Return to 'Recent Sermons' |
This seems an abrupt
ending but that may well be because the greetings and individual church
messages were added to this general letter. We may have only the main letter
that was copied and re-copied for distribution to the churches throughout the known
world both West, which we know about from Acts and East which is known through
church tradition as to be as far as India and Ethiopia. They are lost to us if they ever existed. But
what remains is God’s word to us today.
Oath taking in verse 12 comes off the previous passage
reminding us that the future is in God’s hands not ours. If that sounds
familiar maybe it is because James was listening to Jesus when Jesus said it!
Jesus said in Matthew 5:33-37
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the
people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfil to the Lord the vows you
have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either
by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his
footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And
do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from
the evil one.
We can promise but we can only fulfil
those promises by God’s grace. Swearing by anything does not make you more
reliable merely more vulnerable. Shakespeare wrote a play on that subject
called the ‘Merchant of Venice’ in which a pound of flesh was promised on the
success of trading. In Judges 11 we read a terrible story of oath-making that
unravelled turning a thanksgiving sacrifice into killing a first-born,
specifically forbidden in the Law.
But swearing on the Bible has been part of
our legal culture for centuries and it has only been acceptable to affirm since
the church’s influence has waned. In 1695 because Quakers refused to take oaths
because of this verse and in 1978 is was revised to take God out of the
affirmation. I have never sworn an oath in court because I believe these verses
are explicit but each must be convinced by their own conscience.
What matters here is that your word should
be trustworthy. Not just in court but in life. You do what you say you will and
you are careful not to promise to do what you cannot fulfil. It matters in
finances where you should be able to pay for goods you buy, it matters in
timekeeping where you arrive when you say you will arrive. It matters in
confidentiality where you only promise to keep a confidence when you will or
can. You, for example, cannot legally keep a confidence where child discloses
abuse nor would it be right. Secrecy is the cloak of evil. We live in the
light. Evil should be exposed. As here, we should not make promises about the
future where we have no control. The
Brethren referred to this principle by adding God willing or ‘Deo Volente’ or
DV to every notice about meetings.
So we move from trusting God about the
future to a passage about the present.
What links the remainder of the letter
together is the words ‘anyone among you’ twice in verse 13 and also in verse
19. Look, says James, at four scenarios:
Are you in trouble? Then pray
Are you happy? Then sing songs of praise.
Are you sick? Call the elders to be
anointed
Are you wandering from the truth? Then
someone bring them back!
In our current culture we might say
Are you in trouble?
Then complain
Are you happy? Then go
out on the town
Are you sick? Go to
A& E
Are you wandering from
the truth? Who cares about truth? Or maybe what is truth?
You know we tend to
think the last thing we do is relate to God instead of the first. We need to
reverse our priorities and get into the spiritual habit of speaking with God
first and last.
Are you in trouble?
Learn from the example of Nehemiah. In
Nehemiah 2 we read:
In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year
of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it
to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, 2 so the king asked me,
“Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but
sadness of heart.”
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the
king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city
where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed
by fire?”
4 The king said to me, “What is it you want?”
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I
answered the king,
He was in a
precarious situation and had no time for formal prayer but his heart was
occupied with God. He prayed first, then he spoke. I wish I prayed first and spoke
more often, it would get me out of so much trouble!
So when troubles
overwhelm you, pray! If you can’t pray, cry out to the Lord, maybe you find
yourself speaking in tongues simply because you can’t find human words to
express your anxiety and fear and pain. But pray first! And if you can get
together with others to pray with you. That is what the prayer chain is about
and that is what Powerhouse and Housegroups are about. They are places to share
your troubles and pray together to God for help. Lets be straight on this. The
church is not the solution to your problems, Jesus is. He may use others to
comfort, help and serve him in bringing about relief for you but it is Jesus we
serve and he is the great restorer and problem-solver.
We could look back
at what else James says about prayer In 1: 5-8 he speaks of faith. In 4:2-3 he speaks of
motive. In 5:7-8 we are called to be patient.
Here we are simply told:
13 Is anyone among you in
trouble? Let them pray.
Are you happy? Then
Psalm! Well that is the Greek but it means sing songs of praise. So this
morning you had opportunity to express your happiness. This does explain why
church can be a bit of a trial. If you come with troubles, and we sing songs of
joy it can be a bit like rubbing salt into a wound. It may hurt, but it will
also heal! Fellowship is about sharing our joys and our sorrows. So if this
morning you were not enjoying the worship because of the hurt you have, pray
and absorb the joy that others share.
Are you sick? Now
this is not a NHS substitute. But maybe our faith is more in the NHS than in
God. Do we first call the elders to pray for healing or do we only do that when
the NHS is failing us? Is the problem we have that we do not look to the great
healer in our lives? So you are invited by God’s word to ask for anointing for
healing. And Ken and I do not have any choice in the matter, we are called upon
to anoint and pray over you for healing. Then you go to the doctor, knowing God
can and will heal. You may of course not need to go because you have already
been healed but if you are in the middle of an investigation, go and let the
doctor tell you, “you have been healed”.
This is not about us
having words of knowledge or discernment, this is about how you react to
illness. Is God your healer or the one you go to when all else fails? Are you
living by faith in the Son of God? Then act it out! That is the message of
James 2. And James 4:7 says “Submit
yourselves, then to God”
Invite people to be anointed
for healing.
Now we have to
receive the word that follows.
The prayer of faith
is not the words we said but the act of obedience in us, as a church, living
out God’s word. Prayer is about what our hearts say, not what our lips say.
Faith is about what we do, rather than professions and catechisms. If we confess with our mouths and believe in
our hearts then we are saved. The prayer of faith involved the heart and our
actions. The mouth then expresses both heart and action. We will come back to
that but first we must get our heads round the rest of this paragraph.
If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16Therefore
confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be
healed.
First note the IF.
No-where in the Bible does sickness automatically imply sin. However, sin often
leads to sickness.
Second we need to
understand wholeness. God wants us to be whole. Jesus died for our sins and ‘by
his wounds we are healed.’
God wants us to be
healed and he wants to forgive us. In fact the Bible mixes healing and
forgiveness because forgiveness is healing, it is healing of the mind and the
spirit. So rather than being offended that James suggests that you need
forgiveness, we should be turning from sin and seeking forgiveness. Instead of
worrying about some connection between our particular illness and sin, we
should be eager to be forgiven. We possibly do not make enough about the need
for forgiveness. But verse 16 was taken literally in the Methodist revival and
your House group would have been the place where you, among loving Christians
friends would be called upon to confess, just was we ask each other what to
pray about. The Catholic Church
formalises this into the confessional but removes the ‘to each other’ and
replaces it with the church’s representative – the priest. We formalise it when we invite you to
confess, privately, your sins in some communion services. The point is not how
we go about but whether we go about it. Confession of sin is first and foremost
before Jesus. He is the one who bore your sins on the cross, so it is he who
you confess to. But we are the body of Christ and each one of us is part of it
and it is good to confess to one another our sins. We are all sinners saved by
grace, stumbling followers of that great Shepherd of the sheep. We need to
confess the pride of pretending we are nice middle-class and good people and
remind ourselves that the inner man stands before God. And the inner man needs
a lot of forgiveness, then maybe godly actions will flow out of a heart at
peace with God.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful
and effective.
The implication of
this verse is consistent with the rest of Scripture.
Psalm 66:17-19
17 I cried out to him with my
mouth;
his praise was on my tongue.
18 If I had cherished sin in my
heart,
the Lord would not have
listened;
19 but God has surely listened
and has heard my prayer.
Let’s be clear about
one thing. Of ourselves we are never going to be righteous. Being alright with
God is a matter God’s grace in sending his Son to wipe the slate clean by dying
in our place on the cross. None of us are righteous by our own efforts. So what
does James mean? I think he means to remind us that if we have submitted to
God, repented of our sins, our prayer are powerful stuff. They can change the
course of history move mountains, transform lives because in prayer we engage
in the work of God. Never doubt that your prayer changes the world because you
pray to God who implants in his saints the desires that he has to see the world
saved through his Son.
Then James talks about Elijah as a man like us! We talked about this on 18th
November 2012 just over a year ago. But note that in 1Kings 17 we are not told Elijah prayed to stop the rain, he prophesied. James is
assuming that prophecy grew out of prayer. It is not explicit in the text that
he prayed to restart the rains. Again, we can assume it because prophecy grows
out of a relationship with God and for a relationship with God prayer is
essential. The point I am making is that prayer is more than a form of words it
is about a developing relationship with God. That is what Elijah had. That is
what we should seek. Then we can see prayer powerful and effective as Elijah.
Finally, James
speaks about those wandering from the truth.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you
should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20
remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save
them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
This is not a
charter for busy-bodies picking fault with others, finding splinters in others eyes while wandering around with a
plank in their own. NO! This is about caring for one another. Faith is
constantly tested. We live in a godless world. The pressure and temptation to
downgrade faith is immense. And we are all casualties at some time or other.
This is a call to pray for one-another and more than that to see another in
spiritual trouble, losing their faith and set out, in love, to draw them back
to Jesus. The church is a rescue centre
on the borders of hell and not only do we need to reach out to rescue the local
population that are sliding, unknowingly, to a lost eternity but we should be
on alert to pull one another back when we are about to be swept away in the
flood of evil that surrounds us.
So we come to the
end of the general letter of James to the churches of the diapora. It is full
of challenges to our life-style. It sets the Kingdom values against the values
of our society and calls us to be faithful in prayer, in word and action in all
that we do. The question remains. We have looked into the word of God, do we
say we have faith or do we live a life of faith? Are we trusting and
living in Jesus alone or do we try to
keep a foot in the world while hoping God will ignore our lack of repentance
and faith? The challenge is to live the life of Jesus, the promise is that we have
a hope of the presence of the Holy Spirit now and an eternity with Jesus in the
future. Invest in the Kingdom of God! You know it makes sense!