Blue Jean Theology Part 15

Tom Shrader concludes James by addressing oaths and spiritual weakness. He explains that Jesus and James both taught simple honesty — letting yes mean yes and no mean no — because Christians shouldn't need to swear oaths to validate their trustworthiness. The passage about anointing the sick with oil primarily addresses spiritual weakness and sin, not guaranteed physical healing, calling believers to confess sins and pray together for spiritual restoration.

“How can I trust you with someone's soul when I can't trust you to make coffee?”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)

Recorded: 1996

Duration: 41 min

Themes: honesty, integrity, confession, healing, prayer, sin, weakness, trustworthiness, struggling with honesty, dealing with illness, need for healing, confessing sin, parent teaching children, new believer, struggling with weakness, seeking restoration

Scripture: James 5:12-20, Matthew 5, Genesis, Romans 4:19, Romans 5:6, 1 Corinthians 8:9, 2 Corinthians 11:21, 2 Corinthians 12:10, Galatians 6, Hebrews 12:1-3, Acts 2:42, Acts 7

Theological Themes: spiritual healing, confession of sin, prayer ministry, biblical honesty, spiritual weakness, restoration, church discipline, pastoral care

Full Transcript

Let's get a couple of things by way of announcement. We start a new series next week, and it is something that we've done before and now are re-engineering. It strikes me that I spend a lot of time in booths at restaurants. The term that I've used is I've spent a lot of time lately reparenting, and I was telling people what their parents should have told them or did tell them, but they were too cocky and arrogant to hear it, so they never learned these basic truths.

We're going to go back and look at eight principles. We'll take eight weeks on eight principles that you need to have in your life and be able to transmit these to your kids or to your grandkids or to your friends. If you want to be considered wise by many, these next eight weeks will be very helpful toward that process. So we'll spend eight weeks on that, starting next week.

A Lesson in Reparenting

Interesting lesson today. It's fairly serious in nature, so I want to just relate something that happened and we'll get our humor out of the way. Sarah now has a driver's license. She got a driver's license yesterday, and this is speaking of reparenting - this will demonstrate why you need to do this.

She came yesterday after she got her driver's license. I said, "Well, let's see your driver's license." She's got her driver's license, and I said, "You know, this is a little bit scary to me. Not that I don't trust you, because I do trust you, but you couldn't drive yesterday and you can drive today. Nothing magical happened."

She looked me right in the eye and said, "Dad, I have had six hours of training behind the wheel." I said, "Well, that's more than anyone in the class." She said, "That's more than anyone in the class." I said, "Well, did it ever occur to you that perhaps you needed it more than anyone in the class, and that's why they did it?" She said, "No, I'm the best student they have." So she has a little of her mother in her.

Saturday, last Saturday, I'm taking her driving. We're trying to get back from this group that meets at six o'clock on Saturday morning, which is stupid. Last Saturday was the last meeting, so we're done. I came home and said, "Sarah, you want to go driving?" Well, you know how kids are - she'll drive anytime. She said, "I want to get my highway time in." I said, "Let's get some highway stuff in while there's not a lot of people out there."

We're driving back and I said, "Let's see, I'll buy you breakfast." She said, "Okay." I said, "Where do you want to go?" She said, "I don't care." I said, "Well, let's go to Eggington's or someplace." She said, "No, I think I just want an Egg McMuffin." I said, "Wow, okay." I mean, if I eat one of those, I'm sick for a week.

So we go in and I get her Egg McMuffin and orange juice, and we transact our business. The gal, I don't know what she's thinking about, but she looks at me and assumes I wasn't there. She said, "Would you like something?" I said, "Yeah, I think I'll have a cup of coffee." She said, "Okay, that'll be 26 cents." I said, "Wow, is that a bargain or a deal or something?" "No sir, that's the senior coffee here at McDonald's."

As if things aren't bad enough, I did something I rarely do - I never cancel anything, and I never cancel golf. Last Monday I actually had to cancel a golf game because Thursday I pulled a muscle and hurt my back pretty severely. "How did you do that?" Walking through the coffee plantation. I just went like this to move a chair, and I could hardly move for four days. Life is not good to me.

Transitioning to Serious Material

All of that out of the way to get to some pretty serious stuff here today. This is one of those lessons - we have so many of you who come to the study who are brand-new to Christian stuff. Lessons and series like the one we start next week is pretty much the norm, and you'll love it and get a lot out of it. I love to share it and learn so much.

Today is a bit different. Today becomes pretty academic, and it becomes pretty academic because we're going to deal with an area that James uses as he closes the book that causes or has caused, I think, a lot of confusion and a lot of hurt in the Christian community.

James's Final Instruction on Oaths

Here's one transition verse, and then we'll deal with this last issue. James is closing out the book, and here's what he says: "But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be a yes or your no be a no."

Some things are important, and the most important is to understand that I doubt this is original material for James. You'll recall that James is the half-brother of Jesus Christ. When you turn to Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses these words: "But I say to you, make no oath either by heaven, for it's the throne of God, or by earth, for it's the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great king. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white and one hair black."

Verse 37: "Let your statement be yes, yes, or no, no. Anything beyond that is evil."

The Historical Context

When Jesus spoke these words, and the same principle was at work here in James's life, when Jesus spoke these words, it's important to understand that they were a shot right in the face of the Pharisee. Here's what the Pharisees were doing: they were going around and they were saying "I swear to God" to everything.

An oath is a sacred and should be rare occurrence to the Jew, to us. When they swore, the most powerful thing they could swear by was God. In fact, in the book of Genesis, God takes an oath, and here's what He says: "I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord." In other words, He says, "I swear by my own integrity, my own attributes, my own qualities, who I am."

Swear by that," says God. There's nothing beyond that. To the Jew, they would take an oath and they would swear to God. It was a sacred oath, and it was one that they understood was very serious business.

What had happened by the time of Jesus, and at James' time as well, is these had become frivolous—two things. One, they'd become frivolous because they were swearing to everything. The second thing was the practice had developed that if you didn't say "swear to God," you didn't have to tell the truth.

Along comes Jesus and He says yes, yes; no, no. And James says let your yes be a yes and your no be a no.

Understanding Context

Remember what he's doing here. When we're talking about interpreting Scripture, this is going to be a major factor for the rest of the day. When we talk about interpreting Scripture, we said the most important quality in talking about Scripture is context, context, context. When we're talking about understanding Scripture, we want to understand who's speaking to whom. What's the context? What are we talking about?

James is speaking to a group of people who have a fundamental problem, and their problem is they're not obedient. They are scholars of the Word, but they have become hearers, not doers. There's a whole series of things that James deals with.

He talks to them and actually brackets the whole discussion with a mentioning of suffering. "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials," he begins last week. He says, "Be patient and suffer. You need a role model. Look at Job. Look at the prophets." There's how you get this.

The Root Problems

He's talking about all these other things that have developed. They can't control their tongue. There's partiality. They're showing favoritism to the rich and to the poor—they say, "You go over here." All of a sudden their wisdom is not supernatural and godly, but it's demonic and earthly. How do we know? Because James says earthly wisdom produces strife and selfish ambition.

Then he gets to chapter 4 and he goes, "Now what's the source of the strife and selfish ambition among you?" This is what these guys are—they're just selfish people with a focus. Again, started in chapter 1 and again in chapter 5, a focus that's on all this supernatural that they're missing, and their focus is on the material. He says the rich man is going to die right in the midst of this pursuit.

"Well," if you were—and he says, "Above all," this other stuff, I think he's saying it's all encapsulated in this idea: let your yes be a yes and a no be a no. If you're a Christian, I shouldn't have to say "swear to God."

A Personal Illustration

I have a—going through—we have a major problem right now. We got a leak in our waterbed the other night, so not good. So I was asleep and Susan woke me. She said, "You better go out of the guest room. I think the waterbed's leaking," which was interesting because that told me I didn't have to fix it. So I said, "Okay." So I went down and I'm asleep and I'm kind of laying there. I wonder what she's going to do, and she's a big girl; she'll figure it out.

So I went down the next morning and she had drained the bed and then just slept on the mat there. So we knew we had a problem. So we went and kind of mocked up a little bit, got a new mattress. I don't know—some of you, we've been sleeping on water for years, but the new mattresses are terrific. Got all nestled in and all tugged tight. It's just a great way to sleep. And she said, "Boy, it smells in here." And I said, "Yeah, it's probably me." And she said, "No, no, it's just—it didn't smell musty or something to you?" And I said, "You know, I don't—I can't go to sleep."

So we get up the next morning and she said, "Boy, it stinks in here." Well, here's the problem: we have water now down under the bed that's now mildewed and everything. We didn't get it dry, so now we got problems.

The Mattress Shopping Experience

Well, in the midst of this, I had to go buy a new mattress. And I'm not—I think the furniture industry is a terrific industry, but there are some slimy-type people in it. And it's like buying a car. I mean, I can't—so I'm ready to negotiate.

So I walk into the guy and I said, "I'm ready. I'm ready for this," because I know I'm going to negotiate. I know everything's subject to negotiation. So we go through all of this and we find the mattress we want. And I said, "Okay, I said I think this is the one we're looking for." He said, "Hey, that's terrific." And I said, "We're just starting our shopping. Haven't been to any other stores yet." He said, "Oh, that's—what he said—the closest competitor is right down—in fact, at the corner. If you make a right there, you'll see that." I don't know.

I said, "Well, what's that? What's the cost on this?" And he gave me the price. I said, "Well, just between you and me and the fence post, what's this going to cost me when I'm all done?" And he said, "Well, that was the price. I'm not open—you know." I said he said, "I know you can go and people will negotiate with you, but he said that's just not the way I do business. Here's the price."

I said, "Well, I need to go to this other store. What am I going to find there?" And he said, "You're going to find some great products that are comparably priced. I don't think you'll find a mattress as good as this, but you'll find some terrific stuff, and you owe it to yourself to go down there and look at those. See, that's the way I sell."

So I'm gapped for this. So now I paid way too much to this guy for this mattress.

The Problem with Qualifying Truth

I know if I go—I know what I'm ready for. I'm ready for the conversation that goes, "Hey, let me—my manager's not here, let me be perfectly honest with you." That's what I'm ready for. "Let me be totally candid, you know. Let me shoot from the hip with you."

Well, when you say that, I'm wondering what has all this other stuff been? See, a Christian should never have to say, "Let me be perfectly honest with you," because the assumption is you've been perfectly honest all the way along.

See, I think this is a great principle. How bad is the problem? I'll tell you how bad the problem is: God makes and keeps His promises; man doesn't.

It is so bad that we had to start an organization called Promise Keepers because none of the promises are kept.

Well, let me give you a perfect example. It won't seem like much to you, but I think it encapsulates all we're talking about. Our church has a thing the last Wednesday night of every month where we have everybody in the church that wants to come for dinner. We ask them to sign up ahead of time, not to pay for it but to get a count. 194 people signed up last month. About 144 showed up. Where are the 50?

I'm not saying they should be in church. That's not my point. My point is they said they'd be there for a free meal. We bought food. We planned accordingly. Where are these godly people? "Oh, that's just a busy thing and something came up." Wait a minute - something came up for 50 people?

If God can't trust you to sign up for a free dinner and show up, He can't trust you with much else. He says if you're faithful in the little things, I'll give you the big things.

When We Can't Be Trusted With Small Things

We used to have a guy, and I know many of you are like this. I know you listen to me - I've already stuttered and stammered a bunch - and I know a lot of you think, "I know I can do what he does." I know a lot of you think that. Now let me help you out: I can't, but you think you can, because it's a lot harder than it looks.

We had a guy, and this happens a lot. He came to one of the studies and he said, "I want to teach. When can I teach for you?" And I said, "Well, you know, we'll work on it." He said, "I want to do something. What can I do?" I said, "We need somebody to make coffee next Saturday at our meeting." "No problem."

Seven o'clock Saturday morning we show up and there's no coffee. This is a fundamental problem. The guy came in. I said, "Hey, you know, we don't have coffee." He said, "Oh man, I forgot about that." I said, "Oh, okay." We got all done and he said to me, "When can I teach?" And I said, "Let me tell you something about what James says about teaching. He says it's a very serious business. I don't presume to speak for God in this, but let me put it in terms that you can understand: How can I trust you with someone's soul when I can't trust you to make coffee?"

And like the rich young ruler, his face became long, never to be seen again. Because coffee was way down here below him. I admit it wasn't a maximum utilization of his talents, but here's the problem: he said he was going to do it.

James begins to tie up this book, and as he does he says you shouldn't have to be taking a bunch of oaths, because when you say seven o'clock, you mean seven o'clock.

Prayer, Healing, and Misunderstanding

Now a discussion on some items that have caused, I think, great pain and great hurt and have been a source of great misunderstanding in the Christian community. Let's read through them and then we'll come back and we will try to navigate our way through them and achieve some level of understanding.

"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises." That's prayers to music. "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."

So there's the body of teaching - verses 13, 14, 15, 16. Now here's an illustration to punctuate the point that He's making: "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours" - He's just like you and me. "He prayed earnestly that it may not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three and a half years. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit."

James's Abrupt Conclusion

So as you start to work through this, you see some commonality: teaching, illustration, and now the close. Here's James's close: "My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." And that's it.

It's the only epistle that we have that ends this way. There's no formal close to this at all. It's like James runs out of ink or paper or both and says, "That's it."

You see, though, as we read through those verses, you see the verses that are so filled with potential misunderstanding, I think. And you really see it in verses 14 and 15 where He says, "If you're sick, call the elders, anoint him with oil, and if the prayer's offered in faith, the one who is sick will be restored."

What Does This Really Mean?

What does that mean? You have people who are on television a lot saying, "Listen, if you have enough faith, you will be healed," and they'll go to this verse. Is that what this is? Is this a guaranteed prescription for how you deal with somebody who's sick? If you anoint them with oil and you pray over them and they have enough faith, they'll be healed. Is that what that says?

Is this verse one that says to us we don't need medicine? I remember Ruth Stapleton - Jimmy Carter's sister - was diagnosed with cancer and she went to these verses. She said, "Because of these verses, all I'm going to do is pray and change my diet." Now it seems to me that that was a bucketload of faith. Can't have much more faith than that. She put her life right where it was, and then she just died.

Is she a blip on the screen? Did she not have enough faith? Is that the problem? With Joni Eareckson Tada - does Joni not have enough faith? If Joni really had faith, she'd get up out of that wheelchair and walk. Is that what this teaches?

Understanding the Context

A couple of things we've got to do. Number one: we've got to remember the context. James is writing to people who are scattered. We're told in Acts chapter 7 that Stephen is martyred, and after he is martyred it says persecution broke out in the church and the church was scattered. That's the recipients.

The recipients of this letter were filled with suffering. Physically, they were being tortured. Materially, they had lost everything—their whole economic infrastructure was destroyed. They were not Jews, so Jews wouldn't buy from Jews anymore. They were out. They had no family support system, for the minute they claimed to be Christians, their family literally had a funeral for them. So there was no singing "I'll be home for Christmas" or "I'll be home for Hanukkah." They didn't want to come home anyway—they were told to get out of there. That's the context on one end.

Now we look at the material we have in our culture and society. It's pretty easy to think that this passage is about sickness. But the overriding topic here isn't sickness. The overriding topic is what? What's the one word or derivation of the word that you see in every verse? Prayer.

The Overarching Topic is Prayer

So to start with, the overarching topic is prayer. He says that at the beginning: if you're suffering, pray. If you're cheerful, pray. If it's good, pray. If it's bad, pray. If it's neutral, pray. What should I be doing? Pray. Be anxious for nothing, but pray about everything. So the topic is prayer.

He said if anyone among you is sick, call for the elders. Why the elders, and why anoint with oil? What does that mean? So now we begin to break it apart. I hope it makes sense for you. I will tell you that what most people teach about this, especially in a healing and health and prosperity world, is not true. It's not true to the text.

The Meaning of "Sick" in Verse 14

First of all, the word that's translated "sick" in verse 14—its primary usage has nothing to do with illness. Its primary usage is one that speaks of a person who's infirmed or weak or feeble. Let me give you some passages, and some of you are going to want to write this stuff down, and please do: Romans 4:19 and 5:6, 1 Corinthians 8:9, and 2 Corinthians 11:21 and 12:10. Let me give those to you again: Romans 4:19 and 5:6, 1 Corinthians 8:9, 2 Corinthians 11:21, 2 Corinthians 12:10.

In all of those verses you will see the word that in verse 14 is translated here "sick," and you will see it translated there as "weak" or "helpless" or "weak and stumbling." In all of the context you will see it has to do partially in a physical realm, but the real emphasis here is people who have become spiritually weak. That's the principle Paul laid out in Galatians 6: if you're weak spiritually, go to those who are strong spiritually. That's why you call the elders.

The Spiritual Problem Behind Physical Manifestations

See, the problem here that they have is a spiritual problem and a sin problem. The focus here is not physical. The sin or the weakness spiritually or the doubt may manifest itself in a physical way. I believe a man or woman who truly loves the Lord and is involved in sin—I believe they'll begin to show physical manifestations of that. When a guy comes in and I haven't seen him for a while and he's lost a bunch of weight, more often than not I will discover that this guy's involved in adultery.

Now after this lesson, after I say that, there's always three or four guys that want to come up and say, "No, I'm just working out and I'm really just doing this stuff." But I'm telling you, weight loss—go down here to the doctors and talk to them. Fifty percent of the guys that come in here come in because of some problem in their head, oftentimes driven by stress and oftentimes driven by guilt. Fifty to sixty percent of the people that have a physical problem—it's a manifestation oftentimes of a conscience that's not free. That's why the discussion ends up on sin.

The Word "Sick" in Verse 15

Now the word that's translated "sick" in verse 15 is only used one other time in the New Testament, and it's in Hebrews chapter 12. It's in Hebrews chapter 12 as the author of Hebrews begins to talk about sin and spiritual weakness and problems in the believer. Let me read to you again. I forewarned you this is a little bit technical, but I think it's important, and I think for some of you this will be very refreshing stuff.

Hebrews 12:1 says this: "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us"—we got all this evidence, we got the ancestors, He's finishing up the Hall of Fame of Faith, we got Moses, we got Abraham, got all these guys, we got the way God worked, we got all these witnesses—"let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Now in verse 3 is the same word that we see here that's translated "sick." Listen for it. Verse 3: "For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart." Get it? See, the word that's translated here in verse 15 "sick" is translated in Hebrews 12:3 "weary." That's what the word means in its primary usage.

Testing the Traditional Interpretation

See, if you put "get sick" out of there—when I let's do this, give me a synonym for "sick." What's a synonym for "sick"? Ill. Disease. Put "ill" in there. "Is anyone among you ill? Let him call for the elders, pray over him, anointing with oil, and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who's ill." Now does that verse work that way? Is that what that's saying? Is that saying if Larry Wright just had more faith, all that arthritis would be gone?

See, it's a pretty good deal when you can be a faith healer and then somebody doesn't get healed and you say, "Well, that's not my problem. The problem is you didn't have enough faith." That's a pretty good gig. I don't have a lot of responsibility in that thing.

Here's the problem. Take that word and put in there "weak" or "feeble" with the idea of being involved in sin, and see if that works: "Is any among you in sin, spiritually weak? Call the elders. Let them pray over him, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord."

The oil can be one of two things: it can be either a ceremonial anointing or it can be a medicinal anointing, and only those two. "The prayer offered in faith will restore the one who's sinned, and the Lord will raise him up, and the sins He's committed will be forgiven." Does that fit like a glove? That's the usage there.

It may manifest itself physically. Here's the oil. What's the oil doing there? You had oil used in one of two ways. It was either used ceremonially or it was used medicinally, and the word anointing there either means a ceremonial anointing or it means a rubbing the oil in. So I think there may be physical manifestations here. That sin may have me so bogged down that I need that oil. I believe that it is ceremonial on one hand and medicinal on the other.

The Context of Spiritual Weakness

I think He's saying look, if you're hard—if you're Brett Butler—you pray like a dog on the way to the doctor. You get everybody fired up and you're praying like mad when they go in there. You pray for the doctor. Now I happen to believe that that is what the context is.

In the middle of this whole thing, you may be here today and you are weak spiritually. You are dry as the desert spiritually. You're sucking gas spiritually. There's just no zing in your spiritual life. Here's the problem: it's a spiritual problem, and you need to go to spiritual people. You need to be restored and prayed for, and here's what you need to do: you need to begin to live the way you're called. Let your yes be a yes.

But how can I do that? How can I see—everybody's looking for that button that's somewhere on me. They throw that button and all of a sudden this is mechanical. This is a struggle to your dying day.

The Reality of Spiritual Growth

The godliest you should ever feel is at the point of conversion. It's not the godliest—understand what I said. I didn't say it's the godliest you'd ever be, but it's the godliest you ever feel is at the point of conversion. Because after that, you're coming to know God more and more, and the better you see Him, the better you see yourself, and the whiter you understand that chasm to be. You never feel as godly as you did at the point of conversion.

If you do, you got a real problem. There was a guy on Christian television not long ago, and I won't use his name, but I think he's particularly one of the most offensive. He said, "When God got a hold of [his name], He really got a hold of something special." I thought, "Man, whoo, the lightning's going to strike, and I'm moving way over here." God got pond scum when He got this guy, just like He got you or me. My value is in what He created in me.

Confession and Fellowship

We got all that figured out. Now see how this flows. See how it flows—if I understand it to be a spiritual issue, not a physical issue: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another." Now the Catholics take this to establish a box in a confessional. I don't think that's what He has in mind. He's speaking here back to the elders. He's speaking here about the idea of fellowship, about the idea that you can't make this alone.

I had somebody a long time ago talk about our church being the first church on the Internet, and I thought that was an interesting concept—except for this: you can't have church on the Internet. I don't mean this disrespectfully, but Robert Schuller touts himself as the church of the air. He's not the church of the air. That's marketing, a gimmick. He's never coming to visit you in Wapaloa, Iowa. He isn't inviting you in for fellowship. He doesn't know you from squat, only by a giving number.

What Church Really Means

Church is far more than just teaching, and to our shame, we've let it disintegrate to teaching. Some of you have said to me, "I use Thursday morning as my church," and every time they say it to me, I say, "Well, then you're not going to church, because this isn't church." Church has with it teaching and fellowship and breaking of bread—Acts 2:42—all of those elements and worship. All of those elements come together to define church.

So Promise Keepers isn't church. Young Life's not church. Priority Living's not church. Church is church. The antidote to spiritual weakness—the preventative thing that I can do—if it's gone on and I'm weak and feeble, I got to get the elders. If I'm at that point, but how do I avoid that? I stay in fellowship. That means I need open, honest, true relationships and communication. I need flesh and blood. I don't need the Internet. I don't need a guy on a TV screen. I need a human sitting across from me.

The Importance of Godly Relationships

See, this is why all those decisions are so important. This is why if you're trying to figure out whether to get married or not—if that person is—I hesitate to say this—if that person's not a Christian, you shouldn't marry them. I hesitate to say that because the implication is if a guy's a Christian or a gal's a Christian, I should marry him. I don't think so. I think they should be a Christian with a plan who can say, "Here's how God's worked in my life in the last three years. Here's how He's worked in the last week, and here's where He's going in the next five years." That's the person you marry.

Why? Because you are yoked to that person, and you need that person. It's the same principle that you have here. There has to be people.

The Power of Community

We had an interesting thing the other day. We have—in our church we are very—we're a real small church, but we're very young—and we had a gal the other day who's pregnant. She's six weeks pregnant. That's pretty early, pretty excited. I remember when we were six weeks pregnant—pretty excited. So we announced it, and she was excited. We were excited and we had fun and all that.

I saw her the other night. I said, "You know, that was pretty neat." She said, "You know, I wasn't going to tell anybody because I was afraid—what if we miscarry or what if something happens? Let's make sure this takes." So how did you arrive at the decision to tell everybody? She said, "It's some—"

How are you going to weep with those who weep if nobody knows about it? In this little church of ours in the last year, we have had three funerals for babies. In one week, we had three miscarriages. Those have been some of the most magnificent times for the body to come together. For the body to see this young couple go through as bad as it can get and still say I praise God for what He's doing and has done and will do in our life through the life of this baby.

That's what he's saying. There's the preventative thing—you want to be strong spiritually. Well, if you are so feeble that you must call the elders and they pray, you need fellowship. You need somebody dumping into your life because when you begin to pray for one another lots of stuff happens.

The Power of Prayer

When you pray, God moves in the simplest ways. We had a guy and I taught a study one day on evangelism or something. I said pray this: "Pray God, this week bring me someone who I can share my faith with." The guy said, "I walked out of that room and I was committed to that prayer. That was my prayer. I prayed it."

He said that night we had some people coming over for dinner. When we were all done with dinner, he said, "I know it sounds chauvinistic, but the gal said let us do the dishes," and they left. We're sitting there and I don't really know this guy very well. Here's what he said to me. He looked at me and he said, "Tell me about Jesus Christ."

Now that's kind of a buying signal. That's a guy that God may be working on. That's a guy that says hey, and he'd been praying that. Now does God answer every prayer? We get into all this—does God answer every prayer?

Prayer is not about you getting answers. Prayer is about God keeping your heart humble and sensitive to what's going on around you. I guarantee you Johnny's been praying to get out of that wheelchair for a long time. Larry's been praying for the arthritis for a long time. Brett Butler and his people around him are praying like mad, and they should be. But the prayer is not for us to get answered. The prayer is for God to soften our heart and humble us. That's the whole deal.

James's Illustration of Elijah

This passage is about healing. James picked about as bad an illustration as he could have picked. This has nothing to do with healing. It has everything to do with the power of prayer because the topic of these verses is prayer. He said here's a guy from the Old Testament—Elijah—and Elijah looks at the weak and feeble and sinful nation and world around him. He says, "God, take water from him," and for three and a half years there's no water. Boom. He says rain and it rains. That's the power of prayer.

Then he just says, "My brethren," by the way. For your own information, this is the twelfth time he's used that phrase. Remember he's writing by and large a very chastising letter, but he's reminding him at least two times a chapter: "I love you, man. I love you, man. That's why I'm doing it. I love you, man. I wouldn't write it if I didn't care about you."

The Real Issue: Spiritual Restoration

Listen, here we are back to the sinner thing. If we're at the end, he would say, "Boy, if you can heal a guy, boy, if you heal the guy that would really be something." He's not talking about healing. Pop, you guys don't have the power to healing. No, he says look: you got a guy that strayed. Back to verse 14 and 15—somebody who's weak spiritually. If you turn them back, you have saved them from death. You have done a mighty work, and God's grace is so terrific that it will cover all of your sin. That's what those verses are about.

They're not about healing. They're not about growing back new limbs or all of a sudden the spot on the lung is gone. Does God heal? You bet He does because God does miracles. You know that He does. But that's not what this verse is about.

This verse is about you and I. Look at him. He's at the end of this book where their problem is disobedience, and he's given them the solution: Come to Christ. Don't pull away from Him.

The Pattern of Spiritual Drift

That's what you do, isn't it? Things start going a little south and all of a sudden you miss a study like this. Church becomes optional. The home enrichment class is out the door. Your Christian friends you see less, and your secular pagan friends you see more. You gradually begin to pull away and pull away and pull away. Now you're standing there parched like a land that hasn't had rain for three and a half years.

See, now the illustration works. You're parched. You're bone-dry. What's the answer? God hasn't moved away from you. You moved away from Him. So you pray, and He'll come back to you and you'll be restored.

James has no formal ending to this, and in light of that, I don't either. I mean that's just it. Boom.

Next week we look at this issue of recovering your lost legacy—understanding the principles that you need to have to navigate your way successfully through life.

Father, thank You for the truth of Your word. Help us understand that when we are spiritually weak, our answer is to draw near to You, to resist the devil—the very same things that James told us just a chapter earlier. God, I pray that You would use these words, especially for anyone who may be here today who's bone-dry spiritually. Help them come to You, to embrace You and Your Son, to find other people who share this belief and begin to live together sharing their sins, their sorrows, their joy.

God, we pray that You would use us on this earth to help bring life from death, that we truly would embrace ministries of reconciliation, being Your ambassadors reconciling a lost world to You. Father, we ask that of You in Christ's name. Amen.