SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: That is a glorious sound to walk into the service to.
SPEAKER_01: And so thank you all for singing and Jessica and choir and orchestra.
SPEAKER_01: What a great joy.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, a couple of things before we get started this morning that I want to update you on.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, we have a mission trip, another construction trip coming up re uh soon to El Salvador.
SPEAKER_01: And we have a great group going.
SPEAKER_01: We have a number of our young men and leaders in the church are going, so it's really a great group.
SPEAKER_01: And we've had a number of people ask us, hey, Pastor, how do we give a scholarship or how do we uh help defray their costs in going?
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll be glad to answer that question for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you just want to uh drop something in the box or in the offering plate or bring it by the office, and just write on there it's for the mission trip.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'll do that, we'll make sure it gets directed to the mission trip and help those folks going.
SPEAKER_01: It's always a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: We always have folks in our church who are very generous and want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just say thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like to, that's how you do that.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be a great blessing to those guys.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great help.
SPEAKER_01: And I found when I give like that, Janet, and I give, it makes me even more appointed as a prayer partner praying for them as they're going.
SPEAKER_01: And so wanted to encourage you with that.
SPEAKER_01: Also wanted to remind you of an announcement we made in December, but because it was December, a lot of people in and out for the holidays and all that, we wanted to make sure that you were aware uh that um uh in December our personnel committee uh voted to hire Trey Overton as our business administrator.
SPEAKER_01: You've seen Trey around, uh, and he uh uh is he has family in this area.
SPEAKER_01: He's done a lot of things, been in all kinds of businesses, restaurant business, insurance business, been a football coach, professional bass fisherman.
SPEAKER_01: How cool is that?
SPEAKER_01: And uh and so he God had called him to ministry.
SPEAKER_01: He'd been active in church and serving, and so he moved back to this area to be with family to support he and his family as they as he was going to Liberty Online.
SPEAKER_01: So he got an online master's degree, and his last semester was this fall, and he needed an internship.
SPEAKER_01: And so we told Trey, now look, we'll be glad to have you as an intern.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, cheap labor's always great, like we're always in favor of that, but we don't have a job for you, just but we'll be glad to support you, let you come, be involved in what we're doing, and so he's been serving all fall.
SPEAKER_01: And about October, Matt and I sort of got aside at the coffee pot and said, like, we can't let him go.
SPEAKER_01: We got to figure out because he's got it on the ball, he's got a lot going on, he's great.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and some of our lay folks would come up and tug on us and say, Hey, we really like Trey.
SPEAKER_01: Are you guys smart enough to like Trey?
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, we like Trey.
SPEAKER_01: So we worked through that with the personnel committee, and in December we hired him as our church administrator.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are so grateful that Trey and his family are here.
SPEAKER_01: Part of things, he is out at the Chaffee campus most mornings uh helping us there, and then he has been stepping in.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are incredibly grateful uh for Johnny Johnson who uh served as our interim in that role for us, chairman of the finance committee, and also stepped into that role helping us as we were waiting for God to get Trey ready, as it turned out, to come and be our guy.
SPEAKER_01: So when you see Trey and his family, welcome them to the church and say hi.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here we go this morning, uh week two as we uh begin plowing through our chronological study of God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: And uh this was a great example, as we talked about last week, to see what the effect of studying chronologically means.
SPEAKER_01: Uh this week we have been reading through the book of Job, and so it's a great picture to see what that means.
SPEAKER_01: Most scholars don't really know exactly where Job goes, but they are all in pretty much agreement.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the oldest stories in all of Scripture and one of the original books written early on of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh most scholars put it somewhere in that time of what we refer to as the patriarchs, Abraham, and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: So, in this platform that we're reading, uh they have an appropriate place.
SPEAKER_01: We read up to the point of Abraham, and then Job, we're reading the story of Job.
SPEAKER_01: And then next week, as Job is over, we'll begin to pick up at Abraham and move forward.
SPEAKER_01: Now, uh I know it's intimidating uh that we're reading Job.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody kind of has that reaction.
SPEAKER_01: You go, Job, you know, that guy had a bad life, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's tough, and I don't want to read all that, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And here I am, I told Janet uh this week, you know, I've just been down in the rabbit hole all week trying to figure out how you get a sermon out of all this and trying to fight my way through all that depression.
SPEAKER_01: And then even this morning, here I am.
SPEAKER_01: I'm wrestling with Job this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm coming in to preach, and I cut myself shaving, and then my pants didn't fit the outfit that I was gonna wear because I ate too much at Christmas time, and then the next outfit that I got, the shirt was all messed up, and I had to get another one.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, Job.
SPEAKER_01: We all had those days, right?
SPEAKER_01: We all have that time.
SPEAKER_01: But as you read through the book of Job, I've also been hearing from folks this past week, which is a blessing as we're reading together to be talking together about what we're reading.
SPEAKER_01: And it just is an encouragement and it's a blessing, it's a joy to go through that journey together.
SPEAKER_01: And so this week, as we were talking, there was it all kind of went this way.
SPEAKER_01: Man, there's a lot of good stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01: Man, there's that, man, that statement was really good.
SPEAKER_01: Or I didn't know that verse came from there.
SPEAKER_01: And then everybody'd say this, man, his three friends are jerks.
SPEAKER_01: They really are.
SPEAKER_01: And we saw some of that this week.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's been fun to kind of take this journey together.
SPEAKER_01: So we start today.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have this week and next week as we're reading in the book of Job.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to turn with me to Job chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I want to talk to you about.
SPEAKER_01: That this is a picture of the combination of our spiritual lives and our physical lives and our natural world.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk to you about walking by faith, because we walk through life with one foot in the natural and one foot in the spiritual all the time.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, here's, I'm going to read to you from one of my journal entries this week.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, just first of all, so you'll know I'm doing this with you, just to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: But also, here's what this, as I'm working through Job, some of the deeper truths about what pulled together for me.
SPEAKER_01: I began to think, you know, this is kind of weird.
SPEAKER_01: You start in Genesis, you got this whole story, you're on this timeline, and then you just got this guy stuck in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: But as I studied this week, here's what I wrote.
SPEAKER_01: Job actually fits in well with Genesis and the beginning of life because it reveals and shows how life on earth is going to go.
SPEAKER_01: We have creation, we have the establishment and flow of the human race, and then you put Job right in the middle of that, that's so that we understand there's both a spiritual aspect of life and a human aspect of life.
SPEAKER_01: It pulls back the curtain of the spiritual battle God is waging to bring about his plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: It shows the effect of sin and the war against God's plan for redemption.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul says we walk by faith, this is the book that actually shows the engines and mechanisms of how and why faith in God as God is necessary to understand life.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we're going to kind of look at this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to read with me here in John chapter 1, uh, just as we start going to get the story.
SPEAKER_01: There was a man in the country of Uz named Job.
SPEAKER_01: He was a man of perfect integrity who feared God and turned away from every evil.
SPEAKER_01: There uh he had seven sons and three daughters.
SPEAKER_01: His estate included 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels.
SPEAKER_01: I told somebody this week, you think it's bad driving through chicken farms in Arkansas.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine that, right?
SPEAKER_01: 500 yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large number of servants.
SPEAKER_01: Job was the greatest man among all the people of the east.
SPEAKER_01: His sons used to take turns having banquets at their homes.
SPEAKER_01: They would send an invitation to their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever a round of banqueting was over, Job would send for his children and purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of his children.
SPEAKER_01: For Job thought, perhaps my children have sinned.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he didn't say they had.
SPEAKER_01: This is a protective father and parent.
SPEAKER_01: He is being proactive just in case, in case this happened, maybe this happened.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps my children have sinned, having cursed God in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: This was Job's regular practice.
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't want to get bogged down right here, but I just want to take a minute.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't run past this.
SPEAKER_01: This is what godly parenting looks like.
SPEAKER_01: It's proactive, it's deeply active, it's uber committed, and you're doing everything you can do from a committed, invested, surrendered basis to make sure your kids have enough experiences with God that they're going to walk with God.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a culture today where everybody spends more time teaching their kids how to do their homework at school, how to hit a baseball, how to play football, how to do tumbling and cheerleading, how to do band or whatever else, and God gets the leftovers from most families.
SPEAKER_01: We show up to work on time, we show up to baseball practice on time, we show up to cheerleading practice on time because our kids won't get to play or they'll sit on the bench for the first quarter if we show up late, but we can't get to church on time.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, seriously, too many people are giving God their leftovers when everything else ought to be getting the leftovers after we've given our children to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We ought to be invested in Sunday school.
SPEAKER_01: If you have kids, you ought to be working in the nursery and working in children's ministry or working in student ministry because you're fully invested that your church, where God has led you, and as a part of your kids, you know, number one, it's the best it can possibly be because that's where your kids are going to church and learning about Jesus is the partner that helps you and your family, and you want to be around other families and investing them and encouraging each other because we're doing everything we can do to bring our kids to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Every single time they got together, he pulls them all back to church, goes through the whole worship process of burnt offerings and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so I could stop there and preach a lot, but we'll go to verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said, Satan, where have you come from?
SPEAKER_01: Now, right here, let's do a little history.
SPEAKER_01: We understand who Satan is.
SPEAKER_01: Now, who are the sons of God?
SPEAKER_01: I think most scholars believe that that refers to fallen angels, and there was a reference to that in reading last week or so.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is, to put the history in place, is at some point during human history and all of this, there also was a rebellion in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And so there was a leader of that rebellion, a lead, majestic, high-level angel named, sometimes he's referred to as Lucifer, sometimes he's referred to as Beelzebub, sometimes he is referred to as Satan.
SPEAKER_01: The word Satan means adversary, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so he rebels against God.
SPEAKER_01: In his arrogance, he wants to be God, he wants to be worshipped like God.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that a third of the angels in heaven followed him, and they were cast out of heaven in judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, in the final judgment of redemption, they will be discast aside and judged forever, just like lost people who've never trusted Christ as their Savior will be judged for eternity.
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, he is out roaming around in the world.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the book of Hebrews, he is like a lion searching to and fro for whom he may devour.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is against the plans of God.
SPEAKER_01: He has been, that's why he was cast out of heaven in his rebellion against God, and he is out trying to do everything he can to oppose God.
SPEAKER_01: Satan shows up, the Bible tells us, we saw last week, in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not a matter of something going on or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: When he fell, he attacked God, and that means he's attacking God's creation, not just the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want anything to reflect God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let's also make clear here Satan doesn't care about Job.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't give a flying leap about who Job is or whatever else.
SPEAKER_01: He is opposing the plans and the work and the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: On the one day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.
SPEAKER_01: So that seems to indicate that he's the leader.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just an angel, but it's him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord asked Satan, Where have you come from?
SPEAKER_01: And he says, From roaming through the earth.
SPEAKER_01: What's he doing roaming through the earth?
SPEAKER_01: Roaming to and fro like a lion seeking whom he may devour.
SPEAKER_01: And Satan answered, God, I've been walking around on it.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I've been checking stuff out, looking at all this.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?
SPEAKER_01: No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect or complete integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.
SPEAKER_01: Satan answers the Lord, Does Job fear God for nothing?
SPEAKER_01: Haven't you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns?
SPEAKER_01: You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
SPEAKER_01: But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's get a couple of things here on those two verses.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, notice that God is validating and blessing Job, well done, good and faithful servant, for his heart of integrity in worshiping him.
SPEAKER_01: Also notice that Satan is attacking God.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Listen, the only reason that he worships you is because you made his life wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: So his he doesn't really love you, he doesn't really worship you.
SPEAKER_01: He just likes this nice, cushy life that you gave him.
SPEAKER_01: And if you take that away, he is going to curse your name.
SPEAKER_01: So Satan's attack and agenda is against the worship of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not against Job, against the worship of God.
SPEAKER_01: Joe is just a pawn in his chest battle spiritually against the person of God and the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so he also then says, I want Job to curse your name.
SPEAKER_01: So he challenges God and he says, Listen, why don't you take all of that away?
SPEAKER_01: Did you catch how he says that?
SPEAKER_01: If you strike his hand in all that.
SPEAKER_01: And so God's not having any part of Satan's shenanigans and games.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God is not evil, is not tempted by evil, and does not tempt to evil.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: He's bringing about redemption.
SPEAKER_01: He is working and moving his plan forward.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Very well, the Lord told Satan, everything he owns is in your power.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is the one who's going to act evilly, not God.
SPEAKER_01: However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.
SPEAKER_01: So Satan left the Lord's presence.
SPEAKER_01: God is still in charge.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is not some overwhelming enemy.
SPEAKER_01: He is not some omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient enemy.
SPEAKER_01: He is a defeated foe.
SPEAKER_01: From the very beginning in Genesis, as we saw last week, God said that he will receive a fatal blow from the Redeemer God had promised, and he is a defeated enemy, and he is not in charge.
SPEAKER_01: And so get the picture of how this is unfolding.
SPEAKER_01: One day when Job's sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and reported, While the oxen were ploughing and the donkeys grazing nearby, the Savans swooped down and took them away.
SPEAKER_01: They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Bible says this his days are going to get worse.
SPEAKER_01: While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported, a lightning storm struck from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It burned up the sheep and the servants and devoured them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: While that messenger was still speaking, yet another one came and reported the Chaldeans formed three bands, made a raid on the camels, and took them away.
SPEAKER_01: They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: While he was still speaking, another one comes and reports, Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house.
SPEAKER_01: They were having one of those banquets that was described, and suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house.
SPEAKER_01: We can relate to tornadoes in Arkansas, right?
SPEAKER_01: It collapsed on the young people so that they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: All of this has just gone on.
SPEAKER_01: His life as he knew it has just been wiped out.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says Job stood up, he tore his robe, he shaved his head.
SPEAKER_01: Those are all in that culture and day pictures of grieving and mourning in a humongously significant way.
SPEAKER_01: He fell to the ground and worshiped.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Now I love this translation.
SPEAKER_01: It's fine to say praise the name of the Lord, because that's a word we use for the name of God.
SPEAKER_01: But here, this translation makes it very clear.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the name of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: And Yahweh is the Israel name, the Jewish name that is the covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's that name that is most holy.
SPEAKER_01: When they wrote it, they didn't put vowels in it, so it would be unpronounceable.
SPEAKER_01: So it is so holy.
SPEAKER_01: It is the deepest expression of the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is also the covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so literally what he is doing is worshiping in the most significant way that he can.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the name of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Throughout all this, Job did not sin or blame God for anything.
SPEAKER_01: And here you get this picture that relates, that we can relate to in real life.
SPEAKER_01: That there is one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the physical world, and the physical world is not the dominant perspective.
SPEAKER_01: We define life by the spiritual understanding that defines life properly.
SPEAKER_01: So the first truth I want you to see is this we walk by faith, not by sight.
SPEAKER_01: That's that scripture that Paul says we walk by faith, but not by sight.
SPEAKER_01: But what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It means that we interpret life from the perspective of the person and work of God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, you see Job's response.
SPEAKER_01: And as you read all throughout the book of Job, he continues to either have that perspective, or as he gets more depressed and struggles more under the weight of all this, he tries to maintain that perspective or cry out to God to help me understand so that I can maintain this perspective.
SPEAKER_01: His response to all of this tragedy is not from the circumstances in which they occur or the pain or loss or struggle of those things.
SPEAKER_01: What he responds to is from a perspective of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Naked in this world I came, naked I will leave.
SPEAKER_01: That reflects what God told Adam that his life would be like because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: He said, From the dust of the ground you will return.
SPEAKER_01: And so he Understands that.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone dies.
SPEAKER_01: Death is a part of life.
SPEAKER_01: That is God's judgment for sin.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: All these things happen.
SPEAKER_01: But my trust is in God, and I am going to strive to define these physical human circumstances by who I know God to be.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the name of the Lord of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: He defines life by the person and work of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want you to notice a couple of things here.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, the Bible says that Satan's attack was to get Job to reject the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: He says, listen, Job only worships you because life is easy and good.
SPEAKER_01: And if you take away the comfort, he will curse your name.
SPEAKER_01: And when all the comfort was gone and all the loss occurred, it proved the truth that Job was a man of integrity and worshiped the Lord for who he is and not for what he did for Job.
SPEAKER_01: Because when it was all gone, Job continued to worship the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the spiritual life that we should have.
SPEAKER_01: Our pursuit in life is of the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, the first principle we talked about last week was what?
SPEAKER_01: This is God's story.
SPEAKER_01: And the second one, as God is creator, he is in charge.
SPEAKER_01: He is the authority in our life.
SPEAKER_01: He is so much greater than who we are, and he understands all of these things beyond what we are.
SPEAKER_01: And we are to learn who he is and understand that life for us as followers of Jesus, as followers of God, as those who placed our trust in God, is to trust in him beyond what we can see and recognize that his character flies all above this, that in the midst of all this, he is working to bring his plan of redemption, and that I am to define and interpret life by the person of God, not the things around me.
SPEAKER_01: Not what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in our lives, especially in America.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, Scripture wasn't written for Americans or Southern Baptists that live in SEC country.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture was written for every person in every walk of life, in every epoch of time, in every language, tongue, and culture.
SPEAKER_01: Every setting, every situation has different struggles.
SPEAKER_01: We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are in Africa and numerous countries there who are being killed for their faith relentlessly.
SPEAKER_01: In China, you have the underground church where it is illegal to be a follower of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's illegal for missionaries to be there.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they tell us that revival has been going on for years there.
SPEAKER_01: Some estimates are that as many as 40,000 people a day are giving their lives to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In the setting of that.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you are desperate and you are crying out, it is natural in our human condition to cry out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: American culture, we have first world problems and first world comforts like no culture or nation has ever had in human history.
SPEAKER_01: Life is so unbelievably easy for us compared to anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you need to go on a mission trip because you need to know what it's like where people live in a country where you can't even drink the water.
SPEAKER_01: I heard a guy say this one time, and it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Bear with me.
SPEAKER_01: You could drink the water out of your toilet bowl as infinitely more potable than most countries in Central and South America.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: I mean let's let's just get in perspective here.
SPEAKER_01: And we're so comfort-driven we we can't even stand in line.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Chick-fil-A has built an entire business model on as fast as we can possibly get you through drive-throughs, or people won't come.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that true?
SPEAKER_01: How then do we look at our comfort?
SPEAKER_01: It has altered our lives and perspectives far beyond anything that we even realize we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: The things that we lose our minds over.
SPEAKER_01: Here I am, we had a great service Sunday morning in the Chaffee campus.
SPEAKER_01: It was so exciting.
SPEAKER_01: We had visitors coming back and all this stuff going on.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, going from there, looking forward to being here, getting to preach twice.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody cut me off on old Greenwood, and I about lost my mind.
SPEAKER_01: That's how thin most of our spiritual life is most of the time.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it true?
SPEAKER_01: Now come on, let's just be honest.
SPEAKER_01: Look in the mirror, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we define things from that perspective, and we define things by how it's going to affect us or what we want.
SPEAKER_01: And the level of narcissism is so great we don't even realize in our own character what that is.
SPEAKER_01: But we have these moments when things go wrong or things are difficult where it is an opportunity for us to be tested and realize: am I worshiping God because life is easy and he put me in America somewhere?
SPEAKER_01: Or am I worshiping God because I have spent time focused on the person of God and I believe who he is, regardless of what's happening around me?
SPEAKER_01: And we are to understand these things.
SPEAKER_01: Just a couple years ago, before I came here, my job that I had previous to that, and not trying to compare with anyone or any circumstances or Job, just trying to relate that we all go through these moments, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You could describe these moments as well in your life.
SPEAKER_01: I'd gone for a ministry job, I was there for a year.
SPEAKER_01: Every day was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Literally, every day was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Every day was under attack, every day was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: And then it was even worse, and it ended horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Not by anything that I did or our staff did, but just ridiculous attack, craziness, all kinds of whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the point.
SPEAKER_01: The point is it was horrible, and we left that job because we literally couldn't be there with what was going on.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of that, I couldn't even work out my two-week notice because we were in the middle of COVID then, and I had COVID and I couldn't get off the couch for the last two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: We went from that on vacation with some of our friends who he had cancer, and it was the last vacation we were ever able to go on with them, and I did his funeral about two years after that.
SPEAKER_01: We came back from that.
SPEAKER_01: This is all in the course of from the end of October now through the second week in November.
SPEAKER_01: And then, praise the Lord, it was Thanksgiving time.
SPEAKER_01: We flew our son in, our daughter and son-in-law came in.
SPEAKER_01: These were pre-Killian days, so they weren't that great.
SPEAKER_01: Going through all of this in a matter of a couple of weeks, finally we have Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Life is going to get a little better.
SPEAKER_01: We literally sat down to eat dinner on Monday night of the week of Thanksgiving, and before we could take the first bite, my brother called and said, My dad had died of a massive heart attack.
SPEAKER_01: We all have these moments in life, right?
SPEAKER_01: You know yours what they are.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting there with my family and my kids, and my dad was one of my earthly heroes, one of the greatest men I've ever known.
SPEAKER_01: And what do I do?
SPEAKER_01: And all I can think of is the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at our kids and I said, I've preached that we believe heaven is real and we mourn like no one else.
SPEAKER_01: We do not mourn like those who have no hope, the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at them and said, I don't know what we're going to do, I don't know how sweet's gonna unfold, but we're gonna sit right here and we're gonna pray and we're gonna act like we believe heaven is real.
SPEAKER_01: Because we do.
SPEAKER_01: Do we define these moments?
SPEAKER_01: Do we interpret them from the perspective of that God is in heaven and he is our God?
SPEAKER_01: Do we trust him?
SPEAKER_01: Do we pursue him the way Job did that even in the midst of all that comfort, he is so focused, he is even calling his kids together for extra sacrifices, extra church, just in case somebody gets distracted or off track.
SPEAKER_01: And because he was so invested in knowing who God is that when it happened, his faith was real and it was there.
SPEAKER_01: And he defined life from the perspective of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now the rest of it lays out easy.
SPEAKER_01: Just watch how these other principles lay out once you get that one.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual warfare is the opposition of an evil enemy and the effects of sin against his plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: When you're defining life by the person of God, it's his story, it's his creation, and his plan is to redeem it, then you understand sin and evil and all the things that are against God are against the plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Life is not attacking you, it is against the work of God to redeem.
SPEAKER_01: All this environmental stuff that happens, lightning and tornadoes and all of that, we live in a fallen world that's been tainted by sin.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the New Testament that the earth groans under the pains of sin.
SPEAKER_01: People have sinned, all these enemies, the Sabaeans and the people who are marauders and robbers and all that, we live in a fallen world that's groaning under the pain of sin.
SPEAKER_01: You see that there are sinners all around us and their sin sloshes out on us, and they are working in opposition against the things of God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible talks about how in Ephesians 4, for example, that we are tossed about to and fro like children by all the doctories of men and the trickeries of scheming.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe that there's all these Illuminati's and all this kind of stuff out there that are against the world.
SPEAKER_01: I think all of the world is against the work of God because the world is lost.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that, we're going to always be fighting against stream, upstream, against everything, because all of that is opposition to God.
SPEAKER_01: And then you put the evil enemy, adversary to God, against that and his influence and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And God opens up the windows of heaven, he pulls back the veil, and he shows us how the spiritual world impacts the natural world.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, I'm just going to tell you here.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let your kids watch all those horror movies with demons and Damien, these bad pictures of the devil and all that, because it wrecks their biblical worldview of what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: It gives them a false lying impression of what life looks like.
SPEAKER_01: What we need to understand is this is who the devil is.
SPEAKER_01: He's not showing up breathing fire with a pitchfork and some gruesome thing and people's heads spinning around.
SPEAKER_01: All that nonsense is not what happens.
SPEAKER_01: What happens is God is a Satan is opposing God, and he's looking at your family, and he wants to make your circumstances miserable, not because he gives a flying leap about you, but he wants to keep you from worshiping God, and he wants God to not receive the glory of who he is as the God who loves you and the author and finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: And he is subtly lying and scheming and wreaking havoc.
SPEAKER_01: You're seeing this.
SPEAKER_01: How many times did Satan park his car out or his camel in those days in front of Job's house, counting all his sheep and oxen and seeing his kids and how happy they are, plotting about how to make God angry and lose by what he can do with that pawn.
SPEAKER_01: That's who Satan is.
SPEAKER_01: He's subtle.
SPEAKER_01: He's a liar.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't go fishing without bait.
SPEAKER_01: He tempts you and he does all those things.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls him the accuser of the brethren.
SPEAKER_01: Not only is he a liar, he says he's the father of lies.
SPEAKER_01: And the nature of those lies is always, in every time we see him show up, to get us to walk away from God by telling us that God doesn't love us the way we think he does or that he says he does.
SPEAKER_01: That's what all of that is always about.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the scheming plans of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that is in opposition.
SPEAKER_01: When things are happening difficult to us, it's just the operation of a sin-sick world, walking around as a twice-born person and once-worn folks, and all of that is in opposition, and we're swimming upstream, and all of that is designed or working or operating to pull our attention away from God and his plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why that comfort deal is so bad, because it makes us think things like his friends, they show up and go, listen, you were blessed when you were obedient, and now you're not blessed.
SPEAKER_01: You must have done something to make God mad.
SPEAKER_01: And Job says, that's not how God works, and that's not what this is about.
SPEAKER_01: God is not defined by the moment where things are good or things are bad in your life.
SPEAKER_01: God is defined by his love for us and his provision of a redeemer and his plan to make all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Bible says in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: And so all of that is in opposition, and all of that we're to be depending on him, seeking him, looking for his work and what he's doing in the midst of this.
SPEAKER_01: Next point flows from that.
SPEAKER_01: God is always at work in a loving, powerful, protective way to positively advance his plan.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I've had people come and ask me this question.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, God let this happen.
SPEAKER_01: Why did God get mad at Job?
SPEAKER_01: Why did he hate Job?
SPEAKER_01: Where's your loving God if he's allowing these evil things happen to Job?
SPEAKER_01: That comes from a lack of spiritual viewpoint that is accurate in terms of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the question of why does God allow bad things to happen to good people, that's a question that everybody asks, and that apologetic is important.
SPEAKER_01: And we've preached on that, and there are all kinds of answers to that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's where the root of that question comes from.
SPEAKER_01: It comes from, I want life my way, and God didn't make it easy for me, and so I don't like that.
SPEAKER_01: And they bought into the lie that God does not love us as much as he says he does.
SPEAKER_01: When when you go to Scripture and you study Scripture and you read Scripture, you understand that God is always working in a loving way.
SPEAKER_01: God has blessed Job.
SPEAKER_01: God has blessed his children.
SPEAKER_01: When Satan attacks Job and he seeks to do that, God puts his hand of protection and controls the amount of that that happens.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God, in the New Testament, God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our abilities to respond by faith.
SPEAKER_01: God is protecting in the midst of this.
SPEAKER_01: God is establishing a spiritual victory in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: God knows that he is going to write the book of Job, and down through the corridors of time, we are going to ask these questions, and he allows Job, because of his godly character, to be the teacher and the role model for all of us in our lives and for all of human history.
SPEAKER_01: Job is our teacher and how to respond.
SPEAKER_01: Job has no idea that that is happening, but God is blessing him beyond what even his human mind can possibly fathom.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says at the end of the story, we'll get to this week, that God restored and even doubled all of what Job had.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the other thing.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, here's the deal: everybody dies.
SPEAKER_01: That verse you will read in Job, our days are numbered.
SPEAKER_01: Job understands that.
SPEAKER_01: All of us face that because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Job was teaching his children to trust in God's redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible tells us when he doubled his camels and doubled his oxen and doubled his servants and doubled his wealth and doubled his fame and doubled everything else, he only gave him one equal set of kids.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he did not lose his first kids.
SPEAKER_01: They were in heaven with God.
SPEAKER_01: He had ten kids, it says in that story, seven sons and three daughters.
SPEAKER_01: He gives them another ten kids because he never lost the first one.
SPEAKER_01: He doubled his kids the way he doubled everything else.
SPEAKER_01: You can lose a camel, but if your kids know Jesus, you never lose your children.
SPEAKER_01: If your parents, if your aunt and uncle, your wife, your husband, whoever it is, if they know Jesus and they're walking with Jesus, God's plan of redemption is that they are in heaven forever.
SPEAKER_01: And here, God is using Job in a way that's beyond he ever he could possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_01: And when Job went to heaven, worshiping the Lord, as the Bible tells us at the end of the story, he does not lose his faith.
SPEAKER_01: He walks with God, he worships him, he ends up in heaven, and God opens and unveils a movie reel to show him how many people will look to the book of Job and the lessons that God allowed him, that used him to teach and impact lives all throughout the thread of human history, through the story of Job and his faithfulness and the lessons that we learn, it all made sense to Job when he got to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: God is always working in a loving way.
SPEAKER_01: Even these moments, think about those friends that need Jesus and they need to learn, and God is using him in the midst of this struggle to push back on their false impressions of God and to teach them who God really is and to teach them what God is really doing and challenge their perspective and all the people around him and all the people later than him.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that learn because God was at work and the Bible says God makes all things work together for good.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let ever let Satan lie to you and tell you that God is not at work and that God doesn't love you.
SPEAKER_01: God loves you with everything he has and he gave Jesus at the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Right after it says all things work together good, it says this in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: He did not spare his son for us.
SPEAKER_01: So why would he not freely with Jesus give us all things?
SPEAKER_01: He is always at love and loving, work in a loving fashion.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, this.
SPEAKER_01: He is always working towards that plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Faith.
SPEAKER_01: Here's another definition of faith to help us understand a spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: It is loving God, it is focusing on Him, it is pursuing Him and worshiping Him, it is loving God until our trust is so great that we bless the name of the Lord in all things.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to have a spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: When you come to these moments and you say the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why this is going on, but blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why I lost that person, why I lost that job, why I lost those finances.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why I lost that friend.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why I lost that child.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why I lost this relationship.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why this is happening.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand what all that is, but you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I know who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And he loves and he works and he's a plan and he makes all things work together for good.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to have a spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what it means to walk through life with the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that begins by the very first step of trust that you make, and that is to trust that Jesus came and died on the cross for your sins and rose again to accomplish that redemption in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever trusted Jesus as your Savior?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to understand all these other things when you aren't working from the framework of Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for my sins.
SPEAKER_01: But when you have trusted in the redempting plan of God, you have trusted that God loves you and he loves you so much that Jesus died for us on the cross, when you have trusted in that, then the rest of this makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, if he did not spare his own son, why would he not freely give us all things with Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ, I want to invite you to give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In just a moment, I'm going to pray, and our church is going to sing a time of worship where we are affirming this truth in God, this love and worship for God, this trust in Him that we've been talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to be saved, I want to invite you to come.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have pastors or deacons at the head of our aisles.
SPEAKER_01: They're here just to answer, to walk with you.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, nobody's going to manipulate you.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to rush you through something.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be saved, if you just have questions and you want to talk it through, come.
SPEAKER_01: Set up something.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk through it together.
SPEAKER_01: There are answers in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: You come.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to join our church, if you you've been attending and you want to be a part of things and dig in, listen, don't give God your second best.
SPEAKER_01: Make a commitment.
SPEAKER_01: Give him your best.
SPEAKER_01: Jump in.
SPEAKER_01: Be a part.
SPEAKER_01: Come and join and be with us and take this journey with us.
SPEAKER_01: If you need someone to pray with you, the altar is open for prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, trust God this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is that you're going through, don't leave here without taking a moment to trust Him as Job did.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you for your word that teaches us that we can trust you, that you are always at work, and that you rise above.
SPEAKER_01: The circumstances that we're going through, always working, always advancing, using them for our good and your glory.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray this morning, if there's someone who needs to be saved, that all of this will work to give them that sense of trust from your word and the lessons that you taught through the life of Job.
SPEAKER_01: Draw them to you and give them the faith to call you their Redeemer and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we give this moment to you in the name of Jesus and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith at First Baptist Church.