In this audio message, Scott Brown preaches from the book of Job and explains the importance of fearing God and shunning evil. He lists five things that we can learn from the life of Job. While he wasn't a perfect father, we can learn many helpful principles from his life.

Job 1:1 (NKJV) - "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil."

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is pleased to present Fatherhood. This message is entitled Dealing with Sin in Your Family by Scott Brown. Job 1, one reads, There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil and seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also his possessions were 7, 000 sheep, 3, 000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

And his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. So it was when the days of feasting had run their course, the Job would send and sanctify them. And he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus, Job did regularly.

The session is about dealing with sin. Job is our mentor to help us understand how a father would deal with sin in his household. This session is about the cross, the gospel, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about sanctifying grace from God alone. God has placed fathers in the place of standing at the crossroads between God and his family, not that he himself has any sanctifying grace of his own, but he stands there as Job regularly dealing with sin in his household.

Let's pray. Oh Lord, these are very tender and difficult subjects for we know that we are a men of unclean lips and we dwell among a people of unclean lips. We have many things falling short and our dear children have received the poison in their souls that would kill them and send them to hell. We've passed it on to them through Adam. We have given them what would destroy them and you've placed us as workers of righteousness to help them to be cleansed, to find saving grace.

Let it be true of all of us that we would be diligent priests of our households to bring the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ as the home's greatest sufficiency. Oh Lord, help me now and help all of us together to learn of you. In Jesus name, amen. In this text that I've just read are a number of areas that reveal how Job dealt with sin and his family. I'm going to speak of five of them.

I want to talk about the fatherhood challenges first of all that were upon this man. Secondly, his character. Thirdly, his family. Fourthly, his work life. And then his fatherhood practices.

All of this has its central focus on the work of the cross, the work of the blood, the work that's necessary for sinners. Now, Job is a source of encouragement and mentorship for us in the area of fatherhood. We see a picture of a disciplined father who's actively at work, not sitting back just letting his house will become whatever kind of thing it might be. But he is taking action and he's doing it diligently regarding sin and that's very important for us to understand. It's interesting one of the oldest books in the Bible is a picture of a father managing his household well.

Isn't that interesting? Oldest book in the Bible, this great Saint Job, and what are we hit with right at the beginning of the text? A man managing his household well. Isn't that encouraging? There he is before us.

Again, he's a vision of hope for us. He helps us to see what we would do as well, to become like him in his most exemplary qualities. We know he wasn't a perfect father, But what we see here are exemplary and helpful principles. It begins with a disclosure of his character and then and then it instantly just bears right into his practices as a father and in dealing with sin. He's a man of integrity which helps us to see how integrity is unified with fatherhood.

Jesus taught that a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit, and we see that Job is producing good fruit and he is dealing with the critical issues of life. I don't believe that what's revealed here gives us the full extent of Job's fatherhood practices. But what is revealed here is so helpful, especially in this category of dealing with sin in our children. So the context, Let's just talk about the context a little bit here. We find Job in the midst of trials of life and blessings of life.

Job is wealthy. He's in the prime of life and influence. He lived in a pleasant place. His large family was functioning well. He was offering sacrifices for them.

They were getting together. It was so wonderful. And two things brought it all to an end. A wind and a bunch of Sabian raiders came in. And he lost it all in the blink of an eye.

Don't ever think that you're ever in that place, that you're insulated from calamity. We know about this calamity though that it was of God. There are many angles to this story that we could dial into. Here's one. We could speak of the impact of natural disasters, how vulnerable we are in terms of the suddenness of loss that could come upon us, of our material possessions.

In a moment we could lose it. How would we respond? Job shows us how you respond when you lose everything. Have you ever lost everything? Have you ever known anyone who did?

Well, Job is there to walk before us. We could also focus on the conflict that can arise in marriage. You see this, apparently it was a sweet marriage. And then one marriage partner says to the other, curse God and die. A woman sins, a woman loses it.

The trials, the sorrows have overcome her. What does a man do in a situation like this? Job is a presence of patience in the midst of the suffering of his wife. Maybe it was an ungodly pity party, but all of us could understand how hard it would be to lose all of your children in one throw like that as he did. But all husbands, all husbands have the same responsibility and this is the responsibility.

Whatever state you find your wife, you're there like a rock for her. You will see her through the darkest times of her life. Two of my dear friends from high school saw their wives through five of the worst, most depressing years of their wives lives when they just had lost their heart for everything and these two friends of mine they saw their wives through it. They said I'm gonna take you through this honey. Job was in that situation where he could curse his wife and let her die or he could carry her on.

And it seems that perhaps he did carry her on. But we don't know exactly what happened. But we know this, that he was challenged in the area of dealing with great disappointments in his wife. Are any of your wives disappointed? Are they struggling?

Are they flagging in some area and they need the encouragement of their husband? They need the joy of the Lord in their husbands. They need a vision cast. They need time. They need to let the words flow and often men are so busy or so self-absorbed that they do not carry their wives through their time of trouble.

And who knows when a time of trouble will come upon a wife. Well, Job saw his wife through this time of trouble. It would be reasonable to look at this story to talk about the example of a vicious attack of Satan upon a family. Every family member was profoundly affected by this satanic attack And Job was being tested by fire and the test for Job was did he really love God or did he just love the success that came from loving God. That was his test.

We know that he loved God. He was the wealthiest man in the region but he did love God deep within his heart. The account also shows us the fallenness of men at work in the context of manly friendships. Okay, let's just say what happened. Job's friends fail him and they end up speaking the words of the devil to him.

Has a friend ever done that with you? Has a friend ever spoken wrongly into your life and you knew it, what do you do about that? You see this long drawn-out drama of friends going through a real crisis and there's a lot to learn about that so that when you face that kind of crisis you can learn from all the parties because all of these men sin against one another in the process. Nobody comes out looking all that great. Some come out looking worse than others, but at the same time we see these trials bringing up difficulties in friendships, and then we see it's a story of how a blessed family under the watchful care of their father and abounding and heavenly blessings ended up seeing the glory of God through all of their trials.

So that's sort of the range of what's in this text that we're working with. Let's talk about Job's character because the text speaks of it very plainly. There was a man in the land of Oz whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil. And so we learn about this man here. He was blameless.

He was without blemish. Job was the same guy inside of the house and outside of the house. He was a man of integrity. Doesn't mean that he was perfect, but it means he was above approach. He wasn't one kind of person in the marketplace and a different kind of person with his friends and with his family.

He was blameless. We learned that he was a fair and honest judge. We learned that he gave wise counsel. We learned that he was full of justice and honesty as an employer. We learned that he was generous in hospitality.

Reading the book just gives us so many things about his character. Okay, so let's have a blamelessness check here. Is there any area, is there any area that is outside the realm of blamelessness? Is there anything that needs to be dealt with here before God? Job's life was full of integrity.

He was the same here as he was there. Is that true of you? He was also upright. He walked straight ahead, not diverting from the faithfulness of God. That's why he had a good reputation.

We also learned that he was, that he feared God. His heart was inclined toward God and he hated the idea of infidelity toward God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and Job had that. We see that He shunned evil. He had a hatred of sin.

Proverbs 8 13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Proverbs 16 6 says, By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. And this is the kind of man that we have here. We have the kind of man that we see speaking in Psalm 101 who says, I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no unclean thing before my eyes.

I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling to me. A perverse heart shall depart for me. I will not know wickedness." That's the kind of man Job was. He removed himself from that.

So that's his character. Then we see his family. Job had a large family as we see here. He had seven sons and three daughters. You know, I suppose 10 children would qualify as a big family at any time in history.

That would be my guess. But he had a large family. We know that Abraham didn't have a very large family. He was childless until he was very old, but not Job. God had given him many, many children and he had multiplied greatly in the land and his quiver was full of them and they were also near him geographically.

Matthew Henry has some very tender words for describing this life that we see in the text. He says this, in love and unity and mutual good affection, no jars or quarrels among them, no strangeness, no shyness of one another, no straight handedness, but though everyone knew his own, they lived with as much freedom as if they had all in common. It is comfortable to the hearts of parents and calmly to the eyes of all to see brethren thus knit together. Behold how good and how pleasant it is, " he adds. It is added to his comfort to see the brothers so kind to their sisters that they sent for them to feast with them.

For they were so modest that they would not have gone if they had not been sent for. Those brothers that slight their sisters care not for their company and have no concern for their comfort are ill-bred, ill-natured, and very unlike Job's sons." So Job had a family that was functioning well. We also know that it was a hospitable family. Like many of the great men in Scripture, hospitality was prominent in Job's life. It's clear from many references in the book that he had a household that engaged sometimes the fatherless and and all kinds of other people for the nourishment and the encouragement of people in the community.

Here's what Job says. He says, if I have kept the poor from their desire or caused the eyes of the widow to fail or eaten my morsel by myself so that the fatherless could not eat of it, but from my youth I reared him as a father and from my mother's womb I guided the widow. If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing or any poor man without covering, if his heart has not blessed me and if he has not warmed with the fleece of my sheep." You know this was just a picture of a man who was hospitable and he was taking care of the people around him. He took responsibility not just for his own. He did do that, but he cared for far more than just his own.

And that was an important quality. It was a harmonious family. We've spoken of that. Part of managing a household well is to fight against sin in that family. John Owen speaks of this in the mortification of sin.

He says this, a man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he's weary. While the fruit abides in strength and vigor, the beating down of the present fruit will not hinder it from bringing forth more. This is the folly of some men, for they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but leaving the principle and root untouched perhaps un-searched out they make but little or no progress in this work of mortification. We find Job dealing with sin at its root. It was a well-managed family.

He seems to be the kind of man that would be qualified for an elder in a church. He seems to be that kind of blameless upright man. If Job lived today, he would be qualified to serve as a New Testament elder. And then we can talk about Job's work life. This is really interesting.

He has a very amazing story. You know, how would you like it if your financial statement was put in the Bible? Well, well here you go. His assets are listed but none of his liabilities. I'm just guessing he didn't have them.

But they're listed here. There are 7, 000 sheep and 3, 000 camels and 500 yoke of oxen and it just goes on. So it goes on so far that he ends up to be the wealthiest man in the whole region. He was the Bill Gates of the ancient world. Well, Bill Gates was formerly the richest man in the world, but he's not any longer.

His wealth has taken wings. But Job has a vigorous business life. Imagine all these camels and imagine the amount of product this guy could move from one region to another. I mean, it's really fascinating. This guy was into interstate commerce.

He was moving products around apparently with these animals who were capable of doing it. And so it you know his prosperity indicates he was diligent, he was expanding his holdings through his hard work and his creativity.