The Prayer of Faith.

We're continuing today in the section in my Bible called the prayer of faith. James chapter five.

It'll be on the screen. I'm reading out of the NIV. It says this in verse 13.

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. My brothers, if any of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this. Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

James 5:13-17

God, we thank you so much for your word today. We thank you for the invitation that we just received to come near to you, to come before you in prayer, to welcome you into our celebrations and into our suffering. We thank you, Jesus, that even today we feel the presence of your Holy Spirit, that is so near to us and is with us, that you long to speak to us and to draw us closer to you.

So we say, Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. And again, I invite all of you in your own way, would you say, God, I want to hear your voice. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Amen. These are the types of verses you're supposed to pray.

Praying prayers that are effective

But what does this really look like, for us to be people who pray prayers that are powerful, prayers that are effective, to be people who pray prayers of faith, when maybe you don't quite know or see how it's possible? Out of a place of vulnerability, every time I pray the answers are still not coming. And as you say these things and desire to see them, that these are good things, to fulfill your purpose and your calling and who God created you to be, that God has healing, that he has restoration, that he has good things in store. And on this side of eternity, we live in a world full of brokenness and darkness, and some of those things may not be fully met until we see Jesus face to face. This is the tension we hold as we dive into passages like this, where it's saying, come and pray boldly for healing and receive it. We know in faith that we will receive it at some point, to the fullness, yet we live in this time in between as we wait.

So what do we do in the meantime? James is saying we continue to pray in faith. We continue to be bold in our ask, saying, God, we want to see it now. We want the healing now. We know that your kingdom is here and that it's coming.

So we continue to pray and hope and have faith even when we don't see it answered. I was with my nieces last week, and the older one, who's four, said something to her little sister. I said something along the lines of, should we pray and ask Jesus to make it better? And she looks at me so seriously and says, no, I don't think he can do that. Her parents teach her about Jesus and they pray.

If we're honest, how many of us don't ask God for things because we don't really believe he's going to do it? How many of us still have those moments where we didn't even pray for that, because we don't actually know if we believe Jesus can do that? James is saying in this passage that there's no reason for us not to be praying and asking God for things. He's saying, come when you're happy, talk to me, bring that before me.

If you're sick, come to me, bring that before me. And maybe the point he's getting to isn't the physical healing we want, but that Jesus is near and present. Not us getting the job or the promotion or the thing we want that's going to fulfill us, but Jesus being near, in the presence of his Holy Spirit, in the process that fulfills us. It's his presence that we are after and that fulfills us. But we have the invitation to come and ask for the specific things we need and to bring it before the Lord.

Why, and when, do we pray

So we're going to break this passage down. Why, or when, do we pray? James is saying at all circumstances, at all times. We hear this in other places in scripture, in 1 Thessalonians, where it says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. So really, we should be talking to Jesus about everything, all the time.

Always letting him into the process. Now I want to address this: what does it mean to offer a prayer in faith? At first glance, verse 15 looks almost like a promise, that if you pray to be healed, in that moment you're going to be healed. And if we're not careful in how we read scripture, we can start to think that if we're praying for healing and not seeing it, there's something wrong with our faith. Do we not have enough faith?

What's happening here? This is where we have to look at the consistency and the wholeness of scripture. We have to allow scripture to teach scripture, and not pick one verse and decide that's it. What does this say? How is this representing God's heart?

We know another time we see someone pray for healing with a lot of faith and boldness was Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12:7, he says:

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me. For Christ's sake, I delight in my weakness and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

This is Paul, someone who was doing a lot for God, and we can fall into thinking there's a formula: if I serve God enough, if I sing, God, I'm going to give you my all, then I'll see this breakthrough.

Sometimes we're going to see specific prayers answered on this side of eternity. And sometimes we won't. Paul was preaching the gospel at massive levels. He was giving his life for the sake of Jesus Christ. And he had this thorn in his flesh. He pleaded with God three different times. And God's answer to him was, my grace is sufficient for you. If I were Paul, I don't know that that's what I would have wanted to hear in that moment. But that is the truth, that his grace is sufficient for us.

And we think of Jesus himself in Matthew 26, recorded in the garden, pleading before he goes to the cross: Lord, take this away from me. The Father had purpose in that pain and that suffering. I bring this up today because I want us to recognize that if you are in a place of suffering, if your prayers are unanswered, that is not always a result of not having enough faith, or not doing enough for God. He pours out his love in abundance to us, not based on what we do for him, not based on us praying the right prayers, but because he is a generous, loving God. As we talked about last week, in patience and suffering, James's instructions there, we know that on this side of eternity there are a lot of things we don't have answers to. There's no clarity for why the pain, why the suffering, why the prayer isn't being answered.

So we need to hold space for both of those things to exist. This isn't easy, but it's necessary for us as followers of Jesus to recognize that suffering isn't always a sign of sin. Sometimes people live a terrible life, and we wonder how that happens. But what we do know is that Jesus heals and he restores. So we keep pleading, we keep asking, we keep coming honestly and humbly before the Lord.

The elders and the anointing oil

The next thing we see in this passage: if any of you are in trouble, pray. If you're happy, pray. In all circumstances, all situations, we come, we pray. And then he goes on.

If any one of you is sick, he should call on the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. Let's talk about the elders for a moment. What I love here is that first there is an initiative from the person who is sick, or happy, or excited, to come before someone and ask, acknowledging that sometimes we need someone else to stand in the gap and pray for us. What a reminder to remember that we are part of a family, and when we are asking and pleading and coming before God with things, we do not have to do it alone.

When we say yes to following Jesus, we are born again into a new identity and a new family. So we no longer have to sit back with our request in secrecy and silence, but we can invite people to pray with us. I want to talk about the word elder here. Occasionally in scripture it was used to talk about someone older, but only about three times is it recorded that elder meant someone who was older.

So essentially this was an office in the church. These were the people spiritually leading and shepherding the church. We look at the Old Testament, the New Testament, and today a lot of our church leadership words weren't in scripture in the same form.

Pastor is only mentioned once, in Ephesians 4:11, talking about pastors and evangelists and teachers and prophets. There isn't always a direct word for the roles we use now, but essentially elders were those leading the church, guiding and shepherding and spiritually leading it. So most of the time when we read the word elder in scripture, it's referring to someone in a place of office or leadership over the church. James is saying, come and invite these people to join you in prayer, to pray for what you're walking through. Then we get into the anointing oil. What's going on with the anointing oil?

Many of us come from different church backgrounds. Some of you grew up with this: anointing doors, anointing heads with oil. That was part of my upbringing. You knew it was time to get ready for something when my mom's friends came over with the anointing oil.

The first time we really hear anointing oil talked about is in Exodus, with Moses. This is after he'd been given the Ten Commandments, after he was on the mountain, and all the stuff with the golden calf. I want to read a portion of the scripture in Exodus 30. You can go back and read more if you want to study further. It says, the Lord said to Moses, take the following fine spices. And he gives a very specific recipe.

Five hundred shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much again, and more detail. Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant law, the table, and all its articles.

Exodus 30

This is before they're building the tabernacle. He's saying, I want you to anoint everything.

The altar of burnt offering and all its utensils and the basin on which it stands, you shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy.

Exodus 30

The word consecrate here means to be set apart and fully devoted. There's a duality in that. For some of us, it's easy to be set apart, to stay away from the world, to isolate, but it's also being fully devoted to Jesus and his mission. Being set apart doesn't mean I stop addressing the sin in my life.

God is giving Moses these instructions for the anointing oil during the forty days on Mount Sinai. These are detailed instructions, and at the same time, down below, the people are building the golden calf. God is saying, I have specific instructions for how we're going to live set apart and fully devoted, and we're going to consecrate it with this oil. And the people down there are bored, tired of waiting.

They build a golden calf to worship instead. But what we see is that this anointing oil was a way for God to prepare his place of dwelling, to prepare the people. There's a specific recipe here, but one thing worth pointing out: it was forbidden for common use. It was not something you could use all the time, and it could not be easily replicated.

I want to give a brief overview of what we see in the Old Testament: anointing oil was used to consecrate places, and it was used to consecrate people. We see this pattern with Aaron, next in Exodus 30, where he was consecrated and anointed with oil. The leaders were anointed with oil. The places were anointed.

It was used for preparing kings, for preparing prophets. In the New Testament, James talks about it when it comes to healing the sick. We also see it in the gospels, where the disciples anoint people as they pray for the sick. And Jesus was anointed by the woman at Bethany before his death, his resurrection, and his burial. There's a lot going on here, but essentially our recap is consecration, preparation. And anointing oil is a sign of submission to Jesus.

The Hebrew word for Messiah relates to rubbing with oil, to smear, to consecrate by anointing. The literal word for Messiah is the anointed one. So this idea of us symbolically anointing with oil, coming under that, is a symbolic sign of us being covered and submitted to the anointed one. It's also a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, oil was used to heal. It was used in cooking, to bind things together, and to soothe wounds, in the same way the Holy Spirit today is the presence of Jesus that heals, that binds us together in ways we never could on our own, comforts us, heals us. There's a lot of significance in oil. And when James tells the church to anoint the sick with oil in Jesus's name, he isn't inviting an empty ritual.

He isn't inviting a meaningless thing, or an Old Testament practice for its own sake. He's saying, when we come before the Lord in prayer, let's come under the name. Let's cover ourselves with the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that he is the one who heals, who comforts, who binds us together. There's nothing common about the work of the power of the Holy Spirit, and it's not something you can replicate. When we see God move in miraculous, specific ways and answer those prayers, we look back and think, nobody could make this up, nobody can replicate this. So do we need oil every time we pray? No. But it is a beautiful physical representation of us saying we're coming under the lordship, the authority of Jesus. We're coming under that preparation, that consecration, saying yes to that invitation.

Confession

The next thing he goes into, in verse 15:

A prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:15-16

What I want us to see here is the idea of confession. In scripture, confession was not something occasional.

Confession was a common practice. This was something people did all the time. We see it mentioned throughout scripture: confess, repent, confess your sins to one another. I want to go back to James chapter one, when we started this series, because this idea of confession can be one of the hardest things for us. And honestly, even as a church leader, I feel like we fail people at times.

Our need of repentance and forgiveness of sins. I love that it says, the Lord will raise him up. If he's sinned, he will be forgiven. Before he says confess your sins, he says, if you have sinned, you're going to be forgiven. So we have that hope.

We're not coming before the Lord in confession wondering, will I be forgiven, will I be redeemed, will I have hope and a second chance? The answer is yes, because of Jesus's death, and there is no shame in us coming before him and confessing our sins, repenting, and turning.

James 1 says:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.

James 1:23-25

The narrow path and invitation we have is to live set apart, fully devoted, consecrated lives. It takes us being willing to look into the mirror and not stay stuck in shame, but to see the kindness of conviction from the Holy Spirit, the kindness of being able to confess our sins to one another in community and to be changed. Today we're going to end our service in a time of prayer, inviting people to come forward and receive prayer from some of the leaders in our church. As I was praying over this, I felt the invitation from God that we are in a place where all of us need prayer for something today, or someone in our lives does, and this is a time and a space where we can practice coming boldly before the Lord. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable to ask someone for prayer.

It can be uncomfortable to walk into a room and sit down, the way you did to come to church today. It can be uncomfortable to sing songs of worship and raise your hands. It can feel uncomfortable to come to the front of a church and ask someone to pray for you. But following Jesus is not full of comfort. When we walk into a church, I want this to be a place where we're all on the same page, knowing this is the place where we practice.

This is the place where we can practice stepping out of our comfort zone, where we can practice going against the norm of isolation, inviting brothers and sisters and family in Christ to pray with us and stand with us in the gap. Because if we are going to live uncomfortable, sometimes being the only Christian in the room, we practice stepping out in faith together, so we have that courage and that strength. James is saying, come before someone and invite them to pray with you. Invite a leader to pray with you. He's talking about communal prayer, confessing our sins to one another, knowing that we all have areas where we've fallen short. When we come before God, it is both this moment of saying, here we are, and recognizing that we're not alone in it, and we pray with each other.

He says that it's powerful and effective, prayer offered with righteousness. But I want to address something else here, because at face value this might suggest that James is indicating a pattern where sin leads to suffering. I want to be gentle with this. Sometimes it is our own sin, our own poor choices, our own living outside what we know God has for us, that leads to suffering, for us or for others. Last week we talked about greed, pride, ego, an inability to see. That is a real thing, but it isn't always the thing. Sometimes we do have to look at what we're praying for and ask how we got here. It's important to reflect. Is there sin in my life?

Am I here because of areas in my life where I dug myself into this hole, or got myself here? There are consequences for our actions, but there is also freedom and forgiveness when we confess our sins. If we realize the things we're facing are a result of our sin, that's nothing to sit in shame about. It's an invitation to look into the mirror, say, Holy Spirit, show me, and then repent and turn and walk toward Jesus again, because he is near and he longs for our prayers to be effective and to see that healing. Some examples of this: Jesus suffered, but he was blameless and pure. Job, as we talked about last week, was seen as righteous before God, and he still went into a season of suffering.

Elijah, and praying for each other

So sometimes our suffering is self-induced, because of our sin, and other times it's for the purpose of God, things he's doing through us, or we simply don't know why it's happening, but we trust him in the in-between. I want to read on in verse 17, and next week we'll touch more on this:

Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth, and someone should bring that person back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

James 5:17-20

Elijah is being talked about in two different ways here, and we'll get into more of it next week. Essentially, at one point he's praying and God answers clearly. It points out right away that Elijah was a human being. He was an average person. Yes, he was used by God, obedient to God, and God moved through him, but it's an invitation: he was a human being, and look at the miracles that happened. He prayed and it didn't rain. He prayed and it did rain. Then it becomes an invitation for intercessory prayer, for us to stand in the gap and pray on behalf of other people, for those who are wandering.

Bring them back. Pray for those people to come back to the Lord. Pray for them to find in Jesus what they've been looking for everywhere else, or in everyone else. I love that James ends here, because once again he's reminding us that we are part of a family. So we should be praying, if we are sick, if we are suffering, if we have questions, if we need God to show up, and we should be praying when we're celebrating, rejoicing, and sharing with each other God's goodness, mercy, and grace.

If we know anyone who is wandering, if we know anyone who is suffering, then we should pray. We should pray. We should pray. Our takeaway today is that prayer is not a secret, solo, last-effort act. That's not how prayer was ever meant to be.

We should have times on our own, prayer at church should not be the only time you talk to Jesus. But it was never meant to be only, I'll go into my prayer closet and write in my prayer journal, and nobody will ever know my prayers. There's an invitation for us to invite people in, to see that it's not a last resort, but a communal lifeline, that we need prayer.

We need to be praying for one another. What do we do with that? First, we have to be honest enough to acknowledge the need, which sometimes we would rather avoid, filling the void instead of slowing down long enough to ask, God, what am I feeling right now? What do I truly need? I need to be honest.

If we need examples of honesty, open up the Psalms, and you'll see David and so many of the psalmists honest about their feelings toward God and toward other people. First comes a moment of honesty, then being humble enough to ask in community, to come under the authority of Christ, the anointed one, and say, this is scary, even when I'm in the car telling my friend, my heart hurts because these prayers aren't being answered, God, where are you? It's one thing to do that on my own, but it's humbling to bring it before someone else and invite them to pray with me.

When I say those things out loud, it gets a little scarier, and it starts to reveal the places in my heart where I'm lacking faith. I'm saying, I'm going to keep praying in faith, even when what I'm asking feels impossible. And I'm going to bring other people into this with me, so we can celebrate together when we see God come through, or sit in the suffering and the time in between as we wait and believe and hope for the day when Jesus redeems and restores all things.

Closing invitation to prayer

So here's what we're going to do today: we are going to close in a time of prayer. I'm going to invite you all to stand.

In a minute I've invited some of our leaders of the church to come line up here at the front. I felt the Lord saying that every single person in this room today needs prayer for something. I don't know what that is, and it may just be you and the person you share it with who knows, but I want every one of us today to have someone pray for them. If you already know what you need prayer for, you'll come to someone and say, will you please pray for this. Some of you may come and feel you have nothing specific, and you'll just say, pray a blessing, or I need a word from God, and the person praying for you will listen and ask the Holy Spirit if there's anything to say, maybe a verse, maybe a word, and they'll share it with you. We're going to end in a time of praying together. The first thing is to take a moment to be honest and acknowledge what we need prayer for, and ask the Holy Spirit to show us.

Then practice humility. If we are going to live this out, not just for our comfort, but stepping out to live surrendered to Jesus, this is a good place to practice. It's okay if you don't like asking people for prayer, or if talking to strangers is scary. That feeling doesn't have to lead you, but we can follow this invitation from James: would you be brave enough and humble enough to come forward today and ask, and release that you do not have to carry it alone, but receive the gift of community.

I've asked some of our leaders to come in a minute. As they do, I first want to take a moment to pray over our leaders. Then we're going to spread out, and once we're spread out, that's your invitation to come and receive prayer. If you don't have anything specific, you can say that.

They'll pray a blessing over you, and we'll come before the Lord together. Holy Spirit, we thank you for your word and this invitation. God, we thank you that you are near to us and that you welcome us to come with whatever we have. Lord, today we release that we don't have to carry this alone, that you are with us. God, we receive the gift of community, the gift of your church, the gift that we can come before you humbly and honestly, bravely, in faith, and ask, and that you love to answer and pour out your love and blessing on your children. God, would you have your way in this space. We surrender to you.