8/23/26 - James 5:7-12: Patience In Suffering - Andy Baker

Well, good morning.

It is so good to see all of you.

As Trevor said, my name is Andy Baker.

I've had the great privilege of serving First Baptist Church Olo.

I'm not uh maybe you're familiar with the community of Olo.

You can see the sign going in and then the other sign coming out.

That's how big we are.

Our landmark is Brett Favre.

If you know where Brett Favre lives, go three miles past his house, and our church is on the right, so that's where we are.

But I've served there by God's grace for almost 18 years now.

It's been a great privilege of mine to be a part of that faith family and see what the Lord has been doing.

I'm here this morning with my family, my beautiful wife Elizabeth.

We've been married for 19 years in December.

Ella is next to her.

Ella is an eighth grader.

Ava is next to Ella.

She's a junior in high school, and then Drew on the end there, he is in fifth grade, and we're so grateful to be here with you.

We're gonna be looking at James chapter 5, verses 7 through 12, as you just heard read.

James 5:7–12

Now, if there is one thing that all of us have in common, and really all of humanity for that matter, it is suffering.

Suffering is one of the few experiences that eventually will find our address.

It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter how educated you may be, how carefully you've planned your life, or how faithfully you've tried faithfully you have tried to follow Christ.

For one person it comes through sickness, for another it comes through grief.

For another, disappointment, betrayal, financial strain, loneliness, infertility, a broken relationship, a wayward child, or the slow ache of watching something that you love just unravel.

The details are different, but the reality is shared.

Every person in this room knows something about suffering.

Some of you carry wounds that everyone can see.

Others carry burdens that almost nobody knows about.

Some are in the middle of a painful season.

Others can still name a moment from years ago that changed the world, the way that you see the world.

And if suffering has not yet marked your life deeply, Scripture is clear enough to tell that life in a fallen world will eventually introduce you to it.

And listen, I want to be very clear this morning.

This is not pessimism.

I am naturally a pessimist, by the way, because, in my opinion, if you're a pessimist, when things work out in a good way, you're actually like, oh wow, I'm surprised by that.

That's great.

But this isn't pessimism, this is realism.

The Bible never presents the Christian life as an escape from suffering.

In fact, Scripture is remarkably honest about suffering.

Abraham waits, Joseph is betrayed, Job loses nearly everything, David weeps, Jeremiah is rejected, Paul is beaten, imprisoned, and abandoned.

And towering above all of them is Jesus Christ, the perfectly righteous Son of God, acquainted with grief and crucified by wicked men.

So the question before us this morning is not whether Christians suffer.

We know that is true, if from anything, our own experiences in life.

The question is, how do Christians suffer faithfully?

What keeps suffering from turning into bitterness?

What keeps waiting from becoming unbelief?

And what keeps pain from poisoning our relationships?

And what keeps us steady when the circumstances do not change?

Well, James 5 speaks directly into those questions.

You see, James is writing to believers who know injustice, they know pressure, and they know hardship.

They're not discussing patience in theory.

They are being asked to practice it in the middle of suffering and suffering that they cannot fix.

And what James does is significant for us.

You see, he tried, he does not first explain why every hardship has happened.

He doesn't explain that at all.

He does not give them a timetable for when their suffering will end.

He gives them a horizon.

He says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

In other words, James teaches us that suffering must be interpreted in light of what is coming.

Jesus Christ is returning.

The crucified one is risen.

The risen one reigns, and the reigning Christ will come again to judge rightly, to vindicate his people, and to make all things new.

And so James then calls suffering Christians to establish their hearts, to endure with faith, to guard their relationships, to remember the faithfulness of God, and to live every ordinary day with one great certainty before them, and that is the Lord is coming.

And that changes how we suffer while we wait.

And so, as you've seen throughout this book thus far, James has been pressing one great question from the opening lines of this letter.

What does genuine faith look like when it is forced to live in the real world?

It is one thing to confess the goodness of God when life is orderly, and that's quite easy, is it not, to do so?

It's another to remain steadfast when trials come, when temptation presses, when the poor are overlooked, when the tongue becomes dangerous, when selfish ambition fractures relationships, and when worldly desires begin competing for the heart.

Again and again, as you've seen throughout your journey in James, again and again, James has insisted that living faith must become visible.

It must endure trials, it must obey the word, it must show mercy, it must govern the tongue, it must pursue heavenly wisdom, it must resist worldliness, and it must submit itself humbly to God.

And now, as the letter moves towards its conclusion, James brings those themes into the furnace of prolonged suffering.

His readers are facing injustice they cannot immediately correct and circumstances they cannot control.

So James doesn't just tell them to survive, he tells them how faith waits.

He turns their attention away from the apparent triumph of the wicked and toward the certain return of Christ.

And so this is kind of the context for where we are this morning.

So let me begin by making my first observation from the text.

Wait patiently because the Lord is coming.

Wait patiently because the Lord is coming.

We see this in verses 7 through 9.

So James begins this section with a command that only makes sense if we hear the promise that is attached to it.

He says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

Now that final phrase carries the weight of the whole paragraph.

You see, James is not calling suffering Christians to manufacture patience out of sheer determination.

This isn't a pull yourself up by your bootstraps type of mentality.

He places their endurance beneath an objective reality.

And that objective reality is that Jesus Christ is coming again.

And so the word translated coming is paralgia.

You may have heard that word before.

It means arrival, it means the appearing or the presence of the king.

And so James wants these believers to interpret their present suffering in light of Christ's future arrival.

Now remember what has just happened in verses 1 through 6 before we get to verse 7.

Wealthy landowners, if you remember, or if you look back, wealthy landowners have withheld wages.

They've lived extravagantly, they've exploited the vulnerable and even condemned and murdered the righteous person, the text tells us.

And the righteous have apparently been powerless to stop them.

And then James says, be patient, therefore.

Now, the therefore matters in this text.

Now, if you've been in church, you know that when you come to the word therefore, what question do you ask?

What is the therefore, therefore?

Alright, you can write that down.

It'll apply to every circumstance in your entire life.

The therefore matters here because it says that because God sees the injustice that is described in verses 1 through 6, and because Christ will return to judge that right vengeance.

Christian patience, listen to this, Christian patience is not the denial of suffering or wrongdoing, it is the confidence that suffering and wrongdoing does not get the last word.

And notice the analogy here.

James gives us the picture of a farmer.

See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth.

Be patient about it until it receives the early and the late rain.

So the farmer then, this analogy is perfect.

The farmer cannot drag the harvest out of the soil.

He cannot command the heavens to rain.

What does the farmer do?

The farmer plows, the farmer plants, the farmer tends, and then the farmer waits.

That's biblical patience.

You see, it is active faithfulness underneath circumstances you cannot control.

Now I have some farmers in my church, in a place named Olo, you just assume you would, right?

So I have some farmers in my church, and I'm going to tell you something about farmers.

They are patient and faithful people.

They recognize that they can prepare the ground, they recognize that they can work hard, but at the end of the day, they rely fully on the Lord with great patience, trusting that the crop will come in.

And I will tell you, the crop doesn't always come in.

Some of you know exactly what this feels like.

You've prayed for a child for years, and you do not yet see repentance.

You've lived with an illness that has not gone away.

You've remained faithful in a marriage that is painfully difficult.

You've served the church and wondered whether anything you were doing is making a difference.

You've tried to walk obediently with Christ while watching people who disregard God appear to prosper.

Listen, James does not tell you, he does not tell me, he does not tell us to pretend that waiting is easy.

He tells you what to do while you wait.

Look at verse 8.

You also be patient.

Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Well, establish your hearts.

That means strengthen them, steady them, plant them firmly.

You see, the great danger for us in prolonged suffering is not just that the circumstances hurt us.

It is that suffering begins to loosen the heart from its confidence in God.

That's the great danger.

It is that suffering begins to loosen the heart from our confidence in God, and we can become spiritually unsteady.

Prayers become weary, hope becomes thin, and resentment begins to grow.

And then what James does next is drives a stake into the ground once again.

Look at the second part of verse 8.

He says, the coming of the Lord is at hand.

You see, the entire Christian life is lived in that eschatological tension.

The coming of the Lord is at hand.

Christ has come and Christ will come.

In other words.

He came first in humility, born under the law, bearing our flesh, walking toward a cross, but he will come again in glory.

The one who stood silently before human judges will return as the judge of all the earth.

The one who wore the crown of thorns will return, wearing the crown of universal kingship.

And biblical history is not just drifting toward and church, hear this.

The future, that future reality is supposed to stabilize us now.

That Christ is coming.

But James knows something else about suffering.

Pressure often turns people against one another.

So verse 9 becomes intensely practical for us then.

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

Now listen, that may, you may read this text and go, well, that seems like a very abrupt shift.

We're talking about the coming of the Lord, and then he flips around and goes, Don't be mad at each other.

That's kind of a strange kind of shift, but it's not.

It is deeply pastoral for us.

When life becomes difficult, what happens?

Frustration frequently moves horizontally.

We all know this, don't we?

We become short with our spouses.

We become impatient with our children.

We become suspicious of fellow church members.

Harsh towards other brothers and sisters in Christ.

The suffering itself may not divide us, but the grumbling produced by suffering certainly can.

And James says, in effect, do not let the pressure outside the church become the poison inside the church.

It can happen.

And then comes this startling phrase behold, the judge is standing at the door.

Now, this is not meant to frighten us.

What is it meant to do?

It's meant to reorder us, reorient us.

You do not have to sit on the throne because the judge is already coming.

You do not have to settle every score.

You do not have to answer every insult.

You do not have to force every outcome because the Lord is at the door.

So establish your heart, church.

Keep praying.

Keep serving.

Keep loving your family.

Keep gathering with the local body of believers.

Keep obeying when obedience appears unnoticed.

Keep planting gospel seed when you cannot see the harvest.

Christian patience is not wondering whether Christ will come, it is living faithfully until he does.

Second observation.

Endure patiently because God has always been faithful.

Look at verses 10 and 11.

Endure faithfully because God has always been faithful.

So James now turns the church's attention backwards.

He's told them to look ahead to the future coming of the Lord, and now he tells them to look back at the people of God who suffered before them.

Look at verse 10.

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Now listen, this is a remarkable sentence because James does not present the prophets as men who escaped hardship by obeying God.

He presents them as men whose obedience often led them directly into hardship.

For example, Jeremiah preached the word of God and was mocked, threatened, imprisoned, and thrown into a cistern in Jeremiah 38.

Elijah stood against idolatry and was hunted by a king in 1 Kings 19.

Micaiah told the truth and was struck down and imprisoned in 1 Kings 22.

Daniel remained faithful and ended up in a lion's den.

Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

The prophets were not suffering because they had wandered outside of the will of God.

In many cases, they suffered precisely because they were walking in it.

And that matters for all of us.

That matters because one of the most dangerous assumptions that a Christian can make is that obedience to Christ should produce ease.

Scripture never gives us that promise, church.

Sometimes faithfulness does bring peace, but sometimes faithfulness brings conflict.

Sometimes opened doors, and sometimes obedience closes doors.

Sometimes doing what is right brings applause, and sometimes doing what is right brings a cross.

Jesus Himself said, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, and then immediately pointed his disciples to the prophets, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And so the pattern of redemptive history is unmistakable.

God's servants speak his word, they remain faithful to his covenant, and often suffer for doing so.

And then James gives another example.

Look at the first part of verse 11.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.

You've heard of the steadfastness of Job.

Now, Job, and you know the story of Job, I'm sure, many of you.

Job is an especially powerful example because Job suffered without knowing what was happening behind the curtain.

Now we, we know what was happening behind the curtain.

We, as readers, were given information that Job never had.

We know about the heavenly scene.

We know that his suffering was not evidence that God had lost control.

We know that unseen realities were involved.

And Job knew none of that while sitting in ashes.

And that is where many Christians live.

We know God is sovereign, we know God is good, we know God loves his people, but we often do not know what he is doing.

And this is that tension in providence, in God's providence.

God's providence does not teach us that every painful circumstance is immediately understandable.

It teaches that no painful circumstance is outside the wise government of God.

And that is, there is a vast difference between those two statements.

God does not owe us immediate explanations, but he has given us his character.

And so we know that God is good, that God is loving, that God is kind.

Now, three weeks ago, some of you know this, a family in our congregation buried their four-year-old son.

On a Monday afternoon, this little boy died in a tragic accident, leaving behind a twin sister, an older sister, and his two parents.

As you can imagine, or as you can't imagine, I can't imagine this.

It has been an extremely devastating situation for this precious family, along with our church family and really the greater community.

This family knows suffering more than most of us ever will.

And I was spending some time with this boy's father this past Tuesday, and he expressed this very sentiment to me.

In the midst of the worst possible grief anyone could ever walk through, he told me this.

He said, I may never know why this happened.

But God has a purpose and a plan in the midst of it.

He said, Graham's days were numbered before the foundation of the world, and I know that God is still good.

Three weeks after he buried his world.

Even in the midst of intense suffering, this boy's father knows that God does not owe him any explanation.

But he knows the unchanging character of God, nonetheless.

And that is where James lands in the second part of verse 11.

Look, he says, you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

This may be the theological center of this entire section.

James does not finally say, look how strong Job was.

He says, in effect, look how faithful God was.

Job endured because God.

Had not abandoned him.

The prophets endured because God had not forgotten them.

And Christians endure for the same reason.

The perseverance of the saints is not the doctrine that Christians are naturally tougher and more strong than everyone else.

It's not what the perseverance of the saints is.

It is the doctrine that God preserves his people and therefore his people persevere.

The same God who calls us to endure supplies the grace by which endurance becomes possible.

Praise the Lord.

And nowhere is that clearer than in Jesus Christ.

Look, Job was a righteous sufferer, but he was not the final righteous sufferer.

The prophets were rejected messengers, but they were preparing the way for the rejected son.

Christ came as the perfectly obedient servant.

He was falsely accused, he was mocked, he was beaten and abandoned by his disciples, and he was nailed to the cross.

Isaiah had spoken of the servant who would be oppressed and afflicted, yet did not open his mouth in retaliation.

And at Calvary, it appeared for a moment that righteousness had lost.

But then came Sunday.

The resurrection is God's declaration that faithful suffering is never wasted.

Now that does not mean that every Christian story ends with earthly restoration.

Job received temporary restoration.

But James is not promising that every sick person will recover, that every financial loss will be restored, or every broken relationship will be repaired in this age.

The ultimate end toward which God is moving his people is resurrection.

That is why you can remain faithful when you cannot trace the hand of God.

You may not understand the diagnosis.

You may not understand why the child has wandered.

You may not understand the grief that entered your home.

You may not understand why obedience has cost you so much, but you know something greater than the explanation.

You know the Lord, and James says that he is compassionate and merciful.

And that does not change.

God does not change.

So endurance, then, is not gritting your teeth and pretending not to hurt.

It is continuing to trust the character of God while you hurt.

The prophets did it, Job did it, and again, above them all stands Christ, who endured the cross, despised the shame, and now sits at the right hand of God.

The God who carried his people through suffering then has not changed today.

And he will carry his people through suffering now.

Third observation.

Speak faithfully because you will stand before the judge.

So James closes this section here with a command that can again initially feel almost disconnected from what has come before.

Look at verse 12.

He says, But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

Now listen, this is not a warning.

This is not a random warning about vocabulary.

Now it may seem that way, but it's not.

James is still dealing with suffering here.

He's dealing with suffering, he's dealing with endurance, and he's dealing with the coming judgment of God.

In verse 9, he's already said the judge is standing at the door.

Now in verse 12, he presses that truth into one of the most ordinary and revealing areas of our Christian life, our speech.

And maybe you're sitting here going, man, another sermon on speech.

I just got one of those a few weeks ago from James, and it was brutal.

Well, this will piggyback on that to a degree.

Because the thing is this when you relate speech to suffering, and we all know this, James is so practical here.

That's something we all live.

Suffering has a way of exposing the mouth.

And the mouth has a way of exposing the heart.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So when pressure rises, what happens?

Words often become weapons.

We exaggerate, we make promises we cannot keep, we speak recklessly because we're angry.

We try to strengthen our own credibility with maybe dramatic language.

We say more than we should because we want to control how others see us or how situations turn out.

And James says that Christian, the Christian who is waiting for Christ must learn to speak with simple, settled truthfulness.

His words clearly echo Jesus in Matthew 5.37, Sermon Amount.

Let what you say simply be yes or no.

You see, the issue is not that every solemn oath in every circumstance is inherently sinful.

That's not what James is telling us here.

Scripture itself contains lawful oaths, and Christians have recognized that distinction for centuries.

James is condemning manipulative, careless, evasive speech.

The kind of speech that needs verbal machinery because ordinary truthfulness has become unreliable.

A Christian's word ought to carry weight because a Christian lives before God.

But you've heard them say, well, I remember the days when a handshake meant something.

We didn't need no contracts.

You shook your hand, and man's word meant something, right?

Well, the Christian's word ought to carry weight because a Christian lives before God.

That is the doctrine beneath this command here.

We do not merely speak before people, we speak quorum deo, before the face of God.

Every promise we make, every accusation, every careless sentence, every whispered complaint, every public declaration, it is spoken in the presence of the judge who stands at the door.

That's what James is saying.

And that means patience and truthfulness, they belong together.

You see, impatient people often use words to force outcomes.

We pressure, we threaten, we bargain, we exaggerate, we tell half the story, we shape the facts so that events move in the direction we want them to move.

But patient faith can tell the truth and leave the outcome to God.

And that is enormously, hear this, that is enormously practical for all of us.

It matters in marriage when arguments get heated and you're tempted to say something you know is not quite true because it will wound the other?

It matters in the church when frustration turns into gossip that is disguised as concern.

It matters in business when a promise is made because closing the deal seems more important than keeping your word.

It matters online where outrage is rewarded and exaggeration travels faster than truth.

It matters in politics where Christians can become so committed to a party that they excuse dishonesty from people on our side or their side, whoever's side.

Well, James will not allow us to separate orthodoxy from truthfulness.

The man who says he believes Christ is coming must speak as though Christ can hear him now.

Because it's true.

And James has been building toward this throughout the entire letter.

Think about it.

Just recap briefly.

Chapter 1, he told us to be slow to speak.

He warned that a man who cannot bridle his tongue deceives his own heart.

Chapter 3, he said the tongue is a fire, and that with it we bless God and curse people made in his likeness.

In chapter 4, he warned against speaking evil of one another.

In verse 9 of this chapter, he warned in your no-be-no.

You see, the gospel does not merely reform our beliefs, it reforms our minds.

And once again, Christ stands at the center of this.

Jesus is the perfectly truthful son.

Peter says that no deceit was found in his mouth.

Even while suffering unjustly, he did not retaliate with sinful speech.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

Instead, he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

There is James 5 in the life of Jesus.

He suffered, he spoke truth, and he entrusted judgment to the Father, and that is what James is calling you and I to do.

Christ is coming, therefore tell the truth.

Keep your word, guard your tongue, and entrust the outcome to him.

Because patient faith not only waits well and suffers well, patient faith speaks like Jesus while it waits for Jesus.

Church.

James leaves us with a remarkably simple picture of the Christian life.

We are a people waiting for someone.

We're not just waiting for circumstances to improve.

We're not just waiting for suffering to ease.

We're not just waiting for every unanswered question to make sense.

We are waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that gives suffering a horizon.

Pain is real, but it's not permanent.

Injustice is grievous, but it's not ultimate.

Grief is deep, but it will not have the final word.

Christ will.

James tells us to establish our hearts.

He tells us to keep trusting.

He tells us to keep obeying, to keep speaking truth, to keep loving the church, to keep refusing bitterness, to keep taking the faithful, the next faithful step.

The prophets did not understand everything God was doing.

Job did not understand every providence, and neither will we.

But God has already shown us enough to trust it.

He has shown us Christ.

At the cross, Jesus entered suffering more deeply than we ever will.

And in the resurrection, he conquered death and declared that the grave does not get the final word.

And that means there is also a word here for the unbeliever.

The Christ who is coming is not only Savior, he is judge.

So if you're an unbeliever here, if you have not yet repented and believed in Christ, do not merely admire Jesus.

Do not merely agree with Christian truth.

Repent of your sin and trust in Jesus.

Turn from yourself.

Turn from your own perceived righteousness.

Turn from your rebellion, turn from your sin and rest your hope entirely in the one who died and rose again.

And for the believer.

His coming is hope.

Unbeliever, his coming is a summon.

So come to Christ now.

And until he returns, church, establish your hearts and remain faithful.

Pray with me.

Father, we're so thankful that you have given us your word.

God, you've not left us on our own to figure out who you are, your character, your nature, what you've done for us in Christ, our Savior.

But by your grace, you've given us truth about you, truth about us, truth about salvation, and truth about how we, as your redeemed people, are to live in this already but not yet tension.

So God, I pray that as we reflect on this passage of Scripture, we reflect on our own suffering and the questions that it may have brought about in our minds and our hearts.

When we reflect even on how we respond to suffering and what it exposes about our own depravity and what's still alive in this body of flesh.

God, I pray that your spirit would work in us, among us, that we would repent where repentance is needed, that we would trust where trust is needed, that we would extend forgiveness to others we may have hurt with our words.

That we would believe the truth that you are compassionate and merciful, and you always have been, and you always will be.

And then most of all, we would look to Christ.

Christ is the answer to our suffering.

Christ is the reason we can endure patiently.

May we cling to Him in all areas of our lives.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.