Message Description

Guest speaker Dave Marsh continues the Second Message series teaching out of the Old Testament book of Job highlighting God's sovereignty.

Message Transcript

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Well, good morning, Orchard Hill. How are you this morning? Now, come on. I need you to be in this with me. Alright? We live in Deep Creek Lake now, but I am a hillbilly preacher from West Virginia, and where I come from when the preacher talks to you, you got to talk back to them. So how are you this morning? Are you awake? You guys got more sleep than anybody this morning. Come to the late service, so you ought to be on fire. Hey, first of all, I just want to say it's an honor to be with you this weekend. We had a great time last night and of course this morning, and I'm an Orchard Hill fan. It's often that on a Saturday evening, I will pull up your live stream, I'll pull up that service, and I will steal ideas from Pastor Kurt to preach on Sunday. 

I meant borrow. I'll be inspired by his ministry, and it prepares me for Sunday. But I am a fan, got to meet him a few years ago, as he said, through some mutual friends. I've been here, spent time in his office, picked his brain, and asked for counsel and advice at different times. He's just been very, very generous to us and our church, and so we're blessed by this relationship. I appreciate his invitation to be a part of your Second Message series. I'm also blessed to have my wife Patty with me today here in the front row. Would you give the folks a wave and just say hi? 

Well, I grew up the youngest of four kids, raised by a single mom, spent most of my childhood, it seems, admiring or envying the things that my older brother and sister got to do before me. I just couldn't wait to "grow up". I couldn't wait to get big. I remember my brother, he had a bicycle, like a real bicycle with just two wheels and I had a plastic big wheel. Did anyone else have a big wheel when you were growing up? Just this little tricycle thing. Yeah. Thank you very much. Got some big wheel fans. Let's see. Then I finally got a bicycle, but my brother got a motorcycle. So again, I'm just always trying to catch up with him. "I want to be big. I can't wait to grow up." Then they got their own jobs, which meant they had their own money, and that looked really cool. 

So, at the age of twelve, I started my own business. It was a paper route. Did anyone ever deliver papers as a kid? It was my first job, paper route, but it was like running your own business. You had to deliver by 7:30 in the morning. The paper company would drop off the papers outside my window, and then I'd buy the papers from them and I would deliver them to my customers. I was doing same-day delivery before Amazon Prime ever thought about being Amazon Prime. Right? Just always want to be bigger, always want to grow up and feel like you're kind of the master of your own destiny. But it's funny, the things that we long to do when we're kids, once we become adults, I'm not sure we want to do them anymore. Right? 

Like work? Again? I did that last week. I worked. I don't want to work again. Drive? I couldn't wait to drive when I was a kid, but now I'm like, "I drive every day. You drive." Anyone else with me? What about staying up late? When you're a kid, you want to stay up late. Right? But now if you're not in bed in your footy PJs by nine, you are no good tomorrow. How many would say, "That's me." Right? All these things that we wanted to do so we could feel big, now we kind of resent them. There's this strange dichotomy within us. On one hand, we want to be big, we want to be powerful, and we want to be in control of our lives. But on the other hand, there's a part of us that longs to know we're not it. There's a part of us that longs to actually feel small. 

I think it's the reason we go to the beach. We go to the ocean on vacation. Some of us don't like the water, we don't like the sand, but we will just sit there and watch that ocean for hour after hour. "Hey, what's the ocean doing today?" "Same thing it was yesterday." It's just doing the same thing, but there's something soothing to our soul to feel small. You might say, "Preacher, I don't like the beach, but I go to the mountains." It's the same thing, right? Talking to this brother over here, he's been skydiving. He said, "you talk about feeling small, jump out of a plane." I said, "Brother, I don't want to feel that small." Our daughter, our youngest one, Mariah is her name, and she's eleven, and she likes to feel small by coming to a city. 

So, she'll say, "Mom, Dad, I want to go to the city," and we'll bring her up to Pittsburgh for a little day trip, we'll rent some bikes, and we'll ride down by the river and dodge bullets and stuff and it's a great time. But she just loves to look at the big buildings and feel small. Today, we're going to look at the life of a guy who went from being the biggest man in town to the smallest in one day. In one day. But see, here's the deal. When we feel small, and perhaps only when we feel small, can we really see and know and experience the greatness or the bigness of our God. We're going to look at the life of Job, and in Job's life, his suffering led him to discover something we will call the sovereignty of God. I believe you're in this series called Second Message and the most important message is the gospel message of Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

I give a hearty amen to that, but I'll tell you, an important message for every follower of Jesus is to discover the one we're going to look at today. The sovereignty of God. Let's go to Job chapter one. If you're ready, say I'm ready. Job one in verse one 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." Now let me tell you, the Bible is the most honest book ever written. It tells you the good, bad, and ugly even about its supposed heroes. So, for the Bible to describe Job as this, blameless, upright, feared God, shunned evil, Job's a pretty good fellow, right? That's a great description. Look at verse two, which says, "And seven sons and three daughters were born to him." 

Wow. That's a big family. Seven sons and three daughters. So, here's what else we know about Job. He's either Catholic or Mennonite. Right? He's got a big family, but he's a good dad. He loves his kids. He prays for them. He's concerned about their spiritual wellbeing. Also, here's what we know about Job, he's loaded. Look at verse three, "and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants." So, this man was the greatest or the biggest of all the people of the east. Job is wealthy. He's prospering. Things are going great in his life until one day tragedy strikes. One day, his world crumbled. Job became the target of an attack of Satan and an unimaginable pain entered his life. He receives four visits from four messengers and each messenger delivers devastating news. 

Messenger number one comes in, he says, "Hey, Job. Raiders have come in and you know what? They've killed your servants and they stole your oxen and your donkeys." While he was still speaking, here comes messenger number two and he says, "Job, I got to tell you some bad news. Fire came and consumed your sheep and your shepherds," and before he could finish his message, here comes messenger number three and he says, "Job, the Chaldeans, they've come in and they've stolen your camels. They killed the servants tending to them," and finally messenger number four walks in the door to deliver unthinkable news. He says, "Job, all your kids, your seven sons, your three daughters, they had gathered at your oldest son's house and Job, I hate to tell you, but a windstorm arose while they were there, and the house collapsed, and they all perished." 

Can you imagine? Again, in one day, you are the man and now everything that you love, everyone that you love, is gone. Now, I seriously doubt that any of us have experienced the amount of loss that Job has experienced, but we've probably all had a day that is forever etched in our souls. A phone call came. Somebody showed up at your door. A text. An email. And when you read it just took your breath away. A job ended. An affair was revealed. A business closed. A house burned. There was a car wreck. There was a heart attack. We've all been there. For me, it was a Saturday morning when I was 11 years old. I'll never forget it. It's deep in my soul. I had a friend stay over the night before. We stayed up late, we were sleeping in, and I heard a scream. 

I didn't know what it was. I jumped out of bed, I ran into the hall, and some of the old folks like me, remember when your phone was actually attached to the wall. How many remember that? We had a phone there in the hallway and the earpiece was dangling from the cord and I picked it up, and as I picked it up, it was a state trooper on the other line. She said, "I was trying to tell the woman, but she screamed and dropped the phone." She was trying to tell my mom, "Mrs. Marsh, we regret to inform you, but your 19-year-old son has been killed in a car accident." She told me that. I'm eleven. I can't even really process it. He was the oldest male in our house. He was our functional dad. How could he be dead? 

We've all experienced some kind of loss, some kind of grief, some sort of pain that we only imagined, but it became our reality. That's where Job is. As I read his story again this week, I was just amazed at his response. After these four messengers and unthinkable loss, look at what Job says in verse twenty here. It says, "Then Job arose. He tore his robe. He shaved his head. He fell to the ground and he worshiped." What? He worshiped? Listen, I try to be a godly man, but I am not there. That kind of news gets delivered, that kind of loss happens in your life, and your response is to worship? When we talk about the things that we want to be or the things that we want to have when we grow up, Job is the picture of that. He's there. He's wealthy. He's powerful. He's the greatest man in his world. Yet in one moment, he's made small, and look at what he says in verse twenty-one. 

He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," and in all this, Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. Job is a broken man, but his response is, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Perhaps Job knows something about suffering, pain, worship, and faith that we just don't know. See, I think we often measure the goodness of God by the amount of comfort and pleasure in our lives. But for Job, he used an entirely different measuring stick. Job doesn't feel like God owes him anything. Job is not entitled at all, and Job actually allows his pain to drive him to worship. I just want to say to somebody who may be here this morning, that if you're in a place of pain, but yet you're here, I'm proud of you. I believe you're in the right place at the right time because you've allowed that pain to actually bring you to worship. 

When our hearts are broken, the best place we can ever be is in the presence of God. Can someone say amen this morning? Job's trials continue, and just when you think things couldn't get worse for him, Satan turns his attack to Job's physical body, and Job is afflicted. It's going to get a little bit gross in here. I'm sorry, but it's in the Bible. We can't pass over it. Job is afflicted with painful boils from the top of his head to the souls of his feet. Someone say yuck. His only relief, this is all he could do, he takes some pieces of broken pottery, and the Bible says, he's sitting over there in the corner, and he is scraping those boils. Yikes. This is awful. He's in horrible pain and the only person left in his life that could really support him during this time is his wife. But look what she says to him. Job two in verse nine, his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die." 

Wow. Look at what he says to his wife, verse ten because remember what she said to him, "Curse God and die." Curse God and die. Verse ten. But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks." This is a verse I've taken to heart that I can encourage my wife from time to time with. You all don't know what to think of me. "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks." Now, listen, this is a question he asked his wife, but we should probably all ask ourselves. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? 

It's a good question. Sometimes we fall in love with pleasure. We fall in love with the comfort. We fall in love with ease and sometimes some preachers around the world on YouTube and TV have told us that if we just serve God, everything's going to be great in our lives. That's not true. That's not gospel. Sometimes serving God is really hard. We suffer as Christians. We suffer as Christ-followers. Our king is the king of suffering. Sometimes we suffer. He asks his wife, "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" We don't have time to cover his whole story today, but I'll summarize. And as we move into Job chapter three, Job goes into some deep, dark depression, and understandably so. The man has been through so much. He does have some friends that show up to comfort him and, in the beginning, they're just there, and they give him what we might call the ministry of presence. 

Let me tell you, the ministry of presence is a beautiful thing. Sometimes people say, "Well, pastor, I want to reach out to so and so. They're going through a hard time. They've lost someone. There's been a death. There's been a divorce, but I don't know what to say." I just say to them, "Listen, you don't have to have the magic words. You're not God, you can't figure this out, but just show up and just be there. Give them the ministry of presence." That's what Job's friends did. But before long, one by one, each of his friends begins to tell him why he is suffering. Now, they don't know. They're just speculating, but they begin to give him sin suggestions. They said, "Job, the reason you lost your donkey is just because of what you did last year, and the reason you lost your kids, can you imagine, "The reason you lost your kids is because of this sin in your life." 

Friends never do that. Never do that. Just be there. Just be there when someone's hurting. I know I'm new here. I know you don't know me well, but if I was at our church, I could just talk really direct and you know what I would say to Crossroads Church, I would say when your friend is suffering, do these three things. Shut mouth, open your arms, and make them a pot of soup. They don't need you to be God. They don't need you to speculate. They need you and some chili. How many can say amen to a good pot of chili? Alright, it's fall time. I'm ready for some chili. Never speculate as to why someone may be suffering. We don't know. Just be there. 

So, Job is tormented by his supposed comforters and darkness surrounds his life from chapter three to chapter thirty-seven. But finally, finally, it seems like God's been silent all this time, but finally, in chapter thirty-eight, God shows up and he responds to Job. You see, Job's suffering had led him to question God and he's saying, "If God was here right now, I'd have a conversation with him. I just want an audience with God. I want to talk to God," and God shows up, but Job does not get the conversation he expected. 

Let's look at Job thirty-eight and verse one. It says, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" God says, "Job, you've questioned me with your words, but son, you don't even know what you're talking about." There are words without knowledge and look at verse three. "Now prepare yourself like a man." God reminds him, "You're just a man, Job. Prepare yourself like a man and I will question you and you shall answer me." Can you imagine God saying that to you? Yikes. I get chills down my spine to think God almighty would look at me and say, "Okay, Dave, you've been questioning me. It's my turn. I'm going to question you. Prepare yourself and you better answer me." What is God doing? He's reminding Job of how small he is, and then he begins to question him and look at some of these questions. 

Verse four. "Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Tell me, Job, if you understand all that. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fashioned, Job, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Verse eight, God asked Job this. "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it bursts forth and issued from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness, its swaddling band, when I fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors, when I said, "This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop." Job, where were you when I decided the boundaries of the seas?" Verse twelve, he says, "Have you commanded the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place?" He's saying, "Hey, Job, Job, at what point in your life did you start commanding the sun to rise?" 

"Job, were you a baby? Were you a baby when you started commanding the sun to rise, Job, or did that come as you're a toddler or maybe you picked up that superpower when you became a teenager, Job?” God's being a bit sarcastic, isn't he? Saying, "Job, when did you start this?" Verse sixteen. "Have you entered the springs of the sea, or have you walked in search of the depths?" God says, "Have you walked the ocean floor, Job? Because I have." He's really making a point. How many of you have kids? Come on, don't be ashamed of your children. Go ahead, raise your hand. Some of you got kids here and you wouldn't raise your hand. How do you think they feel? It's like, "Dad, I'm sitting right beside you." "Well, he told me to not raise my hand earlier when I said I was married to Job's wife. Didn't want to get in trouble." 

How many have kids? Sometimes my kids will come in, and they'll have an attitude about them, they'll have a little cocky walk about them, and they'll come up to me and they'll be like, "Hey dad, you owe me $4." "Really? $4? I owe you $4. How do I owe you $4?" "Well, mom and I were at Walmart, and we needed milk and bread, and she forgot her debit card. Well, I had $4 in my pocket. I whipped it out. I paid for the milk and bread, and now you owe me four bucks." Sometimes, you know what you got to do with your kids? You got to go Old Testament on them. Here's what I do. I go, "Where were you when I paid the mortgage this month? Where were you when the property taxes were due? Where were you when the house insurance needed paying? Where were you when I paid for those braces? Where were you when we spent a thousand dollars at the ice cream store this summer? You were there feeding your face. You really want your four bucks?" 

I'm sorry. It's something I'm working through. Okay? But sometimes you just got to put your kids their place and that's what God is doing to Job, verse seventeen. "Have the gates of death been revealed to you, Job, or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell me if you know all this, Job." What is God doing? God is reminding Job that God alone is God alone. He's reminding Job that Job is merely a man. God just proceeds to ask Job question after question after question and depending on the way you read it and count, he asks Job anywhere from forty to ninety questions on everything from the sun and the stars and the oceans, and just for bonus points, God throws in a question about the birthing habits of mountain goats. 

It's in there. It's in the Bible. Some of y'all are looking it up right now. It is in the Bible. But why? Friends, here's what I want us to take away from today's text. Job has spent thirty-four chapters questioning God about the suffering in his life, and God responds not with an explanation, but some questions of his own. He knows that Job can't answer these questions, but through them, God is not humiliating Job. Okay? If you have a wrong idea of the character nature of God, you say, "Wow, God's just really trying to humiliate him." No, I don't believe he is. He is revealing himself to Job as the sovereign Lord over everything. Over everything. Over this past year and a half, I don't know about you, but I have felt like the world is in total chaos. Anybody else just watch the news, shake their head and go, "What are we doing today?" 

I know there are some things we can't control, but sometimes our response to the things we can't control, you just go, "What is happening?" It's like a group of people started walking toward the edge of a cliff and people started following them and you yell at them like, "Hey, y'all, where are you going?" And they're like, "We don't know. I just saw people walking so I joined in." Is anyone else just dumbfounded by some of the things you see happening in our world throughout this pandemic? But this week, as I reread Job's story and God's response to it, I'm reassured of this big concept that we call the sovereignty of our God. You might say, "Dave, what does that really mean? The word sovereign is something we don't use in our day-to-day language." 

No, we don't, but maybe we should. But when we say God is sovereign, what we're saying is he is Lord over all. I'll say that again. It means God is Lord over all. So right now, even though the world looks like it's in chaos, it is still under his authority. Right now, we just happen to be living in a time where God is allowing us to see how small we really are. As I watch the world try to respond to this pandemic, I'm reminded of how powerless we truly are. I mean, we wear masks, wash our hands, social distance, get vaccines, and I'm not opposed to any of those things, but the virus rages on. We blame one another, shame one another, follow the science, and virtue signal, but the virus just keeps on spreading. 

Many people have suffered over these past eighteen months and many people are working really, really hard to end this thing. But the point of my message today is to say we are not nearly as smart or as powerful as we think we are. We are small. COVID is just one example, but we could talk about many, many more. There are many problems we're facing that we simply don't have answers to. As powerful as we think we are, as wealthy as our nation seems, as strong as our military is, there are times of suffering that we go through that we cannot fix in our own strength. It's in those times that we realize how small we really are, but it's also in those same times that we realize how big our God is and we just need to remind one another that nothing is happening on this planet today that is still not under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

That should comfort us, friends. I'm not saying God causes our suffering, but I want to remind someone who's filled with worry. I want to talk to someone whose anxiety is just through the roof. I want to talk to someone who's stressed out and I want to say, "Yes, this world is in chaos, but it's not out of His control." COVID is real, but it does not rule. War is real, but it doesn't rule. Fear is real, but it doesn't rule. Your pain is real, but it doesn't rule. Politicians are real, unfortunately, but even God can use the chaos that they create to accomplish His will. He's sovereign. He's God all by himself. You see, some of us are so stressed out right now because of what we see in the news or social media, but I just want to remind us, let's hit the fast forward button for just a moment. Let's go out of the Old Testament. Let's go to the New Testament. 

Let's think about a late-night prayer meeting where it seemed like chaos takes over. A guy by the name of Judas shows up with some soldiers and Judas says, "The one I kiss on the cheek, that's the Christ. Take him into custody." With our lives, like how they get changed with one text or one phone call, one kiss sent the world into chaos, or it seemed. Jesus was taken, falsely accused, beaten, whipped, and they crucified him. In that hour, he cried out to his father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" On that day, the skies darkened, and his mother watched his death in horror and his followers, a hidden fear, fearing they would be next and, friends, on that Friday, it appeared that the world was in chaos, that the world was out of control. It looked like God was dead on Friday, but on Sunday there was a rumbling in the tomb, and the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Glory was about to prove to the world that there's nothing outside of his authority, not even death itself. 

On that day, the Roman torture act became the old rugged cross, a sign of the redeeming power of our God. The cross reminds us that God does some of his greatest work in the midst of what looks like chaos. Can we give him praise and glory today? God, you're good. You're awesome. You are God. You see, theologians, they've tried to define this sovereignty of God in many ways, but the best way I can understand it is through the words of a song I learned when I was five years old at Swisher Hill Union Mission Church in Worthington, West Virginia. You have no idea where that is, but it's there. This is the song they taught us in Sunday school to explain the sovereignty of God. "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands." 

Some of us are so overwhelmed. We're so stressed out. Do you know what we need to do this week? Get out of the recliner, ask for help if you need it, and that was a joke. As you get older, you'll realize why they rock. Right? You got to get some momentum. On three. Get out of the recliner and start walking through your house and say, "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands." And when you're on social media and your crazy friend posts something that makes you crazy, you need to turn off your laptop, put down your phone, start walking around your house, get outside in your yard and say, "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands". Or maybe you're facing a circumstance in your life right now that is so much bigger than you. You can't fix it. You got no answers. You got to sing to yourself. He's Got The Whole World In His Hands. We have to remind ourselves of the bigness and the greatness of our God. 

You know what? When God was done questioning Job, Job didn't get his answer. But he also didn't need one. When Job finally responds to God's questions, look at what Job says in Job forty-two and verses one and two. Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you." After all this experience that Job has walked through, the ninety questions he received from God, unanswered questions, Job's conclusion is this, He's Got The Whole World In His Hands. What's Job saying? "God, despite my suffering, despite of what I don't understand, you can be trusted." Will you stand with me today, and let's take a moment and let's pray? Come on, get some help from your neighbor. 

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you, Lord, that you are good. We've sung your praise today. We've celebrated you, we've worshiped you, we've opened your word. Right now, I want to pray for my brothers and sisters who are in this place, and maybe they're in a place of pain. Maybe they're in a place of suffering. Maybe they're going through something right now in their lives they don't understand. God, would you fill them with your peace today? Would you strengthen them at their weakest moment? They feel like, "I just can't go on." Would you give them strength, just a fresh infusion of your strength today? God, would you send some true friends to surround them? Would you send some brothers and sisters to this church or maybe in their small group or their Bible study? God, surround them, Lord. 

People who will love them. People who will cheer them on. People who will pray for them, God. But Lord, more than anything, would you reveal yourself as their sovereign God? Would you show them, Lord, that they live in the very palm of your hand, and no one can snatch them away from you? That's what your word says. Friends, again, I'm new here and I don't know everybody here, but I also want to take just a moment. Maybe you're with us today. Somebody dragged you here or somebody bribed you. They said they'd buy you breakfast or lunch if you'd come to church. But maybe you're like that young man who shared his story in the My Story video. Maybe God has just been drawing you, but you've never made the sacrifice of Jesus personal. You've never responded to the gospel. The gospel is that he loves you with an incredible love, so much so that he traded his life for yours. 

He died. He became the sacrifice for my sin and your sin, and he would love more than anything that you would respond to what he did for you and just say yes to Jesus. He wants to know you. He wants to do life with you. Not just prepare you for eternity. That's awesome. But he wants to do life with you every day. He wants to use your life for his glory. If you don't have an active relationship with Jesus Christ, would you pray a prayer this morning? Would you respond to him and what he's doing in your heart? I'm telling you, it's the best decision that you ever make. Father, thank you for this church. Thank you for the great ministry here and throughout this region. I pray you could just continue to bless Pastor Kurt, the leaders, volunteers, and members of this church, God. Continue to use them, God, to build up this entire region, God, to use their gifts and their talents for your glory, that your kingdom and your family will just continue to grow and expand. 

Bless Orchard Hill, and it's in the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Everybody said amen. Thank you so much for being here today and putting up with me. It's been my pleasure. We are dismissed, everybody. Have a fantastic week.