James 5:13-20 "Praying Earnestly"

1: Our Need for Prayer

We have spent the last number of weeks looking at the book of James and what it has to say about living the Christian life. The book of James doesn’t make it easy to be a Christian. It actually makes it sound pretty hard. We’re continually told that we need to work at our faith and not just take the easy answer. Last week, the last part of what we read in James 4:3 even made prayer sound hard, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James wants us to live right, he wants us to act out our love for God by loving those around us, and he wants us to pray right as well.

But then, when we get to the end of James, in chapter 5, I believe that we finally get to some good news in James. You see, at the end of the book of James, we are told that prayer works and prayer is powerful. And we are told to take full use of the power that God gives us in prayer.

Prayer is communication with God. It is the people of God, us, communicating with the God that we believe in. Let me say that again, it seems so simple yet means so much… Prayer is us communicating with the God that we believe in. It’s not enough to believe in God. Yes, we are saved by faith and faith alone… but that faith involves obedience and that faith involves relationship. Relationship is something that we all know. We have people we are related to. We have people who we love. We have people who we don’t love. But relationship without communication is not relationship, it is something else. It’s pseudo relationship. It’s broken relationship. It’s unhealthy relationship. No, for relationship to happen, we need communication… we need two-way communication. You need to communicate with the person you have the relationship with and that person needs to communicate with you.

That’s what we are doing in church. We are allowing God to communicate with us. We read his word. We listen to the sermon. But we also communicate with him. We sing songs to him, we praise him, we lift up our needs and prayers to him. We come together as a group before our God to communicate with him. This way our relationship with God can grow.

Prayer is important, it is a need that we all have. Growth cannot happen without prayer. We cannot grow closer to God unless we pray to him, and unless we listen to what it is that he wants us to know.

2. Different forms this takes

Today’s scripture tells us that prayer can take different forms and can be done in different ways: If someone is in trouble they should pray. If they are happy they should praise God in song. If they are sick, they should call leaders in the church to come and pray for them. If they have sinned, they should ask someone in the church to pray for forgiveness for them (that’s an interesting one). If they need rain, they should pray as Elijah did, earnestly, and the rain shall come.

There are two things to notice here. First of all, prayer isn’t just asking for things. It is communicating with God no matter what position you are in. Prayer is about sharing yourself with God. It is about sharing the joys and sorrows of your life, the pains and the pleasures, with God. I’m not sure this is how we normally view prayer. Tony Campolo talks about when his son was younger and they were getting ready for bed. His son came in and announced that he was ready to go to bed. “I’m going to my room now, I’m going to go to bed, I’m going to pray, anybody need anything?” This isn’t what prayer is about. No, prayer is about opening your world to God. It is about making him a part of it. If you’re excited about something, share that excitement with God. If you’re anxious, share that anxiety with God.

Prayer is that communication that strengthens our relationship with God. But we notice something else in this scripture. You see, James still seems to think that it isn’t just me and God. He still seems to think that my relationship with God is related to my relationships with those around me. And so, even though we are definitely told in other scripture the importance of going to our rooms and locking ourselves in our closets to pray, here we are told that it is important to share our life of prayer with those around us.

3. Praying as a Church

Jesus tells his followers that when two or more are gathered together in his name he is present with them. He is in their midst. Jesus doesn’t explain why there is more power in prayer when people come together in agreement, but there are some reasons that are self evident… and they aren’t that a group of people praying for something is more loud and pesters God more than an individual praying for something.

No, I think there are three important reasons that God has made it clear that we are to pray in groups, that we are to come together and pray.

First, I believe that we have a harder time seeing God when we are by ourselves. This is counter-intuitive for me, for I feel like I do much better at seeing God when I am alone. My personal devotion time is very important to me for this reason. But God is other than me. When I need to communicate with God, I need to do more than talk to myself. If all we know is God while we are by ourselves, we will find the danger of thinking of God being like me, and this will lead to the possibility that I will pray to myself instead of praying to God. When you are in a group lifting prayers before God, you are in the presence of other. I believe that this is important. By praying in a group I understand that God is more than me, and I understand that God is the Lord of more than me as well.

Another reason to pray in a group is that there is a power in agreement. When a group of people agree about something, it breaks down sin, it breaks down hurt. Agreement is the thing that can bring healing to our lives. I am not talking about agreement such that we all go along with everything someone wants. I am not talking about a lack of discussion. This isn’t true agreement. I’m talking about being about the same purpose. I’m talking about living our lives directed in the same direction… towards God. And when we pray together we find ourselves at points where we are brought into agreement. When I prayed today for Richard to get better after his surgery, you agreed with me, you asked God to do the same thing. We are all pointed in the same direction and asking the same thing from God because of this. There is power here because of this. Agreement before God brings a mighty power to our lives. It brings us together as a body much more able to do God’s will. If you have two legs that are part of the same body and they are working against each other, going different directions, the body will never move. But if they are in agreement, if they are working together then you discover not only the ability to walk, but the ability to run.

The third reason that it is good to pray together is that it helps us to think about what it is we are going to ask God. It causes us to put thought into our conversation with God. This gets back to what we read in 4:3. James tells us that we often pray with the wrong motives. But there is wisdom in coming together. Coming together as a church, we inspire each other and we encourage each other and our prayers can be so much more because of this. When we come together our motives for prayer hold each other up.

When we pray in a group we are able to see God in each other, and know God better than when we are by ourselves. When we pray in a group we find ourselves in agreement with each other and this brings power to our lives. When we pray in a group we bring out the best in each other so that we are able to offer our best to God.

What about all of us, though, who don’t like to speak in public? What about those of us who are not comfortable standing up in front of a group and mentioning a prayer request, let alone praying for something. I have to tell you that I empathize with you, for I used to be that way myself. I hated prayer circles where everyone was expected to pray aloud because I wasn’t comfortable praying aloud. I felt that when I prayed aloud I spent too much time trying to sound good with my prayer, trying to rehearse what it was that I was going to say. And I feared that what I was saying was more for those around me than for God. But I went anyways and sat there and brought agreement to what was prayed aloud. If you aren’t comfortable praying aloud, don’t feel that you need to… but still be present. Still use the opportunity to be there in prayer with the group, with the church. If you aren’t comfortable standing and telling me about a prayer request or praise during church, catch me before church. Tell me about what you’d like me to pray for. Slip me a note about something. However you want to do it.

The prayer time at church has changed. We are meeting together every other week on Thursdays at 2pm. If you haven’t been a part of this and are interested in joining, know that you are welcome. And then the prayer group is going to meet the other weeks at 8pm on Wednesdays, after our Wednesday night Bible study. Again, this is an opportunity to be a part of the prayer life of this church in a new way. And you are welcome if you have prayer requests or if you don’t, if you are comfortable praying in a group or if you aren’t. Let us find these prayer times to an opportunity for us to live out James 5:13-20 in our lives as a church, praying with each other and for each other, praying in all our circumstances.

Powerful things happen when we come together in prayer. God promised to be with his people, to dwell among them, if they simply prayed. The same is true of us today. Let our lives, let our church be a house of prayer.