“My Brothers and Sisters”

My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you strays from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that the one who has turned a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20

Here James is writing to my brothers and sisters, which indicates that these people are followers of Jesus. Sometimes followers of Jesus stray from the truth of the Gospel and we have a responsibility to bring them back to the truth.

These verses come at the end of the book of James and as we’ve seen in this sermon series, there’s been a lot of sinning going on. Lying, slandering, gossiping, judgementalism, harsh criticism, favoritism, spiritual adultery, spiritual arrogance, to name just a few of the sins that James has addressed. It’s been a rough series to preach and there were probably times when folks thought James was all about sheep beating. However, at the end of this, James lets us know that he is writing to turn a sinner from the error of his ways to save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

All of us stray from the truth now and then. And yet, our Good Shepherd comes after us to bring us back from the fold. One of the ways in which the Lord does this is to send someone after the sheep who has wandered away. But this isn’t an easy task. It requires speaking the truth in love, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:15. Truth and love are both required.

It’s interesting to note that James calls us to pursue a wandering fellow believer after he spends so much time warning us of the dangers of the tongue and the difficulty of controlling the tongue. Some Christians are eager to tell other people the truth, but they do so in a harsh rather than loving way. Other Christians are so concerned with being loving that they are unwilling to deal with the truth for fear of being offensive. Truth and love go hand in hand. 

All of us have a responsibility to bring someone who has strayed back to the Lord. After all, God loved the wanderer so much that He gave His only begotten Son to save the wanderer’s soul from death. Just as He saved our souls from death.

In Christ,

Pastor David