James 5:19-20

Pursue the Wanderer

1. With Prayers
2. With Pleas
3. With purpose

Remember, Repent, Return

Well, good morning, Saylorville! If you brought a copy of Scripture with you this morning, you can turn for the last time (at least in this series) to the book of James, the fifth chapter, as we close out this series, Keeping It Real… James, chapter 5, and the last couple of verses.

So the subtitle of this message is, “How to convert a Christian.” Really. The title is “Prone to Wander.“

Oh, by the way, happy St. Patrick’s Day, right? Especially all those of you who remembered “my special day!” I always remind my wife of that and I say, “You didn’t get me a gift, ” and she has still never given me a gift on this day.

But you know, there’s a lot of legend… folklore connected to Patrick. And that’s what fifteen hundred years does. doesn’t it? Fifteen hundred years separating by another 15 hundred years, you’re gonna have some urban legend, right? And a lot of crazy stories like, you know, rooting out all the snakes, the snakes and shamrocks and all of that. There’s also a lot of truth. Patrick was a missionary to Ireland. I say it like that because it’s true. And I also say it like that because we now send missionaries to Ireland. And why is that? If Patrick evangelized the Emerald Island, why are we sending missionaries there today? And I’ll give you the answer — because people… even God’s people… are prone to wander. That’s why.

Let me pray, and we’ll get going here.

God, thank you so much for this time we could get together… worship… sing some beautiful songs… And I pray, Lord, that they were acceptable, they themselves, in your sight as we sang them. And, Lord, we are recognizing today as we conclude this book of James… And thank you so much for all of the months that we’ve spent in this great book, this practical book, urging us to “…be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving our own selves.” We conclude it with this… abrupt ending to this book… it’s with a warning to wanderers and an exhortation of those of us who would go after them and bring them back. I pray that there would be a spirit of real power… the Holy Spirit would be working in our midst powerfully, dear Lord. We invite him to do so. For those who are here who don’t know your Son, Jesus, today might be the day of their salvation. And those who’ve wandered off the reservation, so to speak, that they might come back and that you would raise up in our midst pursuers of the wanderers. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

James 5. There’s a debate about… you talk about accuracy in stories… I mean, the whole St. Patrick’s stories, has some question about whether it’s accurate. We’ve all had that. Have you ever had it where somebody told a story about you that wasn’t completely accurate? I can remember about a year after I became a Christian. It was a Mother’s Day and I was in a restaurant. There were about 20 of us in the group.… and the restaurant was just packed. And the person on the other end of the table said, “Pat Nemmers, why don’t you pray?” And so I prayed. And about 10 years later, a pastor came up to me at a camp and said, “Man, I heard about that time you were asked to pray years ago in that restaurant. Is it true?” I said, “Is what true?” Well, the story I’ve been telling all these years, I said, “What story have you been telling?” I was told that you told everybody to be quiet, you’re gonna give reverence to God and pray, and you expected them to pray with you, and the whole place went silent. I said, “I kinda like your story better than mine!” — ‘cause that wasn’t quite true.

There’s debate about the accuracy of the story of Robert Robinson. That’s a name that doesn’t mean anything to most of you. He lived in the middle 1700s, so you got a couple of hundred years here, separating us. There’s no debate of the fact that he was raised without a father. He got involved in a gang, and that gang had determined to go to hear the evangelist, George Whitfield… George Whitfield! George Whitfield was known to have such a voice, you could hear him clearly in a crowd of 40,000 people with no artificial amplification! But they were going there to sort of harass the Christians that were there. But while they were there, Robert Robinson heard the message that you must be born again… came under conviction and got saved! And two years later, there’s no debate that he wrote one of the most endearing hymns to ever be written when he wrote these words,

“Come thou fount of many blessings.

Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing.

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of thy redeeming love. “

Then knowing his propensity to wander, knowing our propensity to wander, he concluded this hymn with these words.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Take my heart, O take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above.” Robert Robinson

What happened to Robert Robinson after that is somewhat debated, but one thing is clear. That great hymn writer who wrote those great words… wandered.

This final message sort of has an abrupt ending. That’s the reason why James is often likened to the book of Proverbs, like the Proverbs of the New Testament. We close it up today. So the focus is not so much on the wanderer, though, (I’m going to talk to you as well) but on those who would pursue the wanderer. So with that, the last two verses of James 5.

James 5:19-20, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders, (there’s our word from the… say it) from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

Now, I’ve subtitled the sermon. The sermon is Prone to Wander. I’ve subtitled it How to Convert a Christian. I did that on purpose.

I wrote a book about a year or so ago, (and some of you probably read it) but I tell the story in there when our two youngest sons were off the reservation for a number of years. Their lives were a complete mess! There was just no telling if they were saved though they claimed to be Christians. And people would say to me, “Hey, how can we pray for your sons?” — And I would say, “Pray that they’ll be converted, — whatever converted means.” And I didn’t ask that prayer because I didn’t know what it meant to be converted, but I just didn’t know the condition of their soul! And as it turned out, it was a perfect prayer request, because one of them needed to be converted to salvation, the one you heard preach last week. The other just needed to come back to God. They both needed to be converted. Does that make sense?

Some Christians need to be converted. Some of you need to be converted. And so the struggle with this text is some of the word usage, like the individual being called the word “sinner,” — has led some Bible expositors to conclude James is talking to the unsaved, because those who know Jesus, they’re called “saints” not “sinners.” That’s generally a true statement, but the apostle Paul said in

1 Timothy 1:15, “I am the chief of sinners.”

So, not entirely true. And then there’s the business of the death of the wanderer’s very soul being at stake. Right? … The Greek word for soul, that’s the word “psychen.” We get our word “psychology” from this word. Here’s what it means. literally it means “to breathe.” And if you’re living, you’re breathing, right? It literally means “life.” In fact, it’s translated that. Jesus in Matthew 16,

[Matthew 16:25-26, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”]

and Mark 8:35 said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

Have you ever read that? The word “life” there… same word; “psychen.” It just means “life.” (If you’re writing in your Bible, write “life” over the word “soul.”) And that changes everything! He’ll save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.

But I’m just gonna say this, to pull it back a little bit. Personally, I believe the Spirit of God, through James, is purposely being intentionally vague. This is a warning passage! Because I look at some people, I can’t tell the difference between the lost person and the carnal, the worldly, the fleshly, the wanderer. They look the same! Listen, the only difference between an unsaved person and a wandering Christian is one’s going to heaven and the other’s going to hell. Their lives look the same. They’re both piling up sins, one here on earth, the other for hell. And if you think about it, just think about it. A Christian, a worldly Christian, a carnal Christian, a fleshly Christian, a wandering Christian, a sinful Christian whose life looks just like somebody who’s lost actually going to heaven when they die, is one of the greatest illustrations of the grace of God you’ll ever have! A Christian wasting his life on selfish living then going to heaven… it seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But it could also betray one’s legalistic view of salvation, because last I checked a fruitful life is because the evidence of salvation, it’s not salvation itself. One of my own spiritual fathers once said this. It was sort of provocative at the time, but I loved it! He said,

“Imagine being taken out of this world for sinful living, only to experience the eternal joy of heaven.” One of Pastor Pat’s spiritual fathers

Let me tell you something… That’s the grace of God! That’s the only thing you can chalk that up to.

So back to the text. Notice, James says, “My brothers.” So there’s evidence of who he’s talking to. He’s not talking to the lost. “My brothers…” By the way, James uses the word “brothers” eight times in this letter, eight times. The Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, he used this term, a total of eight times! He [James] says, “My brothers, if anyone among you…” (notice, this means this individual is claiming to be a Christian) “and then wanders from the truth…” This is the wanderer he’s concerned about. The wanderer. By the way, it’s used twice this word “wanderer,” and it’s really a very interesting word, how they got it. The word “wanderer” here is where we get our English word “planet.” Okay? Remember that. It’s where we get our English word “planet.” The ancients in the first century, they were fascinated with the heavenly bodies, and they were looking at the fixed stars and they noticed that some of the stars moved irregularly. They weren’t stars at all. They were planets, but they thought they were stars. And so, you know sailors… in Bible time relied on the fixed stars to guide them. But then they would look at these stars that weren’t acting like stars… because they weren’t stars! They didn’t know that. And so they coined a term for them. It’s this word right here and we get our word “planet.” So a wandering star or a planet was, to a sailor, misleading. It was not reliable. You couldn’t trust it. So the word became a metaphor for the person who… (wait for it!) wanders from the truth. In fact, in Jude’s little epistle, he talks about false teachers (and there’s plenty of them out there who mislead people) leading them astray, and he calls them “wandering stars.”

[Jude 1:12-13, “These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”]

Same word. Now, James [5:19] says, “Brothers, if someone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him (what? What’s the word?) brings him back.”

By the way, that’s another proof that he’s talking about Christians who’ve wandered away because he’s come back!

Some of you are just getting back from your Spring break. Others are still making their way back, right? I was just talking to someone the other day, and they said they’re going out to the Black Hills. “Oh,” I said, “I was once at the Black Hills in 1970! And…” I said, “I wanna go… (what?) back, because I’ve been there.” You go back to places you’ve been.

This is why Jesus, when he wrote to the Ephesians in Revelation two…

[Revelation 2:4-5, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent.]

Remember, the Ephesian church was a church that had it all together. They had solid doctrine. They were moving and grooving. They were doing great things, and he commended them for that! He said, ‘But, here’s the problem.’ And it was so diabolical to his heart. He was ready to remove their testimony and effectively would do so. He said, ‘You have lost or left your (what?) your first love, your adoration, your love, your praise, your worship of me.’

And that’s where some of you are at right now, and that makes you a wanderer. You remember the days you used to love Jesus. In fact, that’s his counsel. He gives the best counsel you’ll find anywhere in the Bible for coming back. He says, “Remember from where you have fallen.” That’s a point of reference. Remember… from where you have fallen. That means, if you’re a wanderer, you go back… go back to where you have fallen. Go back to when… you remember when you were coming to church, you were reading your Bible, you were worshiping Jesus, and it was a joy! — And here you are now. It’s a drudgery, because you’re a wanderer. You gotta go back. There’s a point of reference, and defection takes time. You didn’t jump off the reservation in one day. It probably took time. So Jesus says to this church, “Remember from where you have fallen.” And then he says, “Repent.” Remember from where you have fallen. Repent. That means “to change your thinking.” “Change your mind.” “Turn around.” “Turn back!” And then he says, ‘return.’ Remember, repent and return. He says, remember from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works. That’s one of the most encouraging words you’ll ever hear from Jesus! You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Whatever was working back here when you walked with Jesus, it’ll work again! When you’ve forsaken your sinful ways and you’ve come back to him.

Now James, if he could add to his half brother’s words in Revelation 2, he’d add one more word to those of us who love the wanderer. Do you love the wanderer, by the way? He would add this word; “rescue.” And isn’t that what he’s saying here? Look at it!

[James 5:19-20, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,

20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”]

Look what he says. This is the encouragement to those of you who would go on the rescue mission, who would become a pursuer. He’s saying, “let him know.” That’s sort of a backdoor way of saying, I have great praise for you who would take this kind of risk and go after them!

Just the other day, a friend of mine, (a man that I’ve mentored in the pastorate in another state, I’ve spent much time with him, loved this guy, loved his church, loved the people there) and he told me on the phone, “Hey, did you hear about…” and he names, someone. I said, “Well… no!” I love this guy! We’d done stuff, we’d vacationed a little bit together. “Oh man, he’s completely off the rails!” — he said. “What?” “He’s left his family! He’s not even walking with God anymore!” I said, “You’re kidding me!” I had this guy in my contacts. I called him right away, and I’m dialoguing with him as we speak, because I know that one of my jobs is to be… not just to evangelize, but to pursue the wanderer. Stephen Cole put it best. He said,

“If you’re a Christian, then you’re a member of God’s search and rescue team.”

Stephen Cole

Right? If you’re a firefighter (and, praise God, we’ve got several of them in our church… Amen?) and there’s a house on fire, and there are souls in that house, you’ve already decided what you’re going to do! You’re going after them! You’re going to save them! This is the very same thing that followers of Jesus are called to do with those who have wandered. Are there risks? Of course there are risks! Could you get burned in the process? Of course you can get burned in the process, but it’s so totally worth it! Church discipline (which almost nobody practices anymore) we call it a process. Jesus told us this is a Matthew 18, right?

[Matthew 18:15-17, If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”]

We call it a process. Maybe we should call the rescue mission, because that’s what it’s supposed to be. And like all rescue missions, they’re not 100%. Some are unsuccessful, right? And so you say, ‘Well, I’ve tried that once. I’m not… I can’t do it again.’ What are you talking about? This is a call to us, “My brothers, if anyone (anyone, ANYONE!) among you wanders from the truth, and someone brings them back, let him know…” let him know! The one who brings back the wanderer is saving a life from death, covering a multitude of sins! There’s hardly anything more joyous than seeing somebody who’s wandered off come back! Am I right? And Jesus told us it would not only be risky, but he told us about the joy that would take place. In Luke 15, remember the parable, the one who leaves the 99 and goes after the straying, the wandering sheep?

[Luke 15:4-7, 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?

5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more JOY in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”]

Three times he uses the word “rejoice.” He puts him on his shoulder, “rejoicing.” He gathers everyone together. He says, “Rejoice with me!” And then he switches it from a sheep to people when he says “there’s more joy amongst the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents.” There’s joy! And why is this joy so effervescent? — Because… (look at it, look at it!) because he saved a soul, or a life, from death!

… There’s a group of guys that I worked with for a while, and one of them had wandered. And we talked about him whenever we’d get together. We talked about him a lot! I don’t think we gossiped, but we talked about him, concerned about his wandering, And then, one day, one of them got up and went after him! Well, not right in front of us, but he did. In fact, he went after him with fervency! In fact, that individual in our group who went after him started sending me all of his text exchanges he was having with this guy. And I [?] back to him, I said, “Dude, you might want to dial it back a little!” And then the guy turned back and is walking with Jesus today! So I took back what I said!

If you’re a wanderer, you’re sitting on a keg of dynamite! That’s why Paul issued one of the sternest warnings in all of the New Testament at, of all places, the Lord’s Table. You remember when Paul lays out the Lord’s Table in first Corinthians 11…

[1 Corinthians 11:30, “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”]

This was a fleshly church, and they were seeing things happen amongst them, and they didn’t know why it was happening… it was because they were misusing the Lord’s Table! And he said, “That is why many of you are weak and ill.” Did you know you could get weak or ill the way you treat the Lord’s table? And then he says, “Some of you are dead.” Think about this. This is very, very serious, especially if you are a wanderer.

I heard of a church where a guy came in who was living in known sin, walked right up to the Lord’s table, took the Lord’s table. An elder in that church who loved him, (but was mortified by what he saw!) walked up to that man, quietly sat down next to him, lovingly he exhorted him and told him, “This is wrong, what you’re doing.” The man got angry! You know, he should have gone away happy and grateful, because that guy might have saved him from a premature death according to this!

Listen, what if God does take you out of this world in a disciplinary way? Does he do that? Yes, he does! If God takes you out of this world for your sinful living, will you lose your salvation? [No.] I just want that to sink in for a little bit. You won’t lose your salvation, but make no mistake… You will lose. John told us as much in his second little postcard he gave us. Here’s what it says.

2 John 8, “Watch yourselves, so that you may not (what?) lose what we’ve worked for, but may win a full reward.”

Have you ever read that? So you don’t lose your salvation, but make no mistake. You do lose! But, when you are the pursuer and you go after them, and they remember, they repent and they return, you save a soul from premature death and you cover a multitude of sins. How does that happen? Remember what we read to you just a couple of weeks ago?

Psalm 32:1, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, (Remember that? Remember the next line?) whose sin is (what?) covered.”

We don’t have any power to take away sins, but we do have power to cover them. And we do that by not reminding the former wanderer of their sins. They’ve been forgiven… Amen? If they wanna reflect upon them, if they wanna talk about them, if they wanna testify about them in gratitude to God and to the one who pursued them to come back, so be it. That’s their business. To the rest of us, we cover it. And when you cover something, you just can’t see it anymore, right? And so you don’t remind them anymore once they’ve come back.

So the text is calling us to pursue the wanderer… pursue the wanderer. You do it in three different ways. Real simple: with prayers… Ongoing prayers. Remember John’s illustration last week, right from the Old Testament? Elijah, sending back his servant repeatedly to see if there’s rain, illustrating that our prayer should be perpetual. We need to obey the Lord Jesus’ words who said in Luke 18,

Luke 18:1, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”

… that a person should pray continually and… (watch this) not lose heart. Even though you’re praying for a long time, keep praying! Pursue the wanderer with your prayers. Countless people have come back to Jesus because of the faithful prayers of the pursuing saints! With pleas, with pleading, so to speak. So it’s not enough for you to sit back and pray. Some of you are just content with that, but that is not where it ends. You need to go to them! You need to plead with them like Zachariah, one verse three, where God says,

[Zechariah 1:3, “Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.”]

‘Turn back to me and I’ll turn back to you.’ Isn’t that beautiful? And that’s a plea. And in love, we need to plead.

And thirdly, with purpose. The purpose is right in the text. The purpose is to bring them back, right? And you do that in love. The purpose isn’t to… I mean, you know wanderers. Every one of you have a wanderer… not every one of you, but most of you… have a wanderer in your mind. In fact, if you don’t right now get one! Think of somebody in your life, somebody in your sphere, somebody in your family, somebody that you know that has laid claim to Jesus and is not walking with him today. You have them in your mind! Pray for them! You plead with them and you have to go to them with purpose! — And the purpose is in love.

This friend of mine that I mentioned a little earlier, this pastor friend of mine who told me about this mutual friend of ours, a former leader in his church that’s off the rails, not walking with God, is a wander. I went after him right away, and I shared with my friend, the pastor, of my exchange with our mutual friend, and the pastor friend said to me, “Oh, I’m glad you did it. I’m so glad you did that. I love that man!” And I thought to myself, “That’s what God is going to use! You don’t go after the wanderer in disgust because you’re disgusted by their ways. You’re disgusted by their sins. You’re disgusted by their lifestyle. You’re disgusted by their attitude. You’re disgusted by the way they stiff arm you. You go after them in love, because you love them! And God will use that to bring them back.

Robert Robinson wrote those words,

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, Lord. Take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.”

Robert Robinson went off the spiritual reservation himself years later. And as the story has it, he got into a carriage one day, (Think taxi, bus, mini bus) and right across from him was a woman as they were going down humming, Come Thou Fount. She had the words right in front of her and she said,

“Don’t you just love these words?” — she said to Robinson. “Are you familiar with them?” Robinson said “Familiar? I’m the poor unhappy man who wrote those words years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds to have the feelings back that I had then.”

… And, as the story has it, that was the impetus that God would use to cause Robert Robinson to remember, to repent, and to return.

Will you remember where you once were? Will you repent of your wanderings? And will you return to the love of the assembly and the worship of the saints? Some of you need to, in this very room, to do so today. And will you who love Jesus, you’re pursuing Him, would you be obedient to this passage? This passage is to you primarily! My brothers… my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, let him know that he who brings back a wanderer from the truth will save his soul, his life from death and cover up a multitude of sins. Would you commit yourself to go to that person that came to your mind? Will you do that right now?

And then there are those of you here, you’re just outsiders looking in. You’ve never been there. You don’t remember the sweet days when you walked with God, because there’s never been any! And the Apostle Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 13:5, he said,

2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

And if you fail that test, you go to hell… without Jesus! Today, come to Jesus Christ and believe He died and rose again for you. Will you do that? The rest of you, go on the rescue mission.

Father, we love you and bless your name for your Word, for the book of James, and albeit abrupt ending. We thank you for this call to those of us who know and love you! And I’ve had three people come to my mind… three! — that I’ve just begun to pursue, and I’m determined to continue to do so as I pray for them, as I plead with them, and as I do so with purpose to bring them back to you! And God, I pray that you would solidify the person or persons that have come to the minds of others here that they would, many of them, be able to rejoice with joy unspeakable to see these wanderers come back. And God, we all acknowledge here that we are prone to wander. We do feel it. Seal our hearts, for your glory. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Let’s stand. [Music]