November 19, 2023 | James 5:7-12 | Pastor Chris Baker
Good morning, First Baptist Church! While you turn to James 5, I get to talk about my favorite holiday of the year. Some of ya’ll have sinfully moved on to Christmas already and my heart hurts for you. This week truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
I knew we celebrate our independence in July, but Thanksgiving really is the most American of holidays. It’s the food olympics. Many of us will gather with people we only see once a year to justify eating our body weight in turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, and all manner of other assorted goodness. But Thanksgiving truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Because it’s not just a meal. For many of us, the big meal is followed by a big nap. How could it get any better? It does! Then comes the leftovers!
I love Thanksgiving. I know some of you are picky eaters. Here’s a Thanksgiving life hack for you. A good Thanksgiving meal is always going to have gravy. If there’s a side you don’t like, but feel like you have to eat it just pour gravy over it. Gravy covers a whole lot of sins when it comes to cooking.
Have any of you already started cooking for Thursday? Do any of you cook for multiple days? The best meals require some time, don’t they? It’s much more likely that your favorite meal comes from a crockpot than the microwave.
I share that because our text for this will cause us to consider the role of patience in relationship with genuine faith. James challenged us to think eternally with money last week. He showed us how false faith view money—essentially as a way to buy heaven on earth. Genuine faith, however, uses money and material things to the glory of God because we know it’s all His to begin with. We were challenged to view money patiently. Now we’ll be challenged to take the long view of all of life. Genuine faith is patient faith. Let’s read tougher from James 5:7-12.
Read James 5:7-12
Pray
There’s a sense in which our little poodle is the most patient living creature in our home. When we’re having dinner, she will sit quietly, hopefully, and patiently just off to the side. She’s focused. She doesn't make any noise. And she’s ready. I think if dinner lasted 2 hours, she’d never move. As soon as someone drops a crumb, though, she pounces. She’s on it like Missouri on deer season. Everything else stops.
Yet, there’s a sense in which she’s the most impatient living creature in our home. When it’s time to go outside, she will bark at your face until you take her out.
The kind of patience James is getting at here is not just the ability to wait a long time in silence. It’s not a lack of urgency. The kind of patience James is addressing here is a uniquely Christian patience.
Look at the repetitive language: brothers and sisters in the CSB. It might say brothers or brethren in your version. He reiterates that in verses 7, 9, 10, and 12. This is a patience that is only for those who belong to Jesus because it’s a patience rooted in our hope of His return.
Patience in worldly terms is passive waiting. Christian patience isn’t passive at all. The word in the original language has two roots—one means long and the other means temper. Godly patience is a heart-attitude that peacefully endures without lashing out. It’s the opposite of having a short-temper and it’s an attribute of God we see all over Scripture.
Exodus 34:6 . . .the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. (Psalm 86:15)
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. (Psalm 103:8)
When James says be patient until the Lord’s coming, he’s really saying be Godly until Jesus comes back. Everything James has directed us to until this point—responding to trials, overcoming temptation, speaking to and about one another in a wise manner, showing our faith through our actions, the way we handle money, all those things require us, if we’re going to do them in a way that glorifies God, to keep one eye on what is in front of us and one eye on eternity.
James knows that looking like Jesus doesn't happen overnight. We get saved in a moment, but we learn what it means to be saved for the rest of our lives. Our Christian life isn’t likely to take off on a rocket ship trajectory from baptism to glory. You’re going to need to be long tempered, patient, to endure the things that happen to you on this side of eternity..
To have the right patience, we’ll need the right focus. That’s where James directs us in these first verses. Genuine faith is patient faith and genuine faith endures patiently because Jesus is worth the wait.
Genuine Faith Endures Patiently Because Jesus is Worth the Wait
7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.
James is teaching the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and the finishing line is nothing less than the second coming of Jesus.
He gives six commands across verses 7-12 and each one of them point us to that. Look at them with me in your text. Be patient, verse 7. Be patient again, verse 8. Strengthen your hearts, also verse 8. Verse 9, ‘do not complain.’ That one is negative. Of these six commands, four are positive—“do this”—and two are negative—“don’t do this.” Do not complain. Verse 12, do not swear and let your yes be yes and your no be no. We’ll get to all those. We’re right in the middle of be patient.
James is talking about living a life that is looking forward to one event. And that event is not the achievement of our success. It’s not financial independence. It’s not the big desk at work. It’s not some academic or vocational recognition. It’s not retirement. It’s not even death. It’s not even the Christian desiring to cross the finish line of death and to be in the presence of God. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That's true. But it’s not the moment James points us to here.
No, the day that the Christian is looking forward to, is the day of the coming of Christ. And James is saying that we need to live life in light of that focal point. It is the coming of Christ for which we are all waiting. All life is to be lived in light of that event.
I think you could boil down James’s reasoning to this sentence: what you’re looking for changes what you're living for. Are we looking toward the return of Jesus wit the way we live?
I’m convicted, church, that we don’t spend enough time thinking about and looking toward the day that Jesus returns. And I don’t mean watching the news for clues. And this isn’t a debate about eschatology. Whether you’re pre-mil, post-mil, a-mill, or General Mills we all believe Jesus is coming back. This text isn’t meant to provoke argument. It’s meant to make us long for things to be set right. To look forward to the return of Jesus is worshipfully hoping that Jesus will rescue His people and bring true justice to a world that desperately needs it.
This Second Coming is a topic that is, in my experience, really low on our list of things we think about. But it’s addressed all over the New Testament. One scholar points out that one out of every 25 verses in the New Testament is in one way or another about the return of Jesus.
(Jesse Forrest Silver, The Lord’s Return, p. 29)
James is drawing that out and he’s saying “That’s the goal! That is the focal point of life.”
Pastor and theological Eugene Peterson called the Christian life a long obedience in the same direction.
The direction, the goal, the purpose, the aim is the coming of Christ.
And notice here James is going right back to the beginning of the book and he’s taking up that subject of the endurance. He knew these Christians were going to be facing trials. They were already in the midst of trials. And so he’s encouraging them to endure. He’s right back on that theme again in this passage.
James says just like the farmer waits on the appropriate weather for planting and harvesting and is totally dependent on God no matter how hard he works—we have to be willing to put in the work and wait patiently on the results.
Verse 8, “You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts.” He’s calling on us to fix our hearts. He’s pointing to a determination, a resolution, a perseverance, a persistence in striving for the goal. He uses the same verb that is found in Luke 9:51.
When the days were coming to a close for him to be taken up, he determined to journey to Jerusalem.
Luke is telling you about Jesus and about His preparation for His coming crucifixion and death. Jesus was determined to journey to Jerusalem. That’s the same word that James is using here that we translate to strengthen.
He means to fix your focus on the goal of the coming of Christ, just like Jesus fixed his eye on His work of the cross and death and burial and resurrection at Jerusalem, and you are to continue to go that long obedience in the same direction.
James’ point is that the whole of life is to be lived in light of the Lord’s coming and in patient resolved preparation for that day. James knows that you don’t drift into holiness. You may drift into sin, but nobody has every yet drifted into holiness. You don’t accidentally stumble into holiness. Holiness is grown into, but it needs to be cultivated by patience and by the purpose of God. And so in this passage he is orienting us to be prepared for the long haul, to be prepared for trials, and to be aiming for the coming of the Lord.
James’ doctrine of the Christian life is the doctrine of process and growth. James knows that we don’t become like Jesus over night. James knows that there is not a definitive experience that we can have over the span of 15 or 20 minutes that will then change us so that we never ever have another struggle in the rest of life.
Our life is a process of growth in holiness and patience endurance, determination to persevere is a central ingredient to it.
Adoniram Judson understood that well. He was one of the first American missionaries to take the gospel overseas. He sailed for Burma in 1810, but before he did he wrote a letter to the father of Ann Hasseltine asking for her hand in marriage. This is how someone who lives focused on the second coming writes:
"I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world ? whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?"
(https://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/bjudson8.html)
I don’t expect us to mimic his language. He wrote and spoke in the vernacular of his day. But, church, can we mimic the outlook on life we see there? Can we put aside our own selfish ambition and pour our lives into something that only make sense if Jesus is coming back?
Look, I know we have folks who hear these sermons every week who haven’t placed their faith in Jesus. Maybe you’re a follower of another faith, maybe you grew up in church but you know you never trusted Jesus, maybe you’re just trying to figure out faith. I know this doesn’t make any sense to you. Living the way James is instructing us to live here is pointless unless Jesus is coming back. This isn’t a strength we can summon up in ourselves, it’s a strength that only the Holy Spirit can give us.
This only makes sense because our sin separated us from God. God is a God of justice and so He will never be okay with our sin. He’ll never sweep our sin under the rug. To make us righteous, to fix the relationship that our sin destroyed, God the Father sent God the Son to live the perfect life we cannot live, to patiently endure suffering on our behalf, to offer Himself up as a substitute sacrifice so that all who repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. It’s because of Jesus that we can endure. Jesus’s sacrifice changes calculus for His people. We live in a way that makes no worldly sense. We pout our lives into things that only make sense if Jesus is coming back.
The ‘how’ is going to look different for everyone sitting in this room today. Helpfully, James gives us some diagnostic tools to walk through in case we’re missing it. That’s what patience looks like, but:
Complaining, Criticizing, and Self-Reliance are Symptoms of Impatience
Verse 9:
9 Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another, so that you will not be judged. Look, the judge stands at the door!
10 Brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name as an example of suffering and patience. 11 See, we count as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about—the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “yes” mean “yes,” and your “no” mean “no,” so that you won’t fall under judgment.
There are two symptoms here that show we’re struggling with patience and endurance. They’re complaining and criticizing. If we look to other Christians as the source of our problems, we’re missing the point. We’re not showing patience when we are constantly bickering about with one another.
When we’re exposed to trials, it’s not surprising our temptation is to lash out at other people. You’re going through a hard time and it’s easy to look for somebody else to blame. And so often the people that we target are our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we blame them somehow and we point out their deficiencies, and they didn’t minister to us the way we wanted them to care about us in the midst of this trial, and they didn’t do this, and they didn’t do that. And suddenly there’s a division being fermented by our words.
Why do we avoid that? Because Jesus is coming. The judge is at the door, James says. When we sinfully complain about one another and criticize one another, we’re behaving as though we don’t believe Jesus is coming back.
There’s a scene in the great American epic City Slickers that illustrates this well. The movie tells the story of three friends who are going through a midlife crisis. To inject some excitement into their lives, they go on a cattle-drive vacation. The trio, all city dwellers with no experience cowboy life.
They haven’t been on the trail long when they realize they’re very different when compared with their grizzled trail boss Curly. They’re terrified of Curly. When they’re sitting around the campfire one night, the main character (played by Billy Crystal) says: Did you see his eyes? He's got crazy eyes. He's a lunatic! I am telling you, we are going into the wilderness being led by a lunatic! He then notices everyone’s terrified faces as Curly is standing directly behind him. He's behind me, isn't he?
That’s a classic TV trope, but it works. Do we respond to the people who belong to Jesus like Jesus is standing right behind us? Because eternally that's true. The judge is at the door.
Don’t let the judge walk through the door, right when that divisive word is coming out from you mouth against another Christian.
Instead of destructive speech which disrupts the fellowship of God, he says, verses 10 and 11, consider the prophets and Job. They endured suffering and with their speech, what did they do? They honored God instead of tearing down His people.
We can learn three things from them. Look at verse 10. We learn that we ought to expect to experience suffering which requires patience.
We ought to expect these kinds of trials which demand endurance, which demand patience. If Daniel had not been exiled and deported, we would have never heard of him. If Daniel had not been thrown into a lion’s den, we’d never heard of him. If Daniel had not been challenged to become worldly and compromise himself in the Babylonian court, we never would have heard of him. But, because he went through those trials which required endurance he encouraged us.
James says there is blessing and happiness in the exercise of patience and endurance. Look at what he says again. “We count as blessed those who endured.” God blesses those who patiently endure. We look at Daniel and we look at his heart in the midst of heartbreak and we say, “Lord I wish I could be like that.” We look at brothers and sisters in this church going through trials that we can’t comprehend, and we see them doing it nobly and with faith and sometimes to ourselves we mumble up a prayer, “Lord I
wish I could be like that.” Why, because there’s blessing in enduring during trial. We see the character that it produces. That goes back to James 1.
There is a purpose in trials that demand endurance and patience. Look at what he says in verse 11. We have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen that outcome of the Lord’s dealings. You remember the end of the book. Job 42:5 , “I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you.” God had revealed Himself in an extraordinary way.
Notice there that the outcome of this endurance is not simply character building, but it is a sight of the living God in His mercy and compassion. Church, Job just didn’t come through the experience with more character, with refined character, with girded character, he came through his experience with more experience of the living God. He knew God in a way, at the end of that experience, that he did not know Him at the beginning.
James is saying, look at the prophets, look at Job, and you learn this about trials. And, so instead of criticizing the brethren and complaining, and instead of recriminations against the brethren in the midst of your trials, remember the prophets and Job. And realize that even trials God intends for blessings for his people.
And then finally this, you may be scratching your head and saying, “Verse 12, I just don’t get it. What do oaths have to do with trials and patience and endurance and suffering? Why in the world would James suddenly say, ‘Above all do not swear?” What does that have to do with anything?
In James’ there was a tendency to use oaths to get around a commitment rather than to reinforce it. And James, just like Jesus did, is attacking that kind of usage of oaths. But, that still doesn’t answer the question. Why in the world would James bring this up here?
James is talking about living the Christian life with a focal point on the coming of the Lord. James could have had in mind oaths that Peter once took about how faithful he was going to be to God, about how faithful he was going to be to Christ. “Lord if everybody leaves You. I will not leave You. Lord, if I have to die to save You, I’ll die in Your place.”
James is saying that in the Christian life, patience is not manifested by grand verbal promises, but by quiet talk that follows through. Our patient endurance will be shown, not in our verbal commitments, but in our endurance under trial.
Some of you are enduring ongoing trials right now. And some of you on a regular basis wake up in the morning and have to face the challenge of putting one foot in front of the other and just going on. And
I can’t imagine a more comforting and challenging and strengthening and applicable word than the word that James is speaking to you today under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that you my fellow believers are to be patient and wait until the coming of the Lord. The goal is not perfection. The goal is not a comfortable life. The goal is just to get to that day.
Before Moses died, he spoke to each of the 12 tribes of Israel in Deuteronomy 33. He said a lot of incredible things, but the prayer he prayed for Asher always stands out. May the bolts of your gate be iron and bronze, and your strength last as long as you live. You, like me, might be more familiar with the King James Version: as thy days, so shall thy strength be. We sometimes sing a hymn with that as the refrain. That’s the goal, isn’t it. To have patient endurance for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Charles Spurgeon preached on Deuteronomy 33 in 1858. He closed the sermon this way:
Children of the living God, be rid of your doubts, be rid of your trouble and your fear. Young Christians, do not be afraid to set forward on the heavenly race. You bashful Christians, that, like Nicodemus, are ashamed to come out and make an open profession, don’t be afraid, “As your day is, so shall your strength be.” Why need you fear? You are afraid of disgracing your profession, you shall not; your day shall never be more troublesome, or more full of temptation, than your strength shall be full of deliverance.
Your days shall never be more full of trouble than your strength is full of deliverance. What a promise, church. Strengthen your hearts. The Lord is near. Let’s pray.
Questions for Further Discussion & Reflection
How would you describe the difference between general patience and Christian patience?
What are the six commands given in James 5:7-12?
How do those six commands build Christian patience?
What does it mean to "fix our hearts" on the goal of the coming of Christ?
How can it be helpful to describe our Christian life as a ‘long obedience in the same direction’?
What examples from the Bible does the sermon provide to encourage endurance during trials?
What is the purpose of trials that demand endurance and patience?
Why does the sermon emphasize the importance of avoiding complaining and criticizing others?
How does complaining and criticizing hinder our Christian witness?
How can the focus on the coming of Christ shape our perspective on enduring trials?
In what ways does the sermon challenge the you to live with an eternal perspective?
How can the concept of patient endurance be practically applied in our daily lives, especially in the face of ongoing trials?