Enduring Patience

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Ascension Presbyterian Church - Longwood, Florida Rev. Christopher Brenyo "Enduring Patience" James 5:7-11 March 10th, 2024

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Please turn in your Bibles to the epistle of James in chapter 5
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Going to read verses 1 through 11 Be reminded that this is
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God's holy and infallible Word Come now you rich weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you
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Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth -eaten
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Your gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you
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And will eat your flesh like fire You have heaped up treasure in the last days
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Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud cry out
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And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury
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You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter You have condemned, you have murdered the just He does not resist you
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Now our section today Therefore be patient brethren until the coming of the
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Lord See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth
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Waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain
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You also be patient Establish your hearts
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For the coming of the Lord is at hand Do not grumble against one another brethren lest you be condemned
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Behold the judge is standing at the door My brethren take the prophets
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Who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience
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Indeed we count them blessed who endure You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the
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Lord That the Lord is very compassionate and merciful
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May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most excellent word Please pray with me
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Oh Lord we are not patient And we ask in the power of your spirit that we would become patient That our long suffering would be yielding a great fruit of righteousness in us
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That these trials and hardships would be used to make us mature and complete and lacking no good thing
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Oh Lord we pray for a work in our lives for your glory and namesake
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And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Please be seated
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The title of the message today is
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Enduring Patience And that is found in the bulletin Enduring Patience And I have four points that you could use to have some notes about the message
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I will not be following it too strictly but this could divide and help you
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The first is very simply be patient Number one be patient Second establish your hearts and I'm going to add in steadfastness
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Those are kind of synonymous but I want to add that language Establish your hearts in steadfastness
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And third do not grumble against one another Do not grumble against one another
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And fourth follow the examples of the prophets Job and the
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Lord Jesus Christ You are inculcated in a world that demands instant gratification
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All of your devices supply a constant stream of instant dopamine bumps
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That whet your appetite for even more increasing unsatisfying gratification
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Those who send you a message in any way they do it via text or email
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They really expect and demand an instant response
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And you and I have been sucked into the whirlpool of this cultural rot
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Like a one oared rower we spin in circles sometimes
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Because we're so caught up in the movement of all that happens around us
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The progressive culture longs for progress But regresses continually into a deeper sea of damnable carnality
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Oh church we need to grow in patience
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In Christ -like patience That we might be instructed by the trials and the providential care of God That we might grow up to that full maturity that James has called us to in chapter 1
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And be sharp instruments in the hand of God for the triumph of his kingdom
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It's going to require patience Look again at our text in verse 7
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Therefore be patient brethren This word is riddled and conceptually in two other ways
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It's throughout the section It's about six times that the idea of patience is invoked in this section
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To be patient is to be of a long spirit
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To not lose heart To persevere patiently and bravely
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Courageously It is forbearance It is longsuffering
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It is embedded in the definition of love isn't it? Love is patient It's characteristic of our father of faith
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Abraham In Hebrews 6 it said And so after he patiently endured he obtained the promises
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Our faith, our religion, our union with Christ requires that we be patient That we might be longsuffering
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I want you to turn back to James chapter 1 James it seems has a very good rhetorical mind also
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He starts and introduces a subject in chapter 1 If you'll remember
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I said this subject was very important to understand the theme of James And he continues it and completes it in our section today
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Look again at James chapter 1 in verse 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials
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The trials are the things that need to be patiently endured in chapter 5
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The hardship of life as a follower of Christ demands patience
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Listen to James again verse 3 Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience
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We must have these trials and we must have this testing to see what kind of resolve
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What kind of faith, what kind of commitment we have to Christ Our circumstances, our trials are going to put pressure on us
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And it's going to reveal something about the character and the qualitative nature of our faith in him
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It says in summation in verse 4 But let patience have its perfect work
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That you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing
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James has bookended this idea of the centrality of patience
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Let's go back to our text in chapter 5 James does something here that's quite powerful
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He invokes the notion of patience And then he attaches the language of the parousia here
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In the coming of the Lord at the end of verse 7 James says, be patient brethren until the coming of the
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Lord Now this language, this word for us most often
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First causes us to think of the final return of the
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Lord In the sense of the consummation of all things And that's certainly legitimate and it's definitely in view here in some measure in James When you dig into the meaning of this word
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It is also meaning the presence of the Lord It means the coming, the arrival, an advent
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Especially the second coming of the Lord But also a coming in judgment And I believe AD 70 is very much in view here in chapter 5
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The Lord is at the door Judgment is at hand And the Jewish nation, the oppressors of the church are going to be smited by God Of course that picture is a microcosm
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That judgment of rebellious Israel is a type of the final judgment that would come
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And we'd see at the end of the book of Revelation In ancient classical
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Greek And I really love this It referred to the royal visit of a king
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That's what this word means The king is coming
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He's coming beside his people, his church His personal presence is going to be known
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In a very practical sense One of the other glorious attributes of this language is
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The arrival of the owner who alone can deal with the situation
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Daddy's home can be a dreadful thing for little sinners The owner, the one responsible, the one in authority, the one who has the power
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He's come home and he's going to make a judgment My wife and her siblings talk about their dad and his country western belt
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It had his name on it, buckle And it being unfurled You can hear it going through the genes
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And they came home to discipline the children After their mother gave a bad report of their actions
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James does something very strong and powerful here And I want to give this to you so you think about it
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And it's something you meditate maybe even today and through the week The idea that the creator, the king of glory
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The one who holds all of this together He's coming and he's coming in judgment
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It's true for the audience who heard this originally And it's true for us
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The owner who has the responsibility and the power to act He's coming
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And this should give us great hope because you and I, if we be in Christ Are reconciled to him
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We are his people When the judge stands at the door, we rejoice to open the door
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Because he's our savior and our lord And we delight in his presence
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This is not a fearful thing for the people of God But oh, those who do not know
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Christ Oh, the nation of Israel who rejects the savior who comes to save them
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Oh, the woe, the horror, the howling That comes upon them
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You and I can be patient Because the king is coming
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You and I can endure all kinds of trials and temptations and sufferings
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Because we have been united to Christ We have to learn this lesson
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We have to be reminded of this lesson We have to become exemplary students and practitioners of this notion of patience
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James gives, I think, the most amazing illustration of this principle
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Look at the second part of verse 7 He says, see how the farmer waits
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For the precious fruit of the earth Waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain
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The farmer, it's the word that we get
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George from I don't know if you know that, you probably knew that over there That language, that man of the earth, he knows two things
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He must be diligent to do his job and his duty There's work that he must do
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But he's utterly dependent upon the Lord for the results The farmer is the perfect illustration of the
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Christian Living the Christian life here The farmer has to wait for the rains
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This time of year, in March stretching into sometimes April The early rains come in Israel And this follows,
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I'm sorry, this is the latter rains This is the end, this is the season of harvest
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In October, there are the early rains So it's kind of the opposite of Florida It doesn't rain much in the winter here
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It really only rains in the winter there Heaviest in October and March and April, some sporadic rain through that period
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Now, this is what happens with the farmer In October, he waits patiently for the rain to come
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Because that dry soil must be plowed And the crops must be planted
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He can't do it until those rains happen But when it happens, he moves into action
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He begins to work and cultivate and labor in the soil, in the dirt In order to plant his crops
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And he waits But while he's waiting, he's pulling weeds, he's hoeing, he's keeping the animals away
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He's checking all of the surroundings He's considering the wind and wondering how his crops are doing
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And trickles of rain come from October But then March comes
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And the latter rains come And they finish the job And those latter rains come
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And the fruit begins to come And the harvest grows when that March rain comes
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I love the picture of this for our lives We need the reigning work of the
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Holy Spirit to make us alive We need Him to continue to drip on us
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That we might walk in righteousness and in power And in the end,
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He has a sure promise That there will be a harvest A harvest of fruitfulness, a harvest of righteousness, a harvest of completion
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He's working in you, His people, to make you perfect and complete
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You have to be patient Wait eagerly, patiently
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That you might receive the early and latter rain You need to be patient Well, there's another element
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And this will be the second point that I gave to you The second half of verse 8
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It says, establish your hearts You see, even in context
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The Jewish believers probably thought They could get work from their
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Jewish brethren And they would work for them And though they've had this fissure and division over the person of Christ That they would be able to work in their fields
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And it seems that part of that first section For the howling rich who have kept back by fraud
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Is probably Jewish believers who have dealt treacherously with God's people
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And not paid them for the work that they did in the harvest The reason the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth
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Is this is his livelihood It's not just the fruits are beautiful or something like that The preciousness is this is how his family is going to survive
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He's diligently laboring But he's also in faith he says Oh Lord, please send the early and the latter rain
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So true for us Oh Lord, may we mortify sin May we charge hard after righteousness
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May we love all of your holy things But in the end we cry out to say Holy Spirit, do a work in us
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We do our part But God has to do his And so we're patient and we wait
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This idea of establishing your hearts has a military connotation
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Coming to Christ was salvation And it was joyful and it was exciting It's probably true for you
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But then some hard realities have come upon the people of God James says you need to hold the line here
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Discouragement has come They've been mistreated Hold the line
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Confirm your faith Be determined not to waver one inch to the right or the left
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But steadfastly remain in Christ and following after him
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This requires great patience Great determination
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Great resolve A steadfastness Establish your hearts And again he invokes the idea
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Parousia, the coming of the Lord is at hand The righteous judge is coming
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You are reconciled to him The wicked David laments and the Psalms prosper
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And the people of God suffer And this requires the establishing of steadfast hearts
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A patient trust that for us The Lord is going to vindicate his name and his people
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But that may happen later He's going to do it But we may have to suffer now
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But the Lord's coming The eschaton, the parousia is at hand
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The end of the ages is upon us It was upon them and how much more so for us now
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Two thousand years later Establish your hearts
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Confirm your faith Be determined not to waver
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Are you struggling under your trials today? Be patient Establish your heart
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Hold this line And march forward Build your wall and draw your sword
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Keep going Keep persevering in the faith We will reap a harvest
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If we do not give up Verse nine is very powerful
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Because I believe it really speaks to our experience If I put circumstantial pressure upon you
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There's a very good chance you're going to start mistreating people around you The trials cause us great angst
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The guy who flips out on the road when you cut him off It's the manifestation of all of the wretchedness of his life in that moment
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Your offense was very minor and he explodes in anger Because he has no sense of this
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You and I cannot grumble against one another
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And this is what we do when the trials come Our grumbling is a discouragement to all of those around us
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It plants a seed of resentment in us and in them
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And it cultivates and it grows up negatively That fruit of grumbling and that troubled spirit
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You and I have to be mindful today We probably have to repent that we have allowed our trials and our circumstances
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To cause us to mistreat the ones for whom Christ dies
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And those who love us the most Do not grumble against one another, brethren
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Lest you be condemned You say, well, I just don't have any patience
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Well, you better get some because it's a fruit of the Spirit If you are utterly devoid of this
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It could be an occasion for you to examine yourself We all maybe need to grow, but if you have zero patience
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Then we have to wonder, has the Lord been at work in you? Are you filled with the Spirit?
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We need to cultivate this fruit of the Spirit And what's interesting here Is this idea of patience is very closely tied to faith
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I already invoked that language from Abraham in Hebrews 6 After he patiently endures, then he obtained the promise
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And then even in a sense, he doesn't really get to see it He just knows it's coming to pass
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If we're not patient, then we are grumbling against the providence of God We're saying in our arrogance that God, we do not like your plan or your purposes
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I don't like where I am, I don't like what you've done How dare you? It's not a good place to be
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I don't believe James is trying to kick people, excommunicate people out of the church But there's a warning here that this grumbling is not consistent with the genuine faith he's been harping on throughout the epistle
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You would be condemned if you grumble against one another, brethren
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And again, the parousia, the idea of the righteous judge
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The judge is standing at the door He's right there
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And in this period of time, depending on when you date the book of James It's not very long before the upheaval and the anguish and the terror and the horror of the
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Romans in Jerusalem And blood running through the streets Why do the wicked prosper?
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We could cry out today I mean, I think every Christian at some point in their lives has said, Oh, Lord, when will you act?
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They're killing babies down the street All the wretchedness,
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Oh, Lord, when will you act? It requires patience His vengeance is sure
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The vindication of his honor and his holiness in you, his people, is sure You have to wait
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The judge is standing at the door And when the door opens, all will be made right
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One of your favorite British authors One of his essays said, the play is over when the author comes on stage
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There's a lot that's happening, but then the author, the king comes
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It's a royal visit The play is going to be over And there's another element to this that's really startling in our time and our culture
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Is that God has not created an evolutionary world He has created a world that has a start and a finish
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And a redemptive purpose in Christ and a people that are redeemed But it's finite and there's a start and there's a finish
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There's going to be a judgment day Our friends walking the streets around us
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They have no sense of this Think about this in a micro level
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People die all the time I'll think about the things of the Lord later
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The judge is at the door The people in Israel These Christians, this is just a little movement that's going to go away
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We know the covenant lawsuit given by the prophets now finds its execution
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The people have rejected the Messiah, the prophet, priest, and king And vengeance is going to come upon Israel I think this is obviously what it's talking about in the
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Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 Well, time is short today
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Let's consider the last part of this
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The example of the prophets and of Job Those leading up to Christ Indeed we count them, the brethren, the prophets
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We count them as blessed who spoke in the name of the Lord As an example of suffering and patience
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Let's turn to, instead of tracking this through the prophets themselves Let's get a summation of this In the book of Hebrews chapter 11
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Please turn to Hebrews 11 This great testimony of the faith of the people of God Kind of a history of Israel I'm going to start in verse 32
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What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah Also of David and Samuel and the prophets
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Who through faith subdued kingdoms Worked righteousness, obtained promises
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Stopped the mouths of lions Quenched the violence of fire
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Escaped the edge of the sword Out of weakness were made strong Became valiant in battle
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Turned to flight the armies of the aliens Women received their dead raised to life again
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Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance That they might obtain a better resurrection
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Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings
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Yes, of chains and imprisonment They were stoned
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They were sawn in two Isaiah Pause there
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When you think about these great men of God They all suffered for Christ We think the blessing of God would be the absence of suffering and comfort in this life
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The people closest to Christ They go through a lot of suffering A lot of trial
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They have to exercise a lot of patience They were tempted
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They were slain with a sword They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins
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Being destitute, afflicted, tormented Of whom the world was not worthy
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They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth
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And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith
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Did not receive the promise God having provided something better for us
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That they should not be made perfect Apart from us
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How can we not be patient Who have received the precious promises of Christ The great people of the
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Bible They see it in faith from afar But it's our present possession
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Salvation in the Lord The only thing left is the vanquishing of all of His enemies
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That's it All of redemptive history has unfolded In the sense of all the things that had to happen
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The death, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension, the reign from on high
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The only thing left is the coming of the Lord And the last thing
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We of all people should be the most patient We should be the people of a long spirit
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We should be the people You should be the kind of people who do not lose heart
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Who persevere With bravery and courage
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And long suffering In two weeks
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We will remember the prophecy of the triumphal
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The actual triumphal entry of Christ And I think that feeling and that sentiment is here
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Imagine the coming of the Lord for us as people We're His people
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The object of His affection The one who's given all of this to us as joint heirs with Him Can you fathom the love of God for us as people?
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We can be patient We can wait when the job promotion doesn't come through When the hardship comes in our life
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We can be patient We can wait to the very end
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I'm going to continue really quick in chapter 12 of Hebrews And I'll have one more text and we'll close due to time
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Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses
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One of whom is Job who's invoked in our text And there's something very interesting about Job If you need something to do today, read through the book of Job And Job is one who never denies the
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Lord ultimately In a sense he patiently endures to the end
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He will not curse God He will only praise Him He knows that His Redeemer lives
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He knows that in His flesh An incredible statement at the time of Abraham or before He understands the doctrine of resurrection and glorification
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He understands it Job struggled in His trial
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And I think it should be an encouragement to us He doesn't quit though He doesn't give up He perseveres to the end
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The patience of Job is His endurance in all of these things
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Continuing in chapter 12 Let us lay aside every weight The sin which so easily ensnares us
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And let us run with endurance The race that is set before us Looking unto
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Jesus The author and finisher of our faith
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And for the joy that was set before Him Endured the cross
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Despising the shame And I sat down at the right hand of the throne of God For consider
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Him who endured such hostilities From sinners against Himself Lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls
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The servants aren't greater than the master The final word to be thoughtful about who
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Christ is No need to turn there This is from 1
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Peter chapter 2 To servants Be submissive to your masters with all fear
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Not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh For this is commendable
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If because of conscience toward God One endures grief, suffering wrong wrongfully
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And here's something we have to acknowledge
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Verse 20 Some of our suffering is self -inflicted
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In fact probably more than you realize What credit is it
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If when you are beaten for your faults You take it patiently This isn't the kind of patience that we're looking for It should be pointed out to you also
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Patience can never be associated with laziness and inaction Those are not going together
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Patience demands diligence and work and grind We say oh
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I'm under all of this persecution for my righteousness No you might be getting beaten for your faults
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But when you do good and suffer If you take it patiently
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This is commendable before God For to this you were called
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That's something for you to embrace today You've been called to suffer and to endure it patiently
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And this glorious description of Christ And a good place for us to close
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Because Christ also suffered for us Leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps
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Who committed no sin Nor was deceit found in his mouth
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Who when he was reviled did not revile in return When he suffered he did not threaten But committed himself to him who judges righteously
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I think that same principle is here in James Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree
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That we having died to sins might live for righteousness
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By whose stripes we are healed
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For you were like sheep going astray But have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls
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Brethren I want you to think about this And this is very speculative More of an exercise
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If Jesus Christ Since Jesus Christ is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world
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And he looked upon his people and said I need to redeem those people
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But the time was not yet He was patient in coming in the incarnation
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And we're here in Jesus's earthly ministry Several times he says it's only a three year ministry
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A public ministry of three years He said now is not the time to reveal this
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That I'm the Messiah He waits patiently It seems like things are urgent It's only three years we've got to do this
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But he's patient No one knows the times or the seasons
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He's ready but but he has to wait because of his redemptive purposes He's patient The wicked are prospering
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He laughs in heaven His honor will be vindicated He patiently endures
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You and I were also a call to this May the Lord and the power of his spirit
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Remarkably and dramatically transform us to cultivate this fruit of the spirit
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That we would be patient That we would accept his providence and his lordship over all things
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And that we would delight in his good purpose It says at the end of our text
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You've heard of the perseverance of Job And seen the end intended by the
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Lord That the Lord is very compassionate and merciful
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We can be patient because of the character of the Lord Amen Let's pray together
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Oh Lord, we are self -willed people
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We are an arrogant people thinking we know best about what we should do with our lives
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And we look upon situations and say this cannot be right Oh Lord, you've called us to patient endurance
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Oh Lord, we have absolute confidence in your reign and rule and your victory
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Allow that truth, oh Lord, to sink in so deep that it manifests itself
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Not only in large and grandest belief and promises But in the smallest details of our lives
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And our dealings with our wife and our children With our parents, our extended family, our neighbors
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Oh Lord, help us to show forth the virtue of patience
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That we would never be rattled over small matters But we would have this quiet confidence in the purposes that you are revealing
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Oh Lord, I pray that your people would repent of sin And would run under your wings for comfort and protection and delight
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And oh Lord, we pray that this promise in James That you would make us perfect and complete
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That you would work here in this area of our lives That we would have the enduring patience that has done its work