Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Text:
Job 1:1 “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

Job 2:1-10 “One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it."

The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason."

Then Satan answered the LORD, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face."

The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life."

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die."

But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?"

In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

“My Epitaph”

You know what? I have made a very terrible error this morning! I wanted to take my wife and children out for lunch immediately following church and I have forgotten to go to an ATM yesterday. I hate to ask this but does anyone here have $100 I can have? I’d sure appreciate it. Ah, thanks Doug.

Have you ever thought about what will be written on your tombstone when you die? Have you ever wondered how you will be remembered?

Here are some actual epitaphs found on tombstones:

“Here lies my wife here let her lie,
She now has peace and so do I!”

“Margaret Daniels: She always said her feet where killing her – now maybe someone will believe her.”

“On the 22nd of June, Johnny Fiddle went out of tune.”

“Here lies Johnny Yeast. Pardon me for not rising.”

“Here lies the body of our dear Anna
Done to death by a banana
It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low,
But the skin of the thing that made her go!”

This one was on a tombstone in a cemetery of a church I once served:

“Pause, stranger when you pass me by,
For as you are so once was I
As I am now so you will be,
Then prepare unto death and follow me.”

No one wants to think about death but the truth is that if Jesus should tarry, we all will one day die. I often have people come up to me and say, “Pastor I want you to preach my funeral.” To which I usually respond, “I can’t. I will be glad to bring some words of comfort to your family and friends when that day comes but your life, the life you have chosen to live is your funeral sermon.” As we have been known in life, so shall we be remembered in death.

It is my prayer that when I die, whenever that day may come, that I will have a good epitaph and that my life will have been a good testimony about the grace of God and the majesty of Jesus.

As I read about the life of Job I read of a man who knew what it meant to suffer in life. Time does not permit us this morning to read in full the details of the life of Job. I challenge you if you have never read it to sit down and do so. I have an idea that when you read about all that happened in his life it might make whatever is going on in your life a bit more tolerable. At the very least it will give you someone with whom you can identify.

Briefly the Bible tells us that Job was a good man. The exact words are, “That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

If it stopped there wouldn’t that be a wonderful epitaph? Wouldn’t it be a wonderful way to be remembered once our life is over? But it doesn’t stop there.

I want to share with you some more of Job chapter one so you and I can have a clearer picture about this man named Job.

1:2-3 “There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.”

Job was the wealthiest man in all the east! Not only was he wealthy but he was a good steward of all that he had. We read in verse 5, “And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send (his sons) and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, "It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." This is what Job always did.”

Then one day Satan walked up to God and they carried on this little conversation. God said, “Well Satan, where have you been?” I find that interesting for we all know God knows every act of Satan but I think it was a reminder of the sovereignty of God. See God made Satan submit to him and tell him what He wanted to know. Then God does a bit of bragging on Job. “You seen Job Satan? Hah! He hasn’t once been affected by you!” Satan then said, “Well man the ONLY reason he is as good as he is, the ONLY reason he serves you and remains loyal to you, the only reason he pays his tithes and offerings to you is because you have a fence hedged up about him and he has all these children and fine possessions. Let something happen to all that he has and he’ll curse the day he ever first prayed to you!”

God then said to Satan, “Go ahead Satan. I’ll remove this so called hedge. Take it all away but hear me dude and hear me good – don’t lay one hand on him!”

So what happens? Job loses it all. His servants are killed. His children are killed. His livestock are all killed.

What did Job do after this? He cursed God didn’t he? He said, “God I hate you! I hate the day I met you! I hate the first time I ever prayed to you!”

NO HE DID’NT!

This is what the Bible says, “Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.” (Job 1:20-22 NRSV)

Can you imagine? I’m not sure what I’d do. I know when I found out I had cancer I shook my fist in the face of God and asked, “WHY? WHY?? WHY??? What’s wrong with you????!”

But not Job, he worshiped God. If you lost everything you had could you deal with it that easily? I’m not sure I could and even if you could I might think you need at the very least a little bit of counseling.

There are two very important laws of faith here that we have to grasp before we can go home; one is obvious, the other is rather obscure, and since the hour “draweth nigh” let me point both of them out to you rather expediently.

First the obvious; the attitude of Job is the ideal attitude that you and I ought to strive to attain when those times of unexpected difficulty come uninvited into our lives. Gosh, I know that we all share a bond of difficulties don’t we? We all have stuff that come into our lives that cause us great pain and suffering; either emotionally or physically. Now I don’t promote a jovial attitude during those times. Like I said earlier, if we don’t show a bit of negativity towards those difficulties when they come, I’m going to worry about you.

The point I want to make is this; in the midst of all the tragedy of Job’s life he never once lost sight of the sovereignty of God. He kept at the forefront of his mind that no matter what happened God was there and God, God was still in control, and God would safely see him through all the trials of his life.

Faith law number one: It would do us good to realize that no matter what happens, God is still with us, God is still in control, and God will safely see us through whatever it is.

The second faith law is, as I said, more obscure. It is obscure because our lives have become more shaped by a postmodern way of thinking than a God way of thinking. The second faith law is a stewardship law.

I know that you are all still wondering about this $100 aren’t you? Were you surprised that Doug was so ready and willing to just hand over a hundred bucks to me? Well the truth is that before this morning’s service I walked up to Doug and gave him $100. I said to him, “Doug here is $100. All I ask is that when I ask for $100 this morning you give it back.” It’s not so hard to give something back when you know it’s not yours to begin with.

What did Job say? “Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

See Job realized that all he had wasn’t his to begin with. Everything he had belonged to God and God had only loaned it to him to take care of for a period of time. What were the words? “The Lord . . .” what? Gave.

Everything you and I have, our families, our homes, the furnishings in our homes, our jobs, the food in our cupboards, and are you ready for this? the money we have – it all comes to us from the hands of a gracious God. If He didn’t want us to have it, believe me we wouldn’t. We should approach such a loving and gracious God with hearts of thanksgiving for all that we have. And we ought to come each week willing to give back to Him the portion He requires of us.

I will never forget one of the first lessons I learned as a pastor. I learned it the hard way. I made a deacon in the church so angry with me and he never forgave me. In fact, it was on moving day and he had come to help me move. We decided to stop at Hardees for a biscuit and coffee. During the course of the conversation he told us that he had just sold a few hundred shares of Lowe’s stock. I’m not sure if you are familiar with Lowe’s stock but it’s good stuff and what he was basically telling us was that he had just increased his bank account by several thousands of dollars. Well this young, naive, foot-in-the-mouth pastor blurts out – “Man our offering sure will be good this Sunday won’t it?” Well. . .let me tell you I have learned my lesson well. While I’m still convinced that I was biblically correct, while I am still convinced that it is impossible to out give God, I have come to realize that the way we pastors approach the subject of Stewardship and giving must be done with a little more consideration of the feelings of the parishioner.

Giving of our tithes and offerings however is a biblical principal and if I did not stand here and remind you of that in a loving, pastoral way I would be shirking a very important part of my pastoral duty.

Faith Law number two: If you and I are going to be 21st century disciples with a 1st century faith then tithing is going to be a very important part of our lives and it is just part of the holistic approach to being Jesus’ disciple.

Now as we get back to our text and conclude this message we notice that his wife thought he was crazy! Well the reality is that when we live our lives as we should – most people WILL think we are crazy. It’s not what the world understands or believes. But that’s okay with me. I see a lot of this world that I want no part of. I don’t want to be a part of a world that forgets about God and that would like to take all references to God out of our lives. God has been far too good to me for that. He has blessed me with a wonderful wife, who like Jobs wife thinks I’m a bit crazy sometimes, but she has never told me to curse God and she never would. She is a wonderful Christian wife and mother. God has blessed me with two beautiful children. He has blessed me with a wonderful place to live and He has blessed me with you. Let me tell you something, if you haven’t figured it out yet – I love you! I appreciate each and every one of you. I am so glad that God has brought us together. Job’s epitaph is one that I wish for every one of us. “In all this Job did not sin.” Gosh how I wish that for myself. I’m not there yet. I’m striving for it – but I’m not there. How about you? Let strive to that end together, hand-in-hand. Let’s strive together to become 21st century Christians with a 1st century faith.

Amen

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