Open-Handed Patience

There is a way in which God works through people, through means, that is sometimes confusing to us, but is no less true.

A word for this is “agency.” This agency perhaps first appeared in the garden of eden, where God set Adam over all the elements of creation to name them, keep them, and tend them.

Of course, we recognize that God was ultimately over this because he had the power to create both the agent and the things under the care of the agent, but he used Adam (and us) nonetheless.

We see agency in another light in the story of Israel’s captivities. Their captivities were really the coming result of their continued stubbornness and hard-heartedness, including their idolatry. So, they were taken from their land.

Of course, we recognize that God was over this as well, because he it was who covenanted with them and gave them the promises of success in righteousness and failure in unrighteousness, yet we read in several places that the wicked kings of Babylon and Assyria were God’s servants in a way.

Jeremiah 27:6 ESV

Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him.

The part of Job’s story we have come to today really also includes a sense of this agency, but it is one perhaps even more surprising than that. It is the agency of the Satan Himself.

We saw last week, that among the mysteries that are really above our understanding, is the fact that while Satan is God’s declared and eternal enemy, he is still under God’s sovereignty and even has to submit to him in exercising his woes.

This week, we see the terrible calamities that fell upon Job at the hand of the Devil, yet we cannot ignore that God allowed and ordained these things to be able to happen.

And we will also see that Job not only didn’t ignore that fact, he had a comfortable acceptance of it.

Job gives us an example today that is chilling and also heroically righteous, because he exemplifies for us a kind of open-handed patience that is willing to accept that all things pass through the hand of his creator. All things that come into Job’s hand are given and taken in the providential allowance and wisdom of Yahweh, who is ultimately good.

A clenched, shaking fist is a sure sign of pride; while a sign of godly patience is an open hand of receipt and release in times of trial.

1. God Gives Possessions and Posterity

We left the story last week with the Satan going out from Yahweh’s presence, presumably act on the agency which he’d just been given.

Remember, Satan’s thesis is that God has bribed Job with wealth and possessions so that he would be loyal to him. In Satan’s mind, if Job’s possessions and wealth were struck, he would curse him to his face. The bribery would be nullified and Job’s positive view of God would be done away with.

Well, Satan begins his awful scheme as we read in verses 13-19

Remember, Job was known as “the greatest of all the easterners.” He was incredibly wealth, he would have been a modern-day billionaire in comparison.

And here, in just a few strokes of testing, every element of Job’s noteworthiness, for most, was taken away.

Sabeans came, ravaging the servants and and stealing the oxen and donkeys.

“The fire of God” as the survivor calls it fell and burned up the sheep.

lightening? A volcano?

The Chaldeans organized a trinity of bands and raided the camels, and also killed the servants.

And finally, a great wind came and struck the house where Job’s children were feasting, they were all killed.

In a moment’s notice, Job goes from the greatest of all the easterners, to the most wretched and deprived man who was still living.

All the possessions are one thing - it is possible that land could be sold and more livestock could be purchased. It is possible that there was other material wealth that could be leveraged and begin rebuilding the heards.

But the children?

Oh, how Job loved his children. And how he cared for them.

Do you remember what we saw about Job in the opening verses of the book?

Job would carefully make offerings and prayers before God on behalf of his children just in case they had sinned or cursed God in their feasting.

It is notable that the account tells us that they were in their oldest brother’s house feasting.

the cycle of feasts, oldest to youngest

Job’s prayer and offering just been made.

Now this destruction? How can this be? What would be the normal response?

to think, “what have I done?” or “what did my children do?”

That also will be the response of Job’s friends all through the rest of the book. “Job, you must have done something to deserve this!”

And all the while, Satan is hoping that Job will just say “that’s it! I’m done with my integrity and honor for God.”

But what does Job do?

Job 1:20 ESV

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.

The outer garment and the hair were visible signs of well-being.

Job goes back to the most basic elements of existence, and goes to the foundation of existence. He worships.

Job 1:21 ESV

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Job’s poem of worship sums up his view of all his possessions and posterity.

The accolades of being the “greatest,” the pride of being a father of many children, the comfort and security of being the wealthiest man in all the land had not soured or erased Job’s basic and fundamental view of life.

I am nothing apart from the Lord.

I have nothing apart from the Lord.

2. Possessions and Posterity are not God

James 1:17 ESV

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

God is the giver of good gifts. This is worth rejoicing in. The Lord gives! He richly bestows upon us all manner of blessings, both material and spiritual, both temporal and eternal.

It is good and right to recognize God’s kindness. It is even good and right to rejoice in it. It is good and right to tell of his wonderful blessings.

There is a line of demarcation, however, between seeing God as the giver of good gifts, and seeing the good gifts as the essence of who God is.

What do I mean by that? Well, we can take a view of our blessings in which we really are just one step away from equating the blessings with the blesser.

But Job says, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away...”

Job’s view of God was fundamentally unchanged through this calamity.

Now, you might say, “but God didn’t take these things away, Satan did!”

He did, as an agent, but Job skips right over that in recognizing that the Lord is over all, and if it was God’s good desire to preserve all that Job had, he would have.

We might try to toe that line and say “God would never do something like that” and in that we play a mental game of trying to separate any possibility of God “taking away,” only wanting to see him as the giver, but in thinking that, we often come from the attitude of equating the gifts with the giver.0

Job sees only the hand of God in these events. It never occurs to him to curse the desert brigands, to curse the frontier guards, to curse his own stupid servants, now lying dead for their watch-lessness. All secondary causes vanish

Job’s attitude was that “God is blessed, god is good, so whatever he does and allows must be for good.”

Job, in this response, shows us that a man can stand before God stripped of all worldly possessions and wealth and even his children. He can stand before God naked as the day he was born, and having God, he still has all he needs.

“The Lord gives… takes away...” is not a “Se La Vi” attitude. It is not a “whatever happens happens.”

No, it is a recognition that whatever happens is meaningful and purposeful.

There is a stoicism, a kind of patience that is sort of numb to life, a patience that is calloused and desensitized. You might know someone, you yourself might even be the someone, who has experienced so much trauma and hardship and loss that you are entirely indifferent to it all.

But this is not the kind of patience that we see in Job.

Job did not ignore the hardship or stoically pretend they were insignificant

tearing robes

shaving head

mourning

He mourned, he experienced the depths of chasmic emotional loss and grief, but he worshipped through the tears.

No, Job’s patience is an open-handed patience. One that sees all things as being worked by the good and blessed God who is good and blessed regardless of the gifts.

God gives possessions and posterity, but those things are not God.

3. God Gives Health and Safety

We return then to the scene in heaven, The Satan comes before God again and in poetic fashion the author recounts the same details, but this time there is a difference.

Verse 3, Yahweh says the same things, but adds at the end “He still holds fast his integrity though you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”

It is interesting that God says that, “to destroy him without reason/for nothing” because that was the accusation Satan made against Job (and God) in the first scene - Does Job fear you for no reason?

The “reason” in satan’s mind was the possessions, but those being taken away, Job still honors God.

Now the Lord says to Satan, “Your accusation was the only thing that was without reason!”

Well, in typical cynical fashion, Satan’s reply is simply “You didn’t give me enough leeway!”

“Skin for Skin” “A man will give everything in exchange for his life”

Satan seems to be implying that Job is so callous and heartless that he really didn’t care about his possessions and children, he’s good as long as his health is in tact.

This might have been true had Job’s patience been the calloused and indifferent kind. He can bear losing other things and other people, but touch him and it’s all over.

Well, the test is on. God says, “Ok, touch his body - just don’t take his life.”

And Satan was fine with this, because he didn’t want Job dead - he wanted him to be alive, cursing God. Satan was looking for a living testimony against God. A seething, mourning, agonizing voice that would cry out against this wretched God who removed every element of good.

So what does he do?

Job is struck with boils from head to toe. Loathesome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Job 2:7–8 ESV

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

That Job was sitting in ashes and had a broken piece of pottery nearby suggests that he was near the “dump” essentially. A place to burn consumable waste and toss other kinds.

To make matters worse, there is Job’s wife.

Job 2:9 ESV

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

It’s hard to know exactly the intention behind her words. Was she annoyed by his integrity and wanted him gone?

Was she fed up with his situation and wanted it over, to be released from him as a wife by death do us part?

Was she moved by his sorrow and suffering and wanted it to end?

And the words, “curse God and die!”

Curse God while you still can and then die!

Curse God so you will die (essentially suicide)

Either way, we know from Job’s response to her that her words were not helpful or in good taste.

Here is a picture of a man having gone from the highest to the lowest.

He had gone, again, from the greatest of all the easterners, to a man who was an outcast, scraping the puss from his boils in the garbage dump. Outside of glamour, outside of family care, outside of help and health. He sits, he scrapes.

Not even his wife is a comfort to Him. All he has is his potsherd and his boils.

But is that all he has?

4. Health and Safety are not God

Job 2:10 ESV

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

The real poetry of Job starts in chapter 3, but there has been some poetry even in these verses. Poetry of merismus

A merismus is an element of poetry where two parts of a thing are meant to describe the totality of the whole thing.

Psalm 139:7–10 ESV

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Heaven to Sheol, the sky the sea, darkness and light. God’s presence is everywhere. That is merismus.

Well, we’ve seen that several times in this story.

Job 2:7 ESV

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

sole of his foot to the crown of his head

Job 1:21 ESV

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

given, taken away

Job 2:10 ESV

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

good and calamity/evil

What is this saying?

Even when you are struck from head to toe - your whole life and body is in ruins and sores.

God is blessed and working in all things - giving and taken away.

And all things - the good and the calamity - come through the hands of God.

Now again, we might be tempted to say of Job - well, he didn’t realize that it was Satan doing this. He isn’t speaking from the perspective we have. It’s not God’s fault, it’s satan.

But notice two things we have read now.

Job 1:22 ESV

In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Job 2:10 ESV

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

And even later, at the end of the book, God will tell Job’s friends “what my servant Job has spoken about me is true!”

So we can’t say of Job, “well bless him. He just didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Rather, the testimony of god both through the inspired record of the book, and from his own words within the book, is that Job is right on the money here.

Job did not charge God with wrong/he didn’t sin with his lips.

other translations, he didn’t charge God foolishly, he didn’t charge God with foolishness.

All that is true. Job spoke true words - the Lord gives, he takes away. We recieve all things from God’s hand.

He said true words truly

he didn’t lie or say them sarcastically or angrily

He said true words worshipfully

he didn’t say them spitefully

didn’t charge God with foolishness/tastelessness

He didn’t say “god, this is meaningless!” Rather, he said “God, I know all things are from your hand, so whatever you are doing, blessed be your name!” and he was right.

Job’s attitude was this: all things belong to God, God is over all things. All things come to us as a gift and a stewardship, and can be taken away without it being theft, because they aren’t ours to control.

That leads to a point of application for all of us.

what is our view of possessions, posterity, and health in our lives?

Do we see all things from god, and from that realize God’s prerogative to do as He pleases according to his good pleasure is right?

Do we guard our comforts, safety, possessions, and family with a materialistic zeal of ownership?

Do we act as if what and who we have is everything, and idolize them to our own hurt?

I want to end with a note for those of you who may be suffering, though.

One common trope is that our faith in God makes all the pain and sorrow go away. It doesn’t

Job’s faith did not take his pain away, Job’s faith did not take his sorrow and mourning away.

But also, Job’s pain and mourning did not take his faith away.

He could at once say “blessed is your name Lord! and also, “I don’t know what you’re doing, Lord!”

Remember, in the book of Job, Job never curses God. but he does question, he does wonder, he does have a crisis of trying to understand. But in his questioning, wonder, even doubts, God does not curse Job either.

That leads us to this difficult realization. Sometimes our faith does not remove our agony, sometimes it makes it sting a bit more.

If we believe that all things happen by chance or purely out of human will, then we can remove suffering from any personal affect or cause at all.

But if we believe and love God as Job did, then these questions become harder, because we cannot ignore the fact that God is involved.

It is harder to say “praise God!” when he takes away than when he gives. Yet, it is possible.

It is possible to maintain faith and integrity, even though through intense struggle, because the overarching and overwhelming character of God is that he is good, he is doing good.

So, what is the posture of your hand before God in suffering? Is it a closed fist of anger, cursing Him for taking away his gifts?

Is it an open hand of worship, ready to receive and release as God gives and takes away?

We will walk with Job through the very struggle of this. And if you are walking through it, it will help you.

Don’t lose heart, don’t lose faith. Ask hard questions, be ready to hear hard answers, but don’t give up.

Because just as Job went from highest to lowest, from the greatest to an outcase, so there is one who has gone from the highest of highs, and willingly to the lowest of lows.

Philippians 2:5–7 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Philippians 2:8–9 ESV

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

Philippians 2:10–11 ESV

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.