Be Patient

introduction

Good morning rivertree. It’s a joy to be with you this morning. If you have your bibles go ahead an open up to james chapter 5 and we will start in verse 7 in a moment

we’ve been walking through the book of james over the last few months and I just want to remind you the context of where we have been

a major theme of the book of James is what to do when you are suffering.

he is writing to poor christians who are facing many trails in life.

and this morning the text we will look at is important because James is going to encourage us with what to do in the midst of suffering.

it’s an answer to a question we all have. becuase something we all have in common is at somepoint at sometime in life we will suffer.

for some you are in the middle of it right now. you are suffering. Others you have suffered singificangltyt in the past and wonder what god was doing

and the we all know inevetablity we will suffer in the future.

let’s see how James encourages us in the midst of our suffering.

Read

James 5:7–11 ESV

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 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.

As James encourages his readers he tells them to wait like the farmer

wait on the Lords coming

Wait like those who have gone beofe you

and waiting is described in 2 words in the english lanauge

be patients

and how is being patient even possible in a world tha’ts moving faster then ever?

James knows the people he is writing to are suffering. and he points the readers of this listners to the famers of his day

The farmers would go out and plant their crops, they desired growth.

but they would have to wait for the rians to come in order to see the growth they desired.

He’s drawing from deutormony 11 here

It’s in deutoronmy 11 Moses is reminding Gods people how faithful the Lord has been. He is recounting the history of the nation of isreal and in the middle of Moses’ recounting he says

Deuteronomy 11:14 ESV

he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.

and that’s what james has in mind when he is pointing us to the farmer. It’s not just some hypothetical farmer. But it’s not just a hypothetical farmer. It’s THE FARMER. the person they kneew the person who had been working the land for thousands of years and seen Gods faithfulness

and it’s this famer that’s the illustartion. The farmer is waiting. He is submitting to the process.

He could fight it, he could worry about it, he could insit the harvest come in the middle of the process but that would all be futiule

It would not change anything.

farmers had the oppurutinty to learn the discipleing of waiting

they were invitied into submiting to God’s process the farmers knew they would undergo stressful times when it appears the rains would never come. and that time was a time for the farmer to wait and allow his crops to grow

and as the farmer waited for his crops to grow he would also grow in faith and depedence on God

if you were to go and watch a local farmer plow fields, sow thier crops sometimes things don’t change right away

sometimes the soil looks bare it did when the farmer went to work.

and that could make us answer a question afe they wasiting their time? has the crop failed?

of course not. It just takes time, more time than we might like and I’m sure that’s how the early belivers felt as they waited for the Lord to move in the midst of thier suffering.

yet james says be patient as you wait on the returen of the Lord

and as they waited they had to turn to Jesus own teaching on his return

Jesus taught he would once again return for those who followed him

James hped his readers would latch onto this.

Jesus was coming for his church and even though it might seem far off he was coming for his people.

and it was closer then anyone would realize

I rememver this time when my kids were really young maybe around the age of 2 and 5, I stepped outside my house in the front yard real quick maybe 3 mins or so.

When I came back in my kids where just sitting in the living room weeping.

I thought maybe they had got in a fight but I asked them and my oldest said I thought you would never come back…..

It was super sad. I put my arms around them and said of course I came back

It felt like forever for the kids, felt pretty quick for me

sometimes we can wonder why hasn’t the Lord returned by this point? Is he even coming back?

Y2K story….

quick history lesson. Pretty sure the world was going to end. At least as an 18 year old that’s what I thought.

we count down to midnight and at midnight the place where i was the lights went out in the house and we all screamed.

I thought this is it. It’s what the left behind books had been preditcint. but it wasn’t. It was my best friend flipping the power breaker.

I wonder how long at times but I am reminded the jewish people, after all, had live with this problem as they had had waited for their messiah to come. one of James primary lessons as they are realzing is don’t imagine our timescale corresponds to Gods timescale

and I would say to everyone this moring the coming of christ is near.

it’s like Christmas. For kids it can’t come soon enough. For parents we can’t beleive it’s already back

and in the same way for Gods children his comign can’t come soon enough. we john with the apostle John and the early church and we pray come soon lord Jesu.

but for our Father he knows it’s very near

and we aren’t just to believe this but embrass it. If anytihng is true we are much nearer to the return of christ then the apostles where.

20 centuries later, we live in exzctly the same situaiton the early church did.

own own decade could be the last in human history and james advice to us is this

be patient, etablish your hearts