WEEK 15

HOW TO PRAY ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS

WEEKLY BIBLE READING:

James 5:13-20 (NIV)

13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 1

PRAYING THROUGH ADVERSITY

James 5: 13 Are any among you suffering? They should keep on praying about it. And those who have reason to be thankful should continually sing praises to the Lord.

James has talked a lot about speech and the control of our tongue. Most of it has been in the negative. This week, we will be looking at the positive aspect of what we do with our tongue. For the highest and best purpose that our tongue can engage in is that of prayer and praise to God.

Prayer is a unique privilege. It is unimaginable that we can have access to a Holy God merely by using prayer. If you were to call the White House in Washington DC, you would never be able to speak to the President. You could not even get the governor on the telephone. Yet at this very moment, you can talk to the creator of the universe. It doesn’t matter if it is day or night. You can even reach God at 10:00 PM on a Sunday. Add to that, the fact that God cares enough for us to listen and to grant our requests. I can’t imagine a greater gift and a more underutilized gift in all of creation.

This week, we are going to be looking at 4 different situations where God hears and answers prayer. Today we are looking at prayer that comes out of the trials and adversity of life. As a people, we do pray in tough times. That’s probably because the tendency in most of our lives is to pray harder and longer when we are in the middle of difficult times. It is especially true when we get to the point where life has us fenced in and there doesn’t seem to be any way out. As the old soldier said, “There aren’t any atheists in foxholes.”

Let’s start out by saying that I will not be talking about the typical surface prayers of Christians. You know the kind of “bless me” prayers that are the most common in the

2 church today. I am talking about a deep communication between a Holy God and his beloved child. I am talking about the place where the tough questions can be asked, the place where a deep abiding peace that transcends all understanding can be felt. Remember what James talked about back in chapter 1, when he said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind (James 1: 2-6 NIV).” When you are in the middle of tough times, it all right to ask God about it. It’s just that when you do ask; make sure that you really want to know the answer. I read about Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church of Grand Rapids. In the middle of a tremendous ministry, he has been diagnosed with one of the worst diseases anyone can get, Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. With that diagnosis, Ed Dobson is facing 2 years of steady deterioration of all of his muscular function, until he will finally be unable to even breathe. At that point, he will die. When asked if he was angry with God for this situation, Ed said, “From day one, I chose not to ask, ‘Why, God,’ because I feared that had the potential of causing anger. So, no, I've never been angry.” That’s James 1 at work. Ed has chosen not to know the reason behind his affliction. He feels that he is better off not knowing.

Sometimes there is a need to spend some time in deep prayer with God, to get beyond the superficial. That is usually when life has you pinned down and it won’t let you up. You can do 2 things at that point. You can keep on trying to get yourself out of the situation using your own strength and cleverness. Perhaps you will succeed. I’m not sure that the very fact that you were able to get yourself out will teach you anything eternal, but you will be out of the situation. The other alternative is to schedule out some additional time to be alone with God. Go for a long walk and find a place of solitude and talk it out with Him.

3 I will warn you that God may answer your prayer in ways that you do not expect. To be sure, prayer can cause God to remove the particular trial that we are experiencing, but that is not the only way God can answer that prayer. He can also give you strength to overcome the trial. Perhaps it is His will that the trial is there in the first place. He may want you to learn something. They key here is to be patient, like we talked about last week. You need to learn to live 1 day at a time, and even moment by moment at times, to be sure that you don’t miss the point of the trial.

The other piece of advice that James has for us in today’s verse is that, when we are thankful, we are to sing his praises. God balances our days, giving us both trials and joy. Mature is the Christian who learns how to sing even in the most severe of trials. Look at Paul and Silas as related by Luke in Acts 16. For doing a simple act of kindness for a slave girl, they were stripped of their clothing, beaten severely with rods and thrown in jail. With their feet in stocks and their bodies in prison, these 2 men found their hearts were in heaven. The only thing that they could do was to sing praises to God. I believe that Paul’s secret was not where his body was, but where his heart was located. If your heart is firmly rooted with God, it does not matter in what circumstances you find yourself.

Look at what Paul said to his spiritual son, Timothy, “This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory (2 Timothy 2: 8-10 NIV).” Bible scholars will tell you that it was not long after these words were penned that Paul’s body was separated from his head. If you read the entire book, you get the feeling that Paul knew that he would never see freedom until he saw heaven. The entire letter is a good-bye to his friends. Yet even in the circumstances in which Paul found himself, there was joy in the fact that the God’s word was still freely spreading across the globe.

4 I don’t know where you find yourself today. Perhaps you are going through a time of trial. I would urge you to spend some time alone with God and talk it out. Make sure that you also listen to Him. Spend some of that alone time singing His praises and keep your heart dwelling on heavenly things. It will lessen the effect that turmoil can have in your life.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. At what point during a time of adversity do you take it to God?

2. What determines when you take your adversity to God?

3. Would you characterize your normal prayers to be superficial or deep?

4. Do you tend to sing when you are happy or excited?

5. Did you spend some quality time alone with God this week? If not, when will you?

5 How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 2

THE ROLE OF THE ELDER

James 5: 14, 15 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well. And anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.

During my time as an Elder in the church, I have been called upon to pray for the sick in the manner prescribed by James. I remember one afternoon going to a member’s house to pray for a lady who was in the advanced stages of cancer. She was a young mother and a loving wife, and she loved the Lord. We prayed hard that day that God would heal her. It wasn’t a month later that she died. Another time, we were in the home of a brother sick with cancer. We prayed and he actually went into remission for a time. He was able to come back to church and work. Later the cancer returned and he went home to be with God.

Using those examples, it would be easy to conclude that the method that James prescribes in these 2 verses doesn’t work. To be honest, sometimes I would like the power to heal that was evident in the lives of the Apostles in the Book of Acts. When I look at the suffering in the eyes of those who are dealing with a disease like cancer, I would like to lay my hand upon them and have that awful disease go away. Unfortunately, I believe that power to heal died when the Apostles died. It’s not hard to see why. All you have to do is to turn on the TV and watch one of those faith healers in action. All too often the glory for the healing falls on the healer and not on the Great Physician. I have always believed that it is God that heals. Yet even that healing is temporary. Remember Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son at Nain and Lazarus all died again after Jesus had raised them. If you were to go to the Internet and try to find a telephone listing for each of those 3 people Jesus healed in Israel today, you would not be able to find one.

6 So what is this verse talking about? What is the whole purpose of prayer? Let’s start out by saying that James here is not giving us a formula to follow to get God to do what we want Him to do. I know people like formulas. They like the idea that if I do this, kneel this way, facing this direction and pray a specific prayer that God will do a miracle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The purpose of prayer will always be to communicate with God. If you start to think of prayer in that light, then a lot of misconceptions will vanish.

Take, for example, the communication that you have with your spouse. Is the sole purpose of your talking to your mate, to get them to do what you want them to do? If you said yes to that question, there are counselors who can help you save your marriage. The whole point of communication is that it is a sharing of your life with someone else. You share ideas. You share emotions. You share your frustrations and your joys. You share life with someone else. Prayer is the same thing. It is your chance to communicate with a loving God those things that mean something to you. It is not your opportunity to present a laundry list of things that you want God to do for you. Prayer is also one of the ways that your Father speaks to you.

The second thing that you have to remember is that it is God who is in charge here, not you. You need to remember that He is the one who spoke and the world became, and He didn’t do it for your pleasure, He did it for His pleasure. That’s not to say that prayer doesn’t change things. We’ll talk more about that in a couple of days.

So what is the point of what James has to say in this verse? There are times when your illness is a result of sin. I don’t think that it is an accident that James concludes verse 16 talking about forgiveness of sin. Paul talked about it in his letter to the Corinthians when he said, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 11: 30 NIV).” Now I must tell you that is not true all of the time. There are too many times when someone gets sick that people flock around them with the purpose of pointing out sin. That is what Job’s friends tried to do. In any case where sin has caused the illness, it is appropriate for the sick person to call the Elders.

7 The Elders should have already exercised the plan of church discipline in Mt. 18 so the sick person would not be able to go to church. It is perfectly acceptable for the Elders to go to him to affect a spiritual healing and forgiveness. That’s what being an Elder is all about.

The second thing that I would like you to notice is that it is the prayer of faith that accomplishes the healing. It is not the oil, nor is it the presence of the Elders. This is not magic. It’s just the asking of Godly men to pray for you. That’s all it is. Isn’t that what John was telling you when he said, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him (1 John 5: 14, 15 NIV)”? The prayer that the Elders pray here is always that God’s will be done. Most times we don’t really know what that is. Perhaps we have a little more experience, a little more maturity and a bit more Bible knowledge to understand the situation more. That is really the extent of what an Elder brings to a congregation.

Of course you always have to take into account what James says in verse 16 of our weekly Bible reading where he said, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I remember reading in Dallas Willard’s book, “The Divine Conspiracy” that there have been actual studies done that have documented a greater number of people being healed who have been prayed for by believers. While that study is not a reason to pray for the sick, it does help to give you confidence that your prayers are heard.

So what is the point for today? Are some of you sick? It is all right for you to gather the Elders around you. They will anoint you with oil and will pray for you. They will do this because they love God and they love you. If it is God’s will, you will be healed for a time and be able to give God the glory for it. Just remember, this is not a formula to bend God to your favor. If God wants you in His presence in the heavenly realms, that is where you will be. Death happens to all of us. Of course, living for the rest of eternity in the presence of God is not such a bad idea is it?

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STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Have you ever had the Elders of your church pray for you?

2. Why isn’t there a formula where the believer can guaranty being healed?

3. What are some other reasons besides sin that would cause a believer to be sick?

4. What role does faith play in prayer?

How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 3

THE ROLE OF CONFESSION IN PRAYER

James 5: 16 MSG: Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

There is an old saying that says that confession is good for the soul. If that is true, why is it that confession is the last thing the people want to do? Is it that people aren’t all that concerned with their souls? I suppose its probably like that nasty medicine that your mom used to make you take. You know that stuff that tasted like lizard spit, but your mom always told you that it was good for you and would cure whatever it was that ailed you.

9 Of course, the question begs to be answered: Is confession really supposed to be that bad? I suppose our conception about the whole idea of confession is tainted somewhat by the world that we live in. It is just not “in” to take responsibility when we blow it. There are too many people today that are too busy pointing fingers at someone else. I suppose if you foist the blame on someone else, then you aren’t so bad. The problem is that you can’t do that with God. He is the one source of absolute truth and knowledge. There is no way that a “who me?” is going to work with Him. He knows that you did it, He knows why you did it, and He knows how you did it.

Sometime back, you read Paul’s statement in Romans where he said, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8: 1 NIV).” That is a really comforting verse because it tells you that if you have accepted the free gift of salvation from Jesus Christ, you are now completely free from the penalty of any sin. That means that every sin that you have committed or will ever commit is complete paid for and gone. Further more, God has promised that your sins are completely forgotten by him (Jer. 31: 34). So then, why do you need to confess? If God knows what you did and has already forgiven it, what is the point?

To answer those questions, let me go back to the original Greek word for confession. It is a compound word of 2 Greek words. The first word means “to say,” and the second word means, “the same.” The confession that the Bible talks about means to say the same thing. In other words, it means to look at your attitudes and behavior with the same view that God views them. I am talking about agreeing with God that you weren’t all that God wanted you to be in a particular circumstance. Confession never says, “Yeah, I did it, but if you knew what I had to put up with, you wouldn’t blame me.” That is not looking at it the same way that God looks at it. Confession is more like, “Yeah I did it, forgive me Lord. There is no excuse. Praise you for the blood of your son that covers my inadequacies.” Do you see the difference?

So let’s go back to the original question of why confession is even necessary. I came up with 4 reasons why you need to practice confession on a daily basis. The first reason is

10 that a lot of times your behaviors and attitudes have a more lasting effect on your life than you realize. Chuck Swindoll compares them to anchors. He says that every time you do something wrong, and its not dealt with, it’s like a ship dropping an anchor. Since the anchor does not grab onto anything, the ship runs just fine. You go about life as it the issue isn’t even there. The only problem is that the anchor is still dragging on you. While one anchor probably doesn’t weigh you down much, what about the next time you drop one? Now you have 2 anchors pulling on you. You still may be able to go through life dragging both anchors but it is a little bit harder. Now when you get up to 50 anchors or 100 anchors, the weight is really getting to you. Life’s journey just seems to be this great effort. There’s no joy anymore because of the strain of dragging all of those anchors. That is how unconfessed sin affects your joy. So you need to confess on a moment-by-moment basis in order to maintain your joy and get free of the guilt that will bind you.

Second, confession restores your relationship with God. Read with me what John says in his first letter to the church. “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1: 6-9 NIV).” There are many who say that when John talks about the fellowship with one another that he is talking about the fellowship between believers. While there is a case to be made there, I happen to think that the context of that verse does not allow that interpretation. The whole thrust of what John is talking about is the relationship that exists between God and His people. That fellowship is broken when you become mired in sin. The relationship that you have with God, that seemed so sweet once, is now tarnished and broken. John gives you the answer at the end of his sentence. That’s right, it’s confession. That is to agree with God about what you have done and to turn from that behavior and renew your walk with a holy God.

11 The third reason confession is necessary can be found in our Bible reading for today. Confession restores the relationship between you and other people. There are times when we do things that are in injustice towards someone else. There are times when we offend someone, lie to someone or cause someone to stumble into sin. It is during those times when our relationship with others is damaged. We are told by James that we need to confess those kinds of wrongs to those we have offended. The reason we should do that confession is so that the fellowship that we have together within the church is not harmed. I believe the healing that James is talking in today’s Bible verse is relationship healing. Over and over through the New Testament, we are told that unity within the body of believers is important to God. Even on the last night Jesus spent on our planet, he was praying that we would be united together as one. God knows that disunity will cause His church to be ineffective and weak. That’s not something God wants for us.

Finally, confession restores your witness to the rest of the world. One day, I’m on my way home and I happen to pass this car on the freeway. The entire back seat is filled with drinking cups, like your soda comes in at a fast food restaurant. I mean from the top of the back seat to the back window nothing but soda cups. I don’t know why the man had all of the soda cups in his back seat. I wasn’t going to find out while I was going 65 mph down the freeway. Now to that driver, looking out his front window, all seems well. That man in his car is a lot like what I am talking about here. If you fail to confess your sin, you do away with the ability to clean out that back seat. You drive around town thinking how righteous you are, but the rest of the world sees the crud and filth that is still in your back seat. What you see as you own righteousness, they see as hypocrisy, and they will reject your lifestyle and your message.

Remember the words of the Apostle John that we have talked about so many times in this Bible Study, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Do you see anything there that would make you believe that God is unwilling to help you in this area of your life? Do you see anything there that tells you that God can’t quite find the time for you right now? He wants to see you free from those anchors of guilt. He wants to, once again, walk with

12 you down the paths of your life. He wants to use you to reach a world out there that desperately needs Him. All you need to do is to bow your head, right now, close your eyes and agree with Him about what you did wrong. Then, when you finish, you will feel like a great weight has lifted. The final thing that you need to do is to get on with serving Him. He has forgiven you and forgotten the incident. It’s time that you did the same.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Do you believe that confession is a positive or negative thing? Why?

2. How would you rate your fellowship with God at this point in time?

3. Is there anything that you have with another believer that needs to be confessed right now?

4. Does God actively reveal to you areas in your life that you need to confess during the day?

5. Do you tend to confess things to God as He reveals them or do you save them up for your daily prayer time?

13 How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 4

ELIJAH, A MAN OF PRAYER

James 5:17-18 GW: Elijah was human like us. Yet, when he prayed that it wouldn't rain, no rain fell on the ground for three-and-a-half years. [18] Then he prayed again. It rained, and the ground produced crops.

If I asked you to picture in your mind a man of prayer, what would that person look like? Would he be dressed like a prophet of old? Would he walk 3 feet off the ground and have lightening coming from his fingertips? Yet the first thing that James tells us about Elijah was that he was a man just like us.

It was this “man like us” that I want to talk about today. Probably the most famous event in the life of Elijah took place on Mt. Carmel. To understand the events of that day, you must first understand the world that Elijah walked in. After Solomon died, the nation of Israel split into 2 kingdoms, north and south. The Southern kingdom was known as Judah and the Northern, Israel. From its first king, Jeroboam, until Ahab, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had practiced idolatry for over half a century. Of all of the kings, the writer of 1 Kings calls Ahab, who reigned during Elijah’s ministry, one of the worst. Ahab was married to a woman by the name of Jezebel, who came from Sidon, up north. Her father’s name was Eth-Baal. From his name, you gather that he worshipped the god, Baal. Jezebel followed in daddy‘s footsteps. She led Israel in worshipping the 2 gods of Sidon, Baal and Asherah. Baal was the Sidonian fertility god as well as the god of the rain, wind and clouds. That is why God had, as Elijah’s opening salvo, the stoppage of rain. If there was going to be a contest for Israel to find out who is really God, then let the contest be on Baal’s turf.

After 3½ years of drought, Elijah meets Ahab and proposes this contest on Mt Carmel. It was there that Elijah is pitted against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah. Elijah lets the Baal people go first. The contest is to build an alter of stones,

14 lay a bunch of wood on it and then cut up a bull and put the pieces on top. The god who answered by fire would be determined to be God. The Baal people chanted, ranted and raved for most of the day. To everyone’s surprise but Elijah, nothing happened. Elijah goes to work building his alter and has the pile drenched 3 times with water. Elijah then prays, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself (1 Kings 18: 36, 37 TLB)." At that moment fire comes out of the heaven consuming everything. The people fall prostrate declaring the God of Israel is Lord. At Elijah’s command, the people of Israel take the prophets of Baal and Asherah into the Kishon Valley and kill them.

So what lessons can we draw from this rather dramatic story? Chuck Swindoll in his book on Elijah lists 4 lessons that you can draw from this story. The first lesson is that when you are sure that you are in the will of God, you are invincible. It doesn’t matter what the odds are. In Elijah’s case, it was 850 to 1. Yet that isn’t exactly true is it? It was more like 850 to 1 plus God. Do you find yourself intimidated at work or at school? Don’t look at the numbers, look at your God. If you are doing what He wants you to do, you will prevail. Go back and read the 18th chapter of 1 Kings again. Elijah made 8 statements in this story, and every one of them is a command. He was hardly intimidated by the situation.

Second, divided allegiance is just as wrong as open idolatry. How long are you going to sit on the fence with one foot in the world and one foot dedicated to God? If you have any doubt about what Jesus thinks of fence-sitters, look at Revelation 3: 16 where He says, “So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Elijah refused to let Israel sit on the fence any longer. It was time to choose sides. How about you? You will only see God defending you when you are fighting on His side.

15 The third lesson is to never underestimate the impact of a life totally dedicated to God. I am sure that you have been impressed with Elijah. I know that I am. Every time I read this section of Scripture, I get goose bumps. Yet the Bible is full of stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things simply because they allowed themselves to be vessels of God’s work. What impossible task do you see staring you right in the face? For my church, it is the vision of a small start-up church growing to the point where it impacts a city. Now we have less than 40 people attending on Sunday mornings. Imagine what would happen if 40 people became totally dedicated to God. Our city and county would never be the same. That’s the kind of God that you work for. The only thing you have to watch is your dedication to that God and His work.

The forth lesson is to never underestimate the power of prayer. Elijah’s words were not spectacular. His prayer was not long, nor was it particularly theological. It wasn’t the prayer that did the miracle, it was God. How many times is prayer the very last thing that you try? When all else fails, then pray. As you look at the 168 hours that you had at your disposal last week, how much of that time was spent in prayer. If you can’t put your finger on a block of time, do you have any wonder why your life has no power? It’s kind of like wondering why your TV won’t work when you haven’t plugged it in. Prayer is your most effective weapon. Why not use it?

I know that today’s devotional probably hits a little bit close to home. It did for me and I wrote it. I would challenge you to join me, at this very moment, and close your eyes and pray, “Lord, forgive me for the times when I have taken this tremendous gift of prayer for granted. Help me to do a better job of setting aside time every day to just talk to you. I know that you have a purpose for my life. Show me what that purpose is and give me the strength to carry it through to your glory and honor. I pray this in Jesus name; Amen.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Are you willing to fight on God’s side even in the fact of opposition and ridicule?

16 2. What changes would you have to make in your life in order to be fully devoted to God?

3. What goal are you willing to set for yourself in the time of prayer you spend with God?

4. Did you pray that prayer at the end of today’s reading?

HOW TO PRAY ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS James 5: 13-20 DAY 5

I AM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

James 5: 19-20 My dear brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back again, you can be sure that the one who brings that person back will save that sinner from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

In my opinion, there isn’t anything sadder than a backslidden Christian. That’s the one who has prayed a prayer, been washed in the waters of baptism, known the joys of true Christian fellowship in a small group and then walked away from the relationship that they have with Jesus Christ. I have known some of those unfortunate people in my lifetime. I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised when it happens. Jesus said that people would receive the word of God and not be able to accept its truth. That was one of the points of His parable of the sower in Matthew 13.

Remember where Jesus said, “A farmer went to plant seed. Some seeds were planted along the road, and birds came and devoured them. Other seeds were planted on rocky ground, where there was little soil. The plants sprouted quickly because the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, they were scorched. They withered

17 because their roots weren't deep enough. Other seeds were planted among thornbushes, and the thornbushes grew up and choked them. But other seeds were planted on good ground and produced grain. They produced one hundred, sixty, or thirty times as much as was planted (Matthew 13: 2-8 GW).”

If you follow the story down in Matthew 13:18, this verse tells how Jesus takes time out to explain to the disciples the meaning of this parable. He says that the farmer is anyone who goes about the business of spreading the good news of the gospel. I once knew a man who was a rocky ground seeker. He received God’s offer of salvation with great joy. He had prayed the prayer, gotten a good dunking and was in my small group. There was no one in the group with more zeal for digging into the word of God than George. It was at that point that George lost his job. The group gathered around George and his wife and sincerely prayed each week over the situation. Then George stopped coming and eventually dropped out of the group. We never again saw George at church. The last I heard George and his wife had divorced and he was never heard from again.

I weep when I think about George. I know that Jesus told me that such things would happen, but it still saddens me. To be sure, the ministry of bringing the wayward back into the fellowship is not an easy one, for it still depends upon the backslidden to want to turn back to the sweetness that exists when one is in fellowship with Jesus Christ. The point that James makes in today’s Scripture is that there is great joy, satisfaction and reward when the ministry of reconciliation does work.

Going back to the parable of the sower, the point that Jesus was trying to make is not the various ways that seeds fail to grow. Certainly that’s not the reason that the farmer plants it in the first place. He spends his day out in the hot sun in order for the 4th result in Jesus’ parable. He is interested in the seed that falls on fertile soil; the seed that produces that precious fruit that he can sell and feed his family for another year. But that doesn’t mean that he expends a lot of fret and worry over the seed that doesn’t make it.

18 The point of the matter is that as a Christian, you are your brother’s keeper. That phrase originally came from the Old Testament book of Genesis. Those were the words that were uttered by Cain, after he had murdered his brother, Abel. When God asked Cain about Abel’s whereabouts, Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” When you get to the New Testament, you read that the answer to Cain’s question is an absolute yes; you are your brother’s keeper. It is in that section of the Bible that you will find out that the church is a family, and that we are all supposed to care about each other.

Paul said that he would even give up his own Christian liberty if it meant harming a brother in Christ (1 Corinthians 8). That was not done out of any sense of duty or obligation, it was done simply because of a love for the other brother. Paul considered that it was better to deny himself some pleasure, than to offend or destroy another Christian. His brethren meant that much to him.

Sometimes I wonder if the church that exists today still feels the same way. Do we care enough about each other to deny ourselves some pleasure? Thankfully, I see that level of service every day. Of course it’s really hard to engage in this ministry of reconciliation with a brother who has backslidden, and do it well. Sure there are a lot of people who will criticize and tear down another person. That is not what I am talking about. To really do the job of Jesus Christ here takes a sensitive spirit, nerves of steel and a rather tough hide. That’s because you can be sure that your efforts will not be met initially with a lot of positive feedback. For you are bound to be bombarded with words like “who do you think you are” or “what makes you qualified to judge me” from the backslidden person. It may result in failure as you may be rejected. But for those times that you are successful, James tells us the rewards are great.

When a backslidden Christian turns back, he is saved from a life of spiritual darkness, bitterness and emptiness. Remember the words of Peter, “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them (2 Peter 2: 21 NIV).” If you truly love them, there is no way that you want that kind of existence for

19 them. You want to see them full of joy and busy making a real difference with their lives.

So when dealing with the backslidden take care to remove any logs in your eye, bathe the matter in prayer and practice the instructions Jesus gave in Matthew 18 in the manner in which they were meant. That means going to the backslidden Christian in a spirit of love and humility and with the intent of restoration. If you truly love them, their restoration can be your only goal.

The book of James has been all about putting your faith in action, putting shoe letter to what you believe. That kind of activity is especially evident in the ministry of reconciliation. The only questions that remain are: 1.) Do you love enough? 2.) Are you tough enough? 3.) Are you mature enough to be used by God in this way?

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. When talking about a backslidden Christian, who is the person who comes to your mind?

2. How does the parable of the sower relate to your life today?

3. What kinds of things are you willing to give up for another believer?

4. How did you answer the final 3 questions in today’s reading?

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