When Should we Pray? (James 5:13-15)

Do this not that is a kind of a popular marketing wording that's

kind of been around for ages and there are many spin offs to

that. You know, go there, not there,

cook this, not that, eat this, not that.

And James is kind of kind of doing the reverse order of that

here. We've done 3 sermons in chapter

5 already, and all three was, for the most part, don't do

this. If we started off with don't

hoard wealth. And then it was like, don't

complain when you get impatient with God's timing.

And then the last sermon was, you know, don't take oaths,

right? And today we get the instead do

this. What does James tell us to do

instead of all that? Do what he says, pray.

His answer is simply prayer. So going back to chapter 5, you

know you're insecure and you want to build wealth to feel

secure. Well, instead of that, pray,

right? Don't complain about God's

timing. Instead, pray and don't be

untruthful to get out of bad situations.

Instead, pray and remember, James is the most practical

letter practical writer of the New Testament, and he wants us,

He wants prayer to be infused in our daily lives.

So it's not just kind of this obscure theological teaching of

prayer, but it's very practical. How can we actually put prayer

in our daily lives? So that's the question we want

to answer today instead of worrying, instead of

complaining, instead of building wealth, how can we pray in our

daily lives? So that's the question we want

to answer today. When should we pray?

If you are new, we do have these outlines and I just there's some

fill in the blanks and and you can be found in the bulletin as

you walk in. Beginning of the year, we had a

little more people than usual. Two places are packed.

Beginning of the year, My gym and my church.

My gym by by February. I don't know because I'm not

there. Hopefully at church we'll still

see some people. When should we pray #1 when

things are going well? When things are going well.

Verse 13. We only have 3 verses.

I'll read the first one for the first point.

Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray.

Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.

OK, he starts off by James asking is anyone suffering?

Then he should pray. And then is the mere opposite.

Is anyone doing well? Then also, you should pray.

James is starting off with something very obvious.

It's like when you're suffering. Yeah, obviously we all know we

should pray, but he says it's the opposite.

It makes us think, really, we pray.

And of course, we should pray always.

But is that when we should be encouraged to pray?

And he's doing that on purpose. You're flipping it around and

trying. He's trying to say something to

make us think more. Hum, this is our area where

maybe prayer is not. We thought maybe it's not

priority, but he's making us think, do we need prayer in this

area? Like when it's cold, wear a

jacket. OK, we all know that he's saying

when it's hot, also wear a jacket.

Like huh, Making us think when things are going well, pray.

Hmm. I mean, Christians, we all agree

we should always pray, but really, is that when we should

be thinking about kind of adding more prayer into when things are

good? Well, let's look into that,

James says, Or are we OK? He should think praises, right?

So he's still in the topic of prayer.

So in context of prayer, he's saying we should be praising

God. We should be thanking God in our

prayer. Now it might sound obvious like

yeah, pastor, like when things are well, yeah, yeah, of course

we're thankful and that's yeah, that's like natural.

But our argue, I would argue that a lot of us feel thankful

when things are good, but not necessarily prayer, pray prayers

on Thanksgiving or praising God. We feel it, but not necessarily

pray it. And the reason why James wants

to pray it is not because it's some like it's rude.

Like, oh, thank, didn't you even thank God for that?

Like the other day I did laundry for my family and then Maddie

walks in like, where are my pants?

And I was like, you ungrateful. You know, it's like God like

saying like, hey, he blessed your life and you don't even say

thank you. No, God is not petty like me.

God is. God also knows our hearts, but I

don't think it's that. But there is a very practical

and essential reason why we should actually pray.

I want to argue that it's we need to give Thanksgiving and

praise to God when things are going well because it is

necessary for the well-being of our souls.

It is good for our hearts. Let me explain why.

When you pray, when you're in prayer, giving thanks to God,

acknowledging that he's the giver of all good things and

good things come from him. When that is something that you

and God communicate, that gives you the the correct perspective

of when things aren't going well, when you don't pray that

you know what happens slowly, it's you slowly adopt what the

world understands about doing well in life, which is I worked

hard, therefore I deserve this. And it becomes very dangerous

for our souls when you start thinking that because God slowly

starts moving out of the picture.

Well, I did this, I earned this. And if you think about it like,

yeah, you worked hard. A lot of us here work hard and

you're successful and you have a lot of blessings, a lot of good

things are happening. So it might almost make sense.

But also think about this, for the most part, if you look

around the world, there are 1,000,000, if not billions of

people who work really hard and yet they live lives of poverty

and suffering. I was just in Cambodia a few

months ago and Oh my goodness, those pastors, they work so

hard. More than half the pastors that

I met in Cambodia are, they don't make enough, enough at

church, their salary to, you know, make a living.

So over half of them are actually farmers.

So they farm Monday through Saturday and, and in between

they're preparing sermons, meeting people, having meetings,

and, and they're doing all of that just to kind of live,

survive. But they work harder than anyone

in the US probably. And they must deserve blessings,

wealth, a big raise. But what did I, what did they

get? Well, I just got a update from

Pastor Petros, who are supporting Cambodian Pastor.

You know what he updated me with?

He said there was bombings in the city and his entire village

had to evacuate 2 hours. So they couldn't have services.

They couldn't be at our own homes already.

The border closed, the Thailand, Cambodian border closed already

and over 1,000,000 people lost their jobs overnight.

And because the borders are closed, there is inflation.

And I would say they work really hard, but it's not nothing to

show for it. In fact, they're in, they're in

a lot of, there's a lot of suffering.

So why is it that we work hard and that we get to reap the

benefits? Is it all really up to you or

me? God allowed you to make a living

here, allowed to give you gave you the parents you have and the

influences that you have. It really not just about you and

how hard hard work your work. But when you do pray, you are

going away from oh, I did this too.

Lord, you are the giver, all good things and your perspective

is stays in the correct place. So prayer in good times is

necessary because you need to maintain that perspective of God

is a reason for my blessings. And another reason that we need

to pray when things are good is because the blessings and gifts

when things are good, actually it's a very dangerous time for

your souls because the gifts and blessings, just like that, they

could turn, they could replace God in your heart.

Those gifts and blessings are supposed to be signs pointing to

the grace and the goodness of God.

But instead of signs, they become your gift, they become

your treasure, they become your ultimate.

God gets demoted to pretty important and those pretty

important thing gets promoted to ultimate.

I mean, how thankful are we for our children we are, but how

easy it is that how well they do, how happy they are

determines how happy we are. We're thankful for our jobs.

We should be. But just like that, your job,

what your boss thinks of you, your promotion, that becomes

ultimate. Just like that, every good

thing, every good moment is just a sign pointing to the ultimate

destination, which is Jesus Christ.

But we take those signs, we start worshipping them.

Marriage. Yeah, have a great marriage.

But marriage at its pure form, it's supposed to teach you about

you and God, Us and God is a marriage, and our human marriage

is supposed to point towards the ultimate marriage, having kids.

It points to the ultimate kind of unconditional love of God

towards us. They're all pointers and

signposts, but we take those signs and we bow down to it and

we say you are the ultimate thing.

Over 10 years ago, I went on a road trip with my friend.

Not a road trip. He was going to school.

We drove there, I dropped him off, flew back.

When he graduated, I flew there and I drove back.

We drove back and we were passing by Scranton, PA.

And you will know why Scranton, PA is why Wayne is clapping.

The office, the TV show office is based on a city called

Scranton, PA. So I forget if it was like we

went to, we were leaving like we're like this way or that way.

I forgot, but we were passing by my friend, knowing that I am a

office fan. He said, do you want to stop by?

But I am from Torrance and Pennsylvania is so cold in the

winter. We ate those, you know, we ate

some like sandwiches and outside, you know, Philly

cheesesteaks. And it was like 2 hours.

And I'm like, oh, I don't want to go back out.

So what we did was we just drove by and took a picture of the

sign, Scranton, PA, like over there, like sign coming up.

And it was like my old phone. And it was like, I have a blurry

Scranton sign somewhere. And later on I find out like

what they have. I found out that there was this

big old wall, a mural with all the office characters and it

says like, welcome to Scranton Electric City, you know the rap

song They do a big old mirror. I'm like, oh, I would have loved

to go over there and take a picture instead of just the sign

and all the the intro. When the TV show starts, there's

a building, right? Thunder muffling that actual

building is is a real building in Scranton.

And there are restaurants and places named in the show that is

actual places. And I was like, oh, I wish I

went. But instead I was fine.

This is Scranton, PA population, whatever.

That's all I have now. Thankfully, that's not the only

thing we did on a road trip. There were other places we

actually stopped by. There was a famous seminary in

Philadelphia we stopped by. We stopped by DC.

We stopped by some rattlesnake fried rattles, I don't know,

somewhere in Texas. From Texas to California,

there's absolutely nothing. We did some cool things too, but

imagine if my entire road trip was just signs.

We didn't stop by anywhere. This is a bunch of signs.

What a dumb road trip it would be.

And that's why we're making our life.

We're living this life and God gives good things to us.

But they're a bunch of signposts.

They're just, there's a bunch of pointers to to the ultimate gift

that is in Jesus Christ. That is our salvation.

That is the grace of God. We ignore that and we go to the

sign, Jesus Christ that way, and we just take pictures.

We're like, yay, we have children, we have jobs, we have

nice things. Life is great.

And our life is just full of pictures with signs.

And those are the ultimate. I want to go to that next sign,

Grand Canyon, this way. I want to go to that sign.

No, it's not about the sign. Enjoy it, but you got to be

reminded what is pointing to and how are you supposed to be

reminded? Pray in the good times so that

when you're enjoying it, you realize this is just earthly

things. My eyes should be up in heaven.

All right, point #2 when should we pray?

One was when things are going well #2 when we are suffering,

when we are suffering. Verses 14 and 15 Is anyone among

you sick? He should call for the elders of

the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil

in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save

the sick person and the Lord will raise him up.

If he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven the committing of

sins. And verse and the rest of the

verses have some of that going on.

That's next week's sermon, so I won't touch on that, but I'll

focus on 13. I'm sorry, 14 and the first part

of 15, it says here that is anyone sick, you should call the

elders of the church. So verse 13 is anyone suffering.

So suffering is sick is a kind of like a sub, you know, like a

more specific part of suffering. So James is saying, you know

what, I want to talk about prayer in something very

specific. Maybe we don't think about

prayer in this area. So he wants us to think about

prayer when somebody is sick or when you are sick.

It it looks like just three simple steps, right?

It just seems like when you are sick, call the others and the

elders go to that sick person and annoy with oil and then and

then pray for healing. It just seems like call the

others elders, show up oil, pray for healing and just one steps

1-2 and three. Can we do that?

Any elders here? John?

John here. OK, so Jay is teaching the the

kids today. So they're not here.

So let's talk about what we could do when you're sick.

It says call an elder and he will show up with oil.

Unfortunately, we don't have anointing oil in stock at our

church, but I, I looked up the recipe and I, I will send it to

the elders. It is just olive oil, myrrh,

cinnamon, frankincense and Castillo.

Or you could just buy something that has all of them for 795 on

Amazon.com. So is this something we should

be taking literal call Jay, John, John or myself?

I'm, I'm one of the elders too. And we show up with oil and then

we dump oil on your head and we pray for healing and then we go

back home. It's not really practical,

right? So let's talk about what it you

can do this literally, it's fine.

But I do think there is a concept to be followed, not just

the step by step here. I think what it means is when

you are sick, call let involve your church, involve your

church. And This is why James is saying

prayer could protect your community.

So let's say somebody gets sick, can't show up for a couple

months, that person is excluded from our community.

It's nobody's fault, but that person is sick, right?

That person is not part of our church community for let's just

say two months. So James is saying use prayer to

protect the community. How do you do that?

Well, if that person cannot join our community, send the

community over to a sick person. That's why it says anoint with

oil when somebody's sick. We could say, oh, are you OK?

Yeah, you know my prayers. I would see you.

We could say nice things and we could even actually pray for

them. But you know what you can't do

long distance, you can't anoint with oil.

Long distance anointing with oil is an in person activity.

James is saying when somebody is sick, church people should go

over there, spend time with the sick and do something in person

so that person is still part of the community.

Anointing of oil has several significant meanings, especially

in the Old Testament. One is it oil does heal, has

some healing, you know, elements.

So it could be if somebody is sick, take care of them, you

know, bring them food and and and whatever.

And you know, when we have someone has a baby, we do meal

trains. I think something similar, but

anoint with oil also has a meaning of setting apart that

person for for special work of God.

When David was chosen to be the next king, when he was just a

child, Samuel anointed him with oil.

Any prophet, priests, kings were anointed with oil.

They were set apart to do God's work.

So you may be thinking, wait, somebody's sick and we show up

and we say you are set apart to do special God's work.

Like why are we picking on the sick person?

Well, when you are sick, and this is this is probably

referring to a little bit more serious sickness illnesses.

OK. And James, the reason why James

says pray for healing. When somebody's sick, pray for

that person, pray for healing. So let's say there is a physical

healing, it's not always, but sometimes there is a physical

healing. Then God is glorified in the

old. In the church building before

this one, we rented from a Korean church called One Family

Chapel. And the pastor's wife, she had

brain tumor and the doctors gave her I think like 1 percent, 2%

something small number chance of survival.

And the pastor, this is before, you know, there he was a pastor

and he, he prayed to God and said, if you save my wife, I

will become a pastor. And then she got healed and he

became a pastor. It's a miracle.

It's a testimony. God was glorified through the

healing. So yeah, do pray for healing.

Don't feel bad praying for healing.

Don't be like, oh Lord, if it's your will, you know, if it won't

mind, can you heal that person? No, you could you could boldly

ask for healing. Sometimes God doesn't grant

physical healing, but sometimes God gives spiritual and or

emotional healing of that person.

One example is Johnny Erickson Tada.

She when she was a teenager, she got into an accident and she

became paralyzed neck down. And for over 50 years she's been

in ministry. And this is what she says, you

know, so, you know, obviously when she got hurt, everyone pray

for her. God did not heal her, but God,

she was able to meet God in a in a personal in a deep way.

And when she was paralyzed. And her famous quote is

something like sometimes God allows something he hates so

that he could accomplish something he loves.

He allows something he hates so that something he loves can be

accomplished. And Johnny Erickson Tata, it's a

she. Like, it's not.

I thought it was Johnny, but I guess everyone pronounces it

Johnny. She's been an inspiration and to

not, not just other, you know, other people who are paralyzed

or sick, but really to anyone and everyone who who's heard her

story. So when she was sick, people

prayed for her. And you may think, oh, goddamn,

a healer. Oh, what a bummer.

What a failure. No, God healed her in a

different way. And I could honestly say, yeah,

she was set apart to do special work for the Lord.

She wrote so many books, she so many conferences she spoke at

inspired so many people. She's she's had special

anointing to do God's work in her sickness.

So what James is saying is, was somebody sick?

Pray because that is an opportunity for God's work to be

done. Pray so that that person is not

excluded from community. Pray so that that really sick,

sick person could glorify God through healing, physical or

otherwise. James is showing us how

important prayer is in our everyday lives.

I worked for Korean churches until this one, Korean speaking,

you know, And I felt like people involved, the church or pastors

or elders like in too many things.

My boss, the Manian pastor, I was the assistant.

Somebody asked him to pray for their new car he bought like

this, Mercedes says. Pastor, can you pray for my car

and I was like, I wasn't there, but I was like, I would have not

not said yes, pray for your Mercedes.

No pray for my minivan. That's that's my minivan needs

prayer. Pray for your brand new Mercedes

Like that's crazy. Like OK, that's that's I feel

like they were too overboard and involved in the church in their

daily lives. Too many of members invited me

to their like their granddaughters, like kids

birthday or something where I'll show up and not nobody.

I don't know, like OK, maybe. But I think SPMC might be on the

other extreme, like when you're sick, we kind of see it as a

personal issue, private issue. And sometimes it is.

And it's OK to let a few people know.

It's sometimes it's sensitive and I understand that.

But generally speaking, when you're sick, let people in so at

least they're praying for you. You know, the elders are not

like our jobs. One of our major jobs is to pray

for you. But we got to know we can't just

be like, oh, pastor Lord, I pray for this person and I don't know

if that person is sick or not, but in case you're sick or he's

like, no, just tell us you're sick and we'll pray for you.

One one thing is, you know, this is the baby.

What I say, not not baby making stage a baby time of stage in

life for many people having babies.

We are such a small church and we have what, 30 ladies in our

church, five are pranked. That's a very good percentage.

We should advertise it. You know, fertile, fertile

church come by. And yeah, it's not like an

illness, but it is a medical situation and and we don't see

you guys for 2-3 months. And I get it, vaccines and you

don't want babes to get sick and all that.

But we have to, after the initial like really sensitive

time, like 6 weeks, 8 weeks, whatever that is.

I think we have to do a better job bringing the community to

the sick people. But also people have to let the

church in, right? So I think we have to have a

little shift in culture so that hey, let's protect our

community. Let's even if you are not here

for a couple months, we've had people not show up for months

because of work, some family emergency, like hey, my mom's

sick. I got to, I got to take care of

her. We've had people like class

schedule internships. So instead of, OK, see you in

three months, a lot of times they never come back.

We're going to be as a church community, we're going to be

more aware of that. So you know what, let's bring

the community out to them. Let's get our anointing oils and

let's visit the people who have been here.

So yeah, let's have a change in perspective perhaps.

And it doesn't have to be overnight suddenly, suddenly

change everything. But certainly, let's not be a

church community that just hangs out with each other, the church

community that prays for each other, who is physically

visiting each other and and praying and caring and loving

for one another. Main point, God keeps us

connected to him and to the church community in both joy and

suffering through prayer. Let's pray at this time.

Let's just say a simple prayer to God.

Lord, help me to pray more. Help me to pray besides just,

you know, meals and maybe before sleep, but just ask God.

Lord, I want to communicate with you.

I want a real relationship with you and want to pray when I'm

well, when I'm sick in my ups and downs.

Lord, I want to include you. Let's just say that simple

prayer to God, let's pray.