“The Power of a Praying Church”
(James 5:16-18)
Series: Living the Faith (James)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
• I invite you to take your Bibles and join me in James, chapter 5 this morning (page 814; YV).
We are preaching our way verse-by-verse through the Book of James and are nearing its end. Next week we’ll be observing the Lord’s Supper so we’ll be looking at a passage that focuses our attention upon that ordinance, and the following week, we’ll look at the last couple verses of James and after that one message as a concluding overview of the Book, what we have learned in our study and how it applies.
After this series is concluded we’ll have a short 5—part series called, “I Love Sundays,” celebrating why Sunday is the best day of the week. I think you will enjoy that study tremendously and we’ll have discussion guides to use in Sunday school, too.
For now, James chapter 5 and taking a look at verses 13 and following from last time. You’ll recall we studied verses 13-15 where James teaches the church about prayer. We are to pray to God when suffering and sing praises to God or about God when cheerful. And when sick, especially those times when a person is bedridden, he or she calls for the elders of the church to pray over him or her, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And James says, “And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
So that’s where we left off but it is important to review as we pick up at verse 16 where this matter of prayer is still being taught by James. And now James teaches about the power of a praying church.
• Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
17 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 land for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
• Pray.
Introduction:
James talks to us here about the power of praying church. As we read these verses and study them together I wonder if we are really about the business of doing the things about which James writes. Too often I find that our popular culture engenders a sort of “me-centered” church life. Churches often tout what their church can do for you or, “Here’s what you will like about us” and the church sells itself as the place to have your personal needs met. So, much like a business, the local church markets herself and focuses on making the consumer happy, feeling entertained, and satisfied with an experience.
James talks here about an unusual power that is unleashed in a congregation that is not so much focused on self, as is focused on others. It is unusual. It is nothing like what often passes as church life. We might even say that what James talks about is so substantive and life-transforming that anything else by comparison is like just “playing at church.” And maybe that should be the title of the message: A Playing Church or a Praying Church?
So building on what he has already taught about prayer, he goes on now to describe a praying church and gives us a couple characteristics of a church that takes seriously the matter of praying.
Let’s look at these now, characteristics of a praying church. First:
I. Confession to One Another (16a)
A biblical church is a church whose members regularly confess to one another. If we ask, “What specifically do they confess to one another?” the answer is—first part of verse 16— “Confess your trespasses to one another”—or as most of the modern translations read, “Confess your sins to one another.”
So a biblical church is a church whose members are in the habit of regularly going to one another and saying something like, “Brother (or sister), I really need to apologize for what I said to you the other day. It was wrong and I was wrong to say it. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
Or, “My sister in Christ, the other day I ignored you when you needed me and it was wrong and I was wrong to do it. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
Or, “Brother, I have harbored some bitterness against you for something I have failed to talk to you about and, rather than talk to you about it I’ve talked to everyone else about it. It was wrong and I was wrong to do it. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
It is much as Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:23-24:
23 If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
The point is: “Don’t attempt to come together for corporate worship when you are harboring ill feelings towards other members of the congregation.”
Now think about this with me for just a moment. How many churches are there on any given Sunday whose members are gathering together yet harboring feelings of ill will toward one another? Is this not plain and simple evidence of why power is lacking in so many churches?
Why would we ever expect God to honor a church whose members are not regularly confessing their sins to one another?
“Confess your trespasses to one another.” The assumption is that the offense is against another individual. That individual, then, the one we have offended, is the one to whom we are to go and confess. “Confess your trespasses to one another,” not to a priest; not to a pastor; not to a group of friends.
We are not to discuss our feelings of ill will about a person with another person. We are to go to that person directly. So we don’t take our issues to others, we don’t discuss it among co-workers, friends, our even our Sunday school class. “Confess your trespasses to one another.”
A similar teaching is found in Matthew 18, where Jesus provides explicit instruction about those occasions where you feel someone has sinned against you. What do you do? Do you talk about it to others or do you go to that person directly? Matthew 18, verse 15. Jesu says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone (Matthew 18:15).” Confess your trespasses to one another.
One of the reasons we take care to put into the weekly bulletin when we are observing the Lord’s Supper is so that we will prepare rightly for the observance of that ordinance. So if you look at the back of your bulletin where it says, “Looking forward” you will notice that the first item is: “Lord’s Supper August 2nd,” next Sunday morning.
One of the ways we prepare for the ordinance, a special gathering together of brothers and sisters to recall Christ’s work on the cross, is to confess known sins to one another. Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 11 the failure of a church to focus on one another. He addresses divisions in the church and he says, “Examine yourself” and don’t observe the Supper in an unworthy manner. Prepare yourself for this worship experience by making things right before God and with others.
If there is something you need to make right with another person before observing the Supper next week, then do so this week.
Dirty laundry is not to be aired before anyone and everyone. Where there is a problem, go to that one directly and the two talk about it, confess, and forgive. And where you find yourself in the middle—someone is talking to you instead of the person with whom they are at odds what are you to do? You tell them to go directly to that person with their concern and tell them that you will be praying for everything to go well.
Do you know what a firewall is? The first time I learned about a firewall was back in my home church where the church was building an addition to the main structure. And the folks building onto the structure did not build it the way someone had drawn up the plans, with this nice level roof structure meeting the present roof structure, but every so many feet there was a place where a kind of wall protruded through the top of the structure, raised higher than the rest of the roof. I thought it looked kind of strange, but I was told that this was a firewall. In case of fire, the fire was unlikely to pass beyond that wall so as to protect the rest of the building.
James says, “Confess your trespasses to one another,” so that the offense in view is treated before it spreads to others. If you have a problem with another person, you go to that person directly and talk about it and deal with it right there so that the problem does not spread beyond and spill over into the body of Christ and so damage the rest of the body. Work together with your brother or sister so that the two of you become like a firewall, preventing the fire from doing damage to the church—not the structure, but the body.
Verse 16, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
James suggests that confession of sin is closely connected to prayer. Confessing to one another will lead to praying for one another. This is the second characteristic of a praying church. Confession to one another leads to, secondly:
II. Intercession for One Another (16b)
A biblical church is a church whose members regularly pray for one another. If you have offended against me and you come and make it right, I am now in a position not only to forgive you, but now to pray for you.
And vice versa. If I have offended against you and I come to you and ask for forgiveness, you are now in a position to pray for me.
Again the picture of a firewall is so helpful. Here are two people who say, “Let’s you and I work this out and pray about it together. Let’s be as a firewall to make sure this doesn’t go beyond us. We will stand together.”
And there is further suggestion that our failure to confess to one another and pray for one another may mean that we suffer some kind of sickness as a result, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Note it there at verse 16: “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
The suggestion is a Christian may suffer a sickness of some kind, emotional sickness as a result of harboring ill feelings toward another brother or sister; spiritual sickness—we are not growing in our faith or we feel distance from God, even physical sickness because of unconfessed and unforgiven sin.
Verse 16 is powerful. The power of a praying church. A church is regularly to confess to one another and pray for one another. And when we pray, there are two things in the text to note. First, note that:
God Works with Extraordinary Power (16c)
James says in the last part of verse 16, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
The New Living translation puts it this way: “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”
Amen. God works extraordinary power through the prayers of His people—but note this: He works His power through the prayers of “a righteous person,” a righteous person.
Lack of personal integrity, purity, and holiness is one reason why many people find their prayers seeming to go unanswered.
It’s like Peter’s admonition to husbands in 1 Peter 3:7, “Husbands, live with your wife with understanding, giving honor to her…so that your prayers are not be hindered.”
We can’t expect God to honor our prayers when we are not walking in holiness and righteousness. It doesn’t mean that we are perfect, no one is but Christ. But it means that we endeavor daily to walk in righteousness, including keeping short accounts with those we have sinned against.
James says, “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man [a righteous woman] avails much.” It is the earnest prayer of a righteous person that has great power and produces wonderful results.
I told you last week that I was searching for a video clip from our mission trip to Toronto last year. Our Toronto team this year made it home safely last night. But last year I was blessed to go with the team and on one day of the trip I was getting some video of the kids club teachings going on in one of the parks when a Christian woman, a member of our partner’s church, approached me and told me about a healing that had just taken place.
This woman is a woman whom I believe has been blessed with occasional gifts of healing. She is graced by God with many opportunities to pray “the prayer of faith” we studied last week.
So I found this video clip and thought I would share it with you. It’s very short and just under a minute, but I thought it would be encouraging to see it. The clip shows this Christian woman on the left standing next to an older woman in Muslim headscarf seated on the ground. And this Christian lady has been witnessing to her and sharing with her about the love of Jesus Christ. And in their conversation it is learned that this woman sitting on the ground is blind in her right eye. The Christian woman prays with her and she is healed.
So the video shows the Christian woman recalling these events that had just transpired moments before I was able to video. You’ll see her talking to the woman first in the Punjabi language, I believe, and then explaining what happened in English. So you’ll here the kid’s club music in the background and this healing occurred off to the side. Take a look:
[Video Clip here; 48 seconds]
That woman continued covering her other eye and looking at everything through her healed eye. Her grandchildren came up and she was looking at them and celebrating.
“The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man [a righteous woman] avails much.” God works with extraordinary power. And:
God Works through Ordinary People (17-18)
There was nothing really extraordinary about this woman who prayed. She was just like any other woman except that she was blessed with a faith to pray for something extraordinary—and believed, really believed—that God would answer her prayer.
She was not perfect, but she walked in righteousness. It is “the effective fervent prayer of a righteous person that avails much.”
This is James’ point in bringing up Elijah. He writes in verses 17-18:
17 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 land for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
James says Elijah is just like us. And our first thought is, “Well, Elijah is nothing at all like us!” Elijah is the guy who stood on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18 and called down fire from heaven in a mighty demonstration of miraculous wonder-working power.
We’ve been reading about Elijah in our evening services, our study through the Book of 1 Kings, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” So we’ve been reading about this incredible prophet Elijah, the guy who tells wicked Ahab, “Because you have led the people of Israel into idolatry, God is going to withhold the rains of heaven and you an all the land will experience 3 1/2 years of drought. No rain for 3 1/2 years. And James reminds us in verse 18 that after the 3 1/2 years of judgment, Elijah prays and the rain falls. You can read about again later in 1 Kings 18. It is an incredible story of God’s extraordinary power. I mean the guy carries the keys to the local water tower for 3 1/2 years! No rain falls until Elijah prays. Power.
So when James describes Elijah as, “a man with a nature like ours,” or a man just like us, our initial thought is, “No, he’s not at all like me”—but he is. Do your remember how Elijah responded to the news from wicked King Ahab’s wicked wife Queen Jezebel? She put a bounty on his head and said she planned to kill him the very next day. And do you remember what Elijah did? He fled into the desert and actually prayed for the Lord to just take him home to heaven. He was scared, tired, exhausted, stressed, and finished. He’s like, “Lord, I’m done.” So the Elijah who is on top of the mountain in victory in chapter 18 is now down in the valley of despair in chapter 19. From mountaintop to valley. From high to low. From success to apparent failure.
Oh yes; James is right in verse 18, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.” So don’t forget the greater point James is making here: God works with extraordinary power—yes—and delights in working that power through ordinary people, people like you and people like me.
Do you believe in prayer? Do you pray, really pray? Do you find your prayers answered more often than not?
If not, might it be because of your failure to confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed?
Are you walking in righteousness? Remember: James says, “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous person—a person of integrity, character, holiness—the effective fervent prayer of a righteous person is powerful and avails much.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, two things:
Never underestimate the power of prayer!
Never underestimate yourself as the one who prays!
• Let’s stand for prayer right now.
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