God’s supreme good in Job’s life and ours.

welcome to treasures in the Storm. My name is Cindy Schmidler today on this episode, we’re gonna be looking at jobs life and how that correlates with things in our life. We’re gonna look at God’s supreme sovereign goodness in jokes life and we’re gonna see how God it’s orchestrating all of these circumstances for his good purpose and jobs best. So get ready, put your seatbelt on, get your bible and your notebook and your pen. Because we are expecting to hear from God today, I’m gonna pray for us and then we’re going to get into the scripture. So Lord, we come together today, I picture us, my audience myself with lots of arms, trusting you in some of the hardest things for us to understand. And we’re asking you, Lord, will you speak your goodness into our hearts through this message, will you show us things we did not know things too wonderful as your scripture says for us to know. And Lord, we just bow our heads asking if you would grant that gift to us today and we trust you as if you’ve already answered it. Lord, in jesus name Amen. So welcome today, we’re going to start um In the book of job, we’re gonna start in Chapter one. I think of this as God’s directing purpose for good for our lives as we hear about jobs life. And so We begin with God’s sovereignty and his supreme nous and that’s really important for us to know proverbs 1921. Another favorite bursts of mine, you know, many are the plans in a man’s heart, But it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails, it’s God’s purpose that prevails. So as I think back looking at the book of job and I was thinking about my life which I’ve written about in tragedy turned upside down. You can get that and here much more detail than what I’m going to share here. So God had my me marrying my husband john, my wonderful husband john And a year later I was diagnosed with my first cancer. And so for the next year I fought for my life and my husband, my new husband took care of me. And during that time I came to know the Lord jesus as my savior. Wasn’t anything I did. He revealed himself to me. It was his plan and his purpose that I would come to know him at this time. That first cancer also brought me infertility because of the chemotherapy that I had taken. So when we were so excited to start a family, we found out that there was no way that we were going to do that. Yet in God’s providence in his supreme Nous, he allowed me to get pregnant when they said there’s no way you can get pregnant And through that miracle, that wonderful miracle pregnancy where I got to know our son Jonathan while he was in our womb, my womb only to be born and live for just five days, all part of God’s preplanned purpose for our son Jonathan and for my husband and I and many others who were exposed to that. And so we went from hot lows to highs to lows. And then 30 days later God brought our son Adam to us through adoption that we did not pursue. And today he’s 30 years old, magnificent son. We love him to pieces. And so that was all part of God’s plan for john and I, if you ask me today, you know, would you have changed any of this? I would have to say a big no, because I have seen God and experienced him through all of it, even in the tragedy and the goodness I’ve experienced so much and he is like the scripture says that pearl of such great worth that you sell everything, you have to go get it. That’s who jesus is in my life today. So now after hearing all of that, just a little bit of my life and I know you audience have a life probably different, but many things in your life, just like I’ve had in my life. Now let’s look at jobs life. So we saw God’s purposes there. Now we’re gonna look at jobs life and see what God has to say about this. So, it starts out in the beginning versus chapter one versus 6 to 8, one day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, Where have you come from, Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth going back and forth in it. Then the Lord said to satan, have you considered my servant job? There is no one on earth like him. He’s blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil does job fear God for nothing, ST replied, Have you not put in a hedge around him and his household and everything he has, You have blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to satan very well then everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself. Do not lay a finger. And so the Lord gave satan permission to harm jobs life, his whole family, he lost his whole family, his herds, his um land, everything was taken from him. Bye God through satan. And yet it wasn’t because of jobs sin because the Lord says he’s a blameless and upright man. So this man of God choosing was upright and blameless. Just good for us to know that. And so he does that. And then we find out what jobs response in chapter two we’re gonna look at versus chapter two, verse three. Here we go again. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant job? Have we heard this before? There’s no one on earth like him. He’s blameless and upright, right. A man who fears God and shuns evil exactly what he said in Chapter one. And still he maintains his integrity after Satan had taken everything from him. It’s and then it goes on to say though you enticed me against him to ruin him without reason. Okay, that’s the Lord saying this man still maintains his integrity, though. You incited me against him to ruin him without any reason. Okay, First four skin for skin, Satan replied. A man will give all he has for his own life, but now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones and he will surely curse you to your face. So, so we don’t. We understand now that God gave satan permission to um attack jobs, own flesh, his own person, so everything. His family, his servants, his animals, his land had already been taken. Satan comes back and says, now give me permission for his flesh and the Lord says, I give you permission. And so that’s exactly what happens. And it was God’s intention to give satan permission to harm job. Those are hard words to hear, aren’t they? Because we know God is all good and that doesn’t go with all goodness does it? And that’s where we have to bow our heads. And we have to say he’s the potter were the clay. He understands things that we don’t we can never understand because he’s got and we’re not. So keep that in the center of your thinking, when you want to go down a road that’s not good with this. I think about our son Jonathan, you know, it helps me to know about his sovereignty in this way because I know that God created our son Jonathan just the way he wanted him and he wanted him to live for five days. You know, God brings life and God takes life blessed be the name of the Lord. The scripture says he decides, he decides when you take your first breath to live and when you take your less last breath to go to heaven, he decides that and so there’s peace in that though our son got to live five wonderful days with us. I’m grateful that he gets to live in heaven the rest of his life with jesus, I think to myself, much better life for God to be raised in him than him to be being raised by me on this. Sin cursed earth. So nothing like going to heaven to be home with jesus. So then we go, so we find out that jobs physical body is now affected his boils. He’s just misery. And it’s chapter after chapter after chapter of lament of the hardness that he’s going through and do you know that not once does job ever curse God for what he has done. He talks often and many chapters how God is doing this to him. He knows that God is doing this to him. He knows that God is sovereign and he doesn’t understand. He knows he hasn’t sinned though. His friends come to him and say it has to be sin. I think I would be like one of the friends if you would just get right with God, your life would be better. Isn’t that what we think sometimes? But yet we don’t know the plans of the Lord. We don’t know what he’s doing, but we can we can declare though, we may not feel it because he has told us in his word and we know that he is good and has good purposes and things that we have to declare that when things are as hard as this, when a job is going through what he’s going to, Even his wife says jobs wife says curse God and die. She can’t even keep it together with this. And you can’t imagine what she could be going through, right? But he doesn’t verse after verse. He doesn’t. And then his first words, the Lord. So this goes after many, many chapters. And then we get to chapter 38, it’s one of my favorite And I’m going to read 1-13. So job is lamenting after the pain and the suffering and everything that he’s going through that God has done to him. And he said he keeps saying God, I don’t understand why, Why have you done this to me? I don’t get it. Help me to understand this. He just continues to cry out to the Lord. The friends give him a hassle because they say this is your fault. You have brought this on yourself, even his wife. So everybody has turned against him. And then in Chapter eight, Gods 38, God speaks so let’s hear what God has to say. This chapter is called. The Lord Speaks. Chapter 38 1st 1, Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. Talk about a storm, he said, Who is this that obscures my plans? Words without knowledge, brace yourself self like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me! Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Tell me if you understand who marked off its dimensions? Surely! You know who stretched out a measuring line across it on what were its footing set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy. Who shut up the seas behind the doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds in its garments and wrapped it in its thick darkness, when I fix the limits for it and set the doors and bars in place! When I said this far you may come and no further. Here is where your proud waves! Halt! Have you ever given orders to the morning? Or shown the dawn its place that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it. This is what God says to Job after everything. That job has been through. This is how the Lord responds. And you know what? There is a comfort and there’s a piece in that that you can’t even imagine. I remember when I was diagnosed with my breast cancer and I had to wait before surgery to know you know what it was gonna be, what I was going to go through and all of that. I remember opening my bible on a trip that we went on And I opened to this book in Chapter 38 of job and I read the very same words and though I was afraid because of my cancer. When I read this, there was a peace that came over me. Why? Because it tells me some things. It tells me God’s in the middle of the cancer. It tells me he knows what he’s doing and I don’t and I don’t need to know because he knows he tells me I will take care of if I can put the waves in their boundaries. I can take care of you. I’ve got this. That’s what that says. And I’m sure job as we will find out later was feeling the very same thing. It’s an odd thing to feel when you just read the verses, It sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But it’s anything but harsh. It’s the kindness of God. It’s the confidence that God gives us in reminding us about who he is. And then we come to chapter 42 some of my favorite versus so job goes through all of this heartache in its life and the Lord speaks to him and tells them basically, you know, get out of the way on the potter, you’re the clay, I’m doing my work and you will just stand and watch this. And so in chapter 42 versus 2-6, this is what job learns in his storm. Storm of all storms. I don’t know of anybody who would have a storm as great as this. I just don’t know. So 42 2 Job replies to the Lord, after the Lord gives him all of that 38 on speaks to him in the way that I read to you, he says, I know that you can do all things that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You ask, who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge. Surely I spoke of things. I didn’t understand things too wonderful for me to know. Okay, I just have to stop for a minute. So he realizes at the very end, after all of this has happened that God has done it. God knows what he’s doing. He loves me and these things this learning that I’m getting that I’m growing into through the heart of all hearts. This is too wonderful. It’s too wonderful for me to understand right now. And verse four, he said, listen now and I will speak and I will question you and you shall answer me. Remember. That’s what he said in Chapter 38. That’s exactly what he did. And then verse five, ready my ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and I repent and dust and ashes. Do you know why he’s feeling that repentance? Because I didn’t know Lord, He’s saying I didn’t know why I started doubting that you were my good God. And now I see before I could hear I knew you that well. But now my eyes are getting to see you. I am knowing you an experience you in so much more spectacular ways than I ever did when my ears were just hearing you. And so this is a great thing, he says and we want to keep that in the forefront of our minds. And I say my life is in my Heavenly father’s hands. His fatherly hands is holding my life right now. And I don’t know about you today audience. But I know I need to hear that I need to be reminded that his fatherly hands are holding me in all things. I hope today that that is a great encouragement to you through this book to know God may choose some hard, hard things in your life, just like he did with me, The death of our son Met the cancers that I’ve lived through, he may choose hard things, but he hasn’t left us and he knows what he’s doing. And maybe our ears had heard of him. But now our eyes are getting to see him and there’s no better place. There’s nothing better in life than to be pressed nose to nose with jesus because you have experienced him in this way. And so we need to keep pursuing and getting to know him in this life giving book that he’s given us to understand who he is to know that he will show us many wise in our life why this happened, why that happened through his word as we look at what he did in others lives. And so today I want you to be encouraged in that. I want you to grab hold of that and whatever you may be going through, knowing that when he speaks those confident words like, where were you when I laid the boundaries of the ocean, meaning I’m the god of all of the universe. I’m the one who holds the cells of your body together, who gives you your breath and your eyes and everything that you have is in his hands. And it’s a good reminder for us. So today I want those hard things that we go through um, to be reminded that he is there with us. And then one of the things that I’ve highlighted in my bible and I asked also have put it in the front of my bible is job 42 12. Well first I’m gonna start an 11. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came in, ate with him in his house after all of this after God had restored him. And this is what it says. They comfort and consoled him job over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, not satan the Lord had brought on him and see job, understand now the family was understanding and then verse 12 the Lord blessed the latter part of jobs life more than the former part. And it talks about all the wonderful things that the Lord provided for job in the latter part of his life. So if it’s not done yet, it just means it’s not over and hard. It’s hard. It’s not bad. We need to press on and go right through to what God has for us. Let me pray for us. So definitely Father Lord. Um, we just want to bow our heads together and ask you to come and comfort. Uh, my audience Lord and all the things that are going on in their life. Lord May, they see you in the center but more than even seeing you in the center May they see how much you love them right in the center there will you show them today, Lord how much you love them in the middle of where they are Lord and only you can do that and we’re trusting you for that in jesus name. Thank you so much for joining me today. Hello, my name is Cindy schmidle er and I have something very special that I want to share with you today. This is a book that I’ve written called tragedy turned upside down. This is a book full of hope and help. If you need some strength today, I call it God vitamins if you need some real uh inoculation of the Lord and faith and belief in your life. This book is for you. My readers have said they devour it. They sit in one sitting to finish it. They have laughed, They have cried. Most of them have taken notes on it because there’s so many good foundational truths in it that you will want to write down and keep for the storms of your life. Mostly you’re going to take this book and you’ll want to share it with others that are struggling to. So at your earliest convenience, I’d say pick it up, read it, you will be blessed, blessed, blessed when you read this and share it with those that are struggling right now, maybe even if they’re not struggling. Somebody who needs to know, maybe they don’t have faith and you want them to have faith. You want them to know who jesus is. This book is for you those words that you you just can’t bring to say to a friend or relative. This book is full of all the things that you had hoped to say to them, So pick it up at your earliest convenience.