And I just in Christ's name I pray, amen.
Man in Job chapter 29 what we have here is kind of a catalog of everything that Job
has lost and he's longing for the way things used to be and talking about how great things
were because if you don't know the story of the book of Job I'll just quickly bring
you up to speed but Job was the most righteous man living on the face of the earth at that
time.
He was a very godly man, he feared God, he eschewed evil and of course God is testing
him and so he goes through pretty much every horrible tragedy that you can imagine.
He ends up losing all of his wealth, he loses his employees, his children all die,
his wife tells him to curse God and die so he's lost the respect of his wife and the
support of his wife and then not only that he's physically afflicted with boils all over
his body and so he has literally lost everything.
He's been brought as low as you can go as a human whether it's physically, socially,
emotionally, financially, I mean he's just at rock bottom in pretty much every way possible.
So in this chapter he's reflecting back and saying oh man I miss the way things were
and then in chapter 30 he says this is what things are like now and he describes his
current situation.
Chapter 28 is about something else completely different.
So I want you to get the picture here.
Chapter 29 is this is what I've lost, this is the way things used to be and in chapter
30 it's this is how things are now.
Now the reason I want to emphasize this chapter tonight is that when we lose everything
it could cause us to think about what's really important to us because if Job is looking
back and saying oh man I wish things were the way they used to be then by looking
at what he brings up we can kind of see what was really important to him because he's
obviously missing the things that are the most important to him or that mattered to
him the most.
As you read this chapter you find that the things that he missed most of them are really
good things.
It's not just that he missed you know the whining and the dining and living the
good life but if you look at the things that he missed in chapter 29 it's actually
a lot of righteous things and it kind of shows what was important to a godly man
like Job because we want to be like Job because like I said earlier the Bible tells
that Job was the most godly man on the earth at that time.
So Job is definitely a role model for us.
He's definitely someone we want to look at and say hey I want to be like Job.
I want to think like Job.
So the question that I would have for you tonight is what was important to Job?
What mattered to Job?
Well chapter 29 explains that to us.
Look at verse number one it says moreover Job continued his parable and said,
O that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me, when his candle
shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness.
The first thing I want to point out is that Job misses the most the feeling that
God is blessing him.
That God is pleased with him and that God has taken care of him.
So when you read this obviously we know the story we know that God has not actually
forsaken Job and we know that God is pleased with Job and that he's going through
these trials and tribulations for a different reason.
Not because God's angry with him or upset with him.
It's not that God has actually turned his back on him, but that's how it feels.
And obviously Job in this sense pictures the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything in the Old Testament is of course pointing us to Jesus.
Think about how Jesus, he knew no sin and yet he became sin for us that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him.
Because obviously he did nothing wrong to cause him to be hanging on that cross and
saying my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And in the same way Job didn't really do anything wrong to deserve these things,
but yet he's enduring these things ultimately for other people because he endures these
things so that we can learn from them.
And so there's a little parallel with the Lord Jesus Christ there.
But the point is that even though Job had not truly lost God's blessing or God's favor,
he thinks that he has.
Because that's what his friends are telling him and obviously he doesn't feel like he's
being blessed by God when everything's going wrong in his life, literally everything.
And so he says, oh that I were as in months past as the days when God preserved
me when his candle shined upon my head and when by his light I walked through the
darkness.
You know what Job starts with shows that's the most important thing to him.
You know what?
That ought to be the most important thing to us.
When we measure the success of our life, when we measure how good life is going, what
we really ought to ask ourselves is, is God's light upon us?
Is God blessing us?
Is God the one who's preserving us and guiding us and shining the light on our path?
You know the most important thing in our life is whether God's pleased with us.
That should be our number one priority with the decisions that we make and the things
that we do.
You know when I get up to preach on Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night,
sometimes the sermon's going to be popular, sometimes it's going to be unpopular.
Sometimes people are going to like it, sometimes people are not going to like it, but at
the end of the day what really matters the most is whether God liked my sermon.
Whether my sermon was pleasing to God, whether it's the sermon that he would want me
to preach on a Sunday morning or a Sunday night or Wednesday night.
If it's something that's his will or according to his will or within what God has commanded
me to preach, that's what matters the most to me.
And when it comes to any other area of life, whether it's marriage or child rearing
or business or studies or whatever, you know we need to ask ourselves is this pleasing
to God?
Is God pleased with us?
Because let me tell you something.
If God is pleased with you and God is blessing you, if God causes his face to
shine upon you, everything else in life is going to be fine.
Everything else will fall into place.
All things work together for good to them who love God and to them who are called according
to his purpose.
And so when Job is regretting his past condition, the first things he brings up have to do
with, man, God was blessing me.
You know, God's candle shined upon my head.
By his light I walked through darkness.
Verse 4, as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.
You know, these are the things that are the most important to Job.
Notice that this conversation doesn't just start with, man, I miss all the good food
that I used to eat.
And man, I miss going out with friends and being able to just throw those hundred dollar
bills on the table and just pick up the tab and the dancing and the partying and the gambling
and, you know, that's not what was important to him.
First of all, he wasn't even doing that.
He didn't live that kind of lifestyle.
But he misses his walk with God.
He misses God blessing him.
He misses having God near unto him.