Prayer that Experiences God’s Power (James 5:13-20)
Last week we talked about praying holding onto God’s covenant. And now, how will we pray experiencing God’s power. Every person has fears and worries. And just like the scripture we read just now, there’s a big worry about having no rain. And as exactly the same as back in Elijah’s time period and today there’s evil social conditions violent kings,officials and false prophets that are making life hard for us. And when people face difficulties they make a lot of reasons. Usually they make excuses of their environment, or other people. How we, the people who have the answer and the people who experienced God’s power, they pray. For us, how can we overcome difficulties, and what is the prayer that has power?
Before we talk about that today, we have to quickly change the thought of me. In other words, we have to quickly escape from being centered on me. We look at all situations through me, and we look at everything centered on myself, and experiences. And that’s why after receiving salvation, we don’t receive healing.
And Satan completely plays with people who are centered on themselves, they only know about their perspective. In other words, their thoughts never turn to ask, “Why is God allowing this to happen or God’s perspective”, it’s always, “Why is this happening to me?” We have to quickly escape from our material centeredness.
In other words, we have to escape from the physical things we see because God is invisible. And we have to quickly escape from my plans, my success in order to experience God’s power. How is it that Elijah was able to overcome through prayer even though he faced so many difficult situations? The fact that he was praying he escaped his physical-centeredness. The fact that I’m not praying means I am remaining in these 3 centers.
You have to look at all circumstances in prayer from God’s perspective because now we’re centered on the gospel and God’s Word, therefore we’re now centered on prayer and evangelism. That’s why everything is a blessing, “Why did this person say this to me?” It’s no longer that, but, “Why did God allow me to hear these words?” That’s how you receive answers.
Scars
People have scars. Because our scars aren’t being healed, we have no choice but to look at everything critically from our scars. “I’m the only correct one; everyone else is wrong,” this is the kind of person who must receive healing. It is the time schedule for people like them to receive healing, and also for us to heal people like this as well.
1. Power
What is the prayer that has power? It’s the prayer of faith. We have out works of faith. What is this faith? It is the assurance of salvation.
1) Faith
(1) Salvation
(2) Word
It is the faith that believes in God’s Word
(3) Power
And we need to have the faith that beloved in God’s power. If we don’t have faith regarding these things, you cannot experience God’s power. In James 5:15 such prayers of faith will heal the sick, why is that? We’ve already been given the ability to heal diseases, we’ve already been given the power to cast out demons. Because it’s already been given to us, the power will be revealed to those who believe. We are not asking to receive that power through prayer, but we have already received the ability and power to heal and restore.
2) Believer
God guides those who believe. Psalm 23:1, if someone is led by the shepherd and believes he is the shepherd, even if they are lacking, they will not be in want. Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, it’s all about faith. If you pray, do you receive faith? Jesus already promised to give you power, so we pray about that in faith.
3)
Matthew 8: 5-13 talks about a centurion who looks for Jesus because one of his soldiers is sick, and he asks Jesus to heal him. He goes to Jesus with the faith knowing that if he takes it to Jesus he will fix it, so Jesus says, “Let’s go,” but the centurion says, “You’re so high ranking, do you really have to go with me? I have the authority over my subordinates, and if I give a command, they will just go; can’t you do the same?” Jesus Christ responds, “I haven’t seen faith like this in all of Israel, it will be done in faith.”
We just believe, but we don’t blindly believe, we believe in God’s Word. If you just believe blindly, that’s your own baseless faith; in other words, you’re believing God without knowing who he is. We believe because God promised this to us through His Word. We have already been given the power to heal and to cast out demons, and it’s through that faith that we relay the Word and pray.
Mark 5:25-35 talks about the hemorrhaging woman who was healed just by touching Jesus’ cloak. She held onto Jesus’ cloak because she had the faith, “If I touch His cloak, I will be healed.” It’s not enough just to follow him and hold onto him, if you don’t have the faith, the works don’t take place.
When we do the work in the church, it’s not so that people acknowledge us. We can’t do it if we know that people will acknowledge us. We do it because God has given us this role and the ability to fulfill that role, so we do it in faith.
4) Hebrews 11:6
Without faith, it is impossible to please God, that’s why this faith is so important. Your faith is more important than your work. Faith is more important than your abilities. If that order changes for you, you won’t be able to see or experience God’s power. Yes it is true that people who are good at working must work; however, those who have faith must work.
Without faith, works do not take place, because without faith, we always try to reveal ourselves, and that’s why we work so diligently, but later on, we’re caught up by the devil. It is true that only the one who has both faith and has the word will receive the blessings.
2. Prayer of Repentance
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much. Who is a righteous man? Whoever believes in Jesus Christ and Gospel is a child of God and is therefore righteous.
1) Child of God
They become a child of God because they believe in the gospel, therefore righteousness is only within the gospel. Then, any child of God who prays will have works arise.
2) God’s Will
The children of God pray according to God’s will. There’s no need to pray for your own will, you just look for God’s will and pray for that. What is God’s will? It’s to save lives. God’s will is never for you to work harder, it’s to save lives. Then if you pray according to God’s will, they will receive the answers and power, you must teach this well to new believers. If you confuse them from the beginning, their walk of faith will be hard. A new believer doesn’t know until they’re taught something. You have to teach the, correctly, otherwise, we’ll have to retrain them later on. For me, I learned about evangelism as soon as I accepted Jesus Christ. Other people says evangelism is hard but I don’t think so at all, because as soon as I accepted Jesus Christ, I learned about evangelism first.
I say evangelism is easy and I’ve never felt that evangelism is hard, and so as soon as I believed in Jesus Christ I experienced that, and someone told me to translate. I don’t know about evangelism, I was evangelized to, and then the pastor asked me to interpret, and this is the time when I couldn’t interpret well, but even though I was stumbling through it, people accepted Jesus Christ. I experienced this multiple times as a new believer.
That missionary took me into the mission field every week, so ever since I was a new believer, I never asked whether evangelism was hard or not, but if you don’t teach that to a new believer, then they live their lives irrelevant to evangelism. If you don’t teach them about evangelism, you’ll teach them about something else. God’s will is to save lives, but because you’re teaching them something that’s not God’s will, you’re just training them to be religious.
If someone has lived their walk of faith for a long time without the gospel, without prayer and evangelism, they’re chock full of other things, and taking all of those things out takes a lot of time. Because the fact that they’re full of something else means they’re full of religion and legalism and scars and diligence. They don’t understand evangelism because they never understood the gospel, and that’s why more so than being filled with the gospel, they’re filled with legalism, and as more time passes, they’re on a path that has no choice but to fall into conflicts and division.
It’s very important, doing something is not what’s important, you have to know properly. If something isn’t working out, there’s a reason why it’s not. It’s because they’re planted in something that’s stops them from working. Ever since they believed in Jesus Christ, it was planted within them. That’s why it’s very important and valuable for them to be planted with the correct word and gospel from the beginning. I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t get scared when they talk about evangelism, they’re so intimidated. They may not say this aloud, but inside, they’re so burdened by it. It is evidence they don’t know God and the BIble.
Does that means they really don’t know the Bible ? Do you think this person never prays at all? Do you think this person never gives worship? It means they know something incorrectly and the beginning of that is that they are not certain in the gospel. Jesus Christ has finished all problems but they haven’t received the faith that it is finished, and because of that, they have to diligently do something else, they’re diligent in their prayers, and the reason they evangelize is because they don’t believe it’s been finished, so they are trying to finish it with evangelism, they do missions because all they have to do is give financial offering, that’s what they learned about missions.
Then as more time passes, they live their walk of faith for a long time, but they become so swollen in the head and the body that their legs are so small, they can’t move anywhere. Simply put, even after a long time, they are still very young children, so if you say something to them, they get offended, it’s because they don’t have the gospel inside of them, that’s able to turn it into a blessing. And it doesn’t matter how good someone tries to act to them, if someone has a scar, they receive it incorrectly; imagine how hard it is to live in this world?
You guys have to remember this, Jesus Christ has finished all problems on the cross, and now what’s important is your faith regarding God’s Word. If you don’t have this faith, you cannot experience God’s power. Because you don’t know God’s will even know you are praying what his will is even though He has already told you. But in reality, you already have your own will, and you’re just asking God, “What is your will?” until His will confirms yours, so in reality, you haven’t thrown away your “me-centeredness.” You have your own plan, and keep on asking God so you can have His Word confirm your plan. Throw that away. All you have to do is hold onto God’s will of saving lives but the gospel hasn’t gone into you, so you aren’t being seized by this. This is the field of the churches. They say things like, “Why am I not receiving answers? Why isn’t evangelism taking place?” These are wrong questions, but you don’t know that this is wrong because you’ve believed for so long and you say you know the gospel well, but not really. You have to finish it, but it’s not finished for you.
The problems of the past, present, and future are all finished, and now you’re holding onto God’s Word, moving forward. When you’re facing a problem what is God’s word? When someone says something to you, what is God’s plan? That’s not taking place for you, yet. When you face a problem, you fall back into your me centeredness, and if someone makes you feel bad, you go back to your scar-centeredness.
I said this earlier, but your head becomes so swollen because you have generations of Christian knowledge , but your hands and feet are so small, you can barely waddle around like a toddler. What’s so difficult about God’s will? It is to save lives. There’s no need for children to be confused about their jobs in the future, you just have to save lives, there’s no reason for you to ask, “Should I do this or do that?” Make all your decisions to save lives and God will guide you. So in reality, it’s a very simple thing and we have to make sure that new believers begin correctly.
The power of all power is when you go into God’s Word. When we use “repentance,” we use this word in many different ways. For example, if you say sit high that gives scars to someone else, you repent of that. But if you know the repentance to that level, it’s the same as an unbeliever who just shows remorse. People who are on one side of the political spectrum, for example, communists, they’ll spend their entire lives criticizing the other side and what they have done. I’m not saying that even though these things exist you should just forget about them and then not do it, what I’m saying is that if you understand repentance as the same level as a unbeliever, you don’t understand repentance in its true form.
What is true repentance? What is sin? Sin is anything where you miss the mark. It means that you are outside of God’s Word, that’s sin. So yes it’s possible, for us to refer to the incorrect things we said to someone else as a sin because that’s how non#believers use sin, but anything that’s outside of God’s word is a sin, and repentance is coming back to God’s word. It doesn’t matter how much you apologize and repent for causing scars to someone else, you have to do that, but you don’t come back to God’s word. Then that’s not a church, that’s a bunch of nonbelievers. That’s someone loving with the ethics and morals of a non-believer. Then they can’t receive power.
We talk about the filling of the holy spirit for so long that when I meet with people Who have believed for a long time, they asked me to pray for them to receive a feeling of the Holy Spirit. You should just pray for that on your own. All you have to do is pray with faith that He will give it to you because He has promised it to you. Why do you request that from me? Give me your prayer topics for your field, that’s how we’ll pray for you together. If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you could do that on your own; why do you have to ask someone else to pray for you?
What we need to pray for is, what are the unbelievers in the field like, what are their prayer topics, and we have to pray together for them to be saved. Filling of the holy spirit means you’re escaping from your “you-,” “material-” and success-centeredness. You have to let go of yourself for the Holy Spirit to fill you, if you’re holding onto your thoughts, you’re filled with your thoughts, not the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the filling of the holy spirit is no average thing.
We just think of the phrase, “filling of the holy spirit” so easily because we say it, but it’s about letting yourself down completely, and it’s impossible to lay yourself down completely without faith. Then, why is it that even though this prayer is so simple we can’t do it? Because this thing called myself it’s always moving me, and this thing doesn’t drop away for the filling of the holy spirit to take place, then that’s the start of the spiritual battle. It begins with you.
Last week during the second service, we talked about praying for filling and working of the holy spirit, but it’s not taking place, is it? You can’t pray for that because you’re filled with material things and success, you can only pray for the filling of the holy spirit if you let yourself go, but all you’re praying for or thinking about is you and the things you see with your eyes. And the filling of the Holy Spirit is just a catchphrase to you, and we said to pray for the working of the Holy Spirit in all your work and meetings, but it’s hard to pray for that because you’re so centered on yourself and the things you see with your eyes, that’s why you are so centered on your success, so instead of praying for the feeling of the Holy Spirit you rely on diligence and methods.
We xain it so simply, but there’s a “me-centered” nature that has ruled over me from before I knew the gospel, and that’s why we must pray, holding onto the covenant. We’ve already been liberated from these centers so hold onto the covenant, if you had the exodus then you’re already saved but because you’re not holding onto this as your covenant, your thoughts and heart are escaping back to Egypt. That’s why you must hold onto the covenant and pray. First and foremost, the working of the Holy Spirit will take care of you, no matter where you go. Then God‘s kingdom is establish And the kingdom of Satan and darkness is broken.
There’s no “me,” there, that’s the land of Canaan and it’s true rest. If happiness is right before you but you can’t hold onto it, then there’s no answer for you, right? If the answer has been given to you, but the answer has been given to you, you will always wander. Rest isn’t given to you on this earth so you can rest, rest is given to you from heaven it doesn’t exist in this world , if this answer has been given to you but you still don’t know it, then you will still not know it, then how unfortunate is that? That’s why even the fact that I have this accurately and I’m able to relay this accurately to new-believers is a huge blessing.
Working diligently is not important at all, it’s only important in the world centered on humans and human perspective, but in the kingdom of God only holding on to God‘s covenant and faith it’s important because God is of working now, and He’s not resting and we’re supporting him with our efforts . God it’s not someone who lacks abilities The real problem is I don’t have the faith to believe that, the faith in God’s Word, and this is what it’s saying. Therefore, in order for the Word to really be taught to me and revealed and reminded within me is a true blessing. Not just the religious or legalistic words, but the words of the gospel, what is a blessing? Psalms 1:1 says, the one who meditates on the word of God day and night is blessed. Meditates in the word of God, not just meditation. Just meditation is curses and disasters. God even tells you the future, but instead, you throw away those answers and struggle and wander on your own.
Today, we went this far talking about God’s plan. The will of our fathers to save lives then there is no need for you to ask me Pastor,” What is God’s desire?” It’s to save lives. “What is God’s will in the church?” To save lives. If you ask and if someone is saved, then if someone is saved, God’s will is for them to save others. THat’s the reason we serve the church and work in the church, that’s the only thing we talk about, and that’s the only reason we work in the world, then you can experience God’s power. This blessing has already been given to us; it’s not something we have to go out and look for.
Today in James 5:17-18, it talks about earnest prayer. It says that Elijah prayed earnestly, but it’s not a pose like putting our heads between our knees. It’s not that we don’t talk earnestly but it’s because we don’t have faith. It’s not about sincerely begging, “Please give this to me once,” like you would to a person. The fact that he was praying earnestly means he had assurance, assurance of what? He was able to pray in earnestness because he had faith in God’s word, if you’re praying earnestly because you don’t believe, you’ll have the works of disbelief, but he believed. What happens when you believe,he prayed because he believed that’s why he had works of belief.
That was Elijah’s prayer and conditions. And the result of his earnest prayer is, for three and a half years, there was no rain but when he prayed, it rained.
4) Committed Worker
James 5:17-20. My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings this sinner back from wandering will save that person from death, and will bring about the forgiveness of many sins.
There are people who have separated from God‘s word and we have to pray for these people to come back. There are a lot of sins we commit too, sins because of our weaknesses, sins because of our unbelief, but all that will be forgiven. God completely covers the evangelists with His grace, and if because of my evangelism, this is relayed to the next generation, nothing can handle that. This is the right of the evangelist because that’s the most important thing. In order for someone to return to God they don’t do it all of a sudden in one day, there is a prayer that is required in that process. God will save them from us death and forgive many sins.
2. Application
It’s important for us to apply our faith, and what’s important is how we’re going to apply our faith. Everyone has a different way of applying, “Saving lives through faith.” But honestly, all of you have to apply in prayer, you have to put this into application starting from the church one by one.
I’m sorry i keep on repeating this, but it’s to change your thoughts. If you have the thought to take anything you used to at home and decide to donate it to the church, that’s not right. But if there is something so good in your home and it’s almost a waste to keep it to yourself and you bring it to the church, that’s a very different thought and posture then someone who brings something to the church because they don’t need it, this is an application of our faith, but obviously, the former person doesn’t have any faith like, “I can do this for the church.”
That’s that person’s level of faith, and the church is moving, let’s say we’re doing Temple Construction, that person will give their offering based on their level of that person’s faith. Our works take place according to and whoever this person is, the person will receive answers , and in order to apply our faith there are different ways. you can talk about your tithe. If you don’t have faith it’s impossible to give tithe then you receive your answers according to your faith. Missions are also faith. It’s optional no one is forcing you to do anything.
But this person is doing it because they have faith. Next generation? That’s faith. If you don’t have faith in the posterity, then later on you have no interest in them but you have to take your faith and apply it in aspects of this one by one.
If you have intercession prayer for believers next to you, it’s because you have faith, but there’s actually very few people like that because they can’t even pray prayers for themselves, and you cannot pray for others. But we’re able to pray for others because we have faith that through my prayers this person can be faith, but not only them but their family line and region. Then only that person will continuously receive God’s works, of course you haven’t experienced God’s work, of course you haven’t experienced God’s works because you have disbelief, and only you have is emptiness, then you have to experience this faith one by one. God tells us to pray for the pastor. The people who really evangelize are bound to pray for the pastor. why would you pray for the pastor? Because even Paul requested to open doors for evangelism, so the people who really evangelize are bound to pray but i’m sure people will not. They don’t pray for that because they don’t even pray for themselves, then they will keep on having the works that don’t take place. So simply put, our blessings are already before us, but because our eyes of faith are not open, we are submerged in disbelief. In order for you to overcome temptations, you have to first get rid of your motives. If you have your own motives, you’re not hearing God’s word correctly. You have to quickly let go of the motives of yourself and your desires, in order for Satan to not control you, because otherwise you’ll get stuck in tests.
Why do you keep on getting stuck in test? It’s because you have a motive that tricks you into falling. All we have to do is simply go before God and receive his grace. If some says something to you, just understand, “Okay, I guess people can see that,” and I’m sure God has a reason God allowed you to hear this, and if what this person isn’t true, then it’ll go back to them. However, if this person’s word is the voice of God, then I have to accept it as God’s word and change.m
One by one, when you apply your faith into practice, you will receive the experience of God’s power. There’s nothing big or difficult about it. Just follow God’s word as it is given to you, there is no need for you to be so greedy. The reason you don’t follow the word as it is given to you is because you have so much greed, and you don’t follow God’s Word because you think you want to do world evangelization by yourself. Then your world evangelization is not actually world evangelization, but it’s your ambition that has been combined with this term, it’s a false gospel. That’s why you’re bound to now follow the word. Because you’re full with Me, material things, and Success. Even if we stand before the word of God just a little bit, we will receive God’s power.
Conclusion
1. Authority – Power
Then without a doubt as Jesus Christ saved us, He gave us the authority and power to drive out demons and heal diseases. There’s a difference between power and authority. The power is God working with power, but what is authority? It means God will do this work through me. Paul did not do any works because he was powerful, but because God worked through Paul in power, even when people held onto Paul’s handkerchief, they were healed.
The reason we keep having a hard time praying is because we don’t have this power. You say, “I’m going to heal this person, but how can I heal this person?” and you’re right, we haven’t been given the power to do that, only Jesus Christ has that power. However, we have been given the authority to utilize the name of Jesus Christ, and that’s why the power of God is flowing out through me.
You need to hold onto this in order for you to experience God’s power and for God’s power to be revealed in your field. Let’s say there’s someone who’s sick, you have to remember God’s Word, that God has the power to heal those who are sick. The power isn’t mine but I have the authority. Faith is important.
Whether God heals the sickness or not is irrelevant to me. Let’s say someone is demon possessed, it’s the same thing, I have the authority for God to reveal His power through me. It is with that faith that I relay the Word and people who are sick will be healed. Even if that power is not revealed, it’s not mine, and there’s a reason why God is not revealing it. If someone is destined to go to heaven immediately, then they shouldn’t receive God’s power, because that has nothing to do with God’s will. So the very first, most important thing in healing ministry is that God has given you His authority. The power is revealed because you’re praying and you believe in that promise.
2. Word
Go into God’s Word, and the third is God’s will.
3. Will
As we said earlier, it is to relay God’s gospel. If people live their walk of faith without this, they keep trying to find God’s will in incorrect places. For what goal did Jesus come to this earth? It is to save us. Did Jesus come to solve math problems? Did He come to upgrade our internet from 5G to 6G? Did Jesus come to earth so you can sell this house and buy another one? Did Jesus come all the way to earth so we can buy better brand-name clothes? Why did Jesus come here? Did Jesus come so you can get plastic surgery? Or to get a nose job?
Why did Jesus Christ come? Did Jesus Christ come from heaven to earth so you can get a good degree or so you can have property? You talk about success and you think Jesus Christ came to this earth to be poor. Do you think Jesus Christ came to this earth so he could purposefully chose a humble job as a carpenter, living his life in poverty. He came here to save us, then what do you think the will of the Lord within us is? It is to save people.
But then you say, I don’t know God’s will, pastor it’s hard for me to know, it’s because you’re holding ont your will too hard. Right now there’s a battle between your will and God’s will. That’s why you ask me these questions. Let go of your will and hold onto God’s will. Your will is just to fight against a person and win, your will is to live better than that house, or to make a better decision then that person. Jesus didn’t come to this earth to do that, that’s the image of non-believers without God, we have already finished everything on the cross, and God already promised to give us the power of filling of the Holy Spirit. To save lives, to the salvations of souls. Even if your body is hurting, it must be for this purpose in order for you to experience God’s power. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter if you get better or not, then what do you think you have to do? You have to hold onto God’s will and God’s will is to save lives. There’s no reason for you to ask to be saved, but God holds onto your life and if you’re within God’s will, then God works. You say, “Even if He does not, we will go into the fire.” It’s that faith.
This must be developed by the new believers, by us, and to the remnants. If you have relayed everything else in the world other than this, then there is no future. Today at this time, may you hold onto God’s Word and put this into application to save. It’s not even a problem with myself or anyone else. The real problem is not having faith in God’s will. If you know this and start from there, I believe it will be the beginning of experiencing God’s power.
Prayer
God, we thank You. May we begin the prayer that experiences God’s power. Allow us to hold onto God’s covenant in the world and pray. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.