1
The Message for May 28, 2017
Real Faith for Real Life (Part 5) The Power of Patience and Prayer
James 5:7-20
Rob Miller, Pastor
What child doesn’t like to pretend? That’s what children do. They pretend. They make believe. They play games. As adults - there aretimes for us to pretend and there are times when we shouldn’t pretend.
Pretend - speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not.
We pretend that we are something we are not or someone we are not. We hide the real us.
- Maybe you put on a fake smile to hide how you really feel.
- Maybe you pretend to have your act together so that people don’t see what a mess your life really is.
My hope is thatwe canall get to a placein our life’s journey where we can just be ourselves, let people see the real you and me with our faults andour failures and our follies—and know that we are stillloved and accepted just the way we are. That’s what this church FLC is all about. God’s grace is for everyone. We share God’s grace in this place.
That’s why we say -- whoever you are and wherever you are in your journey of faith you are welcome here.
A few weeks ago we started this five-week worship series we’re calling real faith for real life. It’s based on the book of James in the Bible. We’ve been talking about how our faith guides our lives…
Today wewrap-up with chapter five and we see that our lives ought to be guided by our faith—if we have real faith, that is.
C.S. Lewis described faith as “The art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”
How true. Our moods change. Our lives change. Real faith is something worth hanging onto -- no matter how we feel and no matter what our circumstance may be.
That’s the kind of faith we need -- the kind of faith that weathers the storms of life and stands the test of time. When we have that kind of faith—real faith for real life—it canbring us peace. It can also giveus a clear direction for living life.
Text James 5:7-20
In this fifth chapter James describes three ways that real faith can guide our lives.
- Patience
Who among us couldn’t use a little more patience???
James says that real faith results in patience. He writes: 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 comingis near. (James 5:7-8)
Farmers know the importance of patience. You can’t make crops grow. You can’t make it rain so the crops can grow either. You have to be patient.
When it comes to asking God for patience we tend to pray something like this… “Lord, give me patience and make it quick. I need it now…”
When we read the words “the Lord’s coming is near,” we may think of the Second Coming of Christ. But this phrase also refers to God coming to our rescue in the here and now.
When James wrote this letter, many Christians were being persecution for their faith. It’s believed that James was killed by the Scribes and Pharisees when they pushed him off the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. He did not die from the fall so they stoned him. Christians were being persecuted for their faith-- killed for the faith -- and so they were waiting for God to come and help them. They looked forward to the “coming of the Lord” to rescue them.
James reminds them to -- be patient.
What about you? Are you waiting for God to show up in your life? Waiting for the Lord to come to your rescue? Waiting for God to direct your next step in your life’s journey?
Madeline Rockwell wrote a story for Reader’s Digest that goes like this:
My grandma was a ball of fire, while my grandpa was slow and deliberate. One night they were awakened by a commotion in the chicken house. Grandma sprang out of bed, ran to the chicken coop and found the cause of the racket, a large black snake. Having nothing to kill it with, she clamped down on its head with her bare foot. There she stood, until Grandpa arrive, a good fifteen minutes later—fully dressed and even his pocket watch in place. “Well,” he said cheerfully to my disheveled and enraged grandma, “If I’d known you had him, I would not have hurried so much.”
I wonder if maybe God is like that with us. We are always in such a hurry. We want it now. We want overnight success; instant satisfaction and gratification. We want microwaves, not slow cookers.
Patience is not one of our strong suits and God rarely shows up as fast as we want. God shows up in God’s good time -- when God is ready. But know this – God’s time is always the right time. God always shows up. God is worth waiting for.
As the Psalmist writes:Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.(Psalm 37:7). Real faith helps us to be patience. The second way real faith can guide our lives is through:
- Prayer
Real faith results in prayer.
Here is a prayer we can all perhaps relate to…“Dear God, So far today I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped. I haven’t lost my temper. I haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over-indulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’m going to need a lot of help. Amen.”
What a great prayer to start the morning with.
Here’s what James says about prayer…Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the eldersof the church to pray over them and anoint them with oilin the name of the Lord… The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.(James 5:13-16)
James says when things are going bad – pray – turn to God and trust that God will carry you through those tough times.
James also says when things are going good –pray - turn to God and sing a song of praise. A hymn or a song is simply a prayer set to music…
Matt Redman captures this concept of praying during hardships and happiness in the song -- Blessed Be Your Name:
Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
We are to praythrough our hardships and our happiness. James goes on tosay thatwe are to pray for healing too.
Research has discovered a relationship between good health and spirituality; especially prayer and worship. Today, 70 of the nation’s 125 medical schools offer courses on spirituality and health. People who pray regularly and are active in a local church tend to live longer and have better health.
Consider this prayer offered by a six-year-old named, Ryan, “Dear God, please take care of my daddy and my mommy and my sister and my brother and my doggy and me. Oh, and please take care of yourself, God. If anything happens to you, we’re gonna be in a big mess.”
How true!!! The third way real faith can guide our lives is through…
- Perseverance
At the beginning of his letter, James says, The testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:3) He ends his letter on a very similar thought. He writes:
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will savethem from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)
These last two verses reveal an important truth.
First - it is possible for someone - anyone to wander away from the faith, even lose their faith altogether.
There’s a story about a little boy riding home from church in the family car. He was very proud of the craft he made in Sunday school -- a hand-drawn picture with a caption that read: “Have Faith in God.” Then to his dismay the construction-paper craft slipped from his hand and flew out the window. “Stop the car!” he cried. “I’ve lost my faith in God!”
Imagine -- if we were that concerned about our own faith. The truth is most of us aren’t. People arewandering off intentionally –walking away from Jesus and his church.
Consider this: 80% of the population here in American claims to be Christian, and yet, less than 20% actually attend worship regularly.
Many of those who don’t attend -- used to attend. Somewhere around 90% of church-going teenagers quit going to church as soon as they graduate high-school. And they don’t return. That breaks my heart… Whatever we’ve been doing isn’t working…
There are people - young and old - living all around us without the community of faith to help them live happy and healthy lives. They are spiritually lost, but that doesn’t mean they are beyond the grace of God. It means they need God’s grace more than we do. So we need to share it.
These last two verses offer us a second truth…
Second - it’s our responsibility to reach out with God’s grace and invite people, to help restore their faith, to reunite them with Jesus and his church.
According to Lifeway Research and the Barna Group,
- 82% of the unchurched say they would be somewhat likely to attend worship if someone invited them.
- 25% say that they would be very likely to attend worship if a friend would invite them.
Think about that… 1 in 4 of our unchurched friends would be willing to come to worship if they were invited. Jesus was right when he said...
Theharvestisplentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of theharvest, therefore, to send out workers into hisharvestfield. (Luke 10:2)
For some people, all they need is someone to care enough about them —to invite them to Jesus and his church, so they might be touched by God’s grace in this place...
One simple invitation can make all the difference fora lifetime. Please consider inviting someone to join you for worship next week… Why?Because…
- Real faith for real life is revealed in what we say anddo…
- Real faith patiently waits on the Lord…
- Real faith turns to God in prayer during good times and in bad…
- Real faith perseveres even in times of spiritual wandering…
Final thought -- It isn’t that we all need to have a great faith, it’s that we all need faith in a great God.
And it shows… Amen