We’re in the second week of our
sermon series on the book of Job. Last
week we talked about how God allowed Satan to take everything from Job—his
wealth, his servants, even his children.
And we talked about how you and I react when things suddenly go very
wrong, especially when, as with Job, it was through no fault of our own.
Today, we’re going to talk about how Job reacted. And more importantly, we’re going to talk
about why Job reacted that way, and how taking Job’s attitude can help us
handle it when things start suddenly going wrong.
Just to remind you of where we left off last week, Job
has had a series of messengers come up to him, one after another after
another. And he finds out that his donkeys
have been stolen, his sheep have been killed, his camels have been stolen, his
servants have been killed, and all of his children have died in a terrible
accident.
What did Job do?
He worshiped God.
Think about
that. Job had just lost everything. A large herd of animals was how people
measured wealth in those days. The
number of servants you had were a measure of it, too. And not only did Job lose every bit of wealth
he had, all of his children were killed.
Some of you know how painful, how devastating that is. And yet, Job’s response was to worship
God. And listen to what Job says:
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will
depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has
taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.
We’ll come
back to that. Because as bad as things
were for Job, Satan was not through with him yet. God tells Satan how Job stayed faithful
despite everything, and Satan says well, of course he did. He’s trying to save his own skin. If something happens to him personally, then
he’ll turn on you.
And once again
God takes the challenge. God tells Satan
he can do anything to Job except kill him.
And Satan does. Satan gives Job
painful sores all over his entire body.
And what does
Job do? He accepts it. And listen to what he says this time: “Shall we accept good from God, and not
trouble?”
How many of us
could do what Job did? Maybe you
could. I don’t mean to judge you. But I don’t know that I could. I’d like to think so—I’m sure we’d all like
to think so—but I have no great confidence about it. To lose everything. All your money. All your children. Your health.
To have every aspect of your life be nothing but pain and misery and
sadness. And to still accept it and
worship God.
Now, those of
you who know the story of Job know that later on, Job does start to feel like
he’s gotten a raw deal here. We’ll come
to that later in this sermon series. But
Job was able to accept it longer than most of us probably would. So, how was he able to do it?
When we look
at his statements, I think we see two things.
Maybe we could see more, but we see at least two. One of them is a complete acceptance of the
fact that God is God and that we have no right to judge anything God does. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may
the name of the Lord be praised.”
When I read
that statement, what I read is a complete and total recognition and acceptance
of who God is. God is stronger than we
are. God is more powerful than we are. God is smarter than we are. God is in control of everything. And because of that, God does what God
does. God does not have to answer to us
for what God does. We have no right to
judge what God does. We have no say in
what God does, and there’s no reason for us to think we should have any say in what
God does. Those are decisions for God to
make, not you and me.
Here’s the way
it seems that Job looked at it. He said,
God gave me great wealth, good health, and a large family. I did nothing to create that. It was all a gift from God. God decided, for whatever reason, to allow me
to have all that. And now, God has
decided, for whatever reason, not to allow me to have it. So be it.
I have no right to judge that, I have no right to question that, and I
have no right to complain about it. None
of that was ever really mine to begin with.
It all belonged to God anyway.
All the time, even when I had it, it really belonged to God. It was and it is God’s, and God can do with
it whatever God chooses to do.
How many of us
look at things that way? How many of us
look at everything we own as belonging to God?
How many of us look at even our good health, if we have it, as belonging
to God? How many of us look at even our
children, if we have any, as belonging to God?
Now don’t get
me wrong. I know there are some of us
who would say, and truly believe that we know the things we have, and our good
health, and our children, are a blessing from God. We may realize that they all came from
God. But I don’t think very many of us
look at them all as belonging to God.
Most of us think, “That’s mine.
That’s my money. That’s my
stuff. It’s my good health. Those are my kids.” And we also think, “And I’ll make the
decisions about them.” Even if we pray
and ask for God’s guidance, we still think we have the right to make the
decisions. Those things belong to
me. They don’t belong to God.
And that’s why
we would have such a hard time reacting like Job did. We think of these things as being ours. And if they were taken away from us, we’d be
pretty upset about it. Job was not. Job knew they belonged to God, not to
him. And so, if God wants to allow them
to be taken away, that’s all right. It’s
God’s decision to make.
The second way
Job was able to handle this is shown in Job’s second statement. Here it is again: “Shall we accept good from God, and not
trouble?”
What that
shows is that Job does not believe that Job does not deserve to have God give
him anything good, and he does not believe that he has any right to expect God
to give him anything good. When God
decided to bless Job, that was wonderful.
Job was very grateful for it. But
Job knew he had not earned those blessings.
Yes, he was a good and righteous man, but Job knew that God was far
better and more righteous than Job could ever dream of being. God did not owe it to Job to bless Job. God did not owe it to Job to do
anything. Again, God does what God does
and God does not have to answer to us for what God does. And so, Job knew that if we accept blessings
from God without complaint, then we need to accept those blessings being taken
away without complaint, too.
How many of us
look at things that way? We’re always
quick to say, “Why would God do this?” when things go wrong. How many of us say, “Why would God do this?”
when things go right? Maybe we do sometimes. I hope so.
But a lot of times we don’t. And
again, I don’t either. We tend to just
accept it when things go right, as if that was God doing what God’s supposed to
do, as if it’s God’s job to make sure things go the way we think they should. But when things go wrong, we tend to act like
God’s not doing it right, like God has fallen down on the job somehow. And we get upset with God about that.
See, what
happens is that we try to judge God by human standards. We don’t think about it that way, probably,
but we do. We want God to live up to
human standards of fairness. We want God
to live up to human standards of justice.
We want God to live up to human standards of right and wrong. And any time God does not do that, any time
we decide something has happened that’s unfair or unjust or simply not right,
we decide that God has failed, that God has messed up somehow. Again, we’d never put it that way, but a lot
of times, that’s how we feel.
Job did not
felt that way. Job was able to handle
all these things that Satan did to him because he knew who God was. God is all-powerful. God is all-wise. God is in control of everything. God is the owner of everything. And God has every right to do anything God
chooses to do. It’s not for us to tell
God what to do. It’s not for us to judge
what God does. It’s not for us to demand
that God live up to human standards of fairness, or justice, or right and wrong. It’s for us to accept what God does, because
God is God and we are not.
That’s
hard. But Job did it, at least for a
while. And you and I can do it, too.
We’re all
going to have times when things go wrong.
But if we remember that everything we have, and everything we are,
belongs to God, we’ll be able to handle those bad things. And if we remember that it is not for us to
judge God, we’ll be able to accept whatever happens, the good and the bad.
God is
God. You are not. And I’m not, either. If we remember that, and truly take it to
heart, we’ll be able to accept both the good and the bad, knowing that God is
in control and that anything God allows to happen will be used by God for good.
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