A God Worth Following

This is the last week of our “What About God?” sermon series. We have been spending these last few weeks allowing the book of Job to help us examine ways that God impacts our lives that we may have never thought about. You can find all the previous sermons on our You Tube page.

This week we look at God as “A God Worth Following.” Our scripture comes from Job 42:1-6, 10-17.

42 Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.

Please pray with me…

We have discovered so far in the book of Job that bad things can happen to good people and how we should choose to help those around us instead of hurting them while they are hurting. Last week we saw that there are times in which we may have to be called out when we do or say something that would be against God.

This week we receive the happy ending from this journey that Job was on from having his livestock, his servants, and his children die. He will eventually have sores upon his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.

God has spoken to Job and pointed out to him that until he can do what God is able to do and know what God is able to know, he is not too good to have the events that have happened to him occur.

This week we only skip three chapters to reach our text which takes us to the end of the book of Job. God has spent these chapters we missed continuing to do what he did during last week’s text. Offering to Job proof that he is God and Job is not.

(Transition)

This leads to Job this week beginning by acknowledging what God has told him. He points out that he knows that what God has told him is true. He knows of the great and mighty things that God has done and continues to do. He is pointing out the purpose of our scripture for today. Our God is a God worth following.

We can get so wrapped up in our journey with Jesus that we can be like Job, and we can forget who we are following. We can end up doing good for God, staying connected to God, and reading the word of God but forgetting who we are serving, connected to, and reading about.

It may be good for us to go back and read spots of scripture like we find in Job that reminds us that God is large and is in charge. We are human. We are reminded in scripture that we are only a mist that appears on the earth for a small time before it disappears.

(Transtion)

God has always been and will always be around. He set the earth on its axis. He covered it with food and water. He placed the animals upon it. He is the one who created humanity in his own image. We are nothing compared to God.

Job first acknowledges how great God is and follows up by asking for repentance. He asks for forgiveness from what he had forgotten. This is one of the most common ways of prayer within scripture and we can also find an example within our service today.

(Transition)

We praise God and we seek something from God, and this is followed by seeking forgiveness from God. Our Lord’s prayer lays out this for us. We begin acknowledging God for who he is, greater than us and capable of doing all things.

Job doesn’t officially ask for anything, but I would believe in this conversation with God he wouldn’t have too. We have the Lord’s prayer ask for God to “give us this day our daily bread.” Job would be saying if he would ask God, restore me to how I was.

He has lost basically everything except his life. He now finds himself hearing that God is not happy with him. This leads him to seek repentance. Some look at this repentance and God’s response as further proof to the blessing and curses model we have spoke about throughout this series.

The problem with this understanding is that Job faced hardships before he seemed to have sinned against God. It is his response to his hardship from which he is seeking forgiveness. He seems to doubt God. He speaks of how unfair God is to him. This is why he needed forgiveness.

When we continue with the Lord’s prayer, we next have a section that greatly relates to the story of Job. The next section says, “Lead us not into temptation.” I think this could be viewed as a direct response to the story of Job.

(Transition)

God does not tempt he tests. What is the difference. Testing means that our actions can lead to a good or bad result. Temptation has a negative result if we react to the situation. If we don’t react, we remain with God if we react, we move away from God.

Adam and Eve offer a great example. They are tempted by Satan. If they don’t respond to the temptation and don’t eat from the tree their relationship with God remains the same. Their choice to eat from the tree, fall into temptation, changes the relationship between them and God.

When we say in the Lord’s Prayer “lead me not into temptation”, we are asking God to not leave us alone for Satan to attack us. We are saying, don’t do what you did to Job. Keep connected to us and help us stay away from temptation.

We are saying to God through that statement that we want help in continuing to follow you. We want to live as you desire for us to live.

(Transition)

We want to follow the one that is worth following. We want to follow the one that our first reading tells us is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.”

We want Jesus to be the one we are following. We acknowledge that all human leaders fall short. There is only one worth following and that is Jesus. We desire to follow Jesus because we believe in what he did for us.

(Transition)

We believe that he is holy. The word “holy” speaks of a connection with God. We should be attempting to become more holy every day. We are asking God to help us do this by helping us stay away from temptation.

We may not be able to be as holy as Jesus is before our death and we become holy enough to join God in Heaven. But we have examples to follow. We have the disciples and their lives in scripture to show us how to live lives that can lead us closer to God every day.

(Transition)

We want to follow the one who is blameless. Jesus shows us what it means to be tempted and to have our actions lead to Satan to decide to leave us alone. We have Jesus praying and fasting and being attacked by Satan. We have three distinct temptations offered to him.

We have him react all three times by using scripture to show Satan why he is not going to do what Satan desired for him to do. What Jesus does to prevent himself from falling into temptation should be a reminder to us.

We need to stay connected to God and one way we stay connected to God is through reading the word of God. Our mission statement calls it having us grow in faith together. Choosing together that we are going to spend time with God and grow in our relationship with God.

It is why we offer a devotional during the weekdays that you can watch at any time. We want to give you an easy way to connect with God through scripture daily. This is why we offer a Bible study after the service on Sundays.

This allows you to not only hear the word of God but also to interact with those around you to receive a greater understanding of what is being said through the scripture. We receive insights which can then help us receive a greater understanding of what we believe. Knowing scripture helps to prevent us from falling into temptation.

(Transition)

We want to follow the one who is pure and set apart from sinners. We have an example of someone who walked the earth without sin. Jesus becomes our example of how to best follow the ways of God.

He followed what he called the greatest commandment or commandments, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” He showed us that loving your neighbor isn’t enough and loving God isn’t enough, you need to do both.

(Transition)

And finally, we want to follow the one who is exalted above the Heavens.” We want to follow the one who led to a party being thrown when he returned back after his time on earth. We should want to live our lives in such a way that when our time comes and we find ourselves in Heaven we will be told “well done, good and faithful servant.”

We have a Lord to praise and an example to follow. We have a God that we ask and who hopefully chooses to not have us be like Job and tempted without any help from him to prevent the temptation.

(Transition)

We next find Job praying for his friends. God is angry at the friends for the way they treated Job. The way they blamed Job for what had happened to him. How they were unwilling to believe that Job was blameless.

God states to the friends in Job 42:8 that Job will pray for them. We can assume that Job is there and hears what God says.

What I wonder is if Job is thinking, why would I want to pray for them? They have gone from comforting me to blaming me. Let them face whatever curse that God wants to give them. Unlike me they deserve it.

But that is not what Job does. This would show why he was considered righteous by God. God asks and he responds doing what God asks for him to do.

Job prays for them which leads to God forgiving them. We may have times when we face a dilemma. We have people that have hurt us or are hurting us in some way. Scripture tells us that we are to forgive.

(Transition)

Job offers us an example of praying for those that hurt us that they may become right with God. We know this is not easy.

We can acknowledge that praying for those that hurt us or seem to be working against us may be difficult. This should point out to us that we are called to pray for the politicians that we disagree with.

(The Jewish people as our example, the Romans were their enemy.)

But we have Jesus as our example. He is on the cross and what does he pray to his father? “Forgive them for they know not what they do”.

He asks for his father to forgive those who had arrested him, beat him, and placed him upon a cross. If Jesus can do that, we should be able to pray for those who harm us. We should be willing to forgive those who have hurt us in some way.

Our scripture ends with Job receiving the same number of kids that he lost and double the number of servants and livestock. This is often viewed as a happy ending and that Job was even greater than he had been before the trials that he faced.

What we should acknowledge is that Job would most likely not have been the same man he was before he practically lost everything and had his body covered in sores. Those that have gone through hardships in our lives know that the hardships may lessen but the memory never goes away.

Those that have lost children don’t have the pain repaired if they have more children. Those that have lost loved ones remain impacted by those losses and it takes time to figure out how to live without them in our lives.

Those that have faced medical issues know that the aftereffects sometimes physically and often mentally never go away. I think of the person with cancer who has been diagnosed as cancer free but still has anxiety as they go back for the yearly check up to see if the cancer has returned.

My point is this, we don’t hear about Job’s inward journey in our text. We don’t hear about him waiting for trouble to come his way again. We don’t hear him dreading the possibility of him having the pain return that he remembers from before.

You may be facing the mental anguish of an event that has occurred or is currently taking place in your life. Don’t allow the end of the story of Job to lead you to believe that you have less faith or that God has abandoned you because you don’t look at the end of your pain and suffering as a happy ending.

You are not alone. Many understand what you are going through. What I hope is that you will allow God to go through it with you. You will trust that God is with you when you feel anxiety rising up.

It is my hope that you will believe that we follow a God who is worth following. A God who will help us through the good times as well as the bad. He will assist you in overcoming the obstacles of life and will continue to be there for you for the rest of your life.

Let us pray…