Learning From Job Series

Greetings

Intro: A little bit about the book of Job

3 lessons we can learn from Job, just in chapter 1

1st: Job is happy or content

2nd: Job has an amazing faith

3rd: Job has a loving God

1st point: Job’s happiness or contentment

Now you could say it was for the reasons explained in the first 6 verses of the book. You could say he was content because he had 10 children, or 7 thousand sheep or 3 thousand camels or a lot of servants, but if you did, you’d be wrong. Back in verse 1 you find the real reason. It tells us that Job is blameless and upright, that He feared God and shunned evil. That is why he is content. I can prove it to you. First, with Job, he goes on to lose everything he has, even his own family. And this is what he says in verse 21 after all of his children are killed, “may the name of the Lord be praised.” And later, after his body is covered with sores, he has nothing left, he says these words, “Blessed is the man whom God corrects.”

Now we all know some rich people, or at least know of rich people. Does anyone know a rich person that is content with what they have and they don’t want more? Not usually

Give story about Dallas Cowboys football player Michael Irvin in a hotel (about 15 years ago)

He realized it wasn’t having everything that made him happy, he was still missing something.

The other reason he was happy or content, was that he knew how to shun evil. That is, walk away from it whenever it was close, not tempt himself, not go places or do things that led to evil. (Expand on that)

Examples, a person who knows that he or she has a problem with gambling, shouldn’t walk by a casino every day. They should find another route. A person who has a problem with stealing money, shouldn’t get a job as a cashier, they should find something else. Along that same line, a woman who constantly dates the wrong type of man, especially the ones she finds in a bar, should stop looking for men in bars, for that matter, what good did a bar ever get anyone? We can keep going with that chain of thought, for men too, where do we find the women we date? If it isn’t a place godly women hang out, we will probably fail at that relationship too, over and over. Abusive relationships are the same way, we continue down a road that we don’t want to go. But its everything we do. Our job, can be the same, our education can be the same, our behavior, our financial skills, where and how we spend our time and money, all the same. Albert Einstein did a lot for the human race with his intelligence, and understanding, but one of the best things he ever did for humanity, was give us this quote, “The definition of insanity, is a person who does the same thing over and over, and expects different results.”

The point is, no matter what it is we do, we say, where we go, what we spend our money on or even what we think, If we want to be the blameless and upright man or woman in God’s eyes, we need to change. We need to do as Job did, fear God, and shun evil.

Our 2nd lesson from the first chapter of Job: Job’s amazing faith.

Now this isn’t the kind of faith where you tempt God to save you. Even the devil tried to get Jesus to save him by telling him to throw himself off the highest point in the city, because He knew God would save Him. That’s not real faith. Faith is believing in something you cannot see, smell, taste or hear. We all do it, whether we know it or not. I bet you all believe in the element, oxygen. Yet I bet none of us have ever seen oxygen. We know it is there, we each take a breath every few seconds and it keeps us alive. Without it fire cannot burn, fish, animals and humans cannot breathe. Yet we cannot see it, feel it or taste it. God is no different. Let’s assume you decide to not believe in oxygen. Does that mean it isn’t real? Does it mean that now you don’t need oxygen anymore? Of course not! Well God is exactly the same. When we say we don’t believe, or even if we say we do believe but then we don’t show it with our actions, does that mean that God isn’t there? Or that He doesn’t keep us alive every minute of every day? No way! Faith is more than just saying you believe. Faith is showing you believe. In the 2nd chapter of James, James goes on and on proving that faith without deeds is dead. He goes on and on how even the demons believe in God. Having faith means showing it, in your life. Doing what God asks you to do, saying what God asks you to say. Job did that. As we pointed out, he was blameless and upright in God’s eyes. He feared God, and stayed away from anything evil. Now that is a faith we can learn from. When Job’s wife tells him, “Just curse God and die already!” Or when his 3 best friends come ask him what He did wrong, or just accept you messed up really bad, and take your punishment, he didn’t accept that either. Because while Job didn’t know about the conversation between God and the devil, he knew what God wanted from him and he knew he had been faithful in everything he said and did. He knew his faith was grounded and strong and he knew what God wanted of him. He was a Godly man. He was a faithful man. He was our example. It didn’t matter what he lost, it didn’t matter which of his children died or how many cows, donkeys and camels he lost. That doesn’t mean he didn’t cry, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t heartbroken, he surely was. He mourned for his children. But his faith did not waver. God was still in charge, and while he didn’t know why it happened, He knew God was the most powerful thing in the universe, and that God cared about him, and that is all that mattered, when it came to his faith. He still had a loving God. And that is our 3rd lesson from chapter 1 of Job.