We’ve been doing a sermon
series on the story of Job, so let’s review where we are at this point. We talked about how God accepted a challenge
from Satan. Satan claimed that the only
reason Job was so faithful to God was because God had blessed him so much. Satan said that if all those blessings were
taken away, Job would curse God. So, God
says, okay. Do your worst. You can do anything to Job except kill him.
And Satan does.
All of Job’s wealth is taken away.
His servants are killed. Even his
children, ten of them, are all killed.
And Job gets painful sores all over his body. Yet, Job does not curse God. Job accepts everything that happened,
realizing that he had done nothing to earn God’s blessings in the first place
and understanding that God can do whatever God wants to do.
Most of the book of Job, as we said a couple of weeks
ago, is taken up by conversations between Job and his friends. The friends keep telling Job that all this
bad stuff has happened to him because he’s being punished for sin. We know that’s not true, and Job knows that’s
not true. So how does Job respond to his
friends?
Well, we just pulled out a few verses to give you the
flavor of it—as we said a couple of weeks ago, this conversation goes on for
over thirty chapters of the book of Job.
But what you heard today is the gist of it. Job mourns his condition. He talks about how he once was such a
respected man and now he’s mocked and made fun of constantly. He says that he has done nothing to deserve
what has happened to him—he says if he has, then “let my arm fall from the
shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint.”
And then he says one more thing, which we’ll talk about in just a
minute.
But first, note that Satan does not win the
challenge. Despite all that’s happened
to him, Job does not curse God. Job does
not even blame God for what has happened to him. God’s faith in Job was justified. Satan, despite doing everything he could
think of to do to Job, could not get Job to turn away from God.
That’s a pretty awesome faith. Even though it looks like every bad thing
that could possibly have happened to Job has happened, Job continues to believe
in God. He continues to believe that God
is holy and that God is righteous. In
spite of everything, Job does not turn away from God.
But here’s the one more thing Job does say. Job says, “Oh, that I had someone to hear
me…I would give him an account of my every step. I would present it to him as to a ruler.”
Job has not given up on God. But Job seems to think that somehow, in some
way, God is not aware of all these things that have happened to Job. Or maybe, somehow, Job thinks that God has
some bad information, that God thinks Job has done something that Job has not
done. And Job is convinced that, if he
can just make his case to God, if he can just show God the true facts, God will
do the right thing by him.
How many of us have felt that way? I suspect a lot of have. I have.
We may not put it quite that way—I don’t put it quite that way either—but
I think a lot us have had a situation where it just seemed like it was so
obvious what God should do. And don’t
get me wrong—this is not something we necessarily do selfishly. It can be, but I’m not necessarily talking
about a situation where it seems obvious that God should help us get a job or
win the lottery or something like that.
I’m talking about a situation where it seems to us that everyone would
benefit from what we think God should do.
There does not seem to be a downside of it for anyone. I can think of times when I’ve thought that. I suspect you can, too.
And so we
pray. We pray for God to do that thing
that seems so obvious to us, and we wait for God to do it, and—nothing happens. Or maybe something happens, but it’s not the something
we think should happen. And we think,
well, what’s going on here? How could
God have gotten this so wrong?
And we look at things again, to see if we’ve overlooked
something. No. It does not seem like it, anyway. It seems like things are exactly as we
thought they were. So why did God not do
what God obviously should have done?
Does God not understand the situation?
If only I could explain things to God.
If I could, God would see that what I want is clearly the right thing
for God to do.
Now, this is faith, in a way. As we said, it’s faith that God exists. It’s faith that God is holy and
righteous. It’s faith that God is
good. There’s a belief here that God wants
to do the right thing. It’s just that,
sometimes, God needs you and me to tell Him what the right thing is.
When it’s put in those terms, it’s clear how absurd that
attitude is. But it was Job’s
attitude. And too often, it’s our
attitude, too.
What’s going on is not that we doubt God’s goodness. But what happens is that we don’t understand
God’s greatness. There is nothing that
can happen on earth or in heaven that God is not aware of. God knows about everything that has happened,
everything that’s happening now, and everything that’s going to happen. God knows all that far better than we know it
or could ever possibly know it. That’s
part of what makes God, God.
And we need to have faith in that, too. We need to have faith in all aspects of
God. It’s fine to understand that God is
love and that God is good and that God is holy.
But that’s not enough. We also
need to understand that God is all-knowing, that God is all-seeing, that God is
all-wise. We need to understand not just
that God is good, but that God is great.
And please understand, when I say we need to understand
this, I’m not saying that if we don’t understand God’s greatness we’re going to
hell or something. That’s not the
point. The point is that we need to
understand this because if we do, it will strengthen our over-all faith in
God. If we understand that God is
all-knowing and all-seeing and all wise, we’ll have a lot more peace in our
lives. If we understand God’s greatness,
we’ll be able to serve God better and love God better, because we’ll trust that
God really is in control. We’ll trust
that, when we do what we’re supposed to do, God will do what God is supposed to
do, and things will happen the way they’re supposed to happen. And we’ll better able to do what we’re
supposed to do, because instead of worrying about the results, we’ll trust God
enough to leave those results in God’s hands.
How many of us look at situations that are going on in
the world right now and get scared? How
many of us look at situations that are going on in our country right now and
get scared? How many of us look at
situations that are going on in our personal lives right now and get scared?
We don’t need to be.
We should be concerned, sometimes.
We should see what, if anything, we can do about those situations. We should pray about them. We should, if possible, take
precautions. But we don’t need to be
scared of them. The all-knowing,
all-seeing, all-wise God already knows about these situations. And God already knows how they’re going to
turn out. Not only that, God knows what
God is going to do to make them turn out that way. That’s how great God is.
And remember one other thing. Remember that we have the promises of the
Bible. And one of those promises is
that, in the end, God is going to win.
And another of those promises is that, if we have faith in God and
accept Jesus as our Savior, you and I are going to win, too.
That’s true. It
has always been true. It will always be
true. No matter how bad we may think
things look, it’s still true. No matter
how many times we think things are going wrong, it’s still true. No matter how much it may look like things
are going the opposite of the way they should, it’s still true. Even if it looks like everything is falling
apart, it’s still true. We have no
reason to be scared. God knows what’s
going on. God is in control. God is going to win. And if we have faith in God and accept Jesus
as our Savior, you and I are going to win, too.
Satan could not defeat Job. Satan cannot defeat us. And Satan certainly cannot defeat God. So let’s have faith. Let’s have faith in God’s goodness, but let’s
also have faith in God’s greatness. And
let’s live without fear. God is in
control. God is going to win. And so are we.
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