James Part 1

James 5:7-12 Part 1

Hey, everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Mothers’ Day.

I certainly did. In the youth group/Sunday School for the morning at my church, we talked about burdens. This, amazingly enough turned out to be another fabulous blessing from the Lord. I took lots of notes, and so I am going to kind of reenact it for you. Sorta.

So, we focused on James 5: 7-12.

“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.

12 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.”

(NIV)

So, first, A talked about four “F” words (don’t giggle, seriously, guys).

Fight, Fright, Flight, and lastly, Faith.

Now, before we start, when he is talking about burdens, he is talking about things that EVERYONE has. School, sports, exams, friends, family, parents, etc.

James 5:7-12 focuses on one word that shows up several times in the passage.

The word is PATIENCE.

Be PATIENT, then, brothers and sisters…

PATIENTLY waiting for the autumn and spring rains…

you, too, be PATIENT…

and so forth. So, the first point we talked on, is

1. How is your Heart?

We need to ESTABLISH our HEARTS.

What does this mean? What does it mean to Establish your heart? Well, lets talk about it. Think, what does it mean to establish something?

To establish means to...set something up. Or rather, to make it stand. To know what something is. When we say we need to establish our hearts, we mean we need to establish our beliefs. We need to establish our thoughts. What do we believe?

Next, we talked about how Patience has anything to do with our hearts. Now, for some of you, this may seem an easy question, but at the beginning of the year, the very first thing A said was that he didn’t want us to give the answers we thought were true, he wanted us to examine what the answer was, ourselves. He didn’t want the Sunday School answer, he wanted our answers.

So, what does it mean? What A had us do, is he said he wanted us all to think about a burden. So, think of a burden. I can’t tell if you are, so if you are, continue reading.

What is the number one thing you would wish every day? The one thing that you would wish if you could that concerns your burden. Think of that. Now, if I know people, and if A does, everyone is thinking right now that they would all JUST GO AWAY! We wish our burdens to be gone! We don’t want them! They are heavy and they hurt, so why carry them?

But you cannot rush God. All burdens have a purpose, and only God knows what those are. There is no escaping burdens. All we can do is settle in.

We live in the most IMPATIENT generation in history. If something is not immediate-whether it be internet or food at a restaurant- we automatically get irritated. You can complain to the chef if your food is slow, and you can talk to the internet company if it is not working, but you can’t “hurry up” God. If you live in a world where a slow computer gets you agitated, then when the big things come like a divorce or a friend dying, you will be crushed unless you have patience.

Alright, so that one is pretty long and also, that is only a third of the notes I took, so I will give you guys more tomorrow or Wednesday. :)

Thanks so much for reading. It means a ton.

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God bless.