Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:07] Hey, everybody, this is Pastor Chuck Allen, and thanks for joining me on this Tuesday for another weekday podcast. Today, I want to follow up from yesterday. We were in James chapter five, talking about what James was really meaning when he said, call on the elders and have them pray over you if you're sick and anoint you with oil. Today, I want to follow up about the touch of his hand.
[00:00:31] Thanks again for joining me. Do you remember the last time somebody put their hand on your shoulder at just the right minute?
[00:00:39] Maybe it was a funeral. Maybe you just couldn't find any words and a friend just stood beside you and rested a hand on your shoulder or your back.
[00:00:50] Maybe it was a parent, possibly a grandparent, who put a hand on your head before you went off to school. Maybe it was a nurse who held your hand when they put in an iv.
[00:01:01] It's funny how something so small can mean so much.
[00:01:06] A hand on the shoulder doesn't fix anything. To be clear, it doesn't take away the grief or it doesn't cure the sickness.
[00:01:14] I'll tell you, though, it. It does say something that words can't always say.
[00:01:19] It implies, I'm here. You're not by yourself in this mess yesterday. In talking about James, chapter five and the anointing with oil is just a reminder that so many things that we just blow past in scripture are significant.
[00:01:37] James tells us that when someone is sick, they should call for the elders, the spiritually mature people of the church, to pray over you.
[00:01:45] Now, that's a picture of people gathered close, near enough to touch. And through the history of the church, that's exactly how it's been done.
[00:01:54] Anoint with oil and lay their hands on the person and pray.
[00:01:58] Now, where does it come from? Well, it comes straight from Jesus. Over and over. In the gospel story, Jesus heals people by touching them. In Luke chapter four, it says, as the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed everyone.
[00:02:18] That phrase, the touch of his hand.
[00:02:22] Jesus could have healed every one of those people with a word.
[00:02:25] And sometimes he did. But most of the time, he chose to reach out and touch them. My favorite example is Mark 1. A man with leprosy comes to Jesus.
[00:02:35] Now, you got to understand, nobody touched a person with leprosy. They were sent outside the town. People kept their distance. This guy may have gone years without feeling another human touch.
[00:02:47] And Mark says, move with compassion. Jesus reached out and touched him.
[00:02:52] I'm willing, he said, be healed Jesus healed his skin, but before he did that, he healed his loneliness. He touched the untouchable.
[00:03:02] I think that ought to say something about the heart of God. He doesn't keep his distance from our pain. He reaches right dab in the middle of it. You see, when Jesus wasn't healing, he was blessing. Mark tells us that when parents brought their little kids to him, he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.
[00:03:25] And later, the early church kept doing what Jesus did. In Acts 28, Paul visits a guy who is sick with fever. And it says Paul went in and prayed for him. And laying his hands on him, he healed him. So when the elders of the church lay their hands on someone today, they aren't inventing something new. They're following the example of the Lord Jesus. And, and just like the oil, the power isn't in the hands themselves. The hands are a way of saying, we're joining you, we're praying with you, we're bringing you to Jesus together.
[00:03:58] And this part of James 5 I don't want us to skip because verse 16 says, Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
[00:04:14] Pray for each other. Not just the pastor, not just the elders, each other.
[00:04:18] James is talking about a whole community of people who are close enough to be honest and close enough to pray.
[00:04:25] You can't lay your hand on somebody's shoulder from across a room or across the country.
[00:04:30] You have to come near.
[00:04:33] And James connects that to healing, confession, honesty, a touch.
[00:04:40] Sometimes that's making us, just making us sick is something we've been hiding. And that there's a kind of healing that only comes when we finally say it out loud and someone we trust hears it and we just let them pray over us.
[00:04:54] James goes on to remind us that Elijah was a human as we are, and yet God answered his prayers in powerful ways. You know what that means for us? That means our prayers matter too. We don't have to be a preacher. We don't have to be a spiritual giant. We just have to be willing to come close and pray.
[00:05:15] So let me ask you today, who in your life needs a hand on their shoulder?
[00:05:20] Maybe it's a neighbor going through chemo. Maybe it's a co worker who just lost a parent. Maybe it's somebody at church you haven't seen in a while.
[00:05:30] You may not know what to say, and that's okay.
[00:05:33] Sometimes the most powerful prayer starts with, can I pray for you right now?
[00:05:38] And if you're the one who needs that touch today, don't be afraid to let folks in.
[00:05:43] God often sends his comfort through the hands of his folks, his people.
[00:05:48] You know what? I trust that you have a blessed day, friend. We'll talk again real soon. In the meantime, keep allowing people to pray for you and touch your heart and your life, because that's the way of Jesus. God bless you. Have a great day. Bye, now.
