James | Suffering Patiently (August 25th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, if you would uh be so great as to grab your Bibles now and uh turn them to James chapter five.

James chapter five.

Feels like it's been a while since we've been in our James series, been a while since I've been up here.

Um, but uh we are in James 5 verses 7 to 11 today, and as you're getting yourself situated there, uh if you were to ask uh my wife uh whether or not I am a patient man when it comes to uh driving in traffic, okay?

James 5:7–11

I'm pretty sure an honest answer there uh will not have me coming out looking all that good, right?

It's uh it's true.

I am not a patient driver.

I mean it's amazing, and maybe a better word is appalling, right?

It's appalling how impatient I think we all are with certain things, right?

Traffic is certainly one of them for me.

It's not when you're driving down the highway and there's all kinds of space, and the person right in front of you just insists on tapping their brakes along the way and there's no one around them.

Why do you do this?

Right?

And I just I find myself, even now, I'm getting into a dark place uh with this.

Okay, but if it's not traffic for you, maybe it's uh maybe it's with your kids, right?

Like, hurry up and eat your dinner and stop playing with it, and it's and it's cold and we want to move on to other things.

And right, we're impatient with our kids sometimes.

Maybe for you it's something as simple as internet speed, right?

Like, why is why is this taking so long to download this at you know the hotel that you're at or the coffee shop or whatever?

You know, I've said this before, I think, but um microwaves exist because of impatience, right?

None of us, we don't we don't want to heat up our food on a stove like it's the dark ages or something, right?

We want our food like a minute and a half, you know, and so we we throw it in there, we punch in the numbers, but I mean, even then, we're like, you know, 15 more seconds?

Right?

And we're we're upset with even the microwave and how slow it seems to go.

Uh patience is hard.

Right?

It's very hard.

Now, I think some some of those silly examples aside, I think uh the most difficult time uh for you and I to be patient is in times of suffering.

Right?

Would you agree with that?

I think suffering by by nature uh involves uh pain.

It involves uh discomfort of varying uh degrees.

It you know, it involves disappointment and confusion.

I mean, let's be honest, suffering is just a miserable experience.

And I think at the end of the day, we just we just don't like that.

We don't want it.

We we instinctively, you and I, we we recoil at the thought of suffering.

And you know, and if we have to go through it, I just want it to pass as as quickly as possible and do as many things as I can in the middle of my suffering to hopefully make some of that pain go away as much as I can.

Right.

That being said, though, I think if you know we're honest here, we know that suffering is an inescapable part of life.

Right?

God and and the scriptures, I mean, they speak very openly about that.

They don't try to hide that at all.

They don't tell us that there will be no pain and that everything should be roses all the time.

No, it's it's not like that.

And as we're gonna see here today, that when it comes to suffering, the Lord calls you and I, as his followers, to be patient in it.

Right?

To be patient in our suffering as we learn to endure it.

All right, so I want to look at these verses here now.

Let's read them together, James 5, starting in verse 7.

He says, 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 those 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.

God, as we come before you uh together as your bride, as your church, as your people, uh Lord, some of us I know here are in the midst of very difficult suffering.

Lord, and for them to even uh bring themselves to get out of bed and to come to church today, Lord, was a challenge and it was hard.

Father, I pray that for them and and for all of us who are experiencing uh various levels of suffering at any moment, Lord, I pray uh that you would teach us through that.

Lord, I pray that you would take us from immaturity to maturity as as your followers.

Lord, I pray that we would see that you have a purpose in our suffering.

I pray that we would see and hold fast to how you are good in our suffering.

Lord, I pray that that we would grow through this.

I pray that we would give you more glory through this.

Lord, I pray that most of all, Lord, we would learn to love you more than anything else through our suffering.

Lord, I pray that we would want you and we would want your nearness more than we even want relief from our suffering.

God, we see that that's where you are taking us, Lord.

And as much as sometimes we want to go kicking and screaming down that path, Lord, I pray that you would soften our hearts.

Lord, I pray that you would encourage us.

Lord, I pray that you would embolden us and motivate us and inspire us to follow you today.

Lord, I pray at the same time that you would bring comfort.

Lord, I pray that you would bring moments of relief along the way.

And Lord, I pray that in all of these things we would always have the end in mind and how you are coming and you are going to make all things new, and we can rest and have joy in the fact that our eternity and in that we will experience no more suffering.

And so, God, until that day we cling to you, we put our hope and our trust in you.

Help us, Lord, we pray, through your Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, last time that we were together, I know that it was, you know, almost a month ago or so at this point, but uh, we looked at uh James chapter 5, verses 1 to 6, and how James uh challenges you know the the believers, the churches there uh to trust that God will avenge those who persecute them.

James 5:1–6

You remember that?

And how he goes after them.

Interestingly, he actually aims the words of those six verses at the persecutors uh themselves, but it was all uh a way as a way of encouraging the readers, the the church to stand firm in the times of persecution and suffering.

Right?

He was telling them that, you know, listen, God is going to come through for you.

He is gonna come through for you in the end.

And you and I need to understand that.

Evil people, I mean, they're not just gonna get away with this, right?

It sometimes seems like it.

It appears that that's the case, as we've suffered injustice and all kinds of things, as we look out into the world, it seems like evil is winning.

It is not, and it certainly will not.

Right?

Justice will be carried out.

Our God is a just God, and so trust him.

Right.

That was all the first six verses there in chapter five.

In today's verses, James speaks again to those suffering and persecuted believers and exhorts them now, of course, to be patient.

Right?

Be patient as you suffer for this.

And of course, this is you know not just a message that was for them in their context, but I think it's it's pretty safe to say that this is very applicable uh to us and for us in ours as well.

And so here we go.

Here's the first thing I will suffer patiently, right?

That is our commitment today as followers of Jesus.

Lord, I will suffer patiently.

I'm not gonna run away, I'm not gonna get out from underneath this, I'm gonna cling to you, I'm gonna hold to you by grace.

Right?

We know, and if you're in suffering, uh, some season of that right now, you know that you don't have the strength within you to do that.

Right?

You know that you need the Lord, and so today we will be crying out to him all along through this for his grace in it.

I will suffer patiently, first thing, strengthening my heart while waiting for the Lord.

All right, now before we even get into verse seven here, I think it might be a little bit helpful for us if we if we kind of just kind of briefly identify the different causes of suffering.

Right?

Not all suffering is the exact same or caused by the exact same.

And so uh, really quickly here, let's take a look at these are four things here, and you can jot these down if you like.

Uh, but the first one, uh and there may be more, feel free to let me know if you think of others, but here the first one is just persecution, right?

Persecution.

That means this is certainly the context of uh James chapter five and the verses that we looked at last time and uh and this week.

And you know, we know that as followers of Jesus, we will be persecuted.

If we are faithful, if we are bold in our faith, if we are living for him, we know that we live in a world that is anti-all of that.

It is anti-Christians, anti-church, anti-Jesus.

And so we will be persecuted.

We will suffer for that.

That's certainly a cause.

Here's the second cause our own sin.

Right?

Our own sin.

Offering, often our our our suffering is kind of self-induced, isn't it?

Have you seen that in in your own life?

And you know, maybe you've heard me say before, but choose to sin, choose to suffer.

Right?

I think any of us we we sin because you know it's it's fun, right?

And and there's uh there's a pleasure involved in all of that, but but no, don't be naive about this.

Understand that at some point you and and likely others as well will suffer.

Right?

There will be pain.

It is a bitter pill that you swallow whenever you choose to sin and step out of God's will for you.

Right?

Choose to sin, choose to suffer.

This is the idea in the scriptures of reaping uh what you sow.

Right?

The right response uh in suffering because of our sin, of course, is repentance, to confess that to the Lord and return back to him, and then trust him with whatever the fallout of all of that will be, the consequences of our sin might be.

Another cause of suffering here is just the fact that we live in a fallen world.

Right?

We really do.

Okay, things like illness and and disease and just the daily grind of toiling and laboring through work and through life, do we realize that this is all a result of what went down in the beginning, right?

In in Genesis and the fall, and Adam and Eve, they rebelled against God, and and that brought sin into the world and the world itself and and and and the laws of this world, they're all corrupted now, and it's all it's all broken.

And so, because of that, because we live in that system, we will suffer.

Right?

It's hard to know.

I'm gonna depress you here right uh for a second here, but it's hard to know that tomorrow is a work day, right?

That's tough, it's like, oh, I got I gotta get up and I'm gonna be tired, and you know, my bones are creaking, and I gotta carry myself to work.

You know, all of those, even that, right?

It's just tough.

All of that wears us down.

We live in a fallen world, and then I don't know the fourth one here that I could think of, and this is kind of specific to believers, but there you see it sanctification.

Sanctification is a cause of suffering.

Maybe you've never really thought of it that way, but think about it this way the you know, pretty much all spiritual growth requires at least an element of suffering as God prunes us.

Right?

You think about maybe you know, especially in the beginning of your walk with the Lord.

I think this is the true uh the case all the way through it, though, but in the beginning of your walk with the Lord, he's starting to convict you, right?

He's starting to show you that, hey, the ways that you were living before, some of these sinful patterns and and habits that you've got in your life, you you you've got to go this way now.

This is the path that I would have for you.

Walk in holiness, live for me.

And you realize that, man, like some of that's gonna be, you know, kind of come easily.

God will be gracious in that.

Some of that, though, it's gonna be tough.

Right?

And and and those, the pleasure that you gleaned from sin as you followed your flesh, you're gonna give that up now, you're gonna sacrifice that.

Right?

There is a little bit of suffering, maybe a lot even suffering in all of that.

Because let's be honest, sinning is easier than holiness.

And as part of our sanctification in the Lord, he's gonna lead you and I through various trials.

I mean, James himself spoke about that in chapter one, as he as he teaches us perseverance and to you know, to trust him, you know, more fully, more deeply, and to strip away the idols of our heart that love our sin and wants to chase after all of those.

And then through all of that, he's he's teaching us to love him above all.

Now, again, keeping in mind here that our passage uh addresses persecution, the first one there uh specifically, take a look here with me at verse 7.

Verse 7, James says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

Okay, that that that word coming there is the word uh parousia.

It literally means a presence.

Okay, it means presence.

It was used to signify uh a coming, you know, VIP, like a dignitary or uh or a king.

You're in the presence of of a king now, okay?

And so early Christians, they kind of adopted this word and used it uh to refer to the second coming of Christ when he would come at the end of the culmination of all time and judge the living and the dead and and call believers to himself uh for all eternity.

All right, and so James is reminding the church and us here to keep our eyes on the fact that that King Jesus, man, he's he's coming back.

Right?

Like, don't forget that, don't don't lose sight of that.

You and I, we gotta constantly, consistently keep that in mind, in the front of our minds.

And he says, and until that day, be patient, right?

Hang in there.

Bear with that oppression that you're receiving from the context here, we know we talked about this.

It was that that merciless, like wealthy upper class that was was really hard on the on these poor uh Christians.

Keep your eyes on the Lord through all of this, be patient.

And then what he does is he goes on to give us this illustration here in the verse as to what patience uh kind of looks like.

Look what he says.

He says, See how the farmer waits, right?

He waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.

All right, so just as it would be, you know, unwise and foolish, and I mean, let's be honest, it would be it would be really weird for you know for a farmer to plant some crops.

Just imagine a farmer doing that, right?

And you know, he plants his his grain and he you know he covers it over with with soil and then stands back and immediately he's like, why is nothing happening yet?

Right?

It's kind of a funny thing for us to even picture and think about it.

You're like, come on, chill, man.

Like you gotta wait.

Right?

He's like, I need my I need my bread, I need I need my grain.

Yeah, you gotta wait until until the right season, until the coming of the rains.

Right?

Well, just as it would be kind of unwise for him to immediately fret over why nothing has happened immediately, it would be equally misguided for you and I as God's chosen to you know go through suffering and immediately, as soon as there's pain and as soon as there's discomfort and there's the trial, you know, immediately start to like fret and panic.

You know, why hasn't God done anything yet?

Why has he not vanquished my enemies?

Why isn't he why hasn't he fixed my problem?

He will.

Be patient in this.

Okay, he might not in our lifetime, but he certainly will at the end when he returns.

Now you might be thinking, not in our lifetime.

You mean I'm gonna have to suffer potentially for the rest of my life?

He's only gonna fix all of this at the end?

Maybe a thousand years from now, man.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Right?

We're not promised that he's gonna take away every ache and every pain, every sorrow in this lifetime.

But that being said, we're not just supposed to, you know, do nothing in the meantime.

And it's definitely, you know, in the meantime, we're not to have a you know a defeatist mentality or anything like that, not even close.

Here's what we're supposed to do.

Verse 8, take a look.

He says, You also, okay, so like the farmer, be patient.

Establish your hearts.

I love that part right there.

You need to underline that.

That word established there literally just means strengthen.

Strengthen your hearts.

Okay, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

It's it's near.

He, you know, he's coming very soon, he says.

Listen, as you and I wait for the Lord to deliver us from our suffering one way or another, it might happen in this life.

It might happen later today, it might happen in a week from now or whatever.

It might happen at the end.

Listen, as we wait, we're not to just give up.

Right?

We're we're not to you know just sit around, you know, doing nothing, twiddling our thumbs, you know, kind of passively, you know, just hoping, I guess, that that somehow the fruit of patience, you know, in the meantime, will sort of magically begin to grow within me and I'll be okay.

No.

No, in the meantime, we're to establish or strengthen our hearts.

Right?

For the coming of the Lord is at hand, he says.

See how first there the promise is that the Lord is coming.

That's verse 7, we saw that.

And now that his coming is imminent, right?

It's coming, it's coming soon.

Right?

This is a this is an amazing, strong, and awesome truth that you and I need to cling to and hold fast to in times of suffering.

Right?

When when you and I to cling, when we cling to biblical truth like this and we hold to it, that's what strengthens and establishes our hearts.

Right?

As the Holy Spirit, you know, takes that and begins to build that spiritual patience within us.

You know, when we get our eyes off of that truth and and we forget those things, what ends up happening?

Well, we were wracked by fear and all kinds of anxieties.

Oftentimes we get really jaded about this.

You know, and fine, I guess this is just what suffering is, and you know, classic, I guess this is what I'll always have to deal with.

And you see, in that you begin you begin to get even angry or even bitter towards the Lord in all of this.

That's not what we're called to.

But when we get our eyes off of the truth, this is what happens to the point where sometimes we just despair.

And often when we get away from the truth, off of what's true, we end up running towards sinful, quick fixes, don't we?

Because we're just so desperate for some kind of relief, right?

I need some sort of pleasure, and so I'm gonna run to that in the immediate here.

Listen, that's the opposite of being patient.

That's the opposite of trusting the Lord with the situation, right?

That's really uh an assumption that we know what's best, and this will be good for me, and it's it's really just you know taking matters into my own hands, and we just kind of try and foolishly control the situation ourselves.

So let's just get like really, really practical here for a second and look at some of the things that suffering patiently involves, right?

And these are the things that you know we must learn as followers of Christ to accept.

We've got to accept this.

We've we've got to embrace these things.

Pretty pretty obvious, I think, a lot of them, but let's just go through these nine things real quick.

Suffering patiently involves, first of all, waiting.

Involves waiting.

How many of us love to wait?

Right?

Not At all.

Waiting is is hard as we've already kind of addressed today.

But I think what being forced to wait on the Lord does is it kind of unearths that that inner spoiled two-year-old that we all have within us.

Right?

And you've seen the little kid, and it's probably been your own, right?

And you know, in the grocery store who freaks out because they don't get what they want when they want it.

They're gonna throw a fit and throw themselves down on the floor.

I think spiritually we all have that a little bit.

I remember, and I don't know if I've shared this with you before, but I remember once kind of early in my time the Lord was growing me through a trial.

I remember you know being at work and I was praying and I was doing a bunch of stuff.

I was working in a warehouse at that time, and I remember being so so frustrated with the Lord, and I was so impatient.

I remember actually like screaming to him, like out loud.

I'm sure people thought I was a psycho.

Okay, but I remember in that, I was just so, so impatient.

And the Lord was like, no, on my time.

And that's what waiting forces us to just recognize.

It's it's about the Lord, it's about his timing, his plan is best.

I need to resign myself to this.

I got to accept it, I got, I gotta embrace this.

It's not about me and when I want this.

I need to, I need to grow strong here.

So waiting's a big part of it.

We know this.

Second thing, pain.

Pain, how fun is that, right?

Accepting that that pain is just a part of life, it's a part of suffering, it's a huge part of it.

We gotta receive that and and come to grips with that spiritually and you know, mentally and emotionally, I think, and all of that, instead of trying to do every single thing that we can do to escape it.

Right?

Everything we run to entertainment, we run, we, we try and block it out, we do all kinds of things to try and escape pain.

Spiritual pain is actually helpful for us, it's all part of God's sanctification.

Suffering patiently also involves surrendering.

Right?

This is again resigning yourself to trust God.

I've got no other course of action here.

I cannot fix this, I cannot make my pain go away, I cannot heal myself.

Lord, I'm gonna surrender to you and trust the great counselor to transform me and to heal me.

Right?

Surrendering involves surrendering to his will, to his way, his lordship.

We're not trying to force our own anymore.

Suffering patiently involves praying.

Praying.

Prayer is something we, I think, would all admit that we need to grow stronger in.

And what better way to learn to do that than by suffering?

Right?

Suffering causes us to seek the Lord and to bring our burdens before him, and to bring our concerns and our and our doubts and our fears and the pain of it all, including the joy and the victories that we see along that, and seek him for encouragement.

And Lord, we I need you.

And so that prayer that's developed through suffering is something that we have to accept and embrace is important.

Fifth one here is studying.

Studying the scriptures, that is, of course.

When you suffer, does it draw you back to the word?

Does it draw you back to seeking the face of the Lord and being reminded again of those passages that were such a blessing to you in past seasons of suffering?

I love Psalm 119, verse 28.

Psalms 119:28

In there, the psalmist says, My soul melts away for sorrow.

That sounds like he's in a season of suffering.

But then he says, Strengthen me according to your word.

Right?

We too, we need to be in the word of God.

And suffering patiently involves growing in that.

It also involves listening, right?

And and what I mean by that here is listening really to other godly people around you who the Lord will send into your life to encourage you.

Right?

Every once in a while, you know, I'll have someone come and talk to me and they want some advice or they want some counsel.

And as we talk, you know, we find out that they they've sought, you know, counsel of four or five people before me, and really they're just looking for a certain answer, and they don't like what they hear, so they keep going on to the next person until they find someone who's really just a flesh sympathizer.

Right?

That's that's that's not what we're to do.

Right?

Listen to the godly counsel, listen to what other people have gone through as they've suffered, and allow them to pour into you and to bless you.

Suffering patiently involves, seventh thing here, talking.

Okay, talking.

I think too many of us, I think as Canadians, as Christians, we're so pathetically and annoyingly reserved at times that we don't ever want to share what's going on with other people.

And we think our faith is a private thing, right?

And this is between me and the Lord, and that's it, and I don't have to share.

There is no Bible to back that up.

None.

And understand that the Lord has you going through stuff so that you can share.

That's gonna be part of the healing process for you, but it's also gonna encourage other people.

Right?

How many times has someone shared what they've gone through and it's encouraged you and where you're at?

Right?

The Lord wants to use you to speak into the life of somebody else.

You have no idea how God might use that to encourage somebody.

Suffering patiently also involves eight things, hoping.

Hoping, hoping in the Lord.

And what I mean by this is Christians should be should be fierce in rejecting fatalism.

Fatalism of, oh, well, you know, the world's all, you know, going to hell.

Everything's a mess.

And so we just kind of justify bitterness and anger.

Right, here's what Douglas Mu has to say about that.

He says the attitude that James calls us on to adopt here then includes resignation in the face of suffering, along with confident expectation of a day when the fortunes of this life will be reversed.

Right?

You see how in the end we know that it's all gonna be made right.

And so this life, it may seem long, but in the end it is not.

And so, in that we can have real hope.

It's not grasping at straws hope, it's not blind hope, it's real hope, knowing that God is going to make all things new.

Last thing here, suffering patiently involves worshiping.

It involves worshiping.

Understand that as you suffer, learn to worship the Lord, thank him for his goodness.

He's gonna rewire your just expectations about what life should be all about.

He's gonna point out to you in your suffering of all the good things that he has given you that you don't deserve.

All the blessings that he's poured into your life.

Learn to worship him.

This is really about loving him, right?

Loving him more completely and more fully.

That's that's what he's ultimately working to establish your heart to do as you go through suffering.

Listen, as these things here, as you see on the screen, as these things happen, as we commit to these things, as we engage in the Lord in all of this, our hearts are strengthened.

And we will begin to learn to suffer patiently.

Second thing, let's keep going here.

I will suffer patiently, without grumbling, knowing that God will judge.

Verse 9, take a look at that now.

It says this, do not grumble.

Okay, that word uh means to groan or to sigh.

Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.

Behold, the judge is standing at the door.

Now, at first, this verse, like a few others in James actually, it kind of seems like it's a little bit out of place, maybe.

Like, where is this, you know, kind of coming from?

But actually, if you think about it, it really fits perfectly.

Because, I mean, just be honest here for a second.

Have you ever gone through, you know, some kind of suffering?

Maybe it's been, you know, you've been harassed for your faith by the guy across the street from you, or or a coworker.

It's you know, you've gone through some kind of suffering regarding a breakup, right?

And you're heartbroken.

You know, you just found out from the doctor you've got that disease you've been hoping you wouldn't get.

You're suffering in your marriage in some way, and maybe it's your parenting, maybe it's a career struggle and you can't seem to get it going.

Right?

Have you ever gone through some kind of suffering like that?

And and as you're doing that, it's amazing how you just kind of instinctively start to you know look at other people around you, right?

And and this happens within the church too, and we look at them and we start to think, you know, why aren't they going through suffering?

Come on, just admit it.

Right?

My hand is up.

Right?

You you you do that, and you think, you know, man, like they they don't seem to be persecuted for their faith.

They're so bold, and everyone seems to love them.

Right?

I uh what about their relationships?

Like again, I go through this breakup, and that person just seemed to go through it so smoothly and so easily.

Look how happy they are.

Right?

Look at their look at their marriage.

And look at all the happy photos they post on Instagram.

They must never have a bad day.

Or their parenting.

Why is our teenager struggling?

Why are we having such a hard time with our two-year-old?

Other other people don't go through this.

How come that guy seems to just make money so easily?

And he's you know, got it all, and I am just spinning my wheels in the mud.

Right?

We we grumble against each other, don't we?

And some of us, we we actually do this out loud to people and we vent and we complain, and sometimes it turns into gossip or slander.

A lot of us, though, because again, we're Canadians and reserved and we're so polite and we're so nice, we just do this in our hearts.

As though that's not a problem.

Right?

We've all done this.

Because the stress and the pressure and and and the frustration and the grief that we experience as we suffer, it just fries us.

Right?

It fries our nerves.

It's so exhausting and mentally and emotion, I feel like I'm just I'm just shot and I feel like this all just needs to come out, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna groan, I'm gonna sigh, I'm gonna grumble against my neighbor, against one another.

And we have to understand that when we do that, though, we're really making a mess of the core things that God has called us to as believers.

Right?

To love God and to love others.

When we groan, we're we're pulling the foundations out of all of that.

We're not loving God because we're essentially telling him, hey, listen, God, you've you've done wrong here in issuing me these cards.

Right?

I don't like this hand that I've been dealt.

You should have done better.

We can charge him with all kinds of evil and wrongdoing in that.

So we don't love God in those moments, and we're not loving others, because rather than embracing the call to suffer patiently and to be grateful for what God's doing in other people's lives, we turn that opportunity into, you know, on us versus them, grumble fest, basically.

James tells us here, he's like, Don't go down that road, church.

Don't go there because he says, so that you may not be judged.

And then again, we're reminded of how soon that that judgment is coming when he says, Behold, the judge is standing at the door, right?

He's ready to come through that here.

The end is is near.

This isn't like a scare tactic to you know that you would fearfully in a scared, terrified way, you know, follow the Lord.

He's not gonna kick followers, his followers out of the kingdom for bad behavior here, but this is to say that the final judgment isn't just where you know sinners will be judged for their sinful deeds and be punished, but where Christ's followers will be assessed.

Right, for how how well we've lived our lives for him.

There are rewards for being faithful and for clinging to the Lord and suffering patiently.

And so, again, because this is happening at any moment here, you and I, let's really make the best use of our time.

Let's stop wasting those precious moments that we have been given to just kind of tee off on other people who appear on surface level to have it all together, have it better in that area than than we do.

Let's not grumble.

Instead of grumbling, let's let's embrace this incredible opportunity to run to Jesus and your suffering, in your pain, and how distraught you are.

Cling to your Lord.

Don't vent about somebody else.

Bring your concerns to the Lord and ask him to change your heart.

Cling to him.

Instead of grumbling, recognize the opportunity you have to be an example of patient suffering to others.

Right?

Do you realize that as you're suffering, people are watching you, people here in this room are watching you?

Right?

And remind yourself that your suffering, this is a huge one for us.

Your suffering isn't just about you.

Your suffering is for the building up of the church.

God would have you go through that as an encouragement to other people.

If that is not sweet to your soul, pray that the Lord would make that sweet to your soul.

Pray that the Lord would cause you to be faithful so you can pour into others.

Again, your suffering isn't just about you and your comfort and all of that.

We're all in this together here as a community, as a church, and God is into building us all up.

Instead of grumbling, remind ourselves, we got to do this all the time, right?

That the gospel doesn't promise that we'll never experience suffering.

Right?

Again, built right into our into the fabric of our souls, I think, is this prosperity gospel message.

Where if I, you know, if I just follow Jesus, he's gonna make all my dreams come true.

Right?

No, it you follow Jesus because without him, we're headed to hell.

Right?

And we need him to save us from sin.

And because he has done that, we will gladly weather whatever storm comes our way and look to him for our growth and and for our strength.

Right?

The gospel doesn't promise easy street, it actually promises the opposite.

Right?

And that we have a savior who suffered for us so that our eternal suffering could be exchanged for eternal joy.

And listen, on that note, instead of grumbling, again, let's look forward to a day where there will be no more suffering.

There will be no more tears shed.

Let's find our strength and our hope and our joy, our relief in that promise.

Final thing here.

I will suffer patiently, finding inspiration from those who endured well.

Verse 10, take a look.

Here's what James says.

He says, as an example of suffering and patience, brothers.

See his heart for them as he calls them brothers.

He says, Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast, those who, those who endured and remained under the trial and under the suffering that they went through.

They didn't try to get out from underneath it.

We all we all look back at their stories now and we would all be quick to say, yeah, they were so blessed by doing that.

He's like, Well, we'll do the same.

Consider them.

He goes on in verse 11 to say, 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, again, we've already touched a little bit here on how suffering provides us a great opportunity to model patience well for the sake of others.

And here, James shows us that finding inspiration from those who have modeled well and have gone well, gone before us and have endured well, it really helps us.

Right?

It really does.

He refers to the prophets here who remained steadfast in their suffering.

And I mean, he doesn't give us examples and specifics of who those uh men were that he you know was referring to.

But I mean, I think about Jeremiah.

That guy suffered, that guy went through the ringer.

He had kings coming after him, the very people that he was prophesying to, God's people rejected him and hated him.

He had some dark, dark days, but he endured well.

He didn't give up, he didn't throw it in, he didn't pack in the towel.

I'm sure he was tempted to at times.

Right?

James here, he also mentions Job, right?

The steadfastness of Job.

Now you might be thinking, Job, that's kind of an interesting guy to mention there, because you know, didn't Job really kind of struggle through all of that?

I mean, we if you know the story of Job, everything was taken away from him, and it was so difficult.

And in that, the Lord is unearthing some, you know, some pride and some impatience, maybe even a little bit, and some arrogance and all that.

And he demanded to hear a word from the Lord, and and in the end, God basically says, you know, who are you, man?

You know, where were you when I established the foundations of the world?

And and Job is just like he just gets flat on his face.

He's like, You're right, I repent in dust and ashes.

Who am I?

Right?

And though Job is this, you know, or sorry, yeah, Job is this flawed character, I mean, so are we.

Right?

And in Job's example, you know, as much as he might have struggled, you know, along the way with that, he never threw in the towel.

He never gave up on his faith.

His own wife said, curse God and die.

He said, No, I'm not gonna do this, I'm gonna cling to him.

Right?

We're all flawed as well.

None of us are gonna do this perfect.

But let's look to others who have done a great job modeling.

And so I would just really ask you to consider who are who are the people in your life that God has brought across your path who you can look to for inspiration in these things?

Those who have encouraged you uh as as models of those who have suffered well, those who've gone before you and have gone through it, and you've seen those dark days in them, and you've seen how you know they struggled, and maybe they were really honest about that, but but they but they never bailed on the Lord.

And then you saw how the Lord grew them and made them mature through all of that and and and made them patient and grew their love for him.

Who are those people for you?

I mean, certainly, like James points us to, we can all hopefully look to examples in the scriptures.

I love the Psalms because the Psalms are where you know David is suffering constantly and he's and he and he's writing about that.

He's very open and honest about all of that, and he's as he clings to the Lord, he's struggling.

I love it.

There's all kinds of people in the scriptures we can look to.

I was thinking a little bit this week of uh of a man who I know and became a friend of mine back when we were first married, and we were working at this uh big camp down in New York, and his name is Barry.

And uh he had some kids who were in the youth program that I was leading, and as I got to know him, I got to hear his story a little bit.

And this guy uh he just had a hard time.

He was a wonderful, godly man whose wife had left him for no good reason years ago and had left him to raise uh two sons on his own.

And uh his one son is now married and moved on.

His other son, who would be in his mid-30s now, uh, has uh cerebral palsy and has uh immense physical uh difficulties, lots of surgeries just from falling down and breaking bones and eye surgeries as he goes blind, and and so Barry has just been caring for him, you know, all alone by himself with his own physical uh problems and and struggles.

And you can imagine, you know, living in the US, these uh the cost of these surgeries is significant.

And through all of this, Barry has a very great counseling ministry.

And uh I'm on his uh newsletter email list, and here's what he wrote.

I just thought I would read it to you really briefly here.

What he wrote in his last uh message to us about a week ago.

He said, listen, he said, our ministry will continue to teach Paul's lesson of allowing our difficult afflictions to cause us to rely upon Christ more and more, and on our own puny strength less and less.

Nothing works quite as effectively as suffering to deepen our reliance upon Christ in this world.

We have no say in avoiding the afflictions God allows to come, but we do have the choice to trust in him with all our heart and to forsake leaning on our own understanding as we deal with those sufferings.

As we depend on him more and more, Jesus doesn't promise to give us a Google map of the next hundred miles in our journey.

However, he does give us the wisdom and strength we need to take the next step and then the next.

What a glorious journey this becomes.

With victory guaranteed, and he has in brackets, as Jesus defines victory, not as the world does.

To all who look to him and follow him.

Every time I read through Barry's emails, I'm always reminded of man, I don't have it so bad.

And I see this man just go through it, and he's just clinging to the Lord and he's staying strong in him, and I see the suffering, he's very honest about it.

Who are those people in your life?

Glean everything you can from there.

There's so value.

To you, people who inspire you.

That's another thing that I thought I would just commend to you as a church as you think about looking to people for inspiration.

Any of you heard of the Fox's Book of Martyrs?

Right?

This is intense.

If you are familiar with this book at all, you know what I'm talking about.

It was written a long time ago and it details various Christ followers who were led away to their death in persecution.

And just some amazing stories of how these saints were so faithful, right to the end, going through all kinds of misery and torture and never denied Christ at all.

I confess that I've only read some of the book.

I haven't read the entire one.

But this is an amazing book, again, that just brings such perspective to us.

As, you know, I'm the kind of person who's like, oh man, I have a cold.

My life's the worst, right?

You read Fox's Book of Martyrs, you're like, I'm okay.

Right?

Pick up this book, read it, study it.

Listen, as we find ourselves emboldened and motivated by other believers like this who just knows what it means to suffer patiently.

We learn, I think what James himself says here in verse 11, he says that the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

He's compassionate and merciful.

Trusting that you have seen that to be true in your own faith so far, in your own life as you've suffered.

And that you and myself, all of us, will continue to see that through whatever the Lord calls us to, whatever current and future suffering the Lord might have for each of us.