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Job: By Grace

The Book of Job

Nov 14, 2021


by: Jack Lash Series: The Book of Job | Category: Grace | Scripture: Job 40:10–14, Job 41:1–2, Job 41:7–11

I. Introduction
A. Next week is the last sermon in this series on Job. Then we begin our Advent series.
B. Last week, in his sermon, Dr. Coffin served us well, even though his sermon was not specifically on Job. He covered some subjects that free us up to focus on some other things this morning.
1. As we’ve seen in the story of Job, he talked about how, in this life, God doesn’t bring punishments according to what a person deserves, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the degree of one’s sin and the degree of suffering one experiences in this life (see Lk.13:1-5).
2. This was the mistake Job & his friends made. And there are several problems with this mentality:
a. It focuses on this world, not on eternity.
b. It ignores the depth and profundity of human sin.
c. It focuses on justice and misses grace.
3. You see, this world we live in is not the world of God’s just judgment, but the world of God’s patience and mercy.
4. Then, if this is the world of God’s mercy, why do terrible things happen?
a. Well, one of the ways God in His mercy is loving the world right now is by giving us glimpses of the future judgment which is to come. Isn’t it loving to warn people of danger?
b. When we hear the news about terrible things which happen to people, when we go to hospitals and see the wounds, the diseases, the agony, it gives us a little taste of what is justly coming to those who refuse the grace of God in Christ.
5. However, in this world, the Lord is also doing something else through suffering – for His children. God sends calamities to purify and strengthen His people – and to teach them to trust.
C. This week we are going to focus on two passages in Job which look at the error of Job and his friends from another angle.
1. Job 40:10–14 “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. 11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. 12 Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. 14 Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.”
2. Job 41:1-2, 7-11 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? 2 Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? ...7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? 8 Lay your hands on him; remember the battle—you will not do it again! 9 Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. 10 No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? 11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.
II. So, let’s look at these two passages and what they’re saying.
A. In Job 40:10-14 God is saying, “Job, you’ve been acting like you think you’re God. Ok, then. Go ahead, and let’s see what you can do. Adorn yourself with majesty; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out your anger, tread down the wicked, bring down the proud and put them in their place. Hide them all in the dust together. Do those things, Job, and then I’ll acknowledge that you don’t need me, and that your own right hand can save you.”
1. You see, deep down, we want to be God. That’s the deepest root of sin. We want to be the law-giver and the judge. We want our will to be followed. We want to be acknowledged, exalted, appreciated, and vindicated.
2. God saw this tendency in Job’s desire to vindicate himself even to the point of implicating God.
3. But God loved Job too much to feed this vile lust. He wanted to vindicate Job before his friends who judged him wrongly. But first, He needed to put Job in His place, to remind him that he is not God.
B. In Job 41:1-2, 7–11 God points Job’s attention to the mighty Leviathan. The Leviathan was a great sea monster which no man wanted to deal with. He was the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the sea. So, God asks, “Job, can you catch the Leviathan with a fishhook or tie a rope around his dangerous mouth to keep it shut? Can you put a cord in his nose or put a hook through his jaw to confine him? Can you bring him under control with harpoons or fishing spears? Go ahead, Job, try to get him under control. Even if you survive, you’ll say, ‘I’ll never do THAT again!’ Job, no man has a chance against Leviathan! Even the sight of this monster is enough to make the bravest of men shake in their boots. Even the fiercest of men don’t dare to stir him up. Job, if this is the way it is with Leviathan, which I created, who then is the one who can stand before me?”
1. And then God adds one more comment: “Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.”
2. Now, at first, this may seem like it doesn’t follow. But here is what God is saying:
a. If the fiercest man can’t pin down Leviathan, can’t order him around, can’t lay a claim on him, how in the world can YOU ever lay a claim against ME?
b. If man’s finest ropes and hooks and harpoons and fishing spears can’t bring leviathan to heal, what tool do you have, Job, to bring ME to heal? You have no power over me. Everything in the world is Mine! You have not given anything to Me that puts Me in your debt.
c. Job, you act like I owe you something. You speak as if I have not treating you justly, as if you deserve better. But the fact is, Job, you don’t deserve anything. You have no tool to hold over Me.
d. If I give to you, it is because I choose to give to you, not because I owe you.
III. And the same is true for us. God doesn’t owe us anything.
A. If we are going to understand what it means to believe in the God of the Bible, we must understand who He is & who He isn’t. Job & his friends – and many others down through the ages – had a very mistaken concept of God and our relationship with Him. And this is corrected in the book of Job.
1. We’re not dealing with Someone we can control. We’re not dealing with a God who needs us.
2. We are dealing with a God who owns everything – including you and me.
3. The feeling that God owes us something is based on the assumption that, in essence, we are on the same level as God. But this is far from true.
4. God draws near to us; God stoops down to us; God even sends His Son to the earth as a human.
5. But, before all of that, God is other; God is high and lifted up; God is not part of this world; God is not a part of the universe.
B. In every relationship in life, there is some kind of arrangement or agreement as to the nature of that arrangement.
1. For instance, a parent’s relationship with his/her young child is very different than their relationship with a store they shop at.
a. The arrangement we have with a store is that it determines the conditions of its availability to you: the store hours, the things available for purchase, the cost of each item, etc. But though the store makes things available to you to buy, you are under no obligation to buy any certain item or even to shop there at all.
b. When you have a child, though, you don’t have a choice. You have enormous obligations to provide protection, sustenance, education, and a number of other things. And this is true, even if the child is incapacitated in some way and unable to do anything for him/herself. And even though your legal obligation lasts only till they’re 18, your moral obligation lasts for a lifetime.
c. Those two arrangements are extremely different. With a store, you have a transactional relationship. With a child you have a covenant relationship.
2. It’s important to understand the nature of a relationship before you enter into it. What are your obligations? What are the benefits you receive, etc.?
a. Before entering into a relationship with God, you ought to understand what you’re getting into.
b. Jesus Himself urged this in Luke 14:27–32: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.”
C. So, what is the arrangement we have with God? What is the nature of our pact? What is the understanding we have between us and God?
1. Though He does lay on Himself the charge to protect and provide for His children, that doesn’t mean He owes us anything. So we’re never right to feel cheated by God.
2. He sets the rules. He tells us what to do, we don’t tell Him what to do. We can ask, we can plead, we can even beg. But we must not ever demand – as if we’re in charge of God.
3. Acts 17:24-25 gives us insight in this: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
a. What does it mean that God is not served by human hands? Aren’t we all supposed to serve Him?
(1) He allows us to serve Him, and serving Him is what we ought to do, indeed are obligated to do. But He doesn’t actually need our service. Our service ultimately doesn’t do Him any good.
(2) He is perfectly happy in Himself, and doesn’t need us.
b. Verse 25 goes on to say this. God does not need anything. Unlike us, He is completely independent. He is utterly self-sufficient.
(1) “He is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
4. You see, we are not in a mutual give-and-take relationship with God, where we scratch His back and He scratches ours. He doesn’t need anything! And He doesn’t owe us anything!
5. It is true that: “The protection of His child and treasure is a charge that on Himself He laid.” (Carolina Berg, T676) But it’s important to notice that this is not a charge which was imposed on Him by anyone. It is a charge that ON HIMSELF HE LAID.
a. He’s committed Himself to do something, and He has promised us that He will do it. But this promise is not given out of any obligation whatsoever. It is given out of love, out of grace.
6. AND HE ALSO RESERVES THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DECIDE THE DETAILS OF HOW WE ARE TO BE TAKEN CARE OF.
a. This is similar to the way a parent of a little child insists on deciding when the child crosses the street, and whether and what the child watches on TV, etc.
(1) The child may sometimes disagree and feel cheated, but that doesn’t mean the parent isn’t being loving, and it doesn’t mean the parent isn’t doing right or being wise.
(2) And when it comes to God, of course, we know He is always right, and always loving toward His children, who are precious to Him.
D. But here’s what often happens. God is so gracious and so kind that it’s easy to get accustomed to His generosity. And it’s easy to begin to expect it. And it’s easy for this expectation to evolve into feeling cheated when He doesn’t deliver.
1. And when we get to that point, we have gotten to exactly where Job was. It’s a dangerous place.
2. And God is kind to not just let us drift in that direction, but to interrupt our ease by asserting His authority.
3. Sometimes we need to be put in our place. Sometimes we need to be reminded that He is God and we are not.
E. This may seem negative and discouraging. And it IS – to our ego, to our love of ease, to our sense of entitlement, to our ambition to be God.
1. Part of us would prefer a relationship with God which is based on our good performance, where God says, “Wow! You’re so good that I can’t resist rewarding you with many blessings!”
2. The problem is, we’re not so good. If our blessings correspond to our performance, we are getting curses instead. And God is perfectly just. He doesn’t grade on a curve.
F. If we’re going to get a reward from God, it is going to be based on grace, it’s going to be based on pure, unearned, undeserved, unmerited favor.
1. And the story of Job does not leave us wondering if, in fact, God will in the end, be gracious to Job. In the final chapters of the book, God’s grace comes back like a flash flood upon his beloved Job. But only after he has had enough time and pain to know that it is grace, and only grace.
2. This is such good news to those who know they are real sinners, to those who know they are sick unto death unless the Doctor helps them.
3. If we know this, the news about grace is a great boon to our faith, it gives great hope in the face of our enemies, it is our anchor in times of sorrow and fear, and it’s a great fuel for our worship.
4. At the climax of the book of Romans, after Paul has painstakingly detailed the marvelous message of redemption in Christ by grace, when Paul is glorying in the profound wisdom of God, he actually quotes Job 41:11, our verse this morning: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” or “Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” Romans 11:33-35
5. “Who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid?” This humbles us and reminds us of who we’re dealing with when we deal with God.
G. But there’s more than this. Not only does this teach us important things about our relationship with God, it also teaches us that everything God gives us He gives us by grace.
1. It helps us grasp how very gracious God is.
2. He doesn’t owe us anything, but He lavishes such bounty upon us!
3. And we should never ever feel cheated or deprived.
4. And if we are in Christ, even the things God DOESN’T give us are withheld because of His merciful love for us.
H. And when we fail, what great comfort we derive from the knowledge of God’s grace.
1. Our relationship with God is not based on what we do.
2. If our relationship with God was based on just deserts, we would all be sent home empty-handed – because none of us deserve anything from God but His just punishment.
3. But our relationship with God is based on His grace.
4. And this grace was shown in its fullness through Jesus Christ, who came in human flesh, who lived a perfect life, and who died as our substitute on the cross, so that the justice and the grace of God might both be maintained and established.
I. But what about those who are not in Christ? Even they live by His grace.
1. Every breath they take is His gift. Every bite of food. Every person who loves them has been moved to love them by God. Every joy, every happiness, every protection, every deliverance.
2. All of their money, all of their relationships, all of their possessions, all of their accomplishments – they are all from Him. Even their sanity is a gift of God – as the story of Nebuchadnezzar shows.
3. Why would God show grace to those who do not believe in Him?
a. Acts 17:27 tells us that it is so that “they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.”
b. And Romans 2:4 tells us that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.”
J. What do we owe God? Why, we owe Him everything! Why? Because He’s given us so much – even our very lives. He’s given us more than we can pay back.