SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, worship team.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Nick, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You uh you got it going.
SPEAKER_00: You said good morning and actually responded.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to ask you to turn, if you would, please, to uh James chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: James 5.
SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to be looking at verses 13 through roughly 16.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of a passage that we will continue with next week, in which we'll be looking at roughly verse 16 to verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: And at this point, James is bringing to a conclusion what he has been saying to us, or better yet, what God has been saying to us in this incredible and powerful and painful at times for us, if we're serious about it.
SPEAKER_00: Word of God for the first century believers, word of God for us today.
SPEAKER_00: So we're coming down to the end.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you thought we would never get to the end of the book of James.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't quite, but Lord willing, Deo volente, if the creek don't rise, by next week, and then we'll have a special sharing service.
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, as I've mentioned, I plan on a series of messages, six messages of a topical nature, a little different from what we normally do, in which we'll be exploring what the scripture says about a topic that you ought to be intensely interested in.
SPEAKER_00: It's what really happens when you die?
SPEAKER_00: Because you all will.
SPEAKER_00: Death rate is 100%.
SPEAKER_00: So do we really know what the scriptures teach us about that?
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to take some time, five or six weeks, to talk about that, and then we'll open up the book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: So, just so you know what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: As we have seen many times, actually, in the course of this book, James is talking to a group of believers who were in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Troubles had come.
SPEAKER_00: They were believers of a Jewish background.
SPEAKER_00: They were Jewish background, believers in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They were Christians, fulfilled Christians, Messianic Christians, living in a society that was for them very difficult, experiencing great troubles.
SPEAKER_00: And he began the book talking about the troubles.
SPEAKER_00: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.
SPEAKER_00: When troubles come your way, count it all joy.
SPEAKER_00: And that kind of a way of thinking has permeated this book.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.
SPEAKER_00: Blessings in the midst of life's difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: That's this faith that works that James has been talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And he's been writing and saying so many different things.
SPEAKER_00: And he's been encouraging us and stimulating our faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Word of God does.
SPEAKER_00: It stimulates our faith, it causes our hearts to respond.
SPEAKER_00: If our hearts are at all responsive to God, then as we hear God's word and as we see who God is and as we begin to see among us and within us what God is doing, our faith is generated, it's stimulated, it's encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: And a faith that works works in times of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: When troubles come your way, God wants our faith to work.
SPEAKER_00: Now in this particular passage, when troubles of various kinds come our way, he says, pray.
SPEAKER_00: When troubles come your way, pray.
SPEAKER_00: He says it in a whole bunch of different ways.
SPEAKER_00: He gives some practical illustrations of that.
SPEAKER_00: He gives some practical applications of that.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, are you burdened and weary and heavy laden?
SPEAKER_00: Have you troubles everywhere, anywhere?
SPEAKER_00: Take it to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: When troubles come, the believer is encouraged and helped by the power of God, by the word of God, by the people of God to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's really all he says to us in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: Now he uses a bunch of words to make that point.
SPEAKER_00: But if we got that point, and if we got that point just by listening to James' words, then I could happily sit down.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's happily for you or not, I'm not going to.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to do is have us think about, okay, are you in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on in your life?
SPEAKER_00: And James is talking not about being stuck in traffic and frustrated because you're in a traffic jam.
SPEAKER_00: Now he does, that faith does apply there, and we talked about that several weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: But last week he was saying, we need resolute perseverance in times of extreme difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were here, you may remember that we we listened to the words of Winston Churchill in Britain's Darkest Hour, saying, never give up, never give up, never give up.
SPEAKER_00: And at a human level, that's a worthwhile thing to hear.
SPEAKER_00: But James takes it far much further and says, look at the example of those, look at the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And to talk about the prophets was to talk about people who were in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the will of God, they were in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: That's what was known about the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And James says, resolute perseverance in the midst of the troubles of your life.
SPEAKER_00: For these believers, it involved economic hardship, and I don't just mean that their 401k had plateaued and hadn't done anything in recent years, and their property values had gone down and they hadn't yet come up.
SPEAKER_00: Now those are problems, and I'm not belittling that at all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm right there with you.
SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about something.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about, and we touched on some of these last week.
SPEAKER_00: There's a hole in your heart because there used to be a beloved partner who is not there anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And the house used to be filled with joy and now it's filled with silence.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the dreaded doctor's report that will forever change whatever length of time you have left in your life.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about being in a situation where you're under attack.
SPEAKER_00: It may be spiritual attack, it may be there's somebody out to get you.
SPEAKER_00: And there are people in our midst where there's people that are out to get them.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about when troubles, real troubles, come into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, when troubles come, pray.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask the question what our first response is when life heads south?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the situation they were in.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to appreciate what James is saying to us, what God is saying to us.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't start thinking, what happens, what's my first response when I find myself in troubles?
SPEAKER_00: We all have kind of a default pattern of response.
SPEAKER_00: We all have different personalities.
SPEAKER_00: We all have different default patterns of inappropriate response to life.
SPEAKER_00: We're living in a broken world, we have broken lives, we have a heart that has been transformed and will be one day fully transformed, and we're not all that we would be or should be or will be, but we see it and we want it, and yet when life happens, we don't always respond in the way that we most deeply desire to, do we?
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first response for some people when they're in trouble is to worry.
SPEAKER_00: I totally get that.
SPEAKER_00: I I am not a man who is by nature, that's not my first response, but boy, there are times.
SPEAKER_00: There have been times this year, in the past, where I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'm just, I panicking might be too great, or maybe not.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's our first response.
SPEAKER_00: Some people, when they're in times of trouble, they they get angry.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably more natural for me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when people find themselves in incredibly difficult circumstances, uh they will turn to frenic activity.
SPEAKER_00: May not be alcoholics, or maybe, but they may be workaholics.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will turn to too much comfort food.
SPEAKER_00: Sure does taste good, gives a moment of relief.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will turn to and abuse drugs or alcohol or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: So what's our first response?
SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess what I want to suggest is God says to us, call upon me in the day of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
SPEAKER_00: First response ought to be for us to pray, to call upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We learned this at our mother's knee for some of you.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't learn it at my mother's knee.
SPEAKER_00: Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey, and a practical manifestation of faith is prayer.
SPEAKER_00: When trials come our way, pray.
SPEAKER_00: It should be the first resort, not the last resort.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed?
SPEAKER_00: Ever noticed times where you're in difficulty and you get all phrenic and activity and you come up with plans and everything, and then suddenly it's as though you've run out of all resources, you're not able to do anything, and so as a last resort, you turn to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a human, even among Christians, a very common, inappropriate, ineffective way.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we don't do things, but is our first response to trials and difficulty and life going south to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it our last resort?
SPEAKER_00: And James, God, the Holy Spirit, exhorts and pleads and commands to us when trials come, pray.
SPEAKER_00: John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, made an important statement at one point.
SPEAKER_00: You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: That's worth writing down and thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: You can do more than pray after you have prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes there's more than simply praying that we need to do.
SPEAKER_00: But you cannot do more than pray until after you have prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: Pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read this passage, and I want you to hear how many times, I'm just going to read 13 through 16 or 18 or whatever, and just listen, I'm going to emphasize the word prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Every single verse.
SPEAKER_00: If any one among you is suffering or in trouble, we'll come back to that.
SPEAKER_00: Let him pray.
SPEAKER_00: Is he cheerful?
SPEAKER_00: Is it well with his soul?
SPEAKER_00: Let him sing praises.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone among you sick?
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will raise him up.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray to one another that you may be healed.
SPEAKER_00: The prayer of a righteous person has great power in its working.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah was a man just like us, and he prayed fervently.
SPEAKER_00: And then he prayed again.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take a doctor's degree to get the picture that what James is saying to us is to take it to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to be our first response, not our last response.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just let's just walk our way through as much of the text as we can with the time that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone among you suffering?
SPEAKER_00: Let him pray.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone cheerful?
SPEAKER_00: Let him pray.
SPEAKER_00: Always keep on praying in all circumstances, bad or good.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is mentioned in every verse.
SPEAKER_00: We just saw that.
SPEAKER_00: It's mentioned and exhorted and encouraged for every one of us and in every circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: So we already saw in every verse.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, is anyone among you in difficulties?
SPEAKER_00: Let him pray.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone, every one of us, when we're in times of trouble, God says, pray.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on and he said, Let the elders pray over the sick.
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone, but there's a time where the elders are to be called to pray.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about the whole body praying.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.
SPEAKER_00: Every setting, every person, every group, every circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: When life goes south, pray, when it's times of great delight and joy, and you can say it is well with your soul, pray.
SPEAKER_00: Every one, every situation, every verse, pray.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing about this, and we don't know a lot about the Apostle James, leader of the church in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot that we don't know about him.
SPEAKER_00: The earliest records that tell us something about him are from, that we have, that are still in existence, come from Eusebius, an early church historian.
SPEAKER_00: And what he says is that James was not just a hearer of the word or a talker of the word, but a doer of the word.
SPEAKER_00: He walked his talk.
SPEAKER_00: And here is what is said about James by Eusebius.
SPEAKER_00: His knees, his knees grew hard like a camel's because of his constant worship of God, kneeling and asking forgiveness for the people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the posture of prayer, there's many different postures, but one posture is kneeling, and that was very, very common, less common in our day.
SPEAKER_00: So much on your knees that your knees are calloused, is what he says of James.
SPEAKER_00: One writer comments: just as a laborer's hand testify to his occupation, a runner's feet to his training, James' callous knees testify to a life of serious prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He walked his talk on his knees.
SPEAKER_00: How are your knees doing?
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, let me see your knees.
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, those shorts.
SPEAKER_00: I see some shorts there.
SPEAKER_00: How are your knees doing?
SPEAKER_00: Wants to cover them up, huh?
SPEAKER_00: How are your knees doing?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether Eusebius meant that literally or as a picture.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is when our knees are calloused through prayer, our hearts are usually soft towards God.
SPEAKER_00: And when our knees are soft and prayerless, our hearts are often callous towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Really ought to be the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: How's it going with your knees?
SPEAKER_00: James was a man who did what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Pray when we are in trouble, suffering misfortunes or afflicted.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 13, is anyone among you suffering?
SPEAKER_00: Is the way the ESV translates it.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV, in this case, a very good translation, says, are any of you in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: The old King James says, are any of you afflicted?
SPEAKER_00: Now, those are all good translations, but if we just hear our, if any of you are suffering, then we might think of it in a narrow sense.
SPEAKER_00: But what James is talking about here, and the words he uses in the text, are general terms that relate to misfortunes, troubles, and afflictions.
SPEAKER_00: And when we read this, we need to think of your troubles, my troubles, your afflictions, the difficulties that come to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And it may or may not be physical suffering, it may or may not be persecution, as in many cases it was in the early readers.
SPEAKER_00: It includes all of that, but it's really talking about troubles or misfortunes.
SPEAKER_00: And since I'm kind of an ordinary stubborn guy, I've simply scratched out the word suffering in the ESV and have written troubles.
SPEAKER_00: It's better for me than constantly arguing with their translation.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes I scratch out things in the NIV and I write in what the ESV has.
SPEAKER_00: The point being here, all I really want to say is it's a broad term, what is used here.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same term that was used in just a few verses earlier in verse 10 when it was talking about the prophets and their suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the prophets?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was sometimes physical, sometimes persecution, sometimes it was rejection, sometimes it was despair.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, prophets who at many points they were doing what God wanted them to do, and God wasn't doing what He thought they, what they thought He ought to do.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't getting a response.
SPEAKER_00: It's a broad term.
SPEAKER_00: And the prophets needed resilience, perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: Never give up, never give up, never give up.
SPEAKER_00: I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
SPEAKER_00: Resilient perseverance, steadfast resilience in times of troubles.
SPEAKER_00: That was last week's passage.
SPEAKER_00: This week's passage, the same idea, times of troubles, first response, prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that we find in 2 Timothy 2.9, where Paul is in prison and is chained.
SPEAKER_00: He's bound.
SPEAKER_00: He can't do what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word.
SPEAKER_00: Also translated there, suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And that is suffering, when you're stuck, when you're bound, when there's nothing you can do to change the circumstances you're in.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a broad term for that being in affliction, suffering misfortunes, when misfortunes come.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 16, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Silas in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Same word, when they were in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Same word is used.
SPEAKER_00: And what we find in Acts chapter 16, 25, is that Paul and Silas were in prison, and in the middle of the night they were praying and singing songs of praise.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the night, and it impacted the soldiers around them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the suffering that they were experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're chained, and we can be chained in a wide variety of ways, pray and praise, for God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: So, but this is talking about when we're in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Our response is to keep on, is to be, to keep on praying.
SPEAKER_00: When all is well, ditto.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Lememchos.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: The same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Pray.
SPEAKER_00: When all goes well, we are to pray.
SPEAKER_00: The early Christians, one writer made this statement, it just caught my imagination.
SPEAKER_00: The early Christians were always ready to burst out in song.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: The early Christians did not have it easy.
SPEAKER_00: We have it easy in comparison, although there's things in our life that are far from easy.
SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, the early Christians were characterized by bursting out in song.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the old 1950s musical where they're going along and everything's right, and all of a sudden, I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain.
SPEAKER_00: I've never done that before.
SPEAKER_00: For which you are profoundly happy.
SPEAKER_00: But is there something that was within us when things head south that causes us to burst out in song?
SPEAKER_00: Is there something within us when things go well that causes us to burst out in song and praise and thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_00: The uh sorry, I love the ESV.
SPEAKER_00: We have another problem with the translation here.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone cheerful?
SPEAKER_00: He should pray.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, my friends, that is an insipid translation.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's translated happy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a wrong translation.
SPEAKER_00: The word can mean that.
SPEAKER_00: But in this context, it doesn't just mean you've got a smile on your face.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just cheerful.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear the word cheerful, we think of happy circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we ought to be thankful and we ought to pray in happy circumstances, but that's not what this is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: This is talking about it being well with our souls, not just cheerful or happy, it being well with our soul despite the troubled circumstances we are in.
SPEAKER_00: One simple example of that is Acts chapter 27.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting story.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story of Paul on a ship being taken to prison and expecting death, and on that ship, at that time, a horrendous storm came.
SPEAKER_00: I've started reading about the uh the blizzards of uh 1997, uh the one that came in April.
SPEAKER_00: Horrible, horrible storm.
SPEAKER_00: I will never, after reading this book, never again say, gee, I haven't had a blizzard yet.
SPEAKER_00: Horrible, horrible storm.
SPEAKER_00: Professional sailors feared for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Luke was with, was with Paul at this point.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 20 of Acts chapter 27, it said, Luke says, all hope of our being saved was abandoned.
SPEAKER_00: They were in deep troubles.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul says in verse 22 and 25, he says, so take heart, men, be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same word that here we see translated as cheerful.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just being cheerful, it's being resolute.
SPEAKER_00: It's seeing things from God's perspective, and knowing that God is good and that he is with us and that he is good and does good.
SPEAKER_00: Good you are, and good you do, even when I don't feel it, even when those around me and something within my own heart abandons all hope as well.
SPEAKER_00: So take heart, for I have faith in God.
SPEAKER_00: All I want to say is don't get misled by the frothy happiness thought that that's when we are to pray.
SPEAKER_00: We should.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also talking about something far different.
SPEAKER_00: It's that it can truly be well with our souls when our lives are in utter pain and disaster.
SPEAKER_00: Pain, disaster, difficulties, trials, things that would lead us to despair are not in opposition to it being well with our souls.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be with the power of God, the reality of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the example of other people.
SPEAKER_00: In times of difficulties, it can be still well with us.
SPEAKER_00: And the basis for that is what I try to say once at least every week here.
SPEAKER_00: Today is Sunday, the 21st of July, and God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was last week, he is today, he will be in the week ahead.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that your life is going well.
SPEAKER_00: Circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you're not in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: It just means that in the midst of trouble, because we know and grow in our understanding of who God is, that we can say when all hell breaks loose, by your grace, by your sovereign goodness and grace, I take by faith that good you are and good you do, and I begin to experience, in addition to some of the anxiety and anger and frustration and despair, I begin to experience the reality of the goodness of God in the midst of my circumstances because He's here, He's involved, He cares, and even if I don't see it, I believe faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.
SPEAKER_00: We have faith when we don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm getting a little lathered up here.
SPEAKER_00: Up to a point, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's um what what we really find in verses uh 14 and 15 is a restoration of the weak and the weary.
SPEAKER_00: Um is anyone among you sick?
SPEAKER_00: Let him call the elders for the church, let him pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: This is the the verse in this passage that attracts so much of our curiosity.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: This is there some magical rite of anointing someone with oil, and that will, by golly, absolutely change things if you only have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's often the way it's understood.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I want to take a couple of minutes and help you understand how I'm understanding this passage because it fits into the whole context.
SPEAKER_00: James is giving an illustration and an application of one specific situation in which prayer is to be what we do.
SPEAKER_00: It's an application.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to get sidetracked by the application without understanding what the passage is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Observation, interpretation, then comes application.
SPEAKER_00: We don't rush to the Bible and ask ourselves, what does this mean to me?
SPEAKER_00: If we have no idea what it means.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't even know what's in the text.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why we we go through.
SPEAKER_00: This is an application.
SPEAKER_00: The people to whom he was writing understood this.
SPEAKER_00: It's a it did not raise questions in their minds.
SPEAKER_00: They understood what this was.
SPEAKER_00: It was a reference, just like you're supposed to be honest, don't fudge on your taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You would understand exactly what that means.
SPEAKER_00: In this context, are you in difficulty?
SPEAKER_00: Are you weak and weary and heavy laden?
SPEAKER_00: Is there trauma in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Then call the elders, and the fervent and effectual prayer of a righteous man accomplishes a great deal.
SPEAKER_00: But that is an application.
SPEAKER_00: Um let's try to understand it.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, we're talking about the the weak and the weary.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm using this term very intentionally.
SPEAKER_00: These in both verse 14 and 15, the word sick is used.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And that immediately makes us think of hospitals, IVs, and medical conditions.
SPEAKER_00: It may be that.
SPEAKER_00: It can include that, but I want you to understand that what he's talking about is a different kind of sickness.
SPEAKER_00: The bottom line, and I hope to be able to get there, is we are to pray to God to sovereignly and graciously restore to wellness believers who are weak and weary, believers who are weak and weary physically, believers who are weak and weary emotionally, believers who are weak and weary relationally, believers who are weak and weary spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just talking here about physical illness.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are Bible scholars, trusted Bible scholars, who say this doesn't refer to physical healing whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: I would beg to disagree.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's included in there.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, broaden your concept out of sick.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just look at this.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of sick is to be the one, there's two words that are used, two different words, verse 14 and verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: The word in verse 14 is to be weak and to be without strength.
SPEAKER_00: To be weak and to be without strength.
SPEAKER_00: It was used in Philippians uh to refer to Epaphroditus, who was weak and without strength physically.
SPEAKER_00: Apaphroditus was sick and was at the point of death, and this term uh was used.
SPEAKER_00: And rightly so.
SPEAKER_00: Eighteen times in the New Testament, this word for sick refers to physical illnesses.
SPEAKER_00: But sixteen other times, the other times this is used in the New Testament, refers to a weakened or debilitated emotional or mental spiritual condition.
SPEAKER_00: It can be weak faith, sick faith, only it's translated there, weak.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's it's it's sick in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's not all that it should be.
SPEAKER_00: It's not well.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not a physical problem.
SPEAKER_00: Weak faith, a weak conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, same expression is used that is used for here for sick.
SPEAKER_00: Just trying to get you to broaden your thinking out.
SPEAKER_00: It may not always specifically be a burst appendix.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um it was also used in uh 1 Corinthians passages.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just uh leave those there for you to look at, where Paul is talking about, and he he is just in those passages, he's talked about his trials and tribulations.
SPEAKER_00: He was uh he was scourged 39, 40 minus 1 times, just to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: He was abandoned, he was shipwrecked, he was left alone, he was without food, he didn't have uh food, he didn't have enough sleep.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes and he was desperately burdened by the trials and the burdens of the churches that he was serving.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He was weak and debilitated.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, When I am weak and debilitated, when I am weak, then the power of Christ, the strength of Christ, when I am weak, then he is strong.
SPEAKER_00: And he was content to be weak and debilitated, sick in this sense, because in that situation the power and the goodness of God shone forth.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 15, uh the word for sick can mean to be ill or to be weary, either one.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always translated sick.
SPEAKER_00: For example, in Hebrews 23, the writer of the Hebrews, uh, in fact, this word is only used twice in this passage and in the Hebrews 12 passage, says, consider Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, consider him so that you will not grow weary and lose heart, so that you will not be sick.
SPEAKER_00: Same word that is used here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So, enough of a Greek and grammar lesson at this point.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to say is it doesn't just mean uh when you are physically ill.
SPEAKER_00: But what he says, if any of you are weak and weary, weary rather, probably weary as well, um, 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.
SPEAKER_00: And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, is weak, is debilitated, and the Lord will raise him up.
SPEAKER_00: Um very, very briefly, let me say it's pretty clear there are situations in which believers should have the liberty to call the elders of the local church to pray with them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: How do you do it?
SPEAKER_00: How do we interpret this passage, real quick?
SPEAKER_00: Not that quick.
SPEAKER_00: This has been given many, many different interpretations, and there is a great deal of speculation.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only place in the Bible where it talks about anointing someone with oil that is sick.
SPEAKER_00: So, what in the world does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's led to the widest interpretations.
SPEAKER_00: In official uh Roman Catholic theology, this is the basis for extreme unction or the last rites.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is the biblical basis that they have for it.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the interpretations.
SPEAKER_00: The way it's applied, many of you know, in the case of Roman Catholicism, according to the official teaching, it's one of the seven sacraments.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't, in the Roman Catholic Church, refer to physical healing whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: What is understood by the last rites, it is given to someone, done with someone who is at the point of death, but the point is not to restore them to health.
SPEAKER_00: Quite the contrary, they're about to die.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of that, according to Roman Catholic teaching, is spiritual healing and forgiveness of sin as the priest performs the rite with someone who is on the verge of death.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose is to re to get rid of any remnant, any remains of sin, and to encourage and strengthen the dying person's soul.
SPEAKER_00: That's their interpretation of that.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I bring it up is it has nothing to do with a prayer for the healing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a priest may do that in a given case, but that's not what that sacrament is for.
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the varied interpretations.
SPEAKER_00: Another one would be it would be very similar to the Old Testament ceremony of anointing.
SPEAKER_00: And this says anointing with oil in this case, that the elders are to do that, but it's not the word that is normally used in reference to the Old Testament anointing of kings and prophets and setting people aside.
SPEAKER_00: But that's sometimes how this is understood.
SPEAKER_00: Our son, two weeks ago, was commissioned to spend as long as God would give them in Albania as a missionary, took his wife, took his kids.
SPEAKER_00: We had a commissioning service.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't anoint with oil, but in an Old Testament context, or some of the New Testament, that's what would be done.
SPEAKER_00: It would be setting him aside for a particular task or a mission.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the context of this passage whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: We also recognize that oil, typically olive oil, but other kinds of oil as well, were used for medicinal purposes.
SPEAKER_00: They were applied on the outside of the body.
SPEAKER_00: It was used internally for medicinal purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Everything from a toothache to paralysis.
SPEAKER_00: It's often understood that this is a reference to combining medicinal as well as spiritual needs or resources.
SPEAKER_00: For Orthodox Jews, in that day and in the intertestamental period, someone who was sick would go to the rabbi and would be prayed over by the rabbi, and there would be the use of oil.
SPEAKER_00: This was a very common practice.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is referring to something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's saying God and medicine are not automatically in opposition to each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's possible.
SPEAKER_00: What I would like to just suggest is how I understand this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody agrees with me.
SPEAKER_00: Really frustrating, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I personally see here a wonderful, vivid picture, a symbol, a rite, something that is done kind of reminds me of foot washing.
SPEAKER_00: It was a physical act that had a purpose, in that case to explain what servanthood is all about.
SPEAKER_00: But a wonderful, vivid picture of God's tender care, compassion, presence, and touch.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't have time to go into everything I would like to, so I won't.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say the way I have practiced this is when somebody is in desperate need, sometimes physical, sometimes emotional.
SPEAKER_00: Just normal people, just normal people, like the elders of your church, are called and gather around.
SPEAKER_00: And what I've done is just take a little bit of olive oil and just gently and soothingly touch the forehead of a person.
SPEAKER_00: There's something powerful about a touch.
SPEAKER_00: When I visit somebody in the hospital, I love to just hold their hand.
SPEAKER_00: There's just something so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my touch is not powerful, but as you soothingly rub in a balm of comfort and care, it's a picture that God is with you, God is compassionate, God is here, and we pray, oh Lord, you know what you are doing.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what you are doing.
SPEAKER_00: We do not demand that you heal Alice.
SPEAKER_00: We say, Lord, give Alice all she needs.
SPEAKER_00: May she have strength.
SPEAKER_00: Would you recover, would you bring her through this?
SPEAKER_00: We pray, but we don't demand.
SPEAKER_00: We submit to your good and gracious will, and we ask that you would strengthen Alice as well.
SPEAKER_00: And we are here, we're around her, we are touching her, you are here, you are with her, and you are touching her.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a powerful and beautiful picture of the presence and the compassion and the touch of God in our lives when we're in deep troubles.
SPEAKER_00: And it's something that believing churches are to be doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's nothing magical.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only place in the New Testament it's talked about.
SPEAKER_00: Many other people interpret it and practice it differently than I do.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want to suggest is it is the personal presence and compassion and the touch of God in our lives, physical or spiritual or emotional, that we need.
SPEAKER_00: God is with us.
SPEAKER_00: God is here, God is good, God can be trusted, He's with you, He loves you, He will strengthen you.
SPEAKER_00: You may or may not recover from this illness, but it can be well with your soul today and forever.
SPEAKER_00: When you're in trouble, pray.
SPEAKER_00: I think the point is pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: When you're in trouble, pray.
SPEAKER_00: What a friend we have in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Worship team, please come on up here.
SPEAKER_00: Or I guess it's actually Webb.
SPEAKER_00: What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful words.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words.
SPEAKER_00: Sing these words with heart and soul.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't have to be loud, just sing it from your soul.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege to carry everything to God in care in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: What peace we often forfeit, needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Webb, I'll get out of the way.