Two Journeys

Paul describes the superior glory of the New Covenant in that it results in the transformation of its people into glorious and eternal conformity to Christ, unlike the Old Covenant which had a fading glory and only brought death to its people.

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Job's commitment to mercy ministry teaches us two main lessons about suffering. First, Godly people alleviate the suffering of others. Second, godly people suffer well themselves, trusting in God through it all.

Turn in the Bible to Job 31 as we continue to move through this book. As I study the various books of the Bible, I realize that God in his wisdom has given us this incredible holy library of 66 books. And that each book of the Bible has a different role to play in our salvation, actually an array of roles.

The central role of the book of Job is to address the problem of human suffering in the world. There are many other themes that come, but that is the central role. And in this book, we see an amazingly godly man, Job, being brought through wrenching trials, the dimensions of which we can scarcely imagine. And in this sermon today, today's sermon, we're going to see that Job, an amazingly godly man, cared very much about the sufferings of other people around him long before he ever came into suffering himself. He yearned to use his resources, his time, his energy, his money, all of the things are in his life to alleviate the suffering of others. That was part of what made him a blameless and a godly man.

And he recounts this track record in this chapter, Job 31. But this chapter, Job 31, his final defense, as we've been saying is set in the larger context of the sorrow and the misery that God had brought in his life. And so we can derive two lessons, a vertical lesson and a horizontal lesson from the themes today. Horizontally, first, godly people alleviate the suffering of other people around them. And then secondly, vertically, godly people suffer well themselves and do not murmur or chafe against God. They trust in God through it all. These are the two great lessons on suffering that I see through this chapter today. Now, as we deal with the issue of our horizontal awareness of the suffering of people around us and our sacrificial service to the poor and needy, I'm mindful of how difficult this topic is for all of us.

It is very difficult for us as selfish sinners to care about the suffering of others. We really would like to move through life in this world in a protected bubble until we finally get to heaven and are free from it forever, no more death, mourning, crying or pain. We actually would like that to some degree.

Now this was underscored for me by two experiences I had on the mission field. The first was in the summer of 1986, my first time being outside of the United States, I went on a 10-week summer mission trip to Kenya. And at the end, the last week, we spent at a resort area on the Indian Ocean coastline in Mombasa. And it was a very nice resort. And we were there enjoying good food and fellowship together on the final week together. Some of us wanted to go into the city of Mombasa. And we went and we were in an air-conditioned van moving through this city of Mombasa. And for the first time in my life, I saw poverty in a city, not in the United States. I saw that the difference between the poor in the U.S. and the poor in other countries was almost immeasurable.

And it was shocking to me, the things that I was seeing in that area of Mombasa. And the more streets we moved through and drove through, the more uncomfortable I became with the shocking disparity between my lifestyle and the lifestyle of the people I was seeing outside that air-conditioned van. And it wasn't long after that, that van ride, that air-conditioned van ride became a kind of a symbol or a metaphor of me on this issue of ministering to the poor and needy, that my flesh, my heart desires, something like that for the rest of my life, I would like to just move and see it through tinted glass and be in a comfortable cushioned seat and have the air around me conditioned and just move through life like that. 

The second experience came a year later on my second mission trip, this one in Pakistan. I was on a team ministering to Afghan refugees who were fleeing from the Russians who had invaded to support their toppling communist regime, summer of 1987. Now those refugees, the Afghan refugees that we'd seen, I'd never seen such poverty in all my life. I mean, no, there were no one. I still haven't seen anyone as destitute as those people. They had fled with only their tattered clothes on their backs. And they had been through such experiences we can scarcely imagine. Almost every one of them had seen a loved one killed by a helicopter gunship or a landmine or something like that. The horror on their face was extraordinary, and we sought to minister to them.

But the experience that sticks with me was not even those Afghan refugees, it was something that was churning in me. And as I looked and saw their needs and all that, but we're just moving through the city of Peshawar, and we're going to do some errands in Peshawar, Pakistan. And a number of poor Pakistani people would kind of come and accost you. They'd wait outside the bank when you went to get money or something. They were waiting for Westerners and they were coming at us. And as I encountered them, they would inevitably kind of point to their mouths and their stomach saying that they're hungry. They couldn't speak our language, but we knew what they wanted.

And it was disturbing to me. The missionary that we were working with was dealing with it all the time and was used to it, didn't say a lot about it. He said that the beggars were frequently organized into somewhat like professional syndicates, somewhat like a prostitution ring with a pimp and all that. There would be individuals that would take advantage of poor people and would take a lot of the money that you gave them. And that there was this whole system going on. But he said, "Look, if you're concerned about them, all you have to do is just go to a Pakistani bakery and buy some of that naan, that beautiful, warm, delicious, flatbread, and just get a bunch of it and just have it ready. And when people would come, just give them the bread.” So I thought this was a great idea. So I went to a bakery and bought five or six of these loaves and carried them around in a bag with me.

And wasn't long before a woman came doing the same thing, pointing to her mouth or her stomach. So I was excited. I triumphantly pulled out the naan and handed it to her and she became enraged and took it from me and threw it to the ground and walked away. She wanted money, she didn't want bread. And what was really troublesome to me at that moment was my heart reaction. I was actually relieved by this. It's, "Oh, okay." So I actually didn't feel I had as much of a burden now for the poor and needy, because of this woman's reaction. The whole thing's kind of a sham or a scam or something like that. Well, the problem was the day continued, there's more things going on. And another woman came up and she had a little child and she did the same thing pointing to her mouth in her stomach. 

And I took out a piece of bread and she immediately ripped it in half and gave it to her child and ate it herself. And it was gone in seconds. I gave her the rest of the bread I had and I realized it isn't a scam, it isn't a sham. There are genuinely needy people in this world. And the fact of the matter is I was looking for a neat solution to ministry to the poor and needy. 

I was looking for a way out to some degree. I realized that fully facing the problems of haves and have nots of poverty, of suffering in this world would be costly for me. And I would have to kind of get out of the air-conditioned van more than I was comfortable doing. And it was even more troubling to have a tour of my own heart in this matter, the wickedness and the selfishness of my own heart. That tour has continued to this present day. The fact of the matter is, Christ means to use the issue of poverty and the suffering of others, not just poverty, but suffering of any sort going on in other people's lives. Even among wealthy people, people that are going through cancer treatments or different things, just the suffering of others. He means to use that suffering to challenge us. And I mean that continually, a continual test, a continual challenge. He does not want us to feel comfortable ever, like we have a silver bullet or a neat solution to this problem. He means to bring us all, I think, to a point of desperation and self denial, where we look up to God and ask him what he would have us do. That we don't rely on ourselves to meet the needs, but we look to God. Jesus did this with his own disciples. He constantly challenged his own disciples. For example, the feeding the 5,000. Disciples came to Jesus late in the day, "Send the people home." And Jesus said, "They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat." Wow, what a moment that was. 

And John's gospel, then John's account, John tells us that Jesus sought out the issue with Philip and said, "Where are we to buy bread that all these people may eat?" And then John tells us, "Jesus only did this to test him because he knew what he was going to do." You just look that up. That's John 6. Jesus intends to test us on this issue. He brings the thing up and tests you to see how you will respond. So the issue is, are we going to be aware? Are we going to see what's going on in the world around us? We're going to face the huge overwhelming needs of many sorts. Will we look upward and trust God for the resources to meet needs? And then will we be sacrificial servants to alleviate suffering of others in the world or not? 

Now we need help on this issue, because from infancy, every one of us has been fanatically committed to self-interest. Augustine, in his classic Confessions, he describes the staggering level of selfishness, even in an infant nursing at his mother's breast. What was he like a moment before his needs started to be met? Well, you moms know exactly what he was like, depending on the circumstances, howling with rage. Inarticulate, unable to speak what was on his mind. But he wasn't thinking about you, Mom, and what your needs were at all, fanatical commitment to self-interest. And all of us are like this. Not just some of us, all of us. We grow up in that same mode.

And only Christ, only the power of the Holy Spirit, only the grace of God, can break that fanatical commitment to self-interest so that we might love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we might love our neighbor as ourselves. And to this end, we are given the greatest possible example. I don't mean Job, we'll get to him in a moment. But I mean Jesus Christ. Jesus entered the world before his incarnation with his eyes wide open, knew very well he was going to be swimming in a sea of misery. He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. What were his daily days of ministry like? What was it like? It was a river of sick, hurting people coming to him for healings. That's what his day was like. Crowds bigger than you can imagine. Crushing him, all of them sick or broken or paralyzed or in some agony in some way. He was just drawing the poison of sorrow and suffering into himself. Second Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor that you through his poverty might become rich." So Jesus left the comfort and ease of heaven to alleviate our sufferings. 

Now in Scripture, God has given us, aside from the central glorious example of Jesus, many other examples as well. And I think in the Old Testament, there may not be a greater example of mercy ministry or care for the poor and needy or justice ministry, whatever you want to call it, than Job and the way he accounts himself here in Job 31. Job lived out what James calls a pure and faultless religion. James 1:27, "Religion that our God and father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Now let's remember the context here in the midst of Job's sorrows and sufferings that we know about. We've talked about this many times. 

Job 31 is his final defense against the accusations of his friends. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have accused him of suffering because of his own wickedness. But as you remember from the very beginning, Job is introduced to us as a blameless and upright man who feared God and shunned evil. Now, God allowed Satan to assault Job, to steal from him his wealth, his children, and his health. And then in the cycle of debate and discussions that follow, that make up the bulk of the book, there's all these discussions from Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. They came to be with him and they followed their theology, the law of sowing and reaping, you reap what you sow, and God is just inactive in this world. So the only possible explanation for the magnitude of Job's suffering is that he must be a great sinner. They have no evidence, but this is where the theology led them. And so Job 31 is his defense against this. He's refuting this vigorously. Now we've already looked two weeks ago in an overview fashion over this whole chapter, magnificent chapter of eight different elements of Job's righteousness. Last week, we focused on Job's commitment to absolute sexual purity.

Today, we're going to zero in on his care for mercy ministry. And this is a direct answer to a Eliphaz's outrageous accusation against Job. Job 22:5-10, Eliphaz said this, and just keep this in mind. This is the blameless and upright man that God boasted about to Satan. Eliphaz said this, "Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?" Now this is Eliphaz way out on a limb, no evidence. He's just saying these things. “You demanded security from your brothers for no reason, you strip men of their clothing, leaving them naked. You gave no water to the weary. You withheld food from the hungry though, you were a powerful man owning land, an honored man living on it. And you sent widows away empty handed. You broke the strength of the fatherless. That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you.”

So we're going to see in this chapter, in the sermon today, just three kind of main areas of Job's mercy ministries, concern for mercy. First in verse 13, fair treatment for his servants. And then secondly, in verses really throughout, but 16-20, especially sacrificial care for the poor and needy. And then thirdly, justice for the needy in court, exerting influence and justice for the needy in court. These are the three main areas. So we'll walk through each of these so that Job can give us help, that Job can be a role model, so that Job can stand and say to us in Christ, “follow me as I follow Christ." That's what ultimately the benefit that we'll have from this. So let's talk first about the cost of Job's care for the poor and needy. This is not without charge. It's costly. It was energetic and costly for Job to serve the poor and needy.

Now remember a couple of weeks ago, I talked about the contrast between Confucius' version of the Golden Rule and Jesus' version. I don't know if you remember that. The Golden Rule, Matthew 7:12 says, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the Prophets." It just sums up the second great commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

If you think about it, that means activity, it means energy, it means self-denying, sacrificial work. Effectively it's saying, put as much energy into caring for the needs of your neighbor as you do into caring for your own needs. Put as much thought and creativity into caring for the needs of your neighbor, as you do into caring for your own. So Christ's Golden Rule is harder to obey than Confucius'. Confucius’ basically is negative, don't do to others what you would not have them do to you. It's a simple ethic of “do not harm.” Do no harm. Christ turns around and says, "Actively do good as you would have it done to you."

Remember, Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan taught to, I guess, a lawyer who tried to justify himself. There’s always the danger on this issue of mercy and ministry. We're always trying to justify ourselves and our behavior. We're fine as we are. We care about poor people like we should. He said, "Well, who is my neighbor?" And he told the parable, "The Good Samaritan."

You remember how this man went down on the road to Jericho and was waylaid by highway robbers who violated Confucius' rule of do not do harm. They attacked him and etcetera. They also violated the Golden Rule. But then along come two others. You remember a priest who saw him bleeding there by the side of the road and walked by on the other side of the road and just kept going and did nothing. So he fulfilled Confucius' edict to not do harm, but he didn't do anything for him. He saw him and just walked on. Same thing with the Levite, exact same thing. He saw him. Jesus makes it very clear. Both of these saw, but they walked on, on the other side of the road. So the seeing and other side, that's what I mean by the bubble, that air-conditioned bubble that we're looking for. I see it, but I don't want to see it. And I'm over here and there's a space. And then along comes the Good Samaritan who sacrificially cares for him. So Job did that. Job lived a life of active service. It was costly for him to care for the fatherless and the widow. It was costly for him to feed hungry and clothe the naked. It was costly for him to house the stranger. This is the pattern that Jesus commends to all his servants.

And it's on the basis of this, he says in Matthew 25, that he's going to evaluate the entire human race. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he's going to put the sheep on his right on the goats on his left.” And he's going to say to those on his right, the sheep, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick, and you look after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me." And they said, "When?" And he said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me." Then he turns it around on the goats and said, "You did not do these things for me." Priest and the Levite walking by on the other side, "You didn't do it. So depart from me you who are cursed," he says. That's what's going to happen on Judgment Day. It’s a costly sacrificial service.

Now let's talk about the patterns of Job's care for the needy. Now Job's speech, his talk is in the form of an oath that he's taking in a court. If I have done this, and if I have done that, and if I have done the other, then may I be cursed? That's basically the pattern that we have in his language here. So verse 16, verse 17, verse, 19 verse 21, they all have “if, if, if, if.” So, but he's denying that he did those things. So you turn it around, they become then the assertions he's making about his life. So first one, fair treatment for his servants in verse 13. Verse 13, "If I have denied justice to my man servants and maid servants, when they had a grievance against me…..may I be accursed?" I didn't, I didn't deny justice to my men servants and maid servants when they had a grievance against me. Job was a great man running a great estate. He had lots of livestock. He had many servants that cared for the livestock as you remember. If any of them Job said, at any time had a grievance against him, say, I didn't run a perfect estate. 

Inevitably there would've been some things that would've happened, some mistakes, some ways that I could have been a better master to them as servants. I could have done better. So if they ever brought a grievance to me, I made certain that I heard them, that I listened to them and that I addressed their grievance. That's what he's saying. He was humble enough to listen to them. Great men of those days, they wouldn't listen to these people at all. They wouldn't even get a day in court, so to speak. They wouldn't even be heard. Job made certain that they were heard, made certain that their needs were addressed, was humble in that respect. Modern day application, some of you may be important, powerful people in your companies. You may be employers. You may be bosses. The question is, do you deal justly with people who have a grievance against you? Very easy to get defensive and use your position of power to make life difficult, to make their work lives miserable. 

Second main pattern is just sacrificial care for the poor and the needy. In verse 16, he said, "If I've denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary." So this is a lifestyle of active care for the poor and widows in the community. He did not deny their desires, the basic commodities of food, of clothing, of shelter. He saw that they got it. He didn't send them away empty handed without their desire met. So over 17 bread for the hungry. If I had kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless. John Calvin, in his sermon on this text, he uses the image that frequently the New Testament uses of a steward who's put in charge of the master's goods to manage them.

And the master gives specific instructions that this amount of these resources go to this person and these resources must go to this person and all that. He gives specific instructions. And then the steward doesn't do what the master told him to do. He doesn't embezzle. He doesn't hold it to himself. 

He just doesn't distribute the goods the way the master told him to. "That master,” said John Calvin, "will have every right to be angry with the steward because by his not following out the generous commands of his master, he made the master look stingy. He made the master look unjust." And so it is when we withhold resources that the Lord has given to us, that he means to distribute, then we actually make God look bad. 

As it says in Romans, "The name of God is blasphemed because of you." Romans 2:24. We don't want to do that, we want to make our God look generous. Now we cannot give a specific rule about how much to give or when to give or etcetera. It's hard to know. It takes wisdom. Jesus said in Mark 14:7, "The poor you will always have with you” and you can help them anytime you want." And that, just that freedom, it's just like they're always going to be around you. You're not going to solve the problem of poverty in the world. So you're always going to have opportunities. And part two, you can help them anytime you want. Implied in that is you can help them as much as you want.

Part three is, we'll talk about how much that was on judgment day. That's how I hear that. You're always going to have poor. We can't solve this. It's going to be with us till Jesus comes back. Secondly, it's up to you what you do. You have choices to make in this matter. And third, sheep and the goats, we're going to talk about it on judgment day.

So God leaves it to us to be wise stewards, to give in proportion to our income, wisely learning the condition of the poor. Expecting in some cases, perhaps to get taken advantage of like that beggar syndicate. I didn't know anything about that. I didn't realize that a good chunk of the money that I gave would go to some unscrupulous wicked person.

But that doesn't free me from caring for the genuinely hungry there. Job was lavishly generous with any person, poor person he knew. We tend to be stingy. We also feel excessively proud of ourselves when one out of a hundred times we help someone. And then we feel like we boast, “that was a big moment for me, Lord, you did see that,” right? “You saw what I did there. That was generous of me, don't you think?” So we like that. I know it's hard. I know it's hard, brothers and sisters, to get this right. I understand. I've been fighting this struggle, I struggle with this issue my whole Christian life. I understand. I don't think we're going to reach Job's level. But the dynamic of the Christian life is to see some defect in yourself and take it to God in prayer and say, "Change me, make me a different man or a different woman a year from now than I am now. I'm not very generous to the poor and needy, honestly. I don't sacrifice much for them. Will you please transform me?"

He also talks about giving guidance to the orphan and the widow. Verse 18, "But from my youth, I reared the fatherless as would a father. And from my birth, I guided the widow." So he basically just kind of grew up in an atmosphere of caring about the poor and needy. Obviously, he doesn't care for widows as an infant. But I think what he's saying is these foundations got built in his soul from an early age. Says a lot about Christian parenting, doesn't it? That you’re raising people up, kids up to care about others from childhood. 

And then look at the level of care. He said that the fatherless grew up with him, implies adoption or an active care for the orphan, giving him an education, rearing him as a father would a child. This was the level of Job's piety. It was very costly. It's hugely inconvenient to open your home and your lifestyle to an outsider. But to be the father to the fatherless involves a lot more than just giving a little bit of money. In Job's case, it meant pouring wisdom into the young man, seeing him grow up. And then when it came to the widow, it wasn't again, merely a matter of money. It was guidance. She was stripped of her protection often, legally. But she could come to Job and he was a safe haven for her. He would give her good advice, not just money, but guide her and get her into a good situation. So Job spent himself on behalf of the poor and needy. It was time. It was money. It was energy. Those commodities.

And he speaks of clothing for the shivering. Verses 19 and 20, "If I've seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment and his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece, from my sheep." So Job took his massive resource. Remember he had 7,000 sheep and he used a large portion of the wool that he had sheared from his sheep to make certain that the poor, the naked that he knew, were clothed. He rescued them from perishing in the cold. And he saw them. It was a key moment. He looked at them, he saw them with compassionate eyes. And he cared for them. 

He also speaks of housing for the stranger, verses 31, 32. He said that, "The men in my household have never said, who has not had his fill of Job's meat? But no stranger had to spend the night in the street for my door was always open to the traveler." So he was open for hospitality. I mean, back then, you didn't have hotels and inns generally. And so if there was a stranger coming into the community, as Jesus said, "I was a stranger, you invited me in."

And then finally, this issue of justice in court. In verses 21-22, he says, "If I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint." It was easy for the poor and the widow to get dominated in court. It's easy for the powerful, the wealthy to set up the system and gain the system so that they can take advantage of people who can't get good legal counsel or can't get somebody to stand up for them in court. This is why Jesus said very plainly that the teachers of the law, he cried out, “woe to them” because they devoured widow's houses. What does that mean? They were able legally to confiscate widow's property, take advantage of them. So instead, a truly godly man would come to the aid of widows in a court of laws. It says in Isaiah 1:17, "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." Now, what were the reasons for Job's care for the needy? This is as important as what he did.

And his reasons, as we've seen in Job 31, was a God-centered piety, everything centered on God. From the beginning, we're told of Job that he “feared God and shunned evil.” Things came again and again in Job's heart to God, to that vertical dimension. He was always thinking about God, how will God see this? What will God do about this? And he knew that he was accountable to God. 

For example, his reason for making certain he didn't deny justice to his own servants is that someday he himself would have to give an account to his own master. He knew that while he was a master temporarily, at least he was also a slave of God. So look at verses 13-14. He said, "If I have denied justice to my men servants and maid servants, when they had a complaint against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Someday," Job said, "I'm going to have to give an account for how I have treated these people. I'm going to have to give an answer to God for what I've done." And fundamentally, as he says in verse 15, God made us both. Verse 15, "Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?" John Calvin said, "Whenever you look at another human being, no matter what their circumstances, you're really looking in a mirror. You are both created in the image of God. There's no significant difference between you." So this is the foundation of all of our ethical treatment of other human beings. This person is a human being created in the image of God, fashioned in the womb by his meticulous care, just like you.

Job also feared God's judgment. Verse 23, "I dreaded destruction from God. For fear of his splendor, I could not do such things." Job knew that God would be highly motivated to defend the poor and needy against their oppressors. He says in Proverbs 14:31, "He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker. But conversely, whoever is kind to the needy honors God." So turning it around positively, whenever you are kind to the needy, you're honoring God, you're worshiping God, you're elevating God and presenting him as glorious and loving. And that's ultimately a positive motivation, isn't it? The delight you bring to others, the happiness you can bring in somebody's circumstance.

Look at verse 20, 19 and 20. He said, "If I've seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment and his heart did not bless me for warming him with a fleece from my sheep." How sweet is that? Somebody's in a extremity, an extreme situation and you're able to step in with some resources. Might just be counsel, might be friendship, but it could be money, some care and the burden is gone. You've taken care of it and there's a joy that comes from it. Now I know not everybody's going to say thank you. I know not everybody. Some people act as though you owe it to them. We understand that. There's going to be some bad behavior on both sides of the equation, but that doesn't matter. No matter what happens, ultimately, what matters is vertically God sees it and he's pleased. There's a joy and a delight in all of this.

All right. So what applications can we take from this? Well, first of all, Job is to all of us, spiritually, a father. We are like his children. It's like, "Teach me, dad, how to be, what kind of man should I be? What kind of woman should I be?" To have a godly father who can set a good role model for us and set a good example. So I don't think we're going to reach Job's level. You read this chapter. If you take it all as gospel truth, that this is how he lived his life, it's a very, very high standard. What you can do is take counsel in prayer with yourself. If you're married, husband and wife, get together and say, "How can we grow in care for the poor and needy? What can we do?" There are ministry opportunities right here in Durham. There are ministry opportunities around us. So we have to ask, not just individually, but for us as a church, the elders of our church, we have to ask what mercy ministries does God want us to do that we're not doing yet? I can't imagine not asking this. Oh, it's inconceivable that we aren't doing any mercy ministries God wants us to do that. Just can't be, there must be some opportunities that we're missing, there must be some things. Maybe up to this point, there hasn't been an open door, but now there's an opportunity. How can we do that? And as we do, we need to keep proper priorities. We need to care for the body, but care more for the soul. They're not equal in importance.

The social gospel in the 19th century basically said, fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, God has no active wrath or justice against any sinners. It's all fine. It's like a universalism kind of thing. The real issue is alleviating temporal suffering. That's what the social gospel is all about. The soup kitchens, all that kind of thing. There was no concern for proclaiming a gospel of salvation to sinners who were under the wrath of God, because they didn't believe in that. That was a social gospel. But the problem was fundamentalists in the 19th and on to 20th century overreacted the other way and did nothing for the body, many of them. Preached the gospel and that was it. And so there was a detachment that seems a lot like that air-conditioned bubble ride I was talking about that fundamentalists just didn't get involved in alleviating temporal suffering. And then Carl F. H. Henry came along the uneasy conscience of the modern evangelical and there started to be a concern.

John Stott talked about two wings of a bird, the gospel, and then alleviating temporal suffering. I don't think it's helpful because I think they're not equal. Do you remember when Jesus fed the 5,000? Remember that? John 6. What did they do the next day? Came back for more food. Remember? It's like, "Well, this is a good gig. Jesus can do this effortless. I could quit my Job. It's like we've won the lottery here. I mean, he waves his hand and a five loaves and two fish and look at that. And that was good. Those are good loaves too. Did you taste that fish? It was good. Jesus is an excellent chef." Jesus rebuked them for that constant pressure for the stomach. He said, "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you." So they're not equal. They're not like two wings of a bird. One is far more important. 

A number of years ago, I spoke at a conference Gospel Coalition put on about mercy ministry and they're talking about that. And the slogan’s very helpful. Christians should care about all human suffering, but especially eternal suffering. There is no suffering worse than that of eternity in hell. Depart from me ye who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. But Christians should also seek to alleviate temporary suffering too. Jesus did, and Job did. So that's what stands in front of us. So the call to us is to get out of the bubble and to make steps toward people that are broken, people that are hurting. People, we tend to go away from suffering. We need to go more toward it, ask God to work this in you. But realize, no matter how much you do in mercy ministry, no matter how sacrificial you are, even if you got close to Job's level, none of those things would ever save you from your sins. Job wasn't saved from hell because of his mercy ministry. And after this chapter, a few chapters later, he's repenting of his sins vertically. He needed to repent and have a savior as much as any human being.  And so we are saved because Jesus left his throne and came and was born of the Virgin Mary and lived a sinless life and died an atoning death for sinners like you and me. And by faith in Christ alone, our sins are forgiven. Not by our mercy ministry, our justice or any of that. But having been saved, how then shall we live? Job 31 tells us. Let's close in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the role model that Job is for us in this issue of justice and mercy. Father, we know that this is a challenging topic. We know it searches us. We are so selfish. Father, I pray that you would enable us to be more generous than we've ever been before. Show us individually and show us also as a church, what mercy ministries and what alleviation of suffering that you're calling us to do. Help us to be willing to do it even if it's sacrificial, maybe especially if it's sacrificial. Transform us, Lord. Make us different. Help us not to be selfish and self-focused, but instead to live for others as you did. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Godly people alleviate the suffering of others and suffer well themselves, trusting in God through it all as seen in Job's mercy ministry.

The post Job’s Costly Commitment to Mercy Ministry (Job Sermon 20) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Paul strongly urges the Corinthian church to reinstate the repentant sinner they had earlier disciplined, and he continues to defend the integrity of his gospel ministry.

The post 2 Corinthians Episode 2: Restoration for a Repentant Sinner & the Aroma of Christ (2:5-17) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Learn about our present sexual crisis, the good origins of marriage and the fall that ruined it, and Job's commitment to sexual purity.

Turn in your Bibles to Job 31. We're looking for the second week at these remarkable words. We live in a beautiful world, physically. The world that is around us was created by God and God celebrated it. When he made it, he said it was very good and he still delights in it for, as we're going to move ahead in Job, we see four chapters in which God boasts and pours out his delight in physical creation, in the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the birds, the ostrich, and the eagle and the lions. And all of these things are still evidence of the greatness of God. But the Bible also uses the word “world” very differently in I John 2. One of the central warnings that the New Testament gives to Christian people is the danger of the world. The apostle John speaks of this saying, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 

And that world is an elaborate system of evil allurements and enticements and temptations masterminded by Satan, himself, and central to the world's attack is lust. The lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life, but he zeros in on the lust and John calls all Christians to guard their hearts and to not love the world or anything in the evil world system. And so this world, this diabolical system of temptations has always been a threat to the souls of Christians. But I say this, never in the history of the church, has the world had so many ways to fire flaming arrows of temptation and also accusation into the souls of God's people. And many of those flaming arrows are directed to sexual sin from the moment that Adam and Eve fell into sin and their eyes were opened and they were corrupted in their minds. They had to cover over their naked bodies because of that corruption. From that point, until this, sex has been a massively vulnerable place in the souls of human beings. 

John Bunyan wrote an allegory of the Christian life called The Holy War in which he posits human beings as a city, a citadel under siege, a walled citadel under siege. And in that powerful image, just borrowing that image, I would see sex and temptation dressed as sex as like a section of the wall that's in rubble. The enemy is flooding to that weakness and dedicating a lot of attack and focus on that place where the wall is broken down. The prevalence and devastation of sexual sin should be obvious to anyone who is aware of current events or recent history. So many of God's choicest servants have fallen in this area. To put it simply, we need help.  And Job comes along in Job 31:1-12, as a father figure to us, a mentor, a role model, a warrior for righteousness, whose example can give us the assistance that we need. And today I'm singling out and focusing on the men in this room in particular to sit at Job's feet and learn from him as a father for he is a veteran of this war and he can help you. 

Now, last week we saw in Job 31 an overview of Job’s astonishing record of personal holiness, which Ben poured out in his sermon, I thought, marvelous overview. So I guess I don't need to do it, but I'm going to go ahead and do an overview of what he said. You know, we saw in Job 1:1 that Job was a man who was blameless and upright, who feared God and shunned evil. And in Job 31, we did kind of a flyover and we saw multiple elements of that. 

First, the section we're going to zero in on today, a commitment to absolute sexual purity in verses 1-12; and then a pattern of just treatment for his servants in verses 13-15; a lifestyle of active service to the poor and needy in verses 16-23; a rejection of all idols, especially wealth in verses 24-28; graciousness to enemies, hospitality to strangers, verses 29-32; integrity, living to please God and not the human audience, not concealing sin, but being who he really appeared to be, verses 33-37 and then righteous business practices, verses 38-39. Now last week we flew over this, like at a 30,000 foot level, and we're able to see it, but this week I want to zero in because we need the help to zero in on the issue of sexual purity, Job's commitment to absolute sexual purity. 

And I do this because of our present sexual crisis. Job 31 comes in just in time. The existence of digital technologies, especially smartphones and the apps that reside on them have given, as I said, the world, a continual access to our brains. It's almost like we're in some kind of an opium den, all of us lying, sleepy on cots with some kind of an IV drip pouring the world right into our minds and into our souls. The addictive nature of these smartphones should be obvious to anyone who sees or who knows them. I was recently in an airport waiting area in Atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the world, and I just thought about this. I was thinking about smartphones and I looked around and I would say at least three quarters of the people, probably more like 90%, were looking at phones. There wasn't a lot of conversation going on with one another. Maybe they were texting each other as they sat next to each other, which I find odd. Some of you say, but pastor, this is what we do. It's like, no, no. Put them down, talk to each other, look to each other. But these things are addictive.

I was myself at a conference once and I was not all that engaged in what was happening. I'm confessing this. I shouldn't even finish this story, but I'll go ahead and finish it. And I had my phone with me and I found myself looking at it and putting it down and looking at it and putting it down and looking at it and putting it down. Finally, I was like, stop. I wanted to throw the thing across the room. So I put it face down away from me to see if I could make it five minutes in the midst of this boring talk, five minutes, not looking at the smartphone. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. These things are addictive. 

Now, the world has an allure, generally, there's a pull on us. And there are many dangers that it has, but sex is a particular danger. And there's no doubt that the world is using all of its allures, it uses these digital delivery systems to get at us. And so what does the world offer? It offers possessions, all manner of items are continually on sale with the swipe of a finger. You can invest in the stock market and you can manage your portfolio with these smartphones. You can do it instantly. How about power? You can run an international company. You can be in touch with your workers. You can communicate and give orders and manage people. Power. Then there's pleasures, just constant gaming and live streaming and all manner of things that the smartphones can do. I break the smartphone, what it does for us, into “tool” and “toy.” And there's a lot more toy often than it is tool. So pleasures and then pride. You can just feed your ego with the social media apps. You can just kind of orchestrate those that you're interacting with and they can feed your ego by how many times they like something that you say. All of these things are dangerous. So certainly the world generally is threatening us, generally, but I believe no threat of all of those, no threat is greater than the allure of illicit sexual pleasure. How can we man it, how can we measure the damage and heartache that sexual sin has caused in your redemptive history? 

Imagine that you could stand by the bedside of King David as he was in his final days and he's lucid, he's able to talk, and you were to have a conversation about the great moments of his life and you asked him of all the great moments, what do you cherish the most? And he might mention how God gave him the strength to fight Goliath, even as a teenager and what that meant for him and how powerful that moment was. Or maybe more subtly and more gently, some of the moments of inspiration when he was writing the Psalms. What was it like to be filled with the Holy Spirit as you wrote, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want," and the sweetness of that fellowship. 

But then if you were to say to him, of all the things that you regret in your life, if there's anything in your life you could change, what would it be? I don't think he would hesitate. And you know, he, wouldn't. The moment I saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop and I didn't turn away in holy zeal for the glory of God. I would have that moment back. I would do that moment differently if I could, because my friend, I can't tell you how much damage that moment has done to me personally, to my family and to my whole nation. 

Well, my desire is to get you ready for that moment in your life and it's going to come. And that by the ministry of the Word, you'll be prepared to fight with a holy zeal for the glory of God, rather than crumble like David did that night. Now the internet and smartphones have brought sexual sin to levels unseen before. A staggering percentage of individuals have viewed or are continually viewing internet pornography. But there truly is nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new about this, at one level, certainly the technologies are new. The lasting power of the Bible itself, the reason that we continue to read it and find it perfectly helpful to us.

There's two aspects, the unchanging nature of God, the fact that God is immutable. He's the same, always the same. And secondly, the fact that the human condition is basically the same as well. Every generation is facing the same temptations. And so therefore the Bible speaks lasting wisdom to us and the Bible clearly addresses sexual sin and its remedy. It gives us everything that we need for life and godliness. It gives us everything we need for absolute sexual purity. So we have to go back to the beginning to understand this whole thing. We need to understand the good origins of marriage and then the fall that ruined it. From the beginning, God created marital relations, sex, within the context of marriage. Jesus, when he was asked about divorce, went back to creation. In Mark 10:6, he said, ”At the beginning of creation, God made them, male and female.” So in Jesus's mind how God set it up at the beginning is the permanent paradigm for the entire human race. It's never changed. 

And God created the first woman, it says in Genesis two, to be a helper suitable for the man, in Genesis 2:18. Adam's reaction after God brought him up out of that deep sleep that he caused to come on him was, was just amazing. As he saw his wife, Eve, for the first time he broke out into poetry. He said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man.” I've often thought it's fascinating, how in the world did Adam know that he was in deep sleep at the time? But it's clear that God told him where she had come from and God gave him in kind of a secret counsel, everything that he would need to love her and to cherish her. And so it is still the case. And so in Genesis 2:24, Moses told us that this was a permanent pattern for all time. In Genesis 2:24, For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. So the beautiful unity that Adam and Eve felt in their marriage in their marital, one flesh union was made clear from the very next verse. 

In Genesis 2:25 it says, “The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.” But that word ‘shame’ in Genesis 2:25 is ominous. If you had asked Adam and Eve, what is shame?, they would not have been able at that moment in their innocence to give you a definition of it. They wouldn't have known what it is. They would've been completely free from shame, but Moses centuries later writing the account knew very well what sexual shame was. And he knew that everyone reading his account would know it. And so he wanted us to know what it was like for them in their purity and their innocence to be naked and have no shame because for us, shame entered the world and it entered with the very next chapter in Genesis three. 

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, Genesis 3:7, then the eyes of both of them were open and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. And from that moment until this, the marriage bed has been an under continual assault by the devil. All manner of sexual sin and perversion has come in. Fornication, which is sex between two unmarried people. It's a sin. Our culture doesn't say it's a sin, but it is. It's not changed, God's never changed on it. And then adultery. Sex in which at least one of the people is married, but not to that person or both of them are. Homosexuality, sex between people of the same genders and all other forms of perversions that I will not utter here.

The worst of all, behind all of these behaviors, is the corruption of the human heart, the twisted nature of the human heart. The fact that our hearts fell into darkness. And so this battle for sexual purity has plagued every generation since Adam and Eve. Job, as I said, is a holy warrior who can teach us to fight. Now, let's look at what he said. We looked at it last week and we've heard it read, but let's read it again. 

Beginning at verse one, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl for what is man's lot from God above, his heritage, from the Almighty on high? Is it not ruin for the wicked and disaster for those who do wrong? Does he not see my ways and count my every step? If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit — let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless — If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my eyes have been or my hands have been defiled, then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted. If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor's door, then may my wife grind another man's grain and may other men sleep with her. For that would have been shameful, a sin to be judged. It is a fire that burns to Destruction. It would have uprooted my harvest."

Well, Job's piety is based on an intense awareness, a constant awareness of the presence of the Holy God. That's the centerpiece of his piety, of his godliness. He's always aware of the omniscience, the omnipresence and the holy judgments of God. He mentions God immediately. He says, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” Why did you do that? Well, what is man's lot from God above, his heritage from the Almighty on high? “Is it not ruin for the wicked and disaster for those who do wrong?”

“Does he,” Almighty God, “not see my ways and count my every step?” So the fear of the Lord truly is the beginning of sexual wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of sexual wisdom. This is the consistent pattern of the Bible. Speaking of the terrible judgements that come as a result of sexual sin, this is our lot from God, this is our heritage from on high. Judgment for the sexual sinner, ruin and disaster, and God's omnipresence and his omniscience and his holy judgment are with Job all the time.  Does he not see my ways and count my every step?

In the movie, Greater, a football movie about a Christian athlete named Brandon Burlsworth, he's a highly motivated athlete who by discipline and hard work, transformed himself from an overweight unathletic high school kid to a first round NFL draft choice. And toward the end of that process, when he was at University of Arkansas, a new coach came in and he went late at night to the gym and he heard someone in the gym. He heard noises. So he opened it up and there was Brandon Burlsworth, middle of the night, working on his technique, working on his blocking technique and other things. And the coach was impressed and thought to compliment Brandon Burlsworth with this statement, "Well, character is what you do when no one is watching." And he answered, "Coach, someone is always watching." 

Job knew that didn't he? Someone is always watching. And in the end, our godliness consists in caring only what he thinks. That's how we must understand Psalm 51. “Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”, but like no created being is even close to what you think. That's what matters. That's what mattered to Job. “Does he not see my ways and count my every step?” God is very mathematical. Jesus said, “Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” You seize everything that I do. One verse really speaks to me about this, this meticulous awareness that Almighty God has of us and what we do is 2 Peter 3:8, it says, "do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years."

"A single day is like a thousand years." What does that mean? Well, I kind of unfolded that in my mind to think that what it means is that God sees every single moment of every day in super slow motion. It's like he slows everything down and every glance of the eye, every click of the mouse, every swipe of the finger, every moment he sees it and understands it completely. Nothing like, flies by, I didn't see what happened. Everything. With the Lord a single day is like a thousand years. And part of Satan's deception on this issue of sexual sin is the illusion of escaping detection and judgment by God. Isaiah 29:15 speaks of this, "Woe are those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think who sees us? Who will know? Woe to them." Isaiah says.

It's right in this passage by Job, the idea of lurking by his neighbor's door at night. Look at verse nine. "If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I've lurked at my neighbor's door." It's also implied in the idea of walking in deceit. In verse five, If I've walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit, it's really not a big achievement to deceive other people, but it's impossible to deceive God. It's as though night where somehow a perfect cloak that covers overall manner of dark choices and dark actions. The sexually immoral person thinks that they will get away with it. And the Bible makes it plain that this is impossible. In Proverb 6:27-29, it says, "Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man's wife. No one who touches her will go unpunished."

So Satan works to deceive us and to say, “l can cover this up, no one will ever know.” David tried to do that shamefully. Remember how he brought Uriah the Hittite back so he could sleep with his wife and cover over the true paternity of the baby. And when he wouldn't go just out of loyalty to the army, then he got him drunk and that didn't work and then he killed him to cover over the sin. He sought to do it. And then Nathan, the prophet, pointed his finger at David and said, “You are the man!”And then he said, “You did this in secret, God's going to judge you in public.” Therefore all truly godly men who successfully flee sexual temptation do so in the continual light of a holy God, whose opinion is all that matters.

And so Job speaks of harsh judgments for sexual sin, an uprooted harvest and a lost wife. Look at verses 7-8, it says, "If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, if my hands have been defiled, then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted." He says the same thing again in verse 12, “it would have uprooted my harvest.” Picture everything you've worked for in this life being ripped from you, destroyed. We are not an agricultural people for the most part anymore, but you can picture what it would be like to work all spring and summer in a harvest and have it destroyed. 

Sometime ago, I was reading an article about an account executive in London, who was found by the reporter under a bridge, living under a bridge in London. And his story was tragic. He was very wealthy, successful, not a Christian. Reporter was not a Christian, not a Christian story, it was just an account of what happened. And this man ended up having a one night adulterous connection with a woman at a Christmas party, an office party, just one night. His wife found out about him, divorced him immediately, took his daughters, took almost all of his money. To deal with his pain, he began to drink and to drink heavily, lost his job, and then within months there he was. So from here all the way down to here in a relatively short order, and it all comes back to that moment at the office party.

So as I was thinking about this passage, the image I put in your mind was something that was hugely in my mind, an uprooted harvest. I used to drive from Louisville, Kentucky up to Grand Rapids, Michigan for weeks, and then would come back. But I went up there for a class at Calvin Seminary. And I drove basically the length of the state of Indiana. And I'd never seen such massive corn fields. I'm from Massachusetts. They have corn patches in Massachusetts, they don't have corn fields like they do in Indiana, but it was just incredible. And I was actually meditating on this very passage, the idea of uprooting the harvest. Imagine a farmer has invested everything, all his time and his energy and his money in that crop, and he comes out one morning and it's laying flat. So men picture that. Everything you've worked for, everything you care about in this world, gone. “It would have uprooted my harvest.” 

Job also speaks of the loss of his marriage. “May my wife grind another man's grain and may other men sleep with her.” Sexual sin is the number one cause of divorce. And Job realized it would only be justice if he slept with another man's wife and then lost his own wife as a result and that was terrifying to him. But the ultimate judgment is nothing in this world. Not at all. The ultimate judgment of sexual sin is eternity in hell. Eternity in hell. Look at verses 11-12, that would've been shameful, a sin to be judged. It is a fire that burns to destruction. The Hebrew word here is Abaddon frequently tied directly to hell. The Bible consistently warns of the inevitability of God's judgment on sexual sin. It is pure fear. God is trying to scare us straight in this matter. It's not the only thing he does. There are many positive inducements and many positive helps, but this issue of fear of hell. 

Fear of the fire of hell is clearly in Jesus' mind in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If your eye caused you to sin, pluck it out, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched and everyone will be salted with fire.” Jesus directly links sexual sin to the threat of hell. So it's very dangerous. Now we are called on to battle sexual sin from inside out from the heart, out from the soul level out. Not merely cutting off certain practices, although that's part of it. But job speaks of this in verse nine. "If my heart has been enticed by a woman," and therefore he speaks of not allowing a woman's beauty to corrupt his heart. 

Verse one again, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl." It's implied that, if you're at that level of making a covenant, a binding agreement with your eyes, he knows very well what a threat this is. And so he is serious about the issue of the heart. And Jesus says, if you look at a woman lustfully, you've already committed adultery with her in your heart. Heart religion, that's what Christianity is. Other religions, Islam, other religions, it's all external. It's all about behavior patterns. God looks at the heart. He looks at what's happening inside in the mind. And the heart says in Revelation 2:23, Jesus speaking, he says, "I am he who searches hearts and minds. And I will repay each of you according to your deeds." So this is a battle for the heart. 

Job says right at the beginning, as I mentioned in verse 1, it's a battle for the eyes. He made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully. Jesus said, if your right eye causes you to sin, cut it out or gouge it out and throw it away. So this is immediately applicable to all men who yearn to be pure. It starts with what you look at, what you allow to come in your mind. Jesus said, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. And so this commitment that he makes in verse one is a commitment to having my eyes good. I'm not going to look at anything that would corrupt my soul. That includes on electronic devices or in real life. Whether you're at the beach or the pool or the office, or when you're alone with your smartphone, whatever, I'm just not going to allow anything that would corrupt my mind and my heart. 

So this brings us to holy habits. The final stage of Job's battle for sexual purity was to act in an honorable way at all times, constantly pleasing God from the heart, but then it came out in what he did with his body, with the members of his body. As Apostle Paul will say in Roman 6, the battle for holiness is a battle of what you do with the members of your body. And Job uses this physical language in verses 4-7. “Does he not see my ways and count my every step?” So he has a lot of step and feet and walking language here. “If I've walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit, let God weigh me in on honest scales. He will know that I am blameless. If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes or my hands have been defiled.” 

So it all has to do with the members of your body. It says in Roman 6, “Do not present the members of your body as instruments of wickedness, but rather present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and present the members of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master because you're not under law, but under grace.” So we have to set up boundaries for the way we live. We put up fences to keep us safe, what you will and won't do with a member of the opposite sex, what you will and won't do with your smartphone, etc.

All right. So what applications can we take from this? First of all, review these commitments of Job. Job can help us walk through these things. Start vertically, intensify your sense of the presence of God, not just in the area of sexual sin, but all the time, the omnipresence of God. That's what it means to abide in Jesus, to walk with him continually, to rest in him. You are a branch, he is the vine.

You're feeling life-giving sap flowing through the Holy Spirit and your fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. That's the foundation to all holiness and all purity, not just sexual. But that sense of the presence of God. And then be afraid, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” How do you understand that? Should we not fear sexual sin? I think we should. Should we not fear what it will do to us, to our marriages and to our lives? I think we must. There is a fear of sin and of God's reaction to sin that I think is at the core of Philippians 2’s statement to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. We are in danger, we're in a war zone and we have to fight. 

So drink in those warnings on hell. Don't say, well, this doesn't have to do with me. I don't need to read this because I'm already Christian. I understand why you might say that. But Jesus was speaking to his disciples. Who is it that takes warnings concerning hell seriously? Is it not the elect in their unconverted state? They take it seriously and flee to Christ. In our converted state, we take warnings about hell seriously and we flee to holiness. We take these things seriously. They're for us. These warnings, they're always meant for us. And so battle from the inside out. It's not merely being a whitewashed tomb, setting things up so you don't get caught. That's not it. That we would be a whitewashed tomb and full of dead men's bones and all kinds of corruption on the inside. Be careful, obviously, what you set before your eyes.

It's up to you what you do with your smartphone. First Baptist Church, this is not a cult. The elders here are not a cult. We don't require legalistic regulations and moralistic regulations if you're going to be a member of the church. That's cult-like. But what we do tell you is if something is inevitably causing you to sin, cut it out of your life. What else does it mean if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away? It certainly isn't meaning physical, but if there's something in your life that inevitably leads you to sin, then cut it out, throw it away. That's something you have to do. That's on you. You have to make that decision. You evaluate your own behavior patterns and establish godly boundaries for what you will and won't do in your life, what you will and won't say to a female coworker.

It's amazing the kinds of jokes and flirting and stuff that went on when I was in the secular workplace, I couldn't believe it. And there's all kinds of corruption. Now the foundation to our gospel is justification by faith alone. Praise God for that. We are not going to be saved from our sins by imitating Job's righteousness. Indeed Job wasn't saved that way. If Job were to stand before God in his blamelessness, another prophet said he would save only himself by his righteousness. He couldn't do anything for you, but Jesus can. As we've already heard earlier, as Ben prayed very beautifully, Jesus has a transferrable holiness and righteousness that he offers to us free of charge. He did all of these things and infinitely more and he offers you free righteousness by simple faith in Christ. A robe of righteousness to cover your shameful nakedness in the language of the book of Revelation. Put it on, put on Christ, put on his atoning sacrifice for all of your sins. And he will cover you and cleanse you. 

You cannot live this life of absolute sexual purity as an unconverted person. And so therefore come to Christ and trust in him. And if you've already come to Christ, come to him again and again, more than ever before. You're already justified. You've been justified for years. I'm not saying don't think, oh, I'm not justified. You are forgiven, but coming to Christ is something we do again and again. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Call upon me in the day of trouble, he says in Psalm 50, “I will deliver you and you will glorify me.” So call upon him.

Some of you may be crushed by this topic. You feel so guilty, very aware of guilt within, and you feel like you're in bondage and you don't know how to get out. You begin by confessing your sin vertically to God. 1 John 1:9. We heard it earlier. Confess your sin. “If we confess our sins, he” — God — “is faithful and just to forgive our sins and” — what else? — “purify us from all in righteousness.” So stand before him and say, please forgive me, but then purify me, make me a different man. I don't want to be like this. I want be holy. And then mortify sin. Colossians 3:5-6, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” Sexual immorality is the first thing Paul mentions in the list. Impurity, that's internal corruption, lust, evil desires, and greed. Four of them are directly on this topic. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming. Remind yourself that you're free from all sin. You are set free from all sin. You never need sin again. 

What does that mean? Every temptation that comes to your mind, to your soul from now on can be killed, can be put to death by the Spirit. Every one of them. Not one of them comes with ultimate compulsion and not once were you able to say there was nothing I can do. “God, you know, there was no way I could say no to that temptation.” It's a lie. Satan tells it to you ahead of time so that you'll yield. You are set free from all temptations and you don't ever need to sin again, but you have this body of death. You're walking in this corruptible body. It's like a dry field on a hot August day and someone throws a torch in the middle of it. It's like how in the world can I survive? You don't know me. You don't know all of the things. God knows you.

And so you can't put the sin to death in and of itself. You can put individual temptations to death, but the thing itself, categorically, is going to be with you the rest of your life. What you can do, according to Roman 6:6, is death by starvation. Weaken it, weaken it by denying its temptations and it will get weaker and weaker and weaker. Conversely, if you yield to it will get stronger and stronger and stronger. So Roman 6:6 says we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be. And the Greek word here, katargeo, is rendered increasingly powerless, that's starved to death rendered, increasingly powerless so that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 

Also accountability, men find some other men that you can tell the truth to and will hold you accountable. Who will ask you how things are going and will pray for you. Positively, fill your hearts with delight. If you're a married man, as the book of Proverb says, delight yourself in your wife and let her present herself to you to delight you as well.

Recently, I was going back over Gary Chapman's the love languages, The Five Love Languages. I love that book. He defines five ways that Christian spouses can speak love to each other. Words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, receiving gifts. Those are great ways for you to love each other. Now he makes the argument that each spouse has their own home-based love language. But I don't think any spouse wouldn't say, “You want to bring all five? Bring them, do them all. All right, especially do this one here, great, but do them all.” And you can do the same the other way, strengthen your marriage so that you're filled with delight in each other. But greater than that by far, would you not fill your hearts with delight in Jesus? 

There was a time I was counseling with a couple and the man had fallen into sin and she didn't want a divorce and they were fighting for their marriage and I'll never forget this. I looked at this individual. I said sin is what we do when Jesus isn't enough for us. And he winced. That was painful for him to hear, which was a good indication for him. Sin is what we do when Jesus isn't enough. That you can actually look at Christ crucified for you, resurrected for you and say all of that isn't enough, I need something else to be satisfied, to be happy. 

So take that negative sense and turn it around. If Jesus is enough for you, you will be hard to tempt. You'll be very hard to tempt. One Puritan writer said a man who is satisfied in Christ is as difficult to tempt as an iron wall to ignite with a flaming arrow. Picture that. Yourself as an iron wall and Satan firing all these flaming arrows and they just bounce off. Why? Because you're deeply, richly, fully satisfied in Jesus. So I'm going to finish with this. I was on a bike ride yesterday and I was thinking about this and just this came in. I just want to speak as a pastor and as a friend to you. If you're a Christian man, if you're genuinely born again, you're hearing my words. You're genuinely indwelt by the Holy Spirit, two things will be true of you on this topic. 

Number one, you will fight for sexual purity by the Spirit for the rest of your life. You're never going to be discharged from the battle. To the end of your days, you're going to fight. Not just, you will need to fight, I'm speaking more of a hopeful word. You actually will fight. The Spirit will make you fight and you will fight. You and the Spirit together will fight for the rest of your life.

And number two, sin will lose in the end. You will end up triumphant and victorious over this and over every sin because the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. You'll put your foot on the necks of all of your lusts and they will die and you will spend eternity as blameless as Jesus. So just as sin shall not be your master, sin will neither be your executioner.

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the encouragement we have of Scripture, but also the severe warnings and exhortations. Help us to heed them and to walk in newness of life for your glory. The world is just swimming in a cesspool of sexual allure and lust and sins. You've called on us to be light and to be holy and a city on a hill and our sexual ethic, our sexual purity is a big part of that. Help us to walk in newness of life and to be the pure people you've called us to be. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Job understood the deadly temptation of sexual impurity and commited himself to the absolute sexual purity we need in the world today.

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Paul begins his defense of his apostolic ministry by telling the Corinthian church his own sufferings for Christ.

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Have you ever heard of a Proverbs 31 woman? Listen to this sermon and learn about a Job 31 man. Andy introduces the first of a number of sermons in this chapter. The sermon covers Job's righteousness as seen through: his commitment to sexual purity, treating his servants well, a lifestyle of active service to the poor, rejection of all idols, graciousness to other people and enemies, living a life of vertical awareness to please God not men, and righteous business practices.

Turn in your Bibles to Job 31. This morning we're going to be returning to our study in the book of Job and a very timely study for us, I think, where we're at in our history, in our time. 2021 has been a challenging year already, following on the heels of 2020 itself, a challenging year. Current events have pushed their way onto our radar screen. We see the misery of the world that we're living in, the magnitude of the suffering of many around the world.

We see the recent events, as I just prayed a moment ago, in Afghanistan, and the anguish of those that are seeking desperately to flee from the Taliban, even to the point of clinging to airplanes as they are taking off. Heart-rending, heart-rending scene. Hear of yet another earthquake rocking the tiny island nation of Haiti. I've been there multiple times ministering, and it's a very sad and tragic place, and the death toll around 2,000, it's tragic. Then for us, we thought we were reaching the end of the COVID crisis and it surged again with this Delta variant, the numbers are surging.

All of these things and many other current events make us realize the anguish of living in a world struggling with the effects of Adam's sin. We Christians know where all this came from. We're not in the dark theologically as to why this is happening. Romans 5:12, it says, "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men because all sinned." That's the explanation. That's what's going on. We live in a world of sorrow and grief.

Closer to home, members of our church are going through innumerable trials, some of them we're aware of, some we don't know. You could be sitting next to someone right now that's in severe chronic pain, they just don't tell you about it. They're just walking in it day after day after day. Others here are dealing with loved ones who are aging and are losing abilities, struggling with dementia. Others, not struggling with that, but they just are bedridden or in wheelchairs and caregivers are grieving over that and trying to help them through. Others are struggling with the effects of loneliness. Maybe they're widows or widowers. Maybe they're just single people who yearn to be married but nothing's come up, and they're just battling loneliness, struggling that. Others are dealing with the rebellion of grown kids who have turned their backs on everything they've learned about the Gospel from infancy, and they're walking in rebellion and breaking the hearts of their parents and their brothers and sisters who are believers, and they're having to deal with that, and many other things.

Beyond that, even if you're not personally facing these kinds of trials, you're aware that it's something that is going to come. Something's going to come and break your heart. Something's going to come and be a massive trial for you, and you're battling your own fears and anxieties about that. What will I do if one of my children dies and I have to attend their funeral? One of my kids told me what they wanted at their funeral. “Don't tell me what you... you're coming to my funeral. I'm not going to your funeral.” But I don't know that, I don't know that, and I think there are few sorrows as bitter as burying a child. How can I endure a chronic illness? How can I go through cancer for a third time? See it happening to others, what will happen to me? What will happen if my spouse dies? How will I face that trial? And so that's all future and we can be burdened by fears and anxieties about what will happen to us as we move on in this world.

I believe that God has given us this marvelous book of Job to help us get ready for what will come. God is training us right now, like a drill instructor getting you ready for a mission, like in the battlefield. You've got to listen to the instructions. It could mean your life and the success of the mission, or maybe more trivially, but still we're aware in August, lots of football coaches get their teams ready. They go through all of the plays that they're going to need to run like clockwork in November and December and beyond if they're going to be successful, and so they're preparing and getting their teams ready for all these eventualities. Or perhaps you could look at it like a hurricane that's coming. We know that there's Hurricane Henri is moving its way up the coast and communities are getting ready. They're getting sandbags ready for the rising flood that's going to come, and I'm telling you, spiritually, even physically, the flood is coming. No one gets out of here unscathed. We're going to hurt, we're going to suffer, we're going to struggle, and God is using these 42 chapters of the book of Job to get you ready for that.

For, as it says in Ephesians 2:10, "We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance that we should walk in them." Today, this morning, God is doing that. He wants to do that in your life to prepare you in advance for what you are going to walk through, so it'd be good to pay attention, get ready, because God wants you, you are the light of the worlds. God wants you to shine in the midst of that sorrow. “No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl or under a bed. Instead, he puts it up on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.” Suffering and pain is the stand for the people of God, the lampstand, and you're going to be on it at some point, and it would be good for you to glorify God at that time, and to not charge God bitterly with wrongdoing and to not speak worlds of hopelessness as though you have no hope, but rather to shine and to suffer well, to be able to say effectively, "Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.“

That we're going to trust in Him. We're going to have a radiant hope of heaven, as we've seen, and we're going to see it today. Job was a better man than anyone here, more righteous, but we have a better hope than he ever had, don't we? We're further along in redemptive history. We're aware of the accounts of the life of Jesus, his death and his resurrection and the hope of heaven, and so we are equipped and ready to suffer well. That's what this book is about.

We're returning now to Job 31. We're in the middle of a long, unfolding story. Job 31 is his kind of final testimony. It's his closing argument about his own righteousness, and we're going to walk through it. We're going to look at what it means that this man was blameless and upright. We're going to understand that and explain it.

Job was introduced at the beginning of the book in Job 1:1 as blameless and upright. It says, "In the land of Uz, there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil." Then we are taken up into the heavenly realms. Almighty God boasts about Job to Satan. Job 1:8, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant, Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.’”So we're going to understand in Job 31, at least Job's perspective of what that is. What it means to be blameless and upright. 

This is Job's final stand. At the end of this chapter, Job is going to close his words, his closing argument. Look at verse 40, "The words of Job are ended." Now we're going to find they're not all ended. He has some things to say to God after God speaks to him out of a whirlwind. We'll get to all that, so he has some words of repentance to speak, but this is the end of his defense, of his blamelessness, and his uprightness.

He's been under a relentless onslaught. He's been assaulted by the trials, and then by his friends and their arguments. The trials came upon this man in wave upon wave, as you remember. We learned from Job 1 and 2 of God's secret heavenly conversation with Satan, and that it was specifically because he was blameless and upright that these things came on him. Satan wanted to assault him and expose him and God permitted him to do it.

It was specifically because Job was blameless and upright that God wanted to teach us, all succeeding generations, that the problem of evil, the problem of pain is complex and deep and multifaceted, and it's not true that in every case people are suffering because of sins they've committed or wrongdoing. It's not true. That's not the case with Job, and so God is expanding and deepening our understanding of the problem of evil and suffering through Job. That was God's purpose, to highlight Job as a blameless and upright sufferer of great affliction.

It was Satan's purpose as well to expose him as some kind of a fraud. Now I think it's very significant. Keep in mind as we go through Job 31, as he asserts his righteousness at so many levels, that Satan didn't contradict God in Heaven about this. The accuser of the brethren did not accuse Job of any wrongdoing. That's very significant, don't you think? He couldn't say anything against him, so it's all true. The things we're reading in Job 31, that's who he was.

But Satan wants to expose him saying, you know the only reason he's this incredible man is you've put a hedge around him and everything he has, and so the trials came in wave upon wave, as we read. The loss of all his oxen and donkeys and the servants who were watching them. Then the loss of all his sheep and the servants who were watching them. Then the loss of all his camels, and the servants who were watching them.

Finally, in a single moment, the loss of all 10 of his children. Then phase two, the loss of his health. Afflicted with terrible sores, he had to sit and scrape his skin with fragments of pottery, so great was his suffering. Then along come his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and they all come with the same basic theology, the law of sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow. God is active in the world, these are not accidental things. God is bringing justice into your life because of your sins, and given the magnitude of your suffering, there must be immense sin.

We don't know what it is, we can't see it, they don't ever admit that but it's true because it wasn't true, none of those things, but it must be an immense secret wickedness and God is disciplining you for that, and so throughout Job 3 through 30, there's the cycle of debates and discussions that happen between Job and his friends, and we've walked through all of those things. It culminated in a very, very bad statement by one of his friends, Eliphaz. I want to remind you of it because it's so relevant to what Job claims for himself here in this chapter.

Eliphaz said in Job 22: 5-10, "Is not," speaking to Job, "Is not your wickedness great, are not your sins endless? You demanded security from your brothers for no reason, you stripped men of their clothing, leaving them naked. You gave no water to the weary, and you withheld food from the hungry, though you were a powerful man owning land, an honored man, living on it, and you sent widows away empty handed, and you broke the strength of the fatherless. That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you." 

None of that happened. He's guessing what kinds of sins would trigger such a response of God's justice here. These are the very charges that Job is going to refute by his track record of righteousness in his life. But for us, this chapter stands as a timeless description of what it really looks like to be a man blameless and upright who feared God.

Job effectively takes an oath. He swears a vow here on these things, like he's on a witness stand. It's the language of a legal vow, like the kind people would take in those days. "If I am guilty of this crime, may God strike me dead. May God curse me." Something like that, so there's a long series of if statements, if, if, if, if, and then comes a then. For example, look at verses 5-8, “If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit, let God weigh me in honest scales. He will know that I'm blameless. If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, if my eyes, my hands have been defiled, then may others what I have sown, may my crops be uprooted." That's the, he's calling a curse down on himself if these things aren't true of him. "If I'm not what I appear to be, a blameless and upright man, may God curse me and everything about me." Now Job 31 just to some degree, I don't think we should ever do this, but just we take it out of context and just have it as a gem chapter. I want to say it is the masculine version of the Proverbs 31 woman. Now you ladies all know what I mean by the Proverbs 31 woman. You have been to some degree afflicted by her for years. I mean Mother's Day sermons and all of these things, and it's like, who can live up to this lady?

I mean she's relentless. She blesses her husband and her children and her household and the entire community and probably the entire world by her relentless works of righteousness. Well, Proverbs 31 seems to me to be a goal to navigate by, something to go after. Proverbs 31 speaks to women. I believe Job 31 has the power to speak to men in a similar way. If you, as a man, you want to know what a righteous man looks like at some key areas, not all of them, there's so many elements of New Testament piety that Job isn't aware of and he doesn't address, but here within this Old Testament setting, this is what a righteous man looks like, and it'd be well for us as men to walk through it.

Now let's talk about elements of Job's blamelessness. This chapter is so rich and so powerful, it's worthy of multiple weeks of study and so God willing, we will. Today, I'm going to fly over it like at 30,000 feet and just give you a sense of the elements of the chapter. Next week, we're going to zero in on one specific element, and that is sexual purity, sexual purity. Then in the week that follows, God willing, we're going to look at justice or mercy ministry type things, as Job describes them. That's how we're going through Job 31, so I'm not going to go into great detail on any of these things today, but God willing, we'll have the chance.

What are the elements of Job's blamelessness in Job 31? First, in verses 1-12, a commitment to absolute sexual purity, and then secondly, a pattern of just treatment for his servants. You'll see that in verses 13-15. And third, a lifestyle of energetic, active service to the poor and needy. That's in verses 16-23. Then fourth, a rejection of all idols, anything the heart can trust in other than God, especially wealth, especially gold, verses 24-28.

Fifth, graciousness to other people, enemies and strangers alike. Not vindictive toward enemies, but yearning for their blessedness, and then a willingness to open his home, hospitality, verses 29-32. Then six, living a life of integrity vertically before God. This is the key to his whole piety. He does everything for God and not for man, to please God. Then seventh, righteous business practices. A man of business who carries his business righteously, verses 38 and 39. 

Now this is an astounding list of holiness, isn't it? Now this didn't result in a self-focused kind of inward piety like a monk, a desert-dwelling monk who's out in a cave having long times of fasting and prayer in isolation from other people. He was a busy, engaged, active man living out this kind of holiness. It's hard to do. Now Job was not a perfect man and we're going to end up, I'm just going to lay my cards on the table. If all Job had was this level of righteousness and not Christ, he would be condemned to hell. All roads, in scripture, lead to Christ alone, and Job knew it too, didn't he? Although he didn't fully understand all the elements of the Gospel that he knew he needed to repent before Almighty God and be forgiven of sins, and so that's where we're heading ultimately. Only Jesus is the perfect man.

Let's walk through these elements of Job's righteousness, 1-7, and just get a sense of it. Paul said, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." We can do the same thing for many godly men and women in the Bible, can't we? There's just a lot of godly men and women. We can look at how they lived, and we can imitate their faith, as the author to the Hebrews said, and so we want to do the same, here.

Let's look at these seven elements. First, a commitment to absolute sexual purity, verses 1-12. Like I said, we're going to walk through this in great detail, God willing, next week, but he begins with purity from the heart, battling lust, sexual lust from within. Look at verse one. "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl." The reason why is the fear of the Lord, who sees everything that we do. Look verses 2-4, "For what is man's lot from God above, his heritage from the Almighty, on high? Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? Does He not see my ways and count my every step?” so that he then takes an oath of a lifestyle of pure behavior now, because it's said in this section of sexual purity, we should see it in that light. He's talking about sexual purity, verses 5-8. "If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit, let God weigh me in honest scales. He will know that I am blameless. If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my hands have been defiled, then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted."

Then he takes an oath of purity from adultery. Look at verses 9-10. “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor's door, then may my wife grind another man's grain, and my other men sleep with her." Absolute purity from adultery. He is aware of the coming devastation of Judgment Day. That's going to come. Look at verses 11-12. "For that would've been shameful, a sin to be judged. It is a fire that burns in destruction. It would have uprooted my harvest." Sexual purity is such a weakness for men today. I don't know if it's any more than it ever has been, but the delivery systems for lust are more powerful and potent and omnipresent than ever before, and so this is a special focus and I will zero in on it next week. But men, you can begin this week to look at verses one through 12 and immerse yourself in them, and say, "Is this true of me? How am I living my life in this area?"

Secondly, a pattern of just treatment for his servants, verses 13-15. Verse 13, he says, "If I have denied justice to my men's servants and maid servants when they had a grievance against me," so this is going to be gathered together two weeks from now, God willing, in this section on mercy, ministry, or justice, issues of justice. We'll talk about that. The issue here immediately in this section has to do with how he treated the workers on his estate, men servants and maid servants, those that worked out in his fields, those that were laborers in his house, anybody in his employ, anybody that he cared for. It was commonplace, sadly, back in earlier eras, maybe even today in some ways, that servants like this in bondage to a powerful man would be treated like chattel, really, like beasts of burden, like they're not even humans. Job never did this.

If any of his servants, men or women, ever felt wronged or some injustice was going on in the estate or with him particularly, he would hear them carefully and see that they got satisfaction, that they were satisfied with what had happened, and that the issue would be resolved with justice. Why is that? Well look at his reason. "If I have denied justice to my men servants and maid servants when they had a grievance against me," verse 14, "what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account?" In other words, Judgment Day is coming and I'm going to have to give an account for how I treated people.

Then verse 15, "Did not He who made me in the womb, make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?" We are all in the image of God, and I'm going to treat this individual in light of the fact that I'm no better than they are, that God used the same intentionality and creativity in knitting that person together in his or her mother's womb, I'm going to treat them accordingly. That's his reason why. We're going to notice again and again, Job's piety is always vertical, then horizontal. He sees God. He knows that God sees him, and then it's going to affect how he lives.

Thirdly, a lifestyle of active service to the poor, verses 16-23, "If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless, but from my youth, I reared him as would a father and from my birth, I guided the widow. If I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment, and if his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece from my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder. Let it be broken off at the joint, for I dreaded destruction from God and for fear of his splendor, I could not do such things." Again, God willing, we're going to walk through these in detail two weeks from now. But for Job, notice, it's not enough just not to harm others. It's not enough just to not commit adultery or not lust. It's not enough to not treat his servants with harsh injustice. True righteousness is energetic and active and says, "What resources do I have that I can then bless others?" Here we come to the Golden Rule, or the second great commandment, different ways of saying the same thing, how you treat others, Golden Rule.

Some of you may be aware that Confucius had a form of the Golden Rule five centuries before Jesus. You see some people boasting about this kind of thing, but his was essentially negative, or I could rephrase it in language similar to the Golden Rule that we're aware of, do not do to others what you would not have them do to you. You see that's essentially negative. It just means don't hurt other people. Don't damage other people. But I want you to keep in mind, the Golden Rule Jesus taught is do to others what you would have them do to you. That's energetic and positive and active. Jesus told a story in terms of the second great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, the parable of the Good Samaritan. I want you to know that the priest and the Levite who saw the man bleeding by the side of the road and just walked on, fulfilled Confucius's dictum. They didn't do to him anything negative. They just walked on.

Now friends, most of us are not so wicked that we are like the highway robbers that beat up the guy and leave him bleeding by the side of the road. That's not us. We are the type to drive by on the other side and not really look. The Golden Rule would have us be energetic in blessing others, to see what resources that we have, as you love your neighbor as you love yourself. So as you spend money on yourself, spend it on others. As you think about yourself and your life and your comforts and your pleasures and the things you like and the things that are important to you and your point of view and all, I could list all the things you are spending a lot of time every week thinking about with yourself at the center of that orbit, do that for somebody else, do that for others. It's an energetic life of service. It's much harder. It takes much more effort, and Job did it. He did it.

He was energetic in blessing others. He sacrificed for those who were poor and needy. He reared a fatherless boy up from childhood as if he were one of his own. He guided the widow, perhaps with financial advice, maybe legal protections since she had no man in the house to look after her interests. He searched out those who were insufficiently clothed, and made sure that they got what they needed form his flocks and herds.

He used his influence in court to protect those who were defenseless. An energetic life. Then, if then, as we've noted, Job speaks a curse on himself if he has failed in his duty to the poor and needy. Verse 16 and 17, "If I have denied the desires of the poor, or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless," then down verse 19-21, "If I've seen anyone perishing for a lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment and his heart did not bless me, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless knowing I had influence in the court," if, if, if, if, if, "then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint."

Job's reason again, is the same. It's always vertical, fear of the Lord. Verse 23, "For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor, I could not do such things." He knew that God, the holy God, would hold him accountable for how he used his wealth and whether he did with God's money what God, the true owner of that money, his true master, wanted him to do, for Job knew he was merely a steward of God's possessions.

He also spoke of the glory of God, the splendor of God, as a consuming fire, ready to avenge the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Fourthly, the rejection of all idols, all heart idols, especially wealth, verses 24- 28, "If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, 'You are my security,' if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained, if I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high."

This comes down to Job's heart religion. What do you really trust in? Was gold really his confidence? Did he really count on his wealth as a strong tower and a walled fortress to protect him against calamity? Did he gloat over the gold like some sick miser going back into the secret counting chambers and looking at the gold, and seeing its glow and his heart was inflamed with it?

One of the greatest idols, maybe even the single greatest idol in human history, money. Beyond this, Job mentions the worship of celestial bodies, the beauty of the radiant sun, the softer gleam of the moon that we sang about earlier. These celestial bodies are the common basis of most, if not all, pagan religions, stargazing type of religions. He said, "I didn't go in for that. I didn't follow any of the corrupt religions of the Gentiles or the pagans." Job's heart religion was freed from idolatry. God and God alone was his trust. Fifth, graciousness to enemies and hospitality to strangers, verses 29-32, “If I have rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against his life. If the men of my household have never said, 'Who has not had his fill of Job's meat, but no stranger had to spend the night in the street for my door was always open to the traveler.'"

It's two parts, really. The first is toward enemies, he wasn't vindictive toward them. He didn't wish harm on them. He didn't gloat over them. If he could, he would like to alleviate their suffering. Powerful men like Job make powerful enemies, generally. They're covetous and they want to take what he has, and they can make some schemes against him. Job almost certainly would have had enemies like that, but he didn't gloat over them. He wanted them ultimately blessed. Then concerning his household, he used the means of his household to welcome strangers. He was hospitable to strangers. People would come in from the outside and spend the night at Job's house.

Sixth, complete integrity living to please God and not men, verses 33-34, "If I have concealed my sin as men do, by hiding my guilt in my heart, because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside." This is a matter of integrity. This is the key to his whole defense against his friends. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. “I,” actually, Paul says this at one point, "I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. I don't even judge myself. "My conscience is clear," said Paul, "But that doesn't make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." Job had that mentality. I don't really ultimately care that much what you, Eliphaz say about me, or at all of these others.

He cared and he talks about it, but ultimately he didn't care. Effectively saying, "I live my life before God and God alone." Ultimately, all of these things came back to God, so I am what I appear to be. It's not like the tip of the iceberg where you're seeing some little righteous tricks that I do but there's all this subterranean wickedness that no one can see. That is just not the case. I am what I appear to be, a man living blamelessly in the fear of God. A life of integrity. The opposite of this would be hypocrisy. Jesus talked about it all the time. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You're like whitewashed tombs. You look good on the outside, but inside, full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. Job said, "I'm not a whitewashed tomb, I am what I appear to be."

Then seventh, righteous business practices, verses 38, 39. "If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants," so we're talking about tenant farmers, coworkers, people that he contracted with for labor. Do you remember a number of weeks ago when we were talking about the COVID crisis in India, and I mentioned day laborers, people that begin the day not knowing where they're going to work, they go certain places, they're hired, they work for the day, they get paid for the day, they go to certain food boutiques, they buy food for their family, and go home and feed their family. Then they do that whole thing again, another day.

Chris Mauger mentioned the same thing in Bangladesh, day laborers. Well they were back in Job's day, too. Imagine what it would've been like to work for a wicked man. You work all day and he denies the wage. This is the very thing James talks about, the wickedness of denying the day wage to the man who mowed your field or worked out and you didn't pay him, and he went home and he had nothing to give his kids. Job was fair, even generous in his wages and his determination that each worker be paid so they would not weep at the injustice and go home empty-handed, crying out to God for vengeance.

All right. These are the seven elements of Job's righteousness and blamelessness. A commitment to actual, absolute sexual purity, a pattern of just treatment for his servants, a lifestyle of active service to the poor, a rejection of all idols, especially money, graciousness to enemies and hospitality to strangers, living a life of integrity to please God, not worried what men think, and then righteous business practices. Now toward the end, he interjects a bold declaration of his holiness directed to Almighty God. Now this is where he gets into trouble, in my opinion. This has been the problem with Job. We have to find something that he repents from. He's not repenting about these areas. Amazingly, his problem is vertical.

Look at verses 35-37, "Oh that I had someone to hear me. I sign now my defense, let the Almighty answer me." Wow. That's a bold statement. God's not going to forget it, by the way,. When He appears in a whirlwind, He's going to say, "I will question you, and you will answer me." We're turning this whole thing around, effectively, who do you think you are? We’ll get to all that. But he says, "I sign now my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser put his indictment in writing. Surely, I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown. I would give him an account of my every step, like a prince, I would approach him." He's willing to put all this in writing, he's going to sign it, he's going to walk into court like a king, like a prince. He's going to face his accuser, and he's going to win.

Who's his accuser? I don't think he's thinking about Eliphaz at this moment. "Let the Almighty answer me, let my accuser put his indictment in writing." He's talking about God. He sees God as his enemy, but God never accused him of wrongdoing. There's no record of God denying any of the things he's asserting here. God isn't one of the friends saying these false things about him.

Job, it seems, like all of us, greatly underestimates the holiness and majesty of God. All of us do. It's part of my central task as a preacher to help you underestimate God's holiness and majesty less. You understand who we have to do with. What does it mean, in 1 John 1:5 when God says, "God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all." And we are a people of darkness to some degree, and we live among people of darkness, and we think because we're more, less dark than anyone else, we can stand in the presence of perfect pure light and be fine on our own? It's not the case. He closes in verse 40 with his final statement, "Then let briars come up instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley. The words of Job are ended." This is just the language of the curse. The thorns, let thorns come up, let me be cursed if these things are not true.

All right, what lessons can we take from Job 31? Simply, as I've said, Job is a staggeringly righteous man, worthy of imitation, but before we get there, we need to understand the very thing I've been saying and I have said multiple times in this sermon already. Jesus said it when the rich, young ruler came and fell on his knees before Him. “Good teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?" "Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone." That includes Job. This blameless man still needed to do that at the end of this book, repent, and he knew it, and he did. We cannot stand in our own righteousness and face such a holy God. We cannot stand on our own and survive Judgment Day. We can't, and we all tend to be a little bit like Job, kind of assembling the evidence of our basic blamelessness and righteousness. I can't tell you in evangelism how many times I've been told by someone, "I'm basically a good person." I'm trying to think of a different ways to tell them what the Bible says they basically are. Basically, you are a sinner who needs a savior, that's what you basically are.

The Apostle Paul had his own version of being blameless and upright, remember? His résumé of righteousness in Philippians 3. What happened when he saw the glorious resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus? He repented of all of it like it was rubbish, like it was garbage, Philippians 3. "I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes form the law," but that was just due faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. That's what all of us need, isn't it?

I need a robe of glowing righteousness to be put over me, to cover me, to cover my sins, and that is offered to us free as a gift by Jesus. God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us, on the cross, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God, Job 31, that's not the righteousness of God. It's not good enough. The infinite, perfect holiness of God in Jesus Christ is offered to you as a gift. Apart from works, by simple faith, it can be yours. Put it on, and you will survive Judgment Day.

But then once you do that, how should you live? Now what? Have you Christians noticed that the moment you were converted, you didn't get translated up into heavenly glory? Have you noticed that? I've noticed. I've been walking this Christian life a long time. Why am I still here? To grow in righteousness, to grow in holiness. How do I do that? What does that look like? The Bible has not left us as orphans. For me as a man, Job 31 helps me. It gives me seven things I can pray about and work on, but the whole time I know that my true righteousness is Christ.

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the chance we've had quickly today to walk through Job's righteousness, to understand it, to understand it in light of the cross. I thank you for this godly man. I look forward to getting to know him in heaven. I thank you for what you did in and through him. I pray that you'd help us, Lord. I'm aware, although not perfectly or completely aware, but aware of many brothers and sisters who are going through severe and bitter trials. Lord, would you please sustain them? Speak to them, give them the energy and the strength that they need spiritually to keep trusting in Christ and keep being filled with hope so that they in this time of darkness for them can shine to those that are watching very closely how they're walking through it. Lord, all of us who haven't yet come into this severe trial and we're anticipating it, Lord, help us to get ready for the flood that's going to come, to get ready. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Just as there is a Proverbs 31 woman, there is a Job 31 man--Job's testimony here shows his blameless life and righteous actions.

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Andy Davis introduces and gives a quick summary of 2 Corinthians.

The post 2 Corinthians: Introduction appeared first on Two Journeys.