The Old Covenant reading for this morning is taken from the book of Numbers. Numbers chapter 14 beginning at verse 1. We'll be reading through verse 24 this morning. The word of the Lord. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt? Or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, how long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with a pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. But Moses said to the Lord, then the Egyptians will hear of it. For you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say it is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness. And now, please let the power of the Lord be great, as you have promised, saying, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation. Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now." Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word. But truly as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these 10 times, and who have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went and his descendants shall possess it." Here endeth the Old Covenant reading. The New Covenant reading is taken from the letter of James. James chapter 5, beginning at verse 7, we'll be reading through verse 11 this morning. The word of our God. 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 these 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. Please keep your place here as this will be the primary portion of God's word for our morning sermon. They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. What a beautiful picture. I mean, isn't that what you want your life to be like? There's only one problem. It requires waiting. You know, as Americans, we're not very good at that. I've heard it said that Americans get impatient waiting for the microwave popcorn to pop because it takes so long. And truth be told, if waiting patiently was an Olympic sport, I doubt many of us would be at risk of standing on the medal stand someday. It's not something we as Americans, or actually we as fallen human beings, are very good at. In this morning's passage, James, however, is talking about something far more than merely waiting. He's talking about waiting on the Lord while we continue to suffer. Let's be clear, James is writing to people who are suffering a great deal. The Jewish Christians he's writing to have been driven out of their homeland in Jerusalem and Judea. They've been the objects of this fierce persecution. They've had to leave it all behind. And James is writing to them and saying, be patient, wait on the Lord, place your hope in Him and His coming righteousness, not in the passing pleasures of sin. These Christians have suffered a fierce persecution, and then instead of seeing the Lord quickly bring their persecutors into judgment, they are looking on their persecutors and they seem to be living high off the hog, comfortable with all the financial security that our poor brothers and sisters could only dream of having someday. So in verses one through six of this chapter, James gave them a direct and challenging message. As you consider those wealthy people, those wealthy people who are persecuting you, who seem to be living high off the hog with prosperity, but without following Jesus Christ, don't envy them, don't imitate them, and don't give up the faith. Why? Because the day is coming when the Lord Jesus Christ will fully set the world to rights. He will bring their wealthy persecutors into everlasting judgment. And He will fully glorify everyone who right now in this present age loves Jesus Christ and trusts in Him. The challenge is simple, of course. That's about then. And we live in the now. And therefore we have to learn to wait upon the Lord. Now our hardships may not be quite as dramatic as this group of persecuted Christians, but that doesn't mean they're not real. All of you through your life are going to have various types of hardships. Some of you are going through them right now. And they are hard burdens to bear in part because you don't know when they're going to end. Our hardships may not be as dramatic as those faced by the persecuted believers that James is writing to, but they are every bit as real. The world is not the way that it is supposed to be, and more specifically, your life and my life is not yet the way that it is supposed to be. How then shall we live? This morning, we're gonna look at patience under three headings. First, godly patience produces good fruit. Second, godly patience is necessary. And third, godly patience leads to God's blessing upon our lives. That's the three things we're gonna look at this morning. Godly patience produces good fruit, godly patience is necessary, and godly patience is blessed by the Lord. So we begin in verses seven and eight with the fact that godly patience produces good fruit. Look at the beginning of verse seven with me. James writes, be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord. What does it mean to be patient? Well, that word can also be translated long-suffering, and that's a helpful thing to keep in mind here. James is not talking about sitting patiently in your favorite chair, drinking iced tea, reading a really good book while just waiting for something to happen, right? That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about being patient, or long-suffering, while going through real hardships and difficulties in life. And God is calling us to that very thing. After all, love is patient. You might say love is long-suffering. James is talking about waiting patiently with wounded or broken relationships, with physical suffering, with financial struggles that we may not know how to get out of. James is saying we need to be patient in times like that. Waiting with the confident faith and confident hope that the Lord is working all these things for our good and for His own glory. With the confident hope that one day the Lord will come. He will either come to judge the living and the dead in our lifetimes, or perhaps more likely, He will bring us to Himself when we die. And we are not living for this age that is passing away, but for that age which is to come. Now, such waiting is not a walk in the park. The Bible doesn't kind of go, oh, everything will be fine because God's going to come someday. It recognizes the real struggles that you're going through. As I sometimes point out, and I know many of you don't like this, I've had face-to-face conversations with you on this, but I'm going to say it again. Long suffering means suffering for a long time. It really does. You see, we don't like that, not because we think it's untrue. We don't like it because we know that it is. Long suffering means suffering for a long time. It's precisely the duration of the struggle that we go through that makes it so hard. It is the open-ended nature of the suffering which makes it so difficult to bear and which leads us to cry out, how long, oh Lord? We might also cry out through a veil of tears, why? I don't understand why my situation is not getting better. Well, the Bible says a lot in terms of the answers. I can't expound all that today. I want to give you just one slice. Part of the answer for why it is so long is simply this. God is trying to work love into your life. Let me rephrase that, God is sovereign. God is working love into your life. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, love is patient. Or we might say love is long-suffering. Think Dostoevsky puts his finger on this truth in the Brothers Karamazov. He writes, love in dreams thirsts for immediate action. quickly performed and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as giving even one's life, provided that it doesn't take very long, but is soon over, as on a stage with everyone looking on and everyone praising. Whereas genuine love is a labor, it is persistence, and for some people, it is a way of life. I think Dostoevsky is exactly right about that. And God cares too much to allow his children to go through this life with just a dream, imagining how we'd really be loving someday, if we had the opportunity. He wants us to have the real thing right now. God is doing a great work in your lives, causing you to become more loving. But that takes pressure, and that takes time. So how long must we wait? James says, until the coming of the Lord. This tells us both what we're waiting for, we're waiting for the Lord's coming to set the world to rights, but it also gives us some pretty hard news about the time frame. You may die with your current suffering. That doesn't sound like really that great victorious thing that we want to go out there and put on billboards to celebrate and get people to come and say, come and follow Jesus, come and die suffering. But beloved, God isn't calling you to comfort. He's calling you to something truly great. to persevere in this present life, yes, enjoying the many blessings he brings into this life, including each other, right? Just talking about this last week. You may lose houses in this world and families and relationships, but God gives you a new family and new relationships. There are blessings in this life, but God is not promising that every day and every way your life is going to get better and better. What he's promising is that he holds you in his hands, that he loves you, and that he's doing it for your good, and for his glory, and he will cause your life to bear fruit that lasts forever. How long must we wait? Probably a long time, perhaps even to the day that we die. And rather than giving us a series of logical arguments, what James gives us is three illustrations of what this might look like. And that's actually more helpful for us to see. He also gives us an important application along the way. The first illustration is that of a farmer. Look at verse seven again with me. 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 know, when we think about something being boring, we might describe it as watching grass grow. But if you think about it, in one sense, that's what farmers do. I mean, it's not easy. They're not just sitting there in an easy chair. They're working hard. But particularly in the ancient world, the farmer went out and they tilled the ground. They worked at it. They got the stones out. They didn't have any tractors. They tilled the ground. They planted the seed. And then they waited and hoped and prayed for rain. They did their work, but if God didn't bless it, it wasn't going to produce anything at all. And they had to wait with patience. Being a farmer, particularly in the ancient world, was very much about enduring hardships in the hope of delayed gratification. Modern technology has given us the illusion of control. By the way, that's not just true for farmers. It's very easy in the modern world with all our gadgets and technology, and we can adjust the temperatures in our houses and all that, to start to think that, you know what, we kind of got this. You know, we can kind of put God in the corner. But the reality of your life is, is that your life will only matter for good if God blesses it. You do not have the power to bring it about. But thankfully, the one who does loves you, with an everlasting love. Modern technology has, in fact, given us the illusion of control. We are called to diligently follow Jesus Christ and to engage in the kingdom work. We have to recognize that that technology is an illusion. We are dependent upon the Lord's blessing of our labors for any fruit to take place at all. Love, let me just make a direct application of that. I stand up here and I preach to you. And I work at it because I care about God's word. I care about God. I care about you. But unless the Holy Spirit applies his word to your hearts, it will do no good at all. Our labors are something we're called to. God's blessing is absolutely necessary. When do we get our reward? Well, I think of an American missionary couple. who spent decades laboring in Africa. And they came home by ship. And as the ship was pulling into port, a huge crowd had showed up. There was a celebrity on board, and this huge crowd showed up to greet this wealthy celebrity that was on the ship with them. And the husband turned to his wife and said, we spent decades on the mission field serving Jesus Christ, and there's not a single person here to greet us. or to celebrate us coming home. And his wife said, yes, dear, but we're not home yet. Beloved, I hope you understand that you may not get celebrated next week. I hope you do in this church, that people will affirm you and love you and talk about the ways you're contributing to their lives, the way you make their lives better. But you're not home yet. We have to wait until We go to the Lord, or the Lord comes to us. There's something else to notice in verse 7. What is the farmer waiting for? I want you to notice that James doesn't say just the simple terms. He's waiting for the crops. He's waiting for the precious fruit from the ground. See, that's important in the analogy. The reward, the fruit that we're looking forward to from our lives, from the Lord's grace in our lives, it's not just a, oh yeah, I got a little checkbox there, we'll get something. It's extraordinary. And if the farmer is gonna wait all this time with patience, hoping for beautiful crops, how much more should we be patient waiting for the fruit that will last forever? So verse 8, you also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. The coming of the Lord is the next dramatic event in redemptive history. We're not to treat this simply like an answer on a theology quiz. Oh, I got it right. You know, Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. James is saying we have to live in light of that. Just as the farmer is looking forward to the crops, we ought to be looking forward to the day when Christ will come again and our present lives ought to be lived in light of that truth. James uses the same word translated here in the ESV as established. He uses the same word that is used to describe Jesus setting his face like a flint as he headed to Jerusalem to give his life for the life of the world. It's a term of commitment. Set your hearts, just as Jesus set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem, set your hearts toward living in light of the fact that Christ will come again. We are to live in the present with our eyes fixed on that great finish line. Beloved, Jesus is coming to judge the living and the dead. How then will you live? As those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, stinking of that great day ought to fill us with hope. I mean, Jesus isn't coming to beat you. He's coming to vindicate you publicly as he has already vindicated you before his father when you've been justified the moment you first believed. Looking forward to that day ought to fill us with hope. And yet it also ought to refine the way that we talk, the way that we treat each other, and the way that we spend our time, our talents, and our treasure. If we are patient in doing good, that day will reveal righteousness and blessedness for us. For Godly patience leads to a life that will produce much good fruit. Now I was a little reluctant to give that first section this, the title I did, or actually I had an alternative title too, just turn the words around a little bit. The faithfulness, I'm sorry, the fruitfulness of patience. And I was a little bit reluctant to give it that title because I was afraid it would sound like an extra credit question or a bonus thing that some Christians would do. You know, Jesus can come back, it'll be great. You know, and if I really want to like to be special with Jesus when he comes back, then I can do this extra thing. But beloved, that is not what James is talking about. James is calling all of us, the entire people of God, to be patient, to wait upon the Lord in hope. Patience, godly patience, not only produces a good fruit, godly patience is necessary. That's what verse 9 says. Verse 9 makes it clear that patience is a necessity in the Christian life. Please look there with me, verse 9. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. There are three ideas in that short verse. First, there's a command. Don't grumble against one another. Second, there's a warning that if we do grumble against one another, we will be judged. And third, There is the promise that the judge is standing at the door. Let's take those in turn. This is where the preacher starts meddling. There's a question you need to ask yourselves. You don't have to tell me what it is. You don't have to tell anyone else what it is. But you need to ask yourself this question. Why do you grumble? Seriously, I want you to think about that right now. What leads you to grumble? By the way, you didn't notice I didn't say, did anything happen to grumble? You all grumble sometimes in your life. Why? Here's the answer. It's not because someone else is doing something. That's merely the occasion for our grumbling. The reason why we grumble comes from inside of us, where we're discontented with aspects of our lives, discontented with our jobs, a relationship that we're struggling with, with our health, whatever it happens to be. It's inside of us. And the other person comes along and kind of pokes at that a little bit and we grumble about them. You know, I might think I deserve a break. I'm getting ready to sit down in a chair, got a nice book. I kind of have a picture for the next 15 minutes of my life. It's going to be really nice. And then someone wants my attention. I grumble. Yeah. Isn't that how you do it? It's really selfish actually. because I'm thinking about me and what I deserve. I'm not thinking about Jesus and carrying out his will. Perhaps I imagine that I really do deserve a break. And instead of continuing to faithfully sow faithful seeds in the knowledge that we are in God's hand and that our heavenly father is going to reap a rich harvest from those seeds, our discontented hearts can easily lead to grumbling lips. That's how it works. We stop being productive for the sake of the kingdom of God, and we grumble and make it about ourselves. Here's the bottom line. You cannot simultaneously grumble about someone and love them. You can't. Jesus calls you to love your brothers and sisters. That requires patience, long-suffering even. You cannot simultaneously grumble about someone while you are loving them. Furthermore, since our grumbling flows out of our own discontented hearts, we are really grumbling about the way that the Lord is ordering our lives. How big a deal is that? I want to suggest our natural inclination is to say, it's not a big deal, we all grumble a little bit, get over it, try not to be too irritable around other people. But when we read the Bible, we come up with a very different message. God thinks grumbling is a really, really big deal. Consider the wilderness generation. Many of the people were grumbling against Moses and against the Lord, saying, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among them. and many of them died by poisonous snakes. Or consider the Old Testament reading we had this morning from Numbers chapter 14. The people grumbled against the Lord and the Lord actually threatened to wipe them all out. And then as Moses interceded for the people, particularly for God's good name, that God would not be seen as though he couldn't bring the people into the land, the Lord relented. But he swore in his wrath that not one of the adults who had seen his glory would enter the promised land. Beloved, God thinks that grumbling is a big deal. We need to shift the way we think about it to the way that God thinks about it. The Lord treats our grumbling with deadly seriousness. Grumbling is incompatible with love. Grumbling is incompatible with faith. Rather than bringing glory to God, our grumbling announces to the world that we don't really think that the Lord is enough all by himself. It's only if the Lord gives us what we want. Grumbling's a big deal. Patience is therefore not a nice extra in the Christian life. You know, if the farmer grows impatient and he tries to harvest the corn five or six weeks early, he ruins everything. I want you to realize that that's actually true in your lives. We can think our lack of patience is not that big a deal. But if you think back in your life at some of the decisions you made because you weren't willing to wait, wait on the Lord. Most of us who are a bit older can pick out many of things where we made a complete mess of our lives because we wouldn't wait. Waiting upon the Lord with faith and hope is a necessity for each and every one of us. Third, James tells us that the judge is standing at the door. Now perhaps there are two ideas in that. The first, of course, is that when someone's standing at the door, they can hear everything you say. So part of the image of Jesus standing at the door is that your grumbling does not go unnoticed. The Lord knows everything that you say. Everything that you speak is in his presence. When we use our words to express love for each other, to build up each other in faith, this pleases the Lord. And when we grumble against each other, we grieve the triune God. It's a very serious matter. The second idea of the judge standing at the door is probably more of what James has in view. If he has both ideas, this is the bigger one. The idea is simply this, and you don't know when the judge is going to step through the door. He could come back at any moment. You never know when the Lord is going to walk through that door, so you better be ready to meet him. As Dan Doriani rightly points out, Scripture never promotes the question, when will Christ return? That'll be really helpful to you, so you can avoid the hundreds and hundreds of books written trying to predict when Christ will return. Scripture never raises the question for us, never encourages us to ask the question, when will Christ return? Rather, what Scripture encourages us to do is to ask ourselves, will I be ready when he does? As Jesus himself tells us, be on guard. Keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves his home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. Beloved patients, yes, long-suffering is a necessary aspect of how we live in this world to the glory of God. And frankly, a really good check on our speech might be this. If Jesus were to return in the middle of this sentence, would I be ashamed of what I was saying? or would I trust that my words would be pleasing in his ears? When we consider that the judge is at the door, we have every reason to love one another with that love that covers over a multitude of sins as we wait for Jesus in faith and in hope. Then James fills out the picture by giving us two additional examples of godly patience. Verse 10 in the first half of verse 11. 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. That's a useful thing to keep in mind. We look at them and we go, blessed are they. And James is saying that's not enough. It's not enough that you would admire them. You ought to be moved by God's grace to imitate them in their godly virtues. They are part of the great cloud of witnesses who have run the race before us. Consider how the author of Hebrews treats this cloud of witnesses in Hebrews chapter 11. I'm just going to pick up in verse 32 and read a few verses for you. Hebrews chapter 11, picking up in verse 32. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel, and of the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, and put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy. Wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Did you catch how deep and profound their long-suffering was? Not only did many of them suffer horribly for their faith, They did not in their own lifetimes receive the promised reward. Let me say that again. They did not in their own lifetimes receive the promised reward, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. But second, how does the author of Hebrews apply this cloud of witnesses to our lives? Let me say, the author of Hebrews does not go on to say, what a stirring example of really super saints. I mean, you're probably never going to be like that, right? That is not what the author of Hebrews says. The very next line we read is this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Beloved, by God's grace, we are to lay aside those things that are keeping us from living like this. We're to lay them aside, and by God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, to run for the glory of God. As I like to remind you, the Lord is not calling us to lives that are easy. He is calling you to lives that are great. Or consider the other example, the example of Job. James writes, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Now for convenience, I've actually lumped this together under patience. You may have noticed the words a little bit different. In the ESV, it talks about the steadfastness of Job. Uh, you could also translate this, the perseverance of Job, but I do think it fits under James's broader idea that he's bringing across. He's not introducing something new. It's an illustration of the same truth. Now, some commentators find Job to be a really odd choice. I mean, how do you get the patience of Job, the steadfastness of Job? I mean, doesn't Job complain an awful lot about his circumstances? Well, I don't share the bewilderment of those commentators. I think it makes complete sense that James would think of Job. First, consider the staggering level of suffering that Job endured without any explanation from God, and while his friends who were supposedly comforting him kept telling him, your suffering must be the fault of your own sins that you're not confessing to us. We do have to consider just how severe his suffering actually was. Second, please remember the Lord's own commentary on Job's life. After Job had lost everything, he had lost all of his wealth and all of his children in a single day, this is what the Lord tells us about Job. Then Job arose and tore his clothes and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord is given, the Lord is taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Beloved, that seems to me like an extraordinary example of steadfastness. In fact, the Lord adds the phrase, in all this Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrong. And then at the end of the book, right, the other summary we get from the Lord, when the Lord finally speaks to Job and his friends, the Lord says to one of Job's friends this, my anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. If you're reading Job and you think Job is speaking wrongly about God, I'm not saying he's right about everything he says, but in the big picture, if you're reading Job and you think he's speaking wrong about all these things that he's saying about God, you're going to come to the end of the book and find out you're disagreeing with the Lord himself. The Lord says Job spoke rightly about him. In the midst of his great trials, Job never gives up his confident hope in the Lord and in His grace. Let me consider some of the most famous words, at least in evangelical circles, of the whole book that come from Job chapter 19. In the midst of his misery, his physical health has deteriorated. He's sitting on a heap and he's scratching his sores while his so-called comforters are abusing him by laying false charges against him. And Job says this. I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eye shall behold, and not another." Beloved, while being crushed under almost unspeakable suffering, Job says, I hope in the Lord. And I hope in the Lord for the future. Job does not voice confidence that he's going to get better the next day or the next week. But he says, I've placed my hope in the God who raises the dead. And with my own eyes, I will see him after I've laid in the dust. Fourth, as James makes clear, Job's suffering was not the end of the story. James adds, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, And you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Well, you turn to the end of the book and the Lord is compassionate and merciful to Job. He brings extraordinary blessings into his life, a beautiful family, great wealth, a long life. And I think that's part of the answer. But I don't think that's primarily what James has in mind. After all, he's just referred to the prophets, many of whom died in faith while suffering. He must be referring to the fact that Job's suffering, to use Paul's words, and I think we'd be reluctant to apply this to Job when we consider how much he suffered, but you've got to think about the eternal weight of glory. In light of the eternal weight of glory, it was but light and momentary. And in fact, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people have come to understand God better because of Job's suffering. Extraordinary blessing and fruit. And then the Lord would call Job home and say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into your reward. So there you have it. Godly patience produces good fruit. Godly patience is necessary and godly patience is blessed by the Lord. Now, thankfully, we're not called to exercise patience at the end of some philosophical argument. We are called to exercise patience while resting in the hands of the one who says, I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your welfare and for good. Plans to give you a future and a hope. For they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk. and not faint. And so we pray, teach us, Lord, teach us to wait. Amen.