#11 - Maybe God Can

I - Asking Erin (out on a limb)

Y - We all avoid those kinds of “limb” situations if we can.

They are different for all of us, but the feeling is the same.

Workplace

People at your workplace are about to make a dumb decision...

You are mad a someone for something they said or did...

You need help and are afraid to ask...

You have done something wrong but you cant bring yourself to apologize...

You know a relationship needs to end...

Someone hurt you and you know you should say something...

You see someone else who needs help but you don’t know how to offer...

Your close friend is very sick and you want to visit but...

Your family member is in a care center or homebound and you know you should get over there but...

Calling a friend you are losing touch with...

God has been challenging you in some way but you cant quite pull the trigger...

giving

a new pathway

to commit to serve at church

Getting counseling for yourself...

Medical

Visiting a friend in the hospital

Getting counseling for your marriage...

Applying for a new job...

These things are so hard because you don’t know what will happen when you step out on that limb.

We are afraid to pull the trigger because who knows what is on the other side.

What if we confess our love...

Stand up to our boss...

Visit our friend...

and BAM, the limb cracks and we fall.

We are rejected.

Our boss yells at us.

Our friend doesn't want to talk to us.

G -

TRANS: This plays out in our spiritual lives too. As I wrestled with our passage in James this week I found myself wrestling with this going out on a limb feeling when it comes to FAITH and specifically the subject of prayer. The what if, the discomfort of going on on a limb hangs all over this passage. So lets wrestle a little together today.

Walk through Text

It starts out pretty safe

v.13

ok ok ok. Makes sense.

I can handle this.

James is listing conditions and his response in each circumstance.

troubled? - Pray

joyful despite your circumstances? - Praise

v.14 - 16

are you sick? Pray, oh wait.

here is where the tension comes in. Because James starts calling his readers out onto a limb.

It’s a limb for the sick person b/c asking for help...

It’s a limb for the elders (who are most likely not a formal “job” but the older more experienced people of the church.)

If you care about people and you take faith seriously, it’s a limb

It’s climbing out on a limb for us to even think about praying like that. Because it raises a question ( a few actually.) Questions that I have been wrestling with all week and that Christians have ben wrestling with for mileana. (we have come up with some pretty good ways of getting out of it.)

If this doesn't make you a little squeamish, i don't think you are reading it right. :)

And if

It brings up all kinds of issues. I think of...

I think of TV preachers amassing fortunes “healing” people with healings that look good on tv but rarely last longer than a few weeks or days.

I think of people who were told when they got cancer that it must be because of some hidden sin in their life. Or perhaps because they didn't believe in God hard enough.

When I read, “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” I think of times this verse has been used to hurt people who were already hurting deeply.

I think of well meaning people offering thoughtless words to suffering people in passing.

When I read this I think of people in my life who I have cared about that got sick. I think of the people I have prayed for that did not get better right away. And I think of people who walked away from God because they didn't get better. That still stay away from God because illness or other kinds of disasters have convinced them that God doesn't love them.

But if I am honest with myself these all boil down to one real question.

If James says, “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.”

“What i

What if it doesn't? (SLIDE)

Does it mean the sick person has hidden sin? (I have prayed with people damaged by that line of questions)

Does it mean the elders are not faithful or righteous?

What if you go out on the limb of asking for prayer AND praying for someone and things don't seem to get better?

I don't know about you but that question is enough to make me want to shut this book and go find something more encouraging to read.

But before you do… Lets take a closer look

(SLIDES (below)

First of all we should pay attention to what James seems to be saying, and not saying. He doesn't seem concerned with answering this “What if it doesn’t question.” Instead,

everything is phrased in the positive

James has spent most of the book acknowledging that suffering, trouble, tragedy, and persecution are a part of life on earth, a part of life that faithful Christians are not spared from.

The bible doesn't talk about this kind of healing often. In fact this description is the only place in scripture that it is formulated in this way. Paul speaks of the gift of healing, but it looks pretty different than this.

The way James describes “healing” could be interpreted more broadly that simple physical healing. In other words, God can heal in ways we don't see or understand.

James does seem to believe (alongside Jesus and most people at the time) That sin can be a cause or contributor to illness BUT NOT ALWAYS.

All of this is in the context of the Resurrection. the Raising Up promised to all believers.

All of that said i think there is still something for us here. I still think we are being challenged.

I dont think James wants that question to stop us.

Take a look at waht comes next.

Almost as if James is anticipating resistance, anticipating pushback. He clarifies with an example.

v.17-18

Now the first people who read James’ letter were Jewish Christians. And Jewish Christians knew their old testament better than Elsa knows Ice.

and Elijah is one of the bibles greatest heroes. When Jesus came the people that believed in him at first thought he might be Elijah back from the dead.

Elijah is the Yoda of the Old Testament. Wise and powerful. James describes him as “a human being as we are” but most of his readers would have thought of Elijah as someone special.

In addition to the rain mentioned by James. Elijah performed a bunch of miracles during his time on earth.

Drought -: Meal and oil multiplied Child restored to life Sacrifice consumed by fire Captains and men were slain by fire Rain brought Water of Jordan divided

Elijah lived his life depending on God and constantly going out on limbs of faith.

All of this is to say that James and his audiance knew that Elijah was not just anyone, he was no joe shmo.

So the question is did James make a bad choice in Chosing this example? Should he have chosen someone a little more approachable? Is this and perhaps this whole section some kind of mistake on James’ part?

No of course not!

Choosing Elijah tells us something BIG about this question, this passage.

If James readers alongside us are not too sure about this challenge of James. If they had any hesitation in going out on the limb this passage seems to be inviting us to. If they are hesitant to make themselves vunerable by praying in big and bold ways and hesitant to becomve vunerable in confession of their own sin and asking for help.

If they like us were hesitant to follow God out onto a limb.

By choosing this person as an example James is saying, you are no different than Elijah, Go out on that limb.

If Elijah responded as we do, if he hesitated nothing would have happened in his life.

At Bethel we are about Loving God, Loving Others, and Making Disciples.

According to James Disciples follow God out onto the limb.

When it comes to loving God and Others.

Disciples go out on the limb.

And James is saying, when you do. God wont let you down.

The result, the healing, MAY NOT LOOK how you think it will.

Elijah suffered during the drought he prayed for. It was not easy, but God was there.

The raising up may not look how you want. But we you go out on that limb god wont let you down.

Y - From What if God cant to maybe God can.

Transition: God’s word is calling us to step out and partner with God.

To listen to his voice like Elijah, and to take the oppertunities he puts in front of us. To pray for people who need prayer. To pray for God to work healing in miraculos ways, in ways bigger than we can know.

TO pray when we are facing struggles

and to pray when we are facing Joy

To ask for prayer when we are hurt or sick and to offer it freely and in faith. Waiting to see what God does.

I dont know about you but I have been asking waht if God cant for far too long. As we beging this fall togehter lets ask, what if GOD CAN.

What if God can bring Joy back into my marraige through counseling and prayer?

What if God can heal my relationship with my parents or kids?

What if God can

W-

“Can we open our minds to God and the possiblity that he can and does still work in our world, will we act on that faith. Will we be the kind of discipels that go out on the limb for others and even for ourselves.

lets pray togeterh.

James thinks that if we do that, we might just see the world like a true discipel.

Full of oppertunities to pray and partener with God.

Full of chances.

“Can we open our minds to God and the possiblity that he can and does still work in our world, will we act on that faith. Will we be the kind of discipels that go out on the limb for others and even for ourselves.

lets pray togeterh.