Sunday message- the Job moment

Many of my friends are right now going through what one has to call, "a Job moment".  Before you say, "Well, that's a cute-sy way to call it", think about what Job went through.  He had been loyal to God, even proactive in seeking His blessing on others as well as himself.  Then, everything collapsed at once.  He lost his wealth.  He lost the children he was so close to that he saw them and prayed for every day.  His health fell apart.  And in a final blow, even his wife betrayed him.  Does it matter if you start at a position of "he can afford to lose some things" or "he had nothing to begin with" if you lose it ALL?

But the point is not for you to read his story and say, "Wow, I could have it worse."  If you're there, you have it bad enough.  The point it, what you do from here.  I want to show you the things that Job's story is telling you.


Number one, this is under God's control.  No matter how badly Satan wanted to destroy Job, God said, "This far, but no farther."  God kept control. And He had a reason for allowing it- of course, Job had to wait for the ending of the whole thing to see what it was.

Number two, Job understood this fact, and LET God control it.  At the very bottom, when his own wife turned on him, his response was:

Job 2:9  Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die." 
Job 2:10  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. 

"But then", you say, "Job went through that long debate with his friends, and Job was whining for an advocate between himself and God to argue his case.  In the meantime, his buddies were accusing him of some secret sin that caused it all."  This is true.  So number three, if it wasn't under your control, don't take the blame.  Job's friends couldn't grasp the concept that their lives weren't the be-all and end-all of everything.  Job rejected them, understanding, as I said earlier, God is in control.  This didn't mean, though, that he understood WHY the trial was happening.  He longed to talk to God, and ask Him the whys and wherefores of the sorrows he was facing.  Number four, though, he NEVER gave up faith in God:

Job 19:25  For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 
Job 19:26  And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 
Job 19:27  whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! 

Even when Job didn't understand why these things were happening, and why the God who stood so near seemed so far off, he still kept faith that God would redeem him.  But even for all that, there was something of pride in Job, something God needed him to see.  And when he got to the end of himself, and let go of stubborn self-righteousness and self-pity, he saw it:

Job 42:1  Then Job answered the LORD and said: 

Job 42:2  "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 

Job 42:3  'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 

Job 42:4  'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.' 

Job 42:5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 

Job 42:6  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 

So number five, God has a message in the trial- and if you keep listening and stop talking, you will hear it.  But the story seldom ends there.  For Job, it went on:

ob 42:7  After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 

Job 42:8  Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." 

Number six, God ended the trial with a TASK.  Job, who had daily sacrificed for himself and his children, now had his prayer list expanded.  Not by kinsmen, not by fellow faithful, but by "those who had not spoken right of" God.  There may be something you hadn't thought about before, maybe something you couldn't have done before, that God is going to ask of you that comes from the trial.  Because the trial has made you STRONGER, better in some way than you were before.

Finally, Job got a reward.  Does it mean YOU'RE going to get a reward?  Depends on what you're looking for in a reward.  Not everyone gets rewarded in this life.  The Priests that fed David while on the run from Saul got rewarded IN THIS LIFE with their murder.  Do I need to go through the rewards the Apostles got in this life?  Paul certainly never saw this life as the goal...

Php 3:13  Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 

Php 3:14  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.