Well I liked your sermon up until this section:
(Job 13:15) – Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him….
I need to have God slay me by His word every single day of my life. After all, what am I living for? I live for God! So slay me and show me what I'm doing wrong, cleanse the evil from my life and bring me conviction to allow me to pray and repent for my sin!
I think your conclusion does not match your previous observations. You move from the well documented affliction of people to the concept that the affliction comes from God. You do this by the abbreviated verse in Job the way it is used is often taken way out of its context: JOB 13:13 "Keep silent and let me speak; then let come to me what may.
JOB 13:14 Why do I put myself in jeopardy and take my life in my hands? JOB 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely n defend my ways to his face. JOB 13:16 Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless man would dare come before him!
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary expresses it well when they say:
On the other hand, Job was so sure he would be vindicated that he repeated his desire for a hearing before God (vv. 13-19). He viewed this boldness on his part as one of the evidences that what they said about him was not true. If Job were a hypocrite, would he be willing to put his life in jeopardy in this way (v. 16)? Such a man would not dare come before God. The much disputed v. 15 (see Notes) expresses neither the trusting commitment of 1:21 nor the hopelessness of the NIV margin.
The negative should be maintained in v. 15a, but Job was more positive than negative in this context. Even if slain he would not wait (yahal, NIV, "hope") but would defend his ways before God and was sure God would vindicate him. Although certain that their charges were false, Job did not claim sinless perfection. He admitted the sins of his youth for which he hoped he had been forgiven (v. 26). Why, then, did God keep frightening him with his terrors and treating him as an enemy, indeed, as an enslaved prisoner of war whose feet have been branded (v. 27)? He saw himself as helpless, as swirling chaff or a wind-blown leaf. If God would only stop tormenting him and communicate, Job felt all would end well.
If you are not aware of the other controversy around this text see the Expositor’s Bible Commentary footnote I will place at the end.
You say:
I need to have God slay me by His word every single day of my life. After all, what am I living for? I live for God! So slay me and show me what I'm doing wrong, cleanse the evil from my life and bring me conviction to allow me to pray and repent for my sin!
What does that mean? How does God slay you, is this like the Pentecostal emotionalism called being slain in the spirit? If it is a reference to Paul’s statement about killing the old man, you have not used the reference :
(Rom 6:6 NIV) For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- (Rom 6:7 NIV) because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (Rom 6:8 NIV) Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
But even that does not produce the concept of slaying every single day. Many Adventists misuse Paul’s statement that he is in danger ever day as if he was talking about dying daily to sin but that is contextually indefensible.
Your conclusion is not warranted by the rest of your sermon. If you wanted to stay within the framework you have made you might say: Through my affliction I can lean upon God and learn lessons that will aid me in my Christian experience. After all, what am I living for? I live for God! So my life should lead me toward God whether all goes well or I live with afflictions, for all our lives are reveal where we are wrong and where we hold to evil and we need to examine ourselves to be lead to a conviction to follow God
You then say:
Now I would like to close by leaving you with a question…..dealing with the truth of affliction as the hidden characteristic of righteousness……How many Christians today are willing to believe that God is going to RIGHTEOUSLY destroy them in order to restore them from their sinful nature? We must allow God to slay us everyday and knock us down in order for us to get back up. We must be afflicted in order to be righteously restored. Affliction teaches us how to live faithfully. God will teach us what he wants, when he wants, why he wants, how he wants, in the order he wants for the purpose that he wants.
I would answer no to your question. Affliction is not from God, in the world in which as you said sin is popular why is there any need for God to afflict us more then the sin that already exists. Sin is not God’s method of instruction; affliction is not God’s method of instruction. Jesus said in the world we will have tribulation not that God is going to bring us tribulation. It appears to me you have misunderstood the book of Job and taken a abbreviated somewhat out of context statement to assert that God afflicts Christians as you say a way to slay them and build them back up. But you really supplied no evidence for that assumption and frankly it is very contrary to anything in the New Testament. You may be tempted to try to use the idea of gold refined in the fire but still the fire is not necessarily something that God produced, just as in the book of Daniel the 3 Hebrews were thrown into the fire they came out successful and proven faithful despite the affliction not because God afflicted them.
Hopefully this helps. I would be nice if more people asked for opinions before they gave their sermons. I commend you for that
Footnote:
15 The interpretation of hen yiqeteleni lo' 'ayachel (hen yiqteleni lo ayahel, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him") has produced considerable disagreement. Much depends on how to understand lo. Most of the Hebrew MS tradition takes it as a negative, which would change the meaning from hope to despair: "Behold he will slay me; I have no hope" (RSV). Many other Hebrew MSS, some ancient versions, and the Hebrew oral tradition have lo (lo, "in him"), which is the basis for the NIV. There are a number of ways, however, that one could translate the line positively. For example, Dhorme: Rowley, and Pope translate the verb "tremble," "quaver," "I will not quaver." Andersen (Job in loc.) chooses to render the written tradition as la' (la), a rare assertative particle common in Arabic--"Certainly" (see M. Dahood: "Two Pauline Quotations from the Old Testament," CBQ 17 [1955]: 24, n. 23). Other positive renderings are Calvin's making the negative positive as a question: "Shall I not have hope?" The LXX probably read 'l (l) instead of l' (l) and therefore translated it "the Mighty One" (ho dynastes). Dahood (Psalms, 16:144) understands the LXX to be the translation of a rare epithet of deity spelled le' (le), common as a description of Baal in Ugar.), reading, "If the Victor should slay me, I will yet hope." Whatever the reading, the context appears to require a translation that ex presses Job's faith, not his doubt. Though Job in other contexts (ch. 9) was troubled about it, here he expressed his conviction that God is just. Since Job was not a hypocrite ("godless man," v. 16), if he could only argue his case in God's presence, he would be vindicated (v. 18). We of course know from the Prologue that he was right
