Everyday Faith | Week 6 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

amen and amen. Have you ever had a boss that you just were like, man, I I just don't I don't like this person very much. You have anybody ever been there before? I mean, don't point at them if they're here at church with you right now, but,

yeah, man. I I had a season where I had this new boss. Again, I was working for AT and T back in the day. Do you remember when AT and T was the only place you could go if you wanted an iPhone and you knew, like, I was gonna get an iPhone and terrible service, but there was nothing I could do about it because AT and T had the exclusive rights to the iPhone for a long time. That's when I was I was, you know, selling. And sales was just a a perfect match for me. Like, I just I love talking to people. I love technology, and so sales became like this perfect match. And I I became pretty successful at them. Every year I was there, was in the top, you know, one or 2% in the nation. And every now and then when they would move, you know, people and managers around to my store, they would walk in and I'd like, hey man, welcome. I'm a big deal around here if nobody's told you. You're

welcome for how awesome I am. I'm in my early 20s making more money than I've ever made before thinking that I'm a big deal because I'm a top salesperson.

Well then they brought this manager in by the name of Joe and Joe walked in in this brand new BMW that he had just cleaned. The guy would like clean it every other day. He was like super OCD. Clothes were perfectly pressed and

from day one, Joe and I were like oil and water. And he walked in and was a ginger, and so was like, I know I can't trust this guy because he doesn't have a soul, know, so like there's that that whole part of it, and obviously I'm just joking, but Joe Joe was this guy that was like, man, he just ran stuff differently. And he was trying to get me to buy in to his way of thinking. And I just was I was so resistant because a lot of it, just honestly, I just was arrogant. And God was still working some stuff out in my heart. And I remember, again, I was also a brand new Christian. I was kind of asking God, like, God, how do I navigate through this? And I just feel like the Lord kept reminding me that I've put people in positions of leadership over you that are supposed to be there, and they will make you more into the image of Christ if you'll if you'll allow them to. And so I just I just kinda stopped fighting him. I just started to do what he asked me to do, and Joe honestly taught me a lot of things that I still carry with me today. Some of the most important lessons of how how do you lead when you don't have the title of manager? How do you lead from influence and not position?

All things that I've carried with me, and the really amazing part is to this day Joe's one of my really good friends. I got to go out and do his wedding, and him and his wife who he met in our store as well, They've got three little ginger kids that are running around that are amazing. And

the reason that that I start there is I I've learned over the years that often what God will do as he's trying to smooth out some of the rough edges that we have in our personality and in our life, that God will often bring a circumstance, a a person, a situation

that sometimes is disguised as frustration because God God is trying to use those things. The friction is what causes

change. But what James is going to show us today is he kinda ends the whole book, ties a bow on the whole series. James is going to remind us that one of the greatest tools that God has given us is this thing called prayer.

But often the reason that we don't we don't pray as much as we know we should is because we don't really understand the why behind it, and we think that prayer is primarily about changing things in our life, and I wanna show you today that that prayer has less to do with changing things in our life and it has much more to do with changing who we are. What James has been showing us this whole series is what what real faith is, what actual livable faith, not dead faith, what real faith is. And today,

he's going to remind us of a simple thing when it comes to prayer, that if you want a faith that works, you need prayer that works.

That if we want a faith that is real, that works, it's applicable in our marriage, in our jobs, in our lives, What James is going to remind us is the anchor that God will use to continue to grow us is this thing called prayer. James chapter five verse 13 is where we begin today.

James says, are any of you suffering hardships?

You should pray. Are any of you happy? You you should sing praises, which is just another form of corporate prayer. He says, are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you've committed any sins, you will be you will be forgiven.

James says that you and I will have to learn

this thing about life, that when you're on the mountaintop of life and everything is amazing, you gotta learn to pray. When life is falling apart and you are at the very bottom of life and it feels like the very foundation is falling out from underneath you, we've got to learn the discipline and the pattern of of prayer. What James is remembering or what he's reminding us of is that we are we are led by this thing called our heart, which is incredibly fickle.

It lies to us. It deceives us, and it will trick you into thinking that when things are amazing in your life and you've achieved success,

it's because of your brilliance and your ability, and James is reminding us, no. No. No. The blessings that we have are from God. We go to God in prayer when things are good to remind our hearts, I didn't do this. I didn't earn this. I'm not an owner. I'm just a steward. God, help me remember when things are incredible

that you are still with me and to remind myself to be thankful. And then he says when things are really difficult,

when it feels like the temptation is to believe and think that God has left you and God has abandoned you, he says don't don't let your heart go there because the scriptures are true that God is always with us. And the scriptures go so far to say that when we're broken in spirit, when our hearts are heavy, that God draws nearer

to us. James is reminding us that in all seasons, we've got to learn to be people who pray because again, here's the why. The why is that God is primarily concerned about who we are, not necessarily what we do and what we're accomplishing,

and prayer is the vehicle that God will use to change us, But the danger is is we've been told, we've been sold kind of a bill of goods, that what prayer is is a way to change things about your circumstances.

And truthfully, I think the reason that the the majority of us, our our prayer life is, you know, it's summarized in just a a couple moments before a meal at best where we, you know, sit down and we eat a Big Mac and we ask god to bless us through the nourishment of our body, and god's in heaven like, bro, I can't help you. Right? Like, there's nothing this thing I I can't do anything about this thing to make it bless you. Right? And sometimes that's all our our prayer is. Why? Because some of us have tried to pray for things and they they didn't change. The marriage didn't get better. It got worse. The sickness didn't get better. It got worse. But what if

what if prayer had less to do about changing things in our circumstances and had more to do with actually

changing us? I wrote it down this way if you're taking notes that prayer isn't just about changing things, it's about changing you. The number one thing that God wants to change in all of us is us.

The beautiful process of sanctification is going through a process submitted to the Holy Spirit where we are slowly made into the image of Christ and the rough edges that we have are are sanded away. The vehicle that God often used to do that is this thing called prayer.

Verse 15, we read a verse there that, you know, I kinda just skimmed over, but it is one of the most controversial and debated verses in all of the Bible. It's one that if I were to say that I've seen misapplied the most of out of almost any verse, it's this one.

Because James says in verse 15 that such a prayer offered in faith, it will heal the sick and the lord will make you well. And you and if you've committed any sins, you will be forgiven. James says that if you pray in faith that God will answer that prayer and you will be better.

And the problem is is maybe you've been in a church culture or a context where somebody has said something like that, where they've told you if you're praying for something, if you're praying for healing and it's not happening, the problem is not with God, the problem is with you. And if you had enough faith,

God would heal. So the problem is we sit back and we go, okay, God, give me give me enough faith. How do I have enough faith? And then we we we try to pray and God doesn't move and we go, what what what's happening? And sometimes these verses get so taken out of context and completely bastardized that we give them to people and they try to apply them to their life, then all of a sudden they're being told you're the reason that God's not moving.

And the problem is is it creates one of two results. Option one is we become the people that walk around and we start to say like, there's this lady that pops up on my Instagram for you. Every time I see her, I get angry because she's like through Instagram

decreeing and declaring that the sickness in your body has to leave, and the cancer cells right now in the name of Jesus are dissolving right now by the authority that I have in Jesus. And I'm looking at her like, somebody should tell this lady that she's crazy. Right? Like, you you don't see anybody in the bible praying like this. And James is not saying that you and I now because we know who God is that we can sit back and be like a Jedi and go, okay, you're now healed and we like with the force, we force sickness out of people's bodies.

And the problem is when we tell people that's how it works, what happens when you pray for a healing and it doesn't happen? What happens when you pray for God to heal a cancer that God had a different plan in and that sometimes God's healing looks like our earthly the scriptures refer to these bodies as tents,

these temporary dwellings. God plan God's plan from the beginning

was that he was going to heal them, but it just was gonna look different than we thought it was going to look. He was going to allow their earthly bodies to come to its natural end so that they could go with him into eternity into their new body. Sometimes that's what God's healing looks like, but when we sit back and tell people, no, no, no, God heals this way. I was in a room a couple months ago,

well intended Christians trying to pray in faith literally told a guy that came forward for prayer with asthma, they told him, you, in the name of Jesus, you've been healed. Now take your your inhaler and throw it away as an act of faith.

And I was like, that's not wise. He's getting on a plane later in elevation and breathing. Like, it's kind of a big deal.

I think sometimes because we're trying to live in this tension, you and I as humans, we don't do good with problems that are not black and white. We want it to be, yes. This is what it says every single time, but it's just not true. If you go and read the gospels in the New Testament, you'll find a couple interesting things.

The apostles, the guys closest to Jesus, there was multiple times where they actually couldn't remove a demon from somebody. They couldn't heal somebody. There's a time where Paul, the guy that writes the majority of the New Testament, he had to leave a sick friend behind to continue on his missionary journey.

If what James was implying here is that you and I can conjure up enough faith and just heal people whenever we want, then what are we talking about in these verses that happened with Paul and the early apostles? What James is talking about is something totally different

and what we've gotta be careful with is to not swing the pendulum to one end of the spectrum or the other. Now again, I think what is just as dangerous is the people who go, you know what? Well, God's will, God's plan on this earth is gonna happen no matter what we do.

James is not saying, do we just sit back and we're just passive and we don't actually try to get God to move and change his mind about things and to heal because God's will is sovereign, and we just sit back and we're subject to it. No. No. No. There there's a there's a beautiful balance in the middle of this whole thing that we're supposed to search for, that we're supposed to fight for. I wrote it down this way. I think this is our responsibility that you and I are supposed to learn to live into. We are people who pray with bold faith,

but then we rest in God's wisdom. We pray with bold faith, asking asking God to heal a 100% of the time. Yes and amen.

But then we're also wise enough to go, God, your plans are higher than our plans. Your ways are higher than our ways, and we trust that you know what you're doing. I love this quote from Jen Wilkin where she says that the prayer of faith, it is a faith not in a particular outcome, but in the God of all outcomes.

If prayer, if the primary reason that James is imploring us to pray is not necessarily to change things in our life, but it is to change us, it begins to reframe what a prayer of faith is. It's a prayer not in a specific outcome, but it's a prayer that goes, God help me trust you regardless of whatever outcome comes

because you are in control. You know what you're doing. You are good, and I and I trust you. And what James is starting to do is he's going to build to now the healing that all of us need. Because here's the truth, even if you are here today and your body's riddled with cancer and we bring you up forward and we we pray and the cancer is supernaturally healed, I believe can happen,

the truth is you're still gonna die from something else later in life. It doesn't matter how much we pray and how many sicknesses we overcome, eventually we run out of time.

And all of us, whether it's eight years, eighty years, or a hundred and eighty years with some amazing medicine or something, all of us are going to meet our natural end.

And what James is saying is that the healing that we really need is found on the other side of not praying for physical healing, but spiritual healing. Here's how he continues in verse 16.

He says, confess sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Here it is. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Here's why we have a prayer team down here after every single service because we believe that the book of James is true, that the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. We believe in the power of prayer.

But James also tells us that sometimes the breakthrough that we need is not asking God to forgive us of our sins.

See, here's the truth of what I know sitting in this room right now is there's people who are here, man. You you've been battling the same thing for years and years and years, months and months and months.

You have been shackled to whatever the sin is in your life that the scripture says so easily entangles us. And I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's overspending. I don't know if it's pornography, if it's drugs, if it's alcohol, if it's if it's lust. I I don't know what it is, but the truth is is I know that there are people who are sitting here who you are in bondage

and you've asked God to forgive you for this sin multiple times. You've prayed for God. You've prayed to God to change the circumstances of your life to help you get victory in this area yet still you find yourself stuck. James says it's because we haven't done what the scriptures say we need to do to find freedom.

See, this is the danger when we allow the enemy to tell us that that faith is something that's supposed to be personal.

Just so you know, following Jesus here's why I love baptism, is because all the people who've prayed a private prayer to accept Jesus into their heart, it's where they stand up and they go public with their faith. Why? Because prayer and a relationship with Jesus, it was always meant to be personal but never private.

It's not something we're supposed to be in the shadows. It's not something we're supposed to be on Sunday mornings when we're around other people who are like us, but then on Monday through Friday, man, you just become a chameleon. You adapt into your world. James says that's a way that you will be stuck in a pattern of having enough of this world to feel guilt or enough of Jesus to feel guilty and to feel conviction,

but enough of this world to still be stuck in shame in a cycle of despair that you can't get out of. But he gives us the keys in verse 16 of how to break the bondage that sin has over us. See, we ask God when we pray to God, we get forgiveness. The scripture say when you when you confess your sins to God, he can he actually begins to separate your sin as far as the East is from the West. He remembers it no more and he sees the perfection of Jesus when he looks at you,

but it's still not enough for you to get victory in that area. You've got to do what James just told us to do here in verse 16. See, it's confession to God that forgives you, but it's confession to others that frees you. He says at some point, you've gotta be willing to talk about that thing that you're struggling with.

At some point, you've gotta find somebody. It's why Christian community is so important. I'm starting a series next week talking about the the the people we spend the most time with, looking at the life of David.

Before God could ever make him a king, he had to get him around a group of different people. He had to change the relationships that he was around to prepare him for the calling and anointing on his life, yet you and I think that we can live out the calling that God has put on our life with having the wrong friends in our life.

It's a lie. You need people that will accept you when you go, man, hey. I've made a mistake, and they'll go, me me too. Some of you, this is all you need to hear this morning. Your practical so what, your takeaway is you've got to be willing

at some point to say, you know what? I'm not gonna try to do this in my own power any longer. It's been months. It's been years, and you thought you could do this on your own. I'm telling you, you can't. The power of sin is just too great over us. But here's the beauty of scripture,

is that if you will bring that thing from the darkness into the light and talk to somebody else about it, let somebody else pray for you, you can begin to walk in freedom. The chains that you've been enslaved to can begin to be broken and fall off of you in the name of Jesus.

That's what James is talking about, what prayer is supposed to be, something that ushers in freedom. Now here's where James is gonna kinda end this whole thing, and he does it as a great communicator should do with an example. He's going to illustrate it for us. What does a powerful prayer life look like? James goes back into history, into the Old Testament, and he talks about a guy named Elijah. K. Verse 17,

he says, Elijah was as human as we are. The reason that he has to say that is he knows what's about to come next.

Our natural temptation will to be like, there's no way that a normal human could do that. Elijah had to be like a better version of us or maybe he was like Jesus where he was part God, part part human, but James goes, no. No. No. He was just a guy. He was just a human that had learned the power and the potential of prayer, and yet he says, and yet when he prayed earnestly

that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years. Then when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. I know I'm the only person that's here that wishes this, but there's sometimes I wish I had three hours to unpack all of the stuff that these scriptures say. What James just laid out in two verses is like mind blowing stuff. He goes back to this guy named Elijah. If you got time this week, go to first first Kings chapter seventeen and eighteen and read the story that James is alluding to here. He's talking about a prophet that lived during the old testament, and Elijah got to experience some of the most incredible

supernatural feats of God that we see almost anywhere in the Bible. There was one point where he was in this contest against these other prophets that were representing all these other gods that were trying to figure out how to show their god's power. And for hours and hours and hours, they were trying to get their god to rain fire down from heaven. They couldn't do it. And Elijah stands up and he goes, you guys wanna see something sweet? God hit him with fire. And literally, the scripture say fire comes flooding down from heaven and burns everything on the altar including all the prophets. And they were like, that was gangster. Right? Like, talk about an amazing move.

He talks about Elijah's face here. He says, Elisha prayed earnestly. If you'll read the story, took seven times. Seven times he was contending in prayer for God to move. And what was he asking him to do? He was asking him to make it stop raining.

You're like, he was probably in Arizona, that's why we don't get much rain out here. Right? It's

one of those crazy like why would Elijah ask for God to make it stop raining? Know? Like my cynical nature, when I read this, I'm like, he probably had a water business and he was selling them waters. He was like, God, stop the water so you gotta buy it from me. It's one of those stories that when you read it in the scriptures, you're like, what what is happening here? What are we talking about?

But if you're gonna go and look into this, what is taking place? What is James alluding to? What was Elisha doing here in this section of scripture? He was actually praying in alignment with what the scriptures had talked about.

Again, Elijah was a prophet to the nation of Israel when they were living in the promised land. Remember the the nation of Israel, they wandered in the desert for forty years after they got out of Egypt and Moses led them and they just struggled in the desert, but eventually they got to the promised land. And Moses recorded for them. Here's an instruction manual on how to continue to thrive. Here's how to make sure you don't fall into the same traps that we've fallen into. Here's how to live into the prosperity of God and not live down to our sinful nature. He records

most of this instruction manual in a book called Deuteronomy.

K. If you go read Deuteronomy chapter 11, Elijah's prayer starts to make much more sense. Look at what Deuteronomy chapter 11 verse 16 says. He says, but be careful. Again, this is a warning. He says, don't let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods. If you do,

the Lord's anger will burn against you. And here it is, he will shut up the sky and hold back the rain and the ground will fail to produce its harvest. Then you will quickly die and in that good land the lord is that the lord is giving you.

Here's what Elijah was doing. It's powerful if you can see it. Elijah had saturated his mind and his heart with the word of God. He knew what God was doing on the earth today and he was watching the nation of Israel

not listen to the warning that God had given them and they were starting to repeat the same cycles that they had done before. They were starting to go away from the promises that God had given them. They were starting to build their own kingdoms again and so what does Elijah the prophet do? He begins to remember what God said he was gonna do through Moses.

He says, if you go out and you start doing your own thing and building your own life and running away from me and forgetting about who I am, God who's in heaven who's good and gracious and loving and kind out of compassion and out of mercy, eventually.

Eventually, if you will not learn the lesson he's trying to teach you in a season that is good, eventually, God will allow one of the greatest teachers that he has. It's called pain. And he will allow the circumstances to change, and he will allow some difficulty and trial and hardship to come into your life. Why?

Because it's often only when we experience hardship that we're drawn to our knees again and begin to look up and go, god, god, how have I gotten it so wrong again? So Elijah's watching the nation of Israel run away from God and he begins to pray in accordance with the scriptures going, God,

would you stop it from raining? Why would he ask them to make it not rain? Because this was an agricultural economy. He was going after the thing that has always been from day one, our greatest God besides the God in heaven, our resources, our finances, and and our our ability to be self sufficient.

God shuts off the ability for them to grow crops and to make money, bringing the nation of Israel again to its knees so that there can be revival again in the nation of Israel. All of this to say, what's the so what? Why does any of this matter for us sitting here today?

What James is trying to get us to see, what I'm hoping that we can see this morning is that you and I, we are just like Elijah. We are humans that have the ability to move the spirit of God on the earth today.

We have the ability to bring revival seasons to our nation if we can begin to wrap our heads and our hearts around what God is doing on the earth today. So the question is is what what is God doing on the earth today? How do we do this?

It's pretty simple. We gotta start by reading our bible. K? You've gotta read the bible so that you know what God is doing today, and then at some point, you've gotta begin to pray. You've gotta open your mouth. What Elijah was doing is he was simply opening his mouth in agreement with what God had revealed in scripture. This is what real powerful prayer is, is when you're praying in agreement and in alignment with what has been revealed to us in scripture. And here it is. If you read your bible and then open your mouth, what the scripture says is that God will then open up the heavens. If you wanna watch revival happen in your community, in your families, in your circle of influence,

read the bible and open up your mouth. When we see things in the scripture like the book of Joel says there's gonna be a day that comes where God is going to pour out his spirit on all people.

We read in the book of acts that God says that anybody that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The book of Romans says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you you will be saved. The question is is what does God care about? What is God doing on the earth today? I believe with everything in me, you and I are living in one of the most important critical junctures in history.

That there is there's so many different metrics that I could show you to prove to you the kindling of revival in our nation is all around. The makings for another major move of God's spirit is here, and I'm telling you, we're living in it.

Our church is six months old. We've had over a thousand people say yes to Jesus. We have four services. This service we're sitting in is the least attended of all four that we did today.

I don't say that as a pat on the back. I say that to say God is doing something incredibly special in our nation right now. The question is maybe maybe the revival that God is trying to pour out on this on the nation again,

it's not happening yet because God is waiting for the people of God to step up and remember who we are.

To remember our part to play in this thing, to be the Elijahs of our generation,

that you and I, the reason that we don't pray is because we've we've not yet learned how to pray like this and I'm telling you, if you can pray prayers like this and begin to watch the heart of God move people in your life, man, it changes everything.

James says here's kind of the so what. The last two verses that he has in the chapter five, he tells us this is the practical thing that you and I can begin to to live into. He says, my dear brothers and sisters, if someone

among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins. He says there's people who are wandering away,

and it implies that there's somebody who's a part of the process, obviously, in communion and in conjunction with the holy spirit, but God uses you and I to be a part of the rescue mission of humanity.

So the question is is who in your circle of influence is in active rebellion to God, and how do we begin to pray prayers that go, God, God, would you give me an opportunity to speak to my neighbor?

God, would you create an opportunity over dinner for me to have a conversation to talk about what you've done in my life? You know the book of Revelation says the things that breaks the power that the enemy has over us? There's two things. It says it's the blood of Jesus,

and then secondly, it's the power of your testimony. What God has done in your life is the greatest evidence that you have to an unbelieving world.

The question is is will you be bold enough to share it? Will you be bold enough to be the person that's willing to talk to your neighbors about what God has done in your life? Why are you coming to church every single Sunday? Why are you doing this stuff?

I'm telling you, as we begin to see go read the scriptures. It's one of those mind blowing things to me, if I'm honest. There's not a single story in the Bible where God uses an angel to save a human. At any point, if God sent an angel to encounter and experience a human, he tells him to go talk to another human.

And sharing the message of the hope that can be found in Jesus and Jesus alone is something that you and I as people have been uniquely burdened with. It is our responsibility on the earth today. We are the stewards of the greatest message that the world has ever heard. But the question is the question is is will you say yes to being used by God? Will you say yes to allowing God to move through you? Because here's the most exciting thing for me. There's only one prayer that I see in the Bible that God says yes to every single time. I I wish I could tell you that every prayer you pray that God would say yes to, but I can tell you that there's one that I guarantee you he will say yes to. It's the prayer of confession. It's the prayer of repentance.

If you look at Romans chapter 10 verse nine, it says that if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God. It is by openly declaring your faith that you have been saved.

As the scriptures tell us, anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord who gives generously to all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. When we realize

what a mess we've made of our life and we ask Jesus to come into our hearts to set us free, to make us brand new, he says, you will be saved. If you knock, he'll open. If you seek him, you will find him. Amen?