Go

Contact Us

  • Phone: (509) 747-3007
  • Email:
  • Mosaic Address:
    606 West 3rd Ave., Spokane, WA 99201

Service Times

  • Sunday:  8:30 am, 10 am, 11:30 am
  • Infant through 5th grade Sunday School classes available
  • FREE Parking!

Sermons

FILTER BY:

Back To List

Jan 29, 2017

A Healing Prescription

A Healing Prescription

Passage: James 5:13-18

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: James

Keywords: elijah, healing, illness, prayer, suffering

Summary:

This is a passage of scripture rich in several spiritual practices: prayer, confession and submission to church leadership. How different would our lives, churches and nations be if we actually practiced the commands of this passage.

Detail:

A Healing Prescription

James 5:13-18

January 29, 2017

 

  • How many of us are on some sort of regular prescription?
  • And just WHY do we take prescriptions, in general? (Because our physician recommended we do so in order to improve our quality of health.)

ALL of us have certainly dealt with occasional sickness.

Some/many of us here today are dealing with chronic or constant physical issues. 

How about “suffering” in general?  Anyone here never felt the pain of suffering ostracism or persecution or alienation?  Anyone never felt the suffering of grief or sadness or depression? 

Further, do any of us not know someone today who is suffering or sick?

            There are some experiences related to suffering and sickness that we all share to lesser or greater degrees. 

            When it comes to suffering and illnesses, the Bible actually has a lot to say about their connection to the spiritual realm.  In fact, I would contend that the Bible, far from avoiding or being troubled with suffering in this world, is probably THE most thorough, balanced and realistic treatment of suffering of any religious text in the world. 

Suffering and trials are a theme of the book of James.  This last chapter is a big part of that.  It’s certainly not an exhaustive treatment of how God wants us to handle suffering and illness.  But it does give us real clarity on what to DO in the family of God, whether you are the patient or merely the fellow-saint taking the journey with someone. 

            So, let’s read today’s passage: James 5:13-18  (ESV)

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 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.15 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. 

16 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. 17 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. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

James starts out like a good physician, writing us a prescription that is both broad in its spectrum of treatment and effective in its application.  But like all prescriptions, we don’t get the cure if we don’t take the medicine.

James starts with 3 general categories of Christ-followers who should take the same spiritual medicine:

  1. “Anyone…suffering.”
  2. “Anyone cheerful.”
  3. “Anyone sick.”

Suffering…cheerful…or sick.  That covers most of us most of the time. 

This term “suffering” is only used 3 times in the N.T.  Paul uses it twice in 2 Timothy (2:9 & 4:5) to talk about suffering in chains for the Gospel as well as suffering that may accompany any Christian ministry in this world. Then James uses it here of suffering or affliction in general.  It isn’t suffering limited to that which comes because we are witnesses in this world for Christ. 

            So, here’s the first and most common prescription any of us should take when we encounter the first signs of SUFERING, be it physical, emotional, relational, psychological or spiritual:  PRAY!  Talk to the great Counselor, the great Physician, the great Reconciler, the great Comforter—GOD.  Talk with God when you feel it coming on, settling in or weighing you down.  PRAY!

APP:  This is a form of prayer that doesn’t require that you BE with other believers.  It doesn’t require that you GO to any particular place.  It’s a reminder that God wants every part of life to turn us to Him, especially the low or trying parts. 

            WHAT should you pray?  Certainly something about the suffering.  Maybe for the person/people that are causing it. (Pray for your enemies.)  Maybe for the systems or unjust structures that are permitting it.  Maybe for your own heart in the matter. Call out to God in whatever way puts you more in touch with Him.

Second category of people James addresses:  the CHEERFUL.  James seems to be hitting the other end of the spectrum of life with this one.  But the prescription is pretty much the same: engage with God in grateful communication, specifically SONGS of praise. 

            This is why we take time in every worship service to sing our praises to God.  Some of us aren’t terribly musical.  So doing this kind of prayer—sung prayer—is helpful in a group.  Then, when you are alone during the week and life or the Holy Spirit leads you into cheerfulness, you’ll find yourself singing, whistling or humming praises to God.  That’s also a good reason to listen to Christian radio—it gives you a songs to sing throughout the day.  Singing to God (another form of prayer) is the right and obedient response to being cheerful. 

The third category seems to swing back towards the more difficult end of the life-experience spectrum:  illness. 

There is much discussion among commentators as to whether the term “sick” is referring to physical illness or spiritual and/or emotional weakness.  I don’t think it matters all that much but I think the evidence tilts towards some physical, possibly debilitating illness. 

Notice that the individual is apparently not able to go to a gathering of God’s people. She/he must “call for the elders” of the church to come to her/his house.  And the elders are to “pray over him.”  That paints a picture of a possibly bed-ridden person.

            Notice that the initiative lies with the person who is sick. 

ILL: I know of people who have gotten sick and been in the hospital, very disappointed that I didn’t come and visit them.  The only problem was, I didn’t know they were in the hospital.  They never bothered to let me know.  When you are seriously ill, don’t expect the church leaders to automatically know you are sick.  You need to let them know AND you need to request that they come visit you.  The appropriate response to long-term or chronic illness is to call for your spiritual leaders to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil. 

            Here, too, good Christians differ on what the anointing with oil means.  Some say it was a medicinal remedy of the day.  That doesn’t seem likely in this context.  I think that oil as symbolic of the Holy Spirit is probably the best interpretation.  Spiritual leaders are asking God to anoint the person with His own presence and comfort from the chief Comforter, the Holy Spirit. 

            Now, it is precisely here that things get a bit interesting.  James says in vs. 15, “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.”  Is this a blanket promise that God will heal anyone who asks the Elders to come and pray for them some “prayer of faith”?  If so, how do we account for the numerous times our prayers (and that of church leaders) are not answered as they pray over the sick? 

            One thing is clear: it isn’t a failure of the sick person’s faith (as many who say who say God’s will is always to heal).  The “prayer of faith” is to be offered by the Elders for the sick.  When it comes to healings, we know that there were/are “gifts (pl.) of healings” (I Cor. 12:9, 28, 30). 

Even the Apostle’s prayers for the sick, be it others or themselves, did not always lead to healing or stave off death indefinitely. 

  • Paul was not healed of his own thorn in the flesh after praying three times about it (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
  • Neither did his prayer heal Epaphroditus ( 2:25-30) or Trophimus (2 Tim. 4:20).
  • Paul urged Timothy to drink a little wine for his frequent stomach ailments (1 Tim. 5:23), not to claim his healing by faith or pray more.
  • And, they as well as we ALL eventually get sick and die.

So, what is this “prayer of faith?”  Is it something we must work ourselves into willing to happen?  I think not.  God’s answered prayer isn’t about human “willing”; it is about human engagement with the God’s sovereign will. 

Faith looks to God for healing but

rests in God when suffering continues.

The prayer of faith is made looking to God in faith and trusting in God’s ultimate answer by faith.

Now, it is also at this point that James ties the possibility of healing to the possibility of personal sin causing the suffering.  Vs. 15b says, “And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”  This is in agreement with numerous other passages and situations in the Bible.  Think just of the N.T.

  • Some in the Corinthian church suffered illness and even death due to sin against other brothers and sisters at their love feasts that included the Lord’s Supper (I Cor. 11:27-32).
  • When Jesus healed the paralytic in Capernaum, he stated, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk. 2:5), which may indicate his paralysis was linked to personal sin.
  • To the paralytic at Bethesda, Jesus said, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (Jn. 5:14).

Asking God if your illness is associated with sin and being willing to let Him speak to you about it must certainly be part of any sincere call to God for healing. 

ILL:  Much of my depression through the years has been associated with a self-centered view of life in the moment or an immature outlook on what God is doing through difficulty in my life.  Granted, some of my depression may be hereditary.  Some may be learned through modeling.  But for me not to ask God to reveal any wrong thinking or sinful thinking when I’m depressed is to limit God in what He might want to do and reveal to me as well as leave me stuck with my own depressed viewpoint. 

ILL:  When we pray for each other or ask for prayer from spiritual leaders, we must be willing to hear hard words of divine insight into spiritual dynamics that may be impacting our health. We must be willing as those asking for prayer as well as those giving the prayer.

When it comes to sickness resulting from sin, I would have to say that the single most consistent sin I see opening the door to sin is bitterness and lack of godly forgiveness.  Suffering is, as C.S. Lewis notes, God’s megaphone shouting to us. Don’t automatically assume sin cannot be the cause of suffering.

This potential of sin in all of our lives being related to suffering leads James to give us a command that is probably one of the most neglected and least practiced commands in the N.T.

16 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. 

Q:  When was the last time we confessed any sin to anyone? 

I’m not suggesting that we should go around freely telling others every sinful thought, word or deed. 

ILL:  I remember hearing about someone in a Sunday School class who thought it good to confess their lustful thoughts towards another woman in the class…all in front of his own wife and the other woman!  That’s just stupid!!!

Wisdom would put a few guardrails around any practice of confession. 

  • Private sin calls for private confession to a mature, trustworthy saint.
  • But public sin certainly calls for public confession as well.
  • Sin that has damaged another should involve confession to the other and appeal for forgiveness, except in situations where to do so will bring further wounding and damage to the wounded person.

So, confession is not only “good for the soul” as we say; it can be good for our physical body…our health… as well as for the holy fellowship of Christ-loving saints, the Body of Christ. 

ILL:  Prior to WW II in Nazi Germany, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer conducted an “underground seminary” (not government approved) for the training of young pastors in Pommern area of Germany (north, by the Baltic Sea).  He and about 25 students lived, ate, played, studied, prayed, worshipped and shared life together in communion. 

            That experience resulted in his now famous spiritual classic, Life Together, in which Bonhoeffer documents the Biblical insights gained from that experience.  In the 5th and final chapter of the book, entitled Communion and Confession, he gives some reasons for the practice of mutual confession. 

Primary among them is the isolation that sin brings.  Sin drives Christians apart and produces a hellish individualism—a deadening autonomy.  Bonhoeffer says, “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.” [Quoted in Kent Hugh’s commentary on James, p. 265.]

But confession to a fellow brother or sister destroys this deadly autonomy.  It pulls down the barrier of hypocrisy and allows the free flow of grace in the community. 

            The other main benefit of confession, says Bonhoeffer, is that it brings healthy humiliation.

            “Confess in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation.  It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride.  To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable.  In the confession of concrete sins the old man does a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother.” [Ibid.]

Q:  What, do you think, are some other positive benefits of mutual confession? Might it be that…

  • It enhances mutual prayer (James 5).
  • It makes possible the bearing of one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:1, 2).
  • It can lead to helpful spiritual accountability and spiritual direction from a senior saint.
  • It can move us to break the cycle of sin by developing a wise plan for avoiding that sin under the counsel of a wise mentor.
  • Encourages both confessor and confesee to walk in holiness.

There can undoubtedly be DANGERS with open confession to another person.  What might some of those dangers be?

  • Betrayal of confidence.
  • Shaming
  • Attention-getting
  • A sort of verbal exhibitionism or voyeurism
  • Excessive introspection
  • ???

But abuses of confession are not sufficient reasons to abandon confession.  I think that we Protestants have thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater in terms of confession.  Roman Catholics call periodic confession to a priest as a means of receiving God’s grace.  To be fair, I think they see the priest simply as a human representative of divine forgiveness—a person giving voice to God’s heart of forgiveness and helping fellow sinners take seriously the need for confession of sin.  The practice requires some degree of healthy introspection by anyone confessing sin to another human being. Isn’t that healthy for anyone wanting to depart from sin and walk more closely to Christ?

APP:  I’d like all of us to seriously consider developing a relationship like that with someone you respect in the faith.  It doesn’t need to take hours a week.  It can be just a few minutes.  But it does require intentionality…and humility…and probably regularity of some sort. 

  • Take a moment to think of someone you could approach to be in this kind of confessing relationship with.
  • Now take a few moments to let the Spirit of God reveal to you a sin or sins that God wants you to be free of and that you would need to confess if you were being totally honest.

Vs. 16 bridges James’s discussion of confession and healing to the larger principle of the power of prayer by a “righteous person.”

“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”  

There is a direct correlation between prayer, confession and righteousness.  The more we become people of prayer, the more we will come in contact with the heart and mind of God.  That contact will, in the life of a sincere Christ-follower, change how we live, how we view sin and what we do about living righteously.  Obedient, God-touching prayer will make us righteous.  In turn, our prayers will be more powerful because they will be more in tune with the heart of God. 

APP:  Can we talk candidly about prayer for a moment? 

  • Most of us find prayer a practically difficult thing to do.
  • Too many of us see it as optional—something that is nice when we do it but not required by God for spiritual growth or victory.
  • Perhaps some see fervent prayer as belonging to monks in monasteries or to the super-spiritual among us.
  • Many of us have probably been turned off by the prayers of some long-winded
  • Most of us might be self-conscious about praying. We find conversation with other people hard enough.  But conversation with God, especially in the presence of other people, we find downright terrifying. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that if Satan can keep us from praying… for whatever reasons…he can keep us defeated, powerless, fearful, spiritually impotent and barren.  Satan doesn’t care what reason we have for not praying.  ANY reason is good in his book.  Business or self-consciousness will work just as well as ignorance or inattentiveness.  He just doesn’t want us connecting with God through prayer nor experiencing the power of God in and through prayer. 

            Can I confess something to you as your pastor when it comes to prayer?  I’m wondering who God is asking among us to step more deliberately, more regularly and more publicly into this ministry of prayer as WE step more boldly into the darkness of our city?

 In the past 2 years, I have felt personally the loss of 2 of our most faithfully prayerful saints—Tom Bates & Jeremy Stanton.  Let me tell you a little about both these men whom we all prayed fervently for God to heal.  But God deemed what seemed to me to be premature death to be the means of His final healing for both of them. 

            But be that as it may, their departure has left a huge hole in our fighting force.  In Tom’s case, he spent almost every Thursday morning for the past 15 years praying together with a handful of other men.  6:30 in the morning!  Without fail, rain, snow or sunshine…holiday or workday, Tom was leading prayer. 

            With Jeremy it was every Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m.  He and Jeanette would come from a full day’s work at Lighthouse for the Blind, via city bus and then several blocks of walking.  Yes, he would sometimes fall asleep during prayer because of the fatigue of working all day on a shop floor…or the effect of cancer treatments and medications.  But he would always come if he was physically able.  He was there at prayer the week before he died and God took him safely home.   

At the same time, I have been personally challenged of late by two men God has brought to this building almost every day the past month to pray.  Jeff & Charlie are two 30-something men God has called to start the Downtown YFC Youth Center in our Mosaic Center basement.  They have spent hours praying before heading out onto the streets to engage anyone and everyone in our neighborhood, but particularly youth.  Their fervency and tenacity and devotion to God through prayer has moved me to reexamine my prayer life and weekly ministry routine. 

Prayer IS hard. It requires perseverance.  It calls for faith when you don’t see God answering. But it builds spiritual muscle in ways we need if we are going to see Christ’s kingdom come and His will be done in this city, nation and generation. 

But to my tendency to think that getting a bunch of people praying together is somehow more powerful than just me or you praying, God speaks these words:

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 

Then James illustrates it with the prophet Elijah.  This man was a giant of a servant of God.  But God doesn’t point to all the things he did that sets him apart from us.  Instead he points to him as “a man with a nature like ours.”  And he simply points to his prayer life.

 17 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. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

Elijah had taken on almost legendary status among the Jews in James’ day. By all accounts, he was an impressive man!

  • He marched in before the wicked, powerful King Ahab and announced that it would only rain by his word, and his word came true!
  • He was miraculously fed by the ravens during the drought.
  • He miraculously enabled the widow of Zarephath’s flour to be replenished throughout the drought.
  • He raised her son from the dead.
  • He called down fire from heaven to consume his waterlogged sacrifice in front of the 400 prophets of Baal. Then he ordered the execution of them all.
  • Later, he called down fire to consume two groups of soldiers sent to arrest him.
  • He parted the Jordan River to walk across.
  • His final act was to be taken to heaven without dying in a chariot of fire.

That’s the stuff legends are made of!  A man like Elijah could be more of a hindrance to my prayer life than an encouragement.  I tend to think that he’s in a totally different league than I am. That’s why James says…

Even righteous prayer warriors share the same nature we do.

Vs. 17-- Elijah was a man with a nature like ours…

Praying saints aren’t made of different material than you and I.  They just choose to sow a different garment out of the same material.  They choose to make prayer a more substantial part of their day and week and life.  But they are as human as the rest of us.  Elijah still had down, depressed days…even weeks.  He still got so worn out by the battle that God had to hide him away in the desert and feed him miraculously by ravens.

Secondly, righteous prayer warriors face the same ungodly world and opposition we do.  They just determine to make their prayers as big as their nation’s spiritual problems. 

             Wicked King Ahab was in power during Elijah’s time.  As king, he set a new spiritual low in Israel! He married the wicked Jezebel, who established Baal worship as the religion of the land. She exterminated (as in “killed) the prophets of the Lord, except for 100 who went into hiding.

Baal was regarded as the god who controlled the rain and fertility. The worship of Baal was not only idolatrous, but immoral, with temple prostitutes. Even though there were some bad kings before Ahab, 1 Kings 16:33 states, “Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.”

So, Elijah’s prayer for drought and his later prayer for rain were a direct challenge to the worshipers of Baal. Everyone in the nation felt the effects of three years of drought. It pushed them to ask, “Why isn’t Baal answering our prayers?”

Elijah’s showdown with the prophets of Baal pointedly drew the line (1 Kings 18:21): “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” When God answered Elijah’s prayer to bring down fire on the sacrifice, the people “fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God’” (1 Kings 18:39). One righteous man’s prayer affected the entire nation. One man decided to make his prayers as big as his nation’s problems.

That may not look today like it did in Elijah’s time.  But the problems God's praying saint tackles will be as big as the Baals of his/her day. 

ILL:  Ever heard of the name George Mueller?  Muller (1805-1897) was a rebellious Prussian young man whom God saved in his twenties. Mueller went on to confront one of the great evils of his day—the use and abuse of orphaned children.  He founded an orphanage in Bristol, England.

Mueller was, of course, concerned about the needs of the many orphans whom he saw on the streets. But his primary reason for founding the orphanage was to demonstrate that God is still a prayer-hearing God and that it is not in vain to trust in Him.

Muller and his new bride literally sold or gave away everything that they owned and gave the money to the Lord’s work. Then they set about praying for God to provide for their own needs and the needs of the orphans.

Muller’s theme verse was Psalm 81:10, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.”

For over 60 years, he saw God faithfully provide for as many as 2,000 orphans at a time, all in response to secret prayer.

Muller never disclosed any needs to potential donors, even if they asked. He and his staff would pray and often see God provide the exact amount that they needed on the day or even the hour they needed it. And Muller gave God the glory by writing an annual narrative of how the Lord had provided, once the needs had already been met.  [From a message by Stephen J. Cole found at https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-24-power-prayer-james-516b-18]

            George Mueller was a human being just like us.  Elijah was a human being just like us.  They just chose to make their prayer life as big as their nation’s problems. 

Q:  What are the problems our city faces?

Q:  Are we going to allow the problems to limit our faith OR are we going to use problems to grow our faith?? 

APP: 

  • Do you know personally the God to whom you are praying? [Call to belief in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.]
  • Is God asking you to grow a bigger prayer life? What will you do this week to see that become a reality?  (Write it down…now!)
  • Will you take up the challenge to make your prayer life bigger, more powerful than the problems you see around you? HOW?
  • Do you need to ask your spiritual leaders to pray for you? Come up after the service for prayer. 
  • Is God asking you to enter into the spiritual practice of confession to another saint? Who?  When? 

For Further Study & Discussion

  1. James has addressed the situation of trials and suffering in the life of a believer several times in the book (1:3-4, 9-12; 2:5; 5:7-11, 13-18). Why do you think that is?  What general principles about trials and sufferings would you want to teach a new believer from just these passages?
  2. How has suffering affected your prayer life? How has praying affected your suffering? 
  3. How has your life been affected by suffering? By illness? By cheerfulness/happiness?
  4. Have you experienced the kind of prayer by church leaders described in this passage? What was the outcome?  Did talking about possible sin or confession of sin play a part in the process? 
  5. How do you think confession of sin to each other should be practiced among God’s people? Has confession been a regular part of your spiritual experience and discipline?  Why or why not?  How might you/your group enter into a season of mutual confession of sin?  What boundaries and safeguards should you have in place to protect against abuses of this practice? 
  6. Share about what has helped to motivate you to pray in the past. What about Elijah encourages you to pray? How might you/your group grow in this spiritual practice of prayer in the next month?  What biblical examples of the power of a praying person stand out to you in Scripture?
  7. How could we go about making our prayers as big as our nation’s problems? What are the national or regional or local spiritual problems you think the church should be tackling in prayer?  How should we do that?
  8. Review and discuss the “APPLICATION” questions at the end of this message.