The Permeating Nature of Prayer

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.

Ross is just going to play for a second, and I want to point out something that we just acknowledged.

There are words, and I tell people this, uh, I try to say it consistently, but there are words that you should only use on God.

There are words that you should not use to describe anything else in your life.

Some of you stayed up like me late last night and watched the Baylor, Oklahoma game.

And there's words you would use to describe that, but two of them that you did not use last night.

Uh, when your wife woke up this morning and said, How was the game?

You did not say it was bliss.

That's a God word.

That ought to be on your list of words I only use on God.

We said in the great hymn, uh my sin, oh the thought.

Oh, the just just my sin, oh, oh, oh, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought.

My sin.

And when I think about my sin being put upon Jesus and the wrath-appeasing sacrifice of God, I got one word that I could use, God, that brings bliss to my soul.

It's not just well with my soul, it's bliss.

You're not gonna go to lunch this week, come back and your secretary.

How is lunch?

Bliss.

That's just a word you should keep reserved, tucked away, wrapped up in tissue paper, and bring it out and use it on God.

And then the second word I want to encourage you just to say for God is just the word bless.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

David in the Psalm takes command and authority over his soul when he says, Praise the Lord, oh my soul.

It's the same thought.

He is saying, regardless of how I feel today, I'm gonna do that for which I was created.

I'm gonna bless.

I'm going to acknowledge God.

I'm gonna give my highest affection and my fullest attention to God.

So, so, soul, lead us into where we need to be.

Bless the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul.

Bless and bliss.

Handle those words properly, because there's only certain people, dare I say, one, that you can use those on.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the truth of your word.

Thanks that we can say, Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

And when we think about the finished work of Christ on the cross, it it makes us blissful.

It causes us to be a people that think, Wow, yes, yes, yes, and more yes.

And so now, because all of your promises are yes and amen in Christ, when we open up the Bible, we're in a target-rich environment.

We're in fertile soil, and so we want to let our roots go down and draw up nourishment today as we come to finish the epistle of James.

Holy Spirit, brood over us and your word, give illumination and clarification.

And what we mean by that, guys, make it make sense.

We didn't come to get a religious whipping today.

We came to be reminded that you've come to bless us, to call us, and to inherit us as your people.

Let all that happen now.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

If you've got a Bible, I'd invite you to take it and open up to James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

And we've come to finish the book of James.

If you're our guest today, I've been teaching through the book of James, starting in chapter 1, verse 1.

The book of James, as we saw early on, was written to a people that were persecuted, they were suffering, they were scattered abroad.

There were people that were Jewish believers.

They grew up in the Jewish religious tradition, but they came to realize that the law could not make them right with God, that they have a relationship with God.

It's the only way to be right with God.

And so we get to chapter 5, and I'll start reading verse 12.

And I want to talk to you this morning about the permeating nature of prayer.

The permeating nature of prayer, because the epistle of James, most epistles, a lot of the books in the Bible, uh, they end with kind of a, hey, tell so-and-so goodbye, and blah, blah.

James kind of ends with kind of, hey, well, I got one more piece of advice for you.

And he gives it, and it's really about prayer.

If you read it in its context, James chapter 5, verse 12 says, But above all, my brothers, when you see that phrase in the Bible, let your ears perk up.

James 5:12

But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.

And the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain.

And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Elijah, if you're in our service today, you can stop praying.

Can you imagine just being a man?

The Bible says he hasn't like nature.

He's like God, he's not like a super saiyan.

And he just prayed and asked God, God, don't let it rain for three and a half years, and it didn't.

Y'all are like, is that thunder?

How did he plan that?

It's those kids back there.

They got a new sound system for Christmas.

You hear that?

That's your tithe money at work.

Let's go back there and beat them people.

Anyway, verse 18, then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

The permeating nature of prayer, you say, why do you want to talk about that?

Because if we're not careful, we can kind of shrink down life down to that which we're most worried about.

And the great thing about prayer is prayer kind of expands your life and it kind of opens you up to the wonder and the wideness and the wildness of all that God is doing and is yet to do.

When I say the permeating nature of prayer, you'll see three things in this passage.

You'll see number one, James says, you pray.

You pray.

And then secondly, he says, hey, leadership, you should pray.

And then thirdly, he says, everyone prays.

Let's take number one.

Look at verse 13.

He says, What do you mean, you pray?

In verse 13, he says, Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders.

And we'll get to that in just a minute.

But basically, we see early on that Christians will find themselves in all situations.

And so, what do you mean?

Christians will find themselves in situations where you're suffering.

You don't have to come to church and fake it.

So many people, they they think that church is the place you come to pretend like it's all everything's okay.

No, it's not.

No, this is a place where you can come and just be yourself because you're going to find yourself at different points in your life in all kinds of situations.

You're going to find some where you're suffering.

There's going to be some where it's going really good.

When it's going really good, you don't have to feel bad.

A man in this church emailed me a couple weeks ago and he says, God just keeps blessing me, and I don't know why.

Really?

I mean, and he wasn't like lacking faith.

He just was saying, God's been so good to me.

And it reminded me, and he's kind of like, you know, there's a part of me, and I said, Is there a part of you that's kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Because we're conditioned.

When it goes really good, we're just kind of like, just let's don't get crazy, honey, okay?

Let's just keep because any day now, this could just go legs up and it'd all be over.

Do you really think God's that way?

I mean, last night we went to a wedding, and our our oldest is off at a retreat.

Our high school kids, our well, all our kids, middle school and high school are at a retreat, so we'll be down in the second service, which will be great because we'll get out early because I want to correct the kids.

Amen?

Any no, they don't do that.

But we were coming back and they had like adult food at the wedding.

It was a beautiful wedding here at the Richmond house, and they had adult food, and our eight-year-old didn't eat hardly any of it.

And we're driving back, and I said, baby, are you hungry?

And she goes, Yeah, well, uh, yeah.

And I said, Babe, is there something at home you'd like?

No, no, because I knew on the way back we drove by McDonald's.

And one of the greatest insults my kids bestow upon me is they act like they don't know how great I am.

And so we're driving back and I'm looking in the mirror and I'm watching Sophie, and she's playing with her flashlight.

And you know, I said, Is there anything at home you want?

Well, I don't think we have anything in the house to eat.

What kind of a crack-sming eight-year-old are you?

Are you kidding me?

Your mom's been to Walmart and H E.

By the way, have you been in the new H E B up here?

Woo! I'm going on a field trip there this week.

I'm just gonna walk around looking stuff.

I'm like, what?

Then I oh I know what and I knew what was going on.

I initiated the conversation and I said, is there anything else?

Would you like to pick up something along the way?

Well, I don't know.

Mmm, what is we're gonna pass.

There's a kid, uh, there's a McDonald's, there's a KFC up here.

KFC, I'd like two chicken strips and a corn.

Let me get the question out before you tell me what you want.

And I just said this.

I said, babe, why do you just come out and just say to your dad?

Because you see, you you back there, you're acting like I just can't wait to say no.

Ask me what you want.

No.

And most of you feel that way about God.

When it's going really good.

The Bible says, hey, is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

You're like, oh, I can't sing praise because at any minute now the other shoe could drop.

And we're gonna need all this money God's been blessing us with.

You're gonna find yourself in different.

Then he says, Is anyone sick?

You're gonna be you're gonna be suffering, you're gonna be cheerful, you're gonna be sick.

You say, What are you saying?

What the Bible is saying to us is that there is not emotion, an emotion or an experience that you have that cannot be sanctified either by prayer or by praise.

Martin Luther, the great church uh uh uh early church father, he when something bad would happen or people would come to him and say, Oh, so-and-so, this really bad thing happened, Martin, and he would say, Come let us sing a psalm in spite the devil.

One of my concerns is if you if you've got your Bible, if you would, just keep your finger in James.

But I wasn't planning on doing this, but I think I need to.

Turn back to Psalm 95.

We began our service.

Jarrett read it earlier.

I just want to say a little something about praise in this church because it there seems to be, and this is just my opinion as the pastor, uh, you you you you could vote me out and that'd be fine.

Uh but but there seems to be when it comes to praise, to worship, kind of a little bit of a hesitancy in our church.

Have you noticed that?

Somebody will start to clap and I'll look around and go, Oh, we don't do that here.

Never mind.

And I just want to let Psalm 95, the the verses 1 to 7, kind of inform uh kind of this whole praise thing.

Psalm 95, he says, Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

It does not have to be on pitch, it just has to be joyful, amen.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.

Let us make a joyful noise.

There it is again.

Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.

For the Lord, here's why.

Not because I feel like it, not because I had a great week, not because I met all my production quotas, and I'm going to get a bonus.

For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods, and in his hand are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh, come, let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

You say, Why did you do that?

Because we I've said this before, but it bears repeating.

When you read the Bible, read the punctuation.

A lot of exclamation points when he invites us into his when he says, Come, let us sing to the loud to the Lord, to the rock of our salvation.

There's some gusto in that.

And I just want to say, when it comes to praise, when it comes to worship, don't look around, see what he else is doing, because they're kind of going.

Me neither.

There's not a and I'm not trying to be prescriptive.

I'm not trying to tell you this is what you need to do.

I'm not trying to be descriptive.

I'm just saying, be free.

If you want to sing out, sing out.

If you want to raise your hands, raise your hand.

If you just want to just screw, whoa, that'd be great.

Because here's what I watched last night.

You should take some clues from college football.

Because my wife went to Baylor.

They've been getting kicked around, they've been scuffed up like a pair of hush puppies at a school dance since 1985, okay?

They're horrible at football.

And last night, they got the ball back in their head and they start getting behind, and Oklahoma tied it up, and then you're kind of like, oh, Oklahoma's number five, and Baylor's like 22.

I think that was just like a like a hey, well, we gotta put somebody in there.

And and Baylor gets the ball back, it's tied up.

There's like, you know, they're they're gonna like just hand the ball off and go to overtime.

Oklahoma calls timeout, and then all of a sudden the Baylor quarterback, anybody see the game besides me?

Hello?

The Baylor quarterback gets loose, and you're like, uh oh, uh oh.

And you can see people in the stands.

They're kind of like, ooh, and then they get down there a little bit closer, and then they run and they play and they get closer, and there's like 22 seconds, and the stands are going crazy because they're in field goal range.

And Baylor has a quarterback named Robert Griffin III, RG3 or whatever.

The guy's got an arm like a skeet slinger, okay?

He just kind of runs around and goes, wow, and the ball goes, 60 yards.

You're like, that's not a human.

And they kept saying he has world-class speed.

I don't know about that, but I know nobody on the field could catch him.

And I was kind of like, he runs like a gazelle.

And then all of a sudden, there's like eight seconds to go.

They snap the ball, and he's running this way, and he just turns in the back of the end zone.

Touchdown wins the game.

They kick off, Oklahoma can't field it because they got on oven mitch.

Taylor gets the ball back, game over.

And then what happened?

They poured out onto the field.

I saw some poor lady that was like, uh-uh, somebody get her.

Some girl on crutches was trying to get out there.

And I'm like, what idiot with crutches goes out into the sea of humanity.

Here's who somebody that's lost themselves.

Somebody that forgot just in that brief moment that my leg is broken.

I'm about to get the other one broke up in here.

Why?

Because she just lost herself in the moment.

And can you just ever picture yourself losing yourself in the moment of worship of God?

Then do that.

You don't have to look around and kind of go, oh, well, okay, maybe me neither.

There aren't people on the rail kind of going, ah, ah, no, no one's going.

Oh, never mind.

Somebody struck the original match and just took out on the field.

And the uh the Oklahoma players were headed for the locker room.

I don't want no part of this.

You're on one of those two teams when it comes to praise.

And that's free today because I'm talking about the permeating nature of prayer, but I just want to say it permeates everything you do.

He said you don't have an emotion, be it suffering, sickness, be it being cheerful.

Don't, don't, don't, oh, it's any day now, this is gonna go bad.

Let's don't get too excited.

Can you really get too excited when it comes to extolling the worth of God?

Ian Bounds probably has written more on prayer than anybody in the past hundred, two hundred years, and he lived back in the 1800s.

So he says this.

He says, What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organization or more in novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use.

Men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.

The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men.

He does not come on machinery, but on men.

He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.

Now, ladies, when he says men, he's talking about humankind, humanity.

He's not being sexual like male, female.

He's just talking about, hey, this is this is what God uses.

God doesn't anoint ideas, he anoints people who've been along with him in prayer.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

Let me just give you three or four thoughts on prayer.

The first one is simply this that much time spent with God is the secret of all prayer.

That's a direct quote from me in bounds.

When I read his stuff, I'm just kind of like, yeah.

Because there's days I get up and I mean, somebody stopped me this morning and said, Man, your Saturday was kind of crazy.

Yeah, it was, you know, it's just life, you know.

And tomorrow will be crazy.

And the next day I'll be crazy.

I don't have many days where I get up.

My kids say to me, I'm bored.

And I think, I pray to the Lord to be bored.

I never get up and think, what am I gonna do today?

I just think, oh, just five more minutes, make that alarm go off.

But somewhere in there, I gotta kind of just insert a little parentheses and say, this time right here, nobody gets this.

This is just time, because if I don't begin my day on the right trajectory, there's no telling where I'll wind up.

As much time spent with God is the secret of all prayer.

Bounds went on and said, God doesn't bestow his gifts on the casual or hasty comers and goers, he yields to the persistency of a faith that knows him.

Second thing about prayer is you must become convinced of God's acceptance of you.

You must become convinced of God's acceptance of you.

And so, what do you mean?

Most people, when they pray, they're trying to convince God of something that God already believes to be certain.

Does that make sense to anybody but me?

It's like we got to say to God, oh Lord, you know, and God, I'm trying, and God, I'm gonna I want to do this, and I really want to do that, and I really, really, really, really, really just become convinced that God's already accepted you so you can move beyond begging for which is already your yours.

Because when it comes to prayer, most of us are like millionaires standing in a bank window begging them to let us cash a$5 check.

Wouldn't you like to walk in the bank sometime and then know your name?

My bank doesn't know my name, by the way.

I'm just a number.

I don't even go on these community banks.

They're just kind of like, hey, stand over here, we're next.

I'm like, I mean I was a kid, we'd go to the bank and they'd give you little mini rolls of lifesavers or a sucker for all the kids in the car.

They don't give you nothing now, except could you pull up to the next little window?

Could you do your job?

How many of y'all I hear y'all talking about what you did last night?

Just do the job and put my deposit in there, okay?

I'm not pulling up, there's nobody behind me.

Y'all that inefficient, no one comes here anymore.

The government owns this bank.

Y'all just working here.

They don't like it when you say that, by the way.

And then they sent me my deposit slip.

I just hit the button and I said, No candy.

And the lady said, What?

And I said, When I was a kid, we get little mini-roll lifesavers for me and all my brothers and stepsisters.

Y'all don't give out any candy or anything?

No, we're not that kind of a bank.

That's a very revealing statement.

But anyway, you say, Well, just become convinced that God's already accepted you.

You don't have to beg him to do that.

Stop trying to convince, but just enjoy that which is already certain.

Thirdly, God's all-knowing sovereignty makes pretense unnecessary.

That sounds real petty, but let me when you God, sovereignty means God knows everything.

And so you're talking in prayer to God who knows everything.

What are you trying to hide?

One of my biggest obstacles to Christianity was the way the people that profess to be Christians talk to their creator.

Say differently, the way people prayed.

The few times I went to church when I was in high school, people would pray.

It was always the same way.

Oh Lord.

She'd be like, That's awkward.

There were certain phrases everyone repeated.

I can remember the first time I heard somebody say, Bless the gift and the giver.

How the pastor behind the cross.

And so people would be praying, everybody have their heads bowed and eye closed, and I'd be in the back going, What are y'all talking about?

And who are you talking to?

Fourth thing, and this is now an outline, but I would I would just say this: just be specific.

Be specific.

I thought about this because last night I got an email from a friend of mine that's moving from one part of the country out to the West Coast to go to seminary, and he's like, hey, I need to raise some money to kind of do this.

And let me just kind of say this little paid political advertisement.

Just because you get an idea, it's not everyone's responsibility to pay for it.

I'm tired of getting emails from people that kind of say, and I'm I'm I'm not, well, I'm just gonna say it.

I don't care.

Uh everybody gets an idea, like people want to adopt kids, and they send me a letter and say, Hey, would you help us adopt a kid?

I'm like, hey, would you help me pay for my college?

Mine are going to college.

I never send you letters.

What do you mean about money you haven't been spending on kids?

Because I've been having kids a long time.

They've been spending my money for 14 years.

So you should have been saving money all this time, but instead you've been going on too many vacations or something.

Now I'm oh, oh, do you hear that?

Do you feel it in here?

Some of y'all are like, we're adopted.

I'm not saying don't adopt.

I don't say, I'm not saying, hey, there's people in your life that want, I want to give.

People could that I know come to me and say, hey, I'm like, hey, I'll write a check for that.

But I get letters from strangers.

You spoke at my camp when I was in the eighth grade.

I'm 28 now.

My husband and I want to adopt a baby from Africa.

What's that got to do with me?

I just here's my point is it just because you get an idea, it's not anybody's responsibility to pay for it.

Do you hear my heart?

No, you raise my I don't care how you raise money.

There's people in this church who adopted kids.

I'm like, hey, I I kick a check to that.

I know you.

So I'm not saying I'm not speaking out against that.

I'm just saying.

We gotta be careful because all of a sudden we live in a country now where it's everybody's responsibility to finance our ideas.

No, it's not.

Hey, I want a new truck.

Could y'all get busy on that?

I want one of those King Ranch quad cab four pickups with an air-conditioned seat, like David Merton's got.

He probably made a deal with the devil to get that thing.

I loved my truck until I saw his.

Like, I hate my truck.

And no air comes out of the seats.

This is sorry, truck.

I work for Jesus.

I should have air coming out of the seat.

See how easy it is to feel entitled?

I park beside him every Sunday just to see if you'll feel guilty.

I fantasize that one Sunday he's gonna say, you know, Pastor, the Lord told me to give you my truck and take yours.

Oh yes, now we're talking.

No, I don't think that.

But I do think be specific.

Because I got an email from a friend of mine last night, and I'm not making fun of him at all, okay?

I just wrote back, how much are you praying for?

Because everyone says, you know, I'm trying to save money to move.

And if you need 3,000 and you get 6,000, where are you gonna do that other three?

Be specific.

So I wrote back, how much money do you need?

Because I'll write you a check.

I've known you since you were 14.

I don't mind at all.

But just what are we aiming at?

Where's the target out here?

If you're gonna shoot skeet, there's got to be something going through the air.

Be specific when you pray.

See, the permeating nature of prayer means, number one, that you pray.

Secondly, leadership prays.

Look at verse 14.

He says, Is anyone in you sick?

And he says, Let him call for the elders of the church.

You expand it from you to leadership.

Let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over, let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Verse 16, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The power of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

There's just basically three phrases in here that I just want to pull out and just speak to briefly.

The first one is just anointing with oil.

People say, Well, what is that?

What is that talking about?

He says, They pray, call for the elders of the church.

Let them anoint you with oil.

I'm not into that.

Basically, what that is, is like I have a little bottle, it's sitting over there on the front row.

If you ever come to my office, there's a little bottle of oil on my desk.

It's about that tall.

Uh, and you flip the lid open and it's got a little rollerball on it.

And every once in a while, people come to my office and say, Would you anoint me with oil and pray for me?

Absolutely.

And so what I do is I just rub my finger on it and I make the sign of the cross on their forehead, and then I pray over them.

The elders in this church have prayed over people.

People come and say, I'd like the elders to pray over me.

Absolutely.

Here's why.

Because one of the biggest confusions in this text, and there's been books and articles written about is about the nature of this sickness.

Some people say it's physical sickness.

The person needs to be healed because they they're sick physically, like go to the doctor sick.

Some people say, No, these are people that are spiritually sick.

They've suffered so long, they've lost the capacity to act in faith anymore, and they need to appeal to the faith of the elders of the church, men that are supposed to be full of faith.

They're saying, hey, uh the the the hymn, the hymn writer uses this phrase, the sin sick soul.

I've just been so beat up by life.

What's it matter anymore?

I don't care anymore.

So you got this school of thought that says it's spiritual sickness, it's not physical.

You got this thought over here that says, oh, it's physical sickness, it's not spiritual.

And you're probably wondering, well, where is our pastor?

I think it could be both.

I think there are situations in your life where, like, if you've looked for a job for a year and a half, you just lose hope.

You don't want to get up out of bed in the morning, you just feel like you weigh a thousand pounds.

People are like, how's it going?

You don't want to know if I told you you wouldn't care anyway, so shut up, stop asking me.

Okay.

You need to be around people who are strong in the faith just so you could kind of just be refreshed and encouraged by them.

There's also times and physically you're going to be sick.

And by the way, I'll get to this in just a minute, but let me just say, sometimes your physical sickness has a spiritual origin.

Sometimes you're just sinning.

So when people come to us as elders and say, hey, would you anoint me with oil and pray over me?

Sure.

First question we ask you is, is there any habitual sin in your life?

Not because we want to be like the child catcher on chitty chitty bang bang.

Remember that?

The child catcher, I smell children.

I thought God was that way when I was a little kid.

I would hide behind my dad when that would come on the TV.

No.

Because a lot of this could be cleared up.

But the three phrases that I want to just see, the first one's that anointing with oil.

It's a physical act, kind of symbolizing this person is consecrating themselves and setting themselves apart and saying, God, I need you to intervene in here.

Reveal if this is physical or if it's spiritual or what is it?

Second phrase I want to draw your attention to is that little phrase, the prayer of faith.

The prayer of faith.

You say, Well, what do you what do you mean?

He says, Let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him, anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.

Look at verse 15.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.

Now, why do I bring this out?

Because more charlatans and hucksters and false prophets have stolen people's money and preyed on their vulnerabilities over this verse and probably most verses in the Bible.

You ever heard this phrase?

Well, you know, if you have faith and you pray, God will heal you.

I prayed, I didn't get healed, you didn't have enough faith.

I've stood at the funeral home with people who were spiritually abused by dishonest pastors who said, you know, she could have been healed of that if she just had enough faith.

And they point to this verse and say, Well, the prayer of faith, the Bible says the prayer of faith.

You ever heard of this?

The word of faith movement.

Kenneth Copeland and those guys.

Dr.

Hagen and those guys.

Hey, faith is a force, you have to activate your faith.

You speak it into existence, your destiny is in your mouth.

That's why Joel Osteen is so positive.

He's in that camp too.

And I know some of you got this morning, put your makeup on to him, and I know it's kind of like we listen to the good cop, then we come here and listen to the bad cop.

I know how you think.

Be careful, because what happens is it gets a resting place in you, and you just think, if I'm just positive, if I just have an upbeat attitude, if I just speak blessings over things, if I just, if I just, if I just, what's the problem in all that?

I prayer of faith.

Lady came to me and said, My grandmother died of cancer.

She was, I mean, mad, crying.

She says, My grandmother died of cancer, and at her funeral, the uh, because I said, you know, do you have church home?

She goes, No, I I don't, I don't like church.

I've given up on church.

You seem to be a nice person, but I don't I I can't stand church and church people.

Tell me why.

My grandmother of cancer, and at her funeral, the pick the preacher said, if she would have had enough faith and she would have activated and acted on her faith, she'd still be with us today.

And he quoted James chapter 5, the prayer of faith will heal.

James 5 · chapter mention

Well, you need to learn to pray the prayer of faith.

He said, What do you think about that?

You're a preacher, you're supposed to know everything.

Really?

You're in bad luck, but you're in good luck today.

Here's why.

I said the prayer that he's talking about there, James is talking about there, is not the prayer of the sick person, it's the prayer of the elders.

He says, Look at it, it's right there.

He says, Call for the elders of the church and let them anoint him.

And the prayer of faith, they're doing the praying.

So if the prayer, quote unquote, doesn't work, it ain't the sick person's fault.

You should get new elders.

That lady said, bolt upright, and she goes, Let me write that down.

I'm gonna tell the preacher.

You should.

And tell him in person, don't send him an email so you can watch him squirm.

She goes, Why?

I said, so you can watch him squirm.

Because that's what people, and by the way, have you ever noticed that the way you get more faith is you plant a seed?

You need to send me thousand dollars.

You need to put act on that faith, and God will multiply that seed.

That's just the way people that don't teach the Bible live in big houses.

That's all that is.

And I'm not mad at him.

Somebody asked me the other day about this popular TV preacher.

What do you think about him?

He's not a preacher, he's kind of a self-help pop psychology guru, but not a preacher of the gospel.

Here's why.

Because the gospel has a word to say when you're suffering, when you're sick, when you're glad, when you're cheerful.

It covers the spectrum.

In the whole prosperity gospel movement, you get to have one emotion.

People that are always happy make me nervous.

Because the world's screwed up, that's why.

It's jacked up.

We're a long way from the garden.

Have you have you not noticed?

Third phrase I want to point out is that if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

That's what I meant when I said earlier that a lot of times the physical is the physical problem has its origins in the spiritual.

If he has committed sins, because if you persist in sin, look at me, beloved, God will do whatever it takes to get your attention.

And so if you persist in sin, you will have some time, not all the time.

Hear me carefully.

You should come and confess your sins to the preacher.

Let me write them down.

No.

But sometimes, if you persist in sin, God will bring physical consequences to turn your heart back to Him.

Case in point, John, don't turn over John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Jesus and the disciples are walking into a city and they see a guy that was born blind, and they said, Jesus, whose fault, whose sin is it that he was born blind, his sin or his parents' sin?

And Jesus said, Neither.

He's born blind, so that the works of God may be manifest in him.

But there's all, if you look all through the Bible, 1 John chapter 5, he talks about for the believer there's a sin unto death.

1 John 5 · chapter mention

There's a sin unto death, there's also not there's a sin that's not unto death.

The person is so physically stricken because they won't repent of their sin and stop sinning.

And so he says, You this permeating nature of prayer, which starts off with you pray, now the leadership prays, and thirdly and finally, everybody prays.

Look at verse 16.

You still with me?

In verse 16, he says, Therefore, in light of all this, what should you do?

Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

Who do you confess your sins to?

Let me say something that might sound different for some of you.

But after the cross, you're not told to confess your sins to get forgiveness.

You're forgiven once you become a Christian.

You're instructed in the Bible to confess your sins one to another.

Because if you could just sin and then just confess your sin to a priest or to God in order to get forgiveness, then you have set up a religious system whereby which you can just habitually sin and still be a Christian.

I don't have time to go into this today, but I know you're thinking, well, what about 1 John 1 9?

I think that's a salvation text, but that's a whole nother sermon.

See, the Bible says, hey, when you sin, confess your sins one to another.

Because look at it again.

Look at verse 16.

Therefore, what does that mean?

It means in light of all this, in light of all the stuff I'm telling you about the prayer of faith, about calling for the elders, about, hey, if you've committed sins, they'll be forgiven.

So what do you do?

You confess your sins one to another so you don't find yourself in that situation.

And you pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

For example, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain.

And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

See, everybody prays.

And just again, who do you confess your sins to?

Because the response to all this is, hey, therefore, because this is true, and you don't want to be in this situation.

Here's how you don't get in that situation.

You have some people in your life that you confess.

Can you imagine going to a community group tonight?

And everybody gets there and you have coffee and pie, and the leader says, All right, let's confess our sins one to another.

Oh, thank you.

Let's go, honey, get the keys.

It's not in that setting.

Some of y'all are like, Oh, I felt a cough come out.

I'm not gonna be able to make it tonight.

I know I said I'd bring a quiche, but we're uh we're a little under the weather.

You know, Thanksgiving coming and everything.

We've got to start getting ready.

No, when the Bible talks about confess your sins one to another, that's one-on-one.

You should have some people in your life that you can tell anything to and they don't change their mind about you.

And if you don't, I pray for you.

I hope you have that.

I hope you have that.

I love Larry Crab is a writer and author, and he and Brennan Manning have a great relationship.

And they were going to a conference, they're both gonna be at a Christian writers' conference.

And on the way, Larry told his wife, he said, I need to get some time with Brennan because I need to confess my sins to somebody.

And everybody treats me like I'm a celebrity, and Brennan just treats me like I'm a broken, healed person who sins.

And they got to the elevated to the hotel they were both staying on, and they both came down the elevator, and the elevator doors open up, and one of them was on this side of the live, one of that side.

It's filled with about almost, he said, like six, eight hundred people, just a mass throng of people.

And he said, and Brennan Manning looked across and saw Larry Crab and he started jumping up and down.

Brendan was 70 when this happened.

There was this old man jumping up and down, and Larry made his way through the crowd, and he kind of choked up and he said, Can you and I get coffee later tonight after this over?

I I just got some sin in my life that I can't seem to get over, and I just need to confess it to somebody.

And Brendan grabbed him and said, The thing I love about you, Larry, is not your books, but that whatever comes between you and Jesus bothers you.

Of course, I want to hear your confession.

Larry Crab writes one of his books.

He said, That night over coffee, I poured my soul out to a man who could not have his mind changed about me.

Who in your life cannot have their mind changed about you?

So you never go through.

See, here's the power of confession.

You never find yourself in a situation if you wonder, is God getting back at me?

Is this because of that?

Or is this because of that over there?

Or is this because of that thing last Thursday that no one knows about?

You don't live at the mercy of that.

And by the way, it's not just enough to pray.

You gotta act.

Everybody prays, but they also, look at verse 19 and 20, we'll be done.

Look at verse 19.

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death or will cover a multitude of sin.

I think I've told you before about that crazy little Baptist church.

My parents used to drag us to, where they sang crazy songs out of a crazy little book called a hymnal.

Remember that?

I told you about it before.

They said it's just crazy.

Old women that they would wear shawls and they would rock when they would sing and they would pray.

They'd come up to you and go, Can I pray for you?

No, I'm good, thank you.

Scared me to death.

I was a little kid, about seven.

I was like, I thought about one of those songs they used to sing.

They used to sing an old hymn called Bring Them In.

You ever heard of that?

Have you heard that song lately?

Of course not.

See, as the church has gotten more traction, we build bigger and better churches.

I saw a church this morning on TV that the ceiling lights up.

Is that a disco or a church?

What?

Are you kidding me?

That's church in America?

I don't want to give an account for that one.

But anyway, I digress.

I was just like, have we really become this undiscerning that we can't just go?

No, no, absolutely not.

No, we haven't.

We haven't.

That's the answer to that tragically.

He said, Well what's this got to do with your little, there's this little church that had pews?

There's no padding anywhere.

And they had a little electric organ.

And I knew when the little prelude or whatever, I know what it was called back then, kind of the warm-up.

I know where we're going.

We're gonna sing, bring them in.

And then the pastor was gonna get up and say, Do we have any wandering sheep we need to go find?

Oh yeah.

But first we would sing, and the shawl ladies would get up and they would sway back and forth and huddles on the back of the pew in front of them.

And I'd be like, Why these women rub wood?

This is awkward.

And this was the song they sang.

Hark tis the shepherd's voice I hear out in the desert, dark and drear, calling the sheep who've gone astray, far from the shepherds, fold away.

And then we get to the course and they'd ratchet it up.

Bring them in, bring them in, bring them in from the fields of sin.

Bring them in, bring them in, bring the wandering ones to Jesus.

And we'd sing like two or three verses of it, usually first, second, and last, because the Baptists always skip the third one.

You ever notice that?

By the way, that's why most Baptist churches have a bad theology of the Holy Spirit, because the hymns were written Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Trinity.

That's free, by the way.

Look it up, check me on it.

And then Harvey Walters, the pastor, would get up and he would lean sideways on the pulpit.

This is my favorite part of the whole thing.

I would go to church on Sundays and pray to God and his son Jesus.

We would sing that crazy song.

I didn't know the name of it.

He'd lean sideways and he'd go, Now, beloved, do we have any wandering sheep out there you hadn't seen in a while?

And they would call your name out in the church.

And then the pastor would go, he'd be like this, then he'd turn sideways and go, Who'll go find them this week?

And people would stand up and go, I go get them.

And I remember as a kid just thinking, this is better than Disney World.

And I remember Jerry Matthews was an insurance agent, brother, he wore brown pants and a tan shirt and a brown tie every Sunday.

It's like it was in the Bible somewhere.

He had to rock that.

And flat top with butchwax.

Remember butchwax?

Get a little tub.

He'd get that bad boy crisp up.

I mean, before a kid didn't play, he had a high and tight, okay?

You could bounce a quarter off the top of that thing.

And he would always, and here's the part you need to hear, with tears in his eyes, would raise his hand and go, I'll go find them, Pastor.

And he drove a sky blue VW Beetle and had a magnetic insurance sign.

Before Bob Rizica, there was Jerry Matthews.

Had a magnetic sign on the side of it.

And you could hear him coming.

When that little thing came trolling through the driveway, you knew what was coming.

They done sung that crazy song where the pastor turned sideways on them.

Beloved, do we have any sheep that have gone wayward?

Because that was my first favorite Sunday when we sang the Bring Them In song.

Bring them in, bring them in.

And it was that nasally and obnoxious.

But the next Sunday, Mr.

Matthews had a pew.

And the next Sunday it was it was a Matthews family pew.

Like, y'all got pews.

Y'all don't know, but some of y'all sat in the same places every Sunday.

If a visitor sits in your seat, you kind of look at him like, oh, you must be new.

Everybody knew at the Millican Drive Baptist Church in my little East Texas town that the Matthews family sat here and the rest of the pew was reserved for the wayward sheep he had found that week.

And it was always full.

Because he would get in his little VW and he'd come pay you a visit.

And it was never, hey, where you been?

Don't you love the Lord?

It was what's going on that I can help you with.

But see, we don't have to do that anymore in America because as I was saying when I got sideways earlier, are you ever gonna finish that thought about the disco church with lights and all the cool stuff?

Look at me.

As the churches become more attractional, Christians don't have to be intentional.

You think the church will do it all.

Well, we got air conditioning and coffee and disco popping lights, and we got everything, and we got SpongeBob teaching Bible back here.

And we're gonna give you a retinal scan when you drop your kids off over here, and we're gonna shoot them out the slide and you catch them in the minivan and out there at the window right there, and then off to the restaurant.

And I know that I'm that I'm I'm an inattentive parent and I worship my work and I don't give my kids the attention they need, but by golly, if I bring them down here for an hour and 15 minutes, you better fix them.

And the church.

Herself, I mean, excuse me, markets herself to people.

In the hopes that, oh man, will you love us?

And here's what's happening.

The church that we love in America is nothing like the church in the Bible.

And so, I just wonder if you know anybody that you used to see around here that you don't see much anymore.

And if this week you could just maybe just break off a phone call or say, hey, let's meet for coffee.

I always wanted to check on you.

See, I hadn't seen you in a while.

I'm not the moral police.

Here's what I'm saying, and I'm done.

Mr.

Matthews was right.

And I asked him one time, I didn't ask him, somebody asked him, they said Jerry Jerry was his first name.

I never called him Jerry.

I got whipped at my house.

If you called an adult by the first name, if you didn't say sir or ma'am, if you said huh, you got to whip when you got home.

I don't care what day of the week it was.

Sunday, you got whipped twice for being stupid on Sunday.

And somebody asked him, I remember a little kid standing there, and he talked about a period of waywardness in his life for like three years.

And then he choked up and he said, You know, the thing that broke my heart is no one came looking for me.

And at that point, my dad, something just happened, and my dad just kind of, all right, you boys, go sit in the station wagon.

And we did.

You see, we think, oh, that person don't, maybe they're just kind of thinking, hey, was somebody come looking for me?

I kind of got, I've kind of wandered off.

I'm out in left field out here.

I'd like to find my way back, but I don't even know where back is.

See, that's the note that James ends on.

This great epistle has more imperative verbs per word than any other book in the entire Bible.

More do this.

More, get off your blessed assurance.

So he ends and says that hey, is anyone suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him praise.

Is anyone, you know, sick, call upon the elders.

Because sometimes you kind of lose perspective physically and spiritually, and you're like, ah, get ready to pray.

It doesn't even matter.

Just God put me down for the same thing I said yesterday.

And you need to borrow in somebody else's faith and be nourished by somebody else's faith.

And he closes by saying, hey, hey, therefore, let's confess our sins one to another and pray for.

Everybody pray.

An effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much.

What are your prayers accomplishing these days?

And here's what I'm going to ask you to consider doing this week by way of application.

You may already do it.

If you don't, would you start?

Just this week, just spend about five minutes, the beginning of every day and the end of every night, just praying.

Just start it and finish.

Just book in your day.

You ain't got to use big words.

He's not impressed.

People use big words, just want people to know they know some big words.

Just five minutes in the morning.

Maybe just don't turn the radio on when you're going to work and just say, you know, God, here's my heart today.

And don't talk the whole time.

Spend some time in prayer just listening.

Just listen.

Five minutes in the morning, five minutes before you go to bed at night.

Would you be willing to do that?

Stand to your feet if you will.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

By calling you to prayer, your Father is inviting you to avail yourself, not to just what you know, but maybe he wants to open you up to everything he knows.

Depart now and give yourself to this experience.

It's what you were created for, and it's what he intends.

Call on me, says your father, and I'll show you great and mighty things which you do not know.

Aren't you tired of not knowing?

Then pray.

And pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.