Gospel Shaped Prayer

Father, you know the real condition of our hearts.

You know those amongst us who are struggling with anxiety,

those of us who are actually feeling really good, really pumped.

You know, Father, those of us who have a problem with cynicism.

You know, Father, those of us who are struggling with doubts.

You know those of us, Father, who are in fact maybe really feeling

just very filled with faith and just delighting in you.

Father, we give you thanks and praise that you know us perfectly,

that your word speaks to all of the different conditions of our lives,

and that, Father, you love us, that you care for us,

and desire to have us come into your presence this morning,

and that you desire to give to us,

and we ask that you would help us to receive in a worthy manner.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

I'm still so conditioned, I almost wanted to say be seated,

because if we were meeting in person,

you would have all been standing from the creed,

or most of you would have been,

and then I'd have to tell you to be seated.

Lots of people think that prayer is pretty weak,

a little bit lame, maybe actually really deeply lame,

and also more than a little bit boring.

One of the things I guess in our culture is,

you know, you look at something like yoga,

or some of the other techniques in meditation that come out of the East,

or suggested maybe by psychologists,

those things seem to give you a real type of benefit,

and they seem, yeah, they just seem interesting,

as if they're going to build your power,

and just seem like, because they give you more power, so to speak,

and are just helpful.

It seems like if there is any type of religion,

or any type of spirituality,

that's probably a better way to go,

because frankly, for a lot of us,

prayer just seems pretty weak,

like you sit in silence,

and you just speak in your head,

and you talk to God,

and it just doesn't seem to be,

well, it seems to a lot of people

that it's a bit lame.

In fact, people probably sometimes wonder,

maybe they wonder all the time,

I know a lot of people would wonder about those who pray,

how do you know you're actually talking to anyone,

you're not just talking to yourself,

and how does talking to yourself really do anything for you?

Once again, it seems as if prayer is a problem.

And in fact, for many Christians,

we feel these same things,

maybe we don't want to acknowledge it in public,

or we have times when we feel with it,

and that's on top of the fact that many of us say,

not only does prayer just sometimes really seem like

you're just sitting in a room all by yourself,

talking to yourself,

but it often seems for people as if prayer doesn't work,

that they haven't had many experiences of prayer being answered,

and if there was a prayer that seems to be answered,

it's almost always able to be explained

as some type of coincidence.

So it's in this type of context

that the book of James is going to talk about prayer.

And in fact, for those of you who are watching

or just trying to figure out the Christian faith,

let me let you into a bit of a secret

about your Christian friends,

is that the text that we're about to read

is actually a bit of a troublesome text

to a lot of Christians,

in that it touches on their cynicism and their doubt

and their disappointment with God in the Christian life,

because it seems to make very, very, very big claims

which are hard to square with the experience

of a lot of Christians.

So let's walk towards the text.

Let's see what it says.

What we're going to do is we're going to read it sort of twice.

It's a short text, only eight verses.

I'm just going to go through it

so you can just see once again

what it is that it's saying,

what it seems to be saying.

Then we're just going to think about it a little bit

in terms of some of these doubts, etc.

And then we'll go back and we'll read it a second time

sort of in light of having sort of,

okay, those are the issue.

Oh, it says that, really?

Wow, it says that, really?

And then we'll think about it,

and then we'll go back and hear it a second time

after we've thought a little bit

about some of those issues of our heart,

some of those issues of our mind

that we bring to prayer,

some of the context issues that we bring to prayer.

So let's look.

Just by the way,

so it's going to be the book of James,

James 5:13–20

chapter 5, verses 13 to 20.

The words will be on the screen,

but I just want to really encourage you

to get your own Bible

and to follow along in your own Bible.

That way, if the verse is missed,

you can still look at the verse yourself.

And it's also just good to get familiar

with using your own Bible.

And so I just encourage you to do that.

And a little bit of a heads up

to what we're doing next,

because we preach through books of the Bible generally,

not all the time, but generally.

And so what we're actually doing

is a bit of the both

over the next weeks and months ahead.

We're going to look at the Ten Commandments next week.

Daniel's going to lead us in that.

We're going to look at the Lord's Prayer.

Daniel's going to lead us in that.

Then we're going to go through the book of Haggai,

a prophet in the Old Testament,

what our Jewish friends call the Tanakh.

Then we're going to do a summer series

called Knowing God,

looking at some of the main attributes of God,

why that is actually very, very, very good news

for us to know who God is,

because he desires us to know him.

And then we're going to start in the fall,

we're going to look at the Gospel of Mark.

It's going to be called Simply Jesus.

And we'll start looking at the Gospel of Mark.

That's where we're headed.

But right now we're going to look at James.

So let's see what it says.

And it starts like this, chapter 5, verse 13.

Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Just pause very briefly on that.

The word suffering there is really,

I mean, it is suffering.

It also basically would be,

another way to understand the word would be hardship.

Some of your translations,

if you're not using the same one as mine,

might say that.

So it's basically,

if you're going through a hard time,

whatever that is,

and often hard times are also times when we suffer,

the advice is to pray.

If you're feeling really pumped,

if this morning you're thinking,

gosh, you know, I got in a 15K run this morning,

you know, I had my yogurt and my hemp hearts

and my blueberries and bananas

and just feeling pumped,

looking forward to the afternoon,

well, the recommendation here is to sing praise.

The heart of both of these, by the way,

is that whether we sing words

or say words,

that a key part of prayer

is speaking to the triune God with words.

That's what's being recommended.

And it's really trying to say,

listen, from the worst times in your life

to the best times in your life,

there's a way to speak to God.

And he wants to, in a sense,

I can't remember who said it,

he wants to make holy your down times

and he wants to make holy your good times.

He wants to hallow your suffering

and sanctify your joy.

And so that's what it's saying.

And then in verse 14, it says,

and so that's not as problematic.

The word bit is a bit problematic.

The fact that prayer,

it's the emphasis is not on trying

to create certain experiences,

but to use words to talk to God.

But it's going to get into it more deeply,

some of the problematic issues of prayer.

Other than once again,

the Bible doesn't teach yoga

or meditative techniques per se.

It emphasizes a conversation

with the triune God.

Verse 14,

is anyone among you sick?

That word also can be translated

as weak, by the way,

in a very, very weakened,

diminished situation.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church

and let them pray over him or her,

anointing him or her with oil

in the name of the Lord.

And just, it's a whole other

big topic of sermons.

In the Church of the Messiah,

we come out of the English Reformation.

And so in our polity,

that's the way churches are structured,

I'm an elder.

And now you might look at me and say,

well, that fits, George,

because you look really, really,

really, really old.

But I got ordained

as a transitional deacon

when I was 28.

And just a couple of months

after I turned 29,

I was ordained an elder.

Back then, I was young.

And so it doesn't refer to age,

it's an office.

And in Church of the Messiah,

there are three people

who are elders,

myself, Daniel Avitan,

who was just here,

and Sean Turner.

And hopefully,

in the providence of God,

I mean, Jonathan Kamiri from,

anyway, I won't go any further in it,

but we're elders.

But the thing in here,

which is very, very interesting,

by the way,

is, yeah, anyway,

so we're the elders.

So here the command is

to call the elders of the church

to anoint with oil

and to pray.

Verse 15,

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.

I'll say it again.

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.

This is,

we're starting to get into

this hard part of the verse.

You know, the above stuff

is sort of a bit,

you might say it's harmless.

Well, it can't really do any harm

if you sit in a room

and just talk to yourself.

You know, it's still not as exciting

as yoga,

or it doesn't seem

intuitively plausible to us,

because yoga

and meditative techniques

have a,

in our culture,

have a type of plausibility

about them

that merely talking

to the triune God

and invisible God

doesn't have.

But here it goes,

here's where we get

into problems.

I know for a fact

that there are people of,

I mean,

I've had friends die

over the last couple of weeks.

I know there are people

who are part of the congregation

who've had

a very close loved one died,

and probably thousands

of people praying for him.

And there are people

who are part of our congregation

who have prayed for children

and not been able

to receive children.

And I mean,

I've prayed and prayed

and prayed and prayed

and prayed about it.

There are many

who would just long

to be married

and worry that they're

going to be single forever

and have prayed

and prayed and prayed

into it.

There are those

who've had marriages

seem to break up,

those who have struggled

with different types

of addictions

or alcoholism.

And so to hear

a verse like this

for many of us

is very hard

to hear.

And we're going to talk

about this again

more in a moment.

The first part

of verse 16,

therefore confess

your sins to one another

and pray for one another

that you may be healed.

Just sort of want you

to notice there

the pattern of all the verses.

I'm not going to say

much more about it

than this,

is that at the beginning

I pray for me,

and then the next part,

in a sense,

the leadership of the church

is asked to come

and pray for me,

and here the whole congregation

is asked to pray for me.

And that's sort of it,

so it's not as,

like, in a sense,

there's this big call

to prayer,

both you as an individual,

for my own needs,

for me as an individual

to pray for the needs

of others,

and for the church

as the church

to pray into particular

types of needs.

Then the second part

of verse 16,

the prayer of a righteous person

has great power

in its 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.

Then he prayed again,

and heaven gave rain,

and the earth bore its fruit.

And some of us

will read this,

and this is actually

a really important verse,

which we're going to spend

a bit more time on later.

But one of the things,

the way that James introduces

this is very interesting.

If you don't know much

about Elijah,

one of the things

I can tell you about Elijah

is that even though

he had periods

of great success,

and to many of us,

like unbelievable

answer to prayers,

he also had a time

of deep fear,

he had a time

of deep despair,

and his despair

was so deep

that he asked God

to kill him.

So in other words,

this isn't like

somebody who's like

always pumped,

always doing his best,

like always at a thousand percent,

his RPMs are always,

going full bore,

and he's just flying

through life

and through experience.

This is a man

who struggled

with human fear

and who struggled

with despair,

even to the point

of a season

where he was praying

that God

would end his life.

And James is saying,

this guy has

the same nature

as you and me.

And there's a bit

of a debate

about how to pray this,

how to translate

this word fervently,

but it literally means

he prayed with prayer.

That's what it literally means,

he prayed with prayer.

And it could take,

it could be something

to show a type

of intensity,

but it also could be used

as a type of emphasis

that he prayed with prayer.

And it's important

because for many of us,

we might say,

well, that's,

you know,

there's these Elijah guys,

there's these George guys

and Daniel guys,

and you know,

I don't know,

they pray

and all these things

happen.

Somebody just,

I was chatting

with some street people

the other day

and one of them,

one of them asked me

to pray for them

and I said,

sure,

I'll pray for you,

but I want you to know

that I'm in sales,

not management.

And I knew that

one of the street people

with them

was a Christian

and he's a really neat

Christian who panhandles

so he can buy coffee

for street people,

not so he'll buy cigarettes,

not so he'll get drugs

or alcohol.

He literally,

he panhandles

so he can be generous

to the other street people

and engage them

in conversation

and I said to this person,

I said,

this guy's probably

closer to management

than I am,

I'm just in sales

and they all laughed.

But the emphasis here

is to deal a little bit

with our cynicism

is think about the fact

that Elijah struggled

with depression,

he struggled with despair,

he wanted to die,

he has the same nature

as you and me,

God did a remarkable thing

at least sometimes

with Elijah's prayer.

By the way,

to Elijah's prayer

that he would die,

God said no.

God said no.

Then just to sort of,

just so we can see

the rest of it,

verse 19 to 20,

my brothers and sisters,

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.

So we see a bit of it,

we're back to the problem,

the weakness of prayer,

its lameness,

the fact that it doesn't work

and the fact that really

in our culture,

things like yoga

and a range of other

meditative techniques

have an inherent plausibility

and attractiveness to them

that just simply talking

to the triune God

just doesn't seem to have

as being something

that seems intuitively

as the way

to move forward

in whatever this real world is.

And so I'm going to say

several things about this.

First of all,

if you met a human being

that could not hear

and could not speak,

would you say that

that human being,

I'm going to get in trouble here

about differently abled

and I,

you know,

the fact that,

just listen to me

with this analogy.

I mean,

part of the great brilliance

of the Christian faith

which is being lost

is that every human being

is made in the image of God

and has a dignity

and worth and value

which the state does not give

but states will be judged

by God

as to whether they recognize

the inherent dignity

of every human being

no matter how handicapped,

including the pre-born.

and so don't jump on me on this

but I just want to,

just be honest for a second, okay?

Check your outrage.

Just be honest.

If you meet a human being

that has literally lost

the entire ability

to speak and to hear,

would you think they are

in a sense above you

or below you?

Like in other words,

I mean,

we can look at somebody

who's very brilliant

and wish we could be

as smart as them.

We can look at somebody

who is really funny

and wish we were funny like them.

We can look at somebody

who's unbelievably athletic

and wish that we were

athletic as them.

Would we look at that person

and wish that we were like them?

Well, if we're honest,

we'd say no.

In fact,

in Canadian culture,

you'd say they were a candidate

for euthanasia

because you'd probably say

they don't have any quality of life.

Let's just be honest.

In Canada,

you would say

they don't have a quality of life

and they are the type of person

that doctors should be allowed to kill.

But what about

if you met a human being

and this,

from the time they were a baby

to now,

they've actually had

no brain activity.

And so even the very,

very ability to speak,

like, you know,

because speaking,

you could see somebody

who doesn't have the ability

to speak and can't hear

and you could think

part of what you might think

is that it's so sad

there's a brain,

a person in there

sort of trapped.

And how can you get in touch

with that?

But if you met somebody

and in fact,

the brain

doesn't work at all.

And so it's not just

that they can't speak

and that they can't listen,

but that even if

somehow or another

magically it could work,

there'd be no one there

in a sense

to speak.

Now, would you think

they were greater than you

or less than you?

Would you wish

that you could be like them?

No, once again,

you would say,

I don't even know

why they've kept

somebody like that alive.

That would be

obviously a person

that they should have

turned off the plug

if not turning off

the plug didn't kill them.

They're obviously

a candidate

for so-called

assisted suicide,

which is really

just euthanasia.

So the reason I'm asking

all of this is that

if that's how we view

human beings,

why is it

that a God

that cannot speak

and a God

that cannot hear

and a God,

a conception of God,

that actually

it's not even within

that God's capability

to speak or hear,

how on earth

could that be God?

And I'm using

the word that.

like,

but that's

the God

of the East.

That's the God

of yoga.

That's the God

of meditation.

Like,

why would you

worship a God

like that?

Why would you even

want to connect

with it?

Like,

how does that fit?

Why is that

plausible to you?

Well,

let's ask

another question.

In fact,

we'll just,

see,

here's the thing

about the gospel.

What does the gospel

reveal?

How is the true

God revealed?

He's revealed

in the person

of Jesus.

That's the Christian

teaching.

If you go back

and you read John,

you'll see that

John says that

Jesus is the one

who perfectly

reveals God.

The personal

God is revealed

in the person

of Jesus.

The God

that does exist

that what we

Christians believe

since we accept

what Jesus has said

is the God

who speaks.

The God

who can listen.

Shouldn't that be,

even if you don't

believe a God

like that exists,

shouldn't you wish

that a God

like that exists?

And shouldn't you

say,

wouldn't you,

isn't it more

reasonable to say,

why on earth

am I actually

trying to connect

to a God

that's less

than a human being?

That's,

that in fact,

if we met

that God

as a person,

we'd think

that God

should die

to be put out

of its misery.

Jesus spoke,

he loved,

he died,

he reveals

the real God.

Isn't this far better?

Or what about

if you had a God

who for eons

and eons

and eons

from all eternity

was completely

and utterly

solitary?

Completely

and utterly

solitary,

just that God

existed.

And because

just God

exists,

if God

only exists,

I guess he

could talk

to himself,

but he can't

really talk

to anybody

else.

And,

you know,

when you meet

a person,

like,

we're just

off of that,

we're in the

ministry spaces

in the downtown

part of Ottawa,

where we worship

on Sunday mornings

as part of the

Urban Corps

of Ottawa.

Let me tell you,

there's all sorts

of people

that are around

here.

I see people

every day

who can only

talk to themselves

but cannot

talk to human

beings.

And nobody,

nobody thinks

that's the way

to go for your

future.

But what if you

have a God

that can maybe

talk,

but he can only

talk to himself

and then all of a

sudden he decides

to create other

beings and then

he has beings

that he talks

to?

Well,

I mean,

I'm describing

the God of,

I just described

Allah.

Well,

how is that

like a God

that we'd want

to actually

hope exists?

Like,

doesn't there seem

like there's

something wrong

with that

conception of

God?

I know I'm

being very

un-Canadian

challenging our

conceptions,

but listen,

don't we all

want as

individuals to

not live

unexamined lives?

Don't we

look down on

people who

live mindless,

shallow,

unquestioning,

unexamined

lives?

And since

that's the

case,

and I'm

fine,

I get

challenged

all the

time on

my Christian

faith,

all the

time.

So,

for those

of us

who think

yoga is

more plausible,

for those

of us

who think

Allah is

more

plausible,

well,

really,

is it?

Have we

examined

what it

means to

have such

a God

like this?

And once

again,

the Christian

God who

Jesus reveals

is completely

and utterly

different from

the God,

the triune

God.

The God

that's revealed

by Jesus

is that

Jesus is

God,

the Son of

God,

that from

all eternity,

the Father

and the Son

loved each

other,

the Holy Spirit

loved the

Father and

loved the

Son,

the Son

loved the

Holy Spirit

and the

Father.

There is,

in a sense,

communication,

there was

revelation from

all eternity.

And God,

who is the

Father, the

Son, and the

Holy Spirit,

three persons,

one God,

he creates

human beings

in his image.

And so he

doesn't just

create George,

the lone

human,

in a

completely and

utterly non-human

world.

He creates

George and

Andrew and

Rebecca and

Louise and

you and

Matt and

Daniel and

Jono and

Claire.

He creates

human beings.

He creates

human beings to

reveal themselves,

to know

themselves, to

know each

other, to

communicate.

It all

fits.

Shouldn't a

God like that

be far more

plausible?

Even if you

can't believe

that a God

like that

does exist,

shouldn't you

begin to

long that

such a God

like that

exists?

I mean, I

have good

news for

you.

That longing

will be a

longing that

comes to

fruition when

you give

your heart

and your

mind and

your life

to Jesus.

Jesus

reveals God,

and he

reveals God

not only by

living a

perfect life,

suffering the

trials and

temptations,

the weaknesses

that we do

only without

sin, but he

loves us to

the point of

dying for

us, to

reconcile you

to God.

God doesn't

just reveal

himself as

big, chest

thumping,

look at me,

I'm great.

I mean, he

is great, but

he reveals

himself in

lowliness by

dying.

You know, all

of the idols

and all of

the gods of

the world,

they all have

one characteristic,

others die

for them.

Marxism, others

die for them,

ideologies as

well, ideologies,

all the gods,

others die for

the God or

the gods.

Christianity,

completely and

utterly unique.

It is the

story of God

coming among

us to die

for us

because he

loves you

and me.

In fact, what

is one of the

names of

Jesus?

The first

name that

is given

to him is

Emmanuel, God

with us, with

us in our

mess, with

us in our

joys, with

us in our

sorrows.

He is

Emmanuel, God

with us.

But some of

you might say,

George, but

prayer doesn't

work.

Listen, I can

tell you of the

times I've

prayed and it

just doesn't

work.

Christians and

non-Christians

can tell me

that.

A couple of

weeks ago I

wrote a blog.

You can look

at it.

It's called

Amnesia and

Prayer.

I talk about

God dramatically

answering a

prayer request

of mine that

I thought was

impossible, but

I was praying

out of obedience.

I talk a few

other things about

how he answers

prayer or not.

I suggest you

go read it.

I just want to

sort of double

down on the

particular issue.

Some of you

have heard this

story before, but

it's a good

story and I'll

tell it again.

I used to be in

a rural church.

I looked after

four little

congregations.

I can't remember

if it was July or

August.

It doesn't matter.

It was the

summer.

And the way

Anglican

churches work,

especially when

you're the only

elder in the

congregation at

that particular

time, if you

go on holidays,

you get another

person to cover

for emergencies

for you.

So the priest in

a small village

or small city

about half an

hour away from

where I lived,

he was on

holidays.

He asked me to

cover for him.

I agreed.

So at about

7.30 in the

morning on a

Sunday morning, I

get a call from

the hospital.

And the call from

the hospital is

that Bob, we'll

call him Bob,

is dying.

He's been in

a coma for

several days.

They've turned

off the machines.

He's going to

die any second,

literally any

second.

His daughter is

with him and

his daughter has

asked that a

priest would come

and you're the

one.

Would you come

and just give

him his last

rites and pray

over him?

He's going to

die any moment.

Can you come

right away?

And I said,

listen, I'm

really, really

sorry.

I have to drive

all the way to

Killaloo, which

is half an hour

the other way.

Tremor, not

Killaloo.

Tremor, half an

hour the wrong

way.

I have to do

a service there

at 9 o'clock

and after that

I have another

service here in

Eganville at

11 o'clock.

There's nobody

to take the

services.

There's nothing

I can do.

I'm really, really

sorry.

And the nurse

put all of her

manipulative

pressure she

could on me.

This guy is

dying.

His daughter

is distraught.

He's not going

to last.

He won't be

alive at 1230.

I can guarantee

it he won't be

alive at 1230

the early one

when you can

come.

I say, listen,

I have to do

the services.

I'm really, really

sorry.

I will call

you as soon

as I finish

my Eganville

service and

then I will

drive.

If he's still

alive, I will

drive the

half hour and

I'll go see

the daughter

and the man.

And so I

finish my

services.

I get on

the phone.

Yes, he's

still hanging

in there.

She'd still

really like it

if you could

come.

So my wife

had made me

a sandwich and

a coffee.

I get in the

car.

I drive there.

I come and

I see this

guy, Bob, in

the hospital bed.

And the

daughter was

understood that

I had the

services.

I couldn't

come.

She was

really glad

that God

had kept

her dad

alive long

enough that

I could be

with them.

So, I mean,

part of what

you're going to

learn from this

text in James,

which is really

powerful, I

didn't bring oil

with me, but I

said, is it

all right if I

touch your dad's

hand?

And as I'm

talking to the

daughter, I

touch Bob's

hand, put my

hand on his

hand, and I

put my hand on

his shoulder,

talking over

Bob to the

daughter a

little bit about

Bob and what

was going on

in his life.

And, you know,

one of the

things which this

text is so

important about is

touching the

person, by the

way, even if it's

not with anointing,

right?

It's one of the

things which is so

brilliant about

James 5, it would

be a whole other

sermon, is how it

respects the dignity

of the person, that

what you see in

this, all this

talk of prayer in

the elders, is that

the person's not

alone, that there's

a community involved,

that there's no

isolation, that the

person isn't treated

like a machine, that

you just sort of try to

plug things into and

make a readout, and

then you just sort of

throw things in or

cut things open, but

they have sins, they

have anxieties, they

have community, they

have all these things,

they need touch, they

need to be spoken

about, all these things

are there in this

text.

This is not a crazy,

this is a text that

Canadian medicine

continues to need to

learn from, that

human beings aren't

machines, that we

have anxieties, and

we have things that

trouble us, and I

remember going to

visit a guy, he

was, this is early

on, and he was

deeply troubled, he

was in the last three

or four months of his

life, and he was

deeply troubled about

the things he had

done as a paratrooper

in the Second World

War, and that's what

he wanted to talk to

me about as the

elder.

The profound

trouble that he had

in the Second World

War, and what he had

done.

Anyway, back to the

story of Bob.

So it comes time to

pray, I said, can you

hold your hand, I say

to the daughter, can

you hold, we make like

we all held hands, and

I prayed like I always

pray in those situations

as I learned to pray.

You know what I said, I

said, I prayed, Father,

Father, I don't know

right now if Bob can

hear us, but I know

that whether or not he

can hear us, that you

can minister to him and

speak to him right now,

wherever he is,

underneath the coma and

the unresponsiveness, you

can meet with him and you

can speak with him, and

Father, we ask that Jesus

would come to him right

now and minister to him

in whatever is going on

in his life.

And I ask, Father, that

Jesus would minister to

him, that if this is

his time to die, that

Jesus will minister to

him so that he is ready

to meet you.

I said, Father, if it's

your will that you heal

this man, I ask that you

heal this man.

Then I prayed another

couple of things, and I

said, in Jesus' name,

amen, and Bob said to

me, thank you very much,

I really appreciate

that.

The man in the coma

said that to me.

As I prayed, he came

out of the coma.

Now, listen, I can tell

you two or three other

stories, not quite as

dramatic as that, where I

have gone to administer the

last rites.

I always pray for physical

healing.

I always pray that they

will be ready to meet

Jesus.

I always pray that there'd

be inner type of healing,

and I can tell you there

are several people that I

have prayed for.

When I have talked to the

family that the doctors

were right, they have to

disconnect all of the

machines, and I have had

different people that I

have prayed for like that,

and they went on like this

fellow to live three, four,

five more years.

I've had many people that

that didn't happen to as

well.

Probably the majority.

They died.

What this text is talking

about, and this is one of

the reasons you want to

look at the blog as well.

See, one of the things is

that when you pray, Jesus

teaches us to pray, your

will be done.

That's actually in the

Lord's Prayer.

Did you notice that?

Our Father who art in

heaven, hallowed be thy

name.

Thy kingdom come, thy

will be done on earth as

it is in heaven.

And Jesus, when he was in

the Garden of Gethsemane,

and he knows that he's

going to be captured in an

hour or so, he knows he's

going to be humiliated, he's

going to be beaten, he's

going to be whipped, he's

going to die on a cross, and

he's going to die naked on

a cross, and he says, Father,

if it's possible, take this

cup far from me.

But not my will, but yours

be done.

And of course, God answers

Jesus' prayer not by saying,

yes, I'm going to save you

all that bother.

He answers his prayer by, no,

you are going to go ahead and

die.

See, God still answered Jesus'

prayer, he just didn't answer

it with a yes.

That, by the way, that story of

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

is a profound comfort.

But it's not a profound

comfort if you don't know

Jesus as your Savior and

Lord.

See, remember when I told you

that one of the things which

is uniquely different about the

Christian faith than all other

faiths is that all of the

gods of the world have people

die for them.

The ideologies of the world

have people die for them.

The rich have people die for

them.

In the Christian faith, the God

is revealed in Jesus.

Only there does God not say,

I want you to die for me, but

he says, I'm going to die for

you.

For God so loved the world that

he gave his only begotten son

to the end that all who believe

in him will not perish but have

eternal life.

And so when you, you, you see,

when you understand this and you

understand that you pray that

God's will be done, not your

own, it's not something that

creates a type of fatalism in

you that you shouldn't do

anything because God's will is

going to be done.

It, in fact, is as it starts to

grip you that the one who

teaches us to pray this is the

God, is the one who died for

me, who loved me to the point

of embracing my shame.

He knows my, he knows my

despair.

He knows how much like Elijah I

am.

He knows those times and I

just want to completely give up

and still he loved me and died

for me.

And it's by being held by him

and saved by him that I have the

context, the comfort to pray your

will be done.

And that isn't something, by the

way, that then makes you not want

to pray.

When you understand the gospel and

in the context of the gospel that

your will be done, I can pray for

Bob that who should have died four

hours, five hours earlier, five and

a half hours earlier, he should have

been dead.

And I can pray for him if it is your

will, heal him.

Why?

If it is your will.

The universe explodes with

possibilities.

It doesn't create a type of

fearfulness and a type of

passivity.

It is, I can pray for anything.

God wants me to pray big prayers.

And God wants me to come to him

when I say, God, I am so beat up.

I am so tired.

I have such a hard time praying.

Lord, have mercy upon me and help

me.

I'm going to have to watch my time.

I just want to say one more thing.

And this is really important.

It's one of the things, if you get

the blogs, one of the things I get,

you get with the weekly blog is

something called Growing in Grace

where I give a couple of attitudes

that come out of the text and I give

a bit of a way to pray the

scripture text that we've read.

And so that's what you, if you go

and get that and a memory verse

for the week as well.

And so one of the things, this

happened to us.

We had a neighbor whose brother

was very much into drugs.

And I think it was LSD that he was

doing.

And one of the things about the LSD

is that, and this had happened to

him before, is that he'd have this

confidence under the influence of

the drug that he could fly.

Like a great confidence that he

could fly.

I can fly.

I can fly.

And unfortunately, he decided to act

on that from the 10th floor of a

building.

And he plunged to his death.

Now, here's the big problem we have

with the word faith.

Faith, in a sense, is not really about

you and it's not about me.

A minuscule faith in a proper object

is vastly better than a huge faith

in a delusion or a lie.

You might have an absolutely

minuscule faith, like the space

between my finger and my thumb,

is how big your faith is.

That if you get on that Air Canada

or WestJet thing, that it's actually

going to safely take off, get you to

your destination and safely land.

Your faith might be that minuscule.

But the fact is, it's that minuscule

you get on.

But it doesn't really matter how big

your faith is.

What matters is whether the plane is

dependable.

In the same way that if you have a

huge faith, I can fly.

I can fly.

I can fly.

And you jump off of the floor of a

10-story building and you plunge to

your death.

You see, the issue with faith,

faith is always a word that's about a

personal connection of trust into

something or some person.

What is the prayer of faith?

The prayer of faith for a Christian

is that I have been made right with

God by the one who loved me so much

that he died for me.

This God that I talk to, that I come

to, is the God, the same God who

defeated Egypt and brought Israel out

of slavery.

It's the same God that used Gideon to

rescue the Israelites from 160,000

Midianites.

It is the same God who worked through

Esther to change the mind of the most

powerful empire in the world to save

the Jews.

It is the same, he is the same God who

rose Jesus from the dead.

He is the same God that even the

lowliest person with the most

minuscule faith sitting in their room

or sitting in church or sitting here

watching right now praying to that

triune God, what does not matter is

how big your faith is.

It can be very minuscule, what matters

is God.

You are talking to the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons,

one God.

You have become that, you have become

the adopted child of God, his precious

possession and treasure through faith

in Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.

He has revealed himself most perfectly

by living a life of miracle and of love

and of compassion and of pity and of

mercy, dwelling amongst us in our mess

and then burying that mess in his

person as he died in your place, in

your stead.

And then he defeated that great enemy

that you cannot defeat, which is death

and the sin which causes death.

And as he bears your sin and tastes all

there is to death and rises from the

dead, he does that out of love for you

and he will come again.

And it is the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, three persons, one God

to whom we pray.

Just, I need to wrap this up.

If you go back in the text, the heart

of the text is, at the heart of the text

is the two things, the prayer of faith

and the prayer of faith at the end of

the day, what you are saying is that the

Lord's will be done.

The same one that you trust to keep you

safe for all eternity, to make you fit

for a new heaven and a new earth for all

eternity is the same one that you pray

about for the big and the small things

of your life.

And you are just like Elijah, he is no

different than you.

And you can pray big prayers and you can

pray small prayers.

And what do you need?

What do I need?

Well, first of all, if you've not given

your life to Jesus, there is no better

time right now.

The God that really should exist, a God

that speaks and loves and communicates, a

God that is not a God far away but is

present, powerful, active and hidden,

always working on his perfect plan.

That is the God that does exist, that's

been revealed by Jesus.

And there is no better time than die to

the foolish plausibility of the culture and

ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord.

No better time than now.

And the two things that we need to help

us with prayer, which come out of this, is

that when you see that you're to prayer in

faith and it's the faith in Jesus dying for

you, it's that he has revealed God.

So the two things that we need to help us

in prayer, these are things, because I have

weak faith, let me tell you, I have weak

faith, is begin the habit of saying, Father,

make the gospel more real to my heart.

Lord, make the fact that Jesus died for me

and that he is my hope of glory, make that

more real, deep in my heart to me.

And the second thing that we need to pray,

you see, in a sense, I mean, part of how we

grow in prayer is actually just praying big

prayers.

And you can read my blog and other types of

things, but the prior work is actually, Lord,

make the gospel more real to me.

And then the final one, and you've heard me

talk about this before, but we need to,

friends, brothers and sisters, we need to

remind each other of this all the time.

God is big and you are small and that is

good.

And the big problem that you and I have is

we think the cancer is big and God is

small.

We think the Supreme Court of Canada is big

and God is small.

We think the Parliament is big and we are

small.

We think big tech is big and we are small.

We think our neighbor is big and we are

small.

We think our boss is big or our daughter is

big or our husband or our wife are big.

The problem is big and God is small.

And that's what we think all of the time.

And so one of the things that we need to

do is say, God, help the gospel to become

more real to my heart.

And Father, help me to know that you are

big and that everything else is small.

And even name it.

Say, Father, I have such a hard time believing

that you're bigger than the cancer.

I have a hard time believing that you are

bigger than the Parliament.

I have a hard time believing that you are

believing that you are bigger than my boss

or my economics or my finances or my romantic

life.

Father, I have a hard time with it.

Help me to believe.

Help me to know that you are big and everything

else is small.

And you see, to pray that God is big and that

everything else is small, if you pray that

without knowing Jesus, that's a terrifying

thing.

That will crush you.

Why will it crush you?

Well, because the gods of this world want you

to die for them.

And so it's a scary thing to pray that you

know that God is bigger.

But if you understand the gospel first, that

God dies for you, then that begins to open

the door to say, God, you are big.

Help me to know that you are the same God.

I'm speaking right now as I walk down Bank

Street, as I walk through the gay village, that

I'm Father.

I'm speaking right now to the God who opened

the Red Sea to bring the nation of Israel out

of bondage and slavery in Egypt.

I am talking to the one who defeated Midian.

I am talking to the one who defeated Persia.

I am talking to the one who rose Jesus from

the dead.

I am talking to you who are present, powerful,

active, hidden, and always working on your

plan A.

And I am talking to you as your precious,

loved child by adoption and grace.

Let's pray.

Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do

this mighty work in our heart, that you would

help us, Father, to pray a prayer of faith, that

you would help us to pray a prayer of faith,

knowing how big you are, your great compassion

and your love, that your will, your sovereign

will, your good purposes will be done, that even

when you say no, Father, it might have to be that

we wait until the new heaven and the new earth to

see how wise and good and loving you actually were

to us, to say no, to see those times you said not

yet and then you answered later.

And we'd forgotten that we'd even prayed it and

how you answered it, maybe a week, a month, a day,

a decade, two decades later.

Father, we ask that you deliver us from our amnesia.

We ask, Father, that you grip us with the gospel,

with who Jesus is and what he did for us.

And we ask, Father, that you grip us anew with how

great and glorious you are, that you are present and

powerful, active and hidden.

You hear our prayers.

Father, grip us with these truths.

And we ask this in Jesus's name.

Amen.