Always Pray

Well if you would remain standing in honor of God's Word as we read it together. Tonight we're going to wrap up our journey through this short book of James as we consider James chapter 5 verses 12 through 20. If you'll turn there with me, I'll ask that you follow along as I read.

James chapter 5 beginning at verse 12. Say yes, and your no be no so that you may not fall under condemnation. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

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 the Lord. 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. 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. 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. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit.

My brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth and someone brings him back, 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, you are good to speak to us through your word, but thank you that you've also made provision whereby we can speak to you. Thank you for giving us access to your throne through prayer. Lord, you could have left us to fend for ourselves in this fallen world, but instead you cover our sin, making it possible for us to come into your presence with all of our needs and worries, our fears and joys and you invite us to cast these things upon you because you care for us. Lord, though you have done all of this for us, we are often shamefully neglectful of this sweet means of grace. We don't pray as we should.

We take matters into our own hands. We run to a hundred other things looking for help and consolation, but you, Lord, are our only true help and consolation in life and death. So teach us tonight to run to you in faith and in righteousness and may we discover in running to you that you always make good on your promises. Make us a praying people, Lord, for the sake of your glory and for the sake of our joy and peace. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated. My sister-in-law, Roberta, you've met her. She's visited several times down from Michigan. She has a really good recipe that she often makes the day after Thanksgiving and it's a casserole made up from all the leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. It's delicious.

You put one bite of this into your mouth and it's like you've just eaten a spoonful of every yummy thing you had the day before. These last few verses of the book of James are sort of like that. It's a casserole of some of the themes that he's already dealt with in great detail and it just sort of summarizes the book as James brings the whole thing to a close.

I say that because it's sort of difficult to preach a single focused sermon from a textural casserole like the one we have before us tonight. You just have to read it for what it is and embrace the variety of themes that are all mixed together. In a lot of ways, the whole book of James is like this. It's not so much a linear argument from start to finish like say Paul's letter to the Romans. James is more like the book of Proverbs. It's a collection of wise words of instruction that aren't necessarily intended to convey a lengthy and exhaustive argument. These verses are more like words of advice from a parent to a child. Do this, don't do that. Be careful with this.

Be carefree with that. And so we come to the end of this book and James has just a few more things to say before he stops writing. We get the sense that he's wrapping things up by that opening phrase, above all. It's kind of like he's saying, when it's all been said and done, don't forget these things. And then he goes on to mention three things.

From our vantage point, these three things are probably unrelated. They may have had some logical connection back in James' day that maybe was specific to his readers. But whatever that may have been, the fact is these three themes still have application for Christians seeking to follow Christ today, so with that in mind, let's jump in and discover what James includes in his last word to believers. First, he addresses a matter that has to do with our speaking to one another.

Our speaking to one another. You'll remember that James addressed speech back in chapter three and he addressed it pretty extensively. But here he wants to say one more thing about the ethics of Christian speech. Verse 12. Do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no so that you may not fall under condemnation. This verse parallels very closely several verses in the Sermon on the Mount.

You may have recalled those verses as we read this. From Matthew five, the question that comes up here is are James and Jesus before him teaching that oath taking is always wrong for the believer? It seems that that's what they're teaching and yet we read examples in the New Testament in which Christians, even the apostles themselves did take oaths. Sometimes they even take oaths in the name of God. This leads most Bible scholars to conclude that these verses are not prohibiting any and all oath taking, but rather that they're calling for Christians to be so honest in their speech, so full of integrity in the way they use their mouths that oaths are not necessary.

Have you ever known someone who's such a person of integrity that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will tell the truth no matter what? That's the kind of integrity of speech that James is calling for. Certainly there are situations in which an oath is taken as a means of verifying and obligating a person in some official capacity.

One thinks of the courtroom, wedding ceremonies, ordination ceremonies, church membership. These are all situations in which oaths are taken to demonstrate to a group of witnesses that some official action is being taken. But for the Christian, your speech ought to be so full of integrity and transparency that nobody needs to hear you take an oath to know that you're telling the truth. It's not that oath taking is necessarily wrong, it's that it should be unnecessary if our speech is already characterized by integrity.

Promises ought to add nothing to the reliability of a Christian's speech. I remember a godly older couple giving Laura and me some very wise advice early on in our parenting. They told us that idle threats from a parent train a child to disobey. Idle threats that you just throw out at the child train them to disobey.

It usually goes something like this. The parent says, Johnny, stop doing that. Johnny keeps on doing it. So the parent says, Johnny, I said stop doing that.

If you don't stop it, I'm gonna tell your father. Johnny keeps doing it. The parent says, Johnny, this is the last time I'm going to tell you stop doing that. Johnny keeps on doing it. Finally, the parent says, Johnny, one, two, three, and Johnny stops.

What just happened? Well, the parent used several idle oaths, promises that she never intended to keep unless she absolutely had to, and the child very quickly learns that my parents know doesn't really mean no until it's reached a certain fevered pitch. Now, we may think to ourselves, oh, what a smart parent. She's able to manipulate her child into compliance without the child even realizing it when actually what she's been training her child to do is to disobey three or four times before the child actually obeys because she's using speech in ways that God prohibits. It's not savvy parenting. It's lying. It's breaking her word.

It's failing to let her yes be yes and her no be no. And we all do it in a dozen different ways. When we exaggerate, when we overstate or understate the facts in order to be more persuasive, when we give out false compliments to flatter people, James says, above all, Christian, stop misusing your words because it will incur condemnation, divine displeasure. We are to be a people of truthfulness in how we speak to each other. But then James addresses our speaking to God in verses 13 through 18.

And of course, we have a name for that. We call it prayer. If you were here last Sunday night, we looked at the first half of James chapter five and I told you a story of how my sixth grade teacher used an intercom one day to listen in on our classroom when she had stepped out. And I used that story to make the point that God is listening. So we ought always to live carefully, to live wisely knowing that one day we'll give an account for how we've lived our lives. Well, the beauty of verses 13 through 18 is that it reminds us that for Christians, the intercom is a two-way intercom.

It works both ways. Yes, God is listening and watching us, but we also can listen and talk to him. We have access to God even now through this gracious means of prayer. And in these verses, James addresses the occasions for prayer in verses 13 and 14, and then the prerequisites for prayer in verses 15 through 18.

The occasions and the prerequisites. Let's consider first the occasions for prayer. Verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him. And certainly this isn't an exhaustive list of the occasions for prayer because we're to pray without ceasing, right? Any occasion is an appropriate occasion for prayer. But James gives three specific occasions for prayer. We're to pray when we're suffering. We're to pray when we're cheerful. We're to pray when we're sick.

Let's take these each in turn. First of all, suffering. The word suffering here is a very broad word that can refer to any sort of hardship. It could include persecution and mistreatment from other people, but it could also simply refer to the difficulties of life in a fallen world. Circumstances and limitations that make life hard. Weaknesses of our own bodies and minds. Life is full of hard things. And James says, are you up against some of those hard things?

Is life particularly difficult for you at the moment? Then pray. Pour out your heart to God.

Run to him for help. James never defined prayer in these verses. He rather assumes that we know what it is. I love the Westminster Confession's definition of prayer. Question 98 in the Shorter Catechism says, what is prayer?

And the answer is this. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies. That's just a very thorough way of saying that prayer is asking our daddy for help. Life is full of hardship and suffering. If you're suffering, run to God in prayer. He can help. He can remove suffering. He can give grace for suffering. He can give you wisdom to understand the purpose of your suffering.

So run to him in prayer. But not all of life is miserable. There are times of genuine joy, of happiness. And so James adds, is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise. And the word cheerful here is more descriptive of our inward attitude, our sense of wellbeing within rather than our external circumstances. You can be cheerful in this sense whether your outward circumstances are good or bad. I think the reason James includes this in his list of occasions for prayer is because it's relatively easy for us to remember to pray when we're suffering, right? We don't usually need to be reminded.

We don't need much prompting to cry May Day when our life is crashing and burning. But it's all too easy for us to forget to pray when things are going well. The fact is there are times in the Christian life when God overwhelms us with a sense of joy and contentment and peace.

When those times come, we ought to pray. And notice James gives a specific instruction as to the form our prayer should take in such times of joy. We should sing God's praise. Singing praise to God is a form of prayer.

It's not just some sort of emotional outlet or a mere means of sentimental expression. Singing is not an extracurricular in the Christian life. No, it's a means of communicating to God our joy, our contentment, our gratitude, our awe and amazement at Him and His goodness to us. When we sing praise, we are praying to the triune God.

Let me say that again. When we sing praise, we are praying to the triune God. And I hope that thought elevates this spiritual activity in your mind and heart. When you find yourself overwhelmed with God's goodness to you is your natural impulse to sing.

You say, Eugene, that's weird. Normal people don't do that. Well, maybe, but shouldn't our cue for what is normal be taken from what God says? And God says to you who deserve pain and sorrow and death and outer darkness for all eternity, you who have instead been granted forgiveness and adoption into God's family and are treated as if you had never done anything wrong and are given eternal life in a place too wonderful for words, when the realization of all those blessings floods you with an overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude, to not sing praise to the God who made it all happen would be the abnormal, ungrateful response. If you don't know how to sing, you need to learn how to sing.

If you don't like singing, you need to change your liker. If you're self-conscious, singing praise to God, and we all are to some degree, you need to get over yourself by thinking more deeply, more frequently about everything God has saved you from and everything God has saved you to. If that doesn't cheer your heart, learn to let it cheer your heart. If it does cheer your heart, then sing. Sing your praise to the Lord.

Let me just say a quick word by way of making this particular exhortation practical for us. I think sometimes Christians think that the way to make singing a meaningful and comfortable part of their devotion to God is by conjuring up some emotional experience that will just spontaneously erupt into song. I really don't think that's how we learn to get comfortable with singing praise to God. I think singing to God, like any other spiritual discipline in the Christian life, is learned through practice. And I realize that sounds so unspiritual and mundane, but it's true. Singing becomes a natural expression of our devotion to God through the sheer act of doing it.

Think about it. Children who grow up in homes that never sing are the ones who grow up self-conscious and disinterested in singing. But children who grow up singing in their homes don't think anything of it.

It's not an abnormal, embarrassing thing for them because it's all they've known. You can train yourself to become comfortable with singing as an expression of praise, and you do it by singing. So I wanna encourage every one of us to sing something to the Lord every day. You may wanna do this in the car or in the shower when nobody's listening. You may want to make it a part of your family worship when everyone's together.

Sometimes there's safety in numbers, right? But sing, and sing every day. There are numerous resources these days that make singing so easy, even for the person who is perhaps uncomfortable with their own musical skill level. I came across an app just a couple of days ago that contains lyrics, music, and even an accompaniment track for every psalm and hymn in the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. Check it out, it's called the Trinity Psalter Hymnal app. But a redeemed people need to be a singing people. The third and last occasion for prayer that James mentions then is times of sickness.

And he includes a lot more instruction with regard to this occasion. Look at verse 14 with me again. 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 the Lord. So the command is to pray for the sick, but the accompanying instruction to anoint the sick person with oil probably strikes us as odd, and I think requires some explanation. What's going on here? Is this some sort of culturally specific practice from James' era that is lost on us today? Is James really stooping to the tactics of a traveling salesman and selling some sort of magic elixir that will heal the sick? What does this mean?

What's going on? How does it apply to us today in the year 2021? Well, let me begin by talking about the concept of anointing with oil. In the New Testament, there are two Greek words that both mean to anoint. One refers to physically applying something, a liquid to someone or something.

The other refers figuratively to setting something apart for special purpose. So one is literal, one is figurative or symbolic. Here in verse 14, it's the literal word. It means to literally physically put oil on the sick person.

I'm sure we Presbyterians, we crunchy Presbyterians, we're hoping it was the figurative word. That sounds so much safer, but no, he uses the literal word. We're supposed to physically be putting something on someone. So we conclude that James means for us to actually in real life, put oil on the sick person. Now, when this literal word for anointing is used, it can refer to anointing for the purpose of hygiene or beauty. In other words, the anointing can be for medicinal or sometimes cosmetic reasons. But this literal word can also refer to anointing for some ceremonial or religious purpose. In other words, it can be a physical literal anointing that has an underlying symbolic significance. This means that while James intends us to actually anoint the sick with real oil, the significance of that anointing might be medicinal or it might be symbolic. The word anoint here allows for either of those meanings.

So the question is, which is it? Is it medicinal? Is it symbolic? And if it's symbolic, what does it symbolize? Some theologians believe James' meaning is that the oil is medicinal.

So one point for doTERRA. We have an example of this medicinal use of oil in the parable of the good Samaritan. You'll recall that the good Samaritan found this man by the roadside who had been beaten, he had been robbed. And scripture says, he went to him and bound his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. It was for medicinal purposes, Luke 10, 34. If this is the meaning James intends to convey, then he's essentially calling us to use both spiritual and natural or medical means in treating the sick, prayer and medicine.

There are however, a couple of problems with this. First of all, it's the elders that are called upon to administer the oil, but elders aren't doctors. If James had intended this anointing for medical purposes, you would think he would have said elders pray for the sick and then doctors give the medical treatment, but he doesn't say that. Also, oil was not the only medical remedy of the day. Medical practices at the time, they were certainly primitive, but they offered more options than merely just anointing with oil. So why would James call us to utilize the benefits of natural remedies by mentioning only one of the possible treatments? That would be like saying, is anyone sick among you?

Let him get stitches. The prescribed treatment is unnecessarily limited if James is calling for the use of medical help in a general sense. So there's nothing inherently wrong with using essential oils for their health benefits, but James 514 is not your proof text. This leads us then to the last option, which is that the anointing with oil is merely symbolic. In both Old Testament and New Testament times, oil was often used in religious ceremony with symbolic significance. We see this, for example, in the ordination of Levitical priests for ministry.

We see it in the coronation of kings. They were anointed not for cosmetic reasons, not for medical reasons. It was merely symbolic of their being set apart for some special service.

This seems to be what James intends to convey. The oil used to anoint the sick is merely symbolic. It's a visible marker by which we set a suffering saint apart for God's special attention and care. Now, some speculate about what exactly the oil symbolizes.

I'm hesitant to speculate because James doesn't tell us. At the very least, this act of anointing is associated with the saint who is suffering and with the prayer of faith that heals the sick. So when we anoint a sick person among us with oil, we're simply saying, God, this person, whom we are marking out with oil needs your help in a special way.

Please be merciful and gracious and come to their aid. It's symbolic. Now, one more thing bears mentioning, and then we'll move on. There have been many throughout the centuries of church history who have seen this oil as more than merely symbolic. And we need to be cautious.

We need to be aware of this danger. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has used James 5.14 as the grounds for what they call the sacrament of divine unction or extreme unction, which is administered when a Catholic is near death. A person is anointed with oil in preparation for their transition to the afterlife. And this anointing, they say, is vested with the power to actually forgive the sins of the person who is dying. You can understand then why Roman Catholics ascribe such an importance to the ceremony of last rites, of which extreme unction is a part.

Their very forgiveness of their sin depends on it. And I wanna be very clear that James is not ever ascribing some sort of sacramental power to the anointing of the sick with oil. In fact, if you read verse 14 carefully, you'll see that anointing with oil is not even being commanded. The command is to pray.

The imperative is to pray. And it's the prayer of faith that heals the sick. This added participle of anointing with oil is fine to do, it's okay, but it's certainly not imperatively required. It's not the oil that heals. It's certainly not the oil that forgives sin. So we need to be careful, even as Protestants, not to treat the act of anointing the sick with oil as some sort of automatic supernatural guarantee of healing. The oil is not God's magic potion. It's merely an optional symbol that marks out a person as being in need of God's special grace. Very quickly then, let's consider the prerequisites for prayer that James mentions in verses 15 through 17.

And there are two. The first prerequisite is faith, and the second is righteousness. Prayer is effective when it is offered in faith from a righteous person. So first there must be faith.

Verse 15 says, and the prayer of faith will save, and that refers to physical healing, will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, that is raise him up from his sick bed, again referring to physical healing, not to spiritual salvation and resurrection, as we might be tempted to read into this text. What I want us to see is that prayer is made effectual not by its frequency or intensity, not by its form or eloquence. Prayer is made effectual by faith. We also need to realize that this effectual faith is not faith in prayer. It's not faith in faith itself. It's not even faith in the desired object coming to pass. Prayer isn't made effective by me just believing strongly enough that something will happen. No, God is the object of the faith. It's faith in God that makes prayer effectual. God is the object that I'm believing in, not the act of prayer, not the desired results of prayer, but faith in God himself. That's very crucial for us to understand. The question then is this, is James promising that whenever we pray for the healing of the sick, they will be healed?

Is this an automatic guarantee? Well, the qualification is that whenever we pray in faith, that prayer will be effectual. And if the prayer of faith means faith in God, then implicit in the prayer of faith is an acknowledgement of God's sovereign purposes.

In other words, the prayer of faith is a prayer that says out loud or at least implied if the Lord wills. We know from the word of God that it's not always God's will to heal the sick. We have examples of that in scripture.

We've experienced examples of that in our own lives. And so we dare not presume upon a guarantee of physical healing every time we pray for it. The guarantee, the qualification of faith is that whenever we pray for healing, and it is God's will to heal, it will happen.

One theologian put it this way. He said this faith, while certainly including the notion of confidence in God's ability to answer, also involves absolute confidence in the perfection of God's will. A true prayer of faith then always includes within it a tacit acknowledgement of God's sovereignty in all matters, that it is God's will that must be done.

And it is clear that it is by no means always God's will to heal those who are ill. Therefore, the faith that is indispensable for our prayers, for healing to be answered, can be truly present only when it is God's will to heal. Prayer that believes in God is prayer that results in, that rests in God's will, not prayer that rests in a certain guaranteed outcome.

And I think in our name it, claim it sort of culture that we find ourselves in in evangelical world, we need to keep this in mind. True faith is faith in God's power and in the perfection of his will, not in my praying ability, or even in the outcome that I desire. So the first prerequisite for effective prayer is faith. The second prerequisite that James mentions is righteousness. Verse 15 goes on, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

This seems like a random unrelated comment by James, but then keep in mind the typical mindset at the time. It was common to view, a common view to think that sickness was brought on by sin. If somebody's sick, clearly they have sinned. And we see, for example, the disciples asking Jesus in John 9 regarding a man who was born blind.

So who sinned, this man or his parents? It was just assumed that sin brought on the blindness. Certainly, sickness can bring on, it can be brought on by sin, but James acknowledges that not all sickness is caused by sin when he says, if he has committed sins, implying sins that led to the sickness, if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Folks, don't miss the grace that is embedded right here. The prayer of faith can lead to healing from sickness, even when that sickness is the result of sin. God, in his grace, is not only willing to heal from physical sickness, he is willing to heal us from our spiritual sickness, from sin and death. And so James exhorts us to confess our sins to one another and then pray, because the prayer of a righteous person, that is a person who has been made righteous through the forgiveness that only God can give, has great power as it is working. I think implied in verses 15 and 16 is a principle that we see very clearly in Psalm 66, 18, which says, if I regard, I cherish iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So righteousness is a prerequisite to effective prayer, Psalm 66, 18, and righteousness comes through confession of sin, 1 John 1.9, therefore confession of sin that leads to righteousness is an essential component of effective prayer. So James ties together praying for the sick with confessing our sins to one another. There's so much more we could consider, but for the sake of time, let me just summarize verses 13 through 18. James is calling us to pray in suffering and in joy, to pray in sickness and in health, to pray with faith, to pray with righteousness, and God will hear. Because God is listening, we ought always to pray. The letter then closes with a final call to walk in the truth.

Notice James doesn't conclude his letter with the customary greetings and farewell. Instead, this very practical letter ends with a very practical call to live the Christian life and to do all you can to help other Christians live the Christian life. Wandering from the truth in verse 19 is a very active behavior-oriented word. It doesn't refer simply to the danger of ceasing to believe the doctrines of faith.

It refers to ceasing to live life in accordance with the doctrines of the faith. Walking in the truth is something that is to be done as well as believed. And part of the doing of this truth is helping our brothers and sisters in Christ also do the truth with us.

We're in this together. And so it behooves us to take to heart all the exhortations that James has given to us in this epistle, to rejoice in trials, to stop showing partiality, to help those in need in concrete ways, to guard our hearts from envying each other, to guard our tongues from wounding and destroying each other, to always live with an eye toward eternity because God is watching, and to pray without ceasing because God is listening. And we do these things with the knowledge that all the while God stands ready and willing to forgive and to heal all who come to him in faith. Let's pray. Lord, you are gracious and kind. You make us righteous and then you invite us to come into your presence along with all of the redeemed and worship you. And all we can say, Lord, is thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.