James | Week 10

Good morning to you again. I hope you guys had a good

Thanksgiving. Did everybody?

Get lots of food and eat all the things?

Yeah, I know, I did. It was good, it's good.

Why do I hope you had a good Thanksgiving?

Just a little something as everybody's getting seated.

Get you laughing this morning. I realized, just a second ago,

standing beside Sherry or singing.

And I look down and realize that my jacket is made out of an old

chair. Apparently, it's made of told

Sherry. If I sit down, they will Even

see me we're in camo this morning.

It's perfect. So anyway, well, good morning,

it's good to see everybody. I know, Thanksgiving is over and

it's officially Christmas. Now as you can see from the, the

decorations that looks beautiful in here.

Thank you to everybody that did that we're eager to celebrate

the month of December and celebrate Christmas with

everybody. I know there's been a lot of

sickness going around too. So thank you all for being here

and And braving the bad weather and everything else to be here.

Thank you for your commitment and your faithfulness.

I guess I should have announced before we shook hands to maybe

be careful with that but that's okay.

We're good now. So we have been going through

the Book of James and we are going to finish it up today.

So we are going to finish the Book of James finally and it has

been a great walkthrough of a very good book.

That is just good practice. Uncle every day Christian

teaching this book has been full of things that we can take and

apply and do it's not just thoughts on Christianity, it's

not just the ology, it's not a, just a history of lesson of some

things that were happening. It is a letter of instruction on

how to go and do these things, how to apply these things to

your life. And so it's been very, very

good. I love the Book of James and I'm

glad that we've been able to go through it.

So, if you have your Bibles turn to James chapter 5, that's where

James 5 · chapter mention

Going to be today, finishing it out.

We're going to be starting around verse 13 before we do.

I just want to point out that this book The main theme in the

main point of this book, it's been a couple of things.

An amazing thing about it is that it, it challenges us to

take our faith. And what we say that we believe.

And put it into action. So this book is a punch right in

the nose saying that if you say you believe in Jesus and you

call yourself a Christian, then act like it and go and live your

life in these ways and do these things.

Don't just say you believe do it.

And so the major theme of the book of James is that faith

without works is dead. You say you have faith but prove

it, by the way, you live your life.

Go and act on that Faith. Now, don't just think it.

Don't just say it. Go live it.

And so everything. We've looked at through this

book has fallen in line with that.

It's been practical advice on how to live.

So before we jump into this text, let's pray, really quick.

And then we'll take a look at what the ending of the book has

to say. Okay, let's pray.

Father. Again we thank you for the

opportunity to be here in the opener word, to study it and to

read from it. God, we are grateful for this

great privilege and this freedom, I pray now, Lord, that

you open it up that you open our eyes, and our ears, and our

minds and our hearts to receive it.

And to hear it, I pray that you speak through me.

So rightly understand this text so that we can take it and apply

it to our lives so that we could walk out of this place and the

full Council of your word, loving it.

So God, we praise you today, we do this.

All for your honor and your glory, may your name.

Be made famous. Please speak to us.

Now through your word in Jesus name, amen.

Last week, Kyle did a superb job of walking us through verses 7

through 12. In chapter 5, it was on

suffering with immovable patients.

He did a fantastic job. I know I was glad to hear him

preaching. Again, I heard a lot of feedback

from you guys. You were glad that he was back

in the Pulpit. It was wonderful to hear from

him. They've got a sick kid.

Oh, that's why they're not here today.

So y'all be praying for them. I know having him back, did us

all good, and I know that getting to hear from him again.

Has just confirmed that you guys are ready for him to be back in

the pulpit and quit hearing from us.

So we're ready for that. Very good to hear from Kyle.

But he did a great job of walking us through Suffering

suffering with patience and that is going to transition perfectly

into today's text starting at verse 13.

So if you are able, please stand with me, for the reading of

God's word, I'm going to read our text.

And as we have done in the past, when Kyle preaches, I'm going to

read it. And I will tell you, I will say

this is the word of the Lord, and you will respond.

Thanks, be to God. Okay, so let's read it.

James chapter 5, starting at verse 13.

James 5 · chapter mention

Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray, is anyone

cheerful? He is to sing praises.

Is anyone among you sick, then? He must call for the Elders of

the church, and they are to pray over him.

Anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord, and the prayer

offered in faith will restore. The one who is sick?

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

they will be forgiven him. Therefore confess your sins to

one another and pray for one another.

So so that you may be healed the effective prayer of a righteous

man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature

like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain

and it did not rain on the earth.

For three months, three years and six months, then he prayed

again and the sky poured rain and the Earth produced its

fruit. My brethren if any among you

Strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know

that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way, will save

his soul. From death and will cover a

multitude of sins. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God, you may be seated.

This text, these particular verses as we saw in homegroups

week or so ago when we covered this has been the subject of

some debate throughout church history.

We've looked at in these verses we just read about things like

applying oil, anointing with oil and the significance of that,

we've looked at praying in faith for healing and how that works.

So it can be really easy when you start start to study this

text and you start to talk about it to get bogged down in the

weeds and miss the overall point of this text, it can be really

easy to miss the big picture to miss the forest for the trees.

What have you? So the main idea the main theme

of these verses is prayer. It's all about prayer.

Prayer is mentioned in every single verse of this text.

Every verse mentions prayer. That's what we're talking about

here. Okay.

That is going to be today's Focus.

That is what I'm going to talk to you about.

I do not have the time and I don't think you would want me to

try to give you a full theological treatment on

anointing with oil and healing and all of those things as God's

word teaches it and its entirety their entire books written on

these things. And I encourage you to go and

read more about that. But I'm not going to waste too

much time. Focusing on the sub points here,

I want us to see the overall picture.

Okay. And I believe that is this This

is my main point for you today. My big idea if you're taking

notes you can write this down The discipline of prayer is one

of the most valuable Assets in the life of a Christian.

Okay, the discipline. Don't miss that.

The discipline of prayer is one of the most valuable Assets in

the life of a Christian. I know I've over overly

simplified it, but I'm going to explain a bit as we move

forward. So again last week, Kyle talked

about suffering and how weird to have immovable patients in the

face of suffering. These verses pick up right,

where he left off because it opens up with verse 13.

Is anyone suffering? And he should pray.

Is anyone cheerful or happy among you?

He is too. Sing praises, when we think

about singing praises, what we're doing is we're praising.

God, we're singing of his goodness and his excellency's in

his mercy, and we're singing out to him, that, that song.

Our voices are directed to him as we do that.

So, in a way, it's another form of kind of prayer.

It's not quite the same, but we are still talking to God by

praising him through song. And through our, through our

words. So either way, we're to pray

were to praise and then we Get to our text today.

On sickness is anyone among you sick?

He should call the Elders and have them pray and anoint them

with oil as we see in verse 14. So, let's unpack this just a

little bit. Okay?

What is James talking about when he says, is anyone among you

sick? We just got done coming out of a

passage about suffering and about enduring that.

Well, and so some want to take this passage and say, well, he's

just talking about spiritual sickness here, not physical,

it's all spiritual, but that is not what the context of this

passage tells us. The context is primarily

physical sickness as you see words and phrases, like, pray

over him, that he may be restored and raised up, and

we're going to touch on that here in a minute.

But there is a spiritual aspect to this.

Because we also see that in doing so he can confess sins and

he may be forgiven. So this is, there is a spiritual

undertone to this. It's a little bit of both its

physical sickness, but there's something spiritual at play too,

but it's not just strictly Spiritual either way.

This person is the call for the elders to come and pray for him

and anoint with oil. Now why why I call the Elders to

come and pray and anoint with oil, we know that the Elders of

the church do not have some sort of superpower, right?

When you get when you get placed as an elder, you don't get us a

magic ring that lets you go around just bopping people in

their healed of anything that they might be sick with.

That's not how this works. But we do see in the New

Testament that guys like Paul and Peter were given amazing

abilities to heal that that was even with them.

Never just a twill they couldn't just walk around zapping people

that was always a holy spirit moving thing.

So why call the Elders? It's because prayer was the

primary focus here, not the healing.

Prayer was the primary focus and prayer is something that the

Elders of the church should be very good at.

We know in Acts chapter 6, when the 12 apostles decided to

Acts 6 · chapter mention

appoint seven to take care of the distribution for the

Hellenistic widows. They were being neglected.

The reason was because they said it is not good for us to neglect

the preaching and teaching of the word and prayer.

Those two things are to be the elders, primary, focus prayer,

and the History of the word that is what a prayer.

An elder is to devote himself to prayer and the word teaching and

preaching it. So Elders would have been men of

prayer. They would have been men that

love to pray and of course, they're the, the shepherd's

there, the overseers of the flock.

And so it makes sense that they would want to go to them when

they're sick, and they would want to pray for them and pray

over them. Now, when you see this, this

language of praying over someone the context there.

If you start to read the original languages shows that

it's very much a standing over someone.

So it's implying that this person might have been on their

deathbed, they would have been bedridden and sick and so the

elders come and gather around and pray over that person so

that he might be raised up much like in the resurrection, be

healed and be able to get up out of that bed, at some point.

So again, we see physical sickness, we see these Others

coming to pray because they would have been men of prayer.

We see in verse 16 here in a moment that the prayers of a

righteous person can accomplish much.

So these were righteous men. The elders would be men of of

the word and Men of prayer to go and pray over these people.

They were also to anoint with oil.

So what does that mean? What does it mean to anoint with

oil and depending on your background and what church you

grew up in this might have been common practice for you or it

might have been it might be very, very foreign to I know it

was to me when I first started to learn about this practice.

So what does it mean to anoint with oil?

What's the what's going on here? What's the significance again?

There's lots and lots of debate about this but we know that the

oil is not, this is not a primarily medicinal thing, okay?

If it was just about the oil had medicinal properties and all of

that, they would have tried that long before calling the elders

to come to visit with them. They would have just kept a jar

of whatever, and they would have done that.

So, this is not a case for essential oils, ladies.

Just throwing that out there. And also we know that this oil

wasn't magic, right? It's not that.

There's something that's not a magic potion that if you rub it

on somebody they're healed instantly we know that's not the

case. If that were the case, I'd be

walking around just sprinkling it on everybody.

So what was the point? What was the point of anointing

with oil? We see this in scripture,

especially in the Old Testament. You see Aaron being anointed as

the high priest. This is a consecrating a person

to the Lord, it is. Is a setting aside, a person to

the Lord's care to his provision and saying we are dedicating

that person to God. And that's exactly what you see.

When you see people being Anointed with oil, That's you

see the, the example of the lady come in and break in the perfume

and putting it on Jesus feet. This is this is what's happening

in that moment that person is being given over to God for his

care. So we see a sick person

desperate, and helpless calling the elders to come and pray over

them, commit them to the Lord, anoint them with oil and entrust

that person to the care of. God, that is what's taking place

in these verses. Now, look at verse 15 with The

prayer offered in faith will restore.

The one who is sick? And the Lord will raise him up

and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.

So, what does the prayer of faith or the prayer offered in

faith? What does that mean?

What does it mean to pray in faith?

So again, this has been debated a lot.

There's a lot of controversy around praying in faith or a

prayer of faith. This is not an example of

believe it and receive it. This is also not an example of

just name it and claim it make it yours.

This is not flinging Jesus's name around like a lightsaber to

get whatever you want. That's not what's Happening

Here, unfortunately, that does happen a lot, but that's not

what the Bible is, commanding here.

Praying in faith is praying in a way that shows we are trusting

into things, okay? If you want to write this down,

feel free praying in faith, shows were trusting into things,

God's Ants. In other words, his power and

his ability to heal and shows, we are also trusting in God's

sovereignty. In other words, we're trusting,

his will not wheel. His will his timing and his way,

not our own. Don't miss that.

We're trusting in. Not only God's ability were

saying, I know you can. I know you have the power to do

this, and I trust that, but I'm also trusting your way, and your

timing not my own That's what's happening when we pray in faith.

We have to understand that we're not praying to coerce God, or

try to change his mind or bend. His will to us, I talked to Kyle

about this this week, and he worded it very well that when we

pray, we are bending ourselves to God's will not him to our

will. Prayer is meant to change us,

not God. That's what's happening when we

pray in faith. We are trusting in the Lord and

we see that this kind of prayer, this praying in faith will

restore. The one who is sick?

Now, let's talk about that for a moment will restore when I read

these verses that sounds upon initial read like a guarantee

that if you do this you call the Elders.

They come pray, they come in or low, you'll be healed, hundred

percent guaranteed. But we know that's not the case.

We don't see that throughout scripture.

Do we have to take all of God's word into consideration?

The whole context of God's word, we don't want to isolate one

verse and build an entire theology on that.

So just because we're having faith and we believe when we

pray doesn't guarantee healing. So I quoted you guys last time I

preach from a guy named Douglas new I'm going to quote him

again. He says this, the faith

exercised in prayer is faith in the god, whose sovereignty

accomplishes his will. When we pray our faith

recognizes the overruling, providential purposes of God.

A prayer for healing. Then must usually be qualified

by a recognition that God's will in the matter is supreme.

And it is clear in the New Testament that God does not

always will to heal a believer. Paul's very own prayer for his

healing. Offered three times, was not

answered. God had a purpose in allowing

that thorn in the flesh that Paul endured the Faith, with

which we pray is, always, always, always faith in the god,

whose will is supreme and best. And this is exactly the

qualification that is needed to understand.

Jesus, on promised to us in John 14:14.

John 14:14

When he says, you may ask for anything in my name.

Mmmmm and I will do it. To ask in.

Jesus name means not to Simply utter his name, but to take into

account to account, his will also only those requests offered

in that will are granted. I know that was a mouthful but

he worded it more eloquently than I ever could.

When we pray in faith, we were praying, according to God's

will, for his will, to be done, not our own.

We're trusting God, we're trusting his timing and his

sovereignty. So again, it's not just

mustering up enough, faith and enough belief to make something

happen. It's not a situation where if we

don't fully believe it, then it's not going to happen.

I've heard that blasphemy uttered in people's lives before

that. Well, you prayed for that person

to be healed and it didn't happen because you didn't have

enough faith, that is wrong. If someone's ever told you that,

that is wrong. That is unbiblical.

A great example of this great. Great example of this.

You guys remember the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego or

if you're a Veggie Tales fan me, she hadn't been here, however,

they called it. In that story, those three guys

are fixing to be thrown into a fiery furnace.

This is in Daniel chapter 3 and what do they say to the king

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

whom? They are supposed to Bow before

this golden idol and all that they say our God whom we serve

is able to Deliver Us From The Burning fiery furnace, but if he

does not be it known To You. O King, that we will not serve

your gods or worship your golden image that you have set up.

Our God is able. But if he doesn't, we're still

not going to Bow before your Idol.

Look, it is not for us to know, God's mind and know God's will

all of the time. There are things.

He's clearly revealed in his word.

But we can't fully understand the depth of God's knowledge and

his wisdom. We shouldn't try, we will break

our brains if we try this, but we should with everything in us,

try to be submissive and following his will whatever it

may be praying that he gives us wisdom to recognize this.

It could be that sickness has been appointed to you, so that

you could repent of unconfessed sins may be God's using that

sickness or that trial or tribulation in Your life to mold

you and make you into his image. That very trial that you're

going through, might be a Grace in your life from the Lord to

help teach you something to help mold you and make you into the

man or the woman that he created you to be.

Remember what James said back in chapter 4 when he said, you do

not have because you do not ask, and you ask, and you don't

receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

We need to make sure when we pray, when we are praying,

according to Faith, that we were praying for God's will to be

done. Not our own We need to be sure

that we are praying that way and that is praying in faith.

Now, I want to throw in a little side note here.

Okay, I'm going to hit pause and jump over here just for a

second. Say this.

And then we'll come right back again.

We can't know the mind of God, it is not for us to even to try

to Fathom. But there are things again, that

his word clearly commands and Promises things that we can have

100% confidence in, for example, again, talking to Kyle this

week, he brought this up. God doesn't promise that we will

always heal if we ask he doesn't promise that never.

Again will another Christian ever be sick or die, his word

doesn't say that, but his word does say that, he promises to

provide a way out of Temptation when were tempted.

We see that in First Corinthians 10.

He also commands us to love our neighbor.

Does he not if God promises these things and tells us in

commands us to do these things? He will equip us to do them.

He's not going to give you a job and I'll give you the tools, you

need to get the job done. So the things that he is clearly

commanded in his word that we know are his will we can pray

for those things and rest assured that God will give us

what we need to accomplish that in a follow that will.

Okay? So I wanted to make that very,

very clear. So God commands me to love my

neighbor. My neighbor gets on my nerves.

The guy cut down some of my limbs on my tree that were

hanging over his privacy fence. I told him not to do that.

The guy's encroaching on, he throws stuff over.

The fence is just a horrible neighbor.

Maybe God has put that neighbor in my life to teach me how to

love my neighbor. Maybe God is saying look you

really need to be a little bit. Merciful you need to be gentle

and you need to learn to love people because you are not

perfect either. Those kind of things we can

trust and we can take to the bank, but I digress, let's get

back to the text and let's keep moving through this.

So, by calling the elders, anointing with oil, praying in

faith. We are giving this person over

to God. We're trusting his will, and his

way that's what's happening here.

And then look and verse 16 after he gets done talking about this,

he says therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for

one another so that you may be healed.

Anytime you see a ver Or or a so that in scripture you need to

pay close attention. The author is telling you.

Look, I've been saying all that therefore, and this is his point

of what he's trying to drive home.

Pray for one another and confess your sins to one another.

That is the whole point of what James is trying to get across in

this text. Now, notice something something

really big just happened in these verses, he instructed The

Listener or the reader to call the Elders.

To come and to pray and to anoint with oil, did he not?

Now he is saying pray for one another and confess your sins to

one another this command has gone from the elders to now the

whole church, Okay, don't miss this.

Don't miss this. James is saying this is not just

for the elders. The whole church should be

praying for one another confessing to one another.

We are all supposed to do this. This isn't something that we

just you know, what prayers, just not for me.

I just can't stay focused. When I try to pray, I have a

hard time with it. So I'm just going to call the

Elders and let them do all the pray and all that stuff.

We are all called to pray for one another.

This applies to every single Christian and this shows and

proves a huge point. The power here is not in the

heat, the, the elders, the power is not in the oil.

The power is in the prayer that is where the power lies in the

power of prayer. For one another, not in some

magical oil, or even some anointed people in the church,

that prayer is powerful. There is amazing.

Amazing power in prayer if we would, but just do it when we go

to the Lord on behalf of other people, and we humble ourselves

before the creator of the heavens and the Earth, and we

submit and trust him and cry out on behalf of other people.

Amazing things can happen. I know that.

So many of you in here can testify to that, that you've

seen this happen in people's lives, that you've prayed for

when we see a brother or Or sister or son or a daughter come

to faith in Christ that we prayed for four years.

Amazing things can happen through prayer.

It is often through our prayers that God accomplishes his will,

that is his means to bring about his will on Earth, as it is in

heaven, is through the prayers of the Saints.

So we are to be crying out to God, day and night for

ourselves. And for one another The James

proves this point in his example that he gives Elijah in verses

17 and 18. He says that he was not a man.

He was a man with a nature like ours.

He was a normal guy, he was a sinner just like us.

He was not Superman. But yet he accomplished amazing

things through his prayers, he prayed that the drought would

end and the rains would come. And they did, it's because he

was fully submitted to God's will fully trusting in God's

ability. Oh that that God's people would

just humble themselves and pray for one another to just cry out

to God. Our creator that we would do

this. Amazing.

Things can happen. If we will pray people and we

have no excuse for not doing it. Is the easiest thing in the

world. We're just talking to God.

And I get it, I get it's not always easy.

We lose, we lose our attention and we live in a world where our

attention spans are so short, and we just were so surrounded

by just constant noise and distraction and just stimulus

all the time that it's hard to just get quiet and focus and

just talk to God. But look, we also live in a time

where we have so many tools at our fingertips.

You have reminders on your phone, you have alarms.

You have apps that will keep track of these things and

categorize prayers. You have apps that will read

your Bible to you. We have no excuse We need to be

people known for prayer constant prayer.

God's word is clear on this weird, pray without ceasing.

Is is not easy. That's why it's called a

spiritual discipline. You know, we used to just about

every year at the beginning of the year, we would do a little

small mini series on just Christian Life.

I kind of start out the new year and it would usually be on the

spiritual disciplines. So I Bible study prayer and

fellowship together, those things are called spiritual

disciplines because they're hard.

It takes hard work to gather each week and not get lazy in

that and I just want to stay in bed or stay home and it's hard

work to read your Bible every day.

It's hard work to pray for one another.

Especially your enemies who were commanded to pray for.

Remember last time I preached, we talked about sins of omission

and sins of commission sins of omission is just not doing

something. You know, you're supposed to do,

we know we're to pray for our enemies and pray for one another

were commanded to do this. So you need to be diligent in

doing it now. I say all this, I want you guys

to hear me clearly. I'm not trying to guilt trip

you. I'm trying to encourage you that

we have this amazing gift in prayer.

This amazing thing that we have in the life of a Christian that

that we just don't utilize. But I'm going to get into that

here in just a moment. Finally, we get to verses 19 and

20 and these verses seemed almost to be just tacked on to

the end. Like they don't go with the rest

of this because it goes from prayer and anointing and

sickness to all of a sudden turning back a brother or sister

that has wandered. It says my brethren if any among

you Strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know

that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way, will save

his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Now, When we consider the entire letter of James that we've gone

through from start to end and all the Practical things, he's

telling us to do in this book. It makes sense.

That at the end he would want his listeners to now, take

everything that I've told you to do and go do it and apply it to

your life. But also make sure that other

people are doing it to watch out for your brother and your sister

in Christ and make sure they don't Wander from the fold and

make sure they're doing these things too.

It's not just for you it's for them also.

Remember, we're supposed to pray for one another.

We're supposed to hold one another accountable as well.

James had a very, very real view of Hell, okay, he's saying that

by bringing back a Wandering brother or sister, you were

saving their soul from death. What is the death of a soul that

is eternal? Hell, it's the unforgivable sin

that you've blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and there is no turning

back now. Eternal death death of not just

the body, but the soul as well. And so that's why we urge

brothers and sisters to be in prayer.

That's why we urge brothers and sisters to gather together once

a week and and hold one. Another accountable, when we're

not reading the word and not praying, and not living as James

has commanded us, because there is a lot at stake here.

Again with the Douglas moo commentary, he says not only

should the readers of James do the words that he is written.

They should be deeply concerned to see that.

Others. Do them also, It's by sharing

with James, the conviction that there is indeed an eternal death

to, which the way of sin leads that we should be motivated to

deal with the sin in our lives and in the lives of others.

Real Christian faith. If we want to do what James

says, and take everything we believe and everything that we

say we believe and put it into action and actually live it out,

then our faith should be Evangelistic.

It should lead us to want to call out one another, on our

sins and hold one, another accountable and say look if

you're a Christian let me help you walk through this but we

can't live like non-christians we have to live by God's word.

We need to take these things and apply them because it leads to

life and it will save your soul. And so real Christian faith has

to lead us to want to do this. If we have zero desire to want

to bring back a wondering brother or sister in Christ and

zero desire to share our faith that we say we have then that is

not real. Faith.

That is a faith. That is dead.

So to sum this up, the Book of James is absolutely packed full

of practical everyday instruction on how to live the

Christian Life, how to walk the Christian walk.

We should read it, we should apply it.

And then we should encourage other brothers and sisters to do

the same. And we should above all.

We should pray for them as we've seen in this text today.

So in conclusion, I want to say this to you and this place today

that are my brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you are a Christian, if you've placed your faith in

Christ because of what he accomplished on the cross for

us, we now have direct access to God almighty.

The veil was torn. We are now adopted into the

royal family. We are co-heirs with Christ to

the kingdom. We are Sons and Daughters of God

and the father Delights to hear from his children.

Jesus is our high priest in our mediator and he intercedes on

our behalf at the father's right hand.

The holy spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for

words when we don't know what to pray as we ought to This entire

process involves the Trinity and it's beautiful.

This is what we have at our disposal in prayer as

Christians. It is a powerful weapon against

the enemy. We have to use it, we cannot

ignore it. So, here's what I want to

encourage you to do today for your Christian in this place.

James tells us in this text to confess our sins, to one another

and pray for one another. So obviously I want you to do

that. Please commit to do that.

But then when you do, when you pray for one another, when you

confess to one another, be sure to be disciplined in your prayer

life. So remember, this is hard work.

This is not easy. It doesn't come naturally time.

So be disciplined, but also pray properly.

Pray according to God's will as Jesus did for his will to be

done on Earth as it is in heaven.

Not for my will, to be done submit yourself to his

sovereignty and pray for that. Okay, so be disciplined and pray

properly. Now if you're in this place and

you've never placed your faith in Christ, you say, you know,

maybe I grew up in church or maybe I've heard a lot of this

before or maybe I'm brand new to this, but I've just never really

submitted my life to Christ. I've never fully trusted him and

put my faith in My Hope in him. Well then if that's you today, I

want to be very clear that James laid out here in these last.

Couple of verses. What the penalty is from for

wandering, from the truth? And from running from God?

And from straying from that, it's that death of the Soul.

It's eternity in hell, But that does not have to be your fate.

Right now. If you will, do what James is

talking about here and confess your sins to Christ, repent and

believe in your heart. And trust God, put your faith,

your trust, your hope in him. You can be forgiven for your

sins and you two can have this amazing.

Wonderful gift of Prayer. But you have to start there, you

have to repent, and you have to believe.

So if that's you do not waste another moment, don't don't

think that. Okay?

I'm if the holy spirit is kind of moving in your heart, don't

think I can just wait till some other time.

I don't know about all the like act.

Now submit your life to Christ, trust in his will, and his

sovereignty and be made new today, be reborn apart from

that, you will be one of the ones, the James talks about it

will suffer from this heat. Colonel death of the soul and we

don't want that for anyone. So I plead with you to submit

your life to Christ. If you have questions about

this, I would love to talk to you as with any of the elders in

this church. So, please come see me if you

have questions or need to talk about this.

But, but I encourage you all the Book of James has been amazing.

And now that I've finished these verses I'm going to do a recap

of the entire book so let's just kidding.

I love you guys. This book is amazing.

James is just so applicable for us as Christians.

I want to encourage you today. Be people of prayer be known for

it Live, Your Life by go out and start praying for start.

Simple, start with prayer. Pray for your family.

Pray for your family. The people you love more than

anything else in the world like lift them up, daily pray, that

you can be a better husband or wife or whatever parent do that.

Pray for pray for your family, pray for your church, pray for

one another and Trust God's will in all things.

Amen, I'm afraid for you, father.

We thank you again for your word.

We thank you for today and we thank you for all the things

that we have read about in the Book of James God.

We are so grateful to have it. To be able to read it.

I pray, Lord that you make us a church in a people known for

prayer. I pray God that you just make it

natural for us to call out to you and I cry out to you through

any trial or any tribulation, but not just in the bad times

and the good times also, Lord help us to be a people marked by

that, by praise for you by praying to you.

Help us to confess to one another, to have the courage to

do that, to get out of our comfort zones and confess to one

another. And to pray for one another, God

help us in this help our unbelief.

We thank you, Lord, for this amazing gift.

We praise you. God please be with us.

Now as we worship you, we pray that you can be glorified and

magnified in this place. Now, pray for anyone in this

place that hasn't given their life to you, that you would

convict them. Now, you would turn their Heart

of Stone into a heart of Flesh. We praise you and we love you in

Jesus name. Amen.