Sermon Tone Analysis

Pastoral Prayer

Last week we prayed each day, as the body for Yourself and Your Family that we would hide Scripture in our heart and so would our family in order to help others and share the good news of Christ with others.

Tonight we are praying for:

Neighbors, Church, and Classmates

Father,

The mercy of the cross and the miracle of salvation and the patience of your character are indescribable.

Our hearts are so dull to your stunning grace.

I plead that you’d restore to us the joy of our salvation.

Father only someone like you could not only think up the great rescue plan you sent your Son, Jesus on, but only He could perfectly fulfill the law and offer Himself as our sin substitute.

Your character, God, is holy.

You are completely separated from us, You are pure, You are perfect, You are distinct and different.

And because of this you cannot stand sin.

We are sinful people.

And so we praise you that you sent Jesus to rescue us from the weight and guilt and penalty of our sin.

And now we pray that you would create in us a sadness in our heart for the lost.

We want to mourn over our neighbors and classmates who break your good rule and law.

We pray that you would bring consequences upon the lost in such a way that it would awake them to a desperate need within their own soul.

We pray for our classmates who proudly deny you.

Those who mock you.

Those who knowingly hate you God.

We ask that you would move our hearts to speak with them about the weight of sin, the length of eternity, and the hope of the cross.

We want to be a body of students and adults who mourn over sin and share the good news of Jesus with the lost.

Give us an opportunity this week we pray in the precious name of Jesus Christ, and all God’s people say, “amen.”

Student Read

Psalm 51:12

A more important context for the admonition to pray is the trials that the community is experiencing.

The opening question of the paragraph, Is any one of you in trouble?, is lexically tied to the reference to the prophets’ “suffering” in v. 10. James thus brings us full circle at the end of his letter, back to the “trials of many kinds” that he introduced as a basic community problem in 1:2.

pray through trials

Taken together, then, the data suggest that the word has a broad application, covering trials of all kinds.

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Presumably, then, the prayer that he encourages here is for the spiritual strength to endure the trial with a godly spirit.

See and 12 and 5:7-11

Pray through good times

A reminder to turn to God is needed even more in times of cheer than in times of suffering.

James specifically exhorts the community to sing songs of praise.

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Giving praise to God, like our petitions for sustenance in times of trouble (proseuchesthō, “pray,” is also present tense), should be a regular part of our lifestyle.

Pray for the sick

But the usual view, adopted in virtually all modern English Bibles, that James is speaking here of physical illness, is overwhelmingly likely.

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Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2000), 237.

But perhaps the most striking parallel comes with the reference to “anointing with oil.”

Only once else in the NT is the practice mentioned, and then as a means of physical healing (Mark 6:13).

For the sick, elders are called to pray over them - elders, as a plurality.

Elders were those spiritual leaders who were recognized for their maturity in the faith.

Therefore, it is natural that they, with their deep and rich experience, should be called on to pray for healing.

They should be able to discern the will of the Lord and to pray with the faith that recognizes and receives God’s gift of healing.

At the same time, James makes clear that the church at large is to pray for healing (v.

16a).

Therefore, while not denying that some in the church may have the gift of healing, James encourages all Christians, and especially those charged with pastoral oversight, to be active in prayer for healing.

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What does James think that the anointing will accomplish?

Medicinal & Sacramental

But James’s insistence in v. 15 that the sick person is healed through “the prayer of faith” suggests that the anointing itself does not convey the grace of healing power.

We conclude, therefore, that “anoint” in v. 14 refers to a physical action with symbolic significance.

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As the elders pray, they are to anoint the sick person in order to symbolize that that person is being set apart for God’s special attention and care.

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On the other hand, the fact that anointing a sick person is mentioned only here in the NT epistles, and that many healings were accomplished without anointing, shows that the practice is not a necessary accompaniment to the prayer for healing.

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This prayer, James affirms, when offered in faith, will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up

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Thus the picture is of the elders praying “over” the sick person in his bed and the Lord intervening to raise him up from that bed.

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Certain preachers and writers make a great deal of this call for faith, insisting that a believer simply needs to have enough faith in order to receive healing from the Lord.

The devastating result of this line of thinking is that believers who are not healed when they pray must deal with a twofold burden: added to their remaining physical challenge is the assumption that they lack sufficient faith.

But this way of looking at faith and its results is profoundly unbiblical.

And, in James, at least, the prayer of faith that heals in v. 15 is offered not by the sufferer but by the elders (v.

14).

Are the elders, therefore, at fault when their prayer for healing does not bring results in a reasonable amount of time?

Would the healing have taken place if they had just believed enough?

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The faith exercised in prayer is faith in the God who sovereignly accomplishes his will.

When we pray, our faith recognizes, explicitly or implicitly, the overruling providential purposes of God.

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A prayer for healing, then, must usually be qualified by a recognition that God’s will in the matter is supreme.

And it is clear in the NT that God does not always will to heal the believer.

Paul’s own prayer for his healing, offered three times, was not answered; God had a purpose in allowing the “thorn in the flesh,” that “messenger of Satan,” to remain (2 Cor.

12:7–9).57

Note also 2 Timothy 4:20, where Paul mentions that he “left Trophimus sick in Miletus.”

The faith with which we pray is always faith in the God whose will is supreme and best; only sometimes does this faith include assurance that a particular request is within that will.

This is exactly the qualification that is needed to understand Jesus’ own promise: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:14).

To ask “in Jesus’ name” means not simply to utter his name, but to take into account his will.

Only those requests offered “in that will” are granted.

Prayer for healing offered in the confidence that God will answer that prayer does bring healing; but only when it is God’s will to heal will that faith, itself a gift of God, be present.

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Both confession of sins—precisely because sin can sometimes be responsible for illness—and prayer are necessary so that the healing of physical illnesses in the community can take place.

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On this reading of v. 16, James’s encouragement to the community to confess your sins to each other will have particular reference to those sins that might be hindering physical healing.

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This is the only verse in the NT that explicitly commands believers to confess their sins to one another, and it became the basis for the “rule” for small meetings in the eighteenth-century “methodist” movement.

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And while it is appropriate that those charged with the spiritual oversight of the community should be called to intercede for those seriously ill, James makes clear that all believers have the privilege and responsibility to pray for healing.

Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2000), 247.

Prayer, James wants to make clear, is a powerful weapon in the hands even of the humblest believer; it does not require a “super saint” to wield it effectively.

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James caps off his encouragement to pray (vv.

13–16) with an example of a “righteous man” whose prayer was “powerful and effective”: Elijah.

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One explanation for the unusual choice might be that James intends us to see an analogy between the sickness of a believer restored to health and the deadness of the land brought back to life and fruitfulness.64

See for the story of Elijah and the drought

Pray