How to Face Trials Patiently
James 5:7-11
Let's turn to James chapter 5 and we're going to look at verses 7 to 11, talking about the subject, "How to face trials patiently." Now we don't need to be reminded that we all have trials, that's fairly routine. None of us escapes that. But we do need to be reminded from time to time about the need to be patient. And you will notice verse 7 of this text in James 5, "Be patient therefore, brethren," and that's really what it's all about all the way down through verse 11. It's a section about being patient in the midst of trials. Obviously, the group to whom James was writing, Jews converted to Christ and naming His name in an assembly we don't exactly know where they were located, but these wonderful believers in Christ who were scattered abroad, representative of the twelve tribes as chapter 1 verse 1 says, were facing trials. They were facing temptations and afflictions and persecutions and so forth and they needed to be patient. They needed to learn patience.
I was reminded of Job and James mentions Job in verse 11, we'll get to that a little later. Job knew better than most people what it was to suffer and Job in the fifth chapter and the seventh verse said, "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." In other words, as surely as sparks off a fire go up not down, so man will have trouble. Jesus said, John 16:33, "In this world you shall have trouble," or tribulation. Paul in teaching new Christians in Galatia warned that, "We must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God," Acts 14:22. And he also talked to the Roman believers about the sufferings of this present time, chapter 8 and verse 18. And he expressed frankly in that same eighth chapter that the whole creation was subject to vanity in the bondage of corruption, groaning and travailing in pain. I mean, it goes with the created order of the universe that there's trouble. And all of us who live here experience that trouble in one way or another. And there's really no relief. All the books and seminars and all of the lessons and sermons and teachings and all of the counselors and psychologists, none of them together or separately can alleviate trouble. It cannot be eliminated in this world, it's just part of it, everything from a flat tire on the freeway to the death of a mate, and everything in between and everything conceivable hits our lives. That is the reflection of the curse. That's a reflection of the fallenness of this world, the fact that the curse of God exists in the world because of sin.
But for Christians there is the unique kind of trouble that non-Christians don't have, and that's the trouble of persecution for the truth. We are persecuted for the sake of Christ. That is a trouble, a kind of tribulation suffering that the rest of the world doesn't have to endure. We have to endure the rejection of a hostile society who rejects the gospel.
In the New Testament then the persecuted suffering church is a recurring theme. And James has been writing about how the wicked wealthy, for example, abuse the righteous poor. Back in verses 1 to 6 you remember he discussed the wicked wealthy, and then finally in verse 6 he says you have condemned and killed the righteous, meaning the righteous poor. And those righteous poor who belong to God and Christ have been persecuted by the wicked wealthy as well as by others as well. And the righteous do not resist, he says in verse 6, the righteous do not retaliate, they do not fight back out of vengeance. They meekly are content to suffer for Christ and let vengeance belong to God. They maintain the spirit of gentleness and meekness, the Spirit of Christ who when He was reviled, Peter said, reviled not again...when He was persecuted did not lash out. And so, like our Lord Jesus Christ, we accept suffering in quietness, expecting that that is an inevitable response to the gospel.
In our morning study this morning in 2 Timothy we were reminded again of the same truth. Paul saying to Timothy, this is to be expected, don't be ashamed of the Lord or of me His prisoner, but suffer along with us. It goes with the territory.
And certainly the Jews to whom James was writing specifically were experiencing the trouble of persecution coming from their own countrymen which made it doubly difficult to bear. So in verses 1 to 6 James condemns the persecuting wicked wealthy and in verses 7 to 11 he talks to those being persecuted and tells them what kind of attitude they are to have. It's a very practical section. He goes from condemning the faithless rich to encouraging the faithful poor. He goes from condemning those who are the persecutors to comforting those who are the persecuted.
And in verses 7 to 11 we find the instruction basically that we're to be patient. The Holy Spirit is well aware that there are trials and there is suffering and there is persecution but nonetheless we are to be patient. It is very possible that believers, those that are just as they're called in verse 6, or righteous, it's the same word, that is they're right with God, they belong to Him, can definitely react wrongly to persecution. As the Apostle Paul who yelled at the high priest, "God smite you, you whited wall," in Acts, he retaliated in an angry ungodly fashion, we can have an ungodly response to persecutions and trials as well. In fact, we could even go so far as to blame God, become irritated with Him and transfer some of our frustrations to our own Christian brothers and sisters. We could become so irritated and so hostile that we sort of lash out against everybody. There are Christians who when they are put into the crucible of suffering become impossible for anyone to stand. And James knows that.
So here is a passage calling for patience. Let me read it to you, verses 7 to 11, "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord, behold the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draws near. Grumble not one against another, brethren, lest you be judged. Behold, the Judge stands before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold we count them happy who endure. You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy."
That's a great passage and it is so practical and so direct in instructing us how to be patient. And I trust the Spirit of God will teach us together.
Let's look at that word "patient" for a moment. Basically it has the idea of being long suffering with people. There is a word hupomone which was used in chapter 1 and translated "trials or temptations," and that means to be able to endure adverse circumstances. This word has to do with enduring adverse people. The first word, hupomone has to do with the ability to be patient in circumstances, this one be patient with people. It is linked to the oppression from the wicked wealthy that is mentioned in verse 6. Patience with people is just as important as patience in circumstances.
Since righteous and just people don't fight back, as verse 6 says, since they don't resist and retaliate and seek vengeance, then you must not do that. Whatever the trial, whatever the persecution, you must be patient. That's the righteous standard. That's the righteous expectation of the child of God.
Now I believe this is directed at those who can be patient. Therefore it is directed at those who are believers. We could say it's another test of living faith and that James is saying if you're not patient under a trial, it may be that you're not a true Christian. And that's possible. It is possible that one could claim to be a Christian but given enough difficulty would show that they were not a Christian at all because they were filled with unending vengeance. But I think the main thrust here is to believers who have the capacity to be patient and are in this case the brethren who are true brethren...Christians who need to stay righteous and stay just in the midst of their persecution and their suffering. And it's not easy.
When you're on the job or at school and somebody finds out you're a Christian and harasses you in regard to that, it's not easy to restrain a retaliation. It may well be that you've lost your job over a testimony and it's not very easy for you to not have bitter thoughts against your persecutor. And so this can be very practical. James says be patient. The word makrothumeo, very interesting. Have you ever heard the word macro? It means large. And the word thumos means anger. Makros means in the simplest sense "long." We use it for large, something that is macro is large. The Greeks had in mind something particularly long. And what it means is long tempered. That's exactly what it means as opposed to...what?...short tempered. Be long tempered, have a long fuse, not a short one. And as I said, it's not the same as the word for trials used in chapter 1 verses 3, 4 and 12, the word hupomone, that word has to do with the idea of enduring circumstances, this has to do with being long tempered or long suffering or very patient with people. Patience is enduring someone who is mistreating you and not being angry and not being full of vengeance. It is being slow to anger. It speaks of that in Proverbs 15:18, Proverbs 16:32, and we know that even God is slow to anger. The Old Testament says, and I must have found a dozen passages the other day where it says, "God is slow to anger, full of compassion." And we're to have the character of God...the character of Christ who in meekness and gentleness did not retaliate against those who falsely accused and persecuted Him.
We can be thankful God is patient. We can be thankful God is long suffering. We can be thankful He has a long fuse and He's long tempered because as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:15, "The long suffering, the makrothumeo of God is salvation." If God had a short fuse, folks, guess where we'd all be. Not hard to imagine. We'd be in hell. But He is long suffering, long tempered, very patient. And if a holy God can be patient with unholy sinners, then unholy sinners can certainly be patient until a holy God acts in their behalf. Understood? Pretty basic. And if we believe, as the Bible says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," Romans 10, Hebrews 10:30, then we can commit it to Him.
So as James called for true believers to exhibit hupomone, endurance in trials, in circumstances in chapter 1, he now comes back to that subject in the last chapter and adds, "Also be patient with people." Endure not only trying and difficult circumstances but trying and difficult people. In fact, this again is a mark of true spirituality.
Now the question comes, that's fine, the exhortation, be patient therefore, brethren, that's fine, but how? Let me give you six keys, okay? Six practical keys to being patient during trials with people.
Number one, this makes sense, anticipate the Lord's coming. Anticipate the Lord's coming. What does that say? Realize it won't always be like this. Do you ever think like that? O Lord, sometimes you think like that more than others...get me back...or get me out of heaven...out of earth into heaven...a little tongue-tied. Lord, get me into heaven and get me into heaven quickly. Sometimes we long to go to heaven. And frankly with some of us it may be because of an overwhelming love for Christ but I tend to think that for must of us, heaven is dearer to us the more we suffer in this world. It's the pain that causes that anticipation. So he says in verse 7, just drops that, "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord."
By the way, he mentions the coming of the Lord in verse 8, mentions the coming of the Lord again in verse 9 as he says the Judge is standing before the gates, literally, plural word for gates. So three times he says the Lord is coming...three references to the Second Coming of Christ. And the church has always lived in the hope of the Second Coming, haven't we? Always. We look for the Lord Jesus Christ, we are anticipating His soon return. We live in the light of that return. That's just the way it is with us. We know we're not going to be here forever, we know we're going to a better land, a better place, a city whose builder and maker is God. And we live in the light of the Second Coming.
And may I suggest to you also that a persecuted church lives even more in the light of the Second Coming. In fact the more persecuted a church is, the more it anticipates the Second Coming. And on the other side, the affluent self-serving worldly indulgent church of today is really little concerned about the Second Coming. They're more concerned about the postponing of the Second Coming until they can get their next goody. But a church under persecution inevitably longs for the coming of Christ.
And I want you to notice that word "coming." That is the word parousia and I mention the Greek word for you because it is such a constantly repeated word in the New Testament. It is the most common term in the New Testament epistles for the Second Coming, the parousia. You'll hear theologians use that word, you'll even read it sometimes, the parousia, it means more than the coming in the Greek...let me see if I can give you the idea of it, it means the best word that I can identify is the arrival because it's not just the coming, it is the coming and the presence. So it is that Jesus comes and He is present. That perhaps can be condensed into the word "arrival." We're looking for the arrival of Jesus Christ. His coming in order to bless His people with His presence. That's the idea of the word, one who is coming to give to those who receive Him His presence. It's His arrival we're looking for. It's not enough to live in this world, it's not enough to have the best that this world has to offer because the Bible says if in this world only you have hope, you're of all men most miserable, it is enough to know there is another world to come, a perfect world into which we are ushered when Jesus Christ arrives.
And James doesn't go into any discussion here. He doesn't give us an eschatological chart. He doesn't give us eight paragraphs on the crescendo of human history. He doesn't give us any kind of insight into specifics. He just in a general way without explanation and without discussion says, "Brethren, be patient unto the coming of the Lord." In other words, if you're going to endure the persecution of the wicked wealthy, tied in by the word "therefore," if you're going to endure whatever suffering comes, you've got to have your eyes on the return and the arrival of Jesus Christ. It's a familiar hope, it's the hope of the church, it always has been, it always will be until the Lord comes. You might be interested to know that one out of every thirteen verses in the New Testament makes a reference to the Second Coming and the arrival of Jesus Christ. It's major New Testament teaching.
And Jesus Himself had so much to say about His Second Coming. You read the gospels and you remember that Jesus taught that His coming would be preceded by signs and would when it happened be as vivid and visible and unmistakable as lightning which would illuminate the whole sky.&n