Turn with me now to the book of James. James chapter 5 beginning with verse 13 and we'll read to verse 18. James chapter 5 beginning with verse 13. Let us give our attention once again to the reading of God's holy word. This is found on page 1389 of the Bibles provided there in your rows. James writes, And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespass to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Remember the grass withers and the flower falls, but God's word abides forever. Amen. We're continuing our look at the prayer of faith as noted here in James chapter 5. We're basically getting a two-for-one out of this text as we consider different things that, different ideas in the scriptures that people have taken and pulled out of context in order to establish a different idea or doctrine. Last week, we saw this idea of the prayer of faith in relation to healing. This week, it's connected to the idea of the confession of sin. And yet, in both contexts, it's set in the context of prayer. And so, as we hear about the subject of prayer, if I were to say prayer is easy or difficult for you, which word would you insert in the blank? I find it easy to pray or hard to pray. More times than not, people would probably answer that prayer is a hard practice. There's various reasons that we struggle in terms of prayer. After all, it's something that takes discipline. It's something that you have to learn how to do. It's not as if you just simply can attend classes in order to go through eight weeks on a better prayer life and consequently just follow these various steps and you'll be a better prayer. Other times the practice can be intimidating so that it's hard to focus or you get ready to sit down and pray and you immediately don't know what to pray for. And so with this, the challenge in prayer can be find in the discipline that's necessary in order to engage in it. Or maybe you set out and you have the various things that you want to bring before the throne of grace and yet as you do, you then find it's hard to simply continue with that. It takes attention, it takes skill. You find that maybe your mind gets bored or distracted or you start thinking about other things and consequently it's just too challenging. Maybe there are too many distractions in your life. You get too busy to pray or you just simply forget. You get up in the morning and you begin your routine and you go on your day and things pop up and what you would intend to do at the beginning just simply doesn't happen. For some, it may be the idea of dependency. I don't like the idea that I have to acknowledge that I'm dependent on another individual and prayer causes me to say that. Sometimes it's just simply, I'm discouraged. I'm discouraged because I'm so overwhelmed by things that are happening in my life that I just can't share this. I find it too challenging to bring this forward. Or I've done so in the past and yet it seems like it's always just unanswered prayer for me. And so why does it matter? How do I even know that God is listening when I call out? Well, if you're in the category of finding it hard or difficult to pray, I think the end section here of James 5, verses 16 and following is for you. Because in this particular text, the appeal that James makes in order to encourage us to pray is simply that it works. And he appeals to the likeness that is found between us and Elijah so that we might then be encouraged to pursue prayer. And so this morning I want us to hear this even as we deal with this idea of untwisting things that are twisted. As we consider the idea that is twisted before us, it's found in verse 16 when we read, confess your trespass to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. And so the first thing that we want to see is, well, what's the error that's associated with prayer? What's the error that's being addressed? The error here is this idea of confession. And there are errors on that are too narrow or too broad. The broad approach basically says, well, I should just tell everyone everything. After all, it just feels so good to get things off of my chest. And so as it were, individuals will come to friends or to a small group of Christians, and next thing you know, you've learned all sorts of things about this individual who's saying, well, we ought to confess our sins. And frankly, you're sitting there saying, I didn't want to know these things about you in the first place. But here they are. We've turned our small groups into times for confession. And under the guise of sharing our difficulties, some are hardly embarrassed by the struggles that are present in their life because they feel that it's more important to feel better about myself in order to tell others what I'm going through than to recognize that there is a place for private in a place for the public. And depending on the nature of the sin and what has occurred, we should be aware of that. Jesus does note and affirm that we ought to confess our sins one to another, but as we heard a few weeks back, it's in the context of the scope or the nature of the offense. If it is a personal offense, it's then to be addressed personally and resolved and let go. But if it's in the context of the covenant community, then that should be addressed. So you have some who are very broad in terms of their perspective of the confession of sin, but then you also have some who are very narrow. In the context of the Roman Church, they have established a sacrament of penance, and involved with this doctrine or practice of penance, then you have the confessional, where they ultimately note that one individual ought to go and talk to a priest, and that you need to do so at least once a year. make it known the various struggles and difficulties and challenges that you've had and the ways in which you failed to uphold what God has noted in His Word and what the church calls you to do. And through this then, the individual or the priest hears what is noted and encouragement is given to recite prayer and to make amends in order to satisfy wrongdoing. And there's the promise that guilt of sin can be absolved. There is a belief that this is biblical. The Church of Rome would appeal to John chapter 20, verse 23, where Jesus says, if you forgive anyone his sins, then truly they are forgiven. And the argument is that Christ in turn gave the apostles authority to forgive sins. And this authority then is passed on down through the ages. There's a problem here with that. The passage doesn't deal with the confession of sin or apostolic succession, and nor was it a practice that any of the apostles in the New Testament even engaged in. Jesus is ultimately noting this in the idea that through the declaration of the gospel, there is the promise of forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who believe this promise then have the assurance that it is true. And those who don't are absent from it. In terms of our passage here in James chapter five with confessing your trespasses to one another, this passage also does not then affirm this practice. After all, the confession of sin is to each other, not to a representative of the church. And furthermore, in terms of officers in the church, they're established as elders and as deacons. But there's a more fundamental problem, and that is that in terms of the nature of being priests, the Bible notes the priesthood of all believers Peter identifies us as a royal priesthood and a holy priesthood. In the book of Revelation, the saints are identified as a kingdom of priests. We ultimately see that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, and as a consequence of the sacrifice of himself on the cross, we then note that the wall of division or separation has been torn down, so the consequence is, according to the author of Hebrews, we can go boldly to God's very throne of grace and we can make our needs known directly to him. Because Jesus is our great high priest, has paved the way and beckons us to come so that we then may go directly to God in prayer. The error that's present is it assumes that we need someone else to be able to go before the living God. And it's true we do, but that one is Jesus Christ, not simply the representatives that He has established here on earth. And so in light of this error, what then? Well, secondly, we want to see that the passage encourages us to pray. We are encouraged to pray. We see in verse 16, confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Ultimately, as this call for confession is needed, it's a recognition that sin is present as we live in this world, and sin is even present within the context of the church. And as we have various things that arise based on our relationships with one another, whether there's offense by the words that we say, or we then somehow sin against another by the actions that we commit, James here is encouraging us to go forward and recognize our sins to one another. We're ultimately called to repair the situation that may be present as rifts occur or division takes place. Repair it by resolving whatever thing may be present and consequently praying for one another. And isn't this really a beautiful picture in the context of the church? The idea that individuals can be absolute enemies and yet reconciled because of Jesus Christ. Or that individuals can be at odds or be separated from one another because of words spoken or actions committed. And as they then come together in order to talk about what's present, that God shows himself to be the God who reconciles so that issues can be resolved and true peace and the restoration of relationship. can occur. And so James then encourages us, yes, to confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. The confession of sin needs to occur because it blocks our path to God and serves as an obstacle in our relationships with one another. And so we do need to then come before the living God to recognize that our sins have been committed against him and we seek then his forgiveness so that we might be restored. But we must also repair relationships with one another so that through this repair we show that we are then together. But how, why then be engaged in this? I mean, after all I said, we're encouraged to pray. And yet, as we consider that list that I had noted at the outset, we find this encouragement hard. Of all the things we're being encouraged in, it's to pray. It's not encouragement towards evangelism or encouragement in terms of being able to give more or do more for the kingdom. It's not an encouragement towards service or works of mercy. It's prayer. Remember distractions, difficulties, discouragement, dependency. Listen to what James tells us in order to help us work through some of that. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Think about that for a moment. Prayer is effective. Prayer works. Now, in terms of the power of prayer, it's not in itself. The power of prayer is not in itself. Many people pray and see nothing. Many individuals pray to false gods and to false ideas. Many people will engage in a practice where they go for hours on end and seek to clear their minds so that they may then be able to utter all sorts of statements. It's not simply in the act of prayer that power is found. Think about Elijah and the passage that we read, the verses that we didn't read talked about Elijah and his confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And yet in terms of that, those individuals prayed. There was lots of them, 400. They prayed for a long time, from basically sun up until the time of the evening sacrifice. They were engaged in all sorts of things, whooping and hollering and dancing and cutting themselves and going around in circles and calling for the God of Baal in order to act, and yet, nothing. It's also not simply found in Persuasion. If you have the right vocabulary, you get the right guy that will stand in for you, or you have the number of people present that really then will get attention. Yet it's effective. Individuals we've heard through history, from our time until the time of the church in the New Testament, even down through the Old Testament, showed that through prayer, there was power. Daniel, in his closet, repenting over the sins of Israel, leading to the time of the restoration from the captivity. Joshua praying and the sun stood still. Hezekiah with the threat of the Assyrians and God in one night wipes out 185,000 Assyrians by himself. Elijah and Elisha each restore a child to life. The church in the New Testament prays and sees the release of Peter. And there's many, many more examples of prayer. You see, the power of prayer, and in turn the encouragement that we have to pray, is in this. That when we pray, we go to the God who is all-powerful. The power of prayer isn't in the place, or the persuasive words, or the wishful thinking, or simply having a time set aside. It's none of that. It's all found in the fact that when we pray, it's the avenue and the means by which we go to the God who is all-powerful, calling upon Him to act in our circumstance. The power of prayer is not seen in prayer itself, but in the God who hears and acts in prayer. But there's a second thing, the effect of fervent prayer of a righteous man. The power of prayer is only by means of approach through the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, in order for us to be righteous, it's not found in us, but rather it's found outside of us. It's a standing before God that is given to us because of Jesus Christ. We pray because God calls us to pray, and yet we pray through the Lord Jesus Christ because it is only by Him that we have any standing before the living God. You see, Jesus opened the way. There was separation and division. It resulted at the moment in which Adam and Eve disobeyed and brought sin into this world, but Jesus opened it up. He made it so that we in turn can cry out to God and be assured that he will hear and answer in accordance with his will. And consequently we then see that prayer is effective and that it works. But as we see this, as we hear this encouragement, it can be helpful to have an example. I mean, after all, you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what the Bible says. I know that I'm encouraged to pray. I know that it's there, but yet you still don't understand. This is where the example of prayer comes in through the life of Elijah. Notice what James says about Elijah, that he was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain on the land for three years and six months, and he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Why Elijah? Of all the individuals that James could cite, why do you think he picked this one? I mean, there are other powerful examples of prayer. Well, for one thing, there's an aspect of a legend that surrounds Elijah. Elijah, remember, was identified in the book of Malachi as the forerunner to the Messiah. And so consequently, he was viewed as this theistic superhero. He did amazing things. He really stood out. I mean, after all, he stood against wicked Ahab and the prophets of Baal and Ahab's wife, and even in the context of an entire nation. And through his words, rain stopped and rain resumed. He was able to care for a widow by ensuring that she had flour through the drought, and a couple of different times even called down fire from heaven, one to consume the offering in 1 Kings 18, the other to kill a couple of groups of soldiers who sought to arrest him. And yet notice how Elijah is described. Not the superhero, A man with a nature like ours. Yeah, he was used mightily by God, but he was no different than you and me. Remember, he stands and he leads the nation back to true worship, and wicked Jezebel comes before Elijah and she says, by this time tomorrow, I'm going to kill you. What does he do? Hey, bring it on. No. Give me your best shot. No. He doesn't even recall what just happened. God brought fire from heaven and consumed the sacrifice and we killed all the prophets of Baal. He gets scared and he runs and he hides. And then what does he do? He gets depressed. And God comes along and encourages him to bring him out of his depression. Here's the point, he was just a man. And he was just a man who had his ups and who had his downs. You may have not dealt with Jezebel or the 400 prophets of Baal, but you've had those times in your life where you have been pressed regarding your faith, you have been embarrassed by it, you've been ashamed of it because of the pressure of others, and consequently you go, Yeah, I think I'm scared right now. Or I'm unsure. Or I'm doubtful. He was just like us. But furthermore, he dealt with stuff in his life just like us. He lived in an ungodly culture. So much so that Ahab, as we had read in 1 Kings 16, was identified as being more evil than all the other kings that came before him. So much so that he provoked the Lord. He followed after a God who was to be the God of fertility and rain in order to see that people would be provided for and the earth as well. And yet even in the context of these powerful enemies, Elijah was there. And the answer, the solution, the strength, the resolve, the power was found in prayer being offered to the living God. You deal with enemies too. And yet the answer solution is found in your ability to be able to pray to the living God also. One righteous man affected a nation. That's the point. An individual like us, significant impact through prayer. I mean, how so? Through this one man, he, in accordance with what God had revealed in his word, was able to pray so that it affected an entire region. Consider what he did by means of prayer. It wasn't simply a prayer that a resident Israelite would get their cat out of a tree. It wasn't that I would somehow do well on my test, or that I might find something that's lost, or that something good would happen for a family member. There's nothing wrong with praying about those things, but we're talking about global consequence. We're talking about world context. Drought, the loss of rain, for three and a half years. Now Elijah knew the word of God in Deuteronomy 11 and 28 and 2 Chronicles 7. God had promised if Israel had abandoned him that he then would bring about drought. And yet Elijah had to pray that the Lord would honor what he said. And when it came time and the Lord then had made it known that it was time for the rain to come, Elijah didn't simply rest on what God had said, but he then calls upon God to bring about what he said. What do we see? In the example of prayer through this man who is like us dealing with these various circumstances, it still came bound to the power of God. In the encouragement to pray, it was the power of God. In the example of prayer, it's the power of God. He was the one who was sovereign over His creation so that He then stopped and started the rain. In the context of your life, you have the same God who is able to act and work in your life. Yes, there are great struggles. Struggles of weakness. Struggles of inadequacy. Struggles in terms of the world and the flesh and the devil. Great enemies that are present all around and yet it's still the same God who cares for you, who loves you, who is with you, and who simply calls upon you to say, pray. And the effective fervent prayer of a righteous individual avails much. So lastly, how might we be emboldened to pray? Number one, to recognize that God works and still does. You see, part of the issue I think that we have in relation to prayer is that we have minimized what God really can do. Yeah, he did it in the Old Testament, he did it in the New Testament, but that's the Bible, and it was so long ago, and those were some really special Christians or believers there. No, a man with a nature like ours, God works and still does. Even as we look at our world, craziness in the Middle East, it's been there since the time of Abraham. Nations coming against nations, political parties at work in Washington, the circumstances of a pandemic, issues on the social front as it pertains to abortion or marriage or homosexuality or other types of views and practices. And yet in all of this, God still is at work. And we don't know what the Lord will do in our country, but we do know this. that when God is ready for us to hit rock bottom, we will. And when we do through prayer, we in turn can turn and see the need, the presence, and the work of God. And so as you look at what's happening around you, remember that God works as we saw and still does. Number two, God is present or God is present and still is. Isn't that part of the struggle in terms of prayer? Is God really here? Does God really know? Will He really act? Does He really answer? It may be a struggle that some of you deal with in the passing of a loved one or a hard circumstance in someone's death. Is God in this one? He was there in Job's life, he's still there. Maybe it's not death, but it seems like death would be better. Just an ongoing struggle, a challenge physically or mentally. Issues in terms of relationships. God's still present. And in some circumstances, if he chooses, he then will work in the hearts and lives of men and overcome everything. Other places, he may even heal. In other places, he may leave things alone in order to show, my grace is sufficient. And yet in all of it, he still is present. And he teaches and assures us of these things as we pray. Thirdly, God is gracious and he still is. It's a hard one to remember, isn't it? Because when we look at our personal circumstances, we wonder about that. Things are hard. Things are difficult. Things are taking place that we can't explain. And yet if these things are happening, then is God really there? Is he truly gracious? Why would he allow such things before me? After all, I've been faithful, I've been true, I've walked in accordance with his ways, and yet this is here. but it ought not cause us to question his grace. Because the only way that you can be identified as a child of God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's never abandoned you from him. He still has you in the palm of his hand and connected to the Lord Jesus Christ so that you have a perfect standing through him. You're still identified as one of his children and he consequently hasn't given you anything that you ultimately deserve. Furthermore, you can't live the Christian life on your own. It's only by the grace of God that you can and therefore may we never get caught up in the error that would say God's got his part and I've got my part. Prayer encourages us to know that there but for the grace of God go I. He's gracious and still is. So what do we do? Believe boldly, trust fully, and pray continually. Believe boldly that God is sovereign and working through all things, and we know that there is nothing that is too much for him, and so we pray. And yet at the same time, we then trust fully, we trust him for his wisdom, we trust him for his grace, we trust him regarding his rule, and therefore we pray. pray continually in all circumstances of life, no matter the frustrations, no matter the temptations, even in the midst of blessings, we pray, pray, and pray some more. Why? Because the effect of prayer is not seen in the action or motion of prayer, but ultimately in that we go to the all-powerful God who works. With that in mind, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we ask that you would encourage us, even through the discouragements that we have in prayer, the struggles that we have in knowing how or what to say, the frustrations that we have as we look at various circumstances in life and just question or wonder what's taking place, as we become disheartened and even frustrated, May we remember that you have a good intention for us and that you are the remedy. You're the remedy when things are well. You're the remedy when things are hard. Fill our hearts with a loving trust. and your intention for us. Even as we pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.