11. From Helplessness to Hope
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It’s so good to see you all here on this Saturday evening! Feels strange doesn’t it? It’s a new rhythm we have to get used to in the short term. I just remind myself that new, uncomfortable seasons challenge us and help us grow…and I know that is what God is going to do in our lives as we work through this new season as a church family.
In the future, when I look back on the date, 6.25.2022 one word will always come to my mind. It’s the word: helplessness.
We are on vacation in Virginia and I recieved a phone call from Kendra Allen, that I let go to voice mail because it was really early. Then a few minutes later, when Chris Coker called me, I knew something was wrong. I knew I had to answer it. His first words: “Tom, the church burned down.” Helplessness.
Later that afternoon for vacation, we did a ropes course…a legit ropes course. It had different difficulty levels, much like when you go skiing. Of course I had to take the black diamond route first, I could take on anything this course could dish out! Before I knew it, I found myself helplessly dangling twenty feet in the air. My arms were like noodles, no strength left. I had to be rescued by a very talented young lady. I told her that she saved my life! Once again that day I felt it. Helplessness.
That feeling that comes over you when you have no more money to pay the bills. When your spouse asks for a divorce. When your child is in a car accident. When your boss tells you that you’ve been let go. When you keep repeating the same sin, again and again. When you find yourself in a really bad relationship, but you can’t leave. When your husband dies in your arms.
Why do we feel helplessness? It’s because we’ve reached the end of our strength and ability. We’ve reach that point where we have no control. What limits all of us in this room from deepening our faith in God is our dependence upon our strength and ability. Is there a problem? Oh, I can fix that. Something’s not going well? I’ll just work harder. The problem is that I am learning to put my faith in myself.
What our Heavenly Father wants is for us to learn to each day depend on him more and more.
To do that, what James would teach us from the conclusion of his letter is that we need to pray.
If you have a Bible or device, find James chapter five. If you are using the YouVersion Bible app, go to Events. Then look for Iowa City Church at The River Community Church. All the sermon notes, and Scriptures will be right there on your device.
For the last 11 weeks we have been working through James’s letter and today we reach the conclusion, with James highlighting a truth that he has alluded to throughout the letter. Here’s James parting truth to Christians living in this world:
James 5:16 (NIV)
16b The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
The prayers of God’s people are powerful…and are effective. The word there actually means continuous working. I like how the ESV translates it: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
It reminds of this saying about prayer: When I work, I work. But when I pray, God works.
As humans, we feel helplessness because our work isn’t good enough. However, a faithful, regular rhythm of prayer connects us to the God of the universe who has the power and ability to do what we can’t even imagine.
Keep in mind the context of who James is writing to. He’s writing to Jewish Christians. He’s writing to Christians who are going through some difficult struggles. Some who are facing injustices. Some who are facing persecutions simply because they are Christians. Others who are facing the hardships of life. These are people who are having moments of helplessness. Here is James’s concluding teaching on prayer.
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
James is acknowledging that in any moment, in any gathering of Christians there are going to be those who are in a struggle; where life isn’t going well. Yet, in that same crowd there might people who are in fact feeling the joy and blessings of life. His teaching focuses both groups of people on God.
Felling trouble? Pray. Feeling happiness? Praise. Both responses are acknowledging a dependence on God. Helpless? Pray. Happy? Praise. These are important responses because they move us from focusing on ourselves and instead trusting where our help comes from.
Feeling helplessness? Pray and praise.
James continues.
James 5:14–15 (NIV)
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
So what is going on with these verses? Is James giving a formula for being cured of our sickness? The answer is no. Scripture itself demonstrates that to be a Christian doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with diseases or sicknesses that are never cured. The apostle Paul dealt with a physical ailment as did the man he mentored, Timothy. I’ve participated in anointing people with oil and praying over them. Some were healed. Some were not. So what is James teaching?
The heart of the problem lies in just what James meant when he referred to the “sick.” Actually there is no reason to consider “sick” as referring exclusively to physical illness. The word asthenei literally means “to be weak.” Though it is used in the Gospels for physical maladies, it is generally used in Acts and the Epistles to refer to a weak faith or a weak conscience (cf. Acts 20:35; Rom. 6:19; 14:1; 1 Cor. 8:9-12). That it should be considered “weak” in this verse is clear in that another Greek word (kamnonta) in James 5:15, translated sick person, literally means “to be weary.” The only other use in the New Testament (Heb. 12:3) of that word clearly emphasizes this same meaning.
The context of the end of this letter is James writing to Christians who are oppressed, overwhelmed, and struggling. What happens when you are feeling oppressed, overwhelmed, and struggling? You may physically become sick. You may lose faith. You may pursue sin, or bad habits. Make some poor choices. It may be that you are facing something like cancer, and it’s causing you to lose faith or just to be weak.
So James’s instruction is that if you find yourself in this space, call on the elders of the church. These men are the spiritual overseers of the church set apart to be shepherds. Ask them to anoint your head with oil. Most typically this was olive oil. The symbolism behind this is the setting apart for blessing, or honoring someone or focusing upon them.
In many ways, this is an action of repentance, turning to God, desiring God to work in one’s life. So in the case of a weak or struggling faith, God will lift the person up. Through the act of confession, sins are forgiven. In certain cases, people are physically healed. I think James here is tapping into the word’s of Jesus, as Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
The point that Jesus is making is that when we turn to our heavenly father in repentance, seek him…he heals our brokenness, weakness, our faith…our heart. So this is James’s emphasis in this section: if you are feeling helplessness in your faith, seek the elders, have them pray over you, confess your struggles…and find restoration in your faith. This is found by seeking God through prayer.
James continues.
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
The reason why James bring up the importance of confessing our sins to each other is because for many of us, myself included…when we act like we have our lives all together and that everything is fine, what we are doing is promoting a false sense of strength. In other words, everything is fine because I’m strong enough to deal with my own sin, I’m strong enough to deal with my own brokenness. I’m strong enough to handle my own problems. Confession frees us from that feeling of helplessness. It allows us to be completely dependent upon God’s grace and strength, and it unites us together as a church because we all realize that we are the same. We all have these moments of helplessness and we need each other.
Now some of you, maybe even all of you are thinking to yourself: This is for super Christians, people with much greater faith then what I have. James follows up with these thoughts.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
James taps back into 1 Kings 17 and 18 when the prophet Elijah is dealing with the evil King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. The point James is making, and one we need to consider is that as we read about these people in the Bible, they are people just like us…they are humans. Same strengths and weaknesses. Same flaws, brokenness and sins.
The only difference between Elijah and you and me is that Elijah responded in faith. Elijah in his moment of helplessness prayed and God responded. Will the same be said about us in our moment of helplessness?
James closes with these words.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
James reminds his readers that if they are feeling helpless or have dealt with it in the past, then most certainly there other brothers or sisters who are feeling it as well. One of our jobs as a church is to reach out to those are lost, those who have lost faith, those who are feeling helplessness and love them, put our arms around them and bring them back to faith.
One of the main missions of our church is to reach out and save people who are lost. That’s really hard to do, when we first haven’t in our own helplessness learned that we need to stop, look up and pray.
So, here we are. A church with a mission, but not a building. We feel some helplessness. So what should we do? We should pray. Maybe your here feeling helplessness in your marriage. What should you do? Pray. Maybe your here feeling helplessness in your job or lack of job. What should you do? Pray. Maybe your feeling helplessness in your sickness. What should you do? Pray. Maybe your feeling helplessness in your faith. What should you do? Pray.
In just a moment, that is exactly what we are going to do as a church family. However, let me end with this illustration to drive home this point of the the power of prayer.
Putti Sok told her Christian college friends, "Leave me alone and quit praying for me." Putti described herself as a "Cambodian Buddhist girl," even though she was born in Long Beach, California and grew up in Dallas. "I figured I was Buddhist because my parents told me I was Buddhist," she said. "I thought Christianity was just a religion for Americans." Eventually Putti came to consider herself "an evangelistic atheist," challenging others to prove that God exists.
When Putti started her college education at the University of Texas in 2008, one of her goals was to build deep relationships. She succeeded in that, but some of her new friends were Christians who were active in a student ministry. During her sophomore year, Putti "hit a wall." "I began to see that everything I was doing was becoming meaningless," she said. "If what I was doing didn't have eternal meaning, then it was all in vain." She began to think, "If God is real, he should be able to hear my prayers." Each night she began to pray that he would help her understand what she had been hearing from her friends because it seemed like foolishness to her.
Then one day Putti entered a closet in the student ministry building that had been turned into a prayer room. Inside she found a bowl filled with pieces of paper with the names of students' friends. One after another she looked at the slips of paper and found her own name written on the slips.
She knew how strongly she had urged her friends not to pray for her and yet they had faithfully loved her and prayed for her anyway. She burst into tears that day in the tiny prayer room. "God was softening my heart then," she said. The next night she felt that God was asking her for a specific response, so she finally prayed to receive Christ.
"All of a sudden, I had a desire to go and share with people," she said. "God is real, and he has changed my heart." Putti is currently studying in preparation for full time ministry.
This story supports exactly what James is teaching: The faithful prayers of Christians powerfully work.
Here are some next steps I would invite you to consider:
Join us every day at 6.25 am/pm in praying for our church.
Every Tuesday, we invite you to fast from food, a meal, social media, or entertainment and instead seek the Lord and his guidance for our church.
Pray about who you can reach out to and invite to be a part of our new adventure as a church family. We are still on mission.
Maybe you find yourself in a helpless situation and it’s time to turn your life around and give your full dependence to God. I would love to talk with you after the service and figure out some next steps you need to take.
The faithful prayers of Christians powerfully work.