Speaker 1: Welcome to the Elevation Church Podcast. Today we have the
Speaker 1: privilege of welcoming Pastor Darius Daniels from Change Church and
Speaker 1: we're excited for you to hear what you shared with
Speaker 1: our church. We hope you enjoy this message. Well listen.
Speaker 1: I love God's word. I'm excited to share it today.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm thinking around this whole idea of
Speaker 1: questions and questions from the Bible, questions that people in
Speaker 1: the Bible had about God. This is what I've learned.
Speaker 1: It's one thing for us to question God. We see
Speaker 1: some of that in the Bible. It's another for God
Speaker 1: to have questions for us. And when God asked us
Speaker 1: a question is not to gather information, is to give it.
Speaker 1: When he asked us a question, he doesn't need to
Speaker 1: see something. He's trying to show us something. And it's
Speaker 1: around that thought that I want to read a few
Speaker 1: verses in the Book of Job Job, chapter forty two,
Speaker 1: verse number one, we see Job responding to a question
Speaker 1: God asked him. It says, then Job replied to the Lord,
Speaker 1: I know you can do all things. No purpose of
Speaker 1: yours can be thwarted. You asks Job is saying God,
Speaker 1: you ask who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?
Speaker 1: Then Job says, surely I spoke of things I did
Speaker 1: not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said,
Speaker 1: listen now and I will speak. I will question you
Speaker 1: and you will answer me. Listen to what Job says
Speaker 1: in verse five, he said, my ears had heard of you,
Speaker 1: but now my eyes have seen you. I last time
Speaker 1: I was here, I taught from the subject. I didn't
Speaker 1: see that coming. I want to talk from this subject
Speaker 1: and our time together today I see it now. Clap
Speaker 1: your hands in the house, and in your house if
Speaker 1: you're ready for God's word, you could be seated. A
Speaker 1: Danish philosopher and theologian Soaring Kirca Gard is credited with
Speaker 1: this quote. He says life is lived forward but only
Speaker 1: understood backwards. He seems to be suggesting that there are
Speaker 1: some things that are going on or that will go
Speaker 1: on in your present that will only make sense in
Speaker 1: your future. In other words, just because something doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense now doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. It may
Speaker 1: mean you have not gotten to the place, space or
Speaker 1: season in your life where God makes sense out of it.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if any of us can pause for
Speaker 1: the cause and do some reflecting in our own life.
Speaker 1: And if we reflect objectively, I believe we have to
Speaker 1: honestly admit that there were some things in our past
Speaker 1: that we did not understand then, that we did not
Speaker 1: value then, that did not make sense to us. Then,
Speaker 1: That felt damaging then, But now when we look back
Speaker 1: in retrospect, we gain respect for that season because the
Speaker 1: thing I thought that was destroying me was the thing
Speaker 1: God was using to develop me. Come here, Joseph, and
Speaker 1: my pit and my prison became the pathway to my palace.
Speaker 1: Life lived forward but understood backwards. Kireker Gard is articulating
Speaker 1: the essence of this principle I call the principle of perspective.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Where you sit determines what you see,
Speaker 1: and what you see determines what you do. Where you
Speaker 1: sit determines what you see, and what do you see
Speaker 1: determines what you do. There are some things you can
Speaker 1: see that I can't see, not because they don't exist,
Speaker 1: but because we aren't sitting in the same place. Because
Speaker 1: where you sit determines what you see, and what you
Speaker 1: see determines what you do. And this is why some
Speaker 1: individuals become confused, dumbfounded, flabbergasted when they look at your
Speaker 1: life in the midst of this uncertain season, you're still
Speaker 1: living with a degree of conviction and certainty that they're
Speaker 1: looking at you when everything seems to be crumbling all
Speaker 1: around us, but somehow you're still being held together. They're
Speaker 1: looking at you when everyone else seems to be having
Speaker 1: pity parties. You're having praise parties in the closet, in
Speaker 1: the car, in the living room, on the iPad with
Speaker 1: the desktop. Come on, talk to them. We're having praise parties.
Speaker 1: And people feel like, well, maybe they're just in engauge
Speaker 1: in some religious fanaticism. Maybe they're just denying the reality
Speaker 1: of what's going on. Maybe they're operating with some sense
Speaker 1: of intellectual inferiority. No, no, no, no, no. You don't
Speaker 1: understand what I'm doing because you don't see what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: And you don't see what I'm seeing because you're not
Speaker 1: sitting where I'm sitting. When I got saved, I was
Speaker 1: raised to life in Christ, seated in heavenly places, and
Speaker 1: so now I see things from a different perspective, and
Speaker 1: I see what the enemy means for evil God's gonna
Speaker 1: work for good, so I don't have to wait until
Speaker 1: the battle is over. But I can praise God right
Speaker 1: now because where you sit determines what you see, and
Speaker 1: what you see determines what you do. And this is important,
Speaker 1: essential when we find ourselves, listen to me, please. In
Speaker 1: job like seasons, Pasadarius, what is that? What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that a job like season? I'm referring to
Speaker 1: a gentleman in the Old Testament named Job. There's a
Speaker 1: part of his story situated in a section of the
Speaker 1: Bible called wisdom literature, meaning that this part of the
Speaker 1: Bible contains books that God wants us to gain wisdom from.
Speaker 1: And Job's story is put in the pages of scripture
Speaker 1: because God wants us to gain wisdom from Job. On
Speaker 1: how to handle job like seasons, Darius, what is a
Speaker 1: job like season? A job like season is a season
Speaker 1: of ambiguity. It's a season where you have to watch this,
Speaker 1: where you have to keep advancing without some answers. It's
Speaker 1: a season where you want answers God refuses to give you.
Speaker 1: It represents seasons where where you have to move on
Speaker 1: without closure. It's the season where God separates and differentiates
Speaker 1: between what you think you need and what you actually need.
Speaker 1: It's God's way of saying, you think you need an
Speaker 1: answer to advance, and because I'm committed to supply all
Speaker 1: of your needs, if you really needed an answer right now,
Speaker 1: I give you one. But because I haven't given you one,
Speaker 1: it's an indication that you got the ability to advance
Speaker 1: without it. And I need to pause today, and I
Speaker 1: need to speak to somebody who feels like you're waiting
Speaker 1: on some answers and you're trying to make sense out
Speaker 1: of some things that don't make sense. If God hasn't
Speaker 1: given you an answer now, it's because you don't need
Speaker 1: an answer now. And maybe God's encouragement to you is
Speaker 1: to move on anyway, is to advance anyway, it's to
Speaker 1: thrive anyway. Maybe you don't need what you think you
Speaker 1: need to do what God is calling you to do.
Speaker 1: Maybe God's trying to wean you off of something that
Speaker 1: you become code dependent on that he gave to you.
Speaker 1: But you used the gift as a crutch, and you
Speaker 1: became more confident in the crutch than you did in
Speaker 1: your crisis. And he says, in this season, let me
Speaker 1: take that crutch to reveal to you. Sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: know I'm all you need until I put you in
Speaker 1: a situation. Well, I'm all you got, job like Caesars. See,
Speaker 1: this principal perspective is incredibly important because it helps me
Speaker 1: manage wisely job like seasons. It helps me manage those
Speaker 1: seasons with wisdom so that our anxiety about ambiguity does
Speaker 1: not cause us to act impulsively. You understand what I'm
Speaker 1: saying that, right, So the damage that anxiety about ambiguity
Speaker 1: can cause is not just what we feel, it's what
Speaker 1: we do as a result of those feelings. Right. It's
Speaker 1: like an Old Testament character named Abraham who was very
Speaker 1: old in age and his wife was old also, and
Speaker 1: God says to them, Okay, you guys are gonna have
Speaker 1: a child in the old age. And so they were
Speaker 1: already old when they got the promise, and watch this
Speaker 1: and watch this. While they're waiting on the promise, they
Speaker 1: deal with a season, I believe, a season where they
Speaker 1: get to the point and they something causes them to
Speaker 1: act impulsively. So Sarah recommends that Abraham hook up with
Speaker 1: someone named Hagar, and as a result of that, she
Speaker 1: gives birth to a child named Isaac. What does Isaac represent.
Speaker 1: Isaac represents the fruit of impulsive activity. It's what you
Speaker 1: produce when you get ahead of God. And it didn't
Speaker 1: stop Abraham from getting to the place God had for him.
Speaker 1: It just made the journey much more difficult than it
Speaker 1: had to be. This principal perspective helps us manage these
Speaker 1: seasons with wisdom, because where you see determines what you see,
Speaker 1: and what you see determines what you do. So maybe
Speaker 1: there are times I don't understand what God is doing
Speaker 1: because I'm not seeing what God is seeing, and I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing what God is saying because I'm not sitting
Speaker 1: where God is sitting. I see to the corner, he
Speaker 1: sees around the corner. I see to the hill. He
Speaker 1: sees over the hill. I see today, he sees tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I see the crucifixion on Friday. But it lets me
Speaker 1: hang on the cross because he sees a resurrection coming
Speaker 1: Sunday morning. And maybe God's not behaving the way we
Speaker 1: feel like we should he should be behaving. Maybe God's
Speaker 1: not intervening in the way we feel like God should
Speaker 1: be intervening because we're looking at the same thing. But
Speaker 1: we don't see the same thing right. An example of
Speaker 1: this is in John eleven when the Bible says there
Speaker 1: was a man named Lazarus who was dead, and the
Speaker 1: scriptures say who was Yeah, who is dead? And the
Speaker 1: scripture says that Jesus gets word of his death and
Speaker 1: he says these words, Lazarus has fallen asleep. Now everybody
Speaker 1: else is saying he's dead, but from Jesus's perspective, he's
Speaker 1: so everybody else is expecting the Jesus to rush because
Speaker 1: Lazarus is dead, But Jesus doesn't rush because in his mind,
Speaker 1: Lazarus is sleep. They looking at the same thing, but
Speaker 1: they aren't saying the same thing. And Jesus is like,
Speaker 1: I'm not rushing because you think what I'm actually doing
Speaker 1: is performing a resurrection. But in my mind, I'm just
Speaker 1: wakning them up from a nap. Because where you sit
Speaker 1: determins what you see, what you say, determins what you do.
Speaker 1: Maybe that opportunity didn't manifest itself. Maybe that that promotion
Speaker 1: didn't happen, Maybe that transfer didn't happen, Maybe that contract
Speaker 1: didn't have Maybe you being positioned at the department in
Speaker 1: that department didn't happen six months ago, because God knows
Speaker 1: six months from now that department's gonna phase out. See
Speaker 1: where you sit determines what you see, and what you
Speaker 1: see determines what you do, and Job's story is an
Speaker 1: incredible example of this reality. We are introduced to this
Speaker 1: gentleman named Job with these words. In Job one, verse one,
Speaker 1: it says, in the land of us there lived a
Speaker 1: man whose name was Job. He was blameless and upright.
Speaker 1: He feared God and shunned evil. I very rarely have
Speaker 1: I seen the Bible speaks so favorably about a man,
Speaker 1: and very rarely have I seen the Bible give such
Speaker 1: detail about the character of a man. So the writer
Speaker 1: of this narrative is trying to get us to see
Speaker 1: that if anybody should have been able to avoid seasons
Speaker 1: of ambiguity and uncertainty, it should be this man. It's
Speaker 1: trying to get us to see, if anyone should be
Speaker 1: exempt from unfavorable ccumstances and inconveniences, it should have been
Speaker 1: this man. But this man starts experiencing this downward trajectory
Speaker 1: of tragedy, and so the writer, rather literally or metaphorically,
Speaker 1: gives us some behind the scenes spiritual backstory to see
Speaker 1: what is happening to facilitate this tragedy, and so, whether
Speaker 1: literally or metaphorically, the writer says that one day angels
Speaker 1: will lined up to have conversations with God, and one angel,
Speaker 1: a fallen angel named Satan, had to stand in line
Speaker 1: just like everybody else. So he standing, uh huh. That's
Speaker 1: how much of a defeated foe he is. He's got
Speaker 1: to stand in line just to get an audience with
Speaker 1: the Father. He overinflates his ability because he wants to
Speaker 1: intimidate us into believing he's got more power than he has.
Speaker 1: But my Bible tells me Jesus gave us power, all
Speaker 1: the power up the endemy, he got a stand in line.
Speaker 1: He's standing in line, y'all. He's standing in line, and
Speaker 1: he gets he finally, he finally gets his turn, and God, God,
Speaker 1: such a boss. He gets his turn. God say, what's up?
Speaker 1: He said, nothing? So where you've been? I've just been
Speaker 1: to Valentine and Roanoke and Melbourne and Greenville and rock
Speaker 1: Hill and University City, just trying to find somebody's life
Speaker 1: to mess up. And God says, have you considered job?
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, God, wait, a minute. I just read
Speaker 1: in the Land of Us that lived a man named Job.
Speaker 1: He was blameless and upright. He feared God has shunned evil,
Speaker 1: and God says, yeah, hell you consider Joe. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: there are some other people in my Bible that I
Speaker 1: think might be better recommendations. I'm gonna see if I
Speaker 1: can find anybody that's honest. Have you ever felt like God?
Speaker 1: I don't want this to happen to anybody, but I
Speaker 1: am wondering why this happened to me and not the
Speaker 1: person down the street. It's a powerful picture, right of
Speaker 1: just ambiguity won't have an answer. I can give you
Speaker 1: some hypothesis. I don't have an answer this. It rains
Speaker 1: on the just and the unjust. That's the declaration of
Speaker 1: a reality that exists in the world. But I do
Speaker 1: not have the rationale for that reality. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: sometimes the worst stuff happens to the best people. That's tough,
Speaker 1: isn't it. So he says, have you considered my servant, Joe?
Speaker 1: And watch what Satan says. He says, well, does Job
Speaker 1: fear God for nothing? He says, have you not put
Speaker 1: a hedge around him and his household and everything? He has.
Speaker 1: Hold up, Wait a minute. The text says that Satan says,
Speaker 1: have you not put a hedge around him? His household
Speaker 1: and everything he has? It didn't say that. God said,
Speaker 1: I put a hedge around him, his household and everything
Speaker 1: he has, and I'm follow the floor donary time. He says,
Speaker 1: where are you been? I've been all over trying to
Speaker 1: find somebody's life to mess up. Have you considered my
Speaker 1: servant Joe? Yes, but you put a head hedge around him,
Speaker 1: his household and everything he has. Wait a minute, You
Speaker 1: not only Satan know who job is, but you also
Speaker 1: know there's a hedge around him. Here's my question. If
Speaker 1: God didn't tell you that was a hedge, how did
Speaker 1: you know unless you try to get to him previously
Speaker 1: and you couldn't because of the hedge. And maybe we
Speaker 1: ought to pause and thank God for hedges you don't
Speaker 1: know about. Maybe sometimes we are so focused on the
Speaker 1: things that got to us, not realizing that every day
Speaker 1: there are some things that don't get through because of
Speaker 1: a hedge. I want to tell you, for every time
Speaker 1: the devil got through, there were more times he couldn't
Speaker 1: get through because of a hedge of protection that was
Speaker 1: around you. Now. Listen, I know what it's like to
Speaker 1: praise God for things we know about that he did.
Speaker 1: I want us wherever we are, in the car, in
Speaker 1: the living room, in the kitchen, I want us to
Speaker 1: praise God for the things he blocked that we don't
Speaker 1: know about. Has hedge, he says, He says, have you
Speaker 1: not put a hedge around him and his household and
Speaker 1: everything he has? It means you've been trying, not just
Speaker 1: to get to me, you've been You've been trying to
Speaker 1: get to my house. Some people in your house are
Speaker 1: being blessed by your hedge. That's a result of your
Speaker 1: faithfulness to a god. They want nothing to do with
Speaker 1: you what I just said. There are times of people
Speaker 1: like why are you so committed to that church? Or
Speaker 1: why are you so committed to that God? And they
Speaker 1: don't even realize that the reason I'm able to be
Speaker 1: who I am to you, and the reason I the
Speaker 1: reason I am to able to handle you in a
Speaker 1: responsible manner is because of this very church you're complaining about,
Speaker 1: and you're benefiting from a heads that is protecting you.
Speaker 1: That's a result of my commitment to God's church that
Speaker 1: you're complaining about. Complaining about what they benefiting from don't
Speaker 1: even know they benefit from your heage. So the Bible says,
Speaker 1: Satan leaves presence of God and begins to engage in orchestrating,
Speaker 1: so influencing some people to do some interesting things. And
Speaker 1: then there are some unexplainable natural disasters that happen that
Speaker 1: also directly impact Joe. So this is one of the
Speaker 1: things that happens. The Bible calls it a windstorm, so
Speaker 1: we don't know. During these times, there weren't meteorologists and weathermen,
Speaker 1: and so we don't know if this was a tornado
Speaker 1: or a hurricane. But some natural disaster happened and it
Speaker 1: hit his children's house and he lost his kids. Now,
Speaker 1: this was the text says, and it says while someone
Speaker 1: was giving him that news, while they were still giving
Speaker 1: that news, somebody else came and said, listen, all of
Speaker 1: your assets, which were agricultural back in that day oxen
Speaker 1: cattle says, a group of people named the Sabians have
Speaker 1: just come. They've stolen that from you, and are you
Speaker 1: following me? And while that person, the Bible says, while
Speaker 1: they were still speaking, someone else comes and gives some
Speaker 1: bad news. I want you to see how the enemy
Speaker 1: is at work here. It is sequential, it is cumulative.
Speaker 1: Have you ever felt like, if it's not one thing,
Speaker 1: it's another. Have you not felt like when it rains,
Speaker 1: it pours. This is a strategy of the adversary to
Speaker 1: get us out of our anxiety, because when it before,
Speaker 1: the enemy takes us out. He tries to wear us down.
Speaker 1: Did you hear what I'm saying? So the sequential nature
Speaker 1: of what's happening weakens your resolve. Have you ever felt
Speaker 1: that way that, Okay, I got big faith and I'm
Speaker 1: believing God, and then you just get hit with blow
Speaker 1: after blow after blow, and then your resolve is weakened, Samson,
Speaker 1: your hair is cut. And then when you lose your strength,
Speaker 1: here come the Philistines, and the Bible says, in the
Speaker 1: midst of ball all of this job did not charge
Speaker 1: God with any wrong doing. It's amazing. But what I
Speaker 1: love about this story is that that very often is
Speaker 1: where teachers and preachers stop. But in chapter two, the
Speaker 1: Bible says, Satan comes back to God and says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I need another round. Here's my question. If you took
Speaker 1: his kids, if you took his assets, if you disrupted
Speaker 1: the course and the quality of his life. Why are
Speaker 1: you coming back in chapter two trying to get more
Speaker 1: access to Job. Maybe it's because everything you took in
Speaker 1: chapter one was not what you were really after. Because
Speaker 1: Satan's exchanged with God initially said if you take his stuff,
Speaker 1: then he will curse you to your face and break
Speaker 1: his level of commitment. So maybe Satan is coming back
Speaker 1: because he's frustrated that no matter what he took, he
Speaker 1: still didn't get the one thing he was really after.
Speaker 1: He was after Job's commitment. And I want to tell
Speaker 1: somebody that's listening to this and watching this that the
Speaker 1: enemy is equally as frustrated with some of you because
Speaker 1: he's been coming after this and messing with that and
Speaker 1: infiltrating this and stealing that. But he's upset because he's
Speaker 1: not getting the thing that he's after. He wants your
Speaker 1: commitment to God, but you got a job like resolve
Speaker 1: that says, though he slay me, yet, will I trust him?
Speaker 1: You can take everything, but you cannot have my commitment.
Speaker 1: So Satan says, all right, I got all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but let me get access to him, and Joe gets
Speaker 1: inflicted with personal sickness. And suffering. His wife is his
Speaker 1: only caretaker because his children are gone, his assets are diminished,
Speaker 1: he can't hire any help. He's not used to living
Speaker 1: this way. Listen. His quality of life has diminished relationally,
Speaker 1: financially and now physically. And his wife, who I don't
Speaker 1: believe was a bad woman. I believe she got caretakers fatigue.
Speaker 1: I don't think we should judge her whole story on
Speaker 1: a statement. I think we at times pain and unfair
Speaker 1: picture of Job's wife, not excusing or affirming or endorsing
Speaker 1: what she said. But stress will make you say things.
Speaker 1: Let me see if I can find the honest section. Uh,
Speaker 1: if I'm teaching. If if you're honest, say you teaching?
Speaker 1: Passor put it in the chat. Listen to this. Listen,
Speaker 1: stress and pressure will make you say things. Listen to this.
Speaker 1: You don't mean two people you really love? And that's
Speaker 1: what she said. She said, It's interesting the coincidence. She said.
Speaker 1: She recommends to job that job do the same thing
Speaker 1: that God said he wouldn't do. She said, why don't
Speaker 1: you just curse God and die insensitive? So everything in
Speaker 1: Joe's life seems to be unraveling at the same time,
Speaker 1: and he did nothing wrong. Then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: his pseudo spiritual friends come over, his friends come over,
Speaker 1: one comes over, all deep. You know, I had a dream, right,
Speaker 1: And everybody's giving him. All of his friends, they're either
Speaker 1: trying to give him spiritual answers or religious platitudes that
Speaker 1: you don't want to hear in a season of him ambiguility.
Speaker 1: God's got a plan. I know God's gonna work it
Speaker 1: all together for your good. I know they miss UNDERCID.
Speaker 1: They didn't have relational lif intelligence. They misunderstood the power
Speaker 1: of the ministry of presence that when there is trauma
Speaker 1: and ambiguity and pain, you don't always have to offer words.
Speaker 1: You give the gift of your presence. The Bible refers
Speaker 1: to the Holy Spirit as a comforter. There are times
Speaker 1: where God helps us with strange and suffering seasons, not
Speaker 1: by saying anything, but by giving us the gift of
Speaker 1: His presence. And sometimes many of you may feel like
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do, and it's like no, Sometimes the doing is
Speaker 1: in the being. And Joe now at this point, he's deflated,
Speaker 1: he's confused, and what he didn't do in chapter one,
Speaker 1: he did. He starts to question God, and God sits silently,
Speaker 1: and he listens. From chapter four all the way to
Speaker 1: chapter thirty eight, God says nothing. Job questions God. I
Speaker 1: love this. You know why I love it? The fact
Speaker 1: that Job questioned. God says to me, he has a
Speaker 1: healthy view of God because you cannot hide your real
Speaker 1: thoughts from a God who knows them. And there are
Speaker 1: times we deny what we feel right. And so all
Speaker 1: these chapters God just listens to Job, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he says, all right, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: tired of this. And in chapter thirty eight God speaks
Speaker 1: to Job, and in verse three this is what he
Speaker 1: tells Job. He says, brace yourself like a man. He says,
Speaker 1: all right, He says, now I will question you. You've
Speaker 1: had questions of me, but now I have a question
Speaker 1: of you, and I want you to answer me. Gone, Jesus,
Speaker 1: where were you when I laid the Earth's foundation? Tell
Speaker 1: me how I did that? Right? He's talking about what
Speaker 1: Calvin would call natural creation that demonstrates the genius of God.
Speaker 1: That just creation itself is evidence of intelligent design. It
Speaker 1: takes more faith not to believe in intelligent design than
Speaker 1: it does to believe in a god. Watch this, who
Speaker 1: put the sun close enough to the earth where you
Speaker 1: can get his heat, but far enough away where you're
Speaker 1: not consumed. A God who puts just the right amount
Speaker 1: of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so that
Speaker 1: you can breathe in a way. A God who allows
Speaker 1: clouds to be feeled with water, the water to release
Speaker 1: itself in the form of rain, to irrigate the land,
Speaker 1: to grow what we need to grow, to eat, to
Speaker 1: feed the cattle that we need to sustain us, and
Speaker 1: then evaporate back up in the atmosphere. He says, who
Speaker 1: marked off his dimensions? Surely you know, since you know everything,
Speaker 1: who stretched the measuring line across it, or on what
Speaker 1: footings where it's set, or who laid its cornerstone? While
Speaker 1: all the morning stars sing together and all the angels
Speaker 1: shout it for joy, you know what God's trying. God
Speaker 1: is asking Joe a question, and he's not trying to
Speaker 1: get information, He's trying to give it. When God asks
Speaker 1: a question, he's not trying to see something. He's trying
Speaker 1: to get us to see something. What is he trying
Speaker 1: to get? Job? To see. He's trying to get Job
Speaker 1: to see I am the ultimate expression of intelligence. And
Speaker 1: just because this wat's this, just because this doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to you, doesn't mean this doesn't make sense. It's
Speaker 1: not that my ways job contradict reason. It's my ways
Speaker 1: transcend your reasoning. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
Speaker 1: I see something you don't see. You looking at chapter
Speaker 1: thirty eight, but I'm looking at chapter forty two. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to give you double for all of
Speaker 1: your trouble. What's this? This is what I want you
Speaker 1: to see. In the midst of uncertainty, God ask Job
Speaker 1: a question because he's wanting Job to get something. He's
Speaker 1: wanting everything God said was about him. He never told
Speaker 1: him why the sabans. He never told him why the sickness.
Speaker 1: He never told him why your wife said that He
Speaker 1: didn't give him assurance about it, but he gave Job
Speaker 1: assurance about him. In the midst of uncertainty, he says, Joe,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be certain about it as long
Speaker 1: as you're certain about me. And so when you hit
Speaker 1: seasons where you're filled with angst and anxiety about what
Speaker 1: you don't know, Job teaches us to lean on what
Speaker 1: you do know. And I do know God is good.
Speaker 1: I do know God is faithful. I do know God
Speaker 1: will come through. I do know no weapon for m
Speaker 1: that gets me shall prosper. I do know I'm more
Speaker 1: than a conquerer. I do know he will restore unto
Speaker 1: me the years that the enemy stole from me. He
Speaker 1: helps him walk through ambiguity, not by giving him certainty
Speaker 1: about it, but by giving him certainty about him. He says, Job,
Speaker 1: I know you won't to know the reason for all
Speaker 1: of this, and I know you want an answer with this.
Speaker 1: I know you want certainty about this, But right now
Speaker 1: you just need to be certain about me. And we're
Speaker 1: in an age of uncertainty. When a season of unprecedented uncertainty,
Speaker 1: you've got two options to focus on the uncertainty of
Speaker 1: it or the certainty of him. You can focus on
Speaker 1: what you don't know about it, or you can lean
Speaker 1: on what you do know about him. And I love it.
Speaker 1: It's in our foundational text, the Bible says. Then, Job
Speaker 1: replied to the Lord, I know you can do all things.
Speaker 1: Watch this, and no purpose of yours can be thwarted,
Speaker 1: meaning that what you have for me will be performed
Speaker 1: in me and through me, regardless of what happens to me.
Speaker 1: That I'm surprised by this, but you are not. And
Speaker 1: this may feel like a delay O to me, but
Speaker 1: it is not denial. No purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Speaker 1: You ask, who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?
Speaker 1: And then Joe admits. He says, surely I spoke of things.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. Things too wonderful for me to know.
Speaker 1: He said, you said, listen now, and I will speak,
Speaker 1: and I will question you, and you will answer me.
Speaker 1: And in verse five he said, my ears had heard
Speaker 1: of you. I was blameless, I was upright, I was moral,
Speaker 1: I hated evil. But I didn't know that I didn't
Speaker 1: know you. That I knew morals more than I knew you,
Speaker 1: that I knew ethics more than I knew you, that
Speaker 1: I knew religious platitudes, and I knew scripture more than
Speaker 1: I knew you. He said, I didn't know how much
Speaker 1: I didn't know you until now. He said, my ears
Speaker 1: had heard of you, But now my eyes I have
Speaker 1: seen you. I see it now. I was complaining about
Speaker 1: the mess, but missing the miracle that I was alive
Speaker 1: to complain. I wouldn't even be able to complain about
Speaker 1: the mess if it wasn't for the miracle of my survival.
Speaker 1: You surviving that all your assets gone, You're surviving that,
Speaker 1: all your children gone in an accident. You're surviving that,
Speaker 1: your own wife telling you curse God and die. You're
Speaker 1: surviving that, your friends turning that back on you, telling
Speaker 1: you you need to repent. You're surviving that. And in
Speaker 1: the midst of this, Job did something I think we
Speaker 1: need to do in your home and your well, not
Speaker 1: in your car if you're driving, do it in your
Speaker 1: heart if you're driving. As a part of Job's story,
Speaker 1: weere it says, and Job fell to his knees. Indie worshiped.
Speaker 1: And this is what I've learned, y'all. Worship is not therapy,
Speaker 1: but it is therapeutic. I think it says in Psalms
Speaker 1: eight to two, you have established You've established through the
Speaker 1: praise of children and infants, you've established a stronghold against
Speaker 1: your enemies. Did you catch that through the praise, the
Speaker 1: praise created a stronghold, a fortress offense in my thought realm,
Speaker 1: because praise requires mindfulness on the goodness of God, and
Speaker 1: those good thoughts about the goodness of God serve as
Speaker 1: a guard and a garrison that blocks some of that
Speaker 1: negativity from getting there. Worship is a defense weapon. It's
Speaker 1: not just spiritual antics. It's a spiritual weapon because it
Speaker 1: reminds me of the real thing I need to know.
Speaker 1: In caesars of uncertainty, God is good. God is for me,
Speaker 1: and God is faithful. And I'm talking to you wherever
Speaker 1: you are all over the world. God is good for you,
Speaker 1: and God is faithful. I don't have any more answers,
Speaker 1: but God is good. God is for you, and God
Speaker 1: is faithful. And may His favor go before you and
Speaker 1: behind you and besides you, all around you, in your weeping,
Speaker 1: in your rejoicing, He is for you. He is for you.
Speaker 1: Yes you, thank you for joining us. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is
Speaker 1: because of you that this ministry is possible. You can
Speaker 1: click the link in the description to give now or
Speaker 1: visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information, and
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can
Speaker 1: share it with your friends. You can click the share button,
Speaker 1: take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
Speaker 1: and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1: God bless you.