Providence and Prayer

Please remain standing for the reading of the word from the epistle of James in chapter 5

I'm gonna begin reading in verse 7 and complete the entire chapter from there

This is God's holy and infallible word Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the

Lord Behold the husband Waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it

Until he received the early and latter rain Be also patient Establish your hearts for the coming of the

Lord draweth nigh Grudge not one against another brethren lest ye be condemned

Behold the judge standeth before the door take my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the

Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience Behold we count them happy which endure you've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the

Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy But above all things my brethren swear not

Neither by heaven neither by the earth neither by any other oath

But let your yay be yay and your nay nay lest you fall into condemnation

Is any among you afflicted Let him pray Is any

Mary let him sing psalms is Any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church

And let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the

Lord the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he has

Committed sins they shall be forgiven him Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another

That you may be healed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain

And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months

And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit

Brethren if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him let him know

That he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death

He shall hide a multitude of sins Please pray with me now

Oh Lord I Ask that you would grant

These your people the gift of prayer that they would pray in accordance with your will

That in every season and circumstance there their attitude would be one of either praise or prayer

Hope and obedience And we ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen Please be seated the title of the message today is providence and prayer and The whole of the sermon could be found under this heading the efficacy of prayer in every circumstance the efficacy of prayer in every circumstance for those of you who

Need some form of outline to help you with your attention The first point

I would offer is the Christian Is to see everything in relation to God That is obvious, but we need a special attention to this subject the

Christian It's to see everything in relation to God second we will recount the circumstances of prayer and praise in our text and Lastly, we will probably not give much attention to you have an assignment today

This afternoon to read the narrative of first King 17 and 18 it it's a lot more than just rain not falling in context

We're probably not gonna spend much time because of how long it will take to get through the other parts But I encourage you to read that today an example of fervent effective prayer of a righteous man the example of Elijah is the third point and finally, we will

Give more application. Hopefully, there'll be more interspersed throughout the efficacy of prayer in every circumstance

John Calvin said in relationship to this part of the book of James James here means that there is not no time

There is no time in which God does not invite us to himself

And I was spellbound by that There is no occasion. There is no time where God does not bid us

To come to him Wow, what a privilege it is to be the people of God We say though with the disciples

Lord Teach us to pray the Christians are to see everything in relation to God One of the things that is so often a challenge for us is we have many needs and responsibilities many obligations and duties to perform and and because of that busyness in our own

Creatureliness and are the earthiness of our lives We can go along with some period of time not considering How this relates to my relationship with God Everything in life as we learned this morning.

Everything is touched by the Word of God Everything for the Christian must be seen and perceived in relation to his covenant communion with God That right there would be enough for us to dwell on to think about but this is just an overarching idea a a great commentator and theologian

Matthew said to pray to him is to acknowledge his sovereign power to meet our needs and to praise every occasion prayer and praise in our text in every circumstance in Praying we acknowledge his sovereign power to meet our needs and in praise is to acknowledge his sovereign power in appointing our

Circumstances and you may say I don't like my circumstances and I say toughen up praise the

Lord He has put you there Whether as a source of supply in need

He is our supply Or the source of the gladness of our joy

God himself is our sufficiency Your life must be characterized by prayer by praise by faith by obedience and hope

If you live your life before the face of God and you're praying to him and you're praising him

That will be your experience an experience of joy and hope and obedience

This is more than just a proposition James urges us to find in God Sufficiency and to make use of the divine resources that he has

Supplied brethren. Do you see everything? every detail of your life in Relationship to your relationship with God How is the

Christian to see everything in relation to God Materia again, the Christian life is to be an exercise listen carefully in practice consecration

The Christian life is to be an exercise in practiced

Consecration to hallow every pleasure praise

Every pleasure that comes in is an occasion For me to praise God and brethren moment by moment every heartbeat every breath

You the people of God have an occasion for praise Because you have been redeemed by the precious blood of the

Lamb The father has so loved you that he has sent his son into the world to die for you and to redeem you and to Sanctify you and to draw him draw you to himself hallow every pleasure sanctify each pain

The whole of our lives Whether sorrowful or joyful Should be deflected upward at once into his presence

These two concepts will come a little bit later. I'm going to offer them now

The praise reflex is reflective God in his mercy does things that are beneficial to us and kind to us and we reflect

Back to him the goodness of his dealings with us But when trials come and circumstances come and hard things come we grab the shield of faith and when those

Circumstances come we hold up a shield of faith and we deflect it and allow it to go back up to God The Christian has tremendous privileges here in prayer that others do not enjoy

These afflictions these hardships don't just fall upon me. They're deflected heavenward

When we exercise in faith this great joy and privilege of prayer in both of these there is a glad acceptance of the will of God and That's going to become very critical for us because there may be a deficiency not only in our practice but our understanding of prayer because it

Swirls around this concept of the will of God this is the common element of both prayer and praise in Praise we say to him.

Oh God your will is so good perfect and acceptable This is what you have done for me and in this

I will rejoice and in prayer

In the time of trouble In emulation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the garden.

It is a faith declaration that says Not my will but yours.

Oh Lord be done When Jesus faced all of the forces of evil all of the anguish all of the

Difficulties what set before him the cross? The the turning of God's back on him the laying upon him and making him of sin at the moment of that strongest attack

The Lord Jesus it says in Luke 22 He prayed more earnestly the

Son of God Righteous all of his perfections He prayed earnestly feel

Under heavy conviction personally For our congregation for the church as a whole

We are weak in Prayer we are weak in praise we are weak

But he can make us strong prayer

Doesn't always remove the affliction this is

RBG Tasker being quoted in a couple places prayer

May not remove the affliction But it most certainly can transform it the

Christian in prayer is Reflecting all of his life upward Acknowledging the sufficiency and sovereignty of God and his dealings with us in Providence the difficult

Circumstances that come in your life are not a deficiency in God's plan. They are God's plan

Your hardship has been given to you by God himself Practicing however the grace of acceptance

Rejecting the disgrace of stubbornness in this the voice of prayer

And praise are United they come together in one for alike they say

This will of God is good Only prayer can do that only praise

Facilitates and fosters us in the heart of the believer only then when you when you do these things there take advantage of these

Things which the Lord has supplied for us so abundantly then you will get a sense of it all Then you'll understand why these afflictions come you understand why you have more and more occasion to praise his holy name well

The first question that we have to answer It's one of those funny things.

We always talk about prayer Do we really know what it means? The prayer is an offering up of our request to God certainly isn't it?

but when you get into the the deepness of the language and You begin to consider it across the whole of Scripture There's something that emerges that is there's very striking and it may be missing in your own thinking

I want you to listen to this in part definition of prayer to pray to really pray is to interact with the

Lord your covenant God By Switching and transforming your ideas and your human wishes and Exchanging them for his wishes as he grants you faith

This is what it means to pray in the will of God, but that's not really what we do

When we pray we say Oh God, give me what I want and he says in silence

No We ask a mess We say

Oh God Take away this affliction and he may say no you must be instructed by her

No, the people around you must be instructed by your affliction. I'm not going to take it away real prayer genuine prayer is to interact with the

Lord by switching our wishes and ideas for his sounds similar to What the definition of repentance ultimately is is to Take upon ourselves the mind of God Related to some sin or some obedience or some omission in our lives

We've not repented if we still cherish that sin. We've not repented of it

To repent of sin means not only am I not doing it I want nothing to do with it any longer because God has said it is bad and is evil and I agree with God So to the

Christian in prayer Interacts with the

Lord with a switching Oh Lord, my circumstances are hard.

Oh Lord. I am grieved. Oh Lord life is hard. I Bring these things to you in prayer now correct my thinking about all that is happening in my life and in prayer the grace of faith

He's going to reveal to you the errors in your thinking The ways that you are praying that are amiss

And he's going to set you on the right course I want to confront us all with this

Because really we have to confess today and we have to today For not another moment.

We have to repent of this We've come to God in prayer and said Oh Lord, give me what

I want Repent of that today

Purpose to repent of that idea today that notion now there is a sanctified Granting of our desires in accordance with his will if your will is in accordance with his will your desires are going to be granted

But but we have to confess that you must confess That you have gone to him saying

I know what's best for my life and I want you to give me what I want It's not good

It's an egregious thing do you pray that your wishes would be changed

It's not how we pray we are an

An idolatrous and self -willed people the last idol to be slain is

You your idol your selfish idol you pray wanting what you want

You pray in a self -willed way approaching God with the intent of him granting your wishes

You see the idolatry in there You see you and your wishes are the most important thing it's idolatry maybe

Maybe we don't pray as we ought Because we intuitively know

That he may say no to what we want Now, I know there is an omission and a deficiency in a laziness in our approach to God And and I would say there is a deficiency in our faith

It's an element of unbelief. We do not believe that God's arm is long enough or strong enough to act

Practically this one bought is scaring me a little bit this possibility

Maybe we don't approach God in prayer Because we know

He won't give us what we really want We have not

Because we ask not from James We ask and we receive not

Because we ask amiss That we may consume it in our lusts delight yourself in the

Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Oh Lord teach us to pray

Our Father which art in heaven Hallowed be your name thy name thy kingdom come

Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven

Oh Lord Will you teach us to pray today?

We ask this Through the expounding of your word. Let's look again at our text in verse 13 is any among you afflicted and This affliction covers

The whole breadth of life. There's certainly sickness included in this.

This is part of afflictions But this is any hardship or trouble James in this very practical instruction at the close of this epistle says are any among you afflicted

The efficacy of prayer in every circumstances happy merry afflicted sick dying

Starving vigorous, whatever it is the Christian in relation to God through prayer and praise he has an answer

If any of you is afflicted any of you enduring any hardship any suffering

You need to pray I Know some of you are Dealing with hard things today

Some of you have health challenges Some of you have financial pressures

Some of you have strained Relationships you're enduring hard things.

You should be in a constant state of prayer You are enduring afflictions

The Remedy the answer is to pray in that way that we have described to literally

Switch our wishes and our ideas for his wishes as he imparts faith.

Oh Lord, I'm under this hardship in this affliction You may find that this is a self -inflicted wound your sin has led to all the hardship

You can't even ascribe it to just works of Providence Your sinful actions have dug a pit for yourselves.

A snare has gone around your leg. You have fallen into it If you're afflicted for your own sin

Run to Christ in prayer if you're afflicted because of providential circumstances you run to Christ in prayer the part

I'm Most excited about today because the other part is a little too convicting in verse 13.

Are any of you merry? Are you cheerful and Really at the heart of this word.

It's kind of an old way of saying it. Are you of good courage? Does joy fill your heart?

Well, you can't move on from that without responding in every circumstance. There's an appropriate response to God in affliction

I have to pray if there be cause for rejoicing and merriment,

I need to burst forth in song and every Lord's Day as The gathered people of God there should be the joyful singing of songs

But you know what that should happen as a course and pattern of your life throughout the week I'm the redeemed one.

I belong to Christ. My sins have been forgiven Burst forth in praise

Now what's interesting about this in the original language It doesn't say sing psalms

It says let him sing but the word that is

Translated sing is so let oh It's from where we get the idea of songs.

But but this is the part that I really want you to grab To so let oh is to pull to twitch to twang or to play to play on a stringed instrument

To Celebrate the praises of God in song and brethren you and I today in every day because of the merriment of our heart need to pluck the strings of our cheerful hearts and Allow the vibrations of joy to exit our mouth in the exclamation of praise

Pluck the harp of our hearts The twang comes out we

Strum and twitch and we pull and we say oh god. You have done a mighty thing in saving us

And your heart bursts forth In song but you see

There's an activity there. You have to reach in there You have to pull on it.

You have to twitch it. You have to twang it. You have to play it

That you might sing that's the other part of this and the reason there's not a praise on our lips like there's not a prayer in our heart is we don't

Do these things? We don't see we're not looking for Occasions for praise.

We're looking for reasons to complain. Oh Lord make our hearts merry.

Oh Lord teach us to pray Help us to pluck the chords of joy in our hearts that we might sing praises to you

It requires something of us To see things as they really are

To really acknowledge the good things That Christ has done for us

Let's consider verse 14 Is anyone?

sick among you We see the importance of seeing everything in relation to God, but there's some other components in this that are tied to our relation to God We are tied to the

Ecclesia the church It says in verse 14 if any are sick among you let him call for the presbyteros the

Presbyterians the elders of the church and Let them pray over him.

I don't know what the occasion is. I Don't know that you should call for the elders of the church if you have a common cold but if you're afflicted if you're suffering if you're languishing in your sickness in your illness and You should pray and ask the elders of the church to come and pray over you

It's important to see here that we cannot have a relationship with God apart from a relationship with his church

And a church isn't a church if it doesn't have officers There has to be elders in a church

So you and I have to recognize that God has established order in this world He says you're not just a

Christian floating around you're a member of the church and you're under the authority of the elders and those Elders are under the authority of other elders in a presbytery

And call on them ask them to pray over you

I've been asked to do this twice And I've done it twice If you ever want the elders of the church to come pray for you

Call upon us Now the next word is important anointing to anoint him with oil in the name of the

Lord This idea is usually Seen with some question marks we would reject the notions and I'm not going to get into it in the

Romans of extreme unction But I've done this prayer

Ritual and I've brought olive oil both times Some people say today we shouldn't do that To anoint something is to show honor

To anoint oil on someone is to smear and cover their face in their head

It was perceived to be of Medicinal value, but I think that the real balm of the oil in that ancient world was

Soothing it was comforting so prayer should be for us as the people of God It was usually olive oil

It was put on the face of a guest to refresh them And I was thinking about this in a very practical way

I Spend time in the Sun too much time in the Sun and sometimes my skin is dry, and I was thinking

That dry and arid land How dry it must have always been and dusty I?

Bet the young people had raggedy crinkly wrinkled skin and what must have it have felt like to have

Something that was somewhat costly to produce for for you to come to a house and for the host of that home to To take that oil and to smear it and rub it to show you honor and to relieve you of your your suffering in some way

Must have been very powerful and beautiful To have your head anointed with oil

Anointing has been said shares a penetrating comfort to impart strength healing and joy

We should use oil in this ceremony Because of our creatureliness and the provision of the

Lord The prayer the oil running down our face would be the covering of our prayers

We would we would tangibly feel that oil dripping down our head and onto our beard and we would say

Oh Lord I feel and I sense the the physical But it it points me to the spiritual the reality that the elders

Appointed for this very purpose to lead the church to serve the people have come and have prayed over me

For my healing Oh Lord, this is a comfort we pass over these ordinary things

You've probably got a better moisturizer in your cabinet than olive oil

But I wonder if we've lost something now the question of healing comes here verse 15 it says the prayer of faith shall save the sick

Does that mean every time you pray for the sick I can imagine there be some in the charismatic realm says

The reason the prayers don't work is their lack of faith and everybody can be healed if there's the proper prayer

Does it seem to teach that? The idea of sozo and it's one of those words that is connected to save salvation is to heal preserve rescue

To properly deliver out of danger and into safety. Do you know that you could be wretchedly sick?

because of sin Providence Circumstances we live in a fallen world.

You can be diseased for no fault of your own. I Think this pastoral approach

Acknowledges that maybe I have brought some some disease into my life through sin

And this would make some sense to me why the elders prayers would unearth this and they're shepherding

They'd be saying okay. Have are you cheating on your wife? Maybe that's why you're afflicted

Are you robbing your employer maybe that's why These things are happening the pastor would be looking into this not every sickness is because of sin overtly, but it is ultimately isn't it about sin and the salvation that we enjoy that the sozo of this might be a

Comfort and a peace and a shalom in the midst of this sickness, which would lead ultimately to your death

There is a salvation a saving in that This idea of course is principally used of God rescuing believers from the penalty and power of sin and so maybe

I read of a Puritan account of a man who was

Obstinate and his reception of the gospel fell desperately ill He called for the elders and they prayed for him anointed him

And he actually came to saving faith in Christ and died a couple of weeks later And they said it was assuredly the illness the sickness that drove this obstinate man to his knees

So the saving of that man was not that he got relieved of the affliction But he had a soul that was now reconciled to God and be and was saved

It says the prayer of faith Shall save the sick and the

Lord shall raise him up Of course we immediately think of resurrection, but it could be a healing physically bodily out of the bed

It could be a real resurrection unto life with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ And it says and if he has committed sins

They shall be forgiven him you and I need to be keeping short accounts with God And with one and one another

The second part of this is first was our relation to God in that global sense in every respect and Then the church which is reflected in the representatives of the church the officers

But we're also required to have Communion with one another it says in verse 16

Confess your faults one to another and Pray for one another that ye may be healed.

I think Mitch for praying today about the things that can happen negatively in the church body if We're sinning against each other and we're not loving each other properly

Bitterness begins to grow We become discontent But if we confess our faults to each other

And pray for one another and love each other in this very deep and profound and intimate way

Then there would be healing and I think this healing extends beyond of course the physical

But the breaches that could exist in a home and a marriage between parents and children and husband and wives

One of the greatest things that you can do if you're in any conflict is To acknowledge and own your part to confess your faults

One of the things I hope will happen in the years to come At Ascension is that we would love each other and trust each other so much that we could confess our faults to one another

We wear masks We cover ourselves we perform for each other

It's time we became very honest with each other And I think you'll find that when you go to a an honorable

Christian person in your time of need confessing your sins They're gonna be very eager to run to help you to deliver you out of that Struggle and bondage that you find yourself

Pray for one another when those prayer requests come through Earnestly if you're able to in that moment stop in that moment and Adopt that idea of that newer fresher definition of prayer that that you would take that Circumstance and you would beseech the

Lord and plead with him that he would reveal his will And that we would be conformed to it

That we would bear each other's burdens in this way that we would carry the load of one another and it's only possible if we

Share that load with one another Well The last part

Of verse 16 I'm going to spend a moment on an overarching doctrine the whole of life

Now Relationship to the church broadly through her leadership and her members

And now the results Do we really believe in the power of prayer as I said this morning propositionally we do

Practically we don't We simply do not believe it

That the favorite slogan of the 80s probably was for Christians prayer changes things.

I Won't have a different definition prayer changes you prayer changes me

And that's what we don't want. That's the confrontation. That's the tension

Do you want to be irrevocably changed as a pastor?

I see in myself and others we rarely change our personality defects

Defects get a little bit Sanctified but there's not radical change. I have to wonder is it because we don't want to be changed

Says here that the effectual It's the word that we ultimately get energy from the idea of being at work made to a work made to accomplish things

The Effectiveness The intensification of work

So this kind of praying is just not Oh Lord help Mark's toe. That's hurting

This is a prayer at work laboring and and Really being spent and giving a lot of energy and attention to and a crying out to God It takes things from one stage one point

And it takes us to the next One description of this is it's like an electrical current

Energizing a wire At the end making it a shining light bulb

It is the reason why the righteous man's prayer has

Outward success He's a righteous man.

He's praying in the will of God. He's clinging to the hem of the Lord's garment He is not letting go until God blesses him.

That's a prayer that works We don't pray that way.

Oh Lord, you know all the troubles I have in my life, and I pray that you would make my circumstances better.

Amen It's not this kind of praying But maybe most striking in this language

Structure of prayer is the idea of fervency the effectual fervent prayer

Says to be strong To have power I Am filled with health and vigor if I'm fervent

I have this strength Fervency is an embodied strength

And I love this language it gets into the fray It engages the resistance

I should point out to you one of the reasons we don't pray and one of the reasons don't pray especially for one another is

Every time I pray for someone the Lord seems to make me want to go do something

The Lord meets the needs of his people through his people.

I don't know if you know that He doesn't send money down from heaven The Lord provides for us his people through the moving in the spirit of his people to help them in their time of need

I don't want to pray because that means I might have to go do some work for somebody I don't want to pray for them.

I might have to step in and get involved Are you in getting into the fray with people?

Are you engaging the resistance? For the believer this idea of fervency is referring to the

Lord strengthening them with a combative confrontive force To achieve all he gives faith for it's got a military tone to it

This is the kind of prayer that the Lord loves to hear and to answer

That is when we're facing it some kind of resistance This is what brings

This is very important What the Lord defines is success

Fervency brings Not what I think success is but what the Lord defines success to be in the will of God praying in the will of God Praising him for his will

All these things seem to be coming together This very combative.

Are you combative in your prayers? Are you engaged? Are you fully engaged in your praying?

the urgent request Although the Lord approves the urgent request of a righteous man

Who's energized by him? one

Commentator on the Greek text said here the believer seeks to make petitions in faith

And I love this language again, which are in accord with God's in birthings and What is that?

the persuasion of his will earnestness eagerness great vehemence with great warmth

Epaphroditus Paul writes salutes you Colossians 4 He labors

Fervently for you in his prayers Well, the time is gone the

James gives us a great example in Elijah and in that account and I gave you at first Kings 17 and 18, please read that this afternoon

It is the Sabbath day after all you don't have anything else to be doing You should read a couple chapters of the

Bible in this section we have Elijah confronting the wickedness of Ahab the exposure of the 450 wicked prophets of Baal the destruction of them him calling fire down from heaven and just before that he has the provision of the widow and her son the death of the widow's son and the

Reinvigoration in life and resurrection of the dead son all Happens in this section that James cites to show that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man

Availeth much well, the first thought that comes to mind is our

Lord in his high priestly prayer prayed that he would carry some people with him and You are part of that band

The effective fervent prayer of the righteous man has availed much the people of God You and I in light of these things must boldly approach the throne of grace

That we might find help in our time of need To neglect prayer is a great deficiency in Christian virtue

It demonstrates a lack of faith and it denies that God has power to act

Where do you run when the chips are down? You better be running to the Lord in prayer You you better be ready and willing when you pray to him on your knees and your knees better get

Scabbed you better be on your knees and and you better be able to hear his voice the truth to come through In prayer as revealed in Scripture and the power of the

Spirit You've also got to pray in such a way that you're really willing to get mixed up in the dirty business of everybody's lives

We need to ask the

Lord today to grant us greater faith That would yield greater fervency in our prayers and finally

Take every circumstance To the Lord Reflect his goodness and praise or hold up the shield of faith and redirect all of the trials and the hardships and the sufferings and the afflictions of this light deflect them heavenward in prayer

That we might find help in our time of need Brethren James teaches that righteous praying

Yields God's power because righteous praying has God's will as its aim

Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we cry out to you with thanksgiving for your servant

Calvin who who teached it teaches us through the Exposition of your word through ordinary preaching he comes to this that your servant

James means to tell us that There is no time in Which God does not invite us to himself

And oh Lord, how much more weighty and potent is this for us who are now about to approach your table?

You bid us to come. Oh Lord. Help us to enjoy the the fullness of the gift of your grace

No, Lord, we say with the disciples. Oh Lord Teach us to pray