James: Prayers of Faith

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  Do you remember the first time you desperately prayed to God? For me, it was 1998. Backstreet Boys were all the rage. Or should I have said NSYNC? I don’t know. Uh, Saving Private Ryan was the movie of the year. But also, technically, Titanic. But that came out in 97. But continued its streak in 98. And Furby was on everybody’s Christmas list.

Anybody get a Furby back in the day? I absolutely did. No shame. I don’t know. When you Google it, if you don’t know what it is. Why in the world did we think that was a cool thing? We all did. And it was magical. Uh, but in that year. A good old 1998, because I am from the 1900s. Uh, I had two jarring experiences.

That still shapes the way I view prayer and faith today, and not always for the good. First, I began to develop this rash. And it was this weird rash on my hands and arms, and it kind of felt like sandpaper. After that, I started to have fevers, and I couldn’t keep these fevers down. And so finally, my mom, if you guys know my mom, She just avoids hospitals and doctors at all costs.

And so finally she’s like, okay, it’s been 104 for three days. We should probably take this child in. So we went to the doctors and they quickly diagnosed me with scarlet fever. Now, this is the 90s, Scarlet Fever is not really something you need to fear anymore. But, in 1998, I had just completed a president’s project.

I learned about Ike Dwight Eisenhower. And I knew, because of my research, Dwight Eisenhower’s son passed away from Scarlet Fever at the age of three. And you also know how hypochondriac I am, and so I was freaking out, and I was terrified. And I remember, I legitimately began to pray, God, heal me. I want to live at least until I can drive.

Anybody remember those days? Like, I just want my license. At least let me live to there. And that was a really scary prayer, and I really believed I prayed in faith for God to heal. During that same time, in the wonderful year of 1998, I learned that my aunt was really, really ill, ill. She, uh, she actually had to go through chemo.

I remember vividly, it’s burned into my mind’s imagination, the picture of my aunt who, uh, because of cortisone shots, her, her head almost became like the shape of a basketball. Um, and she was going through immense pain. And this was extra hard for me as a Christian because my aunt and uncle, they were missionaries.

in Chile, uh, Santiago, South America, uh, for, for years. And so I had actually visited them in 1995, uh, for the first time, seeing where they did ministry. And they were doing the work of the Lord. Also, they got a basketball court and painted it the Phoenix sun. So they were really doing the work of the Lord in South America.

And I remember being so shocked because of all people to get really sick, why would it be a missionary? Why would it be the people who, like, really love the Lord, who have sacrificed the good things of America just to go to another country and then fall ill? And they were very much my spiritual heroes.

Uh, they captured my heart, uh, when, uh, seeing them on mission. I remember thinking, I’m gonna spend my life, I don’t know how, but I’m gonna make sure it’s for the mission of God throughout the world. But now she, this faithful woman, was sick. And so my mom asked me to pray for her every day and every night.

And it was the one thing our family consistently prayed for together out loud on a daily basis. And we just, it was kind of simple. God, heal her. God, heal her from this illness. For a while they didn’t even know what it was. In fact, uh, but she got to the point where she was so sick and they couldn’t find the diagnosis in South America that they flew her to Arizona and they determined it was best for her to move back to the States in order for her to live a more, uh, healthy life.

Life and so they had to leave South America and come back to actually to Virginia to help missionaries go now They train missionaries, which is quite wonderful But I remember that was a big year for me because it was the first time I began to pray to God for deliverance pray To God for healing and every day I would pray for that in fact over the span of three weeks in 1998 I asked God to heal me of my of my scarlet fever and he did it was likely through the means of medication Rest, but also prayer.

I believe I was healed and the fact that I wasn’t born in the 1920s was probably a little bit helpful as well. But then you actually have my aunt and I’ve been praying not for three weeks, but now still for the span of three decades, asking God to heal her and he still hasn’t. It’s a chronic disease that’s always lurking in the background of every single one of her decisions.

And of all people, I actually think looking at her life and faithfulness, I think she deserved to be healed. More than me. And I mention this because we’re going to bring a lot of baggage to this text. If you haven’t opened it already, open to James chapter 5. This is a famous passage because it’s often the passage people read when talking about healing, when somebody needs healing of some sort of sickness.

Throughout my life, this passage is hard because I have seen people get healed in the blink of an eye. In fact, we preached this sermon two and a half years ago. And two and a half years ago, there were about three individuals in our gathering who were healed. That moment after the service when we did what this passage said to do.

I’ve also seen people healed gradually. Slow process of medication and prayer. And eventually live life to the full. But I’ve also lost one of my best friends to cancer. He only lived to the age of 30. He was in my wedding and I miss him dearly. I think about him at least once a week. And let me tell you, I think all of us as friends and him himself, we prayed in faith for God to heal him.

And that healing never came, at least not the version we thought. He would and so I bring all this to say I want to challenge us because this this text as we’re finishing James We’re gonna start Advent next week is going to challenge us to pray big prayers of faith Even when we’ve seen God not necessarily do the miracles we asked him to do in the past Let’s ask God to give us that kind of faith father.

Thank you so much for your faithfulness and for your goodness I pray for healing today. Holy Spirit. Would you put it on? Somebody’s heart in this room. Maybe they need healing. Now, may we do exactly what this passage says to do. Have the elders come together, anoint them with oil, and pray for healing, and God, would you be merciful in bringing about that full healing?

God also be merciful to us who are probably frustrated with you. He’s either ourselves, our loved ones are either still sick or they have passed away. Even though we pray desperate prayers, love us where we’re at, God, give us a vision of what we could be. And give us faith, a faith that can even move mountains.

In Jesus name I pray. Everybody says, Amen, Amen. Alright, James chapter 5, starting in verse 13. We’re gonna go line by line for a little while. There are a lot of questions people have about this passage. A lot of misinterpretations. And so I’m hoping to kind of go through these one by one and maybe bring some light to some of these things.

Verse 13 again. Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Suffering. We’ve been talking about suffering a lot in the book of James. This is any and all sort of trial, affliction, emotional health, physical health, just suffering, not doing well. What should you do? Well, the first thing you should do is to pray.

Pray for deliverance. Pray for patience. Pray for hope then he says is anyone cheerful. What a joyful thing. It is okay We talked about this morning in our men’s group. It’s okay to be cheerful. It’s okay to be happy if you’re cheerful This is happy of heart Even because of circumstances just enjoy that and say, you know what God?

Thank you. I know I don’t deserve these circumstances I know they might Go away sometime, but I want to say thank you. Well, what do I do if I’m cheerful? The answer is simple. He should sing praises. Sing with all your heart. Rejoice with gratitude. Verse 14. So he’s kind of a good pastor here. He’s like, there’s three types of people in the room.

There’s the suffering, there’s the cheerful, and then there’s the sick. He said, is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Elders, by the way, are simply pastors, and so in our congregation, what it would be is you would call me and Pastor Caleb to come and pray over you.

Uh, just know it’s not like us as pastors we have some magical power, but we do have the Holy Spirit anointing us to be able to do these things. Also notice this isn’t technically, this isn’t a healing service. These aren’t the elders who have the special gift of healing. It’s simply an elder. If you have an elder at your, which a church can’t really be a church without elders, your elders just go, even if their gift is evangelism or something else.

God will use this to bless the elders to heal this person. So it’s, a lot of people insinuate from this text, you’re calling them, meaning, hey you, I’m probably bedridden or not feeling well. I can’t even go to church. Can you come to me? And so we’ve had that where I’ve gone to homes and prayed over them and anointing them with oil.

But we’ve also had it again in the service where people come forward and I have the oil in my pocket right now. Uh, and praying for that anointing. Uh, so just so you know, elders are pastors and the pastors don’t have to be special. Most of us aren’t. Uh, it is just a gift that the Lord gives. Uh, but anoint with oil is where a lot of people have questions and a lot of people maybe take some pretty weird interpretations.

I believe there are two reasons you see anointing with oil. And the um, what do you call those people, and I’m not bagging them at all, but um, those people who sell the oils, you’re gonna love this verse, okay? Because, the two reasons, one, Oil was the primary medication in these times. And so when it says, James says, Hey, anoint them with oil, for me, my favorite oil is peppermint.

I don’t know what it is. It just makes me feel better about life and clears up my sinuses. And so I have two peppermints in my truck right now. Okay, so peppermint, whatever it is, tea tree, I’m getting out of my lane here. All of those things, lavender, bring the oil. And there is a possibility where just the medication itself.

Can be helpful. This is so good. Some denominations and certainly some religions kind of have this belief you’re not really a faithful person if you’re looking to medicine to help heal. I think here in many other places the God of the Bible is not against medicine, right? If you have medicine, use it. Um, that is okay.

That is a gift from God. But it also has another reason. So sometimes the oil, just the medicine itself, will heal this person who is sick. But the second reason is, is oil has this spiritual side of it where it sets you apart for God. So there’s a lot of things we do like when we worship sometimes if you we have these kneelers here You’re setting yourself apart by saying I’m gonna get on my knees I know I can have the same kind of experience in the chair But it’s also another posture of surrender another way of saying God.

I need you. I’m surrendering to you and sometimes we need Physical things to reap to remind us of a spiritual reality And so oil has this physical representation of a spiritual reality of a spiritual anointing Kings in the Old Testament, for example, when they were set to be king, they would be anointed with oil.

It was saying, may God be with you and have grace and peace over you as you rule and reign over God’s people. So in other words, it’s another way of saying, God, I am open to you and to your power. It’s like when we do the benediction at the end of service, what do I tell you to do? Open your hands. Why?

Well, I mean, it’s not like some magical thing, but there’s something about the physical posture that actually increases your spiritual posture as well. And so there’s something about the oil signaling to yourself and to God, I’m set apart for you and I’m asking you to do this. Now again, some people have a warped vision of faith here and they assume any reliance on medicine means you don’t believe in God.

I think this passage gives a balanced perspective and pushback. Um, Tim Keller, he said it this way. This is essentially the prayer we’re praying when we’re anointing with oil. He’s saying, Lord, we’re bringing this person to the doctors, but we’re also bringing him to you. Use the doctors or don’t use the doctors, but we’re asking you to heal, right?

So we’re gonna use all avenues as possible, recognizing you’re completely in control. So sometimes I’m asking you just to bring the healing or do it through the doctors. We’re gonna do both, okay? So, please hear me. By using doctors doesn’t mean you’re not having faith. You acknowledge, in reality, doctors, they’re using the brains that God gave them.

They’re using the elements of creation that God blessed us with. It’s still a gift from God. But this next verse is even more guilty of misinterpretation, especially to modern ears. And so let’s look at this and see what he actually means here. Verse 15, the prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up.

If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. There’s a lot here. Let’s first focus on the first few words. The prayer of faith will save, okay? There’s a lot of ways we misinterpret this. A dangerous misinterpretation of this phrase is assuming you will get healed if you are absolutely certain God will do it.

Right? I don’t, don’t raise your hand, but I imagine some of us have been raised in a context, probably not Baptist, but something else, where if you, if you have certainty, God would have shown up, but because you didn’t believe… God didn’t heal. Now, this sounds inspiring, but it’s super damaging. Imagine if God has ordained this person to carry this illness for the rest of their life, and yet now we’re telling them, on top of their physical pain they’re experiencing, now we’re heaping guilt and condemnation on them.

You would have been healed if you just believed. And so now you’re struggling with physical illness, but also the spiritual, like, sadness and guilt and condemnation. And so there’s a reason, there’s at least two reasons, why certainty is a misinterpretation of this passage. So this idea that praying of faith will save, there’s some nuance here.

There’s a few reasons. Number one, why it doesn’t mean certainty, is Jesus doesn’t equate faith with certainty. A lot of us have this misunderstanding of faith. It doesn’t mean you’re just absolutely certain there’s no way something else will happen. If you have your Bibles, you can actually read on the screen if you’d like, but if you’re one of those Bible champions, open to Mark chapter nine.

If you can move there quickly. We have one example, but don’t take my word for it. I want to show you how we know Jesus doesn’t equate faith with certainty. Mark chapter 9. A father comes to Jesus asking to heal his demon possessed child. And now we see, I’m gonna jump down, verse 21. Jesus is encountering this child and he asked this question.

How long has this been happening to him? Jesus asked his father. From childhood, he said. And many times this demon has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to them, if you can, everything is possible for the one who believes.

Immediately, the father of the boy cried out, I do believe, help my unbelief. This is actually faith. Saying, I believe, but I’m also acknowledging to you that there are elements in my life where I’m kind of doubting this, but I’m still here, and I’m still asking. How does Jesus respond to this? Jesus, when Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.

Jesus found this faith fitting enough to heal this demon possessed boy. So the father has enough faith to go to Jesus, ask for compassion, but he also has enough honesty to say, I’m, I don’t know if you’re going to do it, but I’m going to say that out loud to you. Jesus is saying that is faith. So this prayer of faith will save this person.

It doesn’t mean if I’m absolutely certain, no matter what, it’s going to heal. No, this father wasn’t certain and yet God still healed. So certainty is not equated to faith, but there’s a second reason that is very comforting to me. Why maybe a prayer of faith will save has some nuance to it and it’s not a guarantee and it doesn’t always mean that we weren’t faithful.

Number two, even Jesus had unanswered prayers. For example, main one, the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus cries out to the Father, what does he say? Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. What’s happening here? Jesus is God. We see in Philippians 2, though, that’s a Greek word, kenosis.

He decided to not count equality with God as something to be grasped, and so he willingly gave up some foreknowledge, and he willingly put on the pain of humanity, and so he was just submitting to the Father’s will, saying, I would prefer this cup. would pass. But no matter what, let your will be done. What is the cup?

The cup is actually, uh, represents the wrath of God. Okay? The wrath of God who is supposed to be sent over the sins of the world. And trust me, you want a judge who punishes sin. If a judge overlooks sin, that judge is sinful as well. I was teaching some middle school students this a couple weeks ago, and it got real morbid.

I said, imagine you’re in your house and somebody comes in and shoots your father in the face. It’s the only way you get middle school students to pay attention. You gotta go all out, right? And so they’re like, what? His face? Why his face? I’m like, that’s not the point of the story. Can it be his arm? I don’t care.

The point is he dies. Why does he have to die? What if it’s my mom? Okay, whatever. You deal with that. A parent dies. Now you go to court and the judge says, I’m feeling loving and gracious today. I’m going to overlook this. this man’s sin. I know he killed your father, but I feel caring so you can go free.

Now, is that a good judge? Like, that’s a terrible judge. Let’s get rid of it. I mean, they were, they love their parents, you know, and I said, exactly. God must deal with sin. He cannot overlook it. But the beauty of the gospel is Jesus is the one who took the cup so that he can overlook you by taking that sin, that wrath and pointing it towards Christ.

That’s the beauty of the good news of Jesus. But so what Jesus was asking though. He’s saying I know this is the plan I know we’re gonna love the world. I don’t need to die. But if there’s any way God you can do this another way I want you to do it. And how did the father respond? The father said no I have willed to pull my wrath on you dying for the world and raising again.

This is the only way it’s gonna work So technically Jesus also had on that answered prayer So if Jesus offered this prayer and I would say obviously in complete faith But was denied, you’re also in good company if you’ve done the same. But also, let’s look at the type of healing James is after. Verse 15 again.

The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Notice this. The prayer of faith saves the sick.

and heals the sinner. That’s opposite, isn’t it? If we were to write this, we would switch those words around. Doesn’t God save the sinner and heal the sick? How come he’s healing the sinner and saving the sick? This doesn’t make sense. James is showing the correlation here between sin and sickness. If you grew up in church, typically you heard sin as a reference to missing the mark.

Anybody else right? Remember, it’s just, what is sin? You’ve missed… So, when we hear that, we think sin is just that God has these demands, and because we didn’t meet up to those commands, uh, we are now wrong, and the judge is going to judge us for our sin, but that’s why we need forgiveness. Now, that is true, but we also forget sinners are much more than just wrongdoers.

We, we are, sinners need healing. Sinners are also wounded people who need healing. Mark 2 17 as an example, Jesus gives this phrase to show sin has so many more dimensions to it than just doing wrong. Mark 2 17, when Jesus heard this he told them, it is not those who are well who need a doctor but those who are sick.

I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners. What is Jesus doing here? In this analogy Jesus says sin is like a sickness and we need the master physician to heal us. So hear me, repentance is not just, it is, but it’s not just pleading for mercy before a judge. It’s also opening up your wounds to be healed by a physician.

A pastor of a totally different tribe, he, he often says, you can’t get healed. A doctor can’t heal you until you get naked.

With sin, Jesus comes to heal us, but we have to expose our vulnerabilities, expose our wounds. Write this down. Without Christ, you and I are wicked and we are wicked. There’s a lot of sins done by us and we deserve judgment. Absolutely. In my kind of stream that I grew up in, that’s the only thing we’d focus on.

But also we are wounded because not only do we have sins done by us, we also have sins done to us. There’s also a lot of sin happening around us, and as a result, we’re wounded. And it hurts and actually causes us to sin even more. It’s a big mess. Do you see this wider view of sin is actually really more helpful and beneficial.

Let me give you an example one sin That’s pervasive in the world and I know is happening in this room and I don’t mean to be rude But just the statistics say this is the sin of pornography. Here’s where this is helpful though If we just look at the sin of pornography as just sin done by you, and it’s a wicked, sinful thing, if that’s the only paradigm we have, then you would assume the way to set free from this addiction is to admit, say you’re sorry, repent, and then never do it again.

But in my experience, as I’ve counseled a lot of people, by saying, Oh no, I know it was a sin, this was so wrong, I’m so sorry. One week later, how come they come back to my door and say I did it again? Because sometimes, there’s a lot of, please hear me, I know I’m even simplifying this, but I’m trying to make it more complex than how we more simplify it, but hear me.

A lot of times, it’s because we view that sin as just a thing that’s wicked, but maybe breakthrough comes because you realize, oh, you’re doing that because you’re wounded. So this became, it’s still a sin, it’s still wicked, but it became a coping mechanism for you to deal with your wounds. And so you realize that it’s a wounding, sin done to you possibly, that leads you to run because you were raised, you don’t deal with your sin, you don’t talk about it out loud, so you found a coping mechanism that nobody else deals with, you’re not bothering anybody.

See, a lot of times that kind of victory comes when we come to Jesus, not just as this judge who forgives us, but as a physician who heals us. And so when we confess our sin to God, we also confess our wounds. We confess sin done to us and around us just as much as we are confessing sin done by us. What happens if we don’t do that?

If we just see Jesus as judge and not as a doctor, you begin to harbor that woundedness and it begins to destroy you from the inside out. Another way to put it, sometimes we are sick because of sin done to us and around us. And sometimes we are sick because of unconfessed sin done by us. And guess what?

Sometimes we just are sick because we’re in a fallen world. Sometimes it’s our wounds and sometimes it’s our wickedness. Frank Laubach, he was a missionary to the Philippines. He actually lost the position. He was an incredible missionary. He was supposed to be a president of this college and he lost by one vote.

And it’s only because he didn’t vote for himself. He’s like, I don’t want to vote for me, so I’m going to allow that not to happen. So if he didn’t vote for the other guy and instead voted for him, he’d be the one who was president. And so for the next two years, he became chronically ill. It says that he kept dealing with the flu.

He had an appendicitis. He had an ulcerated eye, which terrified me. I didn’t even Google what that was. I am growing as a human being. A strained leg muscle. Here’s another one that I’ve had at age 19. Shingles. Those two years were miserable. How did he find healing? He actually realized it’s because for those two years he was bitter and angry for not getting that presidency.

He hide all that in his heart. It’s actually called psychosomatic illness. I finally figured out how to diagnose myself. Anybody heard of this? Psychosomatic illness, where your brain actually creates an actual reality. Your bitterness, your envy, your worry actually creates real, actual problems within your body.

And in his story, and in so many of our stories, when he finally confessed his sin, his wickedness, and his wounds, Frank Laubach says he finally began to heal. This is such a different paradigm. When we talk about sickness, we don’t think maybe sin is the reason. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he makes the same argument, saying a lot of these physicians and psychologists kind of miss the whole point.

Look at this quote. He says, The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing. What sin is.

Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist, I can only be a sick man.

In the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner. This is what James is trying to confront us with. Maybe your illness is because of sin, and that’s why he’s saying heal the sinner, save the sick. Your physical problem might be pointing a desperate spiritual problem that you haven’t offered to God.

This is why the church offers a solution no other institution even thinks of, and that’s of confession. Repentance. Let’s look at verse 16 again. Therefore confess your sins to one another. Notice that. So it’s not just to God, but there’s freedom when we confess it in community. There needs to be a lot of wisdom on who you confess to, by the way, not just anybody.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. Prayer of a righteous person is powerful. In its effect, this prayer of a righteous person, righteousness means right standing with God, but hear me, nobody’s perfect. And so, just because you’re not perfect, maybe you have sinned recently, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t hear you.

There’s a difference between struggling with sin and living a double life. And so, I believe this passage is saying, if you’re right with God, you sin, you repent, you confess, you do these things, God hears your prayers and there’s a much better chance of your chance. of your prayers being answered than if you were an unrighteous person.

But even so, the most righteous person ever prayed to be delivered, and he wasn’t. So don’t make this a shut case. If I’m righteous, every prayer I pray will be answered. It’s not always that easy, but it does increase your possibility. And by the way, I can say I’m a righteous person, you can say you’re a righteous person, because of Christ.

We gave Jesus our sin, He gives us His righteousness. So when I pray, I declare the righteousness of Christ in my life. When I ask God for things, I say, God, not because of me, but because of the righteousness of Christ in me, I am praying for X, Y, Z. That should be a helpful practice for you. We’re hidden with Christ.

Our confidence is in the blood of Jesus and nothing else. Look at verse 17 and 18. Now he wants to relate to you and show you anybody can do this. Elijah was a human being as we are and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again and the sky gave rain and land produced its fruit.

This whole story is in first Kings 18, but he has one major point to make. Anybody can do this. Elijah’s human. You’re human. Pray bigger prayers. See what God can do. Maybe he’ll say no, but maybe he’ll say yes. And too many of us, it says earlier in James, we have not because we ask not. John Christathom, he was known as the golden mouth preacher.

Quite the nickname. Right, he has this in the fourth century. He said the following, he says, The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire. It has bridled the rage of lions. It has expelled demons. It has broken the chains of death. It has assuaged diseases. It has rescued cities from destruction.

And so here’s Pastor Elise, I’m thinking through this. This is hard because I’ve had prayers. The God didn’t answer and how I react to it is I don’t want to be disappointed again. So I’m not going to pray big prayers that way. I’m not disappointed when God tells me no. And James is pushing back here saying no, no, no.

Keep asking bigger. In fact, make it bigger even the next time and see what God can do. So I want to use this as a time to challenge us to pray prayers of faith, even just this holiday season, for families to reconcile. All right, for your lost neighbor, who I know several names, I won’t say them out loud because I’m praying they’re listening, right?

For them to come to church and get saved. When’s the last time you prayed? I know it’s so cliche, but you know the question, if God answered every prayer the last week, how different would the world be? I think for a lot of us, it wouldn’t be that different. Right? I’m praying for our church to get property.

I’m praying, more specifically, the first step that I’d love for our church to go through. And maybe you’re in this room and you have the answer. And I’ve been scared because here’s my story. We have had a couple opportunities and things out of our control. One time I announced to you guys a building we were getting.

I showed you the graph. I was all excited. I said, look, they gave me their word. They gave me the handshake. Tomorrow we go to the bank. Guess what happened that next day? I went to the bank and they never showed up. So I’m telling you, it’s really hard for me, this is me practicing right now, to tell you I’m praying for this next thing because I’ve done that, got excited, looked like he answered it, and he pulled it out.

But our big next step we’re praying for is for a storefront, right? You see all these new stores popping up. We want a place in the city where our presence is here, where we can have prayer meetings, we can have youth meetings, we can have staff meetings. We can just be there to help counsel people. We believe that’s a wonderful next step for us, and we’re praying for that.

Right? And that, for me, is a prayer of faith. What is your prayer of faith? And studying this passage, several commentaries mentioned this WestJet commercial that happened ten years ago. I wonder if anybody remembers this. They were, uh, it was WestJet, which apparently, I don’t even know, does WestJet even exist?

I don’t even know these people anymore. But they were all waiting to board a plane, and there was this video camera of this Santa Claus, and he was talking to them. And he would ask each passenger before they got on the plane, What do you want for Christmas? And so the kids were all excited. Somebody said snowboard.

I want a tablet. I want these action figures. I want Legos. They’re filming this whole thing. It’s brilliant commercial. It’s 50 million views on YouTube. But what’s hilarious about this story is one guy was like socks and underwear. And I’m like, dude, that’s when you know you’ve hit your thirties, like boom, let’s just do socks and underwear.

Right? So that’s what he asked for. But everybody else was asking for the moon. Well, they show in the commercial, they had four hours from the flight from where they started to where they ended. And so when they were ended, they went to the Walmarts and the different stores and they bought everything those passengers asked for.

And at the end, they show the conveyor belt when people are searching for their luggage. These Christmas presents were coming out and all of them got the very thing they asked for. And it’s hilarious because you see the guy’s face when everybody gets the snowboard and the iPad. And homeboy gets socks and underwear.

And that’s the question. How many of us are missing out because we have been so disappointed? We’ve asked big prayers, came home, landed, nobody gave us anything. And so now we’re like, okay, I’m not going to ask anymore, but just maybe that was the conveyor belt was coming and you instead wind up with socks and underwear.

We need to pray bigger prayers of faith and allow God to take care of the rest. And so how do you know you are praying prayers of faith? You set yourself up to be dazzled or disappointed. This has been the theme of our leadership ever since we moved into this space. What do I mean by that? Dazzled, you ask such a big prayer that if God comes through, you’re shocked.

You’re like, I can’t believe he said yes to this. This is insane. That’s a prayer of faith. If you pray something and it happens and you’re like, yeah, that kind of made sense. Okay, this is good. That’s not a prayer of faith. What is something that’s shocking to you? Pray that prayer. But here’s the side, the other side of it.

You might be like Jesus where God says no to your prayers, and so you’re left disappointed. But you’re not disappointed because you should have asked for more. That’s the sock and underwear guy. No, instead you’re disappointed because you really believe and you asked something big, and God did not yet come through.

But here’s the beauty of that. When we’re disappointed, God meets us in love. We don’t regret paying, praying big prayers because we can hold on to this truth. God, if you said no, that means there must, there must be a greater yes. So either way, God uses it. The dazzling? Wonderful. The disappointment?

Wonderful. I could prove that to you in verse 13. Let’s look at verse 13 again. Is anyone among you suffering? Are you disappointed? Is life not like what you thought it would be? Are you going through trials you never saw coming? He should pray. Keep going brother. Keep praying. I know you’re disappointed, but that’s not an invitation to stop praying for more.

In fact, it’s an invitation to pray even more. And then the beautiful thing, is anyone among you cheerful? Anyone dazzled? Anyone just blown away at what God is doing? Here’s your response. Sing praise. Rejoice in the Lord. Tell of His goodness and His greatness. Either way, God is glorified and you and I are comforted.

And so, as we end, I want us to give a space for all of those things. What season are you in? Are you in a season of suffering? Disappointment? Maybe as you sing these songs, pray, sing these songs in faith, saying, God, I, I don’t, God, this is hard to believe. Help my unbelief. But I want to believe these things are true about you.

Or maybe it’s coming forward and praying and, and, and just acknowledging to God how you’ve been disappointed. Read the Bible. God loves when we do that. Maybe some of you are dazzled and I’m expecting to hear your voice, right? And you’re pumped and you’re praising, your hands are in the air. God is so good.

And we want to give you a venue, an opportunity just to rejoice over that. But some of you are sick. And so I want to invite you. You can come forward today. I have an anointing oil from Israel and I’d love to pray over you. Prayers of faith that God would heal you. Maybe the Lord is calling you to confess sin and after upon that confession of sin, you will be healed.

Here’s my promise to you. When you come forward and confess your sin, my only job is this, is to say, in Christ you’ve been declared righteous. In Christ, because of that sin you just confessed, I’m telling you, you are forgiven, you are redeemed. Take hope, brothers and sisters. You are perfect in the eyes of God.

I got the best job in the world. That’s what I got to do. And I’d be happy to do that for you. You can also come and pray for something else, okay? But let’s, let’s come before the Lord and let’s figure out how we can ask the Lord how we can respond to this text.