Pastor Nate continues our study through the book of James.
[00:00:00] Alright, good morning everyone. Let's go to James chapter 5 and I'm going to read the whole text today. We're looking at verse 7-12.
[00:00:09] And I'm going to pray a prayer, not just for our time in the Word, but I also want to pray, it's in my heart, to just pray for the start of our life groups.
[00:00:17] I think this is an important quarter for us as we get together. I love that our people, that our church, we're revisiting the Word each week, you know, looking at it on Sunday.
[00:00:29] Letting it look at us again in the middle of the week, talking about it, applying it to our lives, seeing how other people have interacted with God's Word.
[00:00:39] I love that. And so I want to pray for those interactions. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
[00:00:45] And I believe that the Spirit of God gathers together with His people as we open up His Word and that there are some Holy Spirit appointments that are going to happen
[00:00:55] in living rooms and coffee shops and here on this campus. I really believe that.
[00:01:01] So I just want to pray and ask for God to do that in our groups this coming quarter.
[00:01:06] So, but let's read the text first. James chapter 5. We're going to read it twice today.
[00:01:10] Once right now and then again as we're going through it verse by verse in the teaching.
[00:01:14] But verse 7, James says,
[00:01:17] 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 late rains.
[00:01:30] You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
[00:01:36] Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
[00:01:40] Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
[00:01:44] As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
[00:01:51] Behold, we consider those, verse 11, blessed who remained steadfast.
[00:01:56] You've heard of the steadfastness of Job and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
[00:02:03] 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.
[00:02:19] All right, let's pray together.
[00:02:20] Lord, we do want to ask you this morning for your help in studying your word, thinking about it, meditating upon it.
[00:02:29] We pray, Lord, that it would saturate our hearts and minds and souls.
[00:02:33] We pray that you'd remove distractions from us, even, Lord, just within the realm of our minds.
[00:02:38] We pray that you'd help us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and to, Lord, hear from you and what you want to say to us today from your book.
[00:02:48] We also want to take a moment, Father, and pray for what I think is very precious in your sight.
[00:02:54] Lord, I pray for you to pray for your people gathering together around your word, talking about it, applying it to their lives, encouraging each other, being a source of hope and help and ministry to each other's spirits.
[00:03:13] And so, Lord, I pray for this next life group quarter and ask, Lord, that you would really do a great thing as we gather together.
[00:03:22] And, Lord, that you'd minister to us and that each night, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish would be accomplished.
[00:03:30] Your kingdom would come and that your will would be done in those groups as in heaven.
[00:03:36] And so, Lord, we pray for that and we commit that into your hands.
[00:03:41] We pray for all the leaders and all the hosts this quarter and ask that you'd fill them with your energy, your might, your wisdom, your perspective, your hope, your endurance.
[00:03:51] And, Lord, that you would reward them richly for their labor of love.
[00:03:55] We thank you, Lord.
[00:03:57] And again, we pray and ask that you'd speak to us today from your word.
[00:04:00] In Jesus' name, we pray together.
[00:04:03] Amen.
[00:04:04] Amen.
[00:04:04] Amen.
[00:04:06] Well, I've told you guys before that a couple of years ago, Christina and I dropped our oldest daughter off at college.
[00:04:13] And anybody who's done that for the first time, you know, it can be an emotional experience.
[00:04:19] And different families handle it in different ways.
[00:04:21] And the school that we brought her to, they actually had, you know, they did all the normal things that they do for kids.
[00:04:27] You know, the launch kind of stuff, the orientation meetings and all that.
[00:04:31] But they actually offered quite a few orientation classes for the parents.
[00:04:37] And so, you know, we were there.
[00:04:38] We didn't want to leave right away.
[00:04:40] So we decided to go to these things.
[00:04:42] And I wasn't all that, like, positive or upbeat about it because I don't like going to things.
[00:04:48] So I, you know, just was kind of a little down about it.
[00:04:52] But, you know, as we were attending, I was like, oh, this is actually good.
[00:04:56] This is helpful.
[00:04:57] This is encouraging and all that.
[00:04:59] But I started noticing this theme because I was kind of wondering, like, why do I need an orientation?
[00:05:04] Why do the parents need an orientation?
[00:05:06] I started noticing this theme and all these different, like, little banquets they'd have and lectures that they would give and socials that they would have.
[00:05:13] I started noticing that at some point someone from the school would get up there and basically say, like, leave your kids alone.
[00:05:21] Okay?
[00:05:22] Like, that was basically the lecture.
[00:05:24] It was like, hey, you know, don't be that parent that when your kid is having a hard time in their class, you try to call their professor for them.
[00:05:33] Don't be that parent.
[00:05:34] And, like, at first I was like, ha, ha, I was, like, looking around, like, ha, ha, like, who would do that?
[00:05:39] And then I realized, like, oh, I'm sitting with the people that would do that, you know.
[00:05:43] They're talking to us for a reason, you know.
[00:05:47] And I was thinking about that this week as I was thinking about the words that we just read here in the book of James.
[00:05:53] James is depicting for us what Christian maturity looks like.
[00:05:58] And he is coming at it like a spiritual father, parent, writing to a group of believers that are under pressure and hardship.
[00:06:08] And here's what he wants to say to them.
[00:06:10] He wants to say, you got this.
[00:06:12] You can do this.
[00:06:14] I don't need to come down from Jerusalem and rescue you from your situation.
[00:06:18] I want to help equip you to be the kind of person, the kind of church that can endure hardship and difficulty until the day that the Lord comes.
[00:06:28] That's really what this passage of Scripture is about.
[00:06:31] Now, a couple questions that we should ask about this text.
[00:06:34] James is really leaning into this patience and suffering theme.
[00:06:39] In fact, you probably noticed that the word patience, it's in there like seven times.
[00:06:43] The word steadfastness is in there a handful of times.
[00:06:46] So James is really getting on that theme.
[00:06:49] If you were to think about what is James looking at, in verse 10 he talks about the prophets and he says they're an example of suffering and patience.
[00:06:58] All right?
[00:06:59] That's kind of his perspective.
[00:07:00] He's like, it's a hard world.
[00:07:02] It's filled with suffering.
[00:07:03] There's some difficulty going on.
[00:07:05] And I need you to have patience in it, is what James is saying to the church.
[00:07:11] And so a couple questions we might ask.
[00:07:13] One would be, what is the suffering that the people that James is writing to were dealing with?
[00:07:18] And it's hard to say with great specificity, but this is clearly, as you're looking at the letter that James wrote, it's clearly got Jewish background and backdrop and culture within it.
[00:07:30] It probably was written very early on in the life of the church when the church was still predominantly Jewish in nature, hadn't yet expanded into the nations or the Gentile world.
[00:07:38] There's talk of like synagogue behavior and stuff like that all throughout this letter.
[00:07:43] So probably what's going on is you've got a group of people who said, we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Christ, that was promised in our Old Testament scriptures.
[00:07:55] We believe that he came.
[00:07:57] We believe that we killed him, that we crucified him, that he was buried and that he rose from the dead so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.
[00:08:06] And we believe that when he did that, he fulfilled the Mosaic law and that it is now fading away and expiring because of the life of Jesus.
[00:08:16] And for a lot of people who would have heard that from their culture, those were fighting words.
[00:08:22] Like you're messing with Moses.
[00:08:24] You're messing with the law.
[00:08:26] You're messing with the messianic promise.
[00:08:28] You're messing with us.
[00:08:30] And it appears that inside the communities that they were living in, these Christians began to experience some kind of persecution.
[00:08:38] Likely at the very least an economic persecution as we've been thinking about the last couple of weeks.
[00:08:45] They weren't getting the jobs they would normally get.
[00:08:47] They weren't being able to buy and sell and trade like they'd normally be able to.
[00:08:51] And so James is talking to them about that brand or that type of suffering.
[00:08:56] But just because that was their situation, I think we can fast forward into our modern time and we can say, yeah, there's suffering today still.
[00:09:05] Not only the suffering that is common to all of humanity, but it's like the news as a Christian is you get to go through all of that.
[00:09:14] Plus you get to go through a little bit of Jesus suffering.
[00:09:17] You know, there's the hardship and the difficulty of taking the gospel to the world, of making disciples of all nations and being a legion to him in a dark world that isn't always going to be open and hopeful and excited to hear the message that is exclusive in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:09:38] And of course we know today that there are many nations and places where Christians are directly persecuted.
[00:09:44] And we probably live in a place where we're beginning to feel some heat for following hard after Jesus.
[00:09:52] And so James, I think his words are very appropriate for us to be patient in suffering.
[00:09:58] But here's another question that we should ask.
[00:10:00] Patient for what?
[00:10:02] What is it that he wants us to be patient for?
[00:10:05] And you might have noticed throughout this little passage that James talks about the coming of the Lord.
[00:10:12] Be patient until Jesus arrives, until Jesus comes.
[00:10:17] Or in another verse he talks about when the judge who is standing at the door comes through the door.
[00:10:22] Be patient as believers until that day.
[00:10:26] Now it's very clear that early on in the life of the church, they developed a theology that said Jesus is going to come back.
[00:10:36] In fact, this was kind of like the very beginning of the book of Acts.
[00:10:40] Jesus is there with his disciples.
[00:10:42] He's risen from the grave.
[00:10:43] He spent time with them and appeared with them for 40 days.
[00:10:45] And he's beginning to tell them, I'm leaving.
[00:10:50] And they're like, but is this the time that you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
[00:10:57] Is this the time that you're going to bring in all the Old Testament promises?
[00:11:01] Is this the time?
[00:11:02] And Jesus said, it's not for you to know the time.
[00:11:07] But I'm going to return.
[00:11:08] I'm going to come back.
[00:11:10] And what they did is they took a very simple Greek word, the word that we would translate arrival.
[00:11:16] Like if you were going to a party in that culture and you arrived, you know, people are like, hey, is Nate there yet?
[00:11:23] Like, oh yeah, Nate, he arrived.
[00:11:25] Nate's here.
[00:11:26] He's present.
[00:11:27] They took that word for arrival, parousia, and they began applying it to Jesus.
[00:11:33] They began saying there's a day where he will come, where he will return, where he will walk in the door.
[00:11:40] They were excited for that moment.
[00:11:42] And what James says here is that coming is at hand.
[00:11:48] Now, that's exciting to me and might be exciting to you, but then also that excitement might be curbed a little bit by the fact that James said this 2,000 years ago.
[00:11:57] And you're like, okay, that's kind of bumming me out a little bit.
[00:12:00] If he'd wrote that like today, I'd be really excited.
[00:12:03] You know, the day of the Lord is at hand.
[00:12:05] The coming of the Lord is at hand.
[00:12:07] Why does James say it like that?
[00:12:09] Well, he's saying it that way because Jesus' return is the next major event on God's promised timeline.
[00:12:18] You know, the Messiah came.
[00:12:20] The Messiah will come again.
[00:12:23] It's the next major event.
[00:12:24] And I'll be honest with you.
[00:12:25] There's a lot of Christians that quibble about if there are smaller, less major events that need to unfold, happen, occur before Jesus returns.
[00:12:36] Some people say yes.
[00:12:37] Some people say no.
[00:12:39] It's not really the focus of my teaching this morning because James was not focusing on that in this passage.
[00:12:46] His emphasis is one day Christ will return.
[00:12:50] Endure until that day comes.
[00:12:54] James' focus, I'm not trying to knock anybody, but James' focus wasn't on trying to figure out when's it going to happen.
[00:13:02] What are all the news events of the day and how do they fit in?
[00:13:06] He wasn't getting into any of that.
[00:13:08] And by the way, if that's something that you're interested in, all power to you.
[00:13:12] But I would encourage you, don't be a person who becomes distracted with that.
[00:13:18] Don't be a person who becomes unloving because you've adopted an escapist mentality.
[00:13:24] And also, don't be a person who's proud.
[00:13:26] Be humble.
[00:13:27] Understand that not every good Christian has held those views or that particular prophetic grid that you are likely holding.
[00:13:36] Good believers have debated these things for many, many years.
[00:13:40] But James' emphasis, James' perspective, at least here is the day of the Lord, the coming of the Lord.
[00:13:48] It's going to happen.
[00:13:49] He is going to return.
[00:13:51] And we must be a people of endurance in suffering until the day that he arrives.
[00:13:59] So what I want to think about this morning is I want to think about from the passage that we read today,
[00:14:06] what are some ways that James thinks we can be a people who endure a hard world well?
[00:14:14] Does he give us any help, any perspectives, any mentalities that we should pick up?
[00:14:20] And I want to hold out four of them to you today from verse 7 all the way to verse 12.
[00:14:25] And the first one I want to hold out to you this morning, I think this is really helpful when it comes to enduring well.
[00:14:32] It's this.
[00:14:33] Number one, we need to adjust our expectations.
[00:14:39] Adjust our expectations.
[00:14:41] And this comes from verse 7.
[00:14:43] Let's read it again together.
[00:14:45] Verse 7 and 8.
[00:14:46] He says,
[00:14:46] Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
[00:14:52] See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it,
[00:14:59] until it receives the early and the late rains.
[00:15:03] You also be patient.
[00:15:06] Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
[00:15:12] Okay, for this exhortation, to adjust our expectations, James holds out a farmer as his example or illustration.
[00:15:22] He talks about this thing called the early and the late rains.
[00:15:26] James lived in a time and in a society and in an area where what they would have is a time where they would plant.
[00:15:34] Then there would be a rainy season.
[00:15:36] Then there would be a dry season.
[00:15:38] Then there would be another rainy season.
[00:15:42] And after that second dose of rain, they began expecting the fullness of the crops to come.
[00:15:50] Okay, they didn't have the modern irrigation that we have and all of that.
[00:15:53] And so they were at the mercy, really, in a lot of ways, of the weather system and weather patterns.
[00:15:58] And what James is saying is that you would never imagine a farmer in that society, or in any society really,
[00:16:06] going out on day one and planting seed and then the very next day going out to those fields and wondering,
[00:16:15] I'm going to go out to the fields today.
[00:16:17] I wonder if there's going to be a full crop of the thing that I planted yesterday today.
[00:16:26] No, you'd look at a guy like that.
[00:16:27] You'd be like, bro, you're insane.
[00:16:28] You need to get a new job.
[00:16:30] You need another career field because that's not the way it works.
[00:16:33] You would look at that farmer and say, especially in that culture, hey, it's going to take a little time.
[00:16:38] You're going to have to wait for the rain to come.
[00:16:41] Then there will be a drier season.
[00:16:43] Then there will be more rain.
[00:16:44] You've got to wait for the early rains and the latter rains.
[00:16:47] And after that, there is going to be a harvest.
[00:16:52] I think that what James is trying to say here is that as believers, we need to understand that God is doing a work that sometimes to us from our vantage point feels like it is taking a very long time.
[00:17:07] But we need to adjust our expectations and wait for the latter rain.
[00:17:12] I think if I could just say it like this, too many of us are wanting too much too soon.
[00:17:19] We're wanting millennial reign of Christ, kingdom of Jesus, everybody loving and adoring and following after him.
[00:17:31] We want that then, but we think that it should happen right now.
[00:17:35] Man, I would love for it to happen right now.
[00:17:37] But the prophets from centuries past, even before the New Testament, on back into the Old Testament, promised and predicted.
[00:17:47] No, the day is future when the nations will flow to God's mountain to love him and adore him and serve him.
[00:17:57] And we have to adopt, as we looked at in the book of Micah together, that remnant mentality.
[00:18:04] Like, man, not everybody's going to be into this.
[00:18:07] Not everybody's going to long for Jesus.
[00:18:10] Not everybody's going to be devoted to him.
[00:18:13] And we need to adopt that perspective and mentality.
[00:18:17] We must adjust our expectations because the best is yet to come.
[00:18:25] But when that latter rain does arrive, God is going to do a beautiful thing.
[00:18:31] We've got to have that perspective.
[00:18:33] Now, some of you guys, you're saying to yourselves, like, okay, I think I got this one already.
[00:18:37] I think I know this one.
[00:18:38] And that is kind of the point.
[00:18:40] You know, really when we think about it, it's like this makes a lot of sense.
[00:18:44] You know, recently I was at our family.
[00:18:46] We were over at Target together.
[00:18:48] We were actually just buying stuff for my daughter, Violet, who's going off to college for her first year in a few weeks.
[00:18:56] And we were there at Target.
[00:18:58] And I asked if I could be on the cart.
[00:19:02] I like being on cart duty.
[00:19:03] I don't like going to stores very much.
[00:19:05] So I'm like, I'll just be on the cart.
[00:19:07] You guys know where you're going.
[00:19:08] And I'll just follow you.
[00:19:09] You know, I'll just be the muscle, you know, kind of thing.
[00:19:12] And so we're there.
[00:19:13] We're, like, cruising through Target.
[00:19:14] And I looked down at my cart at one point.
[00:19:17] There was, like, this little cup holder that they had there.
[00:19:21] And I noticed that on the perimeter of the cup holder there were these words.
[00:19:25] And the words were, caution, contents may be hot.
[00:19:33] And I was just, like, thinking about this whole situation.
[00:19:36] It just kind of really spun me out.
[00:19:38] I'm, like, imagining someone going into Target and going over to the Starbucks and being, like, I'd like a coffee.
[00:19:45] And they're, like, what, do you want it on ice or do you want it hot?
[00:19:47] I want it hot.
[00:19:49] And then they make it for you.
[00:19:50] And you get it.
[00:19:51] And you put it in your hand.
[00:19:52] And then you put it in the cup holder.
[00:19:55] And I'm just imagining someone that's, like, I forgot.
[00:19:58] I forgot.
[00:19:59] Is that hot or is that cold?
[00:20:00] And Target was so nice because they put a little reminder there.
[00:20:04] They're, like, hey, you might have just put a really hot beverage right in there.
[00:20:08] So watch out for that.
[00:20:09] I was, like, man, thank you, Target.
[00:20:11] You guys really got my back.
[00:20:12] It just felt like I think I got this.
[00:20:15] I think I know this.
[00:20:16] But I think that's what James is trying to communicate.
[00:20:19] He's saying, look, I know that you know this.
[00:20:22] I know that you're not thinking that you can have it all now.
[00:20:25] You're not Veruca salting it.
[00:20:26] You're not I want it now, Daddy.
[00:20:28] You understand that the good stuff is coming.
[00:20:31] You get that.
[00:20:32] But sometimes that mentality creeps in, doesn't it?
[00:20:37] And sometimes we need that reminder.
[00:20:39] No, I got to be like a farmer that is waiting for the latter rain.
[00:20:43] I can't have it all now.
[00:20:45] The best is coming.
[00:20:47] And to adopt that perspective.
[00:20:49] Okay, the second thing I wanted to say is I think James is also saying a way to adopt this endurance or this patience is to, number two,
[00:21:00] prepare for assessment.
[00:21:04] Prepare for assessment.
[00:21:06] Look at what he says in verse nine.
[00:21:08] He says, do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
[00:21:14] Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
[00:21:18] Now, first things first here.
[00:21:20] Why would he have to give this little exhortation?
[00:21:23] Don't grumble against one another, brothers.
[00:21:27] Why would he have to give that exhortation to the church?
[00:21:30] Well, in the context, I think what he's probably alluding to is something that we all know really well.
[00:21:36] When there is hardship coming from outside into our lives that we can do nothing about,
[00:21:43] we are tempted to lash out at the people that are around us, whether it was their fault or not.
[00:21:51] They call this projection or displacement.
[00:21:54] And I think that James is alluding to that.
[00:21:57] He's like, look, church, there's nothing you could do about your economic persecutors,
[00:22:02] but that doesn't give you the right to return fire to your own brothers and sisters in Christ.
[00:22:09] He says, watch out.
[00:22:10] But then he gives a reason why they should watch out when he says,
[00:22:14] because you don't want to be judged, behold, the judge is standing at the door.
[00:22:23] What James is highlighting is he's saying, look, our lives are not our own.
[00:22:28] They belong to someone.
[00:22:30] They belong to the Lord.
[00:22:32] And our lives will undergo some sort of evaluation process by Jesus.
[00:22:42] Look at what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5.
[00:22:46] He said in verse 10,
[00:22:48] we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
[00:22:53] so that each of us, this is he's talking to Christians,
[00:22:57] may receive what is due us for the things done well in the body, whether good or bad.
[00:23:05] Paul was a guy who understood the gospel.
[00:23:07] He communicated it really well over and over again.
[00:23:09] He understood that no one is going to get written in the Lamb's book of life based on their works,
[00:23:15] but that when they are written in the Lamb's book of life, they want to get to work.
[00:23:20] And he says, we will all give a report or an accounting of our lives unto God.
[00:23:27] This shouldn't be like some big, freaky, scary thing for you guys.
[00:23:30] This should be like an extension of what your every day is like in walking with him.
[00:23:37] You know, each morning for me, it's like a, I want to ask the Lord,
[00:23:40] Lord, what do you think about yesterday for Nate Holdridge?
[00:23:46] You know, we, one of the cardinal prayers that we're taught to pray is,
[00:23:51] forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
[00:23:55] Like, it's just kind of like baked into Christianity.
[00:23:58] Like, Lord, I kind of biffed a little bit in this or that yesterday, and I pray that you'd cleanse me.
[00:24:05] I pray that you'd forgive me.
[00:24:06] But I want to hear your voice evaluating my life.
[00:24:10] What are the things that you celebrate, Jesus, about my yesterday?
[00:24:14] What are the things that you look at and you say,
[00:24:16] man, I'm so thankful for the way that you behaved in that area of your life?
[00:24:22] That's what Paul seems to be saying.
[00:24:23] We're all going to go through that final assessment.
[00:24:27] In another place, Paul said it this way.
[00:24:28] 1 Corinthians 3, verse 12 to 15,
[00:24:32] after saying that our lives are built on the foundation of the gospel,
[00:24:36] the work of Jesus Christ, he said,
[00:24:38] anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials,
[00:24:43] gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.
[00:24:46] But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done.
[00:24:53] The fire will show if a person's work has any value.
[00:24:57] If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.
[00:25:02] But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss.
[00:25:06] The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.
[00:25:14] It's like he's saying, look, a day is coming where our lives are assessed.
[00:25:18] And there are certain things we do that are of significance, eternal value.
[00:25:23] Those things will pass through the fire.
[00:25:25] And then all the silly stuff, all the sillinesses of our lives will just be burned away.
[00:25:29] Thank the Lord for that.
[00:25:31] And then he will graciously somehow, I don't understand how all this works,
[00:25:36] reward us for the moments of faithfulness in our lives.
[00:25:41] Now, I tend to believe that this is going to be one of the,
[00:25:45] just because of who I know God to be,
[00:25:48] one of the most grace-filled experiences of our entire eternal existence.
[00:25:56] I don't know if you ever read the book of Hebrews and come to the great hall of faith,
[00:25:59] Hebrews chapter 11.
[00:26:00] And read the stories where they're recounting the great faith of Old Testament characters and heroes.
[00:26:09] Like I alluded to one a couple of weeks ago when I talked about Moses.
[00:26:14] Choosing to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the riches of Pharaoh's household.
[00:26:22] The passing pleasures of sin.
[00:26:24] But maybe some of you, even as I alluded to that last week,
[00:26:28] you're like, wait, hold on a second.
[00:26:29] We studied Exodus and I remember what happened.
[00:26:32] He was like cruising along.
[00:26:34] He killed a dude, buried him in the earth under sand.
[00:26:41] Like, not a genius move.
[00:26:44] And people figured it out and he had to run for his life
[00:26:49] and go out into the backside of the wilderness for four decades.
[00:26:53] And then God called him and he reluctantly went back.
[00:26:59] But then we read about it in the New Testament and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit says things like,
[00:27:05] yeah, that Moses, he chose to suffer with the people of God.
[00:27:12] We're like, man, I read the story.
[00:27:13] It doesn't really look like he chose it.
[00:27:15] It looked like he was kind of out of options.
[00:27:17] I just think it's going to be a very grace-filled moment.
[00:27:22] And like our Lord is going to be looking for any excuse to celebrate even the nominal moments of faithfulness to him.
[00:27:32] Now, I'm not trying to take the edge off of this for you guys in any way.
[00:27:35] But what I'm trying to highlight is that at least when Jesus talked about this moment of his return and giving analysis for our lives,
[00:27:46] yes, there were those who were unfaithful stewards who grieved because they were found unfaithful in their lives.
[00:27:56] But the master or the steward, when he returns, when he comes, he is looking for a way to celebrate those who were faithful with what God entrusted into their care.
[00:28:11] What has God entrusted into your care?
[00:28:14] What talents, to borrow the New Testament terminology, has God entrusted into your care?
[00:28:20] What gifts of the Spirit has God given to you and put into your care?
[00:28:26] What opportunities and open doors has God given to you?
[00:28:29] You're not to sit and daydream about other people's open doors and other people's opportunities.
[00:28:34] But you're to think about your own and to say,
[00:28:37] Lord, I want to be faithful with those opportunities until the day that you return.
[00:28:45] He is going to assess the quality of our lives.
[00:28:50] And so that day is coming and James seems to tell us, get ready, be prepared.
[00:28:56] For that moment.
[00:28:57] The third thing, though, that I want to say is that I think James would also tell us in verse 10 and 11 that we need to get better heroes.
[00:29:06] We need to get better heroes.
[00:29:08] Let's read verse 10 and 11 together.
[00:29:09] He says,
[00:29:17] Okay, what is James doing here?
[00:29:40] You know, he's like, okay, I'm trying to encourage these people to endure, to have patience.
[00:29:46] And he just kind of looks around and he goes, you know, one thing that would be really helpful in that direction is if instead of thinking about and setting your mind and affection on people who have it all right now,
[00:30:02] instead get better heroes and set your mind and affection, put your attention on people like, and then he holds out two categories, the prophets and Job.
[00:30:15] Now, this is like nobody wants to hear this, okay?
[00:30:18] Okay, the prophets, like you might think like, oh yeah, that's amazing.
[00:30:22] I would love to think about the prophets.
[00:30:24] But here's the thing.
[00:30:26] If you were a young man in Israel back in the Old Testament era and you said to your mom,
[00:30:33] I think I want to be a prophet, it'd be very similar to a young person going to their mom today and saying,
[00:30:44] I think I want to be in the elite military special forces.
[00:30:50] There might be pride in the mother's heart, but there'd also be worry and anxiety because the prophets, they went straight into battle.
[00:31:01] Well, Stephen in Acts chapter 7 asked the question to the religious leaders, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
[00:31:13] They killed them all.
[00:31:14] They rejected all of them.
[00:31:15] It wasn't until later that people were like, oh yeah, that was a good prophet.
[00:31:19] Now that he's dead, we really like that guy.
[00:31:21] You know, he was really good.
[00:31:22] I mean, they had a hard life in ministry.
[00:31:26] When Isaiah got his ministry started, God's like, here's what you're going to have to say, Isaiah.
[00:31:31] You're going to have to really confront a lot of sin there in Israel among my people.
[00:31:35] And Isaiah says, how long will I do this?
[00:31:37] And he's like, well, you're going to do it for a really long time, probably be 40 or 60 years, somewhere around there.
[00:31:43] And you're going to do it until everything is destroyed.
[00:31:47] Like they're just not going to listen to you.
[00:31:51] Jeremiah, he launched out into ministry.
[00:31:53] His message, nobody liked it.
[00:31:55] His message was, we're going into exile into Babylon.
[00:31:59] It's going to be for 70 years.
[00:32:01] The terrible, wicked Babylonians are going to win for a while.
[00:32:04] We're going to be in exile.
[00:32:06] All these false prophets rose up and they're like, nope, that's not going to happen.
[00:32:10] The Babylonians are so bad, God is going to judge them, not us.
[00:32:14] In like two years, we're going to be free of them.
[00:32:17] And Jeremiah got thrown in prison.
[00:32:20] He got thrown in dungeons.
[00:32:21] He got thrown down at the bottom of big, fat, muddy pits.
[00:32:25] Like he got forgotten.
[00:32:26] Like he suffered greatly for his work.
[00:32:29] Ezekiel, Ezekiel was like a living manifestation of the sorrow of God's heart because he had had a bride who had betrayed him.
[00:32:41] And Ezekiel just had to like live it out.
[00:32:44] He literally watched his wife die.
[00:32:46] He had to mourn her death as a way of tapping into the mourning that God was experiencing over Israel.
[00:32:57] I mean, they suffered greatly.
[00:33:00] Okay.
[00:33:00] And then there's Job.
[00:33:02] This is the part nobody wants me to get into this morning.
[00:33:05] He's like, remember Job.
[00:33:06] You know, you ever get to that point when you're doing your through the Bible reading and you're like, and then it's Job 1.
[00:33:11] And you're like, oh no, God, is this going to happen to me?
[00:33:14] Please don't.
[00:33:15] You know, like you're just, everybody's terrified.
[00:33:17] If you've ever read the book of Job, you've read a very confusing book of the Bible.
[00:33:21] There's a lot of mystery in there.
[00:33:23] There's a lot of like head scratching what's going on.
[00:33:27] I wonder if what was happening with Job is that Job was keeping the covenant of Yahweh.
[00:33:34] That's what it appears he's doing in Job chapter 1.
[00:33:36] He's faithful.
[00:33:37] And in Deuteronomy, God said, you keep the covenant, you're going to be blessed.
[00:33:43] And Job's like, I'm keeping the covenant and I'm not being blessed.
[00:33:48] What's happening?
[00:33:49] What's going on?
[00:33:51] You know, he's like the exception rather than the rule.
[00:33:54] He's like really going through it.
[00:33:57] But I think that what you have with Job is like Job lived out human history in his own little life.
[00:34:06] A great beginning.
[00:34:08] A really long, terrible middle filled with arguing with God and suffering and all this stuff.
[00:34:15] And then a beautiful end.
[00:34:18] And really that's humanity's story if you believe in Jesus.
[00:34:23] You know, great beginning.
[00:34:24] Go back to Genesis 1 and 2.
[00:34:26] Great beginning.
[00:34:27] Beautiful beginning.
[00:34:29] Really ugly middle filled with lots of arguing with God.
[00:34:33] But if you trust and believe in Jesus, a beautiful, wonderful day is going to arrive when he comes.
[00:34:40] And I wonder if that's what James is highlighting here.
[00:34:44] He's like, look, think about these people.
[00:34:46] Think about these people.
[00:34:48] But again, I think we spend a lot of time not thinking about people like this,
[00:34:53] but thinking about people who seemingly have it all right now.
[00:34:57] And I tell you what, the more you consume stories like that,
[00:35:01] the less stories like the prophets and Job are going to resonate with your heart.
[00:35:05] But I think we would do well to find those who it's not glory now, pain later,
[00:35:13] but willing to endure hardship now because glory is coming in their lives.
[00:35:19] I think if we'd spend a little less time idolizing athletes and actors and influence
[00:35:24] and more time celebrating missionaries and martyrs, people of prayer,
[00:35:30] I think we'd be better equipped to endure this hard world.
[00:35:36] Okay?
[00:35:37] So you just got to get better heroes.
[00:35:39] You got to set your mind on better people.
[00:35:40] One of my favorite TV shows right now is Bluey.
[00:35:46] You guys ever watch Bluey?
[00:35:47] I love Bluey.
[00:35:49] We don't have any little kids in our house, but we still like Bluey.
[00:35:53] And what we do is on Holdridge Family Movie Night,
[00:35:56] we throw on the next episode of Bluey right before the movie.
[00:36:00] It's like the little previews.
[00:36:01] So we watch an episode of Bluey.
[00:36:03] And there's this one episode.
[00:36:05] If you've never seen Bluey, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.
[00:36:09] And you just need to go watch it.
[00:36:12] I guarantee you, you could really learn a lot.
[00:36:15] And it's like a little cartoon about these Queensland healer dogs and the little family.
[00:36:21] And Bluey is this girl dog, and there's this one episode where she's scared to ride a bike.
[00:36:29] And her dad is trying to help her and encourage her, but she won't do it.
[00:36:33] She's just terrified.
[00:36:35] And then her and her dad go to the park, and they just start watching all of Bluey's friends,
[00:36:40] all these other dogs, and they're doing all these brave things at the park.
[00:36:44] And as she's watching them, she gets stirred, and she's like, I got this.
[00:36:50] I'm going to ride my bike.
[00:36:52] And yes, I did just give you a Bluey illustration this morning.
[00:36:56] I mean, James is saying to us, you got this.
[00:36:59] But you're not going to feel that way if you're looking at the wrong people.
[00:37:04] But if you look at people like the prophets and Job and the godly people that God has put in your life,
[00:37:10] if you look at them, that will be a help or an aid to you in being a person of endurance.
[00:37:17] All right, the last thing I want to show you, though, today is the fourth thing that I think James would say.
[00:37:22] And it's this, you need to watch your commitments.
[00:37:27] You need to watch your commitments.
[00:37:29] Where I get this is from verse 12.
[00:37:31] Let's read it again.
[00:37:32] James says,
[00:37:33] But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath,
[00:37:38] but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
[00:37:45] Okay, this, I don't know if this feels this way to you or not.
[00:37:49] But as I'm moving through this text, I get to verse 12 and he's like, but above all.
[00:37:56] And I'm like, okay, here we go.
[00:37:58] This is going to be his final exhortation about having patience and endurance in a difficult era and time.
[00:38:06] What's he going to say?
[00:38:08] And then he throws out this like, yo, don't make commitments by swearing on heaven or earth or any other oath,
[00:38:15] but be a person of your word.
[00:38:17] When you say yes, it means yes.
[00:38:18] When you say no, it means no.
[00:38:22] So that you may not fall under condemnation.
[00:38:24] It just feels a little weird to me.
[00:38:26] You know, like what's he saying?
[00:38:28] Why is he putting that right here in this spot?
[00:38:32] Why is he?
[00:38:32] I don't know.
[00:38:33] I'm asking you guys.
[00:38:34] No, I have an answer.
[00:38:35] I'll throw it out there.
[00:38:39] In the setting that James was in, people were making all kinds of oaths in ways that they could then break those oaths later.
[00:38:50] Jesus knew this as well.
[00:38:51] That's why he, that's why James is basically quoting Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount when he says this kind of thing.
[00:38:57] James and Jesus are not saying don't ever sign a contract.
[00:39:01] Don't ever, you know, pull out a loan.
[00:39:03] He's not saying those kind of things.
[00:39:04] But what he's saying is be a person who you keep, you're a word keeper.
[00:39:10] You keep your word.
[00:39:11] Why would he throw that here?
[00:39:14] Well, I wonder if what James knows is that when pressure is mounting,
[00:39:21] especially the kind of pressure that these people were experiencing, it's pressure from an unbelieving world against the church,
[00:39:30] I think James knows that when that is happening, that's when Christians are tempted to say really dumb things.
[00:39:39] That's when Christians are tempted to fudge their convictions and their beliefs.
[00:39:45] That's when Christians are tempted to wander from the truth and into, as the Bible calls them, myths.
[00:39:53] Because they're so tired of being different that they then go along with the mainstream of thought and culture and society.
[00:40:04] Perhaps James saw how easily times of pressure can induce compromise into the church and was saying,
[00:40:13] if you want to be mature, you have to learn to become patient in a hard world by keeping a close eye on what you agree with.
[00:40:25] Look, I'm all about if we find something in the Bible that disabuses us of notions that we previously held to,
[00:40:33] like we need to go through that process.
[00:40:35] Our minds need to be renewed.
[00:40:38] Not every idea that we bring to church is God's idea.
[00:40:44] But too many people in our modern time have just frankly wandered away from the Lord and wandered away from the truth
[00:40:53] simply because, maybe they've tried to say, I've got some biblical justification for it, I've got some reasons for it.
[00:40:59] But at the end of the day, it's a pressure that they're feeling.
[00:41:04] A pressure from our world and world system.
[00:41:07] And James seems to be saying, no, be a person who, when you know something is true, you stand for that thing that is true.
[00:41:17] Don't buckle to that pressure.
[00:41:19] Don't make a commitment that you should not make.
[00:41:22] I was reading recently a book by Scott McKnight, and the book itself was fine,
[00:41:28] but he used this illustration at one point in his book where he talked about doing ministry over in the UK for a little bit.
[00:41:36] And he said he was talking about driving on the right side of the road, which to us feels like the wrong side of the road, right?
[00:41:43] And he was talking about, he said, you know, I went and we got there, I rented a car,
[00:41:48] the wheel was on the right side instead of the left side, the road we were driving on the right side instead of the left side.
[00:41:54] He said we had like a three-hour trip to get to where we were going, and it was just a long drive.
[00:42:00] It was very simple.
[00:42:01] But he said I was wiped out at the end of that drive because it just took so much concentration not to just do the wrong thing.
[00:42:11] I just couldn't go on autopilot and just get in the left side of the road.
[00:42:15] I had to really focus, and doing something that normally was easy was exhausting for me as a result.
[00:42:24] And I think that is so much what it's like to be a Christian in our modern time and world.
[00:42:29] It's just like, man, constantly I'm having to stay alert, stay awake, stay vigilant,
[00:42:37] lest I believe something, assent to something, agree to something that I shouldn't be agreeing to that is unbiblical.
[00:42:45] But James seems to be saying, I think, watch out for your commitments.
[00:42:52] As we wrap this up today, and I know I took a long time to move through this passage, so thank you for your patience.
[00:42:57] But when I think about this passage, I talked about the prophet Jeremiah a little bit earlier.
[00:43:04] To me, James is like Jeremiah.
[00:43:08] Jeremiah came out, and he said, look, we're going into exile.
[00:43:14] We're going to be doing this for a while.
[00:43:16] And we need to prepare mentally for that time of exile.
[00:43:22] And you guys know, like I have been kind of preaching that message the last few years, if you've been around.
[00:43:27] Like I don't know when the Lord is going to return.
[00:43:30] I used to, and I still feel this way.
[00:43:32] I used to like, when I was a youth pastor, I would like be talking about the coming of the Lord,
[00:43:37] and I'd be like, the Lord could come at any time.
[00:43:39] And then I'd be like, he could come right.
[00:43:41] And I'd smack my pulpit and just freak everybody out.
[00:43:44] And I'd be like, now!
[00:43:45] You know, and I'm like, he didn't, but he could have.
[00:43:48] You know, like I'm still about that.
[00:43:51] It's still how I feel.
[00:43:52] But I look at like a ministry like from Jeremiah saying, we've got to prepare for exile.
[00:44:02] And I think, you know, maybe our exile is like a week from now.
[00:44:07] It's over.
[00:44:08] But I think it's better for us to take the James perspective.
[00:44:13] The Lord, his coming is at hand.
[00:44:16] But I'm going to prepare and live and be strong as if it could be hundreds of years from now.
[00:44:25] Because God is looking for faithful people here on earth to carry out his mission.
[00:44:32] So I love what James said.
[00:44:33] Adjust your expectations.
[00:44:36] Prepare for assessment.
[00:44:38] Get better heroes.
[00:44:39] And watch what you commit to during times of hardship.