If you don't mind this evening, open your Bibles with me to the book of James and chapter 5. The book of James, chapter 5. James has been compared to the book of Proverbs. In fact, some people say this is the Proverbs of the New Testament because it has so much practical instruction in it. And what we'll look at tonight is some very, indeed, some very challenging and practical exhortation for us to follow. James 5, we're going to read verses 7 through 11. There God's Word says, Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he received the early and latter ring. Be ye also patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another. And that could be one of those negative one another's that we looked at for a while. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. You've heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, or full of pity, and of tender mercy. Last week I was at a preaching workshop, Charles Simeon Workshop, helping to teach preachers how to study. You don't have to be a seminary student, a Bible scholar, or have recently attended a Charles Simeon workshop to notice that James is driving home a major point in this section of scripture. And in fact, I would encourage you to perhaps highlight this in your Bible, and if you didn't notice it when we made our way through, I think you'll notice it pretty quickly now. Notice the word patient. Verse seven, be patient, therefore, it goes on, you get near the end of verse seven, and have long patience for it. Verse eight, be ye also patient. And then at the close of verse number 10, suffering, affliction, and of patience. And in verse 11, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job. So five times in these few verses, James emphasizes the need for patience. But it's not just random thoughts on patience, but the idea is that we are patient in the midst of difficulty. That we are patient when we are facing trials. In fact, I would title my message this evening, Patient Endurance. Patient Endurance, that is, enduring difficulty with godly patience. Now, can we just flip the coin over for just a moment and think on this? Why is it practically necessary that James says so frequently, be patient? And I think the obvious answer to that is, is because our human nature is prone to impatience. to being impatient and especially when we're going through difficulty facing trial. Someone has said, well, I can tolerate anything as long as it doesn't require patience. Well, that's easy, right? I mean, I can be as patient as anybody in the world as long as there's no suffering attached to it or hurt attached to it. Here we are commanded, and I think in direct response to what is written ahead, those Christians who were suffering injustice and persecution at the hands of those who were affluent, those who were wealthy, those who were evil, who had hard hearts towards the things of God, that James' audience is to be patient even in the midst of persecution or that adversity. And it's certainly applicable to us. Brothers and sisters, we must do our best to be patient in the midst of suffering and difficulty. And this is why I said James is such a practical book. Because this is hard. It's hard to bear it well. What is patient? To be long suffering and to bear something well. And it's hard to do that when you're hurting. And it's hard to do that when you're facing difficulty. But the exhortation given to us is that we patiently endure. Thankfully, James not only tells us what to do, but he sort of helps by telling us how to do it and gives us some examples. In fact, there are three references, three examples that James cites for us to help us learn how to be patient and why that we should be patient. And understand this. James is writing from a Christian worldview, and the only way this makes sense is from a Christian worldview. If everything that happens is a result of karma, coincidence, randomness, chance, Then we have no assurance. We have no hope of things getting better. There's no, as I like to say, there's no divine design behind our difficulty. But as Christians, we realize if God has brought this my way, if God has allowed this in my life, there is purpose. There is meaning. There is a reason. Things don't just happen, there is a purpose to our pain. And the command for us to be patient, to patiently endure difficulty, only makes sense from the Christian perspective, from a Christian worldview. And what James is going to say in this And this directives that he gives only make sense when you think about it based on what we know about God in the Bible. For without that, what hope do we really have? There's sort of a back and forth and back and forth in these verses. And we're gonna just sort of follow them in a simple outline. We're gonna notice like verse seven, there's an exhortation and an illustration. In verse eight, exhortation and explanation. In verse nine, exhortation and admonition. We'll work our way through that. Patient. Patiently enduring difficulties. Notice with me verse seven, the exhortation. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. That is the exhortation that is given. The word patient, Dr. Strong says, to be long spirited, long suffering, to endure well. And that means when things aren't going our way, to be patient. There are thousands of examples that we could give in our day-to-day life. Maybe the Lord directed me this way because I need this, but in particular, in a post-COVID world, where, in many places, customer service has taken a brutal nosedive. And I grew up in retail, grocery business, retail world. Customer service was, you know, I couldn't control prices, but I could control the quality of the service I provided. So service is everything. Often go now somewhere and the people act apathetic, indifferent, and you're nothing but a nuisance and in the way, let alone caring about getting your order or your order right or whatever that it is. And I am not at my best when people are at their worst like that. And that's just a simple example how much more life throws huge heartache at us that we must endure. Excuse me. We need to be long-spirited, patient, brethren, unto the coming of our Lord. In fact, if you're noticing groupings of things, such as repetition, in verse seven, the coming of the Lord, verse number eight, the coming of the Lord, Verse number nine, the judge stands at the door. All of that is referenced to patiently enduring because Christ is coming. So I told you, not only does he tell us what to do, but he gives us the how or the motivation. And one of our motivations is we should patiently endure because the end is in sight. Christ is coming. Brothers and sisters, hold on, hang on, endure, patiently endure suffering because Christ is coming. He is coming. The sort of half-hearted joke that people sometimes say when you're going through difficulty, they say, this too shall pass. And then somebody says, yes, it might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass. And that's the way that this life is. Sometimes we go through incredibly painful and traumatic injuries, emotional injuries, hurts, harm. And James is reminding his readers, brothers and sisters, be reminded The Lord is coming. There's an end to this. In other words, very simply, all for the Christian, for the Christian. For the Christian, all pain has an expiration date. It's going to end. Christ is coming. And then he gives not only the exhortation, but an illustration. In verse number seven, the husbandman, or the farmer, The farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth. He waits for the harvest. He doesn't expect that on Monday he sows the seed and on Tuesday he begins to harvest. That's not the way that it works. He sows the seed, pulls weeds, runs away, rabbits and birds that would eat up the young growth. He watches over his fields and his garden. He prays for rain. He works and he waits. Nothing he can do to control the weather, but he can pray. He can't control sunshine and storm, but he can pray. He can work and he can wait. And that's exactly what James is saying to us. Work and wait. You can't control everything out here, but you can pray. You can ask God to give the increase, and that's exactly what James is saying here. We have to realize our reward, the harvest, if you will, is coming, but it's not coming right now. It's not until harvest time, our reward, and that's what he's making reference to, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, that which he has labored over, that which he's poured his life into. He knows the harvest, as God gives that early in latter rain, he knows the harvest will come in due season. Until then, he's gotta keep on keeping on, and so must we, patiently waiting in the midst of difficulty. We can't control, the farmer can't control the weather, we can't control so much of life events, life's events, but still we like to tell ourselves we can. And so he uses this as an illustration. And then in verse number eight, be ye also patient. Here again is exhortation and explanation. The exhortation, be patient. Establish your hearts. Establish. That word establish has to do with undergirding. Strengthening. Listen to James, if we may get into what he is after. Strengthen your heart. Don't be governed by emotion and anxiety. Keep telling yourself what you know to be true from this book. Keep telling yourself what you know to be true about God. Establish your heart in the word. Keep saying to your troubled spirit, God is merciful. God is good. God is kind. God has a purpose in what He is doing. You have to establish, you gotta establish your heart. If you're like me, discouragement and anxiety can overcome you. And you have to take every thought captive. And you have to do what you can do to establish your heart. And that's, by continuing to remind yourself not how I feel but what I know. How I feel changes with the quality of the service I get at the drive-thru. But what I know about God is consistent and it never changes and it's always reliable. So the exhortation is be patient by establishing your heart in truth. What you know about God's word and the promises that it affords and what you know about God. Constantly remind yourself of biblical truth. And again, the explanation in the second half of verse eight And here's why, because the coming of the Lord draws nigh. Because Christ is coming, the end is in sight. We won't have to go through trials for all of eternity just while we're here. And eventually, though in the moment it never seems that way, Eventually we'll learn that our little space of time here on earth was just a blip. It was hard in places, it was difficult in places, but God, the sovereign, all-knowing, loving creator, was in absolute control the whole time. I'm falling some on the heels of my message from Sunday morning on seeing, but not clearly, how that we just don't see things now like we will. We don't see perfectly like God does. We don't have 20-20 spiritual vision. We're looking through a glass darkly. We only see what we see, and that's all tainted by our sinful nature. But one of these days, we'll understand it. They go farther along. We'll know more about it. And so he says, be patient, establish your heart in biblical truth, Christ is coming. The Lord, the coming of the Lord draws nigh. And then in verse number nine, we find exhortation and admonition. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest you be condemned. In verse nine, almost seems like something of a strange interjection. You're talking about Christ coming, being patient. Why now grudge not? Be grudge. Treat one another wrongly. Why now that forbiddance? And I think the best that I could come up with is this. Is that in the midst of hurt, when we are dealing with some really painful life heartache, I am, I won't speak for everyone here, I can be very prone to lash out at the people that I'm closest to. When I'm hurting, when I'm anxious, When I'm frustrated and when things aren't going the way I want them to, rather than being patient, I'm prone to lash out at my wife, the kids when they were home, sometimes even some of you. And I think the warning here is be patient, be patient, be patient. And in the midst of that, When you're facing adversity, don't lash out. Don't grudge against one another. Don't take all your hurt and aim it at somebody else. And though I won't speak for everyone here, I think some of us are prone to do that. I am. I am prone to do that. And there's such a rich little thought there at the close of verse number nine. That's what I'm calling an admonition. Behold, the judge stands at the door. The warning. Don't begrudge one another. Be aware that Christ is about to come. And let me just put it like this. Think about a courtroom setting. Think about it like this. In our modern setting, what happens prior to the judge entering in? The bailiff says, all rise, the honorable such and such is presiding. And then the judge enters in. And what James, if we think about it like that, is Judge Jesus is at the door. Everybody arise because the judge is about to come in, and when he does, he's gonna set everything right. He knows everything about every case. Every hurt, every time one of his own children have been abused, every difficulty, he knows everything about everyone. And Judge Jesus is gonna sit on the throne and he's gonna righteously discern. And brothers and sisters, every wrong will be righted. Every sin, unconfessed and unforgiven will be held to account. The judge is standing at the door, so be mindful of that and how we treat one another. And be mindful of the fact that one of these days, even those who hurt us or wrong us, again, if you look back again at that earlier text, they're gonna give an account. The judge is at the door, they're gonna give an account. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. It is not for us to seek vengeance, but to turn it over to him who judges all things righteously. That is, in verse nine, an exhortation and an admonition. And then in verses 10 and 11, we have a dual illustration, two illustrations out of verse 10 and 11. Listen, James says in verse 10, take my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. And I personally want to put the opening of verse 11 with the close of verse 10 and remind you that chapter and verse divisions are done by men. Behold, we count them, and I think those them in verse 11 goes right back to those prophets in verse 10. Behold, we count them happy which endure. That part, I think, belongs at the end of verse 10. But listen to what he's saying. You're going through a hard time. You're going through difficulty. Think about the prophets. And if you would work your way back through the majors and the minors, even if we fast forwarded past Moses and Elijah and Nathan and Gad, and we just, we went straight to the majors and the minors, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos. You start thinking about their life, brothers and sisters, they endured some hardship. Incredible hardship. Suffering. Rejection. History, not biblical, but history tells us that the prophet Isaiah was sawn asunder, and that's a reference to Hebrews 11. History says that Isaiah was cut in half by the Jews with a wooden saw. Because they hated his message so much. We studied Amos together. Think about Hosea, what he went through. Jonah. Think about what these prophets endured. And listen to what he says. They are an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. In verse 11, we count them happy which endure. We don't... We don't look at the life of the prophets, though we have empathy for them and sympathy for them. We look back and we say, you followed hard after Yahweh, and now you're enjoying the fruits of your labor. We count them happy which have endured. In other words, brothers, sisters, at some point in the future, we wanna be like them. We want people to count us happy who have endured, who have suffered affliction and been patient in the midst of it. Those prophets rejected, ignored, despised, and killed, all, listen, all while doing what God had called them to do. They're an example of suffering, affliction, and patience. And you and I must not think that we're going to skate through life without it. Suffering, affliction, and trial. But they kept on plotting. We count them happy, which endured. They're blessed, and that's really what the word is. They are blessed because they endured. I want to say it like this, but I'm afraid you'll miss it. We don't feel sorry for them now. Obviously, you know, we could sympathize with them with what they went through in life, but they're doing just fine right now. You know, those saints, they're doing just fine right now. We count them blessed who have endured. And one of these days, we're going to be where they are, and we'll look back and say, and the idea is that others would count us blessed who have endured. And then the second example he gives is again in verse number 11, the second illustration. You've heard of the patience of Job. You have seen the end of the Lord. Let me not get there yet. You've heard of the patience of Job. I'm reading chronologically this year in my Bible, doing whatever my phone tells me to do, but I'm reading chronologically. this year in my Bible and I'm just finishing up the book of Job because it's old, old book, old book. Job probably, probably lived before Abraham. That's how old it is. But nonetheless, I'm rereading the book of Job and did Job face affliction? Heartache? Difficulty? And did he face that for doing wrong? No, he faced that because he was doing what was right. And James says, look at Job as an example of how to patiently endure suffering. I'm not Job. Yeah, the Bible says, yeah, Job sinned not with his mouth. That could not always be said of Lewis Geiger. I can tell you that right there. And I'm not talking about the kind of calamities that Job lost his health, lost his family, lost his wealth, lost his prestige, his wife turned on him, his friends turned on him. And I'm ready to throw a big conniption fit, which I don't know what is. My mama always said conniption fit. But I'm ready to throw a conniption fit because I have to sit in the bank line too long." James says, consider the patience of Job as an example of how we should patiently endure affliction. But I think James also points us to something in verse 11. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord. Now what does that mean? That's not easy. I actually like the way that NIV translates that last little phrase, the end of the Lord. The NIV translates it like this, you have seen what the Lord finally brought about. In other words, it's easy to focus on all that Job endured, but don't forget the end of Job's life, what the Lord finally brought about. He went through immense difficulty, but God blessed him. He had double what he had to begin with. That doesn't mean if you go through something God's gonna double yours, but it does mean this. You can have confidence that what God is doing will be for your good. I am sometimes afraid to teach or preach on stuff like this because I worry, worry, worry what the Lord may try to put me through so I have to, you know, eat these words. But you understand, listen to the close of verse 11. That the Lord is full of pity and of tender mercy. He is pitiful, full of pity, gracious. kind of tender mercy. Well, it didn't feel like that for a long time for Job, did it? And sometimes it doesn't feel like that for us. But God has a goal in mind, a purpose in what he brings, purpose in what he allows. Verse 11, I'm calling that a purposeful proclamation by James. God is compassionate, kind, loving, gracious. Be patient, Christian. Just like with Job, there's a reason. Like with the prophets, there's a reason. And just like in your life, there's a reason you're enduring what you're enduring. I've stole this, I've stole. I have stolen this from someone. But it's, and I've used it, I'm sure, here before, but I just love it so much. You can trust God's heart even when you can't trace God's hand. You can trust God's heart even when you can't trace God's hand, when you can't see or understand what He's doing. How did things work out for those prophets? During life, difficulty. Now, blessed. How did things work out for Job? The farmer, the harvest came. And all of these illustrations are saying, Christian, be patient. God knows what he's doing. Christ is coming. The harvest is soon. The judge is at hand. Hang on, keep on, keep pressing forward. But realize, this assurance, this hope of all these things working together for good and these things making sense, let me just say again, it only, it only works with a Christian worldview. Without the redemptive work of Jesus, this is all meaningless words on a page. So think about it in this way. The non-Christian, should they find comfort in the fact that the judge is at hand? No. The non-Christian, should they find comfort in the fact that the Lord's coming is drawing nigh? No. Can they find comfort? Can an unbeliever know that God is working this together for my good? No. That's why I'm saying to you, brothers and sisters, this only makes sense from a Christian perspective, Christian worldview. And it's only made possible because of the saving faith that has been given to us because of the finished and redemptive work of Jesus. Without that, it's nothingness, it's emptiness, it's karma and coincidence. But we don't look at Job as a fool. We don't look at the prophets who endured as fools. But we see them through the lens of scripture, understanding that while they face difficulty more than we even want to, Now we count them happy that endured, who have been patient. So faith, faith in Christ and faith in his word makes the difficulties and trials, makes it so that we can have patience and hope in tribulation. The unbeliever, I would ask, the unbeliever, what is their hope? What is their hope? And the answer is, their only hope is Christ, because outside of Him, there's no point to any of this. There's no point to it. Brothers and sisters, patiently endure. Patient endurance. As you go through trial and difficulty, whatever form it comes in, remember, the harvest is coming. Jesus is soon to return. The judge is at the door, and we will be numbered among the prophets and men like Job and others who have endured wrong, only to eventually learn God was absolutely right in all that He did. Absolutely right.