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Episode 10
Welcome to our final episode on Responding to Practical Issues in Life. Today, I will continue with the issue of Prayer.
In Part 1, I shared the first two points of James’ exhortation on Prayer. I will continue with the remaining two points today.
PRAYER (PART 2)
III Take It to The Lord in Prayer For Each Other’s Sins
Here’s the third thing that James teaches us on prayer. Take it to the Lord in prayer for each other’s sins. This is what James said in chapter 5 verses 15-16a: And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. Every time you fall sick, it doesn’t mean that it’s because you sinned. In general, sickness is the consequence of living in this broken and fallen world. But at the same time, there could be moments you fall sick because of your sin – those unaddressed sin in your life.
In other words, James is also telling us that sometimes God brings about spiritual repentance through our physical sickness. Because isn’t it true that when we fall sick, whether just a flu or covid, we are reminded of how frail and weak our bodies can become, that this life will one day be gone, and then we become more receptive, we become clearer of our desperate need and dependence on God for our lives?
So whenever we fall sick, consider it as a loving invitation for us to reflect on our spiritual condition. And that happens best in the context of a community. That’s why James said, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Because confession of sin is not just a matter between you and God, but between you and fellow brothers or sisters in the church.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer beautifully captured the importance of mutual confession to fellow believers in the church and the consequence of not doing so. Here is what he said:
“Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is the more attractive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. Since sin must come to the light some time, it is better that it happens today between me and my brother, rather than on the last day in the piercing light of the final judgement.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It’s not easy to confess your sins to someone. But James is telling us that sometimes that’s the way God sometimes brings healing.
So let me ask you: Do you have someone in church with whom you can confess your sins and pray for each other? If you don’t, James is exhorting us to pray and find those brothers and sisters with whom you can confess and pray for each other (and experience healing both physical and spiritual).
On the other hand, are you someone that others can confess their sins to you, without fear of judgement? Be that brother or sister to someone in church.
Now James knows how we feel when we sin and somehow gets the courage to confess to someone in church. We feel guilty and ashamed. And then somehow we begin to wonder if God would even listen to our prayers, especially if we are still struggling with some habitual sins that we know or doubt we can’t overcome.
It’s like, I know that I will sin again so what’s the point of confessing, what’s the point of praying because how can God listen to my prayers with all my sins before Him and me. And that’s why what James says next is powerful and liberating.
This is what he said in v16b: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And this is where some of us may say, you see that’s the problem. It is the prayer of the righteous person that has great power, not an unrighteous person like me who is still struggling with my same old sins. That is why how can I confess my sins, which I’ll probably continue to struggle with and pray for each other? How can God listen? How can my prayers be effective?
This is where we need to understand who this righteous person is. There are two kinds of righteousness in the Scriptures. The first one is Positional righteousness. This righteousness is an objective righteousness. Meaning, when we put our faith in Christ, God declares us righteous based on the finished work of Christ on the Cross. The second one is called Practical righteousness. This is a subjective righteousness. Meaning, it is the way we live our lives in obedience to the biblical principles on a day to day basis.
When James said the prayer of the righteous person, he is not talking about someone who has the practical righteousness, but the positional righteousness. In other words, the prayer of someone who has been made right with God through Christ Jesus has great power. And my brothers and sisters, let me remind us that you and I, no matter how we struggle with sins, have been made right with God in Christ. James mentions Elijah as an example. He said this in v17: Elijah was a man with a nature like ours…
Question: How can Elijah be someone like us? He was a great prophet of God. A devout man of God who performed miracles after miracles that we can’t even imagine. So you see it is very clear that James cannot be implying that Elijah is like us in the practical righteousness because we are not. The only righteousness that Elijah and all of us share in common is the positional righteousness with God in Christ.
So James is teaching and exhorting us to pray with confession of sins, because there is great power in such confessional prayer. James is saying that we have the access of the same power that Elijah experienced through his prayer because of our positional righteousness in God through Christ.
So don’t let your sin stop you from praying. Instead, let your sin drive you to pray because no matter how sinful you are, you are already made right with God in Christ, and he listens to our prayers based on our positional righteousness, not based on our practical righteousness. So go get a band of brothers or sisters, and confess your sins and pray for each other.
III Take It To The Lord In Prayer For The Ones Straying
Finally, James exhorts us to take it to the Lord in prayer for the ones who are straying or wandering off from the truth. In the last two verses (vs19-20) this is what James said: My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
This reminds me of John 6, where many people who were following Jesus turned their back on Him after hearing the hard teachings of Jesus. And John tells us that even the 12 disciples of Jesus wanted to turn their back on Him. So here’s an important thing James is highlighting, and that is this: all of us, without exception, are prone to wander from God.
And we all know this. Trials of various kind in life, especially those that prolong, can easily make anyone of us wander away from God. James is exhorting us to restore one another whenever anyone of us start to wander away from God.
As a church all of us have the responsibility to restore one another whenever we wander. So remember this, if ever you wander from God, expect a brother or sister from the church to run after you, to restore you back to God. Isn’t that so comforting to hear that there will always be someone from the church to pursue after me if I ever wander away from God?
Isn’t that what a church of Christ supposed to be? Can we be that kind of church? The answer is yes we can, provided we immerse ourselves and learn to pray with compassion for one another.
Conclusion
This is why James concludes his letter by exhorting the early church and us to take prayer seriously so that we will take everything to the Lord in prayer.
There is a story of the first converts to Christianity in one region of Africa. They were very diligent about praying. In fact, the believers each had their own special place outside the village where they would go to pray in solitude. The villagers would usually walk over to these “prayer rooms/huts” by using their own private footpaths through the brush.
And so, when grass begins to grow over any one of these footpaths, it becomes evident that the person to whom it belonged to was not coming to the prayer room and therefore not praying much.
Now, these Christians were very concerned for each other’s spiritual welfare. So they came up with a unique custom to help each other be accountable. And that is this, whenever anyone noticed an overgrown grass on the path leading to the prayer room, they would go to the person and lovingly warn by saying this, “My friend, there’s grass on your path!”
And what they simply mean is that you are losing your prayer. That means you are losing God’s power for your life.
Question: How about you and me? Is there grass growing on our path? Let us give permission to one another to ask this question, because there may be some of us whose grass has overgrown. Think about your prayer life and answer this question: Is there grass on your path to your prayer room?
If so, it’s about time to walk that path and make prayer a lifestyle, and make prayer the main dish, and not just an add-on item in the menu of your life. And when that happens, you and I can be certain to experience God’s gracious power in every circumstance of our life.
That is my prayer for all of you and for myself. Amen!
Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have been blessed in one way or another. Remember, there is great power in the problems or issues we face in life. The power to either build you or destroy you. The determining factor is how you respond to them.
So how will you respond? The choice is always yours. God bless you all!
Discussion Questions