Dennis Tuuri

No doubt that psalm and like psalms were on the lips of the congregations that James wrote to in his epistle. They were the diaspora, the dispersed church having to flee Jerusalem because of great persecution.

Please stand and listen to the final portion of James 5:7 to 20. I’m going to break this up into several sections. We’ll be on this several weeks, but I think it’s important that we see it as a unit.

And so, for that reason, I’m going to read through to the end of the chapter, beginning at verse 7, even though my sermon will be on primarily verses 7-9. And this is the conclusion of the book of James. And as I say, I think it’s basically a unit. James 5:7 to 20.

Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge is standing at the door.

My brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.

But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no, lest you fall into judgment. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for loving us, for calling us here, for assuring us of the forgiveness of sins because of the shed blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And more than that, for transforming us, and raising us up into your heavenly throne room so that we could hear a word from you and we could eat a meal with you.

Bless us, Lord God, as we attend to your scriptures today. Bless me, Father, that I might not speak error. Help me, Father, to be someone who is committed to curb my tongue when I don’t know what’s happening in the text and to speak clearly when I think I do know. Bless us, Lord God. Bless the hearers of your word that they may be transformed by your word. Bless us, Lord God, with patience and help us establish our hearts for whatever lays in our future.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. Sometimes the major thing God tells us is to just wait. Just wait. Patience. These people had lost, you know, what could be seen as almost everything in their lives—their homes, their possessions, their reputations, their physical safety. Some of them had lost relatives as martyrs. They were on the run. They were now living in foreign lands from what they were used to at least.

And so these were difficult times that these people went through. And here as we move to the conclusion of the epistle, the opening of that conclusion tells them, you know what I really want you to do, James says, is just be patient. Just be patient. That’s an astonishing sort of demand or command or piece of comfort I suppose given to us here in the midst of very difficult trials. These people were shell shocked and in very difficult times.

Now we certainly don’t live in those kinds of times in our land today but we do live in times when things seem to be kind of the wheels are starting to come off things in several directions. You know, as someone who watches current events and likes to comment on them, it has been a strange set of years because just as you’re ready to address this thing, the next thing and the next thing and the next thing happen and it’s like the country is receiving you know blows to the body over and over. And if you are familiar at all with fighting—I know some of you Dexters know—if you know that’ll just defeat you, that’ll wear you down. And we’re in a state of moving toward that I think. So I think this text, while not directly applicable to our state, nonetheless is good for us in terms of what we’re starting to go through as a country and in our own particular lives and individual lives.

We have sufferings and trials as well. And so this text is good to remind us about the correct attitude and what we’re supposed to do. And as I said, sometimes it’s enough just to keep the faith. That’s really what this text is sort of about. Keep the faith. Hang in there. Do the right thing. Don’t be tempted to be nuts, like the zealots and start, you know, getting your guns and shooting people and stuff. And don’t be, on the other hand, tempted to lose the faith the way the Sadducees did just by saying, “Ah, let’s just make some money. Let’s just enjoy all this and forget all the problems and forget the righteousness of God’s kingdom and not worry about it.”

So either direction here we’ve been warned against in the context of this book of James. We are in odd times and it appears that they’ll probably get quite a bit odder.

One of the oddest things I’ve seen lately, and I guess it shouldn’t be for me, but on July 1st, Salon online magazine—Salon it’s called—and you know it’s popular liberal magazine has this article in it. Okay. And the article is called “Christian Right Secession Fantasy: Spooky Neoconfederate Faith Grows Loudest at the Fringes.” And this is an article intended to warn off the country that what’s going on in churches like ours, I suppose, in the Christian right is we want to secede. We want to start a civil war. We want to take up guns to start shooting people.

The picture for this article is a huge picture at the top of the article of a Confederate flag and a handgun of some sort. Now, that isn’t weird, you know, these kind of defamation tactics are typical, but what I thought was just almost comical—it’s so bizarre—is that you know who one of the men they went after as emblematic of somebody that wants to take up guns and kill people. You’re not going to believe it. I mean, you simply won’t believe it.

Some of you don’t know him, but those of you who know him, who’ve heard him speak at our camp—Peter Leithart. I know. It’s astonishing, isn’t it? It’s almost comical. And you know why they say this about him because he says that in difficult times when we’re moving away from Christ and judgment’s happening, we have to be prepared for martyrdom. Meaning that we have to be ready for the suffering that God puts us through. And if necessary, we die for the ability to say we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.

But they interpret martyrdom as the desire to go out and shoot people and then die as you’re shooting people. Those are the kind of crazy times we live in. And dangerous. Don’t think that these things don’t have an effect on the broader body politic here in the country. They do. But strange days. So there’s somewhat this text is not completely irrelevant to us.

Now this is the end of the book. This is kind of the parallel to how the book began. You remember that the book begins by saying, you know, endure, keep enduring. Don’t cut short of trial. The trials are there for a reason. And so it’s the idea and the word used was patience in the first chapter and now here at the end we have patience. Again it’s a different word translated by the same English word a lot of times—patience. We’ll talk about the differences but there’s this idea that you know you’re in trouble. It’s going to be a while before you get out. Be patient and endure and establish yourself.

So this kind of matches up with that. And there’s therefore in verse 7, right? Therefore be patient. And so the therefore links us back to the rest of the book, but it links us back specifically to verses 1 to 6. The judgment that is coming upon people that are idolators by means of covetousness, the love of mammon. You know, the rusting of the gold will eat your flesh like fire. Pretty big judgment. Grim, right?

For those who are greedy and idolatrous in their greed, who rob from other people, who are overly indulgent in the pleasures of the world rather than seeking to serve the kingdom, and who actually end up murdering other people—grim. So you know it’s linked to that and so the idea is judgment is coming upon people contemporary judgment and therefore—therefore do what this chapter tells us to do.

So it puts the patience here in the context of judgment and a judgment as we’ll see increasingly unto salvation. So here’s how we’re going to do it today. We’ll talk about verses 7 to 9. And as we talk about verses 7 to 9 we’ll talk primarily about judgment first. The parousia, the coming of the Lord, patience and establishing your heart.

So the two commands are be patient, establish your heart. The context for that is the coming of the Lord, the parousia. And that’s about judgment. So judgment, parousia, patience, and establish your heart. So that’s what we’ll deal with today in this message of hopeful patience while suffering.

Next week, the Lord willing, we’ll deal with verses 10 and 11—the patience of the prophets and Job. You know, we kind of have these throwaway lines and we just, oh yeah, the prophets are an example. Job’s an example of patient suffering. Well, a particular kind of patient suffering. The prophets were speaking in a new world. The judgment was unto new creation. Okay? And Job at the end—new creation. He’s an even better king. He’s an even better servant of God, having been a great one at the beginning.

So it’s not just, you know, it’s not like some kind of abstract thing. We’ll see next week and we’ll focus on these two examples of the prophets and Job that the patience is toward an end. It’s not just Greek stoic patiently suffering for no good reason in the present. It’s got hope attached to it.

And then in two weeks from today, Lord willing again, we’ll speak on verse 12—swearing and suffering. What’s the relationship of this oath-bearing stuff to the context of the book in this last section? Then we’ll look at verses 13 to 18—suffering and prayer. Again, we kind of abstract out the section on prayer as if James is a collection of little things that are kind of tied together, maybe not so well, but I think we have to look at that in context with this entire section.

And I don’t know if you noticed, but you know, at the end in terms of prayer, the effective prayer of Elijah—what happens? He prays for judgment, no rain. Then he prays the judgment come to an end, rain, and after that happens, the text tells us explicitly, you know, fruit will appear, fruitfulness happens. That’s exactly the same thing that he’s talking about in verses 7 to 9 with the illustration of the farmer waiting patiently for the rains and then for harvest.

So it’s all together. And I think we have to look at that prayer section in relationship to this whole that begins in verses 7-9.

And then finally in verses 19 and 20—covering sins. He tells us today not to grumble against other people, but at the very conclusion of the book, he wants us all to be community oriented enough to where we’re not overly kind. I saw an article on the internet this last week—”kindness that kills churches.” And it’s the kind of kindness that doesn’t really care about people all that much. It just likes to have nice little relationships and not deal with anything ever.

And James won’t let us do that. The very conclusion of the book, the capstone, says, “Help each other really love each other enough to talk to each other, you know, about potential sins that are developing in each other’s lives.” So that’s how it will end.

And all this is set in this context, as I said, of judgment. So it’s a piece. So I wanted to read it to you maybe in family worship, your private devotional time—read through this section, try to see how it relates. You can help me and I’ll try to help you in the next three or four sermons. Okay?

Now, today look at the text if you’ve got it there in front of you if you’ve got your Bible open. So look at—I’m going to have two sections is the way I see 7 to 9. The first section is about patience. So if you look at it, it says therefore be patient brethren, right? And then it says unto the coming of the Lord. Then you have the farmer illustration, the farmer waiting for the precious seed, waiting patiently for it.

And then it says until he received the early and latter rain. And then it says you also be patient. So if you see that? That’s bookends. Patient, patient. Therefore, be patient, brethren. You also be patient. So, the idea is this marks a little subsection of this text. And so, these three verses—or actually it’s a verse and a half. It goes through the first half of verse 8. And this is why the verse divisions can be a problem for us.

But I would break off the section right after that. “You also be patient.” Okay? Matches up. In the middle of that patience is the farmer illustration where he’s waiting patiently. Okay, so that’s the first section we’ll be dealing with.

And the second section then begins with establish. Now here the bookend isn’t established twice. But if you look at the end, the second half of verse 8, if you’ve got it there in front of you, we read establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Then he says, do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. And then he says, “Behold, the judge is standing at the door.”

So, what matches here, which shows it as a little section, is the coming of the Lord and the Lord being at the door. Okay? And so, that makes this a little section. And in the middle, what does it say? Don’t be judged. Now, the translation’s getting us in a little difficulty here when it says at the end of verse 9, “The judge is at the door.” And just before that, lest you be condemned. Well, that actually is the same word. Lest you be judged, is what it’s saying—judge negatively so condemned—but it lines up.

So what you’ve got is you know judgment themes beginning and marking the section—judgment middle judgment of you. So you got to be careful not to do what’s given to us at the middle of the text.

So it begins with an admonition to patience and the second thing these three verses does is give us the admonition to establish ourselves. With patience it gives us this example of the farmer and with establishment it tells us the reason why we should do this is we could be condemned as well. And the way to establish yourself is to control your tongue. It’s not to grumble against your brother. Okay? That’s the center of that little establishment section.

So that’s how we’re going to look at this is in those two sections. And we’re specifically, as I said, going to look at three maybe four words concepts that are going on here. And the first two are judgment and the parousia. This is critical because, you know, if we’re good Greeks today, we’re going to think about patience just as, you know, staying with the program and we just got to keep going and that’s that. It’s kind of an abstract gnostic sort of patience.

But that’s not what’s going on in this text. What’s going on in this text is that it’s put in a context of judgment.

Why be patient? Because he’s just told us that flesh eating fire will come upon some people who are oppressing you. Be patient. Waiting for what? Nothing. No. Waiting for that to happen. Waiting for your enemies to be dealt with by God and for you to be established. That’s what he’s saying.

He doesn’t say on the one hand—in fact, he warns us against making it happen ourselves. That’s the zealot way. But he also warns us—he doesn’t say on the other hand, it’s never going to happen. Forget about it. The world’s just a difficult place to live. Life has troubles. Bear up. Buck up, guy. He doesn’t say that. In fact, he says just the opposite.

The context for the command, the comfort telling us that we can be patient and it’s enough sometimes just to keep the faith and patiently to do what God wants you to do—the context for that is that judgment is real and coming and it’s actually coming quite quickly as we’ll see in a couple of minutes.

So, the point of this is judgment and another way to put it is a word that’s not in the text but it’s all over the text. And that word is hope. You’re to be patient hopefully. Okay? Not gnostically, not abstractly, not just sort of willing it, but you’re to be patient based on hope. And it’s not a hope that something might happen. It’s a hope based on what God will surely bring to pass, which is judgment.

It’s really sort of a meditation, as one commentator said, in Psalm 37:10 and 11. “For yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more. Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more, but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”

Now, isn’t that wonderful? It’s a good little summation of the basic message that James is telling him. I know it’s bad. I know the suffering is intense. I know your lives can be quite difficult, but you know what? In a little while you’ll look for the wicked and they will be gone. They’ll either have converted—we pray for that they’ll be converted—or God will remove them through temporary temporal judgments.

So that’s what’s going on. And it’s not just the judgment on the wicked as Psalm 37 goes on in verse 11 to say it’s that the meek shall inherit the earth. When we read the meek shall inherit the earth in the Beatitudes, this is where it’s coming from. And we inherit the earth not just generally. We inherit the earth because judgment is in the world. History is a record of the judgments of God against the wicked, convicting them and either causing them to come to repentance or removing them.

And at the same time, these judgments then establish the meek, those who are broken to the harness of Christ. They inherit the earth. That’s what history is, okay? It’s a history of God’s judgments. Okay? That’s what’s going on here.

In verse 24 of Psalm 37, we read, “Though he fall, the godly, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” God’s personal care is working in your life. And that’s why you can be patient in times of great trial and particularly in times of persecution.

Peter can be patient and we can be patient with Peter knowing these things will be dealt with—these kind of calumnies and slander.

So the context of this patience is the coming of the Lord. It’s the coming of the Lord in judgment to convict the godless and to bring justice to the world.

Again, what are the Beatitudes? In a way, James is a reflection or meditation on the Beatitudes, right? And the Beatitudes reflect what we just read in Psalm 37. The wicked will be no more. The meek shall inherit the earth. This is what history is. And whether it’s, you know, first century persecuted Christians or Christians being persecuted today in various parts of the world or the struggles that we’re going through, this is the message. This is the God-breathed message to us.

We can be patient in hope. We can have lives of patient hope and establishing ourselves in the sure knowledge of the coming and manifestation of the kingdom of God. Just like the prophets, just like Job in history, in our lives, in the life of this church, in the life of this country, in the life of the world, judgments are here because God is doing what he’s going to do. And what he’s going to do is remove the wicked and instead establish those who are meek, those who are broken into God’s harness.

History is a series of judgments to prepare the way for the new creation. However difficult and painful these judgments may be, they are to be welcomed, not just endured. They’re to be welcomed.

The illustration of the farmer with the rain is interesting. I think I could be wrong. And so the illustration is the farmer waits patiently because he wants the harvest. We wait patiently because we want to see the manifestation of the righteousness of God, his justice in the world, his proper treatment of people, the created order, etc. That’s what we that’s the fruit we’re waiting for.

And to get there, you got to go through rainfall. And it’s almost as if the rainfall seems to link up in the text to the judgments. And I think by way of illustration, at least if that isn’t exactly what’s going on—and I think it is, but I could be wrong—but at least by way of illustration, judgments are to be seen as the refreshing rain of God. Because what they’re doing is removing the wicked so that life isn’t one long series of evil, but they’re removing the wicked to establish and bring about the harvest of justice in time and space in history.

And so we’re to receive judgments with a thankfulness to God in the context even of the suffering that they bring upon us. That suffering is related to God’s establishment of his peace.

Remember we talked about peace. Peace is the establishment of God’s order. R.J. Rushdoony put it this way: “Christ is the prince of peace because he is the Lord of judgment.” Well, sounds a little counterintuitive I think to a large number of people today, but I think he’s right. Christ is the prince of peace because he is the Lord of judgment. That’s what this text says. I’m not reading from the Old Testament. When I read James, I’m reading the Christian epistle. And in that Christian epistle, he tells us that judgment is the way that God’s peace and kingdom will be manifested in the context of the world.

Now, this is what the parousia, the coming of the Lord is. So, the text, you know, references therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. And then in the second part, he talks about the judgments, but the coming of the Lord, parousia.

So, this is much debated, much talked about term. What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean? Well, let me just read it. There aren’t that many occurrences. I won’t read all of them, but let me read a few occurrences of this parousia.

In Matthew 24:37, we read, “As the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the son of man. For as in the days of Noah, excuse me, in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Two men will be in the field. One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”

Now that’s the parousia of the coming of Christ, the coming of the Lord, the Lord of judgment to establish peace. Well, wait a minute. You say that’s the end of time. No, this is giving us a scenario that’s already played out. And I think one that plays out in history and was being played out at the time of the writing of Matthew by looking forward to the coming of the judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70.

I think probably all of the Matthew discourses here at the end of the book have to do with that judgment, not with the final coming of Christ. But but get the thrust of what the day of the Lord is. Forget the timing, but what happens when Christ comes? One person is gone and the other is left. Now, if you watch these rapture movies, you’re going to think that the one gone is the one raptured. But that’s not what’s going on here.

The one that leaves—the one that is gone—destroyed, finished, are the ungodly. And the one left to inherit the earth is the meek, Noah. Right? The day of the Lord comes to remove the wicked, just like Psalm 37 says, and to establish the meek who’ll inherit the world.

So, so this is what happens in time and history. It’s what happened in the days of Noah. It’s what happened at AD 70. It’s what will finally occur at the end of all time. But it’s what happens in the meantime when worlds and cultures and people and groups go bad and leave Jesus and walk away from him in rebellion and the culture goes downhill, goes to hell. I mean in the sense of the term that hell is a reflection of the rebellion of man and God’s judgment upon it.

Well, that does not last. In history, God is in the job. He’s in the business. He sent his son to make manifest righteousness on the earth so the meek would inherit the earth. And that’s what’s happening.

So this coming of the Lord, the parousia of the Lord is given to us here in Matthew and also in James, I think, as an example of what is our sure hope for our day and age. What will happen to us? Why we can wait patiently?

Couple more occurrences. In 1 Corinthians 16:17, “I am glad about the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and another fellow whose name I can’t pronounce. For what was lacking on your part, they supplied.”

Now, this is the same word. It’s the parousia, not of Jesus, but it’s the coming of representatives of Jesus to Paul to gladden his heart. Okay? So, that’s another coming. It’s a parousia and it’s specifically said to result in the establishment of Paul’s heart.

In 2 Corinthians 7:6, “Nevertheless God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus.” So by the parousia of Titus God comforted Paul and those that were with him. Okay.

Now this word parousia—at least there’s good reason to believe that its original meaning in Egyptian papyri referred to a royal visit from a king. Okay, and the king would come and things would be put to rights, okay? Things would be cleaned up, made right.

And so the coming of the Lord that they were supposed to wait patiently for—I don’t think was anticipated to be off tens of thousands of years. It was a coming contemporaneous to them probably the events in AD 70. But to us and for any difficulties we find ourselves in, the Lord comes, we’ll come to this nation. We will at one point say we’ll look for the wicked and they’ll be all gone and the meek will inherit the earth. That’s the sort of way history progresses.

And I think these other texts tell us that royal visit of the king to bring judgment and establishment of his people—that royal visit of the king in part happens when you and I come to one another in the name of the lord and help establish each other as well. So the parousia has those kind of aspects to it.

Now it’s connected up to the rain right in Joel 2:23-27. “Be glad and you remember Joel the context here is judgment. In Joel the locusts are coming, the armies are coming, bad things are going to happen. ‘Be glad, children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God. For he has given you the former rain faithfully, and he will cause the rain to come down to you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month.’”

So, this is a reference to the latter and former rain. James picking up on this. This is in Joel. What’s the result? “The threshing floor shall be full of wheat. The vat shall overflow with new wine and oil. So I’ll restore to the years that swarming locust had eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust. My great army which I sent among you, you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you and my people shall never be put to shame.”

So again, the references to judgment, the ungodly that were troubling people that Joel was predicting would be removed for the establishment of us. Now we live this out. What the description in Joel chapter 2 there. Every week we come to this table. We are satisfied and delighted with the manna from heaven and with the wine that makes our hearts glad. And all of this is a message and a reminder to us that history is about what this table is about. God removing the ungodly and establishing those who are meek and broken to his harness.

Joel goes on to say, “Then You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God. There is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.”

Hosea 6:3. “Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain on the earth.”

So again, the coming of God is blessing to us even as it’s judgment to those who are in opposition to Christ.

And back to Matthew, “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the carcass is there, the eagles will be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the heavens, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

This is for the establishment again. And this is what happens. Acts records these visions from Joel with references to Matthew that this is what happens on the day of Pentecost. God is fulfilling his purposes. Judgments are in the earth. The wicked will be no more and the meek will be established in the land.

So the parousia is God’s royal visit. That visit brings judgment to the wicked and that visit brings establishment for the righteous. And this is the basis, the context, the judgment of God for the call to patience.

Now I mentioned that this is a different word for patience. So we’re leaving parousia moving on to patience. What is this patience? Well, first part of the book patience was hupomone staying under something. Okay? So don’t try to wiggle out of the situation that God has placed you in, you know, in an unlawful or sinful way. So patience can be just to stay under something.

This word here is not the same word. This word is a word for being longtempered, long or slow to anger. Okay? So, be patient in the sense of not getting all worked up, overly passionate about what’s happening. Why? Because God’s going to write it. Because he’s going to take care of it when you can’t. And so, that’s the kind of patience that’s being described here. A patient waiting not for no judgment, but we’re waiting for the wrath of God to be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.

That’s what it is. And so without the judgment, this sort of patience really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It doesn’t say never be angry. It says be long in your anger, right? Don’t try to take upon yourself the job that God will bring about in his time and in his particular way. Being patient in time for God to do something about the suffering. That’s the kind of thing that it is.

It’s not just a keep on keeping on. It’s being patient, waiting for God to do something about the wickedness that comes in the context of the nation.

Let me read a few verses on patience. In Luke 18:7, “Shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them.” Okay, so again here the assurance is the judgment’s coming. Even though it takes God a long time, we’re to be patient, long of temper or wrath or anger, being slow to anger, because that’s who God is. And we’re reflections of the person of God.

So God is this way. Why? Well, another description of this is 1 Corinthians 13:4. Love being used as a term for God. We have a description of love, but that really is a description of the character of God. Remember Ralph Smith was here several years ago and demonstrated this so clearly, but we don’t have time to look at it now. But the point is these first two characteristics for love in 1 Corinthians 13 are not abstract character qualities. They’re describing the God who created and redeemed us.

So love, God suffers long and is kind. His very characteristic, this is the same word—suffering long, right? Being long of—being slow to anger. God is slow to anger. That’s who God is. That’s who we’re supposed to be as well.

In 2 Peter 3, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promises as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

So why is God long-suffering? And why do we want to be long-suffering? The ultimate purpose is that God is bringing more and more people to repentance through the process. Why doesn’t he act today? Because he’s still bringing people to repentance through this process. So again, whether it’s God’s removing the wicked by removing them physically, or whether it’s removing them by conversion—and that takes time—that’s what we look for. That’s what assures us and gives us the foundation for the patience that we’re called to exhibit in the text before us.

Now, just so you don’t misunderstand that text that God is patient wanting many people to come to repentance. It goes right on the very next verse says, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in them will be burned up.”

Now, I think that again is a reference to AD 70. Could be wrong, but the point is he wants us to know that God’s patience doesn’t mean he’s not going to bring judgment. And in fact, we can be patient and God is patient to the end that his judgments come to then change the situation and to bring peace on the earth through the judgment of God.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:14, “We exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.”

Be patient with all. So, this is how we’re to be to one another, particularly.

In Hebrews 6:15, “And So after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise, Abraham. You see, that’s the idea here. Your patience will usher in you receiving the promise. The hunger and thirsting for righteousness will be accomplished. Be patient the way Abraham was patient and he got the inheritance that he knew was coming. So it is with us.

It’s not a passive resignation. It is a hopeful anticipation of good things coming, even though through difficult times.

So patience is really ultimately a mark of faith trusting in God’s grace and his purposes for us. There can be no peace without judgment and we wait patiently for the judgment of God because we know it’s bringing peace.

Now so that’s what he tells us in the first section, right? Be patient, brethren. The example of the farmer, you also be patient. Then the second thing he tells us is to establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge is standing at the door.

So, there’s a second thing we’re to do, and that’s to be establishing ourselves. Some people have referred to this as fortitude—having fortitude.

Let me again read several scriptures to get a sense of what this particular characteristic is so that we can understand what we’re supposed to do when times are tough.

In Luke 9:51, we read, “It came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Set his face. He established his face to go to Jerusalem. So, he’s grabbing a hold of himself. He’s strengthening himself. He’s setting his face to go to Jerusalem. That’s what this word, same word is used here.

In Luke 16:26, “Beside all this between us and you”—this is the story of Lazarus and Dives—”there’s a great gulf fixed established strengthened so the rich man and Lazarus cannot communicate back and forth. There’s the establishment of a barrier.”

In Luke 22:32, “I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail and when you have returned to me strengthen your brethren.” Okay, this is Jesus talking to Peter. We have an obligation to strengthen each other.

So to establish your hearts means to strengthen, to set it solid, to have fortitude is maybe a way to put it. We’re to strengthen ourselves. Okay? And we’re to strengthen one another. Peter was to strengthen his brethren.

In Romans 1:11, “For I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established, strengthened, set in place, steadfastness. So we have the hope of patience. And that makes us steadfast in the present in terms of adherence to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

In Romans 16:25, “Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. To him be the glory. So who is able to establish or strengthen us? Ultimately God. This is what God does is he establishes and strengthens us.”

In 1 Thessalonians 3:2, “I sent Timothy our brother and a minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith.”

So again, establishment, right? So there are other verses that could be read. Let me read one last one. And I’m going to read this as the benediction today from 1 Peter 5, “May the God of all grace who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after you have suffered a while perfect, establish, strengthen, in other words, strengthen and settle you.”

So there it is. So this establishment, this strength, this is what we’re supposed to do. So we’re to strengthen ourselves, the text tells us, and it tells us specifically one way to do it. How is that way? We’re to establish our hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. The judge is at the door.

So, so how do you strengthen yourself? Well, the way to weaken yourself is to grumble against your brother. We’re back to the tongue. James is filled with this stuff about tongue. So, we’re to establish our hearts, our person by the way we use our tongues. One more instance, right, of what we do externally having a difference in what we are internally.

So, you don’t wait until you feel like not grumbling against your brother and being impatient with him. That’s of course a big temptation in a time of difficulty. You start carping at each other, right?

Jeff Meyers—I’m not sure if it was in one of these talks on James when he was preparing for his book talk on James—the power went out in St. Louis, day like this, but hotter, and it was out for a couple of days, I think. And so it was like, you know, 95, 100, horrible humidity. And he said he was amazed at how quickly he started snapping at his family and slamming doors, right? I mean, it’s just such a temptation in times of persecution.

So, but and we’re not to do that. We’re not to do it. And if we don’t do that, if we don’t misuse our tongues against one another, then we can establish ourselves. You see? So, it’s establishment of the heart by a method of the tongue, by using our tongues correctly.

And so, this establishment happens as a result of what we actually do in the physical disciplines of our life.

And then the final message is the judge is standing at the door. What does it mean? What does it mean? Well, maybe it means, you know, you shouldn’t be condemned if you grumble against your brother. The text tells us you’ll be judged. The judge is standing at the door. So, it’s with Jesus at the door that gives us hope, anticipatory patience in the present because we know that in a little while the wicked will be no more and the meek will inherit the earth.

We know that’s the judge at the door. But he’s warning us that the judge at the door also means that if we fall back, right, and we fall back through grumbling against each other, if we sort of drop out in that way, then we’re going to be judged because Jesus is right at the door.

But there’s a second way to look at it, too. You don’t need to grumble against your brother. He’s going to tell us how you’re to handle problems at the end of the text. And he assures us that in the midst of our community difficulties, Jesus is at the door. He’s there to be the arbiter, to be the mediator. He’ll bring us peace.

So either way. But but in closing, notice that you cannot establish your heart according to this text in isolation. The establishment of your heart happens explicitly in community.

You know when Oscar was joined to the body of Christ and whether he ends up at this church for a long time or another church, Oscar will be with the body of Christ and to leave the body of Christ in the community of the church is to leave his ability for his heart to be strengthened. Strengthening happens in the context of community and much of community is defined by the way we use our tongues toward each other. And and that’s the way we’re established—recognizing that Jesus lives in the context of this place with his people and knowing that his judgments are in the earth, that he is the prince of peace because he’s the lord of judgment—we know we have confidence for the future.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this text. We thank you for this section of James that concludes it and wraps up and articulates again many of the basic themes. Help us, Father, not to sin in terms of our community with each other. Help us not to grumble against each other. Help us rather to establish and strengthen our hearts, to set our faces to do what’s right in community, and to actually be a positive encouragement and strengthener of one another.

Help us, Father, not to faint under trials and persecutions and difficulties, and not to be stoically passive, but rather to be patient, Lord God, in all hope, believing you that you are coming and that the coming of Jesus is to remove the wicked and establish the meek.

In his name we pray. Amen.