I heard a sermon recently from Pastor Jonathan Pokluda. Before he became a christian, he struggled with a lot of issues and poor decisions. In this sermon JP told a story of a time where he was doing things he shouldn’t have been doing and it ended up getting him arrested. He ends up sitting in this jail cell with a stranger who doesn’t even speak english, so he can’t even ask him what he is in for. As you can imagine he is probably pretty freaked out. But eventually an officer shows up and starts to let him out of the cell. So JP is stoked, he’s thinking he is free to go! But the officer goes “No you need to make a phone call.” And JP is like “Who am I going to call??” So he denies the phone call but the officer insists “No man you gotta call someone you gotta take the phone call.” and JP is like “No seriously who would I call?” And the officer says “You gotta call your dad.” and he is like uhhh no I am definitely not calling my dad.
Pause for a second. Why wouldn’t he want to call his dad? Because he didn’t want to face him. He had this whole list of reasons not to call his dad. He is thinking his dad would be disappointed, he might be angry, he is gonna get a lecture from his dad. Then he starts thinking “My dad doesn’t have time for this. He has other things going on. He doesn't need to deal with this. I don’t even know if my dad would know how to deal with this.” and then he starts thinking “You know what I can handle this. I don’t need to tell him. I got this.”
For those reasons he thought I do not need to call my father. And if we think about it a lot of the time those are the same reasons that we do not talk to our Heavenly Father. If you are a Christian you have direct access to the God of the universe, to your Heavenly Father. You can talk to Him about anything and everything. The question is why don’t you?
I think the answer can be found in the same reasons JP wouldn’t call his dad. We don’t talk to God because we are worried about what he might say. We think He will be disappointed or angry with us. We worry what He will think so we avoid the conversation all together. That or we don’t think He can handle it. We don’t go to Him because it’s easier in our minds to just figure it out on our own. Some of us don’t pray because we don’t know that it will work. We don’t know that God will come through so we don’t try.
Whatever our reason is for not praying, not talking to our Heavenly Father. We have to know that those excuses are causing us to miss out. You may not realize it but there is a deep, powerful, authentic relationship with God that is found on the other side of taking prayer seriously, and we are missing it.
We have been studying the book of James over the last month and as we wrap that up today, I want to talk to you about prayer. James has covered all kinds of topics in his letter to the church. He has encouraged them to trust God in the face of trials, to do what the Bible says, to watch their words and now as he closes out his letter, he leaves them with this message. James 5:13-14 says,
“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
To summarize, James is saying whatever happens pray. Talk to God. Pray for others, pray for yourself and specifically pray with faith. Faith that God is going to answer your prayers and that He knows what He is doing.
Now I want to be clear. Praying with faith is not praying with the assumption that God is going to give you exactly what you want when you want it. Praying with faith is believing that God is trustworthy. Meaning no matter how He answers your prayers it is okay. Even if you don’t love it. Because the truth is we might not always like what God has to say. Because he doesn’t answer every question with a yes. We believe he answers every prayer with yes, no or not yet.
As a follower of Jesus it is so important to understand that you are not always going to get what you want. And you shouldn’t. Because we do not know as much as we think we do. We may want something really bad and not see that it would be bad for us. But God does see it. God knows you better than you know yourself and He knows what you need better than you do. So you gotta trust Him.
But trusting God starts with talking to Him. Trusting God starts with taking your needs and wants and fears and telling him about them. Start actually talking to Him and see what He says. And I promise you will see over time, that God is trustworthy and He is worth putting your faith in.
CONSETRATIONNEEDS:SETUP: 2 circle of students DIRECTIONS:
*Before you get started ask your students how they did with the new testament reading challenge. If students are struggling consider starting a group chat to help each other*
1. How often do you talk to God? What does it look like when you talk to God?
2. If you don’t pray very often, why do you think that is? What is stopping you?
3. In your own words, what does it mean to pray with faith?
4. Are there any areas in your life that are hard for you to pray about?
a. As a group take some time to pray for those specific things.
BIBLE STUDY
*NOTE* For younger groups, if you feel they aren’t ready for a full soap journal, encourage them to read through the passage and write down 1. Anything that sticks out to them. 2. Any questions they have from the passage. 3. What they think God wants them to learn from that passage. Then talk over it as a group
1. Last week we learned the SOAP method for studying the Bible. Let’s apply that today as a group to James chapter 5.Open up your journal and write out S: O:A:P:
2. First let’s pray and ask God to show us what we need to learn about Him or His Word today.
3. We’ll start by taking 10 minutes to read James chapter 1. Don’t rush through it but take your time to understand and look for one verse that sticks out to you. *read for 10 minutes*
2. Now that we have read, let’s take 10 minutes to journal. You will start by writing down the verse or verses that stuck out to you in the scripture section. Then write your observation, application and prayer. Remember don’t rush, really take the time to see what God has for you. Questions for observation:
Question for application:
5. Now let’s take a few minutes to share with the group what we learned. *be prepared to dive into any questions and gently correct any confusion or misunderstandings. If you come to a question you don’t know the answer to, remember it is ok to say “I don’t know, let’s find out together!”
MOVING FORWARD
Before we started our Bible study we talked about the things in our lives that are hard to pray about. Let’s take time to pray about them now.
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