James 5:13-20

But today, if you would, let's turn to James 5, verses 13 to 20.

And let me just read these passages for us. Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers, if one of you should wonder from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Let us pray.

Lord, as we turn to think about prayer, as James discusses it, I pray that our hearts and minds will be open to examine our own prayer lives, penetrate our hearts and minds to see this great and powerful tool that you have given to us as your believers. May we be more earnest in our prayer. May we seek your face more continuously. And then may we praise your name as you respond to those prayers. These things we ask in Christ's name and for his sake.

Amen. Let us pray. James 5, verses 13-20.

James gives us an overview here of certain situations in which we should pray. And he admonishes us to pray in a variety of circumstances that we face in life. The four circumstances where we should pray, and there may be others, but he really, I think, specifically targets four key areas. We should pray in times of happiness. And our prayers there take the form of praise.

We should pray in times of trouble, the NIV says. That's the translation from the NIV. We should pray in times of sickness. And we should pray in times when someone among us wonders. So I want to take each of these areas and have us just look at it for just a minute.

Can you all read that? That's kind of lopsided a little bit. We should pray in times of happiness. I start with this one.

Verse 13b, Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. The verb there in the Greek that says, let him sing songs of praise is an imperative. In other words, when we have times that we are happy, when we are merry, when something good has happened, we are commanded. It's not optional.

We are to give God the praise. And in this particular form of praise, James particularly admonishes us to sing praises to God. There's something about song as a means of praise. We use it often, but he's admonishing us both as the body of Christ, but individually to sing songs of praise to the Lord for those good things He has done in our lives. to him in the time of trouble and we tend to forget him in the time of happiness and James says don't forget him then then that's when you need to honor him and praise him for what he has done I've just been thinking in my own life over some recent circumstances where I've seen times for praise and happiness I serve on the board of advisors of Gordon Conwell Seminary in Charlotte And we've been trying to raise money to build a facility there.

We had a significant matching grant from the Kresge Foundation. We only had to raise $3 million by April 1st, and they would give us $600,000. And we really started this effort to raise this $3 million about the time of 9-1-1-01. If you've been following anything about Christian organizations and nonprofit organizations, Giving since 91-101 is down tremendously with most organizations. Anytime there's uncertainty, it seems people tend to draw in, and they aren't as generous with their money.

Probably ought to be just the opposite, but we tend to close our fences somewhat in times of difficulty. Well, April 1 came, and we didn't have all of our $3 million. We were $880,000 short. And quite frankly, most of us had just decided the Lord didn't want us to have a new building. He probably wanted us to find an old building and remodel it or something.

But the Kresge Foundation said they'd give us an additional 30 days. And on April 2nd, I believe it was, a gentleman who had not been solicited for a gift called, said he and his wife had been praying for some months. and the Lord had impressed on them that whenever the end of the campaign came, they should make up whatever difference was left. And he said, how much is left?

They said $880,000.

He said, we'll cover it.

You talk about some praise. When the Board of Advisors met, we got around and we held hands and we sang, Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And it reminded me again, when we had given up hope, we had decided this is not what the Lord wanted. He did it in a way that let us know who was in charge and who was in control. I was at graduation for Gordon Conwell Seminary.

I'm on the Board of Trustees too, and we met the last few days up in Boston. And there were 250 students who graduated. And it was amazing to listen to the stories of some of these students who have sacrificed so much to go to seminary. Many of them had left lucrative jobs because they had sensed God's call to go into ministry. Many of them have been living on a shoestring throughout their seminary careers.

Many of them have small children. Spouses have been extra burdened as husbands or wives were going through seminary. But when we got together for the services, both on Friday night they had a service and then at commencement, when you get the people of Christ who are so committed coming together to celebrate what God had done by helping them through this experience. And there was just effusive praise for God sustaining them financially, physically, spiritually in their families throughout this time. And they stood and they all sang, all hail the power of Jesus' name.

I mean I think God in heaven was honored and praised by this outpouring of thanksgiving the singing of a mighty fortress is our God a bulwark never failing and there were so many who could attest to that and in times of difficulty through their seminary experience he had been the bulwark that held them up and when it came time to get that diploma they wanted to give him the praise for what he had done.

There have been times in my own life where, particularly with children, I guess, when the Lord had done something through them and with them that was meaningful, I like to just get in my car where no one else has to listen to me. And when I drive, I like to sing.

Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise.

Should we not be giving thanks today? So many of us have been blessed by mothers who have been faithful.

Sometimes we wonder why they were faithful, right? All we put them through. Should we not give praise? Why don't we? Why don't we stand and let's sing praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Amen

O Lord, in the praises of Your people, in our singing we give You honor and glory and praise for You are the great King. who gives us so much over which to rejoice. You give us mothers, you give us children, you give us spouses, you give us health, you give us things to occupy our time with industry and enjoyment. And for these things we give you praise. Help us each day to see and thank you for the little things that amount to so much.

things by which You honor us and in turn we honor You. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Well, it's nice to sing praises, isn't it?

We need to give gratitude, thanksgiving, and glory to God. But then there are times of trouble too.

This word trouble is kaka patheo. No, kaka is bad.

That's how I help my Greek students remember that word. Kakas is bad. Kakas. But many of us face times of, the word means distress. stress, it means affliction, it means deep suffering. And the suffering here is not suffering so much from sickness, though it can be. He's going to deal with sickness in a minute. But it's really any circumstance of life in which we face difficulty and we face turmoil. It can be job loss, It can be the death of a loved one.

It can be a wayward child. It can be a wayward spouse.

It can be physical injury that debilitates us. It can be any number of things here. But it is again in this circumstance that we are told, again, the imperative, no option, let him, he should pray. Verse 13, he should pray. That is an imperative there.

I know, I know because I talk to many of you that there are many here who are in the midst of some kind of trouble. Don't do what my normal practice is. I usually try to figure out every

and the last thing I do typically is get on my knees and pray the emphasis here is when we face trouble we go to our knees and we go to God that's where we go first and having gone to Him we then get up and go at it with all we can but the first emphasis is go to Him get on our knees do not let that be the last step in dealing with trouble and difficulty let it be the first And so many times in my own life when I finally went to the Lord in prayer, the burden I had been trying to carry all alone is suddenly lifted. So let it be a first step. For what should we pray when we are in trouble? I've listed some things here. It's perfectly fine to ask for the trouble to be removed.

Jesus Himself said, let this cup pass from Me. and the Apostle Paul, when he was afflicted with the thorn in the flesh, went to the Lord, he said, three times, asking that the Lord remove it. The second thing we should ask for is that God's will be done in the circumstance. As Jesus said, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but thy will be done. And the reality is, folks, that sometimes the trouble is just what the Lord wants us to experience.

He's got something bigger beyond the trouble. So let's recognize that while it's perfectly permissible to ask for it to be removed, He, because He wants something greater for us, may let us live with it. He let the Apostle Paul live with his thorn in the flesh. He didn't remove it. cross. But in each of those circumstances, he had something bigger and greater in mind.

We should pray for wisdom. I know that some of you are facing circumstances and you just don't know what to do. It seems that there are no good answers. And this is where I think particularly we need to ask the Lord for wisdom. Show us what to do in this circumstance. Help us to see what the next step should be. Guide us in what we do. Do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight. So let's go to Him and ask for wisdom. Let's admit we don't know everything. Let's admit we're not all powerful. Let's admit we need Him and we depend on Him. I think one reason God wants us to pray is so that we have to admit our dependence upon Him.

He does not want us to be independent. He wants us to rely on Him and depend on Him. And when we do that, He can do magnificent things to show us who He is and His glory and His grandeur. We need to pray for patience and perseverance

to stick with it. in the middle of the storm we do not need to wilt we need to be able to persevere but we need God's strengthening we need God's grace his sustaining grace I'm not talking about his saving grace so we need that I'm talking about the grace that sustains us through the difficulty. Everybody know who E.V. Hill is? You don't know who E.V. Hill is? You need to know who E.V. Hill is. Go to Channel 16. He comes on frequently there. Not every Channel 16 preacher is a favorite of mine, but E.V. Hill is. E.V. Hill called his wife baby. They lived out in Los Angeles.

E.V. loved Baby, and Baby loved E.V. He tells the story of back in the 60s when there was a great deal of racial turmoil in the Los Angeles community, and E.V. was in the middle of trying to be an agent of reconciliation. He was trying to bring peace.

There were some who didn't want peace. There were some who really wanted turmoil. They wanted to really cause violence and a lot of problems. And he even got a lot of death threats because he was trying to be an agent of reconciliation.

And one morning he heard his wife coming in from outside early. He said, baby, where you been?

she said, I went out this morning and I started the car. I wanted to be sure there wasn't a bomb in it so that when you got in this morning, you'd be safe.

When baby died, Evie preached the sermon at her funeral. It is one powerful sermon. If you ever get a chance to get a copy of it, you need to. and E.V. told the story of baby and the car and the mom and he told other stories about her faithfulness and he talked about the deep grief as a husband he felt in losing one he loved so much that he kept echoing what Paul the Apostle said about the Lord's grace in dealing with the thorn in the flesh.

saying, God is calling to me. My grace is sufficient. My grace is sufficient. And in the midst of this great loss, he kept looking to God's sustaining grace. When we're in the midst of that trouble, we need to look for that sustaining grace.

He will carry us through. The last thing I would encourage us to pray for in times of trouble is to see God's purpose.

Paul saw God's purpose in letting him have the thorn of flesh. God's purpose was to keep Paul humble.

I don't think God always lets us see the purpose, at least at the time we're going through the difficulty. But I think it's appropriate to pray, let me see the purpose.

There's something that has been comforting to me in times of personal loss to recognize that God uses the difficulty for a purpose. In other words, our going through trouble and suffering is not meaningless. God has purpose in what He does. So no matter what you face as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, If it's job loss, if it's a wayward spouse, if it's a wayward child, whatever the difficulty, God will use it for His good purposes.

So look for that purpose. If you don't see it, trust that He will use it for a good purpose. I would add one other that I don't have on my list. Pray that God be glorified. that whatever trouble comes our way, we will deal with it in a way that honors Him.

That we will be seen to be people who trust in Him. So times of happiness, let's sing His praises. In times of trouble, let's go to Him in prayer. How about times of sickness?

This is a particular form of trouble, form that James deals with separately. He gives us a set procedure within the church for dealing with sickness. And the sickness here is not every cough, but it's a serious sickness. It's a serious illness. And he gives us a procedure to follow. He says, first, let the sick person summon the elders of the church. And this again is an imperative. It's not optional. But when there's serious illness or serious disease, the elders of the church should be called together. The elders not the old folks.

The elders are those who hold a specific office within the church. We Baptists don't call anybody elders. The New Testament uses that term frequently, but the elders were those who were responsible for the care and oversight of the church as a whole. The deacons were the servants who took care of feeding people, helping the widows, but then the elders were responsible for the overall management of the church. They were to be the ones who were responsible for the doctrine of the church, who were also responsible to be sure that all the ministries of the church were carried out.

Within the Baptist church, the people that would fill this function, I think, would be both the pastor and the deacons of the church, would have the same function as what James calls elders here. He recommends anointing with oil. The oil had two purposes. One medicinal oil, and this is particularly in the text, it's clear, it's olive oil. It's olive oil.

And olive oil was used for medicinal purposes. We know that from reading writings outside of the scriptures, that olive oil was a balm that was used to help with different ailments. It could be very soothing to have it. Even if it didn't affect a cure, it could be a soothing agent to put on people's bodies.

but it also the oil has a spiritual dimension it is symbolic of the presence of the spirit and in the anointing with oil the idea is to acknowledge the presence of god's spirit and to do something outwardly as a reminder of god's presence now there's no magic in the oil you You don't sprinkle oil and you just, not some magical something. It can have medicinal purposes and it can remind us of the presence of God's Spirit. We need to confess sin. Not every illness is a matter of sin. That's clear from the Scripture.

So let's don't assume because someone is sick they have committed a particular sin that's somehow more offensive than others. But in this process of physical healing, we also need to think about spiritual healing. Because sometimes disease does come as a result of sinfulness. Sometimes it's just the natural consequence of sin. Sometimes it is God's judgment.

But we need both physical healing, but also spiritual healing. We then need to have the elders pray in the Lord's name. We pray in the Lord's name. Again, it's not abracadabra. It's not some magical incantation.

But praying in the Lord's name means we pray recognizing that it is the sovereign Lord who will heal and bring about the necessary remedy in the prayer. So we pray in His name. We mention His name. But it's an acknowledgment that He is in control. He is in power.

And we must pray in faith, trusting Him as the all-sufficient sovereign one, knowing that He has the power and ability, if He wishes, to heal in this circumstance. Everybody got the procedure? Some of you who are deacons have been a part of this before. We have done it a few times in our church. Probably not enough.

At the Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning, Rather, we have prayer and special prayer requests are mentioned. And one of the trustees at Gordon Conwell disclosed that he had an illness and they predicted he would have anywhere from two months to two years to live was the prediction.

And there in that room with these trustees, many of them who are very prominent people from various parts of the country, we gathered around him, laid hands on him, and prayed for his healing. It's something we are commanded to do.

We need earnest prayers when we pray in this circumstance. And we need the prayers of the righteous. That's one reason you bring the elders together. They're supposed to be the righteous of the church, deacons. You're the righteous.

you're the righteous. It doesn't mean you're without sin, but it means that when we look at your lives, they should be lives that are exemplary, lives that are above reproach. And there's something about the prayer of the righteous.

You know, when your child has been a good child,

has been an obedient child, has done the right things, has done what you as a parent has asked, when that child comes to you and asks a request, you know you're pretty ready to grant it because you know what a good child they've been. But if you've got a disobedient child, one who never does what you say, and then they come and ask for something, you're much less willing typically.

You don't want to reward disobedience. You want to reward obedience. there's truth in that in our relation to the heavenly father that he rewards the righteous so if you're sick you need some righteous people praying for you and they need to pray earnestly it's not a one-time prayer it's an earnest continuous prayer uh he gives the example of elijah elijah uh the text says elijah was a man just like us When I first read that, I said, you've got to be kidding saying that. Elijah was a man just like us, this great prophet of the Old Testament. But that's what James says.

The point he's making is Elijah was just flesh and blood like we are. Elijah had no special power in and of himself, but because he was righteous before God, and because he earnestly prayed to God, God put a drought on the land, and then when it was time and Elijah prayed for rain, he sent the rains. And the point James is trying to make to us is this, is that when righteous people today seek God's face, He will listen and He will pour out His blessing.

So we need to be earnestly seeking Him and we particularly need the righteous. And when we pray, there will be healing and there will be forgiveness of sin. That doesn't mean there will be healing in every circumstance,

but it is as a result of prayer that we will see healing and we will often see it in powerful and dramatic ways. I put a note here about God's will in our prayers. Our prayers are answered when they are in God's will. you can go read 1 John 5 14-15 and Jesus himself prayed thy will be done but don't let that be a hindrance to prayer because God wants to answer the prayers of the righteous there may be times he doesn't answer them in the way we wished because he's got a bigger purpose in mind but let's go to him in prayer he is a gracious and loving He will pour out blessings on His people if we will seek them. Lastly, we need to pray for times of wandering.

This is the last two verses of the book. I'm just going to mention this quickly. He doesn't explicitly say to pray for the wandering brother, but I think in context that is what we are to do here.

He says, if one of you should wonder from the truth, our midst. The person may not be a believer, but the person may be. But somebody who's been in our midst, who's one of us, who has been among us, if we see one of those people stray from the truth, wander from the truth. That word wander means be misled, deceived, deluded. I have talked to a number of people over the years who have gotten into all sorts of difficulties. Sometimes they just got deceived into thinking that one route was the good route and it wasn't. Sometimes they get deluded into thinking that wrong is right and right is wrong.

When somebody wanders from the truth, it's amazing how they will convince themselves that they're doing the right thing. And it's sometimes very difficult to convince them otherwise. But when we have one among us who is misled, deceived, or deluded from the truth, and that can be straying from correct belief, but it can also be straying into moral failure. They don't recognize the truth of God's Word about how they are to live, and they get into moral failure. When we have one like that, our response is to try to turn him back.

we are to try to turn him back.

And I ask the question, how? I think the first thing we do is we pray. That's why I put it as one of the times we pray. We pray for the wandering brother.

But sometimes we've got to go see him and look him in the eye, face to face. This is when it's difficult. This is when it's hard. This is when the rubber meets the road in being a brother and sister in Christ. To go sit down and look someone in the eye and tell them they're doing the wrong thing.

And help them to see the truth. We need to pray for God to open their eyes. But we need to go see them. We don't do that enough, folks. We've got too many in the body of Christ who get on the wrong path

We're not to let them go. We are to go after them and seek to turn them around. That's our responsibility. We've got to do it in the right way with the right attitude. But that's our goal.

And the promise is that if we can do that, we save a soul from death and we cover a multitude of sins, the sins of the wanderers, not our own sins. It's the sins of the wanderer who comes back and confesses those sins that are covered. For you mothers, particularly, who may have a wanderer,

don't give up. Keep after them. As I was preparing for the lesson today, I read the stories of many mothers who were persistent, who never gave up, who sought after God, who went after their children, and helped turn them back. Read some stories of some fathers too. I'll close with one story of a father.

Christy Wilson, again, he's on our board of trustees at Gordon Commonwealth. His dad was a missionary to Afghanistan. Christy in his high school years got on a wild binge. And he said every night when he would come in drunk to the house, his dad would walk up, he would throw his arms around him, say I love you Christy and I am praying for you and Christy said night after night his dad did that day in and day out and it finally broke him he said one day his dad came and threw his arms around him he said he loved him and he was praying for him and his heart just melted and he has been on fire for Christ ever since don't give up Don't run away from it either. Go see them and look them in the eye.

Tell them you love them and help turn them around. Let us pray for happiness in times of trouble, in sickness, and when someone wanders. Let's pray now to our Lord. Help us to be faithful people, Lord, faithful in prayer. Forgive us because we seek your faith so little.

help us to be more intentional and earnest in coming to the throne of grace so that we may see the power and the hand of God working in the lives of people. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.