We are officially 21 days away from Christmas morning. Anyone NOT have their Christmas tree up by now? Everyone else look around and take note of these people that might not love Jesus. We are officially in the thick of the Christmas season which I can’t even imagine given that it was just summer two weeks ago. And if you blink, you might miss Christmas because the month of December moves so quickly. And if there’s anything that I’ve learned in my nearly 49 laps around the sun, it’s that everyone needs to take a deep breath for what you’re about to experience. You’re going to have to squeeze in 3 Christmas programs for your kids or grandkids, you’re going to have to get together with relatives that might not even remember how you’re related, and you have to make sure that every little person is equally represented under the Christmas tree…you’re going to have to endure long lines and angry shoppers. Add on top of all the “fun” that Christmas brings, you undoubtedly are going to deal with the reminders of loss that come each Christmas. But here is one of the good gifts that God gives us, and that’s the gift of patience. Patience to endure the heavy work load and crazy schedule. Patience to endure long lines and your crazy Cousin Eddie. And patience to endure some of the overwhelming emotions that the Christmas season evokes.
And for you this morning, God in his sovereignty arranged our journey through the book of James so that he could help us build our way to patience NOW so that when it’s needed over the next few weeks, you’ll have some measure of patience. You see, patience isn’t like a light switch that can be turned on and off with the flick of a switch. Patience is cultivated in our hearts and grows in us as we grow in Christlikeness.
Turn with me to James 5 as we continue our series through the book of James. Today is our next to last message in this series leaving us just enough time to squeeze in a message with an actual Christmas theme in just a few weeks. James is beginning to wind down his letter and he’s ending on the same theme of suffering that he started with all the way back in chapter one. Remember, James was a pastor to Christians who were being persecuted, and today he leans into this idea of patience through suffering…and in just 5 short verses, he’s going to teach us how to cultivate a heart of patience.
James 5:7-11
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
In his book Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit, Christopher J.H. Wright gives us two definitions of patience that are super helpful as we begin to wrap our minds around James’ counsel to us this morning:
• Patience is “the ability to put up with the weaknesses and foibles of others (including other believers), and to show forbearance toward them, without getting quickly irritated or angry enough to want to fight back.”
• Patience also is “the ability to endure for a long time whatever opposition and suffering may come your way, and to show perseverance without wanting retaliation or revenge.”
Basically, this author put PATIENCE into two categories – patience with people and patience with circumstances. And that’s exactly how James talks about patience in two ways in our text this morning, but he uses the same word to do so. The word is makrothumos and means: “patience, endurance, constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, forbearance, longsuffering, slowness in avenging wrongs.” It’s the idea of being slow to anger or having a very long fuse. Those that know me up-close-and-personal can probably give testimony to the fact that I am NOT naturally a patient person. I don’t like waiting for things to happen…I want to make them happen. And for people like me, when this desire for things to happen quickly becomes an idol, then we respond sinfully to the people or circumstances that stand in the way (maybe through angry words…maybe through temper tantrums). But because Christ is in me, I’m not left to myself. Jesus gave me the Holy Spirit that gives me the ability to grow and change…that’s the hope of the gospel.
So James breaks patience down into two main areas of life. And the first one is…
1. BE PATIENT WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE – vs 7-9
I don’t know about you, but I am very deeply convinced that the world would be a much better place if everyone was more like ME. But thankfully for YOU, God didn’t do that. He made us all uniquely different. In fact, even in my own house, it’s sometimes amazing how different we all are even though we all bear the same last name. And because this world is packed with people so incredibly different from me, there are many opportunities for relational tension. Maybe is tension between you and a challenging boss, maybe it’s a neighbor that doesn’t like you, maybe it’s a classmate that doesn’t understand you…maybe its tension from living in the same house with a bunch of other sinners. No matter where you are or who you’re with, there’s opportunity for relational tension. Because we have all been affected by sin, the bad news is that people are difficult.
But relationships are a mess worth making because that is how disciples are made…through the vehicle of relationships. So here’s what’s going to be needed: patience in the form of forbearance and long-suffering. Look at verses 7-9 again: “7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” A couple of observations before we talk about how to be patient with others and how we can know when we’re not being patient.
OBSERVATION #1 | James tells us not once, but twice here to “be patient.” It’s not, “be patient” if you’re that patient type. And it’s not “be patient” when you’re feeling up to it. No, it’s “be patient” all the time and with everyone. There’s never a time when impatience is the answer. Being a Type A personality is not an excuse. That may be your natural bent, but Jesus loves you too much to leave you how he found you! Be patient.
OBSERVATION #2 | James tells us how long to be patient. And some of you are not going to like this because the answer to the question of “How long do I need to continue to cultivate patience?” is “Until Jesus comes back!” He mentions “the coming of the Lord” twice in verses 7-8 and what he’s pointing us to is the return of Christ. So basically he’s saying that cultivating Spirit-empowered patience is the life-long journey of every person who is waiting for Jesus’ return.
In a world where self-centeredness reigns, we live differently by being patient with difficult people…instead of discarding them. Let me repeat that. That’s what it means to live differently from the world. And in doing so, we are spiritually prepared when Jesus returns. And then James gives a very practical picture of what this looks like through the illustration of the farming cycle. A farmer often gets irritated and annoyed with the process of farming. Sometimes there’s too much rain and sometimes too little. Sometimes too much heat and sometimes a late frost. Sometimes the weather cooperates and the yield is abundant and sometimes the weather has a mind of its own and the yield is marginal at best. Now, the farmer, if they’ve been farming for any amount of time, has learned the art of patience. They know they cannot control the weather. They know they cannot make it rain or stop raining. They know that no matter how hard they try, the crops are going to grow at their own pace. The farmer will work, but the farmer knows they can only control so much. Patience is required for farming over the long haul.
Here’s the idea as it relates to us and our relationships. You can’t change a person’s heart. You can’t make a person less annoying or irritating. You can’t save a person. You can’t control a person. You can’t make someone repent. You can’t make a child want to obey his parents. You can’t exercise faith on behalf of someone else. And so patience is required…but it is a hope-filled patience because we believe that Jesus can do all of those things in a person’s heart. We believe he can do more in a moment than we can do in a lifetime. That’s the power of the gospel. So we patiently pray. We patiently love that person (which by the way, love is not the absence of accountability). We patiently place that person in the Lord’s hands knowing that only he can truly change them AND knowing that no one loves them more than Jesus does.
Undoubtedly, you have been to a wedding where the famous passage on love from 1 Corinthians 13 was read. And do you remember the first description of love from that passage? LOVE IS ______________? 1 John says that the world will know that we are Christians by our love…and the first attribute of love in 1 Corinthians is patience. And I promise you, if you have people in your life who love you, they are patient with you whether you realize it or not.
One of the things I’ve learned about myself in the context of relationships is that when I feel that I have been wronged, it’s really easy to become bitter. But listen to Paul’s challenge to the church at Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-15: And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
What Paul is echoing in this text is that we need to be patient with other believers. We need to know that some of our brothers and sisters are in a stage of idleness and they need counsel. Some of our brothers and sisters are fainthearted and we need to offer them some encouragement. Some of them are weak and need help. And to all of our brothers and sisters, we need to exercise patience and not repay anyone evil for evil. When these things happen in culture, it’s a tinder box, waiting to explode. No one has any patience for each other. But in here, for the Christian, we allow a lot of space for one another’s shortcomings and to seek, in any and every way, to do good to one another…with the hopes that this spills OUTSIDE the walls of the church too.
We’ve talked quite a bit about warning lights lately. So what is a warning light that I’m not being patient with others? Look at verse 9 again: “Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” The clearest indicator that patience has not taken root in your heart is that grumbling constantly comes out of your mouth. Let me repeat that. Another gut punch by James.
I love the fact that Jesus is there hero of every story. If you study the OT closely enough, you’ll see that everything points to Jesus…the perfect sacrifice, the perfect priest, the perfect king. And even though Jesus is only mentioned twice in the entire book of James, he’s the perfect picture of what James is teaching about. Listen to how James’ friend Peter described Jesus as he was being led to the cross: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:20-24).
When we’re pressed relationally and become impatient, remember the patience of the farmer…and better yet, remember the patience of Jesus who never grumbled at his friends that abandoned him, and never swiped back at his accusers. And remember that in the Holy Spirit, you have all the resources you need to empower you to do this over the long haul. The life of a Christian is a life of patience, so get used to being patient.
And then James gets us to another form of patience and that is…
2. BE PATIENT WITH UNCONTROLLABLE CIRCUMSTANCES – vs 10-11
Any control freaks in the room? My hand is up. I like the challenge of engineering outcomes. This is what energizes me in life…but left unchecked, this very quickly can become an idol. And the reason patience is required for life in a fallen world is because it is an open declaration that God is still sovereign. If you are freaked out about the world we are living in (not sad, but freaked out) then what you are displaying to your unbelieving friends and family is that you don’t really believe that the God you serve is both good and sovereign. You are I can both agree that there are a lot of things to be grieved about in this world…but as believers, we believe that God is using EVEN THESE THINGS for our good and his glory (Romans 8:28). I don’t always know how, but I trust his heart even when I cannot trace his hand. That’s Biblical faith – believing before you see the outcome.
“Well, that’s easy to say, Pastor, but you have no idea what I’m going through.” You’re right, I don’t. And what you’re going through probably DOES feel hopeless. We say all the time, that Satan is a master at shrinking our world down to the size of our problem. And it IS overwhelming, and it makes us angry when people flippantly tell us that God is good…all the time. And we WOULD be hopeless…outside of the promise of Romans 5 that says there’s HOPE at the end of the tunnel of suffering. Listen to Paul’s words: “3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
What both James and Paul are saying is that when we are squeezed by the most difficult of life’s circumstances, we don’t have to succumb to them in anger...we can actually have a vibrant hope. Now, full disclosure…I would not have chosen suffering as the open door that leads down the path of hope if I were God. I would have chosen something more enjoyable. Like the front door to Krispy Kreme, Amen? And please hear me when I say I’m not trying to minimize your suffering. I know some of your stories. We’ve prayed together and have shared tears together. But what I want you to hear is that God wants to maximize your suffering. Not in the sense that he wants to increase it, but in the sense that he wants you to gain the most benefit out of it.
Part of you becoming more like Jesus is to suffer for a little while so God can further mold you. And to help us understand this more, James points out those who have gone before us who suffered a lot in their journey with God. Look at verses 10-11: “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”
James mentions the prophets in the Old Testament who were steadfast. Here’s a boiled down version of the life of God’s prophets in the Old Testament. God spoke to a prophet. The prophet told all the other people what God said. The people didn’t like what they heard. The people didn’t like the prophets. So the prophet was persecuted. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. And despite this persecution, the prophets consistently remained steadfast through suffering.
And then James mentions a guy named Job. Chronologically, it’s believed that Job was actually the first book of the Bible that was ever written. And we know that Job was a righteous and wealthy man. He had a wife, a total of 10 children, and some friends, too. And you know what else he had? A lot of terrible days. The Bible teaches us that God allowed Satan to intervene in Job’s life to test Job’s faith in God. And Satan did just that. Job’s kids die. All of Job’s possessions are taken away. His friends give him really bad counsel as to why all of this is happening and on top of it all, Job is afflicted with sores from the top of his head to the souls of his feet. He’s literally at rock bottom.
And he can’t trace all this hardship back to consequences of decisions he has made. Job really has no idea why he’s suffering. But right in the middle of the book, in Job 19, job makes the following declaration: “For I know that my Redeemer lives…” Right here, at the very beginning of human history, Job is teaching us that suffering is coming, but that God is still present, that God is still sovereign, and that God is going to send a deliverer to redeem us from this world filled with sin and suffering.
So let’s ask ourselves the most practical question we can…what do we do until Jesus comes and delivers us once and for all from this world filled with sin? The answer is our final point this morning…
3. ESTABLISH YOUR HEARTS – vs 8
8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Some translations render verse 8 as “strengthen your hearts.” There’s an interesting word back in verse 11 where James says that an “established” heart is evidenced by our ability to “remain steadfast” (some translations say “endure”). The word here in the original language is hupomone. Hupo --> under, Mone --> to remain. It’s literally the ability to remain under the crushing weight of life’s circumstances. And how do we establish our hearts—strengthen our hearts—to hupomone? It’s called training. You all know I love the sport of triathlon…and to date, I have done 8 different Ironman triathlons…in fact, I’ve signed up to do another one next summer. But do you know what, even with all the experience I have, it won’t matter how hard I try, if I don’t start training now (which, by the way, I’ve already started). Here’s my point – when patience is really needed, if you haven’t been training to cultivate it, then you’re never going to have what it takes when life really presses down on you.
Here’s the good news this morning…training for the times when patience is needed looks no different than the training that is required to get the empowering grace that we need to live every day for Jesus. It’s the ROUTINE.ORDINARY. SPIRITUAL.DISCIPLINES. Prayer, fasting, corporate worship, Bible reading, Scripture memory and meditations, solitude, silence, service. These are the things that remind us over and over who God is…that he’ll never leave us or forsake us. That he really IS a good God sovereign over every area of our lives.
Just a few miles from here there’s a corner that has one of the most photographed street signs in the Cincinnati area. It’s at the intersection of Grinn Dr. and Barret Rd—the infamous corner of "Grin and Bear It." And sometimes when we think about the call to patience, this is what we think we’re called to…to grin and bear it, to buckle down, put on a good face, smile real big as if it doesn’t hurt, suck it up and be a man. But at some point, your strength to do that will run out. And the only end result of living that way is either PRIDE because you think you can grin and bear it better than others, or SHAME because you are painfully aware you cannot.
But when you have strengthened your heart, and even when Satan shrinks your world down to the size of your problem, it’s THESE habits of grace that will remind you that God is a bigger than your problems. These habits of grace (I love to call them buckets of grace) give us, not more SAVING grace, but more EMPOWERING grace…the type of grace needed to live with patience in a world when hurry and efficiency and resiliency are celebrated. And so church, at the end of the day, pursue Jesus and his grace. Because if you find patience outside of Jesus, it’s by your own strength and it’s not going to last. But when you make intimacy with Jesus your first pursuit, one of the overflows of your spirit-filled life will be patience. “Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!
