chapter 5, that's page 1013 in the provided Bible. We're going to look at James chapter 5 verses 7 through 11. Worship folder says verse 12, we're just going to read through verse 11 this morning. So while you're getting situated in James 5, I appreciate Winfield praying for my trip tomorrow. I'm gonna drive to Macon and catch a 4 a.m. groom shuttle to the airport so I can fly to Medellin Colombia to spend a week teaching in the Reform Seminary Latin America in Medellin for basically teaching Tuesday through Friday on the doctrine of Christ, Christology. So I appreciate y'all's prayer for safety and wellness, and particularly pray that God would give me grace to be an effective teacher of that important subject. So I appreciate y'all praying for me. James 5, verses 7 through 11. If you would stand as I read for us these verses from the book of James, from God's Word. We read, 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. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we come and ask for help and mercy and grace to understand your word. Help us to understand what it's teaching us. I pray You'd open our hearts and our minds to receive the truth and to believe it, and to put our hope in Christ this morning. We pray in His name. Amen. Please have a seat. Perhaps some of you have heard of the name of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Sir Ernest Shackleton. He's considered a great picture of leadership. He was leading a South Pole expedition in 1914. He was a British explorer. And his ship, the Endurance, was trapped in the ice on this expedition. And interestingly enough, the ship was trapped in the ice so Shackleton and his crew are forced to live there in the Antarctic for 10 months. ice-bound ship, the Endurance, and they're living off seals and whatever else they can, on which they can feed. But before long, the weather, I guess, may begin to warm to such effect that they started to have to compete with other predators for food. And so it was getting harder and harder to survive. So Shackleton makes the difficult decision he's going to take, he and five others, and they're going to press to civilization to bring back help. And he has to make this trek and it's just incredibly treacherous conditions in these small boats through storms and ice. And that's a lesson in leadership all its own. But he tells his men before he leaves, I promise you I'll be back. I will return. And so Shackleton goes and he finds his way to civilization. He's going back to rescue his men. And there are these huge icebergs that are blocking the way to go back to where his ship and crew are waiting. I think it was about 22 men that he was going to rescue. And as if by a miracle, there's a break in the ice, they're able to get through, and he finds his men ready and waiting. I mean, their bags are packed. They're ready to go. So they hop on the ships that they brought, and as they're leaving, The endurance is crushed by the ice. I mean, it's just, I'm sure there've been films made about this dramatic rescue. And Shackleton says to his men that it was fortunate you were all packed and ready to go when I got back. And they replied to him, we never gave up hope. Whenever the sea was clear of ice, we rolled up our sleeping bags and reminded each other, the boss may come today. The boss may come today. in light of the passage I just read. I hope you can see the connection, right? The connection between Shackleton's men being ready for the return of Shackleton and the call to be ready for the return of the Lord, the return of Christ. Now, there's a big difference between these two stories. Shackleton made a promise that really wasn't able to really make. He didn't know if he could. He promised him he'd come back, but that was really ultimately out of his hands. By God's grace, it worked out. He's able to keep his promise. The promise that Jesus makes that he will return, he'll come again, is a promise that we can, figuratively speaking and literally speaking, take to the bank. That's a sure thing. You see, it's a sure thing. It's certainty that fuels patience. Aren't you able to be patient when you know for sure something's going to happen? You know it's coming. You know for a fact that the breakthrough is coming. That's what fuels patience. And when we don't have certainty is when we get impatient, when we're anxious and worried. We don't have the guarantees. And what dominates this passage is a call to be patient. That's the word that's used four times. I mean, the word for patience is used four times. Verse 7, be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord, the return of Jesus. That should fuel patience. That's what James is saying. Now, last week when we looked at verses 1 through 6, If you remember, the position that I took, and I'm in good company, is that what James is doing in those verses is he kind of shifts his attention away from the Christians to whom he's writing, and he's kind of going after the wealthy, non-Christian oppressors that are out there. He's like an Old Testament prophet. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. It's not an indictment. It wasn't a sin to be wealthy. It was how they were misusing their wealth, if you recall from last week. And so now James is taking his attention off his previous targets and he's turning back to the Christians. He says in verse 7, Be patient, therefore, brothers or brothers and sisters, those in the church. Be patient underneath the oppression, the hardship, the difficulty as you wait for the return of Jesus. That's what should fuel your patience. That's what should fuel your perseverance. That's the dominant theme. Now, you need to know that the return of Jesus is mentioned some 300 times in the New Testament. It comes up a lot. Now, it's my opinion. that way too many Christians have focused on trying to figure out the when than just focusing on the certainty of the return. I mean, there's been a lot of speculation. There have been a lot of false prophecies. I think I remember 88 reasons why Jesus will return in 1988. And we saw how that worked out, right? All that type of nonsense happens from time to time. You need to understand that the New Testament writers, even as James illustrates, consider themselves in the last days. We read that right here in verse 8. You also be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. They view any time after Jesus' ascension as being the last days. Listen to Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2. Long ago, at many times, in many places, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, That's what the writer of Hebrews says. We're in the last days. Here's some things Jesus taught about His return. This is just from the book of Matthew alone. He says, first of all, no one knows the day or the hour. I think trying to figure it out, trying to do the math and come up with some code in the New Testament, it really is a waste of time. No one knows the day or hour of His coming, Jesus says. He says He'll come personally, visibly, unmistakably. It won't be some secret thing. His coming will end ordinary human history. It'll be the time of judgment. And it's also going to be a time of great joy for those who know Jesus, who trust Him, who are believers in Jesus Christ. There'll be joy in His return, joy in His presence. It's not something we have to dread. And I think what James is doing in verses 7 through 11, he's trying to encourage, to give fuel for patience during this life, during hard times, and for perseverance. I mean, he said in verse 8, establish or strengthen your hearts because the coming of the Lord is at hand. So what I want us to do this morning is to look at those things about which we can be certain, about which those things that should encourage or strengthen our hearts. Because James mentions four reasons why we should be patient and why we should persevere, why we should endure. And the first reason he gives, I'm going to give four again. The first is this, that God is at work. God is at work. He's always at work. The deist, right? You remember that from studying history? A deist position is that God created the world, and He kind of wound it up like a clock, and then He just sits back and watches it happen, watches life happen, watches the world work. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that God's at work, that He's involved in all of life. Look at verses 7 and 8 again. He says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord, And then here's this first illustration. 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. I've told you all this before. I am a terrible gardener. When I was in junior high, my parents, my father took a job in Clearwater, Florida, where we lived for a year and a half. And I saw the dream lawns in Clearwater, Florida. I saw these people that would cover their lawns with gravel, little rocks. That's the dream lawn right there. You never cut your grass. That, for me, is the dream lawn. I'm a terrible gardener. If I plant something, I think the next day it ought to have results, ought to have fruit. That's not, I would not be a good farmer. I would not serve the eating public well if I were a farmer. Because a farmer has to have patience. That's what he says here. A farmer has to wait. He has to wait for the early and the late rains. The early rains came really this time of year. And it would soften the earth and make it good for planting. And then the late rains would come in the spring, would help guarantee an abundant harvest. And a farmer has to wait and it has to trust that things are happening that they can't see with the naked eye. They have to trust the seeds are germinating and they begin to sprout. That the tree, that the sap is alive and well and eventually will produce the buds and the fruit. A farmer puts a lot of hope, a lot of patience in that which can't be seen, trusting that there's a work going on. I think that's part of the lesson we can learn from this particular illustration. We trust that God is at work. And so we're patient in those times when it's hard to see Him at work, when we can't see it. We live in a culture in which we just don't have to wait for much, do we? I mean, let's face it, if I mention a book right now, half of you could pull out your smartphone and order on Amazon and it'll be there Tuesday, right? If we lived in a major city, you could count your weight in hours, not days. I mean, we're just impatient people. We like a comedian we've watched and listened to named Brian Regan. He's got this little bit he does about pop-tarts and how there are microwave instructions on a box of pop-tarts. And I had a pop-tart yesterday and I thought, I want to see if that's true. And there are. There are microwave instructions for a pop-tart. You put a pop-tart in a microwave for three seconds. That's what it says on the box. And Brian Regan makes, I'm not trying to redo his bit, but he makes a big deal about, look, if, you know, if you've only got three seconds to heat up a Pop-Tart, you need to kind of loosen up your schedule. And he's got a point. You know, if you can't wait for the toaster oven, that's the way we are. We're an immediate people. We want things immediately. We don't have patience. We want the dramatic. And we're that way with life, aren't we? We're going through difficulty and hardship, and there's crisis. God, we want you to fix it now. I want you to fix it now. I'm right there with you. I want it too. But there may be times when God says, you need to be patient. You need to wait. I'm at work. I'm doing things under the surface. Maybe God's working in such a way to change you and make you more into the image of Jesus. to shape and mold you. Maybe He's just wanting to show you more your image, more your need of Him, I should say. Or He's showing you more of your own sinfulness and selfishness. He's at work. God is at work. The deist position is not consistent with the Bible. God is at work. What happens when we don't believe that he's at work? Verse 9 happens. Look at verse 9. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. We don't think God's at work. When we don't have the patience of a farmer, that's when we begin to snipe and to gripe and to grumble and to complain against one another and against God, blaming him or blaming one another. If we're going to be patient, in the midst of difficulty and suffering, then we need to trust and remember God's at work. The second thing we need to remember and be committed to is God's sustaining grace. First, God's at work, but secondly, God's sustaining grace. Look at verse 10. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. First there's the example of the farmer. Now remember the prophets from the Old Testament. What did they do? They spoke in the name of the Lord. They spoke God's words and they faced opposition for it. Often the prophets weren't the popular guys in town because God was sending them with messages of judgment and repentance. Nobody wanted to hear that. We want to hear good news. Away with the bad news. But they faced opposition. Think about Elijah who faced such fierce opposition from King Ahab. Think about Jeremiah. We often call him the weeping prophet. Nobody wanted his message. In fact, he was thrown into a cistern to be left there to die. He was eventually rescued. The prophet Isaiah, we believe, was placed in a log and sawn in two. There's a potential reference to that in Hebrews chapter 11. And what James is saying is remember the faithfulness, remember the patience, remember the endurance of the prophets. I mean, God gave Isaiah this commission in Isaiah 6, I want you to go preach to people and they're not going to listen to you. You preach and proclaim the message, but by the way, they've got hard hearts and they won't respond. Yeah, I want that job, right? But Isaiah said, send me Lord, I'll do whatever you call me to do. He said, remember, I believe James is saying, the way God sustained His prophets, His sustaining grace. You see, because Isaiah, even though he met such fierce opposition, he gives us these words of comfort. Isaiah 40, listen to these words. You've heard them before, perhaps. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known, have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Did you hear the call to patience? Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. God gives sustaining grace. He gives grace to the weary and the faint-hearted. And then he brings up not only the example of the prophets James does, but he brings up Job. Look at verse 11, the first part. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job. And that's a good word, the steadfastness, the perseverance, the endurance of Job. The old King James Version has that phrase, the patience of Job. Really, a better understanding is this endurance, this perseverance of Job. And I think that's important to point out because Job wasn't always a picture of patience. He just wasn't. You remember the story of Job? We actually looked at it together a number of months ago. Job experienced tremendous suffering, lost children, great physical suffering, great relational suffering. I mean, it was intense, very intense. And there were times he questioned God. God, what are you doing? I would like for you to answer these questions for me, was some of his response. He never walked away from God. He never turned his back on God, but he questioned what God was doing. He was impatient, but nonetheless he persevered. And James says, well, remember him and remember how God sustained him. I mentioned this young man, it might have been last week or the week before. His name's Tyler Trent. He's a 20 year old student from Purdue University who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And it was a big story related to the Purdue-Ohio State game. His health was not going to allow him to make it. He's become kind of an unofficial captain of the Purdue football team, but he was able to make it to the Purdue-Ohio State game. Sorry if you're an Ohio State fan, but there was a big upset, right? Purdue upset Ohio State. Part of what drew me was this young man's story, because Tyler Trent's a Christian, he's a believer. I've been really encouraged to hear his story, the story of his family, the story of his church in Indiana. And I listened to him being interviewed a week ago, and I was very, very encouraged by his transparency with this radio sports talk show host. He said, you know, when I was first diagnosed, I was bitter and angry with God. And there were times I wanted to take my life. He said, but God's brought me to a point where I know either two things will happen. Either one, I'll be healed or two, I'll go to be with Jesus and I'm okay with either one. I mean, what is Tyler Trent saying? He's giving us the Apostle Paul's words from Philippians. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Now, I hear a Tyler Trent talk that way and I'll be honest with you, this is what I think. Could I say that? Could I talk that way if I were facing terminal cancer? And then I have to remember that God didn't give grace for my imagined worst case scenarios. He gives grace for actual suffering and actual hardship. That's what he does. That's what he did for the prophets. We did for Job. It's what he will do for us. And that can foster for us patience. Look, I've mentioned this before. I disagree with a statement that says God will never give you more than you can handle. Because the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians said, God gave us so much, we despaired even of life. But that was to show our weakness, that we might lean on Him. He may give you more than you can handle, but it's not more than He can handle. And we need to remember that. He will give sustaining grace. He's at work. He gives sustaining grace. But also, let's remember not only that, God has a purpose. God has a purpose. Again, look at verse 11. He says, We consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You've heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. You've seen the purpose of the Lord. You've seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings. You've seen, finally, according to NIV, what God has brought about. In other words, God was doing something. He had a purpose, even in the middle of all this suffering and hardship of Job. He can have a purpose in your hardship. And we need to remember, this is not fatalism we're talking about. Fatalism is this idea that just whatever will be, will be. And it's just kind of written somewhere impersonally in the stars. That's fatalism. We're talking about God's sovereignty. We're talking about a loving, purposeful God who made the earth, who made all things, who ordains all things, who sent His Son to die in the place of sinners and raised Him from the dead on our behalf. That's the God who ordains all things. We read this verse even this morning. A school of discipleship where the Apostle Paul, reflecting on his own imprisonment, writes to the Philippian Christians. And by the way, he wrote the letter to the church at Philippi, the book of Philippians. He wrote it from a prison cell. He writes these words, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me, his imprisonment, has really served to advance the gospel. So it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. Now see, if I lived back then, first century, and here's this tremendous leader of the church, the Apostle Paul, and he's in prison, I'm thinking, God, what are you doing? Why are you allowing Paul to be in prison? He could be out here planting churches, he could be encouraging people, he could be preaching, but he's stuck in a prison cell. It's like you've put him on the bench. But in reality, Paul says, hey, no, God's using this. I'm sharing the gospel with the praetorium guard, the elites, the special forces of Rome. And the gospel's getting out. God's got a purpose. He's using it. And God can use our suffering. He can use our hardship. He can use our trials. Now, the problem is we're in the middle of them. It's hard to see. Sometimes it takes time and perspective. But nonetheless, we can pray, God, show me your purposes. Show me that you have a purpose in this. And what that purpose might be. Give me a glimpse. that you're using this, even as you showed the Apostle Paul in that prison cell. The things that fuel patience and perseverance are the certainties that, again, God's at work, that God provides sustaining grace, that God has purposes in what we go through, and lastly and finally, What sustains us? This is the big one. This is the ultimate. God's love for us. His love for us. Look at the last part of verse 11. You've heard the steadfast of Job. You've seen the purpose of the Lord. How the Lord is compassionate and merciful. How the Lord is compassionate and merciful. I love the Greek word for compassionate here. Because it talks about, it's really, it's an idiom. It's talking about the guts. The bowels of mercy, kind of a King James kind of expression. That's the word there. In other words, God feels his compassion and mercy towards us at the deepest part of who he is. That's what's trying to be expressed. I mean, this is the same word for compassion we see in the gospels whenever it talks about Jesus being compassionate. And so basically what James is doing, he's intensifying this idea by using two synonyms, God's compassionate and merciful, because those two words are very similar in their meaning. You know, the return of Jesus, it's rooted in his compassion and mercy, his love for his creation, his love for his people to come back and make all things new and all things right, to end suffering forever. No more tears. No more sorrows. All rooted in God's compassion and mercy and his love. So you've got to stop and ask, do you know this God? And do you know his compassion and mercy? Do you know you need it? We're all born with a condition that makes us at odds with God. I think we know that intuitively. We know something's not right with this life. We know deep down there's something not right with this world. And it shows that we're reflecting God's image. This world is broken. This world is messed up. It's because of a condition the Bible calls sin. We're all born with that condition. And out of that condition flow the acts of disobedience and not doing what God requires. And those things put us at odds with God. We can't hope to earn His favor. We can't earn our way back in His good graces. Well, why is that? Because God's so mean and stern? No, it's because He's holy and perfect. That's just His standard of who He is. But you see, the same God, because of who He is, declares to us there is bad news we've got to embrace about ourselves, offers good news. That's the gospel. That's what the word means. And what is the good news? God loves us. He's merciful. He's compassionate. He's provided a way of escape from judgment through His Son. Whom He sent to come and live a life of perfect obedience and then died in the place of sinners on the cross. He who was truly God and truly man at the same time. He was both because we need both. We need Him to be truly man so He could really take our place. We need Him to be truly God so He could truly pay the infinite penalty for sin. And thus, being our sacrifice and being raised again from the dead and being ascended to the right hand of the Father, he offers us forgiveness, he offers us eternal life, he offers us a fresh start. That's why the gospel is such good news. You see, God's mercy and compassion, that sustains us with patience and perseverance. No matter what I'm going through, God loves me and nothing will change that, not even my circumstances. James is calling us to patience and perseverance in this journey we're on. By calling us to focus on those things that are certain, that God's at work, that God gives sustaining grace, that God has a purpose. God has never ending love and compassion for us. Let me finish with this story that I was really helped and intrigued as I read Ligon Duncan, one of my former teachers in seminary, uses this as an illustration I thought was helpful. Some things I didn't know. He talked about the Duke of Wellington. You military guys know who that is. I had to learn a little bit about him. He was a British officer who led the fight against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in the 19th century. That's his biggest claim to fame, defeating Napoleon. But what I didn't realize about that battle was what Ligon Duncan shared. Let me read you just a quick paragraph from Ligon Duncan. He says, Wellington had an army that was inexperienced with only a few veterans. He did not dare directly attack Napoleon, one of the greatest strategic generals in the history of Western warfare. And so he determined that his army needed to stand there and wait until the Prussians got there. Old Germany, we might call it. And hold until they could mount an offensive attack against Napoleon. And that's what he told his adjutants. We're going to stand on this hill and hold the line. No matter what happens all day, our only goal is this. Wait until the Prussians get here, and then they will attack Napoleon's flank. And that's exactly what he did at Waterloo. What did he do? He said, guys, we're going to persevere. We're going to be patient, and we're going to persevere, and we're going to hold on. And that's how the Battle of Waterloo was won. And Ligon makes a great analogy. That's our strategy. We're holding on. We're going to stand here, we're going to stand our ground, and we're going to hold on until the return of Jesus. We're going to be patient until the coming of the Lord. 90% of life, I love this quote, I use it all the time, 90% of life is just showing up. 90% of the Christian life is just hanging on. It's just hanging on by your fingernails, but you're hanging on. Quoting Job, though he slay me, yet I will trust him. And this gives us encouragement to hang on and to persevere. And one reason why we do the Lord's Table as often as we do is fuel for perseverance and patience so that we can get a strong, heavy dose of what the good news is through the bread and the cup. The gospel visibly portrayed, so to speak. The bread reminds us of the body in which Jesus lived that life of perfect obedience. The cup reminds us of the sacrifice he shed for sinners. You know what this is? This is like the little sample cups of chili we got yesterday at the picnic, right? This is the foretaste of the victory banquet to come for eternity. We're sipping out of the fire hose. so that we can persevere and hang on. We hold on with patience. We persevere and endure remembering God's at work. He will sustain by His grace. He's got a purpose and His love for us will never quit. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for