Lessons From Job – Puzzles From God

One of the things I was able to do growing up as a kid was to play with a lot of puzzles. My mom bought us puzzles as kids. Of course, those really big-sized ones that you can put together in, well, now in just a few seconds. But as a kid, you're starting to learn how puzzles work. You get the ones that had the frame on the outside and the pieces fit in, and then you get the non-frameless ones, the ones that suddenly become harder, and you have to figure out the frame yourself.

And as I continued to grow up, my mom would often have a puzzle out for just on the table.

And I just enjoyed putting the pieces together. One of those things you don't realize you enjoy so much until you're exposed to it, and then you get your own place, and then you're like, I need a puzzle to do and things. And so I've always just naturally enjoyed puzzles. I don't know if it's the solitude. I do enjoy working puzzles by myself, just sitting there, and I can spend hours just putting a puzzle together. I don't know if it's the solitude.

I don't know if it's seeing a picture kind of come to life. I know so often I don't recognize when you get a box, and or even if you open one and you start working on it, the initial what you initially pick up is just part normally just part of the full picture. And often I'll be picking up like if it's a 500 or 1000 piece puzzle, you'll be picking up a piece. And I'm like, oh, that's a bird. And I'm like, I don't even didn't even notice any birds.

But then when you start looking at the photo and the details, you realize, oh, there is a bird on here. And it just watching, for me, just watching some of those details come to life that I didn't initially pick up on. But as you start to put the puzzle together, I can enjoy it. There's only one puzzle that I really disliked. It was a monochrome, so all black and white 1000 piece puzzle. I couldn't even get the outside frame like, you know, you got one edge that straight, right? You know where it goes, it goes someplace.

I couldn't even get the frame finished, because it was just so many pieces that look so similar. And so I think that's probably the only puzzle that we put out as a family to work on that I just ended up just scrapping it. And then I think it went in a yard sale or something. Because I'm like somebody else can have this misery. But I want to use the puzzle as an illustration for a series of sermons.

I believe God is inspiring me to share, because it's a neat illustration. I brought it up with me from the beginning of it. It's a 500 piece puzzle, and these are 18 pieces. You probably can't make out what it is from way back there, but I'll describe it a little bit. It's a, it's like, it looks like it's probably from some sort of either food court or a restaurant, because there's a menu, has some prices of food with some pictures of the food above it.

There's not a lot of other details to make out of it. But the puzzle's coming together. There's pieces that fit, but the picture is blurry right now. It's difficult to understand what is being portrayed here without the cover or without more pieces. If you were to guess what this puzzle is, what the picture fully is, you'd probably be wrong. Unless there was certain there is an actually one clue on this puzzle that would help guide you, but still it's not enough. It's part of a picture, but it's not the full picture.

And this is the story of the book of Job. When we considered what Job knew about the trial that he was going through at the time, it was a puzzle to him. There were a lot of pieces to his story that he didn't understand. It was hard to discern what was going on in his life, why he was battling through the trials that he was battling.

And as he continued to journey with God, some of those pieces began to be revealed, but there was a lot more that were still either missing or just didn't fit with what he thought his life should be. Many of us have read through the book of Job and our personal studies, and at a high level it feels like a story about suffering and loss, then remaining faithful, and then at the end being restored.

That's at a high level what it seems like the book is about. But the reality is the book goes much, much deeper than the surface level lessons. The deeper lessons highlight the limitation of human wisdom. The sovereignty of God is another aspect to his story, and also learning to trust him when life makes absolutely no sense.

I think we can all think about times in our life when something occurred to us that made absolutely zero sense. Some of you are probably going through these issues right now. I'm sure some of our family online is going through this currently, where I can't figure this out. Why am I struggling? What is the purpose of this? Where do I go? What's the next appointment I make with a doctor? What type of doctor? There's a lot of uncertainty, and it's not really making sense. It's like trying to put that puzzle together. It's like that monochrome puzzle. It's too challenging. It's not fully coming together. In an intimate way, the reality is we don't really draw and learn from these lessons and these difficulties we have until we're hard-pressed ourselves. These lessons from Job. We can read through the book like many of us have, and many of us have read through it multiple times. We've probably heard sermons on it. We've read articles. But until we're hard-pressed ourselves, it doesn't come to life like it does when the first time we read through it or when we read through it when we're not struggling. The book of Job isn't really about suffering. That's not the true intent of why God had that captured for us. There's lots of books, even other biblical books, that talk about suffering and the challenges of that. Job is about something much bigger. It's about what we do when God—well, it's about what we do when life doesn't fit our theology, when God's actions seem to contradict his character, and when God is silent. That's what this book really gets down to, because this is what Job was truly struggling with. These ideas when life doesn't fit our theology, when God's actions seem to contradict his behavior and his character, and when God is silent.

Job teaches us that faith isn't having every answer.

Faith is trusting the God who does. And since we're going to work through the book of Job in a series of sermons, I'd like to begin today with some background and answer the who, what, when, where, and theme of Job. So, who was Job? Job, of course, as many of us know, is the main character of the book. We don't know a lot about his background or his family origin, but verse 1 says that he feared God and he shunned evil. So, he knew right from wrong, he knew good from evil, and he chose to follow God and to live an upright life.

Later, we're introduced to his wife and to four of his friends, and later, lastly, God speaks to Job himself. So, what about the what? Who captured the story of Job? This aspect has been debated for a really long time, because there is no author mentioned. Jewish tradition gives credit to Moses, which is entirely possible because the account seems to predate his existence.

Others believe that Job himself wrote the account. Others believe that it was an account that was passed down orally for many generations before finally being written down much later. And then some see it even as a work of Solomon because of the wisdom of life that is captured in the story and even the poetic way that it is written, because the heart of Job, the main passages where he's talking back and forth with his friends, is written more in a poetic nature. And so, some have said, well, it would take a true gift to be able to capture it that way, and so some believe Solomon actually captured the story and wrote it down. But regardless, it is an authentic account of one's life because in Ezekiel 14, God himself, through the prophet Ezekiel, referenced the life of Noah, of Daniel, and of Job. And so God himself spoke of Job as a real person, and so either Job existed or God isn't telling the truth, right? And we know where this falls. This is one of the greatest proofs we have, because there are some arguments in the Bible that this is just a made-up story, that it's just kind of a neat allegory or an example for us to draw on. But the people who don't want to believe in God or people who are challenged with this account could really exist, this is some of their proofs. But yet, we understand from God's own word, from Ezekiel, he referenced Job, so he had to exist. Job is a real person. And James refers to Job in James 5, verse 11, thus again authenticating the real-life story of Job. And so you'll hear your naysayers, you'll hear your arguments, but we go back to Scripture constantly, and we see that Job is referenced by other writers and by God himself. What about when this account took place? If you have a chronological Bible at home, or if you've ever read one, you probably have noticed that it opens up in the book of Genesis, and then usually the second book or somewhere in the book of Genesis, as you're reading through it, it inserts the book of Job. Because by everything we can see, Job lived around the same time as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, based on the description of different life events. The Expositor's Bible commentary states that in its introductory notes, it states this. It seems likely that Job himself lived in the second millennium BC, so this would be somewhere about 2,000 to 1,000 years before Jesus Christ lived. So we're going back in quite ancient history. And shares traditions that are not far removed from that of the Hebrew patriarchs. Job's longevity of 140 years, his position as a man whose wealth was measured in cattle, and who acted as a priest for his family, and the picture of Rovin, Sabian, and Chaldean tribesmen fit the second millennium better than the first. Again, that's from Expositor's Bible.

From our UCG commentary, it says this, Eliphaz's identity as a Temanite dates the story of Job to at least a few generations after Jacob and Esau, most likely to when the Israelites were in Egypt, since as we've seen, it appears to have been written prior to Israel becoming a nation.

And so, if you'd like more information or to dive into this aspect of when did his existence occur, when did this account occur, our UCG commentary goes into multiple different commentaries and trying to dive into this subject and this question to answer it alone. So if you're looking for additional, just something to dive into, our UCG commentary would be a great place to explore.

What about the where? Where did Job's story occur? Right at the beginning of Job 1, verse 1, we see that Job is from the land of Uz, and most scholars believe Uz was located east of the Jordan River near Canaan. Others in a similar fashion believe it was south of Edom, west of Arabia, and extending to the borders of Chaldea, and that's from the companion Bible. In a nutshell, I'll use the Michigander way to do geography and to make a map. If this is Israel or the promise land, and if we have the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spent the most of his time, kind of towards the north, and we have the Jordan River that runs through, and then we get to the Dead Sea, which kind of sits to the southwest of Jerusalem. The area where Uz was located or Edom would have been around this geographical area south of the Dead Sea. It would have been probably east of Egypt and probably west of Saudi Arabia today, maybe around Jordan, that area where Jordan exists today. So somewhere kind of south, southeast of Jerusalem and of the promise land. But later biblical texts like Lamentations link Edom directly to this region, and you can put in your notes Lamentations 4 verse 21, where it says, Rejoice and be glad, O daughters of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. So this is another biblical supporting scripture and passage that Edom and the land of Uz is connected, and so that kind of paints a picture of most likely where this event occurred.

So what about the theme? Why is Job's story recorded for us? The reality is, sometimes we suffer because of no fault of our own. It's the simple truth of it. The sun rises on the good and the bad, and the rain comes on the just and the unjust, and Jesus told us in Matthew 5 and verse 45.

And King Solomon mentioned how time and chance happens to everyone in Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 11, and I'd like to read Ecclesiastes 9 verse 11, but from the New Living Translation. I like how it just paints a picture of life. King Solomon said, I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn't always win the race. The strongest warrior doesn't always win the battle. The wise sometimes goes hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated, they don't always lead successful lives. And then back to the New King James Version, he says, but time and chance happens to them all. We know there are good people who do well for themselves, and there is bad people who do well for themselves, and good people who have really bad things happen to them, and bad people who have really bad things happen to them.

The book of Job serves as an example of bad things happening to a good person. It also serves as an example the thoughts and emotions that we often go through when bad things happen in our lives.

The reality is there are characteristics of God that are only developed through difficult times. That's not a, oh yay moment, right? But when we really consider some different character traits of God Himself that He has placed within mankind, these traits, some of them are only developed through difficulty. When we talk about qualities like perseverance, right? Endurance, dependence, faithfulness, or hopefulness, or even humility, true humility, these characteristics, these qualities, do not develop under any other condition other than through difficulty.

And here's the rub of it all. That list of character traits and qualities I just read, every one of us would say, I would like more of that in my life, right?

To persevere more, to endure more, to be more hopeful, more steadfast on God, more faithful to continue to look to Him, to be more humble because we know where humility falls and ranks with God and the importance of it. Even those who are not Christian, those in society around us, know that traits like perseverance and endurance are good things to have in their lives. You think about some of these athletes or some of these people who have battled cancer and maybe it's a celebrity that you've known or somebody on TV or, like I said, an athlete who has battled injury or battled cancer and overcome and then that made them a better person and they wrote books about it.

They've been on different shows talking about how they are a better person. They're a better athlete. They're a better fill in the blank, whatever it is that they're trying to do with their lives because of their challenge, because of the difficulty. So this is one of those universal principles. Appreciate the sermonette. Kind of one of these things God has built into life that when we go through trials and challenges but yet we keep our focus on God and we keep moving forward, character develops, qualities develop that in real no other way would develop in our lives.

I couldn't help but think about entrepreneurs when considering hardship and overcoming. If you talk to the best entrepreneur you know, someone you look up to or someone you admire, and you evaluate their life or if you were to interview them, they would probably share with you how many times they failed before making it to where they are now. A lot of entrepreneurs have lost everything and have gone broke only to dig deep and to rebuild and to come up, continue pushing their idea. Some had their ideas stolen from them by other companies and they had to totally retool and go a different direction but yet continued forward. And if you talked with them, sometimes they say that nobody else believed in them. They were pretty much abandoned, thought that their ideas were foolish or would never come to much, and most and many have failed multiple times in their journey to become successful. But if you talk to them again about the qualities that are part of their character—endurance, perseverance—not taking no for an answer, right? There's some qualities that they have developed or that they have in their lives that allow them to be successful. Ultimately, in the end of our Christian journey, every one of us must come to trust God in His wisdom more. We must recognize that we have to submit in faith and hope to His will, and we have to place our life in His hands.

I don't know of any other way out of this life than to recognize as a Christian that these traits have to be developed in our lives. Often we see life through such a narrow lens.

I've used that example so many times of looking through a marine telescope or a spyglass—someone being on an ocean ship staring out at the horizon with a marine telescope trying to figure out and orient themselves and figure out what's over the horizon or towards the horizon. But yet, that view is so limited based on whatever they see at the end of their spyglass.

But God sees so much greater. He sees so much broader. And that puzzle—that monochrome puzzle that seems impossible to put together—God knows right where every single piece needs to go.

In our minds, it's fruitless. It's box it back up and put it in the yard sale.

But to God, He sees it can be completed, and it makes perfect sense. I think this is the power of Job's story. I think we can all say we've had similar thoughts that he's going to share in his writings that we've experienced in our own life.

There's a religious teaching that says in this life, God rewards those who do good, and He punishes those who do evil. This principle is called divine retribution or divine justice.

Eastern religion calls this karma, a belief that operates on a similar cause and effect rule for humanity. And diving into this a little bit further, because I was curious, how many churches, how many faiths teach this principle? And a lot do. From an article on h.com, it's an article titled, Reward and Punishment. Some of what I'm about to read I can get behind, but there's some other aspects that I don't think is as simplistic as the writer states. And this is what they shared. Although the main reward for good is not in this world, I'm going to pause for a minute, because they're recognizing that ultimately our reward is in heaven, as Scripture says, that our ultimate reward is not on this earth. And so they start off with acknowledging that. Although the main reward for good is not in this world, God does give some compensation here in order to encourage the righteous by showing them that good is rewarded. The psalmist prayed for such encouragement when he said, show me a sign of favor so that my enemies will realize that you are still with me and be ashamed. And they quoted Psalm, that's from Psalm 86 verse 17. The article goes on, it says, in a similar fashion, God punishes the wicked in the world as a warning to themselves, as well as to others who would be tempted to follow after them. Often, God rewards a person for his good deeds by putting them in a position to be good and to do more good. Sometimes this is accomplished by increasing his material well-being. If a person then makes good use of his worldly gifts, they can be increased until he has the good fortune to attain good both in this world and the next. Again, this type of thought exists commonly around us in many different Christian circles. But again, I don't believe it's as simplistic as the writer states. Some of this I can get behind. We've seen recorded in Scripture where God pours out his blessings on those who follow him, and then there's the cursings on those who don't, right? But it's not always 100% that way in life. God doesn't go around zapping us every single time we sin, does he? Or else we'd be getting zapped left and right. We'd all be yelling out constantly, like, ouch! Even on the Sabbath, we'd probably be, some of us would be shouting out.

He doesn't do that normally. He doesn't just zap us every time that we sin. Sometimes it's time and chance, right? As King Solomon wrote, sometimes it's because of curses that other men have done in this world. We're often polluted by our water, by our air, by our food. There's so many ways. Chemical exposure. We love that new car smell, but then realize all that plastic and all that carpeting is off-gassing, and we're sitting in it. Whether it's a new couch, new carpet, a new building, there's so many things that we're being exposed to, commonly in our society, and I think a lot of disease, a lot of illness, a lot of allergies, a lot of things are from other man's greed. Simple ways, simpler ways to do things. Even, we were talking about a couple weeks ago, even the invention of plastic and how relevant and how common it is in our lives today.

Many of you remember when plastic was only on certain items, but now it's on everything, in our homes. It's covered in plastic. It's shipped in plastic. We store our food in plastic. There's just so much, and then now we're finding out how those microplastics are making their way into our lives and different things. And so, a lot of what we go through is time and chance. It's things that are going on in the society around us. It's a reminder, I think, from God, that this isn't His place. This isn't the end kingdom. This isn't the end goal that He has for us. And so, sometimes bad things happen, even to His people. And this is the example and part of the story of Job, and how do we process it? But the question, does God always reward the good and always punish the evil? Let's allow His Word to answer this question as we begin to work through the book of Job. Let's open up to Job 1 and verse 1. We're not going to get very far today in the story and book of Job, and we're not going to go scripture by scripture throughout all of it. It's 42 chapters, and if that was the case, we'd probably be here for a really long time over a series of sermons. But I'd like to start off right at the beginning. Job 1 and verse 1.

Job 1 and verse 1. It says, There was a man in the land of Oz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. That's Paul's right here with this aspect of blameless and upright. Was he perfect? He wasn't perfect. Other scriptures will show us that no man's apart from Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. But blameless and upright is what most translations use to describe Job here. The easy-to-read version says he was a good and honest man.

The King James version says perfect and upright. And the New Living Translation says that he was blameless, a man of complete integrity. So this was someone who knew God, someone who walked with God, someone who God knew himself. He wasn't perfect. Nobody has been perfect, as we see in King Solomon Ronan, Ecclesiastes 7, verse 20. And even Paul references this concept in Romans 3, 23. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But this is someone who, as a descendant of Abraham and Isaac, probably was taught through his family members about God. What he knew and the depth of his knowledge, we're not completely sure. But for him to be blameless and upright, and these are God's words, he had to be someone who knew God, someone who knew his way, someone who believed in him, someone who followed his ways to the best of his ability and knowledge, and that in turn God knew him and viewed him as someone who was following him. And so he had this understanding, he had this reputation for being a God-fearing person. And going on with more description, verse 2, and he had seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also, his possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all people of the East. And so he's extremely wealthy, extremely known for his wealth and possessions. Verse 4, and his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 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 mornings and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and curse God in their hearts. Thus Job did regularly. So we know that Job had a personal relationship with God, and he understood his teachings and his expectations. And he was an example, again, of a God-fearing man and his family as he offered these sacrifices and as he lived his life.

And then we come to what is often one of the most interesting and talked about passages that has sparked conversation and questions about how does God work in the third heaven and his interaction and his conversations with Satan, because we see here, recorded, a conversation between Satan and God. Verse 6, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come?

So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it. Diving into this passage, it opens up a lot of questions. Where did this event occur? Who are these sons of God? Is this a common thing that occurs? And some of these answers, we just don't know from Scripture. But the sons of God obviously are a reference to the angelic realm. Many times when we see sons of God reference, it is of the angels. Even later on, you can put in your notes Job 38, verse 4. Starting in verse 4, it says where God is talking now with Job, and he says, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone? And then he references the sons of God saying, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And so he's saying, mankind didn't even exist when I did all these things. And the angelic realm was there rejoicing with me. And so obviously, this reference to the sons of God here in verse 6 is the angelic realm and the spirit realm, not mankind or anything like that.

But in this instance, God permitted Satan to be among them. And in this example, God is asking a rhetorical question because obviously, he's all-knowing. He knows where Satan's at. He knows what he's up to. He knows his language and his accusations and all these things. But there's probably a lot more to this conversation than we have recorded just simply in verse 7. We know from other passages that our adversary is the accuser of the brethren. We know that he hates mankind. He hates this creation that God has made. And we know that he constantly accuses before God day and night God's people, as it states in Revelation 12 and verse 10. So we can maybe read between the lines here a little bit. Satan's probably there in God's presence or in conversation, probably going down a list of people who have sinned. Hey, here's this guy who claims to follow you, and this is his sins. And here's this guy, and here's this guy. He's probably going through the accusations over and over just to be that horrible noise in God's ear, as we know he often is. And in this moment, God responds in verse 8, and he says, then 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, one who fears God and shuns evil? As we looked at already, it seems clear that it would have been difficult for Satan to come up with an accusation, to come up with something to blame Job for because of his relationship and his being an upright man and a blameless man before God.

And so Satan answers the Lord in verse 9 and says, Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions of increase in the land? But he says, But now stretch out your hand. Notice what Satan is trying to get God to do. Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. We know that Satan, as he tempted Jesus in the wilderness multiple times, this is not the first time probably that he ever tempted God. I think this is one of those times where he says, Why don't you, God, hurt Job? Why don't you do something to his person and see if he doesn't curse you? And notice as he tempts God, of course, God doesn't fall into this trap. Verse 12, And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not lay a hand on his person. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

We can take great comfort knowing that Satan is limited in his ability to hurt and to inflict harm and damage into mankind's lives. If he was not limited, he would destroy us all. He'd give us all cancer, he'd create accidents, he would do whatever he could instantly to just pretty much end all of our lives. Because that's his ultimate goal, is to just separate, destroy, kill, to just do so much damage. But God has not given him the authority and the power to do that.

But what many find very disturbing is that God would allow Satan to hurt Job in the way that he permitted. This is, again, where we see life through such a narrow lens, often in life.

And do not think nor understand the things of God fully. Could God give Satan access to our life today? Obviously, he could, if he chose to. But personally, I think this is a rather unique example that we have recorded in Scripture for us. Now, this is my opinion on it. You can take it for what it's worth. But I don't believe God allows Satan a ton of access to God's people.

We see so many times where God is the protector. He's the shepherd. He's the one that looks after us and guides us and protects us from Satan and his wrath and his evil. Often, I'll pray that God will put a dome of protection over me and my household, keeping Satan far away. And his fiery arrows hit that dome and bounce away. And I've seen time and time again where God has provided these ways. I really don't think that we have to be fearful of God randomly giving Satan access to our lives. I think this is a very rare occurrence of rather unique testing that God allowed here for Satan. Satan goes through life analyzing our decisions, and he knows why a lot of people trust God, recognizing that many believe and follow God when things are going well. Adversity destroys the superficial faith, though. Ultimately, Satan thought that he would get the upper hand in this challenge with God, but as God always does, he wins in the end. Because in the end, spoiler alert, Job is refined and he grows in his relationship with God. There is a purpose to why God permitted Satan to have access to Job. And there's a lot that we can draw from these passages as we continue to explore this. But as we continue on, we get to a really hard part of this story, and one that I know hurts each of our hearts to just even read through and to put ourselves in Job's shoes. But this is the story. Verse 13, now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them. When the Sabians raided them and took them away, indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another also came up and said, 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. And while still speaking, another also came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels, and took them away, yes, and have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you. And if it wasn't bad enough, we get to the worst part of this. And while he was still speaking, another also came and said, your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.

This passage, we can't read it without putting ourselves in his shoes and realizing the loss that one person suffered in such a short amount of time. What that would do to your heart, what that would do to your next moments of life. Where do you go from here? What do you do?

What do we see that Job did? It says in verse 20, Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head, all signs of mourning.

And he fell to the ground, and he worshiped.

It's a tremendous example that Job, in his faith, and this is how we know he was blameless and upright before God because of the way that he handled the worst day of his life.

And he said, Naked, I came from my mother's womb, and, Naked, I shall return there.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And all of this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. And again, we can't read through this without putting ourselves in his shoes and recognizing the weightiness of all that just occurred.

But Job's vision wasn't on just the things of this earth.

He recognized that he came into this earth, owing God nothing, or deserving, actually, nothing from God. He came in unable to care for himself, unable to clothe himself or feed himself. And he says, we're going to go out of this world the same way. We can't take our toys, we can't take our money, our wealth, our animals, our family with us when we die.

He got the full picture of what life is about. But in this moment, it is equally unexplainable how he was driven to worship God, to praise, to bless God.

I'm not here to speak negatively or to criticize anyone, but sometimes when we go through really difficult things of life, we feel naturally separated from God. And when we feel separated from God, we tend to separate ourselves from fellowship, from our congregation.

We may even back off on our Bible study, back off on our prayer. And again, I'm not here to be like, shame on everybody who does that, because you know what? I've done that.

When we consider sometimes the weightiness of life, the emotional toil it takes, the confusion that it can even bring into our lives, I think a lot of us have been there when these things have happened. But being present with God and his people is right where we need to be when life just closes in, when life we're trying to put together that monochrome puzzle that makes absolutely no sense. As we looked at recently in some previous sermons, Jesus is the great physician. He's the one that heals and fixes the broken.

And I'm not sure I fully understood the way that he works, especially here within our fellowship and our congregation, until I had one of these wake-up moments in my own life. Many of you before we moved here, and Laura had a lot of different health trials that she was going through. And I remember there being a series of them that hit one right after the other with what felt like very little in between. And any of us who've supported loved ones through health trials and have walked alongside somebody, we see the toil it takes on them and just the stress and the damage it does to their bodies or mentally. And it's oppressive. And we want to take that away from them, but we can't. And so we journey with them on their journey and their hardship of life.

And walking alongside Laura and seeing this, I would see her kind of get a reprieve from one trial and then it seemed like the next one hit. And I'm like, okay. And then she gets goes through that and then she got a little bit of reprieve. And then I remember another one hitting like back to back to back. It seemed it was it literally was. And I remember thinking in my heart, like, she can't take this much. Like, this is unfair. Those words came out of my thoughts, my mouth. This is too much. You're going to break her, is how I felt inside. Like, at some point, everybody has a breaking point, right? And I felt like because someone I love and care about so much that she was being pressed to that point. And none of us want to see someone break, right?

And I remember after this third wave of just boom, boom, boom, and looking at life through my my narrow lens, right? I remember telling Laura one Sabbath morning, I don't want to go to church today. I'm not proud of it. I'm not. And it was the wrong thing. I was, I was in a bad spot. Bad attitude in that moment. Motions all over the place.

Life all over the place. We've got Kelsey. She was probably 10, 8. No, she was probably 8.

And so, like, you're as a healthy supportive spouse, you're trying to keep things together and keep things moving forward. And I told her, I don't want to go to church today. I just don't feel like going. And I've never, I don't think I've ever said that before. And I don't think I've said it since. But what's interesting is I was on sound that day. That was my duty at church. And I didn't want to let anybody down and have to call somebody and say, you need to cover. I'm not coming today. So I went. I was not in a good mood. But what I didn't know is God knew and was going ahead of and before me in ways that I could never have even thought. So I'm setting up sound, getting things plugged in and not happy to be there. And a friend walks up. And out of everybody that God could have sent, he sent a friend who has supported his wife through some serious health issues, ongoing health issues. And he was the healthy spouse, a husband, supporting his wife through things. And he just comes up, as any of us do on the Sabbath, and say, Hey, how are you doing?

And I said, You know what? I'm doing really bad. And I let it out. And I just started going on about this and this and this and how I feel and how I'm struggling. And it's I don't see how this is fair or right with God. And he just stood there and he listened. And he nodded because he got it.

He's been exact same shoes as close as most anybody could be to my shoes. And he understood.

And I felt a little bit better as I continued to just let it out and to just express it to somebody who totally got me. And we finished up the conversation and he said he'd pray and he totally got it and pray for me. And we finished it up and he went on his way. And this is still before church. And I went back to setting up sound, feeling a little bit better, but still not where I needed to be. You know what God did? He sent a second guy to me who supported his wife through cancer trials. And this guy comes up, the second gentleman comes up with the same question that the first one did. Same attitude, same... had no idea what he's walking into and says, hey, how was your week? And I said, you know what? And I go into it again. But this time with a little bit less frustration, a little bit less pointed words, I still let him know the struggle. I let him know everything I was going through and the difficulty that we were having and how much it hurt me to see Laura struggling again with like another, what I felt like was just too much.

He got me. He had supported his wife through cancer. Everything that I'm saying he had also dealt with. And he listened, nodded his head, said he'd be praying about it. And he finished, we finished up our conversation and he laughed as well. And I continued setting up sound and we went on to had her Sabbath. God sent two people that I needed to talk with that day. And not only did he send two people, he sent probably the two best people out of 150 people that he that could have helped me that day. It didn't fix the problem, right? It didn't just, Laura's health issues didn't just go away. But on that Sabbath, God brought healing into my heart because of my presence to be there. This is where it's like I'm looking through my lens and saying, I don't want to be here today. This is not a good place for me to be. I need a Sabbath off. And again, I'm not critical because you know what? I've been there. I was ready to take that Sabbath off. But I think God, whether he set the sound schedule so that I was on that day knowing what would happen, but he took me to church so that I could receive help and healing. And this is the power of what this community, this home does for us. And sometimes we're the Mike Phelps's that don't want to be here, but we're just dragging ourselves forward. Even unknown, like I don't know why I'm going today, but God knows. And then he says, I'm going to hope, whether it's a sermon, whether it's something else, a conversation, whether it's the perfect person out of 150 that he could send forward, he does. But maybe we're those two gentlemen that God sent to me.

Maybe we woke up today with one of the best nights of sleep that we've had in a long time, and we're excited to come to church today, and we have no idea how God's going to use us.

Those two gentlemen had no idea the impact that they were going to have in my life.

They just didn't. They came to church, and they walked up blinded and got blindsided when they asked a beautiful question, how are you doing?

And I said, you know what? Let me tell you how bad I'm doing.

That's okay. That's okay. Sometimes we're on that side of it, right? We walk up to somebody, but when that happens, don't run away. Don't feel awkward. Don't be like, oh no.

Praise God that He is sending that person, someone that they feel comfortable enough to open up to. Because had God not sent those two husbands, the healthy husbands, supporting their unhealthy wives going through their trials, I don't think I would have opened up the same, right? Because I felt safe in that moment. I felt two people who got me.

Right? So if you're somebody that someone else trusts to just let it out, even if it's ugly, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's like, oh no, I'm going to be here for a while.

Praise God, because He's using you to help another brother or sister in their time when maybe they didn't want to be at church that day. This is the way that God works. He wants this house to be a house of help and healing. And He's called each of us to be these instruments at time, a tool in His hand to bring this assistance to another one of our brothers and sisters.

This is why, again, I'm not going to be negative about, like, hey, look how Job handled the situation of losing everything in his life, and he praised God, and he worshiped Him. So yeah, we should all be at church every week, and this is a good attitude. I get it. This is an extreme, beautiful example, and it's one that we should strive for. But the reality is we're not always in Job's mindset, right? But it's one that God wants us to develop and one that He wants us to continue to reshape and to rehone in our lives. Because as we continue on, this isn't the end of the hardship Job faces. Notice we're not going to get all the way through chapter two. We're going to read about half of it. But notice how it becomes even more important to us to be more intimate to his wife, this trial. Job 2, verse 1, again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. So similar story to the beginning. And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? And Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and from on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it. And so it's that same rhetorical question. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there's none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him, destroy him without a cause. So Satan answered the Lord and said, Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his wife. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Talking about hitting a man or a woman when he's down, right? These boils would have, we're not sure exactly of the type of disease. There were many different skin diseases that were circulating and were prevalent at the time of Job, and many with very little or no cure, no help, medically for. And when we consider that God gave Job, Satan access to Job's wife, and if Satan now has access, he's not going to just gently bring a trial onto Job, right? He's going to go to the nth degree, whatever is the most that he can inflict on someone.

He can't take his life, but what is the most painful and emotionally disturbing? What is one that could actually rattle Job to the point that he would curse God, right? And so, in this instance, it was a skin disease, probably boils something similar. From the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. He can't lay his head on the ground or on a pillow to find comfort because of the pain.

He can't walk around and move much because of the pain. He's laying on his side in pain. He stands in pain. He kneels in pain. Everything is excruciating. And we know when we're in pain, we know when we're struggling, then there comes the emotional aspect, the tiredness, the where do we go from here? Is this going to last forever? Is this going to go away?

This is the situation we find Job. Verse 8 says, And he took for himself a pot-shirt, or probably a piece of broken pottery, with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die. I think we read this and we're like, Shoo! I'm glad I'm not married to that woman. But hang on a second.

Let's put ourselves in her shoes as well. Here's someone who has watched her husband live a good life. Be blessed, it seems, from God to hold to his integrity, to do the right thing at the right time. God says he's blameless and upright. His wife sees him as blameless and upright, and now she's watching him go through this horrendous trial. She's the healthy one here, watching her husband go through a horrible trial. And she has suffered loss. Her family? I mean, I can't even go there. I can't even let my mind go there. She's wondering, where's our food going to come from? I mean, all the prosperity, the money, everything that we had and we based our life around is gone.

She is struggling herself, trying to figure out up from down, day from night, forward to backwards, how can I support my husband, while she herself is grieving tremendously.

And so, let's not be unfair. I've read through this, I don't know, countless times, being like, wow, what a woman. She is pressed further than any of us have been pressed, I think. If not, this is right up against the limit of what your trials have been and the difficulties you've gone. But we see Job's steadfastness towards God in his response. He says, but he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. He didn't call her foolish. He just said, this attitude is as the foolish women act and behave. He's like, you're better than this. He goes, shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity? And in all of this, Job did not sin with his lips. In all of this, Job remained faithful in his relationship with God, and he doesn't sin. It's just remarkable.

Faith based on rewards or prosperity is hollow faith. I want us to think about that for a minute. If we are living this way of life for the blessings and rewards that we get from God, and we're just stacking the rewards and the blessings on top of each other and praising him and thankful for them and saying, this is why I keep the Sabbath and why I believe in God and do all these things, that's a shell of a real faith. That's hollow. What are you going to do when the blessings suddenly slow down or disappear? What are you going to do when things get hard?

Are you going to have the fortitude within?

Job's faith was based on confidence that God's ultimate purpose will come to pass.

Job was a model of trust and obedience to God, yet God permitted Satan to attack him in an especially harsh manner.

This is where we'll stop today, but before leaving, I want to point out something else that could easily be missed, something that I think I've missed many times reading through this account. There's obviously no doubt we all put ourselves in Job's shoes when we read through this account and consider our own lives and consider how we would respond or how our heart would hurt to lose and to suffer like he did. We hurt and we ache with Job, but we also know something that Job didn't know. Job only knew about what had directly happened to him on that one day that he woke up and everything was ripped away from him. He woke up probably praying to God and worshiping God. He woke up thinking this is going to be another good day, the sun's shining, looks like we're going to be okay today. And then in a moment, everything was was ripped out from underneath him, and he has to start processing this. That's what Job had. That's what he realized and what was going on with him. He had no idea about the cause. He had no idea the source of all this occurring in his life. He had no idea the discussion that had occurred in the spiritual realm between Satan and God. You and I, we get to see into part of the story that Job did not get to see.

The story opens in conversations between God and our adversary, and Job never saw this and never had any idea it was occurring. Does that change how we look at the story a little bit? It impacted me and changed the way that I look at it, because the reality is, God, we read through this and we're like, okay, we can start putting the pieces together and making sense of Job's trial right from the get-go. He had none of that. He had a monochrome puzzle that made no sense. Going back to our opening illustration using a puzzle, I have another illustration. I've got three puzzles here.

They're all different. Three different puzzles. They're all, I think, 500-piece puzzles.

I've got a project for you. I'm going to combine all of these together into one box.

Then I'm going to give you the puzzle and ask you to put it together.

I'm not going to give you a picture either.

Thomasito, you ready for the challenge?

Thomasito is probably the only one with the patience to probably work through this.

Thomasito, how hard would that be if you had no idea what I had just done?

I just gave you a puzzle to put together. I said, because I know you love puzzles. And I said, here's a puzzle. You're like, okay, cool. I'll work on it this week. But I didn't tell you. I just mixed three puzzles together. How long would it take you to realize that there's two puzzles in the box? Oh, wait, three? My pastor's a madman, right? That's probably what you guys would be thinking. Who would do that to somebody and not give them a picture of even what they're trying to go for? This is the story of Job.

This is a lot of your stories over the years, too.

This is almost an impossible task alone, right? This is a frustrating task.

Who would do that to someone else? Who would challenge somebody to that degree and make their life that miserable? It's a story that we get to continue to dive into more and more as we explore these next few weeks.

This is sometimes that exact scenario we find ourselves in.

Going through life with a ton of puzzle pieces, not able to figure out which one goes with which, and not even knowing what goal we're working towards.

This is where he found himself at the beginning of this book, which we'll continue to explore in future messages. I'll leave you with one other thing to consider until we come back together, and I share the second part of this series. Consider a time when you encountered tremendous difficulty, and how did you react to that?

Think about it. Did you act and have anger towards God? Did you have anger towards maybe others who are part of the problem, part of the challenge that created this scenario for you?

Did you resign or give up hope? Did you fall into denial, maybe pretending that nothing was wrong?

Maybe it was none of these, but how did you respond?

Consider these questions and the thoughts they evoke until we get together the next time.