James #17

“A Living Faith”
James 5:13 – 18
Pastor Ben Fleming
May 3, 2009

(PHOTO) Benny Hinn is perhaps the most famous faith healer in America today. Thousands will flock to his meetings and it is reported that he brings in over $100 million a year through his ministry. People want to be healed and people want their prayers answered and they will pay and give any amount of money if they think they can get it. (BLANK) (PHOTO) Most of you do not know what this photo is: Prayer for the sick has always been with the church . The Catholics have the Sacrament of Extreme Unction or called the last rite or anointing of the sick which they have formulated from the text we are going to study today. (blank) By the way.. Prayer and its affect on healing is even studied in hospitals. Turn to James chapter 5.

The passage we are going to study is a battle ground for many over the centuries in the church. Many use this text as a proof text for their beliefs and practices. There are churches whose entire ministry is centered around this text. Faith healers teach that this text is proof that all sick Christians are guaranteed healing through prayer. Stand as we read James 5. PHIL

This passage raises a number of questions that must be asked before you can understand and interpret it as God intended it to be. Look at verse 13 – “what kind of suffering is James talking about?” What type of sickness is being thought of in verse 14? Why or are the prayers of the elders different than other believers? What is the anointing oil in verse 14 and does the prayer of faith in verse 15 always restore the sick? Or how is sickness related to sin – and then why in the world does James put an illustration about rain right in the middle of a discussion about healing? I hope that I will answer those questions in our study. The key to understanding God’s Word correctly is to understand the context. Whenever you read the bible you always read it in light of what comes before and what comes after the verses you are studying. When you do not do that you can make the bible say and teach perhaps whatever you want it to and not what God gave it to us to do.

If you remember – James wrote this letter to Jewish believers who had been forced to flee from the Holy Land and they were being persecuted. The first chapter talked about trials and then in chapter 5 he wrote to believers who were being persecuted. The letter is addressed to believers who were enduring suffering and affliction. The main focus of James letter is to believers who were casualties of the spiritual battle – the persecuted – weak and defeated believers. The context tells us that this section is not about physical illness or physical healing. 2x His concern in writing this is about spiritual weakness – spiritual weariness – exhaustion and spiritual depression in the lives of believers. James is saying that prayer is how the believer is to attack those troubles. So let me say dogmatically -- the key idea in this passage is prayer – not healing.

Look with me this morning at the relationship James writes about telling us what part prayer plays in relation to comfort – restoration – fellowship and power in the life of a Christian in the face of suffering.

1. Prayer brings comfort. (vs. 13 ) “Is there anyone of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.” Notice how the pastoral care of James comes out as he addressed believers who are troubled and weary. James wrote down a word that is translated by the NIV as trouble and by most other translations as suffering. Our first thought and application of this passage is to think that he is talking about physical trouble – people conclude that James is obviously is talking about sickness. But that is not the case because the word he used was never used in the greek language to talk about physical illness – he wrote down a word that a Greek person would use talking about enduring evil treatment by another person. The believers were being persecuted – abused and treated wickedly by people in their lives – this is what 5:1-11 was all about. Some of you have been abused – persecuted and treated wickedly. Some of you have unsaved spouses – some of you have been abused in your past. Some of you have been treated so unfairly. In the past 14 years I cannot count the number of suffering people who have come through our doors and the countless hours that I have spent investing in their lives. James says that the antidote to suffering in the life of a believer is prayer. James tells the believer to pray – to be involved in prayer – to let and ask others to pray for you….. I remember clearly the feeling of how last year I cherished to hear the prayers of God’s people when Cheryl and I began our journey of suffering. God is the god of all comfort. Comfort from God is the outcome of prayer. Recently – I have been called upon to give comfort as a pastor. I do not think I do a good job of it. I remember standing some time ago in a room at the hospital in the emergency with a mother as her 14 year old son lie dead on the table from an overdose – oh how she longed for comfort. Oh how I longed to comfort her but I knew that only God is the perfect comforter.

Comment about comforting someone suffering because of how someone else is treating them. (broken relationships)

Look on your outline: 2 Corinthians 1:3 - 4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” If God is the God of all comfort in the midst of suffering as a result of the way another person is treating me – why would I not want to come to Him in prayer? Let me ask you…… When was the last time you prayed about trouble you had because of someone else????? Think about it….. everyone of you can think of a person who has troubled you and caused you suffering………. When was the last time you heard someone else praying for you and your troubles???? When was the last time you trusted someone else to pray?

You know what it is like having someone cause you trouble – you go to bed at night thinking about that person and you can’t turn your mind off and you sin thinking about how you are going to get back at them and how unfair it is that they are treating you the way they are ---- On your outline:

1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” So if this verse is true – “when we do not pray and when we do not allow others to pray for us…. We are simply saying to God and to ourselves that we really do not believe that God cares for us. We are questioning the character of God. Prayer brings us comfort from the character of God.

Reminds me of a simple song: O what peace we often forfeit – o what needless pain we bear – all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer……. Go back to verse 13 “James says to the believer who is able to maintain a cheerful heart during suffering --- he tells the believer to sing praises. Praise and prayer go hand in hand. The phrase to sing praises comes from the noun psalm. That must be why the book of Psalms is powerful scripture to read during times of suffering. Praise is a form of prayer. When trouble and suffering is part of your life – praise songs are powerful powerful tools to bring you through. That is also why the best place a defeated – discouraged - suffering and depressed believer should be during the week is with God’s people singing songs of praise --- regardless of how much they are suffering. The second point James makes:

2. Prayer brings restoration. (vs. 14 – 15) “Is anyone 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.” This is the most misunderstood and disputed portion of our passage. This is not a formula for making sick people well. “We put the oil on him and prayed and he did not get well --- did we use the wrong kind of oil?” Some might say, “The problem was not the prayer it was the elders – they did not have enough faith. You just have to have more faith. There was sin in his life that is why he was not healed.” I have heard believers make all of those statements. Now – do not get me wrong here – you know that we as a church pray and we anoint the sick with oil when we pray. But the word sick that James used is used 18 times in the NT and only 4 times is it used to mean physical sickness. In the context of what James is writing about here – James is using it to refer to sickness that comes from emotional and spiritual weakness. He is not talking about being healed from cancer or diabetes. He is saying that “God’s people can become sick as a result of suffering as a result of how other people treat us.” Everyone of you know what it feels like when anger consumes you – you know what it feels like when you have a broken relationship with someone and you know what it feels like when someone is treating you badly and abusing you unfairly. Spiritual battles will exhaust you – make you weary – depress you and drag you down. Migrains – anxiety – depression – stomach problems can all come from spiritual battles. James says that the answer – the healing – comes as a result of prayer. Start by asking the leaders of the church family to pray for you. Ask those who should be spiritually strong and spiritually mature to pray for you. That is all James is saying here.

Church leaders have no special magical power. Oil was only a symbol of healing – it was a substance that was used in biblical times for healing – olive oil is still considered a healing oil. There is no special formula on how this praying is to be done. You do not have to put it on their forehead in the form of a cross and say some magical words. And if you do not have any oil that does not mean that the prayer is not affective. James says a prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick.

This is perhaps where so many miss apply this verse – “if I have faith I will get well” --- no healing – no faith. My problem is faith. Here again is why this text does NOT refer to physical healing --- the word sick was translated from the word sozo --- a greek would have understood it to mean restore – not heal. But again ---- DO NOT --- misunderstand our call as believers to comfort – care and pray for each for physical healing --- I am just trying to give you a sound biblical unpacking of what God’s Word really teaches here – I know for some this conflicts with what you might have heard from others – a book or heard from a TV preacher. If it does – go home and study the scriptures and see if these things are so and if you still have a problem give me a call. Notice what James writes at the end of verse 15 – “if he has committed sins – they will be forgiven”. When I am angry – I feel terrible. When I am anxious about how someone is or has treated me – I have real physical pain. When I am stressed – I can have teeth pain in my jaw so bad I think I have another abcess ---- but now get this: NOWHERE in the bible does it teach that all sickness is a direct result of an individuals sins – but spiritual defeat – is often the cause and the result of sin. Comment on relationship with confession to others of sin………..

3. Prayer brings fellowship. (vs. 16a) “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” The therefore James uses here makes a transition for us from those believers who are spiritually struggling and battling suffering to the rest of the church family. He knows how un confessed sin drags a believer towards spiritual defeat. Sin in the life of an isolated believer is the most dangerous. Sin seeks to remain private and secret but God wants it exposed and dealt with in loving relationships with other believers. Sin prospers in the dark. Sin grows and deepens when a believer says to themselves – I”ll handle myself. “I do not need to confess my sin to anyone else. I heard that statement from a man in another church family just this year and that church family is no more – it closed its doors last week.

Think about this: Is it any wonder that we do not see spiritual victory in the lives of most believers today? How many believers are going to confess sins to other believers and pray for other believers on a Sunday morning? Success in America is numbers – its crowds. Success is where there is energy and you can only find energy when there is lots of people together. I do not know of any believer who makes it a regular practice of standing in front of others or going up to someone in a church on a Sunday morning and they have not seen that person since last Sunday and they have no trouble what so ever confessing sin to them……… There is a reason why Jesus spent extra time with only three of his disciples.

King David wrote in Psalm 32:5 “I will confess my transgression to the Lord; and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” Nathan was the one to confront David about His sin. I firmly do not believe that David confessed his sin privately to God – he did it in front of Nathan. In Proverbs 28:13 King Solomon wrote “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” If sins are concealed from others and that person does not prosper – other people are going to see it. If you do not prosper --- it is going to be seen by your fruit or lack of.

If I conceal my sin ---- You will see the result of that in me – so – does it not stand to reason that confessing and renouncing sin is not only personal but public or at least to another person? In the NT – the most popular verse about confession of sin is…
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1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” To confess your sin --- is to say the same thing that God says. To confess is the word homo – legeo. Say the same. Have you done that? Are you making it a practice of confession your sin and same the same thing to God what he says about your sin? When was the last time you confessed sin to someone other than a family member???

4. Prayer brings power. (vs. 16b -18) The effective 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 half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced crops.”

Notice what James writes here ---- the effective prayer of a righteous man. So – are their prayers that are not effective? There must be and in the context of the verse before --- in-effective prayers come from a believer who does not confess their sins. Effective prayer comes from a believer who makes it a practice of dealing with and confessing sin in ones life. A righteous man or woman of God is not one who is perfect but they are in right standing with God and the only way to be in right standing with God is to have no unconfessed sin in ones life. Interestingly – the word (slide) effective comes from the word energeo from which we get the word energy.

When you come before God with prayer as a believer and you are hiding nothing – when you have confessed your sin and have a clean heart with God and with others - you can come to God with energy. Energetic prayers of righteous men and women are a powerful force in calling down the power of God for restoring weak – struggling believers to spiritual health.

The bible tells us in Ps 66:18 “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” And in Proverbs 15:8 “The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases Him.” Proverbs 28:9 “If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.”

James gave us an illustration of a righteous man who prayed effective prayers. He was no greater than you --- James goes to the trouble to write that he was a man just like us --- he was like any believer in Jesus Christ ------ but when he prayed he made certain that he had no unconfessed sin – he was in right standing with God. Verse 17b – Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain – so it did not rain for 31/2 years and then he prayed that it would rain and the sky poured down rain. NOTE: This story of Elijah and the drought would be a strange illustration for James to put in here if physical illness and healing was the main focus of this section – there are many other bible illustration about healing that could he could have used but the picture of God pouring down rain where there is drought perfectly illustrates God pouring out spiritual blessings on dry and struggling believers – God does that in response to the prayers of righteous godly people and again a righteous godly believer is simply one who has no un confessed sin and is in right standing with God and with other men and women.

Close: So – are you spiritually dry? Do you feel like you are in a spiritual dessert? Is there sin in your life that you simply are not mortifying or putting to death? Is there are broken relationship – anger and resentment that seems to rear its ugly head time and time again? Maybe you are suffering in a relationship with someone who simply persecutes you? You are the person who gives and gives and gives – you need prayer. Would you come and let someone pray for you today? Would you hear their prayers prayed outloud for you?

Let us pray:

Call the men and women to come and pray…………