Stop Grumbling And Start Praying

“The Judge is standing at the door.” James drops that line right into the middle of everyday life, and we can’t un-hear it. If Jesus is near, then faith isn’t a mood or a label. It becomes a way of handling money, pressure, conflict, and the slow grind of waiting when you want results now.

We read through James chapter 5 and follow the big turns: a severe warning to anyone who treats wealth like a savior, a call to patient endurance like a farmer who can’t force the harvest, and a challenge to stop grumbling at each other when waiting gets stressful. Along the way we connect James to real stories, including how hardship can become an anchor point where we learn that circumstances change but God does not.

Then we get practical: “Let your yes be yes” is a blueprint for Christian integrity, and the prayer section is a reminder that prayer belongs in every condition, not just emergencies. Elijah is the perfect example because he’s ordinary, yet he prays with bold faith and then acts when God moves. We close where James closes: people matter more than possessions or projects, and restoring someone who has wandered is urgent work when eternity is real.

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Transcript

James 5 Read Aloud

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Okay, James chapter 5. Just gonna read the entire chapter. Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and the moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. They the their corrosion was testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in your last days. Look, the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are cried out against you. The cries of the harvest have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth of luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourself, you have fattened yourself on the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent ones who have not opposed you. Patience and suffering. Be patient then, brothers and sisters. Now the Lord is coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and the spring rain. You too be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door. Brothers and sisters, for an example of patience in the face of suffering, take to the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count the as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance, and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is the simple yes or no. Otherwise you will be condemned. The prayer of the faith, prayer the prayer of faith. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church and pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offers in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will rise them up if they were if they have sinned, and they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is a powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth, and someone should bring that person back, remember this whoever turns a sinner from the error of their ways will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Beautiful words from James, the brother of John or Jesus. And um, you know, when I love this chapter, and um it really kind of reads like a lot of different little checklists, like it kind of not really connected when you when you look at it and read it. And we look at James, the entire book, and I think about it, it's very similar. We're many different uh pieces. But in chapter five, we talk about riches and wealth, right? Patience, farmers, uh complaining, the prophets, Job, uh prayer, Elijah, and restoring those who wander. When I was in uh uh church camp when I was uh in high school, I think, I don't know, probably freshman. I remember a week of camp and we studied James. And it was great because every day you took a chapter and you had these really practical, cool things that you could apply to your life. And

The Judge Standing At The Door

SPEAKER_01 5:30

that's what I think about James, and it's great. But as we've been talking through this whole series, it's about faith, faith that works. Well, chapter five um is there there's a common thread that when you really think about the whole chapter, and if we go to verse nine, it says the judge is standing at the door. Jesus is standing at the door. And how is your faith knowing that he's coming soon? He's at the door, and how is he gonna find our faith? And that's what we're gonna get at. There are gonna be parts of the sermon that I'm gonna actually pause, okay? And when we when I do that, I want you to just actually think about Jesus standing at the door, okay? When we have that pause, he's ready to return. How is he gonna find our faith? All right. Faith that's been waiting well. All right, verses one through six. You know, when Jason asked us uh if somebody could could preach, and I looked at this these these verses, and I looked at the first section, right? And it's about warning of rich oppressors. I was like, really? You're asking someone to get up here and actually preach on this. And uh it's a tough one. It is one of the harshest warnings that you'll read in the Bible. It's a tough one. You know, in in so I'll read in verse chapter one. It says, Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of misery that's coming on you. You know, James is speaking of people who who uh allowed wealth to become their security. It became important to them, so it's not not relying on God, but they were building wealth, right? And they felt that was what was going to save them or fix

Wealth As A False Security

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them. They got wrapped up. Their problem wasn't that they had possessions, their problem was that the possessions had them. They stored up treasures and ignored God. They confronted uh, you know, others and causing them to suffer. James isn't condemning blessings that we have, he's confronting misplaced priorities. I have to think, what would James think of me? I gotta be honest with you. And you think about the people that heard this word for the first time, some of them probably barely, you know, find food. Uh, and we live in a time of unbelievable wealth compared to what the people that were receiving this. But not only that, but they were under persecution, right, for their faith. Tough times. I'm gonna tell you a story about my grandma and papa, Bob and Helen Vickers. So they were, I don't know, when were they born, mom? In the 1913, somewhere around there, right? And so they were yeah, so they were adults during the Great Depression. Uh, get married. Uh my grandfather's from Galapis, Ohio. My grandmother's from Point Pleasant. He worked on the barge, and one of those barges brought him to the Fallsby Coke plant. They were looking for a welder. He got a job, they came here. And uh, but what I loved about that generation is just that they didn't, you know, he built things. He built if he needed a garage, he built his garage, you know, and it was just so unbelievable. If something broke, he fixed it. He didn't just waste it and go out. And and uh it was just an awesome generation. And you all know that generation. A lot of you have have seen that, right? And felt that. Um, just hardworking. I don't, I don't think he ever took out a loan for a car, right? He worked hard for his money and then paid for it. It just was a different time. And and I always wonder, like, what would he think about me today in the way that I'm living? Would he think I'm blessed? Of course he would. But would he think that perhaps some of what I do with my with the money that I make is an indulgence, you know, that to have four TVs in my house. I don't even, I think I have more than that. The amount of money that we spend when we go to the grocery store or even go out to eat, instead of growing a garden and canning. I always think of Carl when I think of that. I it's something, right? It's something that you need to think about. I just watched a video about Elon Musk and the things that he's doing, sending things up into space and all that stuff, and he wants to build a manufacturing plant on the moon to launch solar panels that collect energy from the sun. It's it's crazy stuff. But we live in and we live in a time that's really unbelievable. Humanoid robots probably will be somewhere in our homes in the next 10 years. Unbelievable when you think about it. What is what would James think about us and the way that we're waiting for Christ and the way that we're handling our wealth? All right. Remember the judge is at the door. Jesus is coming soon. Faith waits with patience. We go down to verse 7 if you'll go there with me. Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits on the land to yield its valuable crops, patiently waiting for the autumn's and spring rain. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord is coming, his coming is near. When you look at a farmer, the farmer he plants, he waters, he waits, he trusts that it's going to grow. The farmer cannot force the harvest, the harvest just comes. He works faithfully while he waits. In a Christian's life, we serve, we pray, we give, we love, we endure. And we trust God

Patient Waiting Without Grumbling

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with those results. Waiting is difficult. Go to verse nine. Boom. Right out of the middle of the book, he says, Don't grumble against one another. Brothers and sisters, you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door. Waiting can be tough. All right. So my brother Bill's here. My brother Dan and I, we did this pilgrimage to the Steelers practice yesterday. Okay. And so we got somebody got the idea that let's go golf before we go to the practice. So, all right, we book a tea time, and Bill's kind of whole time saying, It's too rainy, it's gonna rain. Do we really want to play? If we get up there, we pull in, there's nobody in the parking lot, course is closed, right? So we drive for an hour and a half to get where we're going, and then we start like, well, what are we gonna do? Right, one person saying another thing, another person's on a phone, we're doing these things, and we get that sibling rivalry thing that's been there for 50 some years now, 60 years, right? You get that frustration and kind of saying things to one another, comical, okay? But patience sometimes can create frustrations. And uh pray for us because we're taking a road trip 13 hours in in March together or in September together, so that's really gonna be interesting. All right, but this is a really powerful scripture, okay, because while we wait on the Lord and while we're serving, right, he's telling us not to grumble. He's telling us not to grumble against each other. And it reminded me of a book. And I read a book, oh, it's probably 20 years ago. It was called QBQ, The Question Behind the Question. It's a personal responsibility book or accountability book. It has nothing to do with Christian principles, but it really taught me something that is Christian. And I'm gonna tell you this short story. So there's the this story in the book about the Johnston manager. He's just somebody that worked for a company, and she she had an employee that she was working with and just having a hard time. And she just, whatever she did, whatever she tried to do, she just couldn't get that teammate to change their habits, to solve the problem that he was causing. So that teammate ended up leaving, going to another division, another city. Years went by. The teammate came back and was under that supervisor's control again. And but this time things were different, things were working. And she asked herself, well, what why? The teammate's still the same person. Then she realized it was her that had changed through the years of experience about how to actually interact with people, and she learned. And the principles behind this book are this. So sometimes um we may be praying, God change this, change him, change her, God change the situation, God change these circumstances. And God may be saying, What about you? That's the question behind the question. When are you when are you going to do something? You know, someone might ask. But instead of that, you might say, What can I do? That's the premise of this book. When I look at at what James said, Lord, what do you want me to do while I'm waiting? You know, it's in James chapter 5, be patient. Um I couldn't, you know, I I just feel like that is one of the the greatest things that uh we can take from these scriptures is that while we're waiting, right, things can get frustrating. And if we can take and think about this. I always like love this one where if you see a problem, and the first thing you do is say, what are you gonna do about it? That gets a heavy burden. That's a that's a heavy take. If you change that to, hey, how can I help to be with this thing? You feel the lighter lightness of that? It's not a heavy burden, it's a change in dynamic. And that's what the Holy Spirit can do when you have that in your heart and how we approach things. Think about that. Be patient while we're waiting. All right, faith that looks beyond. Um we go to James chapter 5 and verses 10 and let's go to 10 and 11. He says this Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take to the prophets who spoke in his name. As you know, we count the blessings of those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance. Um, you know, Job, he suffered, he didn't deserve what he suffered, the losses that he had, unbelievable losses. Um, you know, and he didn't understand what was happening in the circumstances, but he had faith, continued to have faith in God. Um, he remained faithful. Sometimes faith is not something we can understand everything God is doing, but sometimes faith is just trusting God while we wait. 2012.

Job And Trust Through Suffering

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2012 was an interesting year, really was. Um Lori and I, we were Lori decided, you know, I don't know if I want to do banking anymore. And she so she decided that she's gonna stay home. So I was like, yeah, let's do that. And uh then um my dad will had cancer in his one of his kidneys, and so there was that going on, and then I learned wheeling Pittsburgh Steel that I worked for was going bankrupt and I was losing my job. And our son was going to college. All those things were just like, wow, this is hitting us hard. What was really cool though is that in that time, in that circumstance, things were changing, but that allowed us to draw closer to the Lord. And by the end of that process, we had peace. We didn't know what was going on. I didn't know who I was gonna work for, didn't know how dad's surgery was gonna work out. And uh but God was faithful. We we had peace knowing he was gonna provide, and one thing leads to another. And uh we had several more years with dad, and and we I couldn't be more blessed with with what God has done with our family uh in that regard. That's the anchor. James chapter 11. It says, as you know, we count a blessed, we count as blessed those who have persevered. That's the anchor. Circumstances change, God does not. Verse 12, live with integrity. This is a pretty simple statement, right? It says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. As Christians, as a church, if somebody if we say we're gonna do something, we we need to do it. We need to have the character of that. If we commit that we're gonna do something, we need to follow through and commit. Those are you know just just principles. But as a Christian, right, the worst thing we could do is say, yeah, we're gonna do that, and we don't. There goes our integrity. Integrity is everything in community with people that we're associate with, with our neighbors. All right. Now, um I want to go into the prayer side in verses 13 through through 18. It says, if anyone among you

Integrity And Powerful Prayer

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is in trouble, let him pray. If anyone is happy, let him sing songs of praise. Isn't that beautiful as a family of believers when we can do that together? When somebody has something great that's happened, and uh or if somebody has a need that we can do it together, that we can mourn together. Um suffering, if we you know, pray. If you're happy, pray. If you're sick, pray. If you've sinned, pray in every situation before God. He gives an example of Elijah. Um, you know, in in verse 17, it says Elijah was a human being, even as we are, he wasn't supernatural, right? He was a human, which was cool. He was ordinary. But this but his prayer wasn't it was he was praying to an extraordinary God, powerful, right? He prayed for it to not rain for three and a half years, it didn't rain for three and a half years, right. Then he prayed for rain. That's faith. That's powerful faith. But you know what? What I love about this part is that once he got his answer, right? He the spirit came upon him, and instead of just waiting for that news to get delivered, he just took off running. It's a great story. Supernatural. And he outran the chariot that was carrying the message of what God was going to do. I love that part, right? An answer was prayer. He got excited, he took off and he ran and he outran a chariot. I love that. I don't know how old he was. I'm sure there's some study you can tell how that would be. But I love the fact that how excited and how the spirit took over and he acted.

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He prayed, God answered, and he acted.

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We're in a period of time, and it was what a year and a half ago, I believe, we set a priority in our elders' meetings. That two big priorities. One was new building, future leaders. Okay. Big. Then we started praying, right? We've been praying and doing things. And one of the things that we talked about was we need an engineer. We don't have the money in the bank, we're a small church to do a full-blown building program, but we need an engineer who can help us. And we and we really feel that that property is an ideal location. We've got to get the building up and usable. So we start praying and and it's nut edging, nudging Lori and I to uh start a prayer study up in our house a couple weeks a month. And in those studies, we start talking, and then I overheard Kim talking about the contractor and an engineer who helped build the Weirton Christian Center. It sat on my mind. I'm like, we we just talked about getting an engineer. And I said, Who is this guy? Right? So I said I talked to Kim and I said, Kim, who's this engineer? We need an engineer who can help us with getting the steel building design so we can at least go get cost and we can get things moving. And um one thing led to another. The contractor ends up agreeing to meet with us and he understands where we're at, which is unique. Many contractors won't, unless they can see the whole package, and he understands what we're dealing with, and things are moving. There's been plans put together, there's costing putting put together, but power company has met with us, and there's actions. Do those just happen? This church has been praying, and things are moving. There's a good chance that this week, maybe next week, it's real close that all these costs are coming together, and that we're gonna have they're gonna be presented what that looks like. And once that happens, we're gonna have the trustees and the elders and others to get together and look at what that, all right, what decisions do we have to make? And then we're gonna come to the church, us. And we're gonna is this where we need to go? Is this moving? I pray that if the feedback comes back positive and it's something that we feel we can do as a church, that we do it with this energy of Elijah. Right? We've been praying for a long time. We've been patient, right? It's been 19 years since we bought that property. And man, how exciting that will be. Okay. Felt like I needed to bring that into this prayerful time of this scripture. We're waiting. Waiting doesn't mean just waiting and sitting.

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Right? Waiting, praying, acting. That's beautiful. All right.

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James closes powerfully. Verse 19 and 20. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth, and someone should bring that person back, remember this. Whoever turns a sinner from the air of their ways will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

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James is in the end, is talking about people.

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All right. Just talked about a building. Building isn't our mission. Spreading the gospel is our mission. People is our mission. And it's not programs, it's not possessions, it's people. He says that if someone wanders from the truth, man, that's easy to do in today's world.

Restore The Wandering And Live Ready

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Go after them, love them, restore them, help them come home. Because eternity matters. I'm gonna pause. I want you to think about who's at the door. Who is at the door? Maybe someone here listening today, one of you, someone online, has wandered. Maybe your relationship with Jesus just isn't what it was. Maybe you never truly surrendered your life to Jesus. James gives us this reminder. The judge is standing at the door. But that judge also is a savior that offers grace. The judge is standing at the door. In conclusion, James brings his letter by calling us to have faith that works. At the end, he is telling us let's have faith that waits well. Faithful waiting. In James, in verse number verse five, it says, You also must be patient, stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Church, let's not waste the time waiting. Let's not waste that time. Let's use this time. Let's live ready. Let's pray ready. Let's love ready. And let's be found faithful. Because Jesus is at the door.