Final Exhortations | Sermon 07/17/2022

Apologia Utah

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Alright, this will be the last time I tell you to turn with me and your Bibles to James.

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James chapter 5, our very last sermon in James.

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It's been a glorious six months. You know, you really think you know a book or you know an epistle well, and really when you dive deep into it in exposition, and looking at the text, there's so much to behold.

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There's so much glory to see. So we're going to be in verses 12 through 20 of James chapter 5.

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The title of the sermon today is Final Exhortations. Final Exhortations.

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Now, beginning in verse 12 of chapter 5, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. "'But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but your yes is to be yes and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

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Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.

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Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the

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Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the

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Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

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The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain.

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And it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

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My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired Word, let's pray quickly, church. Father, again,

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I thank You for all that You've done through the epistle of James, all that You've showed us, Lord. Martin Luther wrongfully said it was an epistle of straw as it was filled with nothing, and I know he knows that now being in Your presence.

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Lord, this has truly been a wonderful study. You've blessed so many of us, Lord. You've been growing us and sanctifying us through this,

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Lord, and really showing us what it looks like to be a New Testament church of Christ.

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So, Lord, I thank You for all that You've done these last six months, and I'm eager to see what

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You will continue to do in our future studies. So, Lord, would You please bless this service.

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Would You please speak through me, Father, and glorify Yourself through it. Help me, as always,

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Lord, to speak in a way that is helpful and true and clear to Your people.

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Let no error come from this pulpit ever, Lord. I pray all these things in the name of Your Son.

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Amen. So there are a variety of examples in the

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Bible that demonstrate someone saying goodbye, or writing goodbye.

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One such goodbye was among a prince and a soon -to -be king.

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Now, you may remember, Jonathan, King Saul's son, was actually great friends with David.

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And as King Saul was losing favor with the Lord and the kingdom was being stripped out of King Saul's hands and to be given to David, the young men still remained friends.

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It says, Jonathan loved David as he loved his own life. Now, as it was becoming increasingly unsafe for David to be in the presence of King Saul for fear of his own life,

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Jonathan told him the next day that David should hide in the back of a field, and Jonathan will be shooting arrows for practice the next day in the field.

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And he told David if he orders the servant boy to retrieve the arrows on the side, that means everything is safe and David can come into the city and King Saul doesn't want to kill him.

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And yet, he told him, if he yells to the lad that the arrows are beyond the boy's reach and to leave them,

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Jonathan says to David, that means you should flee the city. Well, Saul makes it clear to Jonathan that evening that he wants

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David delivered to him. He even accuses Jonathan for practicing some sort of favoritism towards David over his own father.

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And Saul wants David executed. So the next day at the field, just as Jonathan had said,

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David is hiding in the back of the field and Jonathan shoots his arrows and just as he said, he told the boy, do not retrieve them.

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But David waited. He didn't simply flee. He was hoping to see his friend.

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So their final goodbye is recorded in 1 Samuel 20.

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It says this, When the lad was gone, David arose from the south side and he fell on his face to the ground.

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And he bowed three times and they kissed each other and they wept together, but David wept even more than Jonathan.

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Jonathan said to David, go in safety now inasmuch as we have sworn to each other in the name of the

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Lord saying, the Lord will always be between you and me and between my descendants and your descendants forever.

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They had a bond to them that went beyond the grave. It says

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David then arose and he departed while Jonathan went to the city. Then, you have one of the most famous farewells in all of Scripture recorded in Acts 20.

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When Paul sailed to Ephesus to see the Ephesian church one last time, to see the elders of the

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Ephesians. And that discourse honestly in Acts 20 has to be one of the most treasured portions of Scripture to me.

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Acts 20, Paul's exhortation and encouragement to the Ephesian elders, it's glorious.

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He reminds them that he has taught them the whole counsel of Scripture. That he showed them the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ. So he charges them to shepherd the flock of God.

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He tells them to be watchful as savage wolves are going to come after him.

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Some may be even among their own people who will not spare the flock, he warns.

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Paul reminded them, I know all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom and I know you will no longer see my face.

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He gave them some final exhortations and encouragements, and it says in v. 36 -38 in Acts 20, when

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Paul had said these things, he knelt down, he prayed with them all, and they began to weep aloud and they embraced

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Paul. They repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again.

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He would sail away and they would never see his face again. Goodbyes can be very emotional if you've ever said goodbye to a loved one.

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The more you love someone, the more you feel the burden of parting from one another.

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Even the benedictions at the end of the New Testament letters are very heartfelt. Benediction, as I've told you before, means good word.

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Bene. Good. Diction. Word. It is a good word. We leave on a good word here at Apologia Church.

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We leave on good terms. Well wishes. God's blessing. The New Testament writers will say things like, peace be with you.

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All the saints greet you in Christ Jesus. Peter says several times that they would grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul often says, greet the brethren with a holy kiss.

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And almost always, the glory and grace of our Lord is mentioned. Almost always.

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And here we are in James. Here we are at the very last verses of the epistle of James to these dispersed

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Jewish Christians. We talked about how this may very well be potentially the earliest letter ever penned after Christ's ascension.

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This may have been the first New Testament book. And although he doesn't get as emotional as Jonathan and David, or Paul and the

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Ephesian elders, or even as heartfelt as the benedictions in the letters of Paul, Peter, and John, this is in fact, 12 -20,

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James showing the most love for these beloved brethren as he could. This section may seem almost like last -minute admonishments just thrown out there.

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Boom, boom, boom. Do this, do this, do that. In what we would consider maybe typical

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James style, but I think what we've actually learned is that no, everything James has said has been very much highly calculated, premeditated, considered, and something that of course, the

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Holy Spirit has put in him to give to us. Every word is important.

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So these final exhortations by the half -brother of Jesus, who at the first did not believe, but then called

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Him Lord as we saw in verse 1. Who became pastor at the church of Jerusalem.

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James, the fiery preacher who holds nothing back. And the brother who stayed true to Christ to the very end when he survived being pushed off the temple, and when they saw that he was alive, the

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Pharisees and the Jews then stoned him to death. And when they stoned him, they realized he still wasn't dead yet, and they took a club and they bashed his head in.

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That brother, that James that we've been studying, these are his final words.

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His final exhortation that is carefully thought out and would be greater to give them and us in his eyes than any other sort of benediction.

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These are the good words of God through James, my brothers and sisters. So starting in v.

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12, But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

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How does he begin his local church instruction? He starts with oaths.

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He starts with swearing. He appeals to them once again as brothers.

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And with an imperative. A command. Do not omnuo.

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Do not swear or take an oath by heaven or by earth. One lexical dictionary defines this as to affirm the truth of a statement by calling on a divine being or to execute sanctions against a person if the statement in question is not true.

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Let me explain that. One way to do this would be trying to swear by God or His throne that is by a higher authority than you.

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In oath -taking, one is trying to make what they say of such a higher form or a higher truth that they're trying to get derivative authority from God or for the thing they call upon in their oath -taking.

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It's like someone when they say, I swear by the living God. Or you'll even hear a more crude form where they'll say,

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I swear that all that I said was true, and if it isn't true, may God strike me dead.

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These sort of oaths. James, though, if not at the

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Sermon on the Mount, he definitely would have heard Jesus' words through the oral Gospel given by the apostles, because Jesus states almost the same exact thing in the

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Sermon on the Mount. Jesus states it this way in Matthew 5. He says, again, you have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the

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Lord. But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great

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King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or one hair black, but let your statement be yes, yes, or no, no, anything beyond these is of the evil one.

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So as we know, in the Sermon on the Mount, these are called the antitheses. You have heard it said, but I tell you, those are the antitheses.

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And essentially, Jesus is creating no new law. He is hitting at the heart of what the law already was.

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What they should have understood it to be from the very beginning. As the

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Pharisees and the scribes and the Jews twisted the laws of God, Jesus makes clear on what the heart of it already was.

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And it parallels almost perfectly. What Jesus and James are attacking is the wrongful

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Jewish custom of strengthening a statement by using non -binding oaths.

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Because everyone knew the third commandment. You shall not take the name of the

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Lord your God in vain. We always forget the other part where it says, for the Lord will not leave Him unpunished who takes

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His name in vain. But James is touching on Leviticus 19 like he has before.

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If you remember, he addressed Leviticus 19 when talking about slandering your brother.

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He's addressed Leviticus 19 when he talked about showing partiality. And he talked about Leviticus 19 when he talked about the merciful royal law.

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To love your neighbor as yourself. You could say that James loves Leviticus 19. Once again, that quotation is from Leviticus 19.

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Here's the thing though, the Jews, especially the Pharisees became very good at sinning by twisting the commandments so it looked like they didn't obey.

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They started to make a distinction between binding and non -binding oaths.

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The question is, what good is a non -binding oath? An oath is to make you bound to something or something you've committed to.

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So what were they doing? So, instead of using the

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Lord's name, which would have made their oath binding, they would swear by heaven or by earth or by Jerusalem or by anything else that they thought would strengthen their oath.

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But that's the thing, in their mind, they considered, if I just swear by Jerusalem, then

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I could back out of this vow later. They just wanted to be able to back out of it. They wanted to come up to someone, do all the rituals, make the handshake.

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They wanted to make a vow. And they said, oh, I swear. I swear by Jerusalem, the throne of God.

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But because it wasn't God's name, which was described in the Old Testament law, in their back pocket, they're like,

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I could get out of this later though, because I didn't swear by God's name. That's really at the heart of what's being hit here.

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It is sin though. They're trying to not incur the judgment of God.

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But actually, they are incurring the judgment of God by using non -binding oaths. It is sin.

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They're trying to get the same function of using the Lord's name in a vow without actually using it.

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The thing is, no one should be trying to weasel their way out of a vow.

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Instead, their yes is to be yes and their no is to be no. We are to mean what we say the first time.

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We are to be truthful and genuine in all our claims and our words so that oath -taking wouldn't even be necessary.

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You are to be honest and have integrity as Christians so oath -taking wouldn't be necessary. Your yes is yes.

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I can count on you. Your yes is already yes. Your no is no. I can take your word for it.

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So, let me clarify though. Oaths, vows, and swearing, even

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God makes oaths throughout the Scripture. He makes them to guarantee the fulfillment of what

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He has promised. On the surface, it may seem like Jesus and James are saying to not make any oaths at all.

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And some people take that idea, but then the problem I saw with that is then

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James and Jesus would be going against the law. And I don't think

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Jesus is at all against His own law. So, like I said, what is

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Jesus trying to say here? What is James trying to say? Because God's law allowed for it.

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They are simply not to swear falsely or break their vows. They are to keep them.

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What is being attacked is false swearing. Or swearing by the lesser thing so they could get out of it.

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By saying let your yes be yes and your no, no, it is saying to be honest at all times. Only speak the truth.

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And that is what we ask, right? Of judges, jurors, defendants, plaintiffs, lawyers.

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We take oaths and vows in marriages. And I think that's actually a really good thing to make those commitments.

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I don't think our society considers those vows as binding as they should, right?

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So, as Christians, we are to be honest in our vows, honest in our words, and please, don't ever vainly or flippantly say,

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I swear to God. I swear to God. Don't say that. Especially, it allows for oaths, but it's never used that way, right?

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People use it in this kind of quick, maybe I didn't do that. As a kid,

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I used to say that to my parents. I swear, I didn't. We're not to use the

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Lord just for appeal. Because Jesus is truth incarnate. To speak lies is to offend

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Jesus. To speak lies is to do like the Father of lies, the devil. So, church, the point is always mean what you say and say what you mean.

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Always fulfill your promises unless providentially hindered. Fulfill your promises.

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Fulfill what you've committed to do. So moving on to verses 13 and 14, we will now see a series of imperatives regarding prayer and sickness that go until verse 16.

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It says, is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful?

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He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the

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Lord. So he says, is anyone in the church suffering? The NASB tries to add, then he must pray, but actually, in the

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Greek, it says, is anyone among you suffering? And then there's just one commanding word. It says, pray.

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Pray. And throughout the Bible, from the Old Testament to the

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New, the only way for deliverance from suffering has been crying out to God.

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To pray to the only God who can remedy your situation. And of course, we should always strive to be cheerful and rejoice always, but the reality of the

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Christian life is sometimes we are in the valley of mental, physical, spiritual, or financial or personal anguish.

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We're sometimes there. So when it feels like it's hard to get out of the valley, you ought to pray.

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When it feels like you're stuck where you're at, you ought to pray. You should always pray in whatever season you're in, but especially in the season of suffering.

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1 Peter 5 .7 says to cast all your anxieties on God because He cares for you.

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The Lord says in Psalm 50 .15, Call upon Me in the day of trouble,

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I shall rescue you and you will honor Me. Call on Me, God says, in your day of trouble.

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I shall rescue you. And considering the whole of the book of James in that He charges them many times to persevere through trials, that is probably something we should pray for.

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James mentions that a lot. Persevering through trials, because how many times are you praying for deliverance in the trial you're in?

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We're always quick to do that. Lord, take this away. Deliver me from it. It's not good for me. Take this out of my life.

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Lord, take me through it. Take me out of the valley. Bring me on the mountaintop. Lord, let it be gone. We're quick to pray for deliverance.

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But I think a motif, a theme throughout the book of James has been to learn how we can as Christians learn to endure and persevere through suffering.

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And so, it's not to say that we shouldn't ask the Lord for deliverance.

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It's that we should ask for both. When you don't see the deliverance happening right away, you ought to be praying,

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Lord, let me know how to get through this. Help me, Lord, to persevere through this.

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Help me, Lord, to endure this suffering. Because at the time right now, Lord, it seems like it's here, at least for the foreseeable future.

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I think to a people like these early Christians who have been defrauded, falsely accused, they've been murdered, they've been wrongfully condemned and persecuted, they understood

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God has a purpose in the season they're in. And that's probably the difference.

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You know, they're going through all this calamity and trial and persecution, and this early church is used to it, but they need to pray for that.

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And here we are in this century, and maybe we've had a small taste of that in some capacity, maybe even at work or in your personal life.

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But they're quick to pray for endurance. We're quick to pray for deliverance. See what

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I'm saying? We need to pray for that perseverance. We need to pray for both.

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Now, when the period of suffering ends and gladness comes, don't just act like you weren't dependent on God to get out of that season.

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Sing songs of praise to Him. He says, is anyone in the church cheerful?

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And another one -word imperative is made, actually, just one word.

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Saletto. P -S -A -L -L -E -T -O comes from the word salas, like psalm.

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Saletto. You are to sing praises to your God. Sing songs.

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Sing to the Lord. And this is such a wonderful reminder. This reminder to sing praises is more needed than you think.

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We need to be reminded to turn to God in times of joy because we are more likely,

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I think, to ignore God in those seasons of prosperity. So sing praises.

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Things are going well. You're cheerful. Sing praises to God. Psalm 81 says,

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Let us sing for joy to God our strength. Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob. Raise a song.

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Strike the timbrel. The sweet sounding lyre with the harp. Ephesians 5 .19

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says we are to be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with our hearts to the

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Lord. And that word is a continual action. It is continual.

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So are you the brother or sister that barely opens your mouth while we're singing songs here?

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I bet you belted at home, huh? But you're like, your mouth is barely open.

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It's like, how are they breathing? When the songs come, we've got to open our mouths. We've got to belt it out.

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We've got to sing. Because this is a cheerful occasion. Glorious occasion. Right?

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Are you the guy who stays quiet and hopes that no one actually sees you? You keep stretching your nose so they don't see your lips that are closed, right?

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So, I'm joking around, but of course, we ought to practice because I think saletto is going to be a big part of what we do in eternity.

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So might as well practice now. If you are cheerful, sing with your brothers and sisters.

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And we need to be singing more even outside of church. Right? When we have cheerful church events, when we have koinonia's, we should probably make singing more of an aspect of our picnics, of our koinonia's, things like that.

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We need to grab our lyres. We need to grab our timbrels and all that.

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Maybe some bassinets or whatever. Whatever you have at home, bring it. We'll make a joyful noise to the

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Lord. But prayer and praise, right? These are often neglected things.

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So that when someone is suffering, they don't pray. When someone is cheerful, they don't sing praises.

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When they are happy and prosperous, they don't consider praising God for it.

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But we ought to. We ought to. What these both demonstrate to us is that communication with God should be a part of our lives regardless of the seasons we're in.

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Whatever season you're in, it is crucial that you commune and communicate with God through praises and through prayer.

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It doesn't matter. In every season, pray and praise. Pray and praise. Pray and praise.

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But another scenario is given. Is anyone among you sick?

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The word for sick in the Greek is asthaneo. A being in the

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Greek, of course, against or opposite or kind of like anti. Asthaneo is strength.

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This is someone without strength. This is someone who is weak. And in the

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New Testament, it can mean generally weak. But it's typically actually more used with a real physical illness.

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Probably a debilitating disease. This person needs others to come to them.

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They may be immobilized. They may be bedridden. So He gives another imperative for this situation.

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He says, He says, call the elders. Summon the presbyteros of the ecclesia.

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Summon the elders of the church. He wants them to do this when they are sick.

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And this is something special. There's something special about the elders praying for the sick.

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Not that they have a higher connection to God, right? Because we can often think that.

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We're like, my prayers have been unanswered. If I go to my pastor and he prays, God will truly answer him.

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And we're all born -again Christians here. We have that access to God. Of course, sometimes

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I think it's important for us to pray with each other, for your pastor to pray for you.

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So I'm not trying to speak against that. Always come to me if you want me to pray for you.

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But, what is happening here? Why the elders? And we don't know much about why

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He says this, but a few things we can glean is that elders are in leadership and should probably know how to care for their flock.

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They should be aware of what's going on. They should be aware of those who are sick, who need help. They can organize the deacons to send meals, to send people to care for them.

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And they often, as teachers of the Word, can discern the revealed will of God and they can pray in faith.

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Maybe that person is so weak, they're actually maybe even weak in faith and they need someone who's strong in faith to come and pray with them.

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That may be the case. We've gotten like that before, right? We've had weak faith before. We need to hear someone, wow!

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Man, even their strong faith really built up my faith and we need that sometimes. It's important especially for pastors to arrive

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I think in emergency situations if at all possible, if not hindered. And over the centuries, pastors have taken up the ministry of hospital visits to those in their congregation.

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It's possible something supernatural can take place here if God wills it.

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Truly, that can happen with any sort of prayer, not just with the elders. Maybe if the elders pray for someone, the whole church will follow their example and pray for others who need it as well.

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So James then turns the command over to the elders. He says, and they are to pray over him.

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That's in the imperative. They called upon the elders, and then the elders are to pray over him, anointing them with oil and in the name of the

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Lord. They must pray for those who call upon them and accompanied with the prayer is an anointing of oil.

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The Greek word here for oil has the root word for olive. It's the root word for olive right here.

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Oil. So this is most definitely, of course, the Mediterranean Israel. This is olive oil of some sort.

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But sometimes they would use different perfumes and fragrances to anoint people. And the prayer and anointing are offered in the name of the

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Lord in the Kurios. The Lord Jesus. In the name of the

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One who heals. In the name of the One who can bring restoration.

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The One who makes the lame to walk and the blind to see. In the name of that Lord we are to pray.

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It's a recognition the elders need the Lord to do the healing. They don't pray in their own name.

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They pray in the name of the Lord because they need the Lord to bring the healing.

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They can't do it of their own selves. It must be said though, the emphasis is on the prayer being offered.

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That's the imperative. The anointing with oil is not an imperative and should be seen as secondary but a very good and permissible practice.

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But I have to tell you church, throughout the centuries, anointing oil has been misused and abused this passage along with it.

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It was made a traditional and sacramental right within the Roman Catholic Church that that was the only way healing could take place on anyone.

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They used it in an unbiblical way. And that would be reading too much into the heart of James 5.

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We just don't see that here, especially in the original languages. It would be reading too much into Mark 6, which is the only other time we see anyone like the apostles or elders using oil.

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It says in Mark 6, the twelve apostles were sent out and they were casting out demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.

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That's the only other time we see being anointed with oil. It's simply not a required practice.

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Jesus, as far as we knew, never anointed others with oil in His healings in the

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Gospels. Oil was sometimes used for medicinal purposes. Think about the parable of the

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Good Samaritan. It says that the Samaritan took oil and wine and he bandaged the

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Levite's wounds. So olive oil has been used, of course, for medicinal purposes for centuries.

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But if it was purely medicinal, why call upon the elders to apply the oil if they could just apply it themselves?

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That's why I believe based on Old and New Testament uses of oil, this could be a physical action symbolizing a spiritual consecration.

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That is to say, the anointing oil with prayer designates God's special attention to this person who is suffering.

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I anoint their forehead with oil and I pray over them, and it's a special moment where we're asking

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God to do something here. It's nothing magical, but it's a good practice.

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This is a wonderful thing, and as an elder here, I take this as a high honor.

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I've done it before here at this church. And whoever calls upon me to pray over them and anoint them with oil,

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I will always be there. I think that's important. Again, it's not something that's commanded or required.

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We see Jesus didn't do it, and yet, I think for the sick, it's a good practice. So, that explains that.

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Move on to verses 15 and 16. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick and the

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Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

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Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

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The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. When the elders pray, or any saint prays for that matter, and the prayer is of faith or it is believing, it will restore the ill one.

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It literally says, and the prayer of faith delivers the sick one and the

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Lord will make him rise up. That's literally what it says in the Greek. It is much like the one who asks

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God for wisdom during their trials in James 1, and it says, but he must ask in faith without doubting.

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Remember that? Otherwise, he's like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Ask the

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Lord for wisdom in faith. It's a similar thing here. Pray in faith without doubting.

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And this is a miracle. This is a miracle. And the Lord is a

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God of miracles. It is God's pleasure to heal like this. It glorifies

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Him. And I don't think necessarily that the gifts we see in the apostolic era are normative today, but I absolutely have seen myself wonderful miracles that God has done in my life and in other people's lives.

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Things that we can't explain. Some in this room have explained miracles that they have seen and they can't truly explain.

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So, some people take it too far and say the Holy Spirit can do nothing.

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The Lord can do nothing upon this material world with supernatural things, but He does.

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He does. And I think He still does these things today, just not in that normative apostolic sense.

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We are to have faith in the God Who is able and sovereignly accomplishes His will without hindrance.

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That is to say, so if physical healing in this life is God's will, it is inevitable.

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If it's God's will, it's inevitable. And that's the thing. The amazing thing is healing is 100 % promised.

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You're like, what? What about what you just said? That is, it is a guarantee of eternal life.

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That is a guarantee of eternal life. Healing will be granted to everyone in this room after the resurrection.

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But, it is not always as we have seen granted in this life. If the sick one has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

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These verses are often misused in that people claim they can have healing powers.

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But all healing, as I said, comes from God, by God's design and in God's timing.

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What about then when God doesn't heal in this life? What about the people who are faithful, loving

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Christians and they pray to God for healing and it hasn't come? And maybe some of them have even passed away and it hasn't come.

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This is a hard thing. Would we say there's a lack of faith?

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Right? Often you see that being charged on people. I remember I had this brother in Christ who became a

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Reformed Baptist and he was part of this charismatic church for forever and he was literally dying from appendicitis.

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And he thought if I just have enough faith, I don't need to go to the ER, I don't need to get help, and God will heal me if I have enough faith.

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And that's how this verse can be abused. That's how other passages in the Bible can be abused.

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I just have to have enough faith. He was literally about to go septic.

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He was about to die. And something snapped him out of it and he went to the ER and basically he had ruptured.

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And if they didn't start cleaning it up and giving him antibiotics, he would have been dead. He would have been done. In that moment, he never stepped foot back into that church.

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Because even his elder said, just keep waiting it out, Matt. Keep waiting it out. Healing's coming.

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It's foolishness. It's foolishness that kills people. Right? Is there unconfessed sin?

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There can be. There can be a lack of faith or unconfessed sin. Yeah. That's possible.

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But not always. Paul was able by God to heal others and yet Philippians 2 says,

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Epaphroditus had sickness almost leading to death. I'm sure Paul prayed for Epaphroditus right away, but it was in God's timing.

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Then in 2 Timothy 4 .20, Paul left Trophimus sick in Miletus.

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And again, I'm sure Paul prayed for Trophimus, but it didn't happen right away.

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He had to leave him. Paul, like many others, had to learn

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God's will is always to be sought in healing. God has purposes that we can't always see.

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But the trust that we have is the trust in the God who is the righteous judge who will do right.

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He will do right. He will do all that He ought to do and we can trust that. Paul later found out

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Christ's grace is sufficient. That Christ's power is perfected in our weakness.

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Remember in 2 Corinthians 12 when he asked for the thorn in his flesh to be removed? And it wasn't removed.

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Paul learned in that moment that God's will, God's ultimate decree is supreme. That His grace is sufficient.

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Because healing isn't cause and effect. It's not prayer done, healing instantly occurs.

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That's not what happens that we've seen in Scripture. We've seen it sometimes.

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We've seen it in the Gospels. But there was a purpose in spreading the Gospel like wildfire in an anti -Christian

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Roman empire. But healings do happen today. Faith, forgiveness of sins, and healing are all prerogatives of God.

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Right? Faith, healing, and forgiveness are God's prerogatives.

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He's the One who gives them. So look at the verse again. The word forgive is ephemi, which can sometimes mean forgive and the other half of the time means to leave something or send away.

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Therefore, it could be if the sick one has committed sins, after the prayer of faith to the

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Lord, the sins will leave him or be sent away. It can demonstrate that many times someone is sick because of their sin.

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I'll talk about that. It's further proven in v. 16. He goes two more imperatives.

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Confess your sins and pray for one another. Confess is examulageo, to openly declare that you agree your sin is wrong and God is right.

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But now before I talk briefly about confession, let's talk about how it says, so you will be healed, so you may be healed.

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Healed here is cured or healed of sickness. And I want to say that every time since the beginning of v.

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13 until now, pretty much every reference to sickness or healing or anything like that has not been in a spiritual sense.

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It's actually been in a physical sickness sort of sense. That is key to understand that context.

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So, I am about to say some things that you may have never heard a pastor say before, or you've never heard it taught before, but I want you to bear with me until the end.

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I want to honor God's Word and I want to be careful that I'm not misrepresenting anything from God's Word.

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These two verses demonstrate that there are real and physical consequences to our sin.

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In general, all sickness and disease are a result of sin.

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That is to say, after the fall of man, sickness, disease, and death came into the world.

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We can say generally all sickness and disease and death are a result of sin because of the fall.

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But more specifically, we do see often in the Bible that someone's sickness or disease is a result of personal sin.

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Okay? Think about Elisha's servant Gehazi. We talked about him a couple weeks ago.

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Gehazi got leprosy for his sin. Then you have the Israelites who were plagued with disease when they played the harlot with Moab in Numbers 25, and Phinehas had to come up and stab the

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Israelite man and the Moabite, the Midianite woman, and he brought an end to the plague.

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It said that 24 ,000 people had died because of their sin, their idolatry.

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Right? But then we move into the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11,

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Paul gives his instructions of the Lord's Supper. I read them every week, right?

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I'm going to read them pretty soon. And I never read the verses right after, but it says after someone doesn't judge the body rightly,

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Paul says we are disciplined by the Lord, and for this reason, a number of them in the church are weak, sick, or are dead.

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Jesus said to a lame man that he cured in John 5, Behold, you have become well after My healing.

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Do not sin anymore so that no worse sickness happen to you.

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And of course, there are consequences to certain sins. Like the man who is a drunkard, he gets sick, he vomits, he gets weak and hungover.

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The gluttonous person can become obese and incur various chronic illnesses. The homosexual man can get

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AIDS or HIV. Or right now, they're still going on on the news of this monkey pox, and they're like, we don't know how to contain it.

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But really, the true science has proven monkey pox is spread between sodomite men. And so of course, we have a problem of sodomy in our nation, so monkey pox proceeds to grow rapidly because of the perversion here in our country.

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STDs are a judgment on fornication and adulteries. Abortions can lead to necrosis and the bleeding out of the woman.

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And yet, despite all this, despite all this evidence of the connection of sin and sickness, we see in the case of Job, his sickness was not brought on by personal sin.

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His was not brought on by personal sin. In the Gospel of John, you might remember the man born blind in John 9.

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And what did they say? They asked Jesus, they said, what did this man do to be born blind?

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What sin has he committed for this man to be born blind? And Jesus confirms and He says that neither the man nor his parents sinned in any way to make this man born blind.

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He said it was so that the works of God would be displayed in him. And so it's important for us to realize many people have diseases or are sick because of the fall, because the fall occurred, and they did nothing personally to get sick.

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Okay? Many people do nothing personally to get sick, and yet it's not purposeless.

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God uses it. If you have debilitating diseases or have some sort of paralyzing condition,

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God may be using it to display His works to glorify Himself through you.

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That is a great hope. That is a wonderful thing. That means whatever you suffer in this life, none of it is vain.

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It's doing something. Maybe that if you are ill and you display your faithfulness and love to God despite your ailment, then

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God is glorified. And God will even use that to save people through the

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Gospel. So, again, I don't feel right in telling you that sickness is never a result of sin.

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I couldn't tell you that. Some articles online try to say that there is no connection and it would be ignoring all of Scripture.

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I just couldn't do that. But we are not judged like sinners.

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We are forgiven. Jesus brought healing to the nations. By His scourging, we are healed.

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Right? We're given salvation. But I would be mistaken if I didn't exhort you to consider the seriousness of the connection and how our

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God, as the Word says, chastises those whom He loves according to Hebrews.

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So, the application is you don't need to start fixating on Junior when he's coughing and say, what have you not confessed, buddy?

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Right? That's not what I'm saying. It's not for you to start thinking that you hurt your leg and it's like, what have

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I done to sin against God? I don't want you to start becoming obsessed with this. That's not the application here.

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The application here is really an emphasis on abstaining from sin, but if you do sin, to confess it regularly.

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Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. So there's a connection, but that's really the heart of it.

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Confess. Confess. So let me mention a few things about confession.

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Psalm 32 v. 3 -5 says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

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For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.

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We know that pretty well right now. Selah, I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity

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I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and You forgave the guilt of my sin.

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So, he said my body is wasting away because he's been silent about his sin.

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Not confessing sin hurts us. It hurts us. We have a principle here that when sin is confessed and removed, the power of prayer becomes more evident.

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And the order is confess, pray, healing. Confess sin to God and those whom you've sinned against, and your prayer will be genuine.

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It's kind of like this, if I sinned against my wife, and we get in an argument, and I get angry at her, and I've sinned against her, and she hasn't sinned against me, and then two hours later,

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I haven't confessed that sin to her, and I haven't asked for forgiveness, I come up right to her like I've done nothing.

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Hey sweetie, can you do this, this, and this? Can I have this? And it's kind of like we're not on even ground yet.

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She'll probably do it because she respects and loves me, but there's still something that's kind of been broken there that needs to be mended, and that's what confession and repentance does.

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We're not losing our salvation every time we sin and confess and receive that forgiveness that 1

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John talks about. We're recognizing and acknowledging that we've sinned against God, we're repenting, and we're being made right with God again.

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God, I've sinned against You, and before I act like we're okay, let me confess my sins so that we're okay.

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Again, not changing our position in Christ. It's not salvific, but we have a relationship with God, and we are to uphold it.

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Confess sin to God, and those whom you've sinned against in your prayer will be more genuine. Because if you just committed adultery, and you just left your wife, and then you pray to God that He would provide you a better family,

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I don't know if God's going to hear that prayer. That's ridiculous. Right? Confess sin.

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After confession and prayer, you will feel a burden lifted. You will feel healing. Unconfessed sin is like a clogged drain.

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The water keeps coming. Life keeps moving on. But something is stopping the dirty water.

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The conflicts and quarrels we've had with others from washing away down the drain to the sewer, they're gurgling there.

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The dirty water is staying there. Right? It's staying there until someone addresses it.

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Someone's got to clear the drain. Someone's got to clear the clog so that the clean waters can flush it away.

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Only after confession and repentance are we able to move on from godly sorrow and guilt.

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It is a freeing thing. It is freeing. The confessions of sins to one another isn't like you have to come to a priest in a confessional booth.

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That's not what he's saying here. You don't have to go to a Mormon bishop and state your sins to your

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Mormon bishop for all that you did that week. That's not what's being said here.

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Okay? Of course, you can confess your sins to your pastors when you need help, but this is for all of us.

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It's been said that confession should be as big as the sin. Confession should be as big as the sin.

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What do I mean by that? It means that personal or secret sin should be confessed personally to God, just between you and God.

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Then, private sin against God and against specifically someone else should be confessed privately to that person.

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You and that person one -on -one. And then public sin against God and against someone else should be confessed publicly to all who were present.

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So if I disparaged my wife... Man, I'm just doing these wife analogies. It sounds like I'm a terrible husband.

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I just keep seeing this beautiful lady right here. So if I disparaged my wife in front of everyone,

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I ought to confess that sin to all who were present who saw that. Right? Or if it's even bigger than that,

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I might need to confess before the whole church. Sin...

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I'm sorry, the confession is as big as your sin. That's the principle that we have. But knowing discretion and proper limitation is wise to protect yourselves and others.

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We can sometimes confess too much, and then we can sometimes confess too little. Sometimes it's really a personal sin and we just need to mature and let love cover a multitude of sins, but then we go to that person, and they're like, what are you talking about?

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And actually, maybe I created a situation between us that didn't need to be there. Right? But sometimes, you've actually done something against someone, and then you just think, well, they're probably cool with it.

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I'll just tell God about it. And then that relationship is not made right yet. So we can confess too much sometimes, and we can confess not enough.

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We need to practice discretion biblically. I think we see here that after confession and repentance, prayer for one another, the offender and the offended each praying, it would bring healing to the situation.

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The fact is, sin wants you isolated. Sin wants you alone.

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What does the Proverbs say? He who secludes himself will seek his own desires.

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Sin wants you alone. Therefore, if you want victory over sin, you need to be with the church and you need to confess your sins to one another.

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You can't do the prayer and confession with one another if you are not with each other.

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You can't do the Christian life alone. Because the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

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It literally says, the active and results accomplishing urgent plea to God from a righteous man is powerful.

01:01:50

So that whatever you guys have ever thought about prayer, if you've ever considered the outcome of prayer, you've got to start thinking bigger.

01:01:59

You've got to start believing bigger. And this isn't to say this is some sort of prosperity gospel thing.

01:02:06

This is, as I said earlier when I was talking about corporate prayer, we have a

01:02:11

God who is bigger than all of our circumstances. We have a God who can answer any of these things.

01:02:16

So we need to believe bigger. We need to ask bigger. And we need to have faith that He will do bigger things.

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But we don't. We're timid with it. Right? Because the God of the universe has an ear and He's listening to you.

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You have His ear. You have an audience before God. You could bring your petitions before the

01:02:39

God of the universe and He will listen. Go to v. 17 -18.

01:02:46

James gives us an example of this type of prayer. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

01:02:59

Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Elijah did so many remarkable things in his lifetime for God.

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You remember, he even got taken up to God in a whirlwind. Amazing. Elijah was expected to return again in the mind of the

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Jews according to a prophecy in Malachi. But that, of course, pointed to the forerunner who we know to be

01:03:31

John the Baptist. Elijah is mentioned nine times in Matthew.

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Nine times in Mark. Eight times in Luke. Two times in John.

01:03:42

Once in Romans, and once here in James. Elijah. He might as well have been a superhero to them.

01:03:50

Elijah was like the superhero. You know, we see Poe walk around with the Spider -Man costume on.

01:03:56

Spider -Man, you're Venom, and I'm Spider -Man, right? And yet, to the

01:04:01

Jews, especially to Jewish children, Elijah was their Spider -Man. Elijah was incredible, right?

01:04:08

Amazing all the things he did. James is trying to show us here though that they, we, have the same potential to pray and receive miraculous answers.

01:04:24

The prophet Elijah, he says, was human just like you and me. He had the same nature as us.

01:04:33

A nature like ours. Now, I have all these notes written about Elijah and how he went to the brook of Kareth and how the ravens brought meat and bread to him and then how he was dependent upon God and how he rose the widow's son from the dead and all these things, but we just simply don't have time to go through the rest of the

01:05:03

Elijah passages. The fact is, man can't change the weather.

01:05:11

Only God can. So that means Elijah too had to petition God to do it.

01:05:18

The power is with God. Not with the man. The power is with God. James' point is if a man like Elijah can do all that he did through prayer to the living

01:05:30

God, surely we can do great things through prayer to God as well. That's the heart of what

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James is saying here. And for our final verses of the book of James, go to verses 19 and 20.

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My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin.

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Sadly, here is the final, my brethren, Adelphoi. This is the final, my brethren.

01:06:07

He begins by saying, if any of you strays from the truth, someone in the church is wandering away in this scenario.

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They're wandering. It appears this is bigger than a sin of a genuine brother.

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I did a lot of research on this. It appears this is bigger than just a sin of a true believer.

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This is someone who at least used to profess Christ, but by their deeds they deny Him. They have turned away from the way, the truth, and the life.

01:06:46

This sort of person. Scripture demonstrates that this is an apostate.

01:06:52

An apostate. Someone who went out from us to show that they were never truly of us, according to John.

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One who needs his soul saved from death. How could that be a believer?

01:07:11

This kind of person needs his soul saved from death. He's called a sinner. And he needs a multitude of his sins forgiven.

01:07:21

So James makes the final imperative in his letter. He says, let him know.

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Make him know. That is to say, make the congregation know this.

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Make them know that it is good to turn a sinning apostate who used to have the title of brother, it is good to turn that person away from the errors of his sin and from all that he has done to turn from the path of Christ.

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If he turns from his sin truly this time and turns to Christ, his iniquities will be covered.

01:08:05

His sins will be forgiven and hidden. His plethos, where we get the word plethora, his plethora or great filled up amount of sin will be covered now.

01:08:24

Because it is clear, and we understand that God's sovereignty in election and in salvation is that we don't get saved, we don't become a new creature in Christ, we don't get a new heart, and then we're able to throw that new heart away.

01:08:40

We're able to then remove the Holy Spirit from us and then we're able to walk in a way contrary to Christ.

01:08:46

The Bible doesn't demonstrate that. The Bible demonstrates when Christ imputes to you His righteousness, you are saved, and then you will walk in the newness of life.

01:08:56

If you are blood bought, if you are purchased by Jesus Christ and His blood, you will be different.

01:09:03

You will not be lawless. You will be changed. You won't be perfect, but you'll have the perfection of Jesus covering your sin, and you will be changed.

01:09:12

You'll be a new creature. So the ones that we hear about, recent ones

01:09:21

I've even heard, you hear about John Piper's son. He's an atheist now. He turned away.

01:09:26

That is to say, he is an apostate. An apostate is someone who didn't truly know

01:09:32

God. Someone who was never truly saved, but they were part of the visible church, but they weren't part of the invisible church.

01:09:43

And that's what's happening here. I just want to make that clear. You know, you hear people who absolutely hate the

01:09:51

Christian church, and they make their life goal to disparage it. They tell their story on these short videos, and they say they left the

01:10:01

Christian church. They say, well, I was going through hard times in my life, and people in the church started judging me for my lifestyle choices.

01:10:12

That's what you'll hear. These people who said they've been in the church for years. They left.

01:10:19

Not to say some people truly haven't been treated poorly by people in the church, but a statement like that often means something like this, ok?

01:10:29

I was cohabitating with my boyfriend, living in a tumultuous, fornicative relationship, and Christians at my church actually had the audacity to lovingly correct me and confront me and show me the

01:10:42

Scriptures and tell me they would love to walk through this with me and show me biblical chastity and sanctity of marriage.

01:10:49

That's the translation. They were judging my lifestyle choices. That happens all the time.

01:10:56

Hebrews 3 .12 says, Take care, brethren, that there may not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living

01:11:05

God. It's a pastoral, homiletic device.

01:11:12

It's a pastoral warning. Be careful that none of you fall away. It's a pastoral warning.

01:11:19

There is an implied exhortation to not wander, but then an explicit exhortation to bring back those who are wandering.

01:11:29

We aren't just to place once -active members on a shelf somewhere. We aren't simply to mark them inactive on our online rosters.

01:11:40

Well, they're gone. Whatever. We're not to do that. We don't need to be forceful.

01:11:47

We don't need to be culty or cultish. Zing! But we ought to be loving and showing the

01:11:57

Scriptures. It's not that we want you back into our club. We want you to be saved, to know the living

01:12:05

God, to know salvation through Jesus Christ. And that would also take place in a local, vibrant,

01:12:11

Christ -loving, biblical New Testament church. Right? Whether that be in our assembly or another.

01:12:21

No doubt salvation is God's work, but He uses us as instruments and vessels to bring about the message of the

01:12:28

Gospel or a truth -filled rebuke to help a sinner to see their need for Christ.

01:12:35

And we see examples of this in Scripture. We've seen Jesus confronted Peter in his sin.

01:12:42

We see Paul confronted Peter for his sin of partiality in Galatians 2.

01:12:48

Paul confronted the Corinthian church for their permitting of sin to go unchecked.

01:12:56

John told the church that he will confront diatrophies, for diatrophies had false accusations against the brethren.

01:13:05

He was treating them poorly, and he had wicked words against everyone. And John said, we need to go and confront diatrophies in one of his epistles.

01:13:18

So, we learned in James 4 not to eternally judge your brother or sister or be a hypocrite in judgment, but we learned, as Jesus said, to judge with righteous judgment.

01:13:31

So here's the deal. To not correct your brother or sister is not to love them fully.

01:13:41

I think the Bible shows that. Their sin affects the church. And they need to know

01:13:47

God's desire for them as followers of Christ in holiness and obedience. And if we care for them, if we care for each other, we ought to be invested in one another so that we would receive wholeness, right communion with God, and cleansing.

01:14:06

I'm about to wrap up here. I know I've gone a little longer. It was the last sermon, so I just need to make you guys really feel that.

01:14:16

I'm not like Jeff though, I don't think. Oh, am I getting there? She says.

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Well, I'll just say, I got to see this firsthand at my time in Arizona.

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Before coming to Utah, I saw a brother who was in a variety of sins, or a plethora as James put it.

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And eventually, he was to be brought before the church. He was to go through church discipline and had gone to that final moment.

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And it shouldn't be this way, but like many, he had evaded that day. He knew he was supposed to be there, but he evaded that and he chose his sin over the church.

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And he left the church for years. He slandered the church. He spoke ill of the pastors.

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He spoke ill of other people. He tried to create rumors and false accusations about the church.

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He gave himself back to a life of drugs, alcohol, sin, just complete reckless abandon.

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But whenever the pastors or other saints in the congregation reached out to him or connected with him, they would always call him to repentance.

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They would always just lovingly share him the truth, call him to repentance, and he did.

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This man repented. After years being away from the church, he repented. And I can remember that Sunday when he was on the stage.

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And it was just such a glorious and redemptive moment because you do know that church discipline serves two functions.

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It is to remove the false brethren who would seek to destroy Christ's church from our myths.

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But then the second and most important aspect of church discipline is to restore the true brother in repentance and redemption to the church.

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And when it happens, it makes you cry. It makes you weep. It's a beautiful thing.

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Because I remember him standing there weeping himself, and he took a microphone and he wanted to do this.

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And he asked for forgiveness from our elders. And he asked forgiveness from the whole church. And that brother has been at that church now for years.

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Restored. Just amazing. Thriving as a follower of Christ. So, we have seen

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James show us time and time again what the true Christian community, the true ecclesia of Christ is to look like.

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We are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. That good deeds will manifest in the life of someone who is truly justified by Christ.

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We have seen through this epistle the call for endurance, perseverance, and patience in suffering and trials.

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And as we wait for Christ's return, we do the same. We have seen that we ought to be slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to listen, to recognize the damage that the tongue can do like a spark in a dry forest can set the whole thing ablaze.

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We have seen we are not to show partiality. We are not to act like the wicked rich. We are to practice true and undefiled religion.

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We are to always pray together and confess sins to one another. We are to be like James, if you remember from the first sermon.

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He was called Old Leather Knees. He would be praying so much on his knees that his knees would callous over and it would look like leather.

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It's called leather knees. We were to pray like that. And all of that, all of those things, all that we've learned in James is wrapped up in the call to pursue personal holiness and growth in sanctification all made possible by our

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Lord Jesus Christ, all to the glory of God our Father. What a glorious first expository series.

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It's been wonderful. Amen? Alright, let's pray. Father, we thank

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You for all that You've shown us as a church body through the book of James. Lord, we thank

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You that Your Word through the power of the Spirit always penetrates to us.

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It always convicts us. It always works in us. And my prayer, Lord, is that this whole time it wasn't simply informative, but it was transformative.

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God, my prayer is that what we've learned from this epistle is something that just isn't stored in the head, but flows to the heart and to the hands and we are then empowered to do the good deeds that James talks about.

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God, we got to see that the gospel of grace really is in the book of James. That it's

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Your wonderful choosing and Your giving of good and perfect gifts that changes us and makes us new.

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So Lord, our earnest plea as a church body from here is that You would mature us,

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You would sanctify us, You would grow us in Christ, You would grow us in unity, and we would adhere to all the imperatives and commands that we heard in this

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Word. Help us to live it out, Lord. Help us to live this Word out in truth.