All right, good morning. Once again, church family, if
you would open your Bibles to the Book of James chapter 5.
This morning we're going to be in verses 16 to 18.
This will be our last passage in the book of James.
We've been going through it for several months, and next week, I
don't know, I I started creating a list of books in the Old
Testament. I usually switch between the Old
and New Testament. Next week will be somewhere in
the Old Testament, unless the Lord leads me to stay in the
New. And I started creating the list,
but I have not whittled it down yet as to which one I want to do
so, but I will let you know this week.
But we get to our last sermon in the book of James this morning,
James 516 to 18. So let's read the text.
I'll open this in a word of prayer, and then we'll jump into
the sermon this morning, James 5, beginning in verse 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.
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.
Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore
its fruit. You will pray with me, Father,
as we close out the book of James this morning, we are
thankful for the truths that you have taught us over the past
several months through this book.
Thank you, God, for refining our faith, sanctifying us through
these words. We pray that you would do the
same here this morning. Lord, as we continue to look at
the topic of prayer and sin and confession and sickness and all
these topics. Lord, would you refine us, God,
and sanctify us. Lord, we know that all of us who
who have a humble heart, would, would, would gladly confess that
our prayer life needs refining, needs sanctifying.
We pray, Lord, that you would please exposed to us the the
areas that maybe we're blind to or maybe that are rough around
the edges and that need the spirits smoothing out, that
needs refinement to look like Jesus.
And so, Lord, would you teach us this morning that about the the
power and the the effectiveness of prayer.
I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Sometimes my, my boys, my four
sons that are sitting up here on the front row, they will want to
ask me for something, whether it's to, to buy something or to
do something or to go somewhere, you know, or any number of
things. And they're not sure what my
response will be. So they try to guess among them
which of the four of them is more likely to get a positive
response from Dad. It varies from question to
question. You know, they're like you.
You, you go ask him. No, you, you got a better
chance. You go ask him.
He'll say yes to you. As much as I find this humorous,
I will tell them. Guys, it doesn't matter who
asked me. My willingness to say yes to a
request is always based on your last name, not your first name.
It is by virtue of you being a son, and the same is true for
you and me. What makes our prayers powerful
and effective is not our first name, but the name of His Son,
Jesus Christ. That's what the sermon is about
this morning. Powerful and effective prayers.
So let's start with exhibition of the text.
I'm going to give us the context if you weren't here last week,
they they kind of go together and then we'll pick up with
exposition and then I'll give you application.
So the context last week we saw that James had asked the church
3 questions and given them three responses.
Question one was is anyone suffering?
Response one, let him pray. Question 2, is anyone cheerful
response to let him sing praises.
And question 3 is, is anyone sick?
Response three, let the elders pray over him.
And then James gives 2 promises to these questions and
responses. Promise one, the prayer of faith
will heal the one who is sick. And the promise to if he has
committed any sins, he will be forgiven.
That's what we looked at last week.
And this morning James is going to continue with themes of
prayer and sin and healing. So let's start by looking at our
text, verse 16 A this first statement that James gives us.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another.
So James starts off our passage this morning with a command.
Confess your sins to one another.
Now I want to point out three aspects of this statement.
Number one, I want to draw your attention to this word.
Therefore, anytime you see the word, therefore, you should
figure out what is it connecting to.
Let's first discuss this word. Therefore, James had previously
written, if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another.
Did you catch that? What's the point that James is
making here? James is essentially saying,
listen, brothers and sisters, if God Forgives our sins, and he
does because he just said so, why would we ever be fearful or
hesitant to confess our sins to one another?
You see, we always confess sins as forgiven sinners.
That's the starting point. When I confess sins to you, When
you confess sins to me, if you are in Christ, you are
confessing those sins as a forgiven Sinner.
Second point I want to mention. Notice this phrase.
One another confess your sins to one another.
Notice James doesn't say confess your sins to God.
To be sure, we should do that, but that's not James's point
here. James says confess your sins to
one another. In addition to confessing sins
to God, we are actually told to confess our sins to one another
to fellow Christians. And then #3 I want to point out
is I want you to notice this is a command.
Now we can't see that in English, but in the Greek the
verb for confess is in the imperative mood, which means
it's a command, which means to not do this, to not confess our
sins to one another, is disobedience.
Look at verse 16. B.
Pray for one another. Confess your sins to one
another. Pray for another.
The second command that James gives is to pray for one
another. Let me point out two aspects of
this statement. Number one, this is given to the
church. This is given to the church.
Now we see different categories of prayer in this passage.
In verse 13 last week we saw that we are to pray for
ourselves. Is anyone among you suffering?
Let him pray for himself. In verse 14, we see prayers by
the leadership. Is anyone sick?
Let the elders pray over him. So we have prayers for yourself,
leadership praying over you. And now in verse 16, he says we
are to pray for the church by the church.
We are to all be praying for one another.
So number one, that's it's given to the church #2 this is also a
command. The Greek verb for pray is again
in the imperative mood, which means to not pray for one
another is disobedience. One of my favorite verses on
prayer is First Samuel 1223, where Samuel says, moreover, As
for me, far be it for me from me that I should sin against the
Lord by ceasing to pray for you. Look at verse 16 C that you may
be healed. Now I want to point out two
aspects of this statement. This number one, this word
healed That word healed there. It's it's a different verb than
he used in verse 15. Remember last, if you were here
last week in verse 15, James wrote and the prayer of faith
will what save the one who was sick, the sozo.
But that's not the verb that he uses here.
He uses the word yeomi, which that 25 of the 26 times it's
translated as heal. The other time, it's the other
one time it's translated as cure.
That reinforces the idea that I told you last week.
I don't think he's talking about salvation here when he uses that
verb. I think he's talking about
healing. I think it reinforces that idea
that he's talking about healing. And then #2 I want to point out
this word that don't miss that word that just as I said it,
when you see the word, therefore you should find out what is
connecting. When you see like so that or
that it's connecting something, that word that hopos, it's a
purpose or result clause. It tells us that this statement
is connected with what comes before it.
They're connected. Now, how are they connected?
James is saying that if we desire to be healed, we should
do two things. A.
We should confess our sins to one another.
B. We should pray for one another.
Now, let's be clear. Confession and prayer doesn't
guarantee healing, but it does position us for it.
It doesn't guarantee it, but it does position us for it.
I'll talk more about that in a minute.
Look at last 16 D The prayer of a righteous person has great
power as it is working. This last statement in verse 16,
it's actually translated several different ways.
ESV, translated as the prayer of a righteous person has great
power as it's working. The NASB says the effective
prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
NIV has the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and
effective. That Bible has the prayer of a
righteous person has great effectiveness.
CSB has the prayer of a righteous person is very
powerful and its effect. So I think any of those will
work. It's just a matter of I guess
maybe preference of of how you think the the Greek should be
translated. Three questions come to my mind
with this statement, though. Let's take them one at a time.
Number one, who is the righteous person?
He says the prayer of a righteous person who is a
righteous person. This is very important.
The Bible speaks of two categories of righteous A those
who are positionally righteous, positionally righteous.
This is refers to all those in Christ.
If you are in Christ, you are a righteous person.
If somebody were to, if I were to walk up to you and ask and
say are you a righteous person, what would you say?
Hopefully you would say in Christ I am.
If you're in Christ, you are righteous, you are positionally
righteous. You have been clothed with the
righteousness of Christ. That's AB those who are
practically righteous, those who are practically, this is those
who are referred to as walking in righteousness.
Now we all know that you can be in Christ but not really be
walking in righteousness, right? You can be walking in sin.
There are those who are practically righteous, they are
walking in righteousness. Now here's the question.
When James says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful,
effective, is he referring to a positionally righteous person or
a practically righteous person? Which of the two is he referring
to? Considering what he is about to
say in verse 17, I think he is referring to someone who is
positionally righteous. I don't think he was running to
somebody who was practically righteous, though that would be
true as well. If you're practically righteous,
you're both. But I think he's saying someone
who is positionally righteous. I don't think he's referring to
a special category of Christians, but to any
Christian, to anyone who was in Christ.
I'll come back to that idea #2 second question, how are we to
understand this power and effectiveness?
James is about to give an example of it with the prophet
Elijah and question three. Why is the prayer of a righteous
person powerful and effective? If we take it as positionally
righteous, that means that all in Christ, when they pray their
prayers are powerful and effective.
Why is that? What makes our prayers powerful
and effective? Let's be clear on this.
It's not because of the righteous person.
I'll talk more about this in the application looking for 17 A
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
James here introduces Elijah. Now earlier he did this with
Joe, right? He introduced Joe kind of like
this out of the blue and now he introduces another man from the
Old Testament, Elijah. Why does he start talking about
Elijah? This out of nowhere talking
about Elijah. The 2 greatest figures in the
Israelites eyes were Moses and Elijah.
The Israelites all esteem these two men, Moses and Elijah.
Elijah was seen as one of the greatest prophets in Israel's
history. John the Baptist was called the
Elijah who was to come the crowds.
They even thought that Jesus was Elijah risen from the dead.
When he said, who do some people say that I am?
Some thought he was Elijah because I mean, if you're Elijah
man, Jesus got mistaken for me. Elijah is one of the two
prophets who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Moses and Elijah appear on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Jesus references Elijah and his teachings.
The bystanders thought that Jesus was calling out for Elijah
when he was on the cross. Other than Jesus, you would be
hard pressed to find a more significant character in the
Bible than Elijah. And yet look at what James says.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
What does that mean? That word for nature is this the
all? It's only used one other time in
the New Testament when Paul and Barnabas went to Lystra.
If you remember in Acts, they went to Lystra and Paul had
healed a man who was crippled and and and never walked a day
in his life. And after they healed this man,
the crowd shouted out, the gods have come down to us in the
likeness of men. They thought Paul and Barnabas
were gods and Paul said to them, men, why are you doing these
things? We also are men here.
It is of like nature as you. Same word.
I think James is trying to stress to the church that there
was nothing supernatural about Elijah.
He simply served as supernatural God.
He was a human being just like you and me, looking for 17 B to
18. And he prayed fervently that it
might not rain. And for three years and six
months it did not rain on the earth.
Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore
its fruit. James here references First
Kings 17 One, if you remember the story in First Kings, Elijah
the Tisch Spite said to Ahab, who's the king at the time.
As the Lord the God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there
shall be neither do nor reign these years except by my word.
Now the author Kings doesn't mention this, but James writes
that this came about because of Elijah's prayer, his fervent
prayer. Not just prayer, but he says
fervent prayer. He prayed and for three years
and six months there was no rain in the land of Israel.
Wish Elijah would come to Seattle.
That is a very long and significant miracle.
Think about that, to pray and it not rain for 3 1/2 years.
Now that wasn't a blessing, that was a drought.
Elijah prayed again and God sent rain.
I want you to imagine. Imagine one man's prayer causing
a three-year drought and one man's prayer ending a three-year
drought. That is the power of prayer.
Let's stop there. With that exposition application
of the text, I have 7 truths for US7 truths #1 If God Forgives
our sins. Why would we ever be fearful or
hesitant to confess our sins to one another if God Forgives our
sins? Why would we ever be fearful or
hesitant to confess our sins to one another?
Do you remember how when we were children, maybe some of you,
this was this is not true of you, this was true of me.
Maybe it's true of some of you. I don't know.
But do you remember how maybe when we were children, if you
ever broke something in the house or you did something that
you weren't supposed to do, we would try to hide it from our
parents? I can remember breaking certain
things in my house and I would quickly try to clean it up,
throw away any evidence. Later on my parents would ask,
does anybody know where the vase is that used to be on this
table? This also applies to things
we're ashamed of, doesn't it? I think I've told the story
before, but I can remember wetting the bed as as as old as
like 3rd or 4th grade. I did not want my parents to
know. I certainly did want my older
brother to know. I did not want him to hide that.
So what did I do? I just turned the mattress over.
We grow up learning to hide our sin.
We grow up learning to hide our mistakes.
It goes all the way back to the garden, where Adam and Eve are
naked, hiding in the bushes. We're so terrified for people to
find out who is the real me. And so when we come to a passage
that commands us to confess our sins to one another, it can be
quite unsettling, isn't it? Now, of course, there are
culturally acceptable sins. You know, some sins that we have
no problem confessing to one another because they're
culturally acceptable. It's like what?
We all struggle with that. But then there are those sins
that we're really ashamed of. We don't want anybody to know
about. How do we get past this wall of
fear? How do we get past this wall of
fear? Fear of being exposed?
Fear of being known? The answer lies in this word.
Therefore the answer lies in that word.
Therefore, James writes, Therefore confess your sins to
one another. Now why does it lie in the Word?
Therefore, because James had just written, if he has
committed sins, he will be forgiven by the Lord.
What this tells us is that if God Forgives us of our sins, why
would we ever be fearful or hesitant to confess to one
another? You see, it doesn't ultimately
matter what anybody else thinks of us.
Ultimately, it only ultimately matters what God thinks of us.
And he says he forgives us. Brothers, sisters, let that
forgiveness give you freedom to freely confess your sins to one
another #2 If we confess our sins to God, why do we also need
to confess our sins to one another?
You ever wonder that if if we can confess our sins to God, why
do we also need to confess our sins to one another?
One of the doctrines that I am so grateful for, especially with
the Protestant Reformation, is the priesthood of the believer.
This doctrine teaches us that we have direct access to God
without the need for a priest, right?
Like you don't need, I'm not a priest, but like, you don't need
me to access God. You don't need a priest to
access God. This is true for worship, it's
true for prayer, it's true for confession of sin.
Now in the Catholic Church, if you want to confess your sins,
you have to go to a local priest and sit in the confessional
booth and confess your sins to him.
We don't need to do that. Why?
Because Jesus Christ has given us direct access to God.
All of us have direct access to God Almighty.
So anytime that we sin, we can right then and right there
confess our sins to God. He will forgive us if we are
truly repentant and, and it's done.
Now, as glorious as that doctrine is, there are some
potential temptations that come with it.
One of those temptations is to think that the church is not
necessary, right? In other words, the, the, the
thinking is, is if I have direct access to God, if you're telling
me that I don't, I don't need to go to the temple anymore.
I don't need a priest anymore. If I can just go directly to God
through His Word, through prayer, through confession, then
I don't need the church. That's not true.
Here's another temptation even
for Christians who faithfully attend church.
Here's a temptation is to think, if I can confess my sins
directly to God and receive His forgiveness directly from Him,
then why do I need to confess my sins to one another?
Why do I need to air my dirty laundry to one another?
Let me give you 6 quick reasons, very brief 6 quick reasons that
we should confess our sins to one another and not just to God.
A Confessing to one another produces a unique humility in
our life. It's humbling to confess your
sin to one another, isn't it? Sometimes it's humiliating, but
God uses that moment to graft in us a unique humility.
B Confessing to one another provides tangible
accountability. Tangible accountability?
You see, we can become good at tuning out the Holy Spirit.
We can become very good at tuning out the Holy Spirit.
It becomes a little more difficult to tune out tangible,
audible humans. See, confessing to one another
gives the church body the opportunity to show grace.
One of the most beautiful pictures of the gospel is when a
brother or sister confesses sin to us and we are given the
opportunity to show them the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
D Confessing to one another brings sin into the light
because we know that God sees everything.
You know what? The day.
That's a wonderful doctrine. But you know what the danger of
that is? We could think, well, God sees
everything, so I'm never in darkness because God sees
everything. That's not true.
We can deceive ourselves in thinking that we're in the light
when we're actually in the darkness.
Confessing to one another exposes the darkness, and it
brings the sin into the light. E Confessing to one another is
contagious. It's contagious.
We learn how to confess sin to one another by others confessing
sin to us, and vice versa. If nobody is doing this, nobody
ever knows how to do it. F last one confessing to one
another guards against hypocrisy.
There are no hypocrites with God.
No one can be a hypocrite to God because he sees all things.
He knows all things, but not so with the church.
You can be a hypocrite in the church.
I don't know. I don't know what you do on your
own time. You don't know what I do on my
own time. It's all too easy to slowly
become a hypocrite in the church.
Confession guards against this. Brothers, sisters, it is not
enough to simply confess your sins to God.
We also need to confess to one another #3 prayer is one of the
few gifts that we all get to give.
Prayer is one of the few gifts that we all get to give in the
game of basketball, One of the lessons that's so important for
a team to realize. This is probably true in all
sports, but I'll just use basketball since that's what I'm
most familiar with. In the game of basketball, one
of the lessons that's so important for a team to realize
is this. Not everybody can be a scorer.
Not everybody can be a point guard, right?
My coach used to tell me, like, you're a big, you're not a point
guard. Don't bring the ball down the
court. Not everybody can be a point
guard. Not everybody can make
spectacular passes. Just because your teammate can
make a spectacular pass doesn't mean you can.
Not everybody can be a leader. Not everybody can be a hero and
take the last shot. The team can only function
properly if they all know that they have different giftings,
capacities and roles. Same is true in the church.
This is why Paul talks about gifts in the church, right?
Not everybody can be a teacher. Not everybody can be a leader.
Not everybody will have the gift of wisdom or knowledge or
prophecy or faith or mercy, right?
That that's how it works. But there there is one gift that
we all get to give and that is prayer.
You all get to exercise this gift of grace to pray for one
another. Earlier he had said that the
sick person should call on the elders of the church, the elders
to come and pray over him. But now he exhorts the church,
he says, all of you be praying for one another.
Prayer is such a wonderful gift because you don't have to be a
leader to do it. You don't have to be a teacher
to do it. You don't need to be an elder or
a Deacon. You don't need to go to seminary
for it. You don't need to be a Christian
for 10 years. You don't need to get
specialized training. You know, I was thinking about
this, like, how many professions do you have to get hundreds, if
not thousands of hours before they will let you practice it,
right? Like doctors, right.
Which I'm thankful for. I don't want to.
You have to go to a doctor. And it's like, like, how long,
How many hours have you been doing this?
This is my first operation. Doctors have hours.
Psychologists, physical therapists, electricians,
plumbers, cosmetologists, airline pilots, they all have to
record hundreds or thousands of hours before they can practice
this. But we don't need a prayer
certificate. We don't need to take a course
in prayer. We don't need to have 1000
supervised hours. If you are in Christ, you are
competent and qualified to pray for one another.
God has given you permission and access to his throne of grace to
intercede for your brothers and sisters, all of you.
It's one of the few gifts that we all get to give.
So let's give it. Let's regularly give it for
physical and spiritual healing are better positioned with
confession and prayer. Physical and spiritual healing
are better positioned with confession and prayer.
Over the years when I have talked to young men who are
interested and potentially asking a girl out, I will tell
them you need to take some steps to better position yourself of
her chances of saying yes. If you show up in sweatpants and
AT shirt that hasn't been washed in a week, maybe she'll go for
that. Maybe she likes that, you know,
casual, laid back kind of smelly person.
But there are better ways to position yourself.
Take a shower, shave, get a haircut, comb your hair, put on
some nice clothes, brush your teeth, maybe a little bit of
Cologne, not too much. Don't overdo it.
Now all of this is no guarantee that she will say yes.
You may do all the right things and she still said no, but it
does better position you to receive a yes.
So what about with the Lord? Are we able to better position
ourselves with the Lord? James writes.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one
other. And here it is that that you may
be healed. Now James is not saying you will
be healed, he's saying that you may.
In other words, confession and prayer better position ourselves
to move the heart of God. Let me give you a few examples
from Scripture. Remember Hezekiah?
He grew sick and was to the point of death.
Isaiah told him. Thus says the Lord, set your
house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.
Now this is a prophet of God. This is Isaiah telling him,
Isaiah said, Hezekiah, you're going to die, you're not going
to recover. Now I don't know about you, but
that sounds pretty final. I think if Isaiah had told me
that I've been like, all right, I guess I'm fine, but not to
Hezekiah. What did he do?
He turned and he prayed to the Lord.
And what did the Lord say? I have heard your prayer.
I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you.
He gives him 15 more years. Imagine if he hadn't prayed.
He would have died. He would have died.
Remember Miriam, she and Aaron opposed Moses, challenging his
authority. So the Lord disciplines her with
leprosy. We're giving every indication
that this discipline of the Lord was permanent leprosy.
I don't think it's just like temporary leprosy.
I think the Lord was going to, she was going to have leprosy
the rest of her life. But what did Moses do?
Moses cried to the Lord. Oh God, please heal her.
Please. And what did the Lord do?
He healed. Brothers and sisters, do you
want motivation to confess your sins to one another?
Do you want motivation to pray for one other?
Here it is. It better positions us to be
physically and spiritually healed #5 you don't have to be a
pastor or a priest or a prophet or a missionary or an elder or a
Deacon or a leader or a teacher or an apostle or even a mature
Christian for your prayers to be powerful and effective.
You don't have to be any of that.
I will often joke with my wife that I think the Lord likes her
more than me. I think He does.
There have been so many times where I've been working on a
project and I'm stuck. I can't figure out how to fix
something. I can't move forward with this.
And I have prayed. I mean, I have prayed.
I have prayed, I have prayed. Still no progress.
And then Lauren will, I'll get her involved, she'll pray and
it's solved. And I jumped with her.
I, the Lord, must like you more than me.
She doesn't like it when I say that.
The reality is, is that we might subconsciously or even
consciously think that our prayers don't accomplish that
much. You ever felt the way like you
ever felt like I don't really feel like my prayers do that
much. And this is where James wants to
correct our thinking. Our prayers are powerful and
effective. James references Elijah, who had
performed miracles unsurpassed by anybody in the Old Testament.
The man had told a widow that our flour and oil would not run
out, and it didn't run out. He raised a widow's dead son
from the dead. He called down fire from heaven.
He parted the Jordan River. He was taken to heaven without
dying. And in this example here he
prayed that a drought would happen for 3 1/2 years and it
did. And then he prayed again and it
started to rain. The brother can pray and fire
will fall from heaven and he can also pray and rain, not fall
from heaven. Now we might think, man, he's in
a super spiritual category. It's a category I could never
attain to. There were times I've wanted to
go golfing and I prayed it didn't rain and it rains every
time. I know Elijah, but look at what
James says. Elijah was a man with a nature
like ours. He was a human just like you and
me. Now we might think, yeah, OK,
but he was a righteous human. Which leaves the number six.
Number six, What makes prayer powerful and effective is not
the righteous person, but the righteous. 1 What makes prayer
powerful and effective is not the righteous person, but the
righteous 1 One of my favorite quotes is by a preacher named
Paul Washer. I don't think he coined it, but
Washer frequently states it like this.
There are no great men of God. There are only small, weak,
faithless men of a great and merciful God.
Prayer is powerful and effective, but what makes it
powerful and effective is not the righteous person, but the
righteous. 1 Remember when Joseph was able to interpret
Pharaoh's dreams when nobody else in Egypt could?
What did Joseph say? It is not in me.
Oh Pharaoh. God will give Pharaoh A
favorable answer. Remember when David came out to
fight Goliath? What did he say?
The battle will be one that all the earth may know that there is
a God in Israel. Remember what Daniel was called
in to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dreams when none of his wise men
could? What did he say?
Oh, king, no wise men or enchanters or magicians or
astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has
asked. But there is a God in heaven who
reveals mysteries. Remember when Peter healed the
lame man? What did he say?
Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this?
Why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we
made Him walk? We must be so careful not to
think that the power and efficacy of our prayers is
directly correlated to our righteousness.
Our righteousness does not empower our prayers.
Christ's righteousness empowers our prayers.
Brothers and sisters, don't ever forget 2 truths about prayer.
They are powerful and effective, and what makes them powerful and
effective is not the righteous person, but the righteous 1.
Be careful in thinking that like, oh, I haven't lived very
well this life. This week I've been in sin.
It's not going to matter if I pray because God wouldn't listen
anyway. If that's your thinking, let me
clue you in. Under that premise, He should
never listen to you because in and of yourself you are always
wicked in His eyes. Just because you read your Bible
this week and prayed and served in church doesn't mean like, oh,
I'm on God's good side now He'll listen to me.
That's not how it works. And yes, if you want to hear the
other side of the coin, can our sin hinder our prayers?
Yes, it can. Peter says this in first.
Peter #7 last point, Sometimes you have to pray 7 times before
you see a little cloud. Sometimes you have to pray 7
times before you see a little cloud.
One of the questions I have been asked about prayer many times
through the years is this. How long should I keep praying?
Like, how do I know when to stop?
You're praying for something. You're waiting for God to
answer. No answer.
You pray No answer. Pray no answer.
How long should I keep praying? How long should I do this?
When should I stop? Should I stop?
Here's the challenge. There are examples in Scripture
where despite asking for something multiple times, God's
answer was no. Moses asked to go to the
promised land multiple times. God said no.
Paul asked for the thorn to be removed three times.
All three times God's answer was no.
Even Jesus asked the Father three times if it was possible
for the cup to pass. God's answer was no.
But there are many more examples where the Lord answered only
after persistent prayer. Jesus healed the Canaanite
woman's daughter only after she persisted in asking Him.
Hannah prayed for years for a child and was finally given one.
The church prayed earnestly for Peter's release from jail, and
he was released. In the parable, the persistent
widow Jesus said that she asked the judge continually for
justice, and he finally gives it to her.
And even Elijah James says then he prayed again and it rained.
But if you go back and read the story, here's what actually
happened. Elijah went up on top of Mount
Carmel. He bowed down to the earth.
He put his face between his knees.
He told his servant, go up now and look to the sea.
So a servant does. He looks out, He says there's
nothing. There is nothing.
How many times have we prayed and said the same thing?
There is nothing. But what did Elijah tell him to
do? Go again?
Seven times, and the seventh
time he said, behold, I see a little cloud, like a man's hand
rising from the sea, church bodies.
Sometimes you have to pray 7 times or 97 times before you see
a little cloud. Let's pray.