09272015
James 5:13-20 The Power of Prayer
Mt. Salem UMC
In the previous chapters of James, we listened to the Word in reference to the importance of our speech;
that a Christian becomes a doer of the Word after listening to the Word. The context of our lives as doers
of the Word is our interpersonal relationships in our daily lives (doing good/loving one another cannot be
done without a relationship). When we read today’s passage in chapter 5, it tells us about prayer in any and
every situation. Whether one of us is suffering, joyous, or sick, we are to pray, according to today’s reading.
I think it makes perfect sense because prayer is the starting point of our love for other people (less talking &
more praying = becoming doers of the Word). This morning, I would like to invite you to listen to the Word
of God: intercessory prayer. James asks: Are any among you suffering? Are any among you joyful? Are
any among you sick? To each different situation, James tells us what to do: Pray. To pray on behalf of
someone is the prayer of intercession. We have the weekly prayer list of our prayer concerns during the
service. Where do you keep the prayer list when you go home? Do you pray for each person on the list?
Commentators describe three main reasons why we don’t pray: ignorance, arrogance, and shame: If we
do not know God wants us to pray when we are in trouble, we are simply ignorant of Scripture. If we do not
pray when we are in trouble because we trust in our own resources to get ourselves out, we are being
arrogant. And sometimes we may want to pray but are ashamed because the trouble we are in is our own
fault. James gives permission and encouragement to those who are ashamed that God is full of
compassion and mercy (v.11). To all of us he commands prayer.i
According to the Word of God through James, when someone is suffering we are to pray the prayer of
petition and supplication, when someone is joyous we are to lift up the prayer of thanksgiving and praise,
and when someone is sick we should pray the prayer of confession and the prayer of petition for healing.
When we talk less about someone’s situation and pray more for that person instead, we use our mouths
for wise speech to God and with God. When we pray for someone, we can speak to one another as if we
pray to God and our speech is from God; by praying, we can control our tongues so as to not use them as
a means for venting our tempers. I hope and pray that we, Mt. Salem, are a praying community, delivered
from ignorance, arrogance, and shame. And I hope and pray that we as the praying community experience
the power of prayer in our daily living. There are many ways to describe the power of prayer, but this
morning I would like to share three of them.
First, the power of prayer changes a praying heart. When we pray, we don’t pray to move God, but we pray
for God to move us. Three years ago this week, I was in Seoul Korea, when my father was diagnosed with
Stage Three leukemia. That experience led me to ponder the Christian attitude toward sickness and
healing. Not only was my family shocked, but others who knew my father were also reeling from news of
his illness; it was not because he had been healthy all his life, but mostly because he had been known as
the “praying Elder Lee” by both Christians and non-Christians.
It is natural to be puzzled when we hear about someone who seems to have lived a faithful life become
seriously ill or face an unfortunate crisis. Underneath the puzzlement, there is some suspicion that he or
she may have committed hidden sins and thus, the misfortune; or maybe that God is unfair; or it may even
lead to questions like, “Is God truly there?” It’s true—when we first found out my father was ill, my nephew
and my daughter thought God was being unfair because their grandfather had been an example for their
faith, and in their minds, a prayer warrior like their grandfather should live happily ever after; but now all of a
sudden, he was suffering from so much pain. “Why my grandfather?” was the question my nephews kept
asking.
When someone dear to us is sick, it is hard to watch our loved one suffer pain, and it is easy to blame God,
crying out “Why me?” “Why my loved one?” All of us can relate to this when we see our family members,
friends, or neighbors get sick physically, emotionally, or mentally. Some of us here today have problems
with pain right at this moment. What do you think when you see loved ones who are sick, or when you are
sick yourself? Do you think that God cannot or does not do anything for those who need God’s healing?
According to James 5:14-15, when we have a sick person in our church, we should pray together as a
church because if one of us is sick, a part of the church is sick. Verse 15 says, “The prayer offered in faith
will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up.” When we have sick persons among us, James
clearly guides us to not question about God’s existence, or doubt that person’s spiritual condition; When
one of us is suffering or sick, it is time to pray. James clearly commands that we should pray for healing,
pray together in faith that God will raise up the sick person. And when it is God’s perfect will to heal the sick
person, God surely heals him/her.
When I was with my father for his last two weeks on earth, I prayed for his healing. There were so many
people visiting my father from every corner of the Korean Peninsula; some days more than 30 visitors came
to see him and cried out in their petition to God for healing mercy. I was grateful to know that my father was
among faithful praying armies.
However, God prepared my heart for my father’s homegoing journey, even while I was praying for the
healing of his body. Since I have witnessed to God’s healing grace so many times, I didn’t doubt God’s
omnipotence. But through prayer, I began to ask for God’s perfect will for my father; not God’s permissible
will, but God’s perfect will. Then, my prayer began to change: “If it is your will to heal my father, Lord, heal
him; but if it is your will to call him home, let him be ready.“
I shared this with some of you during the Lenten Bible study. When God prepared my heart for God’s will
(whatever that was to be), I could tell my father every morning: “Dad, if today is the day that God calls you
home, I want you to be ready; please remember me when you go to see Jesus and pray for me and for the
church.” Through these prayerful words that I spoke to my father every day, I was also able to tell my mom
to prepare her heart too. Each day, whenever he was conscious, my father would pray for the whole
church, for his friends, for children in Korea (he was a retired educator).
But on the night before I left for the States, I witnessed a special prayer that my father offered. He prayed
the prayer of confession; he cried for almost two hours until he lost his voice. I witnessed the purifying
grace of the Holy Spirit within my father’s soul. That night, I received the fullness of God’s peace and slept
through the night for the first time during the two weeks. I knew he was ready for God’s call, “Come home!”
That was the moment I came to understand the words of verse 15: “The prayer of faith will save the sick,
and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.” The following
morning, on the last day of my stay with him, I asked him if he could recite James 5:13-16. He recited each
verse in Korean from his heart. How powerful it was that when we recited verse 16 together: “The prayer of
the righteous is powerful and effective” for the healing and forgiving grace of God.
This experience, alive and precious, became a legacy in my heart. Two months later, God called him
home. Though he was not get healed from leukemia, God changed my heart, my mother’s heart, and my
siblings’ hearts to anticipate God’s perfect will for him; and God gave us the ability to receive it with peace
and gratitude. No one was resentful but grateful thanks to the power of God through prayers. On the day of
his funeral, the local newspaper covered my father’s life story under the title, “A Fallen Star.” But our family
did not feel like anything had fallen; we know that because the legacy of prayer he left behind will continue
in so many people’s lives. Truly, prayer changes us. And through prayer, God works for us.
Second, the power of prayer changes our relationship with God: our relationship with God deepens through
prayer. Have you seen the movie: War Room? It is about the prayer room of spiritual warfare where
“victory in Jesus’ name” is declared. In the movie, a small closet becomes a prayer room, and in that room,
a woman fervently prays to God for her husband. It is a spiritual battle on his behalf. Prayer takes space:
When we pray we set aside a place to pray in (whether it is a physical space or space in your heart).
Prayer takes time: when we pray, we set aside a time (whether it be one minute or one hour). The more
time and space before/with God, the more we come to understand and receive God’s will in our lives. As
we experience the change prayer has on our lives, and come to know God’s will more, our relationship with
God deepens and becomes more intimate.
Each day, for a number of weeks, a minister observed a small boy enter the church auditorium, sit quietly
before the altar for a while, and then quietly leave. Always it was about the same time of day, shortly
following the dismissal of school, and obviously the boy, carrying his books, was on his way home when he
made his daily stop. One day the minister approached the boy, told him he had observed what he was
doing and that he was pleased to see him doing this. Then the minister asked, "What do you do when you
come? Do you pray?" After a moment of thought, the boy replied, "Sir, I just say, 'Jesus, this is Jimmy." ii
Just reporting in!
Just pausing to identify himself and to be identified!
Just confirming a relationship! That is prayer!
Relationship takes time and space.
When I came to Mt. Salem last July, I announced often that I would like to visit each of you and meet with
you in person to know you, and to let you know me better. Over the year, I have met most of you in person
at home, at the hospital, at church, or at a restaurant. Each time I visited you, I felt difference between the
before and after of our time together. I felt much closer to you, and that’s why I kept asking to visit or
invited you to church. We know that our relationships get stronger by sharing time and space together, but
it is rare for us to apply this essence to our relationship with God. We don’t spend time for God, we don’t
prepare our hearts for God, and we forget that we forget. Yet, this morning through James, we hear the
Word of God that we should pray, that we should open our time and space for God alone. Through the
prayer of praise, confession, petition, and thanksgiving (whether we are joyful or sick, suffering or
peaceful), we can deepen our relationship with God. God is waiting for us to make room for prayer.
At our Saturday prayer meetings, we remind ourselves of Matt. 6:6 “When you pray, go into your inner
room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” We also remember the Word in 1 Cor.
3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (NASV)
Based on these Words, we open to God’s will for us in silence, consenting to the time and space we set
aside for God. Through this prayer time, we build up our relationship with God.
There are many ways of praying: some people pray in silence; others pray out loud; some people pray in
movement; others pray kneeling or standing… Whichever way you choose, if you take time to be with God
and prepare space for God, and pray to God for your neighbors’ sake, you are having a fellowship with
God: your love for others meets God’s love for them; God’s love for others meets your desire for them. The
Spirit abides in you, and you in the Spirit, by sharing the same divine will of love. I hope each of us here
this morning (without exception) is having fellowship with God. Your relationship with God through prayer
is blessing that you cannot buy. It is through prayer that God works in us.
Third, the power of prayer changes our lives: prayer empowers us to love others for the sake of God,
whose relationship we value the most. Through fellowship time through prayer, God not only reveals God’s
will and changes our hearts and understanding, but also gives us the power to live out what we know as
God’s will. Without God’s empowering presence through the Spirit living in us, our efforts stem from a “todo list “rather than from a true heart’s desire.
Doing good works with our own efforts versus doing good works with the Spirit’s help do not seem very
different, since both ways help others. But there is a difference. According to Thomas Aquinas, the
former’s attitude is magnanimity and the latter’s attitude is humility. Magnanimous people (not necessarily
with faith in God) do good works with an appetite for honor, but humble people (with faith in God’s love
through Jesus Christ) do good works with reverence for God--the provider of all good things. When we
depend on the Spirit’s empowerment, we can do what we thought was impossible. We are not exhausted
because it is God who gives us the strength to endure. Through prayer, we confess our love for God, and
after prayer, we activate our love for God in loving others, in forgiving others, in asking forgiveness from
others, in helping and sharing our time and resources with others… .
Do we want to be the doers of the Word of God? Do you want to love? Do we pray for one another? Let
us be empowered by the Spirit of the Living and Loving God through prayerful fellowship with God. When
we lift up other people in our prayer to God, the more we pray, the more powerful we become as the doers
of the Word, practicing our speech to God in action (because we come to love the one we intercede). The
deeper our relationship with God becomes, the more empowered we are to reconcile, reconnect, and
renew our relationships with others. Through prayer, God works with us.
I want to call the whole church to pray for our spirits, individually and communally. Are there any of us who
still sets a 9PM alarm to pray for the church? Let us take a baby step by setting 9PM as a time to pray for
Mt. Salem, wherever we may be. Through prayer, let God work for us, in us, and with us, so that we
become a more loving community of doers of the Word.
i
ii
Life Application Bible Commentary: James, 137.
Illustration 0-89536-791-2 from esermons illustration