WATCH YOURSELF!

JAMES 5:19-20

INTRODUCTION The apostle Paul once wrote a letter as a spiritual father to his dear and true son in the faith, Timothy. He was intimately acquainted with Timothy and his fragilities and the perils of serving Jesus in a sinful world. He opens his letter by laying a foundation of doctrinal issues and critical leadership responsibilities. But then Paul gets personal and not just personal with Timothy-personal with you and me. For we are all in Paul’s peripheral vision as he penned these words. God who saved us wants to have a word with us. A very personal word. A word that must be heard, especially in the times in which we live: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).Do you feel the weight of this passage our upon your soul? The stakes could not be higher. Nothing less than the preservation of yourself hangs upon this. The implications couldn’t be more serious. The NIV renders this “Watch your life and your doctrine closely.” I must watch what I believe and how I live. I must give full uncompromised attention to both. And I must watch it closely and consistently, not casually or occasionally. As we come to the end of James letter, pastor and prophet James warns us about why we need to watch over our lives, what is at stake in watching over our lives, and God’s gracious provision to help us of not watching our lives, its consequences, and why God has graced us with a tremendous gift of grace to make sure that we persevere through the accountability and involvement in the body of Christ.

I. A DANGER OF WHICH WE SHOULD BE AWARE (v. 19).

Notice immediately that James is addressing these final words to Christians: `My brothers, if anyone of you wanders from the truth . . .' He is not writing to people outside of the church, those who have never come to the truth in the first place. Instead, he is pointing out a very real danger for Christians, and it is one that must be faced soberly by every believer. James simply says, “If anyone among you wanders into sin...” All we know about this person is that he is “among us”; that is, he is a member of the church in its visible aspect. He is a Christian at least in an outward sense. His name is on the church roll. We can’t peek into heaven and see if this person’s name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life. We can’t look into the recesses of his heart and see if God has indeed given him the spiritual life of the new birth. All we know is that he at some point professed to believe in Jesus, that he was then living a life which appeared consistent with that profession, and that he joined the church. Now this person is wandering from the truth into sin. His present conduct is no longer consistent with his former profession. The New Testament writers do not assume that everyone in the church is necessarily going to persevere to the end and be saved. They treat people who have made a profession of faith as true members of the covenant community, giving them the benefit of the doubt. James calls them all "brothers" in verse 19. But he does not assume that every one whom he calls a brother is in fact a brother. And so he warns the whole church that straying away from the faith into persistent sin will lead to death without forgiveness. The final proof of who is a brother and who is not is perseverance of faith, not profession of faith. Jesus says, “The one who endures to the end, he shall be saved” (Matt 24:13-14). James assumes exactly what John assumes in 1 John 2:19. Some people had left the faith and the church without being persuaded to turn back. John said, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.” So John and James recognize that not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom (Matt. 7:21). James's words pinpoint two things about this danger.

II. THE DANGER IS SUBTLE- `. . if anyone of you should wander from the truth . . . a sinner from his wandering' The word can be translated “to go astray”, “to apostate”. The Greek verb is planethe, from which we derive the word "planet." The heavenly bodies seemed to the ancient Greeks to wander in the sky. Likewise, when Christians stray from the truth, they wander from the prescribed course they once knew. James does not see this wandering as unconscious or absent-minded. Moreover, this is not simply a doctrinal wandering from the truth, but a wandering in lifestyle as the same word is used in verse 20. The bible never separates the intellectual from the behavioral, or the doctrinal from the moral, or right believing from right living. Truth was something people did. John 3:21, But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." James 1:22, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” James says that apart from obedience, knowledge can be deceptive. The problem can be that we assume that merely going to church, listening to sermons, or reading the bible signifies actual change. Truth must be proclaimed and then applied, heard and then obeyed, preached and then practiced, read and then lived. For until we practice truth, I have never truly learned truth. Falling away or apostasy could be discerned in two ways: doctrinal aberration or moral deviation. In fact, the Bible teaches that a moral deviation can, and often does, affect one's doctrine and doctrinal deviation can affect ones morals. Thousands today change what they believe to accommodate their moral behavior. On the other hand, thousands more take up false doctrine, and then apostatize in their actions. In the New Testament we read of Demas forsaking Paul for moral reasons: "he loved this world" (2 Timothy 4:10). On the other hand, Alexander the metalworker did Paul great harm because he objected to his doctrine — "he strongly opposed our message" (2 Timothy 4:15). The picture James gives also is not of a sudden, impulsive U-turn, an impetuous, violent rebellion, a headlong rush into sin. James is speaking of a wandering, an almost gentle straying, and a subtle loosening of one's doctrinal or moral moorings. It is not a sudden, violent jerk of the helm; it is a slow drifting with the tide. It is like the frog in the kettle swimming along having a good old time in the pot and not noticing that the temperature is being increased slowly but surely to a boil, and then at 212 degrees he is cooked! Surely the lesson and the warnings are obvious! Back-sliding never begins with a loud bang; it never begins with an outrageous, scandalous sin. It always begins quietly, slowly, subtly, insidiously, drifting away. As the saying goes, “Sow a thought and reap an act; sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.” Is it any wonder that the New Testament teems with warnings about this kind of danger? There are at least sixty occasions when we are specifically warned to be on our guard against this kind of deviation from believing and living the truth. The doctrine of eternal security does not make warnings and exhortations superfluous. We can say, "I am confident that the Lord will continue to preserve me for himself, but I know that my heart is open to the deceitfulness of sin and that I will only hold my confidence firm to the end if I take heed to the warnings and exhortations of the scriptures. Let us not be wiser than God. His way of keeping his sheep secure is through regular warnings against sin and exhortations to trust Christ. All of the warnings could be summed up in one particular warning Paul gave the Corinthians. Having reminded them of the disasters that befell their ancestors in the desert, he added, `So, if you are thinking you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!' (1 Corinthians 10:12.)

The permanent presence of the old nature guarantees that in the Christian life there is no victory without vigilance; in Thomas Watson's words, `A wandering heart needs a watchful eye.' We have seen this truth stated earlier in James's letter, but it needs to be underlined here. No man is so far advanced along the Christian pathway, so knowledge-able in the Scriptures, so experienced in Christian service, so prominent in church affairs, that he is beyond the reach of Satan or the treachery of his own heart. There are far too many who play with sin and presume upon grace, and do not realize that they can make shipwreck of their lives and die without forgiveness, even though they claimed to be Christians and belonged outwardly to a new covenant community. The deadly subtlety of sin should constantly drive us to our knees and to the vigilance that Paul warned Timothy to “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). If we fail to watch our lives closely, carefully, and uncompromisingly-negative consequences are inevitable for ourselves, our family, and our church. We often fail to watch our lives closely because we forget that within our heart lies a very dangerous enemy, an enemy dead set against the pursuit of God and godliness. Paul reminds us of the reality of this deadly opponent: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17). The biblical doctrine of sin reminds us that indwelling remains, and it is active, hostile to grace, and hostile to pursuit of godliness. How often do you think about the fact that you carry around in you a deadly companion? We are commanded to keep a close watch on our eyes precisely because of this ever active enemy within. The Puritan John Owen said, “Many men live in the dark to themselves all their days; they know not themselves. They know their outward estates, how rich they are, and the condition of their bodies as to health and sickness they are careful to examine; but as to their inward man, and their principles to God and eternity, they know little or nothing of themselves. Indeed, few labor to grow wise in this matter, few study themselves as they ought; on which the whole course of their obedience, and consequently of their eternal condition, does depend.”

III. THE DANGER IS SERIOUS `... if one of you should wander from the truth . . .' It goes without saying that no backsliding is trivial — and the reason it is not trivial is because it is a deviation from what James calls `the truth'. James is referring especially to the truth of the gospel. He uses the word “truth” that way in 1:18: “In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” He uses truth one other time, in 3:14: “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.” This shows that for James, truth is not just doctrinal knowledge, but also godly living. To turn from the truth is to turn ultimately, from Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Our postmodern culture rejects the idea of absolute truth; especially in the spiritual realm (Only 22% of American believes in absolute truth!). What is true for you is fine for you, but it’s not true for me unless I happen to like it and it works for me. It would be judgmental and arrogant for me to say that you’re wrong and I’m right. Rather, you can be right and I can be right, even though we hold to opposite beliefs, because spiritual truth is redefined as subjective experience or preference, not as objective reality. But the Bible asserts that there is absolute spiritual truth that saves the soul, and absolute error that damns. Paul told the Galatians that if they believed in a different gospel than the one that he had preached to them, they were damned (Gal. 1:6-9). In 2 Thessalonians 2:10, Paul mentions “those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” So the truth is not a subjective opinion or preference. It is something objective that must be believed if you are to be saved! The New Testament makes it clear that this kind of deviation is possible in matters of doctrine and moral behavior. In the matter of doctrine, we have the example of Hymenaeus and Philetus; Paul told Timothy that these two had `wandered away from the truth' (2 Timothy 2:18) by teaching that there would be no bodily resurrection. In the matter of moral behavior, Paul told the Galatians of those who `were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel' (Galatians 2:14). Taking these examples together, one clear principle emerges, and that is that every deviation from truth is to be regarded as extremely serious. There is no such thing as a small error, because truth is never small. What is more, we must underline in our minds the fact that it is possible to wander from the truth in an almost endless variety of ways. It is possible to wander doctrinally, by a failure to apply oneself to Scripture; it is possible to wander morally, by letting one's standards slip; it is possible to wander in one's identification with the church, by failing to contribute properly to its work and worship; it is possible to wander in terms of Christian service by becoming what Paul calls `weary in doing good' (Galatians 6:9); it is possible to wander in one's home life, by failing to discharge biblical responsibilities as a parent or a child; and it is possible to wander in the inner recesses of one's own soul and to find with dismay that the flame of one's love for Christ has died into a flicker. I fear that many in the church today have lost this sense of urgency about maintaining a consistent and true Christian walk. I fear that many in the church today have lost this degree of concern about the spiritual welfare of fellow Christians. We need to return to the more urgent view of James and the writers of scripture on this subject.

`We are living at a time when people are saying, "Doctrine does not matter. Brothers and sisters, doctrine matters greatly, for what a man believes will determine how he behaves. James knowing our human nature puts us on the look out for our own lives. When we lose the doctrine of the Supremacy of God, we live our lives thinking that God exists for us and to make much of us. When we turn aside from the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, we are soon left with no anchor and with very little assurance. We begin to question the purpose of things and lose the true perspectives of life. If we turn aside from the doctrine of the Lordship of Christ, it will not be long before we compromise our position as Christians and begin to live worldly lives. When the doctrine of sin is lost sight of, we begin to excuse ourselves for some of the things we do, we justify, rationalize, and minimize its seriousness, and our ethical and moral standards are lowered and the work of the cross is dishonored. When the reality of the doctrine of hell is passed over and the doctrine of universalism is substituted, we miss the true meaning of Christ's death and lose any compassion we may have had for the dying souls of men. When we neglect the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, then we begin to work in the energy of the flesh and our power in service is lost. When we fail to recognize the doctrine of the meaning and function of the church, we become sectarian and treat it as if it were a religious club. When we treat scantily the doctrine of prayer, we go to battle without any weapons, thus losing the fight against the adversary of our souls. And when we do not study the doctrine of sanctification we become content with second-rate, mediocre, Christian living. So I may go on. We cannot expect our lives to be right if our doctrine is wrong.'

CLOSING THOUGHTS What a subtle and serious danger of which James speaks! We must remember that there is no standing still in the Christian life. Either we are advancing towards salvation, or we are drifting away towards destruction. “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away… how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1, 3). There are two possibilities here in this passage: Either we give heed to the Word of the Lord or we drift away from it. There is no sitting still in the river of indifference. Its current runs downstream to the falls. Hebrews 3:12, 14 warns us, “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God” We must be wary of self deception. We must stay alert and vigilant. Never stop watching your life! Let us listen, learn, and love truth. Let us make living the truth our priority. If you don’t watch you heart and life closely, you are surely in danger. If you don’t watch you’ll weaken and drift. So are you watching? Are you watching closely? The reality is that we cannot watch ourselves by ourselves. And that my friends is why we need one another. God has in His wisdom designed the discerning and loving eyes of others to help me to persevere and stay on course. We’ll look at this next week.