Our First Response Series

Look at what it says in Romans 8, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." Did you know that God is praying for you all the time? God the Holy Spirit is praying for you all the time. All James is inviting us to do is to join with the Holy Spirit in praying and to experience that communication that takes place between ourselves and God. How do we do this? How do we get past this saving-prayer-for-when-we’re-really-really-in-trouble-and-nothing-else-has-worked mentality? I think we need maybe to develop in our lives what I’ll call prayer triggers. Years ago, someone told me this. Whenever they’d hear a siren of an emergency vehicle, they pray for the person who is perhaps hurt in an accident or maybe someone had a heart attack or maybe a child has drowned. They pray for the person in trouble. They also pray for the emergency personnel that they would have wisdom. Well, that’s just a prayer trigger. We can develop other kinds of prayer triggers in our lives. Maybe when someone comes to us with a concern and tells us that they’re having this particular difficulty, instead of saying, "I’ll pray for you.," and then, guilt-ridden, forget about it. But instead, to say, "Let’s pray right now about that. Let’s just stop and pray." There really is no time like the present. This person’s in trouble, aren’t they? Well, then, let’s pray. Let’s pray because it’s a natural part of our life with God. Bad news? Pray. Good news? Pray. We’re getting news all the time. News is a trigger to begin to develop the habit of praying.

The second thing I want to talk about this morning is that prayer is the result of relationship. Prayer is the result of relationship. How many of you have seen this commercial where this guy runs up to perfect strangers and says, "Guess what? I lowered my cholesterol." Have you seen that one? The thing that’s funny about that commercial is that he’s talking to people that really don’t care that he lowered his cholesterol. They may be generally happy that he’s healthier. But frankly, they could really care less that he’s lowered his cholesterol. Why? Because there’s no relationship with that person. The people that you ride from the first floor to the third floor on the elevator are not going to be your lifelong friends. They’re partners, they’re colleagues on an elevator for fifteen seconds. But, some people are interested, aren’t they? Sometimes when us men go to the doctor for our fifty thousand mile check up, we come home and our wives ask us, "What did he say your cholesterol was?" They’re not just being nosy, though we might think so. They’re concerned because they love us and they want us to stay around, which is a nice thing. The deeper our relationship is with someone, the more intimate that communication will be. We will share deeper things.

Verse 14, "Is anyone of you sick? Does any of you have an ailment? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord." Now the word that’s translated here, ’sick’ is actually the word for weak. But in the context, it’s clear that it means physically sick or physically weak. And you know what? It’s not always easy, is it, to share with each other physical weakness? It’s not always easy for us to say, "You know I’ve got this problem. I’ve got this illness. I’ve got this pain." But, James’ instructions are clear and they work on two levels.