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Hello everyone and welcome to another Sunday service. Um, here you will— the stream can't see, but it's rather sparse, especially because now there's— with summer coming in in full force with all these, you know, like warm days, especially like the last couple of days and really, really warm. Um, you know, everyone's taking vacations You know, students are going off to different programs, camps, and the like, and all of the rest of you are here. And to go with a bit of different, something different for today's call to worship, I'm going to be reading a bit of a call and response between, I guess, myself and the congregation, you. So there's going to be a passage reading of Psalm 42, you know, like, you know, as the deer— I need to memorize this verse. But basically I'm going to read and then the bold, you will respond. So, as the deer long for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.

When can I go and stand before him?

Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, "Where is this God of yours?" Why am I discouraged?

Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God.

I will praise him again, for he saves me from my foes.

I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

Each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.

O God, my rock, I cry, why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief, oppressed by my enemies? Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, where is this God of yours?

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again, my Savior and my God.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, sometimes life can feel that way. It can feel as if everything is kind of— is going wrong, that there's always something that has to break. That there is something that has to spark conflict or spark argument. And in those moments, especially when, you know, successive of these moments come and go, it can feel as if everything is going wrong. Lord, let us not forget that it is you who stabilizes us in all these different times. Remind us of all the times of your faithfulness in the past that has brought us to this point. Let us remember them and feel peace and rest in this time, in the end, whether it be now or whatever turmoil there may be in the future. In your name I pray. Amen.

Okay, good morning everyone. Could you all please stand and join us? Sing blessed.

Blessed be your name, man that is planted for the streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name, blessed be your name. Found in the desert place, walk through the wilderness. Blessed be your name. Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glory and his name. Blessed be your name. Sun's shining down on me. World's all as it should be. Blessed be your name. Blessed be, blessed be your name. For the world marked with suffering, there's pain in the offering. Blessed be your name. Every blessing, every Blessing you pour out, out. Turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glory. You give and take away, you give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name. Give and take away, give and take away. My heart will choose to Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glory, O His name. In sadness, you rose again victorious. Through the fire, there is truth that sets me free. Jesus Christ who lives in me. You are stronger, you are stronger. Sin is broken. When you have saved me, it is written, Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. You're my hope, my defense. You came to seek and save the lost. You paid it all upon the cross. You are stronger. You are stronger. Stronger, sin is broken. You have saved me. It is risen, Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. Be lifted higher! Be lifted higher! So let your name be lifted higher—be lifted higher—so that Your Name will lift it high up—be lifted higher—be lifted higher—be lifted high up—be lifted high up—be elevated above all others. You lifted higher. You are stronger. You are stronger. Sin is broken. You have saved me. It is written. Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. You are stronger. You are stronger. Sin is broken. You have saved me. It is written. Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. His wounds, his hands and his feet. My Savior, who bore the cursing tree. His body bound and drenched in tears, they laid him Down in Joseph's tomb, the entrance sealed by heavy stone. Messiah's hell and all the gloom.

We sing, oh, praise the name.

Oh, praise Praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise, oh Lord, oh Lord our God. The angels roar for Christ the King. Yeah! Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise, O Lord, O Lord our God. He shall return in robes of white, the blazing sun He shall pierce the night, and I will rise among the saints, my gaze transfixed on Jesus' face.

Sing that again. He shall return. This is our hope today.

He shall return. In robes of white, the blazing sun shall pierce the night, and I will rise among the saints, my gaze transfixed on Jesus' face. We praise your name, oh, praise. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. Forevermore, for endless days, we will sing your praise, oh Lord. Oh Lord our God, oh praise, oh praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father, Lord, we thank you this morning as we come before you with refreshed hearts, hopefully, and, uh, refreshed voices as we sing before you this morning. Lord, thank you for the day that you've given us. Thank you that we can join together once again under this warm weather, this bright shining sun, and praise your name with all that we have and all that we are. So as we listen to the message today, as we dive deeper into your word in the book of Job, Lord, would you be with us? Would you remind us that even when we can't see the ways that you're working, even when we're walking through dark places or struggling with whatever life has to throw at us, Lord, thank you again as we come before you and we're reminded every moment of our lives that you are with us. That you have already won the battle, that you've already paid the price on our behalf, that sin is broken because of your sacrifice. And though we still carry some heavy things in this life, Lord, just as we sang, we have that hope to look forward to, that one day you will return. How we long to behold that day where you will wipe away every tear, mend every heart, and right every injustice. But until that day comes, would you help us to still lift our voices in thankfulness and thanksgiving, giving you the praise that you deserve? Because ultimately we recognize, Lord, that your goodness defies our circumstances. Your goodness defies what our eyes can see. It even defies what our heart feels in the moments, Lord. So, Lord, thank you that there is no brokenness that you cannot hold. That there's no sin that you cannot right, and that there's no— there's no tear you can't wipe away this morning, Lord. So again, would you help us to praise you with all that we are?

Would you help us to bless your holy name?

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Before you're seated, could you please spend a few minutes and greet those around you?

Do I just speak to the mic? Is it on? And then, oh, how do I do the next slide? Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Good morning. Since today's sermon is about contemplating history, so in correspondence to the topic, I wanted to share about my own reflection and how I contemplate about the things that happened and that was very significant in my life that I am still living through it every day. And the day and time still living through my mind every day. So it does take a lot of courage to share about this because it happened almost 2 years ago. I vividly remember this day because it was a beautiful day. It was the day before the school started at the University of Delaware where my other daughter, Annette, will be starting off her junior year at Delaware, in Delaware. And then in order to help her move into a new apartment, we all helped her move. And then at the end of the day, we said that, hey girls, three of us, we would be have a special salon day. We all went to a salon near University of Delaware, and I picked the color that I really liked. And with my new glasses, I took the picture of myself saying that tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow will be a new start of a new chapter of my new life. Tomorrow will be a Sandra chapter, Sandra 2.0. It will be for the better. I will have breakthrough. I will have a new chapter of my life. Just somehow I took the picture saying that. And what happens was that things didn't happen as I have imagined. Little did I know the next morning when I woke up, the furniture, sleeper sofa that I ordered online would become, would cause a significant change of my life. The very next morning, Deliverers of the furniture was moving the big box of sleeper sofa up the staircase in my home. And in the midst of the handling, it was mishandled because of how heavy it was. And then the box fell on me like a mousetrap, how it was crushed me, the bystanders, and from my left side of my body, left to right, from top to head to toe, there's not an area that is spared. So from then on, these words are associated with me, unfortunately, on a daily basis that I'm dealing with. Some of them become more of a history, but most of them that I live with on a daily basis, I juggle them. And to handle that, the doctors would prescribe just one more jar of medicine that accumulated to today about $16,000 of medicine alone. And then, so this is, it is almost 2 years. By this August, it will be meeting the 2-year journey. God's grace shines through the midst of adversity. Not yet. So in the midst of the journey, there are different emotions that are involved. I have doubt. I have anger sometimes. Why did God allow— God, you so loving, allow this to happen to me? And so much pain on different scales, on different parts of the body, on nerves, on physical, on bones and muscles that happens at different times and different intensity on daily basis. But through this journey, I was able to see more of God's grace because of how incomplete I am, I'm able to see greater things, see people helping me along the life. See, sometimes I feel very, very, very alone and isolated and not being understood, being in my own little world. And God is the one that has been faithfully always be with me along the process. So My younger daughter, she always like, when she was younger, she always liked to play a game with me on the car ride. She would say, hey, let's play would you rather. Would you rather be a dog or would you rather be a cat? Would you rather be a boy or would you rather be a girl? Would you rather have your favorite food every day but only eat your favorite food favorite food every day, or not being able to eat your favorite food every day for the rest of your life. But to me, the question would be more like, would you rather go through the journey of life with God or without God? And of course, for us, the answer is very clear. We choose, and we are fortunate Because of God's grace, we are able to go through different phases of life with God alongside with us. And so therefore, goes to next slide. I feel like this slide is very fitting because Father's Day is coming and my husband is a worship leader at the Chinese congregation. And he always wanted me to worship with him together in the worship team. I was like, "No, I'm in the English ministry." I belong to here. I'm not going there. But on Father's Day 2 years ago, I was like, okay, I will do it with you on Father's Day as a Father's Day gift. And this is a screenshot of that. I think that is very special to me. And that is the song, the praise that we sang, one of the praise songs that we sang that day. It is very fitting. In English translation, it says that my life is like a poem of praise, a song of thanksgiving, a song of joy. I will sing a song of love to share with all the earth, my heart praising without ceasing. And that is why I want to share as I look back, I just couldn't stop. Praising and thanking him. Praise the Lord. Thank you.

All right, thank you so much, Sandra, for sharing that. The— all right, so the scripture reading is rather long and it comes from Job. Um, it's going to be 1 6 through 22, and then 2:3 through 10. There's no pressure to, to, to read along. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them. The Lord said to Satan, 'From where have you come?' Satan answered the Lord and said, 'From going to and fro on the earth.' from walking up and down on it. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. Satan answered the Lord and says, does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.' And the Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. There came a messenger to Job and said, The Chaldeans formed 3 groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword. There came another and said, your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the 4 corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you. Then Job arose and tore his robes and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Again, there was a day when the sons of of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan came, and the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? He holds fast with his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without cause. Then Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, all that a man has he will give his life— all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and flesh, and he will curse you to your face.' The Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die.' And he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

When we hear the word gospel, we're told that means good news. But when we read stories like this one or hear testimonies like that, or even in some of the songs we were singing, we wonder There's nothing but bad news in this story, at least not— at least so far. So we need to read a little farther. But I want us to find even in this terrible story, we are going to find that there is good news and hope for us. The immediate verses following what we just read, it says that the three— three of Job's friends heard of his tragedy. And they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. And when they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes. They threw dust in the air over their heads to show their grief. Then they sat on the ground with him for 7 days and 7 nights, and no one said said a word, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words. In some churches, they sometimes will say, "Let's have a moment of silence, a moment of contemplation." But they took 7 days? Wow. A great man had just lost everything, and now he is sick. This began many chapters in the book you can read when you get a chance, where the friends now are talking to Job. They accused him of covering up something, some hidden issue in his life. They said God wouldn't punish someone who was innocent. Your suffering proves your guilt. So now Job, who has dealt with loss of his family members, loss of his property, loss of his health— now here his best friends are accusing him he's losing his honor on top of all that. It's still not good news, but Job maintains his innocence. And he says, "Even if God were to slay me, yet I will hope in him. And I will surely defend my ways to his face, and I know I will be vindicated." He appeals. He says, "I don't accept your verdict. I appeal to God. I want to talk directly to him." So now we're skipping over 30-some Chapters where he's heard enough, God has heard enough, and God steps into the conversation. And then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that questions my wisdom? Brace yourself. I will question you and you will answer." And then he begins a long list of questions beginning with this one. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. And one after another, he completely disarms Job. What can he say? And Job replied to the Lord, obviously he said, I was talking about things I knew nothing about. I take it all back, and I sit in dust and and ashes to show my repentance. And finally, ah, the Lord says to Eliphaz, one of the three friends, I'm angry with you and your two friends. You have not spoken the truth about me as my servant Job has. Now my servant Job, he will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according according to your folly. And then, one at a time, Job's friends and everybody he knew, they came to him and they gave him a little money or some gold or their rings. And they gave him a little, a little capital to rebuild and to get started again. And it says the Lord blessed the latter days of Job even more than his beginning. And after this, all these events, Job lived 140 more years, and he saw new sons born, and his sons' sons, for 4 generations. And Job died an old man and full of days. Ah, so if you made it to the end of the book, we can relax. There was some good news in the end. Now, this story is very old, and they know from all the clues in the story that he was probably a contemporary of Abraham's. So that's the era that— but he wasn't— he didn't benefit from the law or from the teachings to Abraham. He had only the wisdom that was in the world at that time and from the first 11 chapters of what was known about God. But Job is certainly A remarkable man, so much so that even God boasted, boasted about him. And yet he went through a terrible test. As I said, not only the physical problems, but even his internal, his miserable comforters that had no help to offer. But he never— when he asked God, why, why me, why are you putting Why are you putting me through this test? He didn't really answer. God answered the question with questions. Where were you when I laid up— set the foundation of the earth? What would you do? He basically showed Job that he didn't know what he was talking about, but he didn't answer the question because Job didn't deserve it. But why did he allow it? And maybe that was the point. And so when I'm saying we're going to find the gospel in here, we can say one thing for sure, and that is that Jesus, when he faced the greatest trial of his life, he would have remembered Job. Because Job understood, of all people, what Jesus was going through. And so even though he wasn't there, he couldn't meet him, but he had all of that dialogue that he had read, that he had learned, that he knew. That another innocent man, just as Jesus was innocent, another innocent man had once gone through such a trial and had lived to tell the tale. That Job had trusted God, and so would Jesus. When he saw Peter, James, and John asleep there, as he remembered when he went after he prayed and they were asleep, I wonder if he was reminded of Job's three friends that were no help at all, and so he put up with their sleeping. During those hours in the garden, just before he was taken away to be crucified, Jesus became anguished and distressed. He told them, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death." 'Stay here and keep watch with me.' And He went on a little farther and bowed with His face to the ground, praying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me.' And this was like a roughly an hour that He was in this posture and that He was praying this prayer. And I can only imagine that He remembered the words Have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. And those words would remind him that God knew his son Jesus was likewise blameless and upright, and that give him courage to hold on to his integrity, to understand that what Jesus was going through was not because of anything he He did, and that there was a much larger reason for it. In other words, the whole story of Job is giving Jesus the energy and the strength to make the most important decision in his life that impacted the whole rest of history, which was to give himself up for the soldiers that day, to say, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." Now, I've shared this diagram with you many times, well, several times before, to try to show how all the stories in the Old Testament of these Bible heroes are like little pictures. When you combine them all together, you get a picture of what Jesus is all about. And that helped Jesus to learn about what he was to be. It also helps us to recognize who he is and what he stood for and what he was about. And if you like to follow movies like Star Wars and Marvel movies, they have prequels and then they have sequels, right? Well, these— all these Bible heroes are like prequels of the coming Christ, and Job is certainly one of them. And we can read also about people like David when he was king, and he was kicked out of the— his son rebelled against him, and he's fleeing the city. And on his way out, there's this man called Shimei who was of the family of Saul, who started to curse him, cursing the king. He's still the king at this moment even though his son has risen up against him. And this bodyguard that's next to King David there, he wants to go cut off the head of the man cursing. But David says, "Let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. Perhaps the Lord will look on my misery and restore good to me." Where did David come up with that thought? Where did he get this instinct? Well, it may very well have been from stories like Job, that he's echoing that same spirit that Job had in his life as well. Now, I've also shared this diagram about how Christ's life, it now echoes in the life of all of his followers. And we are the sequels where we can then relive or retell or reenact some of the things that they did or that he did. And that shows that we have the same spirit. And there's an example of this in Apostle Paul. So if you've read the book of Acts, you know that Paul was one of the greatest Christians of the first century, certainly, but that he was also unjustly accused and put in jail. He was the leader of the church. How could he lead the church if he's in jail? How could God allow him to be in jail? Well, he had a chance to be— to defend himself, to go up against one of the governors, and so he gave this great gave his defense, but they wanted a bribe or something so they wouldn't rule. Well, then a couple years later a new governor came. He had another chance to give his defense and to proclaim his innocence, but that governor would not— wasn't going to rule for him. So he said, "Okay, I appeal to Caesar." And I can only imagine that Paul also was thinking about what Job went through when he went through this terrible trial. And you could read about— he wrote letters from prison. So then they sent him off to Rome, you know the story, where he continued to write several of the letters that are now in the New Testament. And so God had a plan. God had a way to use his time in prison. He never would have been able to do if he'd been out leading the church. Some of the New Testament might never have been written. So it's like they say, "God works in mysterious ways." So there— here is Paul reliving some of what Job went through. So I want to ask the question, what is so great about Job? And what application can we learn from it, perhaps in imitating what he was like? We talk about being Christ-like. Well, maybe we should be Job-like. When I was looking at his life, it's a long chapter. In addition to what we read, he tells a lot of— reveals a lot about himself during his dialogues. And I put it into 3 buckets. If you ever went to a high school English class, they say all books are written about 3 conflicts, a conflict of a man with himself, a man with other men or women, and between man and God, or man man and nature. So he deals with all of these three with great maturity. So let's look at them very briefly. And when you think about a man and himself, I was— I came up with this long list, but I boiled it all down to one thing, to one thing that he does, which is he has a clean or a clear conscience. And Job's clear conscience enables him to do so much and to be so much. And yet, how could we have a clean conscience because we're all sinners? So how can a sinner have a clean conscience? It's a contradiction in words. It can't happen. But we know that it's very valuable. And we know that Job said, I will maintain my innocence without wavering. My conscience is clear as long— as I live. And Jesus said in the Beatitudes, Blessed are the pure in heart. And so this riddle, how, how can we have a clear conscience? Well, we could stop sinning, and there's plenty of churches and plenty of sermons and plenty of how-to out there that will tell you how to do that. But we're going to slip. Is that slip going to just ruin our whole day, our whole week, our whole life? No. And that is why we saw Job sacrificing burnt offerings. Those are animals, but we have Jesus' sacrifice for us. And the Apostle John, in the letter from 1 John, he says when we confess our sin, we get over it. Dear children, he says, let us not merely say that we love each other, let us show the truth by our actions, and our actions will show that we belong to the truth so that we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don't feel guilty, we can come to God and— with bold confidence, and we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please Him. So Job, one of the things he did was to sacrifice animals. What do we do today that's like that? What do you sacrifice? You got some ideas. Well, we're here, right? We're sacrificing our morning. We do communion together and we memorialize the sacrifice that was made on our behalf that we couldn't do well enough, but we had Jesus do for us. Now, if we drill down a little bit on this conscience clear, the main thing we do is we confess and we receive forgiveness. We acknowledge what God has done through Jesus for us, and we do that together on a regular basis. I was struck when I first started studying for the ministry, I visited a bunch of churches. And I was struck because I went into this Lutheran— was it Lutheran?— church on the street, down the street from where we lived. I'd gone by there, I don't know, 1,000 times, and I'd never gone inside. And so I went in, and the Lutherans, they have these fancy robes, and everybody's getting ready for the service. And we sat down. And then the very first words— and they all had a script, so they're all reading from the script— we are sinners. Please forgive us. And the priest says, I forgive you. Something like that. So right off the bat. So every single week, they're like doing their— they're essentially giving their offering. And so I was starting to say, if we drill down, what we see something in Job that's really interesting, which is that he has a level of self-control and he evidences it in this one particular way that I wanted to share in this verse in Job 31. He says, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a young woman." And as we know, Jesus said, "Anyone who looks at a woman lustful— with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." I remember hearing a sermon, this is in China, from a gentleman. He said, "You need to practice the eye bounce." He called it the eye bounce. He said, "When you notice a—" He was saying to the men in the group. I guess it applies to the women too, right? "If you notice an attractive person, you just— goom— you just look away. Just practice the eye bounce." That was what he suggested. There was a funny— Jimmy Carter in 1976 ran for president and he was an evangelical Christian. He was like the first sort of Billy Graham-style Christian ever to run for president. So a reporter asked him, "What is this? Have you ever lusted in your heart?" Or, "Have you sinned?" And he said, "Yes, I have. I've lusted in my heart." Or they asked him if he'd committed adultery. Anyway, he confessed to having lusted in his heart. And there was a cartoon that came out in Time magazine or something that showed Jimmy Carter And in his little thought bubble, he's thinking about the Statue of Liberty or something. He's like lusting over the Statue of Liberty. It was very funny. So I'm like really impressed with Job. And I think, you know, we could all learn a lesson from that, that when we want to follow up with this, when we are forgiven, that we need to put a little bit of teeth onto that. A covenant here. He makes a promise. All right, so going to the man versus man, what is this impact is on us with other people? Well, again, I came up with a long list and you can find plenty of what Job has to say about other people, but it all boils down to one thing that I want us to remember. And that is that he intercedes for others. The interceding really is starting with the thoughts and and the prayers, not the actions necessarily. So he cares about people enough to think about them, to intercede for them. We saw this when he was taking care of his children. I guess we can go there right now. Job's sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and when the celebrations ended, Job would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their their hearts. And this was Job's regular practice. Now, I'm happy to announce that we don't have to follow this example. We don't have to have extra animals to sacrifice them for the sins of the people that we care about. We can use prayer in Jesus' name, right? We have his phone number. It's like when you have God's phone number, you can text him your prayer without having to use animals. But this leads to a whole series of other actions. The prayers. And we saw also from the end of Job that when the Lord had finished speaking, he told Job to make a prayer for his friends, the very ones that had accused him. He now prayed for them in order to bring them forgiveness. So Job has an attitude of interceding, and then it carries out in his actions. And we see this, of course, in the New Testament where it says in Romans, now most people would not be willing to die for an upright person.— though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who's especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. So it's not only that he's caring or interceding for others, specifically he's caring and interceding for others while they're still not necessarily worthy or deserving. And he describes in this one section of Job 29, he said some of what he had done. And he's way ahead of his time. And now we have charities, you know, we have philanthropy, and we have fundraisers. But this is 3,000-some years ago, 4,000. I assisted the poor in their need and the orphans who required help. I helped those without hope, and they blessed me. And I caused widows' hearts to sing for joy. Everything I did was honest. Righteousness covered me like a robe. I wore justice like a turban. I served as eyes for the blind and feet for the lame. I was a father to the poor. I assisted strangers who needed help. I broke the jaws of godless oppressors and plucked their victims from their teeth. So here's a short list of some of the ways that Job acted on his prayers for intercession. So he asked God for help, but he also did something about it. And we know that this sort of thing is certainly praised where Jesus discusses a time of judgment when he says, "Whatever you did for the least of these my brothers, you did for me." Now, I was— reflecting on how in Chinese culture, especially when we first got to China in the '80s, there was this culture of bang bang, this culture of mutual help. Because it was in the old, old China, the Communist era, when the money didn't work because there just was very little goods out there. Everything was squelched, the supply, and they had official prices for everything. So if you wanted a leg of lamb, The official price was only, you know, $2 a pound. Problem is you couldn't get it because the people who had the lamb didn't want to sell it so cheaply. So there was a regulated economy. Everything was scarce. But what you could do is you could trade. So if you knew a man who was raising sheep, he would trade you his lamb. But he didn't want your money because your money couldn't do him any good. But he might want something else that you had. Now, as students, foreign students, we didn't have much, but we had two things that we were able to leverage for trading. And one, one was access to a shower, because the foreign students had a foreign student dormitory that had a shower with stalls. Now, if you've ever been to a Chinese university in the 1980s, they had no stalls in the showers. Perhaps we have some of our— Chinese that were in school in the '80s in mainland, and you had to go into a shower and there's, you know, 80 of your classmates and teachers and coaches and everybody in the same shower. Because that's what they had. So some people coveted the chance to wash themselves in the foreign students' dormitory, and you could let them in for some lamb, for example. So there was this whole economy. Built on the mutual exchange of favors, bangman. And I bring this up because I feel like this is a kind of part of what God is hoping that in the church or in the— that we will participate in this kind of economy because the helps that we do are worth so much more than money so often. And so lastly, I wanted to look at this relationship between man and God and how Job models, as we've already seen, he models this willingness to accept loss with grace, heroically, really, and surrender to whatever reason God had. And he says to his wife, "Should we accept only the good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" And Jesus reflects the same thing in a conversation he has with Peter. It's just before he's arrested. He says, "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? The Father has given me. Shall I not drink it?" And so this is the kind of— he has a Christ-like attitude. And same way when the friends that are accusing him, he fights back. He doesn't like their theology. He knows that they're speaking inaccurately and God even He's going to confirm this in chapter 42. Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for him? And we see this in Jesus over and over when he's confronting the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and saying, your traditions are turning the word of God upside down. You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. And so Jesus has to struggle, doesn't he, all the way through his life. And at the end of his life, Jesus is being crucified, and he's not enjoying the experience, but his last words are, "Into your hands I entrust my spirit." And he's bringing to life the very sentiment expressed by Job where he says, "Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him." And Jesus goes down to the grave trusting. That God, 3 days later, will raise him from the dead, which of course he does. At the end, when Job finally hears all these questions from God and he puts himself, he says, "Once more on the ground," and says, "I am of small account. How shall I answer? I lay my hand on my mouth." And there have been many times I've been I've been here now for 2 years and there have been a number of situations where I've remembered this verse, "I lay my hand on my mouth." I could say something, but better say nothing. I probably don't do that enough. I lay my hand on my mouth. And Jesus also humbled himself even to death. So our takeaways in these 3 areas: toward ourself, We want to cultivate a clear conscience, both by sinning less, but also by seeking, confessing, and seeking the forgiveness that we need on a regular basis. And towards others, we can begin caring just by thinking about them, just by interceding, praying for them. They say prayer doesn't change them as much as it changes us and gets us oriented. In a willingness to give our time or what we have. And towards God, we can imitate that attitude that Job had, that Jesus had, that David had, and that Paul had, because God is with us. So let's stop there. Father, we are thankful for these terrible stories. They remind us that you are with us and you're more wise than the wisdom of the world, and that you have a purpose for everything that you do. And even stories like Sandra's that bring it down to earth or bring it home to us, that the pain, the insomnia, the confusion, the despair, those are very real and they are not cured by medicines. But you heard her testimony that she praises you and she's made her choice between with you or without you, the same choice that Job and Jesus and Paul and David have made, that all of us have made, to follow you, to praise you, and to be able to absorb some of that pain and loss. Not knowing the answer as to why, but knowing that you are with us, that you allowed it for a reason, and that just as Job was restored, that we will also be restored, some in this life and some in the next. And so we do trust you. And we do praise you. What a beautiful picture of Sandra and her husband praising. So let us now do that together, this last song. Jesus, amen.

May we all please rise for the reflection.

Oh, your mercy never fails me. And all my days I've been held in your hands. From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will sing. The goodness of God. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. Every breath that I am able I will sing of the goodness of God. I love your voice. You have led me through the fire. In darkest night, you are close like no other. I've known you as a Father. I've known you as a Friend. And I have lived in the goodness of God. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. Every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. Your goodness is running after me. It's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. With my life laid down, I surrender now. I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. With my life laid down, I surrender now. I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, It's running after me. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. Every breath that I am able. Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. I will sing of the goodness of God. May be seated.

Good morning, everybody. If we have any visitors here, if you'll raise your hand, we have a gift for you. If not, we'll go on to the next slide with a few announcements. I do want to just start off with today. Today the folks are heading off to the work camp in Altoona, Pennsylvania. And actually, this is not the first time WCC's had a work camp in Altoona, my family informed me last week. And anyway, keep them in your prayers today. Travel mercy for Dwight and Don driving folks out there. And I just experienced a good bit of travel mercy. I have been on the road for many days. Glad to be back home. But anyway, do pray for their safety. We— it's, you know, driving is one of the most dangerous things we usually do every day, so keep them in prayer. And then this coming Wednesday, Salt— this coming Wednesday, the prayer circle at 7:30 at night. The link to get to it is in the bulletin that's sent out by the email from the church. Salt and Light will be having a fellowship on the 27th. At 4 PM. It's kind of a special Father's Day but also a dumpling-making event for ladies, I understand. And then the VBS, out on the table there's the registration for people to sign up to help. And if the youth are involved in that, I think that in addition to filling out the form there, just let Mrs. Ching Lee Fritz know about it. And the registration, if the link— there's a link in the email that comes out, but you have to download the PDF before the link works to do the registration for VBS. Those are all the announcements. Please rise and we will sing the doxology.

God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures near and low. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Remain standing for the benediction. May God our Father, who sees our hearts, cleanse our inner lives. May the life of the Son teach us what truly matters. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, may our doors be open wide so that his kingdom comes on on earth, in us, and through us, now and forever. Amen. Go in peace.