Gems From Job: Where can wisdom be found? (Sunday, Feb. 7)

My current sermon series at Southside Baptist is on the Wisdom of Job called “Gems from Job.” What gems of spiritual truth can we learn from God’s servant Job? When we moved to Arkansas in 1996, one of the people I had the privilege of getting to know was a man named Jim Copeland. Bro. Jim was a member of First Baptist Church when I became their pastor, but 7 years earlier he was their pastor, and had been for 19 years. Bro. Jim was a wonderful man and I had the blessing of learning much about church leadership from him and his 40+ years of pastoral ministry. His life was far from easy. Born in poverty, he worked as a child in cotton fields; lived through the depression and served in WWII. After the war he went home to Ft. Smith, got married, and finally gave his heart to Christ. After a while, he became a deacon and soon felt called to pastoral ministry. Bro. Jim was in his mid-30’s when he went to college with his family in tow and literally pennies in his pocket. He graduated and went directly to seminary. After finishing his masters he began working on a doctorate and pastored a growing church in Ft. Worth. But after working so hard for so long to follow his calling, he began to have health problems. The stress of pursuing his education so strenuously and demands of a large church in an urban area caught up with him. Doctors told him he needed to resign his church and quit his doctoral work. I can only imagine the disappointment he must have dealt with.

So Bro. Jim went back to Arkansas. He decided if he can’t pastor a large church he would lead a small one. He found a tiny struggling congregation with less than 30 members in a rural county that hadn’t the first stoplight! 26 years later, I met him when I came to pastor that same church. For 10 years he gave me a lot of advice, help, and encouragement. He shared with me his experiences and things he’d learned. Never did he criticize my leadership. Never did he try to lead through me. He gave me exactly what I needed as a young pastor.

In 2005 Jim Copeland developed brain cancer. It didn’t take long before He was with Jesus. I miss him greatly. He was my mentor as a pastor. A man I will always have immense respect for. Bro. Jim faced many struggles in his life, but he maintained a deep, humble commitment to God. I, in many ways, became the beneficiary of so many of those hard life lessons he learned. As he shared his wisdom with me, I gained from his struggles.

I say all this as an introduction to the book of Job. I see in Jim Copeland a man who faced difficult hardships and disappointments, yet he humbly sought the Lord through them all. He gained wisdom and patience through each of these, and at the end of his life I was privileged to have him share some of those lessons with me. Bro. Jim was my mentor. What if Job were your mentor? A man whose life didn’t turn out the way he wanted, but in spite of that maintained his commitment and trust in the Lord? We don’t have Job to talk to. But we do have a book of his life story; his thoughts and struggles; and his wisdom through a difficult time in his life. I want to take the information in this book and draw from it some Gems of Wisdom that we can use in our lives today.

Chapter 28 of Job is specifically written about wisdom. Job compares wisdom to the treasures of the earth found deep within her. Verse 12, HCSB, says “But where can wisdom be found, and where is understanding located?” He then describes mines that contain gold and silver, caves with precious gems, waters with coral and pearls. His point is that wisdom is found in none of these places. Men go to such great extremes and dangers to find treasures, but how hard do we work to find wisdom? How hard do you work?

He concludes chapter 28 with verse 28 in which he describes how the treasure of wisdom can be found:
1. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that’s is wisdom
2. To depart from evil is understanding.

Man will dig deep throughout the earth to find gold, diamonds and precious stones. We pay great amounts for these treasures, but how hard will you work to find wisdom? How much money and time will you spend on it? Will you dig through difficult books like Job to find gems of wisdom? Will you seek the Lord in fear to gain wisdom? Will you expel sin from your life in search of godly understanding? These are the disciplines that result in wisdom according to one of the wisest men of the Bible: Job.



Jim and Jo Copeland, October 2005