Session 2 - The Price of Integrity
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Job - Man of Integrity
Job - Man of Integrity
תֻּמָּה
tummâ, n.c., completeness; purity, innocence; respectability, spotless character. 5×
This Hebrew word for integrity appears 5 times in the Old Testament, 4 out of the 5 mentions come in the book of Job.
If ever there was a book I think the modern church needed to study now it’s the book of Job! For many Job is a confusing and challenging book. You’re very unlikely to walk into your average happy clappy church on Sunday and hear a sermon on Job!
There are very few medicines that taste good - they are nearly always bitter to the taste, but we push aside the nasty taste and take the medicine because we know that it will do us a lot of good. This is the same with those difficult passages of scripture - though they may not taste sweet, they may not be attractive to us, they will do us a world of good if we will take to them.
Job is introduced to us as a blameless man, who was upright, feared God and turned away from evil (Job 1:1)
GOD PRIZES INTEGRITY
8 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?”
Job’s integrity got God’s attention!
There is a Latin phrase used in reformed circles - Coram Deo, which means ‘before the face of God’. It means that we live our lives before the very face of God. What a remarkable truth! How we need to be reminded of this each morning. We live our whole life before a Divine audience. God is watching you, He is paying attention to how you live your life, He sees the public and the private, the visible life and the hidden life.
We often think that what attracts God is great feats of faith - but what attracted the favour of God to Job was quiet obedience. Job was consistent in obeying God both publically and privately.
Perhaps we ought to remember this - when we are looking out for the next generation of leaders, do not be so impressed with great feats and acheivements as we are with quiet, consistent integrity. When we compare ourselves with others and say ‘look at all they have done and look at me! I’ve never written a book, I’ve haven’t travelled the world.’ Remember what it is that pleases God - quiet obedience - integrity.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
SATAN’S CHARGE
Satan wasn’t very impressed at all. There are dark forces at work in this world believe you me - and one thing these dark forces hate more than anything is integrity! And they will do anything in their power to undermine it!
Stories of failed celebrity pastors.
9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 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. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”
And so God allowed for Satan to test Job’s integrity
12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
So Satan brought destruction upon Job’s posessions; he lost his livestock, his servants and his children all in one day. You can only imagine how devastating this would have been for Job! Such a trememdous loss!
So what is happening here? God permits Satan to bring harm to Job. Why?
When suffering strikes the most primal cry of the heart is ‘why?!’ But to ask that is to seek to know things that are hidden deep in the very counsel of God. What we can know in times of suffering is that God has not abandoned us, and that He is able to work all things, which includes suffering, for good for His people:
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
We know that God ordained that Joseph should be cast into a pit by his brothers in order that through him countless people would be fed during the famine.
20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
God may have any number of reasons for permitting pain and suffering in our lives, asking why won’t help us to manage that suffering well, as Job finds out when his friends come to counsel him.
What is clear is that God does test us - And this is what was happening to job, his integrity was being tested.
In life you can be certain that your integrity will be tested. How deep is your integrity? What would it take for you to forsake your principles? What price for your obedience?
Temptation can come in many different forms - for job it was suffering that brought temptation to forsake his integrity, for David it was lust, for Ananais and Sapphira it was greed.
JOB HOLDS FAST
3 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? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”
Job was tested and kept his integrity. Instead of blaming God for his loss and getting angry at Him we read that Job worshipped God.
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 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.”
22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Sometimes in life God gives, at other times He takes away. Being at peace with this is the key to walking in integrity. If we hold on too tightly to the things of this world we will be prone to compromise if we feel the threat of losing them.
SATAN TAKES JOB’S HEALTH
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. - Billy Graham
4 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
7 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. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
Have any of you had a season of prolonged ill health in your life? I can say with thankfulness that my life has been one that has been largely blessed with good health. But I have endured two seasons of ill health in my life, one in my mid twenties and one in my mid thirties. Both lasted around a year. Despite multiple blood tests and appointments with consultants no one was able to properly diagnose or effectively treat my condition. I was just advised to continue to rest. I found this extrememly hard, especially in my 20’s. Why was I ill? How could God let this happen? I was in the prime of my life, newly married, with a job and lots of exciting projects that I was working on, my band had just played the largest festival in the UK and now here I am shut up at home unable to get on with life. Why God, Why?!
At first I sought ways to placate God, I read my Bible religiously every day, I thought that by doing this maybe he would heal me. When this didn’t happen I became bitter and depressed, I began to distrust God. Maybe he doesn’t really love me, maybe he doesn’t hear my prayers, perhaps he isn’t really there? So what does it matter if I disobey him?
Job’s wife asks the question that the world asks the suffering Christian:
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”
Suffering, particularly ill health and death are the biggest reasons in the west that people do not believe in God. If there is a God who loves us then why do we suffer? As if God’s ultimate goal and end were our happiness. God’s ultimate goal is His own glory, that He includes our eternal happiness in His glorification is to His grace alone!
Job understood that God was sovereign, that His purposes are always good, even if it means that for a season we must suffer.
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
To forsake your integrity because you are suffering is foolishness according to Job.
Pressure will be applied upon your life as a leader. Successful leaders learn to embrace the pressures of life and use them. Weak leaders will do anything to avoid suffering, even if it means going back on their word.
How did Job succeed where many leaders fail today? He lived his life Coram Deo, He understood that God was present in his deepest and loneliest trials, as much as He was present in his greatest successes. And he knew that he was accountable to God, he knew that his life, his decisions, his character would one day be weighed in the balance.
6 (Let me be weighed in a just balance,
and let God know my integrity!)
The price is High! But whats the point in having a cheap, cut price Christianity?
What price for your integrity? How much would it take for you to forsake your values and what you know is right? Do you think like Job’s friends thought? That pain and suffering are always because you have done something wrong? Job’s friends reasoned like modern day prosperity gospel preachers. The reason you are suffering is because you have done x, y or z… Sometimes that can be true, but it wasn’t the case for Job. Sometimes God Himself will allow your integrity to be tested, why? In order to show His glory in your life. Will you allow him to do that?
10 And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.
12 And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. 13 He had also seven sons and three daughters.