The Muchness of God
James 5:13-16
August 20, 2023
Here’s the bad news! Last Sunday most of us admitted our sinful predisposition to be impatient people. Hopefully, by the time we finish, you’ll see the good news! Today, in many respects we’re looking at patience again, but from an entirely different angle. Today we’re looking at perseverance or patience in prayer.
Let me ask you this - - At this very moment, do you believe, God is ready to pour out upon you — from the lavish abundance and overflow of His grace and love – blessings upon blessings that will strengthen you in every aspect of your life?
You might be thinking, where did you come up with that? James 5.
As I was thinking about this last message in the series on James, looking at practical ways to live life so we can bring honor and glory to God, there were so many directions to go in this message.
But when I stopped, paused, I heard something in this passage that’s a bit different . . . and I’m going to try to combine two different thoughts into this message.
Let’s look at what James wrote in James 5:13-20 - - - -
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders / deacons of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
15 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.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
17 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.
18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,
20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. - James 5:13-20
There’s a lot in this passage. And one of the things I hear James telling us about God, is that God is the God of Muchness!
Isn’t the word MUCH, a fun word! We love going to restaurants and see food piled on our plates. I like to get in a car and feel the muchness of the horsepower. I love the loud roar of trains and planes. I love the fact that I have an amazing hope from God that tells me I can love a life of muchness.
This text indicates to me that God is the God of much — of lavish, abundant, overflowing reserves. He is a generous God. Do the Bible math with me. Wasn't it God who said in Psalm 84:11 - - - -
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. NO GOOD THING DOES HE WITHHOLD FROM THOSE WHO WALK UPRIGHTLY. - Psalm 84:11
Do you hear that? God doesn’t withhold the good things for those who walk uprightly. He wants to give to us. He offers us an abundant life in this world, as well as in eternity. He offers us muchness as He forgives us. And that list goes on and on for who God is.
Even satan recognized God’s generosity and used it on Eve. Remember how satan tempted Eve? He wanted Eve to think God was stingy and withholding from her and Adam.
In Genesis 3:1, satan said to Eve - - -
1 Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” - Genesis 3:1
Actually what God said to her was: You can eat of every tree in the garden … except for one. There's just one where you can prove your love to me by obeying and avoiding the danger of it. Don't ever let satan whisper in your ear and persuade you that God is stingy, that God wants to hold back, or doesn’t want to give you what you need.
And this is where prayer comes in. We can access God’s "muchness" through prayer. In 5:16, James said - - - -
16 The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
The word for prayer in James 5:16 means "to call out in the time of need." This is a specific prayer of a heart in great need. Think of the contrast. There is the God of muchness and here I am in my need and emptiness. This verse invites us to come into the world of God who gives over-abundantly.
So, as we look at these verses from James about prayer, he’s telling us to pray when you’re suffering, afflicted, sad, and in trouble. AND pray when you’re happy, feeling great (which covers a lot of life really). James tells us what we need to do - - - - PRAY!! Whether you’re up or down, the message from James is PRAY!
Usually we pray more when we’re in trouble than when everything’s going well. We often struggle with the prayers which are unanswered, but forget about the countless, blessings and prayers God answered.
Some people say “I never saw a miracle,” but how many prayers have been answered in your life? You don’t know. And I’d say, it’s more than you could ever remember.
And as a reminder, miracles don’t have to be spectacular to be supernatural. It doesn’t always have to be instant to be a miracle. . . . some answers are still on the way.
Maybe you didn’t even know that you’re on someone else’s prayer list. And it was their prayers which brought the blessings or healings.
In Luke 17, Jesus told the story about 10 lepers. They shouted Master have mercy on us. And Jesus healed all 10 of them. Then Jesus tells us - - -
15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;
16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?
18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
19 And Jesus said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Can’t you picture the joy of Jesus in healing those lepers, but then you sense the sadness and disappointment creeping in.
Disappointment. Because so often when I’m stuck and desperate I cry to God. Then something happens. And I’m happy again, but I don’t go back. I don’t recognize the ONE who heard me and answered my prayer.
I just keep walking because I’m more like the nine than the one. I don’t come back and say thank you. I don’t give thanks to the ultimate healer, God! He’s the Great Physician, not me! Yet, do I say thank you and give Him the glory and praise for what He’s done?
James says if you’re sad - - - PRAY! If you’re happy - - - - PRAY.
And when you’re sick, or you know anyone who needs healing - - - - PRAY. Verses 15-16 tells us - - - -
15 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.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Pray. Get other believers to pray too. Get the church involved to pray with you. Pray “over” the sick person, and anoint them with oil as a sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power with you.
He says the prayer of faith shall save the person. It literally means “will bring wholeness” — which is a future tense word. And the phrase “The Lord shall raise him up,” is also in the future tense. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen in the next 5 minutes. It’s something which is promised to happen in the future.
Sad, happy, or sick? Pray. Feeling down, up, or knocked sideways? Pray.
Is your life situation included in that? In fact, and this is really important, the tense James uses means we should, “Keep on praying.” Don’t stop! Even in the silence . . . don’t stop! Be persistent.
Anything you’re sad or sorrowful about? Keep on praying. Everything going great? Keep on praying, put the worship on. Feeling sick? Know anyone who is? Keep on praying!
Yet, we struggle in all of this . . . .
I know people who have been healed by prayer. When I was a newer Christian, I knew a 25 year old woman who was newly married and she began to have seizures and balance issues. They found she had a brain tumor the size of a baseball. She couldn’t work, or drive, or do much of anything. Her husband was her caretaker. 100's of people were praying for her, nothing was happening.
2 days before her surgery, she had her final cat scan so the surgeon would know exactly where to operate. Doctors saw that her tumor shrunk to the size of a large grape. They were astounded because the only medication she was given was to help prevent seizures. Eventually, she was told her tumor was gone and there was no logical explanation. The God of muchness had arrived.
Then, there’s my good friend Tim. He and his wife have prayed for their son who has epilepsy. I remember many days in seminary when Tim and Claudette were exhausted from prayer and the impact the seizures were having on James’ young body. The seizures impacted his mental capacity and his life as a whole. Today, James is a 34 year old man who lives with epilepsy.
Do Tim and Claudette have less faith, less power, less salvation than others who find healing? One of the great struggles we find in the church is why some find healing and others with just as much faith, if not more, seem to find no healing — and at times more hardship.
There are times when we have no answers. When it doesn’t make sense. Most of us have been there. Praying for a loved one - - - - and the healing doesn’t come as we desired. We had good prayers, righteous prayers, maybe we fasted, maybe we gave up a sin issue, but still nothing.
Does that mean we weren’t as good as someone else who found healing? Absolutely not. It means there was a different plan at work, which wasn’t our plan. God had a plan that wasn’t ours. Yet, we’re still called to trust God’s grace and mercy.
We may be left with a skeptical view of the healing powers of prayer — especially those healing services we see on television. We have difficulty accepting the fact that someone actually experienced God’s healing. We rationalize it away, thinking they would have gotten better anyway, or the medicine did it. Or it’s all a hoax.
It’s like the story of the boy coming home from Sunday School telling his parents how Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. He described how the Israelites built bridges for their jeeps to cross the sea. Then, as Pharaoh’s army crossed the bridges, the bridges were booby-trapped, exploded and the whole Egyptian army was destroyed.
The father asked his son, if that was really the way it happened. And the boy responded, “No, but if I told you what they really said at church, you wouldn’t believe it."
That very well may be how some of us would respond, we just can’t believe it can happen. Maybe Jesus and the disciples could do it, but today, no way.
And we read about Paul’s affliction in 2 Corinthians 12. He wrote - - - -
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
9 But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul prayed for healing, but never received it. Instead, he learned to persevere by relying on God’s strength. And he wrote that great statement, WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG! Did Paul have little or no faith? Absolutely not! He was a great man of faith and courage . . . yet, it gives me comfort to know even God didn’t answer Paul’s prayer as Paul desired.
I was kind of like Paul in a prayer. I’ve had a bad back since I was in my early 20's. I was in the hospital for 9 days when I was 23. I prayed that God would take away my back pain and then I’d believe. It was my challenge to God. Here I am today, back pain and all, and believing in Jesus. God doesn’t always give us what we want.
I read about a story of a woman whose husband was about to die. He was struggling with the fact that he had not been healed. His wife looked at him and said, “Death is the greatest miracle of all. Death is the final healing!”
I look at the words of Isaiah, when he wrote - - - -
5 By His wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5
Because of the wounds of Jesus, we will be healed. Maybe in this lifetime, but definitely, when we have faith, we believe in the life that is to come we will be healed. And that is the greatest healing we can receive.
Maybe that’s the greatest of the miracles of muchness. God sent His Son for us! To give us life, to give us hope. To never leave us stranded and alone. He’s promised to always be with us and to wipe away every sin, along with every tear!
That’s what the God James is talking about is offering you and I. We’re called to have this great faith and trust, that at all times, we believe and trust in the god who loves us so much, that He sent His Son for us.
