If you would, open your Bibles this morning to James, the letter of James near the back of your New Testament, as you've come to learn between Hebrews and 1 Peter. We're going to be turning to chapter 5 as we near the end of this letter, chapter 5 on page 1291, 1291 in that pew Bible. Last time we started to consider what is properly the conclusion of James' letter, that begins in verse 12, and it runs through verse 20 of chapter 5. And we saw how these verses can seem out of place unless we understand what James is doing, which is writing a letter, which means that he's following a form that his readers expected. There were parts to the letter that they would be looking for, and he tipped his hand in verse 12 when he said, above all. That was a customary way of saying, here's the conclusion. Not that what's said here is more important than everything else that's been said before, but that there are some important things that belong here that need to be said. Three important things that belong in the conclusion that they were looking for were, first of all, an oath that would be presented to them to enhance the writer's reputation to them. Secondly, a wish or a prayer for the health of his readers. And thirdly, a statement of the author's purpose in writing. That's what they would be expecting. And last time we saw that when they expected James to issue an oath, he issued the directive to not take those kind of oaths. Don't assert yourself with an oath. And today in verses 13 through 18, instead of wishing his readers well, instead of praying for their health, James exhorts them to pray, to pray, to pray. James uses words translated prayer and pray seven times in this entire letter, all seven times in these seven verses, each verse once. He has a point to make. His theme is clear. Whatever else we encounter in these verses and are some things that could lead us to a rabbit trail. His concern is prayer. His concern is prayer. And he speaks to the church and commands them to pray in three specific ways. And as we read, I want you to listen for them. In verse 13, he instructs the church to pray in every situation. In verses 14 and 15, to pray over the sick. And in verses 16 through 18, to pray for one another. Here now, as we read God's Word together, James chapter 5, taking up at verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 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. 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. So ends the reading of God's Word this morning. James begins in verse 13 with a call to pray in every situation. Again, he's going to treat prayer in three different ways here, and he just sets the stage with two questions with their answers. He says, is any one of you suffering? Let him pray. Is any one of you cheerful? Let him sing praise. And with these two questions, he surveys the landscape of our human experience from suffering to cheerfulness. And he presents to us two answers that direct us as believers for how we are equipped and called to respond to this spectrum of life with prayer, asking God for what we need, singing praise to God for what he gives. Is anyone here suffering? Anyone here troubled by people or circumstances that are beyond your control, that you did not choose for yourself, that you would not choose for yourself? They might be close to home. They might come to you through the newscast, the radio, the TV, your computer. These circumstances and people that we encounter day by day, they stir up in us feelings of distress, sadness, grief, anxiety, maybe even pain. Is anyone among you suffering? The question is, when we feel these, what the word suffering would encapsulate this, these feelings of distress, how do we respond? We know that we have them. They're on us before we recognize it. How do we respond? Well, if you're like me, at least sometimes you're quick to blame those people and those circumstances for how you feel right now. It's their fault. It's its fault. And we hold them responsible because we expect them to be different or to act differently, to be other than how they are, to accommodate me. We can get frustrated, even angry, when they don't change. Does anyone among you suffer? We can feel justified in all of this. We can feel justified in this response when we are feeling the pressures of suffering until we remember that our frustration and our anger at circumstances or people is really frustration and anger at the God who has sovereignly placed them in our lives today. There is no relationship, there is no personal encounter, there is no circumstance in life that has not come upon you and me by design. We confess that God is sovereign over all, but we often live like He's not. and when we complain against those appointments, we complain against our God. And so James comes to us and says, anyone among you suffering? Instead of wallowing or complaining or growing frustrated and angry, James says, pray. Talk to God about it. Pray, ask Him. This word here is the word for petitioning, asking God for things. Pray. Ask God to provide what you need in this relationship, in this circumstance. Body and soul, whatever you need, you can ask Him. Ask Him to turn this situation, turn this relationship in a way that's for your good, as He's promised. That He might deliver you from it if possible, but more often than not, that He might sustain you through it. We'd rather run for cover when God would often have us move forward in a way that we're refined, that we're chained, that we're called to respond in ways that we don't do by nature, that we would please Him and love our neighbor. We ask God for all those things. Is anyone here suffering? Let him pray. Ask God to change you through the circumstances you can't change. Ask God to change you in the relationships that you can't seem to fix. Ask Him to change you by His Spirit to more and more respond with love for Him, for your neighbor, as we heard this morning from Romans chapter 12. And we know that through faith in Christ, we can trust that God, Almighty God, is our Father. He's able to answer these prayers. There's nothing He can't do. And He's promised to answer them for our good. as our Father. And so we should ask with boldness when we suffer. On the other hand, James asks, is anyone among you cheerful? Is it a good day? The thing is going great. Your relationships, they're just humming along. Your circumstances are really comfortable right now. Are you happy? Are you feeling good? How are you responding to those feelings, James asks. Well, if you're like me, at least sometimes you are quick to take credit that things are going so great. To take others for granted that they're just doing their part. Thank God they're not messing up today. Sometimes to base all of our satisfaction on how things are going. How good things are. Enjoying the gifts that we enjoy from God's hand and we're satisfied with that. In his new book, Side by Side, Ed Welch makes this observation. He says, when our lives are trouble-free, the American dream, by the way, when our lives are trouble-free, we can confuse personal satisfaction for faith. By nature, we're complacent. By nature, we're content with good things. By nature, we forget that a person cannot receive anything, even one thing, unless it's given to him from God. What do you have that was not given to you? And so James, instead of, calls us to, instead of complacent, forgetfulness of God in the good times, he says, is anyone among you cheerful? Let him sing praise. Sing praise to God, of course, the God who is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Be mindful of the giver, not just the gift. He's appointed these also. He is sovereign to give you these things as well and for the same purpose as your suffering. To use them to conform you into the image of Jesus Christ, our Savior. That you would learn gratitude that doesn't come naturally. That you would learn praise that doesn't come from your flesh. Suffering. Cheerfulness, now we know that most of our lives is someplace a mixed up mess in between, is it not? The moments of cheerfulness seem to pass, the moments of suffering seem to pass, and we live in this fog in between. And you know when James has told us about that, he has told us that as Christians, we are not confined to singing praise only in the good times. Remember how he started this letter? How he called us to cheerful suffering? How we are called to count it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of various kinds. That was a hard word. Well, that's a good word. Because that's where we live. Remember how we can count it joy when we're on the suffering end of the spectrum? How can we count joy when we're feeling badly? We can count it joy when we remember that God is indeed sovereign over all these things Comfortable, uncomfortable, good, difficult, easy, troublesome. All of these are under God's sovereign care, and we can know that whatever he brings us into, whatever he brings us into with relationships or circumstances, he's working there. He's present there. He's present there to heat up our circumstances, to refine our faith, that we become steadfast in hope, and that when the steadfastness has produced its full effect, we're perfect, we're ready to inherit the kingdom of God in its fullness. That's his purpose. That's our life. That's what James has been after this whole letter, and he sums it up here when it comes to prayer. We can pray, and we are called to pray throughout it all. Ask what we need. Give praise for what he gives, even when it's tough. So James has set the stage. Prayer applies everywhere, every circumstance, everything we face in life. And then in verses 14 and 15, he draws a much more narrow focus. He comes from the landscape and he comes in on a bead. And I really think this is where he turns what they expect on their heads. They're expecting him to bless them, to pray for them that they would be healed, be healthy, be whole, be robust, be well. And he doesn't give it to them. He doesn't give it to them. Instead, he turns them to themselves as a church and he says, if anyone there is suffering, look to your elders. Call for your elders that they might come and pray for you. That you would be well. And in these verses, 14 and 15, James calls upon the church to pray over the sick. To pray over the sick. Now, in these verses, James says some things that we find nowhere else in Scripture. He's the only one that addresses this circumstance, this topic. He addresses it in a way that seems very clear, but it's been very troubling over the centuries. There's been a lot of disagreement. Every book I pulled off the shelf had a different take on it. I'm going to do my best here today for how I am convinced I should understand it and live according to it. The question really comes down to, in these verses 14 and 15, is James prescribing something, like a doctor giving us directions that we must follow to the letter? Is he prescribing something that is to continue and carry on everywhere all the time in the church? Or is James just describing something, showing us something that was happening then and there? It's important. It's significant, but it's not binding across time and space. Is he prescribing something? Is he describing something? Well, you need to know that when it comes to that question, the Roman Catholic Church, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Pentecostals all agree on one thing, that he's prescribing something, that he's setting forth something that is to be followed throughout a span of time. It's something that's prescribed that needs to be followed. Now, they don't agree what that prescription is, but they all agree it's prescribed. Rome says it's a prescription for what is known as extreme unction. It's the final sacrament that the Roman Catholic Church offers to its people. And ironically, sadly ironically, it's a sacrament that is intended to ease their death. When what it seems to me James is saying is that we ought to pray for their health. I'm not sure how it got there, but that's where it is. Luther and Calvin both agreed that this was a prescription for a practice in the church, in the apostolic church, that was to be followed. But like the miraculous healings of the disciples as they walked through towns and as they raised up the crippled, this gift would pass too. And so this prescription had an expiration date. It expired when the apostles expired, and it doesn't continue today. And the Pentecostals, of course, see it as a prescription that continues today. In fact, it's a prescription for how if you have enough faith and you do all the right steps, you can get the promise. And if you don't, you've somehow not believed enough or you've not done it exactly right to follow the prescription to get the blessing. These are difficult verses. They're not difficult to read, but they're difficult to understand and apply because we have to make some decisions. Now, others, myself included, see here a prescription of something that is to continue across time and across space. But in that prescription, also a description of something that was appropriate for James and the churches there in Jerusalem in their time that is not necessarily binding on us today. And I hope to unpack that for you. So I want you to understand that kind of tension as we read these verses again, verses 14 and 15. We're going to park here longer than I intended in preparation, but it is where we're going to be. James writes, 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. Now we read those verses, and we read that word sick, and we just don't know what to make of it. When we use the word sick, we can mean anything from a common cold, laryngitis, to cancer or multiple sclerosis or some other devastating disease. But we use the word sick to cover it all. So we read this text and we wonder, what's James' concern here? Is this a word that we can pour anything into from a hangnail to a tumor? It's not. James has used a specific word that stands behind this word sick. I'm going to give it to you in the Greek just because it shows up in our language. Asthene, asthene. Asthene, it's a description of sickness not like we're used to talking about it. We talk about sickness as, what's the cause? Is it a germ? Is it a virus? Is it an autoimmune disorder? Is it a whatever? We look for the cause. That's how we want to name diseases. James names sickness by what it does. This word for sickness is the word that describes the devastating weakness that comes on someone who is ill. So weak that they're debilitated. So weak that they're disabled. John used it to describe the man who had been an invalid. That word invalid in John chapter 5 is this word. An invalid for 38 years. Laying at the pool at the sheet gate. Laying amongst a bunch of invalids. blind, lame, and paralyzed. Those who are unable to navigate. We hear it today in the diagnosis, myasthenia gravis. Perhaps you've heard that one before, but it's an exact take on this word, and it means what James means. Myasthenia gravis means muscle weakness that's severe. Myasthenia gravis. So when James raises this question, he has a very particular group of people in mind. If is anyone among you sick, incapacitated by weakness, shut in because of illness, dependent on others for your care, unable to gather and assemble with God's people is really the heart of it. If so, then James issues this prescription. This is the prescription for that person. Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him. Now, it's not hard to think of members of this congregation that fit that category over the years, even now. Those who are incapacitated, kept away, shut in, dependent on the care of others. You know, many do not call for anyone to come and pray with them. They might hope they come. They might even expect that they'll come. But they don't call for them to come. Sometimes they call the congregation to prayer. A lot of you get the email. Some of you get phone calls, people asking for prayer. Not just these severe ones, but all kinds of prayer. And that's a good thing. Occasionally, they'll call the minister, one of the ministers, to come and pray. It's a blessing. It's a privilege to go. Thankful when the call comes. Pleased to do it. But I'm hard-pressed to remember a time when someone called for the elders to come. Call the elders to come and to pray for their restoration. For their physical strengthening. That they might re-enter life, in particular the life of the church. I just can't call one to mind. And I have to wonder why, and I don't have a good answer why. James goes on in these verses to suggest something else that needs to happen on the part of the one who's sick. Those who do call for the elders to come, those who do expect them to come to pray over them, they are expected to spiritually prepare for that visit. Now, it doesn't come out directly in our text, but it's implied in our text with the promise in verse 15 that if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. That in this visit from the elders, not only will there be prayer for their physical restoration, but there will be assurance of grace and pardon and forgiveness for sins that have been confessed. And so as they wait for the elder to come, a little prayerful introspection is called for. We might ask why. What's sin have to do with sickness? Well, maybe something, maybe nothing, maybe everything. The wonders of modern medicine have blinded us to some very important facts about sin and sickness. We tend to divide our spiritual life from our physical life. And we forget that we're human beings made in the image of God, body and soul. And that there is no separation of these two until we die. We tend to forget that all sickness of the body, every sickness of the body, even unto death, is a consequence of sin. Broadly speaking, every affliction that we know finds its root in the sin of Adam. The consequence of that sin is brought into this world, death and suffering and disease, disorder, weakness, all these things. So we know that's part of it, and we should not be unmindful of that. But even though that's true, not every sickness that you or I experience is the result of yours or my particular sin. Job's counselors were wrong on that score, right? They wanted to find out from Job, find out what Job's sins were that he was suffering so much. And there weren't any to be found. But still, sickness and sin are often bound up together. Sin can cause sickness. Sin can cause sickness. Now we have the biblical account, 1 Corinthians 11. Paul said that there are some among you that are weak, this word, ill. Some even died. For why? Because they partook of the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. They sinned, and it brought sickness and death. There are diseases in our time, in our age, there have been across the ages that we know that are the consequence of sinful behavior, sinful practices. We know that it will bring its own fruit. Not only can sin cause sickness, sickness can reveal sin. Sin that may have nothing to do with the cause of the sickness, but sin that's in our hearts that gets pushed against, pressed against, irritated by our circumstance. The circumstances of life don't really create much new in us. They reveal a lot about what's in us. And when it comes to suffering and this kind of sickness that James has in mind, it reveals the depths of our hearts that we can hide in many other places and many other times. And so sickness can reveal sin. And sin revealed is sin to be confessed. And sin confessed is sin to be forgiven. And also, sin can hinder our prayers. We want to pray in our suffering, but we can't. We want to pray for the afflicted, but we can't because there's sin that is blocking us from the throne room of God. We are not, our sins are hindered, and we need to know those things. We need to confess those things and open things up once again. So, as distant as sin and sickness seem from one another, that they're bound up with one another in important ways. And so James' point, it seems to me, is that if you are calling for physical restoration, if that's your desire is to be physically restored and you're going to call the elders to come and pray over you toward that end, he wants you to desire the fullness of recovery, not only body but spirit. Restoration of strength of body, restoration of your soul. And so in preparation, those who call for elders are, it's certainly appropriate to pray with David from Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. So, any among you sick, the prescription for you is to call for the elders to come to pray over you and to prepare for their coming. searching your soul, confessing your sins, ready to be restored, not only bodily, but spiritually. And then we turn our attention to the elders who've been called. Elders are those who are appointed in every church as the shepherds, as the pastors. We sometimes struggle with that. We have Pastor Gordon and Pastor Donovan, and we have associate pastors, several. We don't think about calling our elders pastors, but that's what the Bible calls them, pastors, shepherds, caretakers, guardian. According to our church order, United Reformed Churches in North America, our church order, when it comes to duties of the elder, includes lots of things, but these two stand out in light of this text. They include continuing in prayer, which is to impact every aspect of the ministry, and to that is joined this particular clause, visiting the members of the congregation according to their needs. That's in distinction from family visitation. visiting the members of the congregation according to their needs. Caretakers, shepherds. James says that the one who is sick has a need. A need that the elders in the church are called and equipped to meet. This is where I must part ways with Calvin and Luther. I hate to do it, but this charge was given to elders, ordinary officers in the church, not the apostles. not prophets, not the evangelists, given to elders in the church. It's an ongoing office. It's an ongoing relationship. It's an ongoing need. I can't come to a place to see where that ends. And the elders are authorized to assemble together on behalf of Christ, in the name of Christ, as representatives of Christ, in the name of the Lord, in whose authority they come, in whose name and in whose power they depend. to pray for the restoration of the sick. This prescription seems clear enough to me. It seems very clear if we remember that James is very concerned throughout all these verses about prayer. The place where we stumble is that clause in the middle between let the elders pray over him in the name of the Lord. In the middle we find anointing him with oil. what are we supposed to do with that? There's lots of things people have tried to do with that. The question that we have to ask is, what's the significance of that act, anointing with oil? Is it of the essence of prayer? Is it essential for this prayer in the name of the Lord to be heard by God, answered by God, Effective, as we'll see with regard to Elijah's prayer? Or is it something that's incidental, that's coincidental? It happens at the same time as. It comes along with, but it's really not the essence of what's happening. That's the question. If we see the anointing with oil as essential to the act, then we find ourselves back in the dilemma between Rome, Calvin, and the Pentecostals, which way we're going to understand that use. If, however, it's not essential, we are freed from that conundrum and we are able with James to focus on what I believe is his main point, and that is to pray in the name of the Lord for the sick. We can maintain that focus and we can better understand this anointing of oil as something that was done with prayer, along with prayer, something appropriate to James' time and place, a Jewish Christian in a Jewish context with the Old Testament examples of oil being used to anoint, symbolic representations of the presence of the Holy Spirit, symbolic representation of the setting apart of individuals for particular attention, particular care. And I believe it's appropriate here that the anointing with oil lets the sick person know that these elders have come on the authority of Christ. They come in the power of the Holy Spirit. They come to set this one apart for special care and attention. It's important. It's significant. But is it essential? I don't believe that it is. We ordain officers today and have for centuries without the anointing of oil. Priests, prophets, and kings were all anointed with oil. Elders, deacons, and ministers, I don't see it happening. I think we've already answered the question, is it essential to the act? I don't believe it is. Therefore, because it's incidental, not essential, it is something that the elders certainly may do and there are churches that practice this prayer with anointing. But these prayers in the name of the Lord do not require it. They can be offered without it. We need to not stumble on that point. So James is told the one who's sick what they must do. He's told the elders how they are called to respond. And then he continues in verse 15 with this promise, and it's a whopper. 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. That's a wonderful promise. It's a beautiful promise, but it's a promise that frustrates us because we know, each and every one of us know, someone that we have prayed for who has been sick, even in this sort of way, that has not been healed, that has not been raised up, that has not been restored, and we say, is it really a promise? Or we say, what did I do wrong? Did I not have enough faith? Did I not get the words right? We're helped if we back away from this promise for a minute and let it breathe and listen to it. There's three things I want to help us understand about this promise. First, this promise is about and is focused on the restoration, The physical restoration of the one who is weak, who is sick and incapacitated. It's about their recovery to get up and be on the move and to come back into the fellowship of the saints, Lord willing. Because we feel the tension of this verse, people often want to jump right now in this verse from the physical situation before us to the hope of the resurrection in the end. And they interpret the words of save and raise up in the sense of the end of time. That's not a totally inappropriate jump because what we see here represents what Christ has accomplished so that at the end of time, we will have full salvation. We will have bodily resurrection. But we don't need to go there. The word save can refer to our eternal salvation, but it can just as easily mean physical healing as it does many times in the Gospels and as it does here. This prayer of faith will save them. It will heal them. It will restore them. And the word used for raise up can refer to the resurrection at the end, and it does in places. But it also refers to the act of getting up out of your sickbed. It's the word that Jesus used when he told the paralytic to get up and walk. We don't need to go to the end. It's for here right now. So this is a promise about the physical restoration. Secondly, this promise sounds like a sure thing. You know, sometimes I think we'd like it better if it said in the prayer of faith may save the one and the Lord may raise him up. We don't seem to struggle with the sins being forgiven because we had that promise elsewhere throughout Scripture. But it sounds like a sure thing. It sounds like a done deal and it frustrates us that it doesn't happen every time. So what's the deal? Well, it depends on what side of the divide you're standing on. If you're standing on God's side, this is a sure thing. If you're standing on our side, it doesn't come off that way. And that's because we ask for this promise to be answered in faith. The elders are to offer a prayer of faith. A prayer that's offered not only trusting this promise, but trusting in the God who gives this promise whose promises are bigger than this promise wiser than this promise more comprehensive than this promise and this promise fits into his mind in a way that we can't get our minds around the prayer of faith is a prayer that trusts the God who makes these promises who is good in his being and has promised to work good for his people who is sovereign over all things, even this illness, and who accomplishes his perfect will, and he does it perfectly. Much of which we cannot know until it shows itself in our lives. It's a reflection of the promise Jesus gave. You know this promise. He said, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Man, we like that promise. Until we ask for things he doesn't give us. We wonder, is it really a promise? Am I doing something wrong? Well, thankfully, the Apostle John explained it later to help us reconcile that tension. He says in 1 John that the confidence that we have toward Jesus, Jesus in this promise, the confidence we have toward Jesus, is that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. So we see now that these promises, this promise of Jesus, this promise of healing are promises given to us not as magic formulas for us to bend God's will to our will, to say it right with enough conviction we can make Him do what we want. That's not why He gives us these promises. He gives us these promises to exercise faith as a means by which He bends our will to His, asking for what He tells us to ask for, Content to receive his answer that from his side is perfect. So that we learn to trust him, believe him, but to never stop asking for what he's told us to ask for. And the last thing I want to say about this promise is that, as we've already seen, the promise of forgiveness in verse 15 has to do specifically with sins bound up and tied up with this sickness, with this weakness. We have general promises elsewhere. We have this promise of forgiveness over and over and over in Scripture. And thank God for it because we need it. But we need it here. James' point is that when it comes to the sick, if there's sin involved in this problem, they can rest assured that they'll have full restoration, body and soul. Now, physical healing, as we've said, may depend on this sin being forgiven. A sin that has caused a sickness that is left unrepented, unconfessed, unforgiven, will continue to have the consequence. But every sin that's confessed is forgiven by God. We know that from 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So if sin is discovered in this sickness and it's brought forward to God and it's confessed and it's forgiven, it's gone. So no sin will be held hostage to sickness, but a sickness might be held hostage to sin. Well, James' main concern in this section, as I said, is prayer. And of this entire section, the focal point has been 4, 14, and 15, and it's taken much more time than I expected as I prepared this sermon, and it's been given much less than it deserves in presenting this sermon. But I have to stop, and we have to wait. For the third call to prayer, which is to pray for one another, and that will come next time. In the meantime, as we go out into another week as God's people, you who are suffering, pray. You who are cheerful, even in the midst of trial, sing praise. And you who are debilitated, incapacitated, physically weakened, and sick, Call for the elders to come. You may have to tell this to your loved one who is so incapacitated they can't be here. That's who needs to hear it. Call for the elders to come. Examine your hearts before the Lord as you anticipate their coming. Let the elders come and pray over you in the name of the Lord that you would be raised up. Who knows? You might even bring some oil. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for leading us through this word today, a word that has caused much confusion and difficulty and disagreement across the ages. I thank you, Father, for the encouragement you give us here to be dependent upon you in all things, even in the most dire of things. And the depiction here, the call to live as members of the covenant community in a way that exposes our need and calls out for help. And we thank you for the provision of help that you've shown us today. Help us, Lord, to know and to learn how we might implement obedience to this. It's strange to us. It's foreign to our practice. Help us, Lord, to be wise and trusting and courageous to heed your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.