Dan Herold | James 5:7-11 | December 11, 2016
(Sermon begins at 11:47)
In just a few short weeks Christmas will finally be here! We’ll get to gather together and celebrate our Savior’s birth, we’ll sing all those favorite Christmas hymns that we love to hear each year, we’ll get to open gifts, and spend time with our loved ones. It is an awesome time of year! But it’s still weeks away… That might not sound like much, but as the anticipation grows it gets harder and harder to wait.
Do your remember what it was like when you were younger? How once mom and dad put the presents under the Christmas tree at home it was almost unbearable to have to wait to open them? Or maybe you’re beyond excited to see the faces on your kids and spouses and friends when they open the gifts that you have carefully picked out for them. Maybe you just want the waiting to be over. You see all the signs of Christmas around you, the decorations, the shops downtown, the Christmas music everywhere–and you just want it to be Christmas already! That’s not a bad thing at all—God tells us to be eager and joyfully anticipate days like Christmas, but in James 5 God teaches us a lesson about waiting. In James 5:7-11 God tells us to wait for him patiently! He gives us a couple of illustrations too. He tells us to wait like a farmer waits and to wait like the Old Testament prophets waited.
Now, what does it mean to wait like a farmer? I didn’t grow up on a farm myself, but I spent quite a bit of time around farmers and it seems like farmers are always waiting on something. They wait for the market prices to be right so they can turn a profit. They wait for calves to be born. They can work hard preparing fields, planting seeds, fertilizing crops, making sure no weeds creep in, but they have no control over when it will rain and cause the crops to grow. A farmer can put in countless hours of work, but he needs to wait for the rain to see the fruit of his labor and that takes a lot of patience–patience which God tells us to imitate as we wait for him.
James writes,
“Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”
I would imagine that it would be very easy for a farmer to grow impatient with his crops. To have your livelihood tied up in something you can’t fully control must be frustrating at times. You can work so hard, plant your crops, give them all the care and attention imaginable, and you still can’t make them grow any faster.
Waiting patiently like a farmer doesn’t just apply to Christmas celebrations, though. When God told us to wait patiently for him he had another day in mind that we are also waiting for. We also need to wait like a farmer for our Savior’s return on the Last Day. Just think about how similar it is for a farmer to wait for his crops to grow and a Christian to wait for Jesus to return. A farmer can make all the preparations and have everything set just right so that conditions are perfect for crops to grow, but still whether they grow or not is mostly out of the farmer’s control. In the same way as Christians we can prepare our hearts to meet Jesus and we can be watchful and aware of all the signs around us, but we have no control over the time when Jesus will return in glory.
We can look at the list of signs of the end times that Jesus gives us in Matthew 24 and that we hear about in Revelation–natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars, disease, false teachers, and so on. When we see all those things in our world we might say to ourselves, “Well everything is here, it sure looks like the end.” And that might lead us to jump to conclusions about when Jesus will return, but God tells us to wait patiently like a farmer. Even though we look forward to that day when Jesus comes to take us to heaven, God tells us to wait for it patiently. He tells us not to be anxious and not to grumble and complain.
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Waiting patiently isn’t easy, especially when we can’t control the outcome. God comforts us though. He uses this example of how a farmer waits to show us how to wait patiently and to show us that it can be done. He also gives us another example, though, and tells us to wait like the prophets. He encourages us by calling to mind all those heroes of faith who have gone before us and all the trials they endured, but still they patiently trusted in the Lord!
In verse 10 of our text James writes,
”Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.”
James uses the example of Job and how he waited patiently. Job needed a lot of patience, didn’t he? He endured more hardship in his life than many of us ever will. His entire family was killed, all his possessions were taken away, and even his own health was affected during the time of his trials. Even Job’s best friends turned on him and accused him of having done something wrong so that he would be punished like this. But the whole time, Job never lost faith. He never turned on God, but he waited patiently and trusted in the Lord. Ultimately he knew that these earthly troubles wouldn’t last and that one day he would see his redeemer with his own eyes. Job persevered through much because of his faith in his Savior.
But by no means is Job the only person we can look at as an example of patience. What about Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers and then wrongly imprisoned? Or Daniel who was thrown to the lions? How about the three men who were thrown into a fiery furnace? Or Isaiah who supposedly was tortured and then sawed in half while still alive? I think if I were in any of those situations I probably wouldn’t be very patient. That’s why God holds these men up before us as examples of how to wait patiently. Those men I listed weren’t super heroes, they didn’t have special powers–they had faith. Simple faith just like you and I have which is capable of far more than we’d ever imagine. Jesus said that even the smallest faith can move mountains–like the farmer and like the prophet though, we need to step back and let God do his work!
James tells us precisely why we can confidently wait patiently like farmers and prophets. We can wait like that, fully trusting God and taking ourselves out of the equation because,
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”
God isn’t going to let the farmer who trusts in him to bring rain and cause his crops to grow go without food. God isn’t going to let his prophets whom he has called and who have devoted their lives to his service suffer in vain. Most importantly though, God isn’t going to let his children whom Jesus died to save, hope in vain.
We put our hope in Christ. We look forward to a joyous celebration of his birth, and with equal joy we anticipate his second coming. God won’t let us be disappointed. He is full of compassion and mercy. It is that compassion and mercy that led him to send his Son Jesus to be born on that first Christmas, to live a perfect life, and to die in our place. And it is because of that compassion and mercy that we can confidently wait like farmers and prophets both right now as we look forward to Christmas and everyday as we anticipate Christ’s return in glory to bring us to our eternal home in heaven. So we join together with all the saints and say, “Come, O, Come Emmanuel.”
Amen.