In his sermon 'A Call To Prayer,' Trent Moody emphasizes the importance of prayer in the life of a believer, comparing it to breathing for a baby. He encourages the congregation to increase their desire for prayer, particularly as they approach a dedicated week of prayer. Moody highlights the corporate aspect of prayer within the church, urging men to lead in prayer during services. He references J.C. Ryle's perspective that prayer is a defining characteristic of the godly, and contrasts this with the wicked who do not call upon the Lord. The sermon examines passages from James, noting the frequent mention of prayer and its connection to various aspects of life such as suffering, cheerfulness, sickness, and sin. Moody advises that suffering should be met with prayer rather than complaining, and that cheerfulness should lead to praise. He discusses the role of elders in praying for the sick, emphasizing the power and effectiveness of fervent prayer. The sermon also addresses the potential link between personal sin and sickness, encouraging believers to seek God in prayer and consider their spiritual state. Moody concludes by urging the congregation to confess sins and pray for one another, using the example of Elijah to demonstrate the extraordinary power of prayer. The sermon calls for unity in prayer and a focus on God's will, with the hope that prayer will lead to significant spiritual outcomes.

Most gracious Father, as we approach this passage of Scripture and as we are approaching our week of prayer as a church, Lord I pray that you would Lord truly just again wet our appetites for prayer. Prayer to the believer is as natural as breathing is for a baby. So Lord, I pray that you would increase our desire to pray. Lord, teach us, as we have heard in the past and at men's meeting, the hindrances to prayer, Lord help us to put those things aside. Lord increase our faith in prayer that we would pray believing, knowing Lord that you are all powerful and that you can do all things and Lord that you're our father and we are your children and you tell us to pray to speak with you and to commune with you and to ask.

You tell us to ask and to seek and to knock and so Father I pray that you would increase our desire to do that. We pray in Christ's name, amen. So the week before last many of you are aware that we had a special called Men's Meeting in which we focused our attention upon prayer and purity. And you heard part of the fruit of that this morning as we have opened up prayer time during our service to all men. Because as Paul said and as God inspired him to say that he desires that men should pray.

This is God's desire. This does not leave out the fact that he desires women to pray but in the corporate meeting of the church God desires men to pray and to lead in prayer. And as we think about this desire of God to move into the hearts of his people to pray, to seek his face, to call upon the name of the Lord, we see this here in the book of James, and I pray that this will be an encouragement to each of us. J.C. Ryle wrote a book and in that book titled A Call to Prayer he says this, I have looked carefully over the lives of God's saints in the Bible.

I cannot find one whose history much is told of from Genesis to Revelation who is not a man of prayer. I find it mentioned as a characteristic of the godly that they call on the Father or on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recorded as a characteristic of the wicked, however, is the fact that they called not upon the name of the Lord, as we read in Psalm 14 for. This should cause us to reflect upon our own prayer life. Do you call upon the name of the Lord?

So as we look at these verses, these few verses, you will see that it is really the thrust of this passage. In six verses, James mentions prayer seven times because of the emphasis on prayer that it will be my emphasis as well hopefully to encourage you and to exhort you to be people of prayer and as we reflect upon this I believe that it will draw our hearts and our attentions towards the Lord. You know we are comforted with this connection as we see in this passage the connection between suffering and prayer between the trials that we may face as believers and God's call for us to seek his face through communion with him. We see this in this passage. We see a connection between suffering and prayer, between cheerfulness and praise, sickness, sin, prayer, the role of elders and ministering to the sick.

We see the prayer of faith. We see confession of sin. We see prayerful supplication. We see answer to prayer and personal righteousness. So let us consider first an exhortation to prayer and to praise.

Beginning with verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? This idea of suffering was very common to the early church and is really to Christians all around this world, much more so than we experience ourselves here in this most blessed place. But what may be quickly looked over in this phrase is that there is a reference here to the corporateness and the corporate aspect of the life of a believer and prayer. He says, is anyone among you suffering? He's talking to the church.

He's looking to the corporate body writing this letter to encourage them and to note, is anyone among you corporate life of church suffering? I think that on any given day we could look around us and we may not be aware of it, but we could see a person who may be suffering, may be in a trial of affliction of a spiritual nature, could be in an affliction of a physical ailment or some form of physical suffering. The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone. God created us to be a people that are together. That's why he gives us the one another's in Scriptures, that we are to love one another, that we are to live life together.

And so the reference is to those he speaks of specifically are those suffering. It has to do with any kind of trouble, whether that be bodily or mental, personal, domestic, suffering arising from ordinary trials, suffering conflicts, or religious persecution, as one commentator noted. The meaning is anyone who is undergoing any hardship, so this could be any one of us. I think in the last couple years we could, you know, as blessed as we have been, I think each of us have experienced times of hardship and difficulties, some more than others. But James' counsel to us this morning is that there is a proper response to suffering.

Suffering, James says, should be met with prayer. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Oftentimes our natural temptation when we are suffering is to grumble or to complain, but neither of these ministers to our soul nor pleases the heart of God. In Philippians 2 14, we often quote Philippians 2 12 and 2 13, but in Philippians 2 14, Paul writes this, do all things without complaining and disputing.

That is the natural response of man in suffering. It is natural to the natural man as faith is to the spiritual man. To believe in God is natural to the spiritual man, but to the natural man complaining is in times of trial and suffering. MacArthur notes on this in Philippians 2. He says, much like muttering, this word complaining, is much like muttering or grumbling in a low tone of voice.

It's an emotional reflection in a low tone rejecting the providence of God. As one pastor said in our past, he said complaining is pagan because it denies God. It denies the sovereignty of God. It denies the goodness of God. It denies the wisdom of God.

But he goes on and he says, it's emotional rejection of God's providence, his will, and circumstances for your life. The word for disputing is more intellectual in nature and here means questioning or criticizing directly in a direct direction negatively towards God. So the complaining is emotional, that natural emotional response that we may experience, whereas the disputing is really more of an intellectual idea of a negative criticism towards God and what he has done. Now why do I bring this up about suffering? Well James brings it up.

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. This is James' antidote, if you would, for your suffering. Not that it's going to cure all suffering and cure all of your ailments, But we are commanded and called to pray. This is obviously the proper response of a Christian in times of trials.

He says, let him pray. This is the present imperative, which is command to do something in the future and to continue doing it. Our prayers are not to be a one-time deal but it is to be something as natural as breathing. You breathe throughout the day in and out you're you're sucking in the life-giving air into your bodies. And we know that Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, that our minds and our attitudes are to be one of continual prayer.

But specifically in times of difficulties and trials and afflictions, the natural heart of the Christian should be to call upon their father. My little ones, all the time, anytime one of them gets hurt or injured, they will call upon a parent. They'll oftentimes call upon their mother and their affections towards her, but when they're suffering, they want to tell mommy or daddy about it. They call upon us to help them in their time of need. And that's the way it should be for us, that we call upon the Father, that we call out to him because he is the one who cares for you and he is the one who can heal you and bring and give you grace to endure these trials.

Ryle notes this, faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to life. How a man can live and not breathe is past my comprehension. And how a man can believe and not pray is past my comprehension as well. See James is not saying that we only pray when we're suffering but rather it is the proper response to suffering and this however does not guarantee healing.

Again this is not a health wealth and prosperity of pray and you shall be healed name it and claim it and you'll be done with of all suffering. No, this is about relationship with the Father. This is about going to God and sharing your heart with Him. We do know is that healing is not always God's plan for the Christian's life. There are other reasons that God brings about suffering, one of which may be his supply of grace to show you that his grace is sufficient.

James then turns the coin and says this, is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. The Christian life thankfully is not always one of suffering and affliction, but is also one of cheerfulness and joy. It is one of many joys that we have through the relationship with other believers in Christ. Many of you have brought joy into my life at various times and I'm so thankful for that.

The joys of having a family are abundant. The joys of knowing Christ are abounding and all-sufficient. But he says here, is anyone cheerful? Again, he's calling to the congregation of believers. He's calling the church, is anyone among you cheerful?

We heard today someone prayed that we are to weep with those who weep and that we are to rejoice with those who rejoice. It is the act of corporately joining in with our brethren. So this week as we approach this Wednesday in our prayer week, that's something that I want us to be on our mind is that we are joining into. That's what this intercession has the idea, as it means to come along beside of. You join into their prayer or into their need.

And so as we approach this week, I want us to think about others as we are praying. You'll have a list there of all the people in the church and you join in with them praying for them. You'll join the whole body as we pray for these individuals throughout this week. And so let us gather together in spirit as we lift them up in prayer. But James reminds the believer that These times are not to be occasions of forgetting God, but times of singing praises to His name.

Note that most of the Psalms are in the form of prayers to God. They're praises to God and prayers to God that David and other psalmist are pouring out their heart to God in praise. Sometimes it's in suffering and sometimes it's in joy of victories. Plumer says that the light-hearted are apt to be light-headed and forget God when things are going well. We are not to forget God in our time of joy, but we need to always remember to give thanks to God in our times of joy and comfort.

Calvin notes that there is no time in which God does not invite us to himself. For afflictions ought to stimulate us to pray, prosperity supplies us with an occasion to praise. And both should be continually on our lips. One commentator named Vaughan makes a good point regarding this. He said, all feelings of sorrow and of joy should be sanctified, the one by prayer and the other by praise.

You know it's interesting that Luther believed that even when one transposes these imperatives, the conclusions were still true. Is any afflicted, let him sing songs. Is any merry or joyful, let him pray. When Luther heard of any bad news he would often say, come let us sing a psalm and spike the devil. That should be our heart's desires that we receive all things joyful or trials from the hand of God and it should bring us and move us to pray and to praise.

So as we approach this coming week of prayer let us be reminded not only to pray for deliverances from sufferings, but also to sing psalms of praise and prayer to God for the loving kindnesses of God. Let us keep in mind that we are to join in with others, not only in their sufferings, but also in their joys. And I know that we do that and we delight to do that but I want to encourage you to do it more. Join in with them. Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

We see next an exhortation for an active and intimate ministry of prayer. I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time on this one, but we see here James is commending, and 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, and the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up." And so what Paul is doing here is he is encouraging those, as I want to do, I want you to realize, and James wants you to realize that there is power in prayer. Prayer is not a useless act. Prayer is not something that we're just throwing up these thoughts to God or prayers to God and you know if God does something that's God's business.

No, God calls us to interact with him in prayer calling upon him. Note what he says here in just a moment, the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. It avails much. Prayer avails much. And so we are not to be half-hearted prayers.

We're not to be double-minded prayers, but we are to be fervent prayers. In 3 John, verse 2, John says this, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers." You see this is a shepherding role that the elders are to be actively involved in. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church. That one, the elders were to be seen as men of prayer, men who believed in the power of prayer.

The sick noticed that. The sick would call upon the elders of the church and have them come and pray for them because they believed that the fervent and effective prayer of a righteous man availed much. And so elders, this is a challenge to us that we be men of prayer, that we be men who are ready and available for the congregation, and that we are encouraging praying and that we are actively praying. And this goes for the body as well. We see it also that the sick understood that elders were called on to pray.

We see it with Peter in Acts chapter 9 when they called, the church called Peter because of Dorcas and her sickness and subsequent death, and God answered prayer and rose her from the dead, raised her from the dead. Because of the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man, one was raised from the dead. Again, I'm not calling us to a health, wealth, and prosperity, and God never desires for anyone to be sick or suffering, but at the same time I'm not calling us to faithless praying either. There's a balance just like in everything else in the Christian life, and we need to understand that the power of God, he is omnipotent and nothing is impossible for him. He can do all things.

So this week as we approach into this week of prayer, that we think about what we are praying about and that we pray believing that God will answer our prayers according to his will. We know that. That's what the book of 1st John tells us. If we pray according to the will of God and that should be our desires that that our prayers Lord we desire your desires we we want what you want but Lord here's what I want these are the things that I'm praying for and Lord according to your will be they done That should be our heart in prayer. And we get, I'm not going to get much into the anointing with oil, but I will say this just in passing, is that there's been much confusion about this, and I don't believe it needs to be confusing, but there is some mystery still surrounding it.

What is it? What does it do? Is it effectual? I believe the idea is here is that the anointed in the name of the Lord, they were trusting in God to answer, and that this was a symbol and a sign of the Spirit of God working in the believer's life. Some would believe that it's medicinal, some would believe that it actually had some property in it to bring healing.

I'm not here to answer that question other than to say it's the prayer of faith that saved the sick. So as we move from that, James says, and the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. The phrase shall save, obviously here in this passage is not talking about spiritual salvation, but as deliverance from their sickness. This was the sick person calling on the elders and the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. There's a unique connection here between this person's sickness and their belief that they have sinned, that this sickness was a cause of, was because of sin in their life, really this is something that is somewhat foreign to the Christian Church in America, that we want to separate the idea if I'm sick it has nothing to do with my spiritual life.

Well that's not true. We read a passage, well we read the passage right before the passage every week at the Lord's table in 1st Corinthians 11 and it says that Many are weak and sick and some sleep. Sleep there being death. That there is a correlation between our spiritual life and our physical life, but it is not a one-in-one correlation. If you are sick, it is not because you have sinned, but it could be.

It could be. 1 Corinthians is 11, 29 is where that passage is found and he says, for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak and sick and among you and many sleep." You know, the Puritans had an interesting view about this and not all of them agreed, but I believe they would say this, that it should at least be considered. So hear me to the end of this. I don't want you to think I'm being overly harsh on someone who may be sick because there is also a sweeter side to this as well that I want to be balanced in.

The Puritans view personal sin and sickness much differently than we do today. Cotton Mather pointed out to his listeners that the sin of every individual man does but repeat and renew the cause of sickness in him. According to the Puritan clergyman, The daily suffering and pain of people was thus not so much the direct result of original sin, more often humans or entire nations suffer and are punished for their own personal iniquities. Puritan preachers believed in strong and logical connection between disease and personal sin. And proof of that lies in the advice which each minister again and again gave to the sick person and to his family, namely to search their soul to try and find out what they had done to displease God.

However, not all Puritan preachers went to this extreme, but they indicated that besides original or individual sin, divine providence sometimes also had other plans in mind when making people sick. Or like Cotton Mather explains, sickness does not always come to manage a controversy of God with us for some iniquity that we may have. God made some person sick to test their faith and patience as he had tested Job. This kind of suffering was reserved for God's most beloved children. In that case, diseases must not be seen as punishment but as love tokens.

Have you ever considered your suffering as a love token? You should consider it. I believe that we do need to have again a balanced approach to sin and sickness. The answer to both is prayer. Seeking the Lord.

I believe that when we are sick we should seek the Lord in prayer. We should be willing to at least acknowledge, Lord, is this because of sin? It is not a guarantee that it is, but it may be. And it could be that God is using and working in your life through difficulties and trials to draw you ever closer to him and as the Puritans said as love tokens to show you his great love to purify you and to help you to pull away from the darling pleasures of this world to make you homesick for heaven more than wanting to cling to what is on this earth. So because you are sick does not mean you are sinning and it is a punishment for your sins.

But and Jesus made this clear he says in John 11 for when Jesus heard that he said this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God. Your sickness may be for the glory of God. That the Son of Man may be glorified through it. A love token. My encouragement to you as we approach this prayer week is that we take seriously our sin and the effects of it.

Let us begin this prayer week with confession of our sins. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, which leads us to our final point. An exhortation to confession of sin and supplication. We find this in verses 16 through 18. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." So we have some of the one-anothers here within the Christian Church. James tells us to confess our sins to one another and to pray for one another. The purpose of this, James says, is that you may be healed. Again, a statement pointing to the connection between sin and sickness. We must be a people who are praying or a praying people.

But we also must be a confessing people, confessing our sins. Now I don't believe this implies necessarily personal confession of sins to everyone individually or publicly because you may bring greater problems upon the Christian community and yourself, but in a more general nature of confession of your sin, being willing to humble yourself and acknowledge, one, that you are a sinner and that you may have sinned against another brother or sister within this church. So I would encourage you today, before we begin this prayer week, that if you have a problem with anyone else in this church, that you go to them. Perhaps you need to ask someone to forgive you. Perhaps someone else needs to forgive you.

But I believe that there is a direct correlation between the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man and also we know that the Gospels teach on when we have an alt between one another. There's nothing that will make our prayer so effectual and so powerful as a body who is lovingly forgiving one another and unified in the bonds of the Spirit. That will cause the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous people to avail much. That's our desire in this prayer week, is it not? What is our purpose and our point in this is that our prayers will avail much.

We're not coming to this prayer week for nothing. We're coming to this prayer week for our purity of heart. We're coming to this prayer week so that we can see God answer prayer. That's my desire. I want to see God answer prayers in your life.

Maybe it is a healing from a sickness or maybe it is a child who is a stray and needs salvation. Maybe it is a missionary that we're supporting that needs encouragement. I want God to do great things and I want to see these great things and I want to be a part of that that I can join in with God's will and God's desire for each of you. So as we think about this effectual prayer, and what our desire needs to be in our praying is that our praying would be effective. And so let's make this prayer week the most effectual by being unified as one body as we come before the Lord.

James points again is to point out the extraordinary power of prayer. He's just given us an Old Testament example and that's what I want to do. Notice in verse 11 he says this, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. It's often easy to think of men in the Old Testament as being men not like us, but no, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He had struggles just like you have struggles.

He had faithfulness in times just like you do. And yet, the Bible says that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much and then he gives the example of Elijah and where it says that he had a nature, he begins by saying he had a nature like ours. That's an encouragement. And then he says this, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth, on the land for three years and six months. God worked in His sovereign plan through the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man to change the course of nature and it did not reign for three years and six months.

I say that to encourage you to the powerful influence of prayer before Almighty God that when we pray we pray believing that God's will will be done and that we pray not for little things. I mean if I was Elijah I said Lord just can you not cause it to rain the rest of the day. Three years and six months he prayed that it would not rain. It did not rain. I fear that our prayers are too small.

I want to increase your faith in what you pray for. Praying for the salvation of souls and for reaching nations with the gospel and for bringing personal healing into your life if that be the will of the Lord as opposed to a love token. So may you be encouraged and exhorted to pray because God answers the prayers, the fervent and effective prayers of a righteous man. They avail much. And then it says, and he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit." One commentator noted, if confident prayer from a righteous man can become with God a means of controlling the forces of nature, how much more will the prayer of faith be used by him to restore health to the body and spirit to the fellow Christian?

Brothers and sisters, let us become Christians who are godly and prayerful, with fervency and desiring the will of the Lord to be done, and that God would show us the effectiveness of our prayers, so that it would encourage us to pray more. I believe that this intimacy of mutual prayer and supplication in the early church community is really what knitted their hearts together and what calls the world to note their love for one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another. So as we come to this prayer week and our hearts are knitted together, I pray that the lost world would take note of the mutual love of this church and for each of us and the power of the Holy Spirit to be working in our lives and may the same be true among each of us and our brethren within this church and other churches and may God be glorified when he avails much through our prayer. Let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, Lord we just pray that you would cause us to pray. Lord encourage us to pray. Lord give us faith to pray. Lord apart from you we can do nothing. So Lord, I pray that you would give us hearts to be humble and confess our sins, that you would cause us to swallow our pride if we need to and go to a brother or sister and make things right.

Lord, that we would clear the pathway this week as we approach this week of prayer so that our prayers would be the prayers of a righteous person, not righteous in ourselves, but bearing the righteousness of our Savior, the great gift of salvation that you have given us through his blood and that we would be praying that you would be glorified in answering these prayers. Lord that we would see souls saved even within this congregation, that we would see lives turned around, that we would see people delivered from bondage, that we would see victory in their lives over sin. So Lord would you please answer these prayers and continue to do so Lord and increase our faith in them we pray in Christ's name. Amen.