James chapter 1 verse 2, 3, and
4. Now this, a message of this type
is called the Believer's Lot, the Believer's Lot. I could literally
preach this theme every week because we struggle with these
very things all the time. It's the fight of faith. It's
the fight of the flesh versus the spirit. And as I mentioned
in Bible class, I fear, I know me, I'm certain, and you to some
extent, we're in the flesh a lot more than we realize. And years
ago, I used to blame Satan was my biggest adversary. My biggest
adversary is myself. Doubt. All things work for good. That was a good hymn to sing,
that last one, because no matter what the test, we know as well. We know it. We know it. But it hasn't dropped down. And
then plus to the flesh, we've got things we think we need to
do and things we do need to do, obligations, responsibilities.
But I could preach Christ from these texts and show the struggle
that we have every week. I'm not going to do like that
old timer did, that old Puritan. He preached the same message.
He kept preaching the same message, same text and everything. And
one of the elders, like the fourth week, came up and said, you know,
are you going to preach something else? He goes, well, when you
do this, then I'll move on. this is kind of one of those
things. And I, it got, you know, it's
gotten me, it hits me before it gets to you. So like Henry
would say, if you think I'm preaching at you, I'm not. But pre Henry
had people saying he was looking at reading his mail, but that's
the Holy Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit. Now we
are capable of doing stuff like that, but believe me, When we
start going through James, it's gonna be, it's gonna step on
toes, step on mine, numerous, numerous times. James chapter
one, verse two, three, and four. My brethren, my brethren, count
it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, trials, afflictions,
chastisements, knowing this, that the trying of your faith
works patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that you
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Now this is exactly
what Bruce was talking about when he went to Matthew chapter
six. Don't worry about the clothes. Don't worry about the food. Can you add to your stature?
You can't do it. This is this kind of a message. This is this type of theme. The first thing I see, and I
didn't have it written in my notes, the first thing I see
is he says, my brethren. So if we stop right there, my
brethren. So he's obviously he's, We assume
correctly that he's speaking to believers here. He's speaking
to believers here. But before I get into the introduction,
my brethren, and I thought about this, lest we take this James
and make it into a work, which was a lot of early writers said
that, but it wasn't. It works as an outcome of faith
already in the heart. My brethren, If you have a brother
or sister, what did you do to have Mary be your sister? What
did Mary do to have Nate? Absolutely nothing. So the first
thing is we are saved by grace. You had nothing to do with your
natural brothers or sisters. So before we get in and say,
well, I got to do this and that, no. So he is dealing with brethren. And he tells them the struggles
that they're gonna have. And like we saw in Romans six, Romans
eight, we struggle the flesh and the spirit. And if we are
believers, we have the spirit and we can overcome these things.
And so he's writing these things as those who are brethren, but
that they struggle. Now there's a few things that
he specifically states in verse two. They're gonna fall into, you're
going to fall into temptations. There's not anybody here who
trusts Christ that is not afflicted, is not chastised, does not fall
into trial or temptation. Also, fall into these things
and why this happens. Why does this happen? Verse three,
knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. This happens according to God's
purpose, and that faith will be tried. And also, the scope
of God sending such afflictions, chastisements, temptations, trials
our way is, verse four, to work. Patience first in the verse 3
verse 4, but let patience that could be endurance that could
be Constancy or that could be Faithfulness let faithfulness
have her perfect work because that's what we're talking about
in the whole thing of James He's speaking of faith and works works
as a result of faith, but faith is it's it's in here It's always
in here knowing that the trying of your faith is Precious faith,
like precious faith, works patience. It works endurance. Now what does Matthew 24 say? Matthew says, those who endure
to the end, those are the only ones that are gonna be saved.
Those who endure to the end, the same shall be saved. So this
has to do with trial, faith, Patience and if we want to talk
about patience and trying to faith you have to put the word
wait David says many times. I waited on the Lord. I would
and that's something that we don't like to do We want stuff
done now Like I said, this is this society this country And
I haven't been that will been other country, but it's a fast-food
society We drive in we expect That's our nature. That's our
flesh. That's why we're tried. To wean
us away from the world. To wean us away from convenience,
perhaps. I'm using that loosely because
we are, we do have modern conveniences. Knowing this, that the trying
of your faith works patience. And if you're in this, I'm sitting
here and I can point out other people's lack of faith. And I
can point out other people's lack of patience. But it hit
me square in the face yesterday. I'm like, I was doing something,
doing some work at the house. And, you know, it wasn't going
with the tool. It wasn't going right. And I
just thought, and I just, no. That's patience as well. As patience
at work. under trial, patience with friends
and friendships under trial. These things are all trials.
What does that do? It's to work in us to strengthen
our faith. So patience has many forms, many
forms, but this word used here is endurance. It's faithfulness. Now we know, first of all, that
daily trials or temptations is the lot of every child of grace. We're gonna look at some scriptures.
First, Philippians chapter one. The trying of our faith works
patience and that every believer has faith. He doesn't have perhaps
as much patience and so the Lord's gonna, he's gonna do, he's gonna
work on that. Philippians chapter 1 verse 29
for unto you is given on behalf of Christ not only to believe
and have faith in him but also to suffer for his sake persecution
trial affliction chastisement having the same conflict which
you see in me and now here to be in me. Paul was no stranger
to the trial of faith. Psalms chapter 30 Psalms chapter 30 and verse 5, the latter part of verse
5, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. What if you're in the middle
of the night? You're weeping over Your sin, you're weeping
over the country's sin. You're weeping over your children's
sin, like Job. It's a struggle, it's a trial.
It's a trial of faith. But rest assured, if you're one
of his children, joy will come in the morning. Joy will come
in the morning. I remember 9-11 very vividly.
And I remember what Tim James said, 9-11. He said 9-11 was
tough. A lot of people lost their lives.
He said, but 9-12 came anyway. September the 12th still came. Still came. And the believer
would walk through the valley. This is the valley of the shadow
of death. But by walking by faith, our faith is tried. We develop patience, or Christ-likeness,
or faithfulness, and it's joy, joy. Lamentations chapter three. Lamentations chapter three. and verse 44. Lamentations chapter
3 and verse 44. This is what it seems like when
we're going through trial and difficulty. Thou hast covered
thyself with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through.
This is a believer speaking. And there are times that it just
seems like you pray and you pray and you
pray and you ask the Lord to save your children and the Lord
to be gracious to you continually and then you realize, well he's
been gracious to me already. But there's times that he seems
like his face is covered with a cloud and our prayers couldn't
even go through. Prayer is a struggle. Why? Because
you're going through trial. Whatever it might be, financial,
physical, spiritual, mental, any trial. And you know what
they are, I don't need to enumerate them. Songs of Solomon Songs
of Solomon, chapter five. This is really good. This is,
this is, I can really relate to this. It's the conversation
between the church or a believer and his Lord. The first verse,
this is the Christ speaking. I am coming to my garden. My
sister, my spouse, we're the spouse of Christ. I have gathered
my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Eat, oh friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, oh beloved.
Now here's the church, and this is where a lot of times we are.
We must admit, we need to admit, that we are weak without grace. I sleep, says the church, says
the individual believer, but my heart wakes. You know that
feeling. The flesh, the flesh is, The
spirit is willing. This is what he's talking about.
It is the voice of my beloved. I can hear him. He knocks, saying,
open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. This is
the church. For my head is filled with dew
and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my
coat, says we. How shall I pull it back on?
You know, this is an inconvenient time, Christ. It's an inconvenient
time. I've got to do stuff with the
kids. I've got to pay bills. I've got people coming in this.
It's an inconvenient time. It's Martha. It's Martha. I've taken off my coat. How can
I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them?
My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels
were moved for him. See, there's life. There's spiritual
life. I rose up to open to my beloved,
and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling
myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had withdrawn himself. He will come when he
will come. He will visit us Even after believing
on him, he will reveal himself when it fulfills his purpose
of grace to our hearts. He'd withdrawn himself. My soul
failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer. This is a
time of trial. And rightly so. We were too preoccupied
with stuff. Too preoccupied. Hebrews chapter
10. This is the flesh and the spirit.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 36. Whoever is the writer of the
Hebrews, he writes to the Hebrews, for you have need of patience.
After you have done the will of God, that you might receive
the promise. You have need of patience. You have needed this
trial of faith. This patience. You have need
to be faithful. I'll give you some examples.
You don't have to turn there in 2 Samuel. I'll read it to
you. 2 Samuel, or discuss it. Chapter
3, verse 39. One of David's friends was killed.
One of his chief captains. And he's upset, but he says this,
he says, I am king, but I'm weak. I am the king, but I'm weak. The trials of the king. The king
in David has authority, money, and power. Why, he shouldn't
have trials. Well, I can, I don't, I don't
have had money and don't have power nor authority, but I've
been living long enough to see a lot of times those three things
will hinder, will hinder patients and will prolong the trial. You
don't have to worry about just, I don't have to worry about money. Just do this, do that. I don't
have to worry about this stuff. That's nice. You may try to buy
your way out of trial, but it's going to prolong it because the
Lord, if you're his, He will keep you in that chastisement,
affliction, trial, tribulation until it has worked. Patience
has her perfect work. That's what about Samson? Samson and judges. And I'll just
tell you this story. If you can turn here, write it
down. Judges 15. Sampson is, he's not friends
with the Philistines and he's trying to pick a fight with them.
He says, I'm going to do unto them what they've done unto us,
or me. And then they encamp at a place called Lehi and his fellow
Judeans, they're like, what are you doing? Why are they coming? Why are they at camp? We're serving
them. We're under their rule. And he
says, I'm going to do to them what they've done to me. And
they said, we don't want this. So his brethren are upset with
him. So they say, let us bind you,
and then turn yourself in. He goes, that's fine. That's
fine. So they bind him with cords.
He goes into the camp of the Philistines. The Philistines
says, we want Samson. We're going to kill everybody
else. Sacrificed himself he goes in
there, and then it says the cords were like flax Just it just the
Spirit of the Lord came upon him He took them off and he got
a jawbone you remember the story and killed a thousand And then
he says specifically in one of the I think it's in verse 9 through
12 he says I have slain I slayed my thousands at the very next
verse and He says, I thirst. So he's this glorious victory. He boasts. And the same mouth
and the same throat by which he boasted that he killed his
thousands, now his voice and his throat is parched. And he's
brought down to, he's brought down. This is a trial of his
faith. He needed patience. But the beautiful
thing in this lesson is it brought him, as it will us, to prayer. He prays to the Lord that he
would quench his thirst. It's just thirst. What's that
verse of 1,000? It's just a little trial. And
oftentimes, and I say this here, oftentimes the Lord gives us
victory, remarkably, to have faith and patience and walk with
him in newness of life. And then something, something,
Something happens, it could be a fly, it could be a dragonfly,
it could be a bird, something small, it just aggravates the
fire out of us and we lose our temper. Patience has a hand,
it's perfect to work. You've got to go through the
trial again and again and again. Well, what about Jacob? He wrestles with God at Peniel
and then he limps away and he halts on his thigh for the rest
of his life. So secondly, I think this is
what I'm trying to learn and I want us to learn this. God
will constantly teach us our littleness, our nothingness,
to keep us within the bounds of grace and to plant this message
ever within this new heart, John 15 five, without me, you can
do nothing. Without me, you can do nothing. Unfortunately, this is how we may deal with
it. And this will be the end result. If we think ourselves more than
what the Bible reveals us to be, this is what will happen. Isaiah 50 verse 11, behold all
ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks,
walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have
kindled, this shall you have of mine hand, you shall lie down
in sorrow. Why are we going through some
things? The flesh, the flesh. So then
patience is a work of His choosing and doing in every believer. Just like grace, it's the work
of His doing. And that means, I think, a few
things. One, we will endure, if we're
His, we will endure trials, tribulations, and crosses, even when it crosses
our own will. We will submit to His will. David said in Psalm 119, it was
good for me that I've been afflicted because I was going to go, I'd
go astray. But thank God he chastised and he deals with people he loves
who he sent his son to die for and to bleed and suffer. He will
not lose one of them. You know, our children, you know,
when they're young and you've got to discipline them and And
they get a little older, and then they get, you know, you
discipline them if you need to. And then they get to that point
where they don't need you. You know, they know more than you do. And
then when they get later on in life, unfortunately, a lot of
times when the parents are gone, and they say, I wish mom and
dad were here, they had wisdom. They had wisdom. Christ is, this is Bruce Ritt
in Corinthians, he's our wisdom. All these things take place and
happen to bring us to submit to Him and say, your will be
done. And as it is in heaven, earth, your will must be done. And we would have it no other
way. The flesh wants it its way, as Bruce mentioned this morning.
So the first thing that patience means is to have its perfect
work is that we will endure and we will go through these things
and we'll come out Every fighter's fire will come out more like
him. And secondly, we will submit
in all things to do his will. Or I say bowing to his rightful
claims over us and acknowledge that he is too good to do wrong
and too loving to afflict needlessly. which is what our parents did
to us when we got out of line. I want my way. Your way isn't
consistent with this household, so you're not doing it. You're
not going wherever. Again, those who endure to the
end and we will by his grace, those will be saved, but we're
not going to come out Unscathed and then what would
we say? Well, we will say what Isaiah said in in chapter 6. This is what we will say Also, I heard says Isaiah the
voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and whom will go
for us then said I Here am I send me? Then we're willingly we submit
to him Lord your will be done Send me to do what? And he said,
go and tell the people. Tell what? About the weather,
sports, money, golf, guitar, tractors, talk about all this
stuff? No. No. You tell them the gospel,
the grace of God, because that's what he's going to use to quicken
and to redeem his people. Tell them of the good news, the
everlasting gospel of the Son of God. Not about self, not about
self-interest, that's the flesh. And we do that way too much. Or we say, in Isaiah 40 in verse
31, But they that wait on the Lord,
wait, patience, trying of faith, but they that wait on the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk
and not faint. They're gonna endure to the end. I do not like to wait. I do not
like to wait. But the time is now. But the
Lord said to the children of Israel, Moses said, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord. I know it's not what the
world, I know it's not what the modern religion says, but the
scriptures is true. The triumph of your faith works
patience and let patience have a perfect work. We wait patiently for his truth
in prayer and supplications, seeking his honor and his glory. So if I could close this up,
I would say, may we wait upon him and not run before him, which
running before him shows that patience has not had her proper
effect. Let us not look to the arm of
the flesh, but to the blessed leading and guiding spirit. Plead
his blood and his righteousness, not our own false righteousness. Plead his mercy, not what we
deserve. to truly wait on him and his
grace in Christ shows an indication that we know our position low
in his supremacy. And this, if we as believers, we have to
be reminded of this all the time. You know, do the Lord's Supper.
If you had an employer, I'm sorry, if you had an employee If you
were their boss and you had to go over every day what to do,
it's like, I want to get rid of this guy, this girl. They don't have it. And that's
where we come to. When it comes to salvation, comes
to grace, comes to mercy, we don't have it in and of ourselves.
We've got to be taught, again, so many illustrations, little
children, little children. little Children. It shows his
our position. It shows the supremacy. It shows
our need and his ability to satisfy this great need. Brethren, we have need of faithfulness
slash patience as it is found in our beloved. Amen, and amen. I've got a lot
more to say about patience, waiting, and the endurance of faith, but
that'll be for another day. We don't have enough time. And
like I said, I looked at this and I just thought, we could listen to this every
day, or do this every day, or read this every day. I recommend
looking at James by the spirit of grace. There's
a lot in there, but we'll be going through that, Lord willing.
If we have tomorrow, if we live in rehearsing our death, I think
I'll see you all Wednesday, James. We shouldn't say this and that. We should say, if the Lord wills. I'll get this project done. I'll
get that project done. But that's baby steps. We don't
like it. I'm already past that. No, the
believer. never gets over submitting to the will and way of God. May
God help us to do that. I know I can. Nathan, would you
close please?