4.1.28 6.4.2023 Job When Life is Wrecked

Start:

Series overview:

We live our lives before God and among others.

Family, Community, and Church are some of these contexts.

Regulating relationships

and

aligning our conduct with our profession of faith is a significant part of what it means to be a believer.

The covenant community not only instructs us how to live but provides a laboratory for living.

For the next month we are going to consider

How faith begins to work in our lives.

How belief should impact behavior.

The wisdom books of the Old Testament address this concept.

Apart from the Psalms, we would not describe them as particularly “spiritual”.

The so-called wisdom literature or books of poetry remind us that we live

here and now,

that the good and bad of life

is impacted and transformed by faith

For the next 5 weeks we will consider how faith works

When life is a wreck.

When we worship.

When we seek wisdom

When we work

and

Between women and men.

Entice: And we begin with something familiar to most of us.

The worst day of our life.

Job 1:1 ESV

1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

Then it all fell apart.

Virtually every one of us has stood staring into the abyss of a life which has been wrecked. Job’s story is extreme but familiar.

The book of Job is difficult to summarize or even describe. It is the story of how a man deals with the worst day of His life. It tells how his “friends” and coequals blame him for his misfortune. It details the failures of “conventional wisdom” and simple explanations for the problem of evil. When explanations fail and the brightest have spoken, then we need the wisdom of God, who Himself intervenes in His Son--whose worst day, redeems all our bad days and becomes the best day.

Engage: There are a thousand ways to relive the suffering of Job, countless cries of despair, and a multitude of questions about the justice, love, and goodness of God. God is equipped to handle our questioning because He has heard it all. Unlike us He sees the bigger picture and knows the fullness of time. In his questioning and probing God for answers Job and his “friends” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar explore the conventional approaches to Theodicy. AKA the problem of evil.

We’ve all heard some of their advice, maybe we’ve taken it. The world always offers us options.

In the end they are illusions of control amid chaos.

Allow me a couple of preliminary observations to help us process our lives in the light of JOb’s story.

Observation 1: God need not explain Himself to us.

Observation 2: You can’t “figure it out.”

When our life is wrecked, we need to be drawn to God’s wisdom rather than His justice. Our just God has made a universe that is not always just and does not always make sense.

Observation 3: Jesus filtered His message through Wisdom.

Wisdom is the lens through which Jesus views law and prophecy.

Wisdom is His characteristic teaching form.

His use of parable privileges wisdom as a hermeneutic center of His Kingdom Message.

This is important because

Expand: The story of Job is familiar and complex. In the prologue there is a heavenly challenge from the accuser. Job is stricken and his life is wrecked. He is isolated. His children are gone, his wife nags, his friends question his motive for being righteous. His dignity and integrity are ridiculed A fourth speaker comes on the stage to berate everyone else. Finally, God Himself replies to Job’s challenge of His wisdom. In the end Job’s motive for serving God is shown to be genuine, not because he is perfect but because from the depth of his anguish he speaks rightly to God.

Excite: We cannot look at every chapter, every verse. We will examine several passages which are emblematic of Job’s experience.

Explore:

We can overcome life’s wreckage, not by our wisdom and goodness but by God’s wisdom and grace.

Expand: Job’s experience yields several affirmations that help us see order amid a life that is wrecked.

Body of Sermon: first with Job we need to affirm that...

1 My Understanding is limited.

Job 42:1–4 ESV

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said: 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’

Job didn’t know as much as he thought he did.

His friends did not know as much as they thought they did.

Elihu understood no more than his older contemporaries.

It is essential that we grasp how little of the whole we see.

It is hard to know the answers when we barely understand the questions.

Next, we affirm

2 My Integrity is not negotiable.

Job 27:1–5 (ESV)

1 And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

2 “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,

3 as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,

4 my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.

5 Far be it from me to say that you are right; till I die I will not put away my integrity from me.

A memorable quote is Job’s wife “curse God and die!” One of the underlying themes of the “debate” at the heart of the story is that Job, if he sells out his own integrity will recover what he has lost. This, is of course the very accusation made at the beginning of the book:

Job 1:8–11 ESV

8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

The charge is repeated a second time when Job’s health is taken.

Job 2:3–5 ESV

3 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” 4 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”

Please understand. Job’s integrity was intact. He was not “on the take”

but

he still was not God,

he did not understand God’s ways,

nor did his integrity deliver him.

Bad things happen to good people.

Even when they are good

For no reason we can discern.

The plot of Job is driven by Job staying good while wreckage descends upon Him.

Next, with Job we affirm...

3 My God is wise.

Job 38:1–3 ESV

1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.

He Knows and does all things. His will is inscrutable.

You are not Him.

I am not Him.

Next, with Job we must affirm

4 My Repentance is Genuine.

Job 42:1–6 (ESV)

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:

2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’

5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;

6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

When Job “gets it” he bridges the gap between him and God by repentance.

Finally, with Job we assert

5 My Redeemer Lives

Job 19:24–26 ESV

24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,

Job anticipates vindication

Job anticipates incarnation

Job anticipates resurrection

Shut Down

Of all of God’s characteristics one of the least understood is His wisdom, mainly because we don’t study it. Again, let me remind you that wisdom was a primary way Jesus understood his own ministry and message. His contemporaries would have thought Him to be both Sage and Prophet.

Job’s quest ends with greater understanding but not perfect understanding of God’s wisdom. The bad had been done, the hubris of his friends exposed, his loss was real.

And one thing we generally miss altogether—God does not really answer any of Job’s questions. In an age of “practical” Christianity Job’s message is far too open-ended.

Ultimately God answers the question of evil not with words but with the Word—made flesh! God’s answer to sin and evil is the incarnate, present, wisdom of Jesus. Further argument by Job, or any of his advisors, or even you and I will not get us any closer to the answer for wrecked lives.

Jesus takes His stand among us as the answer to all that torments us, ultimately paying the price to undo evil in His own Body. The word became flesh. Wisdom walked among us. Not because we are smart, deserving, or good but because

God is wise and gracious.

God does not answer us according to our desires

but

according to our need.

That is grace.

That is goodness.

That is mercy.

That is love.

All disclosed in His wisdom lovingly nailed to the cross.