Sermon Tone Analysis

Begin Sermon

But now, let’s jump into this beautiful Scripture which God has given to us.

And we’re not just going to look at this one Scripture!

No! Let’s look at the whole of Scripture.

So I am going to invite you, as I stand before you today sharing this reflection, to break open the Scriptures with me!

If you don’t have a physical Bible with you pull up a Bible app on your phone and explore the Bible with me.

So, this passage which we have just heard read for us touches on a theme – and it is a theme which I believe is essential to our life as Christians.

This theme is prayer.

Prayer is a topic that is not only important to us as humans, but even more so to God!

Let’s consider this for a moment.

Look at the Bible as a whole with me.

What is one of the longest books in your Bible?

(Pause for a moment and take a look.)

If you are thinking it is the Psalms you are correct!

Yes, right in the center of your Bible lies that precious compilation of prayers which God has given us by the inspiring work of the Holy Spirit.

Now think about that with me.

We have a book of Scripture entirely dedicated to prayer.

This is how precious prayer is to God!

He want’s us to know how to pray and so he gives us a whole book just on prayer.

In fact we are given a vast selection of prayers (150 of them!) which run the whole gamut of the human experience and how to bear those various experiences in prayer before God.

In the Psalms we find words of praise, supplication, frustration, fear, and even ANGER.

(And just a footnote here… yes, in Scripture we see that it is okay to be angry – as long as we release the anger in the right way.

What God does is to invite us to learn how to pray in that anger and hand it over to him.

And if you don’t believe me just read Psalm 58.

What is God doing here in inviting us to express anger?

One theologian, Walter Brueggeman, ponders this question and offers the following.

He notes ““it is an act of profound faith to entrust one’s most precious hatreds to God, knowing they will be taken seriously.””[1])

And so God teaches us how to pray!

Whatever the circumstances are our first invitation as a people of faith is to bear the whole of our lives up before God, in prayer.

And that is not my own pious meditation, that comes right from the Scriptures.

For instances see 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

What does the Holy Spirit say through Paul’s writing?

“Pray at all times.”

Some translations render this passage to say: “Pray without ceasing!”

And in another place in Scripture we find the church being exhorted to “pray in the Spirit on every occasion.”

(That was from Ephesians 6:18.)

So just from a few brief examples from Scripture we see that prayer is precious to God.

God wants us to pray.

Prayer is precious because it unites us in intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.

But I would also invite you to consider with me that prayer is not only a vertical thing between us and God.

It is at the same time horizontal.

It is a connector between you and me – between us and our neighbor.

It is as our sermon series is titled, one of the “ties that bind us.”

And why, because in being formed in love by intimate communion with God we are at the same time being formed to love one another.

When we live in communion with God we are also drawn into loving relationship with other people!

That is a fruit of prayer.

And we will explore that a little further on.

But let us return to our Scripture reading for today and see what God is saying to us there about prayer.

What does God teach us here?

When We are To Pray

First – let’s check out v. 13.

What does James write?

Inspired by the Holy Spirit James writes: “Is anyone among you suffering?

They should pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

They should sing praises.”

I think that there are a couple of things for us to pay attention to here.

First, let’s notice the dichotomy of situations noted here.

What does James say?

He says whether we are suffering or cheerful we are to pray.

A) Prayer in Suffering

The first situation James puts before us is that of suffering.

“Is anyone among you suffering?”

Now, when James wrote this the word he uses for suffering is a broad one.

It does not mean only physical suffering.

The word here encompasses the whole range of what we humans can suffer.

It entails physical, social, emotional, mental, and spiritual suffering or distress..

And that makes sense in the context of what James is doing in this letter.

So just for some background: James was writing, as he notes in the very first verse of this letter, “to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1).

That is he is writing to the members of the church dispersed throughout the known world and who are experiencing a mix of local persecutions as well as social and economic oppression and tensions which is being experienced both from outside of the church as well as among the churches’ members.

We can see references to this scattered throughout the letter.

And Jame’s first word of advice to all those who will hear or read this letter is to pray.

Now I would like to offer a word of caution here.

James is not telling us that we should just pray in situations of suffering and distress.

This is not like the often repeated phrase we hear in our current times when something bad happens and a politician or other important person says that they are offering their “thoughts and prayers.”

James is not offering a platitude.

What James is saying is that our first response must be prayer.

And the reason for this is that in prayer we are bearing the “suffering” before God who will comfort us and who will also, by his Holy Spirit, give us the wisdom to know how to address the situation.

Thus, when he addresses the problem of Christians honoring those who are wealthy within their churches but dishonoring the poor who are also present in those same churches James points out that this is not the way of God – this is not how Jesus has taught us to live.

And the way we come to know this is by living in relationship with our God by prayer.

That is why James says that we are to first pray.

For as our Lord Jesus Christ taught in Luke 6:45: “the good person out of the good treasure of their heart produces good.”

And what is that treasure?

It is God’s grace at work within our hearts bringing us into relationship with him and making it possible for us to live as citizens of the kingdom of heaven – where we are made into a people whose lives are animated by our loving relationship with our God and with one another.

That is why prayer is so important in any type of suffering.

It is not an escape, it is a cry out to God to help us and sustain us in the midst of our various sufferings and it is also our reaching out to God asking him to guide us to respond to those situations in a Christlike and godly manner.

So as we consider prayer in the midst of a variety of sufferings and distresses, I would encourage you to take a moment with me and think: What are those situations in your life where you may have a suffering, distress, or hardship?

And how do you engage that?

Do you pray in the midst of that?

I hope so!

When hardship hits: pray.

When hardship strikes another person, I encourage you to pray for them as well.

Prayer for another is a beautiful expression of the bonds that unite us with each other and that we are responsible for each other (to love and care for one another).

We pray because we know that God is good and hears us.

And I can tell you from personal experience that our God is a good and faithful God… a loving Father who has his eye upon us at all times and desires us to come to him.

He desires to strengthen you and me in the midst of every hardship that comes our way.

And why?

Because our God is not stingy.

He loves you and me so dearly that his desire is to pour an abundance of his goodness upon us.

And if you need proof of that I invite you to turn to one of the Gospels and read them where we find the greatest proof of his love for us in Him sending his Son on our behalf.