Good morning and welcome in today.
Today we are going to look at some scripture from James chapter 5 but before we do that I wanted to ask you something.
The other day we were talking about fishing and I know that there’s a lot of you out there who like to go out on the lake in the winter time. You put up an ice house or fish house on the frozen lakes.
If you have a portable Fish House up on the lake a lot of you are going to bring with you a 12 volt battery for the purpose of using electronics while you are out there fishing.
For many many years I have used a 12 volt battery not only in my pull-behind but I like to use them in my home as well for lighting and other purposes.
In order to run my lighting I need to change direct current to alternate current to make it illuminate the lights that I have.
Many years ago I picked up something that is called an inverter.
What you do with it is you attach it to your 12 volt battery and it changes direct current to alternating current.
With this little inverter, as long as the battery has enough juice in it, I can run a lot of different things in my home or in my campers.
What that little inverter does is changes the current and the flow. Like a beaver that makes a dam that obstructs the flow of the lake and the water changes its direction, each of us need to be a part of helping others to change their direction. I’m not saying that to be obtrusive to others but to help them and to love them. We all need a little finesse. Look at the love that Jesus showed us at the cross. Show that love to others and help them.
if somebody is professing to be a Christian I mean if you are really professing to believe and have faith in Jesus Christ God wants all of us to go out there and to help other people to change.
I’ve said many times before that I used to work at a school.
One of my main functions and purposes at that school was to help some children that honestly, nobody wanted to help.
These were children who people had basically given up on. Children who people had actually turned their back on. In them perhaps I saw a lot of myself. I was just like them, just another sinner who needed love and help.
I feel it is our responsibility and our duty as a Christian or a parent to turn somebody else from the error of their way to the way of Christ Jesus.
If you want to be able to help people and to get them to change from their wrong belief to what’s right from the scriptures, then you have entered into ministry.
I do believe with all my heart that this is what each of us is called to do in our lives. Help others! Each of us is like an inverter.
Our function and our purpose should be that we want to help people to change the current. Our desire should be to help change lives and ultimately to change hearts and our minds.
We need to point them to the God who loves them.
Make no mistake about it, and I want to make sure that you all hear me today,
God cares for us. He loves us. God’s love for us is not the issue.
The issue is that we need to turn back to Him and to follow his way. We need to return to him and to love him back. We need to be reconciled unto him. That is what the Apostle Paul felt was his ministry.
What we need to do is be able to get people to change, to change their way of thinking. We need to give people a spiritual inverter. We need to give people God’s word. We need to give people God’s truth.
It changes all of us from direct current to alternating current.
We each need to be a part of helping others and convert them to the truth.
James 5:20 says… let him know that he which converted The sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Converting The sinner simply means to get them to turn back to the way of Christ Jesus.
I learned that in my my own life working with the kids at the school.
I learned that life is about trying to encourage and to help other people to stop doing the wrong things that we do and trying to get them to do what’s right. It basically comes down to helping them to change their direction and their course.
Converting The sinner means to get somebody else to change their direction.
Have you ever been driving down a highway somewhere, maybe on a busy Interstate when there is a lot of traffic, and all of a sudden the traffic starts to slow down and then a sign says that there is construction for the next 15 miles?
You drive a little further and eventually there is a sign that says the road is closed.
You see a man standing there was pointing you off into a different direction.
All of these cars in front of you are starting to file off the main interstate and slowly onto a small backcountry Highway, to divert you from the construction. You came off a huge broad interstate and now you’re on a little Back Country Road and the scenery is really quite pretty and wonderful. It’s so quiet and enjoyable and maybe even takes you back a few years to when you used to live like this.
This is what a Christian needs to do. We need to help other people and dye them back onto the neural Highway. We need to be able to tell people, not because we are better than them, but to guide them away from The sins and the things that they’re doing that are wrong. Each of us need to help each other to get back on that narrow path. Isn’t that really what a friend truly does?
All of us are sinners. All of us have come short of the glory of God. No one of us are better than any of the others. Each of us can come boldly to the throne of grace to get more forgiving by the Lord Jesus Christ.
For an example look at the Apostle Paul. He was once known as Saul. He fought against Christianity. He finally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and was forgiven. Look at what God did with the Apostle Paul’s life. People were talking about what he was doing. The person who was once trying to destroy Christianity was now preaching the truth. Forgiveness through Christ does amazing things.
God has a purpose for each of us.
All of us have to go through this change. We each have to undergo a spiritual inverter and to change from our past to what God wants us to become.
It’s a change from holding onto the wrong beliefs and believing the truth. I’ve said this for many many years, but when I was a kid I went to a summer school. I think it was a vocational summer class that was about computers. This was years ago before they had computer monitors and video games like they do now.
This was back when they used teletypes. In that class I learned about flowcharts for the very first time.
For some reason, flowcharts were interesting to me and they stuck out in my mind.
In a flowchart you had a square. It asked you a question to which you could either answer yes or no.
Depending upon what your answer was it took you to a different box or took you a completely different direction. Actually later on in life I found some kids books that I gave to my children that did the very same thing.
I guess that has always stuck in my mind that our lives are a matter of choices that we make. We need to choose which way we are going to go. We need to choose if it’s the right way or the wrong way. We need to choose if it’s God’s way or the world’s way.
Nobody can make your decision for you except you. But like a flow chart the choices that we make can take us off into a completely different direction. That was always something I tried to teach the kids when I was working at the school. I tried to teach him that choices mattered.
One of the kids that I helped with at school used to punch me in the face. He used to give me black eyes and that’s the truth. I would tell him, you have a choice today to either keep your hands in your pockets or to explode on somebody else. You have the choice today whether you’re going to do something right with your life or do something wrong.
As a Christian believer we stand in the middle of those choices for other people. What we do is we are pointing them in the direction that they need to go. That’s because you love and care for them. A Christian is supposed to point people in the correct direction.
Really what better thing can you do with your life then to point people to the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
If you can get other people to believe the truth, you are going to hide the sins that they are involved with. You will be able to help them to find forgiveness.
What did Jesus do while he was here upon the Earth?
He was leading people from darkness to the light. He was leading people from believing a lie to believing the truth. He was showing others the way to heaven.
Although each of us are sinners and we make our own mistakes along the way, we need to help each other out. We each have our own problems. We each have our own weaknesses but we need to help each other out. That’s the way I was with the kids at school. I never left their side. That’s what it means to convert the sinner from the error of his way.
Take a look at the holy scriptures about how Paul helped Peter. Peter was sitting with only the Jews. The Apostle Paul corrected him. Paul didn’t do that because he didn’t care about him. Paul cared about Peter alot. He simply told Peter the truth.
That is what we are supposed to do.. is to help each other out, to speak the truth in love with each other, even with our own neighbor .
I’ve told my family for many many years, those who correct you obviously care about you. I believe where there is no correction that there’s really no love.
God gives us his holy word and it is his correction that helps us to realize that we are in error.
It helps us to turn away from the wrong things that we are doing to the right. It helps us to make a course correction.
Once again the Apostle James teaches in James 5:20 let him know that he was converted the center from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and show hide a multitude of sins.
What does it mean to convert somebody?
One of the definitions says to bring over from one belief to another.
It’s about getting somebody to change what they think. It says to change from one form or one function to another. Another synonym is the word turn.
Each of us needs to make a turn in our lives. It is a change. It’s a turning of our course or Direction like a u-turn. Like I already said with the flow charts it can be a big difference in your life when you choose the right direction.
Each of us have things that have bern placed in our.memories, things that have happened in our lives. We remember them and I think that they can be there for a purpose.
I was driving one day on a really heavily traveled road one time down in New Mexico. Eentually the traffic came to a complete dead stop.
There was so much construction going on I think we sat there for about 20 or 30 minutes. It was so hot that day that my wife and child rolled down our windows. We were starting to sweat in the vehicle because we had an old van and couldn’t afford a good vehicle that had good air conditioning.
I can’t exactly remember who it was if it was a sheriff, police officer or construction worker who approached my van. He came right up to the window and I said how are you doing sir?
He looked at me and he said to get around all this stuff he needed me to follow this car that was coming up.
Immediatly a car came up right next to our van and on the back of it he had a huge sign that said follow me.
You know, there’s certain moments in your life that you never forget. I followed that little car it led me through the potholes. It led me through the construction. I continued to follow that little car
It let me past those big bulldozers and huge earthmovers. It led me past the backhoes. It led me past all those dangers that I would have eventually encountered on my own.
We finally came to the end of the construction site. Herein lies salvation in the Christian Life.
Each of us are in the process of construction. Things are being torn up and ripped up out of our hearts. If we follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus, eventually we are going to end up where he wants us to be…he is going to take us home. Just like Construction Jesus is changing us. We want to be a part of helping others to change.
Each of us need to follow. We need to follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a Christian, we need to learn to point others to Jesus. As a Christian we need to turn people to Christ and the things that he taught. As a Christian we need to love others that much.
Remember God does not want anybody to perish. If anybody teaches you otherwise that is a lie. God does not want anybody to perish. He doesn’t want anybody to be castaway from his presence but what we need to do is to turn people to Christ so they can get forgiven for their sins.
God wants us.
Do you remember the old saying years ago… Uncle Sam wants you?
The truth is this,… the Lord Jesus Christ wants you.
He wants you to believe upon him. He wants you to believe upon the things that he taught. He wants to save you. He’s already laid down his own life at the cross to redeem us for that purpose.
Tell others about his love. If you care anything about me, please do this because I would really appreciate it very much.
Jesus came to this earth to save sinners. It is our duty as Christians to become a part of helping other people on that road to salvation because if you can get somebody to convert and to change from the error of their way, you have become a part of saving their soul. Are you ready to become a part of the big change? Are you ready to become a part of helping others. Do care and love about other people so much that you are willing to help them and to point them in the correct direction. That my friends is converting the sinner from the error of the way.
Point people to Jesus and help them to become part of the big change.
That’s it for today. Lord willing we will talk some more tomorrow. love you all
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 