Job's Faithfulness

JOB’S FAITHFULNESS

Sunday, November 20, 2005 – AM

If there’s one person in the Word of God that we all should learn to emulate, that man was Job. At the same time, if there was one man in the Bible who none of us want to copy, in the things he went through, it was also Job. Job was a man who loved God and a man of great patience, learned through the crucible of great trials and tests. In the end it was Job who had the last laugh on the Devil. In the end, he was blessed beyond measure. Job’s God proved faithful through it all, and Job’s God is my God too!

Trials, tests, faithfulness and victory are a pattern that each of us must face consistently as we walk this life. None of us is immune to Satan’s attacks, but all of us can be just as successful as Job through it all.

What price will you have to pay?

What trials will you have to face?

What victories will you win?

What blessings will God pour out upon you as a result of your faithfulness in the face of adversity?

All of these are questions that every one of us must ask, but the fact is that only God knows what life holds, and only God knows what you are able to bear, so just learn to be like Job and have faith and patience to endure to the end.

The important thing to remember here is that every man, woman and child will face adversity in life. No one will escape the torments of the devil. No one will escape the temptations to sin, and no one will escape the fact that God will allow us to be tested and tried.

God is looking for a church that has been tried in the fire. He’s looking for a Bride that will be tested to the max for her faithfulness to remain true to Him. God is looking for a people who will want to be identified with Him, no matter what the devil, or what life can throw against them. God is looking for those who will be faithful through it all.

I want to be counted in that number! I pray that all of us will be identified as Job was in the sight of God. It was not Job’s unfaithfulness that brought his trials. It was not his failure to pray, to live or to give sacrificially to God, nor was His lack of trust in God, that brought his trials to him.

There are many foolish preachers, and foolish Christian brothers and sisters, who will blame every adversity that comes against other people as being the result of sin in the life of the one who is suffering. How many times have I heard people ask, “What did I do, or what did you do, to bring this sickness, this pain and this heartache upon yourself?” What a foolish question! It’s as though that brother or sister in the Lord, who is facing hardship, has all ready been charged, judged and sentenced for some sin that they didn’t even commit. We always claim that our own suffering is due to God testing our faithfulness, but we seldom give that credit to anyone else. They just had to do something wrong to be going through what they are going through right now.

God’s view of Job was different from what his “friends” had. Job’s three friends that were to come to his rescue just couldn’t believe that a man could be upright and faithful before God and still be in the condition that Job was in. They thought that they would be coming to Job’s aid, when in fact, they only added to Job’s misery in most cases because they did not see what God saw.

Job 1:1, "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil."

What a man of God was Job! When in God’s opinion I am perfect, I am upright (meaning I am fulfilling all of the requirements of faith and righteousness), and I have a reference and love of God that is perfect, and I am seen by God as a man who hates evil and shuns even the very appearance of evil – then my friend – you just can’t ask for anything better than that.

How many of us are perfect in God’s opinion this morning? Does God look down upon your life, in everything you say, in everything you do, in everywhere you go, and in all that you are, and say – YOU ARE PERFECT?

In God’s opinion – not your own opinion, or the opinion of your brothers and sisters in the church – are you walking upright before Him? Does God see you as a man or woman who fears Him, walks before Him with perfect trust, perfect reverence and perfect love for Him? Does God have such a high opinion of you that He will say, “There is a man or woman who truly hates and shuns evil with all their might?” I hope that you can say Yes to all of these questions, because if you cannot, then realize that there is room for improvement. The fact is that all of us should be that way. God should be able to look at each and every one of us and say, “There is a perfect, upright Child of God that fears God and hates sin.”