The human body is amazing. Take your bones for example. Did you know that ounce for ounce human bone is stronger than steel? Apparently, one cubic inch of bone can withstand the weight of five standard pickup trucks! But if that’s the case, why can a simple fall from a bike or a stomp from a horse splinter our bones? Whether or not a bone will break depends on what kind of bone it is, where it is located, how healthy the bone is and finally, how the pressure is applied (discovery.com). As strong as bones are, they will break if enough force is applied at the correct angle.
What is true for our bones would seem to be true for our minds. Given enough force, or should we say, given enough stress and trauma, the mind will crack. In our text this morning, Job seemed to be on the verge of cracking. He had lost his wealth. He had lost his children. He had lost his health and his dignity. His friends blamed Job himself for the trials he was enduring. Job had cried out to God for help, but it seemed as if God had regulated Job’s prayers to his spam folder because he wasn’t answering. Can you relate?
But Job did not crack. He still found peace on that unpredictable path of his. He found it in his God who remained his advocate and redeemer. Let’s see how we can apply Job’s experience to our own. (Read text.)
One Bible student (John Jeske) remarked that from chapters 3-37, Job can be compared to a swimmer in high seas. At times you can’t see him because he’s submerged, but then he reappears to fight the waves before going under again. Job vacillated between despair and faith. Take this section for example. Job claimed: “Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice…” (Job 19:7). Words of despair. But earlier, when he was “swimming above the waves,” Job had boldly stated: “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend… 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend…” (Job 16:19-21). Words of confidence.
Have you ever, like Job, flipped between the belief that God was listening to your cries for mercy, and at other times you were sure he was ignoring you like the headphone-wearing airline seatmate who obviously does not want to be disturbed? Let me assure you, this flip flopping is not unusual. If even Job whom the Lord himself described as “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8)—if even he flip flopped, so might we.
The weakness is normal, but it is not excusable. Think of Jesus’ and Peter’s stroll on the Sea of Galilee. When Peter focused on his Savior, he strode confidently across that water. But when he took his eyes off Jesus to calculate the wind speed, then judged how unstable the waves were under his feet, and suddenly realized about how deep the Sea of Galilee was at that spot, he started to sink. Peter had the sense to call to Jesus for help and he received it. But Jesus also rebuked his disciple: “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)
No, God does not delight in faith’s weaknesses, just as you wouldn’t be happy if after speaking your wedding vow, your beloved said: “Hmm. Say that again, but on your knees this time and like you mean it! And oh, if you really love me so much, why didn’t you give me a bigger ring?”
While God does not delight in weakness of faith, he does delight in sustaining those whose faith is weak. That explains why Job had any faith left at all. Listen again to another of Job’s flip flops. He said about God: “He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree. 11 His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies…” (Job 19:10, 11). Then just a few verses later Job continued after perhaps pausing and taking a deep breath to shout: “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, 24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever…” (Job 19:23, 24) Let me hit the pause button here and ask, what would you expect Job to say next in view of all he had been through? What words would he want recorded for posterity? Something like these perhaps? “I want everyone who will ever live to know this: God lied to me! God led me on! He treated me like a favored son, but he was just toying with me. God’s no better than a kid who builds a home for ants just so that he can destroy it and them and laugh as he does!!”
While similar thoughts did course through Job’s mind and dribbled out his mouth like water from a rusty faucet, they aren’t the words he wants us to remember him for. Instead, Job hollered with a confidence that still reverberates this Easter season thousands of years later: “Oh, that my words were…engraved in rock forever!” And here are those words, speak them with me: “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:23a, 25-27)
Do you see the positive effect Job’s trials had on him? It made him yearn for heaven. God wanted to give Job so much more than the worldly riches he had enjoyed before his trials. God wanted Job to treasure the promise of an eternal life of happiness with him. That’s also one reason why God lets us endure trials. He wants us to see firsthand how health is fleeting, and how the latest gadgets or a new car or home won’t bring lasting joy. Only being reunited with God in heaven will satisfy. This is not a lesson that he’ll just teach us once, but again and again. We can expect to carry a cross our whole life with its slivers digging in at different places and at different times.
But we will never have to carry this cross alone just as Job didn’t. Job remained convinced that there was an “advocate” in heaven who was pleading his case. He now calls that advocate his “redeemer.” “Redeemer” is a technical term that referred to the person in ancient times whose responsibility it was to bail a relative out of a tight spot. If you were sold into slavery, for example, your “redeemer” had the responsibility of ransoming you and buying your freedom. Your “redeemer” might also pay off your debts so you wouldn’t end up as a slave in the first place. (John Jeske)
Job thought of the true God as his personal redeemer. Why, that was better than having a personal butler! For this personal redeemer, Job said, would stand upon the dust of disintegration and death, and would save and restore him. Sure, Job’s body was decaying before his very eyes, but Job was confident that even if God would not intervene and heal him, his redeemer would do so at the end of times. Job was confessing his faith in the resurrection.
Now are you ready for what I think is the most astounding truth of this sermon—a truth that should help you find peace on your unpredictable path? Job did not know his redeemer by name, but you do. His name is…Jesus. Why is that so astounding? Well, if you have been thinking during this series: “Job was some believer! I can never do what he did. I will never be able to praise God for the trials he sends my way. I’m not a strong swimmer like Job who was at least able to lift his head above the waves from time to time. I’m just sinking, deeper and deeper…”
First of all, don’t think of Job as strong, muscular, Olympic-qualifying swimmer. He was a sinner, floundering about with the doggy paddle like you and me. He too questioned God’s love and his presence. He too challenged God’s wisdom. What kept Job afloat was not the strength of his faith, but the lifejacket of grace that God had slipped around his heart—the same lifejacket of grace that is holding you up.
Compare how this grace has come to you and how it came to Job. Job did not have any written Scripture that we know of to sustain his faith. What he knew about God he must have learned through word of mouth—through truths passed on from Adam to Noah and eventually to Job. We, on the other hand, have the written Word in our Bibles that relays many promises to sustain our faith! Job looks like a shipwrecked sailor who is holding on to a single plank to keep him afloat through his trials while we have several planks—so many planks that they form a raft. And on this raft, we have life-giving water: Baptism! We also have rations to sustain us: the bread and wine of Holy Communion!
How would Job’s dialogue have been different if he would have had those blessings? For example, what difference would Psalm 23 have made? Job felt like God was pursuing him, like a cowboy chasing down a runaway calf. King David would have assured Job that no, the Lord was still his shepherd guiding him to green pastures and quiet waters even though he had to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
How would Job’s conversation with his friends have been different had he known these words of his Redeemer, Jesus? “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). How would it have helped Job (and how does it help you) to know that a better translation of that verse is “Come to me…and I will give you refreshment”? When our Redeemer invites us to come to him to find rest, he doesn’t mean that we will find an end to our troubles and pain, but we will find refreshment. We’ll find the strength we need to keep swimming through our trials even as Job did because we know that the trials come from a loving God who is holding our head above the water.
How can we be certain that God loves us? Our Redeemer, Jesus, proves it. It struck me how Job said about God: “He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. 10 He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree. 11 His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies” (Job 19:9-11). In reality, none of it was true. God had not stripped Job of honor. Instead, he had bragged about Job before Satan. God was not intending to tear Job down until he was nothing. God had set firm limits that kept Satan from taking Job’s life. And God wasn’t angry with Job, nor was he his enemy. And yet, those words of Job can be applied to Jesus. God the Father removed the crown of glory from his Son and replaced it with a crown of thorns. His anger burned against Jesus, as the Father counted his Son his worst enemy. Why? Because Jesus wore your nametag at the cross, the nametag of a sinner. (John Jeske) He did that so you now wear his nametag and therefore are being viewed and treated as the holy God’s beloved child.
And you are God’s beloved child no matter what you are experiencing. Don’t let your feelings or the trials you are enduring pull you down to the depths. Instead, climb aboard the raft of God’s Word for there your Redeemer will refresh you with his promises and the Sacraments so that you will find peace as you learn to say with Job: “Even now in the midst of my trials, my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend … Yes, my Redeemer lives. And in the end, I will see him with my own eyes. And I will also get to see the others (my children!) who have put their faith in him. How my heart yearns within me” (Job 16:19-21; 19:25, 27 - paraphrased). Amen.
SERMON NOTES
Fill in the blanks: Ounce for ounce human bone is stronger than ____________.
Apparently, one cubic inch of bone can withstand the weight of ___________________________!
Still bones will break if enough force is applied at the correct angle.
Job’s mind too seemed ready to crack. But it didn’t. Job found peace on his unpredictable path from
his _________ who remained his _____________ and __________________.
One Bible student remarked that from chapters 3-37, Job can be compared to a swimmer in high seas. What was the point of the metaphor?
Job flip flopped between faith and despair. If even he whom God himself described as a mature believer flip flopped, so will we. While such weakness of faith is normal it is not excusable. How do we know?
What positive effect did Job’s trials have on him?
Angry thoughts about God coursed through Job’s mind and dribbled out his mouth like water from a rusty faucet. But Job also called God his “advocate” and his “redeemer.” Define what both terms mean. Then describe how it brings you comfort to know that God is your personal advocate and redeemer.
While God does not delight in weakness of faith, he does delight in sustaining those whose faith is weak. How is the way that God sustained Job similar to and different from the ways that he sustains us?
How might Job’s conversation with his friends and his attitude towards God have been different if he would have known Psalm 23 and the words of Jesus in Matthew 11? How can those Scripture verses change the way you handle suffering?
Faith is believing that God is loving even when he doesn’t seem to be. How can we be certain that God does love us even when it doesn’t feel like it?
