Sermon Tone Analysis

Heaven and earth meet when, in the spirit, someone calls on the name of the Lord.

And it means what it means and does what it does because God’s new time has broken into the continuing time of this sad old world, so that the person praying stands with one foot in the place of trouble, sickness and sin and with the other foot in the place of healing, forgiveness and hope.

Prayer then brings the latter to bear on the former.

Have you ever considered what happens when we pray?

We enter into the very presence of God

And the presence of God is a place where we are undone

If you remember when the Israelites saw the glory of God descend upon mount sinai they were greatly afraid

when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord he was undone

When we pray we come into the very presence and glory of God.

In the OT The Holy of Holies was the place where the glory of heaven came and dwelt on death.

In that place only did Heaven and earth meet - they were fused together.

And now, when we pray we likewise enter into the holy of holies where heaven and earth are fused together .

in prayer we stand as men and women with one foot in heaven and one foot on earth.

When we pray we pray with one foot in the place of healing, forgiveness and hope, and one foot in the in the place of trouble, sickness and sin.

And there are many examples of the power of prayer in the bible

James looks at the example of Elijah

Example of Elijah in Prayer

He prayed boldly

he prayed big prayers

He prayed the bible (blessings and curses)

He prayed as one in the presence of God himself.

And when we recognize what happens when we pray, that we are coming into the throne room of God it makes sense why we bow our heads, why we may extend our hands.

For we come into the presence of God not because of our own merit or righteousness, but we come into the throne room of God because Jesus has cleansed us, washed, us forgiven us, and has brought us into his righteousness as adopted sons and daughters

And this is why jesus teaches his disciples to pray by saying saying, “Our Father who art in heaven”

***Piper Example of coming into our bedroom.

This is how we are to come to God, boldly as his child

And if this is the case when should we come to God in prayer?

And this is, in part, what James address in James chapter 5

Prayer in All Things

James tells us to respond to suffering with prayer

How often do we respond to suffering with anger or indulging in self pity or complaining?

what kind of suffering?

sickness?

Sadness?

Relational suffering?

Emotional Suffering?

James tells us to respond to cheerfulness with songs of praise

How often when things are going well do we forget to praise God, do we forget to thank him for the blessings he has given us?

James commands that we pray through the entire spectrum of emotions, whether low or high, at the bottom or the top, in the pits or on the pinnacle.

Either prayer or praise is ALWAYS appropriate.

Prayer for the Sick

before we look at what james says as far as praying for the sick and how to do it, we need to have a biblical understanding of sickness and healing and what they represent.

We see throughout the Scriptures that God is a healing God.

And this prescription is directed both at the sick, and at the elders of the church.

He healed Naaman from his Leprosy

He healed the women with the issue of blood

He healed the blind, and the lame

He even raised people from the greatest sickness, which is death.

When we look at sickness and healing throughout the bible we see that they are symbolic of greater realities.

Sickness symbolizes Sin

This is not to say that, as some do, that personal sickness is always a result of personal sin.

The Bible goes out of its way to unhinge that idea.

Example of Job

Job’s friends kept asking Job, what sin he had committed to bring about his sickness and suffering.

To which Job replayed that he had not sinned.

Man blind from birth -

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him”

And there are times when sin can lead to sickness like when the Corinthian church took the sacrament of communion without regard to the fractured relationships within the church.

So not all sickness is due to personal sin, however...

So not all sickness is due to personal sin, however...Sickness is always symbolic of sin, from the the slightest cough to terminal illness.

Sickness is always symbolic of sin, from the the slightest cough to terminal illness.

Sickness symbolizes the curse of sin, the brokenness of creation, and the rebellion of the created order.

When God created the world He pronounced it good.

there was no sickness, no pain, no sin.

The agony of watching a loved one suffer was not part of God’s original creation.

Yet, when sin entered the world God’s good creation was cursed.

And the curse of sin introduced a demented reality where sin sickness and death pass to all people.

And the curse of sin affected not only humans, but all of creation.

We see in the bible that the curse of sin not only results in physical sickness of people, but creation itself is sick and is withering under the curse of sin.

So every time we see grass withering, or flowers fading, or tree’s falling, we are seeing the results of sin on the created order

And every time we have an ache or pain, a cough or sneeze, cancer or diabetes, we are seeing the effect of sin on the created order.

Not only does sickness symbolize sin, but in sickness we are more prone toward sin.

When sickness comes we can quickly doubt the goodness of God

When sickness comes we can become angry and bitter toward God

not only those, but those who are close to those who are suffering.

Now, if sickness symbolizes sin in the bible, we also see that healings symbolize salvation in the bible.

From all the way through to the end of Revelation we see that the hope of the gospel is that Jesus will come and heal that which sin cursed.

Israel longed for the day when the land and the people would be healed

Paul says that creation itself waits with groaning for its redemption

Malachi prophesied about the day when the sun of righteousness shall rise and there would be healing in its wings.

And we see Jesus fulfilling this prophesy when he healed the woman with the issue of blood.

she touched the wing of his garment and was healed.

The healings in the bible always symbolize the salvation that comes in Christ.

And it is a holistic salvation, its not just a spiritual salvation, but it is a physical salvation as well.

T

When Jesus healed the paralytic in , the Pharisees were outraged because Jesus connected the physical healing with the forgiveness of sins.

And why would Jesus do this?

Or perhaps the better questions is why were the Pharisees so upset with this connection?

well perhaps because they saw the spiritual and the physical as two distinct things -

you have the physical world, and you have the spiritual world, and the two shall never meet.

Now if we are honest, we also struggle to connect the physical and the spiritual

We have physical things like sickness and health, and you have spiritual things like temptation and Joy.

And we view these as mutually exclusive

And in Christ we healing, a physical thing,

Look with me at v. 14

What does it mean to anoint the sick with oil?

Why does James tell the elders of the church to do this?

Some say its an early form of medical attention, oil having medicinal purposes in scripture was often used as a medicine to bring about healing for the sick.

However, this is not what James is saying.