When Change Challenges your Character, Job 42:1-6, # 3 of the “pardon our dust series
Eric A. Snyder, Minister, Farwell Church of Christ
August 11, 2002
A boy riding a bus home from Sunday school was very proud of the card he had
received, which had a picture and a caption that read: “Have Faith in God.” The card slipped from his hand and fluttered out the window. “Stop the bus!” he cried. “I’ve lost my ‘faith in God!’”
The driver pulled the bus to a stop, and as the boy climbed out and went to retrieve his
card, one of the adult riders made this statement “All of us would be better off if we were that concerned about our faith."
My favorite story is about the Catholic nuns who ran out of Gas and decided to walk to the gas station but the only thing they could find to put the gas in was a bedpan. As they were pouring the gas from the pan into the tank of the car someone drove by and said “sisters you sure have more faith than I have”
This church is full of people of faith. People who have made sacrifices and have placed their faith in the promises of God. I have no doubt that you could testify to the struggles that you have had with your faith.
Some of your struggles may have been the result of loss. Perhaps you have lost someone close to you, a close friend, a parent, a spouse, a child. And the way that life was ebbed out caused you to question your existence, your beliefs and your faith in God.
Others struggle with Horrible events that happen because of evil, and you are left asking the question of why. And even people with Rock solid faith find it questionably unstable when something does not go right.
What happens after a tragedy? Well for a lot of people their faith in God is renewed. But for those who have a faith in God there is a sense of reevaluating our beliefs. You may have experienced things in this life that no person should have ever experiences. I think we all have.
In my life I have noticed a number of faith hurdles. From having a brother that passed away when I was young, to a parental divorce, to being beaten and abused by a step father. Some people say well you were too young to remember most of those things so you never knew the difference. Let me tell you I knew the difference. And I saw the effects of these horrible things weigh their effects on my family.
You see that’s just my story, the story was different for my mother. It was different for my sister. Because the story is different for everybody.
Maybe your story contains things that you would never want to talk about and really don’t want anyone to know about. But because they are part of your experience they have become part of your faith.
Have you ever spoken with people who have no faith at all? Most of the time it has nothing to do with an intellectual belief but rather it is based on an experience, A time when God should have been there. But because the people were so evil we could not feel His presence.
Perhaps your story has to do with abuse and to this day you struggle, hiding your shame or guilt.
Or maybe your story is different, it could be a sickness. And the person that you once viewed as healthy and strong has become weak and feeble.
The questions are all consuming and eat away at our belief in faith if they continue to go unanswered.
We are in our final week of a series called “pardon our dust” and we have been talking about changes in society, changes as a church and ultimately changes in us.
Last week we talked about how no cost is too high to bring people to Jesus, that we need to pay whatever price no matter how costly ,how messy or how inconvenient.
The truth is for those in this room today all of these ordeals have brought about some kind of change. And they have always been messy, costly and inconvenient.
And even though you can’t see the good in what has happened because it was such a horrible thing. Here is what the bible says. That what the world meant for evil, God meant for good. So wait a minute. Some evil men drove planes into innocent people, that’s evil! But God can bring some good out of it! Some evil people kidnap teenage girls and, That’s evil. But God can bring some good out of it. Some evil people walk into a place of worship with bombs taped to their chest, But God can make some good out of it.
We serve a great God and out of the ashes he wants to make you new.
I know people who have experienced great hardships, things that I don’t even want to mention in public. I know people who lose children, I know people who harbor bitterness to God in their hearts and their faith is shattered, but they still come to church. And they sit there week after week letting their bitterness eat them alive.
Why do people do this? Well it could be a number a reasons. Some come out of obligation, some out of fear but I believe that all people who are here today with bitterness in their mouth are here because you have a question. You might have even been coming for years and all you want is the answer to one question.
It is the question every spouse asks after the marriage papers have been signed.
It is the question every patient asks after receiving a grim prognosis
It is the question every person asks after the abuse is over
It is the question every person asks after they have lost someone close to they
It is the question everyone asks when they have just finished going through a very messy process that cost them their job, their family their security or their friends
What am I going to do now?
All of these events will bring about change. Like it or not, if your stepfather locks you in the closet when he lets you out your relationship will be different. Believe it or not, if you are diagnoses with an illness your life will be changed tomorrow. Accept it or not, companies downsizing and losing your life’s work will test you and you will be left asking: What’s next?, what am I going to do now?
Some of you are of the retirement age and you have experienced this question after leaving your place of employment. So some build birdhouses, some play a lot of golf, some get part time jobs.
But isn’t it interesting how you could spend your whole life asking the same question and now you are forced to ask it again?
Job was a man who asked that question in his life.
Today we are looking at the final chapter in the Book of Job. For those of you who are not familiar with the location of this text in is in your Old Testament right before the book of Psalms.
Also the words will appear on the monitors.
Job was a man who had everything. He really had it all together. He had a great family, a wife that loved God and shared his fervor to worship and serve the almighty. He had great children who respected their day and were well on their way to becoming great people of faith. He had servants, a sigh of his material wealth, he had people who worked for him to watch over his estate. His wealth was described in chapter 1 and it says that he was the richest person in the whole area. He had it all. He had a great family. He had money. He had a lot of friends. He had his health. And it also tells us that he was blameless and full of integrity. That he always stayed away from evil.
But as life teaches us, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Because of this harsh reality Job was hit with a wave of attacks from Satan. The changes and hardship that Job experienced go right to the core of his faith in God and when he emerged he said “The Lord has tested me with fire but when I come through it I shall be a pure gold”
The first thing that Job lost was his money. He was sitting at the table one day with his family and his messengers came in and told him that his workers had been killed by raiders and his animals stolen. Right after him another messenger came in and told him that fire from heaven killed all the sheep and shepherds. Then another person comes in and says your camels have been stolen and your workers have been killed. This goes on and on and then a wind comes and knocks his house down killing his children.
Wow, he lost everything in one day. Some of you have felt that way about your money that you had in the market. Some of you have lost a spouse or a parent or a child. But through all of that Job says “The Lord was responsible for my wealth. And now he has decided to take it from me Praise the name of the Lord”
In other words Job said I will trust in God.
That’s kinda what the worst day does to us isn’t it. If you are a person who follows God and you fit the criteria that described Job then when you get your first piece of bad news you might say “this is bad, but I worship a great God”
For others though this turn of events might really shake your faith. And you will be left what an I going to do next to feed my family. And it is very unsettling, not knowing where the next place will be. But for Job he does not let this setback get to him, Yet.
You’ve heard you don’t have anything if you don’t have your health.
The next thing that happened was Job got sick. He has boils from his head to his feet and the bible says that he scraped his skin with broken pottery chunks.
His wife saw what was happening to him and began to lose faith and she told him to curse god and die. Now we don’t really realize the full implications of this verse but she was basically saying man If I lost everything I would kill myself.
Apparently she was not big on marriage seminars like “building your spouse’s self esteem”
Job’s friends come to console him and when they get close they threw dust into the air to symbolize their grief. And they sat with him for 7 days in the ashes. The bible actually says that no one said anything to him because they could see the grief was “too great for words”.
Eventually Job’s friends begin accusing Job, asking him what he did wrong and their consolation turns into confrontation.
And Job wishes he were dead but he never takes his life.
Through the book we see a dialogue between Job and his friends and Job and God.
Eventually Job’s bitterness does come through and he decides to “have it out with God” there are a couple of Chapters where Job asks God some tough questions.
Perhaps you are looking for some answers to some of life’s tough questions.
We are in chapter 42 at the end of the book. And Job has just been confronted by God.
42:1 Then Job replied to the LORD: 2 "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ’Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 "You said, ’Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."
Prayer
Everyone has asked God why. Everyone has wondered what happens next.
This book serves as a framework for working out our frustrations with God. In Chapter 10 Job says this.
“I am disgusted with my life. Let me complain freely and I will tell you about how bitter my soul is.”
Some of you have said this. You have said I am bitter about my life.
I am disgusted about the way I have been treated.
I am sickened about the losses.
I am hardened by the illnesses in my life.
I am dissatisfied with some of these decisions.
I am not pleased that so many things happen that I don’t approve of.
But at the end Job finally gets it. He finally understands.
Job says I know you are all powerful. That you created the earth. And I did not. I know you are able to control anything you want to and I can not. And I know that if you have a plan it can not fail.
Now those things are supposed to be sources of encouragement, but for Job, he felt like the weight of the world was on him and he was frustrated with God’s power, God’s presence and God’s plan. It is only when we yield completely to God that He is able to turn our bitterness into Joy.
We can ask the hard questions from God but his questions make us realize who we are and who is in charge.
For Job like us power was an illusion. He never had any security other than what was found in his God.
Some of our changes are painful. All are not things we agree with but in the end we have to let God be God.
We need to release the devastation of our past, If you have been let go from a company that should not have fired you. Trust God. Part of trusting God is releasing bitterness.
This book says that because Job was able to trust God he was blessed in the later half of his life even more than the first part of his life.
So when something happens that you don’t agree with weather it’s a decision of the leaders or a bad thing in your life. The servant of God says “I don’t know what’s next but I will trust God for it”
Changes in our lives, changes in society, changes in the church create a lot of dust. But we trust that God will do what he deems appropriate.
In Job’s day dust was a sign of repentance and mourning. And some of us have been sitting in the ashes of “what used to be” experiencing bitterness, loss and frustration.
And some are left sitting in the ashes of our sinful behavior. We have asked the tough questions. And we have heart God pull at our heart and now we know that we can not move out of the rubble until we repent.
We cannot experience the fullness of his blessings until we plead for forgiveness and allow God to cleanse us from the dust and the dirt.
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No matter where you’re at today, if you have been a faithful follower who needs to repent because of bitterness or causing harm to the body. If you are here today and your life is a mess won’t you come today and let him “pardon your dust”
