WWUTT 298 Confess Your Sins to One Another?

It is the responsibility of every Christian to look out for every other Christian in good accountability. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

James 5:13-20 and the Power of Confession, Prayer, and Restoration

Thank you, Becky. James chapter 5 again today and for the last time today as we are bringing to a close our study of the book of James. Turn to James chapter 5, we'll start in verse 13 to the end of the chapter.

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. 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.

Let's go back to verse 14 here. And just a reminder that we talked about some of these things yesterday. So if you missed yesterday's study, I would encourage you to go back and listen. James says, is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Now, even though James grants for a person who is sick, and as I talked about yesterday, this is not just dealing with physical illness.

This is spiritual illness. If a person is physically sick, it could be because of an unrepentant sin in their life, a serious sin that they are indulging in. And the Lord is using their sickness to get that person's attention and call them to repentance so that they would be healed of their spiritual sickness and therefore also healed of their physical sickness.

And again, like I mentioned yesterday, all illness is not tied to sin. Well, let me take that back. The way that I said it yesterday was that all illness is tied to sin because this world has been subjected to futility because of sin.

But just because a person is sick, that does not automatically mean they're sick because they have some sort of unrepentant sin in their life, nor does it mean that if they were to just repent before God, they would be immediately healed.

It depends on whether or not this is the Lord's will. As James has already said previously in his letter, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this or that. That's in James 4, 15.

So if it is the Lord's will for a person to be healed, they will be healed. And we see that in verse 15, where it says, and the Lord will raise him up. So though a person can confess their sins to somebody else, the forgiveness that they receive doesn't come from the person that they confess their sins to.

It comes from the Lord. But God will use a Christian as an agent to bring about the conviction in a person that leads them to repentance. And so this is why James uses the example of Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

He wasn't God. He wasn't the son of God. He was a man just like we are a man. And the Lord used him to pray fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit because of the prayers of Elijah. But it was the Lord's will to do all of these things. And Elijah was the agent that God used to convict Israel of their sin, lead them to repentance, and then Elijah prayed on their behalf for rain to be given on the land because Israel had repented.

And so that's what happened. So God can use you as an agent to bring about repentance in another person. You don't cause repentance. You don't cause their salvation. But the Lord is using you to deliver his word to them that they might be convicted of their sins and pray to God for repentance.

Not only will they be healed spiritually, but there's a possibility they would also be healed physically from a certain illness that they have. They were being inflicted with because of their sin. I drew attention yesterday to the Corinthians where Paul says to them because of their misuse of the Lord's Supper, they were getting sick and dying because they were using something that God had given to them in remembrance of the sacrifice that was needed for their salvation, a sacrifice that brings unity among God's people.

And yet the Corinthians were divided, they were segregated, and they were misusing the Lord's Supper for their own personal benefit. And so some of them were getting sick and dying because of that. So we see an example there with the Corinthians, how the Lord can cause an illness in a person because of their sinfulness.

And so there's a possibility that a physical ailment that you are dealing with could be because of some major sin. Now, this is where the advice of the elders is important. Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray over him.

See, the elders as the ministers of God's word, those who know God's word and are in charge of administering the word to the sheep, to the flock, they can ascertain whether or not a person is sick because of their sin.

So I give this to you so it's not just left to you to be inflicted with like intern syndrome. Intern syndrome is a diagnosis that's given to students in psychology or in medicine. A person who is studying to become a doctor might be reading about all these different ailments and then they'll start to get it in their mind that they're sick with all of these things, or a person studying psychology to be a shrink or a therapist of some kind might be reading in their abnormal psychology book about all of these different psychological problems.

And as they're reading the descriptions of those problems, they start to think, oh, man, I have all of those symptoms. So they might think that they're sick with that particular mental illness. So this has been referred to as intern syndrome, because those who would work in internships in the medical field might start to feel like they are coming down with the very things that they are diagnosing.

So you might be inflicted with some sort of intern syndrome. As I'm talking about these things, you start taking down a list of all the sins in your life and going, you know what? I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of this.

I'm guilty of this. Maybe that's why I have arthritis, you know, or maybe that's why I have the flu right now. Could be you have arthritis because you're old. It could be you have the flu because you got it from your kids.

It might not be because it's from some sort of a of a sin, but there is that possibility that you have some sort of physical illness because of a sin that is that remains in your life that you have not repented of, that you have covered over with a depraved mind, that you are not even wanting to entertain anymore.

You have a reason in your own mind that this is OK. God's not mad at me because of this. Everybody else does it, too, so on and so forth. All the different excuses you're making up in your mind as to why you can indulge in this sin.

And God is not going to pour out his wrath on you because of the sin. It's not one of the major sins, you know, whatever reason it might be, or it could be a major sin. And you've just reasoned it in your mind that it's not a major sin.

This is why you should have the elders come to you and be able to tell you whether or not you are living in unrepentant sin and that your physical ailment might be the result of something like that so that the prayer that they pray for you would be that you would repent of this sin.

You would be convicted of these things and then praying on your behalf because you have been inflicted with this sin. Your prayers might be hindered. You might be struggling to really pray in a right and a proper way.

How do I even ask repentance for this? How do I come with a proper sense of conviction before the Lord when I've been indulging in this sin for so long? And so this is why the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Their prayer might even be the thing that would convict you further in this sin that you have been in for so long. So a person that is walking in a path of righteousness that is not as guilty of that sin as you are because they are not presently in that sin.

Their prayer has greater power than yours because it is being asked of the Lord with proper conviction and the way that that prayer is being lifted up before God may convict you further and bring you more into God's righteousness because of the prayer of that righteous person.

Does that make sense? I hope that that follows a good line of thought. I know that I've kind of rabbit trailed a little bit between yesterday and today over digesting some of these things that James is talking about here.

Again, keeping in mind that it's the Lord who does all of this. It is not us. A passage that I've quoted to you many times and quoted to my congregation as well in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 where Paul says that the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, correcting opponents with gentleness, able to teach, and it is God who will grant repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth after they have been ensnared by the devil to do his will.

It is God who grants repentance, leading a person to the truth so that they may escape from the devil's snares. And here in this case as well, even though we're reading about a person that leads a wanderer back to the path of righteousness.

It's not that person that saved them. It is the Lord who saves and James is not in any way suggesting that that person saved another person's life as though they had the power of salvation or the power of death.

Not at all. It is the Lord who saves, but that person is the agent that God used to bring about the conviction in that person's life that they saw the word of God. They saw the sin in their own lives because of who they saw themselves as according to the word of God.

They were convicted of that sin and they repented of it. Remember what James said at the beginning of the letter, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourself for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. That's in James chapter one, verses 22 through 25.

And so a person who delivers the law of God to another person who is in sin, they will hear the law of God. Their mouth will be silenced as it's described in Romans chapter three. They will gain knowledge of their sin.

They will become aware of the sins that they have been doing against God because they know they have been doing what the law has said is treason against the high throne of heaven. They will be convicted because of that sin and come before the Lord in repentance.

So this is the person that God has used as an agent to bring that word to another who has been walking in sin. 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.

This is the perfect conclusion to this letter. James chapter five, verses 19 and 20. It is the perfect conclusion. It feels like it ends incomplete. You're looking at the end of James and you're going, uh, is there a section missing?

Are we sure that the biblical scholars who translated this letter into the Bible that we now have, that they had the whole thing? Maybe there was a fragment missing at the very end. James doesn't really conclude this very well.

No, he concludes it perfectly. Because remember, James is written in a very proverbial style. It's written like Proverbs. It's and, and as I said, when we did our introduction to the book of James, it's like the Proverbs of the new Testament because he just goes after point after point after point.

And there's numerous imperatives, uh, direct instructions that James is giving as though he's speaking to a specific person, even though he is writing to those in the dispersion, Christians that are all throughout the world who had received this letter all throughout the Roman empire at that particular time.

That's what I mean by the world, even though James was writing it to them. It's as though he's standing face to face with another Christian and giving them direct imperatives, direct instructions. And so you can go from one passage to the next and get another proverb from James.

So as he's delivered all of these direct instructions, different sections could be taken out as meaning their own thing, even though there is an overall context to pay attention to. He wraps up this letter by pointing back at all of those different instructions and imperatives that he had given.

If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, because ultimately that's, that's even what James is attempting to do here. If there is any Christian that has wandered from the truth, they are being brought back by these instructions.

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. James is talking as though he's speaking to every sinner that they would be convicted and come back to the path of righteousness and their sins would be covered over by God, by the righteousness and blood of Jesus Christ.

The name that James began his letter with the Lord Jesus Christ, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. As James identifies himself, it is Christ who covers over our sins. And so by the administration of the word of God, a person's convicted of their sins, seeks repentance before the Lord and their sins are covered over by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, as I wrote, as I wrap things up here, as we come to a conclusion in our study, the book of James, let's look at the flip side of that. What about the person that doesn't bring back a sinner from his wandering?

What about the person that actually causes the sinner to sin even worse? This is what I want to address as we bring this to a close. Matthew chapter 18 verses one through six. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them.

And Jesus said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Now, as I mentioned, as James is talking in James chapter five about being healed, he's talking not just about a physical sickness, but spiritual illness. Likewise, when Jesus is talking here in Matthew chapter 18 about a child, true, he calls to him a child and he puts that child in the midst of his disciples.

But when he's talking about a child here, he's not just talking about a child as we would consider a person by their age. He's also talking about spiritual children, and he's talking about those who are less mature in the faith, who need to be parented and shepherded and matured and and and raised up as shepherds, shepherded and matured and raised up, mature, sanctified according to the teaching of the word of God to that person.

Whoever causes a child in the faith, one who is very young in the faith to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

There's something like that going on right now in the in the midst of evangelical Christianity with a couple named Brandon and Jen Hatmaker. And perhaps you know this couple by Jen Hatmaker's online presence.

She's a very well-known blogger, and the two of them also have a reality show on HGTV. So maybe you know them from one of two places. Also, a bestselling author. You may have seen Jen Hatmaker's books at certain Christian bookstores.

Thankfully, Lifeway has pulled Jen Hatmaker's books from their shelves last week or it might might have been the week before in an interview. You know, it was last week, an interview with Jonathan Merritt for Religion News Service.

Merritt asked Jen Hatmaker about her views on homosexuality, and she made a statement that she considered homosexual unions to be holy. Brandon Hatmaker just yesterday made a statement on Facebook. In the midst of all of this controversy, Brandon Hatmaker doubled down on his wife's claim, and he said, we believe that same-sex marriages are holy.

Rosaria Butterfield, who used to be a lesbian until the Lord Christ transformed her heart to repent of her sin and seek the Lord. She talks about these statements that were made by Jen Hatmaker in one of her blogs.

Here's what Rosaria Butterfield says. If this were 1999, the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community that I loved, instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker's words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead.

How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, knowledgeable, humble, kind, and funny as Jen saying out loud what my heart was shouting. Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline, queer theory and English literature and culture and in my church.

My emotional vertigo could find normal once again. Maybe I wouldn't need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn't ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin and I suffered the consequences.

Maybe it would go different for me than it did for Paul, Daniel, David, and Jeremiah. Maybe Jesus could save me without afflicting me. Maybe the Lord would give to me respectable crosses, manageable thorns.

Today, I hear Jen's words, words meant to encourage, not discourage, to build up, not tear down, to defend the marginalized, not broker the unearned power. And a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back.

If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jen's words would have put a millstone around my neck. I sure appreciate Rosaria Butterfield's words there. A woman again who had previously been in a lesbian relationship and the Lord convicted her, brought her out of that sinful lifestyle, and now with great suffering and affliction that she had gone through, leading her to repentance, she now takes up a cross daily and follows after Christ.

As Jesus said in Luke chapter 9, whoever would be my disciple must deny himself, must take up his cross daily and follow after me. Whoever tries to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

And here we have Jen Hatmaker, Brandon and Jen Hatmaker telling young homosexuals, it is okay for you to be gay and even going as far as saying that behavior is holy before the Lord. When 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11 says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

My friends, brothers and sisters in Christ understand me well. Brandon and Jen Hatmaker are encouraging gays to bow at an altar before a false God. They are encouraging them to indulge in sin that God has promised he will judge and will not allow them into his kingdom.

He will send them to hell if they do not repent and follow Christ. And again, this forgiveness comes from God, from Jesus Christ. We stand before God justified because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross in Christ.

We are forgiven our sins. We are washed. And that is what Paul goes on to talk about with the Corinthians verse 11. Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

That's the gospel. None of the sins that are listed there are beyond the forgiveness of God, sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, theft, greed, drunkenness, reviling and hate toward others, those who swindle and cheat one another.

None of them will inherit the kingdom of God, but all of them can be forgiven by Christ. They can be washed. They can be sanctified and justified by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God that is dwelling within us, all those who are in Christ Jesus.

So the message that should be said to the young homosexual is to turn from that sin and find the righteousness that is afforded in Christ alone. And if you do not turn from that sin, you will be judged by God and sent to hell where you will be tormented for all eternity.

Turn from your sin, follow Christ, and whoever does will be saved from death. Their sins will be covered over and they will know eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. My friends, never encourage someone in sin that God has promised he will judge.

Instead, we should love one another enough to convict them of that sin, to tell them the truth about what God's word says so that they will turn from their sin and know the washing of Jesus Christ by his grace and love.

It is a loving thing to tell a person that they are wrong and call them to repentance in the Lord. Psalm 141 verse 5, let a righteous man strike me. It is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is oil for my head.

Understand the context now with James chapter 5. Let my head not refuse it. If we are convicted by those who recognize that we are living in sin and we need to repent of this and come back to the path of righteousness, may we have hearts filled with the Holy Spirit that would listen to that conviction according to the word of God and repent before God and live.

Our great God, we thank you so much for your word and I pray that we would stand upon this word with boldness, exactly what the word of God says, not what we want it to say, but what it says as a double-edged sword piercing through bone and marrow to our very core, to our very sinful hearts, that we might be convicted of our sins, that we might come before the Lord in repentance and that we might be cleansed and washed by the blood of Christ and made right, justified before God, rescued from the wrath of God through Jesus Christ, the propitiation for our sins.

We praise you and worship you for the merciful, loving, gracious God that you are. And may we always preach the gospel, the good news that saved us so that other sinners might be saved as well.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.