When the Sun Doesn’t Stand Still
May 5, 2024 2024-05-05 Bryan Rosenfarb James 5A guest speaker filling in preaches from James 5 on suffering and patience through trials, sharing his own personal story of a difficult 2012-2013 season including his wife's bed rest pregnancy and job loss, encouraging listeners to look to God rather than their circumstances.
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Well, hey, good morning again. That was actually really awesome. This morning, so Ben asked, well, Ben asked me through Brandy on, I think, Tuesday to fill in today. But it was interesting, two weeks ago, I was with Ben in Arizona. We were just meeting up with some friends of his. I had this memory that popped in my mind of some stuff that happened like 11 years ago.
I'll tell you, I'll get into some details about them in just a second. But it was really interesting because I haven't thought about that in 11 years and then been through Brandy asking me to speak. And then I asked Ben, okay, what's the passage that we're going to use? And then the passage purposely, I don't say purposely. Intentionally, it lined up with exactly that thought that I had a week and a half ago of something that happened 11 years ago, which is a lot to follow. Anyway, it's pretty cool.
So I'm excited this morning to be able to share with you guys a couple of disclaimers. There could be some coughing. There's allergies out there in case you guys are alive. You probably are being infected by it. It's Florida outside. So I told Melanie this morning, this was coughing and everything. I said, I kind of feel like I'm trying to channel the Michael Jordan Game 5 of the 97 Finals, right? And we're using the flu. You guys remember that game? They won. So I'm trying to channel that.
This morning, before we pray and get into the passage, into the scriptures and everything, let me just, so we're talking about suffering this morning. And let me just share that this is by no means am I a professional, by no means have I figured things out because I'm holding the microphone today. And so if anything that I say comes across as lacking empathy or understanding, just know that's not my heart. Everyone goes through suffering. Everybody goes through trials in life.
And each circumstance is different and it's hard. And so my experience has been sometimes when you hear from the pulpit about what to do when you're suffering, it kind of comes across as just like, here's information. Just go do this. Very prescriptive. So let me just say like that's not my heart this morning. I want to just share some stuff in James 5 that we'll be reading together. And so before we do that though, I'm going to ask God through prayer if you guys will join with me that he can kind of run the show and take over this moment.
So hey God, thank you for another day. Thank you for giving us this day and giving us this time and the ability to come and gather. God, we're just, as we open up your word this morning, I just pray that your presence will be felt here, that your spirit will guide us, that the words that I speak will come from you. And you know God as we look at suffering, as we look at patients with suffering, that's
hard, that's a hard concept especially when we're in the thick of it. And so God I just, I ask that you give us the grace and the mercy that we need if we're in the thick of it right now to be able to not focus so much on the actual circumstances but to look to you. And God if we're coming out of a storm or a turbulent time, I pray that you remind us of how good you were and how good you are and how faithful you are, whether we're in
the storm or we're not in the storm. And so God we just thank you for never leaving us, for never forsaking us and for coming and showing us how to live through your Son Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray, amen. Okay. I'm probably going to switch between a couple different things this morning but James chapter five is where we're going to kind of center the passages this morning. So 11, 2012, let me just start with the years instead of doing the math.
2012 and 2013 were definitely years for myself that I would say things didn't go the way that I planned or expected. So in February we were my first wife and I were expecting Wilder. And she was put on bed rest pretty immediately out of nowhere in February and then five days later I lost my job. And so she's a teacher and so thank goodness that we filled out that paperwork for that
long term disability insurance that we got. But I lost my job kind of out of the blue unexpectedly and it was complete crazy chaos and I can talk more about it in detail if you ever wanted to know. So Wilder's 23 weeks along from a progress standpoint and so it was like really scary because mom was put on bed rest, we weren't sure what was going to happen. Long story short, most of you guys have met Wilder. He's good, he's fine, he's funny.
He was born on May 8th. That's this week. Oh sorry. He was born on May 8th, 2012, healthy by all accounts. It was funny when his mom was put on bed rest they were like, you know at this point lungs aren't fully developed yet and so they gave steroids to help his lungs kind of grow faster and stuff. And when that boy came out I was like well they might have given a little too much because
dude's loud. I don't know who he gets that from. So he came out, he was great, he's seven pounds, nineteen inches long. I love telling him a little story about the day he was born on his birthday, that's a little tradition that we have. Things were really good. And then you know the next like twelve months was just crazy. I was on staff at another church here in town, we were helping out, we were going through
some transition times between pastors and so it was really tough. At the time I was teaching the college students and I was also the business administrator at the church and we didn't have a pastor. And so the only two people on staff that we had. We had a music person but the only two people that were considered on staff that point was the youth pastor and then me. And so he and I would take like a month at a time and like we did what I'm doing now.
We shared. So that helped, it was like a month at a time you could kind of come up with a theme, you could kind of build things. But it was a lot of work and that lasted for like a good, I don't know, I think like eighteen months when we were transitioning between two different pastors. And it was really tough time in that regard. But looking back at it during those eighteen months my marriage also started falling apart and I can remember it was about eleven years ago, I think around this time of the year. There was this book I got that was centered around the story in Joshua where God made the
sun stand still for a day. So the Israelites get into the promised land and they're defeating an army and Joshua asked for an extra day or more time because they were basically running these opponents out of the promised land. So he asked me more time and the Bible says that the sun stood still. And we don't need to get into the details like did it really stand still when did it officially happen and all that stuff. But the purpose of that series, I remember I came across that story and I took a month
of my time like they were supposed to speak and we spoke about that and it was all about like asking for impossible prayers and asking for like the big, big things in life to happen. So few people in the church knew what was going on in personal life and so you can imagine like I was attached to this story and I'm like this is great, I'm on staff. I've got this book that we're going to go through the next month's figured out and I remember I got to I think it was like week three of like this four part series and it
was titled like what happens when the sun doesn't stand still. Essentially what happens when you know everything falls apart and it doesn't work out the way you hoped. And that was the story of like the next 18 months like from that point forward it was just nothing that I thought was going to happen happened. Prayed the big prayers, believed, made sure I was tithing, did everything I could right.
Like called in, I'm 50% Jewish, called that in to see if that would help out in any way. Right. Hey God I'm on staff. We did all of our paperwork on time, filed everything on time which at the time that was hard to do. Colden everything right. Just trying to cash in everything just to get a win under my belt. And man it just like it just happened where like just one thing after another you know wilder was healthy, he was doing great in that time.
I started I got a new job. I started traveling more for work for that new job which was hard because like you're away from wilder but it was also at the same time like the marriage was falling apart so it was really a tough tricky time and then you're out you know I think I was in Ohio most of those times and I was there for like Monday through Friday and then flying home late Friday morning picking up water Saturday morning and then speaking on Sunday morning and then flying back out Monday morning like that was that was life for a long period of
time. And so it was just hard. But nothing seemed to happen the way I thought it would. And so maybe you know what those are like specific examples in my life you know where things didn't work out the way I hoped and that's specific to me that's my story. But what's universal is unfortunately is suffering like in this life we've all gone through something that's hard you might be going through it right now it might be something that's taking
a really long time to figure out. And so this morning I wanted to focus in on James chapter 5 starting at verse 12 and I want to kind of look at like okay I'm going to just share some like some points from the Bible I'll kind of share like retrospectively looking back you know 11, 12 years ago when all that stuff was happening like what worked for me what didn't work and I just hope that this morning is a source of encouragement for you that it's it's if anything you can
feel the partnership you can feel the community of the people around you this morning just knowing that you're not alone if you're going into something or you're in the middle of something. So let's look at James 5 I think I said verse 12 I'm sorry it's actually we'll start up in verse 7 it says be patient there for brothers until the coming of the Lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it until it receives the early in the late rains you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at
hand do not grumble against one another brothers so that you may not be judged behold the judge is standing at the door as an example of suffering and patients brothers take the prophets who spoke the name of the Lord behold we consider those blessed who remain steadfast you have heard of the steadfastness of Job you have seen the purpose of the Lord and how the Lord is compassionate and merciful but above all my brothers do not swear either by heaven or earth or by any other oath
but let your yes be yes and your no be knows that you may not fall under condemnation so this morning like when it comes to suffering when it comes to the trials or the tough times just a couple quick points there's there's only five of them I'll go quick the first thing that I see here is it talks about be patient and it gives the the illustration of like the way that a farmer is patient about their crops sometimes the crops that farmers plant they come up and they yield that year
like sometimes it's six months right corn is something that happens that way right tomatoes if you get we all live in Florida a lot of people probably have like tomatoes in their backyard that they planted or tried to plant it takes time it's not one of those things you put it in the ground and then instantly it's you've got tomatoes popping up or you know a year ago for Mother's Day or I think it was Melanie's birthday we got her a avocado tree hasn't done anything it's stayed
alive so that's good but it's going to take a couple years for a fruit tree to start bearing some fruit and so what the what James is saying here is that you've got to be patient and I can remember that when you're in the thick of it when I was in the thick of it everything was was hard and falling apart patients is like one of the last things that I was looking to be I was looking to solve things quickly right usually and if you're anything like me when something goes wrong or
something is is not expected you're gonna I jump in and I try to solve it you can ask my wife any time that she brings a situation or problem to me I'm like problem solving mode which this is a freebie guys they're not looking for the solution a lot of the times they just they just want to be heard they just want to to share but at work right I'm a I lead a team of project managers and technology and and where I sit
I see the good in the bad I see the problems I see the problems often the horizon before they get there and my job is to prevent the problems from actually coming to fruition or minimize the impacts right and so that may be you as well as like you're in the midst of something you may want to like quickly react and do something you may want to take control of the situation but I just want to like encourage you like James 5 is saying be patient you're not going to understand
why you're going through what you're going through like the next day that's usually not going to happen that way right and it's probably not going to be something that solves or is over and done with in just a matter of a few hours or even a few days be patient like the farmers are being patient remember the fruit trees right they take a long time to start bearing fruit multiple years at times be patient while you're in the midst of your suffering the second thing that we'll look at really quickly and he says this in verse eight it says
you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand establish your hearts I was looking that up and and I was like what did it what did they mean that's kind of an interesting phrase establish your hearts what I get out of it is this is is cultivate your heart in the sense of like be curious be open right a lot of times when bad things are happening to us we instantly try to look for the cause of it and we say that's the reason why this is going on right and sometimes
there's really not a cause that you can put your finger on at the moment when he's talking about establishing your hearts it's also talking about like leaning more into your faith right Galatians 6 2 is the verse that talks about bearing each other's burdens right so I instantly think of bearing each other's burdens means community establishing your heart means getting into community
like being a part of community sharing with other people what's going on later on in James chapter five it talks about if you're suffering praying and if you need to like call on the elders of the church to ask for healing to confess your sins with each other when you're in the midst of suffering one of the best things that you can get into and to be plugged into is a community and that's what this church offers it offers that kind of a community but I just want to really encourage you guys like that's a human race thing that we all need I read this book a few years ago
called what happened to you and it talked about in the book about like horrific things that happen capital T traumas and things like that and they look at other countries and other people groups and how they handle things like that and they referenced a lot of like tribal groups and away tribes handle something horrific happening as they all come together and they support that person who's suffering so it could be obviously something horrific happened when they were you
know a group was out trying to hunt something bad happened you know something bad could have happened and another another light but that community coming around that person is healing to that person it's comforting to that person and so I just want to like encourage you we're here to help bury each other's burdens we're here to help each other and to lean into the community that you have you've got access to a lot of great people and looking out there's there's everybody here that I'm seeing about it that I know is great people right and we've all had experiences of suffering
we've all had horrific things happen to us and one of the best things is being able to tell your story and hearing another person echo back to you the pain that they know you're going through and to walk along somebody alongside somebody the next thing that it talks about is grumbling or therefore don't grumble it's a verse sign that says do not grumble against one another brother so that you may not be judged um y'all sometimes when you're going through when you're going through it it feels good
to just say what's on your mind and not filter it and it feels really good when you can blame somebody else for what you're going through right and while it may feel good momentarily obviously that's not something that lasts and it doesn't do you any bit of good to grumble against the person who maybe their actions have caused you pain it doesn't do you any long-term good it doesn't provide healing it maybe momentarily like it might feel okay it might feel good but the bible is
saying here like your words have a lot of power your tongue has a lot of power speaking things out brings a lot of power with it and so even though you're hurting even though you're going through pain um I just want to encourage you it nothing good is going to come from grumbling or nothing good is going to come from attacking another person and sharing and saying why they hurt you and telling them off and things like that it may feel like it will feel good but I can assure you it doesn't um and I'm speaking from experience like I I don't get it right I don't have it right
I'm a human being I'm trying to figure this out and I'm telling you like 11-12 years ago there was a lot of like mixed emotions and trying to take control of the situation and trying to share like what's going on and oh man um it's not a good idea to go to Facebook and to to post about things thank goodness I never did that but um it's not good you don't want to go to Facebook and complain you don't want to go on next door you don't want to do anything it's it's you've got to
you got to be patient I think it's something about venting yes get it off your chest you can angry journal that's a great thing as well um angry journaling man get some good paper and a good pin and just go at it just get it out it's really good you don't want to bottle it up but I can tell you it doesn't produce life for you or for the other person if you confront them and you're telling them off or you're grumbling to one another and constantly complaining uh the fourth thing um
verse 10 it says as an example of suffering in patients brothers take the prophets who spoke the name of the lord behold we consider those blessed who remain steadfast you've heard of this dead fastness of job and you have seen the purpose of the lord how the lord is compassionate and merciful man I get it like you're you're in it one of the last things you want to do is um you want to be told oh it's not that bad look what happened to job you're fine
that's not what this is saying it's that's not saying it's at all right um sometimes we want to compare our pain to what other people are going through that also isn't going to help much um it's referencing job here and we just talk about it for a second about job right jobes the the person in the bible the book in the bible were literally everything fell apart um overnight basically lost his entire um everything that he owned his possessions overnight he also lost his
family house collapsed on him also got boils like the guy's been through it they guys gone through so much pain so much suffering and so the bible here is just saying hey remember job you know job is somebody who walked through all of those hard things and still came out the other side didn't curse god he did question god but he didn't curse god and let me just pause and hold on for a second there too let me just say this job question god he asked him honestly
not that he was like criticizing god not saying like it's your fault i don't want to believe in you i don't know that stuff but he questioned god he honestly questioned god and god answered god showed up and i just want to share this really quickly like we serve a god who can handle our questions who can handle our doubts right it's okay to lean into that doubting tom a side of things matter of fact it's actually really good that you do that you question things it's okay to question why is this happening to me i wonder why god's allowing this to happen i wonder what purposes he
has there god what what are you doing you know it's okay to be angry at god has anybody ever been upset at god before yeah there's a few yeah a few of us have right like i have that's for sure because things didn't go the way that i thought they would and that's okay god can handle that kind of stuff um so be like job or remember job that walking through the craziness and the pain of everything being unexpected obviously you know like he didn't understand the purpose and the
moment but here we are how many centuries later when james five was being written and they're echoing back to like hey look back at what even happened to joe there's proof there's evidence that god still is going to step through for you that if you're patient god's there with you god's going to show you like he can restore things he can he has a plan he has a purpose for this it's not just for not it's just there is a reason for this stuff and then the the last point is is uh don't swear and it says by above all my brothers do not swear either a heaven or earth or by under
oath but let your yes be yes and your nobody knows that you not fall under condemnation um i think like i hear that verse and i go back to the very first verse that we looked at about being patient i think it's really really important um it's okay to question but i think it's important to allow your words to be few when you're in the midst of the suffering right nothing wrong questioning things we just talked about that but sometimes um we want to be quick to label things and we know exactly what god's up to we know why this is happening and so we want to just align
and say this is what's really going on and the reality is that may not be what's happening and so the bible i think is just cautioning us in this last verse that we're looking at to be patient but to also just keep your words to be few right nothing wrong with being in community and sharing your burdens sharing your story sharing your pain nothing wrong with that but when you start assigning things or you start declaring this is exactly what's going on the moment you stop with the curiosity and move right into determination and absoluteness and black and whiteness that's where it gets tricky and dangerous because you don't fully understand everything that's going on
it's been 12 years 11 years since the things i shared with you guys happen still don't fully understand the purpose of that um in closing i i want to there was a phrase that i heard uh and i want to go back to uh verse 10 in just second but there's a phrase i heard a few years ago um it said don't just bear your burdens but use them and i thought that was interesting
like that's an interesting phrase to have is like don't bear your burdens but actually use them and leverage them and going back to verse 10 as an example of suffering a patient's brothers take the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord um bible's full of stories of people who've walked through some hard things we just talked about job there's david there's so many people jesus walk through hard things um and when i think of what it's when that phrase means when it says don't just bear your burdens but actually use them what i get out of it is like right now in this
moment i'm sharing burdens with you guys that happened 12 11 years ago not to you know there's there's no no intention of pity party or anything but i'm sharing this to share that good can still come like god still has a plan i still don't fully understand what happened and why it happened but god still has a plan i'm lucky enough i was able to remarry my family doubled i got salah out of that as well we have two dogs potentially one that i'm willing to give away at any
moment because he's a puppy um but i can share this like while the pain of what happened 11 12 years ago will probably still be there it's definitely lessened lots of therapy lots of prayer but it's definitely lessened but while that pain's still there it's a reminder of like what happened to me and the joy that it brings to be able to share with other people what's happened to me
and how god has like walked me through it and to be able to know and talking with people when they're in the thick of it and to be able to share i know exactly how that feels man empathy is a really like it's a gift it really is being able to really understand what the person's going through oh it's such a beautiful gift and so being able to share those moments with you guys of course today but also be able to share those moments with you guys one on one and just to be able to say like i get it and i know exactly what you're walking through that to me is what using your burdens
actually looks like and what it means don't just bear them don't just deal with them but look at it as a way that this could be something that god is using for a bigger purpose for a bigger plan i mean we know it already with what happened to me 11 12 years ago like god had a purpose in the plan to be able to use what happened 11 12 years ago for me to be able to share it with you guys today and that's just like one little hint of i know he had a plan for that i don't think all that happened
just for right now today but i'm glad that right now today that i can stand before you and i can tell you like i've walked through the yuck i've walked through the really hard times and i know it's really hard and i know it's you're going through it if you are not going through right now you're probably going to go through it at some point in life and it's hard and while my story is different from yours my experience is probably not different from yours and the fact that is i've questioned things i've questioned what's going on i've had a really hard time with those burdens i've had a really hard time with things um i also just want to share too like those hard
things that i went through 11 12 years ago it has not been smooth sailing ever since then i can assure you that like things keep happening there's more problems just keep happening but the more that you walk through the problems and you are in the midst of the storm and you see that god is right there with you and you're able to share that with others that's what to me it looks like to share your burdens to use your burdens not just to bear them so let's pray this morning as as uh mike comes up and leads us in some songs let's just share this morning about
or let's let's pray this morning um regarding suffering regarding when things don't go as expected or as planned hey god thank you again uh for this opportunity and for this morning to share god you know uh that well god you say that it rains on the just in the unjust and that means that at some point we're all going to walk through it we're all going to have those seasons or those time
periods where things are hard god just help us remember the things that we walked through this morning that we talked about this morning about being really patient it takes time for trees to bear fruit it takes time for crops to yield and sometimes our inclination is to to force the flower to bloom when you've got an order and you've got a timing on things and you know what's going on and you know exactly the right time for things to happen and for things to start
opening up god help us not to grumble help us to to bear each other's burdens to lean into that to lean into community god um help us not to to take the wheel back and to try to control things and to steer our life through this crazy hecticness but help us to remember that you are in control you are good and you're going to see us through this God help us to know and to remember that you can use all things for good and that you have a plan for our lives
Jesus we thank you for all of these gifts we thank you for all of these um instructions that you gave us through James chapter five and help us to be a people that when we leave here that we know we can lean on our community to help us out to be a people that when we leave here that we're able to share our burdens with others not in a way just for them to help bear but also to share the good things that you're doing to use those burdens to help accomplish encouragement or your goal in
those other people's lives god help us to not leave here today and forget your truth and the midst of suffering in your name that we pray amen