Northside Church - Sydney
I Heart This Place – Week 4: A Place of Care
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Good evening, great to have you with us. Well, last one of the series. You know, it was one of those moments in ministry that you just love happening and it doesn't happen all that often. But I was standing out in the foyer, it was a normal weekday, upturns this guy, dressed in the suit, classic sort of St Leonard's corporate, no tie, but the lanyard around the neck and the past to swap you in and out of the doors and so he was there and never met him before. In fact, I've never seen him since, but he just turned up and I could tell by the look on his face that something deep was going on for this guy. And he turned up and he just said to me, "Are you a pastor?" And I said, "Yeah, I am," and he said, "Look, can I just pray with you?" And so we said, "Sure, come in, auditorium was empty." We sat in one of these chairs just over here and we just sat together and he taught me through what was a great crisis in his life and that's where he said, "Yeah, look, I'm not one of those religious people, but can we just pray for a bit?" And of course, we did. Now, it didn't go up to a cafe up on Willoughby Road there, it didn't go to the ticket booth for City Rail at St. Leonard Station, asked for a bit of help with the guy on the other side of the window. He came to the church. Why is that? Because guys, look, I think instinctively, whether, look, whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian or you're religious or not religious, whatever you want to label yourself, I think people understand instinctively that the church is a place of care. It's a place of care where you can come and go and the world around you just fails to provide an answer to calm your soul and that was this guy's case and why I love this place, why I love this church and it's part of being part of the series that we've been talking about. I heart this place. I love the church because it is, it's a place of care. We'll see that tonight. It's also a place of stability under the word of God, a place of equals where favoritism is forbidden, a place that's different where relationships of grace give way to arguments and tonight it's a place of care. We see that pattern that emerges from the passages that we'll read from. Check this out, verse 13, "Anyone in trouble pray, anyone sick pray, prayer and faith will lift them up, confess and pray," verse 17, "a larger just like us and he prayed," and verse 18 it says, "and again he prayed," verses 13, "all the way, every single verse," so this passage tonight has the word pray in it. Now, have you got the pattern yet? Now, let me help you out, the answer to the theme here tonight is what does both James and MC Hammer agree on? We got to pray just to make it today. We got to pray. See, James starts this book with the problem of hardship and suffering. He ends chapter 5, the last one of his short book with exactly the same theme. That's why in verses 7 through to 13 he's talking about being patient in suffering. There's only one way that that is going to happen, that you're going to be able to endure that and that is by praying. So, what I want to say tonight is that a place of care is actually a place of prayer. And we'll see what James says about prayer tonight, three things that we'll learn from this passage will learn about the posture of prayer in your life, the purpose of prayer in your life and the power that prayer can have in your life. If you've got your Bibles with you, you can turn to James chapter 5, last one of the book, verses 13 through to 18. He says here, "Is any one of you in trouble? They should pray. Is anyone happy? We'll let them sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? Well, they should call the elders of the church and 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 and if they've sinned, they'll be forgiven, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you might be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. A gain he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops." This is the word of the Lord. Don't you like parties when you see how the guys and girls seem to find their own sorts of places to go and talk, different items that they go and talk about? I'm not trying to say anything sort of sexist here, but the girls end up inevitably having conversations around family stuff and food in particular and the guys get themselves around at least one piece of technology and they just start talking about that for the entire night. Look, I'm just throwing it out there, but recently at a dinner that I was having with some friends, the roles were sort of reversed. I mean, they're in the kitchen having a chat as the meal was being prepared and Kristen and his friend, the girls came out of the kitchen there and he was this guy and I and he's going to remain anonymous because he is a brother of ours here tonight. There we were sort of spread eagled on the lounge room floor, legs all over the place. My sort of butt was poking up in the air and we were doing yoga stretches. There was no technology in sight to be found and I was thinking, "What the heck is going on here?" You see, it's because he's been suffering all sorts of back problems and he's had a bit of an injury and so it was affecting his posture and so he was having to stretch because his posture was affecting everything that was happening in his life. And you see, look, just as your posture reveals the underlying tensions or imbalances in your skeletal and your muscular system, what we see tonight is that the posture of your prayer reveals the hope to which your heart is tethered to, to which your heart is joined to. The posture of your prayer, what do I mean by that? James says in verse 13, "Is anyone of you in trouble? Let them pray? Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise?" What's he saying here? I think first of all, it's a reflection of the state of the church at any one point in time, right? On one hand, there could be some of you tonight, there's a spectrum, some of you here could possibly be barely hanging on by a thread tonight and you know what it's even a wonder that you're sitting here tonight in this service because of the suffering and the trouble that you're enduring. And on the other hand, the person sitting next to you could be a ten out of ten, they're just chipper. They're like candy and fairy floss and pink butterflies and life is just wonderful, zippity doodah and that is not a bad thing either but in the first sense, verse 10 is a reflection of the spectrum of the church, right? Happy and sad but look, it also saying to us is that the posture of our prayer, the consistency of our prayer reveals what your heart is really focused upon. On one hand, lots of people praying in time to trouble, I mean even non-believers praying in time to trouble but when things go well, there's your heart default to a position of prayer. He says sing songs of praise, the word, underlying word was actually the word where we get the word Psalms from, it's a prayer of worship to God in good times that he's saying here and so the answer to that question, what is your heart to, is a revelation of where your heart really is, is your heart in your circumstances or is your heart in God? So what verse 13 means is to pray to God before you petition God and ask him stuff is actually a posture of your heart. You've got to train, you've got to stretch, you've got to yoga, right? Your heart, it's something you have to work on like standing straight and tall, what I mean? Have you ever had someone in your life that is consistently always asking you for stuff? Always asking you for stuff, you know, usually there's going to be one of two responses. Look, I'd love to help you out with that, I'd be honored to help you out. The other response is you're going to feel used and abused, why? Because look, the person who uses you as someone who only comes to you when they've got some form of need and they need money or they need help or they just need something from you. But the minute that things are going well for them, I hope you don't have people like this in your life, they nick off and they totally ignore you. You see, whenever everything is going well, they're just off and you don't see them. See the difference? One person loves you, the other person's using you, one person's serving you, the other person's abusing you. Now here's a question, how do you know what your prayer posture is like tonight? It's very simple, do you only pray in times of trouble? Do you pray as much as when you're happy or only when things are going real bad in your life? Do you have a posture at the heart of loving gratitude and grateful submission to God regardless of your circumstances? In other words, are you treating God the same way that you'd hate to be treated yourself? Only call on him when you need something rather than a consistent posture and love and gratitude towards him. What's your prayer posture like? You know you've got the right posture of prayer when you pray as much whether you're happy or whether you're sad. That's what I'm saying tonight. You know your prayer posture, a posture of loving gratitude that when in crisis, it turns to legitimate petition. There's nothing wrong with asking God for help, but at the other end of the spectrum when you're successful, you don't ignore him, it's praise of praise, of sarming, of worship, of gratitude. What's your prayer posture like? The posture of prayer. Then also we see the purpose of prayer, speaking of stretching and posture, some of you may not be aware, but I actually used to be a gymnast, yeah, I know. I can see the physique, it's that I was six years old at the time and I considered myself a bit of a prodigy in the gym because I was six and everyone else was ten and it was our turn. We were doing the rings. You know those big funny rings that hang from the roof and we were doing the rings and people were up there and I was watching these ten-year-olds and they're pulling themselves up and doing all that really fun sort of stuff where they all sorts of flips and that sort of thing and there I was at the Beacon Hill Memorial Hall and I'd been waiting and it was my turn and I jumped on a little board that sort of bounced up and grabbed the rings like that and as hard as I tried, as easy as it looked, I just couldn't do it. I knew all the ten-year-olds were watching me, they're going to laugh their heads off at me, this little chump can't do it and then, and so I tried harder and harder and then I thought I'm just going to give it one more big try and then it felt like I rocketed up towards the ceiling. I felt like I almost went through the roof, I went from straight up there and it was like I'd had this supernatural burst of strength until later and when I say later I mean like sixteen years later reflecting on this and what could have been for my gymnastic career, I realize that the only reason I shot to the roof like that is because the coach himself had gotten under my legs and sort of shoved me upwards. I was so focused on the rings I didn't feel his hands around my ankles throwing me towards the ceiling. Now what the heck has this got to do with church tonight? Guys, it's the role of the church to restore and lift up those who are weak. And when you look at verses 14 to 15 is anyone of you sick they should 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 and the Lord will raise their mouth like a gym coach. Now we can go a whole load of different directions here tonight with this passage, it's just a tricky passage to interpret and I'm not trying to get out of it but there's lots of different questions that arise out of this next section of the passage. Like for example, everyone who gets the prayer of the elders become healed because it sounds like that to me. There's another question, does sin cause sickness? Because it talks about confessing the sin and then they'll be healed. What's the oil got to do with it all? Look, I want to take the helicopter view of it all tonight and that would be a whole another series. Look what's really important here tonight is the word that James uses for sick, it's the Greek word estino, it means to be feeble, it means to be impotent, it means to be weak. In fact, it's the same word that Paul used when Mikey read out that passage of the Bible during offering tonight in 2 Corinthians 12 verse 10, he says, you know, this talk about a guy who copped an unanswered prayer, he says three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, this affliction that he had, but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Same word. Now if you read James chapter 5 in this context, doesn't it change the focus? It says here, is anyone of you weak? Anyone of you weak? You see, we can come to this place with all sorts of weaknesses, the pain of a broken relationship, the pain of no relationship, emotional turmoil, mental turmoil. That's the sort of trouble that James was referring to in verse 13 when he says pray to God with that. And what I love about this section of chapter 5 is that the passage is speaking to those of you tonight who have literally had it, you see, because it's one thing to pray in the middle of suffering, but I'm going to ask you the question tonight. What if you don't even want to pray in the middle of your suffering? What if you just don't even want to be part of the church and all that sort of stuff in suffering? The great news in this passage tonight is that this is why the church is a place of care because that is if you're weak, it is a role of your brothers and sisters, the church to bring you before the elders, to lift you up in prayer and not necessarily because these elders have the gift of some special healing and I'll do all sorts of funky stuff here. When you look at the qualifications that Paul gives for elders in Titus and 1 Timothy, it's simply because they're the spiritually strong and the mature of the church. So here's the important thing, James is saying if you're weak, go to the strong ones. You don't necessarily hear they're earthly wisdom, or they do have some earthly wisdom, but you go to them when you've hit rock bottom. You go to them when you're on your knees, when you need the spiritual strength to lift up your prayers, you go on when you can't pull yourself up on the rings anymore. You go there and their prayers made in faith will make you well. I call it the ET principle. You guys seen ET, Steven Spielberg, Masterpiece? If you have an ET, he's a funny looking little alien that comes down to earth and is picked up by Elliot and his sister, Drew Barrymore, and they befriend ET and throughout their relationship, they begin to help him learn how to speak, but as it gets towards the end of the film, they see that ET is starting to get sicker and sicker and sicker. So, poor little ET after a while begins to move into this trance like state where he keeps saying ET, phone, home, and as it goes on, Elliot's beginning to realise in his desperate attempts with ET, ET constructs a communication device out of a tin can and a funny old computer called a speaking spell, and it becomes apparent that ET's lack of communication with his homeland is the very thing that's making him sick, and so it was young Elliot's job, we've all seen the scene, you know, cue the music, la, la, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, it was Elliot's job to get ET in the basket and ride the bike and fly in and to bring ET before his elders, and so it is our role to do the same with the week in our church. Now this is a great opportunity for us to say something here tonight guys, is that this ministry that this passage talks about of the elders is something that we take very seriously here at Northside. The prayer of the eldership, you thought they were just up there for voting purposes to kick a few boxes tonight, but our eldership, the strong ones, live out this passage on a regular basis, if there's someone who is weak, we have people who's weak in relationships, weak in physical ailments, weak emotionally, weak mentally, and they are bought before the elders, and we read this passage to them in our boardroom, we sit there and the elders gather around, and we take the oil and we anoint them with oil, there's an opportunity for that person to confess their sins in confidence before the eldership, and then the elders along with the ministry team pray over them, it's something we do all the time in this place. Now ask any one of the team tonight, I guarantee they will tell you we have seen the most wonderful, miraculous examples of healing in people's life in this church through that ministry. This is the real deal. And so we are called as brothers and sisters to bring people before our eldership for this prayer of faith. Now it's not just the elders, verse 16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed, in short it means that all of us should be praying for each other, all of us on our way to church, all of us in the train on the way to work, all of us in the middle of the lunch break, in the back of the diary note, all of us in our connection groups, we are to be a place of care, and a place of care is a place of prayer." So the purpose of prayer guys in the context of community is not to appeal to God for your own needs, but to lift up your own brothers and sisters to restore people, to make them well, to lift them up like a five-year-old in his gym class who has no strength left. Take someone who's weak either prayerfully or practically to the strong ones in the church and lift them up to God in prayer so that he might heal them. Now there's a stack of other questions that we go on to tonight. Do they get healed every time? What happens if God doesn't hear my prayer? Love to go into it, but we just don't have the time, but all I'm asking tonight is in saying that we take this ministry seriously in this place. Do you need that? Do you want that? It's available every Sunday in this place, and I know the elders here would be happy in saying that that is open every Sunday in this place. That is the purpose of prayer in the context of community, to restore people, to lift them up. Finally, we've seen not only the posture, it's purpose, but we also see finally tonight guys the power of prayer. How long has it been since my last Star Wars illustration? I feel that it's been a while, Rob, and my... Oh yeah, it's been a while. Okay, good. All right. Yeah. Look, because I just think it's so applicable, Luke Skywalker having narrowly missed the clutches of the Empire and the Empire Strikes Back, Crash lands his X-Wing into the remote and swamp-like system called the Dagobar system. It's there in this swampy mess that is come up to the heights of the wings of his plane, no way out that Luke meets a funny little character called Yoda, and after spending some time with him in his funny little house and disgusting food, Yoda begins to instruct him in the ways of the mysterious ways of the Jedi Knights. In that process, Yoda begins to explain this mysterious force that when you call upon it, had the power to move objects and to change the environment around him. At the climax of his training, Yoda introduces Luke to his final challenge, and that is the plug he has X-Wing tie-fighter, this multi-ton piece of steel and metal, and to lift it out of this swamp that had engulfed it simply by using the power of the force. Luke looks at this seemingly impossible task. He says, "It's impossible, but all right, Yoda, I'll give it a try." And Yoda states quite sternly to him, he says, "Do or do not, there is no try." And Luke, of course, tries, he doesn't do, he fails at the whole process, but what we see, and again, how does this relate to the Bible, is that, look, prayer is a power of unimaginable proportions available to even the weakest of humans. I mean, if Star Wars was around at the time, James would have said, "Use the Force Church." And I guess he didn't need Star Wars, because that's why James uses the illustration of Elijah the prophet. He was sort of like the Luke Skywalker of the Old Testament. Elijah was a prophet, he was like one of the Jedi Knights, he was a man who was trying to escape the stormtroopers, which were called the prophets of Baal. And James uses this illustration, Elijah was a man just like us, he prayed earnestly and it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. And again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops. You see, look, I'm digressing a bit too much here into sci-fi, but why was Elijah the perfect illustration for James to use here? It's because, although he's one of the greats of the Old Testament, Elijah was human just like us. I mean, have you ever felt scared? And go and read 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 3 and you'll see that Elijah was scared. Have you ever felt depressed? Go and read 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 4 and see what Elijah says about himself underneath the tree. Have you ever felt imperfect? Read the same verse and see the way that Elijah was admitting that he wasn't perfect. Have you ever felt that you crying out to God with no answer? Think about Elijah, three and a half years, and still no sense of rain. I mean, it was some weird bit, least an El Nino going on down there, right? Here's what James is saying, guys, don't allow a feeling of spiritual inadequacy to stop you from praying. It's the yoda principle. When it comes to prayer, do or do not, there is no cry. And so you've got to make the decision upfront to believe wholeheartedly in the seemingly ridiculous notion that there's an unseen and intangible force in this universe that can actually affect our circumstances. It sounds like a sci-fi movie, yet we like Luke Skywalker look at the impossibility of our circumstances around us and say, this is impossible. It's too hard. We don't even try. And yet James uses an imperfect human like Elijah to demonstrate, to demonstrate this, that it's from the prayer, not the prayer that the power comes from. It's got nothing to do with us. The power comes from the prayer. As one commentator puts it, the prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace roared in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Guys, our efforts in prayer often are minuscule in comparison to the potential energy and availability to do work that is the power of God. Now you're with me tonight. Look, I don't know how else to put it other than when I used to go up to my uncle's place every time in Newcastle, they were always renowned for having parties and on this particular night, they'd set a tarpole and big blue things that you have your party underneath. They'd set it in at your time to trees and time to the gutters of the roof and we'd set it all up and it had rained overnight. And so overnight this heavy downpour had created, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but this incredible bulge in the bottom of the tarpole and I mean the ropes were struggling to hold the mass of water that was above all this. And so my uncle thought it would be a really good trick to get young Sam to go and stand underneath all this, at which point he got the spiky end of a broomstick and punched the top of the tarpole and at which point the whole thing ripped open and this mass of about 50 kilos of water just came straight over the top of me. My cousins are laughing and I'm sure it was funny, but I'm still processing it all right now. Why don't I try to say, guys, prayer is the broomstick by which we unleash unimaginable potential energy and power into our lives in this world. I mean, I'm not talking about tarpoleons, I'm saying the kingdom of God is a potential energy that's like having the Pacific Ocean sitting in that tarpole and God calls us every day of our lives to simply hit the broomstick against the tarp. It's not that hard, it's not our energy in releasing that is not the point, it's the potential energy that is there to do the work. And so what James is simply saying to the church and to us tonight is the prayer is powerful guys. So use it, use the force. If we're to be a place of care, we need to be a place of prayer and it makes all the difference, says James, guys, now before we to wrap up tonight, there's one qualification I need to point out, it's a tricky verse that I was looking at in here and it says just before we talked about Elijah that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. The prayer of a righteous man or person is powerful and effective, now are you thinking great? I thought you just told me that don't let my spiritual inadequacy get in the way of prayer. Great. Now you're going to drop this on us. Now we're going to be righteous. Now we're going to be perfect. Great. I'm being, I've been punked here tonight. What I'm trying to say here is that it's a yes and no answer when it comes to righteousness and prayer. It's our own holiness and our own alignment to the agenda of God does have an impact in terms of whether we feel our prayers are being answered. I mean, if you want what God wants, then why wouldn't he want to give that to you? Like Matthew 7, verse 7, you know, Jesus is saying and he's serving on the Mount. If then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? There's sort of a yes, if the more we're aligned to the agenda of God, the more he just answers those prayers in the most incredible way. But there's also a bit of a know that you don't need to be perfectly righteous. You see, you don't need to be perfectly righteous and to be effective in prayer. You just need to find, I'm thinking I'm being pretty tricky in tonight, you just need to find a perfectly righteous person to pray for you. So you don't need to be righteous, just get someone who is righteous to pray for. Now Graham Agnew is going to take some requests after the service. Feel free to do that. We'll have some response cards, but I've got to God, it's even better than that. And Romans 8, where do you find a guy like that? Romans 8, 31 to 34, if God is for us who can be against us, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then can condemn no one? Now here it is, Christ Jesus who died, more than that who has raised the life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. It's what is Jesus doing up there in heaven, at the right hand of the Father right now? He's interceding. You know what that means? He's praying for you. He's praying for you right now. He's whispering into the Father every prayer and every request that is going up to you. And even though I speak now, he's whispering, Father, he's speaking intimately into the God that is at the center of the universe, every prayer, every request that is the best thing for you. He, right now he wants every power, every resource, Father, bestowed on them. He does that because he wants to grow you into what he has destined to be. You see, if the prayer of a righteous man is effective and powerful, his prayer is perfectly effective. You know what Jesus did? He lived the perfect life. Jesus was the perfect one. He was the only one who lived the perfectly righteous life. And you know what? That guy is praying for you now. You just got to find a guy who's perfectly righteous and he can tonight. How else do I put it? It's the gospel according to E.T. So is anyone who's a Christian realises that they're an extraterrestrial? In fact, first biblical, 1 Peter 2, 11 says, "Dear friends, is aliens and strangers of the world?" Guys, we're not meant for here and we fall ill to the effects of being outside the home for which we were created, but there's a greater problem. We had the same problem that E.T. had, and that is how can we communicate back home? You know what Romans 834 was saying when it says he's interceding for us? It's saying Jesus Christ is your speak and spell and a tin can match together. Jesus is your communication link back home. That's the wonder and mystery of prayer and that through him you can call back to the home for which you were created. So guys, if any one of you, if there's just one of you wondering right now tonight, how do I know if I should become a Christian? Let me ask you this question. Is there something deep inside you that just senses that you're not meant for here? Is there something deep within you that just senses that you were meant for something more? Is there something deep within you that realizes that you're getting sicker and sicker and sicker? No matter how hard you try, the further away you are from this other home, look, if you can answer yes to that, then here's what you need to do, phone home. Ask Jesus Christ in your life, open up a new line of communication that is out of this world, it's called prayer. You can do that tonight by placing your faith in Jesus Christ when we go to this time of ministry. But guys, for those who have already called home, are you getting the significance of prayer in this place? Do you understand the posture of prayer? Are you praying in just times of crisis or are you sarming God in times of success? Are you clear on its purpose? Are you seeing prayer not just as individual petition, but as communal contribution? And are you experiencing its power? Do or do not? There is no try when it comes to prayer. Guys, I love this place. I love the local church. It's a place where you'll find stability and equality and a place that's different from the world and its relationship and a place of care through prayer amongst many other things that the church can be. The church is not a building, the church is not an institution, the church is not a club instead. The church is the community of God, brought together and grown by the powerful message of Jesus Christ. You know what it is? It's the unfolding of the greatest story that is still being written. There is a God who loves you and that God has broken into this world in the person of Jesus Christ and he has formed and shaped a community of believers that when they come together is to show the world what it means to be truly human. As we head into 2012, guys, at Northside, may we not forget that as a church? May you be all that little bit clearer on your part of the plot. Let's pray.