Saints & Sinners

James 5 19-20

The point of James letter was to shake up the church. He has encouraged believers, challenged them and given them specific ways to enjoy the Christian life. As well, James has warned many of the people in the church. He was alarmed at the dead faith he saw. He was bothered by obvious lack of spiritual life in some of the people that professed to know Christ. In this letter he challenged them to examine themselves and turn in their dead faith for a living one. However, James knew that he was limited in what he could do. In these passages he challenges the true believers in the church to evangelism. Not evangelism in the community. He challenges them to evangelism in the church. Let’s look at that.

Two groups. Notice the two groups in these verses. We see the “brethren” and the “sinner”. “Brethren” is a term that refers to believers.”Sinners” refers to the unsaved. It’s true that we are all sinners, however believers are saved sinners. We are referred to in Scripture in terms such as “saints” and “brethren”. Psalm 1:5 says “Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous”. In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul says “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. Jesus said He came to call the sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:13). While we are all sinners, many times the context of a verse suggests the meaning. In this case, “sinners” suggests that James is talking about people that are unsaved. These are folks that do not have the grace of God in their lives.

James says “if any of you do err from the truth”. The term “you” refers to people within the church. James has made perfectly clear that not everyone in the church was saved. Many of them had a worthless faith (2:20). Some in the church had “erred from the truth”. In order to understand exactly what James is saying we need to look at two words here.

“Err” This word means to stray or depart from. It describes a lifestyle.

“Truth” This word refers to the Word of God.

Some of the people in the church had turned away from the truth. The lifestyle they were living was not consistent with the truth of the Word of God. The Word of God describes how a believer is to live. They were claiming to be believers yet living in a completely different way. In that way they were actually putting themselves up against the truth of the Word of God.

There are a couple of ways a person can err from the truth:

In doctrine. In other words a person can believe the wrong things about God. They can buy into the doctrines of the false teachers. Embracing heresy is a way that a person can err from the truth.

In lifestyle. A person can continue to believe the right things about God, yet determine they do not want to live a righteous life. This is another way a person can err from the truth.

In every church there are these two groups. There are the sinners and the brethren. There are those that are converted and those that need to be converted.

One Answer. I think James has some needful words for us in these passages. We often wonder what we are to do when we look around and see so many in our churches that are not truly converted. We are re usually pretty excited when we talk about evangelism in our communities. But what about evangelism in the church? Just as Christ is the only answer for those that don’t come to church, He’s also the only answer for those that do come to church. The fact of the matter is that many people that come to church on a regular basis need to be saved. James is saying to believers, “Win your church members to Christ!” I want us to consider three things we should look at as we consider evangelism within the church.

Look at the lifestyle of church members. James says the sinner must be converted from the “error of his way”. In other words, the lost church member is living an ungodly life. It’s obvious. We look at the life of the unsaved church member and we see no passion for Christ. We see no commitment. We see them living an unrighteous lifestyle. Jesus told us that we would know a tree by the fruit it bears (Matt. 7:16). John told us that the lifestyle pattern of the unbeliever is one of sin (1 John 3:8-9). Let’s face it, some people that come to church and claim Christ live more ungodly than people that don’t even confess to know Christ! It is not difficult to look in the church and determine people that need to be saved.

Now I am certainly not saying that we should look with a critical eye. Jesus was clear about that in Matthew 7. Jesus told us to judge righteous judgment. We are to remove the beam of self righteousness out of our eyes so that we can see clearly. Then we are able to help others. It will do us no good to look at the lifestyles of ungodly people with a critical eye. We have to look with a compassionate eye. Galatians 6:1 tells us that restoration is to be done in a spirit of meekness. We need to humbly identify people within our churches that are living lifestyles contrary to the gospel message.

Look at the goal. James says “let him know”. He’s saying, let the person doing the evangelizing know that he is doing a good work. There is nothing wrong with confronting a sinner with their sin. The world tells us that it is offensive. The devil tells us that we are just self righteous. The Bible tells us that it is wise (Proverbs 11:30). Our intent is not to offend nor is it to be self righteous. Our intent is to see a person reconciled with God. Our goal certainly is not to condemn. We don’t have the right or the power to do that. Our goal is to bring a soul to know Christ.

Let me say this, we’ll never reach that goal if we are not willing to confront a sinner. Many people say “Well, I just don’t believe in that!” Well, what do you believe in? Should we just allow people to continue in their sin? I don’t think so. Here are some things that keep us from seeing our goal clearly.

We believe the person is saved, just backslidden. Well, guess what? We are called to reconcile the backslider also (Matt. 18:15-20). So if he’s backslidden we don’t have an excuse. We should still talk to him about the Lord.

We don’t want to scare the person off. The person is already separated from God. Is there a worse place? I believe if we prayerfully and humbly approach sinners we don’t have to worry about that. However, we need to understand that the gospel is offensive. It attracts and repels. We can’t change the gospel. We need to remember that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation as well (Romans 1:16). It contains the very power of God. No one will be saved without it.

We don’t think we are worthy. If serious sin is keeping us from being the witness Christ has called us to be, we need to repent. But if you are waiting until you are perfect you will be waiting a long time. If we are honest with folks, I think they will hear us. God can use our past as a bridge to the gospel. None of us are worthy of the pearl of great price. Yet we are all called to share it with the world.

We need to look at the goal. The goal is not for us to be comfortable or make friends. Our goal is to see a sinner converted and find peace with God.

We need to look at the blessings of salvation. James gives us two blessings of salvation in verse 20. Let’s consider them.

A soul will be saved from death. Of course James is talking about the second death. That death is experienced in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 21:8). What a terrible place hell is. Its description is horrifying in Scripture. It is a place of eternal conscious torment. It is so terrible that Jesus said it was better to experience the pain of cutting off your own hand or plucking out your own eye than to go there (Matthew 18:8-9). It is described as a place of weeping and grinding of teeth (Matthew 13:50). It is a place of unimaginable heat (Matt. 13:42). It is a place of darkness (Matt. 8:12). The story of the rich man and Lazarus teaches us that we thirst, remember, speak, desire, cry and beg in hell (Luke 16).

Knowing the reality of hell, we should be willing to win lost church members to the Lord. Sure it makes us uncomfortable. But just think how uncomfortable the lost are going to be for all eternity! What a blessing it is to know that we can be used to deliver a person from the second death. We have the tools and the commandment to do just that. We have no excuse not to.

Sin will be forgiven. James says that when we win a sinner to the Lord we “hide a multitude of sins”. Sin can only be rightly covered by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7). Sin must be covered. That is, it must be dealt with. If a person stands before the Lord without their sin covered they will not enter into heaven (Matt. 22:11-13). Sin must be hidden beneath the blood of Jesus.

It is a true blessing to have your sins removed. David says in Psalm 32:1 “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered”. Sin is a terrible thing to have to deal with. It is a weight. It is a burden. It brings with it an offended conscious and a fear and dread of God that is unnatural. It will cause a person to be depressed. It will even drive a person into deeper sin. Salvation brings with it a release of that burden (Matt. 11:28-30). Therefore, joy is a result of salvation. That joy can only be experienced when our sin is removed. Our sin will only be removed when Christ is in our life.

There are two groups of people in the world and two groups of people in the church. Those two groups are the lost and the saved. There is only one answer for those two groups. The answer is Christ. Whether you are in the world or in the church you need a living faith. You need a pure religion. You need the wisdom from above. It should be our goal to examine our hearts to make sure we know Christ. As well it should be our goal to make sure that others know Him. In the age that we live, more than anything, we need to see an authentic witness for Christ.