Patience of Job
James 5:7-11
August 13, 2023
Patience is not one of my virtues. I really struggle with being patient! For those of you who are not so patient, doesn’t it drive you crazy when people are patient? It’s like . . . how can you just be calm? I wish I could do that, but that might make me impatient.
I think God was testing me this week when I was driving. I was at a red light, about the 5th car in the turn lane. The light turned green and nobody moved. I thought to myself, “the light’s not getting any greener.” And I missed the light! UGH!!
Well, we’re moving towards the end of our time in the book of James. And today’s message deals in part, with patience. So yes, I’m preaching to myself, and I can’t wait until this is over.
If you took a test to determine your level of patience, how would you score? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself, and how would your spouse rate you? Pick a number . . . and hurry up!
However you scored yourself on that, James can help us.
Two weeks ago, you’ll recall in the first part of James 5, James didn’t have anything good to say, especially when it came to the wealthy people. They were being rebuked because of their love of money, greed and possessions. They were committing sinful acts against the good guys, the poorer folks.
Today, we’re going to look at James 5:7-12 as James now addresses these good guys – the people who were being treated unfairly. In this text James is essentially saying, “Having addressed the rich, now I want to talk to you poor people — you guys who have been condemned and unjustly treated.”
With that in mind, let’s look at James 5, beginning in verse 7 - - - -
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.
10 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.
12 But above all, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
I believe this second part of James’ fifth chapter is an important text for us to study because, like those victims of the rich in James’ day, we live in an unfair world — a world where the nightly news is filled with stories of UNFAIRNESS.
Watch the news, and each story deals with some sort of tragedy. It could be politics, it could be shootings, death, accidents, natural disasters, acts of terror. There seems to be a lot of unfairness around us.
Unfairness is everywhere.
And, to bring it closer to home I’m sure you have no trouble thinking of times when you had to endure what seemed to be unfair hardship. Whether it’s your children coming home from school in tears after being snubbed by their supposed friends or it’s job related unfairness, or having to find money for an unexpected car repair or trying to make ends meet because you became sick.
Maybe it’s a loved one who is sick, or you’ve received news about yourself. I mean the truth is UNFAIR trials big and small are indeed an inevitable part of life.
On top of that, it seems that the good people face unjust, unscrupulous people and those not so good people seem to skate by. And we question where God is in the midst of our suffering . . . .
. . . . and being patient, geesh, that’s not so easy!!
And sometimes it feels like we’re being persecuted. It feels like the world’s against us, and it’s easy to fall into a woe is me attitude, which doesn’t help. It leads to bad attitudes, and I really believe it leads us further from God, because the world would have us direct our anger at God. God is the culprit and we can make God our adversary.
But that’s not so. So, James gives us some help - - - -
And before we get there, remember what James wrote in the beginning of his letter. In James 1:2-4, he wrote - - - -
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
You see, James is preparing us to have the patience of Job and the prophets. Count it all JOY when you meet trials of various kinds. Seriously?! That’s not what I want. I want to complain and gripe and have a pity party and snap my fingers so God changes my problems.
But James tells us to count it all JOY, because that testing produces a constant and steady faith. And when that happens, I’m not going to be lacking anything, because it’s my faith that sustains me. It’s not me existing on my own strength, it’s me being sustained through the power of Jesus Christ, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, dwelling and empowering me.
Now, let’s see a little more of what James is telling us.
We’ve never faced the type of suffering and persecution that the early church had to endure. Not many of us have suffered for our faith in Jesus. Our suffering tends to come from sickness, death, job loss, abuse, economic uncertainty, world uncertainty and a host of other afflictions. And in the midst of this suffering, James has some powerful words of wisdom. It’s like a double edge sword, tell someone to be patient is easy, putting it into practice not so easy.
Four times in these verses James tells us to be patient. You would think once should be enough, but we know our nature all too well, it’s difficult to be patient. You know the prayer, “Lord help me to be more patient, and DO IT NOW!”
We don’t want to have to acquire patience, we don’t want to have to gain more wisdom and understanding, we don’t want to have to be more dependent upon God, we just want our problems and our suffering to be solved . . . now.
So, James gives us some solid advice. Be patient, until the coming of the Lord. The early believers had the expectation Christ would return at any moment. And if Christ would soon return, then they could certainly be patient and endure whatever suffering they were going through.
But today we wonder, when is Christ going to return? From what we see occurring in our world, many predict it will be in the next generation. But can you be that patient? Can you endure your suffering for another 20 or 30 or 50 years? How you answer the question will determine your style of dealing with suffering.
James paints a scene that his congregation and ours is familiar with — a farmer is sowing seeds in his field. It’s a story about what we’re to do with our circumstances when they’re beyond our control. Obviously, a farmer is greatly concerned about the rain. You want the early rains, to help your seeds take root, to begin the growth process; and you want the later rains which nourish the plants so they can mature and give you the greatest possible harvest.
In between, you don’t sit around and do nothing, you have to spray the field, fertilize, till and do your upkeep.
You see, while the farmer is busy, he must also be patient. You can only control your end of the business. You must be patient and wait for the rains to occur. You can’t do a rain dance, well, I suppose you can, but I don’t think they’re too effective.
There must be an attitude of faith and trust in the goodness of God and the crop of the future. You might want to speed up the clock, wishing you had the power to bring the crop in according to your schedule, on your terms.
The farmer has done his part — now there's nothing left but -- WAIT FOR THE RAIN! And by the way, be patient!
Remember, this isn’t just a lesson in farming — frequently, life is like that for us. We go through times when we rack our brains looking for something to do that will change our circumstances - - - - wanting to make things happen. But there's just nothing else you can do!
So, we wonder if our prayers are right or if we have the right formula for faith in God. Maybe our faith is too weak, maybe we really don’t believe. We ask all kinds of questions at these moments, but honestly, I believe those questions do more to kill our faith than to help it. Especially, if we get stuck there.
We must understand that belief in the Unseen God is an act of supreme faith and trust. Does it make sense why our prayers aren’t answered? Some things in life don’t make sense. We can ask and ask and sometimes the answers don’t come rolling in, but that’s exactly where faith comes in.
We must hang on in spite of the unreasonableness of God’s answer. We can struggle with the “why’s” all our life and become buried in sorrow and depression, because we know our “why’s” don’t always get answered as we desire. Or we can trust in the goodness of God and have hope in tomorrow. And that’s where patience comes in.
James points to the prophets who proclaimed God’s message. They often suffered, they were persecuted, they were rejected, yet, they persevered because God had called them and they were patient and have received their reward.
You see, James is dealing with a big battle most of us have. We're raised to take responsibility and handle our problems, which is good. Yet, we react to whatever life throws at us by doing something — something that will put us in control, something that will improve the situation, SOMETHING . . . ANYTHING . . . that will make things right!
Then we find ourselves painfully humbled as God brings us face to face with some situation where there's just nothing we can do — where we have no answers. Suddenly we realize we have absolutely no control, we're totally dependant. It's difficult to accept these situations.
Most of us have been there. We’ve witnessed a loved one dying — and there was nothing we could do to bring them back.
We’ve seen loved ones suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually, and we searched for the perfect words that would end their suffering, but words fell short.
We know people who have lost jobs, who’ve had spouses run out on them, many of us may have our own doubts and fears. We want some way to fix this mess, yet the only thing we can do is trust in the work and plan of God Almighty.
So in verse 8, James tells us - - - -
8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Faith has power to change you as God works in your circumstances. I almost hate to say it, yet it is so true, some things won't be solved until Jesus comes again. But
if I had a stronger faith, it would make things better. My problems would disappear, but that’s not a healthy way to think.
Faith, then, is to help us stand firm until Jesus returns!
Our faith helps us do what James tells us to do, STAND FIRM!! That’s what the word establish means. We’re called to dig in our heals - - - to give our final answer to satan’s attack, exclaiming — ‘the gates of hell will never prevail against me, because I have Jesus!!’ You stand firm because you hold onto the promises of Jesus that He will be with you, ALWAYS.
You stand firm because of passages that remind you of God’s awesome strength and power. That God will never, never fail you, He will never forsake you, He will never abandon you or bail out on you, instead God will always, always be with you.
You have the power to stand firm, because you have hope. Hope today . . . in our Risen Lord and Savior who defeated death . . . and hope in tomorrow, in the coming of the Lord.
This is why we can still experience joy, peace and love in the midst of suffering and persecution, because we know Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, and the Holy Spirit is our comforter and the Holy Spirit is the one who prays for us when we can no longer utter but a single groan. We can wake up in the morning and know that we can face tomorrow because, He Lives.
James warns us not to grumble and complain when we’re struggling with patience. He reminds us, because it’s our nature to grumble, complain and become bitter over whatever we can’t solve. And the grumbling isn’t just about the situation, it’s complaining and grumbling about one another.
In essence, they were judging one another and we’re reminded by James that there is only one judge, the Pure, Righteous Judge — and He is standing at the door. I get this image from James that God is standing behind us as we’re talking about God behind His back. It’s as if God walked over to you and asked, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that last comment, what did you say?’ Oops.
The call is not to judge a person’s heart, spirit and mind. We can see their actions, we can hold them accountable, but their actions don’t always tell us what’s going on in their heart. So, don’t judge the heart. Only God can do that.
Finally, James tells us to never, never quit. He tells us to take a look at Job and how he endured his trials and suffering. Job questioned God, but he never gave up. Look at what the prophets endured as a result of proclaiming God’s word to a people that didn’t want to hear it and rejected it. The prophets never quit. There were complaints, there were tears, but they all persevered. They never gave up on God.
They didn’t know the outcome of their lives, yet James reminds us of Job’s outcome, that he was eventually restored. It's a story of reward and compassion.
Maybe you believe that you’ve made a mess of your life. You feel it's too late for God to ever do anything good through your life again.
Or maybe you’ve done the best you could with what you have, blowing it on occasion, but always knowing God was there willing to forgive you. You’ve tried to be patient, you’ve worked at it, because patience takes work. It seems silly to think it’s a struggle and takes work to acquire patience, but it is work. And in the midst of it all you come to realize a little more of God’s compassion, God’s grace, God’s mercy.
No matter which side of the fence you’re on, know that God will not abandon you. Whatever your situation in life, verse 11 again calls our attention to the fact that God is full of compassion and mercy. If you’ve blown it, if you think there is no way to recover and make things right, then you are wrong. God continues to have mercy and compassion for you. He desires that you ask Him for help, that you ask Him for the patience and peace which surpasses all understanding.
There are no simple answers for the problem of patience. We will meet it at least weekly, if not daily. Sometimes it’s a miracle that we can escape a day without feeling pressured and having our patience tried. Those are the days we probably stayed in bed.
It’s not easy to be patient in the midst of life’s storms. Yet, James would remind us the God who created you is with you right now. He will be with you and your loved ones wherever they go. So, be strong in Christ, be filled with courage, don’t fall into despair, because Christ is with you!
He called you! He loves you! Why would He abandon you in your time of need? That’s not what love is about. Love isn’t about fear or rejection. Love is about grace, mercy, and hope. And there’s nothing more powerful than that!
