James Part 11 - Patiently Waiting

Andrew Grey continues the Sunday sermon series on James, with chapter 5v7-12. This is from Sunday 14th June 2026.

Transcript

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Almighty God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for your wonderful word, the Bible, that through it your Holy Spirit brings Jesus to us. We need Him, we need you that we might be faithful all the days of this life. We need your strengthening, your upbuilding, your consolation. So we ask God our Father that you would do this word in us for Jesus' name's sake. Amen. So let's listen then to the true and living words of God. James chapter 5, beginning at verse 7. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruits 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 remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. But above all, my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. Well, thanks be to God for his word to us today. When someone wants to come into your house, they will usually knock at the door. Like that. Now, if someone is standing at your door, they are standing on your doorstep. They are not a hundred miles away, they are not a hundred meters away, they are right there, and they are ready to come in. And God's word tells us very clearly that Jesus is at the door. Verse 7, he is coming. Verse 9 at the end, Jesus is at the door. He is coming into the door of the world. His coming is imminent. It is at hand. Now that is the great reality at the heart of God's word to us today. All of history is built around the two comings of the Lord Jesus Christ. His first coming, God the Son, eternally the second person of the Holy Trinity, he took to himself a human nature. He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He became a man in order to save. And he came because of God's love to sinners, that he might die upon the cross bearing the sins and the deserved judgment of all of those whom God the Father chose before the foundation of the world. And then, risen from the dead, he's ascended to the right hand of God the Father, and he is ruling over all, and he sends his Spirit to bring people to faith and to build up the church. So we live life in the shadow of and in the power of the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will come again. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. In verse 7, that word for coming, that is a special New Testament word. It's the word parousia. That is the final coming, the last, the ultimate coming. It is the coming of the judge. So the person standing on the doorstep of time and history of every single human life is the judge, the one who will come to judge. And part of his ministry of perfect judgment is to judge and to condemn his enemies and the enemies of the church. Last week, when we looked at the first few verses in chapter 5, we saw people who you might simply call the wicked wealthy. They are the ones with worldly power and influence and who used their strength in order to hurt the Church of Jesus. They did things like murder the righteous. See that in verse 6. For them the day of Jesus will be, verse 5, a day of slaughter. Now, such ones, well, they will not welcome the coming of Jesus, the judge. While they wait, they would even deny that they are waiting for it. They would deny the coming of Jesus because they deny Jesus' claims upon them. Now, just to just to pause one moment at that point, it's really important we say this. There is a great proof that God has given to us of the judgment day to come. And that great proof is the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And this is so important, especially for someone who is not yet a Christian. Maybe someone here you've got real interest in the Christian faith. Maybe you struggle to think and believe the idea of Jesus coming back, a global judgment of all people who have ever lived in every place and time. It feels incredible. And the Bible says that the thing that you must come to terms with is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus does many things, but it also, but among those things, it demonstrates that Jesus is inescapable. You cannot go through life and eternity without meeting Jesus, because he is risen and he is also, as the risen one, installed as the judge appointed by God. He's unavoidable. And so the resurrection is the thing that you must attend to. And when we wrap our hearts and minds around that, we begin to understand then, yes, he really is at the door. And it's worth saying that on that day he doesn't politely knock and wait admission. He's coming to his own and he will come in. So Jesus, the judge, he calls all people to account, and there will be open justice, open justice, total justice, nothing hidden. And for the Christian, that is a joyous, joyous thought. Just think for a moment. The person who is knocking at the door. It is someone you love. And you have been missing them, and your heart leaps a beat at the sound of a hand on the door, and you've been longing for that sound and that person because this is someone to whom you want to pour out your hearts because of the griefs that you've been going through, because that person is kind and they love you. And you know that that person has the power to put right everything that is wrong. And so, Christian people, we long for that day, we long for the coming of Jesus the judge. It brings not only the condemnation of those who will not come to Jesus and repent and believe, but it also means gloriously vindication and fullness of joy for the Christian. In the Gospels, the Lord Jesus he talked loads about his coming. He said it would be like a king returning, and his loyal subjects will love him when he comes. Or it is like a bridegroom coming, and his bride will adore him. And all of history is leading to that day. That's what everything is about. And the encouragement for the Christian simply is wait patiently. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. It might be, of course, Christian people, if we're honest, we do sometimes wonder, Lord, are you coming? The Bible says here, the Lord is at hand, the judge is at the door, and yet 2,000 years on, where is he? That's a long time to be on the doorstep. Now, God would have us know this. Like we saw in the first part of the chapter last week, we live life in the last days. Okay, that's the that's the Bible's way of talking about all of history from Jesus' resurrection all the way through to his return. We are living in the last days. And that means that there is nothing else on God's salvation to-do list left to do. Jesus has come as Savior, his spirit is at work building the church and making disciples. Today is the day of salvation, and anyone can become friends with Jesus today, and the gospel is going out around the world, and there is absolutely nothing left on God's to-do list but for the Lord Jesus to come back. Now we do not know when that day will be, only God knows the timing of that day. It could be any day, it could be this afternoon, it could be tonight. And so be patient. Be patient. And we do need to be patient, don't we? If everything is as good as it possibly could be, you do not have to exercise patience. I mean, by definition, patience is only needed when something is wrong or when something has not yet been obtained. That's one of the reasons why patience is so hard. We need patience. We live life in a broken world. We live life in a world that is full of sin. If we're Christian people, we have so much already, don't we? Through the grace of God, his love, his forgiveness, his care. But we have so much need of patience. That word for patience in verse 7, it literally means a long temper as opposed to a short temper. One of the older translations of the Bible is helpful, long suffering. Patience, it means long suffering. And patience, it's a very beautiful thing, and it walks hand in hand with another beautiful person, if you like, the person you could call steadfast. See that down in verse 11. These two things go together: patience and steadfast. Steadfast means remaining under. And at different points, as we've preached through the book of James, we've likened this to weight lifting. So God places weights upon us. He loads the bar with things like oppression, poverty, other forms of suffering. And he calls the Christian in the power of the Holy Spirit to push up, if you like, to remain faithfully under the weight, not collapsing under the weight into envy or bitterness or whatever it might be. Enduring would be another word to describe it. Enduring Christianly under the weight without giving up. Now, James, he gives this exhortation to patience. And he wrote to a particular group of Christians at a particular time. In the previous verses, we get a little window into their lives and their world. They were on the wrong end of these wicked, wealthy people who oppressed the church, of whom actually the Christian might even be jealous, but against whom the Lord would come in judgment. And so that's the context in which verse 7 comes, and that's why that therefore is there. Be patient, therefore, brothers. In the light of what you're experiencing, be patient until the coming of the Lord. The Lord has placed many weights upon you, he permits many burdens, all manners of griefs, and for them specifically, it was opposition and oppression. Back in chapter 2, we see that they were oppressed and dragged into court for being Christian. Now that's not exactly what we experience, most of us. It is what many of our brethren around the world do experience. But it will also be in this place and time, if we live as public Christians, unashamed Christians, we will know a little taste of that, the opposition of the world. Maybe it's because you don't wear the lanyard at work, or you do insist that Jesus is the only way to God, and that other religions are false and harmful. And this side of glory, the experience of the faithful Christian, the faithful church, will always be to a greater or lesser extent like that of Jesus. Knowing opposition. So patience. Patience, steadfastness. It's exactly what we need. It's what we need the Holy Spirit to work in us. And dotted through our passage today, James gives us three pictures of patience in practice. And these pictures tell us what we're to do with our hearts and also with our lips. First of all, we get the farmer in verse 7. Think of the farmer. He is out working very hard and he is sowing seed, and then he's waiting. And there is the promise of something precious. A precious harvest. Now he knows from experience. You sow, you wait, God sends the rain, and then there is a harvest. That's how it works. And so he waits with expectancy, knowing that something wonderful is coming. So, Christian people, we are awaiting harvest. We are awaiting a harvest day, the last day, the judgment day. It's a day of glorious reaping and of harvesting. It will be precious and glorious. The Bible uses harvest as a picture, actually, of the end of the age. And for the Christian, there will be fullness of joy. It'll be seeing the Savior face to face, being like him. It'll be a new heaven and a new earth, and there will be vindication. If we ever doubt that it's worth it following Jesus, now on that day there will be no doubt. Oh, it was worth it. So, like the farmer, wait eagerly. Second, the prophets. See them down in verse 10. As an example, take the prophets. Who are the prophets? We're back in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible. Think of the story of the Old Testament. God saves a special people for himself, the family of Abraham, it's the Old Testament church. And to them God sent prophets to speak his words. And the job of the prophet and the job of the prophet's words was to continually call God's people back to God. Keep trusting, keep obeying. And when they go off the rails, and they did, read about that, didn't we, in Psalm 73, to warn them God is a holy judge. Repent and believe, come back to the Lord. And what is put before us here is their example. The lived experience of an Old Testament prophet, it was not a bundle of laughs. Take a couple of prophets, take Jeremiah. He's always been known down the centuries as the weeping prophet. He was constantly doubted, he was rejected, beaten, imprisoned. Or Elijah, who's mentioned a little bit later on in the chapter, he was called to speak truth to power. And to the most hideous kind of power, to go in the name of God and speak to an evil king who had corrupted the people of God. And the key thing for the prophet was this: speak for God, regardless of how men treat you. Speak for God, regardless of how your listeners respond, regardless of what happens to you. Now we are not prophets like Elijah or Jeremiah, but the Church of Jesus does bring the word of Jesus. Yes, both through public ministry and preachers, but actually every Christian is called to be a confessor, to confess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the claims of Christ in the world, regardless of how folk respond, whether they hear or whether they refuse to hear. That is actually a dimension of patience. Patience is not just an attitude, it also leads to certain actions, including faithful and ongoing speech for Christ, regardless of the consequence. So, like a farmer, we're waiting eagerly, like the prophets, we speak while we wait. And then thirdly, Job. See Job down in verse 11. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job. Back in the Old Testament again. Job was a righteous man who loved the Lord, and the Lord permitted Satan to take away from him, well, everything. His goods, his property, his children, his health, all of it. Even his wife turns on him because of his love for the Lord. No, you've you've lost everything, Job, so curse God now. Why won't you curse God? And he won't. And we're told that Job was steadfast in his following of the Lord. Now, what did that sound like? Now you've you've heard of the steadfastness of Job. What would it sound like to hear the steadfastness of Job? Well, in great measure, it sounded like lamentation. You read the book of Job, chapter after chapter, of desperate prayer, of lamentation, of a telling to God that it is not all okay in my life. Yet never turning away from God. He remained utterly loyal. So even through the tears, he says things like, The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Even in the pit of suffering, he's looking forwards and upwards. I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. Job is so helpful. We learn from Job that patience looks like lamentation and loyalty to the Lord, and they go together. So see the farmer, take the prophets, listen to Job, and it builds up for us a picture of patience, of steadfastness. It's hard though, isn't it? There are so many things to trip us up. We talked last week about how we can envy those who have wealth and power. So those who have it in their ability to hurt the church, we might even envy them. They're getting on in life. Why can't I have a bit of what they've got? Maybe it's retaliation. When is it okay to have revenge? At what point is it okay to hate these people in my heart? Think of the disciple Peter in the garden on the eve of crucifixion. He pulls out his sword and he slices off the ear of the high priest's servant. It's not Jesus' way, it's not patience. But boy, is it easy. Or maybe it's grumbling. Do you see how James directs us there? Verse 9. Do not grumble against one another, brothers. You'd think, wouldn't you, that Christians under pressure would pull together. But actually, the devil would love in those moments to sow disunity, grumbling and complaining. Maybe one Christian looks at another and says, actually, it's all right for them, I'm having a much harder time. I'm having a hard time and they have let me down. Why can't they just do it my way? And also our words. James has lots to say about speech and our tongues. Maybe when we are under pressure, our words are even more important. Perhaps that's why verse 12 is there. It's talking here about truthful speech. Not going to say much beyond this. We ought to be so truthful that we don't need an oath to support what we say. It's truth speaking. Yes, be yes, no be no. And it's very hard when you're under pressure, when there are consequences that follow being truthful and consistent. What, though, is God up to now? He's coming. He says, be patient, be steadfast. I get that. What is the Lord doing now? Let's think lastly. Think lastly about the loving plan of God. The loving plan of God in making us wait and in helping us wait. And here is what will establish our hearts. Here is what we can use with the Holy Spirit's help to build our hearts strong, to make them firm. Verse 11. You have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. It is wonderful that the Lord has a purpose. Now the word behind that word purpose, it's a Bible word with multiple meanings. It's the Greek word telos, and it literally means end. You have seen the end of the Lord. Now that's quite helpful because just like in English, the word end can go in a couple of different directions. And I think they're both here. So, for example, to what end are you doing this? What's your purpose? But also, what's going to happen in the end? What's the outcome? Purpose, outcome, and both of those things are before us. And this is really important when we are under pressure. First, the Lord has a sweet purpose. Pain is not purposeless in the hands of God. I do think it is one of the saddest and hardest things about being a non-believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Pain and grief and evil, they are truly random and meaningless. And one of the transformatory things when you come and put your life and your times and your griefs into the hand of a sovereign and loving God is that ah, there is one who works all things together for the good of those who love him. And the Christian man or woman, boy or girl, does know this that their lives and times are indeed in God the Father's loving hands. The purpose of God, the plan of God. We've learned much of it already in the book of James. From the beginning, we said that God's great purpose in our lives is to make us whole. In our Bibles it says perfect. It is better to think of it as whole. We have split hearts. I love Jesus and I love other gods, and he wants my whole heart. He wants me to love him with my whole heart and then overflow to other people in love also. And he is so committed to making me, to making you whole. That is the plan of God, the end of God, which is at work in my life day by day and yours. And so he yeah, he loads weights upon us that we might learn to trust him. You've seen the end of the Lord, but also end in that there is a sweet outcome at the end of it all. And Job actually illustrates that so beautifully. But at the end of it all, the Lord restores him, restores him entirely and more. And that's what the Lord offers to the Christian who suffers loss and grief as they walk with Christ. There is a restoration to come, with Christ in glory, when the judge comes or when in death you go to be with him. Some of you might know the name William Cooper, written Cowper, the old hymn writer, he was a great romantic poet, and he knew a thing or two about suffering. And one of his most famous poems and hymns, uh, is called God Moves in a Mysterious Way. And some really wonderful lines in it. He says, God's purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. And a knowledge of that is transforming for the Christian man or woman, boy or girl. There is a sweetness because the Lord is at work now. There is a sweetness because of the glory that is to come. Now, obviously, trusting God and looking forward to what is coming in the future does not remove my pain today, but it does allow us to say to ourselves, to preach to one another, that those pains they are not the be all and the end all. They're not defining, they are not absolute, and they are not lost on the Lord Jesus. He sees, he knows, he cares, and he is with us in them. And that hope for the future, that thought of Christ's presence here and now, that can take a divided and restless and grumbling heart and establish it patiently and steadfast. And as we finish, I want us just to think for a moment on that phrase at the end of verse 11: how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Now we remember who James's brother was. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. When James talks about compassion and mercy, must he not be remembering his brother who is also to us, if in Christ, our older brother too. The same one who is the righteous and the holy and the fearful judge is also a Saviour and a friend, full of compassion and mercy. The one who wept at Lazarus's graveside, who is moved to his guts with compassion at the plight of a leper. And he is with us in our griefs with compassion and mercy. We're joined to him. The Spirit of Jesus dwells in us. He knows, he feels the pains and the griefs of his brethren. So we're with him, we are never apart from him. So we can with him establish our hearts and build them up secure, all the while we wait for him. Wait for him to come through the door. Or if he so chooses, for him to take us home. Let's bow our heads. We'll take a moment of silence. There might be things we'd just like to pray about, and then I'll gather us together and lead us in prayer. And so, Heavenly Father, we ask that these great and wonderful and terrible things of which we have been reading and hearing and considering would be very real and true to us. Think of your son's coming, a judgment to come and vindication and consolation. Think of your call more than anything else to build up our hearts, wait patiently and steadfastly. Father, you know that in this world there are many other demands, things that drown out your word and your gospel, and we pray for ourselves that this week this word would dwell richly in us, that your Holy Spirit would turn up the volume of your word and your ways, and help us to diminish the sounds that compete with it. We pray that for our good, our perseverance, and also for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.