“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16b
Introduction:
Have you ever thought about how you smell to God?
(Revelation 5:8) “golden bowls of incense are prayers of the saints.”
Prayer is a conversation between you and God. God loves you and your conversations with Him so much that He keeps them in bowls in Heaven.
God Invites You to Seek His Throne. “Pray”
Make no mistake; God desires you to come to Him and depend upon Him. “God knows you most intimately and loves you more than anyone!”[1] You are created in His image, male and female,[2] God has placed “eternity” in your heart and written His Law upon your conscience.[3] God knows the perils before you. Daniel says, “God knows what lies in the darkness.”[4] He knows the destructive work of evil. Satan, like a thief, comes to steal, kill and destroy![5] But God calls us to life and freedom by placing our trust in the completed work of Jesus on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension forty days after His resurrection.[6] Jesus’ ascension to the throne at the Right Hand of God the Father makes prayer possible and powerful!
How do you smell to God? The difference between the smell of death and the sweet perfume of life is You opening your heart up to the Lord!
Today, God is inviting you to His throne! He deeply desires to hear your heart and for you to hear His by inviting His Word into your heart, comprehending it, and aligning every area of your life with His counsel.[7]
God Invokes You to Pray Powerfully – “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
James 5:16b gives us a formula or a specific technique that, when carried out, has the ability to do something great it “avails much!”
This is revealed by the two verbs in the short verse. “effectual” and “avails.” “Effectual” is the Greek Word “ἐνεργέω”; the English Word “energy” comes from this word. This verb is the cause of function, “the person praying” – you have come here today!
This verb is in the Greek middle voice clarifying that prayer carried out in this specific “modus operandi,” process or formula of prayer, results in the success of it “availing much.”
The technique is critical! You know that when you exercise, it is important to pay attention to the precise methods of the exercise so that it has the most significant impact on your intended muscle! The technique is critical!
The other verb, “avails much,” declares the successful result!
This formula has the sufficiency to rise up and meet “much, “not just any need, but “many, great, and abundant.” The word “much,” Greek πολύς, from which our English word “poly” comes, has a Bible usage describing loud and long cries of sorrow, deep grievous burdens, numerous needs, and in reference to extent or magnitude “great!”
- The verb, avails, ἰσχύω, pronounced IS-Ku-oo, clarifies “the power of this kind of praying,” to be that which brings real, at hand, able and sufficient power to meet the significant needs you are bringing to the throne of God!
- Bottom line: This “formula of praying” can lift the greatest burdens, is sufficient to meet the most numerous of cares and taps the abundant power to meet the greatest needs.
What is the technique?
- A Genuine Entreaty of God believing He alone can bring the solution.
Six different Greek words are used for prayer in the New Testament.
James, guided by the Holy Spirit, chose the Greek Word, δέησις, pronounced “deesis,” for prayer in our theme text.
- “Deesis” prayers are a genuine entreaty of God.
- “Deesis prayers” arise from one’s sense of need and knowing what is lacking.
- The context, James 5: bears witness to this by the person being sick needed healing and the need for it not to rain and to rain.
- Two things of great concern and out of our control!
Practically: Today, you may come crying out to God for our nation, knowing America needs revival! You see the need. And you see what is lacking. So, you pray, “Lord turn the USA back to ‘God dependency.'” That is “deesis,” praying, your expression to God of the need and what is lacking.
But the most crucial aspect of prayer that avails much is the prepositional phrase “of a righteous man.”
2. Trust God by placing yourself under the authority of God’s Word and aligning your life’s choices with His.
This is a heart to follow God – be God-dependent!
“The issues that face …our nation are not solvable in government, are not solvable in our own strength, they are only solvable from the wisdom and discernment from above. And God clearly states in His Word that when we bring these things to Him, and we honestly seek His voice and His discernment, He will answer our prayers!” Governor Joe and Sarah Stitt, Oklahoma
The Context of James affirms what “in righteousness” means.
· Righteous throughout scripture means “pertaining to being in accordance to what God requires.” This word is used 78 times in the New Testament, and for something to be “dikaios,” the Greek Word used here, it must be in accordance with God’s law.
· Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount proclaimed that this is not popular in the world. Matthew 5:10 states: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
· “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he looked at himself and has gone away, he immediately forgot what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:23-25.
· James chapter two summarizes this integration of the Word of God into our lives with the phrase, “Faith without works is dead.”
o The alignment under God’s authority produces the actions of loving your neighbor, not showing partiality, ministering to the poor, showing mercy, being sexually pure, respecting the sanctity of human life, and guarding your tongue.
o It demands the prioritizing of heavenly wisdom over earthly wisdom. Earthly wisdom, described in this text, promotes disorder, jealousy, and selfish ambition.
God Initiates POWERFUL CHANGE
“Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotent God.” – Charles H. Spurgeon
· In You – This prayer technique transforms your life!
o It calls us to personal repentance.
o “Pray in righteousness” demands a turning away from the culturally believed lie that I can live my life with “my own version of the truth.”
o It calls you to come with your heart open, saturating your mind with the perfect Law of Liberty, the Word of God. And when that happens, and you place your trust and obedience upon Truth, God can do the most incredible work in our hearts and lives.
o ACTION: God the great physician says to you trust Me! Trust me with your sexuality struggles, trust me with your marriage, trust me to raise your children, trust me with the worries and addictions that debilitate.
In Nations
Abraham Lincoln pointed to ‘God dependency,’ calling the nation to repentance.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon: and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord…
[For in the United States], we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. As no other nation has ever grown, we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power. BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD. WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THE GRACIOUS HAND which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that some superior wisdom and virtue of our own produced all these blessings. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us to humble ourselves before the offended Power, confess our national sins, and pray for clemency and forgiveness.”[8]
SKEPTICAL:
You may be a skeptic of prayer or God listening to your prayer or God at all. If that is you, you are in good company, for the human author of “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” was right where you are. He, along with Mary and his brothers, thought “Jesus was out of his mind” (Mark 3:21) and “He did not believe Him” (John 7:5).
But the Resurrection of Jesus bodily from the grave eliminated their skepticism.
After the crucifixion and resurrection, Mary and the brothers of Jesus gathered with the disciples in the Upper Room. (Acts 1:14)
James and Jude both wrote NT Books, and both were half-brothers of Jesus. But their books say nothing of being a brother, but both call themselves “his slaves.” A clear reference to the fact that the brother they grew up with was indeed the SON of GOD!
PRAYER DOES NOT PREPARE US FOR THE GREATER WORK; PRAYER IS THE GREATER WORK! – Oswald Chambers
