Sunday message · The Bible Together series
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Message Summary
Continuing a series walking through the Bible, Drew Fernelius opens Job 1 and the question at the heart of the book, asked not by Job or God but by Satan: does Job fear God for nothing? Satan’s accusation is that Job loves God’s gifts rather than God, and that his worship is a business transaction. Drew believes that question is aimed at every believer. Modern Christianity quietly teaches that faith exists to make life better, but Scripture never says blessings are the reason we worship. Job, he says, is less a book about suffering than about whether God himself is worthy.
First, Satan never denies Job’s integrity; he questions his motives. We can fake church attendance, Bible knowledge and generosity, but “suffering reveals what prosperity conceals.” Like a customer loyal only until a better price appears, or a Minnesota sports fan on and off the bandwagon, conditional love disappears with its benefits. Drew asks how often we measure God’s goodness by a promotion or a healing, confusing his goodness with our comfort. Prosperity numbs our need for God, while the deepest worship in Scripture rises from prisons, deserts and crosses. Testing does not create faith; it reveals it, as fire reveals gold.
Second, Job’s worship survives the fire. In one day the messengers keep coming until everything is gone, even his ten children. Job tears his robe, shaves his head, falls to the ground and worships. Real faith grieves, as Jesus, David and Jeremiah did, but Job refuses to let grief become his god. He confesses that the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, recognizing everything as a gift. Drawing on Rick Warren, Drew warns that when we think God owes us blessings, entitlement replaces gratitude.
Third, faith does not need explanations, and Job never gets one. We ask God why; he answers by giving himself. Like a five-year-old carried into surgery by a parent, we trust because of relationship, not information. Drew then admits that since agreeing to preach on Job, he has been walking through a painful, faith-shaking situation involving people he loves and has found it hard to sing of God’s goodness. Sometimes, he says, God lets our hands become empty so we cling to him alone, and we need each other.
Job is not the hero of the story; God is. Job points to another righteous man whom Satan desired to test, who lost everything and prayed in Gethsemane for his Father’s will to be done, but who was completely sinless. Where we fail, Jesus remains faithful, and salvation rests not on the perfection of our faith but on the perfection of our Savior.
Drew closes with three challenges: enjoy God’s blessings with open hands without confusing them with God, build your relationship with God before the storms come, and honestly ask whether Jesus would still be enough if everything else were taken away. “Don’t build your life on the blessings. Build your life on Christ.” He is worthy whether prayers are answered or not, and we already have the greatest gift, God himself.
