Maranatha Grace Church

Brothers and Sisters,

Forgiveness is an art that every true leader needs to cultivate in his relationships. If one needs to grow and prosper one needs to learn to forgive. We note that Job's prosperity comes only after he had forgiven his friends who have spoken so badly about him and then prayed for them. 

After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. ¹¹ All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. (Job 42:10)

You cannot grow in leadership by holding grudges. God forgives us, we must also forgive.  

Job 42 - Ps 2

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

God did not explain his behavior to Job, he did not have to. Instead he told Job about his majesty and his wisdom in creation. Job had to live by faith like everyone of us who wants to be pleasing to God. He had to trust God, we have to trust God. Those three chapters  (Job 39-41) remind me about the conversation of Jesus with two of John the Baptist's disciples in Luke 7.

After John had been put in prison by Herod, he started to vacillate somewhat on his faith about Jesus as the Messiah. He sent out two of his disciples to ask Jesus, " “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus did not  give an explanation to John, he just told John's disciples to tell John what he was doing:  “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy^[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ²³ Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Have you noticed what Jesus is doing around you?

Job 39 - 41.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." This quote is from Donald Rumsfeld, a former U.S. Secretary of defense. Essentially human beings are limited in their knowledge, even the greatest country with the best intelligence system will still make big blunders because of the limitation of its knowledge.

The Bible says that we know in part, then one day we shall know fully (1 Corinthians). In the meantime, the best course of action is the humility of knowing our limitations and of accepting God's sovereignty over his creation. 

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:² “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? (Job 38:2)

Job 34 - 38.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

⁷ I thought, ‘Age should speak;
    advanced years should teach wisdom.’
⁸ But it is the spirit^[d] in a person,
    the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.
⁹ It is not only the old^[e] who are wise,
    not only the aged who understand what is right. (Job 32:7-9)

I often remind the young people of our church that the Holy Spirit is the best teacher they can ever have;the Holy Spirit can make them very smart. This is a difficult idea to accept by most young Christians. Many times I see them struggling to do well in their school works, instead of encouraging them to study more I tell them to read the Bible more and to pray more. I believe people can accomplish much more under the guidance of the Holy Spirit than in trying to do it alone.

Jesus said, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come" (John 16:13).

Job 31 - 33

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

And he said to the human race,
    “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
    and to shun evil is understanding.” Job 28:28

Job 28:28 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

“Dominion and awe belong to God;
    he establishes order in the heights of heaven. Proverbs 25:2. 

The Message translation: “God is sovereign, God is fearsome— 
    everything in the cosmos fits and works in his plan. Proverbs 25:2

Many people cannot accept the notion that God is fearsome and should be feared. I have heard  Christians who interpret the fear of the Lord to be a great reverence for God. I believe that the fear of the Lord goes beyond a great reverence for God. The fear of the Lord stems from the fact that God can punish and will punish sins unless there is repentance. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Job 25 -27 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

We must see this earthly existence as a transition to another reality in order not to fall for the false arguments of Job's friends. Job was right, the ungodly often lives life of greater earthly prosperity than the righteous. But, this life is not all that is. Hebrews 9:27: And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." 

Job 20 - 24

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Let us hold firm to our hope of eternal life found in Jesus Christ.

23 “Oh, that my words were recorded,
    that they were written on a scroll,
24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead,
    or engraved in rock forever!
25 I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:23 - 27)

Job 17 - 19

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

Have you ever wonder why certain information is classified? We've talked a lot  in this Bible Reading challenge about the necessity for true leaders to be transparent. But, that doesn't mean they must lay down their social security number on the table. There is a gradual degree of disclosure that we find throughout the Bible. Even the United States recognize that certain information confided to a spiritual leader cannot be disclosed. Job did not know the full story of what was going on in his life. At that moment he had no need to know;  full disclosure would not have been helpful to him. He needed to pass the test of faith. 

Job's question," If someone dies, will they live again? (Job 14:14), can be answered affirmatively by any Christian. That question sounds so basic to us because the answer was fully disclosed in the New Testament by Christ himself, who is the resurrection and the life. We now fully know there is more to life than our earthly existence. However, with this knowledge comes great responsibility. Everything that we do needs to be done in view of eternity.

Job  13 - 16

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

How far can a subordinate go in expressing his thoughts to a superior without falling into insubordination? If we are soldiers in the army of the Lord, indeed we are, we must understand the code of speech in that environment. We cringe at Job's speeches in Job 12 and 13. How far can he go? Does God allow more freedom of speech than the leaders of the church would allow? 

It seems to me that Job could speak the way he spoke because God values our integrity so much.The Seven Core Army Values say about integrity, "Integrity requires that you do and say nothing that deceives others. As your integrity grows, so does the trust others place in you. The more choices you make based on integrity, the more this highly prized value will affect your relationships with family and friends, and, finally, the fundamental acceptance of yourself."

Job could not show partiality even to God. Will you show him partiality? Will you argue the case for God?
⁹ Would it turn out well if he examined you? Could you deceive him as you might deceive a mortal?
¹⁰ He would surely call you to account if you secretly showed partiality. (Job 13:8-10)

Job 11 - 13

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

One of qualities of good leadership is transparency. Job was transparent in talking to his friends, he told them without reservation about his struggle to understand his lost. He made himself vulnerable, but his friends were not able to walk along besides him, they were incapable to share his pain and his frustration. The interesting thing is that Job's speeches which shocked his friends so much did not bother God at all. God loves transparency.

Job could say without offending God :“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.² I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me. (Job 10). Job did not know the rest of the story as we know it in the person of Jesus Christ, the mediator, but still he trusted God.

Are you transparent? Do you make yourself vulnerable with your brothers and sisters in the church?

Job 8 - 10.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Bothers and Sisters,

In the church we encourage people to do "Exhortation", it means to challenge people about their approach to the Christian life. But sometimes in small circle, the act of "Exhortation" can create more problems than it solves. Leaders who engage themselves in this type of ministry should be well grounded and highly emotionally intelligent. They must possess the capacity for recognizing their own feelings and those of others, for motivating themselves, and for managing emotions well in themselves and their relationships. 

Job's friend seems to be oblivious to Job's pain. Job did not need generalities in his special circumstances, he needed support not advice. Leaders must develop their emotional intelligence to effectively lead others.

Job 5 - 7 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

In this life, our judgment will always be partial since we never have complete information on any given situation. In Job 2, we see an escalation of Job's trial. Job did not know what was going on in his life at that moment, his wife did not know, his friends did not know, no one knows except God. Thus, the necessity for us humans to always live by faith.  

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason" (Job 2:3). Fear of God is a hard concept for most people to accept nowadays, but we need to remember that God commended Job for his fear of God. Fear of God leads to shunning of evil. 

Beware of any leader who shows no fear of God. 

Job 2 - 4.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

A clear knowledge of the sovereignty of God can help us face life most difficult trials. Job was able to endure the onslaught of the adversary because he knew that in spite of all appearances God was aware of all that was happening in his life.  In the midst of his difficulty, Job fell to the ground in worship and said:“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.^[d] The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”  In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing (Job 1:20-22). 

Job was a leader in his community, but what really set him apart from other leaders of his time was his relationship with God. He was a true worshiper of God, someone that God could count on. 

Esther 9 - Job 1. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

There is one character flaw that every leader should avoid at all cost. The ancient Greeks had a special word for that flaw, they called it hubris; the kind of excessive pride or conceit that often brings about someone’s downfall. Haman had this kind of pride. Because of his hatred for one person, Mordecai, he devised an evil plan to destroy a whole group of people, the Jews. His  arrogant thought, "Who is there that the king would rather honor than me?” led him to give a foolish answer to the King question “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?” 

In Proverbs 16:18, the Bible states unequivocally, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." And yet, many leaders fall for the enticement of pride. Jesus calls us to be servant-leaders. In God's Kingdom, a call to leadership is a call to humility.  Jesus told his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" (Matthew 20:25,26).

Esther 6 - 8.

May the Lord richly bless you!