John Gunter: Well, good morning. Good morning. Is an honor and a privilege to be with you this morning as we worship God together. I pray that you've come to do the same. I hope you've come to not only receive something, but also to give as well, to encourage those around you, to give support, to find support.
I'll tell you, one of the things I am so uplifted by in this church right now is all the new people who have come in with a breath of fresh air and a wind of power, and let's go after it. I can't tell you how excited I am that it is rare. I've been in a lot of churches in different places, and it is rare to to have kind of everything come together at once in a a way that's cohesive, and let's serve God together. And so, if you haven't seen that yet, I want you to look around the room and see how many faces you don't know or haven't met yet, but let me encourage you to get to know some some people in here. We've got some fantastic folks, and thank you, those of you who have been here.
Thank you for as we've prayed over the years, haven't we? We've prayed for the people that we don't yet know, and my goodness, they're showing up. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. If you're new to this church, we thank you for for being here, and again, we thank you, church, for being you, and being the hands and feet of Jesus in this place.
This morning, we end our series called being prepared. We're not gonna end being prepared, but we're gonna end the series over it. Again, this was real faith for real challenges, and through this series, we have learned that real faith does not wait for the storm to prepare. It is something that seeks wisdom, it lives out obedience, it treats others rightly, it controls our speech and our tongue, It submits to God, and now, today, we talk about how this prepares us to pray and persevere through everything that comes. We just talked about it just a little bit ago, how many, as Ryan talked about this, how many times it takes something big in our life to turn to God.
Right? That in those in those hard moments, it's easy to turn to God because all of a sudden that light switch goes on, oh, I'm not in control. But the problem is, as as Ryan was saying, is that a lot of our life is spent feeling like we're in control. And I've got this taken care of, part of it is where we live. We live in a great country, we live in a great part of a great country, and we feel like we can do anything until something bad goes wrong.
And then we realize, oh, God is is better suited for all of this. Don't you think? And so, what I wanna do is encourage you this morning is to pray and persevere through everything that comes. And so, every season of life, every single season of life is going to bring you both pain and praise. Amen?
Some of you are there right now. You got as much praise as you can handle, you got as much pain as you can handle. Yes? Sometimes it feels like our plate overfloweth with the pain and the things we are struggling through. But James closes this chapter in chapter five, calling believers to bring every circumstance to God.
Every single circumstance to God. When we talk about coming here to praise God this morning, I hope you're doing that, but I also hope Tuesday morning at 09:00, wherever you find yourself, whether at work or at school or wherever that is, that you are in the way that you are living praising God. That God is never far from you, that a prayer is never far from your mouth because you know God is in control, and he can handle anything on your plate. Amen? So the prepared life is a praying life because prayer anchors us in God.
It attaches us to God. You ever felt like it's been a while, God? And I guarantee you in those moments, you've you've lost that that connection. It may just be prayer, it may be connection to others who can encourage you in that. But when you lose that connection, you feel it.
And so we wanna call you to come back and to continue a life of prayer. We're gonna start in verse 13 of James five today, and it starts like this. It says, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful?
Let him sing praise. So in suffering, we pray. In joy, we praise. Prayer, again, keeps us connected to God when things are trying to pull us apart. Yes?
You feel scattered. Right? As Ryan was talking earlier, you just feel some some days are like that. I plan to get things done, and something has gone wrong, and it has just disrupted all of that. I think prayer can pull it all back together.
Now, prayer is not passivity. Prayer is not saying, well, I you know, it is what it is. Prayer is saying, I know God, and I know he can handle it. That I am I'm going to be strong, not because I'm strong, but I'm gonna be strong because God is strong, and I'm gonna participate in the work he has going on. In Philippians four six and seven, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I love this verse. The longer I stay here, the more tired you're gonna get to this verse, because I'm gonna keep bringing it up. Take everything to God. How many of you would just die for verse seven? And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Because in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of everything going wrong, what you need is peace. Because it feels like it is coming from every direction. I feel like this is finally working out. Oh, no. I need to fix this.
Right? And you never stop because that's life. We're never gonna be on a road that is just perfectly clear and smooth sailing. We almost live with a little bit of skepticism. Right?
Everything's going too well right now. What's going on? Who's planning something? What's next? And then when somebody gets sick, you know it comes in threes.
Right? We've got the we've got the sayings for all of it. Well, he's sick. I wonder who's next. You start thinking, okay, well, they they're not looking too healthy.
It might be them. Okay. Well, what we need again is the peace of God. Not the peace that comes from you working everything out. Right?
How's that working for you? Not the peace that you've got everything in control, but the peace that comes from knowing that God is in control and he can handle it. And I'll tell you, how many of you have experienced the peace that comes from God that surpasses understanding? The the biggest time I have seen this in times of loss, when someone passes away especially, and you are in the midst of grief, and you finally and you need to grieve that, but as you give that to God, and one day, you breathe a little easier, and it doesn't feel as heavy. And it's not because you're you're okay with that person being gone.
In my life, it has been, I have finally allowed God to take that burden from me. That I know that he is in control, and that even in times like that, God has shown us that he can handle it. That even death has no control, has no power over us as believers. Amen? That's what drives us.
Right? How many of you want to see a loved one one day that's already passed? Yeah. You better watch out. Live your life right.
Right? God is gracious, God is faithful, he is going to bring us together, and that's what we live for, that connection not only to God, but to each other as we come together. Psalm thirty four one, I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Can you say that about yourself? I want to back up just a second.
When I said, you better live your life right, that wasn't a warning of you better be perfect. That's not going to happen. That's like sticking in my mind. I need to clear that up. Hold on.
But we want to maintain that connection. Does that make sense? We wanna maintain that connection that as I desire to to see people, like, that have gone on, like, we have we are people of faith. We wanna keep that connection so that we keep that faith in God, so that we're able to experience the grace that he has given all of us. I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I don't know the church you grew up in, but this was a difficult one for me and the one I grew up in because you weren't supposed to get too excited. Anybody grow up in that church? Yeah. You're not supposed to get too excited.
I had a friend growing up, and he was at a more charismatic church, and so as I was talking about my church service one time, he looked concerned, very concerned, and he said, You mean to tell me that you guys just sit there and listen? Yeah. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? I grew up in a church where praise better be on the inside. You know, you sing the song, we had to have discussions about whether you could, you know, add some of those other other words in there that we learned at the youth camp.
Right? Well, you can as long as it's written on the music. I mean, we had to make decisions about that. It felt like life and death salvation decisions. Now, that's not the praise we read about in scripture.
I didn't put it on the thing this morning, you probably shouldn't bring it up, but David starts dancing before the Lord and he threatens, if I wanna dance naked before the Lord, I'm gonna do it. Now, don't I'm not saying that this morning from Johnny. I'll hold up. But we ought to have we ought to feel that, the overflowing of praise that you can't contain that, because God is good. Is he not?
But yet, I think a lot of times we live a life of maybe the way we we we grew up, we're just afraid to to show any emotion or to show that that's really coming up out of us. And for a lot of us, we've had all of that, and we just keep trying to shove it down. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Now, what would your week be like?
Would it be any different if this is the way you live? That what I'm gonna keep on my lips is a praise for God in everything. Would it change the way you interact with coworkers? Would it change the way you drive down the road? Would it change the way the conversations you have at lunch today?
The unprepared life, I think, complains and has issues in every season, but the prepared life prays and gives praise in every season. That is what we are preparing for because difficult situations are going to happen. You've got to decide right now before they happen, or maybe right now in the midst of it, we need to praise God, we need to continue praying to him. And what we've just read this morning is that when prayer is your habit, peace becomes your reality. And man, I need an extra dose of peace this morning.
Yes. In back in James five verse 14, Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
I don't know if we're in churches of Christ, we're necessarily comfortable with these verses. How many of you have been involved, I really want to see your hands, in anointing someone with oil to pray over them? A few? Okay. That's more than I would have even expected.
Yeah. It is a special thing, I have as well. But I I think sometimes like this we go, well, I don't know about that. I'm not comfortable with it. But this is another thing that we do in faith.
Right? That the the sick are not forgotten. Because you're sick, and maybe you can't attend services, haven't seen you, well, you are not forgotten. We care about you. You still need to be connected both to the body and to God.
Right? And so, is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Again, showing faith that I'm gonna give this to God. Do you pray hoping for a miracle?
Because sometimes our skepticism gets the best of us. I don't know I don't I don't know how God wants to work this out. I'm more comfortable praying for the doctors than I am for God to step in and heal. Is that true? And so, it affects how you pray.
Do you believe? Do you have this faith? If anyone is sick, let him call the other. Okay. I I wanna give this, not only to God, but but but to other believers who care about me.
And and that's what Scott was talking about this morning. We would love to just have a big list of we wanna pray for you. And and we've we've created a culture where it's almost taboo to come forward or to ask for prayers. I I wanna give some props this morning. We finally got a men's group together where we are talking daily.
Thank you, Kendrick. Thank you, Clint. Thank you, Blake, Tyler, everyone that's been involved in that, where we are talking about these things. We are praying for each other, and by the way, the ladies have beaten us by years, but we're getting it. Some of us are hard headed.
Okay? Takes a while. But for some reason, it's almost taboo. And what I see with new people, and I've told you this for a while, is that sometimes we we get so cynical about the world, and we think nobody cares about religion, or faith, or anything like that anymore. And that is wrong.
What people care about is authentic religion and faith. People are sick and tired of playing church. Don't come and talk about, oh, it'd be a good idea if we confessed our sins to one another. Y'all go first. Right?
What you have to do is be a leader in this, is that I'm going to live my life in a way that is authentic. Because guess what, if you do this, nobody has anything on you. I grew up in a church that that what we did was, if I knew something about you, I held that until it was convenient for me. The next thing we had to argue about, I'd pull that out and say, you remember seventeen and a half years ago when you said and I would use it. And I'm sick, that makes me sick to my stomach.
What we ended up with is church that had a rug that was shaped like an elephant, because we put everything under it until it all blew up and came out. And that's that's not the picture of scripture. That's not what we're reading this morning. Right? We need to do things in faith.
We need to pray for each other when we're sick. We need to confess sins one to another, and guess what? There are going to be people who want to use that. I'll be direct this morning, they can go somewhere else. If they are not interested in living this kind of life, not the life John is saying, the life that you read about right here.
If they are not interested in that, I don't care what they have to say about you, or me, or anybody else. What I care about is people who love Jesus, and love the church, and wanna live their life around that. Period. Anybody come here this morning thinking, man, I'm glad I've got it all together. I have perfected life.
Woe is the rest of them. We know we're broken, we know we're fallen, and we read a text like this and we think, oh, I could never do that. Right? I need to keep up this picture of perfection. Right?
Y'all can ask Katie, I am perfect. It makes her mad I'm so perfect. But this is calling us back to having a real, genuine faith. Because it goes back to the beginning of James. Right?
To just say you have faith means nothing. Right? It's about how you live. How does that play out in your life? I can say anything.
Words are cheap. I can claim anything, but what does the evidence show you? Because when you do some of these things, you find out whether you have a real faith, or you're just playing with faith. And I don't want to be someone who is playing with faith. To be quite honest with you, I've got the most to lose, because I can lose my job if somebody takes the wrong way and says, well, you know John does this.
An unhealthy church will say, yeah, get on down the road, John. A healthy church will say, let's restore him. Let's come together, let's circle up Whether a person is sick physically or spiritually, we need to come together and lift them up. And if we have a culture of that, whether it's me, or an elder, or anybody in here, watch out, because we're going to have to keep adding chairs, and I don't know what we're going do. Because people want that.
So if that scares you, pray to God, asking him to remove that fear. But what we want is to bring you closer to God, and that's what it means, is to come together. This is not Confession is not humiliation. Confession is just pointing out, I'm broken. You know what happens every time someone shares in that way?
Every single time somebody else goes, I thought I was the only one. I've been beating myself up because I thought I was the only one dealing with that issue. You know, the one I keep dealing with over and over and over, and I know I shouldn't do it, and it just beats me down every time because I know better. All of a sudden, I've got someone, and I go, okay. I can share that.
We know each other. And you break down those walls, and all of a sudden, we can be open and genuine. Galatians six two says this, bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. You ever thought about the law of Christ being this? Bearing one another's burdens?
Well, I thought we were supposed to get upset and divide. Isn't that what we do? No. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, and that is physical, that can be sickness, that can be spiritual, that I want to walk side by side with you because we know, again, that we're gonna deal with things. That one day, I may be the strong one, and everything's going okay, and I have the I have the extra strength to provide you.
Right? And I can lift you up. But the very next day, week, month, year, it may be, I need some help, and I need you. Right? It wasn't that long ago, I was talking about the Bill Withers song, Lean On Me.
Right? Might as well be a gospel song. He wrote it in that style. Lean on me when you're not strong, because not because I'm the greatest, because I'm gonna need somebody to lean on. And I know that, you know that, we know that, but still we fear things like this.
And Psalm one thirty three one, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. I don't even know what that is, do you? It's hard to find it. That's exactly right. Would you say our world right now is living in unity?
The closest I ever get is church. Now, we perfect at that? Say no. In any group, you're gonna have people who for some reason, unexplainable reason, wanna go the other direction from this. Jesus prayed for unity, but you got sister so and so that thrives on disunity, and thrives on the drama and the gossip, and have you heard?
And we all lean in. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. Can you imagine any other place in your life where you can walk into and be unified? We can be unified about some very surface level things.
Right? You go to a baseball game and everybody is wearing the same jersey, and you go, okay, alright, we're together in this. But often, and I think church should be the example of everything, often we walk into our churches, and we say we're all here for the same reason, but we all don't have this on our mind. It's what can I get, or what am I not receiving, or did you hear, or some way to kind of break that down? But I think confessing sins and praying for one another brings unity.
And so let me encourage you, as I've talked about men doing that recently, if you don't have a group like that in your life, form one or find one you can join right now. Get that connection because this brings unity. And so, a praying church is really a healing church because being prepared means we are are people of faith who pray together in strength. Again, not just from ourselves, but knowing that God is in control, and he can handle whatever we have. Back to James five verse 17.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. And so, it almost sounds like Elijah is a superhero. He's not. You think everybody was happy with him about praying?
I bet he didn't go around talking about that either. But perseverance in prayer is is proof and trust in God's timing, that God can handle all of this, and God always hears a faithful prayer. Sometimes I think we forget that. How many of you said, I didn't pray because God's got more important things? What's your view of God that he's so limited?
Right? That he he doesn't have time for you. Let me put this on a list and I'll get to it eventually. At the DMV, or maybe at traffic court, I don't know. A lot of sitting and waiting.
But I I believe that God is faithful, that there is no time, there is no amount of prayer that that kind of jams the system where he doesn't hear you. God hears a faithful prayer. So pray to God to keep that connection, to to draw that encouragement and power that comes from him. Luke eighteen one says, and he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. How many of you have felt down about something recently?
Again, when you're getting things from every direction, one minute you go, okay, we got this. The next minute you go, oh my goodness, what now? Yes? But we ought always to pray, take it to God is what it's saying. You ought to take that thing to God, and don't lose heart, because persistence in prayer prepares us for this patience that we need in life, and we do need patience.
I've got two kids, I can tell you about that. And verse 19 of James five, My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin. That's an interesting verse. Do you see how this verse points back to togetherness? Because often, like I was talking about, we wanna we wanna store those things we know, we wanna store up those things, and I'm gonna use them in the future.
But this talks about, if somebody wonders from the truth and someone brings them back, so I care enough about you to come walk alongside you, put my arm around you, and bring you back. That's the kind of love we should have for one another. But how many times have you heard, oh, they did this, and we kind of distance ourselves from that person. And all of a sudden, that connection is broken because we didn't love them. It's not that when you put your arm around someone that you are saying, hey, everything you have done is perfect and great, and I endorse it.
Because that person putting an arm around him is an imperfect person as well. Yes? But it is it is the love and the care for unity that I want you to come back. I want you to be restored. It it it says, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will recover a multitude of sins.
And so we pray not only for healing, but for holiness. There are things we need to fix. Again, we're not we know we're imperfect, we're not coming to celebrate that we just live in imperfectness, we're just glad with that. Right? But we are celebrating God's grace.
That we shouldn't live a life that says, you know and I think it might have been last week, know, the saying about churches of Christ and the way we believe sometimes is that somebody should be baptized, and maybe as soon as they come up drown or fall and die right there. Because we got to get lucky to be saved after that. You got to have been prayed up, you better have not said anything on that last second or you're gone. And what we lose in that, if that's our idea of God, we lose his grace and his mercy. You think God doesn't know that we're imperfect people?
You think God doesn't know that we are in need of his help all along the way? God loves us as we love our own kids, as we love our family members, and he understands who we are and what we need. In Galatians six, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Is this what you've had modeled in churches your whole life? You can shake your head one way or the other.
I've seen some, and not one of them said yes yet. If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. What I have experienced is completely opposite of this. That if I catch you in a transgression, what I need to do is send you out and tell everybody I know, and get everybody riled up so that you feel the weight of all that you've done. And somehow, I couch that, and here's in love.
It's my spiritual duty. What does that say? You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Spiritual people do spiritual things. If you don't take anything else from this lesson, take that.
Spiritual people do spiritual things. And I don't care what you've had modeled in your church, if it has been you need to be run out of town, I've had people that wanted me run out of this place. I'll just be honest with you. Yeah. And none of it was this.
It is I don't agree, he said something a little different, I don't know, he needs to leave. How can you care so little about someone that a simple disagreement in a belief would say, what I want for you is to lose your income, and forget that you have two young kids and you're probably gonna have to move. Does any of that sound like this? Not a bit of it. And I'm just gonna be real with you this morning.
Is that okay? Can we do that? I'm talking about authenticity. Let's do it. Okay?
Does any of that sound like this? No. Because spiritual people do spiritual things, and when stuff goes wrong, that's when you find out who the spiritual people are. Because spiritual people act a certain way. Unspiritual people don't.
That's all there is to it. What what are you resorting to? Is it causing division and strife and sowing discord, or is it bringing people together? Is that what you can be can be said about your life? Is that what's happening here?
You are bringing people together that you love unity like we've just read, or is it something way different? You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. We had a thing in one of my churches before where an elder had confessed of sin, and one of the issues we had, well, he confessed sin, he can't be an elder anymore. And I thought about that because it's well, it is an interesting thing because like I said, we covered up most of our we didn't say anything, so we didn't know everybody else sinned too. As I thought about it, I thought, you know what, that is the example we should follow.
Whether you are a preaching minister, an elder, a deacon, a teacher, or I just got here, what's going on? We should be people who can be open, that we can express that we have sins, that we fall short, and that we love each other enough to say, alright. Let's be together. Let's bring this back. But often, is, alright, let's get them gone.
Let's throw them out. Let's not have anything to do with them. Proverbs ten twelve, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Is that clear? Which is the spiritual person?
It's very clear. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Prepared believers do not gossip about the fallen, they offer them grace. They offer them love. First Thessalonians five sixteen and eighteen.
Let me say something before that. I don't know if you've caught on to this, but James ends in chapter five, really where he began in the beginning of the the book with trials and faith and perseverance. And so he he begins the book with talking about faith through perseverance and testing, and he ends with perseverance through prayer. He's telling you how to get through this. That again, you keep this connection.
And so, this whole series has been a journey towards being ready, knowing that things are going to come. We we have learned that prepared faith seeks wisdom, and we want to do that. Prepared faith lives obedience instead of excuses, and I want to do that. It treats others with compassion, it speaks with restraint, it submits in humility, and now perseveres in prayer. And so, every lesson has pointed us to one truth, real faith is not reactionary, it is ready, it is prepared.
And so, the church that lives prepared is a church that lives, I think, differently. This church strives to be one that's probably different than the one you've experienced before, because I talked to you about how excited I am about this church. I want I want to let you know that the elders are right behind us in all of this. I told I told the elders recently, I said I shared my excitement, said, you know, the best thing we can do as a church is to tap into these people who are coming and wanting to get involved, and let them go with it. You know what they said?
Amen. Because for some reason, we have lived in weird situations where you feel like, I've got to tame my praise, I've got to ask permission for anything I do in the church. For some, I don't know why. But I want to tell you that the elders and myself, we want to encourage you, serve God in this place. Amen.
If a ministry does not exist, make it. If something is going on that you know a need needs to be filled, fill it. Grab some people around you, let us know, and let's get involved. Let's make this real. We want this to be a place where you can come and you can be yourself.
You can be authentic, you can be broken, and the grace of God is gonna cover us all. Amen. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Hebrews ten twenty three says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love you get that? To love and good works.
Church, let's get going. Let's build a church alongside God because we're not doing a thing without him. Amen? Let's build a church here in this place that walls can't contain what comes out of here. The love, the grace, the mercy, the authenticity of here's who I am, here's the confession I need to make, here's the praise I need to give, that this is a place where you can do all of that, and that's what we want.
And I'll be honest with you, if you have a negative experience with that, please let me know, and I'd like to get involved. Because we need to be a safe place for Christians to grow. That's what I want here. Let's pray, shall we? God, I thank you for this day.
God, I thank you for your blessing. Lord, for this church and the way that you have blessed it. Lord, that no path is just clear of obstacles. Thank you for leading us through so many different things. Lord, thank you for bringing new people here.
Lord, again, we pray, Lord, we're thankful for the blessing of new people. We're thankful for their energy. We're thankful for their love for you and for others. Lord, we again pray for the people we don't yet know. God, would you guide their path?
Lord, help them to find a church, not that just claims to love, or claims this or that, Lord, but lives it out. Lord, help us to be that church. Lord, if there's something standing in our way right now, Lord, would you remove it? Would you help us to have the humility to step aside and to to grow where growth is needed? Would you help us to to bear our souls and to be open and honest with our brothers and sisters where appropriate, and Lord, that we can grow from that.
Lord, that we can all, through your strength and the strength of each other, Lord, that we can, be the people we want to be. Lord, that we not only impact ourselves, we impact this community, we impact generations because of the faith shown here. And God, we just pray for you to lead us in all of those things. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
So this morning, we're gonna offer an invitation. We want to ask you to commit to be a person of prayer, and praise, and perseverance. All the p words. Stay prepared. Stay faithful.
And we wanna we wanna encourage you to come this morning. If you have a prayer, we'd love to pray with you. If that's not a thing you will do publicly, again, Scott said come to them. Let them know. You've not experienced the waters of baptism.
You've not begun that new life with Jesus. What day is better than today to begin that walk anew with him? Would you come as we stand?