James 5:13-18 | The Prayer of Faith
INTRODUCTION
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 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. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 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. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
The words “pray” or “prayer” are used in every verse, a total of seven times in the passage. The big idea is obvious to us. As James winds down his letter, he wants us to see that true Christianity is fueled by praying faith. The heart of God is open to every aspect of our life through prayer. We not only have a God to worship; we have a Father who cares.
This passage takes us deep into God’s grace. It tells us the good news that God is for us, not against us. Now, he has every reason to be against us. We have sinned and rebelled and turned away from him. But what is his response? In the face of our weakness and sin, God’s response in the cleansing blood of Christ is an open door to heaven by prayer. He could slam the door of his throne room. He has every right to. Instead, he calls us to come boldly before him with all our needs, promising his throne of grace is never closed.
Before we go too far into this passage, let’s just marvel at the grace of prayer. We have the privilege to come to God, and he listens to us and responds! That is astounding. The God of the universe cares about your little life. It’s not little to him. He made your life. He sustains your life. He cares about your life. God gives you your good days. God does not stand aloof on your bad days. God doesn’t shame you for your failures but redeems you from the slavery of sin. God does not regret getting involved with you. He delights to care for you as only he can. He provides a way to healing and peace, though none of us deserve it. The God who created and rules all we see and know sees and knows us at the deepest possible level, and he calls us to himself to find provision for all that ails us and a fitting end for all that delights us.
What does God want us to see about prayer in this passage? At least two things:
When we pray
Why we pray
WHEN WE PRAY
Muslims pray five times a day. Buddhists pray three times a day. Hindus pray at least once a day. But the Bible calls Christians to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:16-18). Why? Because the God we serve is a God who is near. Yes, he is transcendently above us, but he is also immanently near to us. He is always with us. We can pray any time. We don’t have to face Mecca. We don’t have to bow before hand-made idols. We don’t have to be in a temple or in deep meditation. Our God is always available to us moment by moment throughout our day. God’s ears are always open. His throne-room door is never shut, and the only access we need is faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit who is freely given to all who believe. We don’t have to wait until we get our act together. We don’t have to find the right words first. All we must do is come.
Jesus told us not only to come but to come often, to pester God in prayer, to knock on his door no matter the hour. As Tim Keller once said, “The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.” But unlike a father who might eventually get tired of being woken up, God will never grow frustrated. Every earthly father has a limit. God doesn’t. He’s perfect for needy people like us. High-maintenance people like us are perfect for God. Our need doesn’t turn him off, it energizes him to draw ever nearer. He doesn’t grow annoyed or overwhelmed. He calmly and gently and lovingly receives us and cares for us.
James highlights this access to God beginning in verse 13. “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.” When do we pray? When life hurts. When life feels good. Prayer is an outlet for everything that happens. Nothing is too insignificant. Are you suffering? Pray. James doesn’t qualify the type or amount of suffering. Sometimes we tend to think things need to be really bad before we go to God. We think, “This is hard, but I should be able to handle it. I should know the answer. I should be better at dealing with hard things. I should, I should, I should.” We should all over ourselves, and we don’t seek the help we need. But James doesn’t say, “Pray as the last resort.” He doesn’t say, “Pray when things are so hard you can’t do anything else.” He doesn’t say, “Pray when suffering reaches more than you can handle.” He doesn’t put a qualification on our suffering. God cares. He’s there. He will help you. In suffering, you always feel alone. The gospel says you never are. Jesus suffered like us that we might have a merciful and faithful high priest. He’s there, always. If life hurts for whatever reason, you should pray.
And the opposite is also true. When life is going well, praise. Andrew Peterson has a great song that really helps me grasp this point. It’s called Don’t You Want To Thank Someone. Here are just a few lyrics.
Don't you ever wonder why
In spite of all that's wrong here
There's still so much that goes so right
And beauty abounds?
'Cause sometimes when you walk outside
The air is full of song here
The thunder rolls and the baby sighs
And the rain comes down
And when you see the spring has come
And it warms you like a mother's kiss
Don't you want to thank someone?
Don't you want to thank someone for this?
This world, for all its fallenness, still holds beauty that takes our breath away. Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” When we wake up and the sun is shining and the air is crisp and the coffee is good and the day is open and available and we get to do meaningful work and our heart swells with the good things, what do we do with that gratitude? We praise God. Prayer and praise are the same things. Praise rightly directed is prayer. It’s the heart’s cry to its Maker, “Thank you!”
So, generally and individually, we pray when something bad or good happens to us. Now, James moves from the general to the specific, from individual to small group in verse 14. “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
Here's another time to pray. When sickness overwhelms us and takes us into the shadow of death. James is not talking about a common cold—though we should pray then as well—but about those particularly bad illnesses that leave us wondering if life will go on. The sick person can call the elders of the church, and they can come and pray over them, and anoint them with oil. This is not an “I’ll try anything” shot in the dark but a humble seeking of God’s help, letting God minister through the prayers of your pastors. When you are down and out, God still provides. He has ministers to help you by prayer.
James gives specific instructions to the elders. They pray and anoint the sick person’s head with oil. What does this oil do? In the Roman Catholic church, there is the sacrament of unction, where the dying is anointed with oil to remove remnants of sin and get the soul ready to die. This is not what James means. He also doesn’t mean the oil holds some special healing power. It’s not medicinal in nature. Rather, the oil consecrates and sets the person apart to God. It’s a symbol that the elders are bringing this specific person and this specific request for healing to God.
Verse 15 speaks of this kind of prayer’s result. “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” This is a tricky verse. Some people have used it as God’s promise that all who pray the “prayer of faith” will be healed. So when the person isn’t healed it’s usually blamed on a lack of faith. The elders didn’t believe enough. Or, as it often goes, the sick person doesn’t have enough faith. But is that what James means when he talks about the prayer of faith? Does it sound like God to require a certain strength from us to bless us? Did Jesus come to us with demands that we measure up to his standard? Did he rebuke the man who said, “I believe, help my unbelief?” Did he recoil when Thomas sought to touch his scars after his resurrection? Or did he stoop low and humble himself to our level? Did not Jesus come gentle and lowly, with his heart open to the weak and sinful and doubting? Would God then be so cruel as to keep his blessing from those whose faith he deemed insufficient, even as they looked to him for help? Would God withhold his power until we mustered up the right amount of faith?
If the prayer of faith means all who believe enough are healed and only those who believe enough are healed then why was Paul’s thorn not taken away? Why did Paul have to leave a sick friend behind on his missionary journeys as we see in the book of Acts? Did Paul lack faith? Lack of healing cannot be because of a lack of faith. When God says no, it must be for a reason we can’t yet see.
Conversely, Jesus healed some not because of their faith, but to stimulate their faith. In John 9, Jesus healed a man born blind. The man didn’t ask for healing. But Jesus healed him anyway. In that instance, faith was a result of healing, not a prerequisite for it.
Here’s the point. Healing is a gift, not a reward. We are not in charge of God, pulling the lever of his healing powers by the right kind of prayer, working the angles, and mustering up enough faith like coins for the vending machine. We humbly trust God and ask for healing, but we leave the result in his hands, in his will. The prayer of faith is not faith that something we want—even desperately think we need—will be granted if we pray hard enough. It is laying our lives in God’s hands, consecrating ourselves to him, and trusting his will by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s truly looking to God, not to anything else, for help.
That doesn’t mean physical healing always comes now. It also means God can heal despite our doubting. It’s not the strength of our faith that matters. What matters is the one in whom we have faith. God knows what he’s doing, and we need only to trust his will. Maybe he will heal. Maybe he won’t. But we know, ultimately, no matter what the answer to our prayer is right now that one day those who pray with such faith will be healed. We all must die, but those in Christ will be raised again. We will have perfect, glorified bodies in the new heavens and the new earth.
How do we get this glorious new body? James goes on, “And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” Healing has more than a physical dimension. Confession of sin heals. Not every sickness is a result of sin. That’s not what James means. But sickness can be a result of sin. We barely believe that today, but the Bible does link sin and sickness. Jesus healed the paralytic by saying his sins were forgiven (Luke 5:20). Paul told the Corinthians some were sick because they abused the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:30). Confession of sin heals us as we pour out our souls to our gracious and merciful God. And sometimes we can’t do that on a normal day. Sometimes sickness is the means by which we are humbled enough to confess and seek God’s face. And notice what James says. “He will be forgiven.” God is faithful to forgive our sins because Jesus, our substitute, took the penalty for them on the cross. And God is faithful to raise us up because Jesus, our redeemer, conquered the grave. Our big issue with this passage shouldn’t be trying to figure out exactly what the prayer of faith is, but to figure out the God who calls us to have faith in him, and leave our lives in his hands, humbly confessing and trusting his perfect will.
James then takes us a step further—from individual prayer to small group prayer to corporate prayer. Look at verse 16. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” The exhortation to confession and prayer isn’t reserved only for the sick. It is for everyone. Confession is like removing the oxygen from sin’s lungs. It heals. And when others listen and then pray on our behalf, they help us find the healing of forgiveness.
Now, in context, James may have in mind those who have mutually sinned against one another and harmed the church body. Sins against God are confessed to God. But sins against God and others are confessed to God and to others. We do that carefully and humbly. God wants us to be right with one another. So, James says, “Confess your sins to one another.” He doesn’t say “confess one another’s sins.” What does he say? “And pray for one another.” Just as there is a command to the sinner to confess, there is the responsibility of the one hearing to pray, intercede, take the matter to God, and move forward. James doesn’t say, “embarrass one another” or “shame one another” but “pray for one another.” What we really believe about God is seen in this interaction when sins are confessed. If we believe in the free grace and forgiveness of God in Christ, we will freely forgive others, because we have experienced such grace ourselves. Do you see the beauty in that? This is how deep fellowship is birthed in God. In this simple but profound practice, we cultivate a gospel culture built on the gospel doctrine of grace in Christ. This is a path to corporate healing, anytime we need it.
So that’s when we pray. God invites us to prayer because he cares about our lives, and the specifics in this passage reaffirm that.
Now, why we pray.
WHY WE PRAY
God not only coaches us on when to pray, but he also shows us why we pray. We’ve seen it already. We pray because, by prayer, God heals and forgives. But there is more. In the second part of verse 16, James says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Then he jumps into an example of Elijah in verses 17 and 18. “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.” Elijah is an example of the righteous person’s powerful prayer that works. So, at the most basic level, we pray because God says prayer works.
We know Elijah as a prophet in the Old Testament. But the reason James chose Elijah as an example is not that he was an extraordinary prophet, someone so far “above” us. James says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. It is the ordinariness of Elijah that James wants us to see. He was just a man, but his prayers worked. Why?
If we go back to the Old Testament, we see that Elijah’s prayers are not out of nowhere. He wasn’t sitting there one day thinking, “You know, I’m going to pray for no rain and that’ll show ‘em.” No. In Deuteronomy 28, God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “If you do not obey the Lord your God…these curses will come upon you…The Lord will strike you…with scorching heat and drought…the sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder.” Elijah lived in a day of Israel’s rebellion against God. He was praying God’s words after him. That’s why it worked. Working prayer is asking God to do what he has already said he would do. Elijah is the righteous person aligning his prayers will the promises of God. Elijah is praying the prayer of faith, prayer aligned with the will of God, asking God to do what he has said he would do. We pray, ultimately, because God is true to his word, and when our prayers are aligned to his word, we have confidence he will do what he said he would do.
Elijah prayed because God had spoken. We pray because God has spoken. Prayer is not a string of empty words to a wordless God but a pointed plea to a speaking Savior. We know what God plans to do in this world because he has told us. We know his purposes. We know his intentions. We have the Bible as our ever-present Word from God about his plans for our lives and for this world. And in the Bible we have examples like that of Elijah, of people who prayed, asking God to do what he said he would do, and God answered those prayers. We pray not because it’s our idea or because it makes us feel better but because God has ordained that the prayers of his people bring about his purposes. By prayer, God invites us into his work. Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.” Just as Elijah’s prayers directed the rain, your prayers—if you are in Christ—direct the world. Yes, God is sovereign and can do what he will without us, but he chooses to use our prayers. The Bible sees no contradiction there. Your prayers matter. You’re just like Elijah. You’re weak. You’re not enough. You’re powerless. But your prayers are not powerless because God is not powerless. Prayer is not magic incantations thrown to the wind but faith put in the God whose arms are not short, whose hands are not weak, and whose power upholds the universe. Your prayers, like Elijah’s, are powerful because you’re praying to a powerful God.
How does this relate to what James has said before? In our lives, we pray because God is involved. He is near. He is with us. He cares. We take our hard things and our good things to him as their proper landing place inside a love that is too great to give us what we deserve but instead gives us grace and peace and a secure place to stand in this ever-shifting world. We pray for healing and confess our sins because we know God has promised to heal and to save. Even if our physical healing must wait until heaven, the healing of forgiveness is available right now. Romans 8:1 is always true. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We know, because of Jesus, that there is a glorious new life out ahead for all who love him.
How do we know that? Because like Elijah, Jesus was made a human just like us. The author of Hebrews says in chapter 2, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things…he had to be made like his brothers in every respect.” In the incarnation, Jesus became like us. He lived a human life, with human suffering, with human prayers. He entered our world in order to save us by living the life we should have lived and dying the death we are owed because of our sin. Jesus became a man like us to save us. Because of that, when he rose from the grave three days after the cross, he put a “Yes!” at the end of every one of God’s promises. Because of Jesus, we will be raised one day. We will be healed. We will be forgiven. We will find that the deepest prayers of our hearts are granted as God plants his word in us, not because we deserve it, not even because we prayed the right prayers, but because God will bring all his good promises to pass, and not one word of all that he promises will fail. We pray because prayer aligned with God’s word works.
Prayer draws us closer to God, closer to his gospel, closer to his word, closer to his heart. In prayer, God is inviting us into reality with him as we await the day we see him face to face. What is better than that?
Let’s pray.
