Sacred Prayer

My name is Valerie. I'm one of the pastors on staff, and whether you're with us right now in this room or maybe you're over in The venue service or you're watching us on Facebook live, I am just glad that you've decided to be here today. We are in the final two weeks of our summer series that we call everyday sacred, and we are going good old-fashioned verse-by-verse through the biblical book of James. James was written to Christians who were suffering under tremendous execution, and so they were fleeing in all directions. So James is trying to pastor them from afar, sending around this letter to help them understand how do we live out our faith every single day.

As James wraps up the letter today, we're going to be in a passage that has tremendously encouraged people. We are going to be in a passage today that has empowered people, that has brought about miracles, and we're going to be in a passage today that has completely crushed people under its weight. We're going to talk about prayer. Now prayer, you may not know what that is, but prayer is really you talking with God. The God of the universe wants us to talk with him, to cry out to him, to plead to him. I think this is something that we've probably all done in some way, in some fashion, at some point in time.

As a matter of fact, let me ask you a couple questions. Raise your hand if you have ever in any way prayed to God, Lord's Prayer, looking up to heaven, going, "Are you kidding me?" Any kind of prayer? Okay, pretty much all of us. Now raise your hand if you have ever prayed a very specific prayer and received exactly that very specific answer from God. Okay, again a lot of us. Now raise your hand if you have ever prayed a very specific prayer and God has answered exactly the opposite. Yeah, there we go, and therein lies the tension—the tension that we feel in prayer between verses like James 4:2 that say you have not because you ask not, and then you ask and you still don't have. What do we do with that? We've all experienced it, and I think it's okay to sit with that for a little bit. It's okay to be in that moment of just not knowing.

What exactly does this mean? Sometimes when we pray, it can feel like we're just pulling on this band and we're stretching it. Sometimes, you know, you stretch these things, you're like, "Okay, that feels okay. There's a little tension there, but I can get on board with that." But then sometimes when we pray, it feels like that band is getting stretched really, really thin, and it's at risk of just snapping back in our faces. We just rather drop the whole prayer faith thing than risk getting hurt by it again. But that's part of life with God. We live in a very broken world, but we do not have a broken God, and so life and God are going to come into tension quite a bit.

But I don't want today to be just about this sense of tension. As I've been praying about this sermon this week, what I want to grow in us is not tension, but what I want to grow in us is a sense of gratitude that God has invited us into prayer with him. What I want to grow in us is the desire to pray—to actually take advantage of this amazing thing that God has invited us into. The psalmist says, "I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath." That's such an overwhelming picture: the God of the universe is bending down to listen to your prayer, and I want you to keep that picture in your mind's eye as we talk today about sacred prayer.

Go ahead and grab your message notes if you haven't already. They're in the bulletin that you were handed on your way in. We're going to be in James 5:13–18 today. If you have your Bibles, you can open up to James 5. The verses you need are either in your notes or on the screen if you don't have your Bible. But I think in this passage we are going to see three truths about prayer that we're going to hold in balance with three truths about God. First, I think we see that prayer is an act of faith; God is faithful. Prayer is an act of faith; God is faithful. When we pray, no matter what that prayer is, it's an act of faith because we are admitting there is something beyond us. There is someone beyond us, but we don't just pray to the air or up to the ceiling. We are praying to a very real, very faithful God.

I love Paul's reassurance for all of us in 2 Timothy when he says, "Even if we are unfaithful, he God remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is." And who he is is faithful—fully faithful. So let's jump into this passage here and find out what James has to say about this. Praying is an act of faith in our faithful God. Verse 13 says, "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise." Alright, I wish all the Bible was this easy to apply—very straightforward. If you are in trouble, if you even sense trouble, pray. There's no threshold here, and don't forget to praise God. There is a sacrifice in singing praise to God, and we are reminded of God's faithfulness.

Then James goes on and he offers instruction for people who are sick. He says, "Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord." Okay, what is this about? What kind of ritual is this anoint with oil? Before we get into that, I want to talk about the word sick because this word has actually had quite an evolution in the English language. Nowadays, somebody who is much younger and much cooler than I am, when they say the word sick, it actually means something's good. Now, alright, but in the original Greek that this was written in, it had several meanings. It often did mean that somebody was just literally physically sick or physically weak. When you read the Gospels and all the healings that Jesus did, that's the word that's used there—physical illness.

The Apostle Paul, however, tended to use this word to mean spiritual sickness or spiritual weakness, and James doesn't really specify here which he is referring to. I think in context you actually can see both, so maybe James was just covering all his bases. I don't know, but he says no matter what the sickness is, that we are to call the elders of the church to pray and anoint them with oil. Do you know that we actually practice this at Twin Lakes? Every Thursday, the pastors get together to pray, and in our setting, the pastors essentially function as what James is referring to here as elders. It could mean church leaders who are elder either in age, like Mark and René, or they're elder in spiritual maturity.

At this last Thursday, which I didn't just demonstrate, by the way, was maturity, but this last Thursday we got together to pray, and two women came in, and it was just an amazing time. The first woman that we prayed for has a pretty serious cancer, and as she talked with us about what's going on in her life, she said, "You need to know that I'm okay. I'm okay. The Lord may do a miracle and heal me. The Lord may use the doctors and heal me. The Lord may take me to heaven, but it's a win-win-win for me." That's faith. And then the second woman who came in for prayer, basically all she did the entire time was testify again and again and again to how faithful God has been to her in her life. When it came time to anoint her and pray for her, we started to pray for her, and then she interrupted and started praying for us.

I mean, these women overwhelmed us with their faith, deeply rooted in a faithful God. They humbled us. I mean, frankly, they schooled us in what it means to live a life of faith. And I think now, you know, if James's instruction ended here—call the elders, pray—I think we'd all feel pretty good about that. But the rubber band starts to stretch in verse 15 when James goes on to say, "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up." What does this mean? I’m willing to bet that every single one of us in this room has either prayed for someone we love or ourselves to be healed, and they were not healed. When the pastors gather together to anoint people and pray for them, we do not have a 100% track record on healing. So does that mean that all the pastors lack faith? Does that mean the person that came in for prayer lacks faith?

Even when Jesus healed people when he was here on earth, those same people eventually got sick again and died. Even Lazarus, who John 11 tells us Jesus raised from the dead, at another point in time got sick and died. Even when our prayers for healing are answered here in this broken world, we still get sick again. Nobody gets out of this life alive; that's just how it goes down here. So what does this mean? It can't mean that this is just some kind of magic prayer that gets us to live forever. Well, think about how Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer when he said, "Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The prayer prayed in faith is a bold prayer—that prayer, "Your kingdom come." When you think about the kingdom of God, that is a bold thing to ask to come down to earth—your kingdom come—with a "your will be done" attitude.

Think of Jesus's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified when he pleaded several times with his heavenly Father, "God, if there is any other way but the cross, please take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be done." A bold prayer with both hands open—the prayer of faith. You know, a prayer that you will hear us quote from Scripture often here is the prayer of the father who brought his son to Jesus for healing when he said, "I believe; help me overcome my unbelief." I think when we pray as that act of faith, we are saying a similar thing: "I believe; I will act in faith; I am talking to you, God, but help, because I'm just a human." That prayer is met by the one hundred percent faithfulness of our God. He may not always do what you want in prayer; as a matter of fact, I can promise you he won't, but he will always be faithful to who he is. He will always be faithful to the promises that he has given us in his word, and he will be faithful to you as you go through life.

So first, we pray as an act of faith to our faithful God. Then second, I think as we pray we quickly understand point two, and that is prayer is a mystery; God is with us. Prayer is a mystery; God is with us. I honestly think for some folks, the sense of mystery that prayer is is why we are reluctant to do it. It feels odd; we don't get it. We kind of circle it a little, maybe experiment with it, but we just—it's hard. It's out of our control, and so we don't understand it all. Let's pick up at the end of verse 15 where James goes on talking about the sick person and says, "If they have sinned, they will be forgiven." Alright, it's very quiet in the room. This is different. What's James saying here? Is James saying that this sick person's illness is a result of sin? Possibly.

There are definitely physical consequences to our decisions, to our choices, to our addictions, to our sin. Things like overuse of drugs, food, harboring bitterness, selfishness, alcohol—all these things literally have physical consequences; they can make us sick. Now hear me well on this: is James saying here that all sickness is a result of sin? No, everybody shake your head—no. He is not saying that at all. Sometimes in this broken world, you can do everything right. We all know somebody who followed all the rules; they did everything right, but they still got sick and they died before their time. Again, we are living in a broken world, and broken world math means that one plus one does not always equal two. It's important for us to remember this distinction, this mystery that we enter into in prayer.

You know, I have personally watched people pray for someone's healing and use this verse as a weapon when they are not healed. They'll throw this verse back in the face of the sick person and say, "Well, you must be harboring a very deep sin because you're not healed," or they'll say, "Well, your faith just isn't up to snuff, so I guess that's why God's not healing you." No, this is God we're talking about. There is mystery when we enter into prayer, but here is the great truth about this mystery: we do not walk alone; God is with us. He is present with us, and through his body, the church, we have people around us. We do not walk this walk alone.

James goes on to say, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." He says confess our sins to one another. So what I want you to do now is turn to the person on your right, and we're just going to go back five sins. Nervous laughter. You're wondering, "She made it." No, I don't mean it. You don't need to do that. But why is this here? Why is James suddenly, it feels like, talking about confession of sins in the middle of a passage that's all about healing? Well, because I think confession is important. Confession is powerful. Confession allows us to get out of our system some of that poison that we're holding in. I think it's important that we confess our sins to God. You may think, "Well, I mean he already knows." He now knows I'm sorry. Why do we need to bring it up again? But there's power in out loud saying, "God, I have sinned. I'm sorry; help me." Healing happens in that moment.

You know what? There is power in talking to the people around us that God has provided for us and saying, "I'm struggling. I need help. Here's what I have been struggling with." That is how we start the process of healing—not only within ourselves, but in our relationships. When we're sick, physically or spiritually, our temptation is we want to isolate. We don't want anybody to know when we're sick; we just want to pull the covers over our head. But what we need is community. We need that community of knowing God is with us. We need the community of faith that God has put around us. This is why we have an entire department at our church, the care department, devoted to coming alongside people when they are sick and when they are suffering. We have recovery groups; we have small groups because we want you to not isolate, but to come together and be reminded you're not alone and to be reminded that also God is with you.

One of my favorite verses about the mystery of prayer and God's presence is found in Romans 8 when the Apostle Paul says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness." By the way, the word weakness there is the same word that James uses for sickness back in James 5. "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes, acts on our behalf for us through wordless groans. He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God." Okay, there's a lot of words in there—a lot of the word Spirit. What is happening here? Well, let me explain it this way: do you ever feel like your prayers look like this? You just—you just don't know. It just feels like you start with Jesus, you end with amen, and in the middle you just don't know.

Well, what this verse is telling us is that when our prayers look like that, when we do not know what to say, God, who by his Spirit indwells us and is with us, unjumbles the letters. Unjumbles all the letters, and the bonus is he always prays in accordance with God's will—that prayer of faith that we talked about, God's will. The Spirit always prays that way on our behalf. You know, I have a theory and a practice, and here's my theory: that is if you have to drive anywhere in this town and you can drive by the ocean, drive by the ocean. You will be in traffic; I know Mark shares this theory with me. You will be in traffic no matter what. So you might as well drive by the ocean and see it. How many of you share this theory with me? Alright, you are all the people blocking me at the stop signs—all of you folks right there.

Now when I drive by the ocean, especially on my way to church in the summertime, especially sometimes this is my view that I see: I see nothing. I can't see the ocean; I can't see the beach; I can't see anything. But you know what? I don't panic because I know the ocean's still there. I think sometimes the mystery of prayer feels like this picture. We can't tell up from down; we're not sure what's going on; our words going anywhere. But don't panic; God's still there. He is still with you in this deep mystery.

Then as James wraps up this teaching on prayer, I think the third thing that we hold in balance is that we see that prayer is powerful; God is good. Prayer is powerful; God is good. James goes on and says, "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." It kind of feels to me initially like after all this talk about prayer and getting us all excited, this is the fine print: you must be righteous to participate. Wait, this isn't fair. How can I be righteous? How can I be godly? Well, two things. First of all, I think James anticipates we're going to go down that road because he jumps right in to an illustration from the life of Elijah. He goes on and he says Elijah, this famous Jewish prophet, was a human being even as we are. When Elijah prayed earnestly—and you can read this story in 1 Kings 17 and 18—when he prayed earnestly, the weather was used to call the people of Israel away from idols and back to God. Elijah prayed with great prayer, but James says he was someone just like us.

When you read his story, you realize he struggled. He had a lot of struggles that we have—anger, depression, bitterness—all those things. But he prayed with great prayer, and God moved. When it comes to righteousness, I think the second piece of good news that we should know, even though it's not in James, is that because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, forgiving all our sins, we have been declared righteous by God. The book of Romans tells us this again and again. So you are in Christ, the righteous person who can pray powerful and effective prayers. But it doesn't always feel that way. That tension exists again; that band stretches. You think, "God, I did all the things; I'm praying in faith. I'm praying powerfully with great prayer, I promise God." And the band stretches, and we don't get the answer we want. It's in that moment—and this is a hard moment—but it's in that moment that what we have to go back to and rest on is the truth that God is good.

I have said that truth through tears; I have said that truth through gritted teeth; I have said that truth in a variety of ways, but it is still true: God is good. That has to be held in tension with the powerful prayer because we cannot control God with our powerful prayers. He is God. But even in the no, he is good. He is very good. There's a song we sing sometimes here, and there's a bridge in that song that says, "You're never gonna let me down; you're never gonna let me down." For some people in this room, you might have to just stop singing when it gets to that part because you think, "Ha, go ahead and stop the song, and I will give you the list of the ways that God has let me down." That's so hard.

Look at the life of the Apostle Paul. I mean, this is a guy who I am sure prayed with great prayer, but he had for his whole life this thing he called the thorn in the flesh—some sort of physical affliction. It says in 2 Corinthians 12, he says, "I prayed three times; I pleaded for it to be taken away." But the Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." Same verse, same word again, by the way. "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong." There are times in life, like the Apostle Paul, when you will pray with great prayer, and you simply will not receive the thing you have asked for. But what you will always receive is the goodness of God. What you will always receive is the grace of God.

We can sing those words, "You're never gonna let me down," because the reality is the Bible tells us that no matter how far down we feel we've gone, it says underneath are the everlasting arms. He's never going to let us down because he is good. He is faithful; he's present with us. I think this issue of God's goodness is a big one. Honestly, as I talk with people who have encountered what I call a big no from God, as I think about in my own life the times when it was just no and no explanation, just no, the issue of God's goodness gets hard. It's really, really hard.

When I was thinking about this this week, a conversation came to mind that actually doesn't have anything to do with this. It was actually a management conversation that I had with my mentor who was telling me, "She said, 'Val, when you have a hard conversation with somebody and you've come to the end of that conversation, ask them, "What's the last 10%?" Maybe they've told you 90% of everything that needs to be said, but for some reason, maybe they're being polite, maybe they don't trust quite yet, maybe there's some fear; they're holding back 10%.'" I think for some of us, when it comes to the issue of God's goodness, we're 90% there, but we've been really hurt, and so we're holding back 10%. We're here; we're worshiping; we're helping; we're serving, but we're holding back 10% because we're just not sure: is God really good?

Maybe today the question you need to ask yourself, the thing you need to talk to God about today, is what's the last 10%? What's the last 10% between you and God where you're struggling to believe that he is good, that his heart is for you? God is not your enemy; he's your Savior. He loves you. Nice thinking today, you know. The answer that Paul got in all of his struggles was not, "There, there." It wasn't, "Buck up." The answer he got was, "My grace is sufficient." My grace is sufficient, which is probably the understatement of the century. His grace is more than sufficient; it's abundance, and that's his goodness is the same. It's sufficient for the whole.

We're sometimes afraid: what if I let go? What if I let go of this last 10%? Will it be enough? Yes, God will be enough. His grace is sufficient. Prayer is powerful, and God is good. He is good. As we wrap up today, I want to share with you something that I often do actually at the end of memorial services. That's a room where there's a lot of people in there, and they're typically wondering, is God faithful? Is God present in this loss? Is God good? I want to read to you from the end of the book of Revelation in my favorite, actually one of my favorite paraphrases, the Jesus Storybook Bible. This is how Revelation ends: "I am the beginning," Jesus said, "and the ending. One day John knew heaven would come down and mend this broken world and make it our true, perfect home once again, and he knew in some mysterious way that would be hard to explain that everything was going to be more wonderful for once having been so sad. He knew then that the ending of the story was going to be so great it would make all the sadness and tears and everything seem like just a shadow that is chased away by the morning sun. I'm on my way," said Jesus. "I'll be there soon." John came to the end of his book, but he didn't write the end because of course that's how stories finish, and this one's not over yet. So instead he wrote, "Come quickly, Jesus," which perhaps is really just another way of saying, "To be continued." To be continued.

When you pray, as you live, live with a "to be continued" mindset. To be continued. You know, it's hard to raise our hands in surrender to God and say, "I will accept whatever you put in or take out." But remember, this isn't the end. Because of Jesus, because of the cross, because of the resurrection, your story is to be continued. My story is to be continued. The story of your loved one is to be continued by our faithful, present, and good Savior. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you as people who are grateful that you have invited us in to prayer, that you have invited us into community with you. God, I want to bring before you especially this morning the people who are listening who are struggling with your goodness, who are struggling to believe that you will never let them down. God, I pray especially in these lives this week that you would be so present with them that they could not deny it, that your faithfulness would overwhelm them, that your goodness would stun them. God, we need you. We cannot do this life without you. Lord, I pray for all of us, no matter what our prayer life was like last week, that our prayer life would change this week, that we would talk about that last 10% with you, that we would be willing to say everything to you, that we would grow in our conversation with you as we go through the week. Lord, thank you that you are ever present, ever faithful, ever good. God, in Jesus' name, Amen.