Prayer | James 5:13-20 | Jarryd Cole

Pastor Jarryd finishes our series in James teaching on the privilege, power, and importance of prayer.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Ambassador Church Podcast, a church in the city for the city, on Milwaukee's east side. We pray this message meets you where you are, challenges your faith, and draws you closer to Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Well, hey again, welcome to Ambassador Church. Uh man, I'm excited to jump into the message this morning. We have some fun elements that I want to uh incorporate towards the end here. Uh but before that, I want to let you know if you're new to the room, we are continuing and actually finishing uh the series that we've been going through in the book of James today. Okay, so uh it's been 11 weeks. Can we just give it up for the for the book of James really quick, man? It's been an exciting book, really fun coming through here, lots of insightful things, practical things, but also challenging things. I hope you've been challenged in this series. I know I've been challenged in this series uh as well. But we're ending it today. And next week we're gonna be actually starting a new series, okay? This uh graphic will pop up here on the screen. This series is gonna be called Who Knows? All right. Um I love when I tell people our next series is gonna be called Who Knows uh because I get the looks that you're giving me right now from uh out in the audience. Okay, you're like who knows? Like, what are we talking about? Um, here's a little trivia thing for you, okay? There is actually four times in scriptures in the old testament where a character says these words, who knows? Okay. And no, it's not about like gaining more insight or information about the Bible, um, but this is actually a posture of faith in the Old Testament. All right, there's four times in the Old Testament where characters will say these words, who knows? And what it means is they're actually on the precipice, on the cusp of something that they understand and something that they don't understand. And so instead of, as we can all know in our lives, oftentimes when we find ourselves in those places in the midst of the unknown, we don't know what's coming up, right? We we we we tend to want to bounce back and be reserved and hold on to like whatever we can and say, I don't want to take that step. But these characters in all four of these messages we're gonna have, like they're people who demonstrate this reality where they say, Who knows? And they don't lean back, but they lean in in faith. And so I think it's important for us to take a minute just to pull over four weeks before we head into the summertime to understand this and see how these characters respond in faith, in repentance, in prayer, not knowing what's on the other side, but having hope and faith in God that he will do whatever he's going to do and whatever he does will be good. I think some of us need that in this room. Amen. I might need that myself. And so I'm excited to uh go through this series with you. It'll be a fun ride. And then for the rest of the summer, just to give you a glimpse of where we're gonna be going, we're gonna spend 12 weeks of the summer going through the Sermon on the Mount. It's gonna be our summer series. Okay, and I'm excited to jump into that with you as well. And but for now, let's put a bow on James. Okay, if you have your Bibles out, go ahead and get those. We're gonna be in the book of James, chapter five, uh, verses 13 through 20. We're literally wrapping this up today. And what James is going to do, we're gonna end this letter in a very fitting way by talking about the concept of prayer. Prayer is what this entire passage is all about. So, just a heads up, here's what we're gonna do today at the end of the service. We're actually going to spend some time praying. And we're gonna have people up here in the front, we're gonna have a prayer team here, and I want you to be thinking about right now in the service, maybe, maybe that there's something in your life that you're thinking about, man, I really need to submit this to God. Like maybe I haven't given to God the things that I know I should be giving to Him, and I've been holding on a little bit too much, and it's been having my life do all these kind of things. Listen, we want to have a place where faithful people can say faithful prayers over you who might need a word from God this morning. So we're gonna actually spend some time doing that. So here's what's truth. That's gonna happen. I'm gonna have to preach a shorter sermon. So so I wanna I wanna get in. And even as I say that, I know this might sound strange to many of you in the room. Why? Because you don't really have a habit of prayer, or maybe you've grown disenchanted with the church or praying in general, uh, because you might feel like, hey, you've prayed and you've done this thing before, and yet you feel like God hasn't really come through. Maybe you haven't experienced a ton of change in your life. And so what's happened to you is you like stopped praying and you've actually given up on prayer. Or maybe this is your first time in church in a long time. You got dragged here because it's Mother's Day and your family, hey, we're going to church, hop in loser, we're going to ambassador to church, okay? And now you're here and you're like, I just came here for encouragement. I didn't come here to participate and have all this prayer stuff happen, okay? Listen, I think God might have something specific to say to you today. I believe James wants to speak directly to you in our passage. He wants you to know that no matter who you are, or no matter what you're going through, he wants you to recognize the importance of prayer. But not only that, he wants you to know the power of prayer. I think he wants us to know this. But before we can get to the importance and the power of prayer, I want to start us with the privilege of prayer. Like, how many of you know in a room that privilege is actually a prayer or prayer is actually a privilege that you have in your life? I remember growing up early in my faith, and you know, I didn't really understand prayer. I'll I'll admit that. Like I never really prayed for much of anything. I think, you know, for most of my life, I felt like I had my life pretty wrapped up and bottled up. Okay, I could do things, I'm an able-bodied, you know, really big and large male. Like I can, I can do a lot of things, okay? So I didn't really think I needed to pray much. Yeah, I loved God. I had this faith, right? But I didn't really see this privilege of prayer. Like I remember growing up and I prayed for a couple different reasons throughout my day. Maybe you can relate to this. You prayed for your food and you prayed at bedtime. When the good hot food came out, and nothing could come out of your soul, but man, thank you, God, right? And then when you lay on that nice soft pillow, and you're just like, thank you, Jesus, for this, right? And it often came out in probably one of these two prayers, right? God is great, God is good, let us thank you for our food. Amen. Amen. Amen. And then I went to bed. I said, Hey, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to key. If I should die before I wake, I pray to the Lord my soul to take, right? Like all of us know these prayers, and maybe you recite these prayers as you were growing up too. Um, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there's a deeper level of prayer that God can call us to. And I want us to understand, firstly, that this is actually a privilege that James is calling us to. And I don't know what clipped for me when I realized the privilege of prayer. Like I've gone through a lot of different transition moments in my life. I don't know if it was graduating from college and realizing the big, bad world can be a little bit more scary than I gave it credit for. I don't know if it was having kids and realizing that, hey, kids are gonna like literally be the death of me someday, you know. Or retiring from basketball and trying to come to grips with this new identity outside of that. Okay, I don't know exactly what it was that God used to get my attention, to recognize the privilege of prayer, but something clicked. And here's what I realized. I I realized that because I'm a Christian, meaning I have placed my faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose for my sin. Here's what this means: that this means that I now have the Holy Spirit who lives in me. And this Holy Spirit grants me this privilege of direct access to this God whenever I want. And I realize I never have to be alone now. For all the Christians in the room, you need to know this same thing is actually granted to you. And I want you to think about this for a minute because I want us to feel the weight of what this means. This means that, yes, that all-powerful being, that God that you are imagining now in your mind, that's all-creating, that is all powerful, that is all-present, that is all-knowing, that can do whatever he wants. Because you have the Holy Spirit in you and he grants you this privilege to pray to him, he chooses to have relationship and communion and communication with you. And y'all, that should really blow our minds when we think about this fact. And yet, we tend to avoid prayer. And I have to admit, this is more true of me than I want it to be in my own life. Like one of the things I grieve the most is when people give me the inevitable question when I'm running through some things, I'm I'm thinking of some ideas in my mind, I want to make some decisions, and some good, faithful Christians in my life, they'll come to me and be like, hey, well, have you prayed about it? Or maybe this has happened to you before. Have you prayed about it? And I'm like, in my head, and and and you know how it is too. And because this can often feel like an insult to you. Because one, the person is saying that to you because they're thinking you haven't prayed before, right? You feel like, hey, why would you assume I haven't prayed? And then the second thing is true, it's probably true you haven't prayed. This is why I feel so insulting, right? You get hit with this sense of emotion, like, how dare you ask me if I prayed? When you know I haven't prayed. Can't this be true of many of us? See, I don't know about you, but I want prayer to be a mark of my life so I can have a declaration of dependence on God. Like, what if this wasn't true? What if today, a little bit of vision for you, we actually saw prayer as the privilege it is, and we choose to tap into this unbelievable relationship and opportunity that we have to connect with God. So today, James wants us to do just that as he unpacks now for us the importance and the power of prayer in the text. If you have your Bibles, you're open with me to James chapter 3, 13 through 20. Here's what the text says is gonna hop up here on the screen as well. James continues and ends in our book today. He says, Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the land, and then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit. So, my brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. So, this is how James ends this letter. And I think it's so fitting as he's coming through this book, because remember, James is writing this letter to these persecuted and these scattered Christians, and the entire thing is calling them to not live in a way that would actually be quite expected of them, of people who are going through this kind of things, by giving in to all the things that he kind of made an argument against through the rest of this book. Things like complaining and fighting and being careless with your words, backbiting against other people, showing favoritism when you know you shouldn't be showing favoritism, being warmed up with jealousy in your heart and greed and envy, and even last week, impatience. Things like this. He's talking to these people who would like, it would be okay, honestly, for most of us to look at that and be like, you could probably show some of these things. And James is writing this letter to say, hey, you shouldn't show these things because you believe in Jesus and you are called to a higher standard. Like we can also be tempted to show these things, especially when we feel like we're experiencing things like the audience would have been experiencing through this book. And we want to fall back into self-preservation. But James, as we've gone through this letter, instead of giving his audience a license to do that, he calls them to true Christian living through Jesus. And listen, those of you who've been a Christian for more than five seconds can attest to the fact that true Christian living is a difficult call to answer to. If you're like me, like you can find yourself in the place of the audience that James is talking to. Like you're reading about jealousy and gossip and hatred and favoritism. You're like, that's me. I do those kind of things. Like, how long were you a Christian before jealousy started creeping back up in your life? Or how long were you a Christian before you slipped up and started gossiping again? Or how long were you a Christian before you went back to those same old websites that you said you'd never go back to again? Or how long were you a Christian before gratitude became a thing of the past? And what filled its place is complaining and impatience. Instead of gratitude, those things quickly became a marker of your life again. Here's the answer it's not long at all. Which, if you're new to the faith, I want to make this caveat really quick. I want to remind you that the Christian faith isn't about if you'll ever sin again. That's not what it's about. Because the answer to that question, if you're asking, man, if I give my life to Christ, maybe not a Christian here in the room, you're asking, does that mean like my life becomes perfect now? And I can just go up and to the right and everything's gonna work out for me in my favor, and I'm never gonna struggle again. The answer is no. You will sin again. The Christian faith isn't about if you'll ever sin again. You will. There's no perfect people, there's only been one, and it's Jesus, and he died on your behalf, so that his righteousness can become your righteousness. That's what the Christian faith is about. It's not about your perfect living, it's about your faith in the perfect one who can make you righteous because you can't make yourself righteous on your own. So the Christian faith isn't about if you'll sin again, the Christian faith is about what you do whenever you do sin. Do you justify it? Do you hide it? Do you explain it away? Do you fall into hypocrisy? Or do you repent? Do you confess of your sin? And do you turn to the only one who can heal to the only one that can save? Do you turn to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? See, James writes into this inevitable, difficult nature of life, and he prescribes wisdom on top of wisdom on how to practically apply our faith, and he lands the plane right here as he's talking about this timely practice of prayer. And James wants us to know two things. You've already heard them. He wants us to know the importance of prayer and the power of prayer. First, the importance of prayer. Look back at verse 13 with me. James says, Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. So basically, what James is saying is it's saying, Hey, prayer is this important thing. And he's saying, in fact, no matter what, no matter what your life looks like, you should be praying. Are you suffering? You should pray. Are you cheerful? You should pray. Are you sick? You should pray. And I love this when the Bible kind of gets in concert with one another because if you know your scripture a little bit, it sounds kind of like what the apostle Paul says to the church in Thessalonica. You guys know this? Paul tells that church, hey, pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18, Paul says, Hey, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. Why? For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. I love how that sounds. And maybe you've only heard that verse and you've heard like the three commands of rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks. And you've probably never heard or maybe paid attention to the reason why. And Paul says and he elaborates on this that this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. People in the room, I know what it's like to wonder, hey, what am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? How am I supposed to be? What is God's will for my life? You want to know what God's will for your life is? Like I believe in, yes, there's some specific things that God has for you and just you in your life. Okay, Ephesians 2.10, workmanship, all of that, just for you, for you to do, okay? But for every single one of us in this room, if you want to know God's will for you, this is for sure his will. That you rejoice, that you pray, and that you give thanks. And this is part of the reason why we're making time for this today. We want to be people who honor this, we want to be people who actually pray, we want to rejoice with you, we want to give thanks, we want to call on God, who gives us access to Him the privilege to pray. But oftentimes, if we're honest, this is the step that we often skip in our lives. When we're suffering, we don't want to pray. We want quick solutions, and when we're cheerful and we're living good, we don't want to pray then either. Why? Because life is too sweet, we don't have time to pray. And when we're sick, we don't want to pray, at least not at first, because we want self-help. We want modern medicine, all the different things that can make us feel good and right right now in this moment. Okay, but you have to hear me. I'm not against medicine and doctors. I know as I say that from the stage, it can kind of come off like that that way. Like I don't have a hippie bone on my body, okay? I don't know if you can't tell. But here's what I want us to know prayer is often our last resort when it should be our first response. Prayer is usually something that we tack onto our lives like it's some little garnish that just makes the plate of our lives look a little bit better whenever we we need something. Just spice it up every once in a while. I guess it's borderline unnecessary, but it's it's good every once in a while. It makes it look good. You know, we have to know this is such a small view of prayer, and I want us to have a larger view of prayer than that today. One of my other pastor friends says this prayer is not the work that we do before the work, but prayer is the work. And this is the kind of heart posture we want to have about prayer here at Ambassador Church. Like if you've ever sat with me in any kind of meeting about what it means to be a part of this thing that we call Ambassador, you've heard me talk about five faithfuls before faithful living, faithful giving, faithful serving, faithful inviting. And the last one, faithful praying. Which means if you want to know what it means to be a part of this, if you want to be on the team, if you want to call the church your home, those are the five things I'm gonna ask you to commit to. And I would argue that the last one, faithful praying, it's not last, just to be last. And it's not last by any stretch. I think that's the most important thing that we can do. It's not the work before the work, it is the work. And we know this. Why? Because so much of our lives, I know we've experienced this, is so much out of our control. If you were here last week, I love how Mitchell talked about this. He touched on this a little bit and he broke it down. He reminded us that we aren't in control of our lives. And any amount of perceived control you think you have is actually a facade. I was talking about this with some young boys I was meeting with just this past Wednesday, and I was telling them about this kind of facade of control we can tend to have, especially when we're young, right? When we're when we're young, like we're we're a little relentless and ruthless, and we think we got all the time in the world and everything is, you know, I can do this, I can do that, and even if it fails, it don't matter because I got all this time, you know, whatever it is. I'm still in control. My man, you weren't in control. Okay, telling 18 to 21 year olds that is like it just goes in one ear after the other, okay? They don't listen. But if you want proof, all you have to do is look at the things that you all experience in your daily lives. Look at your emotions. You can't even control your feelings. Those are yours. You experience those as you experience them, and you can't even determine when tears are gonna come from your eyes. You can't determine when your mind's gonna go crazy, you can't determine what's gonna give you the ick. I don't know if we even use that anymore. Is it cringe these days? Rosalind, is that what we say? Is it cringe? You can't control those things. The best you can do is try to manage it. Like we we live and things happen. Our age, okay? I'll be 38 this summer. I feel like I'm getting really old, okay? And I know that's a slap in the face of some people in the room, but not a lot of you, all right? So, yes, I I am, I am getting old. But here's what's true: that's coming for every single one of us. There's nothing we can do to stop it. Listen, I'm not who I was when I was 15, I'm not who I was when I was 25, and I'm reminded that often when I try to go play sports with all the younger guys. Okay, I used to be a sports guy, and now I can't play one game without taking a week off, and then I'm back at it again. When you're young, you think that'll never happen to you. And then you get there and you're like, okay, yes, my mind is telling me one thing, but my body's telling me a completely different thing. And you have no control over that. Happy Mother's Day, by the way. See, life is out of our control. But you want to know who's in control of the things that You are not in control of God. And you want to know who can actually do things about the things that you can't do anything about, it's God. So the question for the room is: do you believe that? Do you believe it's God? And if that's true, don't you think it would be wise if prayer was our first response and not our last resort? And I love how James includes here that we can pray with others too. Like prayer can be, but it doesn't have to be some solo act. Right? Like part of the importance of prayer is letting other people in on what you're praying for and what you're praying about. And James specifically points to certain people here. He says, he points to the elders of the church. Look back at your text, verse 14. James says, if anyone among you is sick, he should call to the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Okay, a couple of things unpack here really quickly. Some of you in the room just heard that anointing with oil thing, and you just like dumped up in your seat, and that's the most important thing you heard all day. Like I've been waiting for an ambassador to get a little bit more Pentecostal in this thing, right? Like you're about ready to hop about the door, run to your car, grab your oil, and be back. You said praying, Pastor. Let's go. Some of y'all heard that, and y'all like, man, oil. I only use oil on a fried chicken. You know? See, I want to demystify the use of oil when praying, really quick. See, oil is a significant meaning in scripture and in our faith, it's significant. See, in the ancient world, oil had both medicinal and symbolic significance. It was used to consecrate kings in your Old Testament. Maybe some of you have read this before. It was a mark of hospitality and honor. Someone comes into your home, you anoint their head with oil. Hey, welcome, greeting. And even the disciples use this in the gospels to heal. In Mark chapter 6, you can read this. They use oil to heal as they went and did Jesus' ministry. But most importantly, here's what's true about the oil: it represented the presence and the blessing of God. When you use oil, it can have that kind of symbolic representation of the Holy Spirit as you pray with someone for healing, as you pray with someone for sin, as you pray with someone to receive faith for the first time, oil can be a symbol. And we have to know this. It is wise to emphasize that because in this passage, James isn't saying oil is the most important thing here. He says, but prayer in the faith itself is the most important thing. And we have to know that. The oil is great, but it's just an accompanying sign. So do you have to use oil when you pray? How we're gonna hopefully pray this morning after church? No. But can you? Yes. Are we gonna use it this morning? Unfortunately, no, okay. But we might in the future, so stash that away for a later date. But that's the oil. But now what about the elders? James said he should call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Okay, here's what's we need about the elders of the church. Elders are godly qualified men of character who are responsible for leading, protecting, and shepherding the church. And in this passage, I think it's more descriptive than prescriptive, because we're even going to see in later verses that like elders aren't the only people who are responsible for praying over the people of the church. That we can actually, as a congregation, pray over one another. Listen, it's not like God hears the prayers of the elders and not the prayers of other people, right? There's there's no direct access I have that's greater than anybody else in this room. And so it's not only that I could pray for you as an elder of ambassador church, but we can also pray for one another. At the same time, there's benefit and there's blessing that comes from submitting to the leadership of your church and asking and inviting prayer into your life. James is saying prayer is important. But he also says prayer is powerful. Look at verse 16 or 15. It says, the prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Okay. That sounds a little wild, okay, that the power of prayer would actually be given to us so that we can see healing and saving take place. And if you're in the room and you're wrestling with that reality, that God actually grants us that kind of authority and that power, I just want to submit to you, would you open your mind and your heart a little bit to receive that? That the authority that God has and he desires to give you looks just like this. The power to speak life into people under the authority of God and to provoke healing in someone, the power that's given to you by God under his authority to provoke salvation in someone, right? All these kinds of things. When you read that word save in this passage, uh, this is the Greek word sozo, okay? Sozo, it has kind of an all-encompassing reality of what it means to save. It can mean rescue, restore, make whole, or deliver. And so when you think of this, like don't just think specifically salvation of itself, but think like a kind of holistic healing, a holistic salvation, right? Like the power and authority of God can comfort you in prayer as you pray for others, and it can have this effect. And I need us to know this because to have a bigger view of prayer, we have to know that not only is it a privilege and it's important, but it also has power. There's power in prayer. James is saying that there's power in prayer, specifically, there's power to bring about salvation, to bring about forgiveness, to bring about healing. But even as we hear this, there's a couple things we need to note that power or that prayer is actually powerless apart from the person that gives it its power. Which means, just to double back on myself, okay? There there is no innate power in prayer, but there is innate power in Jesus, and he grants you power through prayer. This is what's true. Jesus is the object from which into which and on which that we pray. The second thing we have to know is not everything will be healed on this side of eternity. Okay? There are so many faith healers out there. There's people in persuasions of faith who will double down and put their lives on this fact that, man, if you just say this prayer, if you just come up and you lay at the altar, you receive this oil, and these certain people put their hands on you, and you get this word, and you speak in tongues, and you hear it from this way and that way, like you're getting you're gonna be saved, you're gonna be healed. All these different kinds of things. I want to let us know in the rest of your soul, like you can't move God's hands that way. God's hand does want to move, but you can't coerce it to move. Not everything will be healed on this side of eternity. But some things will. So, what this means is that the power of prayer isn't totally dependent on our prayer, it's also dependent on God's will. It's dependent on the sovereignty of God. And this is the premise, actually, behind the sermon series we're coming up in next week called Who Knows? That faith and appealing to God in prayer through whatever circumstance will always have a level of unknown and risk involved. Why? Because we can't control anything. We just heard that. And so you might ask, I hope you're asking this question if prayer is such a privilege, and if it's so important, if it's so powerful, but we can't control the outcomes, then what's the point in praying anyway? Here's the point you'll never know if it's in God's will if you don't ask. This is the point. And this is part of the privilege of prayer. Like you can come to God and you can ask God for whatever you need and have comfort and confidence going to him and doing so. Like you don't have to like come to God and parse out all the things about your prayer to be like, God, I like I want to pray for this, but not completely, because I don't know if that's like in your will. You want to actually grant that. Like, you don't have to come to him and parse through your prayers. I think he's big enough to do that for you. He's God, he knows what's in his will, he knows you, he knows your heart, and he knows what's best for you. He's not gonna give you something that's going to lead you to the path of destruction, and he's not gonna give you something that you're not even ready for either. He knows that. So you can come to him open-handed, open-minded, open-hearted, and ask God for whatever you want: healing, blessing, favor, faith for yourself and others, and you don't have to parse through it. God is big enough for that, and it relieves you because now you can go to him in faith, knowing and trusting that, hey, I'm just gonna lay this at God's feet. And God, I trust that you know what's best to do with this, and you never know. Who knows? Maybe God has a yes waiting on the other side of that prayer. See, I've seen many examples of this in my life as I've been in ministry. I've seen infertile couples who've prayed to have children for years and years, even some who've gone the adoption foster care route in the midst of it, and God somehow miraculously opened up wombs and have given biological babies in the midst of it. Infertile couples becoming pregnant. I've seen marriages moments away from disaster become restored. I've seen job opportunities drop out of thin air for people who are in mass desperation. I've seen relationships that have seemed to be on the brink of total separation, beyond repair. I've seen them reconciled. I have seen decades of sin habits broken, things that people never thought they'd ever get out of their lives, people that thought that, hey, they just take this thing to the grave with them. I've seen people break through chains through prayer. I've seen generational families of atheism transform to general families of faith. All of this from a moment that brought someone to their knees or the faithful people around them to them in prayer. I have a friend this week that has a relatable moment kind of like this. I was talking to her, and you know, she was on the phone, and we were about to meet up for a meeting, and um, she's her and her family are going through this adoption foster care process right now, and and she has a busy day. It's Monday's one of her busiest days, and she has to like, she has to get this done in this moment. She had a window of time. And she thought she gave her enough time to hop on this call with some very important people to handle a very important issue. And she gave herself a bunch of time, an hour and 15 minutes, almost two hours, around an hour 45. She's thinking, I can't be on this phone any longer than 15 minutes. And what she does is she prays to God in that moment. He says, She says, Hey, God, I got 15 minutes. Could you please get someone on the phone in 15 minutes? I really need to make this call. And you want to know what happened in that next 15 minutes. The call happened. I'm literally walking up and she's telling me this story, and it happens literally in my midst. She's telling me, like, as she's saying, like, this is what's happened. I needed this phone call to happen. I was on the call, I was on hold for this amount of time. I said, God, like 15 minutes, in 15 minutes, boom, here's the phone call. And you want to know the thing that she said to me after she had that experience? She said, like relief in her soul. I feel like God just sees me right now. I feel like God just sees me right now. Listen, that may not mean a lot to you, but it did to them, and it probably would to you if you were in that situation. Maybe you've been in a situation like that before. And you want to know what? I want to say that person. They're in the room right now. I'm not going to point them out, but I just want to say to y'all, yes, he does. God does see you. He's with you, he loves you, he hears you, and he sees you. And I wonder if anyone else has had any God sees me right now moments. Or I wonder if you could start to experience some God sees me right now moments in your life today, as you may begin, if you don't have a life of prayer, to begin walking in a life of prayer. And listen, we can't control the hand of God, but the reason why we pray is because we never know. And so why not just pray? You you you never know. Who knows what's on the other side of the thing that you're begging desperately for God for? And since you don't know, why not just ask? See, and James actually gives us an Old Testament illustration of this in our text. No, next verses he tells us about this prophet named Elijah from the Old Testament. Look at this in verse 17. Says Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. And then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit. And I want us to understand the significance of this story really quick because Elijah is a prophet from back in the Old Testament. You can read about his story in 1 Kings, I think it's 17 and 18. You can read about this right there. But I love this story because Elijah is now a prophet in the time of uh the people of Israel when like things are going pretty bad. And what Elijah is granted with is this thing to go to the king and say, hey, there's gonna be a famine that comes on the land. There's not gonna be any rain. And so he he tells the king, there's not gonna be any rain, and and God probably knows what's gonna happen now when he gives this kind of indictment. He's probably gonna be sent after for. So he sends him up into the wilderness, into a cave, and he's like, Yo, hang out here. There's gonna be ravens and stuff to come and feed you. Okay, Elijah's story is crazy. But here's Elijah, says his prayer, no rain for three years. But then he says a prayer again. And James wants to point this out to us. He says a prayer again. It says that he prayed for three years and six months, it would not rain. And then he prayed again that the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit. And we have to know that this is actually true. You can read about the story yourself in 1 Kings. The rain did actually come, but the reason why James is putting this in our text today is because when you read the story, you see that Elijah prayed one time, nothing happened. Elijah prayed a second time, nothing happened. Elijah prayed a third time, nothing happened, four times, five times, nothing happened, six times. Elijah prayed seven times, and on the seventh time, rain cloud. Hey, go to the king, the rain's coming, and make sure he goes before the rain comes, so he's not stuck on the rain. Seven times. Do you know when I would have given up if I was told to pray for the rain to come? Maybe once. Maybe. Elijah, he had a buddy. He sent him out. He said, Hey, is there rain? I'm praying. Is there rain? He comes back. Gets the word. No, it's not rain. I gotta go bug my guy again because God says it's gonna be rain. So go back and check again. Is there rain? He's not only praying, but he's even inconveniencing the people around him to participate in his prayer. You kidding me? You mean there's people that are willing to sit with you in your mess and respond and go and pray with you and on your behalf? What? Yes. I want you to hear James's tone here. He's saying that Elijah was a human being just as we are. Do you see that in your text? He says Elijah was a human being just as we are. And I wish I had a couple people in here who had some holy ambition like that. Because this part of the text should make you shout a little bit. Because he's saying Elijah was merely a human being. He's saying he's just like you. And yet, look what God did when he went to God in faith. As if to encourage not only his audience, but to encourage us in this room where we're hearing this thousands of years later to encourage you who read this, hey, that God is able to do this for Elijah. And guess what? He's also able to do something like this for you. And it may not be for you. I don't know if you're farmers, you need rain. Like maybe you call them a rain, and it may be the rain, I don't know. But there's so many things in your life that you think are desolate, that are dried up, that need rejuvenation, that needs a little bit of greenery, that needs a little bit of life. Things that you used to pray for with earnest that you've completely forgot about today. That you thought was gone and God forgot about. And yet God's like, hey, you can even pray for that thing right there. You can pray for it seven times. You can pray for it seven hundred times. You can seek God in prayer. And as you do, there's two things that are true that we need to know. God is powerful and mighty, and he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants. We have to know that. But this is also true. He often uses people and the prayers of people to bring about his activity in the world. And if that's true, that is your invitation to step into the privilege and the importance and the power of prayer. When we pray, God listens. And when God listens, he moves. And I wonder how God could move if you became a person of prayer today. It might take a lot of prayer. Thank God you're at Ambassador Church, where there's a lot of people who can pray with you. And listen, I'm far from a prosperity preacher, y'all. This ain't no name and claim it type stuff. I'm not a law of attraction kind of guy. Okay, but here's what I do believe in: I believe in the Bible. I believe in the word of God, which means I believe the words here in James 5, 13, 20, that they are clearly telling us that we should pray and God responds to our prayers. Amen. A little bit of text left in 19 through 20. James continues and ends here. My brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the air of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. Here's a wrong way to view these passages, and the right way to view these passages. The wrong way is we can read this to be like, man, if I pray for someone, if I offer prayer for them, then God looks favorably on me. That's not what's happening here. What's happening is that when you pray for other people around you, what's happening is that you invoke the power of God. That you invoke the authority of God in you as a person who believes in Jesus to speak to other people, and the authority and the power of God works in and through you to help bless others. This is what's true. And it helps underscore the entire point that I've been trying to make this morning to pop up here on the screen. Our key takeaway this morning is that God desires to hear and respond to the faithful prayers of faithful people. For application moment this morning, we're we're just gonna pray. I don't have three things for you today. I don't have four things for you today. We're just gonna pray. It would be irresponsible of us to spend so much time this morning talking about prayer and yet not pray. So, today, in just a moment, during worship, there will be a handful of our prayer team up here. And I want to invite you to come up and receive prayer. I don't know what's going on in your life. You know what's going on in your life, you know the things that you don't have control of. You can give over to God, and He can actually take care of those things for you. You're not in control, but you know who is, and He says, You have the privilege to come to Him and prayer. So, in closing, here's what's true Prayer is a privilege, prayer is important, and prayer is powerful, and God desires to hear and respond to faithful prayers of faithful people. Prayer team, you can make your way up to the front. Would you close with me in prayer? Father, we love you, and we're grateful for you, and we're thankful for the words of James as we come to the end of our series and as we think about this concept and idea of prayer. Oh, it's so far-fetched to me to think that you, God, the mighty creator over all things, who doesn't need to have anything to do with us, chooses to have something to do with us, to choose relationship and communication with us. You desire to be with us, you desire closeness and proximity. Y'all, and this should floor us. So, God, we come to you humbly, hands open, in a posture of submission, to say to you, God, you are sovereign. And you know all things, you can do anything. And instead of shirking back and thinking we can't approach you boldly in the throne, would we be people who come to you humbly saying, Father, you are almighty, you are all powerful, you are all knowing, you are all creating. There's nothing that is outside of you. And yet, here's my request, here is my ask, here is what I have for you. Will we be people like that? Will we be people like that? So with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I want you right there to think about a few things right there in your seat. Firstly, would you check your heart for known sin in your life? Or maybe a pain point in your life. Where have you been missing the mark? Where have you been feeling a sense of defeat? Where have you been feeling a sense of suffering, a feeling of heartache due to whether it's external or internal in your life? These circumstances alike can be sources of sin and pain. What is out of your control but has been a source of pain and confusion or discomfort in your life? Check your heart for those things. And secondly, secondly, confess that God alone can heal. Would you be willing to bring that to the light? Would you tell a faithful Christian today and release it to Jesus? And thirdly, prepare yourself to receive prayer. Would you open your hands and open your heart to receive what the Spirit of God wants to speak to you through someone else today?

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Thanks for listening to the Ambassador Church Podcast. To learn more, visit ambassadormke.org or follow us on Instagram at AmbassadorMKE. And if you're in the Milwaukee area, we'd love to see you this Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m. at 2308 East Bellevue Place. Grace and peace.