Prayer of Faith

Written By Rev Law Hui Seng
Posted By Teresa Han
13th Dec, 2009

James 5:13-20
Main Idea: To Inspire the congregation to exercise faith to pray for the sick.
Objectives: a. To teach that prayer of a righteous person heals. b. To teach that our sins can lead to sickness. c. To teach that we need to exercise our faith to heal the sick.

A. Introduction.
- Human sickness calls for a need to be addressed. Because people are sick, our belief and faith need to address it.
- You get sick or ill, do you? No matter, how healthy you are, how holy you are, you fall sick or ill once a while. Some fall sick more often than others. And so, it calls for us to do ministry.
- Praise the Lord, today’s passage is a great passage to address it.
- I pray that the sermon today will inspire you to do the social concerns of praying for the sick. I pray that you will exercise your faith to pray for the sick.
- You will find that the passage greatly challenges you to do it by faith.
- And so, the question of how much faith you put into prayer when you pray for the sick?

B. What consists of prayer of faith for healing?
- The above in the introduction can only be answered if we know what consists of prayer of faith of healing.
- The prayer of faith of healinng is characterized by the following descriptions:
- Firstly, you need to pray when you are in trouble and you need to praise God in songs when you are happy as taught in verse 13. That is your faith must get you to totally depend on God no matter in good time or bad time.
- Secondly, when you are sick you need to have the faith to call for the elders of the church to pray for you; and to use the anointing oil to pray for the sick (verse 14). It is not the oil that heals but it is the exercise of faith that calls upon divine power to heal. So, this is the sacred power of prayer. Notice it does not say only those who are gifted in healing of sickness can do the job. It spefically mentionss the office of elders. In our context today, it is the pastors, lay leaders and LCEC members.
- Thirdly, you need to exercise your faith to pray for the sick, then, the sick will be healed and also you need the faith to expect the sins of those who are sick to be forgiven (verse 15). James here links the possibility of sins that cause sickness. This is something we must take seriously and not lightly. And he went on to emphasize the need for confession of sins to one another in public in the event you call for healing of the sick (verse 16). So no confession, no forgiveness of sins, and no healing of sickness.To encourage us to exercise our faith to pray for the sick, he now even helped to see who can pray for the sick beside those who are elders. On the one hand, the elders could be the righteous man whose prayers are powerful. On the other other hand, the righteous persons can be those in the community of faith who confess his sins and follow the standard of holiness of the church community. So, he says in the end of verse 16, the prayer of a righteous man is pwerful and effective.
- And then, even in the closing remark (verses 19, 20), he still emphasizes the need to reach out to those who have wandered away from the truth and sin against, we need to direct them. Otherwise, they still face the consequence of eternal death. In chapter 1, verse 15, James says, “Then, after desires has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death.
- To drive home his point to get us to pray for the sick, James is trying to say Elijah is not like an angelic being, he is no God, he is just like anyone of the christians or disciples of Jesus at his time, God uses his prayers. So James is saying God can use our prayers to ask God for healing of sicknesses (verses 17, 18).

C. Applications
- This is really a very practical passage for us today. I pray that you take up the challenge to pray for the sick. This passage calls for the following 3 applications in your life:
- Firstly, there is a place for prayer of faith for the sick. I can see the challenge here is not very much on whether we believe prayer of faith can heal or not. The faith involves here is the person who prays, the elder, the pastor or whoever qualifies as the rigteous person has the courage to ask, “What sins have you committed?” And the challenge of those sick people who are being prayed for is to cofess his or her sins publicly.
- Secondly, can you qualify yourself as a righteous person to pray for the sick? I believe we can ask God for forgiveness of our sins and repented. Our challenge is whether we have the compassion and time available to pray for the sick.
- Thirdly, any one of you who are willing to leave your worldly concerns temporaray and join me to pray for the sick when there is a need?

D. Conclusion.
- If our prayers of faith for the sick and confession of sins do not work, at the end of the day, we must still respect God’s sovereignty to heal or not to heal anyone.
- Where medicine is concerned, it is a way that God bless mankind to use it for healing. If you go for medication, it does not mean that you do not believe God can heal. However, every time, you get sick, do you confess your sins to a righteous person and ask him or her to pray for healing before you go to see a doctor?
- Our responsibility is to put our faith to test and exercise our faith to pray for the sick. Will you?