Written By Rev Law Hui Seng
Posted By Teresa Han
James 5:7-12
Main Idea: To teach the congregation that there is value in suffering.
Objectives: a. To teach that suffering can train you to be patient.
b. To teach that the right perspective towards suffering will determine whether we gain anything from it.
c. To help the congregation to identify areas in their life that require the training of patience.
A. Introduction
- Have you been suffering lately? Suffering of whatever degrees, be it physical illnesses, psychological hurts, mental stress or even break down, or anything that makes you feel suffering.
- What do you gain out of it?
- There is value in suffering for us christians according to the teachings of the bible.
- C. H. Spurgeon says, “Faith that does not tear at all is not living faith.”
- Baker says, “Temptations in life do not mean to destroy us. They are meant to build us. Difficulties may cause a person to lose his job but they are meant to build up his characters. The setbacks that an external person faced may become the greatest blessings of the internal person. If God allows a challenge to come to us, you need to know that the real danger and difficulties are because of our escape and rebellion; and we lose a chance to be trained by them.”
- The passage today has very clear teaching about patience in suffering. One value of suffering is that at the end of it, as you learn, you will become more patient, which all humans on earth need.
B. The Context of Suffering.
- For James, the context of suffering that he talked about was the christians and disciples in his days were persecuted by the Jews because of their belief.
- In the midst of the persecutions, James used the coming back of Christ to comfort them; to encourage them to persevere in their faith and not to give up in view of the fast coming back of Christ.
- What is the big deal about Jesus’s coming back? It is because Jesus will honour and reward them for their suffering. Whatever loses, Jesus will make up. Failure to keep the faith will result in losing all the rewards.
C. How to be patient in suffering?
- That is why James says in verse 7, Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming...
- And to be patient. James has the answers.
- Firstly, learn patience from the farmer who waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and also waits patiently for the autumn and spring rains to come, says James.
- Notice the patient waiting here does not refer to the long time waiting. It refers to the long process of endurance to face the persecutions of the enemies of faith; and not give up on their faith. That is why verse 8 says, ... be patient and stand firm...
- Also patience in the sense that the disciples of Jesus must not judge the wicked people (the rich landlord people) who exploited and oppressed the poor; and they just need to wait for God avenge them.
- Secondly, to help us to be patient in suffering, James advises his readers not to grumble against each other, verse 9. Why? Because grumbling against one another in church can cause disunity in a church community. The grumbling will produce judgement. That is grumbling will produce guilt that God will deal severely and therefore, it must be avoided.
- Thirdly, to help us to be patient in suffering, James advises his readers to set an example of suffering verse 10. He simply challenged them to follow the prophets of the Old Testament, who, for the purpose of serving God, who spoke in the name of the Lord, they suffer. They endured suffering, and so do the readers of the letter of James. James even backed up his illustrations with the Old Testament Job (verse 11), who lost almost everything because of the attack of Satan on him. He did not give up his faith and persevere. He was blessed with double blessing and so the readers will experience the same if we are patient and not give up our faith.
- James is really using his writings to tell his readers and all of us today, God does not love to see people suffering; but rather he is full of compassion and mercy, in verse 11.
- Fourthly, to help us to be patient, James says we must not swear, let our yes be yes and no be no, in verse 12. This is being truthful to God, yourself and people around you. It is the best policy we all must have in nurturing patience. Being truthful in our speech is also part of patience for James.
D. Applications for today.
- Let us get practical with this passage. In our present situation, you may not be challenged to give up your faith because of persecutions of your faith or even oppressions as experienced by the readers of the letter of James.
- But we definitely face suffering of different degrees because of different reasons I mentioned earlier. I believe we face the same temptation like the early disciples to give up our faith because Jesus is not real; He does not answer our prayers when we need Him so much.
- With this, I have 2 points of application for you:
- Firstly, in suffering of whatever kind, you need to identify areas in your life where you need patience. In whatever suffering you face, sit down and really ask Jesus what is the purpose of it. There must be a purpose as Jesus loves you so much and died a sacrificial death on the cross. Knowing the purpose, then, you will improve the areas of your life which still does not glorify God yet. May be it is in the area of unforgiveness, relationship, something you cannot let go, etc. Remember, God always uses suffering to develop you to become a strong disciple to help you to go very far for Him. If only you are humble to take it.
- Secondly, in suffering, you need to have a right view of it, then, you can be patient. How you perceive it is so crucial. It will determine whether you gain something from suffering or not. How do you see a personal accident? You blame yourself, the other driver, etc? All these are negative attitudes, you will gain nothing out of it, you never learn and do not become more matured.
- If your attitude is positive, you ask: Have I been careless? Is it sign send by God to wake me up in certain areas of my life so that I do not sin against him anymore? God want me to preach the gospel to the other driver? Is it a sign that my car is not safe to drive anymore, it needs some repair?
E. Conclusion.
- In Christ, when you face suffering, you will do reflections based on God’s word and you will arrive at Godly conclusions and you will always be a winner at the end of the day.
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