Rev. David Holwick B James series #19
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 13, 2008
James 5:16-18
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I. The problem with preaching on prayer.
A. Too hard or too easy?
Pastor Geoff Thomas observes:
I suppose there are always two dangers in speaking about
prayer.
The first is that some people make it sound so hard to do that
it is intimidating.
You can picture the scene of some prayer warrior wrestling
with God.
His eyes look into the distance, and his closing prayer is full
of strangled emotion and semi-sobs.
The second danger is the reverse.
The speaker is so laid back and cool, assuring us that prayer
is a breeze, that we can pray anywhere and for everything.
The usual illustration is finding a place to park the car.
The whole spirit is one of relaxed chumminess with God.
Terry Johnson of Savannah speaks of his deliverance from that
kind of praying.
He had been converted in Southern California and in the spring
of 1978 he became an intern in a church in Scotland.
He knew the essentials of small-group discipleship and
Scripture choruses and felt prepared for any prayer meetings.
As he arrived at the church the minister was taken sick and he
had to step in on the Sunday and preach.
Before the service fifteen people met together to pray.
Terry says, "When it looked like all who were coming were
present, they got up, turned and faced their chairs, knelt
down on their knees, and began to pray.
Though this was a working-class congregation, and though none
of those present were college educated and even a few were
functionally illiterate, I soon realized that I was in
over my head.
Something was seriously amiss.
I had never heard such prayers.
They were full of God, full of Scripture, full of passion, full
of reverence, and full of humility.
My prayers, by comparison, had always been of the 'just really'
variety - trite, self-centered, too casual, and too familiar.
The spiritual maturity of their prayers exposed my spiritual
poverty.
The God that they knew was almost a different God."
Not all praying is acceptable to God or to the church.
"You judge people's prayers?" someone says, aghast. Yes.
God does, and so must we.
The prophet Isaiah has God say about a certain kind of praying,
"When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen." Isaiah 1:15
The Lord Jesus heard a Pharisee praying in the temple and Christ
said that "he prayed about himself" (Luke 18:10).
Prayer reflects the pray-er.
#34946
B. James gives us some solid instruction on the principles of prayer.
II. The conditions of effective prayer.
A. Prayer must be centered in faith. 5:15
1) My learning to pray as a child.
a) Kneeling by bed and learning rote prayers.
b) Many never get beyond this.
2) Prayer must come from the heart.
a) Not repetition, instead faith is critical.
b) Without faith we cannot see God, or talk to him.
3) Prayer must be centered on God.
a) Our faith is in him, not us.
b) Malcolm Boyd's "Are You Running With Me, God?"
1> His prayers are more self-help than divinely directed.
c) The better you know God, the better you can pray.
B. Prayer must come from a heart that is clean. 5:16
1) Sin is pervasive in human life.
a) There is continual need for both spiritual sensitivity.
b) There is continual need for appropriate action where
sin has been committed.
c) Without sensitivity and repentance, our prayers fall flat.
2) Confession must be to the one wronged, both man and God.
Prior to World War II in Nazi Germany, Pastor Dietrich
Bonhoeffer conducted an underground seminary in Pomerania.
The teachers and 25 students shared a common life.
His experience produced a spiritual classic, "Life Together,"
in which he documents the Biblical insights he gained.
In the last chapter of the book he gives some reasons for
the practice of mutual confession.
Primary among them is the isolation that sin brings.
Sin drives Christians apart.
Says Bonhoeffer, "Sin demands to have a man by himself.
It withdraws him from the community.
The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be
the power of sin over him."
But confession to a fellow brother or sister destroys this
deadly isolation.
It pulls down the barrier of hypocrisy and allows the free
flow of God's grace in the community.
The other main benefit of confession is that it brings
healthy humiliation.
Bonhoeffer wrote about how hard it was to confess to another
person.
He felt cut down by it.
Yet he knew it was good for his sinful nature to be exposed
in this way. #2792
C. Prayer should be mutual. 5:16
1) Mutual prayer implies those we confess to are willing to
forgive.
2) Do you pray for your relationships? Friendships?
3) Do you pray WITH them?
a) Don't be isolated: we need each other.
b) Power of "Prayer Triplets." / partners
D. It helps to be righteous. 5:16
1) It matters how you live.
a) God does not need to hear the prayer of sinners. Isa 59:1-2
Not all praying is acceptable to God or to the church.
"You judge people's prayers?" someone says, aghast.
Yes. God does, and so must we.
The prophet Isaiah has God say about a certain kind of
praying,
"When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen." Isaiah 1:15
The Lord Jesus heard a Pharisee praying in the temple and
Christ said that "he prayed about himself" (Luke 18:10).
Prayer reflects the pray-er.
#34946
b) Does it seem as if your prayers hit the ceiling? Ps 66:18
1> There may be a valid reason - in times of great stress
the Bible says God's Spirit himself prays for us.
Rom 8:26
2> But it is also possible that our prayers feel useless
because God has shut us off.
A story about Norman Vincent Peale:
When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped
into an alley, and lit it up.
It didn't taste good, but it made him feel very grown up...
until he saw his father coming.
Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be
casual.
Desperate to divert his father's attention, Norman pointed
to a billboard advertising the circus.
"Can I go, Dad? Please, let's go when it comes to town."
His father's reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot.
"Son," he answered quietly but firmly, "never make a
petition while at the same time trying to hide a
smoldering disobedience."
#2078
c) He promises to hear the prayers of his saints. Prov 15:29
2) Such prayer is powerful and effective.
a) Prayer works.
b) Bishop Fulton Sheen, when confronted by a reporter who
thought answered prayers were just coincidences,
"Maybe, but when I stop praying, the coincidences stop, too."
III. The interesting example of Elijah. 5:17
A. He was just like us.
1) Second only to Moses in esteem with 1st cent. Jews.
a) Mentioned 30 times in NT.
2) Readers had to be reminded he was human like us.
a) Any godly person can pray effectively.
1> It is not a "superman" ability.
b) Elijah was actually very human.
1> He was prone to depression and defeatism.
2> Yet God used him in a powerful way.
B. He prayed for drought, and rain.
1) Related in 1 Kings 17:1, though the prayer is not given.
2) The length of three-and-a-half years is not mentioned
either, but Jesus agrees with James. Luke 4:25
C. He prayed earnestly.
1) Literally, "prayed with prayer." Indicates intensity.
2) We must pray like we mean it.
D. Elijah got results.
1) There was a drought, and there was rain.
2) How effective have your prayers been?
3) What does this indicate about your relationship with God?
IV. Modern Elijahs.
In essence, God is not interested in our level of sophistication,
but our level of commitment.
Sang Kyoo Lee and his wife, Young Gum, visited Methodist Bishop
Richard Wilke at his office one day.
Sang Kyoo wanted to start a new church for Koreans.
"We have been praying for one hundred nights -- 1, 2 hours every
night -- asking God to give us power and victory," Sang began.
"Yes," his wife seconded, "every night, faithfully for one
hundred nights.
We have been praying before coming to see you."
"We believe God wants us to begin new work with Koreans in
Arkansas," said Sang Kyoo.
"And we need much power."
Bishop Wilke sensed their dedication and commitment.
But he also knew of their struggle to learn English, as well as
their financial problems in completing seminary.
"We don't have many Koreans in Central Arkansas, do we?" the
bishop asked.
"Oh yes," Sang Kyoo replied. "We think as many as three or four
hundred.
We can travel fifty miles in every direction and make class
meetings in different towns."
Next, Wilke asked if the Arkansas Koreans were Christians.
"No, not most," they answered enthusiastically, "but we must
lead them to Christ.
We will hold Sunday afternoon worship in First Church,
Jacksonville.
Also, we'll have Friday night prayers and Saturday Bible Study."
"Let us know when you hold your first worship service," Wilke
said casually.
"Our first service will be the day we move into the parsonage,"
Sang Kyoo said with a big smile.
"My wife, Young Gum, son, John, daughter, Susan, and I will
kneel down and pray.
We'll have a congregation of four," he said lifting up four
fingers.
"Their spirit was contagious," Wilke writes, "I kept thinking of
practical things, like a refrigerator and clothes for the
children and automobile tires."
He asked them, "Is there anything at all I can do to help you?"
"Oh, yes, there is," this young couple answered in unison.
"Would you pray for us? We will need much power."
The three of them held hands and prayed together.
A few months later this young couple once again visited Bishop
Wilke.
"We have twenty converts," Sang Kyoo said.
"We started three home Bible studies in three different towns,"
added Young Gum.
"We are growing. People are coming from fifty miles away.
God is answering our prayers."
Bishop Wilke concludes with these words of hope: "As they spoke,
I felt the mighty hand of God in the church."
The reason Bishop Wilke felt the mighty hand of God was not this
couple's level of sophistication, but their level of commitment.
They were a living testimony to the power of the cross.
#2779
V. We have an effective God.
A. The power is not in the prayer itself.
B. It is not in the oil, or the person themselves.
C. The power comes from the God who answers.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
This sermon was adapted from an earlier one I did on September 4, 1994.
# 2078 "Unanswered Prayers," by Kirk Russel, Deforest, Wisconsin,
Leadership, Fall 1983.
# 2779 "Korean Prayer Power," Dynamic Preaching, Seven Worlds Publishing,
Winter 1993, Disk "A", p. Jan 5 93.
# 2792 "The Benefits of Confession," by R. Kent Hughes, in his commentary
"James: Faith That Works" (Baker, 1991), p. 265.
#34946 "Prayer Reflects The Pray-er," by Rev. Geoff Thomas; Alfred Place
Baptist Church, Aberystwyth, Wales, Kerux Sermon #2393, "A
Righteous Man's Praying," March 14, 1999;
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~emk/ap/sermons/
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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