I just want to open an word of prayer this morning on the way
in this morning heard the song, that old contemporary song Open
the Eyes of my Heart, and it just really struck me.
So let's just open an word of prayer.
Father God, we come to you this morning to hear from you, to
hear what you would have for us to be shaped and transformed by
the power of your Word working in us.
So we humble ourselves under the authority of Jesus Christ, and
we say, God, would you work in me?
In Jesus name, Amen, this morning we'll be in James
chapter 5. I would encourage you to go
ahead and turn there. James chapter 5 will be in
verses 7 through 11. It is found on page 1013.
If you happen to be using one of the Bibles there in front of
you, James 5. Now ours is an age of instance.
It all started with instant coffee way back in 1853.
Believe it or not, it was invented because soldiers needed
something when they were away at war.
Rumor is it was not good. Fast food became a category in
1921 when the very first White Castle opened.
I am proud to say I have never frequented White Castle.
I have never heard anything good about that place.
Instant noodles were invented in 1958 and by 1971 they had found
their way into a cup thanks to a company that many of us are
familiar with, Nissan. Today we have text, instant
messaging, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Google Chat so you can
quickly communicate with somebody without actually having
to pick up the phone and call them.
You can order your food online and go pick it up and avoiding
any lines. If you don't even feel like
heading out to get your food, you can just simply order
Grubhub or Uber Eats and they'll bring your food to you.
Now, it used to be that when we would order something online, we
could expect it to arrive in five to 10 business days.
Right now, so often if we order something, it's possible you
might even have it in a few hours.
It's absolutely amazing to me how this works and it blows my
mind. So when something you order
happens to take a couple weeks, I'm just astounded.
How does this happen today? That's something you order can
still take weeks when we can have something in hours.
So our our society has grown to be a bit impatient.
Delayed gratification has become a thing of the past and now
instant gratification is the rule.
Proverbs 1632 reads. Whoever is slow to anger is
better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who
takes a city. Patience is a virtue of the
strong, yet in our society so many are weak.
We want what we want, and we want it now.
However, this isn't how God works.
God's work is often done through a long slow cooked process
rather than at microwave fast speed.
So what is patience? The Greek word for patience is
macro thumao, Macro meaning long in thumos, meaning anger.
Patience is literally long of anger or long tempered.
You may recall how back in May in our series on Psalm 145I
devoted a bit of time to conveying God's character and I
said God is slow to anger. Or literally God is long of
nostrils, long of nostrils. It takes a long time for God's
metaphorical nostrils to flare up, for his patience to wear
thin. And remember when when we talk
about God in in terms like having nostrils, this is called
anthropomorphic language. God does not actually have
nostrils. God doesn't have an actual body
save for the person of Jesus Christ.
So we talk about God in human terms in order to help us
understand who he is. So we see God's patience
demonstrated over and over again in the book of Judges.
God's people would sin. Sin, of course, has its
consequences. And so the Israelites would be
oppressed by an enemy. And when this happened, the
natural thing for them to do was to cry out to God for for help.
God would hear the cry of his people and he would send a
judge, a deliverer to free them. And then things would go well
for a while. They they would walk with God,
they would be obedient. But after a season of doing this
they would turn back to living in sin.
Sin yields oppression, which turned into a cry out to God and
then deliverance, and then after a while would turn back to sin.
And we see this cycle over and over again in the book of
Judges. But God is immensely patient
with us and is faithful to give us time to repent.
When we show patience, it serves as a sign that we're followers
of God, growing to be like Him. When we demonstrate the fruit of
patience in our lives, we too are long of anger.
We're long tempered. So what exactly is patience?
Patience is the ability to endure difficult people and
situations without giving into anger or giving up hope.
Patience is the ability to endure difficult people and
difficult situations without giving into anger or giving up
hope. Patience isn't just giving up
and being inactive. Some might see it that way, but
that's not what's happening when God's patience is working in
you. Patience sees the situation in
front of you. It acknowledges that this isn't
ideal, but it doesn't allow that scenario to to bring you to
anger or to to cause you to give up hope.
So if you're able, would you stand as we read this morning
from James chapter 5, verses 7 through 11?
Be patient. Therefore, brothers, until the
coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the
precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it
receives the early and the late rains.
You also be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of
the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one
another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
Behold, the judge is standing at the door as an example of
suffering and patience. Brothers, take the prophets who
spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those
blessed who remains steadfast. You have heard of the
steadfastness of Job and you have seen the purpose of the
Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
You may be seated. So there are three forms of
patience that we're going to look at this morning.
In the first form of patience is patience in waiting for the
Lord. The first point James made in
this section was be patient until the coming of the Lord.
See, ever since Jesus left this world, his followers have been
patiently waiting for his return, believing that it could
be any day. We've been functioning in this
place for nearly 2000 years now, and that reality has always been
the church's hope. Difficult circumstances can be
navigated because we know someday Jesus will return.
Let me say that again. Difficult circumstances can be
navigated because we know someday Jesus will return.
Amen. The topic of of Jesus return
naturally leads us into a discussion of eschatology, the
study of the end times or or last things as it's often
referred to. When James said be patient until
the coming of the Lord, he used the Greek word parousia.
This is an important eschatological term that refers
to the second coming of Christ. But parousia means means more
than just coming. You see, parousia means
presence. The coming of the Lord is about
His presence coming to be with us.
God's presence, both spiritual and future physical presence, is
our comforts in the middle of difficult times.
Someday Jesus will come to bless his people with his presence.
And this is the great hope that appears more than 500 times in
Scripture. James then calls the readers
attention to the farmer. Now, I just learned something
this week. When we think of the planting
season, we naturally think of spring and then harvest happens
in the fall, right? Like this is just intuitive to
us. It just makes sense.
Well, I just learned I did not know that apparently in the
Middle East, that is not how it works.
I don't know, maybe because it's a warmer climate that probably
is a big factor for them. No, in the Middle East they
actually plant in the fall and they harvest in the late spring.
So, so James is calling us, calling our attention to the
farmers. They, they plant their crop and
then they, then they wait through circumstances.
Of course that circumstances, depending on the rain is
something that is outside of the farmers control, right?
The farmer can't control when it's going to rain.
He trusts that the early fall and the late spring rains will
happen because without them the harvest will just be a bust,
James said to us readers. Be patient, just like the farmer
is patient. How is the farmer able able to
do this? How are we able to be patient?
Romans 818 says. For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the
glory that is to be revealed to us.
The sufferings of this world are temporary.
A future with glorified bodies and eternally being in God's
presence far outweighs any difficulty we may experience in
this life. Think of it kind of like giving
birth. I've not experienced this,
obviously, but I am told that there is immense pain involved.
The mother is able to endure it, though, because the mother knows
that something, something great, something better, is coming on
the other side of this horrific pain.
The sure hope of Christ's return strengthens the persecuted in
the midst of the trial. So the next form of patience is
patience in dealing with people. Patience in dealing with people.
Earlier in his letter, James wrote about having joy in the
midst of trials. What he had in mind was
endurance in difficult circumstances.
Now, though there are similar concepts.
The word endurance is different from the word patience.
Endurance refers to patiently enduring, trying circumstances.
The word macrothemetal is used here though, and macrothemetal,
when it's used, it refers to patience in enduring, difficult
people rather than difficult circumstances.
Verse nine of our passage read Do not rumble against one
another. Being patient with people is
hard. Amen.
We're all humans, we're all people.
Being patient with each other can be hard, but James May well
have had a specific demographic in mind here when he's writing.
That demographic seems to be the poor.
These were people who had suffered the darts of ridicule,
injustice by merchants, and the wealthy.
Life's hard when you're under a system of oppression.
But James encouraged his audience to be careful.
As some of the wealthy, maybe they're brothers and sisters in
the Lord and not necessarily part of the system that was that
was working to hold them down. Oh, it's understandable that the
poor would have bad feelings about the rich, who may have
simply turned their backs on the plight of the poor, James said.
Don't complain against your brothers and sisters in the
church. P Patience with them.
No one's well served When we adopt A spirit of complaining
against each other. There will be difficult people
in life, but nothing good is accomplished by our complaining.
We don't actually alleviate the problem when we complain.
So we've seen patience in waiting for the Lord's coming,
patience in dealing with people, and now we have patience in
trials. Patience and trials.
Verses 10 through 11 are our passage read as an example of
suffering in patience. Brothers, take the prophets who
spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those
blessed who remained steadfast. And then you have heard of the
steadfastness of Job. James expects his readers to
have knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, and he simply
alludes to the prophets and to Job and their examples of
personal suffering. So what was a prophet?
A prophet was someone who was sent to correct God's people, to
call them to repentance, and to turn back to God.
Somehow, over the years, we've come to understand the prophet
as being someone who would tell what's going to happen in the
future. And sure, there are aspects of
that in the prophet's message, but that's not the primary role
of the prophet. The prophet's primary role was
to tell people they were sinning and to call them to return back
to God. No one apart from the spirits
working in them, no one wants to be told they're sinning.
They're living life wrong, right?
This is human nature. We want to live life on our
terms. Don't tell me what to do, I do
what I want. The prophets went around telling
people how to live their lives and so because of this they were
ridiculed and suffered greatly for it.
They demonstrated endurance as they shared their message and
trusted God to work things out and for God to be their
vindication. Let me share a few examples with
you and what they would have experienced.
Jeremiah. Jeremiah wrote two books,
obviously the book bearing his name, the book of Jeremiah, and
then the book immediately after that, the book of Lamentations.
Jeremiah is said to be the weeping prophet because he
didn't see any fruits from the work that he had been engaging
in. God told him to go tell the
Israelites to turn from their sins, and instead of listening
to him, they imprisoned him on multiple occasions and they
threw him in a well. He faced relentless opposition
from the people as he delivered God's message of repentance in
the face of coming judgments. Then there's Elijah.
Elijah faced serious threats from Queen Jezebel and her
sidekick husband, King Ahab. Jezebel was notorious for having
replaced Yahweh worship with the worship of Baal and Asherah.
She's also well known for violently persecuting the
prophets of Yahweh. In the showdown at Mount Carmel,
Elijah defeated all the prophets of Baal, and fire had come down
and consumed Elijah's sacrifice, making him the winner.
So he ordered all the prophets of Baal and Ashara to be killed.
Well, of course Miss Jezebel didn't take too kindly to this,
so she ordered Elijah dead. Not a good thing when someone
calls for your life. He escaped.
But this made for a very serious situation.
And even as he escapes, he wishes that he were dead.
He wants to die. That's a very significant trial,
Daniel. Daniel's trials are well known.
He lived in Babylon during the exile, and he faced all kinds of
pressure to compromise his faith.
It started with pressure to eat the King's food.
Then there's pressure to worship in the manner that the king says
and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or of
course, thrown into the fiery furnace and they survived.
And then there's also pressure to pray only to King
Nebuchadnezzar. But Daniel says no, I'm going to
continue praying to Yahweh as I have always done.
He chose to to disobey the king and to pray to Yahweh, but the
king and made a decree. And So what happened?
We know he was thrown into the lion's den.
He became a cat person. He was he was the cat whisperer.
God shut the mouths of the lions and Daniel was saved.
But of course, this would have brought tremendous stress on him
in the midst of this trial. But Daniel was patient and he
waited for the Lord to deliver him.
Many other stories of trial and persecution could be told of the
prophets. Then James explicitly said in
verse 11, You've heard of the steadfastness of Job.
The story of Job is one that sits couched in ancient history.
The book of Job is placed after the historical books in the
poetry section of our Canon of scripture.
So it's easy for us to see the account of Job as something may
be happening relatively late in Israel's history, just prior to
the exile. However, the reality is that the
tale of Job happens very early in time, before the vast
majority of the book of Genesis, possibly just after the flood.
So what happened to Job? He lost his immense wealth.
His oxen and donkeys were stolen and some of the servants were
killed. Some form of fire came down from
heaven and burned up his sheep and their accompanying servants.
A band of Raiders formed three groups and took all of Job's
camels and killed the remaining servants that were left.
Lastly, his children were having a party at their oldest
brother's house one day and a huge storm came along and
destroyed the house. And as it destroyed the house,
all of Job's family was lost. He lost everything, all his
wealth, his children, even his health.
When he ended up with sores all over his body, what was he left
with? A wife who was no support and
that was it. Not to mention his three friends
who I don't know if I'd really call them friends.
They did good for a few minutes when they listened, but then
they open their mouths. Job 122 reads In all this, Job
did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Job knew that God had a plan. He was willing to accept what
God allowed in his life and and wait patiently for God to reveal
his purpose behind the suffering.
In the end, God rewarded Job's patience, faith, and trust with
twice as much as he had had in the beginning.
So how do we achieve patience? First of all, patience is
developed through trials. I, I, I don't know if you know
this or not, but you're not supposed to pray for patience.
Well, you can, you can pray for patience, but if you pray for
patience, you know what's going to happen, right?
God is going to give you many opportunities to grow in
patience. I'm a little amused myself that
as I was preparing this message, we had some car issues.
Bought a car for my son back in May I think it was, and we knew
there would be some issues coming down the road, like we
didn't pay a lot of money for it so we knew some things would be
coming down the road. I've been driving it, it's a
stick, he's getting used to it, not quite ready to start driving
it yet. So I've been driving it.
Loving the gas mileage it gets 30 miles a gallon.
It's awesome since my commute distance literally tripled from
what it used to be. So I'm enjoying it.
Feel like I'm 20 years old again.
Driving around a Honda Civic with a stick, just like I did
when I was 20. So I knew some things were
coming down the road. I was almost to the beplex the
other day on my way into the office, and suddenly I start
hearing these horrible noises. So I'm just processing, thinking
what do I do? OK, it's driving.
How bad is it? Oh yeah, it's really bad.
I should pull over. Pulled over, tried looking under
a little bit, couldn't quite see what I suspected the problem
was. I was like, OK, I'm just going
to go home. Realized I didn't have my sermon
with me. I had yet to put it in the
cloud. I always store a copy in the
cloud. So I continue the rest of the
way here. And oh, that was not fun.
Everybody behind me was annoyed. I was giving them the
opportunity to grow in patients, right?
Got here, parked it, did some research online and everything
checks out. Pretty much seems to be what I
thought it was. Ball joints, tie rod ends.
It's going to be a fun time that Mister Finley and I are going to
be spending next week. But I just was amused by the
fact that as I'm preparing this message, this happens.
It's an inconvenience really, right?
Like that's, that's all it is. But it's an opportunity Satan
wants to take that opportunity to make you become impatient.
And I think I passed. I think I passed.
I'm pretty sure I did. I didn't stress or freak out or
anything. The car will get towed home this
afternoon, but yeah, it's just funny that this happens.
So we don't pray for patience because it'll give us lots of
opportunities to learn patience. But patience isn't something
that we just manufacture. We don't just will it, but there
are some steps that we can take to help ourselves to grow in
patience. First of all, trust God's timing
and promises. We can trust in God's timing and
promises, Verse 11 continued. You have heard the steadfastness
of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the
Lord is compassionate and merciful.
As humans, we're constantly in need of God's compassion and
mercy and need to continually be reminded of the reality of God's
grace and forgiveness in our lives.
Ecclesiastes 311 tells us God has made everything beautiful in
its time. Second, Peter 39 says the Lord
is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness,
but his patience towards you. God works all things in His
timing, not ours. We can trust His timing, but we
also trust God's promises, remembering passages like Romans
828. And we know that for those who
love God, all things work together for good.
God's promises that He's working everything out for our good.
Even when I can't see what He's doing, I can trust and know that
He is working. Because of God's good character,
we can have faith in His timing and promises, and patience will
be a byproduct of His working in US.
Another key to growing our patience is to strengthen the
disciplines. Strengthen yourself in the
spiritual disciplines. Time spent with God opens our
eyes to see His working. We need to grow ourselves in the
spiritual disciplines. Again, we can't simply
manufacture patients on our own, but time spent with God will
grow us in Him and increase our ability to see His working in
our lives. There are a number of spiritual
disciplines and strengthening all of them is beneficial, but
there are a couple disciplines in particular that I want to
draw our attention to. Prayer and time in the word
prayer and time in the word prayer is is a way for me to say
God. I can't do this on my own.
It's the first step in doing as it says in Colossians 312 and
clothing ourselves with patience.
You don't simply wake up in the morning, put on your pants and
then put on your shirts and then put on.
Patience doesn't quite work like that.
In order to put on patience, we need to press into the Holy
Spirit. We come to him and say, God,
would you form your character in me?
I'm frustrated, I'm grumpy, I'm impatient.
I need you to work in me and make me into the person that you
want me to be. We talked to God in prayer and
this is our declaration of dependence on him.
The other discipline we foster is time in the word.
When we spend time in the word, we're saying to the world, we're
saying to the rat race. I know there's a lot that needs
to be done in life and and life is full, but I don't care right
now. My only concern God is being in
your presence. Spending time with you, God and
and allowing you to speak to me through your word is of the
utmost importance right now. Sometimes when having
conversations with people, I'll ask them how their time in the
word is going or how is their devotional life going and I'm
often met with I just don't have time.
Frankly, I tell people that isn't true and, and, and I say
the reality is you do what you want to do.
If you want to watch that show at the end of the day, then you
will squeeze it in. You will make time for it,
right? If you want to doom scroll on
your phone, then that's what you're going to spend time
doing. If time with God isn't of the
utmost priority in your life, then it'll be squeezed out by
everything else. Whether it's sleep, whether it's
busyness of life or scrolling on your phone, social media,
whatever the case may be, you do what you want to do.
When I make time to be in the word, I'm demonstrating a sort
of patience. The busyness of life, the
hurriedness of life can wait. Some of you naturally have more
patience than the rest of us because of your personality.
Some of us, we have different gifts we are gifted in, how
might you say impatience? We especially need to ask God to
strengthen this particular fruits of the spirits in us.
As we make it a point to trust God's timing and promises and
further strengthen ourselves in the spiritual disciplines, our
eyes will be opened to see God's working.
When our eyes are opened, then gratitude pours into our hearts
and and it starts to shift our focus from what is lacking.
When our focus is on what is lacking in our lives, this is
often a source of impatience, wanting something to come into
our lives that we're anxious for, we're ready for, or
impatient for. So we shift from that.
When we have an attitude of gratitude, we shift to seeing
what God has already done and what God has already provided.
So now we come to the end. So what?
Why does it matter if I'm patient or if I'm impatient?
Well, there's some benefits to being patients.
The first reward that we see is strengthened character.
Strengthened character. Romans 5 tells us suffering
produces endurance or patience, and patience in turn leads to
character developments. When we're faced with
difficulties, a person who patiently endures is
strengthened and molded into a more resilient and virtuous
individual. Growth in patience is a
demonstration of God working in us to bring about higher
character. Think about it like this.
Patience isn't comfortable. It demands something of us.
It might require us to hold our tongues when when we'd like to
speak. It may mean standing still with
the decision when we'd like to rush on ahead.
Or perhaps we'd like to to know the unknown, We'd like to have
all the answers to our problems and trials and so we can
understand what is going on in our life.
However, through the discomforts of patience, God works to to to
grow us, to grow our faith, to produce character and and to
show us what true trust in Him looks like.
Character strengthened by patience has the long game in
mind. When we grow in patience, we are
able to love others well even when we don't feel loved.
We love others in the midst of the waiting, showing grace and
offering chance after chance to those who don't personally know
God yet. These moments, they allow us to
extend the same grace that God has extended to us.
We then take and extend to others when we grow in patience.
Another reward for patience is increased hope, increased hope
in God's promises and future blessings.
I referenced this verse a moment ago when talking about
character. Romans 5, three through 4.
You see it there on the screen. It says not only that, but we
rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, endurance produces character, and character
produces hope. As we see God's faithfulness and
overcoming challenges, our hope and His promises and future
blessings grows. Patience isn't simply tolerating
something unpleasant, but rather it's a defiant perseverance in
the face of adversity. Defiant perseverance in the face
of adversity, it says. I can see the struggles of life,
but my hope is in God and because of that I will persevere
in patience. The rewards we've seen so far
strengthened character and increased hope, and now we have
the ultimate reward, eternal significance.
This is the ultimate reward. The trials in this life aren't
aren't for nothing. God is using them to work in US
and to transform us. But there's a special reward for
those who face particularly insidious trials or persecution.
Earlier in chapter 1, verse 12, James said blessed is the man
who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the
test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised
to those who love him. The crown of life is a specific
reward for those who patiently endure trials.
The person who endures these trials is first of all blessed.
They receive joy. Joy is reminder.
It's an inner contentment regardless of the circumstances.
They receive this joy in the midst of the trial, but then
that blessedness is increased as they look forward to their
ultimate reward in heaven at the bima or judgment seat of Christ.
Will you and I have opportunities to face such
trials here in the United States?
Honestly, I don't know, but what I do know is that I want to grow
in patient endurance to the point that were I to face
extreme difficulties, my faith would be shown to be have deep
roots and be centered in Christ unwavering.
When we demonstrate patience, we show a world around us.
We're not easily moved by the goings on of life.
Our character has been formed in the fire of trials.
Our hope is in God, and our eyes are set on God's timing and
promises as we grow to be more like him.
As God grows our character, we're able to endure difficult
people and difficult situations without giving in to anger or
giving up hope. That is patience.
Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.
Father God, we thank you for Your word, Your word that tells
us how to live, that inspires us to press into You so that we can
grow in our godly character and we can increase our hope, our
hope and your promises and future blessings, and possibly
looking forward to the ultimate reward of perhaps a crown of
life someday when we arrive in your presence.
God, would you cause us to submit our lives under your
authority that we would say God, work your will in me, make me
into the person that you want me to be.
Give me Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Form your fruits in me as I submit to you.
It's in Jesus name we pray these things.
Amen.