James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:15-18

¹⁵ Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. ¹⁷ Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! ¹⁸ Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

When I was in school one of the guys on our rugby team got in trouble and the coach punished the entire team for it. He made all of us get up at 5:00am and run. Today we live in a society that would call that unfair. So why did I have to bear the burden of his bad behavior? The coach was teaching us a critical and lifelong lesson, that we were a team. He was teaching us that when one of us stumbles or struggles, it affected us all. And the only way to overcome that is for those who aren’t struggling to come to the aid of those who are. Togetherness, teamwork, camaraderie, unity that was the lesson. We were no longer a group of individuals we were a corporate body. This is a lesson that the church needs to learn. Sadly sports has become about show boating, its no longer about the team but about the individual. When it comes to pro sports we put the name of the athlete not the team on the back of the shirt. We keep individual stats, the focus is on self first and serving second.  But when it comes to being a corporate body here’s the difference, sports teams and most teams are just made-up teams. They are corporate bodies only in the sense of temporarily uniting for a temporary cause. But the church is radically different than that kind of unity. Because the church IS a corporate body. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. ¹³ Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit” And on down in verse 27, God’s Word says; “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. We’re not just some type of made-up team. We are a corporate body because we are Christ’s body and He is our head. So, doesn’t it stand to reason that we have a corporate responsibility to those among us who are going through affliction? Just like the rugby team that runs as a team because one of their teammates has stumbled, so we also have a corporate responsibility. In our passage today, we are in the middle of the 12^th test of faith the affliction test. Last time we saw our individual responsibility. That each of us is personally responsible to pray, praise and petition the Elders of the church to come and pray over us. But that’s not where it ends, because God didn’t save us in isolation, Salvation isn’t solitary confinement. He saved you to serve, calling you into a corporate body, the body of His Son. This body called the church. And as a saved part of this corporate body of Christ, we have a responsibility toward those among us who are going through affliction. Today we are letting a lot of worldly ideas influence the church. One of the worldly ideologies that we are bringing into the church is the ideology of individualism. That it’s all about me. That is why there are many who claim Christ but don’t claim the church. It’s what I call the doctrine of decapitation. We love Christ the head but loath his body the church. So, we cut of contact with his body, the church, which leads to not just lone ranger Christians, but lonely Christians. But James here teaches us that we are part of the body, and as such we have a responsibility to get each other to pass the affliction test. The affliction test isn’t just an individual test, it’s also a corporate test and it’s here that James reveals the second key the corporate key. Not only do we need to engage the individual key of prayer, praise and petitioning the Elders to come and pray over us, but we also need the corporate key of confession and prayer. For many this is a scary scripture because James calls us to corporate confession, to come clean and get real with each other. This is a call to accountability, to recognize that our individual sin affects the whole body. My prayer as we go through part 2 of the Affliction test is that we will not only care enough about the church to publicly confess our sin, but that we would be a people of prayer who constantly seek the face of God. 

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:13-15

¹³ Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. ¹⁴ Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

After looking at the Seasons of prayer we now come to the:

1. Reasons for prayer – Vs 14-15

1. Raise up the sick – Vs 15

It’s here that we see that our second individual responsibility as we go through the affliction test is to call on Godly leaders to lovingly pray over us. This is a difficult passage because of how it has been taken out of context, leading to misuse and abuse. When you study this scripture in context it will protect you from some fraud trying to peddle “James 5:14 Anointing Oil” on TV. 

In your personal study you need to see James 5:14 in the context of this whole passage. And you will see this whole passage in the context of the whole book of James. And you will see the book of James in the context of all of the New Testament. And you will see the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. That is true Bible study. One verse cannot be understood in isolation from the rest of Scripture. Verse 14 starts the same way as verse 13 did. “If any one of you is sick you must call.” It’s the third command in this passage. The word that is translated sick here is used 32 times in the New Testament. 18 times it is used to describe physical sickness and 14 times to describe emotional or spiritual weakness. At its core, it means deep, intense, personal affliction, whether physical or spiritual or emotional. When you experience that kind of affliction in your life, you have a personal responsibility to both pray and call on others to pray over you. But not just any others, but Elders. While everyone in the church is called to pray for those who are experiencing trials which we will see in part 2 for this kind of deep, intense, personal affliction, you are to call on the elders. Why because when you are dealing with spiritual battle you don’t send a child in the faith to fight you send a warrior who is ready for war. An Elder is one who is known and recognized for their godly character. The point of the verse is this, when you experience deep, intense, personal affliction, where are you supposed to go? To a counselor? To a psychologist? To a telephone hotline? Who does James say you are to call on? Elders, spiritually mature men  of God. Notice it says Elders not elder, Jesus didn’t send his disciples out alone but in twos. If you are a lady ask the Elders and Elders wives to come. It is your responsibility to call on them. What is their responsibility? They are to come along side you in prayer. Unfortunately here is where Satan often has a hay day and sucks saints under. Because we believe that the pastor should just know what is going on in our lives and show up. While it is true that pastors should know the state of their flock, Proverbs 27:23 parishioners have a personal responsibility to reach out. Why does the bible commands us to call out for help, because when we are silent we go through suffering alone. Satan goes around like a roaring lion looking for those he can devour, how do lions hunt, they separate the sick from the herd and take them down. Calling out to the Elders doesn’t just bring healing it keeps us in the herd. Don’t let Satan silence and separate you. So, let me ask you where do you turn in times of trial, social media or spiritual men? You are commanded to call they are commanded to come and pray over you. To spiritually support you in prayer. But then there is the anointing you with oil thing. What’s that about? In the ancient world, olive oil was an extremely important product. It was used for food, ceremonial purposes, as well as health purposes. If it was used for food, the context would make that clear. If the oil is used to anoint a person in a ceremonial way a very specific original word would be used here, and it is not. The word that’s used here literally means “to rub.” The picture James paints is what spiritually mature believers did when saints were beaten and persecuted. They would take them in and pray over them while they rub their wounds with olive oil. It’s what the Good Samaritan did in Luke 10:34: ^“Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them.” This is a call to care, Elders are not just called to run the church but care for the sick and: 

• Restore the sinner. – Vs 15

If you have committed sins. In James day the Jews believed that all sickness was the result of sin, that is why in John 9 when Jesus disciples see a man who is blind from birth they ask Jesus “Rabbi,” “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” James makes it clear here that not all sickness is a result of sin. But it is not the Elders who raise up or restore the work they do is done in the name of the Lord and its done in faith. The power is not in the person, or in the oil it’s in the Almighty. The affliction test is a difficult test because just like a fire it will either burn and trash you or temper and better you. Affliction can purify and perfect or it can poison. This takes us back to the beginning of the book in James 1:2-4: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” Do you have the kind of faith that faces affliction test with prayer and praise, prepared to call on others for help? Whatever kind of affliction you’re going through you don’t have to face it alone.