Count It All Joy

“Count It All Joy”

James 1:2-4

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work , that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

You know the grass withered and the flower fades, but the word of God shall endure forever.

I don’t know what you’ve been going through, but count it all joy.

Those of us that read our Bibles know that the writer James confronts the comfort level of many Christians. James makes many Christians uncomfortable. Because he comes to challenge those of us who say we are saved by faith. But James says that our belief is bogus if does not transform our behavior. James says that faith without works is dead. James says that the faith we claim, ought be confirmed by how we live. He says that the faith we declare, ought be demonstrated in our daily lives. Faith that we verbalize ought to be verified by our walk through this world.

And so in this first chapter of James, he provides at least three measuring tapes, by which we can gauge genuine faith. He provides three measuring tapes that we might be able to determine that our faith is real.

James tells us in James 1:22 that genuine faith responds in obedience to God’s Word. That real faith doesn’t just hear the Word, but real faith activates the Word. It’s one thing to have an appetite for the Word, but its another to activate the Word in the life we live. Then in James 1:26 James says that not only does faith act in obedience to God’s Word , but real faith regulates the tongue. James says that if a man says that he has faith and that he cannot tame his tongue, then he has deceived himself.

You know in chapter three when James goes into detail about that subject that’s in everybody’s mouth, he says that we have to be careful with the tongue. He says be careful because the tongue can burn. It’s set on fire by hell itself. You see Satan is the malicious match striker. And Satan will use that tongue to tear down your house. He will use that tongue to tear down friendships. The tongue is the fire, you’ve got to be careful of the burn.

Also in that third chapter James says that you have to be careful of the bite. He says that the tongue is like a poisonous snake. And if your not careful, someone will bite you and put their poisonous venom in you. Somebody here perhaps your spirit has been poisoned, all because some snake, nawl that’s in California. Somebody said the wrong words in your spirit. So he says that with that tongue you have to be careful of the bite and he says be careful of the boast.

He said it boast of great things. You’ve heard that story of the two birds that were getting ready to fly south for the winter. And brother frog, he didn’t want to freeze up there for the winter. So he came up with this rather ingenious idea. He said I want you to take a stick bird on this side and the bird on this side take the stick in your mouth, and I will just grab the stick with my mouth in the middle and fly with you all to warmer weather. And away they went. And as they were flying south there were two farmers in the field, and they looked up and said WOW what an ingenious idea. I wonder who though of that? And that frog said, “that it was meeeeee!”

James says that real faith regulates the tongue. It responds in obedience to God’s Word. But we’re reminded that genuine faith remains steadfast in the midst of life’s trials and tribulations.

You know that in this world that we are going to have some trials and some tribulations. Job said that man born of a woman is but of a few days and full of trouble. And in the midst of your trouble you need some for real faith. For real faith is some if not faith. For real faith says that I know God is able, but even if not, we are still going to trust Him. Real faith is although faith. Though he slay me yet will I trust Him. So I just stopped by to encourage you today and to tell you that no matter what you are going through count it all joy.

First of all when you have trials and tribulations going on in your life you have to react with a positive attitude. James tells us to react with a positive attitude. He says count it all joy. You know that in the midst of your trials whether you become bitter or better depends on how you respond to it. I just stopped by to tell you don’t let your difficulty defeat you. I’m like Habakkuk now, no matter what tries to s-t-e-a-l my joy, I s-t-i-l-l have joy! I believe I may have one witness in here today that can say, no matter what all I have been through, I still have joy.