What Job Teaches Us about Our God, Part 3

1:16 Job is set through God's lecture, which began in chapter 38 and 39, went into chapter 40, chapter 41, and he never answers the question. He escorts Job around the universe and introduces him to several of the animals of the field and the birds of the air, but he doesn't answer Job's questions. And remarkably, at the end of the book, Job is submitting to this God, this heavenly Father, who permitted, even allowed all of these things to occur. And yet he submits. Surely he knows some things of God that we need to know as well, without having all of our questions answered. Verse 1, chapter 42. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things.

2:18 number one in a list of seven there is nothing god cannot do having heard and having realized the limitless power of his infinite god joe puts his observation and realization into the simplest of terms you can do all things There is nothing God cannot do. There's a second. And I find it at the end of verse 2, no purpose of yours can be thwarted. It is impossible to restrain or nullify God's purposes. God's intentions can neither be altered nor disrupted. What he purposes will transpire without delay, without hindrance, and without failure.

3:19 Which brings us to a third. God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. See how Job puts it in verse 3? I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me,

3:48 which I did not know. That took some humility to say that. Here now, and I will speak. I will ask you. If you ask me to give you the core message of the book of Job, I'd give you chapter 42 and verse 3. Coming to an understanding that God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. Number four.

4:20 Only through God's instruction are we able to humble ourselves and rest. Only through God's instruction are we able to humble ourselves and rest. Where do I get that? Into verse 4, down through verse 6. I will ask you and you instruct me.

4:49 Oh God, I will ask you. You reveal to me whatever it is I need to know about yourself and about these circumstances. I have heard of you with the hearing of the ear. Now my eye sees you. Therefore, I've got an argument. No. Therefore, I retract and repent, and there's no force. He says, you instruct me, and as a result of your instruction, I will willingly submit and accept it. Remember my comment about repentance? Contrite heart makes no demands and has no expectations. Makes no demands and has no expectations. Job has no demands and has no expectations. Now then, number five. When the day of reckoning arrives, God is always fair.

5:50 When the day of reckoning arrives, God is always fair. Remember my comment earlier when we looked at this thought, all God's accounts are not settled at the end of the month? It applies here. patiently and with great long suffering God has been listening and taking note of who is saying what not one idle word slips by his attention he knows who spoke what he knows where error started and stopped he knows who spoke truth and why he deals with wrong doers at the time of his final accounting and it's in his timetable he blesses the one who has walked with him in his timetable he forgives those who

6:38 and offer them fully and sincerely. And he restores Job who prayed for his friends and prayed for them greatly with an open heart. Put in the margin of your Bible, Hebrews 6.10, God is not unjust to forget. Eugene Peterson in the message renders that God doesn't miss anything. Hebrews 6.10.

7:03 Now, some of you have been terribly abused. You have been victims of the worst kind of mistreatment. You have been taken advantage of. You have, whether young or middle age, whatever the age, you have been treated unfairly. Every person in this room has that in common. So have I. Every one of us could give stories of abuse and neglect and misrepresentation and unfair treatment. God does not forget. He just doesn't march to our timetable. I mean, I wanted God to zap Eliphaz. At the moment he said that stupid thing to Job. He's waited through all of these speeches and now finally says, Eliphaz, Bildad, so far you're out to lunch. Or, you know, that's kind of a Swindoll paraphrase. He tells them they're wrong. You didn't speak correctly of me as my servant Job.

7:59 Job hadn't heard until now that he's spoken correctly. See how it appears in verse 7? After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends because you've not spoken of me. What is right is my servant. God heard. He heard. He didn't say anything at the time, but he heard it. He is not unjust to forget one idle word. He did not overlook one wrong act committed against you. He knows his plan. unfolding. It's not a mistaken plan. It's not a frustrated plan where God sits on the edge of heaven, biting his nails, wondering what he's going to do with that wrong individual. He knows exactly what he's going to do, but he's going to do it at his time. Job sees that now. So Job, rather than looking at his friends saying, yeah, see there, I told you it was wrong. He doesn't do that. There's none of that in Job's heart. That's why when God says, I'm going to have Job pray for you, Job says, heavenly father, and he begins his prayer for his friends.

9:03 Friends who wronged him, who added to his suffering. How could he do that? He realizes that the day of reckoning has come. He submitted to that. Now, therefore, he says, take seven bulls and rams, and my servant Job will offer up a burnt offering. And that's exactly what Job does. Job prays for his friends.

9:24 God doesn't miss anything. Number six. It's getting better. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessings. Verses 11 to 15. Well, let's put 10 in there with it. 10 through 15. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessing.

9:50 The Lord restored the fortunes, verse 10 of Job, when he prayed for his friends. The Lord increased all that Job had twofold. Had his brothers and sisters and his family come back. They all gave him money. Verse 12, the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. 13, he had seven sons and three daughters. He names them, and the blessing falls even on the daughters as well, I'm sure, as the sons. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessings. Did you miss the words? The end of verse 9, mark it. The Lord accepted. Beginning of verse 10, the Lord restored. End of verse 10, the Lord increased. of verse 12, the Lord blessed. Those are words of grace accepted, restored, increased, blessed. Now let me warn you of something, because you're conditioned as I have been for so many years of my life, you're conditioned in this cynical world because of the fallout of our cynical society.

11:00 You and I are programmed to think it's cool to rush by words like this and to hurry on to the words that are negative. Heavy trials, mold in your house, fractured families, high rate of divorce, economic woes, the homeless, the broken hearts, the brutal crimes, the drug abuse, the disasters, the premature deaths, the loss of jobs, on and on. That's what makes the evening news. They never say, now tomorrow night we'll have just good news. They say, tomorrow night, you think this was bad. Tomorrow we have an expose. And you go, what channel? What time is that coming on? And the expose ends with, you think this expose was bad. When we show you that expose, you will not. That's tomorrow night. Now you watch in tomorrow night. I mean, even the weatherman says partly cloudy. Never says mainly sunny.

11:52 It's partly cloudy. It may rain. won't and furthermore he's wrong. And by the way, who does God bless? Job. Job. Chapter 3, he cursed the day he was born. Chapter 3, he resented the fact he didn't die when he was placed on his mother's breast. Chapter 3, at the end he says, I am not at peace. I am not restful. In other words, I resent what has happened. That's Job, who is wonderfully blessed at the end of the book. Why? Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. We don't get it. We don't get it. You work hard, you get a promotion. You work harder, you get a bigger promotion.

12:46 You work super hard, you run the company. Then you can take advantage of people who work and work hard and work super hard. That's the way the society thinks. and says, you're sick today, I'm going to bless you mightily. You're not doing too well. I'm going to bless you greatly. You blew it. I'm still going to bless you because grace doesn't wait for works to catch up. I preached that sermon last week and poured myself into that one. Like I poured myself into this one. And, uh, you might think, boy, he must've, man, he must live a fabulous life. Well, let me just tell you before you go that way. Uh, I went to grocery stores today and one of our,

13:28 eggs. I wanted to get them in the cart and get them home before Ken Cooper caught me buying eggs. And so I quickly put them in the bag and I got home and I got bags of groceries. You know, why do you carry all of them? But you get the door, you go, you know, to get the door, you shove the door open and you walk in and guess what bag drops? Right. So I go, oh my. And I reach down and I get, Cynthia's in the other room working and doesn't know anything about this. And I'm at the counter and I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm doing all of this and I'm getting the eggs and I lift a little tray that holds the eggs in the refrigerator out. I think there's no eggs. And so there's one in there and I, so there's now egg on the floor. And so I get down and clean that up and I'm thinking, well, it's good. I looked in the box. I think, well, it didn't break any. So I lift the neck out and not only had it broken, it comes down all over me. And I totally lost it. At that moment, I lost it. Totally.

14:35 You could have heard me three doors away. And my wife walks in and says, is there something wrong? Or can I help? No! I've got it! So I'm down cleaning it up. You know what? I didn't deserve to live through the night. But you know what? I woke up this morning

15:07 wonderfully blessed. Grace, grace, grace, grace, Grace. The book of Job teaches us about grace. When he blesses Job, he doesn't bless a perfect man. He blesses an imperfect man. If he were perfect, he wouldn't be repenting. If he said the right thing, he wouldn't be retracting. When are we going to get it? You don't have to earn it. You don't have to work real hard and hold your breath for five minutes and go straight home. You don't have to, you know, give a dollar to every homeless person. and you don't have to just have your heart broken over every sad story. Sometimes you just be downright selfish and he still blesses. We wouldn't. We say, you do that again.

16:01 You sleep outside. You think Nebuchadnezzar had it bad. Well, I deal with you. Why? Because we don't get grace. We don't get it. Job is beside himself. The boys are gone.

16:22 Next thing you know, there's a knock on his door. There's a couple of guys who need work. and they know three other guys, and before you know, he's got his family there, and he's got the money, and he hires them, and he looks up, and the camels are coming back, and the donkeys, and they're all building his buildings, and the house is getting rebuilt, and the wife says to him one morning,

16:45 Hey, buddy, you and I are going to be parents. She does it ten times. Stop, Lord, stop. It's enough. Number seven. After all this, Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. And then finally, he died.

17:17 An old man and full of days. Isn't that great? Here we go. Only God can fill our final years with divine music that frees us to live above our circumstances.

17:39 Only God can fill our final years with divine music that frees us to live above our circumstances. It frees us. freezes. When I have ceased to break my wings against the faultiness of things, wrote Sarah Teasdale, and learned that compromises weight behind each hardly open gate, when I can look life in the eyes grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth and taken an exchange, my youth. Job has truth. Job is freed, freed from the prison of fears freed from the tiny cell of limited thinking and negative attitudes he's freed from grudges he's freed from a works theology he's freed he's free free at last praise God almighty He's free and he lives to over 200 years of age.

18:51 Kids, grandkids, great grandkids. All around him. And he can hardly remember when he got the boils back so many years ago. That's music. It's music that only God can bring.

19:14 Some struggling with dementia. Old age is not kind to the body. Some battling a loss of memory. Some physically unable to keep up. Feeling shelved when they were once engaged in life. In a fast lane.

19:37 And they live full of days. Only God can do that. Remember the film The Shawshank Redemption? It's a great film that makes you think, lifts you beyond the prison cells of those men.

19:58 Tim Robbins plays the part of Andy, and he's with the other prisoners struggling along with him. He carves chessmen from stone, you may remember, and petitions the state for books for the prison library and helps inmates get their high school diploma. These are just a few of the ways that he held on to his humanity. One other way cost him two weeks in solitary confinement, you may remember.

20:29 He gains access to the prison's public address system and plays a record of great music for all the prison to hear for the first time. As the music streams through the washrooms and the prison yard, the inmates stop and stand transfixed. The actor Morgan Freeman, playing the part of Red,

20:59 has been the narrator of the story, that moment. I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid.

21:19 I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in the great place dared to dream. It's like some beautiful bird flapped into Alexander's cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, Everlast Man in Shawshank felt free.

22:01 That's what the music of God does for you when you end your life well. You're free at last. Let's bow together. Our journey with Job has come to an end, but our friendship will go on for a lifetime.

22:27 Job dies an old man and full of years. He finally truly came to know the living God. It wasn't in spite of his pain, it was because of it. The pain drove him surrendered and silent before his God. And he trusted him. As I invite you to trust him, whatever may be the prison of your circumstances. Let God be God.

23:09 remind yourself faithfully and regularly you are one dependent soul not in charge limited, sinful needy and remember the cross that's where we first saw the light and the burden rolled away

23:35 come to him today Listen to the music. Listen to the music.