Good morning to you again. I hope you guys had a good
Thanksgiving. Did everybody?
Get lots of food and eat all the things?
Yeah, I know, I did. It was good, it's good.
Why do I hope you had a good Thanksgiving?
Just a little something as everybody's getting seated.
Get you laughing this morning. I realized, just a second ago,
standing beside Sherry or singing.
And I look down and realize that my jacket is made out of an old
chair. Apparently, it's made of told
Sherry. If I sit down, they will Even
see me we're in camo this morning.
It's perfect. So anyway, well, good morning,
it's good to see everybody. I know, Thanksgiving is over and
it's officially Christmas. Now as you can see from the, the
decorations that looks beautiful in here.
Thank you to everybody that did that we're eager to celebrate
the month of December and celebrate Christmas with
everybody. I know there's been a lot of
sickness going around too. So thank you all for being here
and And braving the bad weather and everything else to be here.
Thank you for your commitment and your faithfulness.
I guess I should have announced before we shook hands to maybe
be careful with that but that's okay.
We're good now. So we have been going through
the Book of James and we are going to finish it up today.
So we are going to finish the Book of James finally and it has
been a great walkthrough of a very good book.
That is just good practice. Uncle every day Christian
teaching this book has been full of things that we can take and
apply and do it's not just thoughts on Christianity, it's
not just the ology, it's not a, just a history of lesson of some
things that were happening. It is a letter of instruction on
how to go and do these things, how to apply these things to
your life. And so it's been very, very
good. I love the Book of James and I'm
glad that we've been able to go through it.
So, if you have your Bibles turn to James chapter 5, that's where
Going to be today, finishing it out.
We're going to be starting around verse 13 before we do.
I just want to point out that this book The main theme in the
main point of this book, it's been a couple of things.
An amazing thing about it is that it, it challenges us to
take our faith. And what we say that we believe.
And put it into action. So this book is a punch right in
the nose saying that if you say you believe in Jesus and you
call yourself a Christian, then act like it and go and live your
life in these ways and do these things.
Don't just say you believe do it.
And so the major theme of the book of James is that faith
without works is dead. You say you have faith but prove
it, by the way, you live your life.
Go and act on that Faith. Now, don't just think it.
Don't just say it. Go live it.
And so everything. We've looked at through this
book has fallen in line with that.
It's been practical advice on how to live.
So before we jump into this text, let's pray, really quick.
And then we'll take a look at what the ending of the book has
to say. Okay, let's pray.
Father. Again we thank you for the
opportunity to be here in the opener word, to study it and to
read from it. God, we are grateful for this
great privilege and this freedom, I pray now, Lord, that
you open it up that you open our eyes, and our ears, and our
minds and our hearts to receive it.
And to hear it, I pray that you speak through me.
So rightly understand this text so that we can take it and apply
it to our lives so that we could walk out of this place and the
full Council of your word, loving it.
So God, we praise you today, we do this.
All for your honor and your glory, may your name.
Be made famous. Please speak to us.
Now through your word in Jesus name, amen.
Last week, Kyle did a superb job of walking us through verses 7
through 12. In chapter 5, it was on
suffering with immovable patients.
He did a fantastic job. I know I was glad to hear him
preaching. Again, I heard a lot of feedback
from you guys. You were glad that he was back
in the Pulpit. It was wonderful to hear from
him. They've got a sick kid.
Oh, that's why they're not here today.
So y'all be praying for them. I know having him back, did us
all good, and I know that getting to hear from him again.
Has just confirmed that you guys are ready for him to be back in
the pulpit and quit hearing from us.
So we're ready for that. Very good to hear from Kyle.
But he did a great job of walking us through Suffering
suffering with patience and that is going to transition perfectly
into today's text starting at verse 13.
So if you are able, please stand with me, for the reading of
God's word, I'm going to read our text.
And as we have done in the past, when Kyle preaches, I'm going to
read it. And I will tell you, I will say
this is the word of the Lord, and you will respond.
Thanks, be to God. Okay, so let's read it.
James chapter 5, starting at verse 13.
Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray, is anyone
cheerful? He is to sing praises.
Is anyone among you sick, then? He must call for the Elders of
the church, and they are to pray over him.
Anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord, and the prayer
offered in faith will restore. The one who is sick?
And the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins,
they will be forgiven him. Therefore confess your sins to
one another and pray for one another.
So so that you may be healed the effective prayer of a righteous
man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature
like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain
and it did not rain on the earth.
For three months, three years and six months, then he prayed
again and the sky poured rain and the Earth produced its
fruit. My brethren if any among you
Strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know
that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way, will save
his soul. From death and will cover a
multitude of sins. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, you may be seated.
This text, these particular verses as we saw in homegroups
week or so ago when we covered this has been the subject of
some debate throughout church history.
We've looked at in these verses we just read about things like
applying oil, anointing with oil and the significance of that,
we've looked at praying in faith for healing and how that works.
So it can be really easy when you start start to study this
text and you start to talk about it to get bogged down in the
weeds and miss the overall point of this text, it can be really
easy to miss the big picture to miss the forest for the trees.
What have you? So the main idea the main theme
of these verses is prayer. It's all about prayer.
Prayer is mentioned in every single verse of this text.
Every verse mentions prayer. That's what we're talking about
here. Okay.
That is going to be today's Focus.
That is what I'm going to talk to you about.
I do not have the time and I don't think you would want me to
try to give you a full theological treatment on
anointing with oil and healing and all of those things as God's
word teaches it and its entirety their entire books written on
these things. And I encourage you to go and
read more about that. But I'm not going to waste too
much time. Focusing on the sub points here,
I want us to see the overall picture.
Okay. And I believe that is this This
is my main point for you today. My big idea if you're taking
notes you can write this down The discipline of prayer is one
of the most valuable Assets in the life of a Christian.
Okay, the discipline. Don't miss that.
The discipline of prayer is one of the most valuable Assets in
the life of a Christian. I know I've over overly
simplified it, but I'm going to explain a bit as we move
forward. So again last week, Kyle talked
about suffering and how weird to have immovable patients in the
face of suffering. These verses pick up right,
where he left off because it opens up with verse 13.
Is anyone suffering? And he should pray.
Is anyone cheerful or happy among you?
He is too. Sing praises, when we think
about singing praises, what we're doing is we're praising.
God, we're singing of his goodness and his excellency's in
his mercy, and we're singing out to him, that, that song.
Our voices are directed to him as we do that.
So, in a way, it's another form of kind of prayer.
It's not quite the same, but we are still talking to God by
praising him through song. And through our, through our
words. So either way, we're to pray
were to praise and then we Get to our text today.
On sickness is anyone among you sick?
He should call the Elders and have them pray and anoint them
with oil as we see in verse 14. So, let's unpack this just a
little bit. Okay?
What is James talking about when he says, is anyone among you
sick? We just got done coming out of a
passage about suffering and about enduring that.
Well, and so some want to take this passage and say, well, he's
just talking about spiritual sickness here, not physical,
it's all spiritual, but that is not what the context of this
passage tells us. The context is primarily
physical sickness as you see words and phrases, like, pray
over him, that he may be restored and raised up, and
we're going to touch on that here in a minute.
But there is a spiritual aspect to this.
Because we also see that in doing so he can confess sins and
he may be forgiven. So this is, there is a spiritual
undertone to this. It's a little bit of both its
physical sickness, but there's something spiritual at play too,
but it's not just strictly Spiritual either way.
This person is the call for the elders to come and pray for him
and anoint with oil. Now why why I call the Elders to
come and pray and anoint with oil, we know that the Elders of
the church do not have some sort of superpower, right?
When you get when you get placed as an elder, you don't get us a
magic ring that lets you go around just bopping people in
their healed of anything that they might be sick with.
That's not how this works. But we do see in the New
Testament that guys like Paul and Peter were given amazing
abilities to heal that that was even with them.
Never just a twill they couldn't just walk around zapping people
that was always a holy spirit moving thing.
So why call the Elders? It's because prayer was the
primary focus here, not the healing.
Prayer was the primary focus and prayer is something that the
Elders of the church should be very good at.
We know in Acts chapter 6, when the 12 apostles decided to
appoint seven to take care of the distribution for the
Hellenistic widows. They were being neglected.
The reason was because they said it is not good for us to neglect
the preaching and teaching of the word and prayer.
Those two things are to be the elders, primary, focus prayer,
and the History of the word that is what a prayer.
An elder is to devote himself to prayer and the word teaching and
preaching it. So Elders would have been men of
prayer. They would have been men that
love to pray and of course, they're the, the shepherd's
there, the overseers of the flock.
And so it makes sense that they would want to go to them when
they're sick, and they would want to pray for them and pray
over them. Now, when you see this, this
language of praying over someone the context there.
If you start to read the original languages shows that
it's very much a standing over someone.
So it's implying that this person might have been on their
deathbed, they would have been bedridden and sick and so the
elders come and gather around and pray over that person so
that he might be raised up much like in the resurrection, be
healed and be able to get up out of that bed, at some point.
So again, we see physical sickness, we see these Others
coming to pray because they would have been men of prayer.
We see in verse 16 here in a moment that the prayers of a
righteous person can accomplish much.
So these were righteous men. The elders would be men of of
the word and Men of prayer to go and pray over these people.
They were also to anoint with oil.
So what does that mean? What does it mean to anoint with
oil and depending on your background and what church you
grew up in this might have been common practice for you or it
might have been it might be very, very foreign to I know it
was to me when I first started to learn about this practice.
So what does it mean to anoint with oil?
What's the what's going on here? What's the significance again?
There's lots and lots of debate about this but we know that the
oil is not, this is not a primarily medicinal thing, okay?
If it was just about the oil had medicinal properties and all of
that, they would have tried that long before calling the elders
to come to visit with them. They would have just kept a jar
of whatever, and they would have done that.
So, this is not a case for essential oils, ladies.
Just throwing that out there. And also we know that this oil
wasn't magic, right? It's not that.
There's something that's not a magic potion that if you rub it
on somebody they're healed instantly we know that's not the
case. If that were the case, I'd be
walking around just sprinkling it on everybody.
So what was the point? What was the point of anointing
with oil? We see this in scripture,
especially in the Old Testament. You see Aaron being anointed as
the high priest. This is a consecrating a person
to the Lord, it is. Is a setting aside, a person to
the Lord's care to his provision and saying we are dedicating
that person to God. And that's exactly what you see.
When you see people being Anointed with oil, That's you
see the, the example of the lady come in and break in the perfume
and putting it on Jesus feet. This is this is what's happening
in that moment that person is being given over to God for his
care. So we see a sick person
desperate, and helpless calling the elders to come and pray over
them, commit them to the Lord, anoint them with oil and entrust
that person to the care of. God, that is what's taking place
in these verses. Now, look at verse 15 with The
prayer offered in faith will restore.
The one who is sick? And the Lord will raise him up
and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
So, what does the prayer of faith or the prayer offered in
faith? What does that mean?
What does it mean to pray in faith?
So again, this has been debated a lot.
There's a lot of controversy around praying in faith or a
prayer of faith. This is not an example of
believe it and receive it. This is also not an example of
just name it and claim it make it yours.
This is not flinging Jesus's name around like a lightsaber to
get whatever you want. That's not what's Happening
Here, unfortunately, that does happen a lot, but that's not
what the Bible is, commanding here.
Praying in faith is praying in a way that shows we are trusting
into things, okay? If you want to write this down,
feel free praying in faith, shows were trusting into things,
God's Ants. In other words, his power and
his ability to heal and shows, we are also trusting in God's
sovereignty. In other words, we're trusting,
his will not wheel. His will his timing and his way,
not our own. Don't miss that.
We're trusting in. Not only God's ability were
saying, I know you can. I know you have the power to do
this, and I trust that, but I'm also trusting your way, and your
timing not my own That's what's happening when we pray in faith.
We have to understand that we're not praying to coerce God, or
try to change his mind or bend. His will to us, I talked to Kyle
about this this week, and he worded it very well that when we
pray, we are bending ourselves to God's will not him to our
will. Prayer is meant to change us,
not God. That's what's happening when we
pray in faith. We are trusting in the Lord and
we see that this kind of prayer, this praying in faith will
restore. The one who is sick?
Now, let's talk about that for a moment will restore when I read
these verses that sounds upon initial read like a guarantee
that if you do this you call the Elders.
They come pray, they come in or low, you'll be healed, hundred
percent guaranteed. But we know that's not the case.
We don't see that throughout scripture.
Do we have to take all of God's word into consideration?
The whole context of God's word, we don't want to isolate one
verse and build an entire theology on that.
So just because we're having faith and we believe when we
pray doesn't guarantee healing. So I quoted you guys last time I
preach from a guy named Douglas new I'm going to quote him
again. He says this, the faith
exercised in prayer is faith in the god, whose sovereignty
accomplishes his will. When we pray our faith
recognizes the overruling, providential purposes of God.
A prayer for healing. Then must usually be qualified
by a recognition that God's will in the matter is supreme.
And it is clear in the New Testament that God does not
always will to heal a believer. Paul's very own prayer for his
healing. Offered three times, was not
answered. God had a purpose in allowing
that thorn in the flesh that Paul endured the Faith, with
which we pray is, always, always, always faith in the god,
whose will is supreme and best. And this is exactly the
qualification that is needed to understand.
Jesus, on promised to us in John 14:14.
When he says, you may ask for anything in my name.
Mmmmm and I will do it. To ask in.
Jesus name means not to Simply utter his name, but to take into
account to account, his will also only those requests offered
in that will are granted. I know that was a mouthful but
he worded it more eloquently than I ever could.
When we pray in faith, we were praying, according to God's
will, for his will, to be done, not our own.
We're trusting God, we're trusting his timing and his
sovereignty. So again, it's not just
mustering up enough, faith and enough belief to make something
happen. It's not a situation where if we
don't fully believe it, then it's not going to happen.
I've heard that blasphemy uttered in people's lives before
that. Well, you prayed for that person
to be healed and it didn't happen because you didn't have
enough faith, that is wrong. If someone's ever told you that,
that is wrong. That is unbiblical.
A great example of this great. Great example of this.
You guys remember the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego or
if you're a Veggie Tales fan me, she hadn't been here, however,
they called it. In that story, those three guys
are fixing to be thrown into a fiery furnace.
This is in Daniel chapter 3 and what do they say to the king
whom? They are supposed to Bow before
this golden idol and all that they say our God whom we serve
is able to Deliver Us From The Burning fiery furnace, but if he
does not be it known To You. O King, that we will not serve
your gods or worship your golden image that you have set up.
Our God is able. But if he doesn't, we're still
not going to Bow before your Idol.
Look, it is not for us to know, God's mind and know God's will
all of the time. There are things.
He's clearly revealed in his word.
But we can't fully understand the depth of God's knowledge and
his wisdom. We shouldn't try, we will break
our brains if we try this, but we should with everything in us,
try to be submissive and following his will whatever it
may be praying that he gives us wisdom to recognize this.
It could be that sickness has been appointed to you, so that
you could repent of unconfessed sins may be God's using that
sickness or that trial or tribulation in Your life to mold
you and make you into his image. That very trial that you're
going through, might be a Grace in your life from the Lord to
help teach you something to help mold you and make you into the
man or the woman that he created you to be.
Remember what James said back in chapter 4 when he said, you do
not have because you do not ask, and you ask, and you don't
receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
We need to make sure when we pray, when we are praying,
according to Faith, that we were praying for God's will to be
done. Not our own We need to be sure
that we are praying that way and that is praying in faith.
Now, I want to throw in a little side note here.
Okay, I'm going to hit pause and jump over here just for a
second. Say this.
And then we'll come right back again.
We can't know the mind of God, it is not for us to even to try
to Fathom. But there are things again, that
his word clearly commands and Promises things that we can have
100% confidence in, for example, again, talking to Kyle this
week, he brought this up. God doesn't promise that we will
always heal if we ask he doesn't promise that never.
Again will another Christian ever be sick or die, his word
doesn't say that, but his word does say that, he promises to
provide a way out of Temptation when were tempted.
We see that in First Corinthians 10.
He also commands us to love our neighbor.
Does he not if God promises these things and tells us in
commands us to do these things? He will equip us to do them.
He's not going to give you a job and I'll give you the tools, you
need to get the job done. So the things that he is clearly
commanded in his word that we know are his will we can pray
for those things and rest assured that God will give us
what we need to accomplish that in a follow that will.
Okay? So I wanted to make that very,
very clear. So God commands me to love my
neighbor. My neighbor gets on my nerves.
The guy cut down some of my limbs on my tree that were
hanging over his privacy fence. I told him not to do that.
The guy's encroaching on, he throws stuff over.
The fence is just a horrible neighbor.
Maybe God has put that neighbor in my life to teach me how to
love my neighbor. Maybe God is saying look you
really need to be a little bit. Merciful you need to be gentle
and you need to learn to love people because you are not
perfect either. Those kind of things we can
trust and we can take to the bank, but I digress, let's get
back to the text and let's keep moving through this.
So, by calling the elders, anointing with oil, praying in
faith. We are giving this person over
to God. We're trusting his will, and his
way that's what's happening here.
And then look and verse 16 after he gets done talking about this,
he says therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for
one another so that you may be healed.
Anytime you see a ver Or or a so that in scripture you need to
pay close attention. The author is telling you.
Look, I've been saying all that therefore, and this is his point
of what he's trying to drive home.
Pray for one another and confess your sins to one another.
That is the whole point of what James is trying to get across in
this text. Now, notice something something
really big just happened in these verses, he instructed The
Listener or the reader to call the Elders.
To come and to pray and to anoint with oil, did he not?
Now he is saying pray for one another and confess your sins to
one another this command has gone from the elders to now the
whole church, Okay, don't miss this.
Don't miss this. James is saying this is not just
for the elders. The whole church should be
praying for one another confessing to one another.
We are all supposed to do this. This isn't something that we
just you know, what prayers, just not for me.
I just can't stay focused. When I try to pray, I have a
hard time with it. So I'm just going to call the
Elders and let them do all the pray and all that stuff.
We are all called to pray for one another.
This applies to every single Christian and this shows and
proves a huge point. The power here is not in the
heat, the, the elders, the power is not in the oil.
The power is in the prayer that is where the power lies in the
power of prayer. For one another, not in some
magical oil, or even some anointed people in the church,
that prayer is powerful. There is amazing.
Amazing power in prayer if we would, but just do it when we go
to the Lord on behalf of other people, and we humble ourselves
before the creator of the heavens and the Earth, and we
submit and trust him and cry out on behalf of other people.
Amazing things can happen. I know that.
So many of you in here can testify to that, that you've
seen this happen in people's lives, that you've prayed for
when we see a brother or Or sister or son or a daughter come
to faith in Christ that we prayed for four years.
Amazing things can happen through prayer.
It is often through our prayers that God accomplishes his will,
that is his means to bring about his will on Earth, as it is in
heaven, is through the prayers of the Saints.
So we are to be crying out to God, day and night for
ourselves. And for one another The James
proves this point in his example that he gives Elijah in verses
17 and 18. He says that he was not a man.
He was a man with a nature like ours.
He was a normal guy, he was a sinner just like us.
He was not Superman. But yet he accomplished amazing
things through his prayers, he prayed that the drought would
end and the rains would come. And they did, it's because he
was fully submitted to God's will fully trusting in God's
ability. Oh that that God's people would
just humble themselves and pray for one another to just cry out
to God. Our creator that we would do
this. Amazing.
Things can happen. If we will pray people and we
have no excuse for not doing it. Is the easiest thing in the
world. We're just talking to God.
And I get it, I get it's not always easy.
We lose, we lose our attention and we live in a world where our
attention spans are so short, and we just were so surrounded
by just constant noise and distraction and just stimulus
all the time that it's hard to just get quiet and focus and
just talk to God. But look, we also live in a time
where we have so many tools at our fingertips.
You have reminders on your phone, you have alarms.
You have apps that will keep track of these things and
categorize prayers. You have apps that will read
your Bible to you. We have no excuse We need to be
people known for prayer constant prayer.
God's word is clear on this weird, pray without ceasing.
Is is not easy. That's why it's called a
spiritual discipline. You know, we used to just about
every year at the beginning of the year, we would do a little
small mini series on just Christian Life.
I kind of start out the new year and it would usually be on the
spiritual disciplines. So I Bible study prayer and
fellowship together, those things are called spiritual
disciplines because they're hard.
It takes hard work to gather each week and not get lazy in
that and I just want to stay in bed or stay home and it's hard
work to read your Bible every day.
It's hard work to pray for one another.
Especially your enemies who were commanded to pray for.
Remember last time I preached, we talked about sins of omission
and sins of commission sins of omission is just not doing
something. You know, you're supposed to do,
we know we're to pray for our enemies and pray for one another
were commanded to do this. So you need to be diligent in
doing it now. I say all this, I want you guys
to hear me clearly. I'm not trying to guilt trip
you. I'm trying to encourage you that
we have this amazing gift in prayer.
This amazing thing that we have in the life of a Christian that
that we just don't utilize. But I'm going to get into that
here in just a moment. Finally, we get to verses 19 and
20 and these verses seemed almost to be just tacked on to
the end. Like they don't go with the rest
of this because it goes from prayer and anointing and
sickness to all of a sudden turning back a brother or sister
that has wandered. It says my brethren if any among
you Strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know
that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way, will save
his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
Now, When we consider the entire letter of James that we've gone
through from start to end and all the Practical things, he's
telling us to do in this book. It makes sense.
That at the end he would want his listeners to now, take
everything that I've told you to do and go do it and apply it to
your life. But also make sure that other
people are doing it to watch out for your brother and your sister
in Christ and make sure they don't Wander from the fold and
make sure they're doing these things too.
It's not just for you it's for them also.
Remember, we're supposed to pray for one another.
We're supposed to hold one another accountable as well.
James had a very, very real view of Hell, okay, he's saying that
by bringing back a Wandering brother or sister, you were
saving their soul from death. What is the death of a soul that
is eternal? Hell, it's the unforgivable sin
that you've blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and there is no turning
back now. Eternal death death of not just
the body, but the soul as well. And so that's why we urge
brothers and sisters to be in prayer.
That's why we urge brothers and sisters to gather together once
a week and and hold one. Another accountable, when we're
not reading the word and not praying, and not living as James
has commanded us, because there is a lot at stake here.
Again with the Douglas moo commentary, he says not only
should the readers of James do the words that he is written.
They should be deeply concerned to see that.
Others. Do them also, It's by sharing
with James, the conviction that there is indeed an eternal death
to, which the way of sin leads that we should be motivated to
deal with the sin in our lives and in the lives of others.
Real Christian faith. If we want to do what James
says, and take everything we believe and everything that we
say we believe and put it into action and actually live it out,
then our faith should be Evangelistic.
It should lead us to want to call out one another, on our
sins and hold one, another accountable and say look if
you're a Christian let me help you walk through this but we
can't live like non-christians we have to live by God's word.
We need to take these things and apply them because it leads to
life and it will save your soul. And so real Christian faith has
to lead us to want to do this. If we have zero desire to want
to bring back a wondering brother or sister in Christ and
zero desire to share our faith that we say we have then that is
not real. Faith.
That is a faith. That is dead.
So to sum this up, the Book of James is absolutely packed full
of practical everyday instruction on how to live the
Christian Life, how to walk the Christian walk.
We should read it, we should apply it.
And then we should encourage other brothers and sisters to do
the same. And we should above all.
We should pray for them as we've seen in this text today.
So in conclusion, I want to say this to you and this place today
that are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
If you are a Christian, if you've placed your faith in
Christ because of what he accomplished on the cross for
us, we now have direct access to God almighty.
The veil was torn. We are now adopted into the
royal family. We are co-heirs with Christ to
the kingdom. We are Sons and Daughters of God
and the father Delights to hear from his children.
Jesus is our high priest in our mediator and he intercedes on
our behalf at the father's right hand.
The holy spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for
words when we don't know what to pray as we ought to This entire
process involves the Trinity and it's beautiful.
This is what we have at our disposal in prayer as
Christians. It is a powerful weapon against
the enemy. We have to use it, we cannot
ignore it. So, here's what I want to
encourage you to do today for your Christian in this place.
James tells us in this text to confess our sins, to one another
and pray for one another. So obviously I want you to do
that. Please commit to do that.
But then when you do, when you pray for one another, when you
confess to one another, be sure to be disciplined in your prayer
life. So remember, this is hard work.
This is not easy. It doesn't come naturally time.
So be disciplined, but also pray properly.
Pray according to God's will as Jesus did for his will to be
done on Earth as it is in heaven.
Not for my will, to be done submit yourself to his
sovereignty and pray for that. Okay, so be disciplined and pray
properly. Now if you're in this place and
you've never placed your faith in Christ, you say, you know,
maybe I grew up in church or maybe I've heard a lot of this
before or maybe I'm brand new to this, but I've just never really
submitted my life to Christ. I've never fully trusted him and
put my faith in My Hope in him. Well then if that's you today, I
want to be very clear that James laid out here in these last.
Couple of verses. What the penalty is from for
wandering, from the truth? And from running from God?
And from straying from that, it's that death of the Soul.
It's eternity in hell, But that does not have to be your fate.
Right now. If you will, do what James is
talking about here and confess your sins to Christ, repent and
believe in your heart. And trust God, put your faith,
your trust, your hope in him. You can be forgiven for your
sins and you two can have this amazing.
Wonderful gift of Prayer. But you have to start there, you
have to repent, and you have to believe.
So if that's you do not waste another moment, don't don't
think that. Okay?
I'm if the holy spirit is kind of moving in your heart, don't
think I can just wait till some other time.
I don't know about all the like act.
Now submit your life to Christ, trust in his will, and his
sovereignty and be made new today, be reborn apart from
that, you will be one of the ones, the James talks about it
will suffer from this heat. Colonel death of the soul and we
don't want that for anyone. So I plead with you to submit
your life to Christ. If you have questions about
this, I would love to talk to you as with any of the elders in
this church. So, please come see me if you
have questions or need to talk about this.
But, but I encourage you all the Book of James has been amazing.
And now that I've finished these verses I'm going to do a recap
of the entire book so let's just kidding.
I love you guys. This book is amazing.
James is just so applicable for us as Christians.
I want to encourage you today. Be people of prayer be known for
it Live, Your Life by go out and start praying for start.
Simple, start with prayer. Pray for your family.
The people you love more than
anything else in the world like lift them up, daily pray, that
you can be a better husband or wife or whatever parent do that.
Pray for pray for your family, pray for your church, pray for
one another and Trust God's will in all things.
Amen, I'm afraid for you, father.
We thank you again for your word.
We thank you for today and we thank you for all the things
that we have read about in the Book of James God.
We are so grateful to have it. To be able to read it.
I pray, Lord that you make us a church in a people known for
prayer. I pray God that you just make it
natural for us to call out to you and I cry out to you through
any trial or any tribulation, but not just in the bad times
and the good times also, Lord help us to be a people marked by
that, by praise for you by praying to you.
Help us to confess to one another, to have the courage to
do that, to get out of our comfort zones and confess to one
another. And to pray for one another, God
help us in this help our unbelief.
We thank you, Lord, for this amazing gift.
We praise you. God please be with us.
Now as we worship you, we pray that you can be glorified and
magnified in this place. Now, pray for anyone in this
place that hasn't given their life to you, that you would
convict them. Now, you would turn their Heart
of Stone into a heart of Flesh. We praise you and we love you in
Jesus name. Amen.