InPerspective

Harry Reeder: Look at what he says: "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord." There is a duration of patience and trials. And the patience I need, and the trials of life, all have an expiration date.

I don't know that date. You don't know that date, but I can tell you when I will not need patience and there will be no trials. It is when Christ returns.

Harry Reeder: Putting Life in Biblical Perspective, with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Harry Reeder: As broken, fallen creatures living in a broken, fallen world, suffering is inevitable and inescapable, even for believers. But God's persevering grace assures and empowers our perseverance in the faith. James does not avoid the reality of suffering, but rather assumes it, faces it head on, and exhorts us to remain patient and steadfast in the Lord as we look forward to His second coming.

Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder takes us to James chapter 5 and verses 7 through 11, as he brings us today's teaching, part two of the message, "True Religion and Perseverance."

Harry Reeder: Look with me in the next verse, verse 8. "You also be patient." "Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand," or "is near."

Now your patience is no longer a passiveness, even though you're waiting in the trials of life, now added to it is this call that by God's grace, take hold of the means of grace and strengthen, establish your heart. So, here is the admonition: establish your heart in the patience that God has called you to. Fix your heart, fasten your heart, secure your heart, focus your heart.

Now what's presumed is this, that you're a Christian and you got a new heart. If you don't have a new heart, you can't fix it, you can't focus it, you can't strengthen it, you can't establish it. So you have to come to Christ. The new heart allows you to come to Christ. But then when you've come to Christ with a new heart, that heart was made by God to be fixed on Jesus Christ, to be focused upon Jesus Christ. But not only focused upon Christ, focused upon something very specific in Christ.

Look at the last part of that: "Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand." So what is the motivation? You establish your heart for the coming of the Lord. And then finally, what is the expectation? You fasten your heart, you fix your heart upon, you focus your heart, you strengthen your heart upon Christ who is coming again, and what is the final part, the expectation? Soon.

This may be mine and your last day. He is coming. Maybe morning, maybe noon, but will be soon that Christ is coming soon. Redeem the time.

That's two layers. So you got one layer where you're waiting confidently and expectantly for the triumphant king. Now, the patience of waiting with confident expectation is joined with a focused heart upon a soon coming Christ.

Now here's the third layer of the gospel gift of perseverance in the Christian life. And that's given to us in these next verses. Look with me beginning in verse 9. "Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door." Let's stop right there. What is the third admonition? Here's what it is: Do not grumble.

We're back to the unbridled tongue, aren't we? We're back to bridling the tongue by grace. James keeps coming back to the tongue. That's directly fastened to the heart. Because the heart of the problem is the problem with the heart. Well, if the heart is established, then by God's grace, we don't grumble. What we do is rejoice in the Lord. "Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for your life in Christ Jesus." Do not grumble.

Now you're probably asking yourself, why in the world did he go to grumbling here? Why did he tell us, "Don't grumble"? What has that got to do with Christian perseverance? Let me try to explain it this way. You're in a sin-cursed world. That means you're going to meet with adversity, you're going to meet with challenges, you're going to meet with discouragement, you're going to meet with disappointment, you're going to meet with all kinds of things in the sin-cursed world. People that you depend upon will not be dependable. What you expect will not come through. There are all kinds of things in a sin-cursed world that happens.

Let me try to explain it this way. We get up in the morning and the father goes one way and the mother goes one way and the children go another way. And the father is off to his job and as he's at his job, he's encountering all these things and guess what? Somebody signed something wrong, somebody didn't do something right, somebody has undercut him, somebody has done this. And the mother goes off perhaps to a job and the same thing happens, or perhaps she's a homemaker and she finds out that things didn't work out to get the kids to school and the school teacher didn't do this and this person didn't do that. And besides that, there's 13 times you got to ride up and down Highway 280.

And then you got, beyond that, the children go to class and somebody bullies them, somebody mocks them, somebody does this. And then everybody comes home. What happens when they get home with the family? Well, you know what you want to happen, but here's what usually happens, is the old, "Things didn't go well at work, so I went home and kicked the cat." "Well, I was in the car with my children so I couldn't say what I wanted to say, but when I get home I can say what I want to say." "Couldn't say what I wanted to say at the job, I might have got fired, but when I get home, I'll just ventilate."

And so we get home and the mother and the father and the children begin to ventilate. Actually, what they all need is encouragement. The reason he says, "Don't grumble," is because you live in a sin-cursed world with all kind of frustrations and discouragement, disappointments and the natural default is to grumble. Grumbling is the luxury of trying to write a self-exalting autobiography. And you don't care what happens to other people, it's just I'm going to grumble. It's the same word that's used when the Israelites came out of Egypt. God's hand delivered them, but now some trials came in the wilderness, so they began to grumble. God's hand has delivered us, but we meet the trials of life, so we begin to grumble.

The word means an incessant moaning. It means a continuous murmuring. And so we begin to grumble. And that's really just a declaration of self-absorption that things didn't go the way they should have for me, so next person I see, I will grumble. But now he says to us, "Don't do it." "Don't grumble." You say, "Well, Harry, what do I do with my frustration?" Take it to the Lord, who is slow to anger and compassionate and can do something about it. Don't take it to somebody else. All your grumbling does is bring them down. While you seek to alleviate ourselves, our grumbling destroys others. So we don't grumble. We don't gossip. We don't slander. That's what we don't do.

But rejoice in the Lord and give thanks. That we boast in the Lord, that we bring our disappointments to him, and we bring his praise to one another. "Let no unwholesome word proceed from out of your mouth, but only such a word that is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear." And so in the family of God, what there needs to be is no grumbling, but encouragement and praise that is devoted to the majesty of our God.

And so he says that we're not to grumble under the trials of life. Even in our irritability and in our frustration, we are to go to the Lord for his grace, put our trust in him, with confident expectation, know that the Lord is at work, with strengthening our hearts, so that our words reflect the strength of grace in our heart. We begin to use words that glorify the Lord and encourage one another. The realization is what? Here's his third reference to the second coming. But notice this time, he doesn't say the Lord is coming. This time he says, "The judge is standing at the door." The judge is standing at the door.

In other words, Jesus is at the door. See, don't grumble. Why? Jesus is at the door. You ever been with somebody and they started talking about somebody and you realize that the person they're talking about is just standing around the door? "Hey, they're outside the door. They're outside the door." Or somebody that you can't wait to see is outside the door. "Hey, they're just outside the door."

You see, that's the way we look at it. Lord, my Savior is at the door. He's about to open it. I want the pattern of my speech to be honoring to him. I do not want the pattern of speech that identifies those whom the judge is going to condemn. Go check Romans 1. Go check First Corinthians. Go check Second Corinthians. The marks of unbelief are grumbling.

So, Lord, I do not want the pattern of speech that marks out those who are condemned when Christ comes again. I want the pattern of speech growing in my life that marks out those whom he comes to bring home to be with him. And he is at the door and about to open it.

And then finally he says, "Let me give you some illustrations of this." Let's look at the last part of this and then I'll give you just one takeaway. Here are the two illustrations. Look at verse 10. "As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord." The Lord called these prophets, Hosea, Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. He said, "Here's my message, go speak it." But I got to tell you something, they're not going to listen. They're going to reject you. They're going to hate you. They're going to despise you. But you persevere with steadfastness for me. You stay the course.

Jeremiah, they will not listen to you. Elijah, they will not listen to you. Ezekiel, they will declare you as one that they do not want to be around or listen to. "Don't expect to get a raise from my people." Don't expect it. But you stay faithful to the end.

Then he said, "Let me give you another illustration. What about Job?" He says, "Go to Job." Look at the next verse. "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful." Here's Job. Job was steadfast to the end. And so look at Job and learn from him. Now all you got to do is go to the book of Job and you can see all kind of gospel wisdom and you can see his steadfastness. "Though he slay me, yet I will serve him." "Though my flesh be destroyed, yet I shall in my flesh, yet see him." There are all kinds of texts that declare his confidence in the Lord, even under the trials of a sovereign God who has allowed Satan to be at work against him and in his life. Everything had been taken from him, even his help. The only thing that was around were his friends and his wife, they became part of the trials. But he stayed the course to the end. And none of these men know what you know.

Look at that last verse. "You have seen the compassion and mercy of the Lord." You know how it came out for them. They didn't know how it was coming out. They didn't know how it would end. They didn't know they would be quoted thousands of years later. Isaiah didn't know that we would be putting up that passage of scripture that he wrote by the power of the Holy Spirit and using it as a confession of faith. They didn't know that. They just knew the Lord had called them, the Lord had sent them, and they would stay the course, even though those whom they ministered to and cared for would reject them and despise them.

He says, "There's two examples for you. And you have the privilege to be on the other side and see the mercy and compassion of the Lord."

Well, let me give you the takeaway. Here's the takeaway: In the midst of the trials of life, the authentic Christian perseveres with both patience and steadfastness. The Christian perseveres with both patience and steadfastness because of a heart established in the gospel wisdom. I've just attempted to put all three of these layers together, is that the steadfastness, the hypomeno, the steadfastness of life, the perseverance in life, built upon sterritzo, that your heart is being strengthened, built upon patience where you're waiting for the coming of your triumphant king. That all of that is put together and the Christian perseveres with patience that is expectant, with steadfastness that is resolute, and it's because of a heart, a new heart, that has been saturated with gospel wisdom in order to live life for the Lord.

What kind of saturation? Well, the first thing is it is saturated with the victory of Christ's first coming. That you know Christ is coming again and he is coming to bring to consummation what his victory was in his first advent. He came and he humbled himself. He didn't come to bring judgment, he came to bear judgment so you could have a new heart. You could have a new record. You could have a new family. You could have a new home. You could have a new life. He came so that you could love him. He came because he first loved you. And because of what he has done, your king has triumphed and won the victory. That's foundational. Your heart is fixed on that Christ-given victory in his first coming. That means you move to the triumph of his second coming.

Harry, when will it come? I don't know. I don't know when it comes. Listen, I am not interested in any book that tells me the date. Please save your money, don't give it to me. The Bible tells me no man knows the date. The second coming, there's two things that have got to happen. We have got to reclaim teaching on the second coming of Christ. It's crucial for the steadfastness of the believer in life. Three times he said that you look to the coming of Christ. It's crucial. But when we do teach on the second coming, we get off track. Like one preacher I was listening to said, we get into the book of Revelation and we say, "Look, these locusts, those are black helicopters from Russia." Folks, how does that help you in steadfastness? That kind of exotic speculation.

Listen, here's what the Bible teaches. Jesus is coming soon. His coming will be sudden. You ever been in an airplane when you're landing in the middle of the night and you look out to the horizon and you see that storm and that lightning flashing? That's the way he'll come. He will take the unbelieving world by surprise. They won't be expecting it. They'll think business as usual. God's people, they don't know the date, they're not worried about the date, they're not trying to fix a date because they know they can't fix a date. What they're looking for is the season that marks out he is coming. He is coming soon. And when he comes, he will bring to consummation the victory he has purchased. He will bring me to maturity. No more patience, no more trials, no more sin, no more death, no more grave, none of that. New heavens, new earth, no sin, no ability to sin. That's what you focus on in the second coming of Christ. That's why the believer says in the book of Revelation, "Come quickly, Lord." "Come quickly."

So you rest in the victory of his first coming. You look with anticipation to the consummation of his second coming. And then this kind of perseverance needs a grumble-free zone of the family of God. No grumbling. Here's what I'm pleading with you, is that in this place, this church will be a death trap for sin and will be a haven of encouragement in life and words for sinners that are saved by grace. Say, "Harry, what if there's sin?" The Bible tells us how to deal with sin. "What if there's ought?" The Bible tells us how to deal with ought. Dealing with sin and dealing with ought is not by grumbling. Grumbling is merely the luxury of self-absorption.

We're going to be patient and say no to self-protection. We're going to, by God's grace, be patient to say no to self-protection. Be establishing your heart for steadfastness, to say no to self-pity in the trials of life. And then don't grumble to say no to self-absorption at the expense of discouraging other people with my grumbling words. No, that it will not be here, that there will be no place for it. In place of it will be this glorious praise to God.

So there's the victory of his first coming. There's the triumph of his second coming and that's the expiration date for sin and all of its consequences. There is the environment of a family in a grumble-free zone where we come into one another and we're encouraging one another in the Lord. And finally there's the joy of revealing the Lord's compassion and mercy in the trials of life. That God's doing something. He never says all things are good, but all things are working together to good. So that when the world sees us in the trials of life, what they see is a reflection of God's compassion and mercy in our perseverance. And the reason we can reflect his compassion and mercy as we're growing in grace with imperfect obedience but persistent perseverance, then the reason they can see it is because we've seen the Lord's compassion and mercy. We saw it in the prophets. They had no idea what was going to happen, but look what happened. They saw it in Job. He had no idea what all was going to happen, but look what happened.

And folks, it's written in your life. You've seen it in your life. This last week, I actually met the grandson of this guy I'm going to tell you about. The father was a leader in the church. World War II, Japan. And in Japan, the emperor said to the church in the opening days of World War II, he said, "The church can worship as long as you bow to the emperor." Sounds like Daniel, doesn't it? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Well, some Christians said, "Well, I don't believe in it anyway, but I'll do it so I don't get killed." But this guy wouldn't do it. And he got arrested. He got arrested 1941. And he didn't get put in jail, he got put in the basement of a jail. And his family was so discouraged, even his son that now is a great leader in the church of Japan, an elder in one of the churches. But he said, "We were all discouraged." "We were discouraged because my dad had been faithful and look what the Lord had allowed him. He was in the dungeon of a jail. And all he had been is faithful to the Lord."

And we got discouraged. And our dad said, "Praise the Lord. Don't get discouraged. Don't grumble." I didn't tell you where that jail was, did I? That jail was in Hiroshima. He actually saw the atomic bomb dropping. And the bomb hit and exploded. And he saw the mushroom cloud. And the tremor and the shockwaves blew down every building. And all of the captors that had kept him and tortured him for three years were consumed in a moment. And he walked out unharmed to live for the next 35 years and lead the church of Jesus Christ in his hometown. We have seen the mercy and compassion of the Lord.

But go beyond Hiroshima. Go to the cross. There was the trial of life. And there you saw the Savior who would not come down, but stayed there to win the victory. And in that moment, the author and perfecter of your faith, who for the joy set before him, endured to the end the cross, and now has sat down in victory. And you are the precious fruit of his grace and mercy.

Be patient. Strengthen your hearts in Christ. Anticipate his coming. And then call upon him that by his grace there would not be grumbling. Oh, we'll go to him with all of our questions. But before this world, they will hear the praise of the Lord. And God's people will hear the encouraging word from the Lord to us in this life, that by God's grace, his people will remain steadfast until the end, receiving from the Savior the crown of life to all who love him because he first loved us.

Harry Reeder: You are listening to InPerspective, featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder. Our current sermon series, "The Gospel Life According to James."

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Honesty is the best policy. It's not just a common saying, but a biblical principle as well. Join us again next time as Dr. Reeder reminds us that God's people are to imitate his commitment to truth. That's next time, as we turn back to the Scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.