How to Wait Patiently

James  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  25:15
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As we wait for the return of Christ, allow our whole lives to be transformed into his likeness, and do so with a posture of prayer

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Wedding Day

On this day 15 years ago, I was nearing the end of the most anticipated countdown of my entire life. The countdown was at three days… and the anticipated event was… my wedding day!
Now there is something very special about the period of a couples engagement, particularly for couples that wait until that day before they move in together and become united physically together.
We were 3 days before Fiona and I were married. By three days out, most of the preparations had been made. We were on the final straight for this momentous occasion. Admittedly, Fiona had put in the lion share of the smaller details
You see, there is a lot of preparation for the wedding. Some of that preparation involves the ceremony and the subsequent party at the reception, and three days out for us, thankfully I can say that things were all but done - of course, that’s mostly thanks to Fiona.
But what I think is easy to gloss over is that the preparation for the ceremony and the reception, in many ways is the easy part, although in the stress of making all the decisions it might not seem like it at the time.
The bigger part of the preparation is actually working on the relationship.
You see, you have two individuals who have their own ways of doing things. They have their own set of habits. In addition to all the family baggage that they bring.
When a couple first start dating - these differences are easy to ignore. You can just enjoy being with each other for who you are.
But when that question is asked and an agreement is made to get married - we now have a commitment. And if we want it to work, the couple now have to move from the point of just being happy together, to actually being united together.
You have to learn compromise. You have to learn how to really speak to one another and listen to what they are actually saying, not just what you think they are saying.
You learn how to deal with the bad habits, and perhaps the big one - learning how to fit into their family and all the traditions and expectations that they might have.
Sometimes this preparation is really difficult, but you know what - it is actually a really beautiful thing as well.
And so, by the time the bride walks down the aisle on the big day, the big preparation is not just in the dress and flowers - although the beauty of this is important - but in the preparation of these two lives that are about to come together.

The Bride in

Now, I want to use this imagery of a bride preparing ourselves for her groom as we conclude our series in James. While James isn’t using this imagery, the analogy I’m using is not foreign to the Bible.
In fact, we see the imagery used a few times, perhaps most famously in . This chapter essentially begins the conclusion of the entire bible, and essentially describes the church as the bride, who is now ready to be wedded to Christ as the groom.
I love this image we can imagine ourselves, on the day we made a commitment to Christ, we joined this body which is preparing itself for a wedding.
We are essentially in the engagement period. In the engagement, the commitment is there, but the final consummation has not occurred.

Prep in

Well, coming back to , while he doesn’t use the image of a wedding, he does however describe well for us what it means to prepare ourselves for this great day.
We see James bringing this into mind when he starts in verse 7 by saying: “be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming”.
You see, he is talking about this expectation that the Christian has of something amazing that is going to happen - the return of Christ.
But what James wants to make clear is that this expectation is not something that we just sit back and wait for.
You know sometimes we have events that we really look forward to but require no preparation - like a concert or a sporting event. There’s anticipation, but no involvement. You just turn up at the end. But as James describes the patient waiting that we must do, we’ll see that it is not just a passive waiting, but one where we are being transformed.

Context of James

This is a fitting conclusion for the letter. You see, the entire letter has been pushing us to think about the practical outworking of our faith. It is super clear that faith is not just a theoretical thing that we gain, but something that will have a real effect on our life.
But James sees an end goal to all this. We are not just meandering along in some aimless way, rather we are getting to the point of the return of Christ.

Waiting for the crops

Now I’m going to use the image of a bride and her groom, but James actually starts with a different picture in mind. He gives us the picture of a farmer waiting for his crops to yield a harvest.
This image helps us to see how it isn’t just a passive waiting, but one where the farmer is deeply embedded in the process.
But you see, while the farmer prepares the crop, there is also a sense in which he can’t speed up the process. Rather he has to wait till the right season comes.
And so we can see the two sides to this. On one level he is deeply involved. And on the other, he does just have to wait.
In the same way, we can see the two sides to our waiting for the return of Christ. On one level, we do just wait, but on the other, we need to be doing all we can to prepare ourselves for that day.
In verse 8, James gives us the two parts clearly.
He says: “You too, be patient [that’s the first part] and stand firm [the second]”.

Being careful with our words

So let’s look then as James fleshes this out for us.
Well, in this first section he draws us back to a theme he took us on early, namely the tongue. You might recall back at the start of chapter 3 he elaborated on the damage that the tongue can cause. Well, now in verses 9 and again in verse 12, he talks about the ways in which our tongues can get us into trouble.

Grumbling

Firstly, in verse 9 he talks about grumbling.
Now I think this is perhaps something we are all guilty of - I know I am. It is also something we can think of as unimportant.
You see, what does it matter if we grumble.
Well, you see, the problem is that it isn’t just grumbling. Our grumblings put a division between us. The reason you grumble is because you think someone hasn’t done the right thing. Essentially you’re becoming judge.
This is the exact opposite way of how we should be preparing ourselves for the return of Christ. When Christ comes, it is a unified bride that is presented to him. This is not the uniting of Jesus with countless different groups - but with the New Jerusalem (to use the language of ). That is, his beloved church.

Yes and no’s

In verse 12, he talks about simply letting your yes be yes and your no… no.
You see, one of the problems that the tongue can cause is that we can over complicate things. We can use our tongue to create loop holes with a heaps of caveats.
But as we present ourselves before Christ, he doesn’t want to hear a long justification of why we did this that or the other thing. He can see through our words. He wants action.
You know, we can become very good at bargaining, and we can take these skills to God. But he wants simple commitment. Just like the bride and groom aren’t going to be happy with some fancy justification for not being faithful.

Peseverance

You see, while James here gives us further practical examples of how to make ourselves prepared for Christ, the bottom line is that we need to persevere.
You see, while this process can at times be a beautiful thing - it can also be tough.
This is why I think the analogy of a relationship is useful. For anyone who has been in a long term relationship you will know that while there are great joys, there are also some really tough times. But it is through these tough times that we actually become better people.
In verse 11, James gives us the example of Job. He went through some of the toughest times imaginable, and yet with God’s help he persevered and in the end, he saw something truly amazing.

Prayer

Now, while James calls us to persevere, there is another aspect to our preparation which is so very important - prayer!

The young couple

I mentioned before that for the couple about to get married, one of the important skills they need to learn is to communicate with each other.
Now, on on level that seems so basic. And for the young couple that is smitten with each other, they can be forgiven for thinking that they already communicate well.
You see, they’ve probably spent countless hours talking with each other on the phone. Probably many hours staying up late where they just talk. Maybe even many long walks where they’ve talked to whole way.
But talking with each other doesn’t necessarily mean they are communicating well.
You see, for a coupe to have good communication, they have to be prepared, first, to actually say what they want… to tell them what’s on their heart. And second, for the other to actually listen. Not just hear the words and assume what they mean, but reflecting back so you know you’re on the same page.
When communication happens well, something beautiful happens as a result. The couple move onto the same page. They begin to understand each other and will be able to make allowances for the other because they understand.
Now, no couple I know, my marriage included, does this perfectly. But good communication is one of the key planks to a good marriage.

Understanding prayer

So what does this have to do with prayer? Well, prayer is our main form of communication with God.
Now communication with God is not exactly the same as communicating with our spouse. After all, God is omniscient, and we are not. But that being said, there are some aspects of how we communicate with our spouse that does apply.
You see, as we pray, something mysterious happens. Our will begins to line up with God’s. As this begins to happen, some of the most extraordinary things begin to happen, and that is exactly what James shows us here.

At all times

Firstly, though, in verse 13, he reminds that prayer is for both the troubling times and the happy times.
That’s also good advice for any young couple getting married. Communication is just as important when things are going badly as it is when things are going well.
No matter what is happening in your life right now, you should be taking it to God in prayer. The main reason is actually not just so you can see things happen, such as in the example that James is about to come to, but because through our prayers we are anticipating the union that we are moving towards with Jesus.

Elders praying for sick

Now starting in verse 14, James gives us a specific example of how prayer should work in a church situation.
Quite simply, he brings the ill amongst us to our attention, then says that the elders of the church should pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
And then goes on to say in verse 15 that the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.
Now before I just dig in a little bit to this idea, I just want to highlight the beautiful thing that is going on here.
You see, through prayer we are seeing restoration, and that restoration involves our physical bodies.
You know, sometimes as Christians we can become so preoccupied with our souls that we almost get to the point that we think our physical bodies don’t matter. This however is not the idea you get when you look at scriptures.
I believe that we get these miracles both in the Bible and in present day of the sick becoming well as a reminder of what God has in store for us. Certainly during this age, these restorations are essentially only ever temporary. After all, all of the people that Jesus miraculously healed, including raising from death to life, have gone on and died again.
But in it, we get a foretaste of what is to come. It is God showing us that he has the power to raise people up, so we can know that on the last day, he is able to do what he says he will.

Normative experience

Now I just want to dig just a little into this little section because there is a lot in it, and there are different ways in which we can tackle it.
You see, I would suggest that James is not giving a prescription of exactly how things should go, rather giving a normative experience of what you might expect in a church.
What I mean by that is that you don’t necessarily have to have an elder anointing the sick person with oil every time, but at times this can be a powerful way in which to convey the power of what is happening.
You see, the oil doesn’t have any power in and of itself. Rather it is what the oil represents that conveys this power.

Those who don’t get well

But while we’re exploring this, it’s worth considering the times in which people don’t get better. You see, while I’m have seen God work in miraculous ways on many occasions following prayer, I’ve also seen a large number of times when godly people have prayed and the person did not get better.
Now we could point to a number of reasons.
Perhaps there was insufficient faith. Or we could look at the end of verse 15 and suggest that there might have been unforgiven sin. Or maybe by looking at verse 16, the person offering the prayers was not sufficiently righteous.
Now I’ll briefly discuss the matter of sin in a moment, but I’m going to suggest that often, the reason a person is not healed is actually because it was not part of God’s plan.
But this is where I want to bring us back to idea I had before - that idea that a mysterious thing happens when we pray or communicate. There becomes this mysterious alignment between our will and God’s.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective largely for the reason that the righteous person has a very close relationship with God. His or her will, has a greater alignment with God. This is not just for the spiritual elite. It’s for anyone who is willing to work at their relationship with God. It’s for anyone who is allowing their lives to be prepared for the union with Christ.

Link with sin

Now I briefly want to touch on the fact that James brings the forgiveness of sin into this discussion in verses 15 and 16. And so, it is natural to ask if there is a direct link between the illness a person might be enduring, and their sin.
This is particularly relevant at the moment with the recent controversy with Israel Folau’s comments about the recent fires being caused by sinfulness.
Now, we have to be careful when we have this discussion because we can easily over state or under state the case. You see, I’m going to argue that there is a general link between sin and suffering. That is, there is suffering in the world because sin is in the world. I believe this is a core biblical principle.
However, that being said, we should always be careful in ever linking a particular incident of suffering and a particular sin. This caution comes from Jesus himself. On a number of occasions he was asked about the sin of the person who was suffering, and he always pointed us into a different way of looking at it.
Now, if we look closely at James’ words, you might notice that he actually doesn’t suggest it is the sin causing the illness. But we then need to ask, why does he add it?
Well, I’m going to suggest that he brings it into the discussion because James is actually considering wholeness.
What is in picture for James is our whole being. And our whole being includes both our physical body and our spiritual side. They are not two separate things but are deeply connected. You see there is a deep link between our spiritual well being and our physical.
We saw this a number of times when Jesus performed miracles. He forgave their sin, then physically healed them. We need to begin to understand that our bodies actually matter.

Elijah

And this is the wonderful thing about prayer. As we communicate with God, we begin to understand this deep link between God and all of his creation.
In verse 17, James then gives us the example of Elijah. He was a man who was deeply connected with God, and incidentally, he was also one of the few people that actually didn’t die in the usual sense, but was taken up to be with God.
Interestingly, as James introduces him, he actually begins by noting how much he was just like you and me. He says that he was a human being, just as we are.
But he prayed. The interesting thing about when it say in the NIV that he prayed earnestly, that word translated earnestly is actually just the word prayer again. So it could be translated, “with prayer, he prayed...”
You see, when Elijah prayed for it to stop raining it did. When he prayed for it to rain again, it did.
Certainly there are a lot of people who wish that someone like Elijah would do that again now. But what you need to understand that it wasn’t so much that Elijah had access to this magic tap, but that with his deep connection with God, he knew when the right time was.
Now
For us today, certainly we need to pray, and that prayer is effective, but we need to see how this fits in with God’s bigger plan. As we pray, we can start to understand this better.

Bring the stray back

Well, I want to bring this back to the central point again - and that is that James wants to make us ready for the return of Christ.
We’ve seen firstly James’ call for us to persevere. We’ve then seen his call for us to be people of prayer - and that it is through prayer that we will see the connection we need to be united with Christ.
Well, to round this discussion out, he talks about those who have wandered from the truth. You see, it is really clear in James that he does not see this journey as something we do alone. We are not the bride of Christ alone, but as the church we find this identity.
We need to look out for those who belong to God’s church but our no longer in fellowship. We need to bring them back in. It is as this body comes together that we will see Christ return.

Conclusion

The return of Christ truly will be the most amazing thing ever. But while we eagerly wait for this day, we need to see this time we have now as important preparation to become the beautiful bride of Christ.
Just like an earthly couple getting married need to work at their relationship in the lead up to the wedding, so to do we need to be careful in the way we prepare ourselves for Christ.
We need to be careful of our tongue. Be people of prayer. And be people that look out for one another.
It is as we do this that we will see something truly amazing happen, even as we suffer in this world.
So let me pray...
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