James 5

Anyhow, lets look at this back pack… only so much can put in… only so much weight before I can’t carry it… life is the same way… we call the weight of our life burdens… most like to thing bad things.. could be good… praying to get pregnant.. BOOOM… all of a sudden that weight becomes real… or you praying for a promotion… BOOOM all of sudden that becomes real… its good but its a burden none the less… so there is all this weight that we are carrying around and truth is we can only carry so much.

 Therapists and counselors will tell you when burdens come and life starts to get heavy we have one of three reactions.

Fight, Fright, or flight…which are you?

Fight.. heck no.. I got this… I’ll pick up another job to pay for this baby… I’ll just keep going until I collapse.

Fright…straight up you get crazy panicked… what now.. what can I do… what will happen how can we do it..

Flight… no sir, I can’t do this… I quit… my job… my marriage.. my college career…I don’t want this burden God gave me too much...

If you ask James though, he will tell you that there is a fourth way to deal with a situation, its the way of faith… look with me if you will at James 5:7-12

James 5:7–12 NIV

7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! 10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

So, we looked at what the world tells us is the three choices for what we do when we look at the weight that the Lord has placed upon our lives, but what does it mean to live by faith and carry the load that God has called us to?

James is writing to these Christians who are under heavy burdens, and if you remember last week he also was under a heavy burden as he tried to lead his church in Jerusalem and make the best decisions and follow in the face of tons of adversity.  Remember we learned last week that the people disliked him so much that they had a plot to kill him and eventually the throw him from the top of the temple and when that doesn’t kill him they circle around him, and beat him to death… thats a horrible preacher story right there, no matter how many of us as pastors know we have members of the congregation that don’t like some of the things we do, I have never heard of a present day story that was anywhere near this bad...

Not only that, but he is writing to a church that is dispersed its not in one location, its like many churches of today, a church that we hope to be one day, one church in many locations…but he is writing and giving them counsel as to what to do in their lives… and we have to remember that James is the little brother of Jesus, and James has seen someone carry some enormous burdens… lets be honest, there was never a person that has lived or will ever live that has carried as heavy of burdens as Jesus.  So he has watched Jesus and learned from his instruction and his interactions with people… 

He heard Jesus say, “Come to me all who are weary” and there are times we say I can’t keep doing this… and jesus says “and all who are heavy laden… burdened…" why come to him? because his burden is easy and his yoke is light… see this community understood what Jesus was saying because when there was a burden that was too heavy for one animal, they would just yoke it up to a second ox and let them share in the burden….

So Jesus was telling people, Bring me your burdens, anything you think you can’t handle, just bring it to me and I will help you with it… not that I will carry it all for you… you got to bring it to me and I will help you, I will carry it with you.. I will make it easier but you still have to take some of the load...

So watching this James knows that people are at that point of being overwhelmed, burdened, exhausted and they are trying to figure out what to do….

   James is saying, there is this way of faith… and let me give you these four principles what I want to do this morning is pose them in the form of a question so you can truly get to what he is saying… the first is this

1. How is your heart?

     What he is trying to say is this, while we can’t control what is going on around us, we most definitely can control what is going on inside of us.  Even though you may not like what all the circumstances are around you, that you lost your job, that your family member passed away, that you caught your child stealing, whatever it is, you can control how your heart responds and what it is deciding to do. And remember the heart in the Bible is this huge theme, its really the center of who YOU are as a person… its the place where all of your decisions, motives, desires come from… in the Bible it is actually talked about more than 900 times. So, lets look back at what James says in versus 7 and 8...

James 5:7 NIV

7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.

7Be patient,

Listen, this sucks, can I say that. I am sure I am not the only one that feels that way… be patient… yeah, thanks pastor, let’s start right there with that… if you are impatient just raise your hand this morning… everyone else must not be living… seriously, some of us are more patient than others, but really we are all impatient when it comes to God’s timing we want it now we don’t want it later.  So he says be patient...

then, brothers and sisters,(Remember, he’s talking to the Christians and if you are impatient like some of us, you say, Oh yes, I can do this, I can be patient… but how long Pastor James?)  until the Lord’s coming.

(Wait… what? James.. listen, I get that is easy for you to say, when you penned this letter Jesus has beed dead less than 50 years and you were sure he was coming back for you, but James, dude, its been like 2000 years since Jesus died and left and dude, I don’t know about you, but what if it takes twice that long for him to come back, are you still saying you want me to be patient?) (the problem is, we tend to think in terms of our life span and God is so much higher than that he’s so much deeper than that the he thinks in terms of eternity)

 Here’s the deal, some of you have done some extensive research on eschatology, or the end times, or the end of things… and your well meaning teachers have helped you to put together a list and you can figure out when Jesus is coming… like okay, after this happens and this happens then we know Jesus is coming, and we see this happening in Israel right now, so I know that Jesus will return within the next 50 years.  Wow.  Boom.  Trouble is, people have been making those same lists for centuries… truth of the matter is that the Bible tells us no one knows the day and the hour but God in heaven… so we just have to live by Faith and believe that he is coming back… how long? Until it happens. So back to james...

James 5:7–8 NIV

7 … See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

Even if you don’t read well, you start to see that in those two short verses we keep seeing that word patient.. and what James s trying to tell us is this:    Life is a whole lot like farming… think about it.. God created the world for things to grow in seasons… no matter what, I couldn’t go out right now and plant me some tomatoes outside and expect them to grow and have some delicious tomatoes in January… it doesn’t work that way…because everything was meant to grow in seasons… and you are just like that… Think about it, its like our church is a field… and all of you are the fruit… and he knows that we don’t all grow in the same seasons, but just like the farmer who has to put in the work to get things to grow when they need to he is working on all of us… he is pruning you… he is tilling the soil in your heart… he is getting us all ready to do great work for him… because listen we are all supposed to bear GOOD fruit…and in some seasons we just have to be patient no matter how hard we want to work and allow him to do great work in our hearts.

And here’s the thing, no matter how much we want to we can’t just bear fruit in the middle of the wrong season,, you can be saying I really want to do great work for God.. I want it now.. but he is still cutting all the dead stuff away… I want it now… and we look back at these verses… and you will see… 7 patient… 8 patient… 9patience.. 10…patience… 11…steadfast….12steadfastness… THEME all over the place...

I believe we live in the most impatient time period in history.. planes trains automobiles… people don’t move fast enough we honk, give the finger and move on…some of you this morning even are sitting there hoping I shut up soon because you have places to go and food to eat..

So here so far the main message from James is this, fix your heart… get it rooted… for some of us we always want to fix ourselves or someone else right now… just to fix the problem in our hearts and desires immediately but James is saying, be patient...

So he is saying protect that heart, get it ready, establish it, get it rooted… because what happens… when we have these burdens…. when we are carrying them around…sometime we think.. I can’t do it…its too much its going to crush me…see the problem is the anxious heart.. you know the inpatient one, sees the weight and they look at the future and there is absolutely no hope whatsoever...

You know what happens when we start to manifest things in our minds and worry about things that have yet to happen? We turn ourselves into false prophets… seriously… it becomes this thing where we are foretelling of a future that may never even happen… and a lot of this comes because we have no hope in the future… we have lost sight of what God can do for us, and we have become impatient and believe he won’t pull through… 

The other thing that can happen if we don’t protect our heart and get it established and rooted in Jesus is we can get a sad heart… this is depression… we have tons of it… it runs rampant in my family and if I am being completely honest with you this is something that I have fought off all my life, and if I am not very careful, it likes to rear its head in my life anytime I will lose focus on God. And listen, Im not saying that we have to be happy all the time because there are seasons to mourn there are times to grieve so I get that… but when we don’t establish our heart in Jesus we LIVE in those places...

So you say, great, thanks pastor.. now you’ve labeled the problem.. I have an anxious heart…I have a sad heart… now what do you want me to do… here are two practical Ideas...

If you are ever in places like oklahoma or somewhere in tornado alley where storms get really bad one thing you will notice is that most of those places have strategically placed lightning rods… see the idea is this… in those storms… there are tons of negative energy that is looking for a place to come out and hit the ground….so you place these lightning rods so that you can help control where the storm hits and it doesn’t cause things to catch on fire and burn out of control...

SO get this, if you have been alive for any amount of time you will realize there is going to be storms in your life, and lightning is going to strike you… Jesus never told us that he would save us from having storms…so you are going to need a lightning rod… this is a person that you know… and let me say this again… only take advise from people that first and foremost love Jesus, love you, and love the church… anyhow… find a person you can talk to… and trust.. and listen find a person that you can go to that isn’t going to try to fix you immediately… there is nothing worse than a person that won’t let you just blow off steam… and let me stop here again and say this, wives, we as men are fixers… its in our nature… and I think there are tons of problems caused in marriages because men are constantly trying to fix everything, and sometimes wives aren’t looking for that… and let me just say this, if you are going to blow of steam to your husband, you need to preface that conversation with that simple statement, hey honey I am not looking for you to fix this, but… and i get it, you shouldn’t have to tell us that, we should figure it out, but listen, a good husband wants to help you… its inside him that he wants nothing more than to fix all of your problems, all of his kids problems, so just preface those conversations with that and see how much smoother it goes… but we all need a lighting rod… someone we can go to that won’t just quote bible verses in those moments who will listen, give us more food to eat, and wait until the right time, you know, like a good coach would, to give that wise council...

So we can get a lightning rod and the second thing we need is a release valve…think about a pressure cooker… some of us have seen them… over time as the cooker heats up pressure builds up inside… and if the release valve isn’t working correctly, it explodes… like this….

PICTURE HERE...

SO in our lives we need to find a Godly release valve… see this is where a lot of people get it wrong.. they find the wrong release valves in life… people turn to alcohol.. man it really releases the pressure… and I am not saying drinking alcohol is wrong in totality… but what I am saying is people turn to alcohol for that release and they get caught up in it… THEN some people turn to drugs… some people turn to sex… let me stop right there….married… both willing… I guess its okay.. thats not what I meant...and listen its not that you have to carry all that pressure but it doesn’t have to come out in an ungodly way…

For some of you that sit in an office all day long and use your minds all day long for some of you a release valve is going to be something that is super active… something like hiking…running… playing basketball…hugging your kids.. .snuggling your wife… just something physical… 

for me those things have been cooking… running… exercising… it gets all of that out… IF you really want to establish your heart you are going to need some of those things to get it all out...

In ministry it may be more evident but the truth of the matter is we are much more concerned with the second coming when we are having a really rough time… Like if you walk out of here today and realize last night you hit the powerball… and I catch up with you this week because you have invited me over to write a tithe check to the church and want to make sure we have it and I say, Hey, now that you have all this money when do you want Jesus to come back, your response would be… we’ll… look man I am kind of busy… I got some good things happening right now… can we do that later?

on the other hand if I come to you and you have just been diagnosed with cancer and I ask you… hey… when would you like jesus to return, chances are you will say,,, today would be great!

See what happens is when the burden gets too heavy.. we say COME LORD JESUS.. its our way of screaming this burden si too heavy I can’t do it

Sometimes we get caught up in our burdens and they are so heavy we can’t see a way out in our own power and basically James is saying look up brothers… sisters… look up… Jesus is there..

First question, how is your heart… second question...

2. How are your relationships?

Look at james 5:9

James 5:9 NIV

9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!

9Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! 

So when you become under great pressure, the burden is heavy, do you tend to have more patience with people or less? You may say thats not me… Im not like that… ad the person next to you in their eyes right now is saying the exact opposite...

The problem is when pressure and burden comes we tend to grumble much more… so look at the church today… pressure is coming from the outside to do things we know is wrong… the world is telling us to live a certain way.. and the people inside the church start grumbling against one another.

This starts to sound like this…Lord, why did you give me such a horrible boss… why are my friends so awful and don’t care about me… why didn’t you give me a spouse that cares more about me…why do you keep sending me overly critical people...

What tends to happen is hurting people become selfish people… we tend to look at ourselves and our own desires more than anything else. Why can’t you forgive me… why can’t you be more sympathetic… why can’t you see past my flaws…why can’t you help me… please be patient with me…

And its as if God is looking at us saying…Why are you all thats important… what if they are suffering… what if they are going through hard times… what then… maybe you need to be all that stuff to them as well..

SO if you want to fix that grumbling, what we are going to have to do is fix our relationships.. we have to realize that we need to be as sympathetic, caring, etc with everyone else as we want them to be with us.

So what happens often is we take out all of our burden, all of our stress and we take it out on people around us… and if we want to fix those relationships the best thing we can do is be honest with those people… say listen.. “I am totally grouchy right now.. I have a lot of weight on me, its not you its me… and I need your help… when I get there as calm as you can in as much love and not judgment as you can, I need you to help me… tell me I am getting that way…."

Or maybe we have done something even though unintentional that hurt someone then what we need to do is apologize.. this is by far the hardest thing for some people in our society..but when we snap we tell people whats going on.. we let them know that its not an excuse but we are sorry and wanted to let them know what was up.

So how do we fix all that relational mess and quit all the grumbling…You just trust that Jesus is coming and when he gets here, he will figure it all out… and he will take care of all the mess and make sure that judgment is passed, and as it should be, not as you;d like it to be… So how is your heart, how are your relationships…and 

3. How is your steadfastness?

Really this is the heart of what he is speaking.

James 5:10 NIV

10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering…

10Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering,

I don’t know about you but this two things don’t seem to go together very well together in my eyes. Usually the two are mutually exclusive… but James is bringing those two together. Pleasure and patience thats easy… if I like it I can be patient with it all day….And we say come on James, nobody has pleasure and patience.. and he says oh yeah… look...

James 5:10–11 NIV

10 …take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

What?! Let me ask this question, how many of you love the steadfastness of all these prophets in the Bible… how while they were being persecuted and hurt they still loved Jesus in spite of all of that…. how many of you admire that…. oooh another question… how many of you want to be one? No? Why? Because it hurts.. it sucks...

Here’s what Hebrews 11:35–38 says about the prophets.

Hebrews 11:35–38 NIV

35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

The scary thing is that in the day of the prophets they were all villains we consider them heres but in their day it was not like that at all… we have to be careful who we are being heavy burdened to not automatically just assume that we are like Jesus and being hated the same way…Jesus got stuff that he didn’t deserve… and sometimes we are being persecuted because we deserve it… but there will always be times and seasons when we are being persecuted because we are walking in the way of Jesus for sure...

So he talks about the prophets and then he talks about Job… and you can take the time when you get home to read the book of Job… its an exciting book… ha… and let me say we like to turn Job into a superhero…. but he was a man… remember that… but he was a GODLY man...

 He knew the Lord, he loved the Lord… he was extremely successful.. had great health… and then the bottom falls out… and Job doesn’t know why… We do since  we read the story, but he doesn’t…so we see that Satan comes to God and says, :Yo bro, the only reason Job loves you is because you give him good stuff…I bet if you took all that away he wouldn’t care…

So God removes his hand of protection…watch what happens… All TEN of his children die… just pause there for a second… I can’t even begin to go there in my mind.. I don’t want to go there… they all die… he loses everything financially… people start talking smack about him… his reputation is gone… he loses his health…and boils break out on his body… this is fun right… 

The only two things he didn’t lose was his wife, and some friends that he probably wishes he could have lost… listen, his wife was a Proverbs 31 woman… she was an encourager… she told him, Why don’t you just cuss God out and let him Kill you….SAY WHAAAAT?

Then his … ahem… friends come at him… these are the guys that know a whole lot of the word, but don’t know the love of Jesus… they get this idea of Karma all in there too… they say…. Bro… bad things happen to bad people… good things to good people… what did you do….you gotta be a bad person…. don’t laugh… you think the same way sometimes… God I read my bible every day this week.. you must love me more… I didn’t read my bible this week thats why Ive been having such a tough week… come on...

You ever know someone like that, or god forbid you have a friend like that? You fall and break your leg and they come by and say… what… broke my leg… no no… what did you do to deserve it.. say what?

So he loses everything except for the extremely encouraging people in his life.

And when you read the story of Job, one thing you have to realize is there is a difference between struggling with God and Denying God… Job struggled with God… and his will for his life and what was going on but he never denied or had disbelief in his goodness…

And listen thats what happens in our lives as well… there will be moments that the burden is too heavy… and we STRUGGLE with God… the problem is that all too often people allow that struggle to become disbelief in their lives because listen, Job, even Jesus in the garden had those moments but he was still a righteous man. Why? Because he didn’t turn hi back on the Lord, he just brought his concerns to the Lord.

How many of you Admire Job for what he went through? How many of you want to live his life? No

Let me tell you the truth, almost everyone quits too early… we quit on our spouses too early… our jobs… our friends… our church… GOD… and we quit because we are impatient..God is patient and sometimes, we are just a few moments away from him turning the person into the person we need them to be… from him turning us into the person they need us to be

That’s exactly what James is saying. “Then you’ll have seen the purpose of the Lord.” You see that? Steadfast, steadfastness. Only if you persevere, only if you hang in there, only if you endure, only if you don’t quit, then down the road, you’ll see the purpose of the Lord. Oh, that’s what he was doing. That’s what he was doing in them, that’s what he’s doing in me, that’s what he’s doing in us.

The beauty of the situation is this, no matter the burden, no matter the struggle, Jesus understands it… Hebrews 4:15-16

Hebrews 4:15–16 NIV

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

says 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Jesus says, “I understand. Everything you’re experiencing, I’ve experienced. The place you are is the place I’ve been. And I was there for you, and I’ll be there with you. I’m compassionate, I understand, and I’m merciful, I’m here to help.”

Jesus is awesome that way….

so number 4..

4. How is your mouth?

      Listen I know you don’t struggle with this at all…..we talked about it two weeks ago… you got this...

James 5:12 NIV

12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

So he’s talking about oaths… he’s saying don’t take those… just let the words of your mouth be what they are…so once you have made a commitment keep to it.. don’t let it go… Some of the worst decisions we make in our lives are in those moments when in our short sight we lose sight of the bigger picture… we take an oath to our spouse and in the short term we lose sight of what we made an oath to do… and we say no to what we said yes to… be steadfast in all you do...

God is not a god that will say yes and then change his mind to no… he doesn’t do that…so don’t quit too early.. don’t give up too soon… what normally causes that is people feel the burden is too heavy so they drop it off at any time...

Jesus carried an enormous burden… on a cross he put on a broken and battered body, he carried the sin of the world to the cross… have you ever done something wrong? And you didn’t want to get caught, you didn’t want people to know about it, so you feel the true burden of what you have done… imagine all that weight, on one person… normally we don’t even carry the burden of just our OWN sin at one time…but he carried it all….