Would You Serve God for Nothing?
Transcript
But we're going to talk about suffering tonight and whether or not we have been the kind of people that have the same kind of resiliency as Job. There's one time in the New Testament where Job is named. And I'm going to show you that passage in just a moment. But have you ever had somebody before when you're going through something difficult one up your suffering? You know, you you you're trying to open up your heart about what's going on in your life and then somebody says, "Well, I had it twice as hard as you." And you feel like nobody's listening to anything that you have to say. Nobody's going to be any kind of balm of Gilead to you. And if there's anybody that could one-up us in the Old Testament, it would be Job. And we are supposed to find encouragement from that. I want to look at James chapter 5 and look at verses 10 and 11. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Have you obeyed what this passage is saying? We're going to come back to this at the end of the lesson, but the book of James begins and it ends by talking about steadfastness. Why would James have to at the end of this book talk about examples of people who are suffering? Well, James is writing to an audience that's been scattered from their homeland. Some of these people have physical ailments in chapter 5. Seems like some of these Christians are even fighting and murdering one another. I think hyperbolically in chapter 3 and four that they have all kinds of issues and suffering and persecutions that they're dealing with. And one of the things that James says at the end of this book is go back and read the book of Job. Go back and think about people like Hosea. Have you obeyed this passage?
For me, one of the things that comes more natural when I'm suffering is to pray. And James 5 says to do that. Do you know what maybe doesn't come as natural for me and maybe for some of us is to engage in deep Bible study when your life is turned inside out. An example of steadfastness. My the mental image that I have of steadfastness is the Greek god Atlas. You try to imagine this god that's trying to hold up the earth. And I don't know if the phrase don't drop the ball comes from that god, but if he does, we're all doomed. What does it mean to be steadfast? It means that in the midst of pressure and opposition and persecution and difficulty that you're going to maintain. You're going to keep holding firm. And so what I want us to do is think about Job and his example in that. And so the book of Job, it opens up in the first five verses by explaining some things about this guy.
He's somebody who is said to fear God and turn away from evil. Have you ever noticed how the wisdom books of the Bible speak to each other and have a conversation with one another? Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. What does the book of Proverbs say about somebody who fears God? That they have the beginning of wisdom, that they're the person that's on the path to having wisdom. So, here's a guy that fears God. He's somebody who's wise. And if you were to get in get a little bit closer to his life, you'd see that he's got 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels. This guy has got the envy. Uh he's the envy of everybody around. All this wealth. And it's not just that he's got a lot of wealth. He's even got like the perfect family. Seven sons and three daughters, making a total of the number 10. This is the guy that if he had an Instagram or a Facebook, he's always posting things.
And whenever he posts things and you see it, you're getting jealous and envious of what he has. The first couple chapters of Job go back and forth between things that are happening on earth and things that are happening in the heavenly realm. Here's the description of what's what Job is on earth. I want us to though read Job 1:es 6-11. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, "From where have you come?" Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it." And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil?" Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has?
On every side you have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face. There's a lot of things that I don't understand about this this scene here. But God is being depicted as this king that's got like this council around him. And God initiates this discussion with Satan and says, "From where have you come?" He went all over the place. Probably went down to Georgia and he went to all these other places. And then God asks the question, "In all the places that you went and and he God only names one person. Did you notice Job?" And God agrees with the first five verses of the book that Job is blameless and upright. He fears God and he turns away from evil. Satan, did you notice that guy?
And Satan goes, "Yeah, yeah, I noticed him and I know that he serves you and I know that he fears you and turns away from evil, but God, here's my interpretation on why that's the case. It's because you put this hedge around him that I if for for Job, you've given him all these things and that's the reward for all the ways that he serves you." That's Satan's interpretation of this. But here's his idea. God, if you let me start messing things up in his life, he will curse you to your face. What does it mean to curse God to his face? I think the it's the idea where you say, "I'm done with you. I want nothing to do with you anymore." And so that's that's the challenge of the book of Job. The challenge of the book of Job is would you serve God for nothing?
If whatever your version of your 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels, if whatever your version of your seven sons and three daughters are, if all of it was stripped away and taken away in a moment, would you shake your fist at God and say, "I'm done with you." Or would you know that it's still the right thing to do? That God is still beautiful, that God is the one that's worthy of all praise and honor, and you would hold fast to him? What would you do? Look what happens in verse 12. Look at Job 1:12. And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand." So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. Now, we're about to read the things that Satan is going to do to to Job. But before we look at some of those things, I want to point something out.
Have you ever had a time in your life where something really bad happened and your default mode of thinking always is to wonder and try to figure out where did I where did I mess up? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? Now, does the book of Proverbs say that sometimes there's a link? Yeah. So, sometimes the reason that some people are poor is because of laziness in the book of Proverbs. But does that always answer why some people are poor? No. The book of Job comes along and says that sometimes really bad things can happen to you and there's not any kind of direct correlation between that bad thing and something that you've done to deserve it. Uh I I want to walk through the four things that Satan harms or touches in Job's life. And I'm not one of those preachers that need everything to begin with the same letter. But whenever they do begin with the same letter and you're not stretching it, it's actually pretty helpful. So here's the first one.
Look at Job 1:es 13-17. Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And there came a messenger to Job and said, "The oxmen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them. And the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The fear, 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." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." Notice, so far there's three servants that somehow witnessed these terrible things that happen.
Two groups of people come, one act of God fire from heaven comes down and and Satan is allowing one survivor from each of those things. Do you think that's strategic? Get that one guy to come over to Job one after another like almost like one is interrupting the next one. And Job is learning in one moment that your 401k has been completely liquidated. Everything that you've been stocking up, everything that you've been preparing for for your day of retirement, all of it is completely gone. Your wealth was bound up in your animals if you're a farmer back then and today. Do do you remember the 2008 stock market crash? That there were people that had all of their hope in Wall Street and there was people that worked on Wall Street in New New York City. And when those things happened, there was news reports. Do you remember this? News reports of people who in their apartments hung themselves because everything that they had put their hope in was now crushed and gone.
And they didn't know why they would need to go on living. When I was in California, there was one of those um I the best way I know how to describe it is a whack-a-mole family. Do you remember whenever you'd go to those what are those things called? Carnivals. Yeah. You'd go to a carnival and there'd be this game that had a really creative name called whack-a-mole. Because every time there would be this mole that comes out of this thing, you had to whack it back down. And then as soon as you got one down, another one came up. There's there's a family. I've known people like this where it's like they get one thing solved in their life and then it's like another calamity comes and then they get that thing solved in their life and then there's another kind of thing that comes up and you wouldn't even be able to trace it all back to some bad decisions that they made. You ever known people like that?
When I was in San Diego, there was a guy who was like that and we got together one time and just as we sat down, I'm like, "So, what's what's the latest in your life right now?" And he said, "Well, our identity was stolen and somebody drained everything that we had from our debit card. Not your credit card. That's that's easier to deal with. Our debit card and our debit account was completely drained." Imagine how frustrating that would be. Can you imagine living in the days of Revelation chapter 13 where there's the mark of the beast? You ever notice the contrast in the book of Revelation where in chapter 7 there's going to be people that are marked out by God and they might physically die and they do physically die but spiritually they're preserved.
But then that's contrasted in Revelation 13 with the mark of the beast that might physically preserve your life because you can buy, sell, and trade because I'm b I'm towing the line of whatever society wants me to do and that allows me to do all these things but spiritually you're going to be lost. Ask yourself this question. If America ever got to a point where the politicians, the public servants started saying things like, "Unless you bow the knee to our sexual ethics, unless you bow the knee to our view of religion, you guys can't buy, sell, or trade." What would you do? Would you curse God, or would you keep doing what you know to be right? That that's the first thing that gets affected in Job's life. The second thing is his family. And somebody might say, "Well, Job, you have all of your family at least. I know that you lost your money, but what?" No. No. Actually, no. And this is subdivides into two different things. Look at verses 18 and 19.
While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house." And notice how this is worded. and it fell upon the young people and they are dead and I alone have escaped to tell you. All right, here's a fourth messenger. Have you ever had a time before where you had to deliver news to somebody and you had to kind of shroud how you said it because the news was so bad?
So, here's this fourth messenger and he says to Job, "Yeah, Job, um, your all your children were hanging out." And by the way, don't parents love it when their kids get along with each other and they're not fighting all the They were all together in one in the oldest brother's house and a tornado, I don't know, some kind of wind tornado thing came to the house and they were all in it and it struck the house and then the messenger says, "And the young people have died." Notice that the messenger doesn't come up to Job and say, "Job, your children died." Now, the children died, but it's like he's veiling the news. When Samantha and I were in California, between our oldest, Asher, who's 11, and our second oldest, Abigail, who's about to turn nine, Samantha had a miscarriage. And it happened at about 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday morning, the same day that I was already going to be preaching when Elijah raises the widow's son. That was the sermon.
And so I come, Samantha's not in the bed. So I I come out to the living room and there she is on the ground hunched over in pain and she just had a miscarriage. Now that's that's hard when it's a child that you never even met yet. Can you imagine 10 grown children that you've had a long time of being able to invest in and get to know? If something happened to your children, would you curse God and die as if he owed you something from them? It's it's not just the children, though. Go over to chapter 2, and we'll we'll see the context of this in just a moment, but look at Job 2:es 9 and 10. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die." But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
Now, I I want to remind you, remember what Satan said back in chapter 1 11 when Satan says to God, "If you let me mess up his life, he will do what? Curse you to your face." Look who's become the voice of the serpent in this text. Imagine Satan has destroyed everything around Job. But Satan strategically let his wife live. I think so that she could tempt him in this way. And she comes up to Job and she says, "How about this, Job? Curse God." Exactly what Satan wants you to do. Have you ever had a friend before, maybe a family member, who is telling you to do the very thing Satan would want you to do?
I I used to have a really really negative view of Mrs. Job and now I just have a negative view of Mrs. Job. Do you think she's suffering? She's lost her 10 kids. Her 401k has been liquidated, too. It that all goes together when you're husband and wife. And so, I think what Mrs. Job is doing is she's saying, "Job, look at everything that's happened. Can you imagine anything worse happening? Maybe something worse could happen. How about this? Let's call for a mercy killing. How about this, Job? Hold your fist up. I'll show you how to do it. Hold your fist up and say, "God, I'm done with you." And maybe a lightning bolt will come and take you out and your suffering will be gone.
I I've always heard older preachers before I be before I I got married always say this. When you get married, you want to pick somebody who's going to help you get to heaven. It's what they always said. I don't know what everybody's marital situation is here. That maybe you have a spouse that thinks it's not really critical to be in the Bible. They don't really think it's critical to be praying together. They don't really think it's critical that you're at the assembly together. And maybe sometimes you drive to the church building whenever God's people are together in in the rearview mirror of your car, you see somebody looking out the window wondering, "Why are you doing that again?" Would if you had a spouse or some kind of family member that kept trying to wear you down day in day out. Would you eventually curse God? That's family. And somebody might say, "Well, Job, you lost your finances. At least you got your family. No, you don't." They might say, "At least you have your health." But no, you don't.
Look at Job chapter 2. Let's go back up and look at Job chapter 2, starting in verse 4. Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "Skin for skin. All that a man has, he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone in his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life." So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome so sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Um, you notice what Satan's theory is here when he's talking to God. All right. All right, God. I see that a lot of things have been messed up in Job's life and he's not cursed you, but God, you kind of put you hamstrung me a little bit.
If if you let me mess with somebody's health, then they'll go bananas. But until you let me mess with somebody's health, yeah, a strong person can endure the things that Job's endured, but when you start dealing with somebody's health and touching their health, they will flip out. Um, do you think Satan knows by experience that threatening people's health is enough to make them not serve God? You think Satan knows that that affecting somebody's ability to do the things that they're used to doing is going to cause some people to just kind of peter out and stop doing what they ought to be doing. And of all the things that Satan could do to Job, he did boils. Like he's got free range. And so he's going to inflict the most painful thing that he could do on somebody. Boils.
Now, since I've become a Christian, one of the things that I've liked to do is go to bookstores and now you have to do Amazon and you start to gota get a sense of the trends of the you guys see this of the Christian books that are being written and these there's like trends that go for a year and a half or two years and uh there's a bunch of people writing about the same topic and then they kind of shift to another thing. There was a period of time like 10 years ago where the books that were being written were like body built by God and the Daniel fast. And if you just do the Daniel fast, then you'll be healthier than your companions. And and and then you've got a book like Job that has a godly person and his health gets wrecked. And it's not cuz he did anything wrong. By the way, I'm I'm still waiting for somebody to write the John the Baptist diet book, The Locust and Wild Honey.
There's a lot of money left on the table if any of you want to do that. I'm 37 years old and to this point in my life, I haven't had any major health problems. So, I would like to think that if something happened to my health that I wouldn't use it as an excuse to walk away from the Lord. What about in your life? How about this one? The last one are his friends. Look at JobA 2 11. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place. Elephaz the Temonite, Bildad the Shouite, and Zofar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. Somebody might say, "Well, Job, at least you still have your friends." And in fact, look what they're doing. They're coming here with good motives. And I have to think of these friends as at first being really good friends. Cuz what's been happening in Job's life? Lightning has struck. Tornadoes have come.
Enemies have come and wiped his stuff out. Um, do you want to get in the blast radius of Job right now? Anybody want to get really close? You know, if somebody talks really pridefully, we joke today about, "Oh, I don't want the lightning to strike me too, so I'm going to get away from you." These friends have a lot of courage going up to Job. And they were really great until they opened up their mouth. In the summary of everything that they did in Job 16:1 and2, Job answers them and says, "I many such things I've heard, miserable comforters are you all. You all just stink because all of you assume that I did something to deserve this. I'm holding fast my integrity. I didn't do anything to make all of this come into my life." And they just don't believe him. Have you ever had Job's friends come into your life?
Job's friends are alive and well today because you know every time you've had the courage to open up about a struggle, they come in and just come in with all kinds of reasons why it's happening to you. Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Well, what about this? What about that? How about I just can express that I'm going through some hardships right now? And you can be sympathetic. Um, when I was a new Christian, I had a really good friend named Brian. And uh we hung out all the time together. I got him a job at the gun club that I worked at. Uh we spent all kinds of time together. And in my family, it wasn't odd for my mom and dad to become friends with my friends and get to know them pretty well.
There's one day when Brian came over to my house and uh we hung out for a little bit and then I had to go to work, but he stayed at my house for a little bit to finish eating or whatever it was. And after that day, Brian stopped talking to me. would not talk to me anymore. And we were having Bible studies and having Bible discussions. And I said to my mom, I said, "Hey, mom, do you know whatever happened with Brian? I don't know what's going on. He won't talk to me anymore." And she said, "Yeah, I know exactly what happened. When you left for work that day, I told him that you joined a cult and to stop talking to you." Can you imagine uh like a good friend just turning their back on you like that? Now, that that's hard enough when it's a non-Christian friend. You know what gets even more difficult than that? When it happens amongst Christians, church splits, arguments and divisions that have happened.
What's one of the biggest reasons people walk away from the faith? It's because of those hypocrites. Have you ever noticed the theme in especially in the Gospel of Mark of the crowds that there's people that have to excuse me their way through the crowd to get to Jesus? And part of living by faith is looking past the people that are crowded up around him and understanding that he himself is the treasure. Mark chapter 2, Mr. paralyzed man, four friends have to carry this paralyzed guy to Jesus, open up the roof and drop him down. the woman that's bleeding in Mark chapter 5, she has to get through this whole crowd and she reaches out and touches him. And then everybody else has been thronging about him. And Jesus asks a weird question to his disciples. Who just touched me? Everybody is. Oh no, not everybody is because only one person did by faith. And she was able to get through the crowd.
Any of you struggling here with the lack of zeal of other Christians, the lack of passion in other Christians, the hypocrisy of other Christians? What does it mean to be Job? We have to ask the question, was Satan right when it comes to what happened with Job? Go over to chapter 42. And I want to show you a couple things.
At the end of the book, God takes Job on a trip to the zoo and he shows him the ostriches and he shows him the vultures and he shows him the borders of the oceans and the waters and how God takes care of all of these things in creation that mankind would never be able to take care of because some of these things are like deep in the deserts. And the point of all of this is Job, throughout this whole book, you've been challenging me, demanding answers. You've never cursed me, but you've demanded answers and thought that you could win in court if you went against me. And God is showing him at the end of this book that if if he can be in charge of all of these things, who are you to question what he's doing with your life? Look at Job 42:es 5 and 6. I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
He doesn't repent when everything's doubled. He's sitting in dust and ashes. He's seen the glory of God and he says, "All right, I'm sorry that I spoke too far."
The question at the beginning of the book, would you serve God if you had nothing? Well, I never even cursed God. But in my dust and ashes, with everything taken away, God, I'll acknowledge that I spoke too much and I'm sorry, and I'll serve you even though I have nothing in my life right now. Ask yourself that question. If you were in the dust and ashes, would you still love God? Would you see still see the beauty of God? He repents before he receives anything back. And so, Satan was wrong. Do do you remember the passage in James chapter 5 that we began with that? James chapter 5 says you've seen the mercy and the compassion of God from the book of Job. I'll tell you this that when I was a new Christian and I read the book of Job, God's mercy was not the first thing that I thought I saw in that book. But then James 5 says, go back and reread it and see if you can see the mercy of God in this.
How do you see the mercy of God in the book of Job as he held firm to all these through all these sufferings that he was going through? Let me show you two things with this. If the book of James ends by talking about steadfastness, we said at the beginning that it opens up with the same thing. James chapter 1:es 3 and 4, James talks about the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. How many of you want to be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing? I want that. That's James's way throughout the book of talking about people that are mature, people that have no glaring faults or failures in their life. Not that they're perfect, but it's a mature Christian. And this text says that the way that it's going to happen is through the testing of your faith that produces steadfastness. And as you remain steadfast, it's going to have this full effect in your life. All right.
One of the things that I'm sure all of you have noticed and have been saying about me during this week is how much I work out. And so, one of the things that's true, and yes, indeed I do. And one of the things that's true about working out is uh it's just an odd sensation cuz you know, you get all these people that say, "Okay, start start taking those things and go like this." You go, "Okay, I'm going to do that." And and uh this is supposed to make me stronger, right? That's what you're telling me, right? Yeah. It makes you stronger. Okay. All right. All right. So, one, two, three. Uh, man, this is getting harder. I don't feel like I'm getting stronger. In fact, I feel like I'm getting weaker. The sensation of going through the very thing that makes you stronger is that you feel like you're getting weaker. But what kind of person actually gets stronger through the working out? The only kind of person that does is the one that's steadfast.
The one that keeps going no matter how difficult it gets. Any of you ever been through something so difficult and so hard that you felt like your faith was getting weaker and weaker, but you were not giving up? You were not giving in. And you came through on the other side a lot more strong than you had been before. Isn't that not the mercy of God? That through hardships and through difficulties, he uses those things so that we can be strengthened. That's the mercy of God. But it's not just that. How else does the book of Job show the mercy of God? Look at Job 42 and look at verses 12 and 13. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yolk of oxmen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters. Job was blessed in his latter days. uh a after he repents in sackcloth and ashes, God then eventually restores everything double. Pretty much everything doubled though, right?
Like the animals are doubled. Did you notice in this text what's not doubled though? The children. Well, why would the children not be doubled? Maybe maybe the answer is he's already been through enough suffering and having 20 kids. I mean, that's really difficult. Or maybe this the first set of camels and oxen and sheep and all that. Well, when they died, are they gone forever? They're gone forever. How about the the first set of 10 children? Are they gone forever? No, because they have eternal spirits. God does double his children. The first 10 are not eternally lost. He gets another 10. his children are doubled in a book that doesn't say a whole lot about the afterlife. I think this is one of the dim hints of that that everything else gets doubled except for his children because in a sense they were doubled.
The promise of the book of Job or the hope that we get from the book of Job is not going to be that in this life when things have gone wrong and things have gone bad everything's going to be doubled back and everything's going to be okay. But I have a good friend that there was a time in his life when he was going through immense suffering. And one of the things that he would keep telling himself is there's a job 42, there's a job 42, there's a job 42, there's a job 42. And what he did not mean by that is that in this life everything's going to be reversed. But in a greater sense, there is a a place where God is going to remove all of our tears, where there's going to be no more death, and all of the suffering of this life won't even be worthy of comparing to the glory that we're going to have with him one day. I think Jesus ultimately is foreshadowed in this book. He had no finances.
He had nowhere to lay his head at night. His family thought that he was out of his mind. His flesh was torn open when he was on the cross. And his friends, most of his friends forsook him in his most trying moment. And I think Job through the eyes of faith and people debate about what exactly this means. I think he at least believes that there's going to be some kind of vindication that's going to come and it ends up being greater than he could have ever anticipated. But in Job 19:25, for I know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth Jesus has come and done that. One last thing who understood slash understands more about God. Job in the book of Job in his day versus you and I right here, right now. who knows more about God. Job didn't have the full plan of salvation. He didn't have the gospel unveiled in its fullness in with Jesus Christ like what Berry's been talking about. He didn't have all of that.
He didn't even have a clear picture that there was an afterlife. If you read the book of Job carefully and yet he still served God. His understanding of God was very narrow. And with that narrow understanding, he held fast. What about us who have a much wider understanding of who he is? If Satan wanted to mess up your life and turn it inside out and sift you like wheat, would you curse him to his face or would you see the beauty and the love and the glory that he has that he wants to share with you and nothing would compare to it? Thank you for your good attention. I thank you so much for the time that I could spend with all of you. This has been a very encouraging few days. You guys are very blessed to have Casey here. I love Casey. They've been so hospitable. He works hard for you guys. He loves you very much. And uh you guys have made a contribution to my life in these last few days.
And I'm very thankful for the time that we could spend together. We're about to have a break and then Berry's going to close us out. Thank you.