The Prayer of Faith

Olive Oil on light brown backdrop

If you want someone to remember what you tell them, where do you put the most important information, the main takeaway you want them to remember? Maybe you want to lead with your important concept because that is when people are paying the most attention. Maybe you want to put it at the end so it is the last thing that people hear you say.

James does both.

James chapter 1 reminds us that suffering is a reality in the Christian life, but pleading to the Lord for help is the way to navigate it. When we get to chapter 5, what are we talking about? Suffering is a reality in the Christian life, but pleading to the Lord for help is the way to navigate it.

Now, I'm going to plead with you not to tune out here. I know, I know, it's hearing about the importance of prayer, again. Maybe this topic is a source of guilt for you, knowing that we all need to be praying more. Maybe this topic is one of pain for you because you have prayed for things that seemed right, just, and good, and God said no. Maybe this topic is boring to you because let's be honest—prayer doesn't feel very productive, especially when you get a no at the end. Maybe this topic is confusing to you because you hear about people who seem to have a lot of faith do really stupid things in the name of prayer. You don't know what is the right or wrong way to pray, so you'd rather just not do it at all lest you mess it up.

James is here to answer all of this for us. So if anything above resonates with you, James has got something to tell you as we are about to leave his front porch. We're both in the standing up, wrapping up portion of our conversation, and James is saying, "Oh, hey before you go, let me say this," and he's giving us the keys to what he wants us to know. And wouldn't you know it, James has got more things about how we are supposed to talk to each other and God.

Be defined by honesty

"Above all," James tells us "do not swear." Now this is mighty confusing. There are arguments about exactly where this verse fits. I've even seen some Bible's outline this section as "exhortations" which is a way of saying, "Here's a bunch of commands that we don't know how to make them all fit." The best explanation that I've found is that the phrase, "Above all," is being used in a more literary fashion to indicate that we are wrapping things up, and that it applies to all the things that follow, not just verse 12. Those same commentators will note, as I have done here, that what follows mostly is about how we use our tongues.

Verse 12 is about not taking oaths or saying "I swear" in order to give your words weight. What's swearing or oath making? It isn't saying bad words, but rather it is invoking God's name to give credence to your story. Modern versions of this might be "God is my witness," with the implication that if you lie in front of God, that would be a bad thing. In Jesus' time, this sort of thing was out of control. People would promise things to each other, but would say silly things like, "I swear upon the temple that I'll be home in time for dinner." They would then break that promise and the religious leaders at the time would say, "Well, if he had said, 'I swear by the GOLD of the temple,' then he'd have to do it, but because he didn't do that, it doesn't count." (Matt. 23:16-22) Silliness. And sin. They would use swearing as a means of lying, and instead Jesus (and James) are telling you not to do that. Can you take an oath in court? In my opinion yes, but that is a very rare circumstance. Oaths and such should be spared for those rare circumstances, not trotted out in everyday language because no one will believe you if you don't. Again, this isn't to add a new verbal tic, but it is an over all principle that you should be honest in what you do to the degree that it is expected. To borrow an example, if you were to ask me how far work is, and I go, "Eh. not far. 4-6 miles, maybe." That's true. If the IRS is asking me what my milage is to work, that answer is 5.3 miles, 10 feet, sir! That's also true. And that is what James is talking about. I shouldn't have to go, "I live four to six miles away, man, I swear." My need to add on that phrase indicates I'm not too trustworthy.

Moving on from that, though, let's get into the meat of this chapter by looking at James' thoughts on prayer.

Be defined by prayer

As James moves into the final sections, we get what can be summarized as praying in every situation. One commentator has a helpful reminder for us: "We must remember that prayer is active, not passive. We aren’t sitting back in our rocking chair, hoping that God will finally get busy and solve the crisis for us, but are in the front lines of our lives, asking him for strength to persevere and wisdom to find answers." To borrow from John Piper, we wouldn't consider a soldier giving report on his radio to be a waste of time and lack of effort. In fact, for a solider not to do that would be considered foolish.

You might notice that with the person suffering, prayer might seem a bit more obvious of a need than a person who is cheerful. Suffering refers to attacks from without, but cheerful has the connotation that you are encouraged. This is a quick line, but this is worth remembering. We don't just need prayer to get us through suffering, though that is usually when we are the most reminded to do so. We need prayer in our good times, too. One commentator put it this way "Trouble can give rise to an attitude of surly rebellion against God and the abandonment of spiritual practices. Equally, times of ease and affluence beget complacency, laziness and the assumption that we are able of ourselves to cope with life, and God is forgotten." (Motyer)

We don't just cry out for our spiritual needs either, but when we are sick, especially severely so, we are called to pray. As we get to verse 14 this is something that can easily be misunderstood. This can be taken as some sort of blank check for physical healing. It can be easily thought that bringing church elders and olive oil into the equation that this makes prayer more powerful and guarantees health. It does not. Paul obviously has some sort of ailment with his thorn in the flesh that was not removed despite prayer. God is not obligating himself to say yes if you believe hard enough, see Jesus' prayer in the Garden. Charletons on the TV will try to use this verse to say God can heal you, but only if you have enough faith. Blasphemous. Blasphemous to say that you can control God, and blasphemous to say that Jesus can only heal if you supply enough faith power. Turning faith in AI tokens, let the reader understand. Jesus healed people even when their faith was weak (Mark 9:21-24).

Just because Jesus has done something in the past like raising Lazarus from the dead does not obligate Him to repeat that for us based on our prayers for Grandma.

Yet, at the same time, we can run too far to the idea that God is more likely to not give us a good answer, so there is no need to even try, and that is not what James is recommending here. I've been a part of two prayer meetings like this one. One was for a man in our church with a rare blood cancer, and he died. The other was Auggie, with his quadruple stacked heart defects who sits in our midst today. I can look at Auggie and say that God answers prayer, and many times does beyond what we can ask or think (Eph. 3:20). Even if other sicknesses are a result of sickness (which by the way, not all of them are), prayer accompanied by confession and repentance can be restorative to the whole person.

And what is amazing here is these answers to prayers come from prayers offered up by normal people, people who are righteous in Christ. James offers up the life of Elijah as an example. Was he a great prophet? Undoubtably, yet he wasn't super human. He didn't have "SP" on his chest for super prayer. In fact, many commentators point out Elijahs boldness in front of the prophets of Baal, but running like a madman from the Queen. He got discouraged. Yet because of whom he was praying to, amazing things were done.

WE way too often leave prayer behind. We assume that we can get things done better on our own. We often also think that it is prayer OR working on something. How about praying WHILE you are working on something? I do that all the time in my sermon prep. Do I have time that I set aside just for focused prayer? Yes. It is hard to write a sermon while praying for someone else's surgery coming up. But as I am working through my text, I am praying throughout to aid my understanding, to give me the words to write, and most importantly, that this text would convict and shape me first.

So what is our takeaway here? Once again, language is a powerful gift that God has given to us and is a window into our own hearts, and in the world of AI, it can do more than it ever could before. That makes James' concluding lessons all the more important. Use your words to bring light and clarity to the world, and always speak in those ways. That doesn't mean that we let everything that pops into our head fly out in the name of authenticity. See James chapter 3 for bridling our tongues' evil. But it does mean that we speak in a way that says what we mean and means what we say.

Finally (above all?), take every opportunity you can to pray. I remember in seminary the advice was every time you feel the impulse to pray, you should. James goes further in that everything that you encounter, you can and should bring to God. That doesn't mean heads bowed eyes closed, but it does mean reacting to life as if God is right there with you because he is.

Now maybe after all of this, your heart is revealed to need work. Mine too.