Scripture: James 5:13-6
Listen Link: Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Neil Anderson is a pastor with a lot to say about Spiritual warfare. In one story he shares, the mother of one of his seminary students was a psychic. She said to him once, "Have you been praying for me?" "Of course, I have, Mother." "Well, don't," she insisted, "because you're disturbing my aura."
In another story there was a man who was a high priest in the upper echelons of Satanism. Six months after he was set free and became a Christian, he gave his testimony in church. At the close of his testimony Pastor Neil asked him, "Based on your experience on 'the other side,' what is the Christian's greatest strategy against demonic influence?"
"Prayer," he answered forcefully. "And when you pray, mean it. Fervent prayer thwarts Satan's activity like nothing else."
God’s power is in our prayers. Jesus taught us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And we read in Ephesians last week just what sort of power we are talking about. “That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
There are three things about power. It needs a source, a connection and an application. First, the source. The source of the power we are talking about is obviously God. And of course, we know that His power is infinite, phenomenal cosmic power. But let’s take a few moments to be astounded by some thoughts about the power at work in the universe. Just looking at the stars can produce awe and wonder in us as we think about all that what God was able to do to create that. Then we can take a closer look. Scientists hoping to design a fusion reactor to generate electricity aim to heat their fuel to tens of millions of degrees, just to start the fusion reaction. Tens of millions of degrees.
How hot is the sun? At the core of the sun, gravitational attraction produces immense pressure and temperature, which can reach more than 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, or almost 3 tens of millions. And that’s just one star. Each burning star in our universe is in a fusion reaction. There are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe! Observable means there’s probably way more that we can’t see from here. But just from what we can see, assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy means that there are about 1 billion trillion stars in the observable universe! All of them burning a fusion reaction, all of them under God’s control. Plus, he has time and energy to care about us and our history and make sure that turns out according to his will.
More than that, we can look down a microscope and find God’s power at work in the intricate details of molecular biology and DNA. Spectacular design that produces and supports life of amazing variety. Power to raise us from the dead. Power to sustain our lives forever in immortality.
In a sense, all of that power is at our disposal because God is our Father. But how do we connect with that? Remember for power to be useful there needs to be a source, a connection, and an application. God is the source of all our power. How do we connect with that? Prayer is the connection. But not just anybody’s prayer. James said, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Do you think we are righteous enough? A lot of people think they are not. But what makes you righteous? Christ makes you righteous! If you are in Christ a faithful believer, you are righteous enough because you are in Christ. That’s the gospel good news people. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is what makes you righteous enough to ask God for anything in prayer. Jesus, and prayer in Jesus’ name, is our connection to the infinite power of the God who runs the Universe.
So, do you believe you are righteous enough? That will make a huge difference in how you pray. A lot of people have trouble believing that they are righteous enough. Many people don’t pray because they don’t feel like God is listening. A lot of people feel disconnected to God, and so they don’t pray. A lot of people feel that it’s no use to pray because they never get God to do what they asked. They feel their prayers go unanswered.
But what they’re missing is connection to God comes through prayer. They don’t get the connection between prayer and Jesus. They don’t feel entitled to or connected to the power of God because they don’t really believe what the Bible says is true about the believer. If you are in Christ, you are united with him much as your soul is united to your body.
1 John 5:11, 12 says, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” When God breathed life into Adam, he was both physically and spiritually alive. Adam was spiritually alive because his soul was in union with God. We were never designed to be separated from God or to live independently of Him. We were born to be spiritually alive.
For the Christian, to be spiritually alive is to be in union with God. This concept is repeatedly presented in Scripture by the prepositional phrase “in Christ.” Being in Christ is the theme of the New Testament. Like Adam, we were created to be in union with God. And that my friends, is how you are connected to God’s power.
So, we have a source. We have a connection. Now all we need is an application. What are you going to pray about? This is a really, really helpful place to begin—to ask God what to pray. When you don’t know what to pray, let the Holy Spirit help you. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m looking at the equivalent of a two-headed rooster on my windowsill. I don’t know why God brought this up. So I ask him.
Remember the disciples asking Jesus, “Teach us to pray”? Too many times we just jump in and start praying (making prayer speeches to God), and it doesn’t have much effect. We just sort of swing our sword around in the air randomly. Do this for a while and you’ll get the impression that prayer doesn’t really work. Or that God isn’t in it. But, it works, and He’s in it. When we pray effectively. John says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15).
That’s an awesome promise. If we pray according to God’s will, he hears us all right. And he answers our prayers. Isn’t that what you want? I sure do. I want to see my prayers work! I want to pray according to God’s will. But I don’t always know what that is, so, I ask. This has absolutely revolutionized the way I pray. And I am seeing a lot more results, just as the scripture promised.
If you are in Christ, you are connected to the ultimate power source. All that’s left is knowing how to apply it, what to pray for. Now here’s a big tip. Pray for others more than you pray for yourself. “With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” That’s Ephesians 6:18. Did you catch that there’s nothing in there about pray for yourself? It says pray “for all the saints.”
I have spoken of otherish love before. That’s God’s kind of love. God uses all His wisdom and power for our benefit. He is most pleased when we show our gratitude by using our power and wisdom, that comes from Him, to help others in their time of need. I pray that as I help others that I also get to share the gospel with them, for it is the greatest benefit of all, to meet each one’s greatest need of all, peace with God.
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, where we hear Jesus pray, “Let this cup pass from me,” he qualified that with, “if it is possible.” He wasn’t really praying for himself, He was praying about our salvation and he determined to do whatever it took to save us even as he realized He was going to suffer tremendously, and die for us!
Also, pray for God’s will to be done, not your own. If you pray for what you want., you’re praying for your will to be done and you’re probably praying for yourself instead of for others. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, what did he tell them to pray for? For God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven. That gets us ready to obey His will not assert out own will. Also, all the rest of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer are corporate, give us our daily bread forgive our sins lead us not into temptation. That’s praying for the welfare of the whole church not just my personal happiness.
And in the cases where you really do want to pray for yourself, such as a career choice, instead of telling God what you want Him to do for you, ask Him what He would like you to do. If it matters, He’ll tell you. You can pray, “Help me land this nice job,” if you want to. God understands. But what about, “Lord, this new job opportunity looks great to me, but what do you think? I want to be in the place that brings you the most glory. I’ll apply, but if they pass me by, I’ll accept it as your will for me.” Then no matter what happens, you won’t be disappointed.
We need God’s power at work in our lives because the spiritual aspect if life is more real than the physical and most to be ignored. We are either aware of the need of prayer and engaged in spiritual warfare or we’re victimized by the demons who love to keep us in the dark with all their lies and deceptions. God knows what we need in our battle with the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs than we are to ask. He has provided the spiritual armor we have talked about from Ephesians 6, and we put that on by prayer. But until we express our dependence on Him in prayer, God may not act. In prayer we say, "You are the Lord, not I. You know what's best; I don't. I'm not telling You what to do; I'm asking." Prayer is a means by which God guides and protects His children.
I want to share one last thing about the power of prayer. Actually, it is a powerful prayer in itself for the sake of accomplishing our most important mission on earth, the task of evangelism. Most of us know, or feel, that evangelism is one of the hardest things God asks us to do. And God wants you to know that you can’t do it without his power anyway. There is a devil and a whole slew of demons devoted to keeping sinners in the dark about their need of Christ. You overcome them by prayer.
So, pray this powerful prayer every day that you know you will be meeting up with people who do not yet believe the gospel and are not saved. It’s call the “three open prayer and this is how it goes. “Lord, whenever I meet up with an unbeliever, please open a door of opportunity for me to speak to them about you. Also, open the door of his or her heart so that the seed of the gospel can go down deep where it needs to take root. And finally, Lord, open my mouth! Give me the right words to say in the right way. In Jesus’ name, amen. That the three-open prayer. Open the door. Open their heart. Open my mouth. It is always God’s will for you to share the gospel. He will answer that powerful prayer.
God is the power source like, who offers himself unreservedly to bless the world. He even gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Jesus Christ is our connection to all the power and when we believe in him the very first thing that power is used for is to raise us from the dead so that we may have life more abundantly and use it to serve God in his Kingdom as his hands and feet on this earth as we join him in His project and purpose to love others lavishly with all that grace that is ours through Him.
So, we apply the mighty power of God and we will see it at work in our lives as we pray for God’s will to be done in and through us, Just like Jesus did in the Garden and just as Jesus taught us to pray.
That is why James’ teaching about prayer is so focused on how we help others and how we help each other. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Listen Link: Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Neil Anderson is a pastor with a lot to say about Spiritual warfare. In one story he shares, the mother of one of his seminary students was a psychic. She said to him once, "Have you been praying for me?" "Of course, I have, Mother." "Well, don't," she insisted, "because you're disturbing my aura."
In another story there was a man who was a high priest in the upper echelons of Satanism. Six months after he was set free and became a Christian, he gave his testimony in church. At the close of his testimony Pastor Neil asked him, "Based on your experience on 'the other side,' what is the Christian's greatest strategy against demonic influence?"
"Prayer," he answered forcefully. "And when you pray, mean it. Fervent prayer thwarts Satan's activity like nothing else."
God’s power is in our prayers. Jesus taught us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And we read in Ephesians last week just what sort of power we are talking about. “That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
There are three things about power. It needs a source, a connection and an application. First, the source. The source of the power we are talking about is obviously God. And of course, we know that His power is infinite, phenomenal cosmic power. But let’s take a few moments to be astounded by some thoughts about the power at work in the universe. Just looking at the stars can produce awe and wonder in us as we think about all that what God was able to do to create that. Then we can take a closer look. Scientists hoping to design a fusion reactor to generate electricity aim to heat their fuel to tens of millions of degrees, just to start the fusion reaction. Tens of millions of degrees.
How hot is the sun? At the core of the sun, gravitational attraction produces immense pressure and temperature, which can reach more than 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, or almost 3 tens of millions. And that’s just one star. Each burning star in our universe is in a fusion reaction. There are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe! Observable means there’s probably way more that we can’t see from here. But just from what we can see, assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy means that there are about 1 billion trillion stars in the observable universe! All of them burning a fusion reaction, all of them under God’s control. Plus, he has time and energy to care about us and our history and make sure that turns out according to his will.
More than that, we can look down a microscope and find God’s power at work in the intricate details of molecular biology and DNA. Spectacular design that produces and supports life of amazing variety. Power to raise us from the dead. Power to sustain our lives forever in immortality.
In a sense, all of that power is at our disposal because God is our Father. But how do we connect with that? Remember for power to be useful there needs to be a source, a connection, and an application. God is the source of all our power. How do we connect with that? Prayer is the connection. But not just anybody’s prayer. James said, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Do you think we are righteous enough? A lot of people think they are not. But what makes you righteous? Christ makes you righteous! If you are in Christ a faithful believer, you are righteous enough because you are in Christ. That’s the gospel good news people. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is what makes you righteous enough to ask God for anything in prayer. Jesus, and prayer in Jesus’ name, is our connection to the infinite power of the God who runs the Universe.
So, do you believe you are righteous enough? That will make a huge difference in how you pray. A lot of people have trouble believing that they are righteous enough. Many people don’t pray because they don’t feel like God is listening. A lot of people feel disconnected to God, and so they don’t pray. A lot of people feel that it’s no use to pray because they never get God to do what they asked. They feel their prayers go unanswered.
But what they’re missing is connection to God comes through prayer. They don’t get the connection between prayer and Jesus. They don’t feel entitled to or connected to the power of God because they don’t really believe what the Bible says is true about the believer. If you are in Christ, you are united with him much as your soul is united to your body.
1 John 5:11, 12 says, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” When God breathed life into Adam, he was both physically and spiritually alive. Adam was spiritually alive because his soul was in union with God. We were never designed to be separated from God or to live independently of Him. We were born to be spiritually alive.
For the Christian, to be spiritually alive is to be in union with God. This concept is repeatedly presented in Scripture by the prepositional phrase “in Christ.” Being in Christ is the theme of the New Testament. Like Adam, we were created to be in union with God. And that my friends, is how you are connected to God’s power.
So, we have a source. We have a connection. Now all we need is an application. What are you going to pray about? This is a really, really helpful place to begin—to ask God what to pray. When you don’t know what to pray, let the Holy Spirit help you. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m looking at the equivalent of a two-headed rooster on my windowsill. I don’t know why God brought this up. So I ask him.
Remember the disciples asking Jesus, “Teach us to pray”? Too many times we just jump in and start praying (making prayer speeches to God), and it doesn’t have much effect. We just sort of swing our sword around in the air randomly. Do this for a while and you’ll get the impression that prayer doesn’t really work. Or that God isn’t in it. But, it works, and He’s in it. When we pray effectively. John says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15).
That’s an awesome promise. If we pray according to God’s will, he hears us all right. And he answers our prayers. Isn’t that what you want? I sure do. I want to see my prayers work! I want to pray according to God’s will. But I don’t always know what that is, so, I ask. This has absolutely revolutionized the way I pray. And I am seeing a lot more results, just as the scripture promised.
If you are in Christ, you are connected to the ultimate power source. All that’s left is knowing how to apply it, what to pray for. Now here’s a big tip. Pray for others more than you pray for yourself. “With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” That’s Ephesians 6:18. Did you catch that there’s nothing in there about pray for yourself? It says pray “for all the saints.”
I have spoken of otherish love before. That’s God’s kind of love. God uses all His wisdom and power for our benefit. He is most pleased when we show our gratitude by using our power and wisdom, that comes from Him, to help others in their time of need. I pray that as I help others that I also get to share the gospel with them, for it is the greatest benefit of all, to meet each one’s greatest need of all, peace with God.
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, where we hear Jesus pray, “Let this cup pass from me,” he qualified that with, “if it is possible.” He wasn’t really praying for himself, He was praying about our salvation and he determined to do whatever it took to save us even as he realized He was going to suffer tremendously, and die for us!
Also, pray for God’s will to be done, not your own. If you pray for what you want., you’re praying for your will to be done and you’re probably praying for yourself instead of for others. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, what did he tell them to pray for? For God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven. That gets us ready to obey His will not assert out own will. Also, all the rest of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer are corporate, give us our daily bread forgive our sins lead us not into temptation. That’s praying for the welfare of the whole church not just my personal happiness.
And in the cases where you really do want to pray for yourself, such as a career choice, instead of telling God what you want Him to do for you, ask Him what He would like you to do. If it matters, He’ll tell you. You can pray, “Help me land this nice job,” if you want to. God understands. But what about, “Lord, this new job opportunity looks great to me, but what do you think? I want to be in the place that brings you the most glory. I’ll apply, but if they pass me by, I’ll accept it as your will for me.” Then no matter what happens, you won’t be disappointed.
We need God’s power at work in our lives because the spiritual aspect if life is more real than the physical and most to be ignored. We are either aware of the need of prayer and engaged in spiritual warfare or we’re victimized by the demons who love to keep us in the dark with all their lies and deceptions. God knows what we need in our battle with the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs than we are to ask. He has provided the spiritual armor we have talked about from Ephesians 6, and we put that on by prayer. But until we express our dependence on Him in prayer, God may not act. In prayer we say, "You are the Lord, not I. You know what's best; I don't. I'm not telling You what to do; I'm asking." Prayer is a means by which God guides and protects His children.
I want to share one last thing about the power of prayer. Actually, it is a powerful prayer in itself for the sake of accomplishing our most important mission on earth, the task of evangelism. Most of us know, or feel, that evangelism is one of the hardest things God asks us to do. And God wants you to know that you can’t do it without his power anyway. There is a devil and a whole slew of demons devoted to keeping sinners in the dark about their need of Christ. You overcome them by prayer.
So, pray this powerful prayer every day that you know you will be meeting up with people who do not yet believe the gospel and are not saved. It’s call the “three open prayer and this is how it goes. “Lord, whenever I meet up with an unbeliever, please open a door of opportunity for me to speak to them about you. Also, open the door of his or her heart so that the seed of the gospel can go down deep where it needs to take root. And finally, Lord, open my mouth! Give me the right words to say in the right way. In Jesus’ name, amen. That the three-open prayer. Open the door. Open their heart. Open my mouth. It is always God’s will for you to share the gospel. He will answer that powerful prayer.
God is the power source like, who offers himself unreservedly to bless the world. He even gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Jesus Christ is our connection to all the power and when we believe in him the very first thing that power is used for is to raise us from the dead so that we may have life more abundantly and use it to serve God in his Kingdom as his hands and feet on this earth as we join him in His project and purpose to love others lavishly with all that grace that is ours through Him.
So, we apply the mighty power of God and we will see it at work in our lives as we pray for God’s will to be done in and through us, Just like Jesus did in the Garden and just as Jesus taught us to pray.
That is why James’ teaching about prayer is so focused on how we help others and how we help each other. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
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