Date Written: July 1, 2006
Date Preached: July 2, 2006
Where Preached: OZHBC (PM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: You Might Be a Healthy Christian if…
Sermon Title: You Pray When Things Are Going Good
Sermon Text: James 5:13-16 (NKJV)
Introduction:
In a county that was formerly a dry county, they passed the law that made it ok to drink alcoholic beverages and a man decided to build a bar. During the construction of the bar, the church down the road decided to have an all night prayer vigil for God to intervene.
Well a great storm came up and lighting struck the not yet completed bar and it burnt to the ground. The bar owner decided to sue the church and was holding it responsible for his bar burning down.
The pastor and church members hired a lawyer to represent them and they made the claim that THEY were not responsible! When the case reached court the papers got hold of this story and in the paper the day of the trial it read, "No matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear. The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not."
Tonight I want us to talk about prayer. I want to look at the statement,
“You might be a healthy Christian if....You pray even when things are good….”
And over the next four (4) weeks I want us to take a look at what being a healthy Christians really looks like...
In this passage, we find James the ½ brother of Jesus, writing his letter to the church… in other words to the believers in his day! But these teachings are timeless and they apply to the church as a whole… these teachings apply to us today, just as they did to the audience James was originally writing to…
When we look at this letter we can come to the conclusion that prayer was a huge part of James’ life. In fact, biblical scholars have found out thru intense research that James had a nickname and it was "Old Camel Knees."
This was because James prayed SO much that he wore calluses on his knees. I would say that reveals to us that prayer was an important part of his life!
Let’s look at our passage James 5:13-16 (NKJV)
“…13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 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 our Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you many be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much…”
In looking at the essence of what God is saying thru James we can see that God desires His people to pray.
And what I want to say here tonight is that if you want to be a healthy Christian… you need to have a healthy prayer life...
I hope and pray that this message will cause you to begin to spend quality time in prayer everyday.
Let me ask you a question tonight, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how healthy is your prayer life?”
Tonight we are going to focus in on two (2) indicators that reveal a healthy prayer life… and therefore leads to a healthy Christian walk with God…
1. The first indicator of a healthy prayer life is....PERSISTENT PRAYER (v:13-14)
A. James told the church to pray with persistence...
• If your in trouble.....you are called to pray, and if you are in good times… you are called to pray thru songs of praise!
• Jesus taught this same principle of persistence in Luke 11:9-10.
Luke 11:9-10 (NKJV)
"9 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
In these verses basically what Jesus is telling us is for us to *…keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking…”
This is because it really doesn’t take a lot of faith or commitment or even effort for us to pray just once about something and then stop! Jesus is telling His disciples to be persistent in their prayer life!
B. Being persistent with prayer makes it clear to God that this matter is important to us.
Now I want you to understand something here about prayer… just because God can see it is important to us… that DOES NOT mean we’ll get what we asked for. Let me give you an illustration…
Do you remember when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane? We can read about it in Matt 26:39, 42,44
And here we find Jesus praying and in His prayer, 3 times Jesus cries out to the Father to allow this cup to pass from Him. That is a persistent prayer, but was it granted? NO!
Look at the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor. 12:7-9
Here He was praying about what he describes as a ‘thorn in his side’ it was definitely something that bothered Paul and that he wanted to be rid of, and we find that Paul prayed three (3) times for God to take it away. Again this is another example of a persistent prayer, but was it granted? NO!
Persistence is more for OUR sake than it is for God. God knows what is important to us, but He desires and knows that we need prayer and we need fellowship with Him, so He calls for persistence in our prayer life…
So with that in mind, when we are living the healthy Christian life, we are able to pray with conviction and persistence knowing that God may not necessarily give us what we ask for, but He will give us what is best for us!
C. The beauty of a healthy Christian prayer life is a blessing to all around them...
Pastor Stephen Bly, of Winchester, Idaho was fortunate enough to have seen this beauty in action. In his church was an elderly many named Gus (84 years old). Gus was a widower who came to church but sat in the back of the church. Many in the church felt that Gus didn’t have a lot to offer, but Pastor Bly found out different when he spent some time with him…
Pastor Bly learned that Gus spent 2 ½ hrs each and everyday in bible study & prayer time and then he followed that up with a 3 mile walk where he talked with God.
When the pastor came to see Gus he was fasting 2 meals a day and praying for the salvation of a neighborhood boy named Anthony. Anthony was known throughout the community for getting into trouble, and many had written him off as destined for jail.
The pastor asked Gus, “How long have you been praying for Anthony?"
Gus replied. "40 days."
*How much longer will you continue?”, asked the preacher.
“As long as it takes,” is what Gus said…
I want you to know that on day 51, Anthony committed his life to Christ and his life was changed. But his was not the only life touched when Anthony came forward in church that morning. The pastor was moved because he knew the beautiful prayer life that had been in action for this young man…
So we can come to the conclusion in looking at Scripture and at anecdotal evidence that a healthy Christian is the Christian who has a persistent prayer life...
Now understand that persistence is an indicator of a healthy Christian’s prayer life, but it’s not the only one.
2. The second indicator of a healthy prayer life is… FAITHFUL PRAYER (v.15-16)
A. Here James reveals the type of prayer that makes a difference...
Now in this passage we see the word faith which is the Greek word Pistis Which means that you believe because you have heard. And in this passage this word means that these believers have faith and they believe because they have heard about God.
What James is saying here is that they hadn’t actually ‘seen’ God, they hadn’t actually been able to touch God.... they had simply heard about God and they had believed.
The implication from this verse is that when you have faith in God, that you believe God is going to answer…period.! In other words, *If you pray, don’t worry. If you worry, don’t pray.”
Another term in this passage I want to look at is the word, righteous which is the Greek word dikaios and it means one living right in the sight of God.
In Scripture we find this mentioned quite a bit. Look with me at 1 Pet 3:12 where Peter says, “…for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous [dikaios] and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil…”
What does this mean for the believer? It means that you can pray a persistent prayer ALL want, but if your not living a life of righteous faith… what is God going to do with your prayers? He is going to turn His face away from them!!
God hears our prayers but He responds to both those who are faithful in living a righteous life before God and those who are persistent in their prayer… but we can also see that…
B. We can make a difference with our prayers...
Do you remember the story about when Jesus went to His hometown of Nazareth? The Bible shares with us that He was not allowed to do great things because something was missing.
Mark6:5-6
5 Now He could do NO mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief…
In the act of prayer, we have to understand that the act of FAITH is necessary for God to act! Little Rachel went to bed and said, "Lord, today was wonderful. I can’t wait to see what your going to do tomorrow."
In this simple illustration we find a young child expecting God to do something big. Do You expect God to move? Do you have faith that God is going to do something?
Again we get back to the issue of living our lives to please God or being what the Bible calls righteous… I want you to understand that being righteous in the sight of God is NOT what we can do… but it is who we can serve… when we are obedient to God we are living like He desires us to live…
There was this young man named Kenneth Bruner, and he was a stepson of a pastor. But one day he and seven other accomplices held up Herman’s Fine Jewelry in Des Moines, Iowa.
Before the robbery Kenneth actually prayed that nobody would hurt in the heist. Nobody DID get hurt, but Kenneth and his praying band of thieves wound up with federal jail terms and NOT the jewels they had been hoping for….
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that,*If your living like hell, don’t expect the God of heaven to hear your prayers.”
C. God is the most important person we can talk to each and everyday...
There was a lowly lieutenant sitting in his office when a five star general came into and sit down. After a couple of minutes, the phone rang and the lieutenant was reaching for the phone to answer it… The general spoke up and said, "Whoever it is, they can’t be more important to you than I am."
Likewise, God must be more important than everyone else in the life of the believer and this is because He is worthy of our undivided attention in prayer.
I read about this one time and I think this is a great system for you to try in your prayer time. One of the reasons is that it is easy to follow & use… I use this in all my prayers…I call it the ACTS system…
Adoration: Tell God why you love Him.
Confession: Telling God "Your right, I’m wrong" Let God speak to you and reveal your sin.
Thanksgiving: Thank Him for your blessings.
Supplication: Intercession & Petition (Intercession is for others & Petition is for yourself)
Conclusion:
I want us to all understand that the power of prayer is not in the one who prays, but in the one who hears it. But I CAN tell you that the Healthy Christians WILL have a healthy prayer life.
Tonight we have looked at two indicators of a healthy prayer life.
Persistence: Continual, during good & bad times.
Faithful: Trust with your life and God will move in your life.
And it is my prayer that this message will spur you to spend MORE quality time in prayer each and everyday.
I want you to remember the story in the Bible about Peter walking on the water? (Matt. 14:26, 28-29)
Jesus came to them walking on the water and Peter cried out, Can I come to you… and Jesus said, “Come on…” Now don’t you think that Jesus could have enabled all 12 of the disciples to walk on the water? But when we read the story we find that the only disciple that walked was Peter. Why? It is because He asked!
As a believer you can either stay in boat and pray the waters don’t get you or you can go to God in prayer and ask to do big things in your life… You can ask Him to let you walk right over your troubles…
I want you to rate yourself today…On a scale from 1 to 10, how healthy is your prayer life?
In 1986, Vera Reeder of Fort Worth, TX received an amazing get-well card from her 6-year-old grand daughter, Melissa, who lived at Fort Worth at that time too.
Melissa wrote (on her own hand made card)
"Dear Nana, I hope you fel beter."
*She asked her mother how to spell "Watson", then asked for a stamp.
(Mom figured she was doing a little project and directed her to a little green S & H stamp instead of the regular postage stamp.)
The next day, Melissa’s Nana found an envelope in her mailbox simply addressed. Nana, 1712 Watson. Return address simply "Melissa".
*Her green stamp had been postmarked like a regular piece of mail.
*The anonymous hero at the post office remained anonymous, but the postal service officials were real proud of the extra effort taken with Melissa’s
I want you to know that our prayer life can be a lot like Melissa’s letter. It doesn’t have to be perfect, eloquent for God to receive it. It just needs to be delivered from our heart.
