"THE POWER OF EFFECTIVE PRAYER" - James 5:13-18 (August 17, 2008)

Tell the Story of Nashti, the Japanese stonecutter:

1. Wanted the power, glory, finery of the King.

2. As the heat of summer progressed he wanted the power of the sun.

3. When a cloud covered the sun he wanted the power of the cloud.

4. Everything seemed awed by the power except the huge rock, so he wanted to be the rock

5. As stone remains motionless yet powerful and unmoved by either sun or rain or anything else nature could do, he felt exempt from all the forces that shaped his life. Then one day a man approached him carrying a bag. When he stopped, he pulled a hammer & chisel out and began to chip away at the rock.

6. Once again, he realized the man with the tools had the most power and he cried out to heaven asking to be a stone cutter

7. He returned to his tiny hut and continued to make his living with a hammer & Chisel.

Many of us wonder if we really have the power through prayer to create changes in our world?

IE: I remember a few years ago Pat Robertson claimed that his prayer turned aside a hurricane from the Florida coast. Many are troubled with that statement. How are we to deal with prayer? Does God hear us? Do our prayers get answered? How are we to pray?

James explains what effective prayer is in our reading today. Listen to the types of prayer James lists in verse 13-18:

• Are you suffering? Pray
• Are you cheerful? Praise
• Are you sick? Call for the elders, and have them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.
• The prayer of faith will save the sick.
• Confess your sins to one another.
• Pray for one another so that you may be healed.
• The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

Herbert Lockyer writes the following about James in his book, “All the Men of the Bible”. James was a man who believed in the power of prayer. Because of his habit of always kneeling in intercession for the saints, his knees became calloused like a camel’s knees, thus he became known as “The man with camel’s knees”.

James was a man of action, a diligent, practical thinking Christian; he was also a man of prayer. As the lines from the 5th chapter of his epistle states,

• when suffering, pray,
• when cheerful, pray,
• when you are sick, pray,
• when corrupted by sin, pray
• Basically pray for everything, and Give God praise always

James ends this treatise about prayer by telling us that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. What could that mean? Let us look at the words James used for a clue:

• The word for prayer James uses in this sentence is deesis which means a specific prayer dealing with specific needs. This is the only time in the letter that James uses this word for prayer. Therefore James is telling us to be specific, tell God specifically what you need.
• The King James version says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The Greek word for effective is energeo, from which we get our word energy. It means adding an ingredient that turns something average into something fantastic. For James that ingredient was a FAITH that God hears our prayers and answers them. There was no doubting in James’ mind
• Therefore, James is telling us to be people of prayer like he was a person of prayer, so much so that his knees became like camel’s knees. Do we pray that often?
• Are our prayers specific?
• Do our prayers lack energy? Do we have the faith to know that God hears us and answers us when we call out to him? Is our faith unshakeable?
• James completes this thought by lifting up the prophet Elijah. Elijah was a human being just like us, yet he prayed earnestly that it might not rain on the earth for three years and six months, and it didn’t. And he prayed again for rain, and the sky darkened and rain poured forth, and the earth produced fruit

Illustration:

• Stephen praying as he was being stoned to death.
• Saul stood by and gave his approval over the stoning
• Stephen prayed for those who were killing him
• Saul on the road to Damascus encountered Christ, and was transformed into a believer/ follower of Christ

How is our prayer life? Can we learn from “Old Camel Knees"? Can we learn from Stephen?

Let us be people of Prayer asking God for direction for ourselves as well as our church.