In our Bible, there are dozens of “One Another” commands. Above all else, our Lord wants us to be a people who love one another. Jesus once said, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35) That is a big if! God wants each of us to be devoted to one another’s wellbeing… to carry each other’s burdens… to honor one another, accept, wait for, comfort, forgive, serve, encourage, build up… spur one another on toward love and good deeds. This includes having tough conversations. A duty of love is to instruct one another, teach, admonish, even rebuke another!
At their core, these “One-Another’s” are invitations to show up... To be there for one another at life’s most critical junctures. If you are married, love compels you to be very first person to show up for your husband or wife. If you are a mother or father, your first thought every day doesn’t go to yourself but to that baby in the crib, to what your children need. If you are a caregiver, you are weighed down with constant concern for the wellbeing or a parent, or friend. In a healthy family, people show up for one another—looking to interests of others.
Generally, people are already inclined to take care of their own. Jesus asked, “What father if his son asks for bread gives him a stone, or if he asks for fish gives him a snake?” But he also asked, “If you only love those who love you… or greet and pray for those who greet and pray for you… what reward is there?”
What makes for a great church is when that love expands outward. A modern trend is families are becoming less and less a loving, unified family… and increasingly, a conglomeration of families. Each family looking to its own interests exclusively. Each family and person insulated from the next family and person. Each family and person looking to their own interests, being relatively unconcerned, unburdened, and oblivious to whatever else may be going on around them. Church communities are becoming increasingly transactional and programmatic and less transformational and personally loving. It’s like the church is a place we occasionally “check-in”, while most of the time being “checked-out.” So yes, absolutely you should manage your life and household well. But are you a person (are we a people) who shows up for others?
How might we make a case for renewed love? For shared life together? After holding up this unflattering mirror of God’s Word in so many other areas of our lives, James concludes his letter holding that mirror up to the dynamics of our overall church life. How ought we “love one another.” What does that practical, everyday picture look like?
As he’s done through this letter. James asks a series of five questions. And what we should do with these questions first and foremost is judge ourselves. We might feel tempted to complain about how people haven’t showed up for us—but the question is have you and I shown up? Are we living according to the law of freedom and law of love? Here we go. Five questions—that point to five ways we are to show up for one another.
Question #1. James 5:13a, “Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray.” I think it goes without saying that in time, everyone suffers, to varying degrees. No two people suffer exactly alike. When we suffer, we often drift off isolation, and a kind of self-imposed exile. It’s not good that a person be alone—but especially when suffering. How quickly we begin to doubt God’s goodness, doubt people’s love, when circumstances turn. What tremendous joy you can find drawing closer to God, and one another during difficult times, instead of hiding.
Question #2. James 5:13b, “Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.” I think it goes without saying that in time, everyone finds themselves blessed and cheerful. When we’re blessed, we are just as apt to go off-grid, as when suffering. When we taste God’s goodness, we become a “black hole” of sorts. What James says is if things are good, sing praises! Why? Because your testimony encourages the faith of others. It lifts the spirits of the brokenhearted. It gives hope to the discouraged, faith to the despairing, a lifeline to those descending into suffering.
Paul Harvey the famous storyteller used to setup stories… “Remember the story about so-n-so, or such-n-such,… now for the rest of the story.” Giving your story is a way you can show up for others! In Ephesians Paul says, Ephesians 5:18-20, “. . . be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” Don’t rob people of joy! Sing out!
Question #3. James 5:14-15a, “Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up;”
Just an observation, but sickness and death has become a “private matter” for families. If we’re sick and there is good medical prognosis, who needs God, and who needs to bother others? If we’re sick, and there is not a good prognosis, it’s the same thing. How does it feel when you haven’t seen a person but then you learn they’ve been hospitalized for weeks, or worse, they passed away? I look at James 5:14-15 as a double-sided coin. The first part is this—it takes humility to invite other people alongside you. The second part is this—it’s the duty of pastors, elders, and leaders to come alongside the sick in prayer—especially the severely sick. In these verses James is describing someone who is “laying” and needs to be raised up by the Lord. A person whose faith is a critical end-of-life, end-of-health stage. It’s unthinkable that we wouldn’t show up, and come alongside the bed of person in critical distress.
Question #4. James 5:15b-16, “If he [someone] has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” There is no more isolating time in life than when someone messes up. Not only are they feeling a ton of guilt, but that guilt escalated into shame, when they feel the community of God withdrawing as well. Instead of retreating from a person when they fail, we should show up and pray with them. For all our concern about people’s “physical” well-being, how much more their “spiritual” well-being? 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sin God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and purify us of all unrighteousness.” John 20:23 says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Isn’t our most fundamental duty to proclaim God’s grace to whom, when, where it is most needed?
Question #5. James 5:19-20, “My brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” Now we’re going to come back to this verse next week when we conclude our series. But we have an incredible responsibility to one another to warn, rebuke, correct, admonish, teach, instruct, preach, appeal, even turn one another away from error.
We should fight just as hard to turn a person back to the faith as we invested introducing them to the faith in the first place. Why would we resign ourselves from involvement and let a person abandon the faith and descend into life of sin? There is no goodness in apathy or neglect. We are on a rescue mission to save that one lost sheep that goes astray, to find that one lost coin, that prodigal son. Shrugging our shoulders isn’t showing up!
Now as important as it is for us to show up for people in all these different circumstances… James is actually telling us something more profound. It’s that we are a priesthood of believers, that were showing up to stand in the gap between God and men, to pray! Here is the AHA: We “show up” to invite God to “step in.”
Notice that in all five circumstances, prayer is central.
• If a person is suffering, he should pray. In James 1, the person undergoing a trial ought to pray for wisdom lest they misjudge God.
• If a person is cheerful, they should praise, because it’s when times are good we most need to be reminded that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above!
• When we’re sick, needing God “to raise us from our bed” we’re often too tired or incapacitated to think clearly, much less pray. Thus, we need to be anointed by oil and surrounded in prayer.
• When we sin, our guilt and shame is so powerful… but when people come alongside us in prayer and remind us that we’re all partakers of God’s grace, it shatters the narrative that we are no longer loved, are unforgivable, or are an anathema.
• And when a person is going astray and their heart is hardened and their mind is deceived, and their flesh is captivated, only those filled with presence and power of the Holy Spirit can have an effect.
Notice the central feature of our text. Not just that we should show up in prayer at every juncture. But notice James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.”
Now before you convince yourself you’re not righteous enough to be the right person to show up and pray… look at the text. And before you convince yourself that prayer doesn’t matter “because what God’s decreed he’s decreed anyway”… take a listen! Prayer isn’t effective because of our character or goodness. Prayer is effective because of God’s own character and goodness. Our righteousness is legal. It’s conferred upon us by virtue of our faith, our willingness to show up and trust God when everyone else is running and hiding. As Christians, as priests, we have the authority and power of petition! God doesn’t only listen to our petition, he considers our petitions, and steps in!
So just a few verses earlier, James invites us to pray like a farmer. Our “Righteousness” is showing up for a person, and persevering with them through trial, as we wait for God to step in. James 5:6-8, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.” In prayer we don’t first reap a result. We plow, we sow, we wait for seasons. Prayer doesn’t function as a magic wand, it’s cultivated! Like a farmer, we must plow the heart, sow the word, and wait for the "early and late rains."
Second, James invites us to pray like Job. Our “righteousness” is showing up for a person, and enduring in faith and obedience, as we wait for God to step in. James 5:9-11, “Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another, so that you will not be judged. Look, the judge stands at the door! Brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name as an example of suffering and patience. See, we count as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about—the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” Prayer isn’t just praising God when times are good. It’s abiding in God when the circumstances don't make sense.
Third, James invites us to pray like Elijah. Our “righteousness” is showing up for a person, and earnestly praying, with great boldness, as we wait for God to step in. James 5:17-18, “Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.”
The most powerful thing to me about James 5:17 is James’ statement that Elijah was a human being as we are! There is a danger that we put certain people on a pedestals, as if they have super human power or authority. There is a danger when we think there is something magic if a certain number of people pray, if they pray in a certain way, if they use magic oil or don’t use magic oil.
The Farmer, Job, Elijah, the believer… our effectiveness in prayer doesn’t come from our character or authority, but God’s character and authority. James is saying, if God is willing to move for the farmer, for Job, for Elijah… if God was willing to step in… let’s show up with people in places where God is most needed.
• Let’s ask God to give wisdom to the suffering…
• to raise up those who can no longer raise themselves up…
• to keep those filled with good things humble, rooted in God.
• to forgive those who feel so unforgiveable…
• to turn those who are running from God…
Our Authority:
To Show Up in Love (Prayer, Singing, Anointing, Confessing, Pursuing).
God’s Authority:
To Step In (Sustaining, Building Faith, Raising Up, Forgiving,
Saving).