The Prayer of Allegiance

Welcome

Well, good morning friends! Welcome to Lifepoint. If we haven’t met yet, my name is Dan and I serve here as the teaching pastor for the Worthington Campus.

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If this is your first time here…

Series Set-up

Today, we’re finishing up the New Testament letter of James.

And I’ll say this from the beginning - todays passage is a challenging one. You will absolutely have questions - many of which we just will not have the time to get into today. James makes some pretty confusing comments about prayer and healing that depending on how you understand him could be taken as anything wildly naive and belittling to spiritually manipulative and abusive. So there are some landmines here.

But…I think as we carefully consider his words, we will not only see that James may not really be talking about exactly what we think he’s talking about…we’ll actually walk away with a much more beautiful description of what it means to be fully known and received. Not just by God, but by our community too.

So if you have a bible with me, meet me in James chapter 5. James 5. Let me read the passage.

James 5:13–16 ESV

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.

The Elephant in the Room

Now, some of you just had internal alarm bells go off.

Did James just promise if we pray hard enough, we’ll never get sick…or that enough faith guarantees a cure?

More than that, look again at v. 16.

James 5:16 ESV

16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another…that you may be healed.

Why did he jump from medicine to confession?

Why link sickness with sin?

Is he saying that all sickness is caused by sin?

Absolutely not.

Jesus himself makes this clear in John 9 when he says a man's blindness had nothing to do with his sin or his parents' sin.

We cannot fall into the trap of thinking every cold is a judgment. Let me be clear: Cancer is not caused by unconfessed sin. If you are sick, it doesn't mean you are hiding something.

However, James is acknowledging something that modern medicine affirms, but we often forget: We are whole people. We are not just bodies. We are not just souls. You and I are a complex union of both.

And James understands that sometimes, the sickness we feel in our bodies isn't caused by a virus we caught; it’s caused by a weight we are carrying.

Doctors call it 'psychosomatic'—which doesn't mean 'fake.' It means 'mind-body.' It means that the stress of living a double life, the crushing weight of hidden shame, and the toxicity of isolation can actually break our bodies down.

James is suggesting that some sicknesses aren't caught from a germ; they are grown in the dark.

Introduction

To really feel what James is talking about at the end of his letter, I want to take us back to 17th-Century Boston - the Puritan era - in the pages of the classic novel, The Scarlet Letter.

You may remember this as the book you were supposed to read your sophomore year, but like me, didn’t.

Let me recap.

A young woman, Hester Prynne, stands on a scaffold in the center of town. She has given birth to a child out of wedlock, and the strict religious community forces her to wear a scarlet letter 'A' for “Adulteress” on her dress so everyone knows her shame.

The other character is the town's beloved pastor, Arthur Dimmesdale. He is young, poised, and eloquent; talked about as the holiest man in Boston, and seems to be on a meteoric rise in prominence in the colonies.

But he has a secret.

He is the father of Hester’s child.

Here’s the tragic irony: Hester Prynne wears her brokenness on the outside. It’s hard, but she lives in the truth.

But Arthur Dimmesdale hides his brokenness on the inside.

He keeps preaching. He keeps leading. He puts on a mask and is tragically successful at maintaining the image of perfection.

But a strange thing happens. While Hester grows stronger over the years, the Dimmesdale begins to waste away. He grows pale; becomes weak. He clutches his his heart with a physical pain for which no doctor can cure.

And yet through the book, we discover his pain is not from a virus, but the secret. He is the loneliest man in Boston, because he’s admired by everyone, but truly known by no one.

And that right there is one of the reasons why this book has been so moving to those who really read it. Because at some level, all of us know the crushing weight of guilt and shame.

All of us.

See, in many ways, I think James 5 is written for us “Arthur Dimmesdales” in the room. For those of us who are weary…worn out…and tired of holding up a mask.

And yet, the invitation we will see in this passage is that unlike the overly rigid framework available to Arthur Dimmesdale—a suffocating culture of performance where admitting weakness meant losing everything—God actually welcomes us to drop the mask both with Him and others.

He invites us to practice vertical transparency and horizontal vulnerability.

And James’ point is that true allegiance to Jesus practices both.

So if you’re not there yet, open with me to James 5:13.

I’ll pray, and we’ll get started.

PRAY

Vertical Transparency

Alright, let’s get started.

The first thing James talks about is God’s invitation to vertical transparency.

What do I mean?

Look with me again at v. 13.

James 5:13 ESV

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

He brings up these two extremes with his questions: Are you suffering? Are you cheerful. But he’s really aiming at everything in between; every from suffering to being cheerful.

Which, all by itself, I think is really interesting because James is implying that following Jesus will include the full range of human experience. It will include moments of the greatest joy - and the deepest sorrow.

And his point is that there is a response we can have with God no matter where we are at on that spectrum.

Look at the end of v. 13 again.

James 5:13 ESV

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

In the original language James is writing in, which is Greek, not English - it’s the word ψάλλω. Actually, it’s where we get the word “Psalms;” that collection of prayers and songs from the Old Testament.

And that word choice is essential. If all he wanted to get across was that we should go about singing a nice little song - there are other ways he could have said it. But instead James uses the one word that would take us right to the Psalms - all of them.

It’s the Psalms that give us language for how to pray, when we don’t know what to say.

In anger - we find permission from God to be honest about our anger like in Psalm 137.

Psalm 137:8 ESV

8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!

In frustration, even frustration with God, we find permission to be honest about it like in Psalm 13.

Psalm 13:1 ESV

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

In grief, depression, and isolation, like in Psalm 42.

Psalm 42:3 ESV

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”

And in thanksgiving, joy and relief as in Psalm 34.

Psalm 34:4 ESV

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

See, in a few short words, James calls out the full range of what we can experience in the this life and says in all of it, God invites us to bring back to him what he already knows to be true of us. In fact, when you think about it, God does not just tolerate our emotions, He has taken them and protected them in the language of prayer through the Psalms!

Simply put: James’ command to sing praise - is a command to be honest.

Because God welcomes a vertical transparency. Where we can be fully transparent with Him about what is going on in our own lives.

And here’s the key - it’s not because He doesn’t already know. It’s not that God doesn’t know I have a tendency to “get a bit heated” on the way to school if things aren’t really going on my schedule. And it’s not like he doesn’t know when we actually feel on overwhelming sense of gratitude for a way He has blessed us.

It’s that there is something deeply relational about voicing these things it to Him…not to inform, but share with Him. It’s like when my youngest son, sits down to share his day with me. Like i’ve already gotten the play by play from Courtney - I know what was on the family calendar for the day - but I love getting that moment when he shares it with me.

PAUSE

And yet, here’s the central paradox: While God welcomes a vertical transparency, nothing about this process is natural.

In fact, every human instinct we have—every story we tell ourselves—tells us to do the exact opposite: to turn and hide.

There is a reason that in the earliest stories of the Bible, Adam and Eve, after disobeying God, do not rush to share that experience with Him. They don't run to the Father. They run to the bushes. They realize they are naked, and they hide.

That primal instinct is powered by shame.

And shame is a powerful and isolating storyteller.

Again, shame is why a book like The Scarlet Letter has remained so powerful over the last 150 years… because shame resonates with us all. It is the unwelcome friend that lurks somewhere in us all.

Shame makes us believe we need to hide our failures and first polish our flaws before we have any kind of interaction with God.

And in The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale knew this shame well. He felt that turning to God required him to be better than he was. His suffering was rooted in this terror. The ultimate expression of his agony is this:

'If I were an atheist…I might have found peace long ago. But as things are with my soul... all God’s finest gifts have become instruments of spiritual torment. I am most miserable!'

He is saying: 'My faith doesn't bring me comfort; it brings me terror. Because I know God sees me, and I am terrified that if I am truly found out, I will be destroyed.'

See, Dimmesdale is trapped in a vertical silo. He is talking at God, but because he is hiding from everyone else, he is left alone in the echo chamber of his own shame. He cannot hear the voice of grace; he can only hear the voice of his own condemnation. He can stand up and share week in and week out about the Good News of Great Joy - to share about the forgiveness of God through the work of Jesus…and yet in his own mind, this is Good New of Great joy, for everybody else.

And again, I wonder if there are more than few of us Arthur Dimmesdales in the room?

I wonder if you know what it’s like to both celebrate and believe the Gospel and yet still be utterly convinced that you need to hide.

Now, to be clear: God's forgiveness in Christ is completely sufficient for our standing before Him. The Cross settled the debt of guilt.

But God knows that the deeper battle is not just against guilt; it is against the isolation that perpetuates shame. To truly break the power of that loneliness—the weariness that was killing Dimmesdale—we need more than a whisper to heaven. We need a word spoken back to us on earth.

We need a brother or sister to look us in the eye, acknowledge the mess, and still say, 'I love you, and I am praying for you.'

That is the necessary step to receive the healing. That is why James immediately moves to the second, difficult invitation: Horizontal Vulnerability.

Horizontal Vulnerability

Look with me starting at v. 14.

James 5:14–15 ESV

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.

Now, again, I know what this sounds like - the same kinds questions we threw out right at the beginning:

What does sickness have to do with sin? How much faith exactly do you need to have to be healed?

And, listen, I’m not dismissing those questions - nor am I saying that the bible doesn’t teach God’s ability to miraculously cure someone from their sickness. I believe hat absolutely happens!

I’m saying that I think James is has something specific in mind that that we may too easily overlook.

Look at the word sick. It shows up twice, right?

Interestingly, while it looks the same to us, in the original language, James uses two different words. Words that generally means something more like “weak,” “fatigued,” or “exhausted.”

James isn't just talking about someone with a fever. He is talking about the person who is worn out. He is talking about the "Arthur Dimmesdale" who is spiritually and physically exhausted from the weight of the mask.

And notice what James says to that person. He doesn't say, "Try harder." He doesn't say, "Have more faith." He says: "Call for help."

There is a moment where you are too weak to pray for yourself. There is a moment where the shame is too heavy to lift on your own. And in that moment, James says the church is designed to carry you.

The Prayer of Faith & The Promise of Saving

And look at the promise in verse 15.

James 5:15 ESV

15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up….

Again, we need to be careful.

Is this a guarantee that if the elders pray, the cancer goes away?

If we’re honest, we know that doesn’t always happen. We have all prayed for people who didn’t get better.

Look at that word “save.” In the New Testament, it’s a massive, umbrella word.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes it means Physical Rescue (a cure). But it always means Ultimate Salvation (Resurrection).

James is promising that when the community prays for the weary, God will answer. Sometimes, in His mercy, He restores the body now. But always, in His faithfulness, He raises the person up eternally. The prayer of faith anchors us in the certainty that death and sickness do not get the final word.

Curing vs. Healing

But then... James shifts his focus. He moves from the physical crisis to the relational crisis. Look at verse 16.

James 5:16 ESV

16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

This is the pivot. In verse 15, the result was sōzō (Rescue/Saving). In verse 16, the result is ἰάομαι (iaomai)—Healing.

And this brings us back to the "Elephant in the Room" I mentioned earlier.

Why does he link confession to healing?

Because James is making a distinction that we desperately need to understand: There is a difference between being Cured and being Healed.

Curing is the removal of symptoms. It happens to the body. It is often temporary.

Healing is the restoration of wholeness. It happens to the person. It is the repairing of the breach between you, God, and your neighbor.

And here is the hard truth: You can be Cured (physically healthy) but remain Unhealed (isolated, hiding, and tormented like Dimmesdale). And, you can be Uncured (physically dying) and yet be completely Healed (at peace, known, and loved).

James is telling us that while we pray for curing, we must practice Horizontal Vulnerability for Healing.

The Terror of Being Known

And the mechanism for that healing is Horizontal Venerability - it’s Confession.

And again, everything in us resists this!

"In a completely backwards way, Vertical Transparency (telling God) even feels safer because God is invisible. But Horizontal Vulnerability (telling you) feels dangerous.

Because if I tell you who I really am... if I tell you about the addiction, the failure, the anger, the doubt... YOU are right here... you are face to face... and you might reject me.

And so we find ourselves in a Catch-22!

We feel a deep sense of shame... we bury it and carry it in the margins of our lives—hating it and wanting nothing more than to get rid of it! And yet, all at the same time, we are so desperately afraid of rejection that we keep it to ourselves.

At one point, Arthur Dimmesdale describes this torture perfectly:

“I wish I had even one person—friend or foe—who saw the real me and knew I’m not the saint they praise but the worst of sinners. Just being known truthfully by someone would keep my soul alive. Living under everyone’s praise while hiding my guilt is empty and soul-killing.”

And so, like Dimmesdale, without confession, we stay sick. We hide in the silo. And we’re still lonely."

I want to pause and acknowledge how impossible that sounds. To the person holding a secret right now, the idea of telling someone feels like emotional suicide. Your heart is racing just thinking about it. That is normal. Shame convinces us that being known is the same as being destroyed. James isn't asking you to do something easy; he is asking you to walk through fire.

But to this fear, James says: Take the risk.

Because something supernatural happens when we bring our dark secrets into the light of community.

When you finally say the thing you thought would make me stop loving you... and I don't leave... When you confess the mess, and instead of judgment, you receive prayer...The power of shame is broken.

The "Energy" of the prayer James talks about in verse 16—the "effective" prayer—starts to flow. The blockage is removed.

Now, if you know the end of the book, you know Arthur Dimmesdale died young.

He wasn't cured.

But at the very end of the book, when he finally climbed onto that scaffold and confesses to the town—when he finally stopped hiding—he’s healed.

James invites us to stop the torment before we die. He invites us to drop the mask, not just before God, but before one another. To be a community that is so secure in the Gospel of Jesus that we can be safe for the brokenness of people.

The Gospel of Being Known

So, how do we break that Catch-22? How do we find the courage to be vertically transparent and horizontally vulnerable when the risk of rejection is so high?

We have to look at the Cross.

Because on the Cross, we see the ultimate act of Vertical Transparency and Horizontal Vulnerability. Jesus was stripped, mocked, and humiliated—exposed before the world in Horizontal Vulnerability. And at the same time He cried out the rawest, most honest prayer in the history of the world: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"—Vertical Transparency.

In that moment, Jesus allowed Himself to be fully known—seen in all the shame and sin of the world that He carried—and He was rejected. He took the rejection that Arthur Dimmesdale feared. He took the rejection that you fear.

And because He took the rejection, we get the acceptance.

Pastor Timothy Keller often put it this way:

"To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God."

See, the Gospel is the news that you are far more flawed and broken than you ever dared believe... and yet, you are far more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than you ever dared hope.

That reality is the only thing that makes the church safe. We don't confess to get God to forgive us; we confess because God has forgiven us. His grace covers us, so we don't have to cover ourselves.

When that Gospel moves from your head to your heart, the Catch-22 is broken. You realize: I have nothing to hide, because I have nothing to lose. My verdict is already in. I am the Beloved.

And that—and only that—frees us to be a community of healing.

So What: A Community of Grace

So, what do we do with this?

James ends his letter, and we are ending this series. How do we actually become a community that heals rather than hides?

I want to offer two pieces of very practical wisdom. And I want to change the order from how we usually think about this. Usually, we tell the person hiding to "get brave." But before anyone can be brave, the environment has to be safe.

So, I want to start with the Community—the hearers.

For the Community: Be the Covering

Look at the very last verse of the book, verse 20:

James 5:20 (ESV)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.

This is our instruction. When someone takes the terrifying risk of practicing Horizontal Vulnerability with you, how do you respond?

The temptation will be to try and fix them. To stand above them—unbroken and wise—reaching down to pull them up. But friends, you are not the Savior; Jesus is. You are not the Judge; God is.

Your job is to Cover them.

And we don't cover them by hiding the sin or pretending it didn’t happen. We cover them by stripping away the shame. And often, the most powerful way to do that is not to offer your strength, but to admit your own weakness.

One pastor and writer, Henri Nouwen, taught that as followers of Jesus, we follow a wounded healer, and therefore we become "wounded healers." We don't heal from a position of power; we heal through our shared wounds.

So when someone confesses the mess to you, you listen. You look them in the eye. You say, "Thank you for trusting me." And then, you offer the two most healing words in the English language: "Me too."

"Me too. I know what it is to struggle. I know what it is to need grace. You are not alone in this."

See, when you admit that you are standing on the exact same level ground at the foot of the Cross, the hierarchy dissolves. The isolation breaks. You aren't a doctor treating a patient; you are a brother or sister reminding them that while this sin is part of their story, it does not define their story.

We have to turn the light on in the house so it’s safe for people to walk in.

For the Hider: Find One Safe Person

Now, if you are the "Arthur Dimmesdale" in the room—the one holding a secret—I want to speak to you.

I know the idea of being known feels impossible. To the person holding a secret right now, the idea of telling someone feels like emotional suicide. Shame convinces us that being known is the same as being destroyed.

James isn't asking you to do something easy; he is asking you to walk through fire. So, we need to be wise about how we do this.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re doing a mental scan of your contacts and coming up blank.

You’re thinking, "Dan, I don’t have that person. Everyone I know is either too busy, too perfect, or too judgmental."

And if that’s you, silence feels like your only option.

But it’s not.

If you don't know who to go to, you need to go looking. But you have to know what you are looking for. Do not look for the person who has it all together. Do not look for the person with the best advice.

Look for the person with a limp.

Look for the person who is quick to admit their own mistakes. Look for the person who talks more about God's grace than their own achievements. That is a person who understands the Gospel, and that is the only kind of person who is safe for your soul.

So here is your specific, actionable challenge this week.

Identify one person who seems kind and unhurried. Maybe it's someone in your Life Group, a mentor, or even a casual friend.

Invite them into a low-stakes space. Get coffee. Go for a walk.

Test the waters. Do not start with your deepest, darkest secret. Start with a "10% struggle." Share a small frustration, a minor anxiety, or a recent mistake.

Watch their reaction.

If they regularly interrupt with advice… flag.

If they minimize it and change the subject…flag.

But… if they really listen? If they say, "Man, I struggle with that too"?

Conclusion: The Table of Grace

And this brings us directly to the table we are about to approach.

In a moment, we are going to take Communion. And I want you to see this differently today.

Communion is where we rehearse the better story. It is the weekly practice of reminding ourselves that we are a community of people who all need grace.

Think about it: There is no "VIP Table" for the people who had a really good week. There is no "Penalty Box" for the people who struggled. There is one loaf. One cup.

When we come forward, we are physically acting out the opposite of shame. Shame says, "Hide." The Table says, "Come."

Shame says, "You are too broken to be here." The Table says, "This body was broken for you."

So as the band plays, and as we prepare our hearts, let’s make this a moment of collective honesty.

If you are hiding, let the bread and the cup be the reminder that you are already fully known and fully loved. The price has been paid. You don't have to carry the weight of the mask anymore.

Let’s pray.