AM 06-28 Restoring the Straying Brother

Text: James 5:19–20
Series: Living the Word: Faith in Action (James)
Date: June 28, 2026
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the end of this sermon, the hearer should be able to:

1. Explain why James’s language proves that a Christian can stray from the truth in a way that is spiritually fatal.
2. State the reward James attaches to turning a straying Christian back: saving a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins.
3. Distinguish the judgmental attitude that condemns the straying brother from the loving intervention that seeks to restore him.
4. Identify a brother or sister who appears to be drifting and commit to one humble, text-governed act of pursuit this week.
5. Recognize that the final burden of James is not merely hearing the truth, but bringing the wanderer back to it.

Thesis

When a Christian strays from the truth, love must go after him; and when he is turned back, a soul is saved from death and a multitude of sins is covered.

James does not end his letter with encouragement. He does not close with a blessing. He ends with a burden about the one who is leaving. The wandering member is not a sidebar at the end of the letter. He is the final burden of the entire letter. Everything James has said about faith in action comes to its sharpest point here: do you love your brother enough to go after him?

Introduction

1. James 5:19–20 is the final word of one of the most practical letters in the New Testament.
2. Two verses.
3. A straying Christian.
4. A duty to act.
5. The text addresses the covenant community: “my brethren.”
6. That means the people sitting in this room are responsible for the people sitting in this room.
7. The stakes could not be higher: a soul heading toward death, and brethren who must not simply watch if they know he is straying.
8. This text will not allow the wandering member to be treated as someone else’s problem.

I. A Brother Can Wander from the Truth (James 5:19)

A. A Christian can stray from the truth.

1. “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth” (James 5:19).

   a. The phrase “among you” places this inside the covenant community.

   b. James is not describing an outsider.

   c. He is describing a member of the body.

   d. The verb πλανηθῇ comes from πλανάω, meaning to wander, go astray, or be led from the right path.

   e. Straying often does not happen all at once.

   f. It is usually a departure, a direction, a slow drift from where the truth requires standing.

2. James does not qualify this or soften it.

   a. He does not say, “if it appears that someone has strayed.”

   b. He does not say, “if perhaps a brother seems distant.”

   c. He says straying is a real possibility for real members of the real church.

   d. The warning passages of the New Testament are not theater.

   e. They are live warnings for living people.

B. Straying carries a destination.

1. Verse 20 identifies the straying brother as a “sinner” whose path ends in “death” if he does not turn back.

   a. This is not careless language used to dramatize.

   b. It is a pastoral alarm.

   c. In this context, “death” reaches beyond ordinary physical death.

   d. James is warning about spiritual ruin — the fatal end of sin if the brother does not return.

2. The danger is precisely why intervention is not optional.

   a. Willful silence in the face of a straying brother is not patience.

   b. It is abandonment.

   c. A church that knowingly watches men drift toward death without acting has failed at the most basic level of love.

   d. Love does not stand at a distance while a soul walks toward ruin.

II. A Faithful Christian Must Seek to Turn Him Back (James 5:19–20)

A. Someone must turn him back.

1. “And one turns him back” (James 5:19).

   a. The word ἐπιστρέψας means having turned back, caused to return, or brought back.

   b. The action is active.

   c. Someone goes after him.

   d. James does not allow the church to excuse neglect by saying, “He knows where we are if he wants to come back.”

   e. Intervention may include prayer, honest conversation, patient pursuit, and plain speech about where he is heading.

2. The restorer does not go to condemn.

   a. He goes to recover.

   b. The goal is not to win an argument about sin.

   c. The goal is to win a soul back to faithfulness.

   d. Galatians 6:1 gives the required posture: “in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself.”

   e. Gentleness is not softness.

   f. It is strength governed by the goal of restoration.

B. The work requires humility.

1. The one who goes after the straying brother must remember his own weakness.

   a. The fallen brother may not be as different from you as pride wants to believe.

   b. “Each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted” (Galatians 6:1).

   c. Restoration must never be done from a place of superiority.

   d. It must be done from a place of sober love.

2. The manner of restoration matters.

   a. A harsh spirit may speak truth and still misrepresent the heart of Christ.

   b. A cowardly spirit may claim gentleness while refusing to speak truth at all.

   c. Biblical restoration avoids both errors.

   d. It speaks truth plainly.

   e. It speaks truth humbly.

   f. It speaks truth for the purpose of bringing a brother home.

III. A Soul Can Be Saved from Death (James 5:20)

A. Restoration carries eternal weight.

1. “Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death” (James 5:20).

   a. James wants the restorer to know what is at stake.

   b. This is not merely about attendance.

   c. This is not merely about a name on a roll.

   d. This is not merely about keeping up appearances.

   e. A soul is in danger.

   f. A brother is walking toward death.

2. The soul is saved from death when the sinner is turned back.

   a. The restorer does not possess saving power.

   b. God saves.

   c. God forgives.

   d. God restores.

   e. But James still attaches real consequence to the work of the one who goes after the sinner.

   f. A soul that was heading toward death is brought back because someone loved him enough to go after him and God granted the restoration.

B. A multitude of sins can be covered.

1. “And will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

   a. The primary reference is the sins of the restored brother.

   b. They are covered by God’s mercy when the sinner turns back in repentance.

   c. James is not minimizing sin.

   d. He is magnifying mercy.

   e. Restoration does not pretend sin did not happen.

   f. Restoration brings sin under the covering of forgiveness.

2. This is the crown of faith in action.

   a. A soul saved.

   b. Sins covered.

   c. A brother home.

   d. No church program produces a result of greater weight than this.

   e. The final act of faith in action is walking toward the one who is walking away.

Application

For the individual: Is there a name in your mind right now? A brother, a sister, who has stopped coming, grown distant, or appears to be drifting from the truth? Someone absent from the assembly, absent from prayer, absent from the fight for faithfulness? James says one person can turn a sinner from the error of his way. You do not need a program or a special title to care about a soul. You may need wisdom, counsel, and prayer before you go, but you do not need permission to love your brother. Will you be that person?

For the church: No congregation is exempt from the reality of straying members. The question is whether this congregation treats them as lost to follow-up or as souls to pursue. A church that writes off the inactive member as a paperwork problem has misread this text. Names on a list are souls. If removal from a roll ever becomes easier than pursuit, prayer, warning, and grief, something has gone wrong in our understanding of the church. James closes his letter here because the church that cannot restore the fallen has not understood what faith in action means.

For parents and the next generation: One of the strongest protections against a child straying is a home that treats faithfulness as non-negotiable and the church as genuine family — not an institution to attend, but a people to belong to. But when a young person does drift — and some will — they need to know that the church will come after them. That someone will call. That someone will go to them. That their disappearance is not quietly accepted. Teach your children what it means to belong to the body of Christ. And when they stray, do not isolate yourself as though the family must carry the burden alone. Let wise, faithful brethren help. Let shepherds shepherd. Let the church love them enough to pursue them.

Conclusion

1. James ends where the letter began: with faith that is visible and active.
2. The final act of faith in action is walking toward the one who is walking away.
3. A soul is in danger.
4. The text gives the duty clearly: turn him back.
5. The restorer will not always succeed.
6. The straying brother has his own will.
7. But the one who acts in gentleness and truth has done what God called him to do.
8. Go after the straying brother.
9. The soul you help turn back may be closer to death than either of you knows.

Invitation

If you are the one who has strayed — if you are here today having been away, or if you know in your heart that you have drifted from the truth you once held — James wrote these verses for you. The door is not closed. Repentance is still available. This congregation is here to receive you back, not to condemn you. Come back now, while coming back is still possible.

If you have never obeyed the gospel, the call is the same: do not leave this building straying from the truth when the truth is being preached to you today. Hear the word. Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Repent of your sins. Confess His name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins. Come now.

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