OCT 13 2024 | Job: Hearing God in the Whirlwind S1E1 | The Gospel in Job

Sea Change Church · OCT 13 2024 | Job: Hearing God in the Whirlwind - S1E1: The Gospel in Job
Job 1:1-12
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

For Job said, It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts Thus Job did continually Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord And Satan also came among them The Lord said to Satan, From where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro on the earth And from walking up and down on it And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?

That there is none like him on the earth A blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil Then Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has And he will curse you to your face And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand Only against him do not stretch out your hand So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord This is the word of the Lord I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man I have a man, the one to be a man We'll see you next time.

Well, hello, church. If you have your Bibles, find the book of Job, chapter 1, 1 through 12. And some of you know I've been gone for a few weeks. And first of all, I want to say thank you as a church for letting me go away. I was in Africa for most of the time. And it's really important for a pastor to get out of the little bubble that they live in and see the rest of the world.

I was listening to Joe Rogan speak, and he was saying that with comedians, sometimes if all they ever do is, you know, give their comedy set, go play pool afterwards, all their jokes end up being about pool tables, airports, coffee shops, and the whole thing. They never get a perspective. And I got to tell you what. Africa will give you some perspective.

You know what I'm saying? Again, Africa, remember Will Ferrell said, he said, prison changed you. I got to tell you what, Africa will change you. And you're going to hear more about some of the things God did, how God is opening doors on other continents for this church. And we're going to be starting things called Go Trips. And you're going to have a chance to go to Africa with us.

I think we're doing two trips next year and some other things as well. So if you want a life-changing experience, begin to pray into that, and we'll let you know more about it. There's a picture of me with some kids in one of the village that we went to. Just had a great time. Such an incredible group of people. I got to go to a four-hour church service.

It was awesome. So we get you out in an hour, you know what I'm saying? And I got the best honorarium. That's what you call the money they'll give you sometimes if you speak. I got a chicken, and that was awesome. I was given a chicken five pounds of rice. It was huge. It was more than Forrest Home ever paid me to speak. So I'm just saying, just playing, Forrest Home.

I'm just playing. Like I said, if you have your Bibles, we're in the book of Job. And I brought something for the book of Job. I just brought a hard hat for all of us. Anybody wants to wear it, put a sticker on there. Because maybe you've thought about the book of Job the same way I thought about Job for so many years. I found something with believers when you talk about the book of Job.

You tell people, I'm doing a series on the book of Job. You know what you hear? Ooh, get ready. Your book of Job, here comes the suffering. And I've kind of always felt that way as well. I mean, for years I felt that way. Never really wanted to read the book of Job. Didn't really want to read Revelation because those books are like keys, right? The rest of the Bible is just normal.

But you read those two books, it's going to open up some craziness in your life. And so I was telling a friend of mine about this. And I was like, you know, as soon as you do, I'm preaching on Job. Here comes the suffering. He goes, why is that your God? And I was like, don't ask me dumb questions. I know. I was like, he's like, why is that your God?

Why do you have this thought that whenever you explore topics with God, all of a sudden he's going to take you through that topic? He might. And there are words in season. But specifically, what I have found out reading through the book of Job and approaching it with new lenses is that it's one of my favorite books. I absolutely love the book of Job.

I would say it's in one of my top five books in the Bible because at the end of it, there's three chapters where God just drops the mic. At the very end of Job, you're just waiting and there's all this dialogue and things going on. And God just shows up and drops the mic and gives three chapters of some of the most radical God voice wisdom you've ever seen.

And I love it. So every year I read through it. I just got done reading through it. And as you saw today, Jeff already read through it. And in that, the one thing I do want to say, I need to frame up the idea of suffering as we move into this passage and into this book. I was just surrounded by a great deal of suffering, a great deal of poverty, no medicine, witchcraft, talking to different Christians, and all the things that are going on in certain parts of the world and getting to see that.

And it was reframing in my mind the things that I think sometimes are important that aren't really important. When you meet people who, if they make a dollar a day, if they make a dollar a day, it's a good day, if they make a dollar a day. You go into their huts, bricks that they make on their own with thatched roofs that are full of water. They don't have a blanket.

They don't have furniture. They just lay down in the clothes that they have. It reframes everything. I want to reframe this book for you. I hope that this book becomes one of your favorite books in the Bible. I hope you approach it with new lenses because what it tells us is what God does through a broken world and what God actually allows. I wrote at the beginning, at the top of my notes, you can write this down if you want, suffering will create you or it will crush you.

It's one of the things we find in the book of Job, that suffering has the ability to crush you. I've seen people, a man on the ride back. I had so many divine appointments on planes, which is kind of funny because I told the story about I just like to sit on planes quietly and God just kept putting amazing people by me. And I had this one man say, I can't follow God because why do little children suffer?

And we talked. We kind of went on through that. And it's a great question. Why do little children suffer? But at the same time, you see God working in a way that creates faith through suffering as well. Suffering can crush you. It can shipwreck your faith. Or if you learn some of the lessons that Jesus taught, that Paul taught, that the book of Job teaches, it will create you.

It's creating something within you. And so there's a few things. There's three things I just want to frame up. Well, we're in this book for six weeks, so we're not going to get through all 43 chapters in six weeks. But we are going to get to the end where God speaks. And the three things I want to say, these are in your notes. The first is this, is that redemptive suffering, which is all suffering of the Christian, has a purpose.

Suffering outside of Christ does not have an eternal purpose. Suffering outside of Christ, maybe you'll suffer and maybe that will be redeemed in the present world, but all things will pass away, and only suffering that is done in the shadow of Christ and his cross, in the shadow of his actual suffering, will be remembered for eternity. So for the believer, you have an edge on suffering.

I don't think it's any easier, but you have an edge knowing this, that all suffering has a purpose. Now, I want to give you a book because, a couple books. I can't do an entire treatise on why suffering. There's a ton of great YouTube videos, and I encourage you to go just start studying on your own. But the book of Philippians, if you want an answer about suffering, read the book of Philippians.

I read it yesterday. There's a lot of answers in there. So if you need somewhere to look, you can read it in about 25 minutes, that book. And then another book would be by C.S. Lewis, where he treats it, and I'm forgetting the name of the book by C.S. Lewis about suffering. What's it called? The Problem with Pain. Thank you so much, Al, from the back.

I appreciate that. The media guy got me right there. He's like, The Problem with Pain, Adam. Yeah, it's a phenomenal book for a man who lost his wife, C.S. Lewis. So those are two books that you can dive into. Paul talks about this purpose. Now, I just want to give, I'm just framing this up before we jump in, just to give you a context that is going to be like a bowl that holds water.

The rest of what we learn in the book of Job is going to be the water inside of that bowl. But this bowl is going to be a construct. It's going to be a framework that's going to put suffering in a different light. And the first is suffering has a purpose. Paul talks about this in Philippians. Let me read Philippians 1.12. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

So it's become known throughout the entire imperial guard and to all the rest, my imprisonment for Christ. Paul was saying that while I'm in dungeons, and I just got to say, first century Roman dungeons, I mean, I don't think they're like Airbnbs, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's rough. He's chained. It's dark. Look, you will rarely see Paul mention his suffering without mentioning the purpose behind the suffering or how he finds a purpose in that suffering.

I think it's a great question as opposed to, like, why is this happening, as opposed to asking, God, what are you doing? That's a great question. Not that you can't ask why. Jesus asked why. In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the cross, he asked, you know, why have thou forsaken me? He's asking why. But in the midst of it, Jesus understood the what.

I think sometimes it's more important for me to know the why than it is to know the what. But I think maturity as a believer and spiritual maturity cares more about the what. God, why is about your purposes, but this is a what, and it's about what are you doing? And so Paul saw that while in prison, what he was doing. If you're going through suffering right now, I want to say, ask God, what are you doing?

God has a purpose for you in it. That's the first part of this framework. The next is Christ is woven into all suffering. Paul says this a couple chapters later in Philippians 3.10. I want to know him, that's Jesus, the power of the resurrection, that I may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Paul is praying a prayer that I haven't had the courage to pray yet.

Now, this is my mom's prayer. My mom's prayer for her life is this scripture. I haven't had the courage to ask to share in the sufferings of Christ, specifically. I know that I will. I'm just not asking for it. You know what I'm saying? And Paul, Paul was saying, I want to share in your sufferings because if I don't go through your sufferings, I'm not going to understand the power of that resurrection.

Imagine the power inside the tomb when Jesus rose from the dead. Imagine it feeling like plugging into that. Paul is saying, I want to share. Recently, they found out more about a thing called the Shroud of Turin. I'm sorry, I don't have a picture of it. The Shroud of Turin, they believe, is the burial cloth that might have been over Jesus. And they had some more studies on it recently.

They found that it probably could have actually been the cloth from somebody in Jesus' time. And if you've seen it before, there's an x-rayed image on this cloth that looks like Jesus. And it's actually him on the burial cloth. Now, what is a burial cloth? Well, after you suffer, you are wrapped in it. It's almost a metaphor for being wrapped in suffering.

What I think the Shroud of Turin shows us, if you use it as a metaphor, is that in the midst of suffering, the image of Christ is there. If you're going through suffering without transposing the suffering of Jesus, without steeping the suffering of Jesus like a teabag in tea and hot water, I want to say you're missing out. Because it is through the lens of Christ's sufferings and inviting him in, like the image of the Shroud of Turin, by inviting him in that we begin to understand and we begin to have, like Paul says in Philippians, a fellowship.

And when we fellowship with him in our sufferings, because I might not ask for those sufferings, but all of us will have sufferings. And when that suffering comes, he says, I want to share with you in that suffering. Invite me into it so that you might experience what power? Power of the resurrection. The dunamis power of God. And the third part of the framework, before we jump right into Job and understanding it, is suffering is incomparable to God's glory.

People ask about suffering all the time. Why does this happen? And there's a really curious verse in Romans 8.18. And it basically compares suffering in a way to like, I would say something like a birth. The difficulty of carrying a child, the pain of a birth. But when that mother has the child in her hands, the pain of that birth is incomparable to the joy of that child.

God knows that all suffering will vanish. It will no longer exist. At one point, it will completely disappear. But the glory of God to be revealed will be so bright and eternal that the suffering that we're going through in this world, the children's suffering, the wars, all the things, will evaporate and no longer exist. It says there will be no more tears.

They will no longer exist. So this verse in Romans 8.18 says this. It says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Some would say in us. That all the suffering of humankind for 6,000 years of written human history, all of it is almost invisible or is invisible. Not even worth being compared to the glory that will be revealed.

That's a bit of a framework that God understands because God has this 32,000-foot view of suffering. Us, we're myopic, right? We have our suffering. It's right there in front of our face. So these are just some frameworks that we see. Let's jump into the book of Job now if we can. I'm going to give you the dating for this book. The book of Job is perhaps the oldest book in the Bible.

You're like, well, how can it be older than the creation story? Well, Moses wrote Genesis and the creation story or some of it. There's some thought on that. But this is a story that is believed to be written even before that. It is before Abraham. Now, there's no concise dating, so you're going to see different thoughts. But he never speaks. Job never speaks about the law.

He never speaks about the temple. He never speaks about the patriarchs. He never speaks about anything about being Jewish because we don't believe that Abraham has showed up and Abraham was the first Jew. But he's somewhere perhaps before Noah or after Noah. I believe he's before Noah. Why? In the maybe thousand years after the creative fall because he mentions dinosaurs, which is a trip.

If you read through the book, he mentions behemoth. He mentions Leviathan when talking about God. Now, some people will say, well, maybe that's just a whale and maybe that's just an elephant, which I got to see recently, which was super cool. But he mentions this prehistoric time when people were following God based on a lineage of godly people, and there weren't many of them.

You have Enoch. Maybe you've heard of Enoch. He's in these early lineages. He's one of the most godly people. He's mentioned in the New Testament. It says that he was just taken into heaven. Around that time is the book of Job, and so it's really old. What kind of literary type is it? Well, I've always thought it was like wisdom, right? You read it, and it gives you all this wisdom.

What I found out is it's actually poetic. It's poetic nature. There's seven different types of biblical literature. You have wisdom and narrative and things. But this is poetry. And as I began to read through it yesterday, I've been doing scripture bathing. I don't know if you've done scripture bathing. It's amazing. You basically sit with the Bible for like two or three hours and just either listen to it or just dive into it and just read.

Okay? You've heard about forest bathing and green bathing. People are going to the forest, and they sit in the forest. That's cool, too. But I sit, and I just soaked myself in the book of Job. And what I found out is that it's poetic. It reads like a song. Let me give you a quick structure for it. The first two chapters are what happens with Job. Job.

And God asks this question that I really don't like, that I hope he never asked about me. Like Satan rolls up on him. And Satan's like, hey, I'm here again. And we'll talk about that in a second. And he says to him, hey, have you, have you, there's this guy. I got to tell you about this guy. Have you considered this guy named Job? He's a servant of mine.

You should really consider him. And Satan's like, that's a great idea, God. That sounds good. What should I do? Weird question. I hope he never asked that question about me. But God was doing it for a purpose. And so in the first two chapters, we have what is happening. That's what most people know. We have this guy's life. It's completely ripped apart in the first two chapters.

And then he goes into a time of mourning. You'll see later on, he's got sores all over his body. He's got 10 children. They've all been killed by a whirlwind that comes in. All of his property. He's the richest man, greatest man in the entire East at this time. And it's all taken away. And he's sitting there, and he's just completely broken. That's the first two chapters.

Then chapters 3 through 37, his three best friends show up with a guy named Elihu, who's an idiot. And the three guys show up. He's an absolute idiot. I couldn't read those parts. I was like, God, these last three chapters were Elihu speaking. I can't read it. The guy's such an idiot. And so I just didn't read it. I'm reading the entire Bible this year, but I'm not reading Elihu.

He's just an idiot. And so I'm not reading it. And so when I tell you I read the entire Bible this year, it's going to be a lie because I didn't read about Elihu because, like I said, he's an idiot. So his friends come to encourage him. And they're horrible at it. They're horrible at it. And he's going back and forth with this narrative. And he has these friends, right, that show up.

We'll talk about his friends. And his friends' names are Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophah, and Elihu. So he has these friends that are there with him. The next thing that we see besides that happening is a really interesting, intriguing thing in regard to the structure of the narrative. Because they try to encourage him for 30-some-odd chapters. And then in the final three chapters, God speaks.

So that's how it goes. It's two chapters about what happens to him. It's 30-some chapters about his friends trying to encourage him. And they're horrible at it. And him arguing his case. And then the final is where God speaks. And that's where the book really pays off. The one thing that's interesting is the book of Job never tells you why it happened.

It never tells you why. Why is a great question. Jesus asked why. It never tells you why. So if you're coming to the book of Job to get the why of what God does. And when God mic drops at the end, he basically just says, I'm God. It's none of your business why I do what I do. I mean, it's basically three chapters of that. And I love it. I'm like, you know what?

You are God. You are so sovereign. God, I just trust you. And the book, I think, kind of ends with that. Do you trust me? He's like, were you there when I put the snows in their storehouse? Were you there when I had the Leviathan do this? Were you there when I told the angels to do this? He's just saying, do you trust me? I am who I am. And that is where God ends that.

And so we see that happening and there's no answer to why. I know this is a long setup before we get to the scripture. But when we start a new book, I want to give you these understandings. The other thing you're going to see that's amazing is the gospel of Jesus Christ is found in the book of Job. The gospel is all through it. And I had never really understood that before.

But here's a few things you're going to see. Both Jesus and Job are said to be blameless. Both lost everything. Both were tempted by Satan. Both were falsely accused of being sinners. Both suffered and did nothing wrong. Both remained faithful from God. Both had their friends abandon them. Both of them became unrecognizable, the scripture says. One, I believe it says it in Isaiah, and the other one here.

Both were more abundantly blessed and redeemed in the end. The gospel of Job, if I may use that term, I believe it is a gospel of Job. It is Jesus Christ through the archetype of the story of Job. If you want to know why God chose Job, he chose him for the honor of allowing him to partner in the future sufferings of Christ Jesus. To be the one person on earth that he allowed to go through exactly what Jesus would go through.

The gospel is found. And so as you read the book of Job, open up your eyes that you see that. It's also a guide for spiritual warfare. We'll talk about more of that. You see how Satan works, how God works. Really, really interesting. And then the final thing, you have the characters in the Bible. Before we get to verse 1, the characters are Job, Satan, who's called the Satan in Hebrew.

The Satan. So I just felt like that was just a way more intriguing way to say it. So from now on, it's like the Satan. You have Job's wife, who he says is a fool. At the end, he's all, you're acting like a foolish woman. She basically tells him, curse God and die. Now granted, her 10 children had just been killed. So let's give her a little bit of grace, right?

You know what I'm saying? And she wasn't understanding, but she wasn't helping Job's cause with the just curse God and die. You have Job's children, partiers, like full partiers. You'll see, it says that they were constantly having these different parties. You have Job's friends who I've talked about. Go to verse 1, and we'll jump in for about just a little bit here, and then come for a landing.

Verse 1. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. We'll say that Job was the proverbial man. If you were going to read about creating righteousness, and the Bible says in Proverbs that righteousness is a guard for your life. Job was the person who created guardrails around his life of righteousness.

Righteousness will create a stronghold for you. I want to say God will cover you anyways in his grace, but sometimes it's a saving grace. And if we walk according to the wisdom of God like Job did, sometimes you don't have to depend on the saving grace. You can count on the keeping grace. I think so much of my life, I was counting on God to save me and rescue me from all the mistakes.

When he's saying, hey, I don't need to save you every single day. Maybe if you just kept some of my laws and my precepts, that would present some protections around you so I don't have to run to the rescue over and over again. That's the kind of man that Job was. He was completely righteous, completely upright. Verse 2 says, so that this man was the greatest of all the people to the east.

Now, Job had a challenge, right? He's surrounded by people who don't fly at his level. You see, there's no one, until we get to God at the end, who's way above his level, who flies at his level. He has no one because that's how it was in the early days before God brought Abraham and brought a people. He had individuals that were walking in the darkness.

And not that they were walking because they were in God's light, but they were in a very dark place. One of the challenges I felt like and one of the things I wanted to challenge you with is find spiritual people who you can lock shields with and you can walk through life together with. His entire experience of suffering was made more difficult by every single person around him.

He had no one else. Now, that was part of the gospel as well, right? Jesus is alone. But we don't have to be that way. And so if you do not have that group, that's why we love to gather as a people. We have small groups. We're doing discipleship, friends, friends that will pray for you, friends that will care for you. Job. And so that's the first thing that I want to say.

He had this challenge. Go to verse 4 and 5. I'm going to talk about Job's challenge. His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day. That would be like their birthday, I guess. And they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them.

He would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. That's ten burnt offerings. Seven sons, three daughters. For Job said, it may be the children that my children have sinned had cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did this continually. That's a challenge. You have to think that if his children were righteous, he wasn't continually offering ten sacrifices every time they had a party.

So the other thing is you never see, is that funny? Like down to TJ. You never see, you never see in this culture men inviting their sisters to a party. It's really weird back then. It's like super weird. Like it would happen now. And so there's some conjecture about just, you know, before there was a law, like what was going on. If you were to read things, there's a book that's not in the Bible.

It's a really fascinating book called the Book of Enoch. It's not in the Bible. It's in the Apocrypha. It is worth reading. It's interesting. But it talks about some of the things that could have been happening. And it wasn't good. And it was to the point that this was a huge challenge. Do any of you have children where you're really concerned about your children?

This was a challenge that he had. Obviously he had a wife whose faith was not in the same place that he had. And he would offer these over and over again. These are Job's challenges. Just because you are righteous doesn't mean that you don't have challenges. Job's biggest concern was his children. And we kind of believe that he was completely surrounded by sin.

But in the midst of this, he was a light. The next thing you see, Satan's, the Satan, excuse me, the Satan's character. Go to verse 6. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan also came with them. Let me just stop right there. As you read through the book of Genesis, you will see that there was an interplay between heaven and earth where angels would walk the earth.

That's mentioned in the book of Genesis. It's also mentioned here. That's why we believe that it's possible before the flood that this happened. It says angels would walk the earth. Remember in Genesis it said that these angels, they ended up sleeping with women. And then they had children. And these became the giants of the past. So this is some of the, you know, that I wouldn't call it myth.

But this is some of the lore of the Old Testament that you see. And so we see this happening here. And the angels are coming before them. So that's what's happening there in verse 6. The Lord said to Satan, the Satan, from where have you come? And Satan answered the Lord, from going to and fro on the earth, walking up and down it. This tells you a lot about spiritual warfare.

This is what Satan does. Satan walks around looking for people that he can destroy. 1 Peter 5.8 says this. 1 Peter 5.8 says that Satan is a roaring lion seeking who he might devour. I was just in Africa. And I went on a safari, right? And the thing you want to see on a safari is the kill. Sorry, anybody who's part of PETA, I apologize. It is in nature.

They don't make them do it, right? So we didn't see any kills, right? I did get a picture with a rhino behind me and some hippos and some cool stuff like that. Satan is a roaring lion. And all he does, let me just tell you what his day job is, okay? When he's not like, you know, running his TikTok account or whatever he's doing. He's just rolling up and down the earth to the side and he's looking for someone who's separated from the herd.

He's looking for someone who believes lies. He's looking for someone who doesn't know their identity in Christ. And he's looking to bite them. No, he's looking to devour them. Job was a man that proved difficult to devour. He was a person who proved difficult to devour. Why? Because Job had put placards or pillars in his life that brought strength to his life, that brought righteousness to his life.

And God was there and protected him through that. Verse 9 and 10, the Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge of protection around him and his house and all that he has on every side? And this is a question, right? Satan's a questioner. Remember, he did the same thing with Adam and Eve, right?

Just question. A lot of the questions that some of you believers have in your head right now are not questions you should be considering. I'm not saying we shouldn't live a wise life thinking about ourselves and these different things. Satan's job is to come bring questions to you. Now, you take these questions and you put them before the word of God and they will give you an answer.

But his job is to create doubt and questions about your future, about your identity, about who God is, whom God is, over and over again to cause you to doubt. He even says to God, have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? And the question that Satan was asking was this. Was Job's character and integrity only a result of God's hedge of protection and blessing?

Or was God's covering a response to his faithfulness? Meaning, was Job righteous first and then God says, I'm going to bless you with this hedge of protection? Or did he have this hedge of protection and that's why, because everything was so easy and comfy and good, that he followed God? This is the question that we have, that we struggle with in this book.

I'm not sure we get an answer to that question. But we do know that when the hedge of protection was removed, he remained faithful. The stories of people who in the greatest sufferings that can crush them, but instead are created by them and remain faithful to what they believe is true and what they will end up knowing is true. Because when you believe it, you don't often know it sometimes.

Are the people that make a difference in the kingdom of God. It is perseverance that leads to proven character, it says in the scriptures. And as you go through that scripture, it says, and it leads to character and then it will lead eventually to hope and we will know who God is. So that question may be never get answered, but he is a person who sustains.

I asked myself the question, I've been sober now, I think I was 32 years this year, 32 years. Yeah, right on. One day at a time. One day at a time, coming in for a landing here. And I sat by this guy on an airplane and he's like, man, I wish I could get sober. And I just asked myself, if something like what's happened to Job happens to me, will I go back to the bottle?

I don't know. I'll just be honest with you. I don't think so. You don't want to hear your pastor say that, right? It's not like I'm whipping up margaritas at my house waiting, you know what I'm saying? I was more of a Captain Jack guy anyway. I don't know. But I know Jesus is faithful. That's all I know. And it's one day at a time. And I try to build around myself a structure that would prove strong enough to make it through whatever happens.

But I haven't gone through some of the suffering that you've gone through. I've led a pretty blessed life. Father passed away when I was young. You know, a few things we've had people, but normal people passing away at normal ages. Struggling with addiction. Some things like that. But not some of the things that you guys have gone through. Losing children.

You know, being, you know, abused. Different things like that. So I don't know. But I see some of the things that we can learn to go through suffering in a way that redeems that suffering. And that's what we find here in this book. I've got to come in for a landing now. I won't get to the Satan's challenge. He does have a challenge. I'll have to hit that next week as we talk about God's justice and why Satan's in the courts of God.

I will just say this. Courts in session with God until the final judgment. And so because courts open and God listens to everyone, Satan shows up as a lawyer. He's an accuser of the brethren. He does it all the time. The scripture actually talks about that. And he just keeps showing up. It says in Revelation 12. I won't get to that yet. But he keeps showing up and accusing you of things you haven't done.

He accused Jesus. He's just an accuser of the brethren. And until the final day of judgment, Satan has a place to show up as a lawyer and say, I have a defense or I have an accusation to make because God's courts are open. And the heavenly courts are open. And he's still an angel. He's a fallen angel. But he's still an angel. And angels are allowed for one reason or another.

He's not allowed to stay in heaven now. But he shows up and we actually see that there. I will say that he loses his place. I just want to give you one really cool verse. Revelations 12.10. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Now salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ have come. For the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down who has accused them day and night before our God.

See, there will come a day when God says, You're done. And take him by the scruff of his little satanic neck. And throw him to a fiery pit where he belongs for eternity. And he will no longer accuse you. And there will be no more weeping and gnashing of teeth in the kingdom of God. And there will be no more tears is what it says. I want to finish with two practical takeaways.

Ask, if you go to the practical takeaways, what are you doing? Rather than just asking why. Ask God, God, what are you doing? What is my purpose in the midst of this suffering? Maybe you're in chemotherapy and you're at the hospital and God's like, I got people. I want you to share. You're like, why, God? Why does this happen? I don't, you know, whatever it is, these things that happen, begin to just add.

Not that you can't ask why. But begin to ask, God, what? And how? How do you want to use me? God has incredible things for you to do. Don't just sit in your suffering by yourself. Let God use you as a tool. Suffering has the ability to create you. And then finally, link all your suffering to the suffering of Jesus. When I was in Cape Town, I was overlooking an island in Cape Town, South Africa.

That island was called Robin Island. If you have not heard of him, there was a man named Nelson Mandela who fought against the apartheid, the racist regime that had been there 75 years by the Afrikaans government. He was a black man, the group, in a village like the one I visited. He ended up being put in prison when he was in his mid-40s for fighting a fight to see that country.

As you remember, the apartheid struggle, if you're around in the 80s, it was a big thing. Nelson Mandela was sent to prison where he would sit there, chained, with the sun on his back. He did that for about seven years, cracking rocks all day. Then there was a solitary confinement. There was a time where they would throw his, they would make him strip naked and throw his clothes into the water at night, cold water, and then say, put it back on and go into your cell.

It's cold in South Africa because you're on the Arctic Sea, the South Arctic Sea there, Antarctic Sea, excuse me, there as you're there. Then as I was there, I could see Robin Island. I began to read his book. It's called A Long Walk to Freedom. If you haven't read that book, I want to encourage you to read this book, A Long Walk to Freedom. He became a Christian when he was a young child.

He held on to his faith, which was difficult because many people that he was leading were saying, we need to reject the white man's God. But he held to his faith through all of that time over and over, and he was 27 years in prison. 27 years through some of the most intolerable suffering. His child died, his son died when he was in prison. He wasn't allowed to see his children growing up.

All the things that he was there on this island in the middle of nowhere, wondering, why God? Why have you put me here? But he understood that the struggle mattered and that freedom mattered. And so he waited. The tide began to change in the world. There's another picture of him here, not long after he became the president of South Africa. Mandela said this.

He says, As I walked out the door towards the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave behind my bitterness and my hatred, I'd still be in prison. How you suffer is probably more important than why you're suffering. And I really want to say this with the most empathy I can, because when you speak to suffering people, you're better just to shut up.

But I think the scripture does tell us how you suffer is what matters. And that God wants to be there. He loves you. He's not forgotten you. He's with you in every midst of it. And he suffered so that we may be set free. And I pray that whatever you suffer, whatever you go through, or when you come along others, that you might be made free. Amen? Stand if you would.

We're going to have our prayer team come forward, and Chris is just going to play for a second. And if you need prayer today, as our prayer team comes forward, we want to pray for you. And I'm going to have Chris do one chorus just to prepare our hearts, and then I'll come back and bless you. But if you're going through something right now, you need someone to come alongside you.

You need prayer. Please come forward. We want to pray for you. If you need healing from emotional, whatever it is. But let's just lean into this song together and give your suffering to God. Unite yourself to Christ right now. Let's do that here as a team. Amen? Amen. Sing that again. Sing that again. It is well. It is well. It is well. It is well. With my soul.

It is well. soul. Once you get after the service, please come forward for prayer. We want to pray for you. Prayer matters. Prayer is powerful. If you extend your hand, blessing matters as well. In a world that is full of curses, I want to bless you today. Lord Jesus, for those that are suffering in here today, we all have something that we're going through. I pray that you would meet them in the midst of that, Jesus. It is by your wounds that we are healed.

Lord God, would you redeem the suffering? Would you let us walk in the what and the hows of suffering? You can explain the whys if you want. That's up to you. But I bless your people. I do pray for healing. I do pray as they walk through the valley of shadow of death that they would not lay down in the valley of shadow of death, that they would know you and fellowship with you in your suffering and in the power of your resurrection.

I bless you now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We love you guys. We'll see you next week. Please come give prayer. It is well, it is well, with my soul, with my soul. It is well, it is well, with my soul. It is well, it is well, it is well, it is well, it is well, it is well, in the way, I do. I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I.

Amen.