Finding the Lost

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — 2 Corinthians 6:14-16
• Hymn — Abide with Me (#159)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism Reading — Lord's Day 44, Questions 113–115 (Tenth Commandment)
• Hymn — Psalm 91: Who with God Most High Finds Shelter (#91B)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (#429)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: Finding the Lost

Scripture: James 5:19-20

I. Correction Is a Blessing to the Corrector

A. James closes his epistle abruptly, calling the church to restore wandering members — echoing the shepherd who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep

• Throughout the preceding five chapters, James has addressed various forms of wandering: love of riches, neglect of the poor, reliance on intellectual assent alone, sins of the tongue

B. The Greek of James 5:19-20 is intentionally ambiguous, allowing the blessings of covering sins and saving from death to apply to the corrector as well as the corrected

C. Failing to correct a wandering brother or sister is a sin of omission

• James 4:17 — "Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin"
• Ezekiel 3:18-21 — God holds the watchman accountable for failing to warn the wicked
• Acts 18:6 — Paul declares his innocence: "Your blood be on your own heads"
• Acts 20:26-27 — Paul innocent of all blood because he declared the whole counsel of God

D. The pattern for church discipline begins with individual members, not elders — Matthew 18:15-20

• Private sin addressed privately; the goal is restoration before elders are ever involved
• BCO Chapter 57, Question 5 asks members not only to receive discipline passively but to actively study the purity and peace of the church

II. Correction Is a Blessing to the Corrected

A. The effectiveness of correction is inseparable from the depth of relationship between corrector and corrected

• Correction received from someone who has invested, encouraged, and built trust produces conviction
• Correction from a stranger or someone who only engages to criticize produces hurt, anger, and distance
• Joel Beeke: even unfair criticism contains kernels of truth, but correction without relationship severs rather than strengthens

B. Before correcting, ask: Have I invested in this person? Have I built trust?

• If not, the first step is relationship — invite them to lunch, earn the right to speak
• Correction outside of strong bonds displays self-righteousness rather than selfless love

C. We need one another because we cannot clearly see our own sin — nor always see the good God is working in us

1. Friends can detect areas of sin in our lives that we cannot see ourselves
2. Friends can also remind us of God's grace when we are wrongly despairing
3. We need brothers and sisters both to correct us in the ditch of sin and to encourage us in the ditch of false condemnation

III. Correction Is a Blessing unto Eternal Life

A. The stakes of verse 20 are eternal — to bring back a wandering sinner is to save a soul from death

• This is not merely temporal, medical, or bodily work; it is eternal life-saving work
• Sin leads to death; Christ gives his people the privilege of calling wandering brethren back to the narrow path (Matthew 7:13-14)

B. "Cover a multitude of sins" does not merely mean the wanderer has many sins — it means sin spreads like gangrene when left unchecked

• Allusion to Proverbs 10:12 — "Love covers all offenses"
• Unchecked sin spreads through the whole soul and corrupts others

C. Correction blesses onlookers as well as the one corrected

• Possible allusion to the correction of Peter by Paul in Galatians 2:11-14 — even Barnabas fell under conviction; those sent from James would have been corrected as well
• 1 Timothy 5:20 — public sin rebuked publicly so that the rest may stand in fear
• Witnessing correction sobers the watching community

1. The corrected person may share their experience, convicting others in the same sin
2. The corrected person may later become a corrector, spreading the aroma of Christ

D. Closing exhortation: love one another's eternal souls — encourage in the ditch of false condemnation, correct in the ditch of willful sin — so that together we may share in the eternal blessings of Christ our great Shepherd who finds us and brings us all the way home