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Nov 18, 2018

Loving Patience

Passage: James 5:7-12

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: James

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: community, contentment, gratitude, grumbling, patience, seasons

As we struggle with global and personal storms, it is easy to lose our patience as we wait for God to “show up,” which often leads us to grumble against God and one another. James reminds and encourages us keep our faith planted deep in the truth of God’s mercy, compassion and justice as the winds blow around us. Despite what it seems, Jesus IS coming back and all brokenness will be healed because, when He was engulfed by the storm of the crucifixion, He remained silent and trusted the Father’s confusing but redeeming plan. Therefore we can be patient, knowing that God’s patience is for our own good because it leads us into dependence on Him rather than on ourselves or our comfort.

ORDer of worship

Prelude: U2 - Psalm 40

Call To Worship: Psalm 40:1-3,11 ESV

ALL: 1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

LEADER: 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.

ALL: 11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!

Reading: Ephesians 4:1-3,32 ESV

LEADER: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

ALL: 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Music:

Gratitude: Prayer - Regeneration & Reading - Colossians 3:12,15,17

LEADER: O God of the Highest Heaven, occupy the throne of our hearts, lay low every rebel lust, manifest Your great power and make us Yours forever.

ALL: You have loved us, espoused us, received us, and adorned us.

LEADER: We were dead in iniquities but Your Spirit has quickened us to the work of Your Son; opening us to the Word as light, guide, solace, and joy.

ALL: Help us to walk in Your great mercy and love. Keep us for we cannot keep ourselves. Let us lay aside all that steals, kills, and destroys. Your presence alone is an unending treasure.

LEADER: Make us a blessing to our neighbors. Salt of the earth. A light to all.

ALL: In Christ.

LEADER: 12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

ALL: 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Missional Living: Boys & Girls Club

Message Title: Loving Patience

Central Text: James 5:7-12

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. 12 But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

Illustrations:

Response: Communion

Benediction: Romans 15:5-6

LEADER: 5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ALL: Amen

Additional Scriptures:

  • Numbers 14:18
  • Psalm 86:15
  •  Joel 2:12
  • Romans 2:3-4
  • Isaiah 53:7
  • Leviticus 19:17-18
  • Psalm 27--in particular the final verse
  • Psalm 31--in particular the final verse
  • Joel 2:23-24
  • Romans 8:23-25
  • Colossians 1:9-14
  • *2 Peter 3:4-10

Media:

11.18.18 Album

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you more often wait on others or do others wait on you?
  2. What are things that really “try your patience”?
    1. ...others
    2. ...pain to go away
    3. ...love to happen
    4. ...sin to lessen (in me or others)
    5. ...my heart
    6. ...me to learn…
  3. What does impatience look like in your life? Give examples.
  4. Why do you think James links “grumbling” with impatience?
  5. Why are we so often impatient? What’s the big deal?
    1. When we are impatient, what are we saying about others...ourselves...the way the world should work...God?
  6. Why might patience be an essential characteristic of faith?
  7. James shows how a faith-perspective can heal our impatience in verse 11...that, if we see the big picture of pain and the fallen world, we’ll see “the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful”
  8. How can that be realistic help in our lives and struggles?
  9. Ultimately the issue is that we are frustrated that creation is Fallen...but that hope is to (v. 8b) “Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Quotes:

  • “...the church lives between two advents. Jesus Christ has come; Jesus Christ will come. We do not know the day or hour. If you find this tension almost unbearable at times, then you understand the Christian life.” - Fleming Rutledge
  • “Hope is a revolutionary patience.” - Anne Lamott
  • “What we really need is not some intellectually acceptable answer to life’s most mysterious conundrum about God’s action or inaction. The need is for God and the nurture of the expectation of his coming to be coupled with the patience to wait for him to come in his own time. The waiting is not easy.” - John Bald
  • “To see more than a lump of dirt in a sculpture takes a patience that is rarer and rarer in our fast-paced age.” - Dustin Messner
  • “If prayer has taught me anything, it has taught me how to wait.” - Stanley Hauerwas
  • “Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker.” - John Ruskin
  • “Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God "sending us" to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud. ”- C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)

Books / Articles

The Lost Art of Patience in a Busy Culture - Grit & Grace Project

How Art Can Prepare You for Suffering - Dustin Messner

Times of Stress, Times of Opportunity by John Jefferson Davis

Sermons / Talks:

Strength to Wait with Patience by John Piper

Colossians 1

Patience by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson

James 5

The Ways of the Kingdom: Do Not Be Anxious by Jeff Vanderstelt

Matthew 6

Patience by Timothy J. Keller

James 5