The Prayer Of Faith - James 5:15-16 Series

James 5:12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned. 13 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14 Is any one of you weak? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the weary person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17 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 a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

The Motive: Power

Do You Believe Enough to Pray?

Does God answer prayer – yes or no? Okay, now let me ask you that exact same question in another way: pick a random person sitting somewhere in this room – do you believe that that person would be better off if you prayed for them? Would their life actually be better in real-world ways, with better outcomes, if you prayed for them, than if you didn’t pray for them? If you said yes to the first question but you are waffling on the second question, then your answer to the first question wasn’t a real yes. We give lip service to the idea that God answers prayer, but do we really believe that to the point where it actually seems to us like someone will indeed be better off if we pray for them? It may be that the biggest impediment we have to prayer is that we just don’t really believe it does anything. Look at that final sentence in verse 16.

16 …The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Motive for Prayer: Power and Effectiveness

What is the purpose of that sentence? The purpose of the first half of the verse isn’t hard to figure out, because it is a straightforward command.

16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

The purpose of that is to get us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another. That’s obvious. But what is the purpose of the statement about prayer being powerful? Why tell us that? Why not just command us to pray, and let us discover on our own how powerful it is? Whenever God gives a command and then immediately gives a piece of information, it is usually for the purpose of motivation. God doesn’t just command us to do things; He helps us obey the command. And one of the greatest helps He gives us is to provide incentives that will get us excited about doing what is commanded. God knows that prayer is hard for us, and that our tendency will be to neglect it. So instead of just commending us to pray, He lets us know that prayer gives us access to real power.

Now, is that a bad motive or a good motive? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for you to desire a powerful life? Obviously it’s a good thing since God offers it as a motivation. It is a good thing to want a powerful, effective life. God does not want you to go through life spinning your wheels. He does not want you to limp along with a powerless, ineffective life. God wants you to want a powerful, effective life, and He is showing us here how to get it. It comes through prayer. Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the mighty muscle of omnipotence. Nothing will make you more powerful than prayer, because prayer moves the hand of Him who moves all things.

It is really a strong statement. The NIV says prayer is powerful – your Bible might say very powerful or great power. It is two words –polus (much, very) and isxuo (powerful). The prayer of a righteous man is very powerful.

The word effective is a hard word to translate. There are several possibilities, but I believe the most straightforward reading and the most likely meaning is simply this: the prayer of a righteous man is powerful because it brings about an effect. It changes outcomes, so that they are not the same outcomes as what would have happened if you didn’t pray. If you had some kind of special telescope where you could look and see the future of your life, so if you pointed it to the right you could see the next 10 years of your life without being devoted to prayer, and if you turned it to the left and you could see what the next 10 years of your life would look like if you are devoted to prayer, you are going to see two completely different futures. Your life will be a different life with different outcomes. And the emphasis in this verse is not praying for yourself, but praying for others. That person sitting in front of you or behind you right now – the next 10 years of their future looks very different if you pray for them or if you don’t pray for them. And if you don’t believe that, you don’t believe James 5:16.