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TEACH US TO PRAY - Praying For Healing" - May 10, 2015 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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St. Paul's Lutheran Church Orange, CA

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it will probably come as no surprise to any of you to hear me say that over the years I've had to do a lot of study in public speaking no getting up in front of people and communicating effectively is is a big part of being a pastor and so I take a bunch of speech classes in high school and college and then of course many preaching classes in seminary and all those Sirius is taught me one very important thing about public speaking and that's the importance of having a what's called an interest opener in other words it's usually not very effective to just get up in front of people and say I got four points I want to make today because most people are going to say voucher by her four points but you try to catch their interest first with maybe a moving story or a provocative question Sonora a funny joke or something like that and then you move on to the Four Points once you've gotten people interested  very important however I've also learned it's not absolutely necessary when you preach at a funeral for exam was I did yesterday you don't really need an interest opener  people are already interested  they want to hear a word from God  no I'm taking a bit of a chance on this but I'm guessing that I don't really need one today either as we talked about praying for healing  I've never really done the formal study on this but my guess is that nothing inspires us to pray more then when someone we love is sick  again just a gas but if you were to look at all of the prayer requests that we received here at St Paul's say over the last year I would bet you that maybe 80% of them would be prayers for healing most of us have to work really hard at remembering that there are other important things to pray for  but no one ever seems to forget to pray for people that they love who are sick especially a when they're seriously sick prayers for healing comfort naturally  this is a topic we're already interested in and if that's true then are text from James five should speak to all of our hearts of this morning because in James 5 God gives us an amazing promise about praying for healing he's inverse 15 the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well that's a pretty strong statement what a wonderful statement it is to hear if someone you love is sick and needs healing the problem is that that promise doesn't seem to Jive very well with our life experience  at least not as perfectly as the verse seems to suggest  my guess is that most of us here have experience times when God answered our prayers for healing sometimes in amazing and miraculous ways but most of us here this morning have also experienced times where we prayed for healing and the person that we love didn't get better  maybe they even despite our fervent heartfelt prayers for healing  and if that's true then how are we to this amazing promise from versus 15  that's a question that's not easy to answer because please few versus a seem to be very simple and straightforward their meaning is hotly debated by Scholars of the Bible for example some Scholars question whether this text is even talking about physical healing at all  play turn it up in verse 14 where James says is anyone of you sick that the word for sick there is the Greek word us the nail which literally means to be we Paul uses the same word in another famous bible verse Romans 5 verse 6 where he says that just the right volume when we were powerless Christ died for the ungodly  the word that's translated they're powerless is the same word that's tear in James for sick and so clearly in Romans it's not referring to physical weakness or sickness stop saying when I got cancer a Christ died for me pause obviously talking there about spiritual weakness the weakness that comes from back in James verse 15 maybe another clue James says and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick well and again seems very straightforward however if you dig a Little Deeper you find out that the words make well are a single word Greek it's the word Sozo which literally means save so literally it's the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person and right after that he says the Lord will raise him up and of course the verb there is often used in the New Testament in connection with the action and so some people put all of that together and they say I don't think that James is promising that every physically sick person will get better if we just for them fact I don't think he's talking about that at all maybe what he's really promising is the Assurance of salvation set the person we're praying for will find ultimate healing not necessarily from recovering from all of their physical sick but by being forgiven of their sins and being saved and being raised to eternal life with God one of the issues that's hotly debated among these versus another hot issue here is the mention of anointing the sick person with oil that comes in verse 14  the question is you know what what exactly is James suggesting here some people think that the oil is not a spiritual thing at all they think James is just talking about a common medical news from the ancient world  and they may very well be right are you may remember that oil is mentioned in this way in Jesus is parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10 verse 34 says that after the man had been robbed and beaten up the good in here it is went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine  but then what are people who think the oil must have some spiritual significance because if it was purely medical wouldn't James have said if any of you is sick you should call the doctor to anointing with oil  who needs the Elders of the church if this is purely a medical thing no we can go on and on like this it's amazing how much conversation and debate these few very a seemingly straightforward verse have inspired  so let me just try and move us forward today with just a few thoughts of my own first I think regardless of what don't you think that the anointing with oil has James clearly ties the healing that he's talking about not to the oil put to the prayer  reverse 15 only mentions the prayer not the oil when he talks about making the sick person well praying for healing is what is being emphasized here so we have to make sure we don't get caught up in the minor point that we missed the major second regardless of what you think about who the Elders of the church are and what they should do when someone is sick James is clearly connecting his promise to everyone and not just to a select few in verse 16 he says pray for each other so how do you may be healed  so the power that he's talking about is in the prayer it's not in the elders  you don't have to hold special office in the church or have reached a certain level of maturity to experience what he's talking about here this is a promise for all of third I want to say I believe the text is referring to physical healing and not just ultimate heal when we die for a couple reasons a first because the New Testament never talks about salvation as something I can do for you simply pipe rain  secondly because while the word save does sometimes refer to Salvation it is also frequently used in the new estimate in connection to physical healing I thoroughly while the word raise up off and does refer to the resurrection of the Dead it too is often used by Jesus to Simply mean get up from your sickbed because you're well  besides James means this or not we know that Jesus himself made similar promises  in John 14 for example Jesus said you may ask tell me for anything in my name and I will do it and you can see he doesn't say that praying for healing is Exempted  the question is how then are we to reconcile this amazing promise from James with our own life experience all the key is in verse 15 we have to see that this amazing promise has a contingency  the promise is not absolute the promises contingent one very important condition that the prayer for healing is offered in faith only the prayer offered in faith makes the sick person well according to James  no we have to be very careful because this principle has been horribly misinterpreted at times James is not saying that if you play for healing and the person you love is not healed that therefore it's your fault because you didn't have enough faith what do you say  you think about James is example in this case the one whose praying is not the sick person but the Elders of the church I just think about that would god really say well you know I wanted to heal you but you picked a bad shirts with immature Elders so well there was nothing I could do  of course that would be ridiculous no God like that would be worthy of our worship when James says that only the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well  he's not saying place your fault if the person doesn't get well  what are you saying is this that when we pray as God design what we are ultimately doing is submitting ourselves to the will of God trusting that he knows better than we do and that he loves us and that he's always working for our good even if he doesn't always do exactly what we want it's clear from the Bible that God's will isn't always to heal us physically even the Apostle Paul was not healed from his famous Thorn In the Flesh even though it says he prayed for healing at 3 times  so when we pray for healing we must never insist that God must his will to ours that's not praying in faith instead we offer prayers to Jesus saying by will be done  praying in faith means that we are submitting our how to hinge on the other hand we must also never fall into fatalism in our prayers and think that our prayers for healing are therefore meaningless and that God's just going to do whatever he wants no matter what we pray because that kind of thinking about prayer imagines God as Stern and uncaring and very distant from instead of the loving compassionate father that he is  I learned this lesson myself very powerfully  several years ago now back in the fall of 2006  in the fall of 2006 mother-in-law became Gravely ill following complications from open heart surgery she spent 1 weeks in the Intensive Care Unit I've never known anyone who spent seven weeks in the Intensive Care Unit  before 7 weeks life was hanging in the balance and we race from Chicago to Michigan several times when it looks like she was not going to make it my brother-in-law who lived in Florida at the time spent thousands of dollars on one last-minute plane ride after another when yet complication occurred because he wanted to be there when his mother died  and I can distinctly remember my father-in-law praying for her healing  and how hopeful and positive he was as he trusted in Jesus and I remember him talking to us about Hezekiah and how he had prayed for healing and God had given him 15 more years of life  and I remember smiling and nodding but in my heart not believing that it was going to happen this time  I remember a telling my wife privately more than once a you need to prepare for yourself  because your mom is probably not going to survive this next step  because I was the experience pastor I've been around lots of sick and dying people  I know signs when I see them yeah I recognize the speeches that doctors and nurses give when they know that death is drawing mirror and they're trying to prepare people for it there was absolutely nothing to be hopeful about anymore except the hope of the life to come I even said goodbye to Mom it's a hard thing to remember that happened more than once  when I told her I'd see your next in heaven do you know what I was wrong God had other plans  the prayer offered in faith made the sick person well and the Lord racer up that was almost 9 years ago now  and she's alive and well and living a very full and bless play today she travels she's playing with her grandkids she's serving at her church she's doing pretty much all of the things she ever did in fact she was just here some of you may have met her a few weeks ago she was here at St Paul's for my son's confirmation and to this day when I think about all that she went through  I am just amazed by it  I would tell you today that it's Miracle but it's actually more than that it's multiple Miracles I've said often wasn't really so much a healing  as a resurrection there was so many times along the way she really should have died I was sure she was going to die all my experience told me she is going to die but I was wrong  James was right the prayer offered in faith made the sick person well  and the Lord register up no  that does not mean  that God will do exactly the same thing in the life every sick person we know he won't  but it does mean  that we must never give hope that he can and that he just might it means that we offer our prayers healing in faith saying on the one hand I will be done Lord not mine the other hand also seen and believing that no matter what With God all things are possible  no matter how fruit or how hopeless our situation is we can say with confidence would Martha said to Jesus as they goodbye the grave of her brother Lazarus  even now  I know God will give whatever ask  and we can trust that no matter what happens the wonderful words of that old him are still true what God ordains is always good that's a prayer for healing offered in faith  the kind that makes the sick person well  I meant

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TEACH US TO PRAY - Praying For Healing" - May 10, 2015 - Pastor Scott Christenson

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