Moments in the life of a Pastor

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:7-11

⁷ 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. ⁸ You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! ¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.¹¹ 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.

When it comes to waiting we need to be careful that we don’t see it as doing nothing. Because James also reveals that patience involves:

• Working 

Waiting involves the work of ploughing and preparing the soil. So let me ask you are you ready for the rain, patience prepares us to plant, it prevents us from missing ministry opportunities. The soil has to be prepared in order to plant the seed. Patience isn’t just sitting around. So what does pushing the plough look like? It’s the hard work of prayer. Are you ploughing the soil with prayer, parents are you praying for your prodigal kids? Are you ploughing the soil of their hard hearts with prayer, are you praying for the seed that’s been planted? Or are you giving priority to panic. I’m in ministry today because my Mom put her energy into working and waiting not worry. She ploughed ahead in prayer, even though there was no sign of fruit not even a small shoot of green growth. She prayed over the hard-frozen bleak winter field of my life because she didn’t focus on what she saw she focused on the Savior. Instead of focusing on her heartache over the pain of a prodigal son she focused on the Hope that only comes from Heaven. Ploughing ahead happens when the team of oxen are tied together with the yoke. In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” We become weary in well doing when we do it in our own strength. Are you ploughing, or pouting? If we are not careful, we will spend our time whining instead of waiting and working. If you don’t farm by faith you will fall victim to fear and frustration. How do we wait patiently for Jesus by remembering that He has been patient with us. He patiently pursued you and now in patience we pursue Him. But it’s hard for us to sit still because many of us want to be in charge and in control. The truth is impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what happens when we start to doubt God’s goodness and guidance. We feel like nothing is happening that He doesn’t care and so we get angry with the Almighty, and go off on God, we end up spraying shrapnel everywhere, ruining all of our relationships. We have two decisions to make.

• We can choose to wait on God right where we are and not giving up. Instead of bailing on God, let Him use His waiting room to build you up.

• We can determine to go at His pace rather than being reckless and trying to run the show.

Give God His Place and keep in step with His Pace. So how are you handling the frustrations of life? Are you focusing on faith or fairness? Are you praising or protesting? How do you have hope in hard times, by focusing on the harvest not the hardship. Are you patiently working and waiting for the fruit of the field to be ripe unto harvest? 

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 5:7-11

⁷ 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. ⁸ You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! ¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.¹¹ 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.

When it comes to patiently looking to the Lords return James reveals a powerful principle, that patience involves both waiting and working: 

1. Waiting 

James uses the Palestinian farmer as a picture of patience. The farmer had to wait for the early and late rains. The early rain was in the fall, this was a rain that softened the parched land from the scorching summer sun, so that the hard ground could be ploughed to prepared for the seed to be planted. Some of you are waiting on the fall rain, dry and parched from a season of scorching. But are you patiently trusting in God’s timetable or panicking based on your trials? Now once the fall rains had come and the soil was ploughed, and the seed planted it would be easier to patiently wait right? Wrong, here is the hard part once the seed was planted it sat there dead all winter long. Nothing happened. The wheat and barley didn’t grow until the second rain the spring rains in March or April. All winter long the farmer sat there with nothing to show in the field. At least those with orchards had bare trees to look at but the Palestinian wheat farmer had nothing but a bare field from the time he put the seed in the ground in October until it started to come up in April. For half the year he waited patiently for something to happen. He was dependent on the second rain, the Spring rain. That means he had to practice patience, and the only way to do that is to tie your trust to God or you will give up, Galatians 6:9. Don’t miss James’ message, we are always in a season of waiting. Right now, some of you are in the middle of winter and it looks like nothing is happening. It was so long ago that the Lord planted the seed and it looks like nothing has sprout. Here is the question, How long will you wait on God?, that depends on how much you trust His timetable. Your trust will either be tied to His timetable or tethered to yours. If its tied to yours it will be based on results, if its His it will be tied to relying. James tells us to focus on the Redeemer not the results. Pastors, are you waiting on God? Some of you are in a small church and your tempted to bail because on the surface nothing seems to be happening, but are you willing to wait on the Holy Spirit to saturate the seed and bring for a harvest of fruit? Are you going to give up on God and abandon the field or be faithful to the call? Either we will faithfully wait for the fruit or fret? If it was hard to wait on the Lord in James’ day, some 20-30 years after the ascension of Jesus, how much more so for us some 2,000 years later? Lord, are you SURE that you’re coming back? Some of you are getting tempted to drop out, to give up on God but our assignment is to wait patiently. Are you waiting on God or worrying? Why do we worry, because we haven’t given things to God? Worry reveals a lack of trust in God.