Storms Of Loss, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Where are your thoughts? You see, when Job lost everything, everything in his life, his health, his kids, his wealth, everything, where were his thoughts? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. Where are your thoughts? You see, where are your thoughts? Is it about me? You don't understand what I've lost?

You don't understand how hard this is? You don't have any balance. Storms of loss will tip you right over. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. The Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.

So Satan departed, the presence of the Lord. Now please understand, what does Job know about this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn't know this conversation ever took place.

He's just living his life, doing his thing. Now, what happened on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, that a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkey's feeding beside them and the Sabeans attacked. And he took them and they slew the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another came also and said, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another came in and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another came and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house. And it fell on the young people and they died.

And I alone have escaped to tell you. One day. One day.

Category 10 hurricane. Nobody has ever had a day like that. One day the storm of loss hits him.

One day. I'm grateful none of us have ever had a day like that. Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head. That's the grieving posture. And he fell to the ground. And he worshipped. Wow. Naked I came from my mother's womb.

Naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Through all this, Job did not sin nor did he blame God. His faith shames mine. And I'm guessing yours. Just imagine all that news that quickly, all that loss.

Everything he owned, all of us and his 10 children, who you and I both know what he loved dearly. Wow. Then it gets worse.

It actually gets worse. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came to them, present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? And Satan said, from roaming about on the earth and walking around on. And the Lord said, have you considered my servant Job? Oh, he's bringing up the same idea.

The same exact idea. He said there is no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to ruin him without cause.

This storm wasn't fair at all to him. But he's still that man I told you he was. And Satan answered and said, skin for skin. Yes, all the man has. He said he will give for his life. However, put forth your hand now and touch his bone in his flesh. He'll curse you to your face. So the Lord said, behold, he's in your power.

You have to spare his life. I couldn't imagine what that would be like. As I said, he starts out with a category 10 and it finally thinks he's got some respite from it and he has none. It's only going to get worse. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his feet to the corner to the crown of his head. And he took potsherd, which is a piece of pottery, to scrape himself while he was sitting on the ashes at the city dump outside the walls of the city. Just imagine this. First of all, he had the financial agony of losing all of his possessions. Secondly, he had the incredible agony of losing all of the people who worked for him and their families are affected.

Everybody's affected by this. Thirdly, he loses his own 10 children. Now, fourthly, he has unbearable physical pain. And the fact that he's on the ash heap outside of the city is he's lost the respect of everybody in the city, which he was the most respected man there. He's lost everything that can be lost.

That's a storm of loss. So he's in his physical agony, scraping himself. His wife came to him and said, Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God, die. I love what I read from Chuck Swindoll. Chuck said, Look, let's be careful with Mrs. Job.

Let's be careful here. She's often vilified. She lost her 10 children. She lost every one of them. She lost all the physical stuff he did, but she lost her 10 children.

And then he said something interesting. And yet she felt free in her marriage to express herself to her husband. She just told her husband what she thought and she felt free in their marriage to do that. Her life was unbearable. And just like Job, she had no idea what's going on.

Sort of just like you and I have no idea what's ever going on in a storm of loss. He said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. He doesn't budge. He doesn't budge. I mean, put yourself in that scenario. I don't even know if we can, but you would certainly think for a while you would budge quite a bit. He doesn't budge.

Why? Because he's the most righteous man on earth. Job prepared for this his whole life. Job had a lifetime of faithfulness and integrity before God. It is that lifetime's work of Job that's keeping Job afloat here. If you think about it from one point of view in a storm.

Because of Job's faithfulness and his walk with God. If he were a boat, he had an enormous amount of ballast. Do you know what ballast is? See, ballast is weight you put in a boat.

And that's what secures the boat below the water line in storms. There was an American yachtsman. His name was Michael Plant. He was 41 years of age. He had started sailing at nine. He had sailed over 100,000 miles over the oceans by the time he's 41. He was the fastest solo sailor to circumnavigate the world as an American. He had that record.

On October 16, 1992, he left New York City and was going to sell for him a routine sailing to France. He had a state-of-the-art yacht. The best at that time money could buy.

It was a 60-footer. It was named the Coyote. He had 8,400 pounds of ballast below the water line. When they expected him in France, he didn't arrive, and then after two weeks, everyone became extremely nervous, and they went out with search and rescues, and they tried to find him. They spent the next few weeks looking for him, and finally, they find the cap-sized Coyote 450 miles northwest of the Azore Islands.

Michael Plant was not found then nor ever. When they got to the boat and they looked at it, they found out that it had no ballast in it at all. He had lost all the ballast off the bottom of the boat.

Then they set up all kinds of theories of how that could possibly happen. But as they went through their research, one of the researchers said, look, you've got to understand, no matter how skilled a yachtsman he was, and he's about as skilled as anybody in the world, without ballast in a storm, you're going to sink. Now, when you think of the depth of our own faith, that's what I'm saying to you. Without ballast in a storm, you're going to sink. You see, the whole point of your walk with God and the whole point of your life of integrity, the whole point of the growth of your faith is that you keep establishing more and more ballast below the waterline so that when the storms of loss come to you, they don't capsize you. I could say it another way. I could say it this way. If you've been capsized by this last pandemic storm that you're facing, it tells me, and I hope it tells you, you don't have much ballast.

And so all it took was a good strong wind and upside down goes your boat. You see, that is what he's talking about here. When we look at the Book of Job, we often, I think, make this mistake. We say the Book of Job is a book about suffering.

It's not. It's a book about faith. That's the theme of the book. That's what the book's about. In the rest of the book, Job is filled with lots and lots of questions, but he never once rebukes God.

He has all kinds of issues. Philip Yancy in his book, Disappointment with God. Philip Yancy writes this. He said, I would certainly not deny the strangeness of the heavenly contest.

On the other hand, it offers a rare peek through the keyhole of eternity. When people experience pain, questions will spill out. The very questions that tormented Job. Why me?

What's going on? Does God care? Is there God? This one time in the raw recounting of Job's travail, we are onlookers, not Job. And we are granted the view behind the curtain, not Job. What we long for, the prologue to Job provides a glimpse into how the world is run. As nowhere else in the Bible, the Book of Job shows us God's point of view, including the supernatural activity normally hidden from us. God is not on trial in this book.

Job is on trial. The point of the book is not suffering. Where is God when it hurts?

The prologue dealt with that issue. The point is faith. Where is Job when it hurts?

How is he responding? To understand the Book of Job, you must begin there. See, the question for us is not, where is God during this? The real question is, where are you doing this? See, where are you with this? Because I don't care what you're going through right now, none of us have experienced what Job is experiencing.

Not even close to that. Chuck Swindoll says this, The life of faith is not what you purchase or produce. Faith consists in knowing your Heavenly Father is at work for His glory and for your good, to mold you into the image of His Son, Jesus. That's what life's about. If it takes the loss of everything to gain that vertical perspective, then embrace the loss.

If it takes your broken dreams and the abandonment of what you had counted on all your life to realign your life vertically, then abandon it. Please realize, after all, it's all about God who gives and takes away. During his extended grief, Job realized the most important thing in life exists in the supernatural, not the natural.

It exists in the invisible, not the visible. That's the power of biblical theology. It keeps us thinking rightly about God and ourselves, especially in times of trouble. Joseph and Job, interesting stories.

So, so different, one over the long haul and the other with an intensity beyond belief, and yet both pass the test. But it's not just an Old Testament story. The last verse I want to look at is Colossians chapter 3, verse 1. Colossians chapter 3, verse 1. And this is what I believe Joseph and Job did, and God is asking you and me to do the same thing.

Here it comes. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, first class condition of assumption, you have. If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of earth.

How are you doing that? What are your thoughts? You see, when Job lost everything, everything in his life, his health, his kids, his everything, what were his thoughts? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Where are your thoughts? You see, where are your thoughts? Is it about me? You don't understand what I've lost? You don't understand how hard this is? You don't have any ballast.

Storms of loss will tip you right over. He said, look, let me explain why this is so important. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. That's where my real life is. My life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul told the Ephesians, I'm seated in the heavenlies.

I'm just passing through here. He said, why don't you keep that perspective? When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then he says, you also will be revealed with Christ in glory, when Christ, who is our life. What Paul's saying, remember, to live is Christ. He has the same perspective. You see, the storm of loss couldn't tip him over.

When Paul was going to be executed, and you read 2 Timothy, does he tip over? Nope. I've kept the faith. I've run the race. Time of my departure has come, so be it.

Wow, these are men with a tremendous amount of ballast. Three questions. Have you prepared yourself for the storms of loss? Have you prepared yourself for the storms of loss? Because if this pandemic has tipped your ship over or your boat over, if it has done it, you're not prepared. Losing what you've lost in this pandemic will not be like losing a child or losing your spouse. It won't be like that.

It won't be like having some debilitating, terrible physical diagnosis. That's a much stronger storm of loss. Are you prepared for that?

F.B. Meyer said, no one suddenly becomes ready for a huge loss. I love that. No one suddenly becomes ready for a huge loss. You prepare for that loss your whole life. That's what Job did.

That's why his enormous loss he was prepared for. Next question. Where do you get your advice from? If Job teaches you anything and you know the book, what kind of advice did Job get?

Stinking, rotten, terrible by his three wonderful friends. Be careful where you get advice from. My friend said, oh, I don't do that. They only can give you the human perspective. God can only give you the truth. And the third question is, how do you hold on to the things of the world?

Here's my advice. Loosely. Loosely. All the things in the world I love, he says, you hold on to all those loosely. See, not like I got to hold on to this.

Not in this world. The story of Job, everything he would have been holding on to was gone in one day. Hold your stuff loosely. Hold your own comfort loosely. Hold the people around you loosely. Hold on to your own life loosely. Because you're going to be separated from all that. Job said it, naked I came, naked I returned. See, what are you going to lose from the physical point of view?

Everything. Hold on to that loosely. Then say, Father, look, this is what I know. I know you know my future. I know that you love me completely. I know that you're in sovereign control. I know you are my friend. And I know of you have promised to spend eternity with you.

So I'll just submit to you. What a different perspective that is than what so many of us are going through. Storms of loss are perpetual on this earth. They're never going to stop.

Whatever this is over, something else will come in. Some will be easier and some will be worse. The question is, are you prepared for them? Have you put enough ballast in your boat through your own faith in Jesus Christ? Because when you do, you can go through a storm of loss and you can still glorify God, which is the whole reason we are here. And you can still grow in your faith through him. The storms of loss are difficult. That's why they're called storms of loss. But how much greater is our God?

Let's pray. Father, may we look at these two men, Joseph and Job, as these unbelievable examples. How long Joseph suffered, how long he went through this storm, but how wonderfully he passed the test. And you used that long perpetual storm in his life to feed your people. Father, the intensity of the suffering of Job is legendary.

And I am thankful that none of us have had to experience what he did. But Father, the way he reacted to that incredible amount of agony and sorrow gives me hope that I can act in a way that will give you glory and benefit myself. I pray for each of us that we get as much ballast in our tank as we can as we all experience storms of loss. I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .