Jesus Is The Answer To Our Collateral Damage
May 24, 2020 Job 1:1-12 1 Peter 1:1-9
Imagine being at war for a moment. Your squad’s mission is to infiltrate a city and locate a building, because it is being used to manufacture weapons for the enemy. You locate the building and call in for an airstrike. You give the coordinates to the person in charge of launching the guided missile. The missile comes and completely destroys the building, but the damage goes much further.
The building is engulfed in flames which in turn burns down a hospital next door. You can hear the screams of the people trapped in the hospital and most of the patients who had come there for treatment died in the flames. Those in the hospital were not the target of the attack, but they are what we call “collateral damage.”’
We have seen collateral damage happen far too often in our own neighborhoods. One gang wants to teach another gang a lesson and goes on a shooting spree in broad daylight. Someone getting gas, or crossing the street, or sitting in a car, or looking out the window is hit and killed by one of the stray bullets. They were unintended targets, but like those in the hospital, they became collateral damage.
We see it on even a more personal level in our homes. Husbands and wives forget the vows they once made to each other because of a variety of circumstances and choose to divorce. It seems as though the divorce is a way to make things better.
But some of the children are not able to understand why this is all happening, especially when everyone is saying they love God. They can’t get beyond, “if we are all truly loving God, then why can’t we all get along.” The children become collateral damage from the explosion of the divorce.
Whenever there is a fight, whenever there is a battle, whenever there is a struggle taking place, or whenever sin is allowed to take over, there is going to be some collateral damage for somebody. How many of you have been collateral damage at times?
We make the mistake believing or equating that “God is good” means “God will keep all bad things from happening to me” or “if I make the right choices, I will be protected from all harm.” Unfortunately, that is not what the bible teaches. It certainly is not what Jesus teaches. Believe it not, we become collateral damage from the battle that rages in the heavenlies in the spiritual world.
The thing about being collateral damage, is that there is no answer to the question of “Why?” Sometimes you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that doesn’t help your grieving family member, who is mourning your death. Can you imagine someone saying, your cousin would be with us here today if he hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We like to think that God is obligated to give us a “why answer” to all of our questions, but again that’s not what the bible teaches. The Scriptures teach that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God will even keep some things secret from us. Can we still believe God is good, even when it looks as though God is not good to us personally in our situation?
I want you to meet a lady I will call Verda, because the bible does not tell us her name. Rarely is Verda given credit for all the pain she suffered because her pain came from second hand collateral damage. She was a beautiful woman and very happily married. She and her husband were known throughout the community as being wealthy philanthropists. They gave money to where it was needed the most, and they helped far more people than most people could imagine.
She and her husband had ten children altogether. There were seven boys and three girls. It was a close knit family, and that closeness extended into the next generation.
The boys, who were now adults, took turns having a reunion type party once a year and they always invited their younger sisters to join them. Verda and her husband were quite wealthy with several successful businesses, but the day to day operations were left to the employees to run.
Then came that morning when Verda got up, and she just had a feeling there was going to be something different about that day. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she just had the feeling. She and her husband had something come up at the last minute, so they could not make it to the family gathering at James’ house who was their oldest son. But everybody else was going to be there, because James really knew how to throw a family party.
There was a knock on the door and with it came the bad news that their oxen and donkey business had been completely stolen from them. Their employees had all been killed, and the thieves had all gotten away.
Before she could catch her breath good another person showed up. This one reported that their sheep farm and wool industry had gone up in flames. It looked like fire just fell out of the sky destroying the wool factory, killing the employees and wiping out the herd of sheep. Wow this was a little much to take all in the same day.
As she sat down to think about this double loss, another person showed up and said, “the transportation business is gone because three raiding bands killed all the employees and took off with all the camels.”
Verda did not know how she and her husband was going to break all this bad news to their children. How do you tell your kids that the inheritance they all had been promised was now gone. They were in financial ruins. But then she got the most devastating news of all as if things were not bad enough already.
The final knock on the door informed her, that someone had seen what looked like a tornado touch down, just outside her oldest son’s house. Everyone was inside celebrating, and the tornado completely leveled the house killing all seven of her boys and all three of her girls as well as the servants in the home. She was absolutely devasted. Who wouldn’t have been? Could things get any worse?
It wasn’t long after she buried her kids with her husband at her side, that tragedy hit again. One day Verda’s husband was walking around strong and healthy. The next day, he began to be covered with ugly, painful open sores, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He was in such pain and misery. He didn’t want to eat. The smell of his breath was horrible. He could barely sleep at night from the pain he was in. She would rather see him die, than to go on suffering like this.
If you were in Verda’s shoes, what would you be feeling at this moment? Would you still be able to declare that “God is good?” Would you want to ask God, “God what have I done to deserve this?” Would you want to know “Why is this happening to me?” I can tell you what Verda did that led to all of this by retracing a few years of her life.
Verda chose a good looking man to marry. A man who loved God, had a strong faith in God, and had the favor of God upon his life. She chose a man who was faithful, righteous, merciful, and worked for justice for those who had been denied. From our viewpoint, that’s the kind of man we want for our daughters to marry.
But because she made this wise, and what I would say was a biblical choice, she became a victim of collateral damage. She was not the intended target. Her link to all the pain, the suffering and the loss was that she chose to marry a man by the name of Job.
Job himself was a victim of collateral damage from a battle raging between God and Satan. Satan was determined to prove no one would worship God or be faithful to God, unless God bribed them to do so by giving them wealth, blessings, happiness and a healthy body. Satan was saying, “if you let me take these things away from your servants, I guarantee you, they will curse you to your face.
What does your life say about whether or not Satan is right about God’s people. Will you only serve God if He comes through with the things you want for your life? Do you have a list of demands that God must meet before you will consider the claims of Jesus Christ upon your life.
If you lost everything but your soul and your ability to serve God, would you still serve him? Have you come to that point in which you can realize, God is the source of the things in your life.
Losses will affect us in one of two ways. We can become better or we can become bitter. One thing for sure, we cannot control whether or not or we will be a part of some collateral damage. We certainly cannot control when we will be a part of collateral damage.
I’m not sure why God allowed the creation and the spread of the corona virus. It did get our attention that we are all vulnerable to death. It did force us to realize that the control we think we have in this life is an illusion.
One thing for sure is that we have all been collateral damage in it’s wake. Some of us have suffered a lot more severely than others. Unfortunately in the next few months, the focus will be on blaming one politician after another on who should have done what and when should it have been done.
We will go back to thinking we are little gods capable of producing perfect solutions to any problem that comes up. I doubt if there has been much humbling of ourselves or of our turning from our wicked ways.
We will ignore there is a spiritual war going on that we have little control over. Did the reality of covid-19 push you closer or further away from God? Has it been our test from Satan challenging God on what we would do if he could strike fear all over the world at the same time?
What we would do if we lost our jobs, our money, our dreams, our plans and our security. What would happen to the church if he scattered it out into small bits and pieces?
When Job went through his part 1 Covid-19 experience, he humbled himself, fell to the ground in worship and said, Job 1:21-22 (NIV)
21 and said: "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." 22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
In other words Job is saying, “even though my circumstances might say otherwise, I realize that God is still good.” Job said this having no idea why he had gone through what he went through in the loss of his family, his employees, his businesses and his possessions.
It was not long before he went through his part 2 Covid-19 experience in which Satan severely attacked his body. There were festering sores all over his body. The pain was immense. His friends could barely recognize him. His wife couldn’t get close to him.
This man who had done everything he could to serve God and be an example for others looked like a dead man among the living. He was experiencing collateral damage from a battle raging in the heavens. He had no idea of what he could have done to suffer like this. The target for destruction was the genuineness of Job’s faith and confidence in God. The collateral damage was what it did to Job’s body.
Somehow, people have believed the message that saying they love God will put a protective hedge around them and nothing bad will happen to them. That’s not the message of the gospel. That hasn’t been the truth discovered by the 620 Nigerian Christians who have been killed by Muslim militants this year.
None of us like to go through trials and even fewer of us seek after them, but we have a faith like Job that is going to be tested. The only way that test is going to happen is by us experiencing some collateral damage in our lives.
One of Jesus’s disciples was known as Peter. He wrote the book of 1 Peter to a group of Christians who were experiencing a lot of collateral damage because the Emperor Nero had burned the city of Rome. Nero needed a scapegoat to blame to take the blame off himself. He chose to blame the Christians. Christians were being persecuted throughout the Roman Empire.
Peter writes to them in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV) 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
These bodies that we have are all going to perish. We are not taking them with us to heaven. We will be taking our faith that has been proven to be genuine with us to heaven because that is what is going to result in praise, glory and honor in the presence of Jesus Christ.
Job was attacked by Satan with open sores covering his entire body. He sat in ashes and used broken pieces of pottery to try and scrape the open wounds that were running dripping liquid. Here was man who use to sit in the highest seat in the city, now sitting outside the city gate in ashes with beggars. Can’t you see Job asking, “Why God, what have I done to deserve this.”
Job’s wife whom I named Verda, had already been through a lot through her losses and now to see her husband in this predicament was just too much for her. She was ready to give up on the idea of God being good.
So she basically told her husband, “Look stop holding out for God to do a miracle. Let go of your righteous living. Go ahead, curse God and die.” Verda was acting exactly as Satan predicted we would act. If things got bad enough or ugly for us, then we will curse God to His face.
But Job held on to his faith. He said, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” Job’s view of God is much bigger than most of us have. Job recognizes that God is ultimately in control of all that happens to us, because nothing can happen without his permission.
God actually allows collateral damage to come into our lives, and he does not tell us why. All we know is that we have the promise from God’s word, “in all things God is working for our good.” Part of the reason we experience collateral damage is that sin is real in the world today. Our own sin is real in the world today and it’s causing collateral damage. Are we be brave enough to consider how our actions, our choices, our decisions are hurting others.
When we chose to disobey God, everyone of us guaranteed ourselves a place in hell for the payment or the wages of sin is death. The scriptures make it clear that one day, after we die, we will go before a holy God and be found guilty of sinning. The penalty for sinning is to be cast into the lake of fire. It was originally created for the devil and his angels. But our disobedience to God made it a final destination for us as well.
But God knows the pain of what eternal torment would be like for humanity. Even though we deserved to be cast from God to continue do our own thing, God loved us so much, that God wanted to save us from our poor choices. God determined to destroy the grip the lake of fire had over our lives, but God could not do it without someone taking our place, by removing our sin so that the penalty would not have to be paid.
Only a perfect life could be traded for our broken one. That’s when God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to live a perfect life, so that he could become the exchange partner we needed. The mission was to rescue us from the lake of the fire.
The collateral damage was the cross of Jesus Christ. There was no way we could be saved without the Son of God dying an excruciating death in our place to pay for our sins. The blood of Jesus Christ was worth more than all the gold and silver of this world combined.
His blood had the potential to wash clean every human being whether they were living dead, living, or waiting to be born. When the soldier pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross and the blood came pouring out, it was the payment for our sins. The Scriptures tell us, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.
Because of the collateral damage suffered and endured by Jesus Christ, the possibility for our future radically changed. By putting our faith and our trust in Jesus Christ, we were promised his payment on the cross would be more than sufficient to cover our sins. We don’t have to earn our way to heaven by doing good works, we do good works out of appreciation for what Jesus has done for us.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ meant that God had fully accepted the payment and that a new power was available to us to live differently now. That new power is the Holy Spirit.
When we look at the collateral damage in our own lives, know that the collateral damage that Jesus did for us, is going to make up for the losses that we have endured if not in this life, then surely in the life to come. For the Scriptures tell us eyes have not seen and ears have not heard, nor has the mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.
When collateral damage comes your way, know that your faith is being purified by fire so that it may come forth as pure gold. God has not forgotten about you.
