Sermon Brief
Date Written: June 16, 2009
Date Preached: May 03, 2009
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: Life is Hard
Sermon Title: Obedience in the Hard Times of Life
Sermon Text: Job 1:12-19 [NASB]
12 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD.
13 Now on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
14 a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them,
15 and the Sabeans attacked and took them. They also slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
16 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
17 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
18 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
19 and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
Introduction:
In our passage this morning we find Job sitting at his house and doing what he had been doing for years. Living in reverence to God, sacrificing to God on behalf of himself and his family, and proclaiming God to those around him and Scripture tells us that God noticed Job’s obedience and devotion to Him.
But we find that Satan had a plan to destroy Job. Satan tells God that Job was only faithful because God had blessed Job with so much. Satan said that if God would allow him to take away the blessings Job had then Job would curse God and turn his back on his faith. God agreed to the challenge and allowed Satan to remove Job’s blessed lifestyle, but God told Satan not to harm Job.
We see that Satan wasted NO time in attacking the prosperity of Job, and by the end of the day Job was childless and had lost all his material possessions. Job was overcome by grief and he tore his clothes in agony and sat in sackcloth and ashes because of his despair.
In this Bible story we see Job dealing with the HARD times of life… and life had become VERY hard VERY fast! For many of us that is what happens to us as well. We are tootlin’ along in life, going to church, paying our tithes, going to Sunday school, and living a good life… and then WHAM! Out of the blue something terrible hits…
We begin to experience the same feelings that Job did… we begin to feel the anguish and suffering of Job. What about you, have you ever suffered, even though you knew you had been living according to God’s commands?
It seems as if now that life is crashing in around you! Let me ask you a question this morning? When life gets hard… when life seems UNFAIR… when life begins to beat you down… How do you react? How do YOU serve God when LIFE gets hard all of a sudden?
Today we are going to look at how Job dealt with the horrible circumstances that seemed to overwhelm him and his life and we can see how Job lived when Life God Hard for him… we are going to take a look at Job’s obedience even through his adversity and then I want us to look at how we can be obedient during the hard times of life… when it seems as if we cannot!
Let’s look at our passage today we can see the HARD things life threw at Job:
WHEN GOOD TIMES GO BAD (1:20-22):
When things are going good for you and suddenly there is something bad that happens what is the 1st thing you do?
Here we find that Job lost almost EVERYTHING he had but usually when we think of “good times going bad” what do we picture? Usually it is something like a flat tire on the way to work? An unexpected cold where we have to go to the doctor? Maybe our water pump on the car goes bad or the battery or the alternator…
For the most part when these things happen, many of us look to the sky and say, Why me Lord? What did I do? Haven’t I served you? ¨ Our 1st reaction is to strike out at God and demand an answer from Him.
However, when Job seemingly had everything taken away from him when Satan attacked him; when his children were all killed and his livestock (which was his wealth) were all killed or taken away notice that Job did not strike out at God!
We know that he was in pain, we know that he was grieving the loss of his children, and we also know that he probably wondered how he was going to make now that he was penniless. But the one thing we do not see in Scripture is Job shaking an angry fist in God’s face and blaming God!
Instead we see Job doing something that may sound really absurd to most of us today. Let’s look at what he said and did
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21 He said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." 22 Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.
In these 3 verses we can gather a lot of information about Job...
First of all we can see that Job is dedicated to God.
2nd we can see that Job understands that God is his provider of blessings and it is God who can take them away.
But finally what we can see about Job is that he truly recognizes God for WHO He is!
We find Job falling to the ground and worshipping Him as he says, “Praise the name of the Lord!” And the Bible shares that thru this tragedy Job did not sin against God OR blame God for what had happened.
Now let me ask you a question. When the HARD times of life hit home for YOU… are you able to act and live as Job did? You may be sitting there this morning saying to yourself that nobody can act like that, it isn’t possible. But that is NOT the truth… For Paul tells us that In Christ we can do ALL things… and we can ACT as Job did when the trials come.
You see Job’s focus was NOT on his things and possessions or even his family, although I am sure he loved them dearly… No, Job was focused on serving God and the material things of this life were nice to have, but he understood that they were expendable, but his relationship with God was NOT!
When we cling to God with that kind of passion, we can deal with tragedy when it comes our way. We can deal with a flat tire, we can deal with our car breaking down we can deal with any life situation that is out there.
But we see that it was not just good times going bad for Job, but we can see that Satan was not thru with him, he wanted to destroy Job and we can see that Job then experienced
WHEN BAD TIMES TURN AWFUL (2:3-8):
3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause." 4 Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 "However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face." 6 So the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life." 7 Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes.
At this point, after losing all his possessions and all of his children, JOB was thinking that he had hit bottom… I can bet you that Job thought his life was as bad as it could get… and then just when he thought that… BAM more bad comes his way and now it has gone from bad to worse! NOW he was covered in boils from head to foot and the Bible says they were incurable boils, recurring boils, boils that you would scrape away and they would come right back! OUCH and EEEWWW!
Have you ever had even ONE boil? I can remember having 3 on the back of my neck when I was in the 5th grade the pain was terrible and the treatment was worse and I still carry the scars of that time on my neck.
Here Job was covered from head to foot with these painful sores. He was still in morning and still sitting in sackcloth and ashes, so this could NOT have been good for the sores! I can only imagine what pain he had to endure! But when things go from bad to worse, let’s look at Job and see how he reacts to this new development!
Now things had gone downhill and in v.9 Job’s wife shows up and although she has been strangely silent in this entire matter, here she comes and tells Job that if he had any integrity about him that he would just curse God and die!
She was more worried about how things LOOKED than what was happening to Job. She had been living the good life and now her husband was down and out festering with sores all over his body… In her mind she was thinking… would you JUST DIE so I won’t have to be so embarrassed to look at your or try to explain what is happening to our friends!
Now can you imagine what was going thru Job’s mind at this time? Here he was… knocked down by many tragedies and now his health was in question and his wife… the love of his life… the one he would expect to receive mercy from… he gets this cold and chilly statement from her! What a shot to the heart it must have been for Job!
So how does Job respond to his wife? Well when we look at v. 10 we find Job answers his wife in a very wise and unexpected manner when he says, 10…"You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job had the belief that he was going to take the testing and the trials with the good and the blessing! He had been blessed and now God was obviously testing him for some reason. He may not have understood why, but Job did understand that obedience to God was still the most important thing he could do
It seems as if his wife only cared about the relationship she had with those around her and her social standing, but Job’s concerns were not based on his social standing but it was focused on his relationship with God and his eternal standing.
Let me ask you a question this morning. What if it is NOT your car that breaks, but it’s your family that is affected? What if one of your family has made a bad choice in life and now their lives have been changed.
What if your teenage daughter is pregnant? What if your teenage son has gotten his girlfriend pregnant? What do you do then?
So often we react like Job’s wife! We go on and on about what it is going to look like to those around us! We worry about how it is going to affect our social standing. We fret over what others are going to say!
And in all our worry and anxiety we fail to turn to God. It could be out of shame or it may be out of sheer anger… but when things like this happen there are many of us who don’t turn TO God but we actually turn our backs to Him and begin to push Him out of our decision making processes!
When we face adversity in the Hard times of life… When the bad times seem to be overwhelming us and we cannot seem to understand why it is happening… I am telling you Job gives us a template for how we should respond! Job placed his full faith and trust in God… and took his focus OFF his circumstances! Job understood that God was the provider of blessing but that he was also the provider of testing!
For the believer, we have a promise that God can and will take any situation and use it as a test of our faith and trust in Him. Rom 8:28 shares with us that ALL things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His grace. God can use any situation to bring Him glory and to grow us spiritually!
We are called by God to be obedient and when we sin and fall we cannot abandon our walk with Him. He is NOT going to abandon us. We cannot compound our sin by doing more sin to try and cover our first sin that just doesn’t make any sense! We need to realize that God will try and test us in this life and we must lean on Him and trust in Him as Job did…
Now you may be sitting there this morning and thinking to yourself… this Job guy is NOT for real… he is TOO good… no one could act as he has acted. He cannot be for real… but when we move to chapter 3 we finally begin to see a chink in Job’s armor… we finally begin to see the human frailty of what was happening to him…
Here his faith is beginning to wavering just a bit. Here we find Job in a sort of self-pity party… as he was wishing he was never born so that he would never have to face this difficulty.
But even though he is wishing that… we do not find him blaming God or shaking his fist at God, Job is simply having a pity party and is asking the big WHY question!
And I am sure that at this point in his life Job believed that it couldn’t be any worse… that he had hit rock bottom! But he was wrong…
WHEN AWFUL TIMES TURN DREADFUL – Job 4:7-9:
Job’s Friend Eliphaz speaks
7 “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever cut off? 8 Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. 9 By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of His anger they are consumed.
I know that we have all heard the phrase, “kick ‘em when they are down!” and if I have learned anything about humanity in my short time on this earth I have learned that humanity can be rather cruel and judgmental when someone is suffering.
I don’t know what it is, but as humans many of us have that ‘kick ‘em while they are down’ mentality… and we see this happening with Job’s friends as well…
These 3 “so called friends” of Job attack Job’s character and tell him that he has done something terribly wrong and that he needs to confess that sin and then God will either forgive him or destroy him.
Isn’t that the typical response for us humans when we see others DOWN? It seems as if when we see someone hurting or down we don’t seem to reach over to help, but rather we reach over to hold them down or kick them while they are down.
Here in chapter 4 we know already that Job has experienced the loss of his family and possessions and his health and now he is facing the abandonment of his family and friends!
I can just imagine Job’s heart being crushed by this… even the friends he thought he had… were turning their backs on him as well… at this time Job felt TOTALLY alone, and he was deeply depressed.
When the world deals us a crushing blow…
When God allows difficult and terrible things to happen in our lives…
How do WE react? Typically we react like Job did in chapter 3… it is usually us looking to the sky and saying, “…why me Lord?” Or it if things seem bad enough we may react as Job did OR like Jimmy Stewart did in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, where we wish we were never born! But we find out quickly that this is NOT the answer!
Ask yourself the question, “How often do we find ourselves or others attacking the character of a young woman who has gotten pregnant? Or the character and intentions of the young man who is responsible for that pregnancy? It just seems like we cannot help ourselves and we find ourselves kicking them when they are down!
Now usually we don’t come out and directly challenge these people… but we convince ourselves that we believe we are merely pointing out to these people only what they need to change and get right with God. But what happens in reality is that it comes across somewhat condescending and judgmental and alienates them from our fellowship.
Now do not misunderstand me here, sin must be confronted, but we are called to love each other and we are called to love the world. Our love for them cannot be clouded by a condescending and judgmental attitude on our part… but must be clear and sharp based on the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior.
And love for our Savior is based on OBEDIENCE to His commands! So being obedient to God only when things are going our way… is not something believers should subscribe to?
Obedience to God can NEVER be contingent on our circumstances. We are called to be obedient even when Satan is breaking down our door to destroy us! Obedient even through the most HARD times life can bring our way!
For the believer, the book of James puts trouble and HARD times like this… it states:
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
When the hard times of life come our way… and understand I am saying WHEN they come our way… NOT if they come because they are out there and they will come upon you when you least expect it…
When they come our way, we are to count them as JOY… do you fully understand what God is saying here? Counting trials as joy sounds pretty crazy to some… but when we sit back and think about what is happening…
We are being tried by our Lord and whether we choose to admit it or believe it is an honor… we are being honored by Him and we should count it as a joy and privilege that He would test us in this manner! We may not understand why, but we are called to count it ALL joy!
CONCLUSION:
Now I can fully understand that Job questioned why? And I guess I may understand his comment about wishing he had never been born… But what we need know is that Job NEVER forgot that God was in control!
In the end we find that Job ultimately realized that there were certain things he could NOT question and God’s sovereignty was one of them!
And we are in the same boat…God is in control and we may not understand WHY He chooses the things He does or allows to happen but we must understand that nothing takes God by surprise! And when adversity comes our way God is ready to be there for us!
And when the HARD times of life come our way… God wants us to lean on Him instead of complaining or questioning WHY… But so many of us try to fix things on our own… we run off and do things our way or we run off to hide or try to fix the situation by making even worse decisions!
This morning I want EVERYONE here to know that God knows that Hard times are here and HARD times a real and He wants you to know you IN these HARD times… HE is there and wants you to lean on Him! But to lean on Him…we have to be obedient to His calling…
So when the HARD times of life come, where do you turn? Do you turn to the world for comfort and advice OR do you turn to God and rely on His sovereignty and grace?
Wherever you are in life today God wants to be there with you!
If you are on the mountaintop, God desires to be there with you!
If you are dealing with difficulties at your job or at school or even at home God wants to be there with you!
If you are dealing with life changing situations such as pregnancy God wants to be there with you!
God is calling you this morning and I urge you to answer Him. If you are a believer and you have been disobedient to His call today I urge you to come and make things right with God you must get back in obedience to Him! Don’t allow the HARD times of life to get you off track in your service to Him!
If you are here today and you DON’T have Christ in your heart I urge you to give Him your life this morning! He wants to be there for you, but He is not going to force Himself on you, He is drawing you, will you submit to Him today? Come as Parker comes to lead us in our hymn of invitation
Job experienced great loss at the hands of the Devil and then great restitution and blessing from God… all of which were experienced in this life.
But there are many who have to experience the great tribulation of the Enemy and this world but they never get to experience the restitution and blessing of God here in this world.
In Heb 11 God’s word gives us a record of such people in v.36-39 where it says:
36 and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated
38 (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
So we have to realize that sometimes… God chooses to allow us to be taken home before our restoration is made complete… before we are restored. Because when we are restored and reconciled here on this world… it is temporary… you may lose great things and gain them back but they will not last!
But when we are restored and reconciled as God desires… well let’s just look at v.40 to see what I am talking about!
40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
Go back to page 11 of original Sermon manuscript…
