All right. So James Chapter 5, title my
message is five more minutes-- five more minutes. Have you thought about
how often we say that? How often five more
minutes is the solution? How many times you've had to
tell someone I'm running late. I just need-- I'm going to be
five more minutes. Like, just five minutes
and I'll be there. I'm just in a little
bit of traffic. It's like, that's crazy. I just drove. Wait. Where you coming--
five more minutes. Got it. Five more minutes in
the oven is what we need because it's not ready yet. You check. You're like you
need five minutes. I'm coming back. And then you come
back and it's burnt. It actually needed
two more minutes. Cookies, that's what
I'm talking about there. It's high altitude. That's what always gets me with
the cookies-- the high altitude instructions. Five minutes is, every husband
knows, how much longer it's going to be until his wife
is done with her makeup. How long until you're ready? Five more minutes. Every wife knows it's
how much longer there's going to be in the game before
the husband can turn off the TV. It's just five minutes
left in the game, honey. Every kid knows when parents say
it's time to brush your teeth and go to bed when they're
watching a movie or something, it's like no, mom, come
on, just five more minutes. Right? You don't ask for an hour,
which is what you intend to get. You just ask for
five more minutes. Five more minutes is
also the title to one of the saddest songs
I've ever come across. This song is by Scott
McCreery from American Idol. You've probably heard it. I'm actually about to quote
from a country western song. This is a first,
ladies and gentlemen. Miracles do happen. Man, this song got me. I'm not going to lie, it got me. I was sitting there on YouTube. It was like, it was sad. At 86, my grandpa said
there's angels in the room. All the family gathered around,
knew the time was coming soon. With so much left
to say, I prayed, Lord I ain't finished, just
give us five more minutes. And I can't tell
you how many times my wife and I and our kids have
longed for just five minutes with our little girl
who's in heaven. Just if we could have
five minutes with her, just tell us what
you're experiencing. Five minutes, just let
us know what you're doing and who you're doing
it with-- five minutes. James talks about patients
in the fifth chapter, the seventh verse. And that's going to
be our subject today. I want to talk to you
about how to honor God, how to worship God through
cultivating patience. Look with me starting
in verse seven, we're going to read to 11. 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 to endure. You have heard of the
perseverance of Job and seeing the end
intended by the Lord that the Lord is very
compassionate and merciful. How great is that? Now, patience is one of those
things that every one of us want to have. No one would take pride in
being an impatient person. It's like, tell me a
little bit about yourself. Well, I'm six, two like
soccer, super impatient. Right? Like, it's not a virtue. We wouldn't want that. We all want to be impatient,
but you and none of us want? None of us want
to need patience. We want to have it, but we
don't ever want to need it. Now, the good news is that
patience can be developed. The amount of
patience, the level of patience you have today is
not what you're stuck with. Patient people are
made, they're not born. They're built, they're not born. You can become a patient person. So don't let yourself
off the hook. That's just not my
personality type. Like, I looked up the
Enneagram profile for me and it says impatient, sorry. Is what it is, right? Don't hate me because
you ain't me, right? It's like, no. Look, look, you can
develop your patience. It is something that
you can grow in. It is a muscle that can be
built. That's the good news. The bad news is that the only
way to develop your patience is to run out of the amount
of patience you have. To be put into a situation
where you realize, dang it, I don't have it. That's the only way
to get more of it. So what is patience? Patience is a serenity
in the face of adversity in the face of difficulty. It's a serenity,
a calmness inside in the face of difficult things
that you're going through, circumstances that
feel out of control. The Bible talks about
patience as the exact word itself, I looked it up
in a Bible dictionary. And it described and defined
patience, this word itself, as enduring a trial
without panicking. The ability to endure a
trial without freaking out. The opposite of patience,
then, would be irritability. It would be to be
full of self-pity. It would be to be upset. It would be to be stressed out. When He says be patient,
what is He's saying is, be calm when you
don't feel like you can. Be calm when you feel
like freaking out. That's what God wants for us. He wants for us to
basically come to a place where there's a relaxed
confidence, a serenity. Now, don't think of
that, then, as being a passive thing because
we know it's not passive because when he praises
the perseverance of Job-- that comes up later, we'll
explain that in just a minute. When He says, you've heard
of the perseverance of Job, that word is a word we're
familiar with in our Call of the Wild study. It's the word hyper-stand. You've heard of the
hyper-stance of Job. [INAUDIBLE] You've heard of
the fact that Job had perseverance that Job let
God build this perseverance up in him. And this is something that
very early on in James he introduced, that when
trials come our way, they haven't come to destroy
us, they've come to develop us. So it's not just passive,
oh well, is what it is, oh blah dee. No, no. There's a strength that
gives you the ability to have that relaxed confidence
in the face of vexing difficult circumstances. I think that, then,
means that 2020 has been a great
gift in God giving us the opportunity to
develop patience by him exposing the illusion
of control that many of us were under and lived
under, intoxicated by that we're in control. Now that that's been exposed
to be a complete and total fabrication, that we're in
control of approximately our reaction to the crazy. You and I are in control
of that one thing-- your response to how
crazy life can become. And to the extent
that you trust God, you'll be able to flex this
muscle called patience. And then life can become what? A gift. Life, even crazy, life,
even brutal, life, even full of difficult twists
and turns can become a gift. That's what he says in
another translation. This is verse 11. What a gift life is to
those who stay the course. Those who know-- don't
give up too soon. Let the clock run
down all the way. Just five minutes. Run it run it down all the way. That's because God cares
right down to the last detail. In that sense, we can then lean
into the sovereignty of God that he's good, that he has
a plan, he's up to something in this world. And so we can have that
relaxed confidence. We can have that serenity
in the face of adversity. We can be patient. And the goal of the
Christian life-- remember this-- the goal
of the Christian life is to become like God, more
like God than you are today. Now, that's, of
course, why it becomes so easy to be impatient
because the way we become more like God is, God
allows difficult things and uses those things and
works those things for the good that we might be more and
more conformed to the image of Christ. You can't be conformed
to the image of anything without pressure. To stamp something,
that takes pressure. So God is seeking to conform us
to the image of his son, Jesus. And how does that happen? Pressure. How do we know we're
becoming more like Jesus? We become more patient
because God is patient. God is patient. In fact, He said that
to Moses directly. Moses said, show me your glory. God took them behind a
rock and God passed by. And as that
happened, what is it? God declared who
He was over Moses. And he said the Lord,
the Lord, compassionate, gracious God who
is slow to anger, bounding in love
and faithfulness. God is slow to anger. Some people have this
image of God just waiting for you or me to step out of
line so he could squash us like the bug that we are. No. That's Mr. Wonderful on
Shark Tank, that's not God. God sent His son to die
for you on the cross. God loves you. God is not desirous
of anybody perishing. He wants everybody
to have eternal life. God holds back His anger. God is slow to anger. God is patient. So we become more
like God and we become more patient as that happens. And it takes pressure
for that to happen. So listen, be patient
with your self. That can be one of
the most-- we'll talk about different
areas of patience, but I think one of
the most challenging is being patient with us. Why? Because it's so slow to grow. The image you see on
the screen behind me is some of the Redwood
trees from California. Amazing trees that get
up to 350 feet tall. But I read that depending
upon the rainfall, their growth can be as
slow as one inch per year. Can you imagine that? One inch-- an entire
year of working, an entire year of all that, and
to only grow a stinking inch. But as they are patient,
slowly but surely, even a inch in a year can
eventually add up over time, 350 feet tall. We can all become
impatient with ourselves because we're not
growing faster. We're not getting it quicker. We think we would
be further along. So we have to be
mindful of the gaps. Like they say in London, getting
on the subway, mind the gap. Mind the gap. You have to be
mindful, lest you get stuck down there under
the train as it takes off. You have to be
mindful of the gap-- the gap between
where you are today and where you're
ultimately going to become. In that waiting, in that only a
little bit of girls at a time, there's the temptation to
become impatient with ourselves. And we need to have
confidence that if we just keep doing the right things,
we're going to see growth. It can be almost imperceptible
to ourselves in real time. But if we just stay with
it, just stay with it, just stay with it, what will happen? We'll see growth eventually
if we don't give up. James gives us
four different ways to think about patience-- for
different sorts of analogies or lenses to view
patience through. And in these verses
that we read, the first thing he tells us is
to be patient like a farmer. Be patient like a farmer. A farmer knows that
there are seasons. That's the biggest takeaway
I have from a farmer. A farmer understands that
the year has rhythms to it. And he mentions
the farmer waiting for the precious harvest. This harvest that's the fruit
of the Earth coming out. And he has to wait
patiently for both the early and the latter rain. A farmer understands that
there are rhythms to the year and there's a time to sow
and there's a time to reap and there's a
separation between. And here's when rains coming. The early rain in Israel came
somewhere around October. The latter rain came sometime
around March or April. So he knew he needed
to lean into things and have things ready for
when that rain showed up. He needed to plan
it way back here so that it was just at this
point when the early rain came. So that it was
just at that point when the latter rain came,
when the latter rain showed up. And so it is in your life,
and so it is in my life. Waiting is not wasting. And we can be using
those waiting periods and those waiting moments
to be developing what's going to be useful down here. That's what I would
encourage you. When you have in
your mind something that you want to
see happening, you have something you're
impatient with, like this is taking longer. I don't like how
this is happening. I'm impatient with this
circumstance, this person, or this situation. Always ask yourself,
what can I be doing now so I'll be grateful when
that time does come then? I think sometimes we
can have it in our heads that something's
coming and all we do during the whole
time we're waiting for it is just wait for it,
instead of actually asking, what could I be doing now so
I'm grateful when that day does show up finally? Think about a farmer. A farmer, if he
spent all of his time only stressing and
obsessing about the lettuce but didn't actually
secure transportation for when that lettuce
showed up, didn't actually pay for refrigerated storage
and negotiate a contract with a grocer to sell it
to, and all the vendors and all the things
along the way, he's not just waiting
and stressing, he's actually
arranging and doing all the things that he
knows need to be done, so that when this does come
out, he's ready for it. So it's maximized. He'd say, look, I can't do
anything about this over here to grow faster,
but what can I do? I think about relationships. Those of you who are
single, you're maybe I wish I had a girlfriend. I wish I had a wife. I wish I had a husband. I wish I had a boyfriend. But what can you do? You can't force Mr. Right. You can't force Mrs. Right. You can't make that happen. You're praying. You're doing all
the right things. What can you do? You can develop yourself. You can develop yourself
into the kind of person that sort of person
you're looking for is probably going
to be looking for. So you described this godly,
charming, ripped, rich person. All right. What is that person looking for? Instead of just obsessing
about them, be working on you. Like Andy Stanley
says, be the person that you're looking
for is looking for. That's being like a farmer. Say, hey, look, this is growing. I can't do anything
about when that shows up. Some of this is out of my hands
here/ but what I can do is develop. What I can do is be proactive. What I can do is do the
things that are in my control here, in my control now. I can be patient, but I
can be patient proactively. One of my favorite verses is
second Kings 3:16 which says, make this valley
full of ditches. Make this valley
full of ditches. You're like, that's
a weird verse, pal. It's a pretty cool idea, though,
because there was a drought. And horses and man, they were
all basically dying of thirst. And the prophet, Elijah,
he prophesied and God told him rain's going to come. So he told the
people, in faith, go dig those ditches because
this massive rain's going to sweep through. This massive flood's going
to sweep through the area. But you'll only keep
the water in the ditches that you dig in faith right now. And so how much water
did they get to keep? How deep did they dig? How deep were they
willing to dig? That's exactly as much
water as they got. So I wonder, right
now, what can you be doing while you wait for the
thing that you're impatiently hoping would show? What can you be doing today? I think about the
person who wants to be a professional
athlete or wants to act or has this dream of what
this business could be. What could you be developing
in your character now? We talked a little
bit earlier about how I think young people
should go to Financial Peace University or some sort
of other budgeting class to really understand money now. Why is that so critical? Well, I came across a
Sports Illustrated statistic a while back and it said
that 78% of NFL players are bankrupt within two
years of retirement. 60% of NBA players
are broke five years after walking off the court. This idea of, I want to
play, I want to perform, but not understanding
that sometimes in life, while we're worried about what
if my dream doesn't come true, we should be asking the
question, what if it does? And what will I need to
do behind the scenes? I think about how
little emphasis, when I went to Bible college, there
was on the practical aspects of leading a church. Yes, we talked about sermons. We talked about counseling. There was even times
when they would talk about how to
do a hospital visit and how to conduct a funeral,
but what about the business side of things? What about the HR
side of things? I wish I had spent more
time leaning into that. That would have actually
prepared me for the dream that I was waiting for
that was inside of me. What can you do now? How can you be
proactive like a farmer so that you're using
those waiting days, that waiting time, to develop
the things inside of you for when that season, when
that time finally does come. James says, wait like a farmer. The ant, Proverbs
30 says, lays out in summer what he's
going to need in winter. So that season that you're so
frustrated that isn't here yet, what can you be doing
today that you'll be grateful you did when
it finally does show up? Wait, he says, secondly,
like a family-- like a family. No grumbling. Others are on a journey, too. You're impatient with
yourself, but we also can be impatient
with each other. We can grumble with each other. We can complain
towards each other. And it can cause us to lash out. It can cause us to be unkind. But never forget that
each and every one of us are trying to grow. Each and every one of us are
on this journey, this process, relationship with God. And God is trying
to build us up. And so don't be impatient
with each other. I think about the fact that
Billy and Ruth Graham-- Billy Graham's a
great evangelist. He preached the gospel
all over the world. And so many millions of
people heard the precious news that their sins could
be forgiven by trusting Christ because of Billy. But the story's told of the
day that Billy and Ruth were driving down the road and there
was some road construction. And they were waiting,
waiting, waiting. And when they finally
reached the end of it and the last guy spun
his sign from stop to proceed with caution, go
slow, and they finally went, there was a little sign that
said end of construction. Thank you for your patience. And Ruth turned to Billy
and said, when I die, I want that to go
on my tombstone. And I, a while back,
got to go stand at the foot of Ruth's grave. And there is a
Chinese symbol that stands for righteousness because
she grew up as a missionary's child in China. And then it says her
name and the year born, year she went to heaven. And then below it, it
says, end of construction. Thank you for your patience. And if you have it in your
mind that everybody that you're easily frustrated
with-- your kids-- many need patience to be parent. Your co-worker, your
brother, your sister-- everybody in your life,
there is an image of them that's like Jesus, too. And there's an
image of them that's what they're going to be like
when they're finally in heaven. They're under construction now. And so we need to be patient
with each other like a family, a family that loves each other,
especially within the church as we think about, what are we
doing to help each other become more like Jesus? Someone in your life
that doesn't know Christ, one of the greatest
things you can do is love them unconditionally. Give them space to grow. Do what you can to help them on
in their journey to become who God knows that they can become. And that's amazing testimony
to the world of the power and truth and the validity of
our faith, the love that we have for each other. Jesus said, actually,
that the world will know that you're mine
by your love for each other. So love each other
like a family. And that doesn't mean we
don't say hard things. There's hard things
that need to be said, but we can speak
the truth in love. Wait like a farmer. Wait like a family. He says then, wait like
you know the future. Wait like you know the future. And the future
he's speaking about is how this thing all ends. And that is with us
standing before God. That's how this party ends. This whole world,
this whole life, it ultimately comes to a place
where we stand before God. He puts it this way that
the judge is at the door. Like, he's at the door,
like hands on the knob. And, of course, that has a
dual meaning because we know that Jesus, again
and again and again, spoke about his second
coming, that he's coming back to this world. He's coming back to
set up his kingdom. He's coming back and that
could happen at any moment. We have no idea when
it could happen. And we should always live
with the expectation that just like his first
coming, caught people off guard, so his second
coming will, as well. But it doesn't have to just
be the end of the world that causes you to stand before God. It could be the
end of your life. The year my daughter
went to heaven, there was this talk
about the Mayan calendar and the world's supposed
to end and all of this. And it was so crazy
to let it sink in. Everyone's talking about
the end of the world, but death came to our
house before that ever had a chance to happen,
before the world ever ended. And I think about how
for you and for me, life is such a vapor,
and it is fragile. That's one of the things
James says here, as well. It's a theme to this book,
like the illusion of control. The rich person who
thinks that they're able to control outcome. He says, you're like a flower of
the field, here for one moment and then it's all over. Life is so fragile
and temporary. And so when we worry
in a situation, we might be worrying
about something that will never come to pass. And so we should be
patient like we know that, as though we remember
that, as though we truly believe that at any
moment this could all end we're going to be standing
before God, to do you what? To give an account of the
deeds done in the body. That is what it says
in Hebrews 9:27, it is appointed for man
once to die, and then to give an account for the
deeds done while he was in skin. So if we are patient,
it will be because we realize that we are going
to give an account to God. Now, that's, as
Jesus people, not you're going to give an account
and depending on that judgment, you're going to heaven or hell. No. That was started at the cross. This judgment is
a reward ceremony. This is silver, bronze, gold. This is what Jesus
said, I'm coming and my reward is with me. So we should have that
image of Jesus in our minds, that he is truly coming
wanting to reward us. But what we're
doing now is either going to give him the
occasion to reward us or it's preventing him from
being able to lavishly reward us like He wants us to. So we should be patient
like we know the future. And if we are doing that,
what are we going to be doing? We're going to be using
all the gifts we have, using our abilities
that we have, and it's going to be to
bring people to know Jesus, to bring beauty into this
world, to help people, to help people come
to know Christ. And I think one of the
biggest things that keeps us from
living patiently is, we get jealous of other people. Jealousy has been brought
up in the Book of James. And the jealousy that
pops up is interesting because it, essentially,
derives impatience from seeing what God is
doing in someone else's life that we wish he
was doing in ours. That's what happens. I would be patient, but I
saw that you're over here and that's where I want to be. I want to be at that level. I want to have that position. I want to have that possession. And then the family
starts breaking down that we're meant to be living in
as Jesus people because, what? Now we're lashing
out at each other. We're cutting each other down. We're jealous. It's causing there to be
all that friction and all that unpleasantness. And so what will cure
that is remembering, man, I'm not going to be held
accountable for what you have, I'm only going to be
accountable for what I have. I often think about the
parable of the talents. You know, Jesus said
that the master gave one talent to this guy,
two talents to this guy, five talents to this guy,
and said, put them to work, multiply them, and I'm
going to come back. When he came back, the five
talent guy had doubled his. Two talent guy, doubled his. One talent guy was like,
I hid it in the ground. Couldn't think of anything
to do with my talent. And it's like, what
in the world happened? Now, again, a talent
doesn't sound like a lot. You think of like, and you
get one, like one silver coin, you know. That's how it is in
the children's Bibles. But a talent, it helped
me a lot to know, was a half million dollars-- a half million dollars. I wonder if, when he was
doling out this resource, the one talent guy got that
half million dollars was like. oh my gosh, half
million dollars. That's not my money. I get to invest this? This is crazy. And was super pumped on it until
he saw what his friends got. And maybe, just maybe, the
reason he buried his talent was because he became
dissatisfied and impatient because he realized someone
else was given more than me. And now he couldn't
think of anything to do with his one talent
because all of his ideas were $2 and 1/2
million business plans. He had five talent taste
and a one talent budget. And so he ended up grumbling. And when the judge returned--
this is the parable of what happens at the end, right? When the judge said,
all right, what did you do with your one talent? He goes, I did nothing
with it because his eyes had been on the five
talent the whole time. And it caused him, then,
to spin this whole story about the master being unkind
and the master being unfair. And it's like, wait a minute. This guy was just
passing out $500,000. What's so unkind about him? He sounded pretty nice, right? It's like with Willy
Wonka just like giving out the factory over here. No. The problem is you, and you
had your eyes on other people. So when we remember that
the judge is at the door, we're going to be standing
before him before we know it. We're not going to have
our eyes on each other. We're going to be
loving each other. We're going to be grateful
for whatever gift we have. And we're going to be using it
to bring a return on investment for what God has invested to us. The enemy will always
try and get you to focus on what you
don't have and what you don't get to do
instead of focusing on, what do you have
in front of you? What can you do with
what you've been given? I think about Joseph-- how easy it would be
for him to be impatient because he had a dream of
being a great leader one day. He had a dream of
being a powerful ruler and that even his own family
would recognize, ultimately, his leadership ability. But God allowed the
situations of life that came his way
to bring pressure, because how does God get the
stamp of his glory on us? It's oftentimes through
difficult circumstances. Here's what you need to remember
when you're going through one of those difficult
times like Joseph, where you're being lied
about, you're being forgotten, you're being thrown into a
pit, you're being betrayed, you're being left indefinitely
hanging out in this prison cell, no end in sight. You need to remember that
the process is the product. The process is the product. I saw that on a email
I got a while back. It was 2013. I was sitting in my
office and I don't know how I got on this
company's mailing list, right? They get you and then they
never stop emailing you until you die. And I got this email
and the subject said that, the process
is the product. And the craziest thing
was, as I clicked it, the email was actually them
telling me how blue jeans are made, like how denim is made. I should know this. My name's Levi. I should know, but
I did not know this. Like, I knew they called it,
like, stone washed denim, but they actually
do involve stones. In fact, it involves lasers. Some of the etchings
in jeans involved, like, lasers burning into them. That's how they
get the whiskering. On them and then they load
up drums with hundreds of pounds of pumice stones. Right? You would never, in 100
years, look at that and go, they're making blue jeans. Now you would. Then they grab
sandpaper sometimes. And there's so many
different processes involved in what it takes
to get a pair of these. And you think like, oh man, I
want some cool, looked faded, distressed. Some of you are just, like,
so full of judgment right now. Like, no, the only way you
should have jeans of like that is by wearing them. I get it. Is fine. Unto each his own. But you think about the
art involved in this. And what they were
saying in that email is the process of these jeans is
the product that you're buying. You're not just
buying the pants. You're buying what the
pants have been through. Right. So listen, the
product of your life is the process that
you face in your life-- what you want to become. So Joseph, when he's
a young man dreaming of being a great leader one day,
that's this finished product. But he had no idea
that to get to here would take lasers in jail. It would take pumice stone
pummeling him-- ow, ow, ow-- repeatedly in Potiphar's house. It would involve the
sand papering away of his selfishness. And what did he have to do? He had always remember,
the judge is at the door. The judge is at the door. The master sees. I'm going to give an account. So when he was given the
opportunity by Potiphar's wife to give into his
sinful temptation that came his way in that moment,
he said, no, I would never do this in the sight of God and
your husband who is my master. He said the Gods at the door. Even if Potiphar never
found out, God would know. Joseph understood that
God was shaping him. God was working in him. God was doing
something in his life. The process is the product. The thing you're longing for
in your life to see happen is the very same
reason God has allowed some of the difficult things
that have coming your way. Your prayer has been heard. And God, oftentimes,
answers our prayers with a trial, an
unlikely gift that is there to do the
very same thing that we want him to do
on the inside of us. If we don't quit, if
we stay the course, life then becomes a gift. So Joseph, what did he do? Joseph used the
gifts that he had, like a farmer, in
small ways that would serve him down the road. I'm a leader. I'm meant to lead one day. I'm in a prison. What can I do? He didn't focus on
what he couldn't do. He focused on what he could do. Can't lead a nation right now. Know what I can do? Sweep some floors, take
care of this jail cell, start to serve other prisoners. I've got a great gift
of interpreting dreams. One day I might even interpret
a king's dream, save a nation. What are you going to do now? I don't know. Help my little prison friend
with the dream he had. No one saw, nothing
glamorous about it. Stakes weren't high. He was just voluntarily
helping someone out. He was developing his gift like
a farmer, in the background. And then all of those
things, all the muscle memory he was
developing in those days would come back
to help him later. We were preaching somewhere
this week and my wife and I were asked some tips
from a young preacher. Like hey, any tips on
being a young preacher? And what we just said was
take it seriously now. You're in front of four people. Take it seriously now. Every time, it matters. You don't all of a sudden
get in front of a big crowd and then you're going
to really get after it. It's what you do in
secret that no one sees that will develop the
things inside of you that, ultimately,
everybody will want to see. That's what Joseph knew. He was patient like
he knew the future. This is coming. I want to get ready for it. This is coming. I'm going to stand before God. The judge is at the door. I'm going to take it seriously
and put all my heart into it. And finally-- and we're
almost done here-- James tells us to wait
like your forefathers. Wait and be patient
like your forefathers. And he hearkens back-- ooh, I
used the word vex and the word hearken today. What is happening to me? The beautiful thing is
that he throws his arm back to all of Old
Testament history, all of the people who have come
and gone following God. And he basically just showcases
the result of patience. All these amazing
things that they did and were able to be a
part of, it involved patience. Look at it in
another translation. It's verse 10. He says, take the old
prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything,
went through everything, and never once quit. All the time, honoring God. You think about your
favorite Bible story, right? Like right now,
someone put in the chat your favorite Bible character. Someone's like Paul, right,
Daniel, David, Esther. Think about it right now. If you're at a watch
party, just tell someone in the room what your
favorite Bible character is. And now, ask yourself
this question, does any of their story
not involve suffering? No one remembers the story of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego just because they
were good leaders. It's because they
got put in a furnace. Moses was put into a
crocodile infested river. David had a lunatic
father-in-law who tried to kill him for a decade. Esther's mom and dad both died
when she was a little girl. And then a maniac tried to
kill every single person on the Earth that
she was related to. And she had such a
strange dynamic going in her relationship, if she
walked into her husband's room without him calling
her first, she would be killed on the spot. I loved that Queen Esther story. It's like a beauty pageant
in the Bible, sort of, right? Where the stakes were very high. What am I trying
to get you to see? What James is saying,
he's like I know it sucks when everything's ahh. I know 2020. I get it. I get it. I get it. But just remember, all
the stories you love, they were people who were
patient and didn't freak out, but kept and cultivated
that that serenity in the face of adversity. They, in their moment of
truth, took their hyper-stance. They took their stance and chose
to have a good foundation so that they could have that
relaxed confidence that comes from that base. I'm like springs here
on my feet and now it doesn't matter what
happens, I am stable. When you have that
foundation, the opposite of what the devil wants to do
in your trials comes to pass. You have to understand,
both God and Satan have a plan for your suffering. Both God and Satan
have an outcome in mind when trials come your way. The devil wants you
to throw in the towel and be like, peace out. Like, forget this. Like, I thought God was good. He wants you to bail
on Christianity. He wants you to bail
on following God because that's what
he wants to happen. He wants the sun to come
out and to scorch the wheat that spring up quickly-- yay, I love God-- but doesn't have roots. Because when you
have a root system, you have that
relaxed confidence. The Redwood trees-- their
root system goes out for miles and they connect all
around each other. So they can withstand crazy
winds that come their way. Their roots are all connected. They're strong. They have roots. Now they have a
relaxed confidence. I'm not going to be taken out by
this storm because of my roots system. The enemy wants to take
you out with trials, but God wants to develop
you through your trials. He wants you, in
your trials, to know, I'm being developed so I
can have a root system. God is making me
more like Christ, giving me the opportunity
become like Him. And he points to
the ultimate example of this when he says,
remember our homie, Job? Remember Job, what
he went through? Remember Job's hyper-stance? Now, what happened to Job? If you haven't read the
Old Testament Book of Job in a while, refresher-- he lost his house. He lost his health. He lost his wealth. And he lost his seven
sons and three daughters all on the same day. It got so bad that
his wife was like, I don't know what you did
man, but you should just curse God and die. Joe was like, thanks, honey. Right? Early on as you're
reading Job, you're like, why did the devil not
take his wife out? And you listen to her talk and
you're like, she's on his team. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I understand
why he left her, right? And yet Job, what did he do? One of the most beautiful
things-- and what he actually said to his wife
was, honey, shall we say shall we receive
good from God only and not difficult? Shall we receive good from
him only and not evil? He gives and he takes away. And at ground zero,
with his entire life looking like a dumpster
fire, he said, blessed be the name of the Lord. Though you slay me,
I will follow you. James tells us, think
about Job's patience. Job had no idea why
he was suffering. We get to read the Book of Job. We're like, oh, this
is happening because-- when he was going
through it in real time, he didn't know that God had been
bragging about him to the devil and that's why this took place. He had no clue why
it was happening, but he knew who was in charge. One of the most beautiful
verses in the Book of Job, which is an honest book full
of confusion, full of pain. He didn't know why. He didn't know--
he was bewildered. He was in shock. He was raw. He was asking
difficult questions. And he was giving it all to God. He was giving God that
hurt, giving God that pain. But one of the most amazing
confessions of faith is where he says, in
verse 25 of Chapter 19, I know that my Redeemer lives. And He shall stand
at last on the Earth. And after my skin is destroyed,
I know this, in my flesh, I shall see God. What was he saying? He's like, I can go through
this because I know the judge's hand is at the door. He's not far. He's up to something. And whatever happens
here, I'm going to stand before Him, ultimately. God is going to have the
last word in this situation. So Job says, I don't know
why I'm going through this, but I know whose in
charge, therefore, I can believe what
is taking place-- what is taking place? The process is the product. And that's what he said. He said, when this is all
done, the beautiful end intended by the Lord,
who is compassionate and who is full of goodness
and is slow to anger, the end intended by
God-- what is it? Verse 10, Chapter 23 of Job,
he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I
shall come forth as gold. Job didn't know why, but
was patient because he knew who, therefore he could
believe what was taking place. It's helped me become like gold. And when this is all done, I'm
going to come forth this gold. The product of my
life is, in fact, being made through the
process of my life, that is what I'm going through. So I'm going to come forth
like gold because God is going to win in the end. I have no freaking
clue, but I'm going to trust him even if it
kills me because he's trying to make gold out of me. And how does he
make gold out of me? Fire. Fire is how you bring
forth pure gold. Behind me is a lodge pole pine. Montana's full of them. Wyoming's full of them. All over the Northwest. They're beautiful trees that
get up to 150 feet tall. And they're really amazing
because a mature lodge pole pine can produce as many as
9,000 pine cones in a year. The bugger is, none
of them can cause there to be new lodge pole pines
because this is what a lodge pole pine pine cone looks like. They are so sealed
up with pitch, so sealed up with
a hard material, that even if the tree does grow
9,000 of them, none of them can open up to new trees. They can't ever sprout out
because they're sealed up. The only way they can be
opened up is with fire. This is what one looks like
after it's been burned. Causes it to
explode open and all of the seeds come shooting
out of the pine cone only when a fire passes
through, which is why almost always in areas
where there are lodge pole pines, after a fire
has swept through, one of the first things you see
growing up is new lodge pole pines to replace the old ones. It takes fire to open
up what's on the inside. The process is the product. God's wanting to bring you
forth as gold, so don't give up. Stay the course
and you will watch life become a beautiful gift. To summarize it, I
want to point you to one of my favorite quotes
from Ralph Waldo Emerson. A hero is no braver
than an ordinary man, but he is brave
five minutes longer. Jesus, help us to not
tap out but to trust you. Cry if we got a cry, for sure. Scream if you got to
scream, absolutely. But don't let go. Just hold on. We don't have to be
braver than others. We just need to just hold
on for five more minutes. We're going to see what you're
up to if we don't lose heart. And I pray, God, that you
would keep in our minds eye that beautiful image of the
end intended by you for Job. That in the end of
the story, he was given twice as much resource,
twice as much wealth, twice as much opportunity, and
you gave him seven more sons and three more daughters. Not twice as many kids because
the kids that were in heaven were still his. So he only got one
more set of children. So whether it's in this
Earth while we're still here or in eternity that we
see what you're up to, we thank you that you're
making gold out of us. So help us to trust you. I feel the Holy Spirit so
clearly whispering in my heart that there are people who just
need to respond to this right now. And if you've been tempted
to give up on something, to be impatient with something,
but you're hearing God whisper to you, I'm still with
you, I'm working on you, I'm not done with
you, would you just responded that by raising
up your hand right now? Just saying I can do
this five minutes longer. I'm just going to
keep trusting God. Help me to have that
relaxed confidence. Raise your hand up. Raise your hand up. Raise your hand up. Father, bless these who are
choosing to stay instead of go. Bless these who
are saying, I'm not letting go unless you bless me. Keep working on my heart. Keep working on my marriage. Keep working on my life. Develop patience in me. Thank you, Jesus. You can put your hands down. And I want to invite anybody who
is listening to this and you've never taken a moment in
your life to invite Jesus into your heart-- we've talked in this
sermon about how life can descend
into vapor, you're standing before God
before you know it. The most important thing
is not what you do for God, it's what He has done
for you on the cross and that you accept that. Invite him into your
heart, even right now just while we're praying. Just say, Jesus
come into my life. Jesus, be my friend. Jesus, help me to follow you. The Bible's emphasis
is not on us coming from a place of
being bad to being good. It's about us going from
being dead to being alive. And that's what God wants to
happen in your heart right now. It's not about religion. It's about a
relationship with Jesus. If you trust Him, if you
invite him into your heart, he will come in
and make you new. Pray this with me,
just those of you who are responding to the
Holy Spirit pulling at you. You might have even, as a
child, said a prayer like this, but never in response to the
Holy Spirit just so clearly right now knocking on
the door of your heart. Say this, say, dear God,
I know I'm a sinner. I need your grace. Bring me to life in Jesus name. Amen. We're so excited for everyone
of you making that decision, honestly. And if you would send a
text message to 97,000 and put the words Fresh
Life, those two words, Fresh Life in the text, we want to
be able to dialogue with you, encourage you,
pray for you, talk to you about what comes next. How do grow in this
relationship with God? We'd be so fired up to do that. God bless you all.
