Patience

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 117
• Hymn — Praise the Lord, All You Nations (Psalm 117B)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism — Lord's Day 42, Questions 110–111 (Eighth Commandment)
• Hymn — Remember Not, O God (#79B)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — James 5:7-12
• Sermon
• Hymn — He Leadeth Me (#526)
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26

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Sermon Title: The Exercise, Examples, and End of Patience

Scripture: James 5:7-12

I. The Exercise of Patience

A. James intertwines two Greek words for patience: one describing patience toward people (longsuffering) and one describing patience toward circumstances

1. Our circumstances in life directly impact how we treat those around us
2. Lack of patience with people often has little to do with the people themselves — it stems from frustrating circumstances

B. The command not to grumble — James 5:9

1. Grumbling means complaining strongly against or about another person
2. A grumbling spirit flows from a lack of patience; being quickly annoyed is a sign of impatience

C. The body of Christ as a framework for patience — 1 Corinthians 12

1. The church contains a wide array of personalities, gifts, and quirks
2. We are most prone to impatience with those least like us
3. Christ the Head, though altogether pure and righteous, looks down on sinful, foolish people and is patient and longsuffering — even to the point of the cross (Luke 23:34)
4. Remembering the patience of the Head gives us patience as awkward members of the body with one another

D. Patience is ultimately a dying to self

1. Impatience is a manifestation of selfish living — demanding what we want when we want it
2. Practicing patience amid disappointment is picking up the cross daily
3. Living patiently in every social sphere God has providentially placed us in is a form of suffering for Christ

II. The Examples of Patience

A. Job — James 5:11

1. Job endured immense suffering, compounded by friends who blamed him for his trials
2. Job's foot nearly slipped, as the psalmist describes in Psalm 73 — he complained and struggled
3. Yet Job never cursed the Lord; his words were always directed upward to God
4. In the end he received back a double portion of all that was lost
5. Job is not a picture of polished, easy patience — he is a real example of clinging to God through suffering

B. The Old Testament Prophets — James 5:10

1. The prophets were covenant prosecutors sent to a stiff-necked people who did not want to hear the word of judgment
2. God commissioned men like Isaiah and Jeremiah to keep speaking even when the people would not listen
3. Jesus summarizes their suffering in Matthew 23:34 — Jerusalem killed the prophets and stoned those sent to it
4. Jesus Christ, the last and greatest Prophet, met the suffering of all the prophets at the cross; their sufferings were a type and shadow of his

C. Verse 12 and the integrity of speech — James 5:12

1. Connects to verse 10: the prophets spoke in the name of the Lord, not in the name of heaven or earth
2. Jesus addresses the same problem of oath-taking in Matthew 5:34-37 — James's audience is predominantly Jewish and he likely borrows from Jesus's teaching
3. Swearing by lesser things to avoid obligation is bearing false witness and falls under the Lord's condemnation
4. The prophets spoke boldly and plainly — yes and no — without evasion, and endured the suffering that honest speech brought
5. We are tempted to give vague, non-committal answers to avoid suffering; faithfulness to the word requires patient endurance of the consequences of honest speech

D. The prophets' patience with the word

1. Many prophets never saw the fruit of their labors
2. Jesus affirms this in Matthew 13:17 — prophets and righteous people longed to see and hear what the disciples saw and heard
3. Paul's charge to Timothy: preach the word in season and out of season — even in spiritual drought and wilderness
4. All will come to fruition at the coming of Christ; the prophets now see, as part of the great cloud of witnesses, the full effect of the word placed in their mouths

III. The End of Patience

A. The coming of the Lord is the explicit goal of Christian patience — James 5:7-9

1. "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord" (v. 7)
2. "Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand" (v. 8)
3. "The judge is standing at the door" (v. 9)

B. Christian patience is distinct from mere natural or philosophical patience

1. Unbelievers can practice impressive patience, but it is aimed at self-improvement or being a better member of society
2. Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato extolled patience as a virtue — but only as a means to human flourishing
3. Christian patience is an age-to-come disposition; it is shaped not by this passing age and its ticking clock, but by longing for the fullness of Christ to come
4. It is a patience that lives in anticipation of when there will be no more need of the sun because Christ the Light will be the only light needed

C. The farmer illustration — James 5:7

1. The farmer waits patiently for the early and later rains to bring the precious fruit of the earth
2. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 likens the end of the age to a resurrection harvest
3. Christ is the firstfruits of that harvest — the early rains have already come in his resurrection; all who belong to him will be raised when he comes again

D. The sign of life: the olive leaf — Genesis 8:11

1. Noah sent out the dove; it returned with an olive leaf — a sign that the waters had subsided — and Noah waited with patience
2. We are now over 2,000 years from when James wrote, and Christ has not yet returned; death still appears to reign to the naked eye
3. But God has given us a sign of eternal life — the firstfruits of the harvest in Jesus Christ raised from the dead
4. Like Noah, we can wait with patience because the sign of life has been given to us in Christ, and new heavens and new earth are around the corner