Well, let's pray together. Our great God, we pray that you would, through this time, fill our hearts with joy, as we just sang, and that at the end of this time together, we would be able to, in our hearts, bow in humble adoration with a renewed vision of how great thou art. We pray these things for the glory of your name. Amen. If you would take your Bibles, please, and turn to the book of James. We are back in our study of James this morning. We'll be looking at James, chapter five, verses 10 through 11. And I want to say personally, it is great to be back with you in this book that has already changed my life so much. And I pray will change us again this morning. And I was blessed to hear from my brother and fellow Elder Cliff last week. I was blessed to be his roommate down at Shepherds Conference that week. I was blessed to be there with so many brethren, so many men seeking to exalt Christ and ministry, to uplift the supremacy and sufficiency of God and his word down there in hundreds of local churches represented there. And it's just such a such an encouraging time for me. There was a blessed time of worship there and preaching. We were very encouraged and blessed. Our hearts were refreshed and Our souls were filled with joy. And as I was going around there that week, the blessing that I kept thinking about the most is I would interact with fellow ministers, talk to ministry friends and fellow pastors back there. My greatest blessing and joy I have is in my family and in this church family. And I truly mean that. And you are a blessing and a joy for me to preach to each week. It is an incredible privilege. to get to study, to get to serve, to get to shepherd precious people that I love so dearly and so many of whom share a mutual love for God and his word. And I know I speak for the elders here when I say that we count it a great honor to be your shepherds, not just because of the gravity and the weightiness of that task before God, but because of your desire to, along with us, follow our efforts to lead us to the good shepherd himself. Just want you to know, I love you and it is my sincere pleasure to be able to speak God's truth to you today. And I want you to notice in this passage, as we read this, James felt very much the same way. In fact, we're going to see the word brethren repeated three times. This is a family of Christ. This word, this is a term of endearment from James, who was the prominent teaching elder or pastor in the Church of Jerusalem. He earlier had called them more than once beloved brethren. And in his love for his brethren in various trials, which is how he spoke beginning the book, James wants to help these early Jewish Christians to cultivate patience and perseverance during difficulty, to have long suffering, endurance and suffering. And I want to begin reading in James five, verse seven, and our focus will be on verses 10 through But the Word of God says, Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains. You, too, be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. Well, our patience and compassionate and merciful God has allowed me to speak to you this morning on a subject that I don't feel I have mastered, and that is patience. That's something I am trying to pursue more and grow in more by God's grace, and I invite you to join me in this pursuit. If you look at verse seven, he says, therefore, be patient, brethren. And then in verse eight, you too be patient. And so that's really the context of our next text that we come to, verses 10 through 11, we went through verses seven through nine in our prior study, which commands us to be patient. And then verse nine really tells us what happens when we're not patient. If you look at it, it says we complain or we grumble against each other. That's what we're not to do. God judges that as sin, the verse says, and God is right there at the door and the coming judge hears your grumbling. He hears your complaining. He hears your murmuring and he even sees and knows your discontent thoughts about how things aren't going the way you would like. He's right there is the emphasis of that verse. And he takes it personally because he is the one whose sovereign providence has determined what would take place in your life that day for his purpose. In fact, Psalm 30, 139 says he had all of our days have been written out in a book before there was even one of them. And when we complain, against the God who is working in all things, we are actually insulting that God. And that's what verse 9 is emphasizing. And verse 10 gives further reason why we should be patient and not complain. And that is because God's patience has been manifested to Israel through the prophets. That's the first motivation or first reason. His patience has manifested to Israel through the prophets. Nehemiah 9, verse 30 says this, For many years you, God, were patient with them. By your spirit, you admonish them through your prophets and dictionary of biblical imagery points out how ironically it is that God's own people are markedly impatient with the very God who shows such long suffering patience toward them. When they were traveling in wilderness after their deliverance there by God's hand from Egypt, they were marked by grumbling and impatience. Numbers 21 records that the people became impatient on the way, and they spoke out against God and against Moses and said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no bread, there's no water, and we detest this miserable food. That's really the opposite of patience and the opposite of everything James is talking about, rather than being thankful for this miraculous food that they had and this miraculous deliverance out of Egypt they just experienced and their freedom and God's presence with them, all these things they could be thankful for, they are grumbling because of something they don't have. They're grumbling because they're taking a long route. And so impatience there in the Old Testament and in many places is shown for what it is. Selfish, whiny, demanding. The self being placed above God's purposes and demands, demanding that its desires be met immediately rather than according to God's perfect plan. An old Puritan writer named Thomas Watson said it this way, Satan, Satan labors to take advantage of us in affliction by making us either faint or grumble. And he blows the coals of passion and discontent. And then he warms himself at the fire. It's that kind of a picturesque image there. He is he's wanting us to either fall into one of these two errors and he is blowing on these coals of passion and discontent. He doesn't create those. He blows on those that are within our sinful nature, and then he makes himself cozy up by that fire when it is burning. Let's talk about some of the things in the New Testament times that they were struggling with. These were suffering Christians. You can read the whole chapter of James, chapter five and earlier and see that. But in New Testament times, the suffering or difficulty or pressure or stresses or whatever you want to call them, give plenty of opportunity for bickering and Criticizing and even though the things we experience may not always be exactly the same as what we see earlier in James chapter five. The same happens for us today in our day in our way even though we may be more affluent definitely more affluent than they were. The trials may be more contemporary. They are still real struggles difficult marriages frustrated dreams demotions at work commotions at home insomnia high blood pressure. illnesses, credit card bills, other bills, insecurity. Christians, as one writer said, lose patience with each other under pressures and the church becomes infected with a readiness to criticize and blame, whether it's those in leadership or just those among them or really anyone they can find to blame, to take out their frustrations on. James wants to correct this problem with a renewed vision of Christ. Look to Christ, who is the supreme and sovereign king. who is coming again, which is what verses 7 through 9 emphasize, but also in our passage today, who is also compassionate and merciful. He is full of compassion. He is abounding in loving kindness and mercy, as verse 11 says. So don't complain, verse 9 says, when you encounter various trials. Consider joy instead, James 1, verse 2 commands. Remember, that's how this book began. Consider it joy, my brethren. He doesn't say enjoy. your trials. He doesn't command to have happy feelings about things that are so hurtful, but he says to consider it joy. This is not a command that has to do with our uncontrollable emotions or feelings. This is a command that has to do with our thinking and the choices of what we can choose to think on and dwell on. We can choose to rejoice in praise and we are commanded to and the joy of the Lord is to be our strength and his joy in the Lord. joy in the Lord and what He is doing now and what He is doing in us for the future in various trials. And I just need to tell you, I am very thankful that God is very patient when I fail and when I impatiently react with grumbling rather than glorifying God in my heart or out loud by receiving His will with joy. And because God loves us, because He wants our joy to be As Jesus said, this book not only convicts us that complaining is sin, this book also shows us that lack of joy is also sin. And this book wants us to experience that joy of the Lord to be our strength. Do you know it's a sin to be joyless? It's commanded over and over dozens of times. And we don't rejoice because all is fun or because we feel happy by nature, but it is a God-focused, outcome oriented, deep contentment and peace and hope and joy in God and in what God is doing now and how he is working in us for the future. And James knew in writing that James knew that some of his readers and the Holy Spirit knew that some of us were going to think that's not realistic, that what that is commanded there to have joy is impossible. But what James commands us to do at the beginning of the book to persevere with Blessed endurance in other words with blessed joy even in the midst of the trials now in chapter 5 verses 10 through 11 He encourages us that this is possible by God's mercy that helped People in the Old Testament that they knew of to be able to do this and this same mercy that they experienced and compassion is available to us as well James has been using throughout the book many examples. He's kind of a master illustrator of the New Testament and epistles, he's used many examples from nature and life in this book already. And now he's he's giving real life examples of real people with natures like ours. If you skip down to verse 17, he says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. And in this last section of the book, when he comes to the finale here in today's text, for example, verses 10 through 11, he begins this pattern of considering people with natures like ours, asking us, first of all, to consider the prophets in verse 10. And to consider Job in verse 11 and ultimately where this message is going is to consider God, who is sovereign and who is full of compassion and mercy. And I like the King James turn, tender mercy. And so the outline, if you want to know where we're going, is simply the way that unfolds there. Consider the prophets is number one. Consider Job is the second one, verse 11, and then consider God. Specifically, consider the prophets patience in verse 10. Consider Job's perseverance in verse 11 and consider God, consider God's providence, compassion and mercy. And what's encouraging about this is James doesn't just command us be patient in verses seven through eight. He tells us how he is here to help these people and to help us through the Holy Spirit and through the scriptures. Aren't you glad? God's Word doesn't just give us commandments and exhortations. It gives us examples for our help and for our hope. We have real life stories of how real people with real weaknesses like us were able to endure real difficulties. And God has made that same mercy real to them and will make it real to us. The same mercy that he has had in the past. Number one, Consider the prophets patience. The first encouragement is to consider the prophets patience. And I just have to tell you, I'm encouraged because there's no clock on the back wall this morning here. I think they're fixing it for daylight savings, but I'm taking that as a providential sign just to go until I'm done. All right. So be patient. OK, consider the prophets patience. Verse 10, as an example, brethren of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord and This word patience is not hard to understand. Even in the English dictionary, it's a pretty similar definition that it meant in New Testament times. The word means, according to Oxford English Dictionary, the capacity to tolerate, delay trouble or suffering without becoming angry or upset. Merriam-Webster's collegiate 10th edition says bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint, which is also in the context of James 5 verse 9. Manifesting forbearance is the second subheading. Under provocation or strain, to not be hasty or impetuous, to be steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity, and to be able or willing to bear. That's a pretty good definition there from Merriam-Webster. And even the world recognizes patience and that patience is steadfastness and we typically think of it while under provocation or strain, to be able to endure opposition, There's often implied in the term difficulty and adversity, which is why patience must be exercised to bear pain or trial calmly or without complaint. Even the world's dictionaries say that and the world can see it. The world can understand what patience looks like. But the world in the full intent of what this word means, the world cannot produce it without God's grace because patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which our elder John Rucker is going to be speaking on tonight. Again, would encourage you. to come to that. This word patience in the context of James 5 verse 10 is patience in suffering. In fact, the word is sometimes translated long suffering. The Greek is macro thumia and you recognize macro. The first part of that means big or large or long. And the second part of that is their Greek word for anger. And so the word literally meant someone who can who can handle a lot before becoming angry or someone who has a big threshold of frustration before he becomes impatient. Someone who has a long fuse, we might say. Takes a long time to explode. Someone who is slow to anger. In the Philippines, they have these fireworks, which are really more like explosives than fireworks. They're kind of illegal in this country. But the ones that, you can tell how powerful they are by how long they make the fuse. And so, when you're buying these, you get, as a little boy, you wanna get the one with the longest fuse, has the most bang for your peso. But anyways, along the ideas, it takes a long time for someone to explode. This is this is what a long fuse person means. And love is really First Corinthians 13, four says, remember, the first thing it says about love, love is patient. Love is kind. And really, this flows out of a heart that has experienced God's love and that knows what a got a love is. But Love and patience are so closely related and the next verse there in Corinthians says love is not easily provoked or not easily angered as a similar idea slow to anger. James 1 19 is already said and one biblical reference work defines patience as a state of emotional calm in the face of provocation or misfortune and without complaint or irritation and Impatience and irritability often go together. In fact, Jerry Bridges, in his excellent book, Respectable Sins, treats these two sins together. And I would recommend that book, Respectable Sins, by Jerry Bridges. But he talks about how our lack of patience often shows up when we quickly become angry or upset. In fact, you can understand or you can see what level of patience you struggle with by how quickly you become angry or upset when there's some delay or some trouble or some suffering, and it's not necessarily an outward lashing, although it can be that, but it starts in the heart, of course. And Bridges defines impatience as a strong sense of annoyance at the usually unintentional faults and failures of others. It's often expressed verbally, not necessarily, but he says insightfully that the actual cause of impatience lies within our own hearts, in our own attitude of insisting that others around us conform to our expectations, and that really fits with what James for one through two says. At the source of the cause of our conflict, which includes our inner conflicts of impatience, the source or the cause is not the occasion. It's not what's going on around me. It's not the other person. It's when I what I supremely desire doesn't match what with what God has sovereignly determined for me on that day. I've got these desires, these inordinate desires that I have elevated that are different from What God is going to have for me that day that. I have to understand is the source or the cause of my conflict when I become impatient that I have elevated those things too high and not submitted them to God is the end of James chapter four talks about in his will, if it be your will, when we make our plans, James four, verse seven says that I must be submissive to God. I must be submissive to his will and what he has allowed in my life for that. day, I need to resist the devil or seven also tells me, including his insinuating to me that I deserve better, that I have a right to react impatiently and express my frustration. That is a lie. When those thoughts come, those are not from God, but that I have a right to react this way and be angry and do all this because of the situation that occurred. Impatience ultimately is a submission issue with God's sovereignty, the God who has intentionally allowed whatever makes us have to wait. And sometimes he does that intentionally to help us with this very problem of impatience that we blow up at. Someone has said it's better to be patient on the road than a patient in the hospital. But we all of us at different times have been impatient when we're on the road. Someone is in front of us and we're in a hurry and they're just taking their jolly old time. They're happy, they're talking to each other and we're trying to get somewhere. We feel we're too important sometimes to stand in lines, whether it's at the post office or the store. Maybe you just want to buy a few things and there's someone in front of you who's bringing out all their stuff and they can't find their card and they've got these things and it's complicated. The other lines are going faster around you. Maybe in a bank or a restaurant, you're getting slow service or you're in a drive-through and it's taking six minutes instead of four minutes and your broadband downloads are going slower than usual. The traffic is, just think about this traffic idea. Are you, are we so important that we deserve the right to drive down the road and we should never have to slow down? Everyone else on the highway should be clearing out the way for your majesty to come through. It's expecting someone to say amen, but. You know, the ancient Greek culture that received the New Testament was not known for its patience, either. Aristotle said this, he said the greatest Greek virtue was refusal to tolerate any insult, a readiness to strike back. They stood up for themselves and that was a virtue to them. You see, biblical patience, this whole idea of what Christ was like and what he told us to be like. flies in the whole face of their culture and our culture, because biblical patience suffers and tolerates much without retaliation. And the prime example, of course, apart from Christ, who we're going to end with, but the prime example he starts with is even just considering the Old Testament prophets. Start with with those, you know, from Old Testament times. Verse 10, as an example, brethren of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Any prophet who was worth his salt suffered and was persecuted, but they patiently endured. And Jesus could say to his disciples who would preach in the same manner that they would be persecuted in the same manner. Matthew five, verse 12, if they persecuted, then they will persecute you, he says, in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. And that's coming on the end or the close of the Beatitudes, which speak of those who are blessed in the sense of supremely happy in the sense of favored by God. And then James 5 11 speaks. Similarly, we count those blessed who endured. And that's where I get today's sermon title from Blessed Endurance. Turn back a few pages, if you would, to Hebrews 11. And we have really the classic New Testament tribute to the Old Testament prophets and their enduring faith, even in the midst of great difficulty. Hebrews 11, verse 32 says. What more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, Quench the power of fire, escape the edge of the sword from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourging. Yes, also chains and imprisonments. They were stoned. They were sawn into. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill treated men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves. And on it goes. And verse 12 says Chapter 12 says, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses, these prophets and all these others in Hebrews 11, And the saints that have gone before us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance in the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance. There's that same word endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured. There's that word again, endured the cross, despising the shame. And he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God for consider him who has endured. There's that word again. Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. And he goes on to say, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood and you're striving against sin. And he encourages them to endure even through the Lord's discipline there and to be encouraged by those who have gone before him and ultimately by Christ. So when James says to his readers, consider the prophets. as an example of endurance and suffering. These are some of the things that would come to the mind of these readers who knew their Old Testament, the books in their Hebrew Bible. And just think of the ones that have names named after them in our Bible, starting with Isaiah. Jewish tradition says he was one of those that Isaiah or that was spoken of here who was actually sawn in two. That's how he was martyred. And his task was preach. They're not going to hear their eyes are going to be seeing, but not hearing their ears are going to be hearing, but not really Heating, but he tells him to preach. That's right after the vision of seeing the holiness of God. He commands him and he was faithful to that task, even though they did not listen. Jeremiah was also told in the next book after Isaiah, Jeremiah was told by God to preach with the promise that he would be hated and maligned and persecuted and ignored. Jeremiah won and he was faithful. He endured. I mean, how would you like that? You're being called to the ministry and I want you to do this, God says, just so you know, no one's going to listen. They're not going to repent, but be faithful. And he wrote the next book, Lamentations, which is the book most full of suffering. And he was known as the weeping prophet. He was thrown in a miry, empty cistern, but he faithful, uncompromisingly kept preaching. Ezekiel, the next book. Ezekiel suffered painful bereavement, but he endured faithfully. Daniel. was a faithful man. He was deported into captivity. He was one of the faithful remnant among Israel. It wasn't his own sins, but the people's sins, the nation. He was a faithful individual and his faithfulness to pray landed him in an evening with some lions, as you remember. Hosea endured faithfully with a very unfaithful and ungodly wife. Joel and Amos and all of the minor prophets we could go through. They endured the faithlessness of Israel. They faithfully prophesied and it broke their heart, but they faithfully prophesied God's coming judgments. And there was great personal cost to many of them. We could go through all of the minor prophets and see areas where they had to endure major difficulty or suffering. And Stephen in Acts chapter seven could say this to the Jews. He says, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? In other words, it's a rhetorical question. All of them were persecuted. It was a prophet's badge, if you will. It was his blessedness. Zechariah was the final martyr of those prophets Jesus spoke of to the Pharisees, how they'd killed all these godly people from Abel to Zechariah. And Jesus said to his disciples, blessed are you. Blessed are you, too, when men persecute you. He says, rejoice, be exceedingly glad. You're in this same line. I think American Christianity has it 100 percent. backwards at this point when it thinks blessedness means painless happiness and that successful ministry is proved by large numeric growth or many professions or people consider the prophets and their faithfulness. Consider that they were counted blessed, not for exponential growth and for large crowds, but for their patience, endurance and the fact that they spoke in the name of the Lord and they let the chips fall. We consider them blessed, happily favored by God, not because they had no opposition, but because they kept going through opposition and they persevered in steadfast faith with not a lot around them to encourage them other than God. God considers them successful because they were faithful. We need to keep going back to this idea that success to God is faithfulness. Other results are up to God, but success is faithfulness. Numbers of people or numbers of program are not the measure of blessedness in God's sight. Success is faithfulness. And he can bless in that way and he can bless in other ways. But modern, I think modern church growth experts, if they had talked to these Old Testament preachers about how things weren't going very well, they would have counseled them. What you need to do is take off the rough edges. You need to change your message. You need to change your ministry to get bigger crowds and to please more people. But James would say, consider the prophets. God wants us to consider the prophets and secondly, to consider Job. Consider Job and his perseverance, the most blessed man of his time, says we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job. They all knew about Job. Keep your finger here, in fact, and turn back to the book of Job. I'm assuming most of you are familiar with them, but I want to also look at this job is, of course, right before the book of Psalms right in the middle there. But if there is any single story that single handedly demolishes the false modern prosperity, gospel or teaching that blessedness means you are healthy and wealthy if you have enough faith and give enough money to, of course, their ministry, the book of Job. Is it Job chapter one through two? You know the story. Job has all of his wealth, all of his health, all of his prosperity taken away from him, all that he held dearest. And it was not because of his lack of faith. It was precisely because he was the most faithful man on the earth. Sometimes suffering comes precisely because someone is faithful. That was one of the themes of the conference last week. And sometimes, lack of suffering may indicate lack of faithfulness, lack of courage. Job's three friends, in their bad theology though, told him that his suffering, the reason why things weren't going so well, must be because of a secret sin or compromise in Job's life. And if you look at Job 2, verse 9, all of his physical blessings are gone and his own wife, what a blessing she was to him, right? You're looking at Job 2, 9. You see that that wasn't the most blessed, encouraging thing that a loving helpmate could help with. But there he is, Job 2, verses 7 through 8. He's sitting in ashes. He's got these agonizing boils covering him from head to toe. His wealth was decimated in one day. His workers had been killed by terrorists. Natural disasters had wiped out what he had. Fire and his 10 beloved children all died tragically, all in the same day. What does his wife say to him in Job 2 verse 9? Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. But Job didn't curse God and die. He held fast. He was steadfast. Some of your translations use that word steadfast in James 5 11. He endured to the end, even though he was not sinless along the way. In fact, if you are familiar with the whole story of Job, Job one and two, he is holding fast. But as it goes on, he was not sinless along the way in this process. And that should be an encouragement to us who are not sinless either. The true believers do endure to the end without renouncing their faith, without cursing God and dying apart from God, we believe in the perseverance of the saints and that's the preservation by God's power, but they will persevere. Look at Job 19. This is a good sample right in the middle, right in the heart of this. He had his moments, Job did, of depression and desperation. There were times he misunderstood what God was doing. He misinterpreted and even misspoke of God when his three friends, and I'm using that word loosely, his three friends kept poking at him with words, provoking him, bringing out the worst in him. And I think maybe Job enduring his friends was his greatest trial. Job 19. I'm reading from the NIV here. Job replied, How long will you torment me and crush me with your words? Ten times now you have reproached me. Shamelessly you attack me. If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone. If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me, then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I cry, I've been wronged, I get no response. Though I call for help, there is no justice. He has blocked my way. So I cannot pass. He has shrouded my paths in darkness. He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. He tears me down on every side till I am gone. He uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me. He counts me among his enemies. And just stop there for a moment. That was not all true. But this was how Job truly felt. Verse 16 says, I summon my servants, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife. Maybe some can relate to that. I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even the little boys scorn me when I appear, they ridicule me. All my intimate friends detest me. Those I love have turned against me. I think he's speaking of these three friends around him. I am nothing but skin and bones. I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth. Have pity on me, my friends. Have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh? Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll or written down in a book. And he had no idea that we were going to be reading his words right now in this book. And I would suggest to you that right in the heart of this and the heart of this human emotion here, we're going to see how he was able to endure. And it's this faith in verse twenty five that he would not let go. I know that my Redeemer lives. And that in the end, I don't know a lot of other things, I can't figure this out, but I know that He is real. I know that He lives. And listen to what He says here. In the end, He will stand upon the earth, His Redeemer. And after my skin has been destroyed, in other words, after I'm dead, yet in my flesh I will see God I myself will see him with my own eyes not just not just some sort of a spirit being I this is going to be me in my flesh with my eyes I am not another how my heart yearns with me and it's amazing that in this in the heart of this chapter here is he's lamenting all these things that have happened he he gives this incredible statement of faith that seems to even be speaking in an eschatological sense of the end of time that he knows that the Redeemer Lord is going to stand on this earth one day and that even after he dies in his own body which is going to be restored somehow he is going to be able to see this God with his very own eyes this is one of the amazing statements of faith in the whole Old Testament and the liberals kind of argue that it could have been written by Job 4000 years ago, it must have been added by someone later. But this is an amazing statement of faith. And this is the central climax or the high point in the almost the dead center middle of the book of Job, which has a lot of low points. It just reminds us that blessed endurance is not without moments of weakness, but it endures through weakness. Blessed be the name of our living Redeemer. And the word that James uses of Job was steadfastness or perseverance and it's not the same Greek word patience from earlier in James which emphasizes patience with people. This word for endurance literally means remaining under usually speaking of trials and the emphasis is on enduring difficult circumstances. Back in James 1 this same word for endurance is used And it's used there not for a believer's innate persevering power that he possesses before a trial, but it's used in James 1 as a God-given power or grace that is given to persevere, that is granted during the trial and even by the trial. Look at James 1, if you've got your fingers still in James. James 1, verse 2. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that, and this is what you know, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. So this endurance here is produced and is grown by the testing of your faith and let endurance have its perfect result. Let it let God have his work in you that he intends by this rather than grumbling or getting as far away from every difficulty. See what God would have you learn through the difficulty. This Greek word endurance literally means to remain under or to stay under. If you take the literal meaning of the two words that make it up. It calls for the submission of your will when your natural tendency would be to reveal. It means to steadfastly or unflinchingly bear up under a heavy load. Describes the quality of someone's character, which doesn't cause them to give in or to cave in when they're in trials. But inherent in this word is a forward look or it's the ability to focus beyond just what's happening right now to be able to Look to the future beyond the current pressure trial or affliction. This is a supernatural work in the believer's heart by the spirit of God. But our part is to submit and to let it have its work. There's a part, even though this is God's fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we must there's a part we must play as well or we will miss the full benefit that God intends. So the very definition of this word endurance by itself, if you look it up in a standard dictionary, it means to remain under it. It implies a submissive will to God's will. And chapter one, verse four, makes that even more explicit when it says, let endurance have its perfect result. The implication is if we do not submit our will to what God says, if we do not patiently endure these trials that are outside of our control, if our focus is on getting out at all costs and we refuse to have joy in God, if we must bear under the trial, we are We are disobeying God's commands and we are short cutting or undercutting God's work in us for our growth. We need to consider. Consider all these who have gone before us, consider the prophets patience, consider Job's perseverance. But number three, consider God's providence, compassion and mercy. And this is where he's going. And I love the way this ends. And if you're a Christian, you should you should love the way this verse comes to a culmination. You have heard of the endurance of Job. You have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. And that is good news for all of us. Interesting thing was, as you have heard and you have seen and the writers that I read didn't pick up on this, but At the end of Job, you remember what he says after God does this long speech to him and after he'd gone through everything, he says, I had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. And I think perhaps he's actually playing on those words here that we have heard. Maybe we've heard about God, but Job came to see, not just know intellectually, but to see in a fuller way through what God revealed about himself, not what he revealed about the trial, but what God revealed about himself at the end of Job. He had heard, but now he could see. And what he could see was that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. His feelings didn't feel like that chapters earlier, but he came to see that and know that in great measure, that the Lord is full of compassion. The Lord is abounding in mercy. The King James Version says you have seen the end of the Lord. And in the English of the 1600s, end meant purpose or goal. And so another famous statement of faith from that era the Westminster says the chief end of man is to glorify God the chief goal and chief purpose of mankind is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The new King James says this is the end intended by the Lord. And so the idea there is that this What Job was going through was intended by the Lord. The NIV has what was brought about, and maybe the ESV has it the clearest, the purpose of the Lord. There was the purpose of the Lord in what Job was going through. And you can see that at the beginning of the book and the end of the book. And this, I'm using this word providence, which is the truth that God is purposefully involved. Not just that he is God and that he can do whatever he wants, but that he is purposely involved in all things, working them to accomplish the end He intends, and if you want just one verse on that, Ephesians 1.11 says, God is working or effectually working all things according to the counsel of his will or his purpose. And I could give you a theological textbook definition of providence. Let me just give you an everyday example of how most everyone once spoke. Some of you may recognize this. This is a book by Lucy Montgomery when Anne Shirley is off to Avonlea. Matthew Cuthbert reminisces with these words. She's been a blessing to us. And there never was a luckier mistake than what Mrs. Spencer made. If you don't know the story, the mistake he's talking about, they got a little girl from the orphanage instead of the boy they asked for. But then he pauses and Matthew says, if it was luck, I don't believe it's any such thing. It was providence because the Almighty saw that we needed her, I reckon. That's in the book, in the movie version that my sisters made us watch about a hundred times growing up. Many of you know the story of how the Cuthberts had wanted a boy for their farm, but by human mistake, a girl had shown up at the train station that Marilla didn't initially want, but she eventually grew to love her. And I didn't love those movies growing up, just so you know. They're multiple hours long and more girly, you might say, but there is a line in there that as a guy who's a pastor, I can appreciate now because it's good theology. Marilla, she'll be gone so long. She'll get terrible lonesome. Matthew replied, you mean we'll get terrible lonesome. Marilla, I can't help wishing that she'd stayed a little girl. Matthew, Mrs. Spencer made a lucky mistake, I guess. And in the movie, Marilla says it wasn't luck. It was providence. He knew we needed her. And that's really how So many of the people who used to live in this country used to speak all the time. You could go back to even letters in the Civil War time frame that everyday soldiers would write back to their family. They talk about Providence in this battle and Providence here and there. Even speeches by U.S. president U.S. presidents into the 20th century used to speak of Providence. But I want you to look back at, of course, God's word Job chapter one. To understand that this truth means that God doesn't make mistakes, even though we do all the time, and the mystery And I have to admit, this is the mystery of Providence is hard for me to fully understand, but it's not hard for me to see taught in scripture. But this mystery is that God uses our mistakes. God uses our mistreatment. God uses even what man intends for evil against us. And even what is evil, God doesn't only use it, but he intends it for good. That's exactly what Genesis 50, 20 says. What you intended for evil, God intended for good. God intended it for good. He didn't just what you intended for evil. He used for good. God, in some mysterious way, intended that very evil itself. He intended it for good. And if you look at Job 1, what struck me and it struck me before, but as you read this, and I would encourage you to, if you're not familiar with it, read the story there. But the Lord's purpose occurs through suffering, sin, and even Satan and even the Sabeans and the Chaldeans doing exactly what they sinfully want. I'm just going to skip down and assume you know the story. The Lord initiates a conversation with Satan about Job and the Lord gives Satan permission to take all that he has and to leave Job alive. And in verse 20, Job gets the news of all these things that have been wiped out in his life, everything gone. And he rose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and he fell to the ground. And that that doesn't maybe astonish us, but maybe the next two words astonish us. He fell to the ground and what? Worshiped. He said. Naked, I came from my mother's womb and naked, I shall return. In other words, I had nothing when I came in. I have nothing now, but he says the Lord. Gave. And. The Lord. Has taken away. Read that again, the Lord gave. And the Lord has taken away. He's just got news about the Sabians and the Chaldeans and how they had done these horrible things. A fire from heaven had come down. A natural disaster had struck. His kids are all dead. And I think the reader's reaction when they read that is, no, you don't understand what was going on. The Lord had given you all those things. The Lord had nothing to do with all those things that were taken away. The Lord gave. The Sabians and the Chaldeans took away. Satan took away. But ultimately, Job understood that the Lord had sovereign control over that. And he said, the Lord is taken away. And you think maybe I think that's actually sinful for you to say, Job. I think you're actually that's wrong for you to say. The next verse, I think, anticipates that we're going to think that the next verse says through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. He is affirming God's sovereignty, but in an essence that he is not blaming God for the evil itself. And Job 2, verse 10. When he's correcting his wife there, when she told him to curse God, his reply wasn't God. God had nothing at all to do with this. He says to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? And implied in the grammar there is adversity and good are both. from God, and we need to accept them. And again, we say, no, that's not right what you're saying with your lips there. And the next verse seems to know that we're going to think that. The next verse says, in all this, Job did not sin with his lips. It was not wrong what he was saying there. I want you to go to Job 42, where we have not Job's words, but we have God's own inspired words about what was happening. And James 5, verse 11 also has the end in mind. The Lord gave. The Lord took away. And the Lord gave again to Job, Job 42 verse 10. The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends. I don't know if I ever noticed that before, but it was after the Lord had done such a work in his heart that he was able to forgive these friends who had been really not good friends to him and it hurt him. But when he was able to forgive and to pray for them, to intercede for them, the Lord restored his fortunes and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold. Then all his brothers and all his sisters and all who had known him came to him and they ate bread with him in his house. This is the narrator speaking, not Job. And they consoled him and they comforted him. And the inspired scripture says for all the adversities that the Lord had brought on him. for all the adversities that the Lord had brought on him. And I'll admit, there's some difficulties in our minds. We need to affirm that Satan is not sovereign. God is sovereign. God is ultimately over adversity, not just good things. As verse 12 says, the Lord blessed Job again. The same Lord, the same subject at the end of verse 11, it says, had brought, in some sense, these adversities on Job. Can your thinking handle that? Can your theology handle that? Is your God big enough for this picture here? I know for some, this idea that we aren't in control, but God is, and in an ultimate sense, all things he is in control of and are from his hand. This idea can trouble people, but to James, this is really a truth that is meant to comfort people. He says, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job and the purpose of the Lord. how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. And if you I think it would actually be more troubling to think that the Lord has no purpose in our suffering. It's out of his control if you just believe God loved you compassionately if you just believe that he he wasn't really sovereign over trials. He's kind of like a sweet and kind and loving old man who has a merciful heart and would love to help if he could. If only he could. But he's not in control. He just tries to help out after the fact and tries to help put things together down the road. That is not the biblical faith that gave the prophets and Job and James and Paul and Peter and many others blessed assurance or blessed endurance. The prophets and Job didn't know why, but they knew who was in charge and they knew that he knew why all these things had been planned. It doesn't negate human responsibility, but it does affirm ultimately that God is sovereign. Job said basically, shall we not accept adversity from God? And he said explicitly, the Lord has taken away. It wasn't fate. It wasn't forces of evil outside of God's providential permission and purpose. And we have to distinguish sometimes between his permission and his permissive will versus his active will, because he's never the author of sin or agent of sin. But the good news is that God is that big and he is big with compassion. And mercy is not only in control of all things, he causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And the whole theology that undergirds that is undermined if God is not really in control of all things. Romans 828, but we also need to consider, do do you love God? Are you one of those people that Romans 828 is talking about? Do you love God? Do you trust this Lord, as Job did, as your Redeemer, as your only hope of seeing God in the next life? Have you been called according to His purpose? You know that you have. If you have called upon Him as your Lord, if you have turned from your sin to trust Him as your Savior by grace, that you have trusted in Christ's work on the cross as your only way to heaven, not trusting your own good works or anything good you can do. If you do not yet love the Lord, if you do not yet trust Him as your Savior, James 5 verse 9 says he will be your judge. Repent before it is too late and the good news is if you will come to this Lord no matter what you've done. He is full of compassion. He is full of mercy. Job experienced that and to really appreciate God's compassion and the fullness of His mercy. You have to understand the fullness of His greatness and His sovereignty and His supremacy. You have to understand how sinful we are. You have to understand how small we are in comparison to the matchless and the massive and the universe-filling, universe-creating, galaxy-speaking into existence, infinitely holy, infinitely big God who is indescribable and incredible in His amazing, condescending compassion to us. He is not just a God of majesty he is a God of mercy to subjects even as low as us. And I want you to see just in closing Job 38 how Job came to see and this is the longest audible speech of God to a human being. These are questions that all speak of God's supremacy as to what God alone knows and that God alone does all things in nature and in life and in the universe. The point of every single verse, I think, in Job 38 to 41 is God is God and you are not. And Job 38, verse 12, just some samples. God asks, have you ever in your life commanded the morning? Have you caused the dawn to know its place? In other words, how how often, by the way, do you make the sun come up? How often do you make the sunshine? I do that every day, God is saying. So you can trust me in lesser things. Verse 16, have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell me if you know all this. In other words, creation reveals God's majesty and sovereignty and knowledge, which is so much greater than ours, so much higher than ours, from the highest of the heavens of the universe to the very depths and the darkness of the sea. Verse 22, have you entered the storehouses of the snow? And what's encouraging here is he not only knows all, but he controls all and he is compassionate in his control over all things. But he said, have you entered into the storehouses of snow? Have you seen the storehouses of hail, which I have reserved for the time of distress for the day of war and battle? Where is the way that the light is divided or the east wind scattered on the earth? Who has cleft a channel for the flood or a way for the thunderbolt to bring rain and the ideas there that God is sovereignly in control of all of these things. And our response should be to just be awestruck. Fall to our knees, humbly bow and say, God is God. I am not. I can't understand all this. I am going to have to trust you and trust that you are a lot smarter than I am. Verse 33, God says, Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, the stars and all those things? Do you fix their rule over the earth, do you rule over them? Can you lift up your voice of the clouds so that an abundance of water will cover you? Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, here we are? Can you do that? And remember, this is how Job at the end of this comes to see God in his compassion and his mercy by seeing his supremacy and how great thou art, as we just sang. I think Chris Tomlin was Meditating on this chapter when he wrote from the highest of heights to the depths of the sea creations Revealing your majesty who's told every lightning bolt where it should go We're seen heavenly storehouses laid in with snow who imagined the Sun and gives source to its light Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night Indescribable uncontainable you place the stars in the sky and you know them by name all powerful untameable Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim. You are amazing God incomparable unchangeable You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same That's that's what makes it so amazing all this come before that you see with all this being true about you You see, you know the depths of my heart and you love me the same you are amazing God Amen Let's pray Lord, we as we seek to lift up our thoughts about you and your greatness and your grandeur and your glory and your sovereignty, there are things that are hard for our minds to process. And I pray, Lord, that we would even as we think about those things that stretch our thinking from our comfort zone, that we would those things would cause us to fall to our knees and humbly recognize How much bigger you are than we realize and how small we are and yet how amazing your grace and your compassion and your love and your mercy is. I pray that we would be more awestruck and more humbled and more encouraged by these things. We pray in Christ's name and for his matchless glory. Amen.