Thanks very much, Emma. Good morning, everyone. Really good to have you with us, whether you're in person or online.
Are you a survivor or a creator?
Will your world be one where every achievement is hard won and you're struggling against lots of forces that are beyond your control?
Or will there be one where you can sort away uninhibited and be as creative and inventive as you want and really express yourself?
That might sound like the start of a rather bad motivational talk, but I suspect some of you have recognised it's the choice you have to make in Minecraft.
Minecraft is the most popular online game in the world, I believe, played by millions and millions of people.
And you build your own world or realm and interact with it.
And you have a choice to make at the beginning. Are you going to be in survival mode or are you going to be in creative mode?
If you're in survival mode, you start with nothing. You start by punching trees to get some wood and build a shelter and some basic tools.
And you're constantly on the lookout for adverse forces, mobs and so on that could derail you.
If you're in creative mode, on the other hand, you can fly, you've got unlimited resources, you're invincible, and you can build and create to your heart's content.
It's a great game in both forms, particularly if you've got a grandson who can do all the hard work for you.
And perhaps it has some elements of realism in it.
I think one of the things we've learned as we've gone through Job, and which will be evident against this morning,
is that we're all in survival mode.
That life is tough and there are lots of things that are beyond our control.
And sometimes we do look around and say, well, why is this happening?
Why do I have to put up with all these things?
But we also learn, particularly from chapter 28 and subsequent chapters in Job, but we've seen it already,
that there is a creator.
That there is someone who has that power and that freedom.
And for us to make the most of life, we need to have a relationship with the creator.
And that's very much what we're going to learn from chapter 28 today.
Life is hard, but if we know God, if we have a relationship with him, we can begin to have wisdom and understanding in it.
Now I'm sure you've noticed if you've been to previous services like this,
that chapter 28 is very different from any other in Job.
So I think it's worth just taking a couple of minutes to look at the context and to orientate ourselves.
Now what I'm going to show you is very simplistic,
but I think it might be helpful in helping us to see how the book of Job is structured.
So I'd like the book of Job.
It is, as has been said in previous weeks, it's mostly poetry,
but at the beginning and at the end, there are narrative sections.
And I've called them the prologue and the epilogue.
So the prologue is about Job's downfall from being wealthy and having a really good life
to ending up in the gutter, all his possessions and family gone and his health gone as well.
And then at the end of the book, Job is restored to his former greatness and he is fully vindicated.
In between, there are two main sections, which I've called dialogues and monologues.
So what we've looked at mostly in the book of Job so far is the dialogues.
Job has three so-called friends.
We've met two of them, Eliphaz and Bildad.
There's another called Zophar.
And these three friends, the sum total of their contribution to the book of Job
is to reiterate again and again that Job must be suffering because of some secret sin in his life.
He is being punished by God because if you suffer, it must be because you've done something wrong.
And Job is reiterating again and again,
No, I haven't got any secret sin in my life.
I'm a man of integrity.
I don't understand why this is happening.
It's a conflict of kind of theoretical head knowledge and practical experience.
And there are three rounds of dialogues with the friends
and it gets more and more fractious and people are just digging their heels.
And some insights from Job, which we've looked at in previous weeks,
but basically these friends are saying,
Job is being punished for your sin.
And Job says, No, that can't be right.
What we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks is a slightly different one.
It's a series of monologues.
First by Job, then by an angry young man called Elihu,
and finally by God himself who responds to everything that's happened.
And the key question has really moved on.
It's not, is Job being punished for sin?
It's why is Job suffering, even though he's not a worse sinner than other people?
Elihu has many of the faults of the others whom Job interacts with,
but he has the helpful insight that suffering can have a purpose beyond punishment.
That God can use suffering for our good.
And of course, we learn a lot of that in the New Testament,
and Graham will be talking to us about it next week.
And then at the end, God comes in,
and he basically says to Job,
Who are you to question me?
But at the end, he vindicates Job, and he condemns his friends.
So we have these two main sections, dialogues and monologues.
And then we have chapter 28, which is what we're looking at today,
which I've said is about the pursuit of wisdom.
Now what are we to make of it?
It doesn't talk explicitly about suffering.
It's about wisdom.
How does it fit in with the book?
Well, not everyone agrees on this,
but I think that the most straightforward way to look at this chapter
is to think of it as being a commentary by the narrator of the book of Job,
rather than the words of Job himself.
It's very different from where Job is at this point,
in his mindset and in his understanding.
And I think it's best viewed as the writer of the book
preparing us for the next section of monologues that's to come,
and particularly preparing us for what God has to say
a few chapters down the line.
In other words, he's saying to us,
let's take our eyes away from the gutter where Job is,
and we've got this silly argument going on
about whether Job's a bad sinner or not.
Let's lift our eyes to God
and recognize his greatness,
and let's prepare for the overwhelming response
that God will give in a few chapters to Job.
So it's a kind of positioning chapter in the book.
If you're familiar with Hebrew poetry,
you know that quite often the core of a poem is in the middle.
That's where the core truth is shown,
and then the rest expands on it.
Something similar, I think, happening here.
But what about the chapter itself?
I think the best way to orientate through chapter 28
is through two key verses,
which are verse 12 and verse 20.
They look the same, but they're not quite the same.
So in the first 11 verses, verses 1 to 11,
we've got what I've called the search for wealth.
This thing about mining for iron and gold and copper and so on,
we'll come back to that.
But it is saying to us that human beings put a lot of effort
into getting things that they consider valuable.
And then you have verse 12.
And in verse 12, the key question is,
where can wisdom be found?
Where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
You can dig into the earth,
and you know that at some stage you'll get minerals and rocks
and gold and silver and so on.
People know where they are.
But where can we go to find wisdom?
That is the question that Job is about to address.
So the next few verses are not the search for wealth,
they're the search for wisdom.
Where can we find it?
And a reiteration of just how much more valuable wisdom is than wealth.
And then we have verse 20.
And verse 20 says to us,
where does wisdom come from?
So it's slightly different.
It looks at first as just a repetition of verse 12,
but it's not.
Verse 12 says, where can wisdom be found?
So go out and look for it.
Verse 20 says, where does wisdom come from?
And then the rest of the chapter is telling us that.
It is talking about the source of wisdom.
And of course, the source of wisdom is God himself.
And it goes up to the words of the Lord at the end.
The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.
And to shun evil is understanding.
So that I think is a simple way of looking at this chapter.
It moves from the search for wealth to the search for wisdom,
and from the search of wisdom to the source of wisdom,
and ends up with God himself as where we find true wisdom.
Let's just take a few minutes to go into a little bit more detail.
This is a difficult and deep chapter.
We're only going to scrape the surface this morning.
But let's just dig a little bit into it.
So in the first 11 verses, we have this mining analogy.
Let's go back to Minecraft for a second.
If you're in survival mode in Minecraft, you can achieve a certain amount above ground.
You can cut down trees and build things.
You can grow crops.
You can kill animals for food.
But you're quite limited.
The real treasure, and this is why the name is Minecraft,
the real treasure is when you dig underground,
and you find these rocks and precious stones and so on below the dirt that's on the surface.
Here's my big tip if you ever play Minecraft.
If you dig down, don't dig straight,
because you just end up in a hole you can't get out of.
That's the voice of experience for you.
But it's actually not irrelevant to this chapter.
Because the first few verses actually are saying,
men do wonderful things to get things from the ground.
They don't just dig down and look around hopelessly.
We're looking at very, very old technology here.
But we are looking at people who are clever and inventive.
And the writer in this chapter isn't saying,
humans don't have intelligence, or they're not ingenious.
He's saying, actually, they are clever,
but they're still not always wise.
We can maybe identify with that.
We have a world where all sorts of wonderful things
that the writer here couldn't possibly have imagined
have been done and created,
and yet we've messed up our climate.
We're very clever.
We're not necessarily wise.
So the writer in talking about people being clever,
he talks about them swinging on ropes around beneath the ground.
He talks about them using fire.
Not sure whether that fire is for light
or possibly to kind of get access into the more precious metals and so on.
He talks about following the course of rivers.
It's possible that means they actually divert rivers,
sometimes for their own ends,
to help them to get to things better.
People are clever when they put their mind to it.
But actually, the key message of these verses
is that if we think something is really valuable,
we will go to an awful lot of effort to achieve it.
And what the writer is saying here is,
look at how much effort people go to
to get gold and silver and precious stones and so on.
They go into the furthest recesses of the earth.
They go into the blackest darkness.
They go where no self-respecting animal or bird
would even think of going
and deprive themselves of all sorts of things
just to find these physical treasures.
And that's still true, isn't it?
We're not really a mining country in the UK anymore.
That went in the 1980s.
But mining around the world is still very important.
Eleven years ago this weekend,
we first heard of the Chilean miners.
A group of miners in Chile digging for copper
and the mine collapsed behind them.
And on Sunday the 8th of August 2010,
we woke up to the news there'd been a further collapse
and the situation looked dire.
Well, two weeks passed and with frantic effort,
they managed to locate the miners
and amazingly found they were all still alive.
They'd survived for two weeks
on two days' worth of emergency rations.
It was over two months
before they were able to bring them to the surface.
And does a terrible experience like that,
albeit with a happy ending,
mean that people no longer go
and take these risks under the ground?
No, it doesn't.
And we hear again and again
of similar things in China and elsewhere,
not always ending so positively.
When we treasure something,
we will go to great steps to get it.
We will put ourselves to great inconvenience
and even to great danger.
And that is the message of the first 11 verses.
It's about physical wealth and the search for it.
And then the writer switches without any real warning
and he says,
OK, this is all very well,
but what about wisdom?
He says,
actually, wisdom is a lot more difficult to find
than gold and silver and precious stones.
You go to the places where you find
in these precious things
and imagine asking them
and they say,
no, not here,
not under the ground,
not under the sea.
It is really difficult to find.
But he says also,
it's really, really valuable.
You can't buy it with these most precious things
that humans spend so long looking for.
It is much more valuable than that.
And the book of this section
is taken up
with this praise of wisdom,
this thing that is beyond compare.
But I think that something is very important here
before we move on to the last section.
And that is
that we can't find wisdom
without effort.
We can't get wealth,
physical things,
without effort.
We can't really become wise
unless we work at it.
We are not innately wise.
Yes, we have intelligence,
we have judgment,
but we don't have true wisdom.
And to achieve true wisdom,
we need to be willing to do hard work.
Now, how do we get wisdom?
Well, we're going to look later on
and we get wisdom primarily
by knowing our Creator
and fearing Him.
And we can have a living relationship with God.
We can have the Holy Spirit guiding us
and helping us to live our lives wisely.
We also gain wisdom through this book.
The book that is full of God's wisdom
and that says to us the things
that God wants us to know.
And that's where a lot of the effort
needs to come in.
It's great at church on a Sunday morning
to read the Bible together
and to think about it.
It's great to spend time each day
reading the Bible
and taking devotional thoughts from it,
letting God speak to us through it.
But to get the best treasures,
to really get the value that is in the Bible,
is going to take study
and it's going to take hard work.
And we need to be prepared for that.
There's a book I found really helpful in that.
We don't usually have book reviews at our services,
but this one is on theme
and it's an exceptional book.
It's called Dig Deeper
by Nigel Bennion and Andrew Sack.
And what it is,
is quite simply a toolkit
for mining spiritual things.
We're going into the Bible
and for understanding it.
So among the tools, for instance,
are some we've used this morning.
We've used the context tool for Job 28.
We've used the structure tool.
We've used the repetition tool
with these two verses
that were quite similar.
There are lots of tools in this book
that will help us
as we seek to understand God's Word
and to dig deeper into it.
It's simple.
It's easy to read.
It's got lots of examples and exercises.
I thoroughly recommend it,
though only if it results
in you going to read your Bible.
It's not a substitute for the Bible.
It's something to help us
to get into Scripture.
But we need to put a bit of effort
into getting the wealth
that God wants us to have
and to gaining wisdom through Him.
So that was the search for wisdom.
Let's move on then to the source of wisdom,
which is from verse 20 onwards.
So we've looked down
and we've been down the sea
and the earth,
and the writer says,
you can't find wisdom there.
Wisdom is very elusive.
It's very difficult to find.
So where then does it come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
And he re-enters again
how difficult it is.
Living things,
birds don't see it,
distraction and death personified.
Say, yeah, we've heard of it,
but we don't really know too much about it.
And then he says,
the way to wisdom is through God.
Being wise in life
is having a relationship with God
that is right
and recognizing Him for who He is.
And we have a bit of a preview
in these verses
of what we'll see in much more detail
in two or three weeks' time
as we see God responding to Job
and just presenting His majesty
and His greatness
and how superior to us He is.
And the writer says,
where is wisdom?
It's in the Creator.
It's in the one
who made this wonderful world,
who made all of us
and who has complete understanding
of everything.
And so at the end,
the last verse
is another key verse in the chapter.
God says,
the fear of the Lord,
that is wisdom
and to shun evil
is understanding.
The fear of the Lord
in this context,
I believe,
means recognizing God's greatness
and how superior to us He is
and putting our trust in Him,
recognizing that He knows
what He's doing
and that what He does
is always right.
If we just get a little bit technical
for a minute,
when it talks about wisdom here,
it's a slightly different phrase
from what's used earlier in the chapter.
Earlier in the chapter,
it talks about the wisdom.
So verses 12 and 20,
we say the key verses,
it really says,
where can the wisdom be found?
Where can this thing
that is called wisdom be found?
In this verse,
there's no articles,
it's just that is wisdom.
And really what the writer is saying
is the same as the Proverbs say
several times,
that the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom.
Fearing the Lord
is a wise thing to do.
So in other words,
you don't,
as soon as you fear God,
you don't suddenly become
all wise and God-like.
But it is the starting point.
Unless you recognize God
for who he is
and trust in him,
then you will never get
to the heart of wisdom.
So you start with your trust in God
and then that's where
the hard work starts
we were talking about earlier
as God leads you
further into wisdom.
Let's go back to Minecraft to end.
In Minecraft, as I said,
you have a choice
of whether you're in
a survival mode
or in creative mode.
And if you've got
a group of friends
playing together,
they've all got to be
in the same mode.
You're either survival
or you're creative.
In the real world,
the thing that truly
demonstrates God's wisdom
is that the Creator
came into the world
of survivors.
That the Lord Jesus,
who is the one
who made everything,
who is responsible
for our whole universe
and the way
in which it works,
he chose to take on
the limitations
and the frustrations
and the sufferings
of being part
of creation.
He even allowed himself
to be rejected
by a mob
and put to death.
And that is the ultimate
demonstration
of God's wisdom.
I think the great passage
of wisdom in the New Testament
is in 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
And a key verse
is the one
that is on the screen now.
God chose the foolish things
of this world
to shame the wise
and chose the wise things
of the world
to shame the strong.
In other words,
what God did
was totally against
human wisdom.
He sent his son
into the world
to die on a cross
and Paul says
that's a stumbling block
to Jews
and it's foolishness
to the Gentiles.
It's something
that is utterly degrading
or appears utterly degrading
for the creator
to do
and such a stupid thing
to be involved in.
And yet,
it's in the cross
of Jesus
that we truly see
the wisdom
of God.
That we see
what God
is really about
and how he
has this
all-wise
view
of creation.
He's not
a God
who just sits
and soars above us
the creator
and looks on all of us
as pawns
and things
just to be moved around
and things happen to us
for his pleasure.
Rather,
he's a God
who recognized
our suffering
and recognized
the consequences
of our sin
and chose to come
and be part of that
through Jesus.
And as we go through Job
and we've not talked much
about suffering this morning,
we'll be back to it
in future weeks.
But as we see
the suffering
of Job,
we need to think also
about the suffering
of the Lord Jesus.
that the one
who was the creator
chose to suffer
in ways
which we can never
fully understand.
And he is wise
and wisdom
is to be found
in him.
And we can only
be wise
in this world
if we have that
relationship
with the living God
that recognizes
he is in control,
he has done
everything that we need
to have a relationship
with him
and to be wise.
But we need to fear him.
We need to trust him.
Our prayer this morning
as we finish
is that everyone here,
everyone who's watching
on YouTube,
that we will come
to know
and to fear
and to love
the Lord,
to recognize
his sufferings
and that only
through them
can we have
forgiveness
for our sins
and when we suffer
to keep our trust
in him
and retain
our confidence
that he
is wise.
That is wisdom
for us
to know God,
to love him
and to obey him.
Let's pray together.
Father,
we thank you
for your word
to us today.
We thank you
for this great chapter
extolling the value
of wisdom
but particularly
pointing us to you
as the true source
of wisdom.
We thank you
for the way
your wisdom
is displayed
through the coming
of the Lord Jesus
into the world
and his death
on the cross
for us.
Help us all
to make sure
that we have
the starting point
of wisdom
which is coming
to put our faith
in the Lord Jesus
entering into
a living relationship
with the God of heaven.
And then help us
when we go through
all the difficulties
that surviving
in this world entails
that we may
nevertheless
retain confidence
in you
and recognise
that although
we may not see it
you have a purpose
in everything.
Thank you
for your presence
with us this morning.
We pray for your blessing
on us as we part now.
in the name
of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.