Have You Considered?

The title of today's sermon is, Have You Considered? H-Y-C. Have you considered? Many people and theologians correlate the story of Job. So we talked about it last week. It's a continuation. You correlate the story of Job with self-righteousness. I have read, grew up in the church for many years. That's a story I would hear and read even a couple books about it. But I'd like to look at that story today because could it be true that it is about self-righteousness and that Job was a self-righteous person or could it be or would you consider it was something else?

So many times, as I've read the Bible and you have too, gone through chapter after chapter and we find it's like an onion. The more you read it, the more you peel back, the more we see different aspects of God's Word laid out in those pages. So have you considered Job's issue was something else other than righteousness? I'd like to look at that today. We touched on it last week, but before Brother Dale could jump in and steal my sermon, I cut him off.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be up here very long today. I would have to call Andy and say carry the book. But I'd like to go there in Job. If you will go with me, Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1 verse 8 as we look at this because I read from New King James Version because there's a lot here in just a few words. Job chapter 1 verse 8 said, Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him in the entire earth. A blameless and upright man, one who fears God, shuns evil, or literally turns away from evil.

A very righteous man. Look at that. A blameless man. That says a great deal. Blameless means without guilt. It also mentions a few men in the Old Testament who were called blameless. One being Noah. Noah says was blameless. God instructed Abraham to become what? Perfect. Another translation for blameless. He uses the word upright. I think most of us understand what upright means.

And here God is an upright man. So God is explaining to Satan and puts him on display. Holds him up above all men on earth. What's his background? Do we know on lock? What do you know? Where's he from? What tribe is he from? What nationality is he? What about him? Do you know? I don't because it's not here. We don't know anything about the man, but yet we know everything, don't we? Because God says he's blameless. All men on earth. He's upright. And then he says what? Fears. Fears. He fears God. And shun's evil.

But he fears. But how does he fear? Look at that today because I think it says a lot about us. Because I think all of us would like to be held up by God. I don't know if we want to say pick me, pick me. Here, Satan. Here. Here it is. Here's Diane. Here. Here, look at it. Well, let's go to Job chapter 3. Job chapter 3. Interesting words here.

Because we know in chapter finish one, two, we see what happens to Job. We see his family killed. Everything that livestock, everything he owns. I mean, it's just and then boils all this stuff. The worst you could dream of happening to you has happened. And then we come to chapter 3, verse 25 from the New King James. This is what Job said. As a matter of fact, this is his first speech. For the thing I greatly feared. What did he say, feared?

For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. So, he had a fear from what we read here that bad stuff could happen. Haven't you had a nightmare like that? I have. I've lost sleep. Woke up in the middle of the night on something that I feared was going to happen. Now, I haven't had those in a long time, but I have had those. For I greatly, for what the thing, thing, well, many things, for the thing I greatly feared has come upon me and what I dreaded has happened to me. Many of us, we're okay if we have something happen to us. But strike our family.

You can get to us, can't you? Things happen to our family. With Job.

They're gone. The family's gone.

Wow. And then, what he had. The thing that made Job, Job. He was wealthy. He was incredible. Just go back to the last chapter and see what God gave him. And you realize he had it on for, if God gave him more, but this is what he feared. Now, we all have fears. Anybody that says they don't have fear, you need to check that out again.

I worked for a guy that was a Green Beret. Deonam. And I asked him because he had been shot a couple of times and he, Purple Heart, various things. I said, when you had to do these things, and he told me, you know, weren't you scared? He said, scared to death. But I did it anyway. That's the way I was trained. So fear is something we all have, but we have to learn to control it. God said he did not give us the spirit of what? Fear, but a power, love, and a sound mind. But here we see maybe a chink in Job's armor, because he's saying that God isn't saying this. Satan isn't saying this. He's saying it. For what I dreaded has happened to me. I lost my family. I lost my cattle, my sheep, my livestock.

Talking to you, Connie. You can understand that. Not on the farm. Lost it. So he lost all of his wealth. He even lost his servants, it said. Basically everything he knew. Gone. Gone. What about us? What if we lost some money? What if we lost everything we had? It was gone in one day. You go to the bank, you go 401k, you even hid some gold under the house, and it's all gone.

How would you feel? Maybe you, they even came and took your car. They took your car, and now you've got no way to go, but the bus. You don't have any money.

Does that make you think? I mean, this is a situation. These are things that Job feared, and we should be able to relate to them. Because I think if it really hit home to us, we'd be thinking about that.

And then, what else happened?

He got sick. I struck with boils. I don't know if you've ever had a boil. Boy, I had just a couple of my life, one at a time, and I was miserable. The time you moved, oh, pain. He had them all over his body, from head to toe. I had to lay in ashes to get some relief, so nothing would put pressure. I'm sure he thought he was going to die. What about us?

What do we fear? Do we fear? Ending up there?

Or do we fear going there and then sending us home says, nothing we can do for you? And we're laying at home. Are there things we dread? It's like the old country song when I was growing up. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

Only they'd like to determine how they go out in life.

But we don't have a call, but people fear. I have a man I'm working with now who fears death. And he may be closer than both of us thought.

But he's scared. He's afraid. He fears. Main reasons is he's hadn't got his life right with God. It's a prodigal son that's never come back home.

Let's go to Job 9. I don't have this on the PowerPoint, but pointing this out to me the other day when I was talking about this. Job 9.

Verse 25. Let's see. Verse 28. Job said, I am afraid of all my sufferings. He's an honest man, isn't he? He's willing to admit what he's afraid of.

And he says, all my sufferings. And verse 34. Let him, God, take his rod away from me, and do not let dread of him, God, terrify me. Are you terrified of God?

Then I should speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me. Boy! All of a sudden, we're beginning to see things. Dread.

A strong word, isn't it?

Are there things you dread? Are there things you dread because you fear God's not in control?

That God can't handle it? That God's lost a little control? That God's taken his hands off? Is that possible?

I'm not saying if it's possible for God, is it possible that we could get that way? Because we're looking at a case here, aren't we? We're a man of God. A man of God. Has lost his faith.

Haven't we? In some degree or another? At one time or another, lost faith? Where are you?

Can't you hear me?

You see that example quite a few times in Scripture, don't you? A bunch of men and women of God. Are we seeing that here?

Go back to Job 1. If you will. Job 1. Let's look at this. Because so many people say, well, he was self-righteous. That was his problem. That's why God worked on this. That's why God allowed this. Well, you know, he had to wake him up. Really? Let's look at Job 1. Here we are at the scene of the crime here because Satan's not come on to the scene yet here, has he? Uh-uh. So God is telling a story about Job, and he tells about it. Then he comes down to verse 5 that I find very, very interesting. New King James Version. So it was when the days of feasting had run their course because he had 10 kids, seven boys and three girls. That Job would send and sanctify them. Because he says his sons had a feast in their house. What were they doing? I've heard conjecture. Don't really care what they were doing. Okay? That's not my job to read between the lines. Okay? But so it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them. And he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. Ten, maybe more. Could have grandkids. Could have anything. For Job said, it may be. It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did regularly. Wait a minute. They may? They might? Might have? What are we looking at? Sounds like paranoia. He's paranoid that his children may have sinned. May have cursed God in some way, shape, or form.

Can I? Can I pray for my brothers and sisters and say, God, I need you. Oh, yes. They might have done something. I don't know. I wasn't there. But in case they did, forgive them. Does that solve the problem? No? But it says they might or they may be.

Sounds like somebody's awfully worried. Haven't you met people that way? It's worried to death. Worried to death that something might happen. Maybe it happened. Does God want us to be that way? Do we need to worry? Especially when we're in a covenant relationship with God? Do we need to worry that, well, you know, tomorrow morning I might get sick. I'm not going to be able to go to sleep tonight because I might get sick in the morning. I met a customer one time when I drove out to her house and she said, pulled in the driveway, no car there. She couldn't drive a car. And she said she didn't know why, but about 10 years before she was driving down the road and she just realized that any of the car she was meeting could go over and hit her in the middle, come over to her lane and kill her. And she said, I went back home. I sold the car and never drove again. She said it could happen.

Paranoia. I felt sorry for her because she was chained by this fear. Brother, we can't be chained by fear. Can we? We can't be that way because we're about to see how this comes in, but I'd like you to look at a word. I'd like you to look at a word because it's a big word. It's a Hebrew word. It's pronounced Yare. Yare. Yare. Yare. Yare. It's the word fear. It's translated from Yare is the word fear. Now, isn't it amazing as we look at that, that Yare, in the Old Testament, has two meanings. Okay? Same word, two meanings. How can you tell the difference between the two meanings? Ah, very good!

It's context. How about us? You know, our English language, we think about the Hebrew. Our English language has many words like that. Right? One of the simple words is what? Bat. Okay? And that's what I think of, hmm? Until you've had a bat fly in your hair. Spelled the same way, but they're totally different. We're different meaning, different words, right? That's what Yare is. And that's why when we read the word fear, we have to look at the context. That's what I want to do here, because it helps tell it. We've just looked at Yare in this context of Job. Well, here it is. Here's the two. One means afraid and the other means reverence. There's a big difference there, isn't there? I grew up, when I was younger, I feared my father because he would beat my bat if I did something wrong. He had a belt, favorite one. It could come off like Superman. You know? I'd be in trouble. I feared him. But you know what happened over the years when I became an adult and everything else? It was no longer, I wasn't afraid of him. I honored him, but I revered him. That's our relationship with God, isn't it? When we first go, we first find out, oh, I can't do this because he's going to, you know, something could happen. It's a little bit immaturity there, isn't it? But you don't know. We do it because that's the process. This is a process that Job is learning from God. This is because later on, my father, I had reverence for him. I didn't do things because I was afraid of him. I did things because I wanted to show him honor. I wanted our name to have honor. And what about this? With God.

God wanted lot to have reverence. There's a process. Afraid of reverence.

Did it happen? Yes. It happened over time. And I think it's very, very important for us to grow spiritually and become spiritually mature, that we kind of don't say, oh, God can get me for this. Oops! I better go pray because I just did that.

We should be a little past that, shouldn't we? Doesn't mean we don't repent, but it should be that we... God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did that. Remember apologizing to my father when he was 60 years old because of something that I said that I shouldn't have said. I wasn't because I was afraid he's going to pull out his belt with me. It's because I thought I might have hurt his feelings. And I want to hold him up here. And we need to hold God up here. Mature Christians are here. Because hopefully we've learned over the years there's penalties for our sin, but thankfully somebody paid for our sins, but we still have a process. It's not that we don't have to pray anymore, but we should pray in a different manner than we did 30, 40 years ago.

Sorry. God, I know better. I can do better than that. But I can bring a lot more honor than dishonor to your name. Than what I did yesterday. I need your help, though. Let's go. So I finish this up. Look at my time. Let's go to Job. Let's stay in Job. Let's go to chapter 38, but I'm going to read this from the New Living Translation, since I like how it's translated here. Because after Job goes through all this, then God calls Job in. After all this discussion, all these three friends that were some were friends and some were looking to God. Yes, yes, yes! This little rich boy got it. His son. He's coming to him. Happens sometimes, doesn't he? But here, chapter 38, verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. After Job had been going through all of his stuff and griped and complained and whatever you wanted to say about that, and how, you know, woe is me. And he said, who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them so you didn't have faith in me. You worried about stuff when I own all the stuff?

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? Who? What supports its foundation and who laid its cornerstone? And God's saying, I can do all of this stuff. I laid out everything. I control everything. I am everything. I'm omniscient. I'm omnipotent. I'm sovereign. I've got it all. Why are you worried about that? I can do all this, but I cannot take care of you, Job.

Hmm. You know what I said?

God, I've doubted you. Just like you. It's time I stopped doubting you. That's what it said to me. Because I'll worry about the littlest things. I'll worry about some big things. I'll worry about what's going on in this island and this island and this life. They're his people! He's got this. Yeah, I'll sit there and I'll get up in the middle of the night or I'll have this and it's like, oh, man, God, I don't know. How silly. I found myself probably feeling like Job after God explained it. And read chapter 38. Read chapter 38. 38, he talks about the whole universe, the whole world. How Scott's got all this. And then chapter 39, he goes into everything on earth. Every creature, every thing that exists explains it all to Job. And thankfully, what happens, he comes over to chapter 42. Chapter 42.

Chapter 42. What is this all relating to? Faith. Faith, isn't it? You know my problem. I don't like faith. I like total faith. It's something I personally have to work on. How many of us am I alone? Now we know God's in trouble. But this is this thing's too small for him. I'm supposed to handle this. Or if I ever thought, well, God's not going to get involved. I got myself into it. I got to get myself out of it. I think Job came and really realized. This increased his faith. Going through things should increase your faith. Even the small things when God says yes and he answers every prayer, right? I said that before. He answers every single one of our prayers. Yes, no, or not yet. Every one of them. Am I ready to say, okay, I understand. I got to let you have that. I didn't understand Shawn Cordelue. Shawn was 13 years younger than I. Great young guy.

But God's got that. I can't worry about it. You know, we can ask God. I keep asking him why.

Dwight Harrison. Threw me for a loop.

Shook my faith. I have to tell you, as his pastor, his friend, and loved the guy, shook my faith. I went to God more than I should have.

Brethren, he's going to take care of us. No matter what, as Andy's talking about, the future is certain. God's got the future. Let's go to 42. Wrap this up. Chapter 42. Verse 1, then Job answered the Lord after all these things, and he said in verse 2, what I know that you can do everything. I know that you can do everything. This study has personally helped me. Helped me in my ministry. Helped me in my personal life. Helped me in my issues that I deal with. Because now I have to tell God, I know you can do everything. Verse 5. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. What have I had to repent for? Lack of total faith.

In a God that has and controls everything. So with me, maybe there was some self-righteousness, but what I saw was a lack of faith. I just have to look in the mirror and say, me too.