Let me turn your attention today to just a brief passage of scripture from the book of James

chapter 1, verse 2 through 4. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way,

consider it an opportunity for great joy for you know that when

your faith is tested your endurance has a chance to grow so let it grow for when

your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect, mature, and complete, and needing nothing.

I'm talking today simply from the subject, the gift of joy, the gift, the gift of joy, the gift of joy.

It is interesting here in the first chapter of the epistle written by James.

James is the half-brother of Jesus. Mary is his mother too. And as he opens the book,

the Apostle James talks about his submission to God Almighty and to Jesus, His Lord.

Now, if anybody had the right to pull rank and say, hey, that's it was James because that was his that was his brother

they shared the same mother that was his brother but he didn't try to go down the road of nepotism

he called him he said said, my Lord, Jesus Christ. He understands he saw the

gift of God that he was, though they grew up in the same house with the same mama. But he saw

the gift of God. And he realized that this was more than just a brother, this was the savior of the world.

This is James writing, and James is saying to us,

not if you fall into trouble,

but when you have trouble.

If you live long enough,

if you talk to somebody with gray hair

or who has lost their hair,

they will tell you about this thing called life and the sorrows that it has. And he does not

tell us to act as though there is no sorrow in the world, but he's telling us not necessarily to feel joy

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