Job: The Honour of God

Please be seated and let's pray together, shall we? This is a prayer that John Stott would often pray before he preached: "Heavenly Father, we bow in Your presence; may Your word be our rule, Your Spirit our teacher, and Your greater glory our supreme concern through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen." Well, good morning, a big welcome to you all; it's so good to see a whole row of SME family here; they've backed up big time from yesterday. It's been a very busy period over the last months, weeks, days, and it's been very exciting; lots of great things and lots of good things happening around here. I thought I might make up a little film about the film and show it to you in a few weeks' time, show you all my little happy snaps of various things that were going on over the last couple of days, but we are turning our minds to Job and we are looking at Job chapter 1 in particular; that's on page 496 of the Bibles in the seats.

You may know the story of the boy who's on a campaign to get a skateboard for Christmas and his mother has this idea and says to him, "Why don't you, rather than writing to Santa, why don't you write a letter to Jesus and maybe you'll get a skateboard for Christmas?" So the boy goes upstairs and he starts writing and he says, "Dear Jesus, I promise I'll be good for a whole week." And he thinks, "No, that's not going to work." So he throws that piece of paper away and gets another piece of paper and starts off his letter by saying, "Dear Jesus, I promise to be good for one whole day." And he thinks, "No, that's not going to work." The kid's a realist, so he goes downstairs to where there's a Christmas tree and he climbs up on a chair and he takes—right at the top there is a little kind of thing of the Virgin Mary—he takes that off the tree and takes it up to his room, wraps it up, puts it in the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers and begins his next letter: "Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again, please bring me a skateboard."

It's a pretty kind of weak joke, isn't it? It's a dad joke, but it's a good question because what I want to ask you is: Do you only honor God because of what He gives you? We prayed and Luke led us in prayer and we prayed giving thanks to God, and it's only right that we do that; it's only right that we give thanks to God, but is that all? Is that the only reason we honor God, because of the good things He gives? When I first became interested in God in my late years of high school, I think as I look back on it, I think it was because I knew He was powerful and He could give me things; they were probably honorable things I was asking for, but still, that's what I was thinking. I started going along to church after I left school and I was talking to a man about this—he was about 10 years older than me, I think he kind of saw himself as a bit of a mentor to me—and he said to me, "You should read the book of Job."

And so I went home and I started reading the book of Job, and the next week at church he said to me, "How did you go?" And I said, "I found it really annoying." And I think really it was because this guy's done everything right and God isn't giving him or doesn't seem to be getting all the blessings that should go with it. So if you plunge into your Bible right into the middle, open your Bible right up in the middle, you'll probably find the Psalms, and if you take a left turn on your Bible, that takes you straight to the book of Job, the most famous book that looks at a life that seems to be out of control. Job is a man who loses his health, he loses his family, he loses his possessions, he loses his reputation, he loses every earthly treasure. One of the challenges of living in the 21st century is I think we have empathy overload; it's just hard to be empathetic because there's so much to feel for, there is so much to feel; it gets too much sometimes. Sometimes it can be hard to care, but if what happened to him happened to you—if you lost your looks or your family or your wealth or your reputation—some of us know what it's like to face a broken home or a broken life or a broken faith. Sometimes it's an emotional breaking that we face, and Job feels like he's got a target on his back; he feels like God is targeting him; it's not true, but that's how he feels, and it can get like that sometimes. And at the end of the book of Job, he gets down on his knees and he says that God is wonderful, and I want to say to you today, if it were possible to do that seriously—you know, it's not just escapism or just pretending—if it was possible to really do that genuinely with sincerity, wouldn't you want to do that?

Well, as Penny pointed out, we are going to spend a few weeks on Job; I'm not actually sure how many, I've kind of worked really hard when I could this week to try and nail it down and I haven't actually managed to do that yet. And for me, sometimes when we go into a series of preaching, I've got a really clear idea of where I'm going and I got to say at the moment I'm exploring this with you, and so from week to week we are on a bit of an exploration. Is the book of Job fiction or non-fiction? Well, there is good evidence for a real historical Job; Job is mentioned in other parts of the Bible. The English pronunciation is Job; in the Hebrew, it would be something like this: 'Iyyov. There is a land called Uz where Job comes from, but the book is set out like a piece of theater. As you know, we had a large film shoot here on Friday; there was about 150 people on the site and there were two scenes shot: there was a scene shot inside and there was a scene shot outside. And if you were staging this book of Job, you just need two sets to be designed: on earth and in heaven. On earth and in heaven are the two stages, and there are four acts and there is an interval roughly in the middle, and there are some long what I'm going to call soliloquies or long speeches, and I think this would work really well as an opera. So if you want to go and write Job the Opera, I think it would lend itself really well to do that; feel free.

But let's have a look at it briefly: chapter 1 and a little bit of chapter 2. Scene one is on earth. Scene one, chapter 1, verse 1: "In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job; this man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil." He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants; he was the greatest man among all the people of the East. We meet this person called Job who's outstanding; God says of him he's blameless and upright, which means he's godly; doesn't mean he's sinless. He's got seven sons and three daughters. Bill Dumbrell, who is no longer with us, a famous Old Testament scholar, he says on this passage: seven sons and three daughters, 7 + 3 equals 10; it's kind of like the perfect family symbolically. Also notice when you add up the amount of animals he has, they often come to numbers of 10 as well. So what we have is we have a perfect family, we have great wealth; in the Old Testament, this is a sign of blessing. He has a neat, harmonious life; he consistently intercedes for his children and God's verdict in chapter 1:8 is, "There is no one like him; have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he's blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

Well, that takes us to scene two, which is up in heaven; this is somewhere where Job never gets to go, but we the audience get to go; we get to see what is happening in heaven, but Job never gets to see that. And in chapter 1, verse 6, we are introduced to a character called Satan. Now before you think of heavy metal bands and cheap horror movies with poltergeists and hobgoblins, the word just means "the accuser," and that is exactly what he does here and that is the way he works today as well: the accuser. So far in the biblical narrative, if we were to read the biblical narrative from the very beginning to the end, so far when he appears, he is an underdeveloped character, but you'll see he gets developed more and more as the Bible goes on.

Let me read to you from 1 verse 7 onwards: The Lord said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the Lord, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him; he's blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have You not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You've blessed the work of his hand so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch Your hand out and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face." There's the accusation there in verse 9: "Does Job fear God for nothing?" In other words, Satan says, "Look what You give him; he doesn't love You because of who You are, it's because of what You give him." So the accuser puts the proposition that Job is just a fake; Satan says he's playing games with You, God; Job is doing what he does because God is bringing the blessing. That's the accusation that's being made, and what if the same question were asked of you or me?

Well, Job loses everything in a day; there are a terrible series of calamities, and notice that God sets the boundaries around this, but Job will not curse God. He says, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Like the words of that song that we sing sometimes: "You give and You take away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Often the question on the minds of people today is, "Is God real and how can I know?" but the question here is, "Is God a God who can be glorified? Is God a God who can be honored?" And so in chapter 2, Satan says, "Make it personal; afflict him directly." And we see in chapter 2:7, he's afflicted with a terrible disease, so much so that he's unrecognizable. His wife says, "Why don't you just curse God and die?" Not the most helpful comment under the circumstances, but Job will not do that.

How many people would you say give up on God when they didn't get an answer to their prayer, when they didn't get the result they were expecting, when they didn't get the happy family, when they didn't get the... dot dot dot dot, whatever you want to put in there? We often hear: "Be good and everything will be well; be bad and things will go wrong." And we look at the world and we say, "You know what? It's not like that." There's so many good people for whom things go bad, and so many bad people for whom things go well. Now, it's true that living well brings its rewards; it's better to live well, it's better to live in the way that God has organized the universe to be, and the world is better when people are good, but the Bible says—there is a book of Job that says—not so fast; it's not just that neat. There are neat and tidy parts of our world and there are not so neat parts, and God's power and love continues in the neat and in the not so neat, and His wisdom and His goodness perseveres in the neat and the not so neat; He's good all the way through.

Out of all the calamities, what do you think is the worst event that takes place in these first two chapters? There are some terrible things that happen; I want to suggest to you the worst thing that happens is the accusation that Job is a fake, that Job is playing a game with God and therefore God is not worthy of honor. It's like Satan is saying, "Can't you see that he's just playing with you, God? He's treating you like those vending machines on North Sydney Station where you wave your debit card and out pops things that are given to you. He's playing a profitable game with you, God." And if that's true, then God is unworthy of devotion because God's not being honored for who He is, but for what He gives. Now Job is a singular person, he's a one-off, so please don't think that if you're going through a terrible time it's because you're getting the same sort of tests that he's getting; he is a one-off, he's unique; the test he goes through is unique.

But the question it puts to us is a good one: Imagine if your faith just rested on good circumstances, because if that was so, you'd be in deep trouble. You might say, "At the moment my faith is strong," but would it drift away if things don't go well for you? If our praise of God is just a result of Him pleasing us, then He needs to keep pleasing us or we'll stop praising Him. It's a serious charge, and how to answer the charge is for God to allow the test. A lot of people say the book of Job is about suffering and the question of suffering, but if that's all it is, it doesn't give an answer and that can be quite depressing. The question is not "Why do people suffer?"; the question is "Who will sustain you and who deserves glory?" Maybe you think to yourself, "How can God do this?" and I want to suggest to you that if we are just worms and we don't mean anything to God, fair enough, but what if we are way more important and God loves us a massive amount and we really are special to Him and that relationship is the most important thing in the whole universe? And Satan is saying, "If you take his blessing away, God, he'll drop you." Such an important question it needs to be answered: Is God worthy of honor for Himself?

Now God can change our circumstances and God can change the resources that we have, and sometimes He does it quickly and sometimes He does it slowly, but there are two things we can rely on right now: we can rely on God's truth and God's love. We know that God loves Job and He has a purpose, even though Job thinks that he's got a target on his back and God's targeting him; it's not true, it's just how he felt in the time. God has His love fixed on Job in times of plenty and in times of want. You can't know if God loves you by your circumstances; the Bible says it's by His promises and His proofs. And when you jump to the New Testament, especially to the writings of Paul, you discover that the proof is the death of Jesus. See, if God gave His son for us, then He must be committed to us.

The Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 8 these words, which I'll leave you with in conclusion: "What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare His own son but gave Him up for us all; how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies; who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Let's pray, shall we? Our heavenly Father, we thank You for this treasure that allows us to know things that we would not otherwise know, to be able to see below the surface of the difficulties that we face in this world and people face in this world. We thank You that we can peer into Your deepest will and Your deepest knowledge. We thank You most of all that we know something today that Your servant Job could not have known: we know the fullness of Your love in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You for this and we pray that it might be ever more our great goal and confidence; we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

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