Father, you know the real condition of our hearts.
You know those amongst us who are struggling with anxiety,
those of us who are actually feeling really good, really pumped.
You know, Father, those of us who have a problem with cynicism.
You know, Father, those of us who are struggling with doubts.
You know those of us, Father, who are in fact maybe really feeling
just very filled with faith and just delighting in you.
Father, we give you thanks and praise that you know us perfectly,
that your word speaks to all of the different conditions of our lives,
and that, Father, you love us, that you care for us,
and desire to have us come into your presence this morning,
and that you desire to give to us,
and we ask that you would help us to receive in a worthy manner.
And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
I'm still so conditioned, I almost wanted to say be seated,
because if we were meeting in person,
you would have all been standing from the creed,
or most of you would have been,
and then I'd have to tell you to be seated.
Lots of people think that prayer is pretty weak,
a little bit lame, maybe actually really deeply lame,
and also more than a little bit boring.
One of the things I guess in our culture is,
you know, you look at something like yoga,
or some of the other techniques in meditation that come out of the East,
or suggested maybe by psychologists,
those things seem to give you a real type of benefit,
and they seem, yeah, they just seem interesting,
as if they're going to build your power,
and just seem like, because they give you more power, so to speak,
and are just helpful.
It seems like if there is any type of religion,
or any type of spirituality,
that's probably a better way to go,
because frankly, for a lot of us,
prayer just seems pretty weak,
like you sit in silence,
and you just speak in your head,
and you talk to God,
and it just doesn't seem to be,
well, it seems to a lot of people
that it's a bit lame.
In fact, people probably sometimes wonder,
maybe they wonder all the time,
I know a lot of people would wonder about those who pray,
how do you know you're actually talking to anyone,
you're not just talking to yourself,
and how does talking to yourself really do anything for you?
Once again, it seems as if prayer is a problem.
And in fact, for many Christians,
we feel these same things,
maybe we don't want to acknowledge it in public,
or we have times when we feel with it,
and that's on top of the fact that many of us say,
not only does prayer just sometimes really seem like
you're just sitting in a room all by yourself,
talking to yourself,
but it often seems for people as if prayer doesn't work,
that they haven't had many experiences of prayer being answered,
and if there was a prayer that seems to be answered,
it's almost always able to be explained
as some type of coincidence.
So it's in this type of context
that the book of James is going to talk about prayer.
And in fact, for those of you who are watching
or just trying to figure out the Christian faith,
let me let you into a bit of a secret
about your Christian friends,
is that the text that we're about to read
is actually a bit of a troublesome text
to a lot of Christians,
in that it touches on their cynicism and their doubt
and their disappointment with God in the Christian life,
because it seems to make very, very, very big claims
which are hard to square with the experience
of a lot of Christians.
So let's walk towards the text.
Let's see what it says.
What we're going to do is we're going to read it sort of twice.
It's a short text, only eight verses.
I'm just going to go through it
so you can just see once again
what it is that it's saying,
what it seems to be saying.
Then we're just going to think about it a little bit
in terms of some of these doubts, etc.
And then we'll go back and we'll read it a second time
sort of in light of having sort of,
okay, those are the issue.
Oh, it says that, really?
Wow, it says that, really?
And then we'll think about it,
and then we'll go back and hear it a second time
after we've thought a little bit
about some of those issues of our heart,
some of those issues of our mind
that we bring to prayer,
some of the context issues that we bring to prayer.
So let's look.
Just by the way,
so it's going to be the book of James,
chapter 5, verses 13 to 20.
The words will be on the screen,
but I just want to really encourage you
to get your own Bible
and to follow along in your own Bible.
That way, if the verse is missed,
you can still look at the verse yourself.
And it's also just good to get familiar
with using your own Bible.
And so I just encourage you to do that.
And a little bit of a heads up
to what we're doing next,
because we preach through books of the Bible generally,
not all the time, but generally.
And so what we're actually doing
is a bit of the both
over the next weeks and months ahead.
We're going to look at the Ten Commandments next week.
Daniel's going to lead us in that.
We're going to look at the Lord's Prayer.
Daniel's going to lead us in that.
Then we're going to go through the book of Haggai,
a prophet in the Old Testament,
what our Jewish friends call the Tanakh.
Then we're going to do a summer series
called Knowing God,
looking at some of the main attributes of God,
why that is actually very, very, very good news
for us to know who God is,
because he desires us to know him.
And then we're going to start in the fall,
we're going to look at the Gospel of Mark.
It's going to be called Simply Jesus.
And we'll start looking at the Gospel of Mark.
That's where we're headed.
But right now we're going to look at James.
So let's see what it says.
And it starts like this, chapter 5, verse 13.
Is anyone among you suffering?
Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful?
Let him sing praise.
Just pause very briefly on that.
The word suffering there is really,
I mean, it is suffering.
It also basically would be,
another way to understand the word would be hardship.
Some of your translations,
if you're not using the same one as mine,
might say that.
So it's basically,
if you're going through a hard time,
whatever that is,
and often hard times are also times when we suffer,
the advice is to pray.
If you're feeling really pumped,
if this morning you're thinking,
gosh, you know, I got in a 15K run this morning,
you know, I had my yogurt and my hemp hearts
and my blueberries and bananas
and just feeling pumped,
looking forward to the afternoon,
well, the recommendation here is to sing praise.
The heart of both of these, by the way,
is that whether we sing words
or say words,
that a key part of prayer
is speaking to the triune God with words.
That's what's being recommended.
And it's really trying to say,
listen, from the worst times in your life
to the best times in your life,
there's a way to speak to God.
And he wants to, in a sense,
I can't remember who said it,
he wants to make holy your down times
and he wants to make holy your good times.
He wants to hallow your suffering
and sanctify your joy.
And so that's what it's saying.
And then in verse 14, it says,
and so that's not as problematic.
The word bit is a bit problematic.
The fact that prayer,
it's the emphasis is not on trying
to create certain experiences,
but to use words to talk to God.
But it's going to get into it more deeply,
some of the problematic issues of prayer.
Other than once again,
the Bible doesn't teach yoga
or meditative techniques per se.
It emphasizes a conversation
with the triune God.
Verse 14,
is anyone among you sick?
That word also can be translated
as weak, by the way,
in a very, very weakened,
diminished situation.
Is anyone among you sick?
Let him call for the elders of the church
and let them pray over him or her,
anointing him or her with oil
in the name of the Lord.
And just, it's a whole other
big topic of sermons.
In the Church of the Messiah,
we come out of the English Reformation.
And so in our polity,
that's the way churches are structured,
I'm an elder.
And now you might look at me and say,
well, that fits, George,
because you look really, really,
really, really old.
But I got ordained
as a transitional deacon
when I was 28.
And just a couple of months
after I turned 29,
I was ordained an elder.
Back then, I was young.
And so it doesn't refer to age,
it's an office.
And in Church of the Messiah,
there are three people
who are elders,
myself, Daniel Avitan,
who was just here,
and Sean Turner.
And hopefully,
in the providence of God,
I mean, Jonathan Kamiri from,
anyway, I won't go any further in it,
but we're elders.
But the thing in here,
which is very, very interesting,
by the way,
is, yeah, anyway,
so we're the elders.
So here the command is
to call the elders of the church
to anoint with oil
and to pray.
Verse 15,
And the prayer of faith
will save the one who is sick,
and the Lord will raise him up,
and if he has committed sins,
he will be forgiven.
I'll say it again.
And the prayer of faith
will save the one who is sick,
and the Lord will raise him up,
and if he has committed sins,
he will be forgiven.
This is,
we're starting to get into
this hard part of the verse.
You know, the above stuff
is sort of a bit,
you might say it's harmless.
Well, it can't really do any harm
if you sit in a room
and just talk to yourself.
You know, it's still not as exciting
as yoga,
or it doesn't seem
intuitively plausible to us,
because yoga
and meditative techniques
have a,
in our culture,
have a type of plausibility
about them
that merely talking
to the triune God
and invisible God
doesn't have.
But here it goes,
here's where we get
into problems.
I know for a fact
that there are people of,
I mean,
I've had friends die
over the last couple of weeks.
I know there are people
who are part of the congregation
who've had
a very close loved one died,
and probably thousands
of people praying for him.
And there are people
who are part of our congregation
who have prayed for children
and not been able
to receive children.
And I mean,
I've prayed and prayed
and prayed and prayed
and prayed about it.
There are many
who would just long
to be married
and worry that they're
going to be single forever
and have prayed
and prayed and prayed
into it.
There are those
who've had marriages
seem to break up,
those who have struggled
with different types
of addictions
or alcoholism.
And so to hear
a verse like this
for many of us
is very hard
to hear.
And we're going to talk
about this again
more in a moment.
The first part
of verse 16,
therefore confess
your sins to one another
and pray for one another
that you may be healed.
Just sort of want you
to notice there
the pattern of all the verses.
I'm not going to say
much more about it
than this,
is that at the beginning
I pray for me,
and then the next part,
in a sense,
the leadership of the church
is asked to come
and pray for me,
and here the whole congregation
is asked to pray for me.
And that's sort of it,
so it's not as,
like, in a sense,
there's this big call
to prayer,
both you as an individual,
for my own needs,
for me as an individual
to pray for the needs
of others,
and for the church
as the church
to pray into particular
types of needs.
Then the second part
of verse 16,
the prayer of a righteous person
has great power
in its working.
Elijah was a man
with a nature like ours,
and he prayed fervently
that it might not rain.
And for three years
and six months
it did not rain on the earth.
Then he prayed again,
and heaven gave rain,
and the earth bore its fruit.
And some of us
will read this,
and this is actually
a really important verse,
which we're going to spend
a bit more time on later.
But one of the things,
the way that James introduces
this is very interesting.
If you don't know much
about Elijah,
one of the things
I can tell you about Elijah
is that even though
he had periods
of great success,
and to many of us,
like unbelievable
answer to prayers,
he also had a time
of deep fear,
he had a time
of deep despair,
and his despair
was so deep
that he asked God
to kill him.
So in other words,
this isn't like
somebody who's like
always pumped,
always doing his best,
like always at a thousand percent,
his RPMs are always,
going full bore,
and he's just flying
through life
and through experience.
This is a man
who struggled
with human fear
and who struggled
with despair,
even to the point
of a season
where he was praying
that God
would end his life.
And James is saying,
this guy has
the same nature
as you and me.
And there's a bit
of a debate
about how to pray this,
how to translate
this word fervently,
but it literally means
he prayed with prayer.
That's what it literally means,
he prayed with prayer.
And it could take,
it could be something
to show a type
of intensity,
but it also could be used
as a type of emphasis
that he prayed with prayer.
And it's important
because for many of us,
we might say,
well, that's,
you know,
there's these Elijah guys,
there's these George guys
and Daniel guys,
and you know,
I don't know,
they pray
and all these things
happen.
Somebody just,
I was chatting
with some street people
the other day
and one of them,
one of them asked me
to pray for them
and I said,
sure,
I'll pray for you,
but I want you to know
that I'm in sales,
not management.
And I knew that
one of the street people
with them
was a Christian
and he's a really neat
Christian who panhandles
so he can buy coffee
for street people,
not so he'll buy cigarettes,
not so he'll get drugs
or alcohol.
He literally,
he panhandles
so he can be generous
to the other street people
and engage them
in conversation
and I said to this person,
I said,
this guy's probably
closer to management
than I am,
I'm just in sales
and they all laughed.
But the emphasis here
is to deal a little bit
with our cynicism
is think about the fact
that Elijah struggled
with depression,
he struggled with despair,
he wanted to die,
he has the same nature
as you and me,
God did a remarkable thing
at least sometimes
with Elijah's prayer.
By the way,
to Elijah's prayer
that he would die,
God said no.
Then just to sort of,
just so we can see
the rest of it,
verse 19 to 20,
my brothers and sisters,
if anyone among you
wanders from the truth
and someone brings him back,
let him know
that whoever brings back
a sinner from his wandering
will save his soul
from death
and will cover
a multitude of sins.
So we see a bit of it,
we're back to the problem,
the weakness of prayer,
its lameness,
the fact that it doesn't work
and the fact that really
in our culture,
things like yoga
and a range of other
meditative techniques
have an inherent plausibility
and attractiveness to them
that just simply talking
to the triune God
just doesn't seem to have
as being something
that seems intuitively
as the way
to move forward
in whatever this real world is.
And so I'm going to say
several things about this.
First of all,
if you met a human being
that could not hear
and could not speak,
would you say that
that human being,
I'm going to get in trouble here
about differently abled
and I,
you know,
the fact that,
just listen to me
with this analogy.
I mean,
part of the great brilliance
of the Christian faith
which is being lost
is that every human being
is made in the image of God
and has a dignity
and worth and value
which the state does not give
but states will be judged
by God
as to whether they recognize
the inherent dignity
of every human being
no matter how handicapped,
including the pre-born.
and so don't jump on me on this
but I just want to,
just be honest for a second, okay?
Check your outrage.
Just be honest.
If you meet a human being
that has literally lost
the entire ability
to speak and to hear,
would you think they are
in a sense above you
or below you?
Like in other words,
I mean,
we can look at somebody
who's very brilliant
and wish we could be
as smart as them.
We can look at somebody
who is really funny
and wish we were funny like them.
We can look at somebody
who's unbelievably athletic
and wish that we were
athletic as them.
Would we look at that person
and wish that we were like them?
Well, if we're honest,
we'd say no.
In fact,
in Canadian culture,
you'd say they were a candidate
for euthanasia
because you'd probably say
they don't have any quality of life.
Let's just be honest.
In Canada,
you would say
they don't have a quality of life
and they are the type of person
that doctors should be allowed to kill.
But what about
if you met a human being
and this,
from the time they were a baby
to now,
they've actually had
no brain activity.
And so even the very,
very ability to speak,
like, you know,
because speaking,
you could see somebody
who doesn't have the ability
to speak and can't hear
and you could think
part of what you might think
is that it's so sad
there's a brain,
a person in there
sort of trapped.
And how can you get in touch
with that?
But if you met somebody
and in fact,
the brain
doesn't work at all.
And so it's not just
that they can't speak
and that they can't listen,
but that even if
somehow or another
magically it could work,
there'd be no one there
in a sense
to speak.
Now, would you think
they were greater than you
or less than you?
Would you wish
that you could be like them?
No, once again,
you would say,
I don't even know
why they've kept
somebody like that alive.
That would be
obviously a person
that they should have
turned off the plug
if not turning off
the plug didn't kill them.
They're obviously
a candidate
for so-called
assisted suicide,
which is really
just euthanasia.
So the reason I'm asking
all of this is that
if that's how we view
human beings,
why is it
that a God
that cannot speak
and a God
that cannot hear
and a God,
a conception of God,
that actually
it's not even within
that God's capability
to speak or hear,
how on earth
could that be God?
And I'm using
the word that.
like,
but that's
the God
of the East.
That's the God
of yoga.
That's the God
of meditation.
Like,
why would you
worship a God
like that?
Why would you even
want to connect
with it?
Like,
how does that fit?
Why is that
plausible to you?
Well,
let's ask
another question.
In fact,
we'll just,
see,
here's the thing
about the gospel.
What does the gospel
reveal?
How is the true
God revealed?
He's revealed
in the person
of Jesus.
That's the Christian
teaching.
If you go back
and you read John,
you'll see that
John says that
Jesus is the one
who perfectly
reveals God.
The personal
God is revealed
in the person
of Jesus.
The God
that does exist
that what we
Christians believe
since we accept
what Jesus has said
is the God
who speaks.
The God
who can listen.
Shouldn't that be,
even if you don't
believe a God
like that exists,
shouldn't you wish
that a God
like that exists?
And shouldn't you
say,
wouldn't you,
isn't it more
reasonable to say,
why on earth
am I actually
trying to connect
to a God
that's less
than a human being?
That's,
that in fact,
if we met
that God
as a person,
we'd think
that God
should die
to be put out
of its misery.
Jesus spoke,
he loved,
he died,
he reveals
the real God.
Isn't this far better?
Or what about
if you had a God
who for eons
and eons
from all eternity
was completely
and utterly
solitary?
Completely
and utterly
solitary,
just that God
existed.
And because
just God
exists,
if God
only exists,
I guess he
could talk
to himself,
but he can't
really talk
to anybody
else.
And,
you know,
when you meet
a person,
like,
we're just
off of that,
we're in the
ministry spaces
in the downtown
part of Ottawa,
where we worship
on Sunday mornings
as part of the
Urban Corps
of Ottawa.
Let me tell you,
there's all sorts
of people
that are around
here.
I see people
every day
who can only
talk to themselves
but cannot
talk to human
beings.
And nobody,
nobody thinks
that's the way
to go for your
future.
But what if you
have a God
that can maybe
talk,
but he can only
talk to himself
and then all of a
sudden he decides
to create other
beings and then
he has beings
that he talks
to?
Well,
I mean,
I'm describing
the God of,
I just described
Allah.
Well,
how is that
like a God
that we'd want
to actually
hope exists?
Like,
doesn't there seem
like there's
something wrong
with that
conception of
God?
I know I'm
being very
un-Canadian
challenging our
conceptions,
but listen,
don't we all
want as
individuals to
not live
unexamined lives?
Don't we
look down on
people who
live mindless,
shallow,
unquestioning,
unexamined
lives?
And since
that's the
case,
and I'm
fine,
I get
challenged
all the
time on
my Christian
faith,
all the
time.
So,
for those
of us
who think
yoga is
more plausible,
for those
of us
who think
Allah is
more
plausible,
well,
really,
is it?
Have we
examined
what it
means to
have such
a God
like this?
And once
again,
the Christian
God who
Jesus reveals
is completely
and utterly
different from
the God,
the triune
God.
The God
that's revealed
by Jesus
is that
Jesus is
God,
the Son of
God,
that from
all eternity,
the Father
and the Son
loved each
other,
the Holy Spirit
loved the
Father and
loved the
Son,
the Son
loved the
Holy Spirit
and the
Father.
There is,
in a sense,
communication,
there was
revelation from
all eternity.
And God,
who is the
Father, the
Son, and the
Holy Spirit,
three persons,
one God,
he creates
human beings
in his image.
And so he
doesn't just
create George,
the lone
human,
in a
completely and
utterly non-human
world.
He creates
George and
Andrew and
Rebecca and
Louise and
you and
Matt and
Daniel and
Jono and
Claire.
He creates
human beings.
He creates
human beings to
reveal themselves,
to know
themselves, to
know each
other, to
communicate.
It all
fits.
Shouldn't a
God like that
be far more
plausible?
Even if you
can't believe
that a God
like that
does exist,
shouldn't you
begin to
long that
such a God
like that
exists?
I mean, I
have good
news for
you.
That longing
will be a
longing that
comes to
fruition when
you give
your heart
and your
mind and
your life
to Jesus.
Jesus
reveals God,
and he
reveals God
not only by
living a
perfect life,
suffering the
trials and
temptations,
the weaknesses
that we do
only without
sin, but he
loves us to
the point of
dying for
us, to
reconcile you
to God.
God doesn't
just reveal
himself as
big, chest
thumping,
look at me,
I'm great.
I mean, he
is great, but
he reveals
himself in
lowliness by
dying.
You know, all
of the idols
and all of
the gods of
the world,
they all have
one characteristic,
others die
for them.
Marxism, others
die for them,
ideologies as
well, ideologies,
all the gods,
others die for
the God or
the gods.
Christianity,
completely and
utterly unique.
It is the
story of God
coming among
us to die
for us
because he
loves you
and me.
In fact, what
is one of the
names of
Jesus?
The first
name that
is given
to him is
Emmanuel, God
with us, with
us in our
mess, with
us in our
joys, with
us in our
sorrows.
He is
Emmanuel, God
with us.
But some of
you might say,
George, but
prayer doesn't
work.
Listen, I can
tell you of the
times I've
prayed and it
just doesn't
work.
Christians and
non-Christians
can tell me
that.
A couple of
weeks ago I
wrote a blog.
You can look
at it.
It's called
Amnesia and
Prayer.
I talk about
God dramatically
answering a
prayer request
of mine that
I thought was
impossible, but
I was praying
out of obedience.
I talk a few
other things about
how he answers
prayer or not.
I suggest you
go read it.
I just want to
sort of double
down on the
particular issue.
Some of you
have heard this
story before, but
it's a good
story and I'll
tell it again.
I used to be in
a rural church.
I looked after
four little
congregations.
I can't remember
if it was July or
August.
It doesn't matter.
It was the
summer.
And the way
Anglican
churches work,
especially when
you're the only
elder in the
congregation at
that particular
time, if you
go on holidays,
you get another
person to cover
for emergencies
for you.
So the priest in
a small village
or small city
about half an
hour away from
where I lived,
he was on
holidays.
He asked me to
cover for him.
I agreed.
So at about
7.30 in the
morning on a
Sunday morning, I
get a call from
the hospital.
And the call from
the hospital is
that Bob, we'll
call him Bob,
is dying.
He's been in
a coma for
several days.
They've turned
off the machines.
He's going to
die any second,
literally any
second.
His daughter is
with him and
his daughter has
asked that a
priest would come
and you're the
one.
Would you come
and just give
him his last
rites and pray
over him?
He's going to
die any moment.
Can you come
right away?
And I said,
listen, I'm
really, really
sorry.
I have to drive
all the way to
Killaloo, which
is half an hour
the other way.
Tremor, not
Killaloo.
Tremor, half an
hour the wrong
way.
I have to do
a service there
at 9 o'clock
and after that
I have another
service here in
Eganville at
11 o'clock.
There's nobody
to take the
services.
There's nothing
I can do.
I'm really, really
sorry.
And the nurse
put all of her
manipulative
pressure she
could on me.
This guy is
dying.
His daughter
is distraught.
He's not going
to last.
He won't be
alive at 1230.
I can guarantee
it he won't be
alive at 1230
the early one
when you can
come.
I say, listen,
I have to do
the services.
I'm really, really
sorry.
I will call
you as soon
as I finish
my Eganville
service and
then I will
drive.
If he's still
alive, I will
drive the
half hour and
I'll go see
the daughter
and the man.
And so I
finish my
services.
I get on
the phone.
Yes, he's
still hanging
in there.
She'd still
really like it
if you could
come.
So my wife
had made me
a sandwich and
a coffee.
I get in the
car.
I drive there.
I come and
I see this
guy, Bob, in
the hospital bed.
And the
daughter was
understood that
I had the
services.
I couldn't
come.
She was
really glad
that God
had kept
her dad
alive long
enough that
I could be
with them.
So, I mean,
part of what
you're going to
learn from this
text in James,
which is really
powerful, I
didn't bring oil
with me, but I
said, is it
all right if I
touch your dad's
hand?
And as I'm
talking to the
daughter, I
touch Bob's
hand, put my
hand on his
hand, and I
put my hand on
his shoulder,
talking over
Bob to the
daughter a
little bit about
Bob and what
was going on
in his life.
And, you know,
one of the
things which this
text is so
important about is
touching the
person, by the
way, even if it's
not with anointing,
right?
It's one of the
things which is so
brilliant about
James 5, it would
be a whole other
sermon, is how it
respects the dignity
of the person, that
what you see in
this, all this
talk of prayer in
the elders, is that
the person's not
alone, that there's
a community involved,
that there's no
isolation, that the
person isn't treated
like a machine, that
you just sort of try to
plug things into and
make a readout, and
then you just sort of
throw things in or
cut things open, but
they have sins, they
have anxieties, they
have community, they
have all these things,
they need touch, they
need to be spoken
about, all these things
are there in this
text.
This is not a crazy,
this is a text that
Canadian medicine
continues to need to
learn from, that
human beings aren't
machines, that we
have anxieties, and
we have things that
trouble us, and I
remember going to
visit a guy, he
was, this is early
on, and he was
deeply troubled, he
was in the last three
or four months of his
life, and he was
deeply troubled about
the things he had
done as a paratrooper
in the Second World
War, and that's what
he wanted to talk to
me about as the
elder.
The profound
trouble that he had
in the Second World
War, and what he had
done.
Anyway, back to the
story of Bob.
So it comes time to
pray, I said, can you
hold your hand, I say
to the daughter, can
you hold, we make like
we all held hands, and
I prayed like I always
pray in those situations
as I learned to pray.
You know what I said, I
said, I prayed, Father,
Father, I don't know
right now if Bob can
hear us, but I know
that whether or not he
can hear us, that you
can minister to him and
speak to him right now,
wherever he is,
underneath the coma and
the unresponsiveness, you
can meet with him and you
can speak with him, and
Father, we ask that Jesus
would come to him right
now and minister to him
in whatever is going on
in his life.
And I ask, Father, that
Jesus would minister to
him, that if this is
his time to die, that
Jesus will minister to
him so that he is ready
to meet you.
I said, Father, if it's
your will that you heal
this man, I ask that you
heal this man.
Then I prayed another
couple of things, and I
said, in Jesus' name,
amen, and Bob said to
me, thank you very much,
I really appreciate
that.
The man in the coma
said that to me.
As I prayed, he came
out of the coma.
Now, listen, I can tell
you two or three other
stories, not quite as
dramatic as that, where I
have gone to administer the
last rites.
I always pray for physical
healing.
I always pray that they
will be ready to meet
Jesus.
I always pray that there'd
be inner type of healing,
and I can tell you there
are several people that I
have prayed for.
When I have talked to the
family that the doctors
were right, they have to
disconnect all of the
machines, and I have had
different people that I
have prayed for like that,
and they went on like this
fellow to live three, four,
five more years.
I've had many people that
that didn't happen to as
well.
Probably the majority.
They died.
What this text is talking
about, and this is one of
the reasons you want to
look at the blog as well.
See, one of the things is
that when you pray, Jesus
teaches us to pray, your
will be done.
That's actually in the
Lord's Prayer.
Did you notice that?
Our Father who art in
heaven, hallowed be thy
name.
Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.
And Jesus, when he was in
the Garden of Gethsemane,
and he knows that he's
going to be captured in an
hour or so, he knows he's
going to be humiliated, he's
going to be beaten, he's
going to be whipped, he's
going to die on a cross, and
he's going to die naked on
a cross, and he says, Father,
if it's possible, take this
cup far from me.
But not my will, but yours
be done.
And of course, God answers
Jesus' prayer not by saying,
yes, I'm going to save you
all that bother.
He answers his prayer by, no,
you are going to go ahead and
die.
See, God still answered Jesus'
prayer, he just didn't answer
it with a yes.
That, by the way, that story of
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
is a profound comfort.
But it's not a profound
comfort if you don't know
Jesus as your Savior and
Lord.
See, remember when I told you
that one of the things which
is uniquely different about the
Christian faith than all other
faiths is that all of the
gods of the world have people
die for them.
The ideologies of the world
have people die for them.
The rich have people die for
them.
In the Christian faith, the God
is revealed in Jesus.
Only there does God not say,
I want you to die for me, but
he says, I'm going to die for
you.
For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son
to the end that all who believe
in him will not perish but have
eternal life.
And so when you, you, you see,
when you understand this and you
understand that you pray that
God's will be done, not your
own, it's not something that
creates a type of fatalism in
you that you shouldn't do
anything because God's will is
going to be done.
It, in fact, is as it starts to
grip you that the one who
teaches us to pray this is the
God, is the one who died for
me, who loved me to the point
of embracing my shame.
He knows my, he knows my
despair.
He knows how much like Elijah I
am.
He knows those times and I
just want to completely give up
and still he loved me and died
for me.
And it's by being held by him
and saved by him that I have the
context, the comfort to pray your
will be done.
And that isn't something, by the
way, that then makes you not want
to pray.
When you understand the gospel and
in the context of the gospel that
your will be done, I can pray for
Bob that who should have died four
hours, five hours earlier, five and
a half hours earlier, he should have
been dead.
And I can pray for him if it is your
will, heal him.
Why?
If it is your will.
The universe explodes with
possibilities.
It doesn't create a type of
fearfulness and a type of
passivity.
It is, I can pray for anything.
God wants me to pray big prayers.
And God wants me to come to him
when I say, God, I am so beat up.
I am so tired.
I have such a hard time praying.
Lord, have mercy upon me and help
me.
I'm going to have to watch my time.
I just want to say one more thing.
And this is really important.
It's one of the things, if you get
the blogs, one of the things I get,
you get with the weekly blog is
something called Growing in Grace
where I give a couple of attitudes
that come out of the text and I give
a bit of a way to pray the
scripture text that we've read.
And so that's what you, if you go
and get that and a memory verse
for the week as well.
And so one of the things, this
happened to us.
We had a neighbor whose brother
was very much into drugs.
And I think it was LSD that he was
doing.
And one of the things about the LSD
is that, and this had happened to
him before, is that he'd have this
confidence under the influence of
the drug that he could fly.
Like a great confidence that he
could fly.
I can fly.
And unfortunately, he decided to act
on that from the 10th floor of a
building.
And he plunged to his death.
Now, here's the big problem we have
with the word faith.
Faith, in a sense, is not really about
you and it's not about me.
A minuscule faith in a proper object
is vastly better than a huge faith
in a delusion or a lie.
You might have an absolutely
minuscule faith, like the space
between my finger and my thumb,
is how big your faith is.
That if you get on that Air Canada
or WestJet thing, that it's actually
going to safely take off, get you to
your destination and safely land.
Your faith might be that minuscule.
But the fact is, it's that minuscule
you get on.
But it doesn't really matter how big
your faith is.
What matters is whether the plane is
dependable.
In the same way that if you have a
huge faith, I can fly.
I can fly.
And you jump off of the floor of a
10-story building and you plunge to
your death.
You see, the issue with faith,
faith is always a word that's about a
personal connection of trust into
something or some person.
What is the prayer of faith?
The prayer of faith for a Christian
is that I have been made right with
God by the one who loved me so much
that he died for me.
This God that I talk to, that I come
to, is the God, the same God who
defeated Egypt and brought Israel out
of slavery.
It's the same God that used Gideon to
rescue the Israelites from 160,000
Midianites.
It is the same God who worked through
Esther to change the mind of the most
powerful empire in the world to save
the Jews.
It is the same, he is the same God who
rose Jesus from the dead.
He is the same God that even the
lowliest person with the most
minuscule faith sitting in their room
or sitting in church or sitting here
watching right now praying to that
triune God, what does not matter is
how big your faith is.
It can be very minuscule, what matters
is God.
You are talking to the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons,
one God.
You have become that, you have become
the adopted child of God, his precious
possession and treasure through faith
in Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.
He has revealed himself most perfectly
by living a life of miracle and of love
and of compassion and of pity and of
mercy, dwelling amongst us in our mess
and then burying that mess in his
person as he died in your place, in
your stead.
And then he defeated that great enemy
that you cannot defeat, which is death
and the sin which causes death.
And as he bears your sin and tastes all
there is to death and rises from the
dead, he does that out of love for you
and he will come again.
And it is the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, three persons, one God
to whom we pray.
Just, I need to wrap this up.
If you go back in the text, the heart
of the text is, at the heart of the text
is the two things, the prayer of faith
and the prayer of faith at the end of
the day, what you are saying is that the
Lord's will be done.
The same one that you trust to keep you
safe for all eternity, to make you fit
for a new heaven and a new earth for all
eternity is the same one that you pray
about for the big and the small things
of your life.
And you are just like Elijah, he is no
different than you.
And you can pray big prayers and you can
pray small prayers.
And what do you need?
What do I need?
Well, first of all, if you've not given
your life to Jesus, there is no better
time right now.
The God that really should exist, a God
that speaks and loves and communicates, a
God that is not a God far away but is
present, powerful, active and hidden,
always working on his perfect plan.
That is the God that does exist, that's
been revealed by Jesus.
And there is no better time than die to
the foolish plausibility of the culture and
ask Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord.
No better time than now.
And the two things that we need to help
us with prayer, which come out of this, is
that when you see that you're to prayer in
faith and it's the faith in Jesus dying for
you, it's that he has revealed God.
So the two things that we need to help us
in prayer, these are things, because I have
weak faith, let me tell you, I have weak
faith, is begin the habit of saying, Father,
make the gospel more real to my heart.
Lord, make the fact that Jesus died for me
and that he is my hope of glory, make that
more real, deep in my heart to me.
And the second thing that we need to pray,
you see, in a sense, I mean, part of how we
grow in prayer is actually just praying big
prayers.
And you can read my blog and other types of
things, but the prior work is actually, Lord,
make the gospel more real to me.
And then the final one, and you've heard me
talk about this before, but we need to,
friends, brothers and sisters, we need to
remind each other of this all the time.
God is big and you are small and that is
good.
And the big problem that you and I have is
we think the cancer is big and God is
small.
We think the Supreme Court of Canada is big
and God is small.
We think the Parliament is big and we are
small.
We think big tech is big and we are small.
We think our neighbor is big and we are
small.
We think our boss is big or our daughter is
big or our husband or our wife are big.
The problem is big and God is small.
And that's what we think all of the time.
And so one of the things that we need to
do is say, God, help the gospel to become
more real to my heart.
And Father, help me to know that you are
big and that everything else is small.
And even name it.
Say, Father, I have such a hard time believing
that you're bigger than the cancer.
I have a hard time believing that you are
bigger than the Parliament.
I have a hard time believing that you are
believing that you are bigger than my boss
or my economics or my finances or my romantic
life.
Father, I have a hard time with it.
Help me to believe.
Help me to know that you are big and everything
else is small.
And you see, to pray that God is big and that
everything else is small, if you pray that
without knowing Jesus, that's a terrifying
thing.
That will crush you.
Why will it crush you?
Well, because the gods of this world want you
to die for them.
And so it's a scary thing to pray that you
know that God is bigger.
But if you understand the gospel first, that
God dies for you, then that begins to open
the door to say, God, you are big.
Help me to know that you are the same God.
I'm speaking right now as I walk down Bank
Street, as I walk through the gay village, that
I'm Father.
I'm speaking right now to the God who opened
the Red Sea to bring the nation of Israel out
of bondage and slavery in Egypt.
I am talking to the one who defeated Midian.
I am talking to the one who defeated Persia.
I am talking to the one who rose Jesus from
the dead.
I am talking to you who are present, powerful,
active, hidden, and always working on your
plan A.
And I am talking to you as your precious,
loved child by adoption and grace.
Let's pray.
Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do
this mighty work in our heart, that you would
help us, Father, to pray a prayer of faith, that
you would help us to pray a prayer of faith,
knowing how big you are, your great compassion
and your love, that your will, your sovereign
will, your good purposes will be done, that even
when you say no, Father, it might have to be that
we wait until the new heaven and the new earth to
see how wise and good and loving you actually were
to us, to say no, to see those times you said not
yet and then you answered later.
And we'd forgotten that we'd even prayed it and
how you answered it, maybe a week, a month, a day,
a decade, two decades later.
Father, we ask that you deliver us from our amnesia.
We ask, Father, that you grip us with the gospel,
with who Jesus is and what he did for us.
And we ask, Father, that you grip us anew with how
great and glorious you are, that you are present and
powerful, active and hidden.
You hear our prayers.
Father, grip us with these truths.
And we ask this in Jesus's name.
Amen.