The Faith of patience: James 5:7-11

I want to ask you to continue standing and turn in your Bibles to James chapter 5. We're going to read verses 1 through 11.

Please hear now the inspired word of God. Come now you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.

Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth -eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.

It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure. Behold the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been withheld by you cries out against you.

And the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure.

Wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man.

He does not resist you. Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the

Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets to the early and late rains.

You too be patient. Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near.

Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged.

Behold the judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the

Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the

Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and merciful.

He is merciful. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we would just pray that you would bless the preaching of the

Word. Lord, that you would guide my tongue to speak only the words you have for your people.

Nothing more, nothing less, that you would be glorified and that your people would be edified.

Father, for those who are not yet yours, I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they would recognize their need for Christ and realize

He is at hand. It's in His name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

So the sermon title is The Faith of Patience, and when

I told the girls I was preaching on patience, they said, you should say, I couldn't wait to preach this sermon.

Getting me with my own dad jokes. But I was thinking about New Year's resolutions as it is that time of year, and there are some people who still practice such a thing and not just giving up saying all these years just run together.

But when it comes time for that new year, it's a time for reflection over the old of what's passed.

If you're a believer on Christ, you should be reflecting on how He has provided for you, has sustained you, and hopefully how you have grown in your sanctification over the past year.

And most people coming into a new year are thinking about how they can better themselves, what reforms they can take in their own life, weight, finances, maybe they have goals about education or career or relationships.

There are so many things that we can be looking forward to in the new year and trying to put on.

And so I want to encourage you to consider resolving to be more patient in the coming year.

It's something where we say, I need patience right now, as a matter of fact. And it's always one of those dangerous prayers because God will give us opportunities to exercise patience.

He's about to give you an opportunity right now as I preach to say, how long, oh

Lord? Hopefully it won't be that bad. Don't laugh too much at that joke.

I can go all day. But here, last time I had the opportunity to preach,

I did so from the first chapter of James. James is so chock full of practical wisdom, just practical everyday

Christian living that he exhorts us to, reminds us what our true religion should look like. And last time we talked about how the purpose was that hearing was not enough, but the blessing is in the doing, that it's not enough to passively take in truth, even to seek out truth and copious amounts of it and listen to it.

It's not enough for our doctrine to sound as important as that is, as vital as that is, our practice must be sound as well.

And so now as we look at the last chapter of James, our topic is patience. Because it's an area that I don't think we give enough thought to.

And it really is an undergirding of our Christian life, what's going on in our hearts and how we respond to everything around us.

And so the question is, what is patience? It's been defined in a number of ways. Patience is defined as a slowness to anger, as the ability to remain tranquil while waiting, to bear up under provocation without complaint, to be able to accept or tolerate delays, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.

How are we doing so far? But there was one definition that I read that I thought really made an important distinction.

And it stated that patience implies suffering, enduring, or waiting as a determination of the will and not simply under necessity.

And I think that comment, the determination of the will, is so essential to our understanding of patience.

Patience is not something you just, oh, you have it or you don't, right? Some people, we just, we don't have it.

No, patience is not just keeping all your negative emotions and words bottled up inside, trying to keep that anger and bitterness under wraps, unable to escape and to have full vent.

Patience is not having a good poker face. It's not maintaining some external facade, but rather it's a disposition of the heart.

Patience flows out of a deliberate choosing of perspective and response.

And the scriptures show us, frequently in fact, that patience is an attribute of the

Lord our God. In fact, one of the times where he specifically points it out is in the context of the

Exodus. And he's up there on the mountain with Moses. And Moses says, show me your glory.

And he goes, if I did, you would die. But in showing him just a fraction, as he passes by, so just the rear parts could be glanced at, this is what the

Lord proclaims as he walks by. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Patience does not mean things are never dealt with, that punishment is never coming.

But God, in the context of the Exodus and delivering a people who are under oppression and yet are still very sinful in themselves,

God says, I am slow to anger, I'm patient. And it's one of those attributes that is categorized by the theologians as a communicable attribute, which just means that the creature,

I'm sorry, the creator has enabled us, the creation, the creature, to possess this attribute as part of our calling as God's image bearers.

Now unfortunately, you're probably aware, sin has corrupted our ability to be faithful image bearers of our

God. That patience that we ought to have, that is supposed to flow out of our faith in God and our love for him, our love for each other, has been diminished, if not entirely removed in some cases, by the destructive nature of sin.

But the problem is, the corruption of our ability to be an image bearer does not remove our obligation before God.

And impatience is a failure of that obligation. Impatience is a falling short of the glory of God.

Impatience is not just some small character deficiency, some trivial defect, impatience is sin.

And the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. That's a sobering thought.

Most people recognize patience as a virtue, but they tend to think of impatience as just our default position.

It's not great, but it's not something that we think deserves the punishment of death. You know why we think that?

Because we fail time and again to recognize just how holy our God is, and how fallen we are in light of our calling to be holy like him.

But when we reflect on this reality, when we consider it for what it really is and what it really means, it's just another reminder.

Each one of us is desperately, desperately in need of a Savior. But that's why we're here, isn't it?

That's the good news. Just this Monday, we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the

God -man. Jesus Christ is that Savior that we need. He came into this world as a baby.

He came to take the punishment for all our sin, including impatience, and to give us his righteousness that we might be saved, that we might be reconciled to God.

Our salvation is entered into by faith, and even that is a gift of God. This is why we give gifts on Christmas, because God has given us so much.

We can never repay. But we remember as we give others and we tell why.

The Holy Spirit comes and regenerates and indwells us so that we are no longer slaves to our sin.

Now, now we are able to obey God and to bear his image as we ought to.

He gives us that ability by making us new creations. And one of the ways that we bear his image is by being patient.

And so what I want to do is

I want to go through each one of these verses, verses 7 to 11. I want to unpack it a little bit, but it should be fairly easy to track with me as we go verse by verse.

But I think there's things here that we might just read past normally and not realize the full weight of what is being said.

And so I want to encourage us with this. As I said, the letter from James is filled with exhortations to practical living, to wisdom.

And as we considered last time, it's not enough just to hear, we must be doers. Now, in all of this,

James would not disagree with Paul that we are saved by faith alone. He wouldn't disagree with that.

Faith alone and we're not saved by our works. But James reminds us that if our faith is not accompanied by works, if it's not accompanied by a change in us, then we have a good reason to question whether that faith is actually genuine, a living faith, or just something that is counterfeit.

But here as he writes, he writes to the saints on the assumption of genuine faith.

But he writes with these exhortations because he recognizes that we still struggle with the flesh.

And so he exhorts us to hold on to our faith and to live it out as the

Lord calls us to. And he points to those areas which we often struggle with to remind us of just how important they are in God's sight.

Because we would prefer to pick and choose what we think really matters to God. And it's always the stuff that matters to me.

And if it doesn't, he's good with it too. But James brings our attention to reality and to truth.

And so, starting in verse 7, he exhorts us to be patient.

And he says, therefore, be patient. And of course, if you've studied any time, you know that therefore is always pointing and we need to know what it's there for.

But that's why I read the first six verses of this chapter. The immediate context when we look at those preceding verses would be patience in the face of mistreatment by others.

James is talking to those who are rich and who have misused the blessings

God has given them. And so the patience in the face of mistreatment by others is the immediate context.

But if we consider the entirety of this passage, we'll realize that the need for patience has an even broader range of application.

It's not limited to just when you're dealing with that. He says, therefore, be patient until the coming of the

Lord. Now, again, pointing back to those who have abused their power, those who have held back wages, those who have been guilty of murder in some fashion.

He says, the cries of those oppressed have reached the ears of the

Lord of Sabaoth. Or in the ESV, it says, hosts. He says, you have prepared yourselves for slaughter.

And so the command to be patient, and it is a command, when you look at the Greek, these are imperatives.

These are not mere suggestions. The command to be patient is based on the fact that the

Lord will judge. He will right the wrongs. We must have faith.

We must be patient and not take vengeance into our own hands. But then he immediately begins talking about the farmer.

And depending on what translation you're looking at, in the Greek, there's a little word, edou, which means behold or see, but it's meant to bring strong attention to what he's about to say.

And so I believe in the ESV, it says, see the farmer. And the LSB, if you've picked up that newer translation, that says behold.

But our good new American standard just leaves it untranslated. All the same, consider the example of the farmer.

The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until he gets the early and late rains.

And there's a couple things I want to bring out about this illustration as we reflect on it. For starters, the farmer has a responsibility as he seeks to obtain this produce, this fruit.

He has to work the land. He has to prepare and turn over the soil. He has to sow the seed.

He has to fertilize. He has to weed. The farmer has obligations. He has to do his due diligence.

But he must also wait on the Lord. He has to be patient. Waiting on the early and late rains that only the

Lord can provide. You know, what's significant about that early and late rains? That little phrase there.

It's in reference to the climate in Israel. But if you look back throughout the Old Testament, every time that phrase is used to describe the early and late rains and their climate and their agriculture, whenever it's mentioned, it's in reference to the

Lord's faithfulness. It's in reference to the fact that God is bringing the early and the late rains.

He is faithful. And one of the ways that helps us to be patient is to remember just how good

God is. Just how faithful He has been in the past. And that helps to reassure us in our patience as we look to the future.

The Lord is faithful to provide for our needs. And, as the early and late designation suggests,

His timing is always perfect. You need those rains in the beginning of the season.

You need the rains at the end. The Lord knows what we need, and He knows when we need it.

And just as the farmer works the land in faith, I mean, if he didn't think God was going to send the rain, he wouldn't bother making the effort.

He'd be a hunter instead. But just as he in faith waits on the

Lord, we too should be faithfully living out our calling with patience. The farmer in the example, in the illustration, he's waiting for literal fruit, literal produce, necessary for his survival, the survival of his family, for his prospering, to perhaps sell it and grow that way.

The fruit that we are waiting for could be any number of things. We are looking for fruitfulness in our lives.

We're looking for good fruit. And it could be that we're looking for it in our families, in our education, in our work.

How often do parents need patience in raising their children and desiring good fruit?

For some, certain ages are more difficult than others. Certain harvests seem like they're never going to come.

And then there comes a time where patience is required for children dealing with their parents. Truly just the adult children dealing with their parents, right?

Patience is necessary when you're seeking to get an education or training for a career. Patience is necessary when you're waiting for an advancement in your career.

It's required for school, whether it be as a teacher, a student, an administrator. It's required at work, dealing with bosses, employees, co -workers, the public.

Patience is required when waiting for God to send a spouse. And then patience is required when dealing with that spouse.

Patience is needed with our family, with our neighbors, with acquaintances and friends.

Whatever your situation, whatever your circumstances, patience. Patience is going to be required. And just as the farmer has obligations, even as he waits on the rain, we too have biblical obligations every day, in every situation, in how we speak and how we act.

How many of us are just going out there acting as if we have no idea what

God's word? Maybe we're not acting. Maybe we really have no idea what God requires of us in our interactions with others.

We just sort of go with the flow and assume that God's okay with it because that's what everyone else is doing. But Scripture speaks on how we ought to view each other, speak to one another, treat one another.

And when we want to see fruit from those interactions, those relationships, those circumstances, there's times where we just simply have to wait patiently on the

Lord for it to bear that fruit. If the farmer tries to reap before the late rain comes, he won't have much of a crop to bring in.

If he gives up the effort, he'll have no crop to bring in. We must seek to walk faithfully in obedience with patience, knowing that the

Lord will provide whatever we need. The next verse, verse 8, says,

You too be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the

Lord is near. After pointing to the farmer as our example, he says, Again, the imperative, followed by another imperative,

Your translation might say, establish your hearts. He's getting literally to the heart of the matter.

It's that heart disposition. Be patient, how? By strengthening your heart.

And then he offers encouragement and motivation that the coming of the Lord is near. You know, that verb there, to strengthen or establish, that's the same verb that's used in Luke 9, 51, when it says,

When the days were approaching for his ascension, talking about Christ, he was determined to go to Jerusalem.

In the ESV, it says, He set his face, he was fixated, he was committed, he was resolved.

Again, our heart. Patience is not something that we're just hoping will just somehow wash over us like osmosis.

We have to commit ourselves that we are going to trust the Lord. We are going to have faith in God being true to his word, true to his promises.

And we will show the love that's required of us towards God and towards each other. We have to determine in our hearts and the motivation.

The coming of the Lord is near. What does that mean? And what does that have to do with patience?

You know, phrases like this, the coming of the Lord and the day of the Lord, are found throughout the scriptures, both in the

Old Testament and in the New. And essentially, those expressions are promises of two things.

Of judgment on God's enemies and vindication and salvation for his people.

It's always what it's referring to. And there's multiple times that those phrases have been used and fulfilled.

There are some who think if they see the day of the Lord or they see the coming of the Lord, it's still all future.

There's just that one time, that one day. But that's not the reality.

In fact, one obvious example is if you read later on Isaiah 13, an oracle concerning Babylon, given to the prophet

Isaiah, who then gives it to the people. And it talks about how the day of the

Lord is near. It's coming and it's going to be cruel. And he's talking about Babylon that was still rising to power and has long since been destroyed.

That day of the Lord has come and gone. In the New Testament, Christ promises a coming of the

Lord. At his trial, he says, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds.

And they lost their minds. And yet in 70 AD, Christ indeed came in judgment.

Jerusalem was sacked. The temple leveled, not one stone left standing upon another, just as he said.

The judgment that occurred at 70 AD was the conclusion, the definitive conclusion of the

Mosaic covenant era. The people of Israel had irreparably broken covenant.

And not only had they rejected the Messiah who they were claiming to be waiting for, the very

Son of God was in their midst and they crucified him. And then they cursed themselves by saying, his blood be on us and on our children.

And for those who continued in their rebellion after Christ was crucified, but then after he was resurrected and the news of his resurrection was spreading, after Pentecost, where people are speaking in all different tongues, proclaiming the glory of God, proclaiming the

Savior, even as the growth of the early church was exploding, for those who continued to reject the

Savior, the Messiah, they found that Christ was indeed sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

And that coming of the Lord Jesus, there in 70 AD, was at the same time judgment on Jerusalem, but also salvation and vindication for his people who had believed in him.

Because the people who had listened to him, who had believed on him, had heard those prophecies.

And so when Jerusalem was surrounded, and then inexplicably they left the siege, all those who believed

Christ left as well. And they got out of there, so that when the armies returned and sacked

Jerusalem, the Christians saved their lives. And they did not die with the rest who thought that they had won.

And it was vindication. For 40 years, people had been proclaiming Christ was the Messiah. He's resurrected.

Well, I don't see him. Well, you'll see the impact of his kingdom coming, because he promises that they there in Jerusalem who rejected him, that temple will come down because Christ is the temple now.

The body is the temple now. And then 40 years later, it happens.

One more reason to believe on Christ. How many of the church fail to grasp that great apologetic tool, thinking that all the promises of Christ or of judgment are all in the future, when he showed right there this generation won't pass until these things happen.

What an opportunity to say Christ is true. Believe on him. For the readers, the original audience of James' letter, the coming of the

Lord was indeed near. But it's near for us as well. 70

AD was not the culmination of redemptive history. It was only a type, an example of the final judgment that's to come and the consummation of all things.

There will be a final judgment where each one will have to give an account and they will either be sent to heaven or to hell.

Those who believe on Christ will be saved and have everlasting life. And those who stayed in their rebellion until the end will have to give an account, will confess that Jesus is

Lord and then will be cast to their doom. That's the final coming.

But there have been days of the Lord and comings of the Lord throughout history. There have been times even in the last 2 ,000 years that if God was still offering us new scriptures, would say, there's a coming of the

Lord. There's going to be a day of the Lord. Nations still rise and fall.

Leaders rise up and are dashed down. It still happens. Judgment of God's enemies and vindication of his people will continue to happen throughout history until all of Christ's enemies have been put under his feet.

There are so many examples of just the brevity of life and how near God's judgment could be.

How many times do we read in both the old and then quote in the new, today is the day of salvation.

The day of salvation is near. Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart.

Tonight, your very soul is required of you. Our lives are short.

God is close by. And for those who belong to Christ, it's an encouragement.

He's going to right the wrongs, all the things that we're dealing with, all the difficulties, the trials and tribulations.

He's going to bring his purpose from it. He is going to vindicate us.

He is going to save us. And his enemies will be put under his feet.

So be patient and strengthen your heart for the coming of the Lord is near. And then he goes to verse 9, and we receive another exhortation as an application of the first.

An application of the exhortation to patience is to not complain, brethren, against one another.

And why not? Because the coming of the Lord is near. Specifically, he says, so that you yourselves may not be judged.

Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. Now, if you're familiar with this letter of James, it's only five chapters.

I encourage you to read it and read it often. In the previous chapter, chapter 4, in verses 11 and 12, he says,

Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law.

But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge of it. There's only one lawgiver and judge.

The one who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

There's so much controversy at times. People talking about our judging and whether we should judge.

So many people are quick to say, judge not! And then they eliminate the rest of that passage. I don't think about what else he says.

There's times to judge and judge with righteous discernment. But judge with the same standard you want to be judged by because that's what

God is going to do with you. But when he says, do not speak against one another, note the distinction, note the nuance.

To speak against is not speaking to. God's law tells you, don't hate your neighbor in your heart, but speak frankly to him.

It's in the Old Testament that we're first told to love our neighbor as ourselves. So to speak against our brothers and sisters in Christ rather than speaking to is to find fault with them, to declare ourselves judge over them while we at the same time disobey

God's law. And so he says, don't complain against one another, brethren, that you might not be judged because the judge is at the door.

What was a comfort and encouragement in the last verse is now a warning in the next verse.

There's two sides to it. The danger of the tongue is a reoccurring theme in James.

In chapter one, we are told, and we mentioned it last time in the beginning of the month, if we can't bridle our tongue, our religion is worthless.

In chapter three, we have that famous diatribe against the tongue. The tongue is a fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

And now again, he warns us of the danger of our tongue. Why? Because we need the warning.

As I said, the coming of the Lord was first an encouragement, now it's a warning.

Now we're those who hold to the doctrines of grace and are familiar with the doctrines of grace. We believe that the scriptures bear out the reality of the perseverance or the preservation of the saints, that all who belong to Christ will be saved on that last day, and he will lose none of them.

But what we must be careful to recognize is just how serious God's call to holiness is, just how serious the language he uses to exhort us to obedience and faithfulness.

We would reject the easy believism that is so readily peddled out there today that if you just pray a prayer, you're in.

You have your fire insurance. No, we would say you have to recognize that Christ is

Lord. Jesus says, why do you call me Lord and not do what I say? Many will come to me on that last day and say,

Lord, Lord, didn't I do this and that in your name? And he'll say, depart from me, I never knew you. How often do we fail to recognize the

Lordship of Christ in every area of our life? Must be sober -minded about it, that we would seek to be holy, that we would seek to be obedient and not just dismiss this as, it's a warning, but God understands and on the last day, he'll understand.

In verse 9, the Lord is making clear that our obligation to be patient means that we won't complain about each other. And now is not the time to try to redefine what complaint actually means.

I'm just talking. I'm explaining, I'm not complaining. Our patience is to be grounded in our faith in Christ and our love for him and our love for each other.

This means that when we have an issue with one another, our obligation is either to cover it in love and just not bring it up, not gossip about it.

And if we can't do that, we have to go to that person. We are commanded by Christ to address offenses that are causing a rift in a relationship with our brother or sister in Christ.

If we recognize that there is an offense going on and we're personally aware of an offense that's going on that could cause harm to the body, cause division in the body, cause conflict in the body, or bring reproach on Christ and his church, we have an obligation to say something.

Do you know why I'm emphasizing that? How many times do we have a problem or we see a problem and we just decide they're not going to hear from me?

I don't remember that in Matthew 18. I don't remember Jesus saying, unless you think they're not going to hear you, just forget about it.

Love requires loving confrontation. Love requires that we don't complain.

To fail to respond biblically to our brethren, to not lovingly confront, to instead complain,

James says unambiguously, is to invite judgment. How many churches are weak and ineffective because of inner turmoil, inner conflict?

Because we refuse to obey our Savior in this regard. We refuse to follow the practices that he's given us. Instead, we become discontent, we become bitter.

The complaining that we do engages others to share in our sin, which can cause them to grow discouraged, can cause them to grow disillusioned as well, increasing the division.

And there are people who would say, I was just explaining something. What they do with that, if they get discouraged or if they start gossiping about it, that's not my responsibility.

No, I didn't do anything wrong. That's their problem. You know, each one is responsible for their own actions.

But again, in Matthew 18, in the beginning, Christ warns against being a stumbling block.

Temptation of sin is going to come. But woe to the one who brings that temptation. Our obligation to one another is not just not to sin against him, but not to encourage them to sin by listening to our gossip, by listening to our complaints, by not responding the way we ought to.

I knew a man who was going to a church that was faithful.

And yet he had some simplistic understandings of things. He wasn't as far along in the word and his understanding as perhaps he should have been.

But he was content at the church he was at. And then a couple of the brothers were complaining to him about other things going on in the body.

People that they had issue with. Things they felt weren't being resolved. And you know what they weren't doing?

Speaking to the people they had a problem with. Trying to address it the biblical way. No, they went and complained to this younger brother in the faith.

And he's like, well, maybe they're right. And so he just started pulling away and stopped going to that church.

Do we recognize that how we act, how we speak, can be a stumbling block to our brothers and sisters in Christ?

For those who name the name of Christ? Do we recognize what could happen to them because we did not want to obey

God? Because it wasn't comfortable with us? We thought it would be ineffective? We can discourage one another from doing what we ought to when all we sit and do is grumble and complain.

There's a reason why God tells us not to do it. Is that man responsible for leaving the body of Christ?

Is that man responsible for his own falling into sin as he got away from the means of grace?

He absolutely is. But woe to those who are a stumbling block.

Don't complain against one another. Love each other the way Christ has told you to love each other.

Go to the one you have an issue with and patiently trust God that he will bring about the necessary results.

To complain is the opposite of patience. And it is, in fact, a grievous sin in God's eyes.

Then he gives us another example. He gives us the example of the prophets. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, it says in verse 10, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the

Lord. Now, our first example regarding patience was the farmer. Here, James tells us to consider the prophets.

And, of course, what's the calling of the prophet but to speak the very word of God and usually, primarily, to their own people, their own kinsmen, their family, their friends, their neighbors.

But their calling meant that they faced trials and tribulations, even persecution and martyrdom. And all they could do was live in faithful obedience and wait upon the

Lord. As prophets, they had to live with the consequences of residing in a land filled with covenant breakers.

If you go back and you look at the law and you read, like, Deuteronomy 28, it talks about the blessings if you obey and then the curses are a long list of things as he warns them to the consequences that come from sin that are brought on them to remind them to repent and turn back.

But living in a land that's under the curse of God, the punishment of God, is difficult.

They spoke God's word and they suffered hostility from their own people. But how did they respond?

With patience. Their faith was in God. They knew

He would make all things right in His timing. Their patience was also manifested in love and concern for their people.

Think about the prophets. How often did they weep? How many times did Moses fall on his place?

He goes, if you're going to kill them, kill me. Despite all their sin and their rebellion and their hostility, the prophets wept for their fellow

Israelites. They interceded and said, Lord, please. Judah's so small.

How could we bear up? And they warned the people time and again to repent, to turn from their sin, to obey.

The prophets struggled at times. We read their struggles. We read about their cries to God.

But they didn't give up. They didn't call it quits. Their desire was to see repentance and revival.

And because of their patience, the Lord used them to accomplish His purposes. The Lord allowed them to intervene and be heard.

And there were miracles and there was favor from God. He used them to encourage the saints, encourage the remnant to keep at it, keep faithful.

The coming of the Lord is near. The day of the Lord is near. And He used the prophets to lay a foundation in redemptive history.

A big chunk of our word was given to us by the prophets who endured much, but patiently endured it and obeyed

God in all of it. James says, look at them. Do likewise.

And then our final example is in verse 11. And James provides this little connecting phrase.

We count those blessed who endured. And this phrase reflects on both the example of the prophets and now

Job. Now the blessing of the prophets is well known, especially in light of the beatitudes preached by Christ.

And the blessing on Job, if you read the whole book, in chapter 42, the last chapter, you see the blessings that come to Job at the end of his trial and tribulation.

But James writes, Now some might question the endurance of Job.

I read that book. He seemed to complain a lot. He seemed to have a lot to say. But here's an example for us of someone enduring great suffering and not even knowing the cause.

Job lost his wealth, his family, and then his health. To his friends he was dying and on death's doorstep.

All the priorities of mankind, health and wealth and family, he had it in abundance.

And he didn't have it by compromise. He didn't have it by being unscrupulous. He didn't have it by defrauding or oppressing others.

He was righteous and he was rich. He had a large family that was close -knit. They're celebrating all their birthdays together.

They're gathering. He was well respected in the community. Everyone knew who

Job was. And then in a barrage of, on the surface, seemingly unrelated events, everything that he had was snatched from him.

All his wealth, all his businesses, all his herds and flocks, taken. Taken by this, taken by that.

Gone. And as one servant is telling him, another one comes to tell him about more loss, and then more loss, and then finally he hears how the wind came and the house collapsed and all his children are dead.

How many of us could endure such a severe reversal in fortune and say the things that he said and mean it?

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the

Lord. He shaved his head. He bowed down and he worshipped. In his mourning he worshipped

God. And it says in all this he did not sin. When he's confronted, when his health is failing and he's just in misery day and night, no relief.

And his wife says, and we give her, she gets a bad rap, but she makes it through. They have more children later on.

But in her pain and seeing her husband, she goes, why do you hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die.

Let him just be done with you. Why endure this? And he goes, you speak as one of the foolish women.

Not you are. You're just, you're talking like them right now. Shall we receive good from the

Lord and not bad? Can we imagine to have so much and have it taken away like that?

And to say, God is good. God is good.

His trials were so severe that his closest friends, who loved him enough to come and sit with him for seven days in absolute quiet.

We can't do that for five minutes. We'd be on our phone. They sat there with him in his ashes for seven days in silence.

When they finally spoke, it was with the conviction that he must have sinned in some grievous way to have had this happen.

And they offered speech after speech after speech. Job, fess up. What did you do?

Look at what God did to you. You think you're innocent in his eyes? How many people today talk about being hurt by the church to excuse their disobedience to God, to excuse themselves from the body, leaving it without following the biblical principles given to us in places like Matthew 18, where Christ commands us to seek reconciliation, or some go so far as to apostatize entirely, just deny the faith, walk away.

I say, well, when I saw the things that were happening in my life, when I saw how the people at church were treating me,

I decided that none of it was true. What does James say? We count those blessed who endured.

We count those blessed who have endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the

Lord's dealings, that the Lord is compassionate and merciful. He lost everything.

Humanly speaking, we would be talking about what a great tragedy it was. We'd be talking about how unfair it was.

Maybe not. To add insult to injury, he had to endure the hurt of religious people, of his religious friends.

Many today would say, it's time to move on. Faith is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not everything you expected.

Those friends denounced him as toxic. Be done with them. And yet, while Job struggled, he never denied the faith.

He never cursed his God. He never even broke off those relationships. And we have seen the outcome of the

Lord's dealings. In the end, the blessings of God were actually greater than in the beginning. Actually, like, we should be surprised.

But for us, it would be. How could you recover from that and then to exceed those blessings?

But the reality is, Job was a righteous man to start. But through this, he became more righteous.

Through this, he ended up with greater wisdom, greater humility. He was more pleasing in God's eyes after the fact because God sanctified him through his suffering.

His friends were humbled, and I imagine sanctified themselves. And they sought his forgiveness.

His health was restored. His wealth was doubled. He was given 10 more children in addition to the 10 that he would be reunited with one day in glory.

The outcome of the Lord's dealings? Greater sanctification and great blessing.

The endurance, the patience of Job was with great struggle. We get to read it in all its messy glory.

Yet he clung to his faith. He knew who his God was. He believed in a Redeemer. And his patience bore great fruit in the end.

You know, Job's life is a picture of the

Christian's life. We may not realize it. We may take it for granted.

But we are tremendously blessed. We have so many blessings. We only focus on the things that we don't have.

But as Christians, we may go through difficult times. We will go through difficult times. Like Job, the days and nights might just seem to run together.

I was waiting for the night for relief, and I was waiting for the day. Just day after day.

Exhausted, no relief, no comfort. The relief that we're seeking just seems to be out of sight.

The fruit that we're hoping will be born out of this is just not there yet. But the promise is, in the end, if we endure, we will see the outcome.

We will recognize. He goes, I've heard of you, but now I see.

We will recognize fully the Lord's compassion in his dealings with us. We will recognize fully the mercy he has shown us and extended us.

And we will be more blessed in the end than we could have ever expected. In our text today, we have been confronted with the exhortation to patience.

The natural world, the example of the farmer and the field and the fruit and the rain, shows us the necessity and value of patience.

The world that God made for us is always showing us spiritual truths if we would just reflect and meditate.

But the word of God tells us patience is obligatory. Patience is part of the identification of the true

Christian. It shows our faith in the Lord and his coming and all that that entails.

The judgment of his enemies. The vindication and salvation of those who belong to him.

We're also reminded that to be impatient is to invite judgment. Don't presume on the kindness of God.

Don't presume that you're in right relationship when you defy him. The judge is at the door. Our calling is to follow the example of the prophets and our brother

Job. To be patient with our family, our friends, our fellow saints. To be patient with our adversaries and those who would persecute us ignorantly or on account of Christ.

To be patient in the face of the ordinary and extraordinary trials and tribulations of life.

So as we look to the new year and people are making resolutions, may we be resolved to be patient.