verses.
[07:33] Hebrews 2.1.
[07:36] Hebrews 2.1 says this, "Therefore we must pay close,
[07:41] closer attention to what we have heard
[07:42] lest we drift away from it."
[07:44] Verse three says, "How shall we escape
[07:48] if we neglect such a great salvation?"
[07:50] Right, this idea that it is easy to drift away
[07:54] if we're not careful.
[07:58] And this idea that if we neglect a great salvation,
[08:02] that there's even more to it
[08:03] than just walking away from the faith.
[08:06] But even more so, 1 John 2.19, 1 John 2.19 says this,
[08:11] "They went out from us, but they were not of us.
[08:16] For if they had been of us,
[08:18] they would have continued with us.
[08:20] But they went out that it might become plain
[08:22] that they are not one of us."
[08:24] Right, who's he talking to?
[08:26] Well, if you look at 1 John, that chapter,
[08:28] he's talking a lot of stuff there,
[08:30] but he's talking about people who look like they're of faith,
[08:34] right, they're in the body of Christ
[08:36] as far as the church, the local church,
[08:38] the local church setting, but they're not one of us.
[08:43] Now, you know, we don't really like to use that term
[08:46] 'cause that term has historically not been good, right?
[08:48] Saying that phrase, "They're not one of us,
[08:50] they're not one of us."
[08:51] But in this case, it holds true, right?
[08:53] 'Cause either you're a Christ follower or you're not.
[08:56] There's nothing in between.
[08:57] There's nothing on either side.
[08:58] Either you're a Christ follower or you're not.
[09:00] So if we're talking about the body of Christ,
[09:02] those who are truly saved, right?
[09:05] Then everybody else, right, is not one of us, okay?
[09:09] And so the reality is that there are people
[09:14] within the body of Christ or the church
[09:18] who are not truly saved, right?
[09:22] John Piper would say it this way.
[09:24] "Straying away from the faith into persistent sin
[09:29] will lead to death without forgiveness."
[09:32] The final proof of who is a brother or sister is not,
[09:36] and who is not.
[09:37] The final proof of who is a brother and sister
[09:39] and who is not is perseverance of faith,
[09:42] not profession of faith, right?
[09:45] Anybody can say, "Yeah, I got saved," right?
[09:49] Those who persevere in their faith are truly saved.
[09:55] Now, are people who wander then?
[09:57] Everybody wander, not saved?
[09:58] No, not at all, that's not what we're talking about.
[10:00] Talking about those who say,
[10:01] "Oh, I was saved when I was whatever age, 13 or 14,
[10:04] I got saved."
[10:05] And then the rest of their lives,
[10:07] they're in persistent sin and don't care.
[10:09] And that's not for me to say whether they're saved or not,
[10:11] truly, God will judge that.
[10:13] But James is saying, "Go get that person
[10:16] 'cause they're in trouble.
[10:17] Go get that wander because they're in trouble."
[10:26] Remember, Jesus said in Matthew 7.21,
[10:28] he said this, "Not everyone who says to me,
[10:32] Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,
[10:35] but the one who does the will of my Father
[10:36] who is in heaven," right?
[10:39] Perseverance, right?
[10:43] Of the words of Jesus following Jesus, perseverance.
[10:49] And so the reality is, yes, we all wander.
[10:51] And yes, right?
[10:53] There are Christians who wander, true Christians,
[10:55] but people of faith, but they come back.
[10:57] I heard a preacher once that, you know,
[10:59] it's always interesting 'cause some people want,
[11:01] like they're like, "How do I know if I'm truly saved?
[11:03] I gave my life, I know I did."
[11:04] But you know, those feelings persist sometimes.
[11:07] And he says, you know, for one, this wasn't a coverall
[11:13] for everybody, every single Christian.
[11:15] But he said, "For many, how you know you're truly saved
[11:18] is when you wander, but you wanna come back,
[11:22] or you wanna come back."
[11:24] 'Cause if you're not saved, then you don't care.
[11:28] Persistent sin, persistent living, sin living,
[11:30] it doesn't phase you, right?
[11:31] 'Cause you were never saved at the beginning.
[11:32] But when you wander and you have this desire
[11:35] somewhere along to come back,
[11:37] it shows all along that you truly can.
[11:38] Like you, that God is in you, right?
[11:40] That the Spirit is in you and He's active in you,
[11:42] working in you, bringing you back.
[11:44] And so that's good news, right?
[11:48] That's encouragement.
[11:53] So we say woe to the person, right?
[11:56] Living in persistent sin for long periods of time.
[11:58] And maybe we don't know.
[12:00] We can't, we're not God, we can't judge.
[12:01] So what does James say?
[12:02] It's go get the wander, just go get the wander.
[12:05] So that's the reality is that there's wanderers
[12:08] in the church, in our church, for sure.
[12:12] In every church, for sure.
[12:13] The responsibility, God puts it on the church,
[12:21] on the people of the church.
[12:22] Which is fascinating to me.
[12:24] The responsibility to go get the wanderer is on us.
[12:28] Isn't that interesting?
[12:30] That to me is fascinating.
[12:37] That God has given us that responsibility
[12:40] to go get the wanderer.
[12:43] But that then bears an assumption.
[12:48] That believers are made when we're brought
[12:53] into the family of God, when we are saved.
[12:55] That we have to be involved deeply with the body of Christ.
[13:02] 'Cause think about it.
[13:09] For us to go get the wanderer,
[13:12] we have to know who's wandering.
[13:14] For us to know who's wandering,
[13:15] we need to be deeply involved with the people in our church.
[13:19] How else would we know?
[13:19] Now some are so blatant.
[13:21] Okay, give me that, right?
[13:22] Some are so blatant, they walk away
[13:24] and they're just like, what happened?
[13:26] We all, we know people looked at it,
[13:27] you're like, that's fine, what happened to them?
[13:30] But often it's subtle, or it starts very small.
[13:33] And we see it when we're involved in people's lives,
[13:35] we start seeing some poor choice.
[13:36] And we're like, hmm, right?
[13:39] We know where this leads.
[13:41] We have to be involved in each other's lives.
[13:45] Galatians 6.1 says this, brothers,
[13:51] funny, right, Paul uses brothers also.
[13:53] If anyone caught in any transgression,
[13:57] you who are spiritual,
[13:59] should restore him in a spirit of condemnation.
[14:03] No, that's not what it says, right?
[14:05] You should, right?
[14:06] Who are spiritual should restore him
[14:07] in a spirit of gentleness.
[14:11] Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.
[14:13] And then Paul in verse 10 goes on, he goes,
[14:17] so that as we have opportunity,
[14:19] let us do good to everyone,
[14:20] and especially those who are of the household of faith.
[14:24] We have to be involved in each other's lives.
[14:31] And this section hurt me, right?
[14:35] For a couple of reasons.
[14:37] One, because I've been somewhat neglecting in this area.
[14:41] Right?
[14:42] Two, because I believe that if our home church,
[14:46] and I hate to use the term, it's not really an experiment,
[14:49] but the home church experience, what we're doing fails.
[14:53] It'll because we don't take this serious.
[14:55] We don't take this serious, right?
[15:00] We are not meant to just gather on Sundays.
[15:03] This is great, right?
[15:04] Love it.
[15:05] I've seen everybody in a smaller setting.
[15:07] I love how eating with people
[15:08] and hearing about what you think about the sermon
[15:10] or what you think was going on with your week,
[15:11] or just a little bit more intimate setting,
[15:15] longer conversation periods.
[15:17] Wonderful.
[15:18] But if that's where I stop, Sunday afternoon,
[15:23] everybody leaves, right?
[15:25] Or I come back from whatever house we're at.
[15:28] And everybody, we all, we sit on our couch,
[15:31] or we mow our lawn, or we go out, whatever we're doing.
[15:33] But from that moment, Sunday afternoon,
[15:35] so Saturday night, right?
[15:38] Or Sunday morning, next Sunday morning,
[15:40] we have no interaction ever with the body of believers.
[15:45] That's a problem.
[15:46] God does not call it.
[15:48] There's nowhere in the New Testament.
[15:50] Can we find that?
[15:51] We cannot find it because we are not meant to live that way.
[15:55] No, I get it.
[15:56] Brooks and I have talked about this many times.
[15:58] It's hard in our situation because we live,
[16:01] it's geographically, we live in various locations.
[16:04] It's not like, when you think of Acts chapter two,
[16:06] where they're all gathered and they're all eating together
[16:08] and they're all doing, okay, well, they live, you know,
[16:10] literally on top of each other.
[16:11] I was in Israel and they're like, boom, boom, boom, like,
[16:13] and they show the rules.
[16:15] And I'm like, yeah, of course they're eating together.
[16:17] Even when you're not eating together, you're eating together.
[16:18] They're just so close together, all right?
[16:21] It's a little easier, understood.
[16:23] But we're not saying every night, we're saying,
[16:25] what are we, who are we gathering?
[16:27] See, for me, it's, I could, I could use the excuse,
[16:31] well, I meet with lots of people at church
[16:32] because half the church is my family, right?
[16:35] Easy, but that's not what he's talking about either.
[16:37] Yes, I have a responsibility as, you know,
[16:39] husband and father to my kids.
[16:41] And, you know, as a church leader,
[16:43] still they're still responsible,
[16:44] but there's more people in our church than that.
[16:48] And so I have to ask myself, what am I doing?
[16:52] Am I doing from Sunday afternoon to Saturday at night
[16:56] or Sunday morning, whatever,
[16:58] who in the past month have I gathered with?
[17:02] And sometimes that's, you know, maybe husband and wife,
[17:06] maybe that's, you know, three or four friends,
[17:08] and there's not necessarily a one-on-one thing.
[17:12] It's because, let's face it, it's hard, right?
[17:14] We work all day, you come home at night, you're like,
[17:17] man, I don't know, I don't know, right?
[17:20] Tired, right, and things going on,
[17:21] maybe your work is stressful, Chris is traveling, right?
[17:23] Oh, when you have to travel and then you're just,
[17:25] all those things are difficult.
[17:26] All of them are difficult, hard.
[17:33] But we cannot, we cannot go get the wander.
[17:37] We cannot, as Galatian says, right?
[17:42] Six, we cannot have opportunity to do good to everyone,
[17:45] especially those who are in the household of faith,
[17:47] if we're not with them.
[17:48] And let me, I want to say again, like last week,
[17:54] man, my heart was overjoyed.
[17:55] Why? Because so many people showed up.
[17:58] And it was hot, right?
[18:01] (laughs)
[18:03] It was hot, man, it was brutal.
[18:05] And yet everybody's there and we're having fun,
[18:07] and we know it's just a good time to think,
[18:08] man, I love this church, right?
[18:11] That's great stuff.
[18:12] But there's even more, there's even more.
[18:18] And so what I want to say is the responsibility
[18:23] to go get the wander, the responsibility to love one
[18:25] another and love somebody so much
[18:28] that you truly care about their wandering.
[18:31] God has said, I'm putting that responsibility
[18:34] on you, church, to go get the wander.
[18:38] Now God will be involved.
[18:40] His spirit through you will work.
[18:42] And if there, you know, some of the,
[18:43] we're talking about unsaved people.
[18:45] So that means going and having difficult conversations,
[18:47] going and saying, hey, Lord, before you go,
[18:50] remember James one, pray for wisdom, right?
[18:52] Lord, I need wisdom.
[18:53] I'm going to get the wander,
[18:54] but I don't know what to say or what to do.
[18:56] First Peter four eight kind of, I think echoes this
[19:01] when he says this first Peter four eight above all,
[19:14] keep loving one another earnestly
[19:16] since love covers a multitude of sins.
[19:20] Now usually I thought I probably shouldn't use that verse
[19:23] because people are going to say, wait,
[19:24] love covers a multitude of sins
[19:25] because I thought only Christ can cover sins.
[19:27] And you'll be right.
[19:28] Only Christ can cover sins.
[19:29] When he talks about like that is more about Christians
[19:33] forgiving faults in others, right?
[19:36] Because we know that God through his grace
[19:38] has forgiven our faults, right?
[19:39] So we're covering their sins in the sense of, okay, yeah,
[19:41] they may have done some stuff.
[19:42] They may have said some stuff.
[19:43] They may be, but I still love them.
[19:46] But above all, keep loving one another earnestly.
[19:55] And I don't know if maybe there's a way
[19:58] and I just didn't think of it.
[19:59] Again, I don't see it in scripture,
[20:02] but is there a way to love people earnestly
[20:05] without being with people?
[20:08] And especially when we're talking about the people
[20:11] within our church, is it?
[20:15] Can you?
[20:16] You know, I mean, what would be the difference
[20:20] if I say I love my wife, right?
[20:23] More than anything here on earth.
[20:26] But then made sure I never spent a second with her.
[20:30] You'd all be like somebody who said,
[20:35] you're the wanderer, right?
[20:36] And they'd go, who got me?
[20:38] Well, the responsibility falls on the church.
[20:43] And church, it's okay, I'm not here.
[20:45] Listen, I have failed.
[20:46] I was reading this and I'm like, man, thank Lord.
[20:49] You don't begin.
[20:50] We have to do better.
[20:53] And I'm not saying there's a God's put a little tablet
[20:56] on there, okay?
[20:56] You did a Thursday of July.
[20:58] That's it, maybe no, you missed August.
[21:02] Oh, no, no, that canceled out July.
[21:04] You gotta start again.
[21:05] No, not at all, right?
[21:07] That's not how God operates.
[21:09] Just that we love people and say, man, I'm gonna do it.
[21:12] Maybe it's not gonna start.
[21:13] I don't do it at all.
[21:14] So I'm gonna start once a quarter.
[21:16] I'm hanging with somebody.
[21:17] I am gonna make it a priority to hang with somebody.
[21:21] Of course, there's some of you who have tried
[21:22] to hang with people and you've been turned down, right?
[21:25] There's a responsibility on your other way too, right?
[21:28] If you're a wanderer, save wanderer, especially.
[21:30] If you're a Christian wanderer and somebody contacts you
[21:33] and they wanna get together with you
[21:34] and they start maybe even saying stuff, how do you respond?
[21:37] I'm not gonna get all into that,
[21:38] but there is some responsibility there too.
[21:40] And now you respond.
[21:41] But we gather corporately, weekly, right?
[21:45] Monthly with the other group.
[21:47] And maybe we do some things like last Sunday
[21:49] or yeah, last Saturday, I mean.
[21:51] We gathered new corporately to help
[21:52] and all that's commanded and vital and wonderful.
[21:55] There's more though, there's more, right?
[22:01] So the responsibility to search for the result, man.
[22:07] What a great result though, isn't it?
[22:09] What a result.
[22:10] Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering
[22:16] will save his soul from death
[22:19] and cover a multitude of sins.
[22:23] Wow, that's a pretty nice result.
[22:26] I'm thankful because I had a friend
[22:29] that brought me back as a wanderer.
[22:31] Man.
[22:48] Paul says, I became all things to all men
[22:49] that I might be all, but I might by all mean save some.
[22:54] And I use that verse because I think that's,
[22:57] Paul is saying, is Paul doing the saving?
[22:59] Are we doing the saving when the result is,
[23:01] you go get the wanderer, you'll save their soul?
[23:04] Well, God still does the saving,
[23:05] but he's using you and me in that work to save.
[23:10] Isn't that crazy?
[23:13] He's using us to go get people, to save them,
[23:18] to cover their sins.
[23:20] God uses different means, it's different times
[23:27] to bring people to himself, we know that, right?
[23:29] In this case, God is using church members, us,
[23:33] to bring back people from straying
[23:35] and keeping each other safe.
[23:37] The love that God covers, that got the love of God,
[23:43] that covers a multitude of sins using us.
[23:48] And the result is save, cover a multitude of sins.
[23:53] And if you think about James, all the whole book of James,
[24:02] it makes sense, doesn't it?
[24:05] That the church has to be involved,
[24:08] that we have to be members who love the body so much
[24:11] that we want to be with each other.
[24:14] That we don't, even when it was easier to sit in our house
[24:16] on a Thursday night, out of love, we say,
[24:19] "Man, I have to call this person, right?
[24:22] I have to see how they're doing.
[24:23] Maybe it's me, maybe it's calling the phone,
[24:24] maybe it's whatever."
[24:26] But there's some interaction with the church body.
[24:28] That we have the privilege of being that.
[24:32] And when James is talking about redoers of the word,
[24:36] not hearers only, right?
[24:40] When he says, "Pray for wisdom."
[24:45] When he says, "Don't be worldly."
[24:49] When he says, "Have patience."
[24:52] All those things, and on and on he goes,
[24:56] all those things are easier or more bearable
[25:00] because they're hard things.
[25:01] Well, we have other people to talk about it with
[25:04] and encouraging us to keep on keeping on.
[25:07] I mean, I don't know about you.
[25:11] I love being encouraged, right?
[25:13] Maybe not like being encouraged.
[25:16] Yeah, I hate being encouraged.
[25:17] (laughing)
[25:18] All right, I mean, so there's a part of all of us,
[25:20] I think, that wants you, and I don't mean just like
[25:22] people telling you what you want to hear.
[25:23] I mean, just encourage me.
[25:24] When church members, and this goes for, you know,
[25:34] Big C church, when we stop using our tongues,
[25:39] remember our tongue, James, to tear down other people,
[25:44] to tear down one another, right?
[25:45] And instead use them to call others,
[25:49] call back others from wandering.
[25:51] The body of Christ fulfills its mission
[25:55] and its call to be doers of the word.
[26:00] I know it's hard hitting.
[26:04] Yes, it's James, it's gotta be hard hitting, all right?
[26:07] Yeah, we can't end the chapter on something easy, all right?
[26:10] And so we understand the reality,
[26:16] we understand the responsibility,
[26:19] and hopefully we understand and have seen the reward.
[26:22] I'm a living testament of one who wandered
[26:27] and somebody coming and finding me
[26:32] and saying, hmm, right.
[26:34] And isn't God good that he brings back the wanderer?
[26:42] I mean, think about that.
[26:43] All right, he died, Christ died for our sins, right?
[26:47] Nailed to a cross, beaten, tortured,
[26:51] nailed to a cross, buried, risen.
[26:54] And then we do that, we commit the sins that he died for.
[27:00] And then, not only that, we wander.
[27:02] We say, yeah, forget about, I mean, we don't say that.
[27:07] We say it's for action, right?
[27:09] And God says, yeah, that person.
[27:12] Bring them back, go get the wanderer.
[27:14] They're too valuable to me.
[27:16] I don't wanna lose them.
[27:18] Are you a person who values the body of Christ,
[27:30] loves the body of Christ,
[27:31] desires to be an all-in member of the body of Christ?
[27:36] I don't want you to answer that between you and God.
[27:39] When we see, you know, I mean, we grew up,
[27:44] I grew up, church, this is kind of a Sunday deal, right?
[27:47] Just kind of going Sunday.
[27:48] And I think in our nation, that's kind of how we view it.
[27:51] I was reading a book, I don't know which one.
[27:57] I had a couple going on, so I don't remember.
[27:59] But I read a book and one of them,
[28:01] a pastor had went and served overseas in a place
[28:05] where they have an underground church, right?
[28:08] 'Cause they, you know, they just,
[28:10] they can't be out and open about their faith.
[28:12] And so he asked the people,
[28:14] well, he asked the pastor about,
[28:16] what books are the church's faith?
[28:18] One of his books is James.
[28:23] He said, James, these are suffering people, why?
[28:25] Because he's talking to suffering people, right?
[28:29] And we get it.
[28:30] And the pastor was saying like,
[28:33] these guys were all in, right?
[28:35] They're all in.
[28:36] They can be thrown in jail, killed, whatever.
[28:40] But they're all in with each other,
[28:42] checking on one another, encouraging one another
[28:45] to keep them in the faith.
[28:49] So they don't, at the end, wander.
[28:52] So there's a whole idea of, when we're doing this,
[28:55] if we're meeting one another,
[28:57] if we're hanging out, talking to one another,
[28:59] if we're loving one another,
[29:00] then you get less wandering
[29:02] because people are always involved.
[29:04] When you start thinking, man, this is my,
[29:07] I'm, you know, I wanna do this.
[29:09] I wanna, the person that loves you and cares for you
[29:12] and is involved with you says, no, no, no, don't quit.
[29:16] God is worth it.
[29:19] Persevere, brother, sister.
[29:22] Jesus.
[29:22] And so I love how James wraps it up.
[29:28] My brothers, sisters,
[29:34] if anyone among you wanders from the truth
[29:37] and someone brings him back,
[29:39] let him know that whoever brings back a sinner
[29:41] from his wandering will save his soul from death
[29:43] and will cover a multitude of sins.
[29:45] Go get the wanderer.
[29:46] Go get the wanderer because you know who the wanderer is
[29:50] because you are invested in their lives.
[29:52] Don't be a rock unto yourself, right?
[29:57] It doesn't work.
[29:58] Christian life's not meant to work that way.
[30:00] You cannot read James and think I can do this on my own.
[30:03] I got it.
[30:04] You can't, can't do it.
[30:05] The help of the spirit
[30:07] through the help of the body of Christ.
[30:10] And what we do, we see a vibrant church at work.
[30:19] All right.