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James | Chapter 5

James 5:1-6

“Funnels or sponges”

 

 

  • Introduction
  • 1-3 How they gained their wealth
  • 4-6 How they used their wealth

 

 

Introduction

 Throughout his letter to messianic Jews who were living outside of Israel, James has written entirely on the need for spiritual growth and the things God uses to stimulate it as well as things to avoid that will stagnate maturity. I mention this as it is important as he takes up another aspect that can stunt your love for Christ and this has to do with how you perceive wealth and privilege. These 6 verses have caused difficulty in the interpretation as James isn’t clear in whom he is referencing? Some believe that James is speaking to the wealthy in the church, while others see this as a reference to those nonbelievers who some in the church were idolizing and placing on a pedestal. Because of this many commentaries have chosen to just sum up these 6 verses instead of examining them. What is clear in James words is his disdain for two specific actions with regards to the wealthy:

  1. Vs. 1-3 How they gained their wealth
  2. Vs. 4-6 How they used their wealth

James has already mentioned the wealthy in two other places in this short letter:

  1. 1:9-11Where clearly the wealthy are believers.
  2. 2:2-6 Where the wealthy are nonbelievers, and the issue is how believers gave them favoritism.
  3. 5:1-6 Finally we have this section and James is using a style of writing known as rhetorical “apostrophe” which was stylistically a turning away from his intended readers to address another group. When James in 2:2-6 wrote about the favoritism that some had given the wealthy and was doing so to the very people who had oppressed them and others. Now in this section James brings it back up and has had enough as these are some of the most biting words in the Bible.

  

Vs. 1-3 How they gained their wealth

Vs. 1 Many of the secular Jewish merchants were cheating and abusing believers who worked for them by withholding their wages, while others in the fellowship were treating them as if they were gods. As I mentioned this passage is not a general indictment against the wealthy and financially secure. The Bible has clear teaching to us that God is not against people with money, But He does speak out against those who trust in their wealth, gain it through dishonesty and fail to realize that what they have is not theirs, but His and as such they are mere stewards given the task of rightly handling His resources for His glory. The problem isn’t money it’s “THE LOVE OF MONEY”! That is the root of evil. Trust in money instead of faith in the Living God quenches our love for and security in God. It also causes us to love things more than people as we often will place money above people. Here were wealthy business owners who gained their wealth by cheating their workers out of their paycheck and the worker had no recourse to get what had owed them. Then the money they had they spent on themselves and a lavish lifestyle.

            This is the 2nd time James has used the phrase “come now” which is best rendered “pay attention to what I’m about to say”. James says that the proper response of these merchants is to “weep and howl” not because of repentance but because of judgment was about to come upon them. The believers were given a dose of reality about how God saw these wicked merchants in comparison to how they had placed them upon a pedestal. The closest example that I can see today is the worship of wealthy celebrities whose wealth has been gained because they “entertain us”. They have not fixed the social evils of the world; they haven’t fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and not healed the sick. Yet many, even in the church, worship and not so secretly wish they could be near them. To make matters worse many of them that live these lavish lifestyles speak down in moral superiority over people that drink out of plastic bottles, drive cars instead of using public transportation, and are adamantly opposed to the Bible and Jesus. I watched one of the politicians running for president defend his stand on environmentalism when questioned about his traveling all over the world in his own private jet he said it was justified because he was so very important to the cause!

Vs. 2-3 James uses three illustrations to the temporary nature of wealth that these believers who idolized the wealthy had failed to realize. In each case the Greek wording anticipates their future demise as already happening with the use of the word “ARE” as in “your garments ARE moth-eaten”.

  1. Your riches ARE corrupted: When we think of wealth today, we think of real estate, stocks and bonds and precious metals but wealth has always been a cultural reality as in an agrarian society it would be measured in a different kind of stock, ones with four legs. Here it appears that James has in view produce as he says they are susceptible to decay. His point is that the hoarding away of produce without the ability to resist decay isn’t something to be admired because the storage makes it worthless and keeps others from being able to use it. The wastefulness of the wealthy is what James is speaking on that their extravagant lifestyle wastes resources others could use as they don’t have enough because the wealthy have taken it and wasted it.
  2. Your garments ARE moth-eaten: Another evidence of wealth was the wardrobe of the rich. They bought extravagant garments to flaunt their wealth. With all the expense of their clothing living in the middle east made such garments vulnerable to moth and insects that would make them nothing more than high priced rags. While in the Dominican Republic I had the opportunity to visit a museum that just so happened to be displaying the Dominican fashion designer Oscar De La Renta, these gowns were worn by the most famous people and went for millions and now were behind glass adorning mannequins.
  3. Your gold and silver ARE corroded: It is clear that James is using this expression figuratively saying that such precious metals that are being stored up for the future without an understanding of WHO hold the future might as well be iron.

Each of these three examples express the futility of keeping in storage things that should be put to use for the glory of God. The believers are to not idolize such folks who so live in the world’s ways as to admire them. True wealth is never to be measure by what a person HAS but rather by what a person DOES with what they have! The truth of the matter was that in less than 30 years when the Roman general invaded Jerusalem he destroyed it and all the riches that the wealth had gathered became the Roman’s spoil. God is always better honored when His people are funnels and not sponges to the resources God has given us!

James says that another thing that they ought not admire about the rich is that they have a wrong view of eternity as they have “heaped up treasure in the last days.” They had gathered up wealth as if they were never going to die as where their treasure was so was their heart. They weren’t going to live forever, there is no Hearse pulling a U-hall. They didn’t realize that the last days were already upon them and cared more for what they had now then where they would spend eternity.

Vs. 4-6 How they used their wealth

 Vs. 4-6 James continues his reality check for the believers who idolized the worldly wealthy by saying that they ought to realize the dishonest way that the wealthy had acquired their riches. The wealthy landowner had workers in the field that had earned the wage, but the wealthy had taken advantage of them and not paid them what was promised to gather more profits for themselves. There were no unions or workers’ rights no legal recourse, so the laborer had to just tolerate this practice. Such wealthy abuse shouldn’t be admired by believers as many of them had been victimized by the wealthy. James reminds these folks that the Lord hears the cries of these workers, and He will judge those who have withheld the wages of the workers in order to gain their wealth!

            Furthermore, James takes issue of what these wicked merchants had done with their wealth as they “lived on earth in pleasure and luxury” but have failed to realize that they have only truly succeeded in fattening their hearts for the day of slaughter. Those merchants were addicted to their wealth and like a drug addict who thinks that the only hope they have is in getting more of the same thing that has ruined their life and enslaved them.

            The final point James makes with regards to not admiring the worldly wealthy is that their hoarding has taken the lives of folks who otherwise would have lived, and James is so bold as to call it murder which suggests that these wealthy business owners knew that what they were doing was taking the life of others. The worldly wealthy were being misrepresented and admired as champions instead of brutal bullies victimizing the innocent. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger once said; “To Americans, usually tragedy is wanting something very badly and not getting it. Many people have had to learn in their private lives, and nations have had to learn in their historical experience, that perhaps the worst form of tragedy is wanting something badly, getting it, and finding it empty.” The truth is in my life I have experienced far more generosity from the poor than I have ever from the wealthy. To my way of thinking it is the poor who so live that ought to be admired and if we are fortunate to have been blessed with wealth than we must always remember that with such a blessing comes an even greater responsibility to be a blessing to others!

James 5:7-12

“Illustrations of patience”

 

  • Introduction
  • 7-9 The Farmer
  • 10 The Prophet
  • 11-12 Job

 

 Introduction

 The start of our teaching today in chapter 5 verse 7 is a transition word “therefore” and the interpretation rule that goes with this word is: “whenever you see the word therefore in a text you need to stop and ask yourself what’s it there for”. In this case the answer to that question is that this section is a summation with an exhortation to do something based upon the above information. James has been giving his readers the purpose for life as believers, our maturity. He has given them positive things that will stimulate their maturity and negative things to avoid that will hinder their maturity in Christ. Now in verses 7-12 James goes back to the same exhortation that he used in the first chapter in the third verse that of the necessity of patience if we are going to grow in the grace of our Lord. These messianic believers wondered the purpose of life seeing that Jesus hadn’t altered their present circumstances for the better. James told them that the purpose of the coming of Jesus was personal transformation not political transformation. He further told them that personal transformation was a process brought about by an event unlike their salvation and their future glorification which with the same event was instantaneous. That process was aided by difficulties…pressures from the outside and the inside and that only through endurance….(PATIENCE) could that process produce the right result in our hearts. They had been under the wrong idea that Jesus’ coming was going to “right all the wrongs” but instead His first coming was all about correcting, changing, and challenging our formally corrupted heart! Six times in six verses James uses the words: Patience, Endurance and Perseverance as these are the key to maturity. You can do anything if you have the patience; why you can even carry water in a bucket full of holes if you wait until it freezes!

Vs. 7 Why exhorting his readers to have patience James uses two different Greek words:

  1. In verses 7-8 and 10 it is a word that means “long tempered” which seems to be directed at a person who is being encouraged not to lose their temper at another who is trying their patience.
  2. In verse 11 it is a word that means to “remain under” which speaks of endurance under great stress, it describes a person who stays put when every ounce in them wants to run away. This kind of patience seems to be on a situation or circumstance instead of a person.

The question that James answers in this section is just how a person can experience this kind of patience towards either another person or a circumstance? To illustrate this James employs three illustrations:

 

Vs. 7-9 The Farmer

  1. vs.7-9 The Farmer: Here the idea is that we need to exercise patience when we don’t control the elements of life. James paints the illustration of the believer as a type of “spiritual farmer” who must endure the elements with great patience before he can ever expect to see his crop. The early church father from Greece in AD 150 informed history that both James and Jude were farmers, and this could explain why James often used illustrations from agriculture. A farmer has to be obedient and execute his work by faith, knowing that he doesn’t control the elements necessary to reap the reward of his labor. First century farmers didn’t irrigate and were complete dependent upon the rains, too little rain and the crops would wither, and with too much rain they would rot. Because of this, Jewish farmers would plow the soil in fall after the early rains would come to soften the soil. Then they would count on the “later rains” of February – March to water their crops into further maturity. Several months of patiently waiting to see if the weather and soil would grant them success. Why would the farmer wait so long? Well, he valued what the work would produce, he wanted the fruit of his labors and the only way he could achieve that was by patiently waiting for it. How long until we see the harvest? James says, “until the coming of the Lord”. Our hearts and lives are the soil, and the word of God is the seed and there is a right time to plow out our fallow ground and a right time to plant. There are times when the soil of our hearts is hard, and the Lord will send some rain into our soil and bust it up with His plow in order to plant. But he also sends His rain on the just and the unjust as well as His sunshine upon the soil and seeds to cause them to grow and become ready for harvest. That is the secret of endurance: It is God who is at work in our lives producing a harvest. He has planted the “fruit of the spirit” and the only way He can cause the crop to become healthy is to cause trials to come upon us. So instead of becoming bitter at God for the trials, we ought to become patient and thankful as He will reap His harvest in our lives. James says, “establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand”. James gives a great way to develop patience and it’s by establishing your heart. The phrase in the Greek means to make firm your hearts. It carries the idea to strengthen your heart or to support something in order to make it immoveable, we need to put steel in our hearts. I believe that there are four ways in which to harden your endurance: Consistence in the Word of God, in prayer, in fellowship and in service. When that is combined with the length of time, we are to be engaged in those four things to build up our endurance you get a fuller picture that if we want to continue to mature like a farmer we will need to, “Keep working while we are waiting”! Verse 9 seems to stand alone as James moves from farming to not grumbling against one another but in reality, the connection is that when we become impatient, we tend to get grumpy at others. We blame others for our situation or circumstances. James issues a warning not to do that which again indicates that though we are waiting patiently for the Lord to work we are not idle in are waiting but busy. In fact, farming is one of those neighborly occupations where farmers or ranchers often help their neighbors. If we start using our farming tools on each other, we won’t be able to use them on our crops!

Vs. 10 The Prophet

  1. vs. 10 The Prophets: The next area of illustration is the prophet which deals with needing to have patience when we are serving the Lord and facing discouragement and disappointments. Jesus used prophets as an illustration in His Sermon on the mount as an example over persecution. Here was a group of people who were obeying God’s call on their life serving Him and His people but suffered from the very people they were called to serve! They were preaching and teaching in the name of the Lord, yet the outcome wasn’t popularity or prosperity it was persecution and rejection. Often time satan will tell the servant of God that they are suffering because of sin or being unfaithful in their service. But the truth is that their suffering may very well be because they were obediently serving the Lord. Paul told Timothy in his 2nd letter to him in 3:12 that “All who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Jesus’ obedience led to the cross and many time so will ours! Furthermore, they weren’t exempt, Elijah who announced God’s judgment to wicked king Ahab of a drought had to go through the same drought! Saint’s “The will of God will never lead you to a place where the grace of God cannot sustain you!” Daniel and Joseph had to share in the hardships, but the Lord delivered them, and He will us as well if we don’t lose heart! Oft times it is the difficult times that we face while we are obediently speaking the truth to people that authenticates the words God has called us to speak. God doesn’t have His servants speak out greeting cards sentiments to make folks feel better. He has them speak out transforming truth born out in their own life and experiences! From the first two illustrations we glean that James would have us keep working while are waiting like farmers and to keep serving despite the opposition like prophets! James would experience this himself according to secular historians as he met a violent death from Annas the High Priest when he was taken to the pinnacle of the temple and thrown off because he refused to denounce his half-brother Jesus as being God the Son the prophesized Messiah.

Vs. 11-12 Job

  1. vs. 11-12 Job: The final area that we need to exercise patience in is when our lives are falling apart, and disaster is all around us! James is the first and only New Testament writer to mention Job. The truth is saints we cannot persevere unless we are under a trial and there is no better example in the Bible of a man who was under a trial then Job. The story of Job actually starts out in heaven in a conversation that Job must have learned about from God after the trial was over. When God mentioned Job to satan as being an example of a righteous man, satan implied that the only reason for this was God’s blessings upon him. Satan said, “If you take you hand off of Job, he’ll curse You instead of praise You.” So, God allows satan to do just that and in four blows Job’s life is decimated. A messenger arrives to tell Job that the Sabeans have taken all his oxen and donkeys and killed his servants. Then a second messenger arrives and tells Job that fire from heaven has consumed all his sheep and his servants who were watching them. Another servant arrives and tells Job that the Chaldeans have taken all his camels and executed his servants who were with them. Finally, a fourth servant comes and tells Job that all 10 of his children (seven sons and three daughters) were killed when the house they were in fell on them. After this he contracted boils from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. Job went out to sit on an ash heap on a manure pile in grief when his wife comes to him to encourage to curse God and commit suicide. Then his three best friends come to tell him that all this has happened to him because of some unconfessed sin. Job had lost everything but his love for God. So even though his house was a pile of manure he made it a throne in the presence of God. And even though Job was covered with boils those sores were badges of honor. Job’s actions made satan eat his words. Job had to suffer for grace and love do not come any other way than through great trials and suffering. There are never any victories without battles, no peaks without valleys, if you want the blessing then you must have patience in carrying the burden! Before God can honor a servant, He must first humble a servant! We will never grow more in love with God than when we allow Him to break us and cause us to only be able to stand in our complete dependence upon Him! Job contradicted the thought that when God blesses a person, they will be wealthy and healthy and if they aren’t it’s because they are sinning or aren’t walking with God. Job was a righteous man and yet he suffered, and God found no evil in him, and the fact is neither could satan. Job is an illustration that trials and suffering have a higher purpose then merely correcting us, it’s to bring us to maturity. Job didn’t flinch though he questioned as he said in 19:25-27 “I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job confessed in 42:5-6 of his growth through patience saying, “I have heard of You by the hearing of my ears, but now my eye sees You. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” God never takes us through fiery furnace that He isn’t there with us while His hand is on the thermostat! His grace is sufficient for me!

The final aspect of this deals with not making oaths to God and this has to do with trying to make deals with God when we are going through trials and tribulations. Job made no deals as he said in Job 1:21-22 “Naked I came out on my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” When we have to swear to tell the truth then we have just admitted that we are a liar from the start! Oath taking in James times was a form of profanity and was used by rabbis to exert control over their followers. True Christian character doesn’t require an oath it requires integrity as seen in consistent behavior.

James 5:13-16

“The maturity of prayer”

 

  • Introduction
  • 13 The suffering
  • 14-16 The sick

 

 Introduction

 James started the close of his letter to the Jewish believers scattered abroad with the summation and transition word “therefore” which asks the reader to stop and ask what it is “there for”. Like last week’s teaching he moves into the key ingredients for life as believers in our maturity. The last two weeks we noticed the first of these “patience” as the purpose of the first coming of Jesus was personal transformation (our salvation followed by our sanctification) and not political transformation. That process was aided by difficulties…pressures from the outside and the inside and that only through endurance….(PATIENCE) could that process produce the right result in our hearts. In verses 13-19 James’ focus is on “prayer” as an indication of maturity. The connection to this section with the one that proceeded it is a bit unclear as he was offering an alternative to make deals (making oaths) to God to alter one’s present circumstances and the alternative is prayer which like “patience” in the above section is mentioned seven times and this time in seven verses. The point James is making to his readers is that the mature believer is prayerful in troubling times. They aren’t to be complaining or trying to make deals about his or her circumstances instead they are “prayerful” as James takes us through four situations in which when we ask God will answer! James was famous for his praying as one ancient historian said that his prayers for people were so frequent and long from kneeling in the temple that his knees developed callouses like a camel and was given the name “Old Camel knees” do to the effect of his praying. How far we Christians of today have moved from this as we have become too busy to pray only doing so when everything us has failed! The answer is to not go out an swear an oath to God but to bend the knee in prayer to God! Our self-reliance on our own ingenuity and strength has taken us away from dependence upon God and the effects are clearly seen in our lives and Jesus Church! Saints in times like this where patience is especially required PRAYER is the key!

Vs. 13 The suffering

Vs.13 The first situation James mentions that requires His children to pray is when we or those we know are “suffering”. The word in the Greek means something far different than what we would naturally associate with the word suffering as it doesn’t refer to the sick or infirmed but instead refers to “hardships and distresses”. The NIV renders it this way, “Is anyone of you in TROUBLE?” Trouble involves “mental and emotional suffering”! It is clear that James is referring to this beyond just seeing it in the Greek as he links it with another “emotional response” in the next sentence as he writes “Is anyone among you CHEERFUL”. Much of our lives adversities are not a direct result of sinful behavior or God’s discipline, but just life that happens to us as we ask, “Why me?” And when these kinds of trials come upon us there are three things that most of us tend to do during this type of testing:

  1. Grumble and complain: Usually to anyone who will be around to listen.
  2. Criticize other believers: Usually those who aren’t going through what we believe to be as difficult circumstances as us.
  3. Blame God: We can find ourselves embittered towards God.

What we should do is pray and seek God to grant us understanding in the circumstance that He would use it for His glory. Yes, God can and does remove us from the circumstance but more times than I can count He has “MOVED” methrough the circumstances which has been far more beneficial. Paul, you will recall, prayed three times that the “thorn in his flesh” might be removed but God’s reply was that His grace was sufficient. Furthermore, Paul was told that God’s power was perfected in his weakness. God often transforms us in or troubles as He turns them into our triumphs! Jesus Himself prayed three times in the Garden that the cup might be removed but not His will be the Father’s will be done and the outcome was that He was strengthened for the cross to die for our sins. Prayer during such “trouble” remind us, and those around us that God alone is the ALL SUFFICIENT ONE! To pray during seasons like this one is acknowledging God’s sovereign power and connects us to His ever-present nature towards us!

James also includes “PRAISE” as a part emotional need that we have when on an emotional high we ought to Praise God in song. This is for us when we are not experiencing trouble and reminds us not all of our life is filled with adversity. I find this more difficult than prayer as I don’t tend to praise Him during seasons of when life is wonderful, nor do I tend to praise Him when I’m going through a trial as James had exhorted when in the second verse of this letter he had said to “Count it all JOY when you fall into various trials.” The joy isn’t in the circumstance, but it is in what it will produce in our lives as we patiently endure! The word for praise appears some 550 times in the bible. The fact that James places it in the same section as prayer indicates that God views it as of equal importance as prayer. In A.D. 111 a Roman historian wrote of what he witnessed about the early church as compared to the Jewish synagogue saying, “They are in the habit of singing verses as a hymn to Christ as God. While in the Jewish Synagogue, since the fall of Jerusalem there has been no music, but in the Christian Church from the beginning until now they have been praising as they sing of Christ’s love.” The mature believer can always find reasons to praise God even in the midst of suffering and stress! As Job said in 35:10 God is able to give us “Songs in the night”!

  

Vs. 14-16 The sick

Vs. 14-16 The second area we are to pray is the most common as James asks, “Is anyone among you sick?” Many consider this the key passage on the subject of prayer for the infirmed and as such is a favorite verse for the so called “faith healers” so we will examine it closely. First note the use of the word “AND” in verse 15 James uses that word as a connecting word to the specific admonition of praying for the sick which makes it seem as though James had in mind a specific case for his exhortation concerning prayer for the sick.

  1. First, the Greek word for “sick” is one that means “to be without strength” and indicates a debilitating illness that has so affected their life that they are unable to work.
  2. Second, It appears that the cause of the specific nature of this case was that this person’s specific illness had been caused by this person’s habitual practice of sin. Certainly not ALL sickness is the result of our habitual practice of sin, but there are abuses that we can participate in that will cause our illness. While I believe that all illness is the result of the fall of man, I do not believe that all illness is personally because we have sinned and caused our own illness.
  3. Third, take note of whose responsibility it was, as well as the location where this prayer for healing was to take place. “Let him” indicates that it was the responsibility to the sick person to summon the Elders of the Church and they were to be ready to respond to go to where the person was. The prayer for healing was to take place at the home of the sick and there is no evidence that there was ever a “healing service” where the sick was to be brought to church. And when you think about it in light of today’s infectious illness why would you want to cross contaminate whole groups of people. That means that all this false and fake so called healing or anointing services were never a part of the early church!
  4. Fourth, it was the elders or “representatives of the local church body” who had pastoral leadership of the fellowship that were designated to go and pray over the sick. It was the faith of these men that was called on and not necessarily the sick person. Again, this is important as often those so-called faith healers blame the sick person for the lack of healing when according to this verse the prayer was that of the elders not the infirmed. That the power to raise the sick person up was not the power of the faith of the elder’s prayer according to verse 15 but “the Lord will raise him up”. This ought to shut the mouths of those who want to place the blame of a lack of healing upon the sick as well as silence those who which to take credit for their faith when someone is healed!
  5. Fifth, in verse 14 we are told that the Elders are to anoint the sick person with oil “in the name of the Lord”! Oil in biblical times was widely used for medicinal purposes, in Isaiah 1:6 wounds and sores were to be soothed with ointment. Jesus referred to such a case in His story of the Good Samaritan who Jesus says was bandaged with pouring oil and wine and his wounds. What’s interesting though is that in all of Jesus recorded healings there is not once that He is ever seen using oil in His healing, spit mixed with mud yes, but olive oil NO! While it is proper for a person to ask the Elders to come to them and pray over them and anoint them with oil and God is the One who can still raise the ill; He doesn’t always choose to heal the way, in the timing or method that we have requested. Neither does the use of olive oil negate the use of modern medicine as Olive Oil was seen as medicine. In Acts chapter 28 when Paul and Luke were shipwrecked in Malta the father of Publius was very ill and Paul went in and prayed laying his hands on him and he was healed. What’s interesting is that the Greek word used to describe this miraculous healing one that describes a miracle where we are told in verse 8 when the Island heard about this, they also brought their sick and word used in the Greek there is where we get our English word for therapy which indicates that they practiced medicine of the islanders that God used for their healing. Yet with that said there is no Christian that should approach a Doctor for healing without first approaching God and it may be that God will use the Doctor or He may heal without him.
  6. Finally, we look at verse 15-16 and the specific nature of this man’s illness as it related to his habitual sinning. “If he has committed sins” is a difficult clause in the Greek as it carries the idea of both persistence and reckless and rebellious disregard to what is destroying their health both spiritual as well as physical. But if those sins have been confessed or agreed to forgiveness of that sin will be granted by God. The purpose of the confession was to isolate the specific offence, and not to air dirty laundry.

As we conclude this section on the first two aspects of the maturity of prayer it is vital that we take the time to allow the Holy Spirit His proper and rightful place to examine our own hearts that we might be effective in praying for others.

 

 

James 5:17-20

“The maturity of prayer (part b)”

 

 

  • Introduction
  • 17-18 The Nation
  • 19-20 The Church

 

Introduction

 It is clear in our own lives that the key to our need for “patience” is often activated in “prayer”! We all have countless illustrations where we grew impatient with either a situation or some person only to be reminded (in my case by my precious bride) that maybe before I come completely unglued, we ought to pray! We started last week our concluding section in James 5:13-19 where James is making his readers aware that their maturity is birthed through exercising prayer in troubling times. They aren’t to be complaining or trying to make deals with God to alter their circumstances, instead they are to be “prayerful” as James takes us through four situations in which when we ask God will answer!We noted that three of those are easily found by the phrase “Is anyone among you”! Last week we noted the first two areas where we are to mature through prayer:

  1. 13 The first situation James mentions that requires us to pray is when we are “suffering”. The word in the Greek means “hardships and distresses” and it involves “mental and emotional suffering”! James also exhorted us to do the positive when “anyone among us is CHEERFUL” PRAISE. Prayer and praise need to come right away or else we tend to do three things:
  • Grumble and complain
  • Criticize other believers
  • Blame God

How much more I have grown because instead of answering my prayer to remove me from the trial God chose to “MOVE” me through the trial.

  1. 14-16 The second area we are to pray is the most common as James asks, “Is anyone among you sick?” And though James had in mind a specific case for his exhortation concerning prayer for the sick there are some general truths that apply.

Vs. 17-18 The Nation

Vs. 17-18 Prayer for the nation: The third area mentioned that is an area that James exhorts his readers to exercise spiritual maturity in prayer in isn’t as recognizable as the other three and starts right here with the illustration of Elijah. This again is an area that these believers were very frustrated over and had the tendency to do the fleshly three things listed above instead of prayer. The illustration is found in 1 Kings chapter 17-18 when Elijah’s response to a wicked government and idolaters nation that had rejected the worship of God for the worship of Baal led by King Ahab and Jezebel his Queen. Elijah’s response was to pray that God would withhold the needed rain for 3 ½ years causing a drought as the earth didn’t receive the needed rain to produce the crops. Once you know the story it’s easy to see what area James is illustrating the necessity of maturity through prayer in…. We need to be praying to God for our nation and government! There are few areas I know of that can cause folks to becomemore fleshly than “politics” but James is saying that instead of getting in the flesh and resorting to (grumbling and complaining,criticizing others or blaming God for who got elected and who didn’t) we need to talk to God!

 What is interesting is that James starts out with the INSTRUMENT, before he addresses the OUTCOME! Elijah was one of the most revered men in Jewish history, a rebel and a reformer who is mentioned more by New Testament writers than any other First Testament prophet. But to the readers surprise what James emphasizes isn’t his deeds but the fact he was just an average man of like passions as they had. James goes out of his way to remove the “S” (superman) from his chest and take off his cape even calling him “a man with a nature like ours”! James is fully aware of our tendency to make hero’s out of ordinary people so that we can continue on in our apathy and indifference as we don’t possess these “Superhuman Qualities”! By tugging off Elijah’s cape, James has successfully shown his readers that what made Elijah a powerful servant wasn’t found in Elijah but in Whom Elijah prayed to, The Living God! Here was a man that was just as frustrated, just as afraid and discouraged about the condition of the nation as the next guy, but Elijah did something about it….he didn’t form an army, he didn’t boycott his local store, instead Elijah did something absolute powerful and effective….he prayed and in answer to his prayer the Lord showed everyone who was really the Living God….and spoiler alert it wasn’t Baal! Elijah was an emotional man who could go to the same fleshly weakness that we all battle and in fact at times we seem prone to depression, but God broke through to him in a still small voice (1 Kings 19:4, 10, 14). But James’ point is that through the prayers of this man of like passions God did extraordinary things as God led him to pray that it wouldn’t rain and it didn’t do so for 3 ½ years. I remind you that Elijah continued to live in the same land after having made that prayer and had to suffer through the same effects of that prayer that everyone else did and I add that if anyone knew that he had made that prayer (and I assume some did as it is recorded that they did) he wouldn’t have been a very popular man after a very short period of time! But after 3 ½ years of God making His point to the nation about Who was truly God and who wasn’t Elijah was led to pray the second time and God brought forth the rain. James is suggesting is that it wasn’t Elijah, and it wasn’t human energy and strategy that accomplished anything it was an ordinary man who was led by the Living God to move all of nature at Elijah’s word. And because of this a wicked king and an entire nation did the unthinkable, they bowed down to recognize that Jehovah is the only true Living God. It is far better for us like passioned people to recognize that our hope and power lies not in our “passion” but in “Whom our passion is IN”! Oh, that during “THIS GLOBAL PANDEMIC” we ordinary people would bow our hearts and pray that God’s will would be done on earth more than that we would be praying that we would get our will done in heaven!

Vs. 19-20 The Church

Vs. 19-20 Prayer for the church: The fourth and final area mentioned by James as he exhorts his readers to exercise spiritual maturity in prayer is back to the already twice repeated phrase “If anyone among you” and this time it is for those whom James says have “wandered from the truth”. Here the need for spiritual maturity in prayer adds another dimension than the three fleshly responses so prevalent in us of: grumbling and complaining, criticizing others or blaming God and that is: Gossip! We have a tendency to talk to others about the spiritual condition of those who have wondered from the truth instead of talking to God about them! Which I might add is a bit of an irony that I would talk to others about another’s wondering from the truth while demonstrating my own wandering! The word in the Greek that is used for “wandering” is one that indicates that such a stroll away from truth was a gradual moving away and not an abrupt departure and most likely was from the will of God in their life which changed their view of His word. That is often the case in our gradual descent away from the Truth of His Word as we are faced with some adversity that we have prayed to escape only to find that God is moving us through the trial and not diverting us away from the trial. That crises of faith caused by our interpreting God through our circumstance instead of interpreting our circumstances by what we know to be true about God cause our wandering from the truth. The First testament term for this was an ugly term called “backsliding” but the truth of this term biblical is that if you have at any time ever been closer to God than you are at this moment than you have backslidden. Paul in Galatians 6:1 wrote about this saying that “If a man was OVERTAKEN in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, least you also be tempted.” The need to pray for the church instead of gossip about the person is a great indication of the condition of our own heart. Furthermore, when there is one who has wondered it can cause others to wander as well as Eccl 9:18 says, “One sinner destroys much good.” Jesus warned Peter that satan was right there to tempt him when Peter refused to believe Jesus’ words. James admonishes us to pray and reach out to those who have wandered as much as those who are “lost” as to do so is like saving their soul from death and covers a multitude of sins. Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hate stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.” The maturity in prayer is seeking to restore and cover the areas of hurt and injury that wandering away from the truth has caused.

            Hey saints, here is yet another activity we can be much more involved in during our “social distancing” that will cause us to be closer to God and each other than any other way…. PRAYER!