Job, A Marked Man

And good afternoon. Pleasure to again be able to declare God's Word to end our day in worship with Job chapter 1 verses 1 through 5 and I'll start by reading and then we'll jump right into the Proclamation of the first few verses of this great book.

So if you please stand For the reading of Job chapter 1 I'll read from verses 1 through 11. There was a man in the land of ooze whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright One who feared God and turned away from evil.

There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He possessed seven thousand sheep 3 ,000 camels 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female donkeys and very many servants so that this man was the greatest of all the people of East.

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day and They would send and invite the three of their three sisters and eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course Job would send and consecrate them and he would rise early in the morning.

And offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said it may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.

The Lord said to Satan from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. And 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 Who fears God and turns away from evil?

Then Satan answered the Lord and said does Job fear God for no reason. Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land.

But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and it will curse you to your face. Bless the reading now the proclamation was word. Please be seated. So thus opens the book of Job. The author of this book has remained beyond the reach of all kinds of scholarly research.

The most credible estimates of his lifetime would place him somewhere between Abraham and Moses. But closer to the former than the latter. He lived closer to Abraham than Moses, but we can't be sure quite how close.

We know he lived east of the Jordan River as he will describe and the dialogues to come. Maybe in Edom or close to Edom in the greater Mesopotamian area where Abraham came from. We know that he would live to be a hundred and forty years old.

We know that he started with seven sons three daughters as I just read to you. And we know because most of us know the story that he would soon lose those sons and daughters. And all the cattle and all the wealth that he had that was so enumerated a moment ago.

You know interestingly the only family names we have about Job are Job himself and his three daughters. But not the three daughters who are extant at the beginning of the book. The three daughters who?

Come at the end of the book with several more sons. But the only names we have and I'm not gonna make anything of this other than to point it out to you because I just found It really interesting is not the names of his sons.

Former or latter sons nor the name of his wife. Just his three daughters. I Don't quite know what to make of that if we make this a series and we get to the end. Lord willing some scholar will guide me in that direction.

Job's only mentioned in the New Testament is in James 5 11. The patience of Job during trial is commended to us. Look to Job follow his example sort of a moralistic thing there. But from the scriptures James 5 11 and outside of the New Testament in the Old Testament He's only mentioned twice.

He's mentioned two times both times in the Ezekiel's prophecy and both times He's mentioned by God and both times his name is in company with Noah and Daniel. And God says even if these three Job and Noah and Daniel were before me still I would Condemn and destroy and bring into exile the rest of Judah my words there so we know something of The man's character before man and God's which I just read to you.

What we know of his personality his traits. We can glean from the discourses in the narrative and some the discourses of follow and then some of the narratives that we have. One other thing we know about Job.

This is the title of this message to is that Job was a marked man. He was a marked man. And we know that Jesus said that all of God's children are going to suffer persecution and tribulation in this world and for most of us true as that is is True in sort of a general sense as we mourn the world around us and the iniquity in the sin that the world so enjoys and we know displeases God and therefore displeases us and Sometimes it comes at us a little bit more directly but few of us Will ever have the specific kind of suffering that Job is about to go through for Job.

You see it was very close. Very personal and very costly. Job was a marked man. He was marked by the world as a man of integrity and wealth. He was marked by God as being blameless and God-fearing. He was marked by his family as Faithful and he was marked by God as a trophy of his grace.

So integrity and wealth by the world blameless and God-fearing by God himself Faithful by his family and then again back to God is a trophy of God's grace.

And.

So as I've been looking through the book of Job and as I presented to you this afternoon And if I ever come back to this in a series sort of a format, I Will say again that the book of Job is not primarily about suffering.

Suffering is not the primary emphasis of Job it's the catalyst that brings about the discourses that take up most the book of Job. And Suffering certainly is in there and there's much we can learn about suffering.

But that's not the primary emphasis. The main idea is the power of God's transforming work the power of God's transformation in an individual sinner. In our faith will wax and wane but ultimately if we're truly in Christ, it will not fail.

As Jesus said he who perseveres perseveres to the end will be saved. Or Paul who said and I'm sure of this that he who began a good work and you Will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.

And we can ask from the New Testament asked Paul Why are you so sure? Well, not because of the Philippians themselves but confidence in he God the Spirit who began the good work in them in God who elected in the Son who redeemed in the Holy Spirit who applied and continues to apply so great a salvation.

So from the book of Job, we learn much about suffering most especially we might learn how little we really understand suffering. And while this book has much to offer on this subject. The emphasis is not so much on Job's suffering but on the enduring quality of God's transforming power.

The same transforming power wrought by the same Holy Spirit who laid a hold of you and me and Any and all who are in Christ Jesus? There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright one who feared God and Returned from evil.

We see Job's relationship to God right at the outset blameless in his conduct. He walked straight in paths of righteousness. He've read his reverence for God Was matched by his distaste for what was evil.

Now here's a picture of a man who knew the good to do and did it. Here's a man who's prepared for adversity. He was blameless he was upright doesn't mean he was sinless. As Job himself will later affirm in the discourses that follow it means that he was ethically and morally.

Right his decisions his words his actions all sifted through a common filter so that whatever he did whatever he said. They had one foundation that informed them all.

God.

God's Word Pleasing God by blameless. We mean that specific charges against him would fail for lack of proof. We might think of Naboth who was accused by Jezebel's conspirators of having blasphemed God.

We see no trial. They just took him out and stoned him. So the whole thing was a conspiracy, but there was no proof against Naboth. We just had read to us how there was no real proof against Jesus Christ and yet he was led to be crucified.

Here this description of Job is similar. No one's as blameless as Jesus Christ. But similar by analogy that charges against him would not stick. That's what it meant to be blameless. By upright is meant that he lived his life on a straight consistent path.

His worldview had been thought through it had been weighed on a scale of being found to be balanced. It had been burnished by the fires of life and the dross of it had been removed. It informed his every step.

So we with Job. And you read this in his discourses as he defends himself against the three friends who will show up soon enough.

With Job.

We would find that whether he's greeting a merchant at the fair or discoursing with a prince. He was the same Job. A Poor man who needed food would find from Job. Mr. Muriel's open hand. The rich man who needed advice would find a job on a hit up hell.

The widow or the orphan could find a defender. And all this flowed from one and the same fountainhead. The same fountainhead from which our conduct in this life in this world must also flow.

God.

God as we're led by the Spirit. God as we follow the word that the Spirit has given us. God as we look to Jesus Christ and see his example and Look to him for all things in our conduct. We have a worldview brethren That in many ways is similar to Job's he's pre-resurrection, of course, so there aren't those differences.

There is that greater revelation that we have and yet We find in Job a man whose worldview was thought through so carefully and so bathed in God and his word That everything he did Came out godly. He's blameless.

He's upright. He feared God. That Job was blameless and upright in his uh in his outward life Was the inevitable consequence of his inward life. He feared God and turned away from evil evil. His entire life was founded on the Word of God and by this Job was prepared for the storms and the winds that our Lord Spoke of in Matthew 7 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

There's a logical connection here, I think About a man who feared God and turned away from evil because you see to fear God is to turn away from evil. To fear God is to turn away from evil. To fear God is to love God and to have all of God and all those words that we load into fear and they're all correct and To fear God with all that that word can mean Has a logical consequence.

Because fearing God includes loving God and to love God is to love what he loves and to hate what he hates. So to fear God is to shun or turn away from evil and this is Job Outwardly blameless and upright in a civic sense.

Nothing could stick to him. He was moral. He was ethical in all he did.

In.

The spiritual sense because he feared God he turned from evil. His entire life was founded on the Word of God. There's another reason that turning from evil Can't happen without an a priori fear of God.

And that's because God's goodness Defines what is evil? As Paul says I wouldn't have known sin unless the Lord shown me sin. I wouldn't have known I was coveting until the law said do not covet is God's revelation to us.

That actually defines what sin is. His goodness defines evil. The Lord looks down from heaven to see if there's any who do good and finds what none. No, not one. The psalmist says transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart.

There's no fear of God before his eyes. That's Tom Psalm 36 1. Now we know that wicked people everywhere do all sorts of good deeds, right? Jesus speaks to those who are condemned and they answer back they defend themselves.

Did we not prophesy in your name cast out demons in your name? Didn't we do all these good mournful deeds in your name and Jesus says get away from me you lawless ones.

Why?

Because they did it for their own glory for their own purposes for their own credit, those are the filthy rags that the prophet Isaiah speaks of. And the same deeds done by those who love Jesus Christ and Divested themselves of self and did them for the sake of Jesus Christ their Savior those same deeds then are sanctified by the Lord Jesus Christ and accepted.

By him.

So wicked people doing all sorts of good things donating to do the causes developing medicines taking in foster children's all sorts of things. That otherwise would be good but absent the fear of God without faith.

They're filthy. They're corrupt. They're vile. Here's what Jesus taught us when he talked to those two groups having done the same things lawless.

And saved.

Your own righteousness filthy rags. Done in the name of Christ Jesus by the righteousness imputed to us by God our Savior. Accepted turning from evil is the fruit of fearing God. A man who fears God as first and Turns from evil shuns evil despises evil.

It's the fruit of fearing God. The blameless and the upright life is visible to everyone but your fear of God is an inner work of the Spirit of God in the heart. This is what Paul means in Galatians 5 16 through 22.

I'm not gonna go through the whole passage there. But he says in verse 16 as he opens this up. He says but I say walk by the Spirit you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Or John chapter 2 verses 15 to 17.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eye and the pride and possessions.

Parenthetically, can we stop for just a moment? No one in that time had more possessions than Job. Pride and possessions is not from the Father but is from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Now the same spirit who worked in Job as we will see if we go through this book anymore. Is the same spirit who works in us today the same spirit whom we will find in the coming pages that Job valued above all else.

See in the discourses to come Job's friends are going to speak about God from principles from rules from Equations that presume to define the Lord and regulate his actions. Really that constrain his sovereign freedom as if that were possible, which of course it is not Job when you read those discourses Job is going to speak from the foundation of something.

He fears was lost a relationship to God. So we get formulas we get strictures and we get Equations and we get strict philosophy from the friends and each of them has a different emphasis which we won't go into this afternoon.

But if you read Job's answers, what does he fear has happened that God has left him he's no longer God's friend. That God is not just punishing him worse God has left him altogether. That's his fear. Well, there's a quick litmus litmus test here for you and for me.

Something that Job had which we can check our own spirits. And that's the fear of God that all that reverence that respect. And how can we test that in the context of Job even without going into all that's going to happen very soon to Job.

We all know that story about everything that he lost. We can ask ourselves What would happen to me? If we lost this or that or everything you see, I think our attachment to worldly things Isn't direct proportion to our fear of God, but of course going the wrong way.

As our fear of God is lower and less intense our attachment to things can grow and vice versa. Because as our fear of God grows as we learn more what it means as we go through this life to reverence God to worship God to fear God.

Our attachment to the stuff that God has given us becomes less and less and less. It doesn't mean we can't enjoy it. The Lord knows I know, you know, I enjoy my Corvette. But honestly in my heart do not think I'm that attached to it that I would be crushed if something should happen.

I lost it. We need to understand that the fear of God Leads to a detachment from the things that God gives us and the more we fear God the less attached We are to these things from which as happened to Job you may quickly one day become detached.

When Job is stripped of everything so carefully inventory in these verses the real question is is he going to remain steadfast? This is a question that overlays the coming drama is God's work of transformation powerful and enduring.

Is it transforming power of God more powerful than the world's enticements? Will he will Job love the things even he's been given more than he who gave them the things Paul asks it this way of us. What do you have that you did not receive if then you received it, of course the answer to that is nothing.

What do you have that you didn't receive nothing and he goes on if then you received it. Why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Why do you boast as if you gained it? Why are you crushed when you lost it?

It wasn't yours in the first place. God gave it to you as a gift. Every good and perfect gift is from above from the father of lights in whom there's no shadow of turning or any variation. Is he to mourn the loss of our stuff is to imply that it was mine or yours in the first place by right.

By deserving.

Which is clearly not the case. So we do need to at the very outset of this the man who feared God and shunned evil a Man who we know is soon to lose everything he has. Do we fear God? To that point that we are really detached from those things that God has given us or do we consider them our own?

Would he be depressed angry?

Discouraged worse.

It's a good time to check ourselves even right now. You know what the stock markets recent freefall then recovery then up and down and up and down. However, he responded. Again speaking myself. My IRA is heavily in stocks.

So it's been a bit of a roller coaster. I Don't say this boastfully, but I can tell you I've lost no sleep. I truly have not. Some of us might be more stirred up than that. I Suggest that the more stirred up we get over this the more worried we become.

The nor more we need to check the level of our fear of God. See fear of God will turn you away from the evil of materialism. Fear of God will allow you to set those things in their proper context. Something God gave that you can enjoy.

Something God gave for your good something God gave so that as you enjoy it and give him. Thanks. He receives all the glory but again fear of God less attached. When events threatened to diminish even take away what I've earned what I was counting on to be there what I deserve.

How are you going to react? I? Mean Job had a lot to lose. He was the richest man on the planet. Let's move on with Job. There were seven born to him seven sons and three daughters. So just Job's family seven is a number of sometimes because you're a number of wholeness sort of a holy number where something is complete and Ten is that number of pure and perfect completion.

So seven sons three daughters equals ten. It's like seven days of creation. The creation is still ongoing with seven days that perfect number when God said it's done. It's very good. It's very good. Ten is a number of completion as I said ten.

Representing what Jacob. Jacob said to Laban when his labors were complete says I'm done with you. You've changed my wages ten times. So I'm done with this or the tenth plague that brought an end of the plagues of Egypt so Job's family is a picture of wholeness a picture of completion.

Seven three daughters seven sons three daughters ten. There are more tens if we want to dig into a little bit more I'll just go on a briefly with his possessions. He possessed 7 ,000 sheep 3 ,000 camels as 10 ,000 valuable pieces of stock 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female donkeys with the female donkeys I read were actually very valuable in the day because they gave milk.

So there's a thousand which is a series of tens maybe and Very many servants so that the man was the greatest of all the people of the East the Elon Musk of his day. But with godly fear so as important as Job's fear of God was as important as fear of God is.

It's this verse verse 3. They really stands in pride of place for our attention. See verses 1 5 speak of Job's relationship to God. Verses 2 4 are about his family. Notably his wife is not in the descriptions.

But 1 5 are God 2 4 our family and there in the middle is verse 3 this inventory of his goods everything he had. And I think it's there to set us up for what comes. Which is so we know how much job had to lose and what a good life job was living.

He walked with God before God and men his family was whole his family was wholesome. His wealth was incredible. He had a lot to lose. Verse 4 his sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day.

It's probably the birthdays and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. So it's Job's children here their conduct we see chords of familial Harmony binding them together and we sometimes hear that Job was afraid that these parties were wild ones.

But the text only allows us to know this that the brothers each on his birthday held a feast. No indication of wild indulgence no indication of drunkenness or any such thing could have been but it's not explicitly given to us and the added detail that the three sisters were invited shows brotherly care a Cohesive family one that was worthy of the greatest man of the East.

It seems to me we have a picture here of domestic tranquility. With the brothers taking proper care of their sisters, and then we move on and we find that Job took no chances with this. His concern he was concerned that one or all of them may have inadvertently sinned against God.

Verse 5 and when the days of the feast had run their course Job would send and consecrate them and we and he would rise Early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.

For Job said it may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts thus Job did continually. So the family patriarch here takes his place as a priest and intercedes with God on behalf of his children.

And what's interesting here? Is that no sin has been established. The sacrifice if you will is preemptive. It doesn't say that he knew they did this or did that any wrong thing or that they had actually Blasphemed God in their heart or with their mouth.

He's not saying he actually knows that they did any of that. He said just in case it may be that they had inadvertently Sinned so Job's concern Is their spiritual need that they would be right with God and above that need which all fathers should have stands Job's concern for God's name as It's carried by their children the word here for cursed.

It may be that when my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. That word is the Hebrew word Baruch and Some of you will recognize that as the word that's normally translated as to bless. But here in this particular context and in this form the lexicons tell you that it means to curse.

It's a quote a blessing so overdone as to be a curse. Sort of me thinks the lady does protest too much a Blessing so overdone that it comes off as contrite or comes off as phony. Just too many words too many glossy terms too much bowing down in Dramatic fashion and so it sounds like a blessing from the lips.

But from the heart, it's really a curse because it's not real. It's not legit. It's not it has no integrity. Now again, Job's not saying they did that. He's saying perhaps they did. But for Job see the concern is more than whether one of them actually spoke out such a thing against God.

But whether God was taken in vain in the heart. Whether it proceeds out of the lips or stays veiled in the heart. It is a grievous thing to take the Lord lightly. The problem is that we can hide our heart with our lips.

Can't we? Now if we overdo it the way that word means that we're broke the way it was used there means to overdo it. Most of us will figure it out and maybe call you on it. But for a lot of us it is possible to hide our heart with the words that we speak.

The problem is that that won't last. Numbers 32 23 warns us almost promises us. Be sure your sin will find you out Eventually the play acting will come back to bite you. You'll forget who you told what?

You'll forget which person knows which theological beautiful truth that you can expound and which one you gave which act.

To.

Something like that will happen to be sure that somehow in the providence of God through the circumstances He puts you in your sin will find you out. It's a matter of the heart. Jesus made it very clear in the book of Matthew that from the heart the mouth speaks that the weird the words that come out.

Our mouth.

The evils and the blasphemies come from the heart. This was his concern for his children. It's our concern for our children your children and for each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. That our hearts are right with God.

That we all have a mutual fear of God and together shun the evil. Because we love God we want to love what he loves and if we love God and love what he loves. We're gonna hate what he hates. As I said earlier, we can learn a lot about suffering from this book.

The larger questions really about God. It's really about God himself is his transforming power true transformation. Or is it just a band-aid placed over a mortal wound or worse yet? Is God just an idea?

Is he just some placebo that we take that makes us feel better for the moment, but has no lasting effect. I don't know if any of you have heard of him. But a scholar from the 60s I think was a Harvard scholar named Joseph Campbell wrote a book called the hero with a thousand faces and His idea is that it's sort of in our DNA that every culture everywhere every human being needs to worship something.

And so we invent all kinds of gods and he would include our God Yahweh the Holy Spirit and Jesus in that. In that event invention inventory his ideas that we just we just have to make heroes. We just have to make God's who are bigger than us.

It's just part of our DNA. It's just part of who we are. But one measure of the reality of God setting aside Joseph Campbell's falsehood. Because God is the one true and only God. One measure of the reality of God in our lives is right here and what we see with job, which is prayer for our families prayer for our immediate biological families prayer for the church family.

Prayer for your extended families. We do know from this morning and from first Peter chapter 2. There were a kingdom of priests. Will the priests do they intercede they go to God on behalf of others? This job did continually.

Just in case.

And we can pray that way just in case. You don't know every beat of the heart of your children. No matter how close you are to them. You don't know my every heartbeat even though we're brothers and sisters together.

And we love one another and we know each other some of us known each other for decades. We need to pray for one another as Job did continually. Be concerned for the heart. The heart that issues forth the words that we hear.

We're here on Sundays. We speak the rights words to one another. Let's pray for one another those words are real and legitimate and come from a heart that truly fears God and shuns evil. Not a Joseph Campbell theory that we just sort of need God.

All people do. I need God honoring constant prayer for our children for our families for our spouses for each other. That the Lord would be honored by them that he would forgive them if they should sin against them against him.

And this is a special place of fathers to take up the mantle of priestly intercession for the family and back to first Peter. This is really for all of us in Christ. You are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation of people for his own possession.

That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So husbands and wives are the focus of each other's prayers your children extended family your fellow believers in the church Pastors and deacons.

God willing we will have them soon. You have enough tender to spark a bonfire prayers and this continually we come back to Job. Job this man marked in so many ways marked by society marked by God. Marked by the world for his integrity for his wealth.

By God is blameless and God-fearing by his family as faithful in his prayers. I won't go outside of verse 4 and Bring in one more mark that he has and I mentioned it at the very beginning. He was marked by God as a trophy of his grace.

Let's start from verse 6 again. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan from wherever you come. Satan answered the Lord and said.

From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it and 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 who fears God and turns.

Away from evil.

Then Satan answered the Lord and said does Job fear God for no reason. Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land.

But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face. So it's the Lord God himself affirming that Job is blameless and upright and He as we read verse 3, he's the greatest man because of his wealth.

But here he is not the greatest man in the earth in the east. Boy, did I take the thunder out of that one? He's not the greatest man in the east in this statement. God says of his servant Job. He's the greatest man on the earth.

When Moses wrote that all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain all the earth meant the ancient Near East. Especially the larger Mesopotamian area in Colossians 1 5. Paul exalts that the gospel has gone forth into the whole world.

But for him the whole world was the large Mediterranean Basin. He didn't know about North or South America or Australia. But when the perspective is from above. When it is the Lord who sets the boundaries.

Earth means earth. It means the whole earth. There's none like him and all the earth. To which the accuser makes the challenge. But you stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.

And that's that work that word Baruch again that use of it to mean curse. That overdone blessing that is really truly from the heart a curse. The accuser is claiming here that God who blessed Job will be cursed by Job if his material blessings are taken from him.

So what will prevail? Job's faithfulness to God or his love for what God has given him. Will he fall into the trap of Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 23? By holding what he's been given higher than he who gave him all that he had.

Which is more important to you and me. The God who gives or what he's given. The Lord has staked his reputation on the outcome here. Let's find a man as Job was. What God puts at risk is not so much the man Job himself.

What does God put on the table here. He puts his name. He's basically saying I have transformed Job. He is my servant. He will not fail. Not because of his goodness not because of his righteousness because of God's transforming power in him.

And that comes out later. But we need to think of it this way. That the challenge here immediately is here's my reputation. You go and try and ruin it and you can go through this trophy of grace Job. A few weeks ago when I preached from psalm 23, we got to verse 3.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. We made the same point as what we have here that the Lord has staked his reputation. His very name on his care for his people. And here in job he stakes his reputation his very name on job's perseverance.

Perseverance in the trials that are to come. So the contest about to begin here is going to be epic. The greatest man in the east none like him in all the world. We've put to the test in a manner that speaks forward of jesus's wilderness temptations.

And saying that I think job is a great type of christ. One who points forward to much of what jesus will go through. For him the question was. Will his love for the father overcome the temptations of easier worldly ways?

For you and me marked by god's spirit. Do we fear god enough now that when we that when our now changes? Will we be able to say with job though? He slay me yet. I will hope in him. God the lord by having put his holy spirit in you by having given you a heart to believe the gospel of his son Jesus christ has staked his very name on the outcome of our perseverance.