The Power of Words in a Culture of Noise - Aaron McRae

There's kind of this ongoing theme in James about if God has shaped you and changed you, there should be some evidence of it.

It's not a works-based faith where you have to wake up every morning and force yourself to do things that seem really good.

But when you have a right relationship this way, it should change how we do things this way.

Part of what James keeps saying without saying is we're to be witnesses in this world for God.

And if we don't care for widows and orphans, and if we don't care about how harmful our words are, we've hurt our witness.

Period.

And before you know it, a good desire has now placed you all the way down into the land of me, my, and mine.

And James is saying here in this passage: hey, when that starts to become your vocabulary, when selfish ambition and bitter envy start to become your vocabulary, it should dig your heels into the ground, stop you in your tracks, because something has now entered the driver's seat of your life.

Something has now placed itself onto the throne of your heart.

He's saying, here's what we need to remember: committed followers of Jesus demonstrate their obedience with acts of compassion that flows out of a pure heart.

We don't do it because it's what we're supposed to do, we do it because the love of Jesus is motivating us in that way.

Our hearts have been tuned to hear from him and to act like him and love like him.

Our God so badly wants to transform us that if we are gonna have a dynamic impact, the majority of people will probably come to know faith and know Jesus, not by this worship center, this address, or this location, but you and I living radically dynamic outside in everyday scenarios.

So in 2009, uh Christian Smith and Patricia Herzog released a book called Souls in Transition, The Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults.

They looked at college students and young adults in the early 2000s, and it became a shocking revelation of sort of the cultural moment that we found ourselves in then and still do now, where they begin to notice like um quantitatively the shift in our culture as they asked young people these questions about people who are in suffering, people who are having tough times.

And the takeaway basically from young people was other people's problems are not my problems.

If a person is suffering, that's their fault.

No, not fault, that's their problem.

As if mind your own business was the ethos that we're going to live with.

And the takeaway was there was this new perspective that no one has any natural or general, general responsibility to help anyone else.

Where in the world did that kind of thinking come from?

In this eighth week of James, we've been confronted with that's certainly not what scripture calls us to.

It's not the way of Jesus, it's not the way that James says.

He doesn't say it's every one of us for ourselves, figure it out, but we are interdependent, not independent people, interdependent upon God and one another.

And what does it mean to be God's people in this world?

One of the things that it means to be God's people in this world is to enter into situations of chaos like James and his audience were, or attention, and direct our thoughts towards God.

So before we go any further, we're in a moment in our world of chaos, and we feel like this is what we're training ourselves to do, to turn it to God.

So would you pray with me?

God, in a moment in our world where there is all kinds of chaos, confusion, pain, and suffering, we we are very aware of what is dominating the headlines and this great conflict, this war that has broken out.

And God, we are praying for your help in the midst of this time.

We need you.

Um our world needs you, our nation needs you.

We pray for those who are suffering, we pray for those who are in harm's way, we pray for those who may suffer in the coming days.

We pray for the leaders of this world and we pray for the leaders of our nation.

Give them wisdom, God.

We look to you because you are the sovereign Lord.

You're the one that we ask to guide us.

We believe you are still in control of even all of those people who are in control, but give them wisdom, guide their decisions.

We pray for them.

And we pray in moments like this that you would capture not just the attention of Christians, but the attention of people who don't believe and help us to understand, even in chaos, you're a faithful God.

Even in times of confusion, you're a God that we can know and we can trust.

And I pray that even in moments like this, where maybe we're tended we have a tendency to look externally.

For a moment, can we look internally?

What is our response?

What is our role as followers of Christ?

What is the retraining that needs to be done in our thinking and in our words in the midst of times like these?

So would you be with us in these moments, Jesus?

We pray in your name.

Amen.

So two weeks ago, we talked about the topic similarly of what I'll talk about today.

So if you were here and you're like, wait a minute, didn't we already already talk about this?

Well, yes, sort of.

But remember, I've kept saying there's recurring themes in James.

And a couple of weeks ago, when I was talking about words, it was in the context of James says, we have been able as humans to tame all kinds of animals, but no one can tame what?

The tongue.

You paid attention.

It must be transformed because it can't be tamed.

Part of the way that our tongues, our words are transformed is a retraining needs to happen.

So we're gonna look how James talks about our words in this final chapter as we end the book of James.

And he does it again and again and again with different applications to our words and our in our tongue.

And so here's what I want you to know because you'll start to feel this a little bit.

James doesn't pull any punches.

And James goes sort of deep under the external things to get to our heart so we can try and understand what really matters in practical ways.

He's not hypothetical at all.

So you're gonna hear some things that you're uncomfortable with.

I almost guarantee it.

Are you ready?

You know, you don't know what to think.

Let's try that again.

Are you ready?

All right.

So, just to set the context, let's make sure we're all on the same page.

Has anybody ever been hurt by somebody else's words?

Just raise your hand to make sure we're in this.

I still have vivid memories.

I could hear it if I got silent enough.

My basketball coach in the 11th grade when he screamed at me in front of a crowd full of people, and I was humiliated.

Pray for me.

Haven't forgotten that one yet.

Um, have you ever been helped by the words of someone else, encouraged by somebody else's words?

Okay, you don't have to raise your hands about this one.

Actually, you do.

Let's be really, really honest.

Have you ever hurt someone with your words?

My hand is way up.

Okay.

And you've also helped others with your words.

So James is often pulling out concepts that sound like the proverbs, and here's a proverb that roots us deeply in what James will talk about today.

Proverbs 18, 21 says, the tongue has the power of life and death.

Your words, the the words that come off of your tongue, they have the power to build others up or to tear others down.

The question is, how are we using, what is wise use of our words look like?

And how do we take that power and address it to purposes that are godly and good for other people?

And in the background, what James is doing, I want to remind you one last time.

James is writing, if you read chapter one, to uh followers of Jesus who have been dispersed throughout the the region, that region of the world, because of persecution.

So they're isolated, they're lonely, they're in a divisive world that doesn't understand their faith.

There's all kinds of tensions.

They could be tempted to despair, they could be tempted to disappointment, and James is trying to root them in the good news of Jesus.

Their faith in God may potentially be uh shaken, they may be starting to doubt, blame God, negotiate with God.

Their relationships with each other may be starting to suffer.

They're verbally attacking each other, they're fighting, they're lying about each other, they're judging each other.

And James is like, we've got to watch out for our words and get our hearts back to the right place.

So I want to talk about the power of our words and how we can retrain them in four primary ways.

And the first one is this it's truthfulness at all times.

Truthfulness at all times.

Look at James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

I'll start reading in verse 12.

His language here is fascinating.

He starts out with above all, meaning this is a priority.

This is important.

Above all, my brothers and sisters.

He writes, brothers and sisters, because he's talking to his family in Jesus, his church family, those who believe, follow Jesus.

He says, My brothers and sisters, do not swear.

Now, for those of you who read that and like cuss, well, not quite exactly what he means, but you shouldn't do that either.

Um, don't swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else.

They had a tendency back in that day.

Jesus talks about this to say, I want to swear by the temple.

I swear by the gold in the temple, or our modern day maybe, I swear on my mother's grave.

They're trying to emphasize the truthfulness of the word, their words, because their words weren't always truthful.

James says, All you need to say is a simple yes or no.

Otherwise, you will be condemned.

And James is pulling out what Jesus addresses in the Sermon on the Mount and saying, truthfulness in all things matters so much.

We live in a world filled with deceit, half-truths, lack of commitment.

And James is simply saying, Let your yes be yes, your no be no.

Keep your promises and keep your commitments.

If we just keep our promises and keep our commitments in a world that is pretty loose with those things, we will shine like lights in a dark world.

And you're like, really, how how in the world are we loose with our commitments?

How are we not always truthful?

Let me give a few examples.

On our resumes, on our applications for jobs or for college, on dating apps, using Chat GPT to do our work.

There are hundreds and hundreds of ways exaggerating the truth when we tell a story to make ourselves look better.

Anybody good?

No, don't raise your hand on that one.

Because I'm a pastor, you got to be careful with those kinds of illustrations.

James is just saying very clearly, truthfulness in all things at all times matters immensely.

That's really all the time I'm gonna spend there because he's got these other things that are gonna shake us more than that one.

That one's pretty clear.

It's harder to do, but it's pretty clear to understand.

Second, he talks about the power of words when there's prayer involved.

Prayer in the name of our Lord.

Now, in the name of our Lord is really important.

James is going to call us for prayer in the name of the Lord, which means not just in Jesus' name is tagged at the end of our prayer.

It's in his character, it's in his nature, it's in his will, it's in alignment with what he wants.

Not just I can ask for anything that I want and I'll get anything for my own selfish desires.

Look at the context James gives for this, verse 13.

He asks a series of questions.

Is anyone among you in trouble?

Let them pray.

Personally, engage in prayer.

Is anyone happy?

Let them sing songs of praise.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let them call for the elders of the church to pray.

So the first person prays for themselves.

This person calls in for extra support for them to pray for the person hurting.

And let the elders of the church pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

So I want to try to break this down a little bit and put a context around it.

Here's what it seems James is doing.

He's saying to his audience, they weren't as big as us.

All of us are in the same circumstance.

All of us are facing the same strife, the same trouble.

He breaks it down a little bit more and he's like, we're all facing this, but we have different responses in different seasons.

And can I just be honest?

I don't always respond to the same suffering in the same way.

Anybody else?

Sometimes I see suffering and I have courage and faith in God, and I'm like, God's faithful, he's showing up strong.

Sometimes I face suffering.

I'm like, oh no, this is crazy.

Anybody else?

And James is saying in this moment, we're facing suffering, and all of us are facing the same thing.

And some of us, he says, number one, are in trouble.

That refers to ordinary hardships.

It could be physical persecution, it could be emotional distress.

We're in trouble.

We don't know if we can keep on going or hold on.

He says, Is that you?

Pray.

What he's doing is he's trying to retrain our words where often we're in trouble and we want to go tell somebody and complain.

He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Before you go to them, go to God.

Take that as an instinctual response and begin to train yourself.

When you feel the trouble and the weight of this world, don't go run to somebody else.

Run to God with your words.

If you're going to complain, complain to God.

He's the only one who can do something about it.

Oh, somebody just got messed up there.

In the Psalms, that kind of complaining to God is called a lament, a protest.

The Psalms are full of those.

So if you're in trouble, pray.

Is anybody happy?

Now, our modern word happy is sort of superficial.

So it's probably, are you cheerful?

Or are you courageous?

So interesting, you're facing the same suffering as other people, and yet you're courageous, you're cheerful.

You're not cheerful for the pain, but the brokenness of the world.

And when we see it, sometimes it reminds us this world is not my home.

I've created, I've been created for another world.

When we see the brokenness of the world, sometimes it reminds us, yeah, this world is broken, but God is that much more faithful.

And it builds courage in us.

And what are you supposed to do if it builds courage in you?

James says, sing, sing it out.

That's why we started off.

Well, that's not why, but an example is we started off singing, The Joy of the Lord is my strength.

But if you know that passage from Nehemiah chapter 8, the words right before the joy of the Lord is my strength, the words are grief.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

Grief and joy.

Side by side.

A third person looks at the suffering of the world and maybe they're feeling sick, or maybe they are sick.

That's a broad word that can mean physical sickness, spiritual sickness, mental sickness.

It can mean on the verge of death, or it can mean being frail, needy, or aging.

And this is something like it's the kind of you're in a place you can't handle on your own.

And he says, For that person, call the elders of the church to pray for them.

Call in support.

Ask somebody to help you.

Make it known that you have a need.

There are these fork in a road kinds of moments when we face suffering or sickness or whatever, and we've got to respond appropriately before God, even with our words.

And suffering and sickness and all of these things, it's almost like James is saying, sometimes they're not altogether different.

Sometimes some of the struggles are just the same.

Luke Timothy Johnson speaks about this in his commentary called The Letter of James.

He writes, Sickness is a profound threat to the identity and stability of a community.

Just like suffering is.

Sickness is not the same thing as sin.

James is nowhere saying that your sickness equals your sin, but he's saying when you are sick and suffering, there also is a clarifying moment.

But nor does James suggest that sickness derives from sin.

But sickness is analogous to sin in its social effects.

It separates, it isolates, it breaks down relationships.

There's a deep, deep struggle.

And I think James is calling us to get honest in our life, whether that's honest in the midst of sickness, honest in the midst of uh suffering, or honest in the midst of sin.

With our sin that we're so quick to hide.

And there's a there's a a different approach that we can take.

And as someone who sits in the seat of a family that's faced its share of suffering, I know the tendencies that each of us can have.

And you do too.

Sometimes we have a tendency to ignore pain or ignore suffering, our own or that of others.

And when we ignore pain, there's a social alienation, there's a loneliness for the sick and the affected.

But there's also for the one that does the ignoring, a callousness and a lack of compassion that can be built up in us.

But if we're going to enter into the suffering of others, there's also a cost there as well, a sacrifice that is necessary of energy and time and resources, a giving up of opportunity.

But if we're going to be alongside of the sick and the suffering, like we're called to in scripture, it's going to come at a cost.

I'm not going to name places, but I've been in places in the world where the sick, the sufferers, the elderly, and the disabled, they're not cared for, not even by their families.

They're thrown on the street.

Because sickness or suffering in that context, that I'll say it specifically, that religious context has some shame, some kind of uh pain, humiliation attached to it that people are like, I don't want that anywhere around me.

So the sick, the sufferer, the disabled, the elderly are cast out.

And so we partner with ministries who bring them in.

James is saying, Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no.

What the body of Christ, what following Jesus looks like, we bring them in.

We walk with the hurting, we walk with the lonely, we walk with the disabled.

We are there together.

And James also says, this is interesting, I want to break this down.

And if it's sickness, there's a time and a place to call for the elders of the church.

Let's let's talk about what that means.

This is the first time in James he's even used the word church.

We're at the last chapter, he's not even talked about church.

So James is a letter, remember?

But it's a letter that's really different, the Apostle Paul, especially when Paul writes what's called pastoral letters.

He's writing as a pastor, he's saying many ways.

This is how a church should function.

And he often talks about pastors and deacons or whatever, these roles.

James is different.

James is saying relationally, how do we operate?

He's not talking about examining externals.

James is talking about our examine the internals.

What's going on in our heart?

And so James says here, verse 14.

I'll read it again.

Is anyone among you sick?

You're struggling, you're weak, you're frail.

Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

Now, I've read a bunch of commentaries on this.

People have different opinions.

Some people say when you call the elders of the church, it's the people who hold a position.

Call those people.

Other people say, well, in that society, the word elders was used of anybody who was a little bit older, wiser, and mature in the faith.

So which one is it?

Call for a person in the church or just call for a person you know who's older, wiser, mature in the faith?

We'll get there in just a moment.

But what James says is, call the church.

I was just thinking this morning.

I've worked in local church ministry now for 30 years.

I don't even feel like I'm 30 years old.

I've worked in five churches over the course of 30 years.

Can I just tell you, people call the church for all kinds of things?

Like I'm waiting for like the firehouse call, like my cat's up in a tree.

Can you come pray for the cat to come down?

But like all kinds of things.

We we've got we get prayers for complaining, but not many of those.

I'm not going to dwell there.

We get pray calls for questions, but we get calls for people saying all kinds of things.

What do you believe?

I just moved here.

Can you tell me about your church?

We get less of those now that you can just Google or AI what church should I go to?

Um, we get church, we get calls to our church to say, I have a benevolence need.

Is there any way you can give financial assistance?

We get calls, uh, I'm sick, somebody I love is sick, just had a diagnosis, can somebody pray?

We get calls, someone in our family just died.

Can someone officiate at the church?

This we get calls somebody just got engaged.

Can someone at the church officiate?

Same, same, similar, right?

We get calls, there's a counseling need.

Can somebody talk?

To my child?

Can somebody talk to my spouse?

Can somebody talk to me?

We get calls for all kinds of things.

James says, specifically, specifically when you're sick, call for the elders of the church to pray over them.

He's already said sometimes you got to pray for yourself, and that's always important.

But he says sometimes you're asking others to pray.

So asking others to pray represents there's enough vulnerability in you to admit you need some help.

Does anybody have trouble admitting they need help?

See, you just had trouble raising your hand because you can't even admit that either.

James says if you're going to call for the elders of the church, you've got to be willing to admit you need somebody else to pray for you.

It's an act of submission, it's an act of humility.

It's demonstrating a true interdependence.

Yes, with God because we're praying to Him, but also we need others in our lives.

And he says that the elders anoint them with oil.

Now, again, even this is debated, and some say sort of historically the oil had a medicinal purpose and that was a part of the healing.

Others would say, no, no, no.

It was sort of a sacred symbol of the prayers just being sort of visualized.

Now, here's the thing.

What's the goal?

The goal is restoration, spiritually, physically, no matter what.

So, like we take this approach that we will pray for people who ask for healing.

We will pray for people who ask for help.

We'll pray sometimes with oil and sometimes not.

We're going to pray asking God to do what only He can do, period.

But here's what I think is behind this.

There's often a great misalignment of expectations in the midst of seasons of suffering.

The person who is hurting, if you've ever been a person hurting, sometimes you want to be around people and sometimes you don't want to be around people.

You know what I mean?

And you're like a roller coaster.

But the problem is too often we say, I need space, I need space, I need space, I need space.

And we've done that so much that when we need people, we've pushed them all away.

So there's a danger what we may feel like we need may not actually be what we need.

For the person who's trying to offer help or support, you may say, Well, I tried and they didn't respond, and then I tried and they didn't respond.

So then we back off, we back off, we back off, and then we end up neglecting instead of showing care.

There's a misalignment of expectations.

And James is saying we need both the person who is suffering to be willing to say, I need help, and we need the person who's going to offer care to be able to say, I am alert and attentive and willing in a moment.

But the goal, the goal is healing.

Look at the next verse, and we'll see this, verse 15.

James says, and the prayer that is offered in faith will make the sick person well, and the Lord will raise them up.

If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

This is this is a little bit confusing, I've got to admit.

The prayer offered in faith, here's the question: whose prayer is that?

It's probably not the sick person.

And sometimes some of us have suffered under shame and guilt because we're like, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.

I guess I didn't have enough faith.

James isn't talking about the faith of the suffering person.

He's talking about the faith of the ones that have been invited, who he called the elders.

Their prayer of faith.

Look what he says, will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise them up, and if they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

Again, James is just weaving these themes of sickness and sin and suffering together and saying, but ultimately, here's what God wants: God wants wholeness, he wants forgiveness, he wants cleansing, and he wants to do this work through the people of God.

In the letter of James commentary, Scott McKnight writes, prayer by faith, this is what James says, prayer of faith, it can't be mustered up.

You can't work it up.

You can't say, play me another song so I can build my faith.

No, no, no.

It can't be mustered.

Instead, it is spirit empowered.

It is trusting vulnerability and loving trust that characterizes the genuine I thou, meaning I am me, God is God, he does his part, I do my part.

Relationship with God and that in God's goodness may or may not lead to healing.

So you could go to a church today where you could hear something like, if you need to be healed, you can be healed, come forward, and today's your day of healing.

As if we're in control of that.

So we believe, we read this, God clearly calls us to pray for the healing of others.

But God is the one who chooses whether to heal or not.

We are called to pray in faith, trusting God that he would bring a healing.

And then if God does bring the healing to give him the credit and the glory, whether that's through supernatural means or doctoral means, and if he doesn't bring the healing we prayed for, to still trust him anyway and say, God, you're faithful in everything.

We trust you completely, no matter what the answer, because we don't always know what's best.

And so James calls us to this prayer made in faith.

I have a tendency, I'm I'm shifting on this.

I have a tendency to think when James says call the elders, he's talking about those who are a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit mature, because James continually seems to say, we all have responsibility for the sake of each other.

As opposed to that study that I started out with where young people in 2009 were polled and they're like, if you got a problem, that's your problem.

What business is that of mine?

James is saying our lives in the family of Jesus are so interconnected.

We're to be aware for one another.

We're to be there for one another.

And James doesn't provide structures to follow, he he provides these solutions to minister to each other.

So the prayer is in the Lord, meaning it's in his character, his nature.

The prayer is offered in faith, not in our ability or our wishes, but God, your kingdom come, your will be done.

But it is powerful because James says there's a God raising them up, making them well, sins being forgiven.

God wants to do these great works around us as we pray with power in the name of the Lord.

Third, it's the power of our words in confession to each other.

The power of our words to confession to each other.

I told you you were going to hear some things that were a little tough today, didn't I?

I warned you, right?

So are you ready to hear some of those things?

Wow.

Two people are.

I'm really grateful for it.

Two people right here.

So I'm gonna talk to you guys.

The rest of you, you can Google something.

I don't know.

Here's what James says.

There's a power in our words in confession to one another.

Look at verse 16.

James writes, therefore, out of all of that, in light of all that, it's context.

Again, I want to remind you, read your Bible in context.

In light of all of that that we've been reading before.

Keep your yeses and yes and your no's and no.

Prayer in the name of the Lord, in light of all that.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Just think, those of you who've been around a church for a while, have you ever heard this verse?

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Have you heard that before?

Have you heard in the context of like a prayer meeting?

And we're like, we're praying, we're asking God to do something awesome.

The prayer is effective and powerful, and it is, but how many times have you heard it in its context?

It's interesting in its context.

I think prayer is powerful and effective in a thousand ways, but in its context, it's really interesting.

James says, therefore, confess your sins to each other.

Now, you may be here and you you may say, Okay, here's the deal.

I confess my sins to God.

What's going on in my life is nobody else's business.

Okay?

That doesn't seem like this.

Or I confess my sins to God, I don't trust anybody else.

Okay.

Others of you are on another place, maybe you come from a church background where you confess your sins, but it's to a priest.

And you go in there and you have to tell them how long it's been.

I've just seen the movies.

I've never done it myself.

You confess to a priest.

That's not what James says.

James says, confess your sins to each other.

And it has a different couple of ideas.

Each other is one another, literally, we'll get to that in a moment.

Each other, one another, it has the idea of two things: mutuality.

Mutuality means you are two friends sharing a same experience on the same level.

You are mutually in this together.

And it also, not just mutuality, reciprocity.

Reciprocity means you exchange something.

I share and you also share.

It's a two-way street.

So when James is saying confess your sins to each other, he's like, you're in a relationship of equals, honoring, trusting, authentic, vulnerable.

You're sharing and they're sharing because there's reciprocity there as well.

Share with each other.

Now, if if I'll just be full transparent, see, as far as I can tell, this is the only place in scripture that is crystal crystal clear.

Confess your sins to each other, however.

The New Testament is filled with these phrases: one another, one another, one another.

Like 50 times in the New Testament, there's this idea of one another.

We are interdependent, mutual reciprocity with each other.

Here's a few examples.

Look at this on the screen.

Some of the one another that are found in Scripture.

Be at peace with one another, love one another, be devoted to one another, serve one another, encourage one another, be kind and compassionate to one another, show hospitality to one another, forgive one another, and confess your sins to one another fits right along that same list.

And so scripture is saying over and over again these one another's matter.

Scripture is speaking to us Americans who love our independence.

Nobody can tell me what to do.

Stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours.

And Scripture says, love one another, serve one another, be devoted to one another.

That may not be the way of Jesus in our relationships as we follow him.

And James is calling us to understand this deep reality, even if you have an aversion.

When I first read the scripture, like, ugh, how would that happen?

Well, here's how it happens.

You start to have two people in a relationship where each one plays a unique role in a different moment.

You have one person that is confessing their sin, which means you've got to be honest, you've got to be truthful, you've got to be vulnerable, you've got to be authentic.

Confessing sin doesn't mean you just share the acceptable sins.

Well, you know, I just work too much.

I just want to confess, I think I care too much.

It's my fatal flaw.

You're like, wow, why when you confess your sins, you get a pat on the back?

Why are you confessing sins you get raises at work for?

You gotta be honest, you gotta be vulnerable.

But the person listening has to offer time, they have to truly hear, but then they have to respond with grace and point you back to Jesus.

And then you reverse roles and you take turns and you pray for each other.

Why?

James says, so you can be healed, whole, complete, because the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Do you believe that?

Well, if you believe that, then you've got to believe the confess your sins to each other part.

Got you on that one, right?

We take it out of context, but in its context, we can't choose one part and ignore the other.

And James is saying this is what it looks like to step into a conversation with somebody and there represent Jesus and his words.

If you have our journal and you're following along, our prayer for this week is from Ephesians 4.

And so we thought right now would be a good time just to pause and pray this out loud.

So could you put Ephesians 4 32 up there?

And this is what we're just inviting you to pray this week.

It's it's reflect the gospel back to someone else.

Would you join me?

Pray this out loud together.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

So, how did God forgive you?

Unconditional love, filled with grace, doesn't hold your sin against you.

You tell God your sin, he doesn't go and tell five other people.

That's gossip.

God doesn't gossip, we do.

And so we want to be the kind of people who don't do that.

We're trustworthy people with our words.

We're following Jesus in this.

And when we are receiving confession or giving confession, we're speaking the word of Jesus back and we're speaking forgiveness back.

Because the prayer of a righteous person is powerful, it's effective.

Next verse, uh, James gives us an example of this.

He says, Elijah was a human being.

Look at these four words, they're important.

Even as we are.

Elijah was a human being, even as we are.

That's important.

We'll come back to it.

He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

Thanks a lot, Elijah.

Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop.

I don't have time to go into the story.

The point is this Elijah prayed this radical prayer.

God moved in powerful ways, and we would have a tendency to say, but that's Elijah, that's not me.

Elijah's like superstar, all-star Christian.

I'm just me.

And James says, Elijah's just like you.

It's not about a superstar kind of person, it's about a simple faith that trusts Jesus completely.

And all of us.

You don't have to be an elder in a function, in a position, in a title, to be a wise, mature, loving, compassionate follower of Jesus.

And we all have a role to play.

Oh man, I gotta hurry up.

Okay.

Uh let me jump to number four.

The power of words, number four.

Restoring one who wanders, because this matters so much.

One who wanders away.

Look at uh verse 19.

My brothers and sisters, James does it again.

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover a multitude of sins.

The power of our words is we're to be ones who go out and help restore a person who has wandered away.

Here's the reality: all of us can wander away from the truth.

See, I thought maybe somebody would say amen.

All of us could be susceptible to wander from the truth, to get caught in a way of error.

People have done this, whole groups have done this.

And so, again, there's two people here.

There's a person who has wandered away, they've turned from the truth, they've gone their own ways, whether that's intellectually or morally, and they need to turn back.

But James says that's because there's another person that goes after them and welcomes them in and has a desire to restore them.

He doesn't just say that you go and you help that person get over their mistake.

He doesn't say you go and you help that person live a better life.

He says, you go and you save their soul from death.

You save them from destruction, you cover their sins, not expose them so everybody is looking at them.

James doesn't say, go call the church and say, Pastor Woody, can you come talk to my friend?

James says, you do it yourself.

Each of us with a word of reconciliation, as ambassadors for Christ, trying to get people to turn back to Jesus who have wandered away.

Paul says the same thing in Galatians 6, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

Maybe 2026, we need to hear that word one more time.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

What's the law of Christ?

Love God, love each other.

We're on this earth representatives of Jesus, offering his grace and his forgiveness, going after the person who's wandered away, and you're like, whoa, whoa, but we live in a world that says, you leave me alone, not my business.

That's not God's way.

But if I go, like I may alienate them.

They may be mad that I reached out.

If they're mad that you reached out in love, then maybe they're just going to be mad.

You don't need to be offensive.

The gospel is offensive in itself.

You need to be gentle, but don't neglect the ones that God calls us to reach out to.

As we go into a time of communion, I think just remembering these truths is important.

So in Romans 5, the Apostle Paul says, You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless.

We were the ones who had wandered away.

Christ died for the ungodly.

That's us.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We were the ones who had who had strayed.

We were the ones who had gone away.

And even in our rebellion, Christ died for us.

Aren't you thankful for his grace?

Thankful for his love.

Would you pray with me?

God, would you speak to us now?

Remind us of your grace, remind us of your love, the truth of who you are, and then shape us by that truth so we can be truthful in our words, full of powerful uh prayers that are effective for your kingdom and for your will.

Confessing to one another, being honest and vulnerable in our relationships in a world that is so superficial, and then seeking restoration for for those that stray.

May we not wait for someone else to do what you have clearly called us to do ourselves.

Remind us of these truths, speak to us, and search our hearts.

It's in your name, Jesus, we pray.