James 5: 16-20 Confession, Passion, and Mercy

The Alley Church Podcast

James 5: (16) Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (17) Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! (18) Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

(19) My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, (20) 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.

Review: Last week we talked about being a singing, healing and praying church. When we are happy let’s praise Him, When we are hurting, and going through hardship, let’s praise Him. And when one of our church family is sick physically or spiritually, let’s pray! And if someone wants to call some of us to pray over them let’s do it with faith and in purity.
How many of you caught yourself in “oath” taking, “I swear”, “I promise”, etc. We have laughed with a few of you with your fun stories. Like I said last Sunday, I had done the same that very morning.

But once you’re aware of it, you can change it. I don’t think I’ve done it once this week. Progress!

We started to unpack this entire section of verses on prayer, (when we’re happy, hurting and sick) in vs 14-15 and now we hit vs.16. We said anytime you are going to have the elders in the church pray for you there are 3 things to consider:

1. Prayer of faith - very specific, direct, ASKING God not commanding.
2. Anoint with oil - Oil is a symbol of The Holy Spirit AND Medical Arts
3. Confession of Sin / forgiveness - which we will dive deep into today.

* Major point from Barclay, “no person can know any health of either soul, or mind, or body until that person is right with God.” repeat