All right, good morning, everybody. Let's open in prayer and we'll get started. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for bringing us this day and the beautiful sunshine we see out there. Thank you for spring and Lord that we can wake up to your mercies every morning, that they are new every morning.
And we can approach you, Lord, and we can look to you. Lord, thank you for giving us your word that we can learn about you and we can not just learn about you, Lord, but get close to you and actually get to know you and speak to you, Lord. And I pray that you'd speak to us through your word this morning and that you'd speak through me, Lord, and that everything I say would be to your honor and glory and not my own words, Lord, but your words. And in Jesus' name, amen.
So I'm gonna be sharing this morning on one of the longest books of the Bible and also one of probably, I think in my opinion, it's the heaviest book of the Bible and that's Job. There's a lot of very heavy truths in this book that it's a very deep and detailed book about suffering, which is a very heavy subject. And it's amazing how it's been a blessing to me, actually, to read this book. Even in spite of it being, at times, a very, very dark view of someone suffering and how Job went through a lot.
There are some things, I think, that are unique to Job that you don't really see anywhere else in the Bible. One of them is the fact that there's not a whole lot of historical information in Job about when this was or even where the land of us was. Job was from the land called us, it just says that. It's somewhere probably in the Middle East.
That's most likely where it is. But we don't really know a lot about it. And I think there is a bit of a purpose in that and that's so that we can focus on simply the story of Job and what it conveys, what it, rather than focusing on, oh, this is just a cultural thing. This is just, so it's important that we look at this through the eyes where we can see there's an application for us, I think it's important to see that.
So Job gives us a very powerful example of human suffering and the spiritual complexity behind it. And just the fact that it's not always black and white. Life is not always the righteous people get this and the evil people get this. It's not that way.
Life is not that way. God doesn't deal with the world that way as far as we're concerned. We don't know everything about God. We can't assume that we do.
And so this is something that Job covers, is that God talks to Job and says, you don't really, you don't know everything. You don't know what's going on here. And so it gives a unique perspective of the nature of God, how he deals with his creation. I think it's a fascinating book in that way.
We see a lot of, we see a lot of, you know, God sharing details about how he works with the universe. It shows us the spiritual battle that goes on in heavenlies between God and Satan, between principalities and powers. It shows us that there's more than meets the eye in our lives and there's more than just the physical, there's more than just the black and white going on. It gives us a humbling perspective of who we are before God.
We are at God's mercy as people. We are imperfect. We are sinners. And it shows us who God is, but it also shows us who we are before God.
It teaches us to avoid making assumptions or jumping conclusions about ourselves and God. I have in brackets here, maybe I'm the bad guy. It's important for us to be able to look at ourselves and be like, well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe God is, you know, trying to teach me something through this, you know, if we're going through suffering or, you know, it kind of brings us down to earth, brings us down to a perspective of who we are.
And the final thing here that Job taught me is it teaches us to be honest and broken before perfect God. And this is something that I'm going to touch on today quite a bit. I'm going to try to cover the first three chapters in the short time that we have. And this is the number one thing that it taught me is that God wants us to be brutally honest with him.
He wants us to be broken before him and not to be coming to him, pretending everything's okay and pretending that we're okay with everything that's going on. He wants us to share with him our feelings and how, you know, and converse with him. That's what God wants, which is amazing. I mean, you know, he is a perfect God, but he really does care for us.
So I'm going to share, I'm going to read Job one to three without much comment. And then I'm going to speed it up a little bit, probably skip through a few things. There is a lot to it, but I'm going to read it and then we're going to go back and look through it. So chapter one verse one, there once was a man named Job, and I'm going to be reading from the NLT.
I find it's an easier version to understand a lot of the time. So there once was a man named Job who lived in the land of us, he was blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters.
He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was in fact the richest person in that entire area. Job would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three, oh, sorry, Job sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them.
When these celebrations ended, sometimes after several days, Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. Job said to himself, perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular practice.
One day members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the accuser Satan came with them. Where have you come from? The Lord asked Satan, Satan said, I've been patrolling the earth, watching everything that's going on. And the Lord asked, have you noticed my servant Job?
He's a finest man in all the earth. He's blameless, a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. Satan replied to the Lord, yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.
You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his prosperity. You have made him prosper and everything he does. Look how rich he is. But reach out and take away everything he has, and surely he will curse you to your face.
All right, you may test him, the Lord said to Satan. Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don't harm him physically. So Satan left the Lord's presence. One day Job's sons and daughters were feasting at the old brother's house.
A messenger arrived at Job's home with this news. Your oxen were plowing, and donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabians raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farm hands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.
While he was still speaking, the messenger arrived with this news. The fire from God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep with all the shepherds. I'm the only one who escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with the news.
Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I'm the only one who escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came with this news. Your sons and daughters were feasting at their oldest brother's home.
Suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides, and the house collapsed. All your children are dead. I'm the only one who escaped to tell you. Job stood up and tore his robe and grief.
He shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said, I came naked from my mother's womb. I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord is taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job did not sin by blaming God. So it's pretty heavy, pretty heavy stuff there. We start out with a man who has a lot of integrity.
He fears God. He stays away from evil. He has a family. He has lots of, it appears that he has a large farm with lots of animals, which was a sign of power, I'm sure, back in the day.
He had a deep reverence for God starting out. When his sons and daughters would have feasts or parties or whatever, Job was concerned about them. He was concerned that they were following God. He wanted them to understand and have reverence for God.
So his regular practice, it says, was to plead their case before God, to go before God, and to talk to him about what his children are doing. And he trusted God with his children's lives. He trusted God with his own life. And this was his early morning daily practice.
Job sought God daily. He had an ordinary mundane practice of worshiping God. By mundane, I don't mean to be rude there, but it's just every single day. This was his habit.
This was something that he did habitually. He practiced worshiping God. And I believe that this really shaped Job in knowing God, as much as we see later on that God actually comes to Job and says, you actually don't really know anything. But early on, Job does know God.
He does seek God daily. And this is a lesson for us, I think, that for us to be prepared, we need to have a daily practice of worshiping God, daily practice of pleading our case before God. And this is something God honors. So in the next section, we have, of course, when we do that, when we have this daily practice, when we fear God, we have an accuser.
And this is where we see one of my points is that we see the battle, the spiritual battle in heaven. And we see Satan come before God. He wants to destroy our faith. He wants to destroy Job's faith in this.
And so he comes before God. And I think in this, you can see that Satan has a very, he's very intentional in this case. He comes before God specifically to address the Job situation. I look at 1 Peter 5, 8.
We need to be vigilant and sober, because we know that Satan is patrolling the earth. He's walking to and fro. And he's looking for a chance for an opportunity to weaken our faith. And I think this is important for us to look into.
He's very intentional. And at the same time, what's interesting is God is also extremely intentional in this. It's interesting how God is the one who brings it up. God is the one who says, hey, did you notice my servant Job?
And you can see that God has a purpose in this. He's not saying, you know, Satan's not mentioning, hey, what about Job? And God's like, well, OK, we're going to talk and worry about him. You know, like, don't touch him.
God actually brings him up and says, do you notice Job? I believe that God is always, obviously, always, a million steps ahead of Satan, of anybody. But you can see that Satan thinks he has this all figured out. He's going to destroy Job's life.
He's going to destroy Job's faith. But God obviously has purpose in this before Satan ever did. And eternally, God planned to put this in his scripture, I believe. And so it's an interesting thing how God actually brings that up Satan.
So Satan now accuses Job, rather than giving God credit for giving Job these possessions and giving Job credit, even for following God. And these things, Satan actually accuses Job and says, he really doesn't have the integrity that people think he does. It's because of his possessions. He's deflecting the credit.
And so God agrees to test him. I don't believe this was a decision God made on the spot. I believe this is something that God knew was going to happen from the beginning of all time and before that. So Satan has an agenda.
He has this agenda that he wants to accomplish. But God has always ahead of him. God is always in control of Satan's power. So there are two purposes to our suffering and to Job's suffering in this case.
Satan's perspective, from Satan's perspective, he wants to destroy our faith. And he wants to destroy our character. He wants to accuse us. He wants us to question God, not question God, but doubt.
He wants us to doubt God. God wants to strengthen our faith. So we have suffering and we have Satan's perspective of suffering and God's perspective of suffering. There may be two reasons for why we're going through something.
So Job gets the news from servants. They tell him what happened. I'm the only one who escaped. I'm the only one who escaped.
It's a very dramatic situation. I can't imagine going through this kind of thing. Just going from having everything to having nothing all of a sudden. And this is what makes Job's response so impactful.
He says, naked I came from my mother's womb. I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had. The Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord. And this shows spiritual maturity. This shows him understanding that his possessions are not actually his possessions. They're God's possessions.
And he understands that God can give and take away what he wants to give and take away in this response. I don't know about you, but this probably wouldn't be my first response to this, is to worship God. I don't know if it would be. I mean, I haven't been through this.
But it just shows that Job was built up from God through his daily worship. He has a heavenly perspective. He understands that this world isn't his permanent home. Job 2, Satan digs deep.
God digs deeper. That's what I titled this. So after that, we go back to heaven. We go back into the scene.
The Lord said, then said to Satan, have you noticed my servant Job? This is verse 3 of chapter 2. So the same thing happens. Satan comes that it says the sons of God or the angels present themselves before God.
Satan is among them. The Lord asks Satan, have you noticed my servant Job? He says the same thing. He brings him up.
He's blameless. A man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urge me to harm him without cause.
And Satan replies to the Lord once again. He wants to destroy Job. He says, skin for skin. A man will give up everything he has to save his life, but reach out and take away his health.
And he will surely curse you to your face. God says, all right, do to him as he please. But spare his life. So Satan left the Lord's presence.
And he struck Job with terrible boils head to foot. Job's great to skin with pieces of pottery. Broken pottery. And he sat among the ashes.
His wife said to him, are you trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die. But Job replied, you talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?
So when all this Job did nothing wrong. Wow, OK, so he spoke like a foolish woman. He said nothing wrong. OK, anyway, no.
I'm just kidding. That's not the way I would want to talk to my wife. But again, you see people who are close to Job, in this case, very close to Job. His wife is now turning on him.
She's saying curse God and die. This is too much. We've gone through too much. It doesn't say anything really about his wife after this.
It just says this one little thing. She wants him to curse God and die. She's just had enough. And I think so many of us, me included, have been here before where we've just had enough and we can't.
We find it hard to go on. Once again, Job shows this perspective, this heavenly perspective. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad? And this is the fear of God in Job.
This is him showing that he has a fear of God. And he understands God owns him and everything he has. Satan's intention here was to break Job from the outside. God's way is to build us from the inside.
So God had already been building Job. He had already been working on Job before this. Job's three friends. This is the next little section here.
It says, when three of Job's friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Alifaz, the Temenite, Buildad, the Shoe Hite, and Zofar, the Namathite. When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized them, wailing loudly. They tore their robes and threw dust in the air over their heads to show their grief.
When they sat on the ground with him, then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw his suffering was too great for words. And if that was the end of the story with the three friends, then this would have been fine. But they will see later on.
I'm going to make this kind of a series. So we'll see later on. They do speak, and it's not great. I've been that guy before where someone's going through something hard, and I start talking to try to solve the problem, and that's not usually the best course of action.
I mean, unless God specifically has something for us to share. I think the Bible does tell us to be slow to speak and to be careful in what we say, and not to be not to jump to conclusions or to. So I think that's something that I'll share later on about not today, but some other day, because this is a long haul right here. Job is a big book.
And so they sit there for seven days and seven nights in silence. These four people, Job, and then his three friends. And after the silence, Job is the first one to break the silence. He starts speaking.
And there's some really dark things coming out of Job's mouth. He's not happy person. And of course he wouldn't be. So I'm going to share some little snippets of what he was saying.
At last Job spoke, and he cursed the day of his birth. He said, let the day of my birth be erased. And the night I was conceived. Oh, sorry.
Be erased. And the night I was conceived. Verse four, let the day be turned to darkness. Let it be lost, even to God on high.
Let no light shine on it. Skip down to verse 11. Why wasn't I born dead? Why didn't I die as I came from the womb?
Oh, why I give, and then verse 20. Why give light to those in misery and life to those who are bitter? They long for death, and it won't come. They search for death more eagerly for hidden treasure, more eagerly than for hidden treasure.
They're filled with joy when they finally die. They rejoice when they find the grave. I have no peace. I have no quietness.
I have no rest. Only trouble comes. This is maybe the most raw words I've seen from, well, there's lots of raw words in scripture, but this is very, very, this is almost like this is suicidal level almost. Job is very, very depressed.
He wishes he was dead. He literally wishes he was dead. And he shares it. He talks about it.
And I think it's really important for us to see this, that the Bible doesn't shy away from this. It doesn't tell us that this isn't OK. It doesn't tell us to cover this up. The scripture says, and it confirms it so much in the New Testament, casting all our cares upon him.
He cares for us. We see that Jesus himself dealt with so many situations, people losing children, people losing their family members, Jesus himself wept, it says, in John. And it's really important for us to see this. This was my last point that I learned from Job.
And it's very important for us to be honest and to be brutally honest before God, to tell him how we feel about things. God encourages this. The scripture encourages this. Job's three friends didn't encourage this.
They basically said, be patient. You're not being patient. You're not being this and this and this. I think so often that's how we feel.
We feel like, oh, no, that's uncomfortable. I don't want to talk about that. But this isn't meant to be comfortable. This is real life.
This is our actual real life. We live in a cursed world. We live in a sinful world. We're all sinners.
So when we can come before God and actually be honest with our feelings and with how God is and how we feel that we're being treated, I think that's a good thing. So it's only three chapters of Job that I've tried to cover here. And I know we're ending on not a happy note at this point. But this isn't a movie.
This is real life. So I will give spoilers. Job learns a lot. Job gets things back.
It takes a long time. It's a long process. God works in his life. And he works and he rebukes his three friends.
He rebukes him. He does rebuke Job at one point. There's a lot to this book. And I'm going to try to share a little bit each time I speak.
But that's it. My main point today is to be wrong on us before God and to be broken before God. And he cares for us. He will lift us up.
He will show us mercy because he has mercy to offer. So I don't need to be a downer here. But we're going to sing blessed be your name. And I'm going to close in prayer.
And then we'll sing that. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for caring for us, Lord. Thank you for your love and your mercy, Lord. And for allowing us to be honest before you, Lord, and not to shut our feelings away and our struggles.
But Lord, I just pray that you would help us to bear each other's burdens, that you teach us to be like you in a way that we can be humble and we can be helpful to the people around us. I pray all these things in Jesus' name, Amen.