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Sermon Transcript “The Sweetness in the End” Job 42:7-17 November 29, 2020 This morning we come to the end of our time studying the book of Job. I don’t how many of you like happy endings, but I do. I will take a happy ending over a tragedy any day of the week. Even though the book of Job has been filled with pain, we see how that pain gave way to the shining light of God’s grace as the book comes to its conclusion. Something of a happy ending is what we get as we see great blessing poured out upon Job’s head in the latter portion of his life. As we look at what is recorded for us here at the end of this book, brothers and sisters, let us be reminded of the heart of our God. Let’s remember that the heart of God is kind. It is the heart of God to pour out on us. To provide. To lavish. The Living God that we serve is wonderfully generous and we see this as we open up the book of Job this morning. As we prepare ourselves for what is at the end of this book, listen to what is written in the New Testament in Ephesians Chapter 2 and Verses 4 through 7. This was after the Lord had even described our sin; the sin of the people who comprise His church. How we too had been following in the rule of Satan, walking in the ways of the serpent, the ancient dragon, even the Leviathan of old. Describing the fact that we are all born sinners, Ephesians Chapter 2 goes on to say this: 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that So that! Why have we been raised up in Christ by the grace of God? 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. What is the Lord preparing for those whom He has chosen? According to Ephesians Chapter 2, it is to those who have come to Him in repentance and faith, looking to Jesus for forgiveness of sin. What has God prepared? An infinite wealth of grace and goodness and generosity. The manifestation of these things are poured out on us through all eternity. God is good! 1 This morning as we see the riches of God’s grace poured out upon His servant, Job, we will see that which is emblematic of the tidal wave of blessing that is be released upon the people of God for all eternity in a real, rock-solid, tangible, and everlasting Kingdom that He has brought us into. So prepare yourself as we see not only what the hand of God gives but in seeing what the hand of God gives, let’s remember the heart that it is given from. As we pick up the story of Job once again, let us go again to that ash heap in the land of Uz. As we do, let us understand that we still have a man that was still profoundly suffering. His body still had that disease. It had not been healed yet. If you were to see Job, yes, those boils and sores would still be upon him. His heart was still deprived of the ten children that he loved. The ache was still there. His estate was still emptied of his wealth. His honor and his name were still publicly maligned by the insinuations and even the slander of his so-called friends. His life remained barren by every worldly standard. But, at the same time, we have a man whose heart was filled with worship and praise to the Almighty like never before in Job’s life. Despite all of the vexation and the bitterness and the sourness that was within him even toward the LORD throughout the book, it is now transformed and Job praised the LORD like never before. For we have read how in Chapters 38 through 41, God approached Job. God appeared in the form of a whirlwind. God spoke to Job and proclaimed to him about the unsearchable wisdom with which He governs over the entire universe that He has created—every constellation, every atom, every single life form. God is the One who has created it and who sustains it. In the middle of his perplexity, Job had heard God Himself speaking of the unsearchable wisdom by which He governs everything. The LORD also spoke into Job about the unparalleled power by which he reigns over every earthly power, even the imposing Behemoth and even the dark and evil Leviathan, Satan himself. God had approached Job proclaiming to him the glory of His wisdom and the extent of His power. And Job was a man who had been left thunderstruck. Job was a man who was filled with awe and wonder and worship and humility as God made Himself known to him in a deeper and more profound way. We find Job worshiping. Repenting. Retracting everything that he had said in his vexation. Now we have Job seeing God with a clarity that he had never seen Him with before, and Job was a man filled with worship. That is where we find him. As we move forward into what came next, we see God moving upon Job’s life with amazing displays of grace. God was going to make His favor upon Job known publicly. Understand that this was nothing that Job had earned. Like the rest of us, Job was a sinner. Throughout the book we have seen some of that. 2 Still, the heart of God is kind. Now we see the LORD moving in His grace, bringing first reconciliation in Job’s relational world. Then restoration upon Job in the midst of all the things that he had lost. These are two movements of the grace of God that can concludes the book of Job. As we dig into to this text, first we see: 1. The Grace of Reconciliation (42:7-9) Fist we see the LORD moving with His grace that stirs and prompts reconciliation. God had already reconciled Himself to Job. Now God reconciled Job with his friends, and with others as well as we will see later in this chapter. Let’s see how this starts with the three friends. As is so often the case, reconciliation begins with a reproof of sin. This time the reproof is brought to the men that had brought Job so much trouble and grief. What did the LORD have to say to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar? Let’s see. Job Chapter 42 and Verse 7: 7After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer. I wonder if anybody else who has been following this study of Job all along has that very satisfying sense of vindication for our brother Job. Not only did the LORD tell Job’s friends that they were wrong in the things that they said about the LORD and Job, but God said that it was so wrong that they had sinned woefully and there must be sacrifices for the way that they had misspoken. Job was going to preside over and pray over them. There is something within me as I read this where I want to say, Take that! In your face, Eliphaz! Get ripped, Bildad! Right back at you Zophar! I was getting so carried away with this thinking and thought that we should even rename Zophar. He should go from Zophar to so far, because so far was he so far away from getting it right. Take that!!!! May I say there is even an impure sense of vindication that can rise up within many of us. I think that is why there is such a market for revenge movies. However, that is not the spirit of what happened here. 3 This was a moment of beautiful and meaningful reconciliation that the God of grace and peace orchestrated as He led Job to forgive the men who had been sinning against him. God was going to do this to draw out the venom of ongoing bitterness and resentment and to bring peace. That is what the LORD was doing here. It is a beautiful picture of the movement of the grace of God among fallen human beings that can so easily, not only just having ongoing conflict for thirty chapters in a book, but for thirty years of life. The LORD wants to move us toward reconciliation.
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