Prayer: Faith’s Response to Suffering

James 5:12 – 18

 

 We live in a world filled with suffering. If you still watch the news, you’ll see countless stories of suffering, both locally and around the world. Most people at all times usually know someone who’s suffering in some way. Suffering is unfortunately a fact of life in our fallen world.

 

One of the authors of a couple of my books for seminary this semester, Dr. Paul David Tripp, is no stranger to suffering. Paul Tripp has been a church planter, pastor, professor, and author for many years, but about a decade ago he faced a major challenge.

 

Paul’s life drastically changed in 2014. He went into a hospital for a checkup but wound up hospitalized with kidney failure. Despite having a healthy lifestyle prior to that, he ended up enduring six surgeries over the next few months, and living with excruciating pain and constant fatigue.

 

His health challenge led him to share his experience and offer biblical hope for sufferers in his book, Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense (Review in WORLD magazine, March 16, 2019, https://wng.org/articles/books-on-counseling-1617299218).

 

While that isn’t one of my books for class, I can tell you he’s a fantastic writer. His experience with suffering and how it inspired him to write about suffering from a biblical perspective highlights for me the importance of how we respond to suffering in our lives.

 

I’m always telling my kids that we can’t control what happens to us, we can’t control how other people treat us, what they say to us, or about us, but we can control how we respond. We can’t control the economy, natural disasters, disease, tragedy, and loss, but we can control how we respond.

 

We cannot control suffering, but we can certainly control how we respond.

 

James’ letter is very concerned with the practical outworking of faith in the life of believers. In all the issues facing the church, from the outside and within, his exhortations are aimed at authentic faith responses.

James opened his letter with trials and suffering, where he told his hearers to count it all joy, and he devotes quite a bit of writing at the end of his letter to suffering. Specifically, how not to respond and how to respond to suffering in this world. Let’s read God’s Word together: James 5:12 – 18.

 

Last week we saw how James called on everyone to respond biblically to suffering by being patient because Jesus is coming back soon. But we also saw James tell his hearers how not to respond to suffering, especially suffering caused by fellow believers, grumbling against one another. James continues that line of thinking in our passage today.

 

• Don’t respond to suffering by taking matters into your own hands.

 

We pick up here in James where he writes, “but above all, my brothers.” This begs the question, above all what? Above all serves to make multiple connections throughout the letter of James. It connects what he writes to what he just wrote in vv.7 – 11, but it also connects what he writes here at the end of his letter to what he’s written throughout it.

 

James expressed sincere concern over the power of the tongue and speech. He touched on it in 1:19 where he called on everyone to be slow to speak, in 1:26 where he called out the religious who do not bridle/control their tongues, and he devoted a big chunk of writing to taming the tongue in chapter 3.

 

James detailed throughout his letter that the tongue and speech were powerful instruments of wickedness and unrighteousness. How much more susceptible to improper oaths are suffering people? Our words matter, and often it’s through words we show our response to suffering.

 

James talked about one improper use of words as a response to suffering in the previous passage, grumbling against one another. Now, he’s calling on his hearers not to swear oaths in the face of suffering.

 

Now, many other passages in both the OT and the NT talk about taking an oath, and how the wording of the oath or the attitude in taking the oath determines whether it has been taken properly or not. But James was emphatic here that Christians should not swear an oath at all.

 

James wasn’t the only one in the NT to call on believers not to swear oaths. Again, we go back to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus Himself said what James practically copied here in his letter.

 

Jesus said, ³³ “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ ³⁴ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. ³⁷ Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:33 – 37).

 

James hits the same points as Jesus here in our passage today. Swearing an oath, at its most basic level, is putting up whatever you swear by as collateral for your word. Seems presumptuous to put up God, or His creation, His city, or anything else you really don’t have control over (like your own life) as collateral to prove the veracity of your words.

 

But there are Scriptures that support taking an oath. John Piper responds to that in his podcast, Ask Pastor John, by saying, “Yes, that is important to take into consideration, but none of those examples, as far as I can tell, diminishes the seriousness or applicability of Jesus’s words in Matt 5:33 – 37 or James’s words in 5:12.”

 

He adds, “The burden of Jesus is that his people be so utterly and deeply and simply committed to tell the truth that they don’t need buttresses to hold up their words, like the fear of desecrating a sacred object or whatever.” (John Piper, Ask Pastor John Podcast, March 28^th, 2016, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-christians-swear- on-the- bible).

 

When faced with suffering, believers are often tempted to take matters into their hands, or rather their own mouths, and respond by swearing an oath. The temptation to make rash vows, especially under suffering, trials, and persecution is real. James is concerned with the integrity of the believer, especially under pressure.

 

Just 100 years later, the early church did not advocate for people to volunteer for martyrdom because often they would recant their faith, they would swear that they no longer believe in Christ. (Quintus).

Even when suffering, the integrity of believers’ faith must prevail. There is something truly powerful about the authentic Christian witness of a suffering believer. The patient believer is called to be one who responds to suffering with simplicity and with confidence in the God of mercy.

 

Since, as Jesus put it, anything beyond a simple yes or not comes from the evil one, and as James put it, is condemnable (by God since James has an eschatological view in his letter), how should Christians respond to suffering?

 

• Prayer offered up in faith is the proper response to suffering.

 

Seems simple, doesn’t it. Pray in faith in the face of suffering. James already said something similar back in 1:5 where he called on believers enduring trials to ask God for the wisdom to keep on enduring trials. Asking God is prayer, and James added that the believer must ask in faith. The way James outlines it here in our passage today, there appears ways of prayer.

 

When he asked if anyone was suffering, he called the suffering person to pray. In James’ eyes, prayer by the sufferer was the antidote to grumbling against another believer or taking matters into their own hands by swearing an oath. When this is taken along with 1:5-6 it is easy to see that the suffering believer’s prayer must be for wisdom and it should be whole-hearted for the perseverance they need to endure their suffering.

 

In contrast, when anyone is happy or cheerful, the proper response is songs of praise! What a wonderful reminder of how believers are called to respond to God’s blessing of happiness with praise and gratitude. Praise directed to God is a form of prayer. Truly, prayer must be more than just requests, even noble and sincere ones, it must also include praise!

 

But prayer isn’t meant to be done only individually. Yes, believers are supposed to pray on their own, in their own private prayer closet, during their own quiet time, in whatever they’re doing. As Paul put it in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray without ceasing.” But believers are not called to just pray alone.

 

It seems like James is describing a pastoral hospital visit here in v.14 when he says whoever is sick should call the church elders.

 

But really, this verse and the next two, James’ teaching on prayer and praise emphasizes the community of Christian faith. Illness is indeed a form of suffering, and it often greatly challenges faith and unity within the body of believers. Sickness is often, though not always, one of the hardest struggles believers face in life.

 

Sickness doesn’t discriminate against who it chooses, it holds no grudge, it doesn’t go after someone who offended it. No, illnesses are truly impartial. That’s what’s so hard sometimes for believers to understand.

 

Sickness breeds isolation and it does this in two ways. First, people don’t want to be a burden on others and they don’t want to get others sick (which is understandable). Sure, an immunocompromised believer shouldn’t be the one directly ministering to the sick, but the majority of the church body isn’t immunocompromised.

 

Second, others are afraid of getting sick themselves, or they use that as an excuse, so they leave their sick brothers and sisters to fend for themselves. The temptation to show disdain for the poor, to ignore their needs for food and clothing, and to threaten their physical survival by withholding their fair wages is the same temptation to neglect fellow believers that are alone on their backs, sick.

 

Believers who are sick and infirm need special attention from the whole congregation, beginning at the top. So James says the sick should call the elders of the church, and that the elders should pray over them and anoint them with oil, calling on the name of the Lord. Pastoral prayer makes sense even today; that’s part of being shepherd and caring for a flock.

 

Anointing with oil may not make sense to many today. Olive oil, according to OT and Jewish understanding, was seen to have healing properties and generally good for a person. Even Jesus and His disciples used olive oil in their healing ministries.

 

The real power though, is not in the oil, but in calling on the name of the Lord. The prayer offered up in faith, with no doubts, with no double mindedness as James puts it, will save the one who is sick. But is it the prayer that brought healing upon the sick person, or is it the One who heard the prayer and answered it according to His will?

 

See how James gives the credit of saving and healing the sick to God. He says, and the Lord will raise him up. Prayer is powerful inasmuch God is powerful. Without God, prayer accomplishes nothing. But with God, prayer can accomplish anything God wills it to.

 

God doesn’t just heal sickness though, and sickness isn’t the only cause of suffering either. James brings sin into the picture. What does sin have to do with sickness and suffering? James doesn’t directly relate sin and sickness as cause and effect, but he does indirectly relate them in that both cause suffering and God can save believers from the effects of either.

 

Here's the reality, sin is the root problem in all suffering and sickness. Suffering and sickness are either caused by personal sin, being personally sinned against, or from living in a fallen world broken and twisted by sin. There was no sickness in the garden before the fall.

 

How we respond to each of those presentations of sin is both different and at the same time the same. Personal sin requires repentance and confession, being sinned against requires forgiveness, and suffering the effects of living in a world cursed by sin requires perseverance. But all of them require prayer in response.

 

Not everyone is sick because of personal sin; not everyone who is sick has unforgiven sin, but there are some of both. James tells us that the prayer of faith that brings healing according to God’s will, will also bring forgiveness of sins according to His will. God is willing to forgive those who humbly confess their sin.

 

But what if healing doesn’t come? Does that mean that sins have not been forgiven? By no means. We know from other Scriptures that God’s primary work is the forgiveness of sins. James was confident about the outcome of prayer offered up in faith, but he made no comment about a prayer that doesn’t result in healing.

 

We have to be careful not to read into what’s not there. What is there is confidence in the efficacy of prayer and that the result of prayer is always dependent on the will of God to heal in any particular case. God’s will and power, not the person praying (elder) is key here. That’s why the responsibility to pray for fellow believers doesn’t just fall on the pastor.

 

• The body of believers must lift one another up in prayer.

James gives hearers yet another purpose of the church here in v.16, to pray for one another in everyone’s struggles with sin. This is probably one of the most difficult exhortations in Scripture to believers. No one wants to confess their sins to fellow believers. It’s human nature to hide sin, look at how Adam and Eve responded when they first sinned.

 

The fellowship of believers should be characterized by mutual confession of sin. And confessing sin to one other isn’t a public retelling of the ugly details of the act of sinning. Even though believers are to share the load, nothing in confession should lead another to temptation and sin.

 

No, instead it is a humble honesty about the fact of having committed sin. Everyone needs accountability, pastors included, believers are called to bear one another’s burdens. In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer captures well the importance of mutual confession when he poses the question, “Who can refuse, without suffering loss, a help that God has deemed necessary to offer?”

 

Mutual confession leads to mutual prayer. Understand that the church is here to support one another through anything, sickness and sin. God designed the church for His children to walk together through life, in unity, towards the same goal of sanctification in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

 

Believers are called to intercede for one another, both in the greatest matter of ministry, that confession brings forgiveness, and also in the great matter of healing sickness. This mutual prayer is a prime NT example of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.

 

James asserts the important relationship between righteousness and prayer here. The essence of biblical righteousness is dependence upon God in all aspects of the believer’s life. Christ is the believer’s righteousness. To be righteous is to live a life centered on the Word of God; it’s not sinlessness but mercy that characterizes this life.

 

The righteous believers are the ones who intercede, not so much on their own behalf but in obedience to God and on behalf others. The prayer of the righteous believer is both powerful and effective, but the answer is entirely dependent upon the will of God. The intercessor must trust the will of God.

 

As a final biblical example of faith in James’ letter, he cites the prophet Elijah, with his power and effective faith seen through prayer.

 

Although James highlights one of Elijah’s greatest ministry moments from 1 Kings 17 – 18, he bookends this part of Elijah’s ministry by his faithful praying for drought and for rain. If mediating God’s will and control over rain wasn’t already exciting, what happens in the middle of the story is extraordinary.

 

Pretty much every Jewish Christian of James’ day would have caught the reference. It’s Elijah’s fiery showdown with the prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel takes place between those two prayers. But the specifics of what Elijah did aren’t the point for James.

 

 However great the results of Elijah’s prayers, their greatness did not change his essential nature as a mere mortal man, a simple believer. James makes it clear that Elijah was no less an example to every believer. He viewed Elijah as exemplifying any righteous believer in the church whose prayer is heard by God, and answered according to His will.

 

Because God is faithful and His will is good, you can entrust all suffering and forgiveness to God, through praying in faith.

 

Because God is always faithful and His will is ultimately good, you can confidently bring our own suffering and need for forgiveness, as well as the burdens and failings of others, before Him in prayer.

 

By praying in faith, we entrust every circumstance—our struggles, weaknesses, and even the pain of sin—into God's capable hands. This act of faithful prayer is not based on our own ability, but on trust in God's character and His promises.

 

Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Suffering and the effects of sin both break our hearts and crush our spirits, but God is always near, and He rescues us. All of that was made possible by the work of Christ on the cross.

 

As we pray in faith for ourselves and for one another, we do so with the assurance that God hears and cares, and that He will respond in accordance with His perfect will. Let’s pray.