Sermon Tone Analysis

ETS: James told the church in Jerusalem to come together in prayer for one another in all aspects of life

ESS: Christians are called to come together in prayer for one another in all aspects of life.

OSS: Christians would be unified in prayer for one another.

Introduction:

Carissa and I struggled to get pregnant.

We had tried to have a baby for over a year and I was starting to entertain and accept the thought that we may never have any biological children of our own.

And then one day, Carissa went to a doctor’s appointment to help us better understand why she wasn’t getting pregnant, and low and behold, she was pregnant!

We started going to her appointments to see how the baby was doing and at every single appointment I experienced something I had only ever previously experienced a few times before.

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul tells the church at Thessalonica to “Pray without ceasing.”

Now I don’t believe Paul literally meant to never stop physically praying there, but at these doctor’s appointments I found myself literally incapable of stopping my prayer.

I would sit in the waiting room and in the exam room and continuously pray until we got in the car and left.

The entire time I would pray, “Lord, let me hear his heartbeat.

Let me heart his little heart beat.

If it be your will, keep his little heart beating!”

We had waited so long for this little one to come into our life, and we were so afraid that it wasn’t going to happen.

Now that God had granted our request to be parents, I felt that it was my duty to beg Him that if it be His will, He would not now take it away.

And so I prayed.

I remember one specific appointment we went to.

I was praying in the waiting room.

I was praying in the examination room.

And when they put the Doppler on Carissa’s belly to find the heartbeat, they couldn’t find it.

They moved it around and around and still couldn’t find the heartbeat.

My praying became even more fervent: “God, please, if it be your will, let me hear that little heart beat!”

I will never forget the overwhelming joy I felt when I finally heard that little heart beat.

“Pump-pump, pump-pump, pump-pump.”

My heart burst with praise for God and I couldn't stop praying prayers of praise.

However, later, when I was reflecting on those experiences of passionate and ceaseless prayer,

I was overwhelmed with conviction because it occurred to me that I have never ever prayed that hard for any of the people that God has called me to shepherd.

I had never pleaded with God on behalf of my brothers and sisters in Christ when they were going through some type of struggle like I had with the heartbeat of my son.

I had never prayed prayers of overwhelming joy and praise when a brother or sister in Christ had reason of celebration like I did when I heard that little heartbeat.

We say something like, “Well, that was your son - your child - it makes sense that it would be different.”

And that is true: The love and compassion we feel for our children should be different than the love we feel for our fellow Christians,

but no where in Scripture have I found where our love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and the fervency that we have when we pray for each other should be any less passionate.

I should be on my knees and beg and plead with God for you with the same passion and compassion that I do for my son.

As a congregation, we are to be passionately unified in prayer for one another.

And that is exactly the point James is making in

James 5:13-18

The book of James is a letter written to the church in Jerusalem.

It is quite likely that it was written by James - Jesus’ brother since he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

And one of the major themes in the book is Church unity

James

Read through the book of James and you will see this theme over and over.

James 3:

James

And in the text we are discussing this morning, James takes this theme of church unity and pairs it with prayer.

He gives this idea that a congregation ought to come together and passionately pray for one another

He gives this idea that a congregation ought to come together and passionately pray for one another

React to Life with Prayer

james 5:13-

We are living in a time that is growing increasingly frivolous with their church attendance.

Church has become an afterthought in the minds of our young people

And this anti-church movement that says we can stay home on Sunday by ourselves, we can worship at home by ourselves, we can read our bibles at home by ourselves, and we can pray at home by ourselves, is just a slick and sexy way for the devil to suck the life and spirituality out of the Christian.

It is his way of zapping the power of God out of the believer without him even realizing it.

Because Christianity is not individualistic.

God created the church to come together

He created the Christian experience to be a shared experience that builds upon one another.

And we were called to live life together and pray together, not exclusively separate.

Suffering

“Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.”

Galatians 6:

If there is anyone in this congregation that is hurting, who is suffering, we are called to hurt and suffer with them.

Their hurt becomes our hurt

Their pain becomes our pain

And we are called to pray for those of us who are suffering

When we refuse to be transparent with our church family and share our hurt and our pain, it is nothing but an expression of our own pride and arrogance.

I am the world’s worst at this

I tell myself that I can handle the turmoil in my life on my own,

But that is a lie straight from the mouth of the devil.

God did not design us to be able to deal with our issues on our own; and He did that on purpose.

Cheerful

“Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.”

When we individualistically experience incredible and wonderful acts of God in our lives, God calls us to share that with our church family.

Jeremy sharing the excitement of leading someone to Christ

So that as one unified body of Christ we can lift up prayers of praise to our God.

Good fortune is not a cause for us to envy one another but rather a joy shared with the whole congregation

We can praise God on our own, and we should; but we fool ourselves if we believe that God does not desire one unified voice screaming His name.

In eternity, we find one unified body singing his praise:

We are to celebrate God together

Sickness

We are called to be sick together

Historically, Christians have always been known for caring for the sick

In the fourth century, a terrible plague broke out in the city of Caesarea in the Roman empire.

Everyone evacuated the city and fled to the countryside.

One group stayed behind, at great risk to themselves, to care for the sick and bury the dead.

It was the Christians.

Everyone evacuated the city and fled to the countryside.

One group stayed behind, at great risk to themselves, to care for the sick and bury the dead.

It was the Christians.

Eusebius, a Roman Historian, recorded this:

“All day long some of them [the Christians] tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them.

Others gathered together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.”

A Pagan Roman Emperor named Julian even noticed the charity of the Christians during this plague and said this:

“Atheism [I.E.

The Christian Faith] has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead.

It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that there the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

Our early church fathers took God’s command to care for our sick seriously.

The question is, will we?

There is a strong inherent temptation to neglect fellow believers when they fall ill.