Good morning, Veritas. How we doing? I love being five seven. I can just hide behind them. No, that's great. If we haven't met, my name is Jordan. I get the privilege of being our college ministry pastor here and we are going to dig into James five. You guys ready? Okay. We have been in the book of James. This is, all in all, going to be a 22 week study. We are on week 21. We're on the home stretch. You guys feel good about that? Okay. Has anybody been challenged by the book of James? Nobody in the balcony. Sweet. No. I trust that you just don't want to raise your hand in church if you're anything like me. This has been a challenging book because James is really upfront. He's really applicative. Everything that he talks about seems to have an imperative, and he's challenging the way we're living. Right? That's why we have the subtitle faith that works. James wants to know, how is our faith impacting our living? And as you flip to James chapter five, we're looking at verses 13 through 18. I want to ask you a question, and I am asking for participation. So how many of you would say that you believe in the power of prayer? Okay. Most of you, that's kind of anticipated. You're at church on a Sunday morning. I would somewhat expect that many of you would say, of course I believe in the power of prayer. I'm a Christian. And I also understand that there's many of you who come in and maybe you're seeking spiritually or you're a Christian who has prayed before and you're starting to wrestle with, I don't know if I do. I've dealt with unanswered prayer before and I'm starting to ask the question, is this even doing anything? And I think looking at both of those crowds, the people that would raise their hand and say, of course I believe in the power of prayer. And with the people that are wrestling, I hope to accomplish really two things. The first is to challenge. If you would say, yes, I believe in the power of prayer, I would say, do you really? Because the way James talks about believing in the power of prayer, he's saying that should shape the way you live, that should show up in not just what you think about prayer, but how you pray. So I hope to challenge, but for those of you that are struggling with your prayer life, maybe you don't know if you believe in the power of prayer or you're just downright saying, I don't believe prayer. Does anything. I hope to encourage you this morning and to show you that you should believe in the power of prayer and how I'm going to accomplish this, this morning is exposing you to one of the greatest prayers we know in our church family. And I want you to know it's not me. Okay. That might shock some of you. No, it doesn't. His name is James. He wrote this book that we have been going through for almost the last year. James, one of his nicknames as he ministered was old camel knees. And he got that nickname not as a derogatory or defamatory nickname, but actually it'd be quite the compliment. This man had knees that were so calloused and hard because of hours he spent on his knees praying, praying to God, interceding for the church, for the kingdom. This is a man known by prayer, and he is going to talk to us this morning about prayer. And because it's selection Sunday, any hoops fans? Yeah. Okay. With it being selection Sunday, I'm going to use just a quick analogy for you. So I've hung out with a few of you guys. You guys think that you can play basketball. You believe you can, but you would find out if you can really shoot a basketball if you got in the gym with Caitlin Clark. All right, if you feel really confident, you would feel really not confident really quick because she would expose your weaknesses and she would show you that she can shoot a better shot than you. But for those of you in the room that say, I can't shoot a basketball to save my life, you would have a little bit of hope. You're like, hey, she could probably help me shoot a basketball. Of all people, she could probably help me at least get it in the basket. And James is going to do that for us this morning. He's going to expose some of our weaknesses. And he's not just going to say, hey, you need to work on your basketball shot. He's going to say, you need to work on your prayer life. Your prayer life needs work. But if you're down in the dumps and you're like, man, my prayer life is a mess. James is going to coach you and he's going to show you how to have a thriving prayer life. And I've kind of spoiled it. His text today is about prayer, but it doesn't come without confusion or controversy. One of the commentators on this section of text said, the last section of James is well acknowledged as being one of the hardest to understand in the whole letter and perhaps even the whole New Testament. This should mean that we come to it with both. Humility, since our confusion shows we have a lot to learn, and determination since we know God has inspired this text for our benefit in learning. It's a confusing passage. I'm going to ask that you just stick with me, all right? Don't miss the forest for the trees here. The word pray, or prayer, is used seven times in six verses. That's what James wants us to see this morning, and we're going to give you the big idea up front. Here's what James wants us to know. Real faith believes in the power of prayer. Real faith believes in the power of prayer. And like I said, believes, means, behaves like, not just intellectually believes that prayer is powerful, but actually puts this into practice. And so if you're asking the question, how can I know if I believe in the power of prayer? James is going to give us three indicators, three marks that show us that we truly believe in the power of prayer and should fuel our prayer life. The first is this. If you believe in the power of prayer, you pray in every circumstance. You pray in every circumstance. Here's how our text today starts. James, chapter five, verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Right. We're stepping out of last week's sermon, which was all about patience enduring in the midst of suffering. So is anyone among you suffering? The answer is yes. Like, this is a pretty sizable church. Do you think there's anybody in this church family that is experiencing hardship right now? The answer is yes. And what James had warned against last week is this idea of grumbling against one another or making O's or swearing promises to one another. And perhaps what he's doing in verse 13 is he's saying, hey, in the midst of suffering, what if we spent less time, like, grumbling horizontally and we spent more time talking vertically, like, in the midst of hardship, that you would be really quick to go to God, to take the conversation vertical, to trust God and talk to him. And you might look at a text like this and, like, know, I look at the original audience in James under immense persecution, and sometimes I can downplay and be like, well, I'm not really suffering, not like them, which is true. But the word that James uses for suffering is one of the most broad terms he could use. It simply means to endure trouble or hardship. It should call to mind James one, like trials of various kinds. So he's not strictly talking about suffering because of persecution. He's saying, hey, are you in trouble in any way, physically, emotionally, financially, relationally, spiritually. Here's what you should do. Pray. Talk to God. And he doesn't put an end date on it. It's pray, an ongoing action. When you are experiencing trouble, here's what you should do. Talk to your father in heaven. Now, this might be one of the easiest places to pray, right when your back's against the wall. Life is hard. You acknowledge you need help outside of you. And so it's pretty quick sometimes to we can be quick to go to God in prayer when things are hard, but what about when things are going well, then? Are we quick? The answer is, for most of us, we're not. This is where pride can creep in. And the call for those who are cheerful, assuming, good spirited, high spirited, something is going well is that we would also be a praying people. I mean, the word that James uses is praise. Sing praise. We already did that this morning. Think about what praising is. It's singing a prayer to God. That's who our praise is to. And so when everything is going well, the question is, are you still praying, or are you, like me, where you can be quick to forget? You trick yourself into thinking that you earned it. Things are the way they are because you got yourself there. You've neglected the reality of James 117, that every good and perfect gift is from where? From above. It's from God. So everything good that's happening in your life actually isn't because you earned it or you deserve it. It's because God gave it to you. And here's your appropriate response to sing praise, to pray and say, God, thank you so much for how you have blessed me. This is meant to be the biblical standard, the biblical pattern for New Testament Christians. To pray always, in every circumstance, whether you're in hardship or whether you're happy. We are to be a praying people. Paul lays this out to a couple different churches, the church in Thessalonica first, thessalonians five. He says, rejoice. Always pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. For you pray without ceasing, ongoing repetitively to the church in Philippi, Philippians four, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. This is what we are called to if you call yourself a Christian, this is to mark your life, to pray in every circumstance, to be in a constant, ongoing conversation with your father in heaven. But you might be looking at these texts and instantly feel like, whoa, okay, this is something I need to do this week. I need to grow in it. And I want to just hit pause and say, this is not a have to, but a get to. Right? It is a command. We're called to it. But think about nap time on a Sunday afternoon, right? I have little kids. I understand that nap time for them is a train wreck, right? If I tell my kids, hey, you need to take a nap, what are they doing? No, we don't want to. But if you came up to me and you're like, Jordan, you need to take a nap this afternoon, what do you think I'd be saying? Amen. Give me some of that. Right. I think the call for us church is to put aside our childish thinking when it comes to this command to pray without ceasing. This is not a have to, but a get to. And yes, we are commanded. But how strange is it that God would command us to be in communion with him, that we have access to the God of the universe, that we can talk to him whenever we want, that our relationship is not contingent upon a building or a day of the week or going to a specific person to pray for us, but that we can personally communicate with him whenever and wherever we want. What a gift. And if you believe in the power of prayer, you will pray in every circumstance because you get to. And James is going to build on this in the coming verses. He's going to talk to us specifically about one situation of suffering called sickness. And again, there's a ton of controversy around these verses. There's a lot of theological confusion. We'll get there. I'm going to ask that you hang with me as we talk through a couple concepts that we see from James teaching here starting in verse 14. Is anyone among you sick? 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 and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. All right, want to give you concept number two. Here's your second indicator. If you believe in the power of prayer, you will pray in community. You will pray in community. You really see this in two different places here in this subsection of text. The first is to call for the elders. Now, maybe you're not super familiar with who the elders are. This is a biblical pattern throughout the New Testament that the church would have overseers, overseer, elder, pastor. These are terms that are used synonymously. They are men who are set apart by their character to set an example for the church. And their call is to be overseers of your souls. In fact, they will give an account before God for how they cared for your soul as a member of a local church and one of their primary job duties. If you were to look at acts six, the first disciples overwhelmed by ministry, they appointed deacons because they said, here's what we're called to do. Do the ministry of the word and pray. And there is this actual ask that comes from this text. If you are suffering from sickness, here's what you ought to do. Initiate the elders. Initiate the elders actually call them and say, would you be willing to come pray with me? Pray over me, and I promise you, church, we have a team of elders that wants to do this, that has done this, and will continue to do this, because this is what we sign up for, to be overseers of the flock and to pray with you and to pray for you. That is what an elder is to do. And we have elders that desire to do this. But you are to initiate. And now you might look at this text, and if you sell essential oils, you might start to get pretty excited, right? Oils, I see what's coming. No, the anointing with oil really has a couple different possible meanings. The first is medicinal, right? In their day and age, olive oil was seen to have many medicinal properties. And so what James could be saying is, hey, seek appropriate medical treatment and involve the prayer of the elders. Very possible. I think what makes it interesting, if you look at context clues, he says, let them anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And so where I would land in doing the study on this text would encourage you to do the same, is that James is pointing to the oil as a form of symbol. It's a form of symbol that we are to use and can still use today. There's nothing special about the oil, right? We could stop at Aldi and get some extra virgin olive oil. But it's meant to be a symbol, right? Throughout the Old Testament, priests and kings were consecrated or set apart with the anointing of oil. I mean, you see Jesus'disciples in ministry sometimes anoint with oil. It's meant to be a symbol of being set apart for the Lord that God is present, though we know that's a reality. What a gift to have a physical, tangible, something that we can feel and see and say the Lord is here. You belong to him. The Holy Spirit is powerful, right? To anoint with oil. We still can do this today. We still ought to do this today. But it's not just the prayer of the elders that James encourages. He encourages us to pray for one another, which actually lets us know that the elders don't have some special faith healing power, right? Though they do set the example for the flock, though they do oversee the congregation, we're actually all called to pray for one another. And in fact, he says, pray for one another, that you may be healed. Followers of Jesus gathered in the assembly are called to pray with and pray for one another. And it's worth saying, prayer is not just a nicety that we say to somebody at the end of a conversation, I'll pray for you. Like, prayer is powerful, we see some of the effects laid out in this text. And so then the call is, let's do it right. Let's pray with and pray for people. And here's how I would encourage us to do this church. Pray with people on the spot and pray out loud. If you've ever had this done to you, you know how much it means for somebody to stop what they're doing and to say, can I just pray for you right now? You get to hear them talk to God for you. So powerful. Let's do that. To pray with and pray for people on the spot, in the moment, out loud. And something powerful is happening here. I want us to see what James is getting at, because again, there's a ton of confusion around these verses. I hope to clarify some of that for us. But before we understand what he is saying, we need to know what he's not saying in these verses. When it comes to sickness and healing and sin, the first thing that he's not talking about is the catholic sacrament of last rites or extreme unction. The Catholic Church has taken these verses to form a sacrament known as extreme unction or known as last rites, which is where they would say, in your dying day, a priest can come to you and anoint you with oil and position you in a place of remittance of sins. I would just tell you that is anti gospel. We in our human power, do not have the ability to remit somebody of their sins. Only Jesus can do that. Can I get an amen? Okay, that is the gospel that Jesus alone remits us of sins, that his atonement was sufficient. Only he can accomplish it. So we know that's not true. But we have these two ditches over these last several hundred years that have taken these verses and interpreted them to mean different things. One is maybe a more hyper charismatic or prosperity preaching ministry, and they've taken these verses to the bank literally. There have been televangelists, there have been churches that say, just give us your money. Give to our healing ministry. We'll mail you some oil and we will make sure your physical healing comes. And they have made a lot of money, and they have twisted the scripture. It's not what James is talking about, but in a response to this charismatic movement or prosperity preaching, there's also a camp of people that say, surely James isn't talking about physical healing, right? Because the word that is used here for sick could just be translated as weakness. Maybe James is just talking about spiritual weakness, and he's not talking about physical healing at all. He's just talking about spiritual. That's not true either. I think what fuels that is a fear of the supernatural, which I want to let you know. I don't know if you know this or not. God is supernatural. All right, maybe a news flash for you. What James is talking about is, yes, physical illness while addressing spiritual realities. Physical illness while addressing spiritual realities. And we as Christians need to be careful not to assume that all sickness is a direct result of personal sin. Jesus's disciples made this mistake. In John nine, a man was born blind, and they came to him and they said, who sinned, him or his parents? And Jesus said, neither. He was born blind, so that the power of God might be put on display. So we can't be so quick to assume that the instant sickness is there. It's like, all right, they're living in unrepentant sin. However, what James seems to be saying here is that it's a possibility that if you are experiencing physical illness, there could be an underlying spiritual issue, namely unrepentant sin. He connects them again, if you flipped a few pages back to John five, there was a man who was an invalid for 38 years. Jesus heals him, and he says, go and sin no more so that nothing worse may happen to you. He tends to connect sin and sickness. One Corinthians eleven, this church in Corinth coming together, and they're abusing the lord's table. And Paul tells them, hey, you need to pay careful attention to yourselves because you guys are just abusing the Lord's table. And here's what's happening as a result of it. You're weak, you're sick, and some of you are even dying. Why? Because of unrepentant sin. And James here seems to be making the connection as he's talked to a church marked by spiritual adultery and a double minded people who are trying to get what God can give them and live like the world. He's saying, hey, I would examine your heart, hence call for the elders. Let them understand what's going on with your soul. Hence confess your sins to one another. Let's come clean. Let's talk about sin the way God talks about sin. And yes, perhaps healing will come. The word will save in verse 15, I believe James used intentionally. It has double meaning. The first is physical healing, right? Maybe physical healing will come. Or, and, or this second meaning, the blessings of salvation will rise to the surface, the forgiveness of sins. So you get this wrestle. Is he talking about physical healing or is he talking about spiritual healing? And I would say the answer is yes. And that's hard, because for some of us, we have prayed for physical healing time and time again, week after week, month after month, year after year, and we haven't got the answer we've wanted. This was me with my father chronically ill my entire life. I remember praying night after night, year after year, Lord, give him an organ donor, give him a transplant, heal his body. And it didn't happen. And that crushed my prayer life for years. I know many of you in this room have struggled with that, too. But here's what's crazy. Just because healing didn't happen the way I wanted it to doesn't mean there was no healing at all. Because guess what? My dad came to know Jesus. My dad found the greatest healing he needed, which was healing for his soul. He had a sin problem, not just a chronic physical health problem, he had a sin problem. And God was able to save my dad. And I'm going to make kind of an edgy statement that I believe to be true. And you ought to, too. If you are in Christ, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, his finished work, and you're experiencing physical sickness or suffering, and you pray for healing, you're going to get one of two answers, either yes or not yet. That's amazing, right? To think, if you are in Christ, the answer is always yes or not yet. Because you will either experience physical healing in this life, on this side of heaven, or you will die and you will be healed. Right? My dad went home to be with the Lord in 2016. And do you think he's healed today? You better believe it. The answer wasn't on my timeline, but that doesn't mean that God didn't heal him. And in fact, what I was called to do was to be somebody that continued to pray for physical healing while also trusting that this healing might not look the way I want it to. This is what it means to pray in faith. The prayer of faith, right? To look at a text like Daniel three, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wouldn't bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar, and they get threatened to be thrown into a fiery furnace. And they pray this prayer of faith. They say, I believe God is able to save me from the fiery furnace, and I believe God will save me from the fiery furnace. But even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him. That's what a prayer of faith looks like. This leads us to this last way that we can tell if we believe in the power of prayer. We pray with conviction. We pray with conviction. That word means firmly held belief. And I want us to see two things. The first is we need to understand the conviction that God commands repentance. God commands repentance. In fact, this matters for our prayer life. Proverbs 1529 the Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. If we want God to turn his ear to our prayers, there is a call to repent, to search your heart, any way that you'rebellious to say, I want to turn from my sin and trust in Jesus. And it also happens to be the center of what James is calling us to pray for. I mean, as you look at the rest of this text, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And he gives this example of Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruits. In James letter, in this context, you can't find a more perfect illustration than Elijah. First Kings 17 and 18, Israel is under the rule of King Ahab, and they are spiritual adulterers. They are double minded. They are saying, God, I want what you'll give me. And also I'm going to bow down to bail so I can get whatever he can get me. And here is what Elijah prays. God, stop the rain, stop the dew, bring a drought and a famine on Israel so that they would repent and turn to you and trust in you. By first kings 18, you see Elijah defeat the prophets of Baal. One of the greatest stories in the Old Testament. Would love for you to read that this week. And then what happens? Immediately after that? Israel repents and returns to God. And what happens? It rains. There is this call to repentance in righteousness, right conduct. But we have to know that we can't right conduct our way into righteousness. Right God will go to extreme measures. He will stop the rain for three and a half years. He will bring physical sickness if necessary to lead people to repentance. But much more absurd than that, he would send his one and only son to live and to die in your place, to make righteousness an option. Peter writes it this way. First. Peter two. He himself, Jesus Christ, bore our sins on his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds. You have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. This is the greatest news in the world, that righteousness is not something we work for, but something that was given to us in Christ. Two Corinthians 521 he who knew no sin became sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. We are granted this positional righteousness to storm into the throne room of God and to ask him to work and to move in our lives and in the world around us. But it requires repentance and faith and yes, practical righteousness, a call to search your heart and say, God, is there any grievous way in me? Carve it out that I might follow you. If you're not doing that, you are double minded. Like James said, you can't suppose to receive something from a God that you are not willing to submit to. So that's one conviction. But the second conviction is that God is willing to do the miraculous, yet use our prayers to make it happen. Isn't that insane, right? That the God of the universe could do whatever he wanted on his time, in his way, and yet here's what he wants to do. He wants to invite your prayers to make it happen. Wouldn't that just change your prayer life if you actually believed that? I love the way John writes one. John five. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that God that you may know you have eternal life. We look at the cross for that. Verse 14. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he will hear us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him. Does your prayer life show that, that you can storm into the throne room and ask God for whatever according to his will and to trust that he will give it to you? I mean, it's incredible as you just look at these six verses. Who does the healing? God. Who does the saving? God. Who forgives sin? God. Who tells the rain when to fall? God. And yet how does he accomplish this? Through the faithful prayers of his people. Again, praying in faith, God, I believe you're able. I believe you will. But even if you don't, I'm going to worship you. And you look at a man like Elijah, it says he prayed fervently. The literal translation is he prayed with prayer. That was the only way he knew. To pray is to pray fervently. To pray with prayer means he's getting after it constantly. Again, storming the throne room of God and he's not praying small and safe prayers to protect God's reputation. God doesn't need you to protect his reputation. He prayed big, bold prayers. God, make it stop raining for three and a half years. What? I mean, God listens to Elijah's prayer and changes weather patterns. I think it's time we start praying for a little bit more than blessing food to our bodies or a safe night of sleep. I'm not saying don't pray for those things. I'm saying pray bigger. Like actually ask yourself, if God answered every one of your prayers, what would change? Pray bigger for you, for your family, for this church, for this city. Pray for the lost. Pray for the sick. Pray for revival in this church and in this city and to the ends of the earth. Let's pray big because God is waiting and willing to do the miraculous and he's inviting us to participate. It's amazing. I've been reading through the gospels lately. I'm sure you guys have too Bible reading plan just to see how much God could have done in his own strength. But yet he invites his disciples. Right? Go fill those water jars. Oh, give me that little boy's bread and fish. And he multiplies it. Like God is willing to do the miraculous, yet he's inviting us in. And if you believe that that's how God works, you are going to get to praying. This is what real faith looks like. It believes in the power of prayer. So do you guys believe? Yeah. If you believe with me, I want to give you three applications. They're rooted straight in this text. All right, the first is this. Pray powerfully. Pray with conviction. Like number one, come before the Lord in humility. Acknowledge you need a savior. Search your heart for sin, and then once you have seen the finished work of Christ on your behalf, pray big and pray bold. If God would not withhold his one and only son, but graciously give him up for us, how will he not also in him graciously give us all things? Pray bigger. Pray powerfully. Number two, pray together. If you looked at study after study, most Christians today pray alone and in their head. You are missing out on one of the greatest gifts of christian community that has been offered to you in the local church. To pray in community, to pray together, to pray out loud on a Sunday morning during the week, pray in community. And then lastly, pray always. Pray always in every circumstance. It is never a bad time to pray, and it is always a bad time to not pray. Consider the invite. You have to talk to your creator, who is big and powerful and sovereign over all, yet he wants to hear from you. And if we would do these three things I trust, number one, you would love belonging to this church. If we would be a church that is just marked by prayer. Like you walked in the doors on a Sunday morning. And it's hard to get in a conversation with somebody because people are gathered up praying. Or the second you enter into a conversation with someone, they say, hey, can I just pray for you about that right now? You would love it. You'd be super uncomfortable for the first two weeks, and then you would love it. We'd be a church saturated with prayer, and from that place, we would be changed. I mean, prayer always changes something. Sometimes it just changes us, right? Changes our heart, stirs our affections, helps us fall more in love with Jesus. And I think if that's the only thing that happened, you would be satisfied. But I trust that as we commit to being a praying church and a praying people praying powerfully together, and in every circumstance, we would see God do amazing things in this church, in our city, in our families, and yes, to the ends of the earth, because we serve a big God who is powerful, and yet he delights to use in the faithful prayers of his people, calling on his name for our good and for his glory. Amen. Let's pray together. God. We confess. I confess, even heading into this morning, God, thinking about how much I struggle to pray and honestly just try to muster up the strength and do it alone. And that's a sure mark of pride. God, and one of the greatest ways you've given us to break our pride is to grow us in humility by giving us the gift of prayer. I pray for every heart in this room, Lord, that you would give us humility to come before you as sinners in need of a savior, but also as a needy people who are calling on their great God and good father to give them good gifts. And for those that are sick in this room this morning, Lord, we pray that you would bring healing. Yes, soul level healing leading to repentance and faith. But beyond that, Lord, for physical healing in ways that we can even struggle to wrap our minds around, that we would believe that you can heal. We believe that you will heal. Yet even if you don't, God, we know that you are our greatest prize and we will continue to worship you even if healing looks different than we want it to. So we love you. Help to respond to you now in worship. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.