Mood Swings
James 5:13-15

In many ways the Christian life is no different from the life of any other person.  Life has its good days and its bad days.  You will experience ups and downs in life.  Life very often is a series of hills and valleys. 

There are many people who have a hard time dealing with the changing circumstances and the variety of moods which come to them in life.  It's not easy for them to cope with these mood swings.  There are some, of course, who have mood swings which are chemically driven.  There are mood swings which have to do with chemical malfunctions in the brain. 

There are times when people need to have Christian care and Christian counseling and Christian medicine to help them get through some of these brain disorders that may come.  These are more severe.  These are more serious mood swings which some people have to deal with.

Some people have to deal with issues of depression, and they are not able to get themselves out of the tank of depression and they need some specialized Christian care to help them through that difficulty.

I'm not dealing so much with those kinds of severe mood swings this evening as I am just dealing with the things that seem to come to all of us.  I want to talk with you a little bit tonight about these mood swings which are specifically mentioned in these verses. 

And I want you to see that God is available to us in all of these times of different emotional experiences.

John Calvin said, "There is no time which does not invite us to God."  That reminds me of Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Someone said it and I wrote in my Bible years ago: That is every moment of my life.  There is never a time when I am not in need of mercy and grace.  So whatever the circumstances of your life may be, God invites you to come to Him.  Whatever the mood you may be going through in your life, it is an opportunity for you to come to the Lord.

When we look at these verses of scripture, you will notice a variety of moods which are mentioned in these verses, and you will see that in each one of them God gives an appropriate spiritual response. 

For instance, he says first of all, "Is any among you afflicted?"  Then second of all he says, "Is any merry?"  Then third of all he says, "Is any sick?" and in each one of those mood conditions there is an appropriate spiritual response. 

He tells us first of all what to do in

1. Times of Hardness

verse 13

The word afflicted means to have a time of hardness, times of problems. 


The word there is a rather interesting word.  At the heart of the word is the same word that is translated suffering.  We are told about the sufferings of Christ, the passion of Christ.  We get the word from the Greek word there for suffering or passion.  The word literally means to experience pain.  The word hardness here means to experience pain, to experience hard times. 

I'm talking about the hard times in life, those times when things don't seem to be going well, those difficult circumstances that you experience in life. They come to everybody. 

You may have received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and somewhere along the way you may have gotten the idea that you are not going to have any more problems.  But the truth of the matter is that even though you know the Lord and you are going to heaven when you die, there are those times in your life when you have problems and when you have difficulties.

Some of you may be going through the hard times this evening.  You may be experiencing the problems of hardness.  I speak to someone this evening that may have lost your job, and you don't know how you are going to pay the bills.  I may be speaking to someone in this audience this evening that is having a problem with one of your children, and you are at your wits' end and you don't know how you are going to deal with it. 

I may be speaking to someone else who may be wrestling with health issues, and you can't seem to get any better and the doctors can't seem to find out what is exactly going on. 
Others of you may be having a difficult time with a neighbor.  Some of you may be having a problem at school.  You are going through a time of hardness. 

It may surprise you, but is it not true that these kinds of time come to the children of God as well as those who are not the children of God?  There are times of hardness.  There is the burden of problems.

You will notice that he gives us a spiritual response.  He said, "Is any among you afflicted?" Then he tells you what to do.  He says, "Let him pray." 

What do you do when you have problems in your life?  When hard times come, what do you do?  Sometimes the temptation is to complain or to whimper or to grumble or get bitter or to blame other people for your problems or even to blame God for your problems.  Yet the Scriptures say that the appropriate spiritual response when we have problems in life is to pray.

Someone said that every affliction is a call to prayer.  Abraham Lincoln made this statement.  He said, "I have often been driven to the throne of grace in prayer by the firm conviction I had nowhere else to go." 

There are some problems and circumstances you may try to look in a lot of other directions, but when you are going through a problem the thing to do is to take that problem to God in prayer.

Your troubles will do one of two things for you.  They will either drive you from God or they will either draw you to God.  Let your troubles bring you to God in prayer.
Let your troubles cause you to come to God and call on God in prayer.  That's something you can always do. 

And sometimes on your knees your problems dissipate.  There are times when I have gone to God in prayer, and I thought I had a problem; but when I took that problem to God in prayer and I saw it in the light of eternity, it really wasn't a problem at all.  So there are times when you come to God and God just lifts the burden.

There are also times when you bring that problem to the Lord, and the Lord gives you a peace and a calmness and an assurance in your heart that everything is alright, that God is at work and God is doing things you never imagined.  When you have a problem and you go to God in prayer, sometimes He lifts the burden.

Let me tell you what He will always do.  If He doesn't lift the burden, God will give you grace to bear that burden.  There is strength in prayer.  When you go before the throne of grace in prayer and call on God in prayer, God gives you His strength in the hard times.  The message for those who are going through that difficult time, and when you are going through the time of hardness, God says, "Is any among you in times of hardness, let him pray."  That's the first directive.

Then I want you to notice that he moves on a little further and he asks the second question.  He says secondly, "Is any merry?"  The word merry means to be of good spirits.

Here he tells us what to do in
2.  Times of Gladness

There are some times that you wake up, and for no reason that you can figure out you are just kind of down.  But then there are other times and you just wake up that day and for no apparent reason you are just feeling great.  You are like the old Carpenter song "You're on top of the world looking down on creation."  Do you know what I'm talking about?

There are those times when you are merry.  There are times when you just feel good.  "Zippidy do da, zippidy day.  My,oh, my, what a wonderful day.  Everything's going my way."  Don't you like those days?

"Is any among you merry?"  Thank God for the good times.  Thank God for the happy times in life. 

He says, "Is any among you happy?  Is any among you merry?  Is any among you cheerful?"  He tells us what to do when we are in those times.  He says, "Let him sing psalms."

I really believe that God wants us to be happy, and I believe that happiness is a choice.  You have a choice in the matter.  You can choose how you want to go through life.  You can go through life on the sad bus or you can go though life on the happy bus. 

A long time ago I got on the happy bus. I just decided that I would have a good time.  Did you know that the Bible says there is nothing wrong with enjoying life along the way?


It says in Proverbs 17, verse 22, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones."  Proverbs 15, verse 15, says, "All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast."

There are some people who think that the Christian life is a funeral.  According to the Bible the Christian life is a feast.  The Christian life is not a funeral parlor.  The Christian life is a party.  You can have joy in the Christian life.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying your Christian journey.

I feel sorry for these churches where laughter has been banished from the building.  There are some churches that you are not ever to enjoy yourself.  You are not even supposed to grin.  It's certainly out of place to laugh. 

I don't think laughter is inappropriate in the house of God.  I don't think joy is out of place in the place where God's people come to worship the Lord.  It is a sad day when laughter is driven from the house of God and is carried to the bars and to the entertainment industry of this world.  God's people ought to be a happy people. 

Tell me what's wrong with doing that in the house of God.  What's wrong with God's people being happy along the way? 

"Is any among you merry?"  Then he tells you what to do.  He says, "Let him sing psalms."  The word literally there means to pluck on a stringed instrument. 


Do any of you ever remember the comedian George Goble?  George Goble said that when he way a boy they were so poor that they didn't have electricity on their street.  He said that he was the only boy who played a kerosene guitar.

The word literally means to pluck on a stringed instrument.  It means to sing psalms.  It means to sing hymns of praise.  When you are going through the glad times, the Bible says that you ought to sing songs of praise. 

In Ephesians 5 it tells us a little bit about singing.  It says in verse 18, "And be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit."  Then he says in verse 19, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." 

What he's saying is that the appropriate response in the glad times is to sing praises unto the Lord and let your singing be based upon the leading of the Holy Spirit.

In Colossians 3, verse 16, we see a very similar verse with an interesting change.  In this verse notice what it says.  It says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your harts to the Lord."

Spiritual singing is not only motivated by the Holy Spirit, but it is based on the Word of God.

Listen: you learn a whole lot about a church by the way the church sings.  You walk into a church and you listen to the way that church sings and you will learn a great deal about the joy in that church.  Let the people of God sing.  Let the people of God rejoice.  Let the people of God praise.

But you also learn a lot by what they sing. 

I was thinking this week about the little chorus “Above All”.  The problem?  I don’t think when He was on the cross the primary thing on His mind was us.  The foremost thing was doing the will of God.

We ought to sing and we ought to sing scripturally sound music and words.  Why?  

Because the Christian life is a life of joy.  There is joy in serving Jesus Christ, and when you know the Word of God and the God of the Word you ought to be a happy person and sing and be praising the Lord in your music.  People won’t sing in the choir because they can’t sing.  Hey listen:  That’s why you were asked to sing in the choir and not a solo.

By the way, just for free:  I think before anyone is allowed to sing a solo or in an ensemble they ought to be a part of the choir.  Choral and congregational music are the most scriptural examples of music that we have.   

The devil defeats so many people by convincing them they can’t sing.  What he’s done is convince you to be disobedient to the Word of God.  His command is to sin and make melody in songs and hymns and spiritual songs.  And the Lord loves to hear the crows as well as He does the robin. 
You don't have to have the greatest voice in the world to sing.  I found that out listening southern gospel music. Do you know what a southern gospel singer is?  It's somebody who sings through the nose by the ear.  But I love southern gospel music because of the passion and enthusiasm with which it is sung.  You don't have to be the greatest singer in the world.

Get hold of some of these choruses we teach you.  Get hold of some of these songs we sing in the house of God and sing them on your job tomorrow and sing them on your way to school tomorrow.  "Is any among you merry?  Let him sing psalms."  There's always an appropriate response.

Here's the third question.  He says, "Is any sick among you?"  What do you do in the times of hardness?  Let him pray.  What do you do in the times of gladness?  "Is any among you merry?"  Let him praise.

Then he tells us what to do in 

3.  Times of Illness.

verse 14

When it comes to the area of sickness, there is a great deal of misunderstanding and where there is a great deal of incorrect teaching going around. 

So I think I’ll save that one for next week.

But here's the point in a nutshell:  whether you are a Christian or whether you are not a Christian, you may have some of the similar problems.  You may go through some of the same mood swings whether you are a Christian or you are not a Christian.  But here's the difference.  Jesus is the difference.  When you know Christ, it makes a difference in what your response is to these different emotions that come into your life.

Listen:  The Christian life on its worst day is better than the non-Christian life on its best day.  Think about it. 

Think about how life used to be before you got saved.  Think about the problems you had and nowhere to turn.  Think about the trouble in your life, and you didn't know what to do with those troubles, and then you came to the Lord Jesus.  It did not eliminate the problems of your life, but the Christian life, now that you are saved, on your worst day is better than any day you ever had when you didn't know the Lord Jesus on your best day.

Life is just too tough to try to make it by yourself.  You need a friend.  You need someone to care.  You need someone who loves you.  You need someone you can talk to.  You need a Savior and His name is Jesus.

Let's bow our heads in prayer.