When Prayer Seems Broken

In light of our day of prayer, could you turn, please, to James 5—James 5. As we look at the fifth chapter of James in a particular text, I trust the Lord will bless and encourage us. He bids me seek His face. If thou art a believer, He bids thee to seek Him. Seek Him in private, yes; seek Him also in public as well. We have, probably at least—I can count at least half a dozen households that are not here today—in the Lord’s Providence. So if thou art wondering about the need to stay and pray today, certainly we would encourage thee to join and call upon the Lord with us.

We come to James 5. There’s a word here that I trust the Lord will help us and stimulate us as we come to pray today, and we try to do this as Providence permits. Every time a Lord’s Day falls and there are five Sundays in the month, thou canst plan it ahead, put it in, and anticipate its arrival. Sometimes it doesn’t work, maybe because of other things going on. But usually, when there’s a fifth Sunday, we try to set aside the afternoon to pray. It also means there’s no fellowship meal after the evening service, as normally there is; we replace that with after the morning service.

James 5—we’re going to read from, well, there probably is instruction here. I wasn’t planning to; I’ll read from verse 1:

“Go to now, you rich men. Weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth. And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. You’ve lived in pleasure in the earth and been wanton. You’ve nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You’ve condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he receiveth the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. You’ve heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath. Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, lest you fall into condemnation. As any among you afflicted, let him pray; as any merry, let him sing psalms; as any sick among you, 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 shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know that He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.” Amen.

This, beloved, is the Word of the eternal God, which thou art to receive, believe, and where necessary, obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, help us here this morning. We need help. When we don’t hear from God, we are in a pitiful state; but when the Lord draws near, when His word is heard, when His counsel is clear, and when the direction is unmistakable, we are blessed. And so today we pray for a lifting of the veil of all of our ignorance and an ability to focus upon the particular and peculiar things that Thou art saying. But not just, O God, to understand the words on the page, but to understand what they’re saying to each of us, and that the Spirit of God would apply with power the word that is living. O God, do a work in our hearts. Wilt Thou not revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? Wilt Thou not give us expectation of days of heaven upon the earth? Why are our prayers so limited? Why is our faith so small? Why is our expectation so restrained? O God, help us to pray in the Holy Ghost, and today may Thy Word be as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Fill me now with Thy Spirit. Oh God, speak with a voice that is unmistakable. We pray in Jesus’ precious name, amen.

What do you do when prayer seems to be broken? What do you do when this exercise of prayer—this discipline of communion with God—does not seem to function in the way that thou might expect based on what God’s Word says? When the feeling of thy heart is more akin to, it feels like the heavens are as brass, what do you do?

James, writing here at the close of his epistle, gives instruction regarding prayer. One of the statements he makes is found at the end of verse 16: “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The prayer from at least certain individuals availeth much. He’s not here speaking in some clichéd way. He gives what we might describe as a climactic affirmation to what happens when there’s a kind of prayer from a kind of individual. It will avail much.

Now, if thou assess thy life—and let us be doing that for ourselves, not others—if thou assess thy life, is that what thou experience? That prayer avails much? The whole idea behind the word “availeth” carries the idea of strength that prevails over resistance. It’s not just talking about something that has potential, but something that succeeds in overcoming whatever stands in its way and avails much.

Thou art living in a world that has fallen, marked by the curse. And everything thou doest faces friction and resistance. The sweat of thy brow, thou shalt eat bread. Nothing is easy. In terms of actually doing the will of God and surviving in this world, nothing is easy. And yet here we are told—James says—the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. It presses beyond; it breaks through whatever resistance stands in its way, so that prayer is not something done in a symbolic way by professing believers. It is instrumental. It is instrumental. If that does not align with thy experience, then either, A, God is not the same as He was when James wrote this; or, we are not living out the text.

I trust that thy faith is sufficient today that thou art not going to entertain the possibility of A: God is the same. He is the same God He was when James wrote this. So if this is not our experience, if this does not reflect something we can identify with, or, let me be a little more narrow there, if it does not reflect what we can identify with presently, then it’s not that God has changed; it is that we are not living out the text.

What I want to do this morning with thee is to seek to address the issue that is raised by this language. And it is pertinent—pertinent for a day of prayer and pertinent for the Christian in general. Prayer is not a side issue. Evangelism is important, essential, in some way that the believer is a witness sharing their faith—not ashamed to own Jesus Christ. Even more fundamental to thy experience as a Christian is prayer. And it’s not meant to be just this perfunctory exercise that, too often, if we are honest, is what it really looks like. It is meant to be an instrument, as it were, that results in this availing much against the resistance despite all the challenge. It prevails.

So, I’ve titled the message today, “Questions to Ask When Prayer Seems Broken.” And there are three questions, and I want thee to ask them to thyself. This is not about thee looking at me or looking at someone else in thy family. This is about thee. Prayer is a distinctly individual experience. Now, it can be expressed as a family, and should be; and it can be expressed corporately, and it ought to be. But it’s very, very individual and distinct to us as individuals. How am I praying?

So what are these questions? Has my faith waned? Has my fire gone out? Has my obedience been compromised? Has my faith waned? Has my fire gone out? Has my obedience been compromised?

And you’ll see from this text, these are the questions that I am brought to consider as I thought about this yesterday before the Lord. The text was in my mind throughout the week. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to flesh it out, but yesterday, looking at it with the Lord’s help, these are the questions. This is how we want to tackle it: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth…” It is, of course, in the context in which James relates the importance of prayer in the life of the church.

Prayer has various expressions within the life of the church, individually and corporately. The individual is encouraged—are thou afflicted? What’s the natural tendency of the afflicted? To complain, but to do so in a fashion that is not prayer. “Any among you afflicted, let him pray.” That’s something thou canst do privately in the closet, so to speak—afflicted, burdened, discouraged, depressed, going through hardship—afflicted, pray. There’s encouragement here even for the corporate side when thou art sick. The freedom to invite the elders of the church to do what? To come and pray. Pray. We need the collective to come. Encourage the collective to come. Invite the collective to come. I need prayer. Pray for me.

And so he climaxes then with this language: “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” And he gives an illustration then of Elijah. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, lest we should look back on the great prophet and deify him and elevate him to be something that is not akin to ourselves—a unique character that we cannot replicate or follow in any meaningful way. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months; and he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

So he prays twice. It’s not a one-off thing. It wasn’t just coincidental. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and then it stopped raining. And the world might look on and say it was just coincidence—nothing to do with Elijah praying. He can’t avail much in that way; he’s just a man. But he prayed that it might not rain. And I have dealt with this before—I don’t plan to go into any detail regarding it today—but the whole context in which Elijah is seeing the declension of his day, seeing the spiritual declension of his time and of his hour, and he is not just merely able to see the problem. Many are able to do that: assess the problem. There’s a problem out there—look at the state of the land, look at the state of the church, look at the state of everything. They are very good at identifying problems, but have no solution. Or if they find some kind of solution, the solution has to be executed by someone other than themselves, not Elijah. And that’s the way many—even in the church today—deal with the problems that they see. They look at these problems; they can’t find the solution. If they do find the solution to their benefit, it’s nothing they can contribute to. They can’t do anything. But Elijah was a man of God, and he knew the problem, but he didn’t leave it there. And he’s reading God’s Word, and God has said, when the nation turns its back on God, God said that He would shut up the heavens. And so all Elijah does is take God at His Word and say, “God, Thou promised when the nation turns its back on Thee, Thou wilt shut the heavens. God, I call upon Thee, keep Thy Word.” He’s not inventing something. He’s not coming up with his own plan. The only thing that’s unique to Elijah is his ability to marry the circumstances with what God said and assess accurately: this indeed is such a day that warrants the shutting up of the heavens. Now, Lord, do as Thou said.

There’s wonderful confidence when prayer is basically, “God, do as Thou hast said.” And so he prayed with confidence, and lo, behold, it didn’t rain. And when enough time had passed that the authority figures were starting to get a little bit worried about what was unfolding—six months, he goes and stands before Ahab. There will be no rain, but according to my word. He bolts out of the king’s presence. They’re already starting to feel the pinch. If it had been raining yesterday, and Elijah said, “Stop, shut up the heavens,” and he turned on the doorstep of the king to tell him that there’s going to be no more rain, but according to my word, the king would have looked at him and said, “Elijah, thou hast lost thy mind.” But when six months had gone without rain, and the pinch is being felt and the ripple effect is all beginning to unfold there in the nation, then Elijah turns up and says, “I know thou art really wanting rain. There shall be no rain until I say so.” What a word! But it wasn’t coincidence—because when he discerned that there had been a turning and the nation began to realize its sin at Mount Carmel, the Lord let him be God; then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain.

There’s no coincidence. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” reveals much. So, let us consider then: this first question—has my faith waned? Has my faith waned? “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Our translators take the Greek here and use two words, “effectual fervent.” But in doing so, I think they pull out something that’s helpful with regard to the efficacy of fervent prayer. What really makes prayer effective? Why is it that prayer is effective in the first place? It’s not just in the fervency of it; there has to be something else. Prayer prevails because of what is true about the one praying. And what is true about the one praying? Well, because he knows he has a standing before God and is able to come and pray with expectation. And so, thou hast to come first to this aspect of faith. Has my faith waned? Because when my faith wanes, then my prayer is going to weaken—it is not going to avail much. If there is a loosening of the grip of expectation, then it’s not going to avail much.

But when we think about this, we’re not just thinking about faith in some void—we’re thinking about what the believer has, this faith that he possesses. When we ask the question, “Has my faith waned?” thou canst think about it in a few ways. First, has my faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work waned? Has my faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work waned? Elijah, as he prayed, had to believe that his sins were atoned for—that he is a man before God with a standing before God, that he can have confidence, a sense of the sufficiency of what has been accomplished for him. He’s a man of like passions as we are. What right hath he, as a sinner, to come before God with confidence and pray this kind of effective prayer? It is because he had not waned in believing in the sufficiency of the atoning work. Now he’s looking forward—he’s looking forward with regard to the Messiah and the promises bound up in the Messiah—but he is a man who believes in the offering of sacrifices. He believes in the importance of making atonement for sin. And so his faith has not waned in considering the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work, if we can use that post-cross language. He believes that his sin hath been atoned for. Now, thou must believe that. Thou canst not have prayer that avails much if thou hast no confidence in the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work. That’s the platform. We are getting nowhere today, and thou art getting nowhere in thy life, if the whole experience of prayer is a flop for every single person who doth not come back and say, “My confidence is built upon resting in the sufficiency of God sending His Son to make atonement for my sin and putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, rising again from the dead in victory. I know the sacrifice is sufficient. I know it hath prevailed. I know it hath received the acceptance of God. He hath ascended then to the right hand of the majesty on high, and I therefore have confidence.”

We may ask it this way: has my faith in the relevance of Christ’s unfinished work waned? Has my faith in the relevance of Christ’s unfinished work waned? What do I mean by Christ’s unfinished work? I’m talking about what He is presently doing. Now, of course, Elijah, in his context, didn’t have that benefit; but the text isn’t restricted to Elijah. I want thee to see that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” And then it goes into an illustration of a particular man who lived in the past. But this text applies to the New Testament, applies to believers like thee sitting here today in 2025. And thou must therefore have this sense of the relevance of Christ’s unfinished work. What do I mean? He is working now. There are things He is doing now—as it were, His work is not finished in that sense, because He is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, ever living to make intercession for us. Oh, what an insight that is! That here we are thinking about the labor of prayer, the call to pray, thy encouragement to pray—the desire to see things that avail much through prayer. And thou mayst ask thyself, “Why should I give myself to the exercise of prayer? Why doth that matter so much?” And this is a real lesson for us.

When thou thinkest about it, if thou thinkest about it this way: Christ giveth Himself, liveth His life in perfect obedience, offereth Himself without spot unto God through the eternal Spirit. And He is buried, rising again from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high. And the whole goal then is to see all the prophetic promises, all the insight that’s given with regard to the light going to the Gentiles and impacting the whole globe, and truth prevailing across every land on this earth. And thou askest thyself, “Well, what is He doing to see that come to pass?” Yes, He’s doing something to see that come to pass. He is praying.

Now, contrast that with the type of person who is all goin’ about doing other things and thinks that great things can be accomplished just by good ingenuity, strategy, and planning. No, I’m not against strategy—I’m not against planning. I’m not against being a doer, right? I’m not—don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying we could just all sit in a corner and just huddle together and pray and do nothing else. But I do think there is a sense in which, especially in this culture, this time, the mentality that we have tends to lean towards this mechanical, strategic doing of things. And the whole plan of the Messiah is to reach the nations. “What art thou doing, Lord Jesus? What art thou doing to make that happen?” I am in prayer. And is there not a seed, at least, of the implication of that with regard to how we impact meaningfully? I’m not talking about just in some way trying to work out some kind of religious experience and empty results—that’s been done and will continue to be done. Empty results—people who name the name of Jesus Christ and there’s nothing of the born-again Spirit in them, there’s no desire for holiness, there’s no interest in the things of God from one day to the next. And there’s a great dysfunction in much of the visible church—but that’s for God to address and God to judge.

What I want thee to see is that our Lord is praying right now. When thou seest these promises—to see the gospel to go to the ends of the earth; see everything put under His feet, or however thou wilt look at it in terms of how thou applyest various prophetic scriptures and their context—at the very least, thou seest this advance of the kingdom. And thou sayest, “What, then, is He doing?” He’s praying. What, therefore, ought I to do? Pray.

Has my faith in the relevance of Christ’s unfinished work waned? Doth thou keep at the forefront of thy mind, “Are we going to come today and think the sufficiency of what He hath done, the relevance of what He is doing?” And then seek the Lord in that understanding—Christ intercedes, and we are to enter into His praying.

In many regards, we are like what the disciples were meant to do. When so often, what did He do? He pulled them alongside Him. He pulled them to be with Him. And so on the earth there, He ministered. And He went into Gethsemane and other places, and He took His disciples with Him. Many, many times, He did this. And He gathered them around Him, and He prayed. And they gathered around Him in the posture and heart of prayer, around the Master. What is a prayer meeting but the same thing? We pray in this place. When thou prayest corporately, when thou prayest together, we are, as it were, gathering around the chief intercessor and entering into His prayers and praying along with Him.

Has my faith then—we might ask—in the intention of Christ’s earthly mission waned? Has my faith in the intention of Christ’s earthly mission waned? Past, present, promised—those things ought to be in our mind. In the past, the sufficiency of what He hath done; in the present, His unfinished work, relevant now as I pray; and promised what He hath said is going to happen in this world. When thou comest to pray, thou hast to have those things at the forefront of thy mind. If they’re not, then thy faith is going to wane. Thou sayest, “How do I increase my faith then?” Get thy mind on those things—the finished work, the unfinished work, and the promises that He hath given in His Word of what He is going to do. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Why? Why every creature? Because there’s potential everywhere. Everywhere there is potential. Has my faith waned? That’s for thee to ask and answer.

Secondly, has my fire gone out? Has my fire gone out? “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Again, the language here has a sense of energy within it. So it’s translated in this way, effectual fervent. The prayer is not to be some kind of stoic discipline, as the Judaeans call it. It is fervent. It is red hot. It is the pouring out of the soul before God. It’s not playing games. It’s not posturing; it is pleading before God. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” And oh, how the fire—oh, how the fire dims so easily, doesn’t it? We’ve seen it, we’ve seen it in real life. Raging fires, times when we might light and then begin to see how, begin to diminish so quickly—turn our backs just to go and get more marshmallows or something—and thou comest back, and the fire’s greatly diminished from what it was when thou just turned thy back a few minutes ago. The same is true in our own lives, spiritually.

What kind of fire, then, ought there to be? What way do we look at this fervency? Well, we might say the fire of desire. There is a fire of desire. Do we want what we are asking for? Does it matter to us? As a man may gasp for breath in desperation, so might the believer express such fervency before God in prayer. It is so easy to become content with emptiness, with coldness. Do we actually desire? Do we have in our hearts things we truly desire—things that are in accordance with His will? We work so hard in this part of the world to get everything we desire—up early in the morning, studying hard, getting our degree, or whatever way thou needest to get to a place of proficiency in what it is thou wantest to do with thy life. We invest energy, money, and time; then we give ourselves to it and acquire and do everything we’re meant to do. And again, there’s warrant for it—I am not denigrating it—but then it comes to spiritual things, spiritual ambition, entering into the spiritual vision of the church, the burden of our Lord Jesus. And there’s no fire there, no fire of desire. Why? Can we excuse ourselves here?

The fire of desire—the fire of determination: Desire is not enough. Thou canst not merely be there and desire. We have illustrated it for us in the widow coming before the unjust judge. She was determined. There’s an aspect in which that’s important: the determination. The desire is there, burning within the soul, and it gets expressed in determination: “I am determined. I will not take no for an answer.” It comes, then, with this prevailing determination. That’s what it was for Elijah, too—the example given; he didn’t just have the desire for the turning of the nation, he had a determination to seek God, to see it come to pass. As I have noted before, one of the remarkable things about this is that what Elijah was asking for was going to hurt him and people he cared about, no doubt—pray for famine, essentially, like “shut up the heavens” without realizing the economic impact of that. We’re not living in a time where he could, say, to his friends, “I’m going to pray in a certain way—you might want to take all your wealth and invest in some other nation,” etc. It was going to impact everyone, and he was okay with that. So determined he was. I wonder, I wonder, do we have it? We may desire certain things—say, “I have a desire for that.” We desire to see the advance of the kingdom. We desire to see God’s Word spread, to see His name propagated and the cross lifted up, and all the other aspects of souls being converted, missionary scent, churches planted, and so on. Thou canst have desires like that. But dost thou have the determination? Do I have the determination? Has the fire gone out? There’s also the fire of desperation. Often the Lord permits us to reach a place of desperation. Even when the desire is there and the determination is there, often, often it is allowed to continue until it almost wanes—you hit a dip, as it were. Thou hadst all this zeal at the start and determination to go forward, but then it begins to decline as time goes on. Time is the great tester of all things, isn’t it? Every great business venture, every “overnight” success that we hail and say, “Look at the great success”—it appears to be overnight for us, but for them, it hath been years of great intent and desire, pushing forward, then it plateaus, then it dips. There’s nothing happening—breaking even, having to take out other loans to keep the thing going on, putting oneself at threat of bankruptcy, and pushing and pushing—and all of a sudden something flips, something turns, everything changes overnight, and the world marvels at this great thing, not realizing all the sweat, blood, and tears that went into it—the desire and the determination. So it is in spiritual things. So it is for thee, seeing God work powerfully in thy family, in thy life. That point where it dips, when thou art about to give up—when thou art ready to throw in the towel because thou hast pushed so hard, gone so far, continued so long, but nothing; and just there, just there, thou art about to give up. But that’s when desperation strikes—that’s when thou sayest, “No! I know not what to do. I have no other plan or strategy. I know not where to turn or how this will come out, but I will not give up.” And in that desperation, so often God visits, desperate. That desperation sees the necessity of what is being pursued. However much thou wantest to give up, thou canst not—too much is at stake. Art thou there? Or hath thy fire gone out?

Finally, has my obedience been compromised? Has my obedience been compromised? “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man”—a righteous man, not a popular man, not an articulate man, not a theologically minded man necessarily, but a righteous man. And James here—and I need to underline this given the emphasis that we place in this church—James is not referring to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and his justification here, as glorious as that is. And no man can pray acceptably without that—we’ve already established that in the first point. But the emphasis of the text is upon that practical outworking of the justified man in obedience before God. I take this view because of the context; the immediate context is all about righteous deeds and things that are right to do. Here, in the very chapter and section that we’re looking at—and it’s true of James more broadly in context—faith without works is dead. He’s arguing that there has to be an outworking of our faith. And so the righteous man he’s dealing with here, the way in which the word gets used—again, the Greek, it’s always context—you have to look at context to understand. And the context, I believe, here is pointing to a man who lives in obedience to God. He’s not perfect. He might be a man of like passions, as it were—a man who struggles, a man who fights to do the right thing—but there is an undergirding obedience, a foundational obedience, a sense of, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, I know the Lord will not hear me.” And he’s not the only one to do this—to tie in practical sanctified obedience with the outcome of prayer. Peter does the same; Peter warns husbands (1 Peter 3:7) about dwelling with their wife according to knowledge and honoring a wife, so that their prayers be not hindered. He ties in how the husband relates and acts with his wife to the outcome of his praying. James does the same thing. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man.” So we ask the question: Has my obedience been compromised? The obedience of separation—the Christian, the believer, is always being separated from things that are not of God. Thou canst try to play games with this all thou wilt, but thou art not going to succeed. Thou art not going to win the battle. There are people to separate from, false doctrines to separate from, false churches to separate from, and false things of all descriptions in every area of life. And thou sayest, “It’s false, it’s wrong, it’s unbiblical, it’s sinful, and I can’t be part of it.” And because we like people, because we’re interested in being of help or so forth, sometimes we compromise. But if we are to be what God hath called us to be, obedience requires separation. Thou canst not flirt with Babylon and know the blessing is exclusive to Zion.

The obedience of separation—God wants to see it. He wants to see thee love Him more than that other person, thing, or scenario. Thou lovest Him more, and so it calls for the pain of separation.

Next, the obedience of selflessness. Oh, He looks for selflessness, doesn’t He? A righteous man is not just one who separates, but he’s selfless. He sees the need, and he has the ability to meet that need, and it’s going to require something more of him. If a man asketh thee to go with him one mile, go with him twain. There’s a willingness to say, “I can go a little further; I can do a little more; I can give of myself to this.” Selflessness—the obedience of selflessness. Again, if thou just takest it by the letter of the law, and tryest to do everything—try to say, “Well, here’s what it says, here’s what it requireth of me”—thou canst manipulate the law sometimes in such a way that it requireth nothing selfless of thee. It’s just blanket obedience, and there’s no heart in it; there’s nothing of the cross. There’s nothing of exemplifying Jesus Christ. He didn’t have to come; He didn’t have to, in the sense that He was legally bound in terms of there being a moral right for Him to come or set Himself up as a mediator of sinners (of the elect, I should say). But He voluntarily came. He voluntarily said, “I will be surety for them. I will step in as mediator. I will take responsibility. I will do that.” It was selfless.

And then, the obedience of surrender—the obedience of surrender. A righteous man will surrender to God. Everything is in a posture of surrender to God. This whole being is in surrender. There is no rebellion, no hint of opposing the will of God. Even as he offereth up his prayers, he is trying as carefully as he can to offer prayers he believeth to be in accordance with God’s revealed will. He bringeth that before God, and at times he will even express the recognition, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done,” because he surrendered.

So, these questions: ask thyself, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James says that a praying believer can see things happen that describe availing much, before which thou might say, “Resistance is futile.” His prayers are going to overcome. What maketh a difference? ’Tis faith, fire, and obedience. Has my faith waned? Has my fire gone out? Has my obedience been compromised? Those are the questions thou must ask before God. And if thou art not prepared to pay the price, then the availing much will forever remain out of reach. So how much doth it matter to thee? How much doth it matter? I want thee to ask this question as thou comest to pray today.

I’m gonna leave this and close. If thou knewst thou would not be denied, what wouldst thou request? If thou knewst thou would not be denied, what wouldst thou—if it matters to thee as much as I imagine it ought—then thou art not going to remain in this waning faith, and thou art not going to carry on content in this place wherein there is no fire. And thou art going to have a zero-tolerance policy for all compromise. That’s what it takes. May God help us.

Let’s bow together in prayer. There’s an individual depending on thee. They know it not, but thou art the one that is closest to God among their acquaintance, and thou art the one that God expecteth and encourageth to come to pray and to avail much. It’s time to step up. It’s time to embrace the responsibility. May God give thee and me the grace we need.

Lord, all we can do now in these moments is to ask for Thy help. We ask for Thy help. We know prayer is not broken, but we are not where we should be. And we believe Thou art ready and willing to help. So we pray: Help, Lord. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God now and evermore. Amen.