Text: James 5:13-16
Message for March
3, 2002
by Pastor Glenn Layne
Fourth Message in the Series:
THE FREEDOM OF THE CROSS
The Cross and the Healing
of the Soul
I have a conviction deep in my soul-several, actually:
With all my heart, I believe that Jesus is Lord.
I believe He is real.
I believe He died on the cross and their paid the debt for all that would believe.
And I am convinced that His death has power…transforming power. Not simply because it is a moving story, but that the Triune God has appointed His death as the heart of the gospel, the Good News. As the old hymn puts it, "There is power in the blood…power, power, wonder-working power, in the precious blood of the Lamb."
I believe, as John the Baptist said that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
And I also believe that we have a superficial view of sin. And that we often have a limited, stunted notion of what God would do in our lives.
What we want is Heaven Insurance by means of His cross. We want the books to be whited out, our record clean, but we have little confidence in the cross of Jesus to actually transform us-to actually make us profoundly different people.
But this, I am convinced, is an inseparable part of what Jesus did-what He accomplished-on the cross.
On the cross, He died to set us free from sin's power as well as to take our sins away.
These last four weeks of messages form a common theme:
But sometimes, freedom comes hard-very hard. Sometimes the struggle is intense. This is a case of were the soul is damaged, brutalized by the power of sin, self and Satan.
Call it bondage-the invisible chains I've spoken of a number of times these last few weeks. Call it addiction-so long as we don't use that term as an excuse.
Here's how one person described it:
I was bound not by an iron imposed by anyone else but by the iron of my own choice. The enemy had a grip on my will and so made a chain for me to hold me a prisoner. The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes a necessity. By these links connected one to another a harsh bondage held me under restraint.
That person is not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but rather St. Augustine of Hippo, a North African, writing in the 5th century AD. Augustine's tie to sin was one of "iron", "passion" and "habit."
Deep Healing of the Soul: From Forgiveness to Healing
How do we get free when we are looking at that kind of bondage? I think there are some insights we can get from people like Augustine-we'll come back to him later-but the right place to start is in the changeless word of God.
The Text: What to do instead of (&@$%) swearing!
James 5:13-16 addresses those times in which we feel powerless. In vs. 12, he
mentions one way we respond when we feel powerless: we swear!
12Above all, my brothers, do not swear--not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned.
There is a better way to handle those times of weakness and stress, says James. Don't swear about God; pray to God! (that's our text, verses, 13-16).
13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.
Hard time at work? At school? At home? In the community? Don't rage, pray!
Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
Happiness comes from the Lord, so that Him in 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.
Here's a special kind of trouble: sickness. Again pray, with this twist: ask for the church as a body to get involved. Have the elders comes and anoint with oil-a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the one who grants gifts of healing. If sin is at the root of the illness, that person will be forgiven. (Not that sin is at the root of all illness-just some illness.)
How? How Do You Get Free?
James 5:16 tells us something very important about how to get free when the will is truly bound:
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.
When the chains are heavy and the links are tight, how do we break free?
Not by Stoicism: just bear it.
Not by Go-It-Alone-ism: no Lone Rangers here.
Instead: confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other.
HERE'S THE KEY IDEA:
Sometimes the power of sin is such that we cannot get unbound alone. We need the help and the intervention of the fellowship of God's people.
You tell people this and there's a lot of recoil. We can handle it, we say. Americans tend to believe greatly in the power of the individual-"rugged individualism" we call it. Baptists too have a great history of being centered on the individual-of making individual decisions, of calling on individuals to be baptized when the make their own individual decision for Christ.
Specifically, consider the deed at the heart of this process: "confess
your sins to each other." That's almost unimaginable.
We have an aversion to the idea of confession. We are afraid that if we were
truly honest with another person, that they would use that information against
us or at least be indiscreet about who they'd share that information with.
And then we have a further layer of aversion as Protestants. Catholics, we say, believe in confession to a man-a priest. We go straight to the top, to Jesus, the High Priest. Who needs confession?
The REAL Priesthood of Believers (1 Peter 2:9):
God
BBBBBBBBBBBBBB
God
B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B
But have we perhaps misunderstood the wonderful doctrine of the priesthood of all believers? In your message outline, you'll see a little chart. On the left side is a way that perhaps we have misunderstood the idea of the priesthood of believers. Peter, in 1 Peter 2:9, says we are all members of a royal priesthood. We have often interpreted that as, every believer a priest, therefore every believer independent-a direct line running from you to God. We have forgotten that a priest also intercedes for others. We have that direct line, but as the box on the right says, we are also connected to, and intercede for one another. The priesthood of believers is not a call to rugged spiritual independence, but to close connectedness to both the Lord and to one another.
The Power of Confession/Accountability
Over the years many have discovered the power of real priesthood of believers-of the transforming power of confession. Or, if you want to state it positively, the power of accountability.
One such person was a missionary in China. He arrived in Beijing-then called Peking-in 1917. He was from an upstanding family and had a genuine call to ministry…but the harder he worked, the less he saw results.
He came into contact with another group of missionaries led by a man named Frank Buchanan. Their mission was effective and saw much fruit. At one point, the missionary asked Buchanan to see a Chinese man who was on the verge of accepting Christ.
"Why don't you lead the man to Christ?" asked Frank.
He stammered out that he wasn't really trained for that.
"Come on," he said. "What's the real reason?" Buchanan explained that sin-resentment for example-may be the reason for his ineffectiveness. He then shared four principles that he'd been taught by Robert Speer, the founder of their mission:
1. Absolute honesty
2. Absolute purity
3. Absolute unselfishness
4. Absolute love
That missionary went home that night and prayed through the darkness. He had to admit that he was not living this way. The foundation of his fruitlessness was found in his corrupted and unrepentant heart. The next day, walking in a power he had never known before, he led that man to Christ. Two years later he returned to the US.
Fast-forward nearly 20 years. That young missionary is now the pastor of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City. And that man, Sam Shoemaker, is counseling an alcoholic. Based on the principles he learned from Frank Buchanan, Shoemaker and others formulates the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Yes, over the years those steps have been watered down from the pure power of the gospel. But consider how profoundly Christian those steps are in their origin…and how God has used them over the years to make such a profound difference in people's lives:
But is this just something for alcoholics? Is the idea of this kind of accountability, this kind of confession, one that is fully grounded in Scripture? Well, let's look around.
He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Think of David. He had to "come clean" about his sins with his accountability partner, the prophet Nathan, before he could get past that episode in his life.
Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
Right there out under the sun, people were confessing their sins. Not just confessing that they were sinners, but really confessing their sins: "I stole from my neighbor's vineyard…I have lusted over the woman in my village…I swore and took God's name in vain."
Ancient times? Thirty years ago, the great Asbury Revival broke out on the campus of Asbury College and Seminary in Willmore, Kentucky. It began when a chapel service was hijacked by the Holy Spirit, and students began confessing their sins. That service went for more that 24 hours-and propelled a whole generation of leaders into a deeper commitment to Christ.
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
In this case, raw converts from paganism confessed their reliance on what we'd
call the occult: astrology, witchcraft, and idol worship. But the passage in
James tells us that that's not the only time to confess our sins to one another.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Hebrews 12 speaks of God's discipline in our lives. God disciplines whom He loves; He trains us in righteousness and toward holiness.
At the end of this passage about discipline, we are told to get in spiritual training so we don't end up "disabled", but rather healed.
This is spiritual healing-the healing of the soul.
And I have discovered that it is the rare soul who heals himself. The healing of the soul comes from Jesus alone, but it is rarely received alone.
He has called us to walk this walk with brothers and sisters in Christ at our sides.
I mentioned St. Augustine earlier. His brother who helped him through was a preacher named Ambrose. Ambrose was his guide out of the wilderness. Ambrose was there for Augustine both before he surrendered to Christ and for a long time after. Ambrose was the man Augustine opened his life to. Augustine struggle mightily for a long time (modern psychologists would be tempted to label Augustine sexually addicted).
With Ambrose's help-by the power of the Spirit-Augustine broke through to real freedom-freedom and healing of the soul by the power of the Cross.
In 1 Peter 2:24, the apostle cites Isaiah's prophecy: "By His wounds/strips, you have been healed." Yes, we who have been wounded deep in the soul and be healed-really healed by the cross of Jesus. And that is the best news of all.
© Copyright 2002, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org