Prayer that Works

Our theme for 2026 is “Embrace Transformation”

We are in a series on the Book of James called “Faith that works.”

Faith has to work.

It’s not enough to believe it, you have to do it.

Real Christianity is not faith versus works - it’s faith and works.

It has to change you in fundamental ways so that you embrace transformation.

That transformation from faith to faith that works is a process.

We know it is a positive spiral of turning our tests into endurance.

And endurance leads to completion which is also wisdom from above.

The key is to turn towards God - put things in the propre perspective.

Put God in His rightful place at the center of everything.

And the spiral turns around.

Last week we said this:

We must live our lives in the light of the coming Kingdom.

Don’t live like you know everything and that this life is all there is!

There is going to come a day when God will bring justice.

If you haven’t converted your capital into heaven’s currency your going to find yourself bankrupt.

God’s kingdom requires a different kind of posture - patience and letting God do His work.

God’s Kingdom values faithfulness and the aspects of our humanity which reflect the image of God.

Today we are going to talk about prayer - more specifically prayer that works.

If faith is going to work, then prayer has to work too.

James opens the book talking about our attitude and the positive spiral and he closes by talking about prayer.

Prayer that works incorporates everything we have learned so far about faith.

In chapter 1 James tells us that we should pray for wisdom form God.

James 1:5 ESV

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

We need to practice praying in every kind of circumstance, not just when we are in trouble.

Just as faith is a process, prayer is also a process.

We don’t just pray when we need help, but we stay in constant communication so that help is also right there when we need it.

And when we are in trouble, we may also need the prayers of others to come around us and lift us up.

James also says that we should pray with confident assurance, not vacillating in our prayers.

James 1:6–8 ESV

6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Prayer is powerful! And because it is so powerful we ought to use it carefully and wisely.

Just as faith is expressed in words that carry power and meaning, prayer is also meaningful and powerful.

Pray like you meant it! - How would your prayers be different if you really believed in the power of prayer?

Later James says that we pray amiss when we pray out of our own fleshly desires.

James 4:3 ESV

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Prayer is not just random words spoken to the sky in case God may hear them.

It’s not like writing a letter to some famous person where you feel like you won the lottery if you actually get a reply.

Just as faith requires, not only believing in God, but putting God at the center of everything we do-

Prayer is direct communication with God, and done properly it draws us closer to God and aligns us with his purpose.

That’s right, prayer has purpose, and one we discover it, we become agents of God’s purpose in the earth through our prayers.

And that is a summary of what we will be learning today - if you are following along on your bulletin insert we have some blanks that you can fill-in as we go along.

And if you are watching online, click the link to our e-bulletin. there are blanks that you can click on there that fill in themselves - or you can just follow along with the slides.

The practice of prayer.

We don’t just pray when we need help, but we stay in constant communication so that help is also right there when we need it.

James 5:13–15 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.

Is anyone in distress? - James asks.

What a loaded question!

We walk into church on a Sunday morning and ask a rhetorical question:

“How are you doing?”

The obligatory answer is “Fine, how are you?”

Have you ever actually told someone how you are really doing?

They probably give you a look like “TMI!” - “I didn’t really want to know!”

What do you say to a person who starts pouring their heart out and you just meant to ask a simple question?

When James asks - he has a ready answer - let’s pray!

Oh, and just in case you really are doing fine - the answer is the same.

Prayer is two-way communication.

Philippians 4:6–7 ESV

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Pray about everything - do you do that?

I think many times we wait until things are really bad before we pray about it.

And how many times has someone shared something with you and you say, “I’ll pray for you” - but then you forget to actually pray.

I wonder how many times we just think about praying instead of actually praying?

I wonder if thinking about praying actually counts as prayer? - God knows your thoughts, right?

Not every prayer needs to be formulated into words.

Psalm 55:17 CSB

17 I complain and groan morning, noon, and night, and he hears my voice.

Ok. so there’s that - God hears even our groans - but do we hear him?

What is prayer? Is it just talking to God or is it also listening to God?

Is it just asking God or is it also receiving from God?

Is it just when things are bad or is it also when things are good?

Let me ask you this, how does it go in any other relationship if your communication is only one-sided?

Like if you only talk and never listen?

Or if you only complain and never say anything good?

Yeah - that’s what I thought!

Why should your relationship with God be any different?

God want’s to hear from you when you are in distress.

And he also wants to hear when you are doing really well.

He really wants to hear the answer to the question, “how are you doing?’ - whatever that answer may be.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 ESV

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

You see, even if the conversation stars out bad, talking to God about it helps put it in perspective and can turn it around.

Just knowing that God is working in the situation can change our attitude.

Even if its not what God would want - knowing that He can use it to make us better people means it’s still good.

Remember the spiral in chapter one? When we bring God into our downward spiral, he turns it around.

We do that through prayer.

And we shouldn’t do it alone - prayer is meant to be a group activity.

Get others to help you pray.

The first reason prayer doesn’t alway work is because we fail to actually pray - or if we pray, we fail to listen.

The other reason prayer may not seem to work is because we try to do it alone.

James encourages his readers to get help with their prayers, especially when you are down.

When you are not at your best, it can be hard to know how to pray - that’s when it’s good to have someone praying with you and for you.

If someone is sick or depressed (or perhaps both) you don’t know whether to pray, ‘Lord heal me” or “Lord take me home!”

Sometimes people get under the weight of self-pity or condemnation and you don’t know how to pray a faith-filled prayer.

I read somewhere once - “If you don’t have faith - borrow mine!”

I have faith for you, that God can bring you through this situation.

I have faith that God wants to heal you.

I have faith that God will restore you.

God has given me the eyes of faith to see something in you that you can’t see in yourself - and I can pray for what I see.

Calling for the elders of the church means calling for people who have been around long enough to see what God can do.

Anointing with oil is invoking to power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

This is where the church begins to function as the people of God, calling forth God’s redemptive purpose in the world and in each of us.

We are not just answering the question, “how are you doing?” - but moving from there to ask, “what is God doing?”

That’s when our prayers become, not just a tool in our hand, but an instrument in God’s hand.

The power of prayer.

Pray like you meant it! - How would your prayers be different if you really believed in the power of prayer?

James 5:16–18 ESV

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.

James goes on to make several statements about the power of prayer.

The first has to do with the nature of prayer and the second with the power of prayer over nature.

When we tap into the first part it releases the second.

Would you like to have a more powerful prayer life?

Then follow along - you are about to learn how.

Prayer is revealing.

Along with prayers for healing, James mentions confession as a function of prayer.

Those of you who grew up in a Catholic church - you remember confession - you confess you sins and then you are absolved by the priest - perhaps after some penance.

Unfortunately we don’t have a strong theology of confession in the Protestant church.

I have even heard some people say that we shouldn’t confess our sins to one another, but only to God.

1 John 1:9 ESV

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Yes, you can confess you sin directly to God and be forgiven - it’s true that you don’t need a priest to absolve you of your sin.

Jesus does that.

But James tells us that there is an added benefit to confessing our sin to another person - a brother or sister in Christ.

The benefit he mentions is healing.

James 5:16 NLT

16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

How does confession produce healing?

It is because we may believe that no one can know what we have done and still love us.

Hearing a confession and loving a person anyway is healing!

It is a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ.

We also find that sometime confession goes right along with prayers for physical healing.

There can be root causes of unforgiveness, guilt or shame that are contributing to the illness.

Sometimes as we are praying, the Holy Spirit reveals these issues.

We can restore one another gently because we know God’s grace and mercy in our own lives.

Expect God to reveal things when we pray.

To reveal things in our own hearts and to show us how to pray more specifically for others.

Prayer is supernatural.

This should go without saying, but James includes it and probably because it needs to be said anyway.

Expect the supernatural when you pray!

He starts out by saying that Elijah was a man like us.

Why does he say that?

Because Elijah also did extraordinary things!

He prayed and it didn’t rain - then he prayed and it rained.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who can control the weather.

We predict the weather and we adapt to it - we don't control it.

Elijah had the audacity to pray for what we cannot control.

But he did so out of obedience to God.

And therein lies the key to supernatural prayer.

If you pray, not just to tell God how you are doing.

but you take the time to listen.

And if you let God reveal what is really going on.

And you also have a sense of what God is doing.

Then you can pray in obedience to God’s will and heaven will back you up!

I say heaven will back you up - but it’s really not about you - you are just partnering with what God is already wanting to do.

And that is the key to supernatural prayer!

When you know that, it changes the way you pray.

Romans 8:26–27 NLT

26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

So you start out just praying whatever you know and is on your mind to pray.

But somewhere in the process of prayer, you begin to get the mind of God as He shows you how He wants you to pray.

You start praying the prayers that God gives you to pray.

It may not even be words that you can understand.

And if you are praying God-inspired prayers back to God, you must know that God is going to do what you are praying!

That should be our goal when we pray, to get to the place where we are praying the prayers that God gives us to pray.

The purpose of prayer.

Prayer is direct communication with God, and done properly it draws us closer to God and aligns us with his purpose.

James 5:19–20 ESV

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.

Is James still talking about prayer? Or has he changed the subject?

Is there something missing here? Is he suddenly talking about preaching the Word or evangelism?

Just a sentence ago he was talking about healing the sick, confessing and forgiving sins.

And all of that was happening in the context of prayer.

I don’t see any indication that the subject changed, so he must still be talking about prayer.

The real purpose of prayer is not to tell God what to do but to let God change our hearts!

Prayer turns us back to God.

Real prayer - powerful prayer - is getting the mind and heart of God.

That usually means we need to change in the process.

You have heard the saying, “prayer changes things!”

It’s true that prayer changes things - but what most people don’t realize is that the first thing prayer changes is you!

Prayer doesn’t work when you pray thinking that everything else will change but you.

Prayer that works prays that God will restore all things beginning with the one praying.

God help me to have your perspective.

God give me patience, help me to endure.

God give me eyes to see people the way you see them.

Those are powerful prayers inviting God to change you so that your heart and mind are aligned with His.

Jesus taught us to pray like that.

Matthew 6:9–10 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

If we are going to pray like that, it means that we are going to have to learn what “as it is in heaven” means.

We need to first learn what it means to be holy.

We are going to spend much of our time just learning to know God and understand how He operates.

We are going to find out that before God can change our circumstances, He wants to change us.

He wants to make us more like Him.

Then we can start to pray heaven down to earth.

Because we are starting to live more like heaven on earth.

Heaven is already beginning to manifest in our hearts.

We have a better grasp of His will and it enables us to pray with confidence.

1 John 5:14–15 ESV

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Imagine having the confidence that your prayers are answered because, “Hey, it wasn't my idea - I’m just praying as the Holy Spirit leads!”

We are not using God to try to accomplish our own agenda.

We are fully surrendered to His.

Imagine what God can do with a person like that who prays!?

Prayer is also intercession.

I believe that is exactly what God wants to do!

He wants us to pray -first so that we turn back to Him.

But then He wants to use us to pray the prayers that will turn others back to Him.

If God could entrust us with specific instruction on how to pray for others - just imagine what that could do!

1 Timothy 2:1–2 CEV

1 First of all, I ask you to pray for everyone. Ask God to help and bless them all, and tell God how thankful you are for each of them. 2 Pray for kings and others in power, so that we may live quiet and peaceful lives as we worship and honor God.

Do you get the picture? God is restoring the world, drawing lost people back to Himself and He wants to use us to help do it.

We do that first and foremost through prayer and intercession.

We let God change us so that He can change the world through us.

This is what James was leading up to throughout the whole book.

Faith that works is a faith that will change the world, but which begins with my own heart, mind and attitude.

Remember where we started with “Consider it pure joy...?”

This is why - because when you surrender to God’s purpose it leads to even greater things.

It starts to spiral upward in a positive direction.

And it leads to transformation, not just for ourselves but for the world around us.

Faith that works begins with prayer that works.

It works because it is centered on God’s plan and purpose.

Questions for reflection:

How’s your prayer life? Do you pray or just talk about praying? When you pray, do you also take time to listen? Is prayer a regular thing that you do or just when you think you need it? Is there ever a time when you don’t need it?

When you pray, do you pray with confidence or do you wonder if God even hears you? Do you ever ask God to show you how He wants you to pray? If you began praying God-inspired prayers back to God, how would that impact your confidence in prayer?

What do you think about intercessory prayer? Is that just for some people or is it for everyone? Have you ever prayed intently for a person or about a situation? Have you found that often, in the process, God changes you?