The Praying Church

Amen.

Well, while you're finding James chapter 5, I did want to mention we are in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, this evening for our Bible study.

James 5 · chapter mention Mark 5 · chapter mention

And if you would like to come at 6 30, we welcome you to be a part of that lesson.

And then Sunday morning in our series on the churches of Asia, we go to the Church of Sardis.

They had a reputation they were alive, but they were dead.

And he encourages them to strengthen the things that remain.

And the title of the message Sunday is Will the Real Church Please Stand Up?

And I I pray that you'll pray that the Lord will bless our time together and use it to encourage our hearts.

James chapter 5 and verse 13.

James 5 · chapter mention

Is any among you afflicted?

Let him pray.

Is any merry?

Let him sing Psalms.

Is any sick among you?

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.

The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Talking this morning about the praying church, the praying church.

God often does his deepest work in us in seasons we would never choose for ourselves.

Our conversation with Joy included things that she would not have chosen for herself.

Her husband died five months later, she was diagnosed with cancer.

But that's where God does his greatest work at times.

Trials drive us to prayer.

Prayer humbles our hearts, and humility opens the door for God's grace to strengthen and restore us.

Whether in suffering or rejoicing, here in this fifth chapter, James points us to a faith that depends fully on God, and it walks humbly with one another.

In a world where people often hide their struggles or carry them alone, James calls the church to be a place of intercession, restoration, and confession and hope.

He asks a series of questions here, beginning in verse 13.

Is any afflicted?

Is any merry?

Is any sick?

And he really focuses this whole passage on the subject of prayer, even into the 17th verse, when he speaks about the like passions of Elijah.

What did Elijah do when he felt the like passions of famine and drought and need and running from a difficult situation?

He prayed.

Prayer is our response to God's interaction in our lives.

Sometimes prayer changes things, sometimes prayer changes us.

One of my children said, I'm praying about a certain thing.

And then she said, I'm praying that if it's not God's will, he'll change my desire about it.

Is that okay?

I said, That's exactly okay.

Because prayer is not just getting God to do what we've already decided needs to be done.

Prayer is often about allowing God to do in our lives what he desires, aligning our desires with God's desires for us.

So I want to talk about three perspectives of prayer here in verses 13 through verse 16.

First of all, notice the sufferer.

He says, Is any among you afflicted?

Let him pray.

The afflicted are to pray.

The word here speaks of suffering in difficult circumstances.

It's the word Paul uses in 2 Timothy 2, verse 9, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.

2 Timothy 2:9

As may not be the case later in our passage, I want you to understand here that this affliction is not due to any sin or chastening in a believer's life.

Now, this whole passage is going to plumb into the depths of the cause of difficulties in our lives.

There are times that people suffer in the will of God.

There are times people suffer because they refuse to do the will of God.

And wisdom is knowing the difference.

When Job's friends came to him in his pit of despair, they assumed that something was awry in his relationship with God.

In chapters 1 and 2, Job teach us that he was suffering as a Christian, suffering in the will of God.

And so this first question involves those who could look at their suffering as a means of God's enabling his grace and growth in their own Christian lives.

So let's talk about the sufferer and his prayer.

First of all, notice that prayer gives us a better option than to compare ourselves with one another.

Why do the afflicted pray?

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 11, let such an one think this that such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also indeed when we are present, for we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.

2 Corinthians 10:11

But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.

Even in this section, verse number nine, James says, Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned.

Behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Prayer brings the needy soul to God, and the needy soul meets God in that place of hurt and hopelessness.

Why should the afflicted pray?

He's to pray to bring his truest intentions to God.

One of the things we talked about yesterday, and it stirred up a conversation I had with one of our members on Sunday about seeing great evil in the world and praying as David did, those imprecatory prayers of God's judgment on others.

But the complaint that we bring to God, bringing your complaint to God, is it okay to bring our complaint to God?

It's necessary.

To reveal the true nature of our feelings in times of struggles, because what happens is if we don't take our hurt to God, we begin to judge our hurt based on the hurts of others in their lives.

And we begin to make unfair judgments about the goodness of God.

Pastor Sexton used to say that all of us have struggles in our lives.

And if we, in moments of wanting to trade our struggle for the struggles of someone else, truly knew the struggles they were enduring, we would welcome our burden as a gift of God to us.

I remember my grandfather was a janitor and used to clean windows.

And he was at Amber's breakfast cafe in the little community I grew up in, leaned up against his Dodge car, hurting, legs were hurting, body was aching, complaining, praying that God would take this pain away.

And he says, as he's complaining, a military veteran comes out in a wheelchair, double amputated, and begins to pray, Oh God, thank you for pain in my legs.

Prayer gives us a better option than to complain or to compare ourselves with one another.

It was through prayer that we give the true tale to God, not looking at others, but speaking to the Lord.

It was Asaph who got in that vicious cycle of comparison.

He looked at his life, the bank account of the rich.

And the Bible says, when I thought to know this, it was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God.

Then I understood their end.

James's vision becomes crystal clear in this moment when he took his deepest feelings to God in the prayer closet.

Remember the old hymn we sing, tempted and tried, we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long.

While there are others living about us, never molested, though in the wrong.

Can I just say something to us this morning?

Earth is the only hell I will ever know.

And for some, maybe your neighbor.

Earth is the only heaven they may ever know.

Prayer keeps us from useless comparison.

Number two, prayer helps us to observe the work of God in our lives.

Why do we suffer?

Well, we suffer because trials in our life are often God's means of sanctification and purification in our lives.

Trials prepare us for eternal glory, for which cause we faint not, Paul says, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Prayer teaches us to depend upon God.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12 9, he had prayed three times that God would remove his trial, and God said, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Trials teach us to depend upon God.

Trials conform us to Christ, Romans 8.28.

And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

For whom he did foreknow, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ.

Trials refine our faith, 1 Peter 1:7, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:7

And then trials help us to increase our desire for God and the eternal, if not for a trial.

We wouldn't look to God, and without a trial, we wouldn't seek for that home way beyond our temporal home.

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit.

Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body.

And then Paul makes that great statement the Spirit helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.

But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

And then thirdly, notice that prayer produces humility.

Is any among you afflicted?

Let him pray.

Through prayer, we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

We humble ourselves.

Lord, would you remove this trial from me?

Would you vanquish this stronghold in my life?

Will you conquer this passion?

Will you give life to this place of death?

God, in humility, I'm beseeching you to give me grace.

Again, Paul says he in three separate occasions.

I think Paul's talking about three particular seasons of prayer.

Not three prayers, but three seasons of prayer of agonizing prayer, Lord, please remove this thorn from my flesh.

And the Lord says, I'm not taking it away.

Well, what do you do?

Well, you humble yourself to the work of God.

Because the Lord says, My strength is made perfect in weakness.

And when Paul learns that this thorn is part of his sanctification process, this thorn is not an accident, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

Thinking not strange the trial, the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you.

No, this is God's work.

And then Paul gets to the point where he says, Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities?

The power of Christ may rest upon me.

Our strength.

Our strength negates God's strength.

But our weakness, in weakness we are made strong, because it's not our strength, it's God's strength in our lives.

Is any among you afflicted?

Let him pray.

He, chapter 4, verse 6, remember, he giveth more grace.

Wherefore God, he said, he resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble.

So the sufferer is to pray.

Notice number two, the singer is also to pray.

Is any Mary.

Let him sing Psalms.

Well, there's room in the sanctuary for the sufferer and the singer.

I've often told Ethan in music, one of the amazing things about music is the ability to touch all the emotional points of our lives.

I love vibrato and crescendo and bombass.

I love that.

And that's what Elijah wanted in the wilderness.

The fire and the earthquake and the lightning crashing.

That's good.

But we also need be still, my soul.

The Lord is on his throne.

We need a still small voice.

And anytime you come into the assembly, you have the sufferer, you have the singer.

We're both turning to God.

Let him that gloryeth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.

Prayer and praise are twins in the work of God.

Ezra chapter 3, when they laid the foundations of the second temple, you'll remember that the ancients wept and the young people rejoiced.

Ezra 3 · chapter mention

How do you distinguish the sound of weeping from the sound of rejoicing?

I was thinking about that in just the congregation from this past weekend.

I thought about being at the hospital on Saturday to hold a brand new baby.

I had just left a funeral service with the sufferer and the singer.

I received news in a Sunday school class.

One of our young fathers just got a great promotion.

And after the service, I heard that someone lost their job.

The sufferer and the singer.

Job 35, 10.

But none saith, Where is God my maker who gives songs in the night?

Does the sufferer need to pray?

Oh yeah.

But does the singer need to pray?

Enjoy the mountaintop, isn't that?

It's wonderful.

I love being on the mountaintop.

But it really is down in the valley when we learn of God's grace.

I told you a couple years ago I was in Jerusalem, and some of us younger guys on the trip, a trip to Israel is wonderful.

It is sometimes exhausting, but so you you leave about 8 o'clock, they get you back by 5, you change, you have dinner, and most people want to crash.

Boy, they told us there was a new light rail that goes through Jerusalem, and you could buy a ticket for a couple dollars and go all the way to the through the old city and get to the garden tomb.

And I thought, wow, got to go to the garden tomb at night.

So a few of us guys went out.

And I was looking for a particular place called the American Colony because one of the stories I'd written was this the writing of It Is Well with My Soul.

Well, Spafford wrote that on the North Atlantic, but he was actually heading to Israel after the Chicago fire.

He'd lost his business, he'd sent his family ahead, and he was going to meet them there.

They were going to live in Israel.

And of course, he receives the telegram.

His wife writes back, saved alone, and what shall I do?

Their four daughters had died because of a shipwreck.

She survives.

He meets her that place.

They reestablished life in Jerusalem, developed the American colony, began to farm.

They had two other children.

His youngest son eventually died of scarlet fever.

Spafford lived a very difficult life.

But I was looking for the American colony because I had read that in the lobby there was the original telegram, the Western Union telegram, that his wife had sent to him with this message.

So I take the rail and we find this beautiful, beautiful hotel.

Walk in the lobby, and I said, I'm looking for the telegram from Mr.

Spafford.

And he goes, We don't have that anymore.

I said, Oh man.

He goes, but if you go down the hallway, I think you'll find something even better.

So I walk down the hallway, and there's all of these relics from Spafford's life, and in glass is from the Brevort House Stationery Hotel in Chicago.

The original manuscript to the great hymn, it is well.

And I'm reading this, thinking about this man who's looked over the bow of a ship, he's seen the watery grave of his children, and it's just as we sing it today, with one exception.

It's the last verse, the last line of the last verse.

And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight, that the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, that the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend.

We say, even so, it is well.

But that's not the original that he wrote.

Even songs in the night, oh my soul.

Job 35, 10.

The trumps shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even songs in the night.

Oh my soul.

There's prayer from the sufferer, there's prayer from the singer.

And then thirdly, there's there's prayer from the sick and the sinner.

Now I have to tread very, very lightly here.

Notice in verse 14, is any sick among you?

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.

I was 20 years old until I knew how to say that word.

All.

There was a Howard, there was uh some students at Crown College from Michigan, and I used to go to the I used to go to the counter and order a cup of ice and all.

And they used to say ice, practice ice and oil.

Okay, just a little free thing there.

The sinner and the sick person.

I want to talk about the reason for the illness.

Is any sick among you?

Number one, and this is really important, not all illness is due to the presence of sin in a person's life.

And before I get into any of this, I want to say this to you.

It's no Christian's job to know the reason of people's suffering.

It's the Christian's job to meet someone in their place of pain.

But James is making a very strong statement here.

Not all illness is due to the presence of sin in a person's life.

There was a blind man, John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Jesus passed by, saw a man which was blind from his birth, and his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who who did this sin?

This man, his parents, that he was born blind.

I don't know how a man can be born blind, but yet he's responsible for his blindness because of sin.

But anyway.

Not all illness is due to the presence of sin in a person's life.

Number two, but some sin is.

For this cause, people that partake unworthily, he says, are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

John 5 14, afterward, Jesus findeth him in the temple and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

And then David is writing in Psalm 32 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was heavy on me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

Sila.

Now we can do an anthropological study on man's spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological life, and recognize there is no distinction between often the spirit and the soul.

Sins of the flesh have an emotional outcome, sins of anxiety, discouragement, depression.

I didn't say that thoroughly clearly.

There are times things going on inside of us can also have a physical outgrowth as well.

Not all illness is due to the presence of sin in someone's life, but some sin is.

So we're trying to talk about the reason for this illness.

Is any sick among you?

And he takes that up again because he begins to describe in verse 15 notice, the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Confess your false one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed.

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Now the word for salvation is soteria.

We get the word soteriology.

If you ever hear a preacher say soteriology, that's the doctrine of salvation.

But one way the word soteria can be translated is healing.

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

With his stripes, we are healed.

So James is making an argument without a strong conclusion.

Some sins lead to physical illness, and at times illness is God's way of producing Christ-likeness in our lives.

So that's the reason for this illness.

But number two, notice the role of the church.

So we have someone, they walk in, and they're sick.

Not my job, not your job, not anyone's job.

To figure out, I wonder if there's some secret sin in their lives.

Why are they suffering?

This is God's work.

God's allowed this.

What's our responsibility?

Number one, not condemnation or accusation, but restoration and intercession.

That's our job.

In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus writes that classic passage.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Fill in the blank for me if you can.

In Matthew 18, 15 through 20, on church discipline.

I understand what we mean.

We've always said that.

Matthew 18 is really about church restoration.

Because Jesus says, if your brother commit a trespass against you, you go and tell him his fault, and if he hears you, you have gained your brother.

But if he will not hear you, take with you two or three the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established, and if he neglect to hear them, tell it to the church.

If he neglect hear the church, let him be under thee as a heathen man, as a publican.

And in that setting, Jesus says, where two or three are gathered in my name.

There I am in the midst thereof.

So our job is not condemnation or accusation, but restoration and intercession.

And then the second thing that we're to do in this passage is we're to respond.

Notice he says, verse 14, is any sick among you?

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.

So we respond by coming to them.

Now, this really throws a really big wrench in the health and wealth prosperity gospel faith healing movement of Benny Hen coming to town and telling all the sick to come to him.

That is not what James says.

Don't go down to downtown Birmingham and call all the sick to yourself.

No.

This is a person within the confines of a local body who is ill and calls for the elders of the church, and they are to come to this person.

Anointing with oil was an extremely common thing when I was a child.

I've done it once in my whole ministry.

Actually twice, once publicly, once in a hospital.

But we're to come to them and we're to pray, we're to pray over them, and we're to anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

Richardson said that olive oil, according to the Old Testament and Jewish understanding, was prized for its nurturing of human well-being, for its healing properties.

Thou anointest my head with oil.

Oil was obviously a picture of the Holy Spirit.

It was used internally, it was used externally.

It could be swallowed as to coat, maybe the intestines.

It was put all over a sheep as to protect him from bugs and pestilence and all of those types of things.

Healing property.

So in Jesus' time, olive oil was utilized in the healing of the sick when combined with the preaching of the gospel and a need for repentance.

Mark chapter 6, verse 12.

Mark 6:12

And they went out and preached that men should repent, and they cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

The word means to massage, to anoint, an outward application.

But not just an outward application, but that the Holy Spirit might not just fix the wounds of the body, but might fix the wounds of the soul.

Our duty is to respond, to be compassionate.

And then think about this.

Our duty is to hold one another accountable.

Now, this is not a verse we hear a lot in a Baptist church.

Verse 16, confess your faults one to another.

And pray for one another that you may be healed.

Now you see the word faults there?

Verse 16.

What's a synonym for faults?

Anybody want to give me one?

One starts with M and ends with is stake.

Faults, mistakes, errors.

Okay, the word here is hamartiah, okay?

Sin.

It's the same word in chapter 1, verse 14.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth hamartia, sin.

Okay.

Now, you got to be really careful here.

Confess your faults to who?

One another.

He didn't say, he didn't say the father with his collar on backwards.

No, he's not saying that.

He's not saying we find forgiveness by necessarily confessing to one another, but we certainly find healing by becoming accountable to each other.

Can I throw a number at you?

This is going to shock you.

If you took the composite of men at Calvary Baptist Church, now this is a national average, you're not ready for this.

If you took the national average of men, I took a hundred men at Calvary Baptist Church, and I said, how many of them have been or are addicted to pornography?

Statistically, 75%.

I was talking to Ethan, his floor at Pensacola.

He was talking to an RA.

75 young men on one floor.

How many are dealing with pornography?

The RA said 72.

What's the illustration?

The illustration is this sin lurks and loves the corners of darkness in our lives.

It loves it.

Feeds on it, thrives on it.

Like a mold.

And the church has become something that we attend.

We put our happy face on, we attend.

We come, we dress the part, we look at the part, we put a smile on our face.

We don't become honest with anyone.

We give fair greetings and how are you doing?

Great, happy in Jesus.

Right?

What happens?

We don't ultimately become accountable to each other.

And what happens?

Sin begins to fester and foment and grow in the corners and secret places of our lives.

And I want to I'll I'll just say I'll say this to you as well.

My experience is that what I just talked about does not know an age limitation.

Does not know an age limitation.

He's talking about being accountable to each other, being vulnerable with one another.

Confess your faults one to another and pray ye one for another that ye may be healed.

The most potent thing you can do to sin is bring it into the light of God's word and accountability.

That's what James is teaching here.

Now, wouldn't that be a paradigm shift in most of our churches?

To become extremely vulnerable and honest in the sight of God and each other.

That's part of our responsibility to each other, is to number four, to pray in faith.

The prayer of faith, verse 15, shall save the sick.

There's one weapon my children used against me.

I hate this weapon.

I hate this weapon.

But it always works.

You said.

And Maria will say, that's why you can't make promises.

You said.

Ethan's been especially good about this.

You said we are doing XYZ.

Well, I've got to be a person on my word.

You said, you promised.

Someone said the prayer of faith is that which reminds God, Lord, you promised.

You promised.

This is the confidence we have in him if we ask anything according to his will.

He heareth us.

And we know that he hears us.

Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we desire of him.

And then, just lastly, here, there's the role of the afflicted.

There's the reason for the illness, there's the responsibility of the church, then there's the role of the afflicted.

What are they to do?

Is any sick among you?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him.

Prayer of faith shall save the sick, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Confess your faults one to another.

He's to call for, and he's to confess.

To confess before men as to bring about healing of the body and the restoration of the soul.

Do you remember what Paul said in 2 Corinthians?

I believe it's uh no.

1 Corinthians 7, if I'm right about that.

It's not lawful that a man should have his father's wife incessed at Corinth.

And Paul says to the church that they are to exercise authority over that leaven, which is a picture of sin.

They're to discipline this member for this, because they were very tolerant as a church.

And he says that they're to deliver him over to Satan, that the spirit might be saved.

The flesh is to be delivered over.

It would be better, Paul says, for a man to suffer physical destruction than to lose his soul.

And I think that's what James is tapping into here is to confess our faults one to another.

Prayer in the church.

The sufferer, the singer, the sick, and the sinner.

And then he finally says, as we'll look at next week as we close the book of James here in the next few weeks, that Elijah felt just like we do, but he prayed.

But the secret of Elijah is not that he prayed.

It's verse 18 that he prayed again.

That's the secret of prayer.

Let's pray.

Father, we love you and thank you for our time together today and