A pastor is cutting his front lawn. He looks up from his task just in time to see a heavy dump truck back out of his neighbor’s driveway—right over the neighbor’s eighteen-month-old son, who had been squatting behind the huge tires. The pastor accompanies the hysterical mother and ashen father to the hospital in the ambulance. There is no hope for the little boy; he has been crushed almost beyond recognition.
[Carson continues] …my own mother was mugged at the age of 72. As a result, she fell and hit her head on the curb. Her family noticed mental deterioration and personality change within weeks; she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and went through all the predictable stages of that wretched disease. She died nine years later.
The truth of the matter is that all we have to do is live long enough, and we will suffer. Our loved ones will die; we ourselves will be afflicted with some disease or other. …And all these things represent the suffering that takes place in relatively stable societies. Add war, racism, genocide, grinding poverty, starvation.[i]
In addition to holding that Christian beliefs are true and consistent, the Christian, to find comfort in them, must learn how to use them. Christian beliefs are not to be stacked in the warehouse of the mind; they are to be handled and applied to the challenges of life and discipleship. Otherwise, they are incapable of bring comfort and stability, godliness and courage, humility and joy, holiness and faith.[ii]
Suffering is a haunting topic because we all deal with it. We may long for it to either never touch our lives, or to quickly escape its grasp. Yet, the reality is that suffering is part of the human equation. James, rather than shying away from the reality of suffering in our world, speaks to the issue. He began his letter to those who were suffering with a message that explains a value that can be attained through hardship and suffering.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.[iii]
What James is saying is that God uses the worst things in our lives to work spiritual maturity into our lives if we have the right attitude. Yet, we find that suffering can be overwhelming. Here in his letter, he is speaking to believers who have been exploited by those who used their wealth and power to bring devastation to their lives. How should they respond to that evil? What can we learn from James so that in our time of suffering, we will have the right response, and the right outcomes? How are we going to find the endurance and hope necessary in times of suffering in our lives? James calls for restraint and patience in addressing these issues. He gives several reasons for those who are suffering to be patient and entrust their situations to God.
THE FIRST REASON TO BE PATIENT IN SUFFERING IS TO ALLOW GOD TO ADDRESS THE SITUATON RATHER THAN OUR REACTING APART FROM DIVINE WISDOM
What is God’s purpose in allowing this to happen to me? We need to develop an understanding about the seasons of life. What is God trying to accomplish in our lives, and finally through our lives? God is working at character development. One of the keys to living a successful life is to understand the concept of deferred gratification. People who wait and see it through, wait through the testing of life, finally experience God’s mercy and compassion. We need to remember the context of this admonition or urging by James. Earlier in the previous verses, James is talking about being defrauded by the wealthy (5:1-6). They have experienced injustice, and the temptation was to react in anger, which often leads to violence. James, however, reminds both his hearers and us that the proper response is to patiently wait for God’s coming to set things straight.
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.[iv]
Peter Davids explains James’ challenge to us. “Patience, not resistance, is the virtue of the poor, for their hope is the Parousia [the arrival of the Lord].”[v]
“James urges the poor to wait patiently for the act of God that will vindicate them. His counsel then is precisely the opposite of the growing influence of the Zealots.”[vi]
For those who may not be acquainted with the Zealot movement in the first century Jewish life, they were a militant activist group that perceived themselves to be ‘freedom fighters,’ who used violence to accomplish their aims and purposes. What is fascinating about Jesus’ early disciples were two men who came from the opposite political spectrum of life. Matthew (called Levi) who was a tax collector and therefore a collaborator with the Romans who were at that time in control of Israel, and Simon, the Zealot (Mk. 3:19), who was a freedom fighter and opposed to the Roman occupation. What brought these two men together was Jesus. Jesus had a different approach to the occupation of Rome. Jesus’ message to an oppressed people was one of hope. Jesus brought God’s kingdom of love and redemption, which ultimately triumphs over retaliation, violence, and vengeance. So, how does an oppress people survive and even influence and impact their society? Jesus’ life is the model. He went about doing good. Peter in explaining the gospel to the Roman centurion, Cornelius, his family, and associates described Jesus’ ministry among the people in this way.
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.[vii]
As we look at our lives today, with growing political polarization, what we need to do is to take a page out of how Jesus responded to it in His own hour. He brought the gospel message of God’s kingdom. It is a message of forgiveness, reconciliation, first with God and then with others. This change is one that comes from the inside, out. It affects our attitude, our actions, and ultimately impacts and influences those around us.
The Scriptures teach us a principle that we witness every harvest season, the “sowing and reaping” principle. What you sow, you will probably reap, all things being equal. This principle not only applies to growing food, but also to investing time, mentoring others, and investing money into others.
Here we see the example of a farmer waiting for the land to yield its valuable crop. James describes the process of looking for the autumn and spring rains to help the crop grow and develop to maturity. Warren Wiersbe points out the growing season in Israel.
Jewish farmers would plow and sow in what to us are the autumn months. The ‘early rains’ would soften the soil. The ‘latter rain’ would come in the early spring (our February-March) and help to mature the harvest. …James pictured the Christian as a ‘spiritual farmer’ looking for a spiritual harvest. ‘You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.’ …There are seasons to the spiritual life just as there are seasons to the soil. He [God] sends the sunshine and the rains of His goodness to water and nurture the seeds planted; but we must be patient to wait for the harvest.
Here, then is the secret of endurance when the going is tough. God is producing a harvest in our lives. He wants the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ to grow (Gal. 5:22-23), and the only way He can do it is through trials and troubles. Instead of growing impatient with God and with ourselves, we must yield to the Lord and permit the fruit to grow.[viii]
Patience then is required for fruit to grow, not only in the farmer’s field, but in our own lives. He is the one who is glorified by the transformation in our lives and its impact on others.
The harvest happens at the coming of the Lord in the final judgment. Jesus explains this in the parable of the weeds and its meaning.
Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.’[ix]
Douglas Moo in understanding this coming is speaking of the final judgment. “James intends, and his readers would certainly have understood, the Lord’s coming to refer to Jesus’s return as judge and savior.”[x]
Alec Motyer rightly points out, “The very circumstances which call for patience begets impatience.”[xi]
What he is saying is that in the most stressful and difficult moments of our lives, we need to exercise patience because it is at this point that we are tempted to become impatient, which leads to sin. Yet, as Douglas Moo explains; “James’s call for patience and endurance does not preclude those who suffer from engaging in legitimate protest about their circumstances or appropriate action to try and change their situation.”[xii]
What we must guard against is overreaction to the injustices of life, of which there are many. We must patiently and graciously address the issues, not so much by cursing them but by doing good despite evil.
THE SECOND REASON WE MUST BE PAITENT IN SUFFERING IS THAT WE MAY BE TEMPTED AND SIN
It is during the great trials and sufferings in life that we may tempted to “give up and give in,” or to express anger in our pain, or begin to complain against God and grumble against one another. All of these behaviors are subject to God’s judgment.
“Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!”[xiii]
While James has been warning against the oppressors being judged in the coming of our Lord, he now points out that this same judge will address our sins if we are not careful.
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.[xiv]
The promise is that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear and will provide a way out so that we can endure it. However, we also need to understand that there are moments when we experience a time of pressure that is beyond our ability to endure as he writes in his second letter to that same church.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.[xv]
Paul explains the proper response to these pressures is to learn to rely on God and seek the prayers of the community of faith. This moves us from self-dependency to reliance upon God and from isolation into community. Whenever we are experiencing trials, the worse thing we can do is withdraw. We can also be inspired by the courage and examples of others who have successfully navigated through life’s sufferings.
- The Example.
Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.[xvi]
No prophets are mentioned by name, but we see examples of those prophets who spoke God’s word of warning to the people, even as the expense of themselves. Certainly, Jeremiah comes to mind with all the suffering he experienced as his message was not welcomed and he experienced persecution, beating, and imprisonment, not by the enemies of God’s people but from his own people who were in rebellion against God. However, God spared Jeremiah, from their designs, though he went through hardships.
James now gives us an example of what God expects us to do in our crisis when addressing evil. James is giving us a prophetic model in addressing the injustices while suffering for doing what was right.
The prophetic model that James puts forward steers a middle ground between pacifism and violence, swinging to neither extreme.’ Quoting [Christopher] Church, he adds the observation that ‘a key part of the way the prophets “spoke in the name of the Lord” involved rhetoric denouncing injustice, even when the perpetrator was the king.’ They always, however, stopped short of violent reprisal or of inciting revolution.[xvii]
THE FINAL REASON WE NEED TO BE PATIENT IN SUFFERING IS BECAUSE THE END OF GOD’S PURPOSE IS COMPASSION AND MERCY
What is critical in a time of suffering and difficulty is to remember that God is good, loving, and has our best interests in mind.
As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.[xviii]
Paul reminds us in the book of Romans that it is God’s design for each of us, even though often He uses the instrument of trial and difficulty, to bring about our transformation. The trial is designed to create endurance and perseverance in our lives. The challenge before us is designed to make us more Christlike.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?[xix]
The words endure and patience in verse 11 literally mean ‘to remain under’ and speaks of endurance under great stress. Patience means ‘to stay put and stand fast when you’d like to run away.’ Many Greek scholars think that long-suffering refers to patience with respect to persons, while endurance refers to patience with respect to conditions or situations.[xx]
There are two Greek words that are used by James that are translated patience and perseverance. The first word means literally to be long-tempered, or long suffering and has the idea of self-restraint which does not quickly retaliate. The second word which the translators use is the word perseverance, and it speaks to remaining steady and not giving up under trial.
James began his letter with a call to steadfastness under trial (1:2-4), and we saw that holding up through the God-sent afflictions and difficulties in life is actually the pathway to sanctification [becoming Christ-like], the progressive road to becoming perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (1:4).[xxi]
Perseverance and endurance are important concepts in the Christian life. James now appeals to the example of Job. God allowed Job to be tested, but when we come to the end of the story, we see God’s restorative work in his life. Job is an example of someone who is suffering without apparent reason. His suffering makes no sense as to why. Yet, Job stubbornly holds on to his trust in God, though God appears to be silent and others are condemning him. The point James is driving at it is that Job is ultimately vindicated and blessed by God. Equally important is what Job learned from his experience regarding the nature and ways of God.
Douglas Moo points out, “In Job 42:4-5, Job confesses that he has finally learned his lesson about the majesty and sovereign goodness of God.”[xxii]
‘You said, “Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.’[xxiii]
Job has moved from information to experiencing that knowledge firsthand. It is one thing to be told something; it is quite another thing to experiencing it for yourself. Job wanted answers, God however didn’t answer the questions but came in person to bring reassurance to Job. If you were to choose between God answering your question or the presence of God in your life, which would you choose?
James challenges us in our times of difficulty to watch our words. Too often we find ourselves bargaining and making rash vows. “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Otherwise you will be condemned.”[xxiv]
As we look back in our lives, we see that God graciously brought us into seasons of difficulty in order to bring us nearer to himself. Indeed the older we get the more we can look back with heartfelt thanks for the benefits reaped through experiences which at the time were full of grief and pain. Yet sometimes our backward look is touched with sadness, and even remorse, because the spiritual ground gained during the trial has not been held when once again the sun shone and our circumstances became more manageable. It is very likely for this reason that in Old Testament times people made vows to God while their trouble lasted, promising to fulfil the vow when the cloud of trial lifted again. But within the Old Testament it is also recognized that it is easier to vow than to fulfil and the warning is given that ‘when you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow’ (Ec. 5:4). This is so close to what James is teaching that it may well have been in his mind also. Our stresses could give rise to an unreal pledge to God, made in the most solemn terms. But in James’ practical book it is essential to be real rather than dramatic, and to mean what we say, for in this matter also it is not unusual for a believer to carry about an unfulfilled promise to God.[xxv]
In times of suffering we can react and make poor decisions that move us away from God rather than lean into Him with deeper dependence. We may be tempted to sin and succumb in that hour of weakness. What we need to do is look to God. Rather than isolating, we need community and the prayers of fellow believers. We also need to understand that God’s allowance of trial is a designed for a loving purpose, to help us develop into His amazing image. For those who are in a time of great pain and suffering, like Job, the prophets and others who have gone before us who suffered while doing what was right, at the end of the sorrow, we are led into the arms of God.
A further blog of dealing with great difficulty in the home: https://theextraordinaryroad.blogspot.com/
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[i] D. A. Carson’s book, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil, Second Edition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 16.
[ii] Ibid, 20.
[iii] James 1:2-4, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[iv] James 5:7-8.
[v] Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James, The New International Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishers, 1982), 181; as quoted by Dan McCartney, James, Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 240.
[vi] Scott McKnight, The Letter of James, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011), 409.
[vii] Acts 10:38.
[viii] Warren Wiersbe, Be Mature: How to break the mold of spiritual immaturity—and grow up in Christ, (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 154-55.
[ix] Matthew 13:36-43.
[x] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 282.
[xi] Alec Motyer, The Message of James: The Tests of Faith, The Bible Speaks Today, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), 175.
[xii] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, 281.
[xiii] James 5:9.
[xiv] 1 Corinthians 10:1-5, 9-13.
[xv] 2 Corinthians 1:8-12a.
[xvi] James 5:9.
[xvii] Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell, Exegetical Commentary On The New Testament, (Zondervan Academic, 2008), 229.
[xviii] James 5:11.
[xix] Romans 8:28-32.
[xx] Warren Wiersbe, Be Mature, 154.
[xxi] Alec Motyer, The Message of James, 172-73.
[xxii] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, 292.
[xxiii] Job 42:4-5.
[xxiv] James 5:12.
[xxv] Alec Motyer, The Message of James:185.
