Rescue the Wandering

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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June 30, 2016

00:00: Again, we will turn our attention tonight to the last two verses in the book of James.
00:07: We started this series several months ago, and the title of the series is Wisdom for Our Walk.
00:14: And we have seen over the many lessons that we have studied that that is exactly what James is.
00:22: James is similar to the Proverbs of the Old Testament in that he provides practical wisdom whereby the Christian can go and see how he ought to live.
00:35: And he can see what God wants of him.
00:41: Too often, I think, especially in modern evangelicalism, which really has robbed the term of any meaning, too often we see Christianity without any form of discipleship.
01:01: People who say, I believe in Jesus, but it has no effect on their behavior.
01:07: And people who say, well, I've become a Christian when I was yea high.
01:12: I was baptized as a child, and their life never changed.
01:18: And James confronts that.
01:20: He says, if we say we have faith, but our faith doesn't produce within us a desire for righteousness, a desire for Christ, a desire for works, is the term that James uses, then our faith is not genuine.
01:36: It's dead, James.
01:38: It's very simple.
01:39: Faith without works is dead.
01:41: That is not to say that works cause our faith, but that works are the result of our faith.
01:49: And if we do not see in our life that which is seeking after Christ, then certainly we have reason to question whether or not we have been converted.
02:02: Well, tonight we're going to, as I said, finish this book, Lord willing, with verses 19 and 20.
02:10: And the title of the lesson, I'm sorry I didn't provide notes for you all tonight, as I have at times, but the title of the lesson, if you are writing anything, is Reaching the Wandering, because that's the subject of the text.
02:24: As James rounds out his writing, he gets to the last two verses, and he starts talking about those who wander from the truth.
02:33: Now I want to preface tonight's lesson with a very simple thing that I think all of you know, and certainly as Reformed-minded Christians, there is something that I think none of us would dispute, and that is this, salvation is of the Lord.
03:06: Now, you might say, well, even non-Reformed Christians would say that.
03:11: Even the Arminian would say that salvation is of the Lord.
03:16: But you must understand that what we mean when we see this in the Scripture, what we believe that it means, and what we think we need to understand with this, is not just that salvation comes from God, in the sense that He's the author of it, but salvation comes from God in the sense that He is the cause of it in our own life.
03:47: We cannot generate it ourselves.
03:52: So often people get this idea that salvation is one part God, one part me.
04:00: Or maybe it's 99 parts God and one part me.
04:04: I've heard the old thing, God voted for you, and the devil voted against you, and you get to make the deciding vote.
04:14: I don't know if you've ever heard that.
04:15: I've heard very famous preachers talk about salvation that way.
04:20: You get to make the vote.
04:25: I've heard the old, God did 99%, you just have to do your 1%.
04:32: And again, it all comes down to salvation is not really of the Lord.
04:36: Salvation is of the will.
04:40: It's of the choice.
04:42: It's of the decision of the individual.
04:44: And then you go to John 1, and it says, To as many as received Him, to Him He gave the power to become children of God, who were born not of the will of the flesh, but of God.
05:00: So the Bible clearly tells us that it's not of us.
05:05: That salvation is of the Lord, and I would say where it becomes art reformed, is we say salvation is all of the Lord.
05:16: Or maybe you say all salvation is of the Lord, whatever.
05:20: We are not generating it, and we're not maintaining it.
05:26: He who began a good work in you will do what? Will complete it.
05:34: God started it, and God's working it out.
05:38: It is a gift from God.
05:43: Not a work that we must maintain.
05:47: This is one of the most difficult things that I have to deal with when I'm discussing, and I do have conversations with people that don't think like I do.
05:54: Don't think that I live in a bubble.
05:56: I don't.
05:58: I engage people that disagree with me a lot.
06:02: And on this issue specifically, I have people in various family atmospheres that disagree with this.
06:10: And oftentimes the issue is, well, you can lose your salvation.
06:14: And I say, well, how? And they say, well, if you sin, you lose your salvation.
06:20: I say, did you sin today? And they say, well, but I didn't really sin bad.
06:28: I say, well, you don't understand sin.
06:31: You don't understand any of this.
06:33: If you don't think that you sinned bad today, you don't understand sin.
06:39: Because you're thinking like a Catholic.
06:40: Because a Catholic sees sin in the terms of the venial and the mortal.
06:45: The venial only increases your time in purgatory.
06:49: The mortal removes the grace of justification.
06:53: And see, most people don't realize this.
06:56: They're thinking like Roman Catholics when they start thinking about losing their salvation.
07:00: Because I remember I asked a guy very specifically.
07:02: I said, did you sin today? He says, yes.
07:04: I said, did you lose your salvation today? He goes, no, I did pretty good today.
07:08: I remember those exact words.
07:10: I did pretty good today.
07:13: Thank God I did good because salvation is not of the Lord.
07:17: Salvation is of the man.
07:18: See? That's a totally different attitude.
07:23: I say all that because in tonight's text, James is going to deal with people who wander from the faith.
07:31: And we have to ask the question, are these people who are saved and are now lost? Or are these people who were never saved to begin with, but have made an empty profession of faith? Who are these people? And that's what we have to determine as we are going through the text.
07:49: But I want to take you, before we read James, I'll read it to you.
07:54: You don't have to go there, but if you want to make a note.
07:56: I just want you to hear this.
07:59: And most of you probably know it.
08:01: But John 10, 27 to 30.
08:06: Jesus is speaking.
08:07: And He says something about His followers that is, to me, sort of like the linchpin in the whole issue.
08:15: He says something about His followers that, to me, just sort of answers the question.
08:21: And here's what He says.
08:22: He says, My sheep hear My voice.
08:26: I know them, and they follow Me.
08:30: I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
08:36: And no one will snatch them out of My hand.
08:41: My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all.
08:46: And no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.
08:50: I and My Father are one.
08:54: So Jesus says, here you go.
08:55: Here's you.
08:58: He says, You're in My hand, and in My Father's hand.
09:05: And if you're on the recorder, you have no idea what I'm doing.
09:09: I'm just holding a marker in both hands.
09:13: But He says, No one can snatch you in.
09:16: I've heard people say, Well, you could walk away.
09:19: He's not saying you couldn't leave.
09:21: He's just saying no one can come and get you.
09:24: Well, that's eisegesis, because that's not there.
09:27: You've got to read that in.
09:28: But here's what I think of.
09:30: And this is one of the best illustrations.
09:32: One of my professors, the late president of the school, a man I love very much, Dr.
09:37: Jerry Powers, he said, You know, if you were walking your daughter, and I had this happen yesterday.
09:44: He said, If you're walking your daughter across the street, and you knew that she had a propensity to pull away, when you get to that street, you're going to hold on even tighter if you knew that she might try to pull away.
09:58: And I thought about that with hope, because I had to take her.
10:02: I don't remember where we were, but I took her somewhere, and I was walking with her.
10:05: Oh, I went to the doctor's yesterday.
10:07: I'd take her to the doctor for something.
10:08: And we got out of the car, and she's walking on the side, on the street side.
10:11: And I said, No.
10:13: And I put her on the other side.
10:14: And I created a barrier between me and the road, or between her and the road was me.
10:19: And I thought about that passage.
10:21: I said, You know, that's the way God is.
10:23: God's not out there just letting us run away.
10:26: You know, if he has caught us, if he's saved us, if he has redeemed us, if he has, as he says, justified, or called, justified, and glorified, you know, all those are in the past tense.
10:41: Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be called.
10:45: And whom he predestined, he called.
10:47: Whom he called, he justified.
10:47: Whom he called, he justified, he glorified.
10:50: He did all that.
10:51: You didn't participate.
10:53: God is the one who saved you.
10:55: Go ahead.
10:55: I'm sorry.
11:23: For sure.
11:25: Psalm 73.
11:27: Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
11:31: You hold me by my right hand.
11:34: Yeah.
11:35: Yeah, God, you're holding me.
11:37: That psalmist is saying that.
11:38: You hold me by my right hand.
11:40: Exactly.
11:42: And so, that being said, before we get to James, I just want to ask this question.
11:47: If the Bible is so, and I believe it's clear, that salvation is of the Lord, it is something that He does, so we don't earn it, we don't lose it, it's Him.
11:59: Why are all these stern warnings about walking away? Why are all these warnings? Because there are.
12:05: Read Hebrews 6, Hebrews 10, this passage tonight.
12:10: There are passages that talk about walking away.
12:12: And my answer to that has always been simple.
12:15: And I don't think it's hard.
12:17: And if you want to write it down, most of you remember this.
12:20: In Matthew 7, verse 21, Jesus says this.
12:26: He says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
12:32: But the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven, on that day many will say to Me, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.
12:53: And that again, that passage, I think, confirms what I've said.
12:57: Because when Jesus looks at somebody who comes to Him and says, Lord, Lord, as if to say, I knew you.
13:05: And Jesus looks at them and He doesn't say, hey, I knew you for a time, but you couldn't cut it.
13:12: Or, I saved you, but you, you know, I made the down payment, but you couldn't keep up the monthly.
13:18: You know, that's not the way Jesus talks.
13:21: He says, I never knew you.
13:24: It's very aggressive.
13:26: I never did.
13:29: You called Me, Lord, Lord, and you did mighty works by your Father the Devil, by the way.
13:36: I never doubt that these crazy people that do mighty works in Jesus' name, that are spouting false theology, I never doubt that a lot of what they can do is real.
13:46: It's just not really God.
13:49: There's a lot of demonic stuff out there.
13:53: Now, some of it is fake.
13:55: You know, there's the Houdinis of the Christian world.
13:57: But some of it is very real spiritual darkness that's being masqueraded as an angel of light.
14:06: That's what Peter tells us, right? He's like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
14:12: He appears as an angel of light.
14:16: So I say all this just to remind you, if someone is abandoning the faith, we have to ask the question, not have they lost their salvation, but were they ever saved? That's an illegitimate question.
14:34: If the person is abandoning, I'm not saying if a person is dealing with sin, all believers deal with sin.
14:39: That's different.
14:41: I'm saying if somebody's walked away from Christ, if somebody is abandoning the faith, we have to ask the question, was that person ever converted? And so now let's read the text.
14:50: It's in James 5, 19 and 20.
14:55: My brothers, if anyone among you wanders 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 will cover a multitude of sins.
15:14: May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word.
15:18: That's a simple text.
15:20: And yet, there's so much here that we can deal with.
15:24: He says, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, well, the word there, the wanderer, pleneo, means a person who goes astray.
15:39: And so the question becomes, well, who is being described here? As I already said, we've got people who say, well, this is a person who lost his salvation.
15:49: I don't think that's a category that we can really talk about from the Bible, but that is one category that's often brought in, that somebody has lost their salvation.
15:58: The other one, okay, this is a person who is saved, but they're backsliding.
16:04: How many of you ever heard the term backsliding? Everybody, right? And however long you've been here, how many times have you ever heard me say it? You never have, have you? I don't know why.
16:17: I don't know why.
16:18: I just remembered.
16:19: I don't remember ever saying it.
16:23: I think because I call it sin.
16:26: And I'm not being sarcastic.
16:28: I really don't.
16:30: Because backsliding is simply a believer who sins.
16:33: And we all sin.
16:38: What is backsliding, though, to most people? Backsliding is a person who goes back and lives like the world, right? That's normally what they mean.
16:50: Like if a person is living in sin in some way, maybe living as a drunkard or living as a fornicator or something like that, you say, oh, that person is backsliding.
16:59: Well, the problem is most of them never took a front step.
17:03: So they're not really backsliding in anything.
17:05: They're still lost.
17:07: So that's why I normally don't use that word.
17:10: I say that we're dealing with a believer.
17:13: In such a case, if a believer is in sin, he needs to be called to repentance.
17:17: He doesn't need to be given a nice little nickname like backslider.
17:20: He needs to be called to repentance.
17:23: And if it's a person who is called to repentance and they reject the call, then Paul tells us we treat them like an unbeliever because that's the way he's behaving.
17:33: We don't give them a little sweet nickname.
17:36: We say you're not acting like a believer.
17:38: You're acting like a sinner.
17:39: And by the way, that word here is hugely important.
17:42: And I'm not going to make my whole case on this, but I do want to make a point.
17:53: The word for sinner here in verse 20, I don't know that it's ever used for a believer.
18:08: Hamartalos is the noun form of the verb to sin.
18:17: And I've never seen it used of a believer.
18:20: I'm not saying believers don't sin.
18:22: I'm just saying in Scripture, sinners are not identified as believers.
18:26: They're not identified as sinners.
18:27: They're identified as the righteous or saints.
18:29: Hagios, hagiosmos, the saint, right, is the believer.
18:35: Hamartalos is not used of believers.
18:38: So when he says here, whoever brings back a sinner, that at least speaks to me in some sense that he's talking about somebody who was lost.
18:47: But I don't think that this person has become lost because he was saved and then got lost.
18:52: I think that, again, this goes back to the Matthew 7 issue.
18:55: This is a guy who made a profession of faith.
18:57: He's among the believers, and yet he has wandered from the truth.
19:01: How has he wandered from the truth? Because he was never in the truth to begin with.
19:07: He might have confessed it, but he didn't believe it.
19:10: This week I've been reading and listening to, well, doing more listening than reading.
19:15: There's a big thing going on right now.
19:17: How many of you have ever heard of the Hebrew Israelite movement? And I'm not talking about the Jews in Israel.
19:22: The Hebrew Israelite movement.
19:24: How many of you have heard of that? All right.
19:27: There's a group of black people who call themselves the Hebrew Israelites.
19:37: They believe that they are the lost tribe of Israel, and that when the Bible talks about the Jewish people, the lost tribes, that it's them, and that they are the fulfillment of all the prophecies of Scripture, and they make their arguments.
19:55: I heard an argument this week.
19:56: King James was a black man.
19:59: Because King James Bible is the right Bible, and he was the one who inspired it, so he was a black man.
20:04: A very odd argument.
20:06: I hadn't heard that one.
20:08: But the point being, these people, you know how they get people into their movement? Because I've never heard, let me tell you, the level of ignorance that the arguments that they make is beyond.
20:24: And I've heard some ignorant arguments.
20:27: But this is outlandish ignorance.
20:30: I encourage you, I'll send you the audio.
20:32: You just hear the guy talking, and you're like, really? This is how you're winning people? But do you know how they win people? They win people because the people who are coming out of churches, and black, white, or anything, people who are coming out of churches aren't being taught what the Bible says.
20:51: And so here they come with a little bit of something that sounds like it could be right.
20:59: You know? God's name is not Yahweh, it's Yahia.
21:02: And if you call Him Yahweh, you're offending Him.
21:05: You should call Him Yahia.
21:06: Because that's how it should be pronounced.
21:08: And that's what's going to get you sent to hell.
21:10: Because you didn't say Yahia instead of Yahweh.
21:12: And if you say Jesus, that's wrong because there's no J in Hebrew.
21:17: Like we didn't know that.
21:19: But you see a lot of people don't know that.
21:23: You don't know that Jesus was Yeshua.
21:26: And people don't know that, so you hear people.
21:30: Friday and Saturday of this week, Mike and I are supposed to be downtown, speaking to the Jehovah Witnesses.
21:35: You know how Jehovah Witnesses build their churches? Off of people who leave the true church.
21:41: Out of ignorance.
21:43: Why do you think they go around on Saturday and Sunday morning knocking on doors? They are looking for the ignorant.
21:51: If you start to talk to them about the truth, they will turn around and leave.
21:55: And they'll tell you, we're not looking for people to argue with.
21:58: We're looking for sheep to save.
22:00: No, you're looking for ignorant people.
22:03: Who have left the church out of ignorance.
22:05: Who didn't know the truth to begin with.
22:07: Who would say, yeah, I got saved when I was seven.
22:10: I never learned anything.
22:12: I never grew at all.
22:15: And I can be easily led astray by someone more ignorant.
22:19: But I don't know he's ignorant because I'm more ignorant than he.
22:23: Sorry, I'm a little roused up about it.
22:26: But that's the thing here.
22:28: We see people all the time.
22:30: I see people who come to the church.
22:33: They hear the truth.
22:37: And then they'll come to me and they'll say, Well, you know, I heard this from this person, this teacher.
22:46: I do not discount that.
22:49: I take it very seriously.
22:52: I sit down with them.
22:54: I open the Word of God with them.
22:55: And I say, you need to understand why that's dangerous.
22:59: Because they are trying to lead you astray.
23:02: Many false teachers will come and seek to deceive, even if possible, the elect, right? Even the elect, the Scripture says.
23:12: So James' concern in this passage is very simple.
23:17: We need to understand that there are people out there who are going to be going astray.
23:20: Many of them are not even believers.
23:24: They've just been coming to church playing the role.
23:27: And we need to care enough about them that when we see them start to go astray, we need to reach out and call them to repentance.
23:34: Not give them a sweet little nickname.
23:37: We need to give them the call to repentance.
23:40: Again, we read the text in My Brothers.
23:42: If anyone among you wanders from the truth, and you can say, well, that could be somebody who is a believer who is simply battling a sin.
23:50: Okay, I'm not going to argue that that's not possible.
23:53: But I think verse 20, whoever brings a sinner back, I think he's talking about a person who was lost, who was a part of the fellowship and was lost.
24:00: If you go to Hebrews 6, it talks about this person who has tasted the heavenly gift and yet has fallen away.
24:07: I think this is the person who is not truly saved, played the role in church, and what are we supposed to do to that person? Are we supposed to just say, go away? No, we're supposed to go out and bring him back.
24:21: Win him with the Word of God.
24:23: Call him to repentance.
24:33: A soul from death, exactly.
24:35: He's talking about somebody who's not saved.
24:37: It seems to me that that's clear.
24:40: And again, the person would argue, well, he was saved and now he got lost.
24:43: I don't think that's the truth.
24:45: I don't think that that can be proved from here.
24:46: Certainly it can't be proved in other places.
24:49: So here you have a guy who's in the church, who's maybe made the profession, he's maybe made the words right, but now he's wandering away.
24:58: What do we do with such a person? We reach out for him.
25:02: We exhort him to come back.
25:05: But not just to come back to his old false confession.
25:10: We call him to true repentance and faith.
25:15: Knowing this, only God can convert the heart.
25:22: But we still reach out for him.
25:25: And I love the last bit.
25:26: It says, and we'll cover.
25:28: He'll save his soul from death and we'll cover a multitude of sins.
25:32: Here's the thing, I've heard people say, well, he's too far gone.
25:36: Well, there are people who are, there are people who have been turned over to a debased mind, Romans 1 tells us.
25:55: But from our perspective, what do we do? We go after them.
25:59: We love them.
26:00: We encourage them.
26:01: We call them to repentance.
26:03: It's our job.
26:05: And we know that when we do that, if God is merciful and opens their heart to believe, what has he used us? He's used us as a divine paramedic, if you will.
26:19: We've been the first responder.
26:21: We've gone out and we've saved that person.
26:23: Not in ourselves.
26:24: We haven't saved them.
26:26: But we've been used of God to save their soul.
26:31: Because we have been used of God as his ambassador.
26:33: Do you realize that you are Christ's ambassador? Christ does not have in this world a verbal pronouncement that he makes on the lives of people.
26:54: Now, I know people say I hear Jesus speaking, and I don't want to argue that.
26:59: But I know I've never heard his voice verbally.
27:02: And I know that most of the pastors that I learn from, John MacArthur, R.C.
27:07: Sproul, and these guys, don't talk about Jesus' audible voice.
27:11: What do they say? If you want to hear the voice of Christ, go where? Go to the word of God.
27:16: Go read the word.
27:16: That's where the voice of Christ is, right? So, what are you? You are the ambassador of Christ.
27:26: You're the mouthpiece.
27:30: When you see brothers and sisters in the church who are wayward, what is your responsibility to that person? Maybe you think your responsibility is nothing.
27:47: Well, I just don't know him good enough to tell him that he's doing wrong.
27:51: Maybe I don't know him well enough to call him to repentance.
27:55: Maybe I haven't developed that level of relationship.
27:58: That's not what the text says.
27:59: The text says, you know, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, it doesn't say a good friend brings him back, or his best buddy brings him back.
28:10: It says someone.
28:12: You can be used of God to reach out and bring someone back in.
28:17: But do we even notice when people aren't here? Do we reach out to people when they've been gone? One week, two weeks, three weeks, five weeks.
28:34: You know, we have deacons, and we've established within the deacons a ministry, and the role of that ministry is to help the elders to know who's been, you know, not being in the body.
28:51: And part of that is seeking to fulfill this, that we might know if somebody's been gone for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks.
29:00: And, you know, even in our Constitution, we had this meeting last week, and we talked about this.
29:04: We asked a question.
29:07: Why do we have it in our Constitution that after four months' time, if a person has not been a part of worship, they're no longer considered a member in good standing? And the reason was, we said, if a person hasn't been a part of the body, physically a part of the body, for more than four months, then that indicates a lack of a desire to be among the body.
29:27: And I made the joke.
29:28: I said, if you cut your finger off and put it in a box for four months, you go back to it.
29:31: It's not going to be alive anymore.
29:33: You know, it's very simple.
29:37: To be a part of the body, you have to be a part of the body.
29:40: But what was the thing I expressed last week? I hope I made this point.
29:44: I said, the goal, though, is that we don't want that to happen.
29:48: We don't want somebody to go four months without being a part of the body.
29:51: We don't want somebody to go four weeks without being a part of the body.
29:56: I don't know about you, but when I miss being a part of the body, I miss being a part of the body.
30:02: I miss the fellowship of the saints.
30:05: I miss the opportunity to preach the word, to hear the word, to sing, and to pray.
30:12: Sorry, I'm going to sneeze.
30:14: Not crying.
30:17: But, you know, I miss those things.
30:19: And I would wonder if somebody, you know, was one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, if they were gone, and you reach out to them and say, why aren't you here? Well, I don't, you know, have any desire.
30:33: That would be a red flag, wouldn't it? You don't have a desire to be in God's house, to be in with God's people, to be learning God's word.
30:41: That's a concern.
30:42: Can I talk to you about that? Can we get together and have coffee and just talk about the word of God? You might say, well, the person might not want to hear from me.
30:57: You might be the exact person they need to hear from.
31:01: This might not be what they want to hear, but it might be what they need to hear.
31:06: I'm not saying every person who misses church one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks is not saved.
31:10: But I am saying, though, there's a red flag when a person doesn't have a desire to be with God's people.
31:16: When that desire is no longer there, it makes us have to ask the question, why? Well, this person hurt my feelings.
31:24: Well, they've been hurting my feelings for years and I'm still going.
31:26: No, don't say that.
31:29: No, you know, if that person hurt their feelings, well, let's get that person.
31:36: Let's make this right.
31:38: Is this worth your relationship in the body that someone hurt your feelings? Can we fix it? They might not even know.
31:46: That's, again, you're being that ambassador for Christ.
31:50: Because you're then exercising the ministry of reconciliation, not reconciliation between God and man, but at that point, reconciliation between people.
32:01: See, there's a lot in this verse, and I think this is why James ends here.
32:06: Because he's concerned with this, this church, this little church, this church he's writing to, this, actually, this is a general epistle, so the church in general needs to understand that there is a role and responsibility for every member.
32:23: And that role and responsibility is simple.
32:25: You are an ambassador for Christ.
32:28: And yes, you need to be going out into all the world and preaching the gospel and bringing people in.
32:33: Surely, you need to be going out and winning souls.
32:37: That's what we are called to do.
32:39: But on top of that, we ought also be concerned with the sheep that we have.
32:48: Not only with the sheep that God will bring to us, but be concerned with the sheep that God has already brought.
32:56: That they not wander without someone going out with that shepherd's staff and trying to lead them back in.
33:07: That's our call.
33:08: That's how James ends.
33:10: Understand this, everyone.
33:12: If there are those among you who are wandering, go out and bring them back.
33:16: Go out and get them.
33:18: Be Christ to them.
33:21: Because Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost.
33:28: You as His ambassador have the same responsibility.
33:31: If there is a person among us who is drifting and wandering, what do we do? We seek them.
33:37: We seek that God would save them.
33:41: Especially if they be lost.
33:45: Alright, let's pray.
33:47: Father, I thank You for Your Word.
33:49: I thank You for the opportunity to study.
33:52: I thank You for the book of James.
33:53: I pray that it's been fruitful for Your people.
33:56: I pray that we'll understand as a collective body, that when we see people wandering from the truth, that we have a responsibility to love them and try to seek to bring them back into the fold.
34:07: Lord, if they be lost, to call them to repentance and faith.
34:11: And if they be saved, but going through some type of struggle, some type of issue, some type of sin that we'd be willing to call them.
34:18: If it's a sin to repentance, if it's a need that we'd be willing to help them and love them and encourage them back in the body.
34:25: If they have an offense, Lord, that we might be able to encourage them through that offense and maybe reconcile where necessary.
34:33: Lord, that we would be the body of Christ loving one another as You have loved us.
34:38: It's our prayer in Jesus' name.
34:41: Amen.