Patiently Wait For The Eternal | James 5:1-8 | 6-7-26 | Sunday PM

**Andrew Montoro** (0:00)
So, let's find our places in James 5 tonight, as we're continuing in our series, Growing Into Christ Likeness, that God wants us to be growing. And sometimes, or not sometimes, in order for growth to take place, there has to be difficulties, there has to be trials. It's been said, smooth seas do not make skilled sailors. And the same is true for Christianity. Brother Gad has put it this way, the road to Christian maturity is uphill all the way.
How many are glad to came out tonight? All right, you're right, as we get started. But if we're going to be used by God, if we're going to fulfill God's purpose for our lives, there is a need for Christian maturity. And one of the reasons why we struggle with the temptations, with the struggles of life, is because we're not as spiritually mature as we like to think we are. And so what we need to do is humble ourselves and receive the grace of God to begin to grow. And so James chapter 5 and verse number 1, he's been dealing with being humble before God so we can receive God's grace. And now he deals with another area that requires humility and requires patience. Verse number 1 of chapter 5, go to now ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure to get together for the last days. Behold the higher of the laborers who have reaped your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cryeth. And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanting you have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husband man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
And so those are quite some verses, but here's our title tonight. Patiently Waiting for the Eternal. Patiently Waiting for the Eternal. Let's pray and ask the Lord's help. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight. Lord, I just pray that you would help us to lay aside the burdens, Lord, to open our hearts and our minds to hear from you. I pray, Lord, for your help in preaching. Lord, that it would be simple, that it would be clear. And Lord, that you would speak to our hearts, all of us, that you'd help us. Lord, I pray just for you to receive glory tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Perspective is a powerful thing. Okay, perspective, how, what you can view of the situation, whether you can view the whole thing, or whether you can view a little bit of it, is a powerful thing. When you can see only part of what is going on, it is easy to get confused. But a clear look from the right perspective, it kind of just crystallizes everything. It's like, oh, okay, I see what's going on. Now, I'm not into all the magicians or the illusionists or whatever they call the sleight of hand tricks, okay? There's a lot of that, whatever. It's people tricking people and people paying a lot of money to be tricked, is really what's going on. Anyways, but I've seen some of it every once in a while, and if you look at it from the perspective they want you to look at it from, it looks like they really pulled a rabbit out of the hat. That was empty, right? If you look at it from the perspective, you've seen something like that. I mean, from the audience's side, it really looks like that happened, or it really looks like they made that dove appear and disappear, right? It really looks like that happened.
But the reality is all in the perspective. I saw one act one time where they did the act, and it looked like, okay, how on earth are they doing that? It looked like the guy had to be at least 10 feet long with 10 arms and five different heads. I mean, it was just popping out all over the place over here, or 15 guys in there. It's like, what on earth is going on? Then they did the same act again, and they took the cover off of the props. Really, all it was was one guy on a little trolley that was going back and forth, and he was sticking one hand out here, and he was doing this, and he had a fake head, a hat that was popping up here, and you go like, that's so silly. How was I fooled by what I couldn't see?