The Father Job

A Father's Day sermon from Job 1:1-5.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Chapter one. As today is Father's Day, I thought I'd take a break from our study of Second Peter and go to a text that focuses on a father, so that we can highlight this wonderful role that God has given to us. Job chapter one, I want to read the first five verses of the book. It says, There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred sheasses, and a very great household, so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day, and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. Lord, we understand what a great responsibility it is, and we want to do the very best job that we can do. But many of us, like myself, feel ill-equipped and underprepared for this task. And Lord, I'm so thankful that you have given us your word, that you are our Heavenly Father, that your Holy Spirit enables us and empowers us and guides us to do this task even when it is beyond our ability. And so, Father, I pray that you would empower men today through the preaching of your word and your Holy Spirit to be the fathers that you've called them to be, that we might raise up a generation that clings to you and that shines the gospel light brightly into this dark world. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. One of the first identifiers of Job that we find given to us in Scripture is that he was a father. Now, of course, we know that Satan's attack begins and tragedy strikes, and Job loses all of his children by the end of chapter one. And so his fatherhood then becomes overshadowed by his suffering. And the suffering becomes the focus of the rest of the book of Job. And so this morning I would like for us just to concentrate on these first five verses and to make some observations about Job as a father. Because there is really a tremendous profile that is given of him in these first five verses that tell us not just about who he is as a person, but who he is as a father that is easily overlooked when we get into the suffering that he is soon to experience. And so let me start with this. Number one, Job was a man. Job was a man. If you look in your text, we find that that reference is made there four times in those verses. There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright. He goes on to say that that man was the greatest among all the men of the East. And you might think that that could go without needing to be stated, but I would just remind you something about this little pronoun, and that this is representative of God's design. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, it says, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female created he them. This is creation order. And you and I have to understand that God ordered the universe in a way that it would work and function properly. And if we get it out of order, it doesn't work the way God designed it. Take, for example, the solar cycle. We know that uh every 24 hours the earth rotates and uh and then every 365 days it is revolving around the sun, and it is absolutely necessary to our world for that created order to keep working. In fact, what we've discovered about the other planets in our own solar system is that none of them have the conditions to sustain life. Only this planet has the conditions to sustain life. Plant life, animal life, human life, and it is all contingent upon the fact that we are at a certain distance from the sun, that our earth rotates every 24 hours so that there is a cycle of day and night, and that it is revolving around the sun every 365 days. And if we were able to alter that some way, it would be catastrophic. Agreed? Okay. From there, think about the fact that that uh that motherhood and fatherhood is part of God's created order. And if it would be catastrophic to mess with the created order of the solar cycle, do you not think that it would also be catastrophic to mess with the order of male and female? The only difference is we have figured out a way to alter that. It began with uh an attack theoretically. It began by challenging the roles of father and mother in the home so that definition has been of marriage has been redefined as not just a man and a woman who come together and procreate and make children, but now we can have two women together and we call that marriage. We can have two men together and we can call that marriage. I'm telling you, it is out of order. Not out of my order, out of God's created order. God created it to work and to function, and that is out of order in such a way that it breaks it down. But the assault wasn't just theoretical, it wasn't in just challenging the roles that men and women play in the family. It actually became physical. So that uh that that it alters the appearance of men to look like women, alters the appearance of women to look like men through this movement called transgenderism. As a matter of fact, we're in the month in which they celebrate all things LD LGBTQ. And they want to redefine our very understanding of our humanity. So extensive has it become in our culture that we no longer can define what is a woman and what is a man. I read this week that New York State, the New York State Senate, in its very last session, passed a bill. I can give you the bill number, it is uh S9316, and it replaces the terms father and mother with more gender-neutral terms of gestating parent and non-gestating parent in all of its family laws. So that's what they have done. They said, okay, everything that pertains to family law, we can no longer use the terms father and mother. We're going to change the terminology to gestating parent and non-gestating parent. Is that simpler? Or is it more complicated? Right? It's because we have redefined the terms and we can no longer with assurance, at least our culture can't, say what a father is and what a mother is. The assault on the creation order of God has had a detrimental effect on masculinity and fatherhood. I found it interesting that the name of Job actually means hated or persecuted. The root word that it comes from means to be hostile to or to treat as an enemy. It's almost as if God knew that there would be an attack on masculinity. But who would want to attack men, we might ask? Well, the answer is simple. It's the one who always attacks the created order of God. Is there not a protagonist or an antagonist who attacks the created order of God? Is it not the devil who enters the scene and tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God, to disrupt the created order? So I would say to men, don't question how God made you. What I'm on a rant on is that God made you the way he wants you, men, young men, boys. You're living in a culture that's going to try to get you to doubt whether or not you are what God made you to be. And I want you to know that God created you the way he wanted to create you. He gave you the chromosomal structure, XY, instead of XX. He knew what he was doing. Because we need men. Your wives need you to be a man. Your children need you to be a man. So be a man. But be a godly man. Secondly, Job was a godly man. Verse 1 goes on to tell us that Job was perfect, upright man who feared God and avoided evil. That word perfect that is used there means complete. It means mature. It means fully developed. As men, we need to realize that we are not naturally or automatically the men that we need to be. It doesn't just happen naturally, it's not automatic. As a matter of fact, first and foremost, we're incomplete without Christ. Every human being who was born into this world is born incomplete. If you remember back to that created order, God created mankind as tripart beings, body, soul, spirit. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the day they ate, a part of them died. The part that died was their spirit, the part that related them to God. That's why Jesus comes in John 3 and says, You must be born again, you must be born spiritually. And that's why it goes on to say in the New Testament that we become a new creature or a new creation in Christ, because we are recreated into the full image of God. So I say to you, men, that we all need to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, you are an incomplete person. You're missing the eternal part of you, the part that relates you to God, the part that restores us to God's design. In addition to that, it says that Job was an upright man, which means that he means straight, correct, or right. You see, uh, we're not licensed to be any type of man that we want to be. We are called to be godly men. We're called to be righteous men, we're called to be upright men. That means that we need to bring ourselves in alignment with God's word. If we want to be a godly man like Job is described here, it means that our life has come in line with the Word of God. It's like when you're building a wall or you're setting a post and you use the level to make sure that it's not leaning, that it's not crooked, but that it's upright. And so I say to you that the word of God then becomes our fixed standard by which we measure ourselves. And so we need to be in the word on the reg. We need to get into God's word, not just on Sundays, but Mondays through Saturdays. We ought to be spending some time in God's Word because that's what's going to bring us in alignment with God. You say, well, why do I need to be on the straight and narrow? Well, I would say it this way, if you've got any building experience, it's because you're load-bearing. Fathers, you're carrying the weight of your family. You're supposed to carry the weight of your family. And if you're not upright, that weight can cause you to fall. And when you fall, there's a lot of casualties that come with it. The whole house comes down if you and I fall. It goes on to say that Job feared God. This means that he recognized and submitted to the authority of God. That idea of fearing God is simply a recognition that he is God, he is the Almighty, He is all powerful, and that I submit to His authority. That's what it means to fear God. Being a man is not be about being the ultimate alpha. And I know that there's a lot of that in our culture, and I know that there's a lot of that in us. By the way, God's the one who gave you the testosterone that fuels that kind of ideology. But we are not called to be the ultimate alpha. We are called to worship the Alpha and Omega. There is one who is the ultimate Alpha. It is God Himself. And we are to fear Him and to follow Him. This does not make you weak, makes you wise. When you recognize that there is a God and you submit your life to Him. Furthermore, Job eschewed evil. That means that he avoided evil things. He purposefully turned away from the things that were ungodly. That reminds me that as men, we must guard ourselves against the temptations of this world because we are walking through a minefield, not through a meadow. We're not casually strolling through this innoculous society that has no danger for us. We are walking through a minefield where the devil has set traps that want to blow up your life. And so we need to learn how to avoid evil. We need to learn to say no to ourselves on those things that are tempting us to ungodliness. We need to discipline ourselves, to turn away from our lusts. But not only was Job a man and a godly man, Job was a family man. Our text tells us that Job had a wife and that Job had children. And again, this is part of God's created design. In the beginning, God said that it was not good for man to be alone. And all the women would say, Amen, right? Not good if you leave us alone, is it? I mean, we we have a tendency to not become our best selves. And so God looked at man and he said, It's not good for man to be alone. I'll create a help meet for him, and he creates Eve, and he places them together, and he tells them to be fruitful and to multiply. And I would say the statement is still true today. It's not good for man to be alone because God created us to be in tandem with our wife. If I can appeal to my masculine audience today, I would say it's kind of like a tractor in a trailer, right? You ever seen those big rigs going down the road? That truck is made to have that trailer attached to it. And when it is, it pulls better. It rides better. It is built for that. When it is bobtailing, it is not the same ride. And you and I as men are meant to pull the weight of our family. We are supposed to be the leaders out in front. We need that weight of responsibility on us to help keep us on the straight path. You see, Job followed God's creation order. He found himself a wife, and they had themselves ten babies. Isn't that wonderful? Now, by the time we read this text, they are of age, they are grown, but as you think about that, there is a phrase that is used there in this verse that implies a fatherly responsibility. It says that there were seven sons and three daughters that were born unto him. That is that idea of personal responsibility, personal possession. These are my children. Amen. If we have kids, they're our kids. And we're supposed to be involved in the raising of them. Raising children is not women's work. We're supposed to be involved in it from the very beginning because God designed it for mothers and fathers to raise those children. And I understand that their mother gives them some things that the father can't, but the father gives them some things that the mother can't. And so we need to be active in our children's lives from birth. Take it from a guy who didn't have one, your presence makes all the difference. I can tell you that the absence of a father leaves a mark on his children. The very next verse, after enumerating his children, talks about Job's substance. Tells us about all the animals and the herds that he had, which really just indicates that Job was a provider for his family. And I would say this men, don't be lazy. Don't be lazy. God has given us responsibility. God has given us ability. God created us to work. Not just to provide for our family, but it also gives us a sense of fulfillment. I have tried to teach this to my sons, but that is when you work, you actually experience self-worth. You realize that you are laboring and you are contributing and you're doing something, and somehow that reverberates back into you having worth. But you take a man who doesn't work, who doesn't contribute, who doesn't do those things, and he is going to struggle with his own worth, and it's going to be detrimental to his whole family. And so we find here that Job was industrious, that Job was working, that Job was seeking to provide for his family. Paul wrote this in 1 Timothy 5.8. If any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Do you know the latest statistics report that there are seven million able-bodied men of working age who do not have jobs? Not because they can't find them, but because they don't want them. Listen, that's going to affect our culture. That's going to affect our nation. That's going to affect our children. And I would say to you that those are some pretty strong words that are used there in 1 Timothy. Worse than an infidel. But they're God's words. They're God's words. That's what God says. Why? Because God created us. But it's not just about physical labor, it's also about spiritual responsibility. And so the last thing I'd like to share with you is that Job was a praying man. Verse 5 tells us that Job was intensely concerned about his children's salvation and their sanctification. The most important thing that a man can do is lead his family to God. As important as it is, I believe, to be a leader, to be a laborer, to have that role, I have no doubts that the most important thing that a man can do for his family is lead them to God. Be the leader that leads them to God. As a husband and a father, he's the head of the family, and he bears the responsibility for spiritual leadership. God gave that to us. And we read about that in Ephesians chapter 5 and Colossians 3. God has tasked men with the responsibility of spiritual leadership, and we are not sanctioned or allowed or licensed to abdicate that to someone else. We can't just turn it over to our wife and say, Well, you do all the praying and you do all the Bible reading and you get the kids ready and take them to church. No, the father ought to be the one who's initiating those things. He ought to be doing them in conjunction with his wife. He ought to be setting that example to lead his family to the Lord. I have no doubt that Job genuinely loved his children, and it shows in the way that he cared for their spiritual well-being. He's doing that by interceding for them in this text. In other words, he is going to God on their behalf. That's a tremendous picture of his care for his adult children. These aren't toddlers, these aren't adolescents, these aren't children that he has that daily interaction with. And so you may ask, well, what how can I care for my children when they do grow up, when they do move out, when they are on their own? And Job provides an example for that. We can pray for them. We can intercede for them because as this verse indicates, Job knows that his children have a sin nature just like everybody else, and that they might have sinned against the Lord, and he is beseeching the throne of God on their behalf. Did you not read that he said, oh, he worried that perhaps they were foolish and cursed God in their heart? Job is a realist. He doesn't think that his children are beyond making a mistake or a failure. He knows that they have a sin nature because he's the one who passed it on to them. And so he intercedes and he prays for them as he knew they'd be regularly faced with the temptation to sin. And obviously Job knows the dangers and the consequences of sin, and the only way to combat that is through intercession to God. Job can't go and tell them, stop what you're doing, don't do that, don't go there, don't look at that. Because they are beyond his reach, but he knows that they're not beyond the reach of God. And so instead, he goes to God on their behalf. And listen, by the way, that's not a practice that should start once our kids get out of the house. It ought to be a practice from the time they come into our house. That we make it a purposeful practice to pray for our children. I have no doubts that Job modeled godliness for his children by the way that he lived, and that he taught his children when they were in his home about the ways of God, but that's not all that he can do for them spiritually. He continually prayed for Job. And I think I think that's the that's the part that gets me. Thus did Job continually. It's the idea that Job was consistent in this. Isn't consistency one of the hardest things in life and in the Christian life? I mean, how many times have we come to the altar and we've made a decision? Oh God, I'm going to read my Bible every single day. I'm going to pray every day. I'm going to be faithful in church. And we do good for a little while, and then life happens. And we find ourselves inconsistently following God. Job had a consistency. He continually prayed for his children. You know, there's real power in prayer. I think sometimes as men, we suffer from the thought that getting down on our knees and praying can't affect much. If you're like me, I'm a hands-on type of guy. I like to be able to see the product of my labor. I like mowing grass because I can look back and see the lines. I like building because you can see that you've created something that wasn't there before. And I've got to be honest with you, there are some times I struggle to think, is this the best use of my time to get down on my knees and just pray? Because the flesh in me says, What does that accomplish? But the reality is, is that there is more power in prayer than the entirety of my entire life. Do you understand? I could labor all of my days and put all of my energy into trying to do something, and yet it still would not accomplish what one prayer can accomplish in the sovereignty of God. And so I would encourage you men, as I encourage myself, that we make an effort to pray. I mean, we've all heard the stories about praying mamas, the power of a praying mama. I know I had one. But can I tell you there's no more power in the prayers of a mama than there is in a papa? They don't have a special dispensation that gives them more audience with God. You men have the same access to God that they do. And so I'd encourage you to pray. Pray for your children, pray for your grandchildren. And so on this Father's Day, I do want to thank the Lord for all the good fathers that are out there. And I want to encourage you, with these four statements that we see from this passage, be a man, be a godly man, be a family man, and be a praying man. Because our world needs men like you. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the men that are in this room. I thank you for the good fathers that are in this world. Father, I thank you for the ones who do put you before themselves and put their families before themselves. They really are unsung heroes. Too often our culture wants to vilify masculinity and try to tell men how bad and terrible they are and how more ladylike they should be. Oh God, may we recognize the fallacy of that rhetoric because you created us, male and female. You built us differently, you equipped us, you designed us, Lord, and so may we delight in your design for us, but may our masculinity not be flavored by our sin, but may it be colored by Christ. May we be men who have yielded our lives to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that as we sung this morning, that He would live through us. Father, I thank you for the example of this father in Scripture, this man named Job, who, Lord, just lived out a real fatherhood before our eyes. Father, I pray that you would help us to do the same. There are days when the weight is heavy. There are days when we do feel overwhelmed and out of our depth. And on those days, may we remember that we have a heavenly father, one that we can go to who will enable us and equip us and help us. And so, Lord, I just pray and ask that you would help us to be the men, the husbands, the fathers that you saved us to be. And I pray that in Jesus' name, Amen. If you would stand with me and we're gonna sing, take