To Live the Will of God, Pray • James 5:13-20

40:36 Teaching begins

Notes

People think of prayer like it was magic, and because they think like that they are disappointed.

Magic is predictable, works every time. Every time Frodo puts that ring on his finger, he disappears. People think prayer ought to work predictably and they are disappointed. I prayed and it didn’t happen.

Prayer is not like magic. Prayer is how we live with God.

In every situation we want God’s will, because His will is good, acceptable, and perfect.

In order to live according to the will of God, we pray. I’m reading in James 5, starting with verse 13.

1. James commands us to pray when we suffer.

A. It can be any kind of affliction, where we are made to live without that good thing that we need. Whatever makes life difficult and hard to bear.

B. God’s will is that we come to Him and ask Him to supply what we need.

C. This is something that God established right at the very beginning, on day six of creation. He created all the animals, He created man, and He created relationship with Himself.

1. Genesis 2:18-20 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

2. Do you notice that God knew it was not good that the man was alone and yet, that’s how He created him. He did not make a mistake. We can see a process that God brings about that leads to the solution from God.

3. God makes Adam, then all the animals. He tells Adam to name them because the act of naming them establishes his dominion over the animals. But naming the animals directs Adam to look at their characteristics, the particulars. And he uses his powers of observation and reason to see patterns. He sees that there is always two of a species that compliment each other. He applies that to himself, that there isn’t another who compliments. He has discovered a need, a lack. This is not good. So what do you do when you see some lack, something not good? You bring it to God, make your request known to Him. God responds and supplies that lack.

4. This relationship and principle of looking to God to supply needs is established from the day of creation. The relationship between man and woman is essential, but the greater relationship is between God and man. You realise a need, you pray to God, and He will answer. God created that.

D. When we are suffering we know certain things to pray for that are the will of God.

1. John 10:27-29 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. Our lives are in God’s hands. Whatever happens to us God has permitted.

2. We can pray for God’s will to be accomplished in our lives. God’s will is good, acceptable, and perfect, Romans 12:1.

3. Does He want to supply the need? Okay! Does He want to refine me and humble me and make me more like Christ? Okay!

4. If I don’t know what to pray, I can groan to God. Romans 8:26-27 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So if I have no clue how to pray for God’s will, I can still pray for that will to be done. I can have perfect confidence that I am praying God’s will.

E. The whole point to prayer is that God answers when it is according to His will. 1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

F. Therefore we live with God in our affliction by praying according to His will.

2. We live with God through prayer when we’re happy.

A. That is, it’s okay to be happy. You don’t have to feel guilty because you’re not suffering. God also makes our situation very happy.

B. So James commands to sing praises. Praise is also prayer. Martin Luther said concerning the singing of hymns, “He who sings prays twice.”

C. It’s natural for us to seek God when it’s tough, and when it’s good we forget God. We naturally think, this is how things always ought to be, so we ignore God. Unthankfulness is the first step away from God. It’s disastrous to not acknowledge God’s goodness and thank Him.

D. We want to be careful to live with God in the good times, and remember that the good times come from God. He’s blessing! Praise the Lord!

3. We live with God through prayer when we’re sick.

A. What we notice here is that it’s okay to resort to medical help.

1. There are two words translated “anoint” in the New Testament. One refers to sacred and religious use of oil. The other is used here. It refers to rubbing oil on for grooming or for medical uses.

2. Here the rubbing with oil is medicinal, and it has already been applied before prayer. Medical means have been used in the name of the Lord.

B. Then call in the elders of the church to pray. The prayer offered up in faith will heal, raise up the sick person, and their sins will be forgiven.

C. Does God heal everybody?

1. Well, if you approach prayer as magic, and magic works every time, then you could be disappointed, because in our experience we have prayed for people and they have died. Well, you didn’t use oil. It doesn’t say the oil will save them, that is medicinal, it’s the prayer offered in faith. Other people say that healing is provided in the Atonement of Christ. They give the impression that everyone is healed. There’s a ready explanation for when someone is not healed, that they didn’t have enough faith.

2. Our experience shows that some people are healed, some are not. Some are healed of cancer between the scan and the operation. My grandmother told me she was at church and someone threw a rock through a window and it hit her in the head. She bled profusely. My grandfather said he could put three fingers into the gash in her skull. They called an ambulance. When they got there, my grandmother’s hair was matted with her blood. But when they examined her, there was not even a mark on her scalp. God does heal.

3. The Bible also shows that that God does not heal every person we pray for. Paul prayed for himself, for the thorn in his flesh, that God would take it away. Three times! God said, in effect, “no.” My power is made perfect in weakness. In Philippians 2 Paul writes about Epaphroditus being so sick he almost died. I’m sure Paul prayed for him, but God chose for Epaphroditus to recover in a natural way. In 2 Timothy 4:20 Paul says I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Did Paul not pray for him?

D. We can pray for the sick because James commands us to pray for the sick. God can heal them. But maybe it’s that person’s time to go, by the will of God. Maybe the most important thing for that person to have is the knowledge of their sins being forgiven. The elders pray and God blesses and a person can depart in peace. That’s important and valid, and something we can pray for.

4. This leads to the next two commands — confess your sins and pray for one another.

A. Confession of sins is also an important aspect of prayer.

1. To confess means to speak the same thing, to agree. Here we agree with God. He has laid out His will clearly in His word. But I have acted presumptuously and wilfully. I am wrong, You are right.

2. But then we also confess to one another. This enables us to walk in the light and have real fellowship with one another. 1 John 1:5 - 2:2 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

B. Do we really have to confess to one another? It’s painful, embarrassing. I don’t want to do it.

C. The answer is, yes. It’s a command.

1. The reason is because God has linked our relationship with him to our relationship with people. If we cover our sins but do not confess and repent of them we walk in darkness. We live a lie. I look okay on the outside, but inside I’m in the dark. We know that this is so, and it makes a real tension.

2. David speaks of this inside/outside tension in Psalm 32:3-4 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. He made like everything was okay on the outside, but inside he was suffering. He was not okay.

3. An amazing thing happened: the truth came out. Psalm 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; and You forgave the guilt of my sin. He was expecting to die, lose everything. But instead God showed him grace.

4. That’s what we experience when we confess our sins to one another. We don’t get shamed and rejected, we get mercy, from people and from God. Part of receiving mercy from God is receiving mercy from people.

D. And then we can pray for one another and be healed from our sins.

1. When we walk in the light with one another we fight back against the darkness that we have let into our lives.

2. You can’t get rid of darkness, but you can let the light in and the light will destroy it.

3. It is a relief to confess sins to one another because we are children of light. Light is our true dwelling place. We belong there. When we live in darkness it is horrible.

4. So when we confess and pray for one another it’s healthy and strengthening.

E. We can confess to the pastor, but notice, we all can confess to one another and pray for one another. We can all minister to one another. We don’t have to be the licensed professional. I would say generally men confess to men, women confess to women. Find somebody you can trust, someone you know and say, would you pray for me?

5. The example for us in prayer is Elijah, who prayed according to the will of God.

A. James says Elijah was a guy just like us. He was fervent for God, he got discouraged. We are the same way. We’re on fire for God, so encouraged. Then we get way down.

B. The secret to Elijah is that he was righteous. Everything he did was according to the will of God.

1. He said so in 1 Kings 18:36 At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word.”

2. He prayed for a famine because God told him to, it was His will. When he prayed for rain it was because it was God’s will.

3. Now Jesus said if we had faith like a seed of mustard we could say to that mulberry tree be uprooted and cast into the sea. But only if that were God’s will to do so. The real question is: what do You want, Lord?

C. Elijah’s prayer was effective and powerful, because he was walking rightly with God, who is effective and powerful. So we confess our sins and pray for one another, to be right with God so He will answer our prayers.

6. One last will of God to pray for: that believers who have gone astray turn back to the truth.

A. Sad truth is that Christians can get off the right path and lose their way. They can have a bad experience at church, or get badly treated, or get a real shock to their faulty theology, like, I prayed that this person wouldn’t die, in Jesus’ name! And they died! So what’s that?! Christians can stumble badly.

B. But the will of God here is that they turn back to the right way. We can pray for this.

C. I was involved in an experience like this.

1. There was a guy who was at a Christian gathering at Wembley Stadium. The whole place went Toronto Blessing and it was chaos. They guy was so repelled and shocked by that that he said, never again. You never talked to this guy about Jesus, he didn’t want to hear.

2. His wife started coming to this church, and she started taking the teaching CDs and leave them on the dining table. He would secretly come and take those CDs and listen to them and put them back. This happened for some time and we were praying for the guy. Then a close friend suddenly died of a heart attack and it really shook the guy. So he came to church, and he told me, “This doesn’t mean anything so don’t think I’m coming to church!” Nobody pushed him. But Jesus was really talking to the guy through His word. And he is now back in fellowship and following Jesus. The whole thing is a miracle that Jesus did, and I take no credit for it.

3. What the guy was responding to was the Bible. People are weirdos and maniacs. But the Bible isn’t weird and spoopy. What turned the guy around is hearing His Saviour’s voice. He could trust Jesus, not people.

D. There are Christians out there who are not following Jesus. It’s a sad tragedy.

1. What will help bring them back is the word of God because Jesus really does love them and He wants them back with Him. That’s why this is written here. This is God’s will, to seek and save the lost.

2. If they die, it’s over. It’s appointed for men to die once, and after that the judgment. So we understand the tension and the longing. But as long as there is life, there is hope. Have they fallen utterly away? How do we know? It’s not possible for us to know. That’s not our job.

3. So if we know Christians who have fallen away, we pray for them. And we know this is the will of God so we can pray like crazy and just trust God, not what we see or hear. We are going to show mercy and not look at their sins and what’s gone down. Lord willing we are going to rejoice like the father whose son came to his senses. He was dead but he’s alive now, thank God!

7. So what? Prayer is how we live with God according to His will.

A. Really, this means praying always, when we’re afflicted, when we’re happy, when we’re sick, when we’re sinning, when someone else is sinning. Prayer is living with God.

B. Prayer is based on the will of God. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

C. So when you know the will of God, you can pray that will in confidence. It’s not me praying for my way. It’s me praying to get me in God’s way.

D. We pray about everything. Philippians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

E. Let’s biblical in our prayers. Occasionally I hear people praying very impressively. “I release this to happen.” “I speak to this situation and I ordain that this will happen.” Do you ever read of any prayer like that in the Bible? Very impressive and powerful, but it’s not after any biblical pattern. The purpose of prayer is not to make me look spiritual and in control. Prayer is so that I can move into God’s will for me. I want to discover what that is and then ask that He move me into that practically. Biblical prayer is based on the fact that God is in control, not me!

E. The Bible is full of prayers that God has answered. Those prayers are perfect models for us to pray. You can never go wrong praying like the Bible prays.

F. So let’s find out what God’s will is from the Bible. Let’s believe in God according to His word. Let’s pray for what He wants and also what we want, according to His will. Let’s live with God.

Shall we pray?