Sermons

14/5/17                                                                         Job: The Man                                                              Job 1:1-5

The Bishop of Grafton who sent me to theological college and ordained me led a double life. The priest who nurtured Leone and I in youth group and conducted our wedding led a double life. We admired them, looked up to them, saw them as models for our Christian ministry. They were both sexual abusers. Our discovery of the truth shattering and destabilising. Our view of the world and the church turned upside down. Those who are great and make a mark are meant to be the good guys. The church was meant to be loving, safe, protective. But the great are not always good. The church fails to be what God intended. What in your life experience has distorted and disturbed your sense of what ought to be; of the way things should be in God’s world? Betrayal, abuse, illness, suffering, tragedy, injustice. Today we begin a series on Job. An Old Testament book largely ignored in personal and public Bible reading. A book so unsettling, surprising, shattering in its portrayal of human suffering and human response we prefer to avoid what confronts us in its story. Yet Job is a story of the character of the living God. A story that powerfully points us to Jesus the Christ. A story that breaks down our understanding of God and the world. If we have ears to hear the story renews understanding and faith on a surer foundation and invites us to humbly worship God with deeper love and humility. The book of Job is Job’s story. The story of a human being. Pay careful attention; all human beings share so much in common. Job is introduced to us before the story begins. In five verses, five things about Job we must not forget if we are to understand what God is teaching us through this man’s life experience. What we learn in the opening verses paints a picture of the world just as we want it to be. Well-ordered and settled. A great and good man experiencing happiness and blessing. First, Job’s place. ‘In the land of Uz there lived a man’ v1 Most of the key Old Testament figures are Israelites, God’s chosen people. Job lived outside of Israel in a place east of Canaan, the land God promised to Abraham. He is not an Israelite. This is significant. A man not party to the revelation of God that formed the lives of the patriarchs of Old Testament faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Yet a man whom biblical scholars believe lived in the same period of Old Testament history. Outside the covenant family, yet one who feared God, trusted and worshipped him. An early example of God gathering people of every nation, tribe and language. Second, Job’s name. Nothing significant about the name. Significant that he has one. Here is a real person. A named person. A person who belongs to someone. Part of a family with a personal history. A unique person. I believe we can have confidence that Job is not a fictional character but a living, breathing person like you and me. Third, Job’s character. ‘This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.’ v1 Job’s character is highly important in the story that follows. Job is a man of consistent character. He is not sinless but blameless which points to integrity and lack of pretence. What you see is what there is; no hidden agenda or secret, double life. In John 1:47 we read, When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Words Jesus would have used to describe Job. Job is upright which describes his dealing with others. He treats others well. Job fears God. He is reverent and genuinely aligned with the God he worships. Job is moral. Turning away from evil as it presents itself to him in its many guises. As we discover in v5, Job knows that true faith and character is firstly a matter of the heart. He believes in atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. In summary, Job’s character is befitting of one who belongs to God. In Ezekiel 14 Job, alongside Noah and Daniel, is described as a man of righteousness. Job is a genuine believer. Brothers and sisters, I emphasise again the significance of this true and vital information we have about Job. We know, as his story unfolds, that, in New Testament language, Job is a Christian. Fourth, Job is a great man. ‘He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.’  v3 People around him encountered a truly great man. In character. In personal and material blessing. A large family. A wealthy man. ^‘He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants.’ v2-3 Looking from the outside the conclusion: here is a man richly blessed by God. On display is a well ordered world. The great man Job is a good man. His goodness issues in blessing and abundance. Fifth, Job is an anxious man. There is a shadow of darkness in Job’s seemingly perfect well-ordered world. He has anxiety and doubts about his children. Are they blameless in God’s sight? Is their heart right before God? Job acts on his anxiety by taking every opportunity to cover his children with an atoning sacrifice. ‘His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.’ v4-5 Sisters and brothers, are you concerned about your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren? Is that concern about them being in a right relationship with God? Pray for them. Come before the throne of grace where Jesus the Saviour intercedes for us. Ask God to bring them to him in repentance and faith.  Job’s story has not yet begun. When it begins there is a shadow hanging over everything. The darkness of the human heart and Job knows it. Brothers and sisters, even before the story begins these opening verses speak to us. We are introduced to a man of genuine faith in the God of the Bible. His faith shapes his character. Is your faith in the God of the Bible genuine? How does your faith shape your character? How are you cultivating Christian character? Christian character cannot be cultivated by natural means. Christian growth is supernatural. So, pray for it. Work at it God’s way. Godly character grows out of the fertile soil of godly obedience. Fertilised by the word of God, grown by the Spirit of God. In the beginning of the Book of Job we are introduced to a well-ordered world that mirrors the Garden of Eden. But over which hangs the shadow of the human heart, no longer Eden like. Job’s well-ordered world is about to be shattered in surprising, uncomfortable ways. In the midst of it all is the darkness of the human heart. A Bishop and a priest may have shattered Leone and my sense of what ought to be. Their double lives remind us of what is. To deny reality and try and fireproof ourselves from the storms or to bitterly shake our fist at the world and the God who made it is futile. The book of Job shows us another way that builds durable, living faith. For in the midst of all that happens in Job’s journey God is there.

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