INTRODUCTION
TRUE CHRISTIANITY VS. FALSE RELIGION
 
Alright, let's come to the book of book of James. James is a series that speaks about living in true wisdom. If I may say, James speaks about true wisdom. He talks about true religion. He talks about true love for God, and he talks about true faith. Those are the words we have seen in this episode, and so I say to you easily, James is a book that distinguishes true Christianity and a fake one.
 
You see many people today think that just because you are in church, you must be a Christian, but that's not what James has in mind. He writes very logically and clearly about the distinct distinguishing marks of false and true religion. Those who are in church but who are always living in strife, fighting and quarreling one with another, may reveal themselves to be just in church, but not in Christ. They are not real Christians, because a true Christian, true religion and undefiled, is that you keep yourself unstained from the world, you live a life of sanctification. James tells us, then that false and true religion can be distinguished with in our speech. Are we filled with cursings, or are we filled with blessings in our lips? The third mark we see in the book of James is that of self-centredness versus service. He talks about people who are showing favoritism. The rich comes in and they will pander to them, but the poor comes in and he and he will ignore them. But he says, true religion and undefiled is that we will visit the orphans and the widows in their affliction.
 
And then the fourth mark is that of sin in suffering, or steadfastness In suffering. Do you blame God, get angry with God, or do you remain steadfast in obedience to the things that we have mentioned? So James tells us that someone can be in church, but not in Christ. As we often say, going to church doesn't make you a Christian, just like going to McDonald's doesn't make you a hamburger. Or maybe another way of looking at it is just because your phone says Wi Fi available, doesn't mean that you're automatically connected to it. Today in the church, we preach Jesus and Him crucified. We tell you the good news that God loves you even when you are a sinner, and He gave His Son to die for you and to pay for your sins. But just because you are in a church that hears or has this message being preached doesn't mean that you are in Christ. You've got to be connected to Christ. How do you do that? You need to repent of your sin and believe in Jesus. So, for all our children here, I'm thankful you are here, for all our visitors, I'm thankful you're here, but I hope that you aim for not just being here, but that you aim to be in Christ by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. This is why we exist as a church. We exist to be leading people of all age groups, generations into a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what I think James is out to do. He's trying to help people there, not to just be in church, but to know Christ and to live in a way that evidences a right relationship with Him. So, we pray for you that you will have this right relationship. And you know, if you are in a right relationship, when you see your life change. Do we see these four marks? Where would you see your life? Is it more on the left side or more on the right side? Literally, the right side.
 
THE ROLE OF PRAYER IN SUFFERING
 
 As we close off this book, we come to the very last chapter, last few eight verses or so, and it's back to the topic of suffering. There are some eight verses there. I show you six, but it's very busy, I know. So let's make it a bit more conducive to observe a few things. Number one, I'd like you to see that this is in the context of suffering and sickness. And number two, a very repeated, very often repeated word in these six verses is the word “prayer”, or “pray.”  So, it's quite easy then to understand that the last few verses of this book speak about prayer in suffering. So last Sunday, this is last Sunday, verses seven to 12, we spoke about “Patient in Suffering.” Today, the title is very simple, you can almost guess it. It is “Prayer in Suffering.” What a smart church.
 
So, we are looking at this topic and three simple observations to see. Number one, I'd like us to observe James telling us about the importance or the priority of prayer. Someone wrote this, “My family always prays before dinner. If you ever tasted my wife's cooking, you’d know why.” We pray when things are difficult, and that's what James is saying. “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.” Now, I guess James is saying, when you suffer, let prayer not be your last resort, but your first response. Because maybe in modern days, when we suffer, prayer is the last resort. Because we often get to many sources of help before we even turn to God, isn't it? We do everything but pray. But James is saying you should pray when you suffer. When we are sick, we go to Google, we go to ChatGPT. Why got stomach ache? Stomach ache means what? What should I do? We check all the facts online. We go to the doctor, we ask our friend, or maybe, if you are running into any kind of problems, you speak to your family, you speak to your friends, you speak to your pastor, you speak to an MP, you speak to everyone, until you exhaust all these helps, then you remember, “Oh, I need to pray.” James, however, tells us prayer is to be our first response. But the question is, what do you pray for?
 
James says, “Let him pray”, but what do you pray for? Well, he doesn't quite say it here, but I suppose if you gather all that we have learned in James, three things you should at least pray for. Number one, you do and you can pray for the removal of such sufferings. For example, later on, we read about James saying, if you are sick, you can pray so that you may be healed. So, it's nothing wrong to pray for healing. Nothing wrong to pray for the removal of sufferings. The apostle Paul himself did so. There is a thorn in the flesh, and he prayed three times that the Lord should remove it. Can we pray this prayer? Can, if it is possible, in a sense, let this cup pass from me. But I don't think that's the only thing we should pray, because James equally teaches us that sometimes God does not remove it immediately, but he wants us to be able to endure through it, to be steadfast through it. This is just what we learned last week. So, we should pray, “God give me the grace and the strength to endure, because it is not always Your will to take away sufferings and pains. You have a good purpose. You have a good reason why you are trying to grow me, mature me, so give me grace to remain under.” And maybe, if you remember chapter 1, not only to remain, but even to rejoice. Count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials. So, we pray for the practical wisdom to be able to count it all joy. I think a Christian, the church, should be mindful these are the things we should pray for in suffering. Yes, we can go to the hospital and pray for someone to get well, but no, that's not the only thing we should pray for, because we don't always know God's will, whether he is to heal or not. We should equally be mindful to pray God give him the endurance and God give him the wisdom to count it all joy.
 
So, James tells us to pray, but don't forget chapter 1. I like to refer you back to chapter 1, because chapter 1 and chapter 5, both chapters speak about sufferings, trials. He writes in a chiastic way, a mirror image way. Chapter 1, chapter 5, they are parallels. Chapter 2, chapter 4, they are kind of parallels, and so on and so forth. So, in chapter 1, when it comes to suffering, James says, “…receive with meekness the implanted word.” In Chapter 5, he says, “…pray.” So, you notice for suffering, you need both prayer and the Word. If any one of you suffer, let these be two powerful resources you turn to. Seek God in His word and in prayer.  Just in case we think that we can only pray to God when things are difficult or when chips are down, we are reminded is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Let him thank God. Let him be appreciative of all that God has given to him. So, I think James in these words, teach us how important it is to turn to God in prayer and in praise. So, that's the importance of prayer.
 
THE POWER OF PRAYER
 
Let's look secondly at the power of prayer. Someone said there are two kinds of people who pray, one in a church and one in a casino. And there's only one that really believes in the power of prayer, the one in a casino. The people of God today talk about prayer, read about prayer, but very few of us really believe in the power of prayer. Now James is going to encourage us about the power of prayer. He talks about someone who is sick. “Is anyone among you sick?” Now, he's going to use another word for sick later on in verse 15, but the word that he used in verse 14 is referring to someone who is very weak. The word there means without strength or feeble. So, he raises the example of someone who is very, very ill or feeble or sick. And we know that this is true because of other evidences, where you have to call for the elders. You don't go to the elders, but you call for the elders to come to you, and the elders, when they come, will have to pray over you. And the elders would, by that prayer, perhaps be used by God to raise him up. So, these words signify that this person may be very, very sick. That's the idea. So, you call for the elders, and what do the elders do when they come, “they pray over him, and they anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
 
Now, this text is not an easy text, by the way. There are many controversies in James five, but this is one where a lot of people debate as to the meaning of anointing him with oil. Why? Why do you anoint? You take oil to pour over his head or his body? Why? Why do you do that? There are some who think that this is a medicinal anointing. So, someone has back ache, body ache, so you take your Tiger Balm and you, I don't know whether you use Tiger Balm or whatever oil and you try to soothe, maybe. But I don't think that is pretty much the idea James has, because there's no one oil that can cure all sicknesses. So medicinal purpose is not so likely, some people debate that this is a spiritual anointing in that there is some healing power in the oil. I suggest to you that is unlikely. That is, I think, superstition, because James attributes the healing not to the oil, but to the prayer of faith. It is, I think, unfortunate that in our day and age there are people today who teach you that there is some power in the oil they sell you. You go to their church and they'll tell you that there's this oil that their pastor has prayed over, and you can use this oil for many functions, multi-purpose oil, because they can use the oil for healing. Can also put this oil on your car so that it protects you from car accident, especially now there are a lot of car accidents and insurance premiums are very high. So you protect yourself, put the oil. They also tell you to put the oil in your house or the door so that no thieves will come. They will also tell you, for students, bring the oil to your exam hall. I'm not kidding. It is really what is on the website. Bring the oil to the exam hall, and you anoint your exam paper with the oil. And they will have testimonies where people who score Bs and Fs suddenly get As and Bs, they say it's the anointing oil. Well, I don't think the Bible teaches anything like this. The power is not in the oil. Please do not have superstitious views about relics and things, the power is in God, and it is accessed through prayer, not oil.
 
So, I think the best way to understand this anointing with oil is a symbolic act, is to communicate that the healing is coming from God, not from the elders, per se, and this act is nowhere else commanded in the rest of the New Testament. So, this is likely a symbolic act. Now, when you read this, the question is like what we asked durian sellers, “Bao Jia or not?” You say the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. Does it mean that every time the pastor comes and prays over the sick, he will always be healed. Will every sickness be healed if your elders come and pray? Well, I think the answer would probably be “No”, because we do see that there are people who die in the Bible, there are sicknesses that are not healed, like Paul's thorn in the flesh, it is not healed. So, the Bible does not quite, I think, say that every sickness will be healed automatically. But nonetheless, it is true that God can use the prayer of faith to save the sick. Perhaps one more exegetical clue we need to respect, and that is tied to what is said later on, “and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”  So, it is true that the prayer of faith will save the sick, but it's also likely that this is connected somehow to sin and the forgiveness of sin, because this is not just once, it's doubled down in the next verse, verse 16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” If I were to change the color (of the words on the slide), you would see a kind of a, b, b, a, idea where you have “sickness” and “healing” at the extreme ends and “sin” and that “confession” and “forgiveness” implied in the middle. So, I think there may be a link between that sickness and some sin and it is as one confesses his sin that that prayer of faith will save and heal the sick.
 
Let's be very careful here. We are not saying, the Bible does not say that every specific sickness you have is because of some specific sin you commit. We are not saying that last night you have diarrhea means that you scolded someone in the morning. It's not always such a direct correlation. After all, Jesus did talk about the man who was born blind and He asked them, “Do you think that he's blind because he sinned or his parents sinned?” Because that's how the Jewish people thought that you're sick because you're under some curse for some sin you've committed. But Jesus said, “No”, it's not because he sinned or his parents sinned, but for the glory of God. So, let's be very clear, let's be very careful. We are not saying every sickness is a direct result of some sin. Nonetheless, the Bible does link, at times, sickness with sin. Think about the man who was paralyzed in Matthew chapter 9 or Mark chapter 2. Jesus, before he healed him, said to him, “son, your sins be forgiven you.” And then said to him, “take up your mat and walk.” It's not the other way around. It seems to convey the idea that this man's paralysis is related to some sin he has committed. And think about 1 Corinthians 11, how the church at Corinth gathered together, and they were despising one another. The rich people were eating amongst themselves, and they despised the poor. They marginalized the poor. And you know what God said, or Paul said? Paul said many of you, amongst you, this church, are sick, physically sick, because, why? Because you take off the love feast unworthily.
 
So, God is chastising, disciplining his people because of sin. John wrote about 1John 5, and how there is a sickness that may lead to death, and how Ananias and Sapphira, because they lied against the Holy Spirit, they died. So, God does at times, inflict illness as a chastisement, as an attention grabber to his people. So, in that case, when you confess your sin and you pray, God may heal you. I think that's how we should take the prayer of say of faith shall save the sick. I think it's particularly in the context of sickness that may be a form of chastisement because of our sin. So, when the elders are called to a severely ill man or woman, I think this is pastoral wisdom to ask that person if he or she knows he or she has any unconfessed sin. Now, we are not saying that he or she is sick definitely because of some sin, but on the other hand, we should not ignore the possibility that God may be grabbing his or her attention through this illness, and it is vital then that he or she confesses, gets right with God. And it is through these ordained means of confession and prayer that God is glorified in this whole chastisement process. So, I hope that solves some exegetical, theological difficulties for a difficult text. But let's not forget, I think at the end of the day, James is saying, prayer is powerful. The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. Now that's about the power of prayer.
 
THE PRACTICE OF PRAYER
 
Let's look thirdly at the practice of prayer. It is important to pray, because he says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed” [James 5:16]. This is not just something the elders are supposed to do. This is something we all have to do. And he uses the word, “Therefore”. Why does he use the word “Therefore?” Because, knowing the power of prayer, when the elders pray for the very sick, therefore we all should also do likewise. That's the idea. He says, that you may be healed. I think none of us were there, or was there when James wrote this letter, but based on these things, I suppose to you, James probably heard about some people in the church who are sick, and he's saying, what you need to do is to pray. And one thing you need to know is that before you pray for healing, you should be confessing your sins. The people that he's writing to may be living in sin because of all the things we have mentioned in James, like favoritism, strife and quarreling, cursing, we just go through the gamut of sins that we have dealt with. And so, James says you should confess your sins to one another. You don't have to go to your pastor all the time, but to one another. So, banish from your mind those movies where you go to a church building, and there's some religious leader in a booth, and you tell the person all your sins. I don't think that's what is in mind. This is not confessing your sins to a leader. This is confessing your sins to one another. And the idea here is not so much that brothers and sisters in Christ, have the power to absolve you of your sin or to forgive you, but you share, you confess, you admit, so that you may truly turn from your sin. This confession is a decision not to hide your sin, but to bring it out into the light so that you will not allow that sin to grow and to fester in the dark corners of your heart. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, I think there's a movie about him recently, maybe still showing I'm not sure.  But Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he said this “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community." One of the things we should be alert to is when someone, over time, withdraws from spiritual community. Now, when I say spiritual community. I'm not referring only to when you turn up on Sunday morning sitting here as rows of people, but spiritual community, I think, refers to circles where we speak with one another, where we pray one for another, and when we confess our sins to one another. And when someone is living in sin, one of his marks, one of the tell-tale signs, is that he begins to withdraw. There may be other reasons, but this is one reason. Sin is growing. “The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him. Sin wants to remain unknown” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer]. No one likes to boast or to talk about their sin and be filled with shame and guilt. So, “sin shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer].
 
Many of you would know that 39 Punggol Field Walk is not the only building we have. We have another smaller building at 360 Dunearn Road, and that building is just beside Adam Road Food Center. There are many benefits of being beside Adam Road Food Center. I mean, you have good food when we were working there. That's our office. But another problem or a problem with it is that, because it's near a food area, there are many, what? Many cockroaches and rats. So, we do face a problem with rats in the early days. At that point of time, there's not many people responsible for that, so the staff team, the pastors and so on, we knew that there was a rat and we had to get rid of the rat. But I tell you a secret about all your pastors. All of us are scaredy cats. None of us really dared to deal with a rat ourselves. So, one day, we saw a rat scurry across the kitchen, and it hid itself in one of the shelvings, and it was hiding behind the pots and the pans. So, all of us were scared and did not know what to do. So, we took other pots and banged them to try to scare it out, but it didn't come out. It wouldn't come out. The rat knew it was in trouble, but the more it knew, the more I think it hit into the dark corners. So, what we did was to get a water hose, we connected from the toilet, and all of us stood on chairs. I mean, we were quite wise to stand on chairs. And some brave soul will have to go there, remove a pot then spray, remove a pot and spray. But no matter how you removed them, it still wants to hide in a corner. It's only when all the pots and pans were removed and you sprayed will the rat then scurry out of that dark corner. If you don't bring it out into the light, it will never be dealt with.
 
And I think about your sin and my sin that way. That “rat” of sin likes to hide, and it will hide there for a long, long time. It will pee and poo, and then you will infest all your pots and pans, and it will poison your soul. Sin is like that rat, and the only way you can deal with the “rat” is if you remove the darkness and bring it out into the light. I think that's what Bonhoeffer was saying: “In confession, the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and the seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light.” The “rat” must be brought into the light. “It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted.”
 
So, if you are really serious about following Jesus, if you are really serious about obeying God, I think there is no other choice but to be in community where you confess and pray for one another. Now, if you are interested in just being a hypocrite in church, you don't have to be too serious about community. You can allow sin to fester in your life. But I think if you take your soul seriously, if you take eternal life seriously, you will not take sin lightly. So, I ask you today, where is your one another? Who do you talk to about struggles with sin? No one. No one has no struggle with sin, unless you're dead. If you're not a Christian, you won't bother with a struggle with sin. To you, it's natural, it's fine, as long as the police don't catch me. But if you are truly born again, there is always a struggle, because you want to obey God, but your flesh leads you against it. And if you do have this struggle, I say to you, you've got to find a community, if you're serious about dealing with it.
 
CONCLUSION AND FINAL ENCOURAGEMENT
 
So, in our church and in many communities, there are care groups, discipleship groups, Bible study groups. Please, it’s not just intellectual knowledge. It's about life. It's about confession. It's about praying. It's about restoring our relationship with God. So, God may allow this sickness. Maybe today you're going through a hardship, a suffering, an illness, and God is using this illness to grab your attention. So, it's interesting. Chapter 1 speaks about trials to grow us. I think chapter 5 speaks about sufferings to chastise us and to draw us back to Him. To encourage you to pray, James says that “…the prayer of a righteous man has great power as it is working” [James 5:16]. Now I want you to maybe consider with me this word “righteous”, because a lot of people will look at the word “righteous” as signifying that this person is very godly. The prayer of a super saint, the prayer of a Mr. Holy, is very powerful. But maybe that's not what James has in mind. Because the word righteous may simply refer to the reality that the person is a Christian. And I think that is probably the right way to look at it, because the next verse, James talks about Elijah, and not so much about Elijah's prophetic abilities, but Elijah's similarity with us, that he has a nature like ours.
 
So, I think James is simply saying you don't have to be a super Christian to pray, as long as you're a Christian, the prayer of a Christian is very effective. Just pray. So, he uses the example of Elijah, a prophet in the good old days. And it is said Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Look at this emphasis. James is not saying Elijah has great magical powers, prophetic abilities, great courage. James is saying Elijah is used because he is like us. In fact, we read about his collapse after this great event. He was fearful before Jezebel. He's just like us, but he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and there was no rain for three and a half years. And then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. So guys, James is saying in suffering, not only the word in chapter 1, but also prayer in chapter 5, because God may just be grabbing your attention to him to turn from your sin. He does not inflict sickness because he hates you, but he may give sickness because he loves you. He loves you too much to allow you to keep on sinning, so he is to be glorified as God's people confess and pray and be restored to him.
 
This is our last sermon, and let me finish the last two verses. “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” [James 5:19-20] Now the words, “My brothers” I think, switches us to a new segment. That's the way he introduces, sometimes a new idea, but in this case, it's the conclusion, because it's the last two verses. And he speaks about someone who is wandering from the truth. The idea here, is someone who is veering off from living a life that is right before God. And so, it may be referring to people who are living in some kind of cursing, some kind of strife or self-centeredness. And so, James says, I've told you about what real religion and false religion is, see that in one another and do your part to bring him back. Christians in community have a responsibility to one another. We are trying to bring one another onto the right path to find eternal life, because otherwise, this person would lose his soul in death. The death here is to be understood in a death, or with the death in chapter 1, which is about spiritual death, eternal death, as contrasted with the crown of life. So, if you are serious about your soul and if you care about others, this is what we have to do, be in community. Eternal salvation, someone says is a community project. God gives salvation, but that perseverance through it requires a community effort.
 
Let me close with John Piper at what he says in these two verses. “The New Testament writers do not assume that everyone in the church is necessarily going to persevere to the end and be saved.” Just interesting that one of our church people posted a picture of a certain ministry that was taken ten, fifteen years ago. I look at the faces of the people there, and sad to say, more than half I don't see them anymore. I fear for their souls, not so much that they are not in our church, but as far as I know, they are not in any church. They are not pursuing Christ in any way. It happens here. It happens everywhere. So, Piper says the New Testament writers do not assume that everyone in the church is necessarily going to persevere to the end and be saved. The New Testament writers “treat people who have made a profession of faith as true members of the covenant community, giving them the benefit of the doubt.” [John Piper] So, if someone says he believes they give him the benefit of the doubt, because James does call them brothers in verse 19, but at the same time, he does not assume therefore, that everyone whom he calls a brother is in fact a brother. “And so he warns the whole church that straying away from the faith into persistent sin will lead to death without forgiveness. The final proof of who is a brother and who is not is perseverance of faith; not profession of faith.” [John Piper]
 
As we finish off the book of James, I come back to the premise James wrote this letter for. Do you have true wisdom or false wisdom? Do you have true profession or false profession? Do you really love God, or is it all just a sham? Do you have real faith, or is it faith that is without works? Something you think about and something I will keep praying for and laboring for. I hope that if I have a picture of you guys fifteen years later, I will still see you persevering in the faith, and then when we all cross over to the other side, we will meet one another on that heavenly shore. I hope God uses the book of James to do a deep work in you and to bring us all to eternal life.
 
Let's bow for a word of prayer together. Father, we want to thank you today that the book of James is not a book of sweet nothings, but is a serious, solemn, sombre warning about wandering from the truth. Lord, let Your Spirit today, work in hearts, so that men and women will not live or continue in some kind of pretension or presumption. Not to imagine that just because we are in church, we must be in Christ, but that everyone here will search hearts and endeavor to connect to Jesus in a life changing relationship. That we will turn from sin and believe upon him, that we will persevere in faith, so that at the end of the day, we receive the crown of life. I want to pray for our little children that they will not come to church and think it is all about performance, about legalism, about trying to be deserving, but to realize your love says “My son has paid it all, repent and believe” that they may be saved. So dear God, grant our little children repentance and faith. Indeed, grant all here today, repentance and faith. So, I pray for a church that will be holy, decidedly resolved to follow Jesus to the very end. Bless us as we hide all these things in James, in our hearts. We pray all these in Jesus' name. Amen.