Bringing Home that Wandering Friend

Greetings again dear friends,
We made it to the finish line. This past Sunday, we wrapped up our 24 part sermon series through the book of James. It has been a blessed time together in the Word.

As we crossed the line, we were left with something a little unusual. The closing of James' letter was cut and dry, almost like a line in the sand. He didn't conclude with a sincere set of words that expressed certain emotions. Rather, it was a call to the Christian to get to work. Not just any work... but the work of bringing a wandering believer back home.

There is something quietly devastating about watching someone you love drift away from the faith. One day they are present, engaged, alive in their walk with Christ. Then, slowly or suddenly, they are gone. Maybe they stopped coming around. Maybe they are still physically present but spiritually somewhere else entirely. Either way, the distance is real, and it aches.

This is not a new problem. It is as old as the church itself. And if the closing words of the book of James tell us anything, it is that God has always been deeply concerned about the one who wanders, and He has always intended to use His people to go and find them.

Why People Wander
Before we can talk about bringing someone home, we have to be honest about why people leave in the first place. The reasons are too many to fully catalog, but two rise to the surface again and again.

The first is spiritual drift born out of apathy. It rarely happens all at once. It begins with small decisions, small distractions, small compromises. Eyes that were once fixed on Christ begin to drift toward other things. Questions about the resurrection creep in. Doubts about the sufficiency of Christ to forgive multiply quietly. Trust in the authority of Scripture erodes slowly, almost imperceptibly. None of these things announce themselves loudly. They whisper. And before long, a person who once knew the warmth of the gospel finds themselves somewhere cold and far from home, unsure of exactly how they got there.

The second reason is a shortage of godliness. Christians who do not regularly pursue holiness, who do not pray for it, who do not hunger for it, are far more vulnerable to being led astray. This is not a minor observation. It is a sobering one. The pursuit of Christlikeness is not optional equipment for the believer. It is the very thing that keeps our footing on the narrow path. Without it, the world's competing voices grow louder, and the voice of the Shepherd grows harder to hear.

The Greek word James uses for wandering carries the idea of being led into error, of being deceived into believing something false about Christ and His gospel. Wandering, then, is not merely physical absence from a church building. It is a movement away from the truth itself.

Who Goes After Them
Here is where the letter of James does something unexpected. After spending five chapters addressing trials, wisdom, the tongue, partiality, dead faith, wealth, prayer, and patience, James closes not with a warm farewell or a benediction, but with a charge. Go after the one who has wandered. Bring them back.

He does not explain exactly how. He does not provide a step-by-step method. He simply places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the believing community. The sons and daughters of God are the instruments of recovery.

This is both humbling and clarifying. It means that the work of restoration is not left to pastors or professionals alone. It belongs to every believer. It belongs to the friend who notices the absence. It belongs to the family member who senses the drift. It belongs to the one who was once lost themselves and remembers what it felt like to be found.

Paul's letter to the Galatians captures the spirit of this work well. In Galatians 6:1-2, he describes those who are spiritually mature going to restore someone caught in transgression, and doing so in a spirit of gentleness, watching themselves carefully so they are not also tempted, and bearing one another's burdens. This is not confrontation for its own sake. It is love with enough backbone to act.

And we do not go alone. The Spirit of the living God goes with us. He is the one who opens eyes, softens hearts, and draws wanderers back. He did it for us. He can do it through us for someone else.

There is a profound truth in the idea that God often uses the very seasons of difficulty we have walked through to equip us for the sake of someone else. The widow who could not understand why God allowed her to walk through grief with a husband who battled clinical depression may one day find that her story is exactly what someone else needed to hear. God wastes nothing. Not even our pain.

What Happens When They Come Home
The results of this kind of rescue are staggering when you sit with them long enough.
James tells us that bringing a wanderer back from the error of their ways saves a soul from death and covers a multitude of sins. Let that land. To be clear, only God saves. James himself has already made that plain throughout his letter. The gospel saves. God saves. Faith in Christ saves. But God, in His sovereign and stunning grace, chooses to use His people as instruments in that saving work.

Psalm 32:1 describes the one whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered as blessed. That word blessed carries the weight of deep, settled joy. It is the joy of a debt fully cancelled, a record fully cleared, a relationship fully restored.

And that restoration is not only vertical. It is horizontal. When a wanderer comes home, they are not merely reconciled to God. They are welcomed back into the family of God, back into the community of people who are loved by the same Father and bought by the same blood. This is not incidental to the gospel. It is part of it.

The Christian life was never meant to be a solo journey from earth to heaven. It was always meant to be lived in community, with people who notice when you go missing and love you enough to come looking.

Jesus said He would leave the ninety-nine to pursue the one. That is not just a parable about divine compassion. It is a portrait of what His people are called to reflect.

So think of the one. Pray for them. Go after them. The wanderer needs to come home, and God may have placed you in their life for exactly this reason.

Hoping you were blessed by this sermon series,
Bro. Tony