What is the rush
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Patience
Patience
Last week we looked at worship and the warnings for those that worship money.
3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.
4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
We see in last weeks text, the suffering the righteous endure at the hands of the greedy and wicked. While we are just starting to see this here, there are brothers and sisters in Christ through out the world how can relate to this passage much better than us. And as we turn our attention to our text this morning God has instructions for how we are to live when we face this persecution from the rich and wicked. Look at verse 7 of James chapter 5
7 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.
Patience - the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset:
We could spend the rest of our time lingering right here couldn’t we? Or am I the only one that struggles to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset?
Let’s begin examining our text. What does our text say about God?
First, we see God is patient. We may be asking our self where do i see that in the passage He is telling us to be patient as we wait for the second coming of Jesus and I would argue that is were we see God’s patience. Why has the Lord not returned?
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
I think this is also tied in with this verse
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
For the second truth about God I want to point out, look at verse 11 of our passage.
11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained 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.
We also see from our passage that God is compassionate and merciful. Who is thankful for that this morning?
This is one of the greatest truths about God. You sin and I sin. And the punishment for that sin is death and hell. Eternally separated from God. That would have been everyone’s destiny if God would not have intervened. Because of His compassion and mercy, He sent us His Son to do what you could never do. That is live the perfect life. Some times I think we repeat this a lot and don’t stop to meditate on it. Jesus was sinless. I can’t seem to go a day without sin and Jesus went a life time without sin. What a gift Jesus is.
What does our text say about us? First, we are impatient right?
7 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.
How patient do farmers have to be? Consider the farm who plants corn. You plant the corn and then you need rain as the plant first starts to grow that would be the early rain and then after it grows tall towards the end It shoots tassel and you need rain again or else the ear won’t develop. I remember one year we got the early rains and the stalk we nice and tall and then we had a drought when it shot tassel and the ears didn’t develop. Driving by the crop looked great but the most important part didn’t develop.
If you do nothing else from the message this mourning, take time today to meditate on the compassion and mercy of our Great God. He has been so patient with us. And if you want extra credit, invest in establishing your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand and that can only come by spending time in His Word and spending time in prayer.