Make Life Count

James 1:1–8 (ESV)

1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

2Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

6But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

7For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the book

Now the book of James is a short one in the New Testament that is very practical. Meaning it’s straightforward on how we can apply it in our lives.

If does come with some criticism though and is one of the books that almost didn’t make it into the canon of the Bible.

Martin Luther labeled it as the “straw” epistle and was concerned that it was teaching a works based salvation contrary to the Apostle Pauls teaching on grace.

The book of James doesn’t mention the death of Jesus or His resurrection.

But if you look closely at it. It actually compliments Pauls teaching.

B. Who is James?

James was knicknamed Old Camel knees’ because of the calluses he developed while kneeling in prayer.

Early church father Clement, Records that James died by being thrown off the pinnacle of the temple and then was beaten to death.

James was considered holy from his mothers womb as he followed the law of God, and

drank no wine, didn’t eat meat, no razer touched his head.

C. Greetings

Now James calls those converted from the twelve tribes his brothers. That’s a term of friendship, a term that accepts someone into their family.

You don’t hear someone call someone else “Brother or Sister” too much anymore in the church. You use to hear all the time someone say hi brother so and so…or hi, sister so and so.

Here is something too…just because a believer goes to a church of a different denomination then you, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t your brother and sister in Christ. We are a church, not a cult.

There is so much uniting power in Christianity. It’s the bonds of grace that unite us.

for we are redeemed by one blood;

we are partakers of the same life;

we feed upon the same word;

we are united in the same faith;

we love the same Father:

we are heirs of the same promises;

and

we shall dwell for ever together in the same heaven.

let us love one another with a pure heart , and show that love, not in word only, but in deed and in truth

James goes on to say…

II. COUNT IT ALL JOY WHEN FACING TRIALS OF MANY KINDS (JAMES 1:2)

A. The meaning of Temptation

Now in the king james it doesn’t say various trials but it says temptations in place of it.

Now this is where it get’s interesting. the word here in the greek for temptations is not what we would think.

the sense of the word here used for temptation is defined as “an examination with the express purpose of finding a defect, or a fault.

Now God will never temp anyone to do evil but…we do hear of testing times.

James goes on to say…”the testing of your faith produces a steadfastness “

B. Testing and the process of metallurgy

The word for testing was often used in metallurgy. This a process in which Precious metals would be smelted and tested by putting them through extreme heat and removing impurities to get them to their purest form.

The metal would stay in the intense heat for several days and over time would be seperated from any impurities.

C. When God tests us

the tested metal became so pure you could see your reflection in it. This is a great picture of how God tests us, for the purpose of removing any impurities and seeing His reflection in us. As we go through the fire, we become more like Him.

So when we face trials and adversity, we most of the time think that the circumstance or the other person is the problem, right?

What if we considered, we may be the problem? That there are some impurities in us that just bubble up to the surface because of certain situations or people that reveals them?

That we count it all as Joy because God is working on us, so we can better handle the world around us by working on the world within us!

James also says “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Along with counting it all joy though, we are told in other scriptures of what else to count. Such as counting the cost of following Jesus.

III. COUNT THE COST WHEN FOLLOWING CHRIST(LUKE 14:28-33)

A. The cost of being a Disciple.

In Luke 14 we have the parable of counting the cost when following Christ. It talks about when we decide to build something we need to first count the cost to see if we can complete it.

The cost of following Christ is building our lives on him. Not on our agenda, or our to do list but to give up everything and follow him.

If you made a decision sometime in the past to trust Christ for salvation but since then you haven’t paid much attention to your devotion and discipleship, you may be one of those followers who hasn’t counted the cost.

A decision to trust Christ means that He is now your Lord.

You had better listen to him, read his Word, follow his teaching.

To “come down to the altar” and then drift along is no decision at all. If you have trusted Christ, show you mean it by doing what God commands of you.

IIII. COUNTED THE HAIRS ON OUR HEAD(MATTHEW 10:30)

30But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

The good news is that even though we go through various trials, we give up things we want to keep and lose people we want to keep, but we gain a savior who never sleeps.

He also counts and has numbered the very hairs on our head. Now he may have to count less on some and more on others.

Nevertheless he cares for, and loves us all. We are more valuable to him than many sparrows.

V. COUNTED TO US FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS DUE TO BELIEF(GEN. 15:6 AND ROMANS 9:8)

Also, we have in Genesis 15:6 where it speaks of how Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted unto Him as Righteousness when God told him his offspring shall be as numerous as the stars.

This is what true faith is. It’s simply believing what God has said to be true.

The righteousness of God can be a difficult concept to grasp. Let me illustrate it this way...

If we look through a piece of red glass, everything is red.

If we look through a piece of blue glass, everything is blue.

If we look through a piece of yellow glass, everything is yellow, and so on.When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior,

God looks at us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

He sees us in all the white holiness of his Son. Our sins are imputed to the account of Christ and his righteousness to our account.

The Chinese character for “righteousness” is most interesting. It is composed of two separate characters—one standing for a lamb, the other for me.

When “lamb” is placed directly above “me,” a new character—“righteousness” is formed.

This is a helpful picture of the grace of God. Between me, the sinner, and God, the Holy One, there is interposed by faith the Lamb of God.

By virtue of his sacrifice, he has received me on the ground of faith, and I have become righteous in his sight

VI. APPLICATION

What if we counted it all joy when we faced many trials?

What if we counted the cost of what it looks like to really follow Christ?

God has numbered the very hairs on your head. He cares for us like no one else

He rewards you for your faithfulness. All he asks of you is to truly trust and follow him!