Pray, praise, confess, and pray!

 

Sermon for Trinity 16, September 20, 2026

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.  Amen.

James 5:13-20  ¹³Is anyone among you suffering?  He should pray.  Is anyone cheerful?  He should sing songs of praise.  ¹⁴Is anyone among you sick?  He should call the elders of the church, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  ¹⁵And the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up.  If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  ¹⁶So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, in order that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is able to do much because it is effective.  ¹⁷Elijah was a man just like us.  He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.  ¹⁸Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its harvest.  ¹⁹My brothers, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth and someone turns him back, ²⁰let it be known that the one who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (EHV)

Pray, praise, confess, and pray!

Dear fellow redeemed,

            After Jesus finished praying one day, “one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray,’” (Luke 11:1) and Jesus taught them the prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer.  When you study Jesus’ prayer, you soon realize that almost all of it is asking for the Lord to help our spiritual lives.  Only one petition asks for earthly things.  You might wonder why Jesus was so focused on our lives of faith, but the fact of the matter is Jesus didn’t come into this world to make earth a pleasant home.  Instead, Jesus’ whole purpose was to make it possible for us to dwell with Him forever in heaven.

Therefore, as we consider the text before us this morning, we see that following in His Lord’s footsteps, James is again encouraging us primarily toward the things that will bring people forgiveness and eternal life, while also, like Jesus, attending to our lives here on earth.  Therefore, we will consider Jame’s words that encourage us to Pray, praise, confess, and pray!

The letter of James is essentially the Holy Spirit instructing believers how to live in this troubled world.  It is not particularly strong in Gospel.  Rather, it is telling us how we as believing Christians should live in sanctification as we wait for the return of our Lord on Judgment Day.  Again, the focus is not on gaining a place in the kingdom of heaven, but how we might reflect our membership in that realm.  Furthermore, through James, the Spirit would have us be doing those things that encourage others to follow along on the path to heaven which is Jesus.

Three times, then, James simply says, “Pray.”  “Is anyone among you suffering?  He should pray.”  Now, that command comes not as something to be obeyed in order to force a better outcome.  Instead, he commands the suffering to pray because the Savior we follow and believe in has the authority and power to help us.  Furthermore, Jesus Himself invited us to come to Him in any need.

James wrote, “Is anyone among you sick?  He should call the elders of the church, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”  As you all are well aware, we have a list of people to pray for in every bulletin.  Prayer requests come out from our synod and from friends both near and far away.  Again, we don’t pray to earn brownie points with God.  We pray because God encourages us to come to Him in every need.  He wants us to trust Him to provide everything we need for body and life, including for our eternal lives.  This is why Jesus came into the world and why He healed so many who came to Him in need of healing while He lived among us.

Now, we must call attention to the instruction to anoint with oil.  Some want to make this a talisman of sorts as if it is our anointing that moves God to heal.  However, we must understand that applying olive oil (the literal instruction here) is merely telling us to use the appropriate medical care of the time.  When James wrote this, olive oil was commonly used for many medicinal purposes.  Consequently, we take this to mean that the Lord desires us to make use of the modern medical care He has provided to us through the various channels.  The medicines, skills, techniques, and devices of modern medicine are just as much God’s gifts to us as any other skill or blessing.  Yet, that doesn’t preclude prayer.  Numerous studies are showing that medical care in general is much more successful when accompanied by prayer.

At the same time, there is a greater purpose for our prayers on behalf of the afflicted.  James wrote, “And the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up.  If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”  Prayers offered by faithful believers go a long way toward helping the sick person’s faith.  As we put our trust in Jesus through prayer, our faith is also being tempered into stronger faith.  Which, of course, leads to salvation, eternal life, and resurrection from the dead come Judgment Day. 

Just as the young man of Nain in our Gospel lesson rose up when Jesus spoke the simple command, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” so too will we, who have been forgiven of all sin, joyfully rise when the trumpets sound as Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.  Likewise, as Christian believers, we pray that the sick individual will be strengthened in faith through our sharing of the Gospel so that whether he gets better or dies, eternal life will be granted through faith in Jesus.

“So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, in order that you may be healed.”  The first part, we readily confess but some may wrongly assume that the healing is always in this life and then be disappointed if that does not turn out to be the case.  In our weekly church services, we confess our sins and pray for each other.  We do so not to gain a reward here on earth but in the sure hope of everlasting life we are promised through faith in Jesus.  Just as St. John explained in his first letter, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us.” (1 John 1:9-10)

We then come to perhaps the most compelling statement, and maybe most misunderstood: “The prayer of a righteous person is able to do much because it is effective.”  There are some who have abused this passage to accuse a believer of not praying properly or enough if God’s answer to our prayer is “No.”  Others wrongly guess that our righteousness accomplishes the good.  However, the Lord does not operate as a vending machine for our every wish or desire.  Rather, our prayers are effective, because our God is powerful and loving.  Therefore, whenever we pray to the Lord, and He encourages us to come to Him in every need, we can be confident that God’s answer is exactly best for the situation at hand, whether we can see the full outcome or not. 

Whenever it may seem like we haven’t been given what we want, it is certain that God in His infinite wisdom knows there is a better way.  Perhaps our suffering is being used to strengthen faith in us or someone else.  Maybe answering prayers exactly according to our wishes would lead to unexpected harm for us or others.  Finally, we need to remember and trust God when He says, “Certainly my plans are not your plans, and your ways are not my ways,” declares the Lord.  Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my plans are higher than your plans.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)  At the same time, we are assured by the Holy Spirit, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?” (Romans 8:31-32)

There is one short part I have skipped thus far.  As he told us to pray, James also inserted the advisement, “Is anyone cheerful?  He should sing songs of praise.”  It is a reminder to the sanctified believer to give thanks and praise to God for the multitude ways He blesses us.  It is so very common for the old man in us to focus more on the problems of this life.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so to speak.  Our daily lives and social media give multiple proofs that people in general are complainers who focus more on minor irritations than the great blessings God pours out on us daily. 

Yet, no matter our status in life, whether healthy or sick, rich or poor, powerful or insignificant in daily life, the greatest joy ever given is Jesus Christ crucified for sinners.  Through Jesus, all of our sins, shortcomings, faults, and shame have been removed from us and the guilt paid for with His blood.  And through Jesus, the righteousness we need to enter heaven has been put over us through the washing and Word of Baptism, covering all our imperfections so that we are welcome in God’s presence forever.  May we never forget God’s grace to us in Jesus.

The letter of James concludes rather abruptly.  There is no typical closing remark or blessing so common among letters of his time.  At the same time, in this closing part, we see how important it is to God that the sinner come to faith in Jesus.  The apostle wrote, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth and someone turns him back, let it be known that the one who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”  This is the motivation for all of us to demonstrate our love of God and our neighbors through how we serve our fellow sinners. 

The writer points us back to God’s Word, the ultimate source of all truth and pleads for us to do everything in our power to stay connected to it and to turn those who have strayed back to the truth.  This is why we gather around the Word of God.  This is why we send missionaries out into the world.  It is why we practice Church discipline.  This is why we want to draw others into the Church, not just to count bigger numbers but rather, so that more and more people may come to know Jesus and the righteousness and forgiveness He has won for all.  St. John wrote:

“Because God is love, this is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him.  This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another.” (1 John 4:8-11) 

Thus, the apostle James brings us the Holy Spirit’s encouragement that we Pray, praise, confess, and pray!  Amen.

Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!  Amen.