Prevaliling Prayer Sermon Part 3

Psalm 6
O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
Turn, O LORD, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.
The LORD has heard my cry for mercy;
the LORD accepts my prayer.

Prayers of Healing:
I can only remember one or two occasions when I was so sick that I could have been speaking those words. One time while I was in college I got extremely sick with plenty of vomiting and diarrhea. I couldn’t hold anything down and I didn’t really want to try. I laid around a lot, well, in between trips to the bathroom. Unfortunately, this happened right during the soccer season. We had a game to play. So I sucked it up, and went out there and gave it a shot. I wish I could say that it was a Michael Jordan experience like when he overcame the flu in the NBA Finals to drop 38 points on the Jazz including the tie-breaking three-pointer with 25 seconds left. But it wasn’t. I played terribly. The team played terribly. We lost 5-0. But I can remember saying, “God, heal me. I am weak and I need your strength.”

I am sure we have all had times when we were so very sick that we just called out to God for healing. That is after all what we are told to do. The James passage says:
“Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.”

But notice that the sickness talked about is not just physical—this sickness also includes the need for forgiveness and restoration. We do a lot of offering up prayers for the sick in body. Our prayer list is full of those who need physical healing, and there is no doubt that God can and will heal them. But what about the sick at heart? Many prayers are lifted up for various illnesses and bodily failures, but how about our spiritual health? Why don’t we pray more for sickness of the heart? Our own stubbornness and pride? Our hard heartedness? Our selfishness? Our fear? Our judgmental attitudes? Why don’t we bring these sorts of things up during prayer request time?

I am sure the reasons may vary, but this passage makes it clear that confession of sins is directly linked to healing and wholeness. I don’t think sin or lack of faith causes sickness, but I think that at times there is a correlation. When our spirits are burdened with sin, that causes stress on our minds and our bodies. The result often times is sickness. Have you ever noticed that you get sick at the exact wrong time? When things are the busiest, most stressful, most complicated—those are the times our bodies choose to let us down. It is no coincidence that when we are depressed or weighed down by guilt or plagued by broken relationships that this impacts our bodies. But when our spirits are refreshed, often our bodies follow right along. When there is healing of the soul, the flesh usually doesn’t follow too far behind.

The Jews call this concept “Shalom.” We often translate that word “peace,” but it means so much more. It is wholeness—wholeness of self, between you and God, and between you and others. Peace is just a result of being complete and free from impurity. Such a state only occurs when we offer up prayers of healing, which include repentance, petitions for forgiveness and restoration, and then following up such prayers with action. There cannot be peace if there is animosity between people. Pray for healing. Work for peace.