James chapter 5.
I'll be speaking in Mark chapter 3 this evening.
And uh you're welcome to come and be a part of those Bible studies, but I'm sure grateful that you're here.
And uh we are just a few installments left here in the book of James.
If you have a book study that you would just be ecstatic about starting, I would be open to your suggestions.
I had a thought this morning, uh a book I'd like to study, but if there's one, don't come to me with Ezekiel, okay?
I need to be able to sleep at night.
But if no, seriously, if you have um if you have something uh of interest, uh it helps us to to be in a study, um, but there might be something you'd like to research and study.
And I'm actually preaching two series in Revelation this year, uh the church series and then uh preaching a prophecy series later in the year.
And um, I don't know.
The way things are happening in the world today, I better hurry up on those prophecy sermons.
They're about to become history.
Amen.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come, amen.
And uh that's the theme of this passage this morning, the coming of the Lord.
I hope that you'll notice, notice that emphasis as I read verses 7 through verse 11 this morning.
Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he received the latter the early and latter rain.
Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned.
Behold, the judge standeth before the door.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
Revelation 4 1, behold, a door was opened.
The judge standeth at the door, doesn't he?
Take my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience.
Behold, we count them happy, which endure.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.
Look in verse seven, be patient unto the coming of the Lord.
Verse eight.
Be also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Verse nine.
The judge standeth at the door.
And then verse eleven, you have seen the end of the Lord.
Now the coming of the Lord provides the greatest context for our lives.
He came, he is coming, he is here.
Van Savner used to say, people say God is nowhere.
He said they ought to rearrange those letters.
God is now here.
He is here.
He came as a sacrifice to atone for our sins.
He is coming as a restorer to reclaim all that was lost by sin.
He is here, providing solace and hope to all that call on Jesus.
Jesus Christ is near.
Jesus Christ is here.
So there's two emphasis that James makes in these verses together.
The first emphasis is his coming is near, and the second emphasis he makes is that his presence is here.
Years ago, I tried to do the impossible thing.
I tried to sit in a room and think through eternity.
Well, you have to turn the lights off and get really quiet.
You start thinking about eternity.
And I my my head hurt worse and worse as I continued thinking about how long eternity is and how long eternity has been.
We think linear in history.
We ought to think in a circular way.
But I never got to the beginning and ending of how long eternity was, but I did come up with this, and I've said it often, that I shall live forever in eternity future, as God has existed in eternity past.
Now the fact is, if I talk about eternity, I can't use the word past, and I can't use future, because eternity has no beginning or no ending.
I shall live as God has lived.
And because I live, Jesus said, ye shall what?
Ye shall live also.
So let's talk about the coming of the Lord.
His coming is near.
Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth.
Verse 8, be also patient.
Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
There are lots of movements in the world today seeking to press the prerogative of God.
You know the Sunni Muslims, the Sunnis in Iran, waiting for the 12th Imam, who think they can, through violence and terrorism, summon the coming of the Mahdi.
Well, no man knows the day or the hour.
This is the prerogative of God when he comes.
When he comes, he'll come of his own free will, but he is coming.
And because of that, we're to be patient unto the coming of Christ.
And there's two things I want you to notice about this soon coming.
First of all, there's waiting.
How many of you like to wait?
Anyone like to wait?
I saw a dear fellow waiting on his wife the other day, and I said to him, Did you ever think that waiting on Mrs.
Wright would involve so much waiting for Mrs.
Wright?
Waiting.
Just waiting.
The coming of the Lord requires waiting.
We are to wait on God.
We are to be patient.
And he said, first of all, we're waiting for the fruit.
He uses this analogy.
Behold the husbandman, the gardener.
He waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth.
Precious fruit.
In this case, it's souls we're waiting for.
Proverbs 11, verse 30.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise.
One day that last soul will make up the body of Christ.
That one last person coming to faith in Christ, waiting for fruit.
He's talking about a seed.
You know the interesting thing about a seed, a seed is not an instant success.
We take a dead seed, we place it in lively ground, and it germinates.
And even as we wait, something lively is going on out of sight.
We cannot see or inspect.
But as we wait patiently, the vine begins to grow, and then the fruit begins to come, waiting, waiting for fruit.
And waiting for fruit involves waiting for rain.
That's what he says here in verse 7.
The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it.
He's long suffering until he received the early and the latter rain.
The commentator said here that we are spiritual farmers, awaiting a great harvest.
Now the early rain came in the area of Palestine in October to November, and at that moment the rain was necessary to germinate the seed.
And then the wintertime would come.
And in the wintertime, the latter rains must come in the spring in order to create a harvest.
So that means that the husbandman spends most of his life in the wintertime.
He's in a time of waiting.
He awaits what God will do in the clouds, and we await what God is going to do in Christ.
Be patient, therefore, brethren, under the coming of the Lord.
I've met Christians who are so busy waiting and watching, they cease to do any working.
And so the second thing he says is there's not only waiting, there's working.
And he uses the illustration of a husbandman, I think, on purpose, not just for the spiritual figure he uses here, but a farmer's a busy man.
Farmers don't have time to trifle with unnecessary things.
The man that I I directly worked for in California is a man by the name of uh Dr.
John Getch.
And Dr.
Getch, I've I've bragged on him in our Bible study, is probably the greatest Christian I've ever met in my life.
Just a great, great Christian.
Well, his father was a dairy farmer.
And Dr.
Getch is a machine.
He's 73, 74 years old.
He rides in miles his birthday on a bicep on a bicycle.
He rides in miles on his bicycle every year for his birthday.
So if if this is his 74th birthday, he'll ride 74 miles on his birthday.
He teaches all week.
He preaches on the weekends.
He takes red eyes into LAX.
He is in class by 7.30, does staff meeting at 9.30, and he just goes and goes and goes.
He is a he's a machine.
Well, he's a farmer.
And uh farmers are are of that nature.
They don't take a lot of time off, they don't take a lot of vacations, they don't disconnect very often, they're busy.
Why?
Because there's something in the field that's very precious to them.
And so there's weeding, there's working, there's fertilizing, there's harvest time, and then preparation for next year.
So there's working.
Not just waiting, but working.
A lot of Christians I know want a great harvest, but they're not willing to work.
And waiting doesn't mean waiting on God to do all the work.
Waiting means working and waiting on God to add his blessings.
Someone said we ought to work as if it all depended on us and pray as if it all depended on God.
Wait on the Lord.
Well, just going to sit here and wait on God to do something.
You misread the verse.
The word wait is like a server coming to a table.
That's where we get the New Testament word diakonos or deacon, someone who waits tables.
They do what they know to do.
They're active in the service of Christ.
And as they're working, they're waiting on God to add his blessing.
So there's working.
Notice verse number eight.
Be also patient.
That's the second time he said that.
Establish your hearts, strengthen your hearts.
For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Now, there's a couple things I think we need to be working on that James talks to us about.
First of all, he says, work on your heart.
Work on your heart.
Establish your hearts.
Now, this is an imperative verb, meaning this is what you must do.
Stand firm is what he's saying here.
Strengthen your hearts, meaning to confirm its faith through patient endurance.
Establish your hearts.
Confirm your faith through patient endurance.
Now we'll talk more about that even on Sunday, those Christians at Smyrna who were under intense persecution.
And he even says to them, You are going into the fire.
Many of them will give their lives as martyrs for the cause of Jesus Christ.
They were to confirm their faith through patient endurance of the trial.
Think it not strange when fiery trials are to try you as though some strange thing has happened to you.
And the word strange in the New Testament has the idea of that which doesn't belong to you.
Don't think it's strange.
Don't think it doesn't belong to you when trials come into your life.
Because God orchestrates those trials.
All of our trials are father-filtered.
Strengthen your heart.
And then he says the only hope for a self-deceived heart is the purifying of the heart.
Without the heart being purified, it is prepared for a day of slaughter, he says in chapter 5, verse number 5.
Establish your hearts.
So James focuses on the heart.
First of all, strengthen the consistency of your heart.
Strengthen the consistency of your heart.
Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Then he writes to us to strengthen the courage of our heart.
That's what he says in this verse.
Be also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Strengthen the courage of your heart.
Psalm 27, verse 14, wait on the Lord.
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart.
Wait, I say, on the Lord.
Isaiah 40, 31.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
You know what that verse says?
That verse says that there are times in your life God gives you the ability to soar above the problems of life and fly like an eagle.
But if you can't fly, he says, they shall run and not be weary.
And if you can't fly and you can't run, they shall walk and not faint.
You know what that means?
That means the Christian life is always advancing.
Always advancing.
It was David Livingston who pioneered much of South Africa, much of Africa, and Livingston said, I'll go anywhere as long as it's forward.
There's no future in the past.
I learned that from a good friend.
There's no future in the past.
It's forward, onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before.
He said, Strengthen the courage of your heart.
Number three, strengthen the conviction of your heart.
Waiting on an expected end.
Jeremiah 29, 11.
I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord.
Thoughts of good, of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end.
That's my favorite word here.
An end.
Look at verse 11.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord.
The end.
Now that's a great word.
The Greek, it's telos.
Everybody say telos.
Telos.
This is the word used in John 13, 1.
Jesus having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
Telos.
He loved them to the end.
Hebrews 13, 6, but Christ as son over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
Can I give you a derivative of that term?
Jesus cried out on the cross.
To tell us, tell us it is finished, it is come to an end, it is paid in full.
Establish the conviction of your heart.
You are not heading to an uncertain destination.
You are headed to a known destination that God has sovereignly pre-designed for our Christian lives.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, he shall strengthen your heart.
And then it was Paul that said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10 11, now all these things happen unto them for an example, and they are written for our admonition upon whom, here's that word again, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Somebody said, I felt like my life was spinning out of control.
And someone said, No, your life wasn't spinning out of control.
Your life was spinning in the hands of the potter.
Isn't that good?
Uh we took Ethan to uh New York sometime last year, I think.
And uh off Fifth Avenue, there's a huge statue of Atlas.
You know, Atlas, and he's he's got the world on his shoulders.
He bows under the weight of the world.
He bears it up, but he's bowed under the weight of it.
I read a story years ago of a man who was who went to see his counselor and just overwhelmed by all the problems of his life.
So the counselor said, I'm gonna take you on a on a on a walk today.
So they they went down and saw that statue of Atlas weighed under the weight of the world.
And then he took him down the street to the children's hospital.
And in the in the entryway of the children's hospital, there's a statue of Jesus holding the world in his hands.
Isn't that the God we serve this morning?
He's not bowed under the weight of this world's problems.
He has the whole world in his hands, and we can trust him.
Work on your heart.
Listen, the problem of the end times is not how God's gonna sort all of this out.
The problem in the end times is that Christians believing that God will work it all out for good.
Because guess what?
The end is already established.
The end is known.
We can read about it in Scripture.
Now, all the petty battles and all the Twitter fights and Facebook spats and White House foibles and United Nations, listen, that's all small potatoes.
Our God has worked.
If he has every hair of your head numbered and is named all the stars and called all the shots on his first coming, and will call all the shots on his second coming, we can trust that all of this come comes together.
It all culminates perfectly by a great God.
Let's strengthen our hearts.
Strengthen our hearts.
Well, Pastor, have you seen the gas prices?
I have seen the gas prices.
Somebody was concerned about paying their electric bill.
And I get that.
That's a real thing.
My first my first summer in California.
My first summer in California was 118 degrees outside.
Our first utility bill was$2,000.
That was with solar panels.
$2,000.
Think about that.
That guy was concerned about how he could pay his electric bill.
And he read in Genesis he created the greater light to rule the day and the lesser night light to rule the night.
And he made the stars also.
Oh.
Oh, by the way, he made trillions of stars.
You know, I think the God that created all the stars is able to pay our light bill.
Amen.
Strengthen your heart.
Work on your heart.
Number two, work in your own garden.
That's verse nine.
I love this verse.
Grudge not one against another, brethren.
Lest ye be condemned.
Behold, the judge standeth before the door.
Work in your own garden.
Grudge not one against another, lest ye be condemned.
The judge stands at the door.
Now this is a theme that he uses.
Chapter 4, verse 12.
There's one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy.
Who art thou that judgest another?
Romans 2 1.
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest.
For wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself.
For thou that judgest doest the same things.
Romans 14 4.
Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth or falleth.
Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand.
And then I want to give you one more verse.
Matter of fact, I want you to put your own eyeball on it.
Eyeballs on it.
First Corinthians four, five.
First Corinthians four five.
I want you to see this.
Now he's talking about farming.
He's talking about gardening, right?
Twice he's told us to be patient, be patient, be patient.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Do you know the exact nature of your brother's Christian life?
Do you know the end of your brother?
No, I don't.
The word grudge here means to grumble, to complain about.
1 Corinthians 4, 5.
Therefore, judge, what's that, what's that next word class?
Judge nothing before the time.
Timeout.
We live in an idiotic generation.
And here's what I mean.
If I were to pick up this phone right now and I were to go to, I call it Twitter, they call it X now, and I were to read one little tweet about one little person and make a whole conclusion about that whole person's life, that whole person's future, we have become enemies of the moment in our society today.
Enemies of the moment.
I'm a golf fan.
I love golf.
I don't play as much as I'd like to, but I love to watch it on TV.
And of course, when I was a teenager, Tiger Woods had just begun his career.
I was a huge Tiger Woods fan.
And Tiger now he'd he'd won eight or nine majors.
And Ron, you remember this.
We're already having conversations as Tiger Woods is in the middle of his career as to whether or not he's the greatest golfer who ever lived.
Judge nothing before the time.
We too quickly make conclusions.
You know why it's easier?
Perceptions become our reality.
What what ought we to do?
Wait.
As it turned out, Tiger Woods did not have the ethical fiber to maintain an Career.
Sad, isn't it?
He could have been the greatest golfer to ever live, and empirically could have proven it.
And we can still debate about that.
I will say, Jack Nicholas seemingly has a great marriage and great children who love him, and at the end of the day, you can have no majors, but if your children love you and adore you, you were a grand success in your life.
Judge nothing before the time.
Until the Lord comes.
There it is.
That's it.
Because when the Lord comes, what happens?
We cease from our labors.
When the Lord comes, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.
He will make manifest the counsels of the heart.
Now here's my line.
Are you ready?
I have enough weeds in my garden to not go trouncing around in yours.
That's what he said in verse 9.
I don't know if you saw that in verse 9, but that's what he said in verse number 9.
I have enough weeds in my garden not to go inspecting yours.
Grudge not one another, brethren, lest ye be condemned, because the judge stands at the door, and when the judge comes, he reveals the true nature of our work and our lives.
So there's three things for the gardener here.
Three things for the gardener of hearts.
Number one, there ought to be a spirit of humility that we all carry.
I think there ought to be a spirit of self-examination.
Jesus used a ludicrous illustration about a pharisaic attitude, the moat.
The moat in your brother's eye.
Can you see this visually?
The moat, the sleepy, we call it just a little speck in a brother's eye.
And a fellow over here has a two by four coming out of his eyeball.
And he's worried about a little imperfection, a little thing in the life of his brother.
You know how any church could become radically better overnight?
We'd stop trouncing around in other people's gardens.
And if we see an imperfection in someone, we should just pray about that.
Spurgeon was criticized one time, harshly.
Spurgeon actually was heavily, heavily criticized in his ministry.
And they said to Spurgeon, Did you hear what so-and-so said about you?
And Spurgeon said something to the extent of, yes, but I'm so glad he doesn't know the nature of just how terrible of a person I am.
That's a good perspective.
Humility, self-examination, and a spirit of grace.
Now, he said already that the coming of the Lord draws nigh, and we're to wait, and we are to work.
But then he turns the figure, verse 10 Take my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience.
Behold, we count them happy, which endure.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.
Now he's saying that the coming of the Lord is not only near, but the presence of the Lord is near.
I'm going to quote Philippians 4.
I'm going to try anyway.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men.
Anybody know the next phrase?
Let your moderation be known unto all men.
The Lord is at hand.
Whoa.
He's coming, he's coming.
He's going to split the eastern sky.
Well, he is, but that's not what Paul means.
No, no, no.
Let your self-control, because he's talking about anxiety, discouragement, being overwhelmed, flooded with bad thoughts.
He eventually says to them, Be careful for nothing, but take it all to God in prayer and change the channel.
Whatsoever things are true and honest, think on these things.
Let your moderation be known unto all men.
The Lord's at hand.
He is near.
He is here.
Too many Christians think Jesus is coming to, and they forget.
He's here.
I'm indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.
I have the earnest of his spirit.
My body's the temple of the Holy Ghost.
He is here.
What an encouragement.
Not just an encouragement.
Take my brethren, the prophets.
Now, what happened to them?
Well, number one, they spoke in the name of the Lord.
And everybody applauded them, had them sign their Torah scroll.
No.
They hated them.
When you read the Old Testament, you're reading in chapters what happened in decades and centuries.
They hated them for hundreds of years.
They discarded them for hundreds of years.
Until God finally said, you've had five centuries of preachers.
Now it's time to turn the lights off.
They spoke in the name of the Lord, and when they spoke in the name of the Lord, number two, they suffered in the name of the Lord.
That's what he says here.
Take my brethren, the prophets.
They've spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction.
Well, let's talk about a few.
My favorite story here is the story of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah spoke in the name of the Lord, didn't he?
Matter of fact, Jeremiah so spoke in the name of the Lord that when Jesus came to earth and asked his disciples, Who do people think I am?
One of the people they said people reported Jesus to be was Jeremiah.
That's how much he spoke in the name of the Lord.
In chapter 20 of Jeremiah, Pasher, the son of Emmer, the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
Then Pasher smote Jeremiah, put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord.
And Jeremiah said he became a derision.
Verse 7, O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.
Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed.
I am in derision daily.
Everyone mocketh me.
Jeremiah 38, verse 6.
Then took they Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malachih, the son of Hamelech, that was in the court of the prison, and they let down Jeremiah with cords, and in the dungeon there was no water but mire.
So Jeremiah sunk in the mire.
And the thing that we remember most about Jeremiah is what?
He was a weeper.
But he endured.
I said, I will no longer speak any more in his name.
That's what Jeremiah said.
But his word was in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
An example of patience.
The Lord was near.
Matter of fact, you know how bad Jeremiah's ministry was?
We cannot read into Scripture that Jeremiah had one convert, not one.
Gave an invitation for years.
No one responded.
Do you know Adniram Judson went to India?
He's now very famous, translated the Bible into 44 languages, and is revered in the world in that land today.
Went at least two years without a single convert, had two wives who went mentally insane.
He endured.
Why?
Lord is near.
Who is he?
Well, 2 Chronicles 24, he was stoned by Jehoida the priest.
Amos was expelled from Jerusalem.
Micaiah was imprisoned by Jezebel.
What did they do?
They established their hearts in the work of the Lord.
They suffered affliction.
They're an example of those who suffered affliction and of those who exercised patience.
Now we'll get to Job.
Go with me to Job 19.
We'll be done here in just a second.
I want to take verses 11 and 12 as their own emphasis next we're together.
I thought Job deserved more than just an asterisk at the end of the lesson, don't you think so?
Ask a fella, how's your Bible reading going?
He said, well, pretty good, but that guy Job, he went through a hard time.
Oh Job.
Job did go through a hard time.
Now, the one that is mentioned specifically, there's really two prophets mentioned specifically here.
The first is Job, the second is Elijah.
Elijah gets a really nice, nice chunk of real estate here in this book.
Wow, I love that passage.
But he talks about Job.
Ye have heard, verse 11, of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.
Now think of Job 3,500 years ago, defending himself to his friends, which is pointless, by the way.
If you explain yourself to your enemies, they won't believe you, and to your friends, and it would be unnecessary.
But he did.
And so here he is, Job 19.
Did I tell you where to go?
Job 19.
Just keeping you in suspense till the end.
Job 19, 3,500 years ago, he prayed something.
And I want to tell you, to this day, he has still not seen the completion of what he prayed.
Think about that.
It's one of my favorite Easter passages.
I love Job 19 on Easter.
It's a real life story of a real guy with a lot of real death around him, but he rises from the throes of death and raises a flag of life and says, I know that my Redeemer liveth.
But think about it as we read this.
Job has yet to see the fulfillment of what he prayed 3,500 years ago.
Why do you persecute me as God?
Verse 22.
Are you not satisfied with my flesh?
Oh, that my oh, that my words were now written.
Oh, that they were printed in a book.
Isn't that funny?
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever.
For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.
He had hope.
Didn't he have hope?
He knew his Redeemer lived, but that he'll stand at the latter day upon the earth.
That hasn't happened yet.
Yeah, he came.
But Job is looking forward to the resurrection.
For millennia they waited.
For millennia they waited for the coming of the Lord.
Guess what?
But they were never left alone.
The concept, the concept of a living Christ and a returning king, so enabled them to trust in the middle of terrible circumstances that it's the illustration James brings us to.
It's not just the reality of the return, it's the hope of the return that brings joy into our lives.
Yeah, I know he's coming, but it's not the event.
Let me say this and I'll be done.
Too often I've heard so much preaching about prophecy, about the mechanics and the timing and the geography of the second coming of Christ.
The identity of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Gog, Magog.
All of that.
The second coming of Christ.
But where do we really get our hope?
In the Christ of the second coming.
Get that right.
My pastor used to say that so often.
I'm not looking for the second coming of Christ.
I'm looking for the Christ of the second coming.
Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Hey, that'll give you hope in the midst of great tribulation.
And it did for Job, and it can for us today.
We count them happy which endure.
I ought to write this on a card and put it in my pocket or put it on my mirror or put it in my truck somewhere.
That word there, endure.
Here's what it means.
A habit, a habit of considering constancy worthwhile.
Wow.
The habit of considering constancy worthwhile.
As we wait, as we work, as we witness, let us be happy to consider faithfulness worthwhile.
That's exactly what James is saying to us here, and I pray it's been an encouragement to your heart this morning.
Let's pray we'll be dismissed.
Our Father, we thank you.