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Good morning.
Glad that you guys are here with us today.
If you've got your Bibles, going to open them up to James chapter 5.
In just a moment, we'll start reading in verse 7.
As you turn there, I want to remind everybody, shared this last week, but on Sunday, December
the 4th, we're going to have missions Sunday here at Willow Ridge Church, Sunday morning
and Sunday evening activities built around looking at what God is doing all over the world
and how each one of us have a role and a part to play in that.
I'm very excited.
We've got a dear friend of mine who's going to be here to speak with us, to teach from
God's Word, to preach on Sunday morning, to open up God's Word, to look at what it says
on an individual basis for all of us of what it looks like to go and to be who God is calling
us to be.
He's not a pastor.
He's a missionary who came out of the regular, everyday work life that so many of you know
well and felt the Lord was calling him in a greater way to go and make disciples.
And so he took a step of faith, him and his family, to do that.
And now what the Lord is doing in their ministry in some of the most difficult areas, hard to
reach places all across the world, they're using some neat ways to bring the gospel.
And he's going to be talking about a lot of that with us and teaching all of us what it
means to follow the Lord.
So I want to encourage you, that morning we will have regular worship.
He's going to open up, he's going to preach.
And then Sunday night at 5 o'clock, I want to invite everyone to come back and he's going
to dive more into what his ministry looks like, where they minister, how they minister,
all of those things.
This is for all of us at Willow Ridge Church.
So what we're going to have that evening at 5 o'clock, we'll have the nursery open.
Other than the nursery, we're going to bring everybody in here into the auditorium so that
we can talk about and all learn together of what this looks like to be on mission.
So he'll get up and talk about his ministry and then we will break for just a moment, kind
of have an ice cream social.
And so actually at that time, we'll let parents go get their kids out of the nursery so that
they can get messy with ice cream.
And then we'll gather back in here for some Q&A time to give you guys opportunities to ask
him questions about his ministry and what God's doing.
Now, I'm being very vague, I haven't said his name, I haven't said what he does, I haven't
said the name of his organization, I haven't said the places that they go, and that's all
intentional.
We will not share any of that publicly.
That Sunday morning, the baptism part of the service, because we're going to have some
baptisms that morning, and the worship part of the service will be live streamed.
But once that happens, before he comes up on stage, we're going to cut the live feed.
We won't post anything on social media, and nothing will be posted that night as well for
his safety, for his team safety, as he goes into literally, and as he shares the gospel
with literally some of the most difficult and dangerous places and people across the world.
But he does it for the hope of the gospel.
So I want to encourage you to be here that night, that day, that evening, to be a part of
that.
A few months ago, he sent me a copy, he just finished a book, and he wrote a book under
a different name, other than his name that he was given by his parents, and he's talked
about all of the stories, he's going to have that available.
He just sent me a copy of his Bible study that accompanies it, and I've been reading through
that this week, and it's exciting, and can't wait for us to all have the opportunity to be
a part and to see what God's doing.
So please mark that on your calendars, you're going to want to be here Sunday, December 4th
for the morning, and then back at 5 o'clock that evening.
Well, the last, we're in the last two weeks of James, so this week and next week, we're
going to wrap this up together, and I kind of feel like these next two messages are really
kind of a go into one, and if we had a whole lot of times, like if we had like an hour and
a half of just me, like we could walk through that and do that together, but I'm not going
to do that to y'all, right, because my stomach's already talking to me as well, and I know yours
probably is, so we're going to break it up over the next two weeks.
But as I read through this section of James, I kind of had this thought as I'm reading
through, of going, it feels like a little bit in these last sections of James that we're
going to look at, what James is saying is, hey, hey, one last thing, one last thing, one
last thing, and it looks, if you read it, it looks like these are isolated statements that
don't fit, but they do.
That James is writing to his audience, and there's so many things as he's being guided
and led by the Holy Spirit under inspiration to write God's Word, and he's kind of pressing
into, hey, one last thing, one last thing, one last thing, and it doesn't mean that they're
not important.
In fact, the exact opposite.
It means that they have great levels of importance.
Now, over the last couple of years, Aaron and I are kind of stepping into that new phase
of parenting where it's like, hey, guys, we're going to leave you home alone for Emma and
Grayson.
And it may be for us to go to the grocery store, it may be for us to go out to dinner
together, it may be to go over to some friend's house for us, but it never fails.
It feels like every time that we go out, it's like, hey, and don't forget, feed the dogs.
Hey, hey, and don't forget, no one can come over.
Hey, hey, don't forget, don't burn the house down, right?
Like, and all of those things are important.
It's not that they don't have value, it's the opposite of that.
It's that they have value, and literally, as we're walking out the door, it's like, hey,
one last thing, one last thing, one last thing.
So our tendency sometimes as we read these letters in the New Testament to get to the
end and see, and Paul does this, and Peter does this as well, is that when we get down
to the end, it feels like they're throwing like these darts that aren't as fully unpacked
as some things previously were, but it doesn't mean that they're less important.
In fact, it means they have great importance, and we maybe kind of need to slow down a little
bit.
So what we're going to do is, James is writing through this, and he's now, these are commands,
but I would call them more commands of encouragement.
And so what he's reminding these people that are reading this is who they need to be.
So this week, we're going to look at being people of patience, but then next week, here's
the points already, we're going to look at being people of truth, being people of faithful
prayer, and being people of love as we conclude the book of James.
So let's read James 5, verses 7 through 11.
He writes, it says,
Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
As an example of suffering and patient, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the
Lord.
Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.
You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how
the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
So like I said, we're going to talk about this morning, for all of us, being people of patience.
All right?
So let's go ahead and all get on equal footing together this morning.
It is hard to be patient.
Amen?
Anybody else there with me?
How many of you, y'all know I like to do this, and it may drive you crazy, but I like to do it.
All right?
Raise your hand if you think you're an impatient person.
Raise your hand.
I've got mine up.
I've got, let's see, I just want to kind of look around.
Look around.
Now, I see spouses looking at one another and nudging, and that's not what we're about.
All right?
That's for the car ride home, not for here.
It's uncomfortable for us when you do that.
All right?
All right, you put your hands down.
It is hard to be patient.
But it's even more hard to be patient in certain situations than it is other situations.
Right?
And I thought about this this week, that different situations require different levels of patience.
I even wrote, like, different climates of patience in my notes this week as I thought through this.
Like, some situations require, oh, that's going to be easy to be patient there.
I just need to do this, X, Y, Z.
Other errors, like, no, no, no, no.
This is going to be way more difficult.
And so I don't even know what X, Y, and Z are.
All right, I've just got to, like, suck it up and get through this.
So I thought of some illustrations for us, right?
All right.
So let's all journey back to being a kid, right?
We love being a kid.
Being a kid before there was technology.
Y'all remember that?
Yeah, I saw somebody with an Etch-A-Sketch yesterday.
It's like the original tablet.
All right?
So being a kid, I remember back to, for me, it was so hard to be patient for Christmas morning.
Right?
It was tough.
I was that kid.
I averaged about two hours of sleep.
I woke my parents up at 2 a.m.
I still wake my kids up before 4.
All right?
I'm just that way, right?
But it's hard to be patient when you know and you're excited about what's going to be taking place.
So from now until, from the day they write that letter, they give their Christmas list, they've got it all.
Like, it's restrained.
It's what patience looks like.
It's restrained excitement, right?
For Christmas morning.
And it's just trying to measure that and measure that and measure that, right?
So that's one climate.
That's one type of patient versus being at a doctor's office, right?
Now, again, that's why I said without technology.
I was thinking about this the other day when I had to take one of my kids to the doctor, and I've never understood this.
Like, you wait in the waiting room.
And I know we've got people that work in doctor's offices.
And please, like, answer my question about this later because I'm curious, right?
Like, we're going to wait in the doctor's, in the waiting room so that we can then wait more, right?
Now, for you who are growing up and you've never not had technology, here's what that looked like growing up.
In the big waiting room, you had Sports Illustrated for kids.
So you'd get that magazine from three years before, and you could flip through it, right?
And that was great because you had that option.
Then you'd go into the next room where you would wait, and there was, like, your mom's glamour magazine, right?
And that was it.
Good housekeeping, right?
Like, who would want to read about that?
That was all.
And so you had to wait.
And so you would have go from out there of, like, well, I've at least got this magazine that I can look at
to moving into the doctor's office, and what's filled with there is boredom as I wait, right?
Or, or even today, right, anxiety.
As we wonder about what's going to happen, as we wonder, a lot of kids, a lot of adults, right, are afraid of the doctor.
So we get different levels of what it means to be patient.
Be patient for Christmas.
Be patient for the doctor.
Adults, we're still like this, right?
Try to look at maybe some more of that kind of hit more to the heart of what it means to work through this world as an adult and be patient, right?
Like, being patient with a child, with your child, regardless of their age, whether they're 3 or 43,
to turn from their foolish decisions to the decisions that God has for them.
Be patient for that.
You're raising, you're teaching, you're instructing, but at some point in time, I got to release and let you make the decisions and make the mistakes and learn from them.
And as parents, right, like, that's a hard, patient process to go through.
Another one, and you hear this oftentimes, is people, and they're in the job that they're in, and they're miserable, but they don't know what they're to do.
They don't know if God has them there or not there, and they've got people calling them.
They're seeing things where they can go make more money at a different location, at a different office, at a different school, right?
But is the grass truly always greener on the other side?
And so I'm going to be patient and endure and not jump at the first thing that comes my way.
You see, so there's different areas in our life and different situations that cause us to view patience in a different aspect.
And the Bible is very clear as we look at this concerning patience.
I'm going to just read a few of these that I just grabbed this morning.
They're not going to be on the screen, but the Bible sets patience as an important thing for God's people.
Romans 12, 12, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Romans 8, 25, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Ephesians 4, 2, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bear with one another in love.
Psalm 37, 7, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
Philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to the Lord.
1 Corinthians 13, 4, love is patient and kind.
It continues on, Isaiah 40, 31, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
And we could fill up the rest of this message by me rolling through my phone and reading verse after verse after verse from God's word where the command at its core is be patient.
So it's a command.
And when you and I look at our lives and we see the levels of patience that we struggle with, right, we got to acknowledge that it's the sin that's there.
And so James in this kind of recognizes that there's some different times and different areas that are going to require this different level of patience, but it's still going to be from the Lord.
And so with what we just read, four times he uses the word or the form of the word patient.
In the four verses we read, one time he uses the word wait, and two times he uses the word steadfast or steadfastness, which is what we see as a person waits through the situation that's there.
So it's pretty clear that James isn't suggesting this as a good practice, but instead God's word commands that we be people of patience, that this is who we are.
And that patience actually is the display of the gospel, that patience is revelation of our heart in who we are in Christ.
And so what James does is he gives us five different situations where he commands and encourages us to grow within us through the dependence of the Holy Spirit, patience.
Because for those of us who struggle, myself included, raise my hand, right?
Patience is a mark of maturity in the Christian life that most of us laugh at and chalk it up, it's no big deal, and we don't pursue.
What James gives us and what God's word continually gives us is, as we read about patience, though, it's different than a sit down and wait patience.
Now, yes, there are times where it says, be still and know that I am God, right?
That's what God's word said.
Command after command after command to be still.
And while that is a positioning of the body with what that is, is an exercise of the mind, of knowing who the Lord is.
And so what we find is that so many of us view patience as having to sit at the doctor's office with a dead cell phone with no magazines to read and nothing to do,
and just going, I've got to endure, I've got to endure, I've got to endure, but instead there's an activity that patience requires us for us to see and for us to do as we display the gospel.
So let's look at these five things that we see here in these verses in James.
Number one, being patient in suffering.
We're called to be patient in suffering.
Look at verse 7a.
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
This is what James begins with.
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
Now, at this time when James wrote this and when most of the New Testament was written,
most of the early followers of Jesus believed that for them that Jesus was returning soon.
To think beyond in their brains that there would be a church gathering some 2,000 years later was foreign to them.
And they thought this return of the Lord would be sooner rather than later.
And when you look at the writing of the apostles, while they admittedly didn't know when Jesus would return,
because this is what Jesus teaches, you can draw from them this hopeful optimism, right, that Jesus was coming soon.
Why?
Because of suffering.
For them, what they faced as they walked through life and following Jesus Christ was literally a life-or-death situation,
a life-or-death calling.
We see it over and over in the book of Acts.
And this is when this is written, as it dialogues through.
And so we see this.
And so there's a hope and a desire because they knew that their life could be ended on this earth
because they were followers of Jesus.
Or if not that, a level of persecution that you and I cannot understand.
And so James writes this.
He says,
And we've got to remember how James began this letter in order for us to understand where he's getting to in this letter.
James 1.1.
James is James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.
This was not a church that he's writing to that have gathered.
Who came together early on one Sunday morning to come together and to fellowship and to talk about all that the Lord has done that day.
To look at everything that was going on in the life of their church.
To see what events they can come to and what things they can be a part of.
This was a church that had experienced persecution that you and I do not live in.
And it's not fair for us to even understand the level of what they faced.
But now because of the level of persecution, they've been scattered.
Their homes are no longer their homes.
Their jobs are no longer their jobs.
They've been scattered.
And James writes this to them.
Right?
That when Christianity formed, Christianity organized in the book of Acts very early on.
And it's not met with great, wonderful, what can you do to bless our community?
Great, wonderful, how can you work within our schools?
Instead, it's met with resistance.
It's met with persecution, specifically the religious political leaders.
And so we talked about this week one, kind of the timeline of what begins to happen.
Acts chapter 4, Peter and John stand before Jewish council who threaten them if they don't stop sharing the gospel.
So here's what that looks like.
Right?
If they were to do what I'm doing this morning, right?
Death, jail, this is where you're headed.
If they were to do what you do when you talk about who Christ is with your neighbor or what Christ has done in your life.
Right?
Jail, death, this is where they're headed.
Acts chapter 5, the apostles are arrested.
Acts chapter 6, Stephen, one of the first deacons, is arrested.
Acts chapter 7, Stephen is executed for his faith.
Acts chapter 8, we find out that there's a man named Saul.
Who's been given permission to hunt, arrest, and even kill Christians.
And then here's what happens in Acts chapter 8.
Most of the believers scatter away from Jerusalem because there's a man out there who's hunting them down.
And they move to areas like Judea and Samaria.
And with it, they take the gospel.
And James writes this as instruction.
James writes this for commands.
But he also writes this as encouragement because of the suffering that they're going through.
And so James says, with where you are now, the place that you don't know, facing what you face, battling through what you're battling through.
Be patient.
Not be patient until someone new is elected.
Not be patient until the persecution goes away.
Not be patient until Christianity becomes mainstream and a part of culture.
He says, be patient.
Be patient until the coming of the Lord.
Let's be honest about suffering.
And let's be honest about suffering with patience.
I feel sometimes that when we talk and we teach about patience in the area of suffering, what we feel, not what we say.
We don't say this.
But how we feel, oftentimes, is ignore the pain.
Ignore it.
Ignore the hurt.
Ignore the sorrow.
Ignore the difficulty.
You see, that's not what God's word teaches at all.
You see, suffering with patience doesn't mean that you enjoy what you're going through.
It doesn't mean that in the midst of it, you go, yeah, yeah, give me more of this.
I can't wait for some more.
But being patient with suffering means this.
Jesus is returning.
That's it.
What you're going through, Jesus is returning.
I understand it hurts.
Jesus is returning.
I understand it's painful.
Jesus is returning.
I understand there's tears.
Jesus is returning.
I understand you don't want to be here.
But Jesus is returning.
And it's okay.
Hear my heart.
It's okay to want it to be soon.
Right?
Oh, Lord, come.
Quickly come.
And that's what it means to be patient in suffering.
But also we're to be patient in entrusting.
Being patient in trusting.
Look at the last part of verse 7.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.
So James here uses an illustration to convey complete and total trust.
A farmer.
You know, we've talked about this.
We've talked about this a lot.
Kind of Aaron and my hobby now.
It's kind of been this backyard garden thing that we've got going on.
And we like to grow things and do stuff.
And we like to make jellies and jams and all this kind of stuff.
I don't know.
It's weird.
I feel like it embarrasses our kids sometimes with how much stuff that we have and that we're doing with this.
But, you know, it's what we're about.
And here's what I love about the beauty of doing this now.
And I thought about this as I come from a family of farmers a long time ago that did other things.
But, like, for us, when we garden, we have this beautiful thing called sprinklers.
Right?
It's wonderful.
You know what's great about our sprinklers?
Timers.
Right?
So I go out there and I'm like, when do I want to water my plants?
I'm not watering them, but I'm paying for them to be watered.
So the question is, when do I want to pay for these plants to get watered?
And so I can set that and then I can walk away from it.
And I know that we're good and we've got it all kind of taken care of.
But that's not the situation that James is alluding to here.
Right?
First century, it wasn't like, hey, hey, hey, Ezekiel, could you head outside and go ahead and set that timer right there?
Right?
Get that taken care of.
Like, it ain't happening.
And so you'd sit there and you would wait patiently for the Lord to send rain, or you would wait patiently for the Lord to stop the rain.
You see, in this society, too much rain and the crop would rot.
Too much water is a bad thing for almost every plant we grow.
Right?
But if you have too little rain, the crop will die.
Either way, too little or too much.
And what do we end up with, we end up with a crop that does not sustain, a crop that does not grow.
And let me, I don't know if you've ever tried to control rain.
But it's difficult.
It's really, really difficult to control the rain because it's impossible.
And so James, as he talks about patience here, gives us an illustration that's intentionally there of something that you and I and that farmer, we cannot control.
The farmer cannot control when it will and when it will not rain.
So what must he do?
We must be patient.
But what does that patience look like?
I've got to trust God.
The one who sins and the one who holds back the rain, that I've got to trust him.
So for all of us in the room, those of us who raised our hands and who didn't, I want to ask you a question.
What in your life, who in your life, are you trying to hold in the palm of your hand and control them
to get them to do what you need them to do?
And God is saying to you, that situation, that person does not belong in your hand.
It belongs in mine.
And to be patient, to be patient is to acknowledge that, to wash your hands, to walk away and say, Lord, it's yours.
And I'm going to be patient as you do what you're going to do.
As the one who can send the reins and as the one who can hold them back, I cannot do either.
And so, Lord, this problem at work, this problem in my marriage, this problem in our home, this problem in our country,
this problem in our world, this person who's in rebellion, this person who's running,
this person who hates me, this person who gossips, this person who does all of these things.
Lord, I cannot do any of this.
And so, Lord, I need to stop in my sin of trying to control it, Lord.
And I need to trust that it's in your hands.
And Lord, may your will be done.
May your will be done.
Be like the farmer.
Next, we see being patient in relationships.
Being patient in relationships.
Verse 8.
You also be patient.
Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
And behold, the judge is standing at the door.
Amen.
As we come into holiday season, relationships are messy, right?
Yeah.
You got that family member that's going to be at the table in a couple days, right?
If you don't know who that family member is, guess what?
You're that family member, right?
That's the truth this morning, okay?
That's who you are.
Relationships are difficult, but necessary.
God creates us and calls us into relationships and into community.
But the problem with relationships is this, sin.
Sin.
Right?
Do you know that?
Like, sometimes when you and I have a problem, even in our relationship with the Lord,
do you know who's got the problem?
You and I do.
And what's the problem?
Our sin.
And so when you and I have problems in our relationship, it's the same thing that's there.
It's what I tell every couple that comes to me from premarital counseling is this.
The number one issue that you're going to face in your marriage is the truth that you are married to another person.
That's it.
You take two people who have sin.
You take two people who are selfish.
You have to take two people who want to do things their way.
You've got two people with their past, their presence, their futures, their hopes, their dreams.
And you're put together.
And you say, now do this together, surrendering to one another and serving one another and loving each other sacrificially.
And that's hard and that's difficult because we're sinful.
Right?
And it's good and God uses it and grows us and shows us so much more about who he is.
And I didn't understand this when I first got married because I thought there's no way that I could ever love this woman more than I do right now.
But almost 20 years later, the deepness of the love that's there of what God is doing and what God is growing is monumental compared to what it was 20 years ago.
And it's wonderful.
But relationships are difficult.
And so we need to be patient in relationships.
We see the symptom of what kind of comes out in verse 9, not grumble against one another.
Brothers, right?
Right?
So what happens is there's conflict, there's tension, there's issues.
And what do we do?
We complain.
And we gripe.
And we go to others.
And we put down.
And we belittle.
And we speak negatively of.
And that's not who we're to be.
We're to be patient.
You know, when it's all said and done with how we view the world, right?
We see people through the lens of either you're a follower of Jesus Christ or you're not.
And with that creates some interesting dynamics in dealing with relationships.
So when we look at relationships with the lost, we need to come and understand.
And I hope every single one of you has multiple people who do not know the Lord, who you love and are invested in their life deeply.
If you don't, then I would argue you don't understand the gospel.
You don't understand it.
But in our relationships with those who don't know the Lord, we have to understand that our standard for them cannot be the same for the standard for us because our standard is Jesus.
And their standard is not Jesus because they don't know him, right?
And that creates conflict.
That creates difficulty.
Our relationship with those who are saved, I was thinking about this.
Like, we were talking about, this was in a pastor discussion.
We were talking about dealing with people as they kind of work through things.
And I heard another pastor say, you know, like, if everybody were on the same maturity aspect in life, their process of sanctification, it'd be a lot easier to be in relationships.
So, like, let's say, like, we all acknowledge in here that we're greedy, but we're all on the same maturity scale of working out of our greed and working toward generosity.
And so, this week, we're all just going to kick greed in the teeth and knock it out of the park and then come back next week and none of us are greedy anymore.
That'd be really easy, right?
But that's not where we are.
Some of us are growing at different speeds.
Some of us are growing in different areas.
And so, even amongst us with where we are in life, that brings complications into relationships.
And so, what do we need to do?
We just got to be patient.
Look at my brother, Johnny.
So, when Johnny sees me, now, I'm going to use me as the example, right?
I'm just working with you here.
But, that Johnny and Johnny's love for me, when Johnny sees my struggles, that Johnny's heart is not bitter to me, but Johnny's heart toward me is patience and kindness in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Right?
You see, that's not a grumble.
That's an encouragement.
That's a proclamation of truth of what we have.
So, we must be patient in relationships.
The next one we see, right?
Being patient in the gospel.
Look at verse 10.
As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
So, James is going to use another illustration.
We saw the farmer before, and now we see the prophets.
So, just really quickly, maybe you were raised in church, and you hear the word prophet, and you know exactly what that means, but maybe you weren't.
So, I want to just do a really small, quick explanation so that we understand what this means.
That prophets were those primarily, not exclusively, were in the Old Testament who communicated God's truth to others, right?
They were the mouthpiece of the Lord.
And so, what they would do is kind of a two-part approach into doing this, right?
They would teach God's truth of what was already known.
So, very similar to what we do when we preach and proclaim the truth of God's word, right?
These are not new ideas.
They're not my ideas.
There's God's ideas, God's word, God's law, God's truth, and we teach from that, right?
And we proclaim that.
So, prophets would do that, but they would also reveal God's truth that at that time was not known.
And so, this is why we teach and we believe that the role of the prophet is done, that there's no new truth that God's word and God is sufficient from Genesis to Revelation, and it accompanies all that God wants, needs us to know, so that we can know him and we can take his word to others, right?
So, this is the part of what we see.
Now, in the Bible, there's at least 133 that were mentioned in the Bible, and in Jewish culture and Jewish custom, these prophets were highly respected.
When they spoke, oftentimes people were quiet.
When someone said their name, you knew who they were.
They were esteemed.
They were looked up to.
Whether you did what they said or not, there was a reverence for their position.
And while this calling and this giftedness from the Lord was on a high for them,
they often faced mocking, persecution, and their message was rejected.
Their message was rejected.
So, their success was not found in how did the people respond, right?
If I go out fishing, and you ask me, well, how did you do?
The answer is typically is going to be, how many did I catch, or how many did I not catch, right?
Well, I call it zero.
Well, that's unsuccessful.
Well, I call it 20.
Well, that's really successful.
And that's the way, oftentimes, that we view the success of the gospel.
But that's not it at all.
That's not it at all.
What we don't see in Scripture is their success was not found in how many people responded,
but their success was found in their faithfulness to the Lord to do what God had called them to do.
And yes, we see times in Scripture where they speak, and you see many respond positively.
But more times than not, it's the exact opposite of that.
And so, they had to be extremely patient.
And I believe what God's Word is teaching us is that we need to share the same level of patience as the prophets.
We talked about, I hope, that you are in relationship with multiple lost people.
Here's what I know, here's what I believe, and here's what God's Word teaches us.
That right now, God is calling you and I to show, share, and tell others about Jesus Christ.
There should be people in our life that we are actively praying toward, telling them, showing them, and sharing with them who Jesus is,
what Jesus has done for us, and who we know Jesus to be.
We're not necessarily called to sit down and argue all the points of every different thing in Scripture,
but to share from our story who we know Jesus Christ to be as Lord and Savior of our life.
And if you're going to go on that journey of obedience, here's what I know.
You've got to be patient.
Because your success is not going to be found in their response to you,
but in your obedience to the Lord.
In your obedience to the Lord of what He's called you to.
And lastly, being patient and hoping.
Being patient and hoping.
Verse 11.
Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.
You've heard of the steadfastness of Job,
and you have seen the purpose of the Lord,
how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
I wish we had a long, long, long time to go through Job.
My men's Bible study that I'm a part of on Thursday,
it felt like we spent like four and a half years.
It wasn't really that long, but we were going through Job
and talking through that together.
And so if you don't know the story of Job, right,
let me just kind of really quick two sentences.
It's like Job was this man who was godly,
but who suffered so much.
And his life is embraced in the church
and even outside of the church.
The story of his life as one who faced difficulties
and persevered.
But outside of the church doesn't tell the whole story.
And sometimes inside the church doesn't tell the whole story.
But these difficulties, which included the death of those he loved,
great financial loss as well.
And he walks through this journey
with three of the most dysfunctional people, right,
that he could go on it with.
And at the end, in Job 42,
I want to read.
This man has lost it.
He's lost it all.
In Job 42, 2,
here's his response.
I know that you can do all things
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?
Therefore, I've uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.
Hear, and I will speak.
I will question you,
and you make it known to me.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you.
Therefore, I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.
Let me reread verses five and six
after a man who's gone through
what you and I cannot imagine.
I had heard of you
by the hearing of the ear,
but now,
going through all that I've gone through,
all the pain,
all of the hurt,
all of the loss,
but now my eye sees you.
And therefore, I despise myself
and I repent
and dust
and ashes.
So patience
produces something in us.
It produces
hope.
It produces hope.
I'm going to close with this.
Whatever you're walking through right now,
whatever situation
that you're in,
news from the doctor,
financial struggles,
break in relationship,
struggle with addiction,
struggle with hurts,
struggles with being deceived,
struggles with being abused,
whatever it is that you're walking through,
in Christ,
that event
is not the end of your story.
What you're walking through
does not define you
and who you are.
and as we journey
through it,
what we see
is God's
working
and God's
working
and God's
working.
And when we see
God's
working,
what we're reminded of
is hope.
Hope.
Be patient.
Therefore,
brothers,
until the coming
of the Lord.
Would you pray with me?
Lord,
we come to you this morning.
We thank you
for the goodness
and the sufficiency
of your word.
Lord,
we love you
and we thank you
for your love for us.
Lord,
I thank you
that what you are doing
and what you have done
is not sending us
and scattering us
as marbles
that hit a tile floor
that seem to scatter
in whatever direction
by chance they go.
but Lord,
that the events
and the circumstances
of our life
are not foreign to you.
They're not unknown
to you.
They're not out
of your hand.
They're not out
of your control.
And Lord,
I pray that within
our very being,
what would reside
in us
is a deepness
of patience
as we wait
for the return
of Christ
whether that's
before this service
is over
or whether it's
for more generations
than we can even
count have come
or that we
patiently,
patiently wait
for you.
Because when we
patiently wait
for you,
Jesus,
it tells the world
that you are sufficient,
that you are enough,
that you are kind,
that you are good,
that you're where
our hope is found,
that you're where
our life is found.
It's not defined
by this moment,
but it's defined
by our Savior.
And so Lord,
may we be patient
through cancer,
may we be patient
through criticism,
may we be patient
through fear,
may we be patient
through the brokenness
of the lostness
of those we love.
May we be patient
through the loss
of our job.
May we be patient,
Lord,
in whatever is before us.
And Lord,
in it,
Lord,
in it,
through the power
of your Holy Spirit
that is not
in our own being,
that is not
of our own will,
that is not
of our own doing,
Lord,
may we be found
faithful and obedient
to you.
Giving you
all the praise
and all the honor
and all the glory.
God,
thank you for being
patient with me.
You love me
and you grow me
and you work
out the areas
of my heart
that break yours
and you do not
give up on me
and that every scar
of my past
and every scar
in my future
is something
that is used
by you
to build
in me
a level
of perseverance
in you
that I can run
the race
that you have
for me
so that I can
cross the line
when you
have me
cross
in faithfulness.
Thank you
for being
patient
with me.
It's in Jesus' name
we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again
for listening
to the
Willow Ridge Church
weekly podcast.
We hope that you
enjoyed listening
to this week's message.
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