Facing God Wherever You Are

Recently, there's been a lot of news and information in the media about the Islamic faith.

You might have learned more about the Muslims in the last few years than you

have during the prior years of your life.

Of particular interest to learn about Islam is their unchangeable five pillars

of faith, the binding rules of conduct in this very disciplined, rigid religion.

And it has to do with giving alms and prayer and all kinds of things.

But while not believing in original sin, Muslims believe that by practicing

these five pillars of the faith religiously, they will earn their way to heaven to be with God.

Of course, we know that no man can earn his way to heaven.

Also of interest to me is the strong emphasis on prayer to Allah in Islam.

Allah is their term for God, though we don't believe they're worshiping the same God.

Though their prayers are often memorized prayers, similar to repeating the rosary.

Orthodox Islamic believers bow in prayer.

They will get down on the floor on mats, kneel, and put their head on the ground

once in the morning, once at noon, once in the late afternoon,

once at sunset, and then again, right before they retire to bed, they have prayer.

They kneel, place their foreheads to the ground, and offer their prayers facing

the holy city of Mecca, the home of Muhammad.

The ritual of praying at specific times, five times each day,

is quite a unifying ritual for them, knowing that all over the world,

Muslims are doing the same thing, bowing toward the same holy place at the same time.

I couldn't help but think of that Islamic practice when I read James 5, verses 13 through 20.

James 5:13–20

People, whenever they were or whatever they were doing, stopped their activities

and thoughts coming together for a time of prayer, like we want you to do on

Saturdays at three o'clock.

But we understand it doesn't have to be at that time. We don't always all have

to pray at the same time, although Scripture tells us we should pray unceasingly.

But certainly our prayer is different.

Ours is not a five-time-a-day fixed ritual. Our physical position is not a fixed

or mandated position, nor is our prayer directed toward Muhammad as our intercessor.

Our intercessor is the Son of God himself, Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

And the Apostle Paul stated that Jesus is the great high priest who intercedes for us before God.

But there is something to be said for the Muslims as they face the same direction when they pray.

However, we don't have to face a city or a particular holy place.

We face the one who created the universe. In the verses that we are looking

at this morning, James is urging us wherever we are, whatever we are doing,

whatever our situation, to live our lives facing God in prayer.

What a tremendous challenge. When we think about what we're doing.

We need to continue in prayer, as Paul said, and we need to pray without seizing,

and we need to pray facing the God of heaven, Jesus Christ, who's led us.

I want you to follow along as we read from James 5, verses 13 through 20.

James 5:13–20

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.

Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise, which is like a prayer.

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, 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. 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.

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.

Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers and sisters, if any one of you should wander from the truth and

someone should bring that person back,

remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the air of their way will save them

from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Now, don't miss out on what James is saying here.

No matter the situation, you need to be facing God, communicating freely and directly with him.

Martin Luther said, as it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of

cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.

In the passage, James highlights several different times when we need to turn

our face toward God in prayer.

In verse 13a, James tells us that those who are in trouble should pray.

Well, that's like a no-duh, right?

When we're in trouble, it's easy to pray. And this is the only time in the entire

New Testament where this word for trouble is used.

It means suffering through tough times, not related to physical problems.

James here is talking about trouble that is not brought upon us by something

we have done. When the storm rolls through and drops a limb on your house, James says to pray.

When an unexpected medical disaster occurs and there isn't enough money to pay

the bills, James says to pray.

When a fire destroys your business, James says to pray.

When your loved one is struck by a calamity, James says to pray.

When anyone is in trouble, he should pray. It's not too difficult to understand,

but notice what this passage does not say.

You can look all over the page, even all over the Bible, and you will not find

the verse you would like to have written there, and you would not find this in there.

Is any of you in trouble? Pray, and God will take that trouble away.

I haven't found it anyway. It's simply not there, no matter how much we would like it to be.

As a matter of fact, James 1, verses 2 through 4 says, Consider it pure joy,

James 1:2–4

my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Now, I don't know about you.

But I don't always take joy in my troubles.

And yet this is what James is telling us to do. He says we should pray in times of trouble.

We should take joy knowing that God is allowing us to go through this for our

own good to grow and be mature.

He doesn't tell us to pray for deliverance, though it would be certainly a human thing to do so.

He recognized that God might be wanting to use this trouble to glorify himself.

James tells us to pray for wisdom

in how to handle the trouble and still keep our faith strong in him.

So when we're in trouble, James says we should pray for wisdom,

how to deal with life the way God has allowed it to happen.

Remember Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane? He initially prayed that

he would be delivered from the trouble that had come upon him.

But he went on to pray, Father, your will be done, not mine.

Jesus was content for God to give him the strength and wisdom to go through

the trouble, knowing that in the end, God would be glorified.

Trouble, newsflash, trouble is a part of life.

But during that trouble, we have a choice. We can allow God to use it to mold

us into what he wants us to be and who he wants us to be, or we can allow it

to beat us down into something less than God's will for us.

James says we choose the outcome of our troubles by turning toward God in their midst.

Is any of you in trouble? He should pray.

Next, in verse 13b, James tells those who are happy to sing songs of praise.

Now, how many times during the week do you go around singing songs of praise?

We should. If we're happy, if we're truly happy, we should be singing songs of praise.

If you're happy and you know it, there you go. Clap your hands.

We teach our kids to say thank you when they receive something from someone,

but often we never learn to be genuinely thankful to God who gives us everything.

It is often the prayer of thanksgiving that we neglect.

We don't begin our prayers praising God and thanking him for what he's done for us.

When we are in the deepest of trouble, it's not hard to remember to turn to

God, but when we're on the mountaintop, we have the tendency to forget who gave

that mountaintop experience to us.

Here we are reminded not to forget, but we are to sing songs of praise.

Now I must tell you at this point, sometimes when we sing songs of praise,

we forget to inform our face of what's going on.

Now, I know it's possible for the people of this congregation to smile because

I watch you when my sermon is over and you get to go out and beat the Baptist to the restaurant.

And I see happy people. I see people with smiles and I hear laughter.

But when it comes to the way you guys look during the sermons.

Some might wonder if you've been baptized in lemon juice.

I think we need to realize that there is nothing holy about being somber or

stoically pious during worship, and there's nothing particularly worshipful

about being grim and being full of misery.

In fact, I wonder if it isn't somewhat sacrilegious to sing songs like How Great

Is Our God or Amazing Grace My Chains Are Gone with a scowl or a grimace on our face.

How can we possibly do that with a deadpan face?

But then again, I don't believe that God wants us to put on a fake face of worship either.

He wants us to be genuinely joyful and happy when we sing praise to him.

You see, God does not want simply to be there to lift us up in times of trouble.

He also wants us to acknowledge his blessing whenever we receive it that he has provided it.

In this room, there is reason to rejoice.

We have people with us who have experienced God's touch in many ways.

Some have been physically healed.

Some have been delivered from destructive habits. Some have found purpose for

their life when at one time they were living a drab and purposeless existence,

and some have found peace even in the midst of loneliness.

There are people here this morning who have relationships now that are deeper

than they have ever had or had ever experienced in their life,

and it is all because of God's touch on their life.

There are all kinds of reasons to be happy, and we need to be reminded,

is anyone happy, let him sing songs of praise.

And then finally, James says in verse 14, those who are sick should call the elders to pray.

It's probably been about 30 years ago, but we were at family camp at the Free

Methodist campground in Perkins, Oklahoma.

Our oldest daughter, Mallory, came to the cabin complaining of a spider bite.

We looked at the spot on her leg, which was already inflamed,

with the skin beginning to be eaten away.

It was an indication of a poisonous bite from a brown recluse spider,

which were prevalent in that area. We didn't know what to do because the closest

hospital was more than 45 minutes away, and the skin was rapidly deteriorating.

Now already a quarter-size hole in her leg where the skin was disintegrating.

Mallory said she wanted Aunt Kelly to come to pray for her. Well,

Kelly Vanderhoof was a family friend and very close to us.

Needless to say, I wondered why Mallory didn't think her pastor father's prayers

would be good enough, but I went and found Kelly to come and pray for Mallory.

Kelly knelt down, placed her hand on the wound on Mallory's leg,

and prayed a simple prayer of, God, you've got this.

Please heal this bug bite. Almost immediately, the skin began to cool down,

and the bite began to heal. within a short time, the bug bite was completely

healed, and Mallory has no scar from that to this day.

God did four things that day. He healed Mallory's wound.

He rewarded her faith. He strengthened our faith, and he gave Aunt Kelly a sense

of his purpose in her life. Whoever is sick.

He should call the elders to pray. God is the author and an initiator of all healing.

James, in these verses, is calling for us to recognize that fact by facing toward

God wherever and whenever there is trouble, and even in times of happiness or in times of sickness,

we are called on to look to God.

James goes on a little farther when he talks about praying in times of sickness

and gives us some procedures to follow.

Notice he says that the sick person even needs to take the initiative to call the elders.

The elders are those believers in the church who are spiritually well-founded

as prayer warriors like Janice was.

Now certainly, we don't need to be traveling around anointing people for every

sniffle and sneeze, but there is a genuine willingness among our church family

to pray for our healing, your healing,

both physically and spiritually, it is my desire that this congregation is a

people who is always in the process of facing God in prayer anywhere and everywhere.

After the sick person or their family takes the initiative to contact the elders,

like the four men brought the man to Jesus and lowered him through the roof,

they are given specific instructions about what they are supposed to do.

First, they are called to anoint with oil.

Second, they are to pray over them. The literal way this reads in Greek is,

let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord.

We need to recognize what this is all about.

In the Bible, there are two terms used for anoint.

One is used to refer to anointing for ceremony, when Samuel anointed Saul and

David with oil to declare them, declare a king.

The Greek translation of the word, the particular word is used for anoint.

But in the passage we read this morning, it's a different word entirely.

The word used in this passage for James is the same word in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

If you remember that story, the good Samaritan took the victim,

anointed him with oil, and took him to an inn.

It's the word used for medicinal purposes. It could have been just as easily

termed, he rubbed him with oil.

He rubbed all of his wounds with oil.

The same word is used in Psalm 23 when it says, he anoints my head with oil.

The animal or person with the injury was anointed with oil, not poured the oil

on, but bathed the wounds with the oil.

The oil was rubbed into the wound to heal it and to prevent bugs from infecting the wounds.

There is a purpose to the anointing.

When James wrote this passage, the elders were serving to meet the medical needs

of the community as well as the spiritual needs.

And after doing what was medically needed, James says that they should pray over the sick person.

This is not some otherworldly procedure where the elders of the church function

some mystical role, nor is the oil we use in physical anointing some magical potion.

It is not the elder nor the oil that does the healing, but Christ, the great physician.

We understand that there are medicines and doctors who can bring healing.

Still, I'm afraid that many are reluctant to call the church for prayer.

In our world and society, that is so full of gadgets and prosperity,

we have become so individualistic that we don't involve others in our lives,

and we don't want others to know when we're down.

And there's something wrong with a faith that does not recognize the need to

have others there to help us out.

We try to handle everything ourselves with no need for anyone else.

Sometimes we need the encouragement of others to turn our face toward God.

When we are in trouble, when we are happy and when we are sick, we should pray.

James says that in all these things, we must turn our face toward God.

Notice what James says happens when we are obedient to this matter in verses 15 through 18.

And I've just got a little bit up there, but if you look at your scripture,

it says, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain,

and it didn't rain on the land for three and a half years.

Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop.

Now, that's a pretty bold statement.

Can you imagine being able to pray to God and ask God to do something,

and he holds off the rain for three and a half years?

I think my faith would be strengthened too, don't you?

At first glance, however, you can't help but recognize that this is not always

the case that a person we pray for is made well.

The fact of the matter is that every person that is born into the world is born

with a terminal condition.

We're all going to die. It's called human nature.

If every person we prayed for was made better, none of our friends or family would ever die.

However, I've seen God do amazing things when people have been prayed for.

I believe I've already told you how my sister, when we lived here in Richmond Center,

my sister Wendy was healed miraculously from an internal bleeding disorder when

people from all over the country were called to pray for Wendy.

This is not always the case.

Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked

to pray for a man who had cancer.

Campolo prayed boldly for the man's healing.

The next week, he got a telephone call from the man's wife. She said,

you prayed for my husband. He had cancer.

But Campolo thought when he had heard her use the past tense of the verb that

his cancer had been eradicated.

But before he could think about it much, she said, he died.

Campolo felt terrible. But she continued, don't feel bad. When he came into

the church that Sunday, he was filled with anger.

He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God

for it. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up.

He was angry that this all-powerful God didn't take away his sickness and heal him.

He would lie in bed and curse God.

The more his anger grew toward God, the more miserable he was to everyone around him.

It was an awful thing to be in his presence.

But the lady told Campolo, after you prayed for him, A peace had come over him,

and a joy had come into his heart.

Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We've sung together.

We've laughed together. We've read scripture together. We've prayed together.

Oh, they've been wonderful days, and I called to thank you for laying your hands

on him and praying for his healing.

And then she said something incredibly profound, Tony said.

He said she said he wasn't cured but he was healed god is in the business of

healing but folks the only way we are going to see his work in our lives is

if we live out our days facing him in prayer.

Those who are in trouble should pray. Those who are happy should sing songs of praise.

Those who are sick should call the elders to prayer. And James said that the

prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Our prayer must come from a powerful base of faith in God, and it is nurtured

by daily study of his word and obedience and being like Christ.

In our best days and in our worst days, when we're on top of the mountain or

in the lowest valley, God longs for us to live in fellowship with him.

Prayer gives us that opportunity. It gives us the privilege and opportunity

of turning our faces toward the living God in fervent and earnest communication with our Creator.

In these days of sin, disease, and destruction, in these days of violence and

murder, in these days of chaos and anger, we are reminded that God still wants

to heal and forgive his people.

2 Chronicles 7.14 says this, if my people who are called by my name will humble

themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,

then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal and heal their land.

Heavenly Father, as we close this message in prayer. We are reminded that you

are the great physician, Jesus.

You're the one who has come to—you not only created us by word,

spoken word, but you heal us in our inmost being, especially in our spirit.

So, Father, we pray that you would bring healing to us of mind,

spirit, and body. In Jesus' name, amen.