Father, exalted be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Father, please pour out Your Spirit and save everyone alive and yet to live. Father, please be with us, Father, be with us in everything we feel, think, say and do. Father, show us Your favour and kindness, please give us success in everything we do, and bless every area of our lives. Father, thank you, that we desire and do Your good pleasure, because you are at work within us.
The main purpose of the book of Job is not to answer the question why do people suffer or why there is suffering, but to answer why good people suffer. Why do good people suffer? I have read the book of Job a few times and have read a few books on suffering and listened to a great sermon series on the subject. One message that comes through over and above all the other smaller messages: the most important message of all. The message is repeated over and over again throughout the entire Bible. Fellowship with God. Knowing God. Being close to God. Loving God.
The story of Job is the story of man who does everything right. He is a religious and moral man. He does all the moral duties, faithful husband, caring father, helps the poor, fights for the rights of weak. He does all his religious duties prays for his kids, doesn’t even look at a young women to avoid lust.
If he was alive today he would go to church every Sunday, he would be a faithful to tithe all his income, he would read his Bible and pray every day, his internet history would not have any pornography on it. He would own a business. He would have studied theology. He would give to charity. He would take up worthy causes: he would start a soup kitchen, adopt AIDS orphans, and he would invite homeless people into his house and help them find employment. He would always be calm and not lose his temper. He would be well-respected as a true example of a good man. He would not be a “Pharisee”, because he would know that Jesus died on the cross for his sins, which be few compared to the rest of us. He would be humble, truly seeking God’s glory and not his own.
As I said he would pray every day, every hour, he would pray mostly to love God more and be closer to him. Then what happens? His business goes bankrupt. He keeps his cool and praises God. He loses his house. His kids and adopted kids are all killed in a car accident, while he was driving. He now has no car too. He keeps his cool and praises God. The people at the church kick him out, thinking that there some hidden sin he is doing but he won’t admit to it. They tell him to confess or leave the church. Job confesses that he does not love God and people enough. They think he is lying, wonder what the deep dark sin is. He finally ends up homeless; he goes to soup kitchen he helped start to survive. His wife leaves him to live with her mother. He keeps his cool and praises God. Then he gets a rash all over his body because he has not bathed in months. The rash is so painful he can’t sleep. He keeps his cool and praises God.
Some of his old friends feel guilty so they visit him and tell him “just tell us your sins and we will welcome you back to church and you can stay at our houses until you find work”. He tells them that God is good and worthy of praise. He tells them that he was not as grateful for all things he had in life, that he was maybe a little prideful of his success. But they reply what is the terribly sin you have committed. He loses his cool and says “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, we all deserve hell, and I sin daily, maybe this because of the sins of my youth. I wish I could talk to God face to face and ask him why?”
His friends probe him more: have you committed adultery? No. Murder? No. Theft? No. Idolatry? Why are you not telling us? Why are you lying? His friends leave.
Modern day Job lives under bridge, praying each day why did this happen, what did I do wrong, and where are you God, show yourself.
Months pass, months of hunger, pain and rejection and Job can only seem to pray one prayer “God where are you? Please reveal yourself to me”.
Then one day God does. Job is blown away, overwhelmed with fear and wonder. Job hears God say “I am God and you are not!” Job is filled with love, joy and peace. Job simply replies “I only read about you in books, but now I have seen you, I will remain quiet”.
God then gives everything Job lost, back.
The whole point of Job was that he was never close to God before his suffering, his suffering caused him to seek God like never before, and when God reveals himself in his awesome splendour, Job no longer cares about the why’s.
The Apostle Paul summaries the message of Job brilliantly in Philippians 3:8 (ESV) “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” and again in Philippians 1:21 (ESV) “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
It seems like every day we face adversities, hardships, difficulties, dangers, misfortunes, and hard times. Our country is filled with poverty, violent crime, and unsaved people. Divorce and AIDS plague our society. Beggars are in our streets and hypocrites sitting on our pews. What can we do with our churches not making budget; our assistant pastors’ committing adultery? What could a man named Nehemiah who lived over two millenniums ago hope to even inspire us to lead God’s sheep to victory in this war? What would Nehemiah say to us today, what sermon would he preach? I believe he would say the same words he said to the people in his day, when they faced opposition on every side. He looked at people whose situation looked hopeless. He saw the stress in their faces. Failure and defeat seemed unavoidable. Yet Nehemiah boldly stated: “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome!” How often do we forget that God is all powerful, that the whole world is in his hands and that the sun is but a small bon fire in His back yard?
Let us examine his message in detail. In Nehemiah 4:14, and reading from the ESV: “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
Let us not be afraid of them. Let us not be afraid of adversities, hardships, difficulties, dangers, misfortunes, and hard times. Let us not be afraid of poverty, violent crime and whatever we face. Why because God is great and awesome.
I can hear a sarcastic thought in the back row, shout: “I know that God is powerful, I know God is awesome and I know He greater than all these things, but what does that help me practically. What must I do?”
Nehemiah answers that question, with the word fight. “Fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
God is great and awesome. This is the reason we fight. This is reason we preach, this is reason we worship, and this is the reason we live and breathe. This is the reason we counsel and pray.
This message is the core of Nehemiah the man and Nehemiah the book. This enabled Nehemiah to pray in faith (Nehemiah 1). This enabled Nehemiah to leave the palace of Persia (his comfort zone) and trek on dangerous roads to go to poor Jerusalem. This enabled Nehemiah to lead the people of Jerusalem to be brave in the face of enemies who threatened to kill them and build the broken wall of Jerusalem in the face of weariness and hopelessness (Nehemiah 2). This enabled Nehemiah to reply to every enemy and every Israelite who had fear and doubt in their heart, “the God of heaven will give us success” (Nehemiah 2:20 NIV). This enabled Nehemiah to lead the people to rebuilt Jerusalem physically and spiritually (Nehemiah 3 and 8).
Because God is great and awesome. Nehemiah was a man of prayer and action.
Because God is great and awesome. You can be a man of prayer and do what needs to be done.
Because God is great and awesome. Nehemiah stood firm in adversities and taught the Israelites to do the same.
Because God is great and awesome. You can stand firm in adversities and teach God’s people to do the same.
Because God is great and awesome. Nehemiah loved the Bible and asked Ezra to teach the people the Word of God.
Because God is great and awesome. You can lead, teach, preach and encourage others to do the same.
Let us be like Nehemiah and say to every situation and every person: “the God of heaven will give us success”.
When we understand that success means being closer to Jesus (loving Jesus more) and being more like Jesus (loving others more, putting their interest above ours), we won’t be like dogs any more, we won’t feel the need to mark our territory when we are confronted by another ‘successful’ sibling, but we will happily know that all territory, the kingdom, belongs to our Father in heaven.
Seeking The Path 