Does Living in Faith Matter?

Sunday message · The Bible Together series

Drew Fernelius  ·  James 5:7-11

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Message Summary

Continuing a series that walks through the Bible, Drew Fernelius turns to James 5:7–11 and asks whether living in faith really makes a difference. James has been teaching about how we use the resources of our lives, and Drew sums it up: “Life is short. Eternity is long.” So we invest our time, money and talents in what will last, trusting that in God’s kingdom even a cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name can bear fruit.

Sometimes we get to see that fruit. Drew tells the story of a teacher, Miss Thompson, who came to love a struggling student she had once disliked and, years later, learned from his letters how much her care had shaped his life. But most of the time we never see a Teddy. Sometimes we reap what someone else sowed, like a parent who invested for years without seeing results. What if we are the sowers who never see the harvest?

With uncharacteristic gentleness, James speaks to everyone who sowed in hope and never saw fruit, telling them four times to be patient. The word means long to anger. Life is a vapor, Drew says, but while we are in it, it feels long, and the human tendency is to bail out. How long? Not five years, but “until the coming of the Lord.” In a culture bent on instant gratification, that is a call to grow up: we will see some things, but not the full picture until then.

The phrase also calls us to live by faith. The farmer plants, then waits for the early and late rains; we can give our time and resources, but we cannot make anything grow, just as a parent cannot make a child respond. The prophets suffered and were often ignored. Jeremiah sowed for a lifetime with little harvest, yet his name is still spoken centuries later. Job’s restoration pictures our destiny, though not necessarily in this life.

James says to strengthen, or prop up, our hearts, because the coming of the Lord is at hand. Since a thousand years is as a day to God (2 Peter 3:8), Jesus has been gone only two days, and his return is the next event in redemptive history. The Lord could also come for any of us this afternoon. For those who played it safe, that day will bring weeping; for those who sowed in faith, joy. Drew imagines a movie in heaven showing the cups of cold water we never knew mattered: an encouraging word to a boy, an awkward prayer beside a dying friend, a clumsy class speech declaring love for Jesus that brought a glow to his face.

He closes by leading a guided prayer on the hope of heaven that he learned from Mario Bergner, inviting listeners to open their clenched hands, picture their names in the book of life and the river of life, let the pain of failures and disappointments float away, and be embraced by Jesus. Be patient, he says; the coming of the Lord is the next event.