0:00 of the Bible written were from the book of Job and not necessarily from Genesis. Genesis was written by Moses much much later than Job was written. And if that were just kind of trivial, like it doesn't matter when it was put together 0:13 or pinned, you know, that's one thing. But I I do think there's something to that that you know, do you want to know what the first inspired word that God wanted written down was? And if you know if you if you just assume it's Genesis 0:28 1:1, yeah, that's great, too. Right? In the beginning, everything starts with God. But, you know, if it is Job 1:1, then um you know, and that's the very first thing God wanted pointed out, then then what is it? And maybe why did why 0:44 is it? And what God does is he picks a man and says that this man had four characteristics that he was blameless, he was upright, he feared God, and he turned away from evil. But the very first one he the first characteristic of 1:01 the first, you know, pinned verse of scripture says that he was blameless. And that's what I want to look at this morning. I want to look like look at what does it mean to be blameless. And why is that so important to God? 1:14 It was so important that the first verse that he had pinned was about a man that was blameless. And you know, blameless, if I look it up in a dictionary, blameless says like without fault or without wrongdoing, innocent. Um, but I 1:28 want to look at the verse uh a verse, you know, that comes later in the same chapter and look at this definition. And it says, and you guys are all, you guys should all be familiar with the the story of Job. And Job went through a 1:41 lot. And then in verse 22 it says through everything that Job went through everything that he went through he did not sin nor did he blame God. So that's the definition I want to use because you know again it incorporates others too 1:59 that we don't blame God and we don't blame anybody else. So when I say that I'm blameless or I use the term blameless I'm saying without blame of anybody else that we that you take the responsibility for your sin on yourself. 2:11 if you don't blame anybody else. And I'll tell you, as a 50-year-old, the first time the the light shines on me, that's the first thing my flesh wants to do is blame somebody else. I can't be the one that's at fault. There must be, it must be some other 2:30 reason. And if we go back to Genesis in chapter 3, we see kind of our alternative. We can let the flesh rule. We can let you know that that that heritage we got from Adam rule. And again, I think you're familiar with the 2:43 stories, but I want to go through it again. And and I I want to ask, you know, is this just ancient history? Is this what happened in Eden a long time ago? Or is it real to us today that we're tempted the same way today? And I 2:57 think if we're honest with you from my own observation and just, you know, raising children and being around people and working in the office, I'll tell you this story is as relevant today as it was way back in Eden. And so you're familiar with I'll 3:12 summarize it. Basically God comes to man comes to us and says did you sin? Did you sin? He actually asked two questions. It's like he he ignores kind of the first one and then kind of blames for the second one. So Adam's asked God says did you 3:30 did you do what I told you not to do? And then here it is blame. He blames the woman and then he blames God because he made the woman. So ultimately Adam does the opposite of Job and blames God. And I think it's interesting. We can we can start in one 3:49 of two places. We can start in Job 1:1 or we can start in the book of Genesis. Whichever way we start, we can kind of see, okay, there's two paths I can take. every time that I sin, I can either um you know acknowledge it and not blame 4:03 anybody but myself like Job did or I can be like Adam and I can say okay clearly not my fault. This woman's fault and by the way God ultimately it's your fault because you're the one that made the woman and you're the one that gave her 4:16 to me. So no thank thanksgiving for the woman even though God said it's good it's not good for him to be alone. He doesn't appreciate that he's not alone. Instead, he blames her the first time that he's exposed for his sin. And then 4:30 the woman does the same thing, kind of following the lead. It's not clearly not me that sin. The serpent sinned. If it weren't for the serpent, there would be no sin. And I believe this, you know, bothers the Lord. I really do. When when 4:43 we let the flesh do this with put the blame on others, when all he's asking is gently, Josh, did you sin right there? And the best thing to do is go Yes, Lord. I I sinned right there. And we have the we have the advantage of being 4:59 in the new covenant of knowing that we have a savior that that can cover that whose blood covers our sins. That if we sin, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So, how much more should we be 5:13 willing to acknowledge it and let the light hit our sin? But we find these two things in us. I want to go even further back in the beginning to Ephesians 1:4. If you don't know this verse, then I want to introduce it to you because it 5:27 says he chose us in him in Christ before the foundation of the world that we that we would be holy and what's the word? Blameless. So before the Lord, you know, was was, 5:45 you know, you know, wanted to make oceans and mountains and everything in the world, he said, you know what? I'm going to make Josh. And I want Josh to be a man who doesn't blame anybody else when he sins. That's my destiny for Josh. Now again, you put 6:05 your name there. You look at that verse and you see if the Lord before he even founded founded the world or even created the world, he was thinking about you and he said, "I want you to be different. I want you to be without blame. I don't 6:19 want you to to be a a man or woman that blames everybody else when for your mistakes and your circumstances and and your failures." And you see it in the beginning. So we see it Job, we see it in Adam, we see it in Ephesians in the new covenant that 6:38 the Lord was already thinking about this. He already knew us. It's like he knew this temptation. And then when Jesus walked on this earth, I believe he experienced the same thing. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet 6:49 without sin. Jesus was tempted to blame others whenever something didn't go right. We know there was no sin. And so it wasn't like he was confronted with sin, but maybe the carpenter shop, you know, he accidentally broke a leg on a 7:02 table. Maybe he, you know, thought, well, if my brother hadn't been running around, I wouldn't have bumped into it and knocked it over and it snapped. So he was tempted. So I see that the Lord was thinking about this long before he was thinking 7:18 about the world. At least at least if you believe this scripture or not, I believe it. I believe that the Lord wants me to be blameless. You know, the subject of complaining came up. One of the young boys uh brought up this uh 7:32 brought up complaining. And I have one of my kids um it's not the one that's not here today. I have two kids today and I I want to protect the identity of my children. You know, sometimes like my life interacts with my family and I I 7:45 don't want to expose them when they share something with me. But one of my children is going through something uh right now where she Oh, never mind. I asked her for permission. She's kind of going through this phase like, "Oh, 8:00 is that complaining?" You know, she'll say something like, "I don't really like mushrooms." Oh, did I just complain? Or or something I haven't she's she's always doing. And so I feel like she's got this idea in CFC that our rule is 8:12 don't complain. Don't ever complain. And so she's trying to be very careful that nothing she says is ever a complaint, right? Again, we're trying to work through this. And I said, Zenry, it's not a complaint to tell your dad that 8:28 you don't like mushrooms. There's something missing here, right? That's not complaining. That's that's being honest. You're telling me, "Hey, Dad, I don't like mushrooms." And then I I told her, "Have you ever read Psalm 142?" 8:41 And I said I told her about this verse. I said the psalmist David he says something very interesting. He said I pour out my complaint before him. It says I declare all my trouble before him. I said now is that was the psalmist 8:58 sinning here? Was he sinning? I don't think he was. Brothers and sisters, I think he didn't even know God as his father the way that we have an opportunity to know in the new covenant through Christ who came to reveal God as a father, but 9:15 he would just tell God everything. That's what pour out means. I I tell him everything that I can think of that would be a complaint. So, we're talking about our prayer life, aren't we? He says, I tell him everything that cause is causing me 9:29 trouble, I talk to him about it. Now let's go back to that verse where we where we think don't complain where we kind of you know just take that verse and we say okay thou shalt not complain that is the that is the commandment in 9:41 Austin CFC thou shalt not complain at least that's where I think Zimmer got it from but it's from this verse right it says do everything do all things without you know disputing or grumbling or some other translations say murmuring or 9:52 arguing or complaining so depending on your translation you get this you know do all things without you know grumbling or disputing. But that's not the end of the verse. And I think sometimes we cut it off. I wish this were one verse 10:06 because look at the rest of it. Look at the rest of this verse. So that because it start the second verse starts with so that it tells me that these two are joined together. And I wish they were just joined together. I wish that 10:18 the the people that decided to divide up the Bible had just left these two connected because it's not thou shalt not complain. It says don't don't do this because you need to prove yourself as blameless. See that verse? See that word again? That's 10:36 why I wanted to bring up complaint. Blameless. Well, what what does that mean? It means that whenever whenever things come to you, you don't blame others as as the the the problem. In other words, when when you're in the 10:47 office and they're complaining about the the block the boss and they're blaming everybody's blaming the boss for all the problems in the office. You don't do that. You're blameless. Now, how can you be, you know, how can 11:00 you do this? How can you be blameless? Like, I'm sure you're experiencing the same irritation and yeah, these guys have a point. How can you be blameless in this situation? And you see it in this verse cuz you're a child of God. 11:15 Like, if you have any problems, you go to your heavenly father and you tell him your problems. You pour out, you've already poured out your complaints to him. So your testimony, while everybody else is complaining in the office, your 11:27 testimony is just kind of sitting there quiet like I don't know what they're all talking about. I already talked to my heavenly father about all of this and he knows he's aware and he gave me peace about it. In fact, I was talking about how I was 11:38 talking to him just this morning in prayer. I was talking about my boss and how hard he is and how he just, you know, I was talking to my father about that and he said, "Well, did you think about this?" Oh, no, I didn't. Thanks, 11:48 Dad. I didn't I didn't look at it that way. In other words, when we complain, when we go out into the world complaining, our testimony, whether we like it or not, is I don't have a father that I can talk to about these things, so I'm going 12:00 to vent with you guys. And this verse is encouraging us. Don't do that. Don't let it all build up inside you so that it comes out in the world like everybody else does. It says, spend time in prayer. Spend time as a child going 12:16 to its daddy and saying, "Hey, this is what's bothering me. He knows it already. It's not like he's going to be like, "Oh, I didn't know that. I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up." He knew it before you knew it. He knew the complaint was already in your 12:30 heart. So, go talk to him. Who are your complaints? Everything you can think of, go tell him. I'm a dad. I'm an evil father according to scripture. If you need the references, I can give them to you. But, I'm an evil father according 12:44 to scripture. I love when my kids bring me their complaints. Hey, what's going on with you? You know what? You know what bugs me about my children? I'll tell you what bugs me is when they don't talk to me and I don't know what's going 12:55 on with them and I don't know what they're struggling with. I don't like that. I would rather hear every single complaint than then than never hear from them and just wonder how they're doing. I love it when they talk to me. 13:09 And I I would suggest that your heavenly father loves it when you come and tell him about all your problems in the office. when you come and tell him all your struggles that you're going through, all your trials, I am suggesting that he loves when you talk 13:23 to him and that's from an evil father. But he wants us to be blameless. We don't blame we don't need to blame anybody else because we've already talked to him about it and he's clarified it with us in our hearts. And so we have peace when we go out into the 13:37 world and we shine like like stars, like lights in the world. Now, if you're not a light in your workplace, let me let me gently challenge you. Is it because you don't spend time in prayer talking to your heavenly father 13:51 and bringing all those things to him first? And I'm going to suggest you try that and see if it doesn't brighten you up when you're in the world when you go out into the world. And also too for you young kids when you go to school and 14:03 you're having faith problems at school maybe you're getting bullied do you take do have you talked to your heavenly father about this and saying those kids are so mean to me would you help me? Would you help would you tell 14:18 me what to do? Pour your complaint out to your heavenly father. He loves you so much and he wants you to do that again. He wants us to be blameless. Here's four kittens. I'm not going to talk about kittens. I'm going to talk about four things, four 14:35 examples of people who became blameless. So the four So four cats. So if I say, "Hey, can you tell me about four cats?" You'll be like, "Yeah." But really the goal is that you remember there were four things I shared. I love it. And one 14:48 of the things that delights me is when maybe a parent asks, "Hey, do you you know what Josh shared in the message today?" And if you can go, "Yeah, he shared these four things." that that delights me as a as a former school 14:59 teacher and somebody that wants uh that has the responsibility to share these truths of the Bible. I love it when you can remember. That's why I do four four kittens. All right. So, what I want to look at is four examples from scripture 15:11 of people who became blameless. In other words, they didn't start blameless like Job, but they became blameless. And I look at how. And here's what I I don't know how much time I'll have to go in into depth on this, but I want you to 15:22 see these things. First, they have a very poor start. They were sinners. Every one of these examples were sinners and they made a mess of their life. They made a mess of their life and then they have an encounter with the Lord. 15:39 So, these messes encounter the Lord and then they stop blaming everybody else for their problems. And that's not even the end of it. Then they get something special from the Lord. So again, these these messes, they've made a mess of their life and 15:59 they think that it's because everybody else's fault. This is what I think. And again, I can't show you specifically in scripture, but um but this is what I see. This is what I imagine at least. So they've made a mess in their life. They 16:10 think it's everybody else's fault. They meet with the Lord and suddenly they stop blaming everybody else and they recognize they're the sinner coming before the Lord. and then the blessing they get afterwards. I want you to see 16:21 four things in that. So, if I don't cover it, u then you can do your homework and go look at these things. Here's the first one. Jacob Jacob made a mess of his life. From the very time he was in the womb, he was always trying to supplant or or cheat or 16:37 deceive somebody from his time he came out of the womb. He's even grabbing his brother's heel and trying to wrestle with him inside the womb, right? And he could blame everybody he he could blame everybody for his problems. Like if my dad wouldn't have 16:51 been so, you know, put Esau, you know, so highly or, you know, give him him all the attention and made him the favorite. If my dad wouldn't have done that, my life would not have turned out the way it was. If my mom wouldn't have been so 17:04 conniving and told me to go along with her plan, you know, to deceive my dad, I wouldn't be on the run right now. I wouldn't have made a mess of things. If Esau, you know, if he would have just been a a better brother, if he wouldn't 17:17 have sold his birthright or even put me in that situation, I never would have had to, you know, cheat him and deceive him. Laban, if he wouldn't have if he wouldn't have tricked me with Leah, I wouldn't have, you know, multiple wives 17:28 right now. If Rachel would have been more clear that she wanted to marry me, she knew the scheme that Laban was playing. On and on and on. You see it? You see it? You blame everybody else for your problems. And brothers and sisters, 17:41 you you probably never done that, have you? From the time you were young, you were like, "Okay, I you know, I take all the responsibility for myself." I didn't. I would blame everybody else but me. And then he has an encounter with 17:54 the Lord. He wrestles with the Lord. And the Lord says, it's very interesting because he he breaks him. We sang about being broken. Did you remember singing that this morning? We were spring we were singing to the Holy Spirit. We 18:07 said, "Break me." Did you mean that? So the Lord breaks his hip or touches his hip or injures it in some way. I don't know. I don't know exactly how it works. And Jacob grabs on to him and says, "I will not let you go until you bless me." 18:23 And then we have this peculiar peculiar question. He says, "What is your name?" Now, why is he asking, "What is your name?" He's saying like, "Who's at fault here? Who's to blame? Who got you into the mess that you're 18:40 in? Who brought you to the place that you're crying out to me for blessing? Who did that? And it's like a moment of clarity where he says, "I did it. My name means suppler. My name means deceiver. I did it." And the Lord says, "Oh, finally. 19:00 Finally, you stop blaming everybody else. You admitted who you are. You admitted your identity, who you've been from the very beginning. Now I'm going to change your name. And if you read into Hebrew, I think it's uh 11 21, you see that he changed 19:16 him. He he now became a blessing and he even became a worshipper. He made the faith hall of fame in Hebrews 11 as a worshshiper and as a blesser because he finally came to the place where he admitted, "It's my fault." Speaking of worshippers, we have this 19:34 woman. It's one of my favorite stories. I could read it over and over again. There's so many things that I learned from this story. John 4, this woman who again made a mess of her life, divorced five times, living with a man 19:48 who wasn't even her husband. And I I picture blame in her life. Well, if my first husband would have just been faithful to me, you know, if my second husband wouldn't have wouldn't have been, you know, so mean to me all the time, if my third 20:02 husband this, if my fourth husband that, if my fifth husband that. But then she has an encounter with Jesus. And they talk about worship. And she says something that's interesting. She says, 'I met a man. I met a man who 20:19 told me everything that I've ever done. There's this man, Jesus, and he knows every sin I've ever committed. That is her testimony. And she has one of the most powerful testimonies. The testimony is so 20:36 powerful that many, Go read it. It's in John 4. that many in that Samaritan town believed in Jesus. Imagine having a testimony of accepting blame, acknowledging all your failures and it brings glory to Jesus so that so many believe in him. 20:56 I want that testimony. What a blessing. Again, a woman who messed up her life has an encounter with Jesus. Stops blaming everybody else. Says, "I'm the sinner. I'm the one in need." And suddenly she can convert nearly an 21:11 entire village to the Lord. What a blessing because she was honest. Number three in Luke 7, this woman, Jesus talks about her. You know, there's several different accounts. I think it's in all four gospels in different there's 21:26 little nuggets we can pull out in each gospel, but I don't know if you noticed this, but Jesus says, "I say to you, her sins, which are many." Now, how did Jesus know that this woman had so many sins? I believe it was Mary of Bethany. 21:44 He knew her. She She had told him all these things. She had confessed all her sins to Jesus. She had many, many, many sins. And look at her attitude. She didn't blame anybody else. These are my sins. Lord, it's my sin. I did this. I did 21:59 this. I did this. I did this. I did this. I wanted this, so I did this. I wanted this lifestyle. I wanted this level of comfort, so I did this. And Lord, I'm sorry I did it. And she comes in, she uses a perfume that a year's wages. She just dumps them 22:17 at her s Savior's feet, not blaming anybody else. Just so thankful to the Lord that he cleansed her sins. Oh, I I don't want to ever lose this. I don't want to ever lose sight of how much I've been forgiven because I know 22:36 if I remember everything I've been forgiven, I will love Jesus immensely. And he's owed that. He deserves that. He loved me so much. Is there any way, Lord, I can love you back? I want to do it. I don't want to ever lose sight of 22:49 the cost that was paid for me. And she receives another blessing by being honest, by taking the blame, by not blaming others. She gets another blessing. Jesus said, I think it's in Matthew 23, he says, "Whenever the gospel is 23:06 preached, this woman will be remembered." Now, imagine that. Now, imagine that. Having that testimony, having that endorsement by Jesus himself. You know, one of the things I think we all struggle with is trying to impress 23:19 other people. We want other people to think very highly of us, right? All of us, we struggle with that. And it impacts our faith by the way in John 5:44. Go look at that and see if uh you trying to impress everybody else 23:35 doesn't impact your own faith. But this woman's testimony is so powerful that Jesus said even the gospel will will remind people of this woman. Wow. What an endorsement. Lord, is that what you think of me? Even just a fraction of that, Lord, that 23:53 you think of me, that you think of me, that you remember me would be wonderful. You're the one I want to impress. Lord, this woman impressed him. Speaking of uh speaking of impressive, speaking of being remembered by the Lord, there's 24:06 this guy. Again, this the stories give me so much hope. End of his life. Made a huge mess of his life. Even on the cross, won't admit he made a mess of his life. Come on, Jesus. Bring us down. we don't deserve this. Get us down from here. 24:23 Bring your, you know, you did mighty miracles. You can get us off here. But then there's a change of heart on the cross. And he says something very interesting. You see the shift. He rebukes the other guy and he says, "Hey, we're we're 24:38 suffering justly. We deserve this. We deserve the cross for what we did." stops blaming everybody else and says,"I deserve to die for what I've done." Dear brother, sister, do you have you ever gone to the Lord with that or even 24:56 acknowledged that because of what I've done, because of my sins, I deserve to die. And then you just quietly turn to Jesus and you say, "Lord, would you remember me?" I remember the story of that woman. She She's going to be remembered 25:11 whenever the gospel's preached. All I'm asking is that you remember me one time. That's all I want. Just think of me. Just think of me. He says the most wonderful words. He says it to a thief who made a mess of 25:30 his life, who will never get a chance to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. He died. But the wonderful words that he said is today You know it, right? Today you will be with me. I don't even need the rest of 25:49 it. I don't need the with paradise part. Just to hear Jesus say, "Josh, you're going to be with me. That's it." You deserve that. I don't deserve that. I don't deserve to be with Jesus. But even the one who makes a mess of his 26:08 almost in his entire life that finally admits, "I'm the one at fault. Lord, would you remember me? Would you think of me?" To him, Jesus says, "You're going to be with me." I can't think of anything more heavenly 26:25 than being with Jesus. Just to be in his presence, just to listen to his voice like like the way I'm able to listen to your voices when I we get in one-on-one conversations to be able to hug him. I become a hugger because I'm 26:42 I don't know, maybe my heart's getting bigger. I used to be more afraid to imagine being able to hug Jesus. Like really to be able to wrap your arms around him. Thank you for blessing me, Lord. I I haven't had a chance to thank 26:55 you in person. Thank you so much. I long for that. So those are the four things, right? And again, the common things. They all failed. They were failures. They were sinners. They made a mess. They had an encounter with Jesus. 27:11 After that encounter, they quit blaming others. They became blameless in that sense. And then there was something special given to them. Right? That gives me so much hope. So much hope. So how should we end this? like how do how do we end, you know, 27:28 this message on being blameless. Um Zami sometimes will ask me like she likes to make notes and cards and stuff and she likes to decorate and she'll say, "Dad, what's your favorite verse?" And I'll bet you right now she could tell you 27:39 what I'm going to answer. This is my favorite verse in the whole Bible consistently for many, many, many years. It's this. It's in Jude 1:24. If you don't know it, I would love I'm honored to be able to introduce you to this 27:51 verse, especially in light of everything we talked about today. It says now to him and I hope you know that him is talking about Jesus who is able to keep you from stumbling and present and to make you stand in the 28:09 presence of his glory. How? One more time. How? >> Blameless. >> Blameless. Jesus is able to do it. 28:25 Jesus is able to carry me through life and to present me blameless before a holy God. That is an absolute miracle. I accept. I claim this promise. It's become my favorite verse in scripture. 28:42 When I get so tempted to get discouraged and like, I don't know, Lord, if I'm going to make it, I can always go back to this. When I when I feel that temptation to blame everybody else, to blame for for the even my sins or even 28:56 my circumstances, I can go back to this and say, 'Lord, you promised you promised that you're able to present me blameless before the f before the throne with great joy. Oh Lord, one day, one day your pro your promise is going to come 29:15 true. And that gives me hope and that keeps me going. And even though I've, you know, I maybe I fail tomorrow and I I blame somebody else and the Lord shows it to me and I repent and I go, "Okay, Lord, you got me back on track. I'm 29:28 going to stop blaming people. You can take me through any circumstance and you know, you can do it. You can shape me and you can make me blameless before your father." So wonderful, wonderful promise. Let's do a quick recap and then 29:41 I'm done. We said that we're destined to be blameless. Remember that verse in Ephesians 4:4. I said we started in the beginning and I showed you uh that this verse that says even before the foundation of the world, the Lord set a 29:55 destiny for each one of us if we believe it that he wants us to be blameless. And then we looked at examples of of you know the two starts of the Bible if you will. Job blameless, Adam blaming. And I feel like each one of us get the same 30:10 choice as the Lord takes us through different circumstances in life. We can either blame or not blame. We can either admit when God confronts us with our sin, we can either admit it or we can deny it. That's our choice. We can blame 30:23 somebody else. And then we looked at four people who stopped blaming others. And I think it's important that we see stopped. And I hope you see the hope in that. That even if you spent your whole life blaming everybody else for your 30:35 problems, that the Lord can take that and he proves it by his word and says he can take messes like us and he can make it so that we're blameless. And then when we admit it, he'll he'll even go further. He'll go further than 30:49 we could have ever thought or imagined. And he'll give them give us a blessing that's beyond anything we would have ever thought. And I hope you see that in scripture. And I hope you want that. And then we see that they all started poorly, but 31:03 what changed them was an encounter with the Lord. And I would say don't stop until you've encountered the Lord. And if you've encountered him once, then I would encourage you to encounter him again. and again and again and again and 31:16 keep coming back to him and say, "I need your blessing on my life." And then we see that something special I talked about where where it was paradise, where it was a testimony that blessed so many people, where it was a a town that 31:30 was converted, whether it was actually getting to be a worshshiper. So many blessings upon a life. And then finally, the last thing is my promise, my favorite verse in all of scripture, that he can do it. that no matter how weak I am, no matter 31:47 how much I fail, that he promises that one day somehow I'm going to stand before my holy father in heaven and I'm going to be so joyful because I'm finally blameless. And Jesus promises to do that. May the Lord uh make these re these a reality in our 32:05 life. Thank you Josh for the wonderful message and promises and examples that we can 32:21 follow in uh Ephesians chapter 1. Let's turn there if you have your Bible still in in verse four. Josh read this but I think it's helpful to see what's immediately after Ephesians 1. And I guess when I was listening to 32:39 this, my heart went towards blaming God for what he's done and what he's allowed in our lives and how we can be tempted with that when we are faced as with Job, he didn't blame God. And as we go through different trials in our 32:56 lives that as the Lord leads us as during our in our journey and our walk with him, we encounter different things that we really would never never ask for or imagine we go through or or sign up for. But in verse four, just as he chose 33:12 us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. It's it's how do we think about God when when we encounter those things in our lives that we just can't believe this is happening 33:25 and our thoughts turn toward why did God do this? Why did God allow this? I think this next promise can help us. In verse 5, he predestined us to be adoption as sons. He wants us to be his children. That's in his mind. He's the father. You 33:41 know, as as parents, we can see beyond the child is mad at us because we take away their candy or whatever. We, you know, that's a the biggest thing in the world to them is that we we took their toy away or we told them it's time to 33:52 come go to bed, put your toys away, they're devastated, their life is ended, you know, the world has ended. And as parents, you know, we can look past that. We know it's going to be okay. We know what's best for them. So, we might 34:03 do things or allow things in their lives that they don't want, but there are children, and that's not changed. And in verse 5, it continues, "We're sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his 34:15 will. And so as we go through trials, if we can come back to this that everything God does and allows is through his kind intentions of his will. He is a kind father and as Adam and Eve sinned and their default mode was blaming at we can 34:34 find that in ourselves with our spouses, children, parents, teachers, bosses, you know, the driver next to us. It's just it's built into our flesh. We inherited that. And even as Cain killed Abel and God punished him, Cain was blaming God. 34:49 This is too hard. I can't do this. His he had a chance there to repent, but he didn't. He hardened his heart and he blamed God. And but if we can remember God's kind intentions toward us, and we're his children. He has kind 35:01 intentions. And as we Josh started with with Job and the tremendous loss that Job went through losing his possessions and his children and everything and it Job 1:22 through all this Job did not sin nor he blamed nor did he blame God 35:21 and it's a wonderful testimony example of suffering and trusting God and in the next chapter he loses his health and he still doesn't turn and blame God And as you read through the I'd encourage you really if you've never read the book of 35:35 Job there's a lot in there and some of the stuff may be hard to follow but pick up a paraphrase or something to just get through it and see all that transpires there with his friends and then uh the other Eliu comes and and talks and 35:51 then God speaks up at the end and God says some things and you can read those things in there. But if you go to Job 40, Job started out well and he ended well, but it was rocky for for some time. If you look in Job 40:1, 36:09 God says a bunch of things in the previous two chapters. He's revealing himself to Job. And then God says to Job, "Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?" Who's he talking to? He's talking to Job and he's calling Job, you 36:22 are a faultfinder. He said, "Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer. That's Job. Job, you've been reproving me. Job, you've been fault finding fault with me. I want to hear what you have to say, Job. I'm listening 36:37 now. And Job, of course, repents. What's he supposed he he has that encounter that Josh talks about. He comes to, if you look at all four of those examples, each one came to a low point. They came to the end of themselves, and they were 36:51 receptive at that encounter. When God confronted Cain, he was not at the end of himself. He just blamed it back on God. But all these examples, these wonderful examples of people came to a low point to the end of themselves. And 37:03 Job here in Job 40, then Job answered the Lord, "Behold, I am nothing. What can I say to you? I'm sorry. I put my hand over my mouth. I should not have said any of this stuff. I was totally wrong. I see it now." And again in verse 37:14 in Job 42, he does the same thing. I repent of everything I've done and said against you. I will not blame you anymore. And if you look at all these four examples, if you look at Job, they never blamed God again. And their life 37:26 was changed. When that last point about they received something special from the Lord, that special thing is a changed life. And you and I can have a changed life when we see that God is God. He has kind intentions toward us. He is our 37:39 father. He loves us. No matter what comes our way, we're not going to make sense of it. But we can have faith in a good father. And I want to just close with uh in Romans 9, these are things that have helped me tremendously 37:51 through different trials as reminders that that go with this message today. In Romans 9:20, he's saying, on the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God, that's blaming God. The thing that molded will not say to the molder, why 38:06 did you make me like this? Will it? There's a number of other verses like this. We won't go through them now, but it's that when we come as these four examples did, they started out. They messed up. They went through hard times 38:17 and they came to the low point and they were done with themselves. And when God showed up, they were ready. They they saw, they confessed, they believed in a good and holy God. They believed and saw his kind intention as their father. And 38:30 he is the one who can present us blameless. That's almost if that wasn't in the Bible and I told you, you know, God's going to make you blameless one day as you appear in heaven, you wouldn't believe it. It's unbelievable 38:39 except it's in the scripture over and over, not just in Jude, that he will present us faultless with great joy because of what Jesus has done. Even for that thief on the cross, as awful love of a man as he was, he was with him in 38:51 paradise. And you and I pray that everyone has settled that matter of your salvation. That no matter what you've done, the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all sin and will make us his children. And after you've done that, we 39:02 mess up many, many times. but always coming back to our kind father, the kind intentions of our good, good father and he will he's able to make us blameless before his presence. So thankful for God's word and this causes us to hope 39:16 and he will help us by his holy spirit. So let's go to the Lord. Father, thank you for your word, Lord. Causes us to hope, Lord. These things are too good to be true, Lord. If we if it wasn't written, we wouldn't be able to believe 39:27 that you're that good and that kind to us, Lord. sinners who've messed up so much of our lives and hurt you and hurt others so often and been so wrong so many times, but yet you have pity and you love us and you sent Jesus and you 39:40 chose us before the foundation of the world before you even figured out how you're going to make mountains and trees and birds and all these things. You chose us. That was the most important thing. What you did first is that you 39:51 saw us in our need and you knew and you made a plan to redeem us from our sins that we could be your children. that we could walk with you every single day, Lord. And as we struggle with trials, Lord, help us in those moments when 40:03 we're tempted to blame you or to blame others, Lord, to remember your word and that you're a good, kind father. You have only kind intentions toward us, Lord. You are the potter. We are the clay. Lord, help us to surrender, Lord. 40:14 You are worthy. You are worthy of it all, Lord. Thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you everyone for joining. Thank you to those joining us on Zoom. And uh as you're visiting, uh you're welcome to stay for the lunch. if we can get help 40:27 set up with the chairs and tables. Thank you.
