As Christians, we are members of the family of God. As such, we're called to care for one another spiritually, to pray for one another.
That's not just a task for church leaders, as many assume. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg considers the place of shared confession and the privilege and responsibility of genuinely praying for one another. We come now, Father, to your word, the Bible, humbly asking for your help as we seek to study it, so that we might not only understand what it says but that we might believe it, and that in believing it that we might obey it, and that in being obedient to it, our lives may be transformed by it. Help us to this end, we humbly pray in Christ's name.
Amen. And I invite you to turn to James and chapter 5. We've come today, I believe, to the end of our studies in James. Tonight we'll be in the final two verses, and this morning we deal with the three or four verses that lead up to that.
But let me just read this section that begins from verse 13 through to the end of the chapter. Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.
Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is 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. And 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. Therefore, 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. Elijah 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.
Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this. Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
Amen. Now, it's good for us—indeed, it's necessary for us—to remind ourselves, especially as we get to the end of this letter, that James is writing to a select group of individuals—select not in terms of their geographical destination, as in some of the other letters of the New Testament, but in relationship to their identity as sons and daughters of the living God. And I want, purposefully, to turn you just for a moment to the eighteenth verse of chapter 1, so that we might be in no doubt as to whom this letter is addressed. In that eighteenth verse, we looked there and discovered God's initiative insofar as he chose to give us birth.
This may seem a strange statement to people and wonder just what it could possibly mean. It's the same kind of pondering that marked Nicodemus when he came to Jesus as a religious man by night, and he was, from his perspective, in a relationship with God. And Jesus said to him, You know, Nicodemus, you actually have to be born again. And Nicodemus says, Well, I don't understand that. How could I possibly be born again?
Can I enter a second time into my mother's womb and be born? And Jesus goes on to explain to him that he's speaking in spiritual terms. And this is something that we do not know by simply thinking. This is something that we only discover by God's revelation—namely, that by our nature we are dead in our trespasses and in our sins.
And unless God comes to make us alive, we remain spiritually dead. And the wonder of God's dealings is that he comes in the person of his Son, taking the initiative and giving birth to sinners. And it is this that James emphasizes. He then goes on—it's still in verse 18—to remind his readers that the instrument that God has used in bringing this spiritual birth about is the Word of truth.
We might think immediately in terms of our Bibles, and we wouldn't be wrong there, but I think James probably has in mind not so much the written Word of Scripture but the living Word—namely, Jesus himself, the one whom John introduces as the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And he goes on to say of that Word, In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And the intention of God in doing this, in bringing people to birth through the Word of truth, is that those who have come to this experience of the living God would be a kind of firstfruits, an early indication of God's ultimate purpose.
And God's ultimate purpose is to put together a people that are his very own that will begin increasingly to look like Jesus until finally, one day, when they see him, they will be made absolutely like him. And when Paul writes concerning these things, he says, in a similar vein to the Ephesians, you also were included in Christ when you heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. And the question this morning, of course, that is then obvious to us is whether we fit the descriptive nature of those to whom James is writing. Are we able to look to a place, a time, in our lives when we recognized that we were brought from blindness to sight, from death to life, when we were included in Christ, when the Bible became alive to us, when hymns and songs became the expression of our hearts, and when, quite frankly, in biblical terms, we were just made new people? And it is to those who have been included in Christ, then, that he gives these exhortations at the end of his letter. Because to be included in Christ is not to live singularly or solitarily, but is to be brought into a family, to be brought into a group of people who are, quite literally, in Jesus, our brothers and our sisters, united as a result of the initiative of the same Father, brought to life as a result of the living Word of truth, and intended to take on a family likeness that will be a testimony to the power of God in the world.
And so, it is important that we realize that what James is saying as he draws his letter to the close is being said to the family, to the gathering of God's people. And we need to think of it in terms of mutuality. That may seem very straightforward to some, and yet to others it may seem very countercultural—the whole idea of the corporate nature of our lives in a world that has embraced a fierce individualism. I took what was offered to me as a spinning class on one day of last week. Some of you will know what that is. Those of you who think it's standing around with a spinning top will need to go online and find out what it really is.
Trust me, it isn't that at all. You sit on a bicycle until you're almost dead, and then it stops. And I signed up for this class, somewhat unwittingly arrived only to discover that there were eight of us in the class. The other seven participants were ladies. And that wouldn't have been so bad were it not for the fact that they all seemed to be doing far better than me, and only pride kept me on the bicycle to the end of the class.
I couldn't allow this lady, who looked to be about sixty-five years of age, pedal faster than me for forty minutes. But I mention that only because of what happened at the beginning of the class. And that was that when the class commenced, the lights dimmed in the gymnasium, the music began, and the instructor in the class began to talk. And she said to us immediately, Now close your eyes.
Which I thought was rather dangerous in the first instance, in case some of us fell off the bicycles. But anyway, we were to close our eyes, and then she said, Now allow the music to begin to fill you. Can you feel the bass drum and the bass guitar in your sternum? And allow this music to take you over. And then, as we were all apparently taken over by the music, she said, And see yourself. See yourself.
Can you see yourself? she said. And then she said, And it is all about you. It's all about you.
Well, I wanted a shout-out in the class immediately, but I thought I might fall off the bicycle and disrupt everything, and so I just had to suck it up. But I thought, Well, this is a microcosm of our society. This is simply an expression of what people are fed on a daily basis—that the whole of our existence starts with us, that it is all about me. So when that is true in the culture, it will be increasingly true when you form church families out of people who come from that culture, unless we are instructed and guided by the countercultural emphasis of the Bible itself, which turns everything on its head. I've told you before that when we conjugate Hebrew, the verb to be in Hebrew, it is the reverse of what it is in English. In English, it is I am, you are, he is.
In Hebrew, it is he is, you are, I am. And so it is that if we are to live the Christian life effectively, we need to think Hebraically, if you like, concerning the nature of our relationship, first to God and then to one another. And until that actually is galvanized in our thinking, then we will continue to read our Bibles on a purely experimental and individualistic basis, asking the question always about me, about me, about me. Now, you will notice that James is not talking about the me of the individual or the I of the individual, but he is talking in the terms of mutuality, calling on the elders of the church— that is, God's family—and so on. And having given the exhortation to the elders as to what they should do in these circumstances, he now comes in verse 16 to let it be known that this privilege of prayer does not fall simply to those who are in leadership, but indeed falls both as a privilege and a responsibility to all who are in the congregation. And so he says, Therefore, in light of what I've been telling you about coming and asking for prayer and seeking God and faith, I want you, he says, verse 16, to confess your sins to each other, to pray for each other, so that you may be healed.
And then he goes on from there. Well, first of all, notice that in that first half of verse 16, he gives us an exhortation. An exhortation.
It is very clear. I want you to confess your sins to each other, and I want you to pray for each other. It's not easy to pray for each other. I mean, we've been offered the little booklet today to pray for the missionary family. And some of us take it and have it in our Bibles and forget that it's even there. I can do that very, very easily.
Consistently. And then I have to do a big sort of gathering collective prayer on about the twenty-ninth of the month. Oh, Lord, I'm sorry I didn't pray for them for the last twenty-eight days, but you know who they all are, and please bless them, and so on. It's not very good.
It's very honest, but it's not very good. Because it isn't easy. And the reason it isn't easy is because the evil one is opposed to our going to God in prayer. Because he actually knows what we often fail to register, and that is that somehow in the mystery of God's purposes, prayer is directly linked to his activity.
And so Satan fears realistically the prayers of God's people. And when I find it difficult to know how to pray for others, I look to those who are better at praying than me. I read the prayers of others in history. I read the prayers of the New Testament. And I discover as I do so that it helps me to be able to think sensibly about the kind of things that I can ask God for in relationship to the other members of our church family. So, for example, Colossians chapter 1, here's one of Paul's prayers. For this reason, he says, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God—now, listen to the things he's asking for—to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
And we're praying this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord, may please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you might have endurance and patience, and so that you might joyfully give thanks to the Father who has done this wonderful thing in qualifying you to share the inheritance of the saints in light. You see how helpful that is? Now, there's nothing illegitimate about that.
It just seems to me to be eminently sensible. We do not know how to pray. The disciples themselves were honest with Jesus, weren't they? Lord, would you teach us how to pray? And so he gave them a moral prayer.
Well, perhaps that's enough on that. Because James, in his exhortation, says not only that they are there to speak to God on each other's behalf, but you will notice, he says, that they are to be humble and honest with each other concerning their sins, confessing your sins to each other, praying for each other so that you may be healed. Now, what he has in mind are probably offenses against one another, the kind of offenses and sins which spoil relationships and inevitably hinder prayer. Now, you will notice—and I want to underscore it for you—that there is a tight connection here between confession and prayer. Indeed, we might go so far as to say that the purpose of the confessing of our sins is in order that we might pray for each other.
Now, I highlight this because there are some dangers to avoid. For example, if we're going to listen to someone confess sins to us, if we're going to listen to the faults of others, how are we to do that? How are we to do it in a way that is proper, if you like? Well, let me suggest to you that the only way to listen to someone confess their faults or their sins to you is to do so with a deliberate, single-minded devotion to turn it into a matter of prayer.
So that if someone is honest enough to come and say, I offended against you in this way or whatever it might be, it doesn't then become something for us to mark up as a notch that we can now use against that individual someday when we say, Well, I know that you felt that way or you did that towards me. Therefore, I can hold it against you. No, we are to listen in such a way that we might be able to pray to God for one another, for each other, as it says, and in order that there might be healing and restoration. Failure to do so will not result in healing. It will result in havoc.
It will not result in healing. It will result in havoc. If we do not listen with that ear that turns to prayer, then we may be guilty of listening with some kind of idle, speculative curiosity. We may even be guilty of entering into a form of unhelpful voyeurism. We may use the material shared with us as a basis for gossip. That in turn may produce, within the community of faith, allegations and slander.
If you think I overstate the case, I don't. And when we come to the notion of winning back the wanderers, an obvious cross-reference for us is Galatians chapter 6 and verse 1. You needn't turn to it.
I'll quote it for you. But here is how Paul begins his final chapter to the Galatians, in a similar vein to what James does at the end of his letter, as we'll see tonight. Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.
And then what does he say? But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Do you know how many times, in a counseling situation—especially where people are counseling people of the opposite sex—the very sharing of information becomes the opportunity for further sin, either on the part of the sharer or on the part of the listener? I've tried my best to forget every instance in which that has been apparent to me in the last twenty-five years as I've lived here, but believe me, it has happened time and time and time again. And it speaks to a number of things which is beyond the province of our concern right now. There is a danger, then, in the way in which we listen, and there is an equal danger in the way in which we speak. For if our ears need to be trained by the Spirit of God, our lips in confession need to be guided by the Spirit of God. And one of the great dangers in the confession of sin is the danger—as strange as it may sound—of exhibitionism.
Exhibitionism. There is a perversity about the human heart that, unfettered from the direction of God's Spirit, can take some kind of strange delight in telling other people bad things that we have done. And indeed, one may have reason to suspect that the reason they do so in such an instance is the hope that we may have an equally bad ear listening to their equally bad voice.
And when those two things combine, you have a recipe for absolute disaster. You see, how much is demanded of us in terms of common gumption in the way in which we read and apply the Bible? Thinking sensibly. I'm amazed at how many times men who, in their everyday lives, exercise clear, rational thinking when it comes to the decisions of business or of engineering or of science or of craftsmanship, whatever it may be, and yet when it comes to the issues of the Bible, somehow or another they go loopy. Somehow or another they decided that there is another mechanism that we use when we read this text.
No, there isn't. The Spirit of God works, and he works through means. And the warning here in this exhortation is that if we're going to apply this process, we need to test our motives, and we need to trust our relationships. Test the motive in speaking and trust the relationship. You can't talk to everybody about everything.
You need to look for people who are the Dead Sea. All of the information flows in, but it never comes out the other end. It simply is turned to God in prayer. If you tell it to me, together we take it to God, and the matter is finished and done with, and we move on. Test your motives, choose your relationships, and trust those you choose. And finally, in relationship to this, it is a good rule of thumb—and I've told you this before—to regard the area of commission as the area of confession.
What I simply mean by that is, if we have offended against somebody with our words, and often involving more people than the individual in the hearing of our words, then it is almost always right to go back to that person and to say that we are sorry, that we confess it, that we ask for their forgiveness, and that we perhaps even pray together and move on. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear the conclusion of today's message on Monday. You are no doubt familiar with Psalm 23. It may be the most well-known of all the Psalms. The particular set of verses opens with the phrase, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And even though it's brief, Psalm 23 is packed with rich theology. And a book we want to recommend to you today takes us into the depths of what this Psalm teaches. It's titled, The Lord of Psalm 23, Jesus our Shepherd, Companion, and Host. As you read this book, you'll be exploring this comforting Psalm in three parts. You'll look first at who the shepherd is and what he provides for us. Next, you'll consider how and where the shepherd leads us.
And finally, you'll see what ultimately awaits us as his sheep. Ask for your copy of the book, The Lord of Psalm 23, when you donate today. To give, simply tap the book image on the mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate.
Or if you'd prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at post office box 39-8000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139. By the way, if you are benefiting from this program, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using Truth for Life in your life. Whether through the daily teaching, the devotionals, the online articles, the free downloads, the monthly resources, you can email us at letters at truthforlife.org. Thanks for studying the Bible with us this week. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church. On Monday, we'll look at how the sovereignty of God interacts with our prayers. I think you'll be encouraged when you join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
