Sermon Tone Analysis

James 5:7-12

 

! Introduction

            As an 18 or 19 year old man, my Uncle Gerhard finished military service in the German army after the second world war.

He had come to Germany out of Russia as a young man, just old enough to be drafted and served in the army for several years.

He was pretty sure his mother and siblings were in the western part of Germany, but he hoped his father was still alive somewhere in Russia and so when the opportunity came to go back to Russia, he took it, hoping to find his father once again.

He did not find his father, but was now stuck in Russia.

From 1946 and until today,  he has lived as a Christian in Soviet Russia.

He worked in the coal mines but his desire was to build a church.

He was involved in the underground church and also in a camp ministry in which they would take children into the bush and teach them the Bible.

Especially the 40 years from 1946 - 1987 were difficult years - years of poverty, years of hiding faith and living under the constant threat of persecution.

Even after things opened up in Russia, it remained difficult.

How would you like to live for 40 years and more in poverty and under the constant threat of arrest and persecution?

Many in our world live under similar and even worse conditions.

I really admired Helen.

Her husband had had a stroke when he was about 60 years old and for many years he could not speak or use his arm.

He remained in this condition for a long time.

At times he became angry and because he could not express himself, he became violent.

Yet through all these difficult years, she stuck with him.

She cared for him, provided for him and loved him.

When she could no longer look after him, they moved him moved into the person care home and she went to visit him almost every day until he died.

For about 15 years her life was focused around looking after him and then she experienced the sorrow of bereavement.

How would you like to live with the effects of an illness that does not go away?

He confessed to the church elders on his death bed, something that he and I had talked about many other times.

Although he loved the Lord and grew in the Lord and sought him, he could not shake the temptation to smoke.

He felt so guilty about it and it was a real chain around his neck.

We had prayed about it and sincerely tried to quit, but the temptation dogged his steps most of his life.

He lived with an unrelenting temptation.

He was a leader of the church and a respected man.

Everyone liked him and he cared deeply about the church.

For 50 or 60 years, he had prayed for the church, preached in many places, ministered to people in their need and taught the foundational truths of God.

Near the end of his life, he had a more difficult time physically and spent most of the rest of his time at home.

One day when I visited him, he confessed to me that he was being tempted by doubts.

It surprised me that this giant of faith would have such questions at the end of his life.

I always thought that as a person got older, they would become stronger spiritually.

He remained faithful, but the battle was not over until the very end.

Living the Christian life is wonderful.

We experience great blessings from God.

He saves us, forgives us, gives us the promise of eternal life and the assurance of abundant life as we abide in Jesus.

These things are all true and we are people who have great blessings and joy in our relationship with God, but there is another reality and that is that sometimes life is hard and sometimes we have to live with things that don’t seem to fit with the joy and victory of the Christian life.

Sometimes we teach Christianity as accepting Jesus and then everything will be OK, but often it is not OK.

Christianity is not about a long slow ride down a lazy river in a raft on a bright sunny afternoon.

It is a battle, it is something which takes perseverance and endurance.

Often, we need to be patient as we wait for things to change.

As we have studied James, we have been confronted by many challenges in our walk with Christ.

We have been challenged not to show favourites, to walk by faith in obedience, to watch our tongue, to trust God and to submit our time and our money to him.

Each of these is highly challenging.

As James comes to the end of the letter, he stops shouting and speaks with gentleness and gives a pastoral word of encouragement.

He calls us in the struggles of life to be patient as we wait for the Lord’s coming.

When we take children on a trip, one of the questions they ask is, “are we there yet?”

We ask the same question about life and the truth is that even though we wish that we could get there instantly, we can’t and so we will have to learn to endure the trip.

!

I. What Helps Us Endure

What helps us to be able to endure the trip?

!! A. Anticipated Outcome

            My mother used to live in Phoenix, Arizona.

On several occasions, we have driven down to visit her.

With a family of five, we could not afford to fly down and because we tried to squeeze the visit into time when the kids were off school, we felt that there was only one way to do it and that was to drive down in one shot.

It took us 32 hours.

That is a long drive, especially through the night when you really want to sleep.

We drove straight through, stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks.

We even had some of our meals in the vehicle while driving.

What allowed us to endure this marathon?

We were able to do it because we were so excited about seeing grandma and spending time in a warm climate and enjoying her pool.

The anticipated end made it possible to endure the trip.

James says in verse 7, “Be patient, then brothers, until the coming of the Lord.”

The hope of the Lord’s coming is the event that allows us to look through the challenges and difficulties and know that something so great and wonderful is coming that no matter what happens in life, it will be worth it.

We have a glimpse of some of what we are hoping for in Revelation.

The promise of tears wiped away, no more crying, no more pain or sorrow, the promise of trees that bear fruit every month of the year and a river in the middle of a perfect city all point to the hope that is ours.

We can look forward to life without the threat of death, the lion playing with the lamb, and above all, the presence of God.

We can anticipate the time when God will judge the wicked and all evil will be put out of the way.

This hope allows us to find courage to endure and be patient no matter what the difficulties we are going through today.

When it becomes too much, just think about what is coming and so be encouraged to be patient.

In verse 8 he says, “the Lord’s coming is near.”

The phrase “is near” helps us think about it as a real possibility.

If it is too remote, it isn’t real for us.

To know that at all times, the Lord’s coming is near helps us think of it as real.

Sometimes we do not see it as near and we need to be reminded.

When we see his coming as a near possibility, then it is a living hope.

Whether it be physical illness, persecution, temptation or trials of any kind, we are encouraged to be patient and endure because of our hope.

“In a recent visit to the Zairian church in Africa, some missions personnel were overwhelmed by the joyful expectation of the Lord’s return in this suffering church.

Heaven is very much on their mind.

Suffering is made tolerable by the promise of eternal bliss.”

Kopp.

!! B. The Goodness of the Lord

            But encouragement to endurance is not only motivated by a distant future.

It is also encouraged by the God who is with us in our endurance.

James points to the perseverance of Job in verse 11.

What James emphasizes about the story of Job is expressed by the phrase, “what the Lord finally brought about.”

Job experienced a lengthy time of physical, emotional, spiritual and relational suffering in which he lost everything of value to him - all his possessions, all his livestock, all his children, his health and in a sense, even his wife.

At the end of the story, God revealed himself and Job learned the important lesson that God is the one who has all power and authority and that we need to trust that He knows what he is doing.

Then, after everything has been set straight by this amazing word from God and we think that we have come to a conclusion in the book, an amazing thing happens.

Everything Job had is given to him again - in double measure.

His wealth and livestock are restored.

He has children and by implication his wife is also restored.

Since the lesson of the appearance of God in power seems to make this kind of a conclusion unnecessary, we wonder why it is included.

Some have taught that it shows that if we remain true to God, he will always give us what we want.

That conclusion cheapens the power of the lesson of Job.

A much more important lesson is to understand that the restoration that takes place is given to show that God is good, that God can be relied on to do what is good.

God doesn’t play with his people, he leads them in order to bring good to them.

That is the conclusion which James comes to in verse 11 when he says, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”

Sometimes life seems completely out of control.