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Regent Chapel

James 5:19-20

Duration:
41m
Broadcast on:
01 Dec 2024
Audio Format:
other

for the last time. I hope you're not at the last time ever, but the last time in our series anyway. We're going to read the last two verses from James chapter 5. This is 19 and 20. James 5, 19 and 20. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wonder 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. These verses can be a little bit tricky. Very, very short. It's only one sentence and I was sent to Keith the other Sunday of like, "Hey, Andy's dropped me in it here. Hasn't he one sentence to build a sermon around? Thanks for that, Andy." They can be a little bit tricky, though, to kind of understand if we just read them casually, we might become a little confused because is James here talking about Christians or not Christians? It maybe sounds like if we quickly just have a casual read, there might be a little contradiction in what James is saying. Now, I don't think that's the case at all, and let me tell you why before we dive into the text any further. You'll notice that the first words that we read there, "My brothers and sisters," James uses this expression actually quite a lot. You'll see it all through the Book of James, "My brothers and sisters." Clearly, and Andy's already taken us there this morning, brothers and sisters are those who have trusted in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. So James is writing here to people who are Christians. Remember, he starts by writing to scattered, dispersed Christians. And then he says, "If one of you should wander from the truth," well, who is the you? Again, he's talking to his brothers and sisters. He said, "My brothers and sisters, my fellow Christians, if one of you who is a Christian wanders from the truth," then he talks about bringing that person back, turning the sinner from the error of their ways. So far so good, right? He's writing to Christians here. The difficult bit, at least in my mind, you might think it's easy, but to me it was a bit tricky, is when he then goes on to say, turning a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death. And that's interesting, isn't it? Because aren't Christians already saved from death? That's immediately what went through my mind when I read the verses. Christians are already forgiven, right? So is James here saying, "If we wander from the truth as Christians, we need someone to come and save us from death." No, he's not at all. Christians are saved once and forever. It's not here about being un-Christianized or losing your salvation. That idea doesn't really exist in the Bible. I think Hebrews 10, verse 12 is probably the foundation of Christianity, in one sense, that Jesus offered one sacrifice for all of sin forever. And so those who've trusted Jesus, I don't for a minute think that James here is saying, "You can be lost if you wander from the truth." That isn't what James is saying. The price was paid by Jesus and full at the cross, and there is nothing like goodness that I or you can do about that. Jesus has paid the price for sin. So how is it then that James here writes about Christians being saved from death if they're brought back from wandering from the truth? Well, what James is saying is still a serious thing. Andy mentioned this two weeks ago when we were in the earlier part of chapter 5. Remember that incident where there was somebody who would call the elders to come and pray for them because they were sick, maybe to the point of death even. And there was sin involved in that person's life, and they call the elders to come and pray. We get a similar thing in 1 Corinthians 11 talking about communion and breaking bread together. Paul says that there were people dishonoring the Lord's supper, and they were coming together in an unworthy way. And he says, "For this cause, some of you have become ill, and some even have fallen asleep." That is dived. So there was sin going on here in these people's lives. And I think Andy did a great job. I liked what Andy said of that balance of there are times when maybe there are people who are living in sin, and maybe they die. But I think, as Andy said, we're right to say, it sounds like, and it feels like, that is the not the norm when we're thinking about these things. So James here is reminding us that Christians who wonder and go off into sin and kind of occasionally, and I think on the very rare occasion, they end up dying because of that. So he says here, "Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way saves them from death and covers a multitude of sins." I think this is an encouragement for us, as a church family and as Christians, to support our brothers and sisters who have gone a little bit off track. Because by doing so, we might even save them from death. Wouldn't that be a great thing? That would be a real encouragement for us all. Hopefully that gives us a little of the context of what James is saying here, not Christians becoming un-Christianized, not people losing their salvation at all. He's talking about genuine born-again Christians who, as James puts it, wonder from the truth and then being brought back. Now wonder is a good word here. I quite like the word wonder. It means, in this case, to go astray or to deviate, and it's from the truth. So wandering from the truth. Now I love a wonder. My daughter Grace will back this up Saturday afternoon if we're free, my favorite thing, go for some nice coffee, wander along the key side. It's just relaxed and it's nice and big coat on in the winter and the kids get ice cream and I have coffee and we're all happy and we just wander along. But this is a bit different from that. This isn't like a nice wandering. This is kind of wandering dangerously from the truth, going off track, going off course into dangerous ground. As Christians then, how might we wonder from the truth? And I think there are probably two kind of key ways that we might wander from the truth. We could wander from the truth in terms of our doctrine and that's what we believe. And we could wander from the truth in terms of how we live. That's what we do. And we could have a think about that for a minute. So our doctrine, that is basically what do we believe? What do Christians believe? And how do we know what to believe and what to discard? That's really difficult in 2024 because you jump on Google and there are a million different things about one verse in the Bible. It's difficult sometimes to know what do we believe? And in a broader sense, well, this is what we believe as Christians, the Bible is the place that we go for our single source of truth. We believe that God has given us the Bible to reveal himself and to reveal his truth and his teaching to us and to the world at a lodge. Lots of people wrote the Bible but God is actually the author of the Bible and he has given us this book. So if we're wandering from the truth in terms of what we believe, it's kind of like saying to God, I know better than you God. I know the Bible says this, but actually I'm saying I believe that. And you see this a lot at the minute in the world around us in various churches and denominations kind of saying, well, we've got to bring the Bible up to up to standard of modern day living, haven't we? We've got to change and adapt the Bible to fit in with modern life. Now the church must be relevant but we remain relevant by believing the book because this is God's revealed word to us. So we can wander as Christians in our doctrine, what we believe. So it's good that we stick closely to what the Bible says. And we can wander to in terms of how we live, what we practice. Now I don't suppose it would be very often at all that a Christian would pick up the Bible and just throw it away and say, I don't believe any of that anymore. And I don't think that's necessarily the idea here of a Christian wandering from the truth. This might be just a subtle slow creep in somebody's life where maybe the way that they're living becomes more and more incompatible with what the Bible teaches. Maybe tolerating sin in your own life in a way that you maybe haven't before. And like nobody knows and it's just a little sin and I can just keep this to myself and I can sweep it under the carpet and see our practice wonders from the truth when we become misaligned from the truth. Maybe we might not be coming to church. Now I'm obviously preaching to the converted here, right? You're in church. But maybe we're not coming regularly and maybe we're not spending time in prayer at home and maybe we're not opening our Bibles to read. See, we can start to wander and drift very quickly. And whereas the meander along the key side in town on a Saturday might be a nice thing, wandering spiritually isn't such a good thing at all. In fact, quite a dangerous thing. And if we're honest, in whichever way we wander, whether it's from the doctrines that we believe or the way in which we live, really it's one and the same. That's one of the takeaways from James, isn't it? That our life must marry up with our beliefs. We've got to act out and live out our faith. So whether it's what we believe, our doctrines that we hold to, or whether it's the way we live our lives, really it's one and the same. Or at least there should be. The two should be aligned. And so James here is telling us that if we wander from the truth, we're becoming in some way misaligned from the word of God. But by helping a brother or sister, we could help them to come back to the teaching of the Bible. Before we dive into the main part of the text then, I want to say this about wandering from the truth. It's a serious thing, but it's a correctable thing. It's something that God can work out in your heart and in your life. It's serious to wander from the truth, but it's not the be all and end all. And it won't always ruin you for God. God can work in people's hearts and lives to turn things around. It's not something that ruins us forever. And so I want to make an appeal today on the back of that before we jump into the main part of the text. Maybe there is somebody here in our room today and maybe you are wandering or have been wandering. Maybe in the way you are living. Maybe the way you're living is almost a denial of your faith. And yes, good that you're at church, but Monday to Friday, Monday to Saturday, when you're not in church, things might look really different. I have been there many times. And maybe you have grown cold in your heart towards the Lord Jesus. Things just aren't how there used to be. Maybe there is unconfessed sin that's in your life and that needs to be put right. What can I make an appeal on the back of these verses today? If that's you, if that describes you, then come back to the Lord. We've been singing about him, haven't we? He is gracious and he's long suffering. Louise prayed so eloquently there about the fact that what we have done in life doesn't bar us from the presence of God if we are Christians. We have a faithful, forgiving, loving father. And secondly, not just in your heart, but if there is someone in the room today or in the church family that maybe you've just got your eye on and you have a suspicion or a feeling that maybe somebody here is drifting, is wandering. And you've seen the little telltale signs that they're maybe not just where they once were. And you can see that maybe they need some help and need a hand. It would be a good thing to do what James says here and to help that brother or that sister out to bring them back to the Lord. I think that would be a really good thing. That would be a rejoicing thing for everybody. So here's the context then of what James is saying and I want to share for the rest of our time three things really about how we might help a wanderer and bring them back. And I want to caveat this by saying I have many times been a wanderer so I know how it feels. I'm not standing here preaching as if I've got everything sorted out. I have many times more than I would share with you. In fact, more than I realize I have wondered many, many times as a Christian. So three things. Number one, with prayer. We can bring a wanderer back with prayer. Now that's the context of James 5, I think. We can bring a wanderer back with conviction and compassion. We'll talk about that in a few minutes then. We'll finish by thinking of bringing wanderers back with spirit-filled gentleness. So with prayer, with conviction and compassion and spirit-filled gentleness. So number one, with prayer. It would be a safe assumption, wouldn't it, to say James was a guy who believed in the power of prayer. If you've got your Bible handy, you'll see in that little section from verse 13 down to verse 18, James references prayer or praise or praying seven times in six verses. He's talking about it a lot. Pray when you're happy. Pray when you're sad. Pray in faith. Pray for a miracle. Pray like Elijah who prayed for the impossible and it happened. And James focuses in on that prayer of Elijah to encourage us to pray as well. Now you could read about Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 16 and 17. James tells us though that this guy Elijah who prayed, he was just an ordinary block, an ordinary person like me or like you. He was nothing less, nothing more than you or I. But he prayed. And what did Elijah pray for? If you read 1 Kings you'll see he prayed for the rain to stop and God stopped the rain. That's pretty cool. And then in about three and a half years later he prayed for the rain to come. And God made it rain. Isn't that amazing? And so James comments on this by saying the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective and he lifts up Elijah as a reference point for you and I to encourage us. Hey Matt Smith you're an ordinary person. Elijah was an ordinary person. He prayed for remarkable things and God answered his prayers. Matt Smith you can pray big prayers too. And church family you might just be an ordinary person but so is Elijah. You can pray like Elijah prayed. We were talking in Home Group just through the week most of the New Testament prayers which is a teeny tiny praise. Not many words written down about people who say long prayers. You can say tiny prayers but with great faith and call upon the name of the Lord. So in the context of our chapter here it's no stretch to say that we should be praying for our brothers and sisters who are wondering. As an absolute minimum I would suggest as well. And we should pray believing. Like Elijah the prayer is powerful and prayer is effective. There may be good words to highlight any Bible if you've still got James chapter 5 open. They're powerful and effective. In other words praying really works. If it didn't you and I have wasted a lot of time in life haven't we? We've been delusioned. Prayer does work and you know what that means for us as we think about people who are wondering or if you are wondering it means that nobody is a hopeless case with God because prayer really works. I want to say that for our encouragement. Nobody in this room or in this world is a hopeless case with God because prayer works. On the back of that I would especially encourage anybody here today and this could be hard. Anybody who has parents or children or family members or siblings you are wondering. Now that's really really difficult isn't it? And if there's somebody in the room today and that describes you longing for your loved one to be back with the Lord Jesus that is a hard difficult thing and maybe on a human level you can see no path that gets them from that place back to the Lord and that is so hard and that is so difficult and it's real isn't it? James encourages us then to pray. If you're a Christian you are living proof that God can soften harden hearts. I stood in the hallway of my house and no shields as a teenager screaming in the face of my dad almost coming to blows and I swore I will never set foot in the church on a Sunday the minute I turned 17 or 18 and I don't have to come anymore. I swore to God you'll never find me wished my life in a church because I was angry with God. I wanted to play football on a Sunday and I wasn't allowed and I hated that I was dragged to church and I was angry and raging with God and I swore I'll never be back. I'll never darken the door again. I'm God in his goodness softened and melted my heart and if you're a Christian you know that you've been there too when your heart has been hardened to God and he softened it and opened your eyes to see the truth of the gospel I want to encourage you from the scriptures today your loved one. If you can't see your way back keep on praying because God can. He's the God who does the impossible isn't he? Didn't he give us half a million pounds for this room? Thank you Lord it's amazing. Didn't he move the star across Bethlehem when Jesus was born? He's amazing isn't he the God who inhabits all of eternity? He's amazing the God who stopped at the rain when Elijah prayed and the God who raised Jesus from the dead and Paul says about the power that God used in raising Jesus he says it's the same power at work in you. So for your loved ones who you're heartbroken for and I am too pray for them and keep praying for them and know that it's okay to talk about them and say the name here and ask of the people to pray for them because we want them and we love them and we want them to be brought back don't we? Keep on praying for your loved ones you might be wondering how God is powerful isn't he? And he can do this so we can we can pray. The second thing then when we're thinking about bringing a wanderer back is we need to do this with conviction and with compassion they're with me I'll be okay in a sec. Conviction and compassion. Now James is really practical isn't he? He writes to us. I can't see my notes anymore now but would be would be okay. We should be living out our belief shouldn't we? We as Christians should be men and women of conviction. It's okay in 2024 by the way to have convictions. We need to be people who are convicted. We shouldn't just be anything goes live and let live. Your truth is yours and my truth is mine. No that isn't the case at all. When we see someone wandering from the truth let's have the courage of our convictions to say to that person lovingly that isn't okay and that isn't the best route for you to go down. Conviction though doesn't mean condemnation. The two are different right? We can have convictions about things in our hearts but not be condemning people. Conviction must be infused with compassion and dare I say great amounts of compassion as well. The idea with a wanderer is what? James says to bring them back. It isn't to push them away. It's to bring them back. That's the end goal for people who are wandering. That's what we want for them. I have seen huge damage done in families through the years by people jumping in with two feet full of conviction like a self righteous conviction and no compassion and pushing people out of the door and you never see them again. We don't want to be people who are jumping in full of condemnation. That is not the case at all. This is not religious work. It's not like here's the rules and you've broken the rules you're out of here. That isn't what we're about here. That is religious thing calling people out. See this is rescue work. It's really different. We rescue somebody because we want them to be safe and we want the good for them and we want the best for them. This is a restoration where we draw alongside and we say my brother my sister I love you. Let me help you. Let's talk. Let's go for a coffee. Let's wander down the key side and drink some nice coffee. Let's talk and let's get back to where things used to be. Why would we want to be anything less than compassionate with a brother or sister who is wondering? Now if you've ever wondered you will know how it feels. If you're wondering right now you'll be acutely aware of how it presently feels. I found it really lonely and unfulfilling, pretty sad, trying to live a kind of double life and I always knew that I was walking down a path that was leading me the wrong way and every step I took my conscience and my mind and my heart God was just saying that's not right and I was living that awful kind of life where it was horrible and lonely and isolating and it's not a good place to be. It's miserable. For many who are wondering and if you're wondering here today maybe you'll feel like a second-class citizen and that shouldn't be the case. You might feel like everybody else is on the inside and you're stood behind the glass looking in but you're alone and you're isolated and you may be looking in thinking everybody else at church has got their life together and they're all such lovely good Christians and he is me and a macar crash. Don't feel like that because it isn't true. This is why we need compassion for our brothers and sisters who are wondering because of how it feels when you're a wanderer, when you've drifted, when you're not where you once were and maybe you're here today and you want to be back to where you were and you just can't get there you don't feel it's hard isn't it? But this is why we need compassion and you will be going after with compassion. Going after our friends aren't we? No we're not. James says there is more at stake than that. He says my brother and my sister it's our family. Yeah if you're wondering today or you're trying to bring someone back who's wondering you're going after your family, your brother in Jesus, your sister in Jesus to bring them back. The stakes are really high. So let me say this thinking about conviction and compassion. If you've trusted in Jesus then you have been born again and you have been forgiven and therefore you and I we are part of God's family as Andy's already said this morning and I want to say this no matter how you feel in your heart today you are wanted here and you're welcome here and you are valued here. You have something to offer in this place. I want people to know that this morning. This is a place where you can contribute and thrive and we together can grow and develop and it breaks my heart when I think of people who feel like that and feel that they can't break in to the inner circle that doesn't really exist. We want each other. We love each other. We are here for each other. We are the family, the children of the living God. We want what's best collectively for one another. We are a body. If one member suffers everybody suffers. We want everybody walking in closeness with Jesus. I think that's really important for us to say. So however you might feel today in your heart, whether you're worn down and beaten down, maybe you're cold in heart and you feel a bit just that you have drifted and you feel like everyone else is perfect and you're not. Don't worry about that. Don't let the feelings stop the reality. You might say, "Well, I've got issues to resolve." Join the queue, right? You might go, "Well, things are complicated because I've got a past. Everybody that's got a past." And you might say, "Well, my faith is weak and feeble and tiny." And I mean this in the right way. You'll fit right in here because every Christian is an ongoing lifelong work of grace. God is refining us over the years and over time. Every Christian slips and trips and stumbles and falls to greater or lesser extent. But cling to this truth if that's you today. This doesn't void your Christianity or make you a failure. You're not to be racked with guilt and a second-class citizen. You're not here to be out of sight and out of mind. You're loved and you're wanted. Jesus paid for your sins. Jesus died on the cross and it's God. He doesn't just say it. He declares you righteous in his sight through Jesus. Isn't that wonderful? I wish we would you ourselves more like God views us. Deborah's out in Sunday school, so I can say this. I wish Deborah would think of herself more like God thinks of her because she thinks, "I'm not good enough at this and I'm not good enough at that." I wish she could see for one second and get it how much God loves her and how great he thinks she is. And for me and for you as well. I don't know if that resonates with anybody here today, but I really felt that God put that in my heart to say that this morning. If you want to talk about that with someone today, you're in a good place to do so. I can attest personally. I have sat with Andy on the couch and I have opened my heart and I have literally given him everything. No holds barred. He didn't even flinch. That's conviction with compassion and he prayed with me and it was great. It's liberating. Thank you, Andy, for doing that. You've got a whole room full of brothers and sisters. Find someone that you trust and you love today if you want to talk about that. There's going to be people praying at the front here at the end of church. Come back if you're wondering. Come back. So we can pray. We can help our brother and sister then with compassion mixed with conviction. And thirdly and finally we can have spirit-filled gentleness. Now we're going to jump into Galatians 5 for a few minutes here. If you've got your Bible, you might want to turn to the passage. I'm just checking. Did I print out that? Yes, I did. I printed the words here. In Galatians 5, Paul writes about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians, culminating in that great list, the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5, 22, is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now sometimes you rattle things off as Christians and presume everybody knows what they mean. The fruit of the Spirit might be a strange concept if you're a new Christian. Let me say this for a minute then. An orange tree shows what it really is because it produces oranges. And an apple tree, likewise, it proves it's an apple tree because it produces apples. It's a little bit like that with Christians. This is where you and I were Christians when we show what we really are because the Holy Spirit produces in us fruit. Now not apples, not grapes, but love, or joy, or peace, or forbearance, or long-suffering, or gentleness, or kindness, self-control. These things are an evidence that a Christian is really what they say they are. They belong to the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit is living inside of them. So keep this list in mind because it's a good guide as to how we treat each other, especially in the context of our passage today, how we should treat somebody, how we can help someone who's wondering. Now maybe most here who've been coming to church for a while could kind of rattle off the fruit of the Spirit, or most of them, or some of them. But I would reckon that not too many of us could quote verse 24 that comes after. Paul says this, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Wonderful, right? No more wandering for me, and no more sitting for me because I have crucified those passions and those desires. Well, it's certainly true that when I trusted in Jesus in the year 2000, that the old Matt Smith was crucified and I died with Jesus. I'm glad of that. That's why I won't ever be punished for my sins because how can someone who's died to a law be brought to face the consequence of that law? Jesus did it for me, and I'm now alive in Jesus, and you are too if you're a Christian. And when I was born again, there's the new me. I like being younger than I really am. But I still have to submit to the Holy Spirit in my life. Doesn't just mean no more sitting, although that should be the exception, not the norm really for Christians, but it doesn't mean that you instantly become perfect as a Christian. Now look how Paul describes it here in Galatians 5, 25, how little it looks for us as Christians. He says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Now, the reason I've brought us to the Galatians 5 is too far. The first is this. This is the exact opposite, I think, of James chapter 5 that we've been reading. Wandering from the truth. Paul says here, "Keep in step with the Spirit." And I like the picture in my head of like, you know, keeping in step, like following the lead of the Holy Spirit, walking that way that he wants to take you and submitting your life to him. Whereas James is talking, he's like wandering from you here, there and everywhere, you're anywhere but the Bible, you see the contrast here, right? Paul says that we should be living, keeping in step with the Spirit. If you look at the verses in chapter 5, if you Bible's open, you'll see verse 16, walk in the Spirit, verse 18, be led by the Spirit, verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit, verse 25, live by the Spirit, second part of verse 25, keep in step with the Spirit. And then, and this is the second point I wanted to bring us to in Galatians here, is we move into chapter 6 verse 1, and you'll see the correlation instantly. It'll hit you through the eyes as soon as you read it. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. Well, of keeping in step with the Spirit is the opposite of wandering from the truth. Haven't we got a great correlation here? What did we read in James 5? If one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, then it says in Galatians 6, 1, if someone's caught in sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. You see, the two are kind of aligned, aren't they? It mirrors James 5. And let's take note of how Paul here instructs people to restore a person. He tells us, and we'll be really quick here, who can help what we can do and how we can do it. Okay, so who can help? Paul says, you who live by the Spirit restore them. Now, I don't think this means if you see somebody wandering or sinning, your brother and sister off track of it, you kind of go, hmm, am I spiritual enough to go and talk with them? I don't think that's the idea here. It's not you and me judging. I'll be walking in step with the Spirit enough. I don't think that's really the idea. I think it's more along these lines that if you are not wondering, that is, if you are living in step with the Holy Spirit, which should be the norm for Christians really, then you can step in and help. You, as a brother and sister, again, Paul used the same language, can help your brother and sister. Restoring a brother and sister back to the Lord isn't just a job we should expect everybody else to do. And we shouldn't be sitting here waiting for our elders to pick up the slack of everybody and deal with every single person who falls at this. Now, clearly, caveat that. Don't worry, Paul and Andy. If this serious moral sin and great big issues go, of course, we want the elders to be involved, right, in a loving compassionate way again. But for most of us in day-to-day Christian life, that would be so impractical. Andy, Keith and Paul would be driving around everybody's house every two minutes. It's not going on the door. Can we have a chat? It just wouldn't work, wouldn't it? And they'd be driving to each other's house as well. Can we have a chat? That's no practical. We as the church should be accountable to each other, to help each other if we're walking in step with the spirit. So who can help? We can help. You can help your brother and your sister. Secondly, Paul says, "What we can do to help?" Well, he says, "We store that person." We store that person. I'd love to have the time, the money, and the knowledge to restore an old car. I bought a 15 or 20-year-old convertible last year with that goal in mind. Instantly realized I had no money to do it, no way to keep the car, no way of doing it, no way to source parts, and within a few weeks the car was sold and, well, disaster. But I would love to, at one point, restore like a 2000 BMW M3 Coupe CLS. That would be my dream. If I was going to do that, how would I approach it? Obviously, with pocketloads of money, that would be a great help and a bigger drive to fit another car on. But if I was going to restore an old car, I'd be going in delicately, gently, tenderly, with kid gloves on, right, making sure every component was just right and I'd be so delicate and kind and just loving the car to try and bring it back to life again. This is how we approach. Paul says, "We store that person gently. We store them gently." This is not that we're like overlooking sin and tolerating sin and saying, "Ah, yes, you've sinned. Don't worry about it. It's fine. God will forgive you. Keep on sinning. It's okay." That's not what the Bible ever teaches. But the person helping out must recognize that could have been me. It could have been me just as easily caught in that sin or wandering from the truth. Remember the list that Paul gave us in Galatians 5, "The Fruit of the Spirit." He specifically mentions gentleness. And here he says, "We store them gently with spirit, filled gentleness." This is how we ought to treat each other as Christians, with the fruit of the spirit in display. And finally here from Galatians chapter 6 verse 1 verse 2, Paul then says, "But watch yourselves, but you also may be tempted, carry each other's burdens, and in this you will fulfill the law of Christ." A few years ago I used to be quite fit. And sadly, not so much these days. I used to love doing triathlon. And you may have watched at London 2012 when Alistair Brownlee won Olympic Gold. And his brother Johnny Brownlee, I think he got second. I think he got silver. You might have heard in the news that Ali Brownlee retired this week from triathlon. And you might remember, as you've probably know nothing about triathlon, but you might remember that Ali, who's retired, probably the greatest triathlete that's ever lived. His brother Johnny was about to win the World Championship. He had to win the final race of the series and he was World Champion. I think they were in Mexico. I can't remember where it was. And Johnny got heatstroke because he was running because he was from Yorkshire. Don't do well in the heat. And his legs started to buckle. And the commentator says something like he's lost control of his legs. He was literally wandering. He came round the second but last bend. And if you've seen it, his body starts going back over and his legs are buckling in and he can't keep himself up. And Ali, his brother, is a little bit behind. And I showed Devs through the weekend. We had a little cry when we watched it because we're a bit soft in our house. And the stewards tried to prop Alistair Brownlee up. It's tremendous view. And it's on BBC at the minute if you want to watch it. Ali runs behind and he grabs his brother. By this point, he's not going to win the World Championship. But he grabs him and he puts his arm around him and he carries his burden. He literally carries his brother about 400 meters to the finish line. And he gets there and he throws him and he pushes Johnny to the ground. And he just collapses in a heap and he's on a drip and he's off the hospital. I think that's a great picture for us as Christians. Carry each of those burdens. For Ali Brownlee, it meant giving up some of his own race to help his brother. Sometimes when we see a brother assist a suffering, it might cost us a bit because we need to carry their burden, our time, our energy, our effort. We need to get in with them and alongside them and live with them and help them. But if we do that, Paul says you'll fulfill the law of Christ. So help with gentleness, with sacrificial love to our brothers and sisters carrying that weight. Let me read the verses again from James 5. "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 them up the chewed of sins." And just like that, James ends. No greetings to anybody, no closing remarks, no summary. And so to take a leaf out of James's book, I too will end. God bless you all.