Let them pray! (James 5:13-20)

Introduction

In today’s message, we will be focused on the topic of prayer.

When thinking of prayer, I am reminded of the last time that I heard this word used very frequently in the media.

Pastor Greg and I were at a Bengals football game when a member of the Bill’s was hurt.

After a collision with another player, Damar Hamlin stopped breathing and had to be “brought back” on the field.

He was taken away in an ambulance.

Greg and I sat in the stands for about 45 minutes after that as the roaring stadium had quieted down.

I had never seen an NFL game paused for so long, let alone cancelled on the basis of an injury.

All kinds of gossip was going around the stadium before they ended up cancelling the game.

Some people were even saying that the man was dead.

As we were heading home and also during the days following the situation, I started noticing a theme.

Everybody was talking about they were praying for Damar Hamlin.

People in the media who would hesitate to even mention religion on any other grounds were all of a sudden religious and “praying.”

People on my Facebook who are not believers but wanted to show sympathy to the situation said they were praying.

At the near death experience of somebody that many people had never even knew existed before that night, people who don’t usually even pray, decided there was no better thing to do than pray for this man.

As Christians, are we a whole lot better about prayer than these people, some of whom don’t even profess the faith?

How many times have we told somebody that we would be praying for them and forgot all about it?

How many times has somebody said they would pray for us and we thought nothing of it.

I think the world has lost hope in the power of prayer, even within many of the Christian churches today.

The Bible say’s things like

Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Matthew 6:6 “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

1 Thes 5:17 “pray continually,”

The Bible places a great emphasis on prayer but my question for us tonight is do we also place emphasis on this powerful spiritual discipline?

The Text

English Standard Version Chapter 5

The Prayer of Faith

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

What is prayer?

It’s not hard to notice that this passage mentions prayer many times but before we really examine the passage closely, I think it would be wise for us to to take a look at what exactly prayer is.

Prayer is defined this way in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

“an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies”

The Bible is how God communicates to us, and prayer is how we communicate to God.

I think the real question is why should we pray?

If God has already decided the end from the beginning and everything always goes according to God’s plan, why do we even take the time to bring things to God in prayer?

Is praying to God about an issue i’m having going to change his mind?

The answer is no! Praying to God will not change His mind but it can change ours.

If God is already perfect and has a perfect plan for this world, why would we even want to change His mind?

Listen to what Ligonier.org says about prayer.

“Obviously, God does not need us to pray. The Almighty does not need us to accomplish His purposes. Nevertheless, God has appointed His people to play a key role in the outworking of His purposes. He has ordained that He will work through the prayers of His people, which prayers He has also ordained.”

We pray because God has commanded us to pray and works through our prayers to accomplish his perfect will in this world.

So there is a very important purpose in prayer which we will understand better as we look at our passage in James.

When to Pray

God has commanded us to pray.

When and under what circumstances should we then pray?

James tells us in verse 13 if we are suffering, we should pray.

If we are cheerful, we should sing praise.

I think its safe to say that if we feel we have hit rock bottom or are feeling like we are on top of the world, and every sort of feeling in between, we should come to God in prayer.

I think many of us are only inclined to pray when things are going bad in our life and neglect to praise God when things are going well.

We are quick to request that God take away or fix our situations when we are suffering but slow to praise Him for the wonderful works he has done in our lives.

I believe that the more we realize how much we need God everyday in this Christian life and how powerless we are to accomplish the things that he was told us to do, the more we will feel the need to call upon the Lord in prayer.

We can’t even trust our own efforts in opening our Bibles to read them without calling upon the Lord in prayer, let alone fighting the sin in our lives.

Paul had it right when he said to “pray without ceasing” because the work of prayer is never finished.

The Prayer for the Sick

We have established that our lives should be consumed in prayer from the best times to the worst and all between.

Next, we come to the kind of prayer that I spoke of in the beginning, the prayer for one who is sick.

James tells us that if anyone is sick, he should call for the Elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

We are called to pray without ceasing but when we reach this kind of issue, the issue of sickness, we should call upon the elders and let them pray for us.

The elders, when participating in this kind of prayer, are also called to anoint the one who is sick with oil.

Now you may wonder, why should I have elders pray for me if I’am sick?

Why cant I just go pick a group of people after church and have them pray for me?

And what is with the oil?

I believe there is a reason for all of this.

First of all why the elders?

An elder is a man known to be spiritually mature, also meeting certain biblical qualifications, responsible for the oversight and care of the people in the church.

If you had a brain tumor that you needed removed from your head and had the choice of the first year doctor or the doctor who has done this kind of work his whole life, who would you choose?

The smart answer would be the life-long doctor because he has more experience than the young doctor.

This is not to say that the young doctor couldn’t do the work but simply the other doctor is more experienced and mature in the work.

So as with the elder.

The elder is like the life-long doctor put in charge of the care of your souls in the church.

They have been set apart for this very task and here God commands us to have them do this work.

Now the oil is also an interesting thing.

I am not talking about the miracle oil that you saw on a late night infomercial on TBN or the stuff you saw the prosperity guys selling on their website.

The power is not in the oil but the power is in God.

In the Bible, anointing with oil is often used to set someone apart to God.

I believe the idea here is that with the anointing oil the elders are setting the person apart for prayer.

The oil has no power in itself nor the one praying but only God who saves.

That is important for us to understand.

Confessing your Sins to one another

Not only are we called to have the elders pray for us if we are sick but we are called to pray for one another as well.

Not only are we called to pray for one another but we are called to confess our sins to one another.

Sin in the life of believers can torment the soul to great degree’s, even physically such as sickness.

I probably use this quote more than any others but it is so true.

The Puritan John Owen says “be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

The Bible tells us over and over that sin brings forth death.

Not only spiritual death, but in some cases physical death.

In order to prevent sin from bringing us to the level of death or even great sickness, we are called to confess our sins to one another and pray for each other.

Is this something that you are doing in your lives?

In your case, the best people to confess your sins to would be your parents, a friend of the same gender, or a leader.

We know that God uses prayer to accomplish his will and James tells us confessing sins and praying for one another can bring forth healing.

Like I said, the sickness resulting from sin can be great or small, seen or unseen.

Sometimes a person can suffer from cancer for years before the effects are actually seen.

Same with the effects of sin.

We must attack it with confession and prayer while it is still small before it grows larger and larger and kills us.

The Prayer of Faith or the Prayer of the Righteous

We have been told to confess our sins to each other and pray and also in our sickness to go to the elders and have them pray.

James tells us why.

He says in verse 15, the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Then in verse 16b he says the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

We spoke of how sin can bring forth sickness but it is not always sin that causes it which is why James say’s “if he has committed sins they will be forgiven.”

Sometimes the sickness is not always a direct result of a sin from the person.

In John 9:1-3 we read “As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

In this case, the sickness was not a result of sin but was so the works of God might be displayed in him.

Either way, a result of sin or not, the Bible tells us that the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up.

This does not mean if we pray and the person is not healed that we did not pray in faith or also that our prayer has no effect because we are not righteous.

Sometimes it is the will of God that the person not be healed from their sickness.

Prosperity teachers like to tell us that its because we don’t have enough faith that we are not healed ignoring the fact that the Bible tells us that in this present world their will be suffering.

Jesus prayed for the cup of Gods wrath to be taken from Him but not his will but the Fathers be done.

This doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t have enough faith.

He prayed for Gods will and it was done.

Gods plan will always be accomplished and praying for Gods will to be done will always come back successful.

The prayer of faith is praying that Gods will be done and if its Gods will to save the person, the person will be saved.

The person will be raised up.

If the sickness is a result of sin, the person will be forgiven.

Example

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working, James says

To illustrate this example, James points to the prophet Elijah.

Elijah was a human being just like us.

Elijah prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain.

What we should understand in this example is that God is the one who stopped the rain and gave the rain, according to his will.

James points out that he had a nature just like us to show that we should not hold back from prayer simply because we are not as reputable as the prophet Elijah.

He tells us that regardless of being a prophet or simply one of us sitting here in the church, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

If we have been saved by God, we are considered righteous before God due to the work of Jesus therefore God hears our prayers and says they have great power as they are working.

on the other hand

If you are not saved, the Bible tells us that

Proverbs 15:29 “The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”

If you are saved, you can approach God in prayer with great confidence knowing that he hears us and works through our prayers.

Concluding the Letter

In wrapping up the letter, James writes:

English Standard Version Chapter 5

19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

The heart of this whole passage is having godly care for yourself and for others.

The elders praying for the sick.

Confessing your sins to each other and praying for each other.

Praying when troubled, praising when happy.

Now James speaks of caring for those who have backslidden or who appear to have fallen away.

He says whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

We as Christians should be on guard from wandering from the truth in our own lives and also be on guard for others who might be wandering from the truth.

The truth is, we don’t always know that we are wandering from the truth and it may not be visible on the outside for the world to see.

This is why it is so important as James say’s to confess your sins to one another and to pray for each other.

Be accountable to others so that you are not deceived by Satan who has deceived many.

Application

Of course it only makes sense that the application of this sermon is for us to pray, but also for us to be accountable.

If you are serious about living the Christian life, you must find people to be accountable with and to pray with.

I must confess, out of the truthfulness of my heart, that prayer is the spiritual discipline that I am probably the least sharpened in.

I desire much to be a godly man of prayer but I find myself not pursuing this as I should.

John Bunyan tells us that “Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.”

The sin that keeps us from prayer is most likely our unbelief.

The guy in the gospels tells Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Although many of us are believers, we don’t always walk by faith as we should.

A life full of prayer is a life of faith,humbling yourself before God, and relying on Him for your every need.

I challenge you in application to this sermon to be people of prayer.

In order to do this, we must be intentional or it will never happen.

Set a time aside every day for a time of prayer.

You don’t have to start big.

If you start off at 5 minutes a day, you are doing far better than no minutes a day.

As you begin to make it a habit, I believe you will find it quite enjoyable.

For me, its like going to the gym.

Getting to the gym is always the hardest part for me but once i’m there, I enjoy working out.

Also, if I don’t plan time to workout in advance, it rarely happens.

Set aside at least 5 minutes a day to dedicate to prayer.

Also, consider your friends when praying.

Something I would like to be better about is asking people if there is anything I could pray for them about, writing it down, praying for it, and following up with them to see how they are doing.

You might just see that God has answered your prayer.

Other than this friends, find someone to be accountable to.

I once heard this in a group that there should be a few brothers if you are a guy or sisters if you are girl that know everything about you.

This level of transparency will keep you accountable to others and also help to keep you from wandering from the truth.

Lets pray!