Prayer and Song of Faith
James 5:13-16
Introduction-
Prayer –
Let’s address the elephant in the room and in this country for a moment - There is more tension today among people than I have seen in my entire lifetime. I watched as a 6 year old President Kennedy get shot live on TV. I sat on my porch in Milwaukee in 1967 at 10 years old the race riots scared to death as protesters and police collided. Yet I make that statement that I believe it is at the moment the worse I have seen. Church boards, school boards, police, military, government, racial injustice, social injustice, moral guidelines challenged, religion or lack of religion, freedom of speech and the fine line between free speech and our individual rights.
Everyone weighing in and thinking they have the answer to how to fix the wrongs in the world, and more than willing to show how the other person or the other group or the other political party is wrong.
There is no one answer to fix the wrong that is going on. To say the problem is that the world is turning away from God is not a complete answer. Yes, in some cases, those things that go against God and His word brings to us consequences.
The problem I see in the world is we have loss the love of neighbor.
The respect of each person even if they are different. I don’t have a red Mohawk or want one, but that does not make it wrong.
We (people today) have lost the ability to sit down and talk with people who disagree with us.
We have taken the word compromise and made it a bad word.
We have to be dead right- meaning, win at all cost. Take no prisoners, US AGAINST THEM… and no middle ground.
Illustration
I meet an 87 year old lady this week from the neighborhood that called the church about a table at the yard sale. She had such a broken accent that I could hardly hear and understand the message she left on the phone. I went to her house to talk to her.
She was talking to me about war as a kid and her hurts of war.
She talked about a husband she had lost to alcohol some years ago.
She talked about not having much money and how things were tough.
She said that she was a democrat and didn’t care who people voted for because she was for the people and that this was her country even though she does not agree with things going on right now.
She said that she was a Catholic because she was born a Catholic.
I could have focused on our differences, but I found myself loving her as a person.
I found myself understanding her story and seeing that the views she had was because of cultural and life experiences and rather than focused on the differences, I was going to focus on the “Good Lord” we had in common.
Last week, we looked at controlling our tongue. Watching our words, being careful of our words.
We looked at the impact hurtful words have had on each of us.
We have a choice of deciding each day wither we are going to lift up or destroy someone by our words.
We can blame someone, something, or the lack of something, but we control how we are going to live our lives and who is going to be in charge of our lives.
Jesus was not impressed with religious people… Why?
Because they thought that they were better than everyone else because they were not as bad as someone else and graded their lives by who was below them instead of who they could help and minister too.
Jesus did not want altered behavior, He wanted a changed heart. In fact, He wants to create a clean heart in each one of us.
Today more than ever, Jesus is wanting His people to be different and act different than the world.
To show by example the “love of Christ” to a dying world.
The dying world does not think it is dying and yet to make an impact on them. We must live out a life that would draw them to our God and not away from our God. We need our lives to be faith in action!
Forgiving, patient, loving, yet with an urgency for change.
James moves from warning about our words to how the early church exploded into the world to share the gospel of Christ.
They had no newspapers, social media, telephones, television, no information at our fingertips, no letters delivered across the world in a matter of a few days.
We need to take advantage of every tool in the shed to help spread the word of God, but we also need to not forget the good old fashioned way of communicating one on one with someone and express your love and care to them in a personal way.
James 5:13-5:16
There were so many early church characteristics that we must not forget in our Tech Savy world.
(13) “Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.”
Is anyone among you in trouble, Oh God, do you have a minute?
The hurt we feel is only expressed by the anger that is bottled up inside of us. The translated trouble here is the Greek word that means suffering. Is any among you suffering?
Each one of us has our easy button that if pushed sends us into rage and disappointment.
Is anyone happy, let them sing songs of praise.
Let’s address both of these together and then separate. In trouble pray! If you are happy, let praise go on your lips!
We think that the only time we have to praise is when everything is going our way, when we have nothing to complain about. The early church had all the same challenges we face today and then some. Yet, they choose to praise God.
They were persecuted.
There rights had been stepped on.
They were unjustly treated.
Their belief system as they knew it had changed and the new one was not being accepted by the majority.
They shared a different value than most people and were not taken seriously.
Yet they were a singing church!
A singing Church
They were ready to burst into song and be thankful for what God has done and what he would do in the future.
What they were going through was tough but they knew that their God would go through it with them and would help them.
Apostle Paul in dirty filthy dungeons singing the Psalms of God’s Word.
I believe their praise and their faith set the captives free and God broke down barriers that could not be done on their own.
Praise changes circumstances!
“I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name.” Psalm 18:49
A characteristic of the early church was to speak, sing, and rejoice in the words of God.
The word of Christ dwelt in them- you cannot take away what is inside!
They taught it and they lived it.
Joy inside came from God and is not based upon circumstances.
When they were persecuted, they did not look to the moment but recalled from the heart the mercies and goodness of God.
They fellowshipped together- it was not a burden to be together, it was a desire meet by a loving God.
They were not afraid to express love for their God and stand with fellow believers and worship the God of their salvation.
There are many of us who have a great testimony to tell of God’s goodness. We should have praise on our lips for the good things God has done for us.
Those that are hurting, keep your eyes centered on the prize that is before us because this is not all there is.
No matter what this world tells us, the best for a believer is yet to come.
II. A Praying Church
We are not seeing God do some amazing things because God’s people are not praying or believing Him to do them.
“Is anyone among you in Trouble? Let them pray.”
James goes on in verse 16 “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
Here is what you need to understand-
The Jews believed that all sickness came from sin. For a person to be healed, they believed God had to forgive their sin and bring healing.
The second thing they believed was that you needed to confess your sin to God and to others. That any un-confessed sin could not be forgiven.
Now on this side of the cross, we know that there is sickness, desease, hurt because of the fall of man (sin) and that bad things happen to good people because of that fall. That one day Jesus will right the wrongs.
The praying early church realized that a right relationship with God and a right relationship with each other brought forgiveness and healthy relationships.
Two main barriers are brought down.
The barrier between us and God.
The barrier between us and other people.
John Wesley taught and believed that we must be open and honest with each other and confess and work through our weaknesses and to see God do amazing things, we had to seek God forgiveness for our sins and have forgiveness for each other.
If you truly understand prayer and what it is, you understand that the power of prayer as a church and the power of prayer in our lives is based upon our relationship with God.
Some have not because they ask not- others have not because they are in rebellion with the God that could heal and restore or see them through.
I don’t need a show of hands, I know by what is happening in lives that we are forgetting God in a quest to heal our land and our circumstances. We don’t see God as our strength and our encourager, we see Him as a sounding board or complaint department that we feel is not responding to our complaints.
III. Healing Church
“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call upon the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.”
The early church believed in healing! Believed that by the calling of the Elders, and laying of hands on the sick that they would see God do miracles.
Does God heal every time? No or none would ever die. But to the believer, death is not the end, it is the beginning and that is a healing of what was physically going on in their body.
Do we have special powers in our hands? I have the same thing as each other believer- I have Christ that dwells in me and He is the healer, He is the redeemer, He is the comforter.
Early historical writers, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clementine, Josephus, all wrote of watching people healed as believers laid hands and prayed. They saw the power of the healing was not man but the power of God working through them.
We want to see people healed, we need to come to God and expect healings.
We need to be a praying church, a praying family, a praying community.
The early church believed in praising the Lord, praying to the Lord, and believed that God still heals!
Heal the sick, raise up the weak, cheer the fainted hearted.
One early writer wrote-
“Grant unto him (believer), O Lord… the power to break all the chains of the evil power of the demons, to cure all the sick, and speedily to subdue Satan beneath his feet.”
“Let the deacons of the church move about intelligently and act as eyes for the bishop… let him find out those who are sick in the flesh, and bring such to the notice of the main body who know nothing of them, that they may visit them, and supply their wants.”
Closing,
As a nation, we need to be concerned, but we do not need to be consumed.
As a believer in Christ, these events lately should bring us to our knees to be praying, to be sensitive to the things that God cares about, and be loving to the people we come in contact with… believers and non-believers.
Those that love us and those that are fighting hard against us.
If, you are able- Stand for closing prayer-
Father, help us be who you want us to be. Help us to see with the eyes of Christ. To be compassionate to those that don’t think like us, look like us and sometimes don’t act like us. May revival start in each one of us. May we begin to pray more and talk less when it is being critical of others.
May we not forget the goodness and mercy you have shown us so that we may show mercy to others. This world, this nation is at a crossroads, may we be influencers that build up instead of tearing down. We need your help and your guidance or we will fail in our lives, in our families and in our churches until they become your life, your family, your churches.
In Jesus Name!
