Bunbury
Sun am
31/07/2011
“Patience in its work clothes”
Intro: *** Walking along practically any street in any city you’ll see people in what we call their high viz gear – bright orange / yellow shirts / pants / vests / jackets.
When I was flying in & out of Perth 2/3/4 x a month I would often have early flights out. The airport terminal would be a sea of men / women in their high viz gear boarding their early morning flights…… miners going up north to work in the mines / rigs / oil fields.
As soon as you see someone dressed in their orange / yellow high viz gear the first thought to come to you is – that’s a worker!
People don’t wear their high viz gear to go to the restaurant / go shopping / cruising around town.
High viz clothing says I’m on the job / I’m at work!
I came across a line the other day that I read about patience working.
When I read it the idea immediately grabbed me b/c most of the time we don’t think about patience actually working – think about that!
Not just nice, calm, placid patience hanging around waiting for something to happen but patience dressed in it’s high viz gear – ready for work!
It’s that same thought we want to follow through today & give our thoughts to …..
‘Patience in its work clothes’.
Text: James 1:4 ( NKJV ) 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
# 1. Getting your language right.
A. To really u/s patience we have to begin by establishing what patience is not.
a. When most people think about patience what they think about is not what the Bible is talking about.
i. Getting your u/s of language right is impt if you really want to u/s what the Bible is saying.
*** A number of years ago one of our pastors was in the Philippines preaching at a conference. During one of his messages he began speaking about the plan of God to redeem & rescue our lives from sin. One of the words he used to describe this was the word ‘salvage’ ….. pointing out to the people that it was the plan of God to salvage our lives. As soon as he said this there was a ripple of response that went through the congregation. Noticing this he used the word again …… again there was a response that rippled through the assembly. Recognising that this was the case he used the word several more times throughout his message. After the seminar that morning the interpreter asked him what he meant by ….. God wants to salvage you! So the pastor explained that God wanted to rescue your life from sin! It was then that the interpreter realised that there had been a language breakdown & he explained to the pastor that salvage to them meant to take someone out into the jungle some place & shoot them in the head!
ii. If you’re not speaking the same language then you’re not going to come up w/ the same conclusions.
b. When most of us think about patience b/c we get the language wrong we also get the idea of patience wrong.
i. Most of us immediately think of the idea of passive waiting or biding our time.
ii. It carries in most of our minds the idea of inactivity or a period of tiem when nothing is being done.
iii. Now think about that b/c all of these things are negatives – inactivity / passivity / biding your time / even waiting.
iv. But what we need to u/s is that patience in the Word of God is always painted in a positive light – it’s not a negative thing!
B. Patience is never just standing around w/ its hands in its pockets.
*** I’m sure that most of you have been driving down the road at some time & hit road works. And one of the things that you are going to see w/ road works at some time is a group of men standing around leaning on their shovels.
For some reason there never seems to be enough work to keep them all busy! There’s never enough dirt to get every shovel working, never enough activity to get everyone busy.
a. Now patience hasn’t got time to stand around w/ its hands in its pockets or leaning on its shovel.
i. There is no such thing as inactive patience – inactive patience is an oxy moron / contradiction of terms!
ii. By its very nature patience is a positive thing ……it’s always doing something / achieving something / working towards some goal.
iii. Think about the context in which it is used in our text ……. James is writing to believers that are undergoing persecution / ridicule / even death.
James 1:2-3 ( NKJV ) 2My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
iv. They need some answers for everything they are facing – James says the answer is to let patience do her perfect work!
b. The will of God for His people is never idleness.
i. Think about what Jesus has to say about idleness …… in the parable of the vineyard workers.
Matthew 20:6 ( NKJV ) 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing £idle, and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’
ii. Idleness never produces anything good – in fact idleness is the womb in which trouble is conceived & out of which it is born.
*** In almost every case there is a direct connection / correlation between areas where there are a higher % people who are unemployed & crime. Idleness breeds all kinds of things that are negative.
iii. Listen to the link that the Bible makes between idleness & sin ……
Ezekiel 16:49 ( NKJV ) 49Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; …..
iv. Our calling as Christians is a calling to be labouring in the kingdom.
# 2. Patience is always in its work clothes.
A. Think about it! Why does anyone get dressed in work clothes?
a. Patience arrives on the job site its b/c there is work to be done.
i. The kind of patience God is speaking about always comes dressed in its work clothes w/ its sleeves rolled up.
Vs 4. 4But let patience have its perfect work,…….
ii. In other words the patience the Bible is speaking about is active patience – the kind of patience we read about in ……
1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 ( NKJV ) 2We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, 3remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father,
iii. Here we find patience on the job w/ some of its fellow workers – faith / love / hope!
b. Think about the way in which Romans speaks about patience when it says …..
Romans 2:6-7 ( NKJV ) 6who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: 7eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality;
i. Now give this some thought – the Bible is speaking about patience that results in glory, honour & immortality …..
ii. But all the words that produce this glory / honour / immortality are verbs – doing words ….. notice here deeds / continuance / doing good / seek …..
iii. There it is right there – patience w/ its work clothes on!
James 1:4 (NCV) 4Let patience show itself perfectly in what you do.
B. Patience involves waiting but it doesn’t mean doing nothing.
a. We would be hard pressed to find a better example of patience in action than Noah.
Luke 17:26-27 ( NKJV ) 26And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
i. Noah was a really patient guy – he’d learned to break through & work in patience & here is patience in its work clothes.
ii. But think about the entire scenario of Noah building the ark ….. God calls him to build an ark b/c He’s going to flood the entire earth but Noah doesn’t know when.
iii. There is a time lapse of about 120 from the time when God meets w/ Noad telling to build an ark until the time of the flood.
iv. Now the fact of the matter is that Noah was patiently waiting for God to being the flood but he wasn’t doing nothing!
b. God sometimes calls us to wait but He never calls us to be idle.
i. You need to get a hold of this one fact that patience & idleness are opposites – in fact theya re enemies.
ii. So what was happening in Noah’s life while he was waiting for God to bring the final flood that would destroy the world?
iii. For one thing Noah was patiently building a 450ft / 150m long ark ….. think about that!
*** Ps Farrell preaching in Suva a few years ago at our conference speaking about Noah sawing the main beam of the ark – all 150m of it w/ a handsaw!
That’s patience!!!
iv. For 120 years he’s making preparations for the cruise / collecting all the necessary things / food for both the family & the animals.
v. He’s also preaching to a community that isn’t being converted.
vi. The point is that Noah is intensely patient but he’s got no time to be idle …… patience is on a mission from God!
C. But patience stops working when it loses hope.
a. What fuels patience & keeps it working is hope.
i. One thing you’ll see on a work site is workers in their high viz having a lunch break – that’s b/c the workers need fuel for the work that has to be done.
ii. Hope is the fuel that patience feeds on to keep it working / labouring / achieving.
iii. Jesus speaks about Noah in Luke 17 holding him up as a pict / example of patience.
iv. But then He carries on w/ that same thought of patience fuelled by hope in the next chapter …..
Luke 18:1 ( NKJV ) 1Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
v. When we lose hope, we also lose patience - & hope can only be maintained where there is a presence of faith look at what Jesus goes on to say in Luke 18 …...
Luke 18:8 ( NKJV ) 8 …….Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
vi. Faith / patience / hope are like the heart / lungs / liver of the spiritual man the vital organs necessary for life.
# 3. The work patience gets done.
A. There’s no sense getting dressed in work clothes if you don’t get any work done.
*** I’ve often seen people dressed in high viz clothes that look like they are brand new. When you see that you know that there are only a couple of possibilities – either it is brand new gear that hasn’t had a chance to get dirty yet or they don’t do any work to get the clothes dirty.
Have you ever seen people walking down the street in their high viz work gear & even though its bright orange / yellow its covered in dirt!
That’s what patience looks like – patience has been busy doing work!
a. The Bible tells us that all this work that patience has been doing actually produces something in our lives.
i. Think about Noah again – the pict of patience what did his patience produce?
ii. In the immediate sense it produced the ark – the vehicle through which he / his family / the animals which would repopulate the earth were rescued.
iii. But in a wider sense what his patience produced was salvation!
iv. And that’s what our patience is producing through its work it is building / establishing / confirming our salvation through the building of character.
Vs 4. 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James 1:4 ( TMNT ) 4So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it [patience] do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
b. The wages of patience are the rewards of godly character – listen to what James says ……
Vs 4. ……that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
i. Perfect – is never perfect in this life unless it is talking about God! What it means here is a point of maturity where you would reach the point you’ve been aiming at.
ii. Think about a point of maturity that you could reach in your Christian life where all of the trials James is speaking about would no longer phase you but would delight you!
iii. Complete – lit = full grown / no longer juvenile / underdeveloped / having come to a place of full growth – KJV – ‘entire’.
iv. Patience makes you the entire / complete man / woman that God has designed you to be from the beginning.
v. Wanting nothing – the idea here is that there wouldn’t even be one thing missing / absent / left out.
vi. So it’s talking about a godly character where not a single thing would be absent / missing / left out from all the work that God wants to do in your life.
B. The work of patience is always followed up by a time of reaping the benefits.
a. The labour of patience always results in a season of harvesting the rewards.
i. Listen to one final note from James on patience …..
James 5:7-8 ( NKJV ) 7Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. 8You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
ii. James draws the analogy of the labours of patience being like the farmer planting a crop & through his patience there is a harvest that is reaped.
iii. If you will patiently labour the harvest will come the rewards will be reaped!
Psalms 126:5-6 ( NKJV ) 5 Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy. 6 He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed for sowing, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves with him.
