Scriptures: Job 38: 1-7, 38-41 Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45
Audacity and Humility …. (Or Pride and Perfection)
Recently I received an email with the subject line:”Photo of a perfect man.” When I opened it, it said “Image not available.” Well, now that is funny at least to the females in the congregation, but actually we know that Jesus came to earth as the perfect God-man. He lived a sinless life and made it possible for us to become totally righteous in the sight of God by trusting in his blood shed on the cross in our place.
From the moment sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, God began showing man his plan for us to get back into right relationship with him. The Old Testament law of God and the New Testament love of Christ stand together to point the way. I love to use all of the lectionary readings to see how they fit together to teach us a single lesson. So this morning we are looking at the passages from Job, Hebrews and Mark to see how pride affects an otherwise perfect man.
Most of you know the background to the story of Job (which isn’t included in the verses we read for today.) Job was such a good and righteous man that Satan asked God for special permission to cause him tremendous trouble and sorrow to see if he could get him to sin against God and turn his back on his great faith.
Job had no idea this was what was going on, he just knew that all of a sudden everything went wrong. He lost livestock and children and got terribly sick and his friends all accused him of committing some secret sins because this tragedy was coming upon him.
Job declared his innocence and refused to curse God and die. But he did finally gather up the gumption to demand some answers from God. We can’t blame him. That is what we all do….we ask, WHY GOD? Or WHY ME? That is when Job fell victim to the sin of pride. He set himself up as perfect enough to judge God as being wrong to treat him this way! He actually had the audacity to call God to account for his actions. (We have a warning in the New Testament about this in Romans 9:20 which reads, “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ’Why did you make me like this?’ ") I think this is the first time I have ever noticed that Job’s sin was in being proud of his humility!
Then God answered Job out of the storm. I once heard a sermon titled, “The thick darkness where God is.” God is light and in him is no darkness at all, but he often comes to us in our dark night of the soul. This is a different picture than we have of him as the gentle and good shepherd. God is not out to scare Job, but just make him contrite. In verse 3 when the text says, “Brace yourself like a man.” God is saying, “Ok, Job, let’s wrestle this one out. (I’m more than your match, strike me and see where you land!”) Then God asks Job 60 different questions, all of which are meant to show Job the nature of the God who created nature.
“If you know so much, Job, try making a whale.” The nature of God is that he is powerfully present and sovereign over the world he has created. You see, Job, you are not self-sufficient but I am all-sufficient. Things are really beyond your control but they are never beyond mine.
God doesn’t tell Job, or us, why bad things happen to good people, but we are led to understand that the creator and sustainer of the universe is able to sustain us through everything. It is not meant to humiliate Job but rather to humble him. Job insisted on his own righteousness and questioned God’s justice. He set himself up as God’s judge, and that is when he sinned in exactly the same way that Adam and Eve did. They doubted the goodness of God and God’s wisdom and set themselves up as equals in judgment of a situation. From that moment on, sin has been the reason for the death and destruction and unfairness in this world and God has been the one cleaning up the mess!
In Job 37:23 we read, “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.” I think it is interesting to notice that while Job didn’t trust God, God trusted Job! We get the background peek into Job’s problems and know that Satan asked permission to attack Job with his whole arsenal of bad things, and God said, “Go ahead, I trust Job to remain faithful.” Wow, if Job had known that, it would have really given him something to be proud of wouldn’t it? Some things are “too wonderful” for us to know. We trust in a personal God who knows us, not in a plan someone has presented to us. God is greater than we can grasp and we are smaller than we surmise.
We need to move from judging to trusting, from questioning to listening, and from our problems to some perspective. We ask God where is he when we hurt. He asks us where are we when others hurt. Life is unfair…so be there! Encourage others and expect God to show up as you respond to suffering. Feed the hungry, visit the sick, relieve what suffering you can in your own corner of the world. God’s silence is not the same as his absence, but your silence and your absence in the face of suffering leaves a hurting world to wonder where God is.
The mystery of suffering and sin always leads us to the final answer, when he who knew no sin became sin for us and suffered our death on the cross. That wasn’t fair, but it was how much he cares. Who can question that kind of love? No matter what happens we can say with Job, “I know that my redeemer lives.”
Our text from Hebrews says even Christ himself didn’t take it upon himself to be a priest and speak for God, but he was called by God to do so and with that call came a tremendous burden of suffering. It says “he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears” (in the garden of Gethsemane) “to the one who could save him from death, and his prayers were heard because of his reverent submission” (according to verse 7 of Hebrews 5.)
Yes his prayers were heard, but his sacrifice was still necessary because of the determinate counsel of God as part of the eternal plan for our salvation. Pride could have reared its head and we would be dead! But he became obedient unto death, even death on the cross. He never used his position as God’s son to remove himself from pain but rather yielded to his higher purpose in it. He was the perfect God-man able to be our perfect and humble Savior.
Now look at the situation in our text from Mark, as pride rears its head in the New Testament also.
When James and John asked to sit at the right and left of Jesus in his kingdom, he asked if they could go through what he had to go through. And in their audacity they answered, “Yes of course we can.” Jesus then gave the dire prediction that they would indeed suffer just as he would, (and we know they died horrific martyr’s deaths.)
But Jesus said he had not been given authority to grant the privilege to sit on his right and left in heaven because those places of honor will be given “to those for whom they have been prepared.” In other words, we will see whom God has chosen for that honor when everything God has planned is finally revealed. Do you see that Jesus had no problem admitting he wasn’t in charge of everything?
Then I think it is interesting that when the other ten disciples heard what James and John had the audacity to ask, they became “indignant.” Sounds like a pride stance on their part, doesn’t it? (I think they became upset that they hadn’t thought to ask that very thing!) So Jesus uses this opportunity not to berate them all for their audacity but rather to teach them the true road to happiness and humility.
He says “lording it” over someone and having lots of authority is not the way to live a fulfilled life. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Whom do we really appreciate?
Bossy people who try to tell us to shape up and snap out of it?
Or those who want us to just move on and cannot sympathize with us?
Or is it the person who is the first to visit us when we are sick…maybe bringing us a pot of chicken soup?
Or the person who is more than willing to sit and listen to our problems…without complaining…without judging?
Or the person who holds our hands and prays for and with us when we are facing trials and tribulations?
Or the person who rejoices with us when good things happen in our lives, and grieves with us when bad things happen?
Or the person that we know we can count on to help us in our time of need no matter what?
There is a story about a man who went to the doctor after weeks of symptoms. The doctor examined him carefully. Then he said you wait here, I’ve got to talk to your wife. “Your husband is suffering from a rare form of anemia. Without treatment, he’ll be dead in a few weeks. The good news is, it can be treated with proper nutrition.” “You will need to get up early every morning and fix your husband a hot breakfast—pancakes, bacon and eggs, the works. He’ll need a home-cooked lunch every day, and then an old-fashioned meat-and-potato dinner every evening. It would be especially helpful if you could bake frequently. Cakes, pies, homemade bread—these are the things that will allow your husband to live. “One more thing, his immune system is weak, so it’s important that your home be kept spotless at all times. Do you have any questions?” The wife had none. “Do you want to break the news to him, or shall I?” asked the doctor.
“I will,” the wife replied. She walked into the exam room. The husband, sensing the seriousness on her face, asked her, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “What’s going to happen to me?” he asked. With a sob, the wife blurted out, “The doctor says you’re gonna die!”
There is something about many of us that resists being a servant. We know we should, but we don’t want to. We have a model of suffering and obedience demonstrated to us by Jesus as he walked this earth in real flesh and blood such as we are. He hurt, he suffered, he cried and he prayed not to have to go through it all, just as we do. But he went on to the cross and the grave and suffered the worst of it for us and rose to secure for us the final victory over death.
Someday, when all our questions are answered and all our judgments are shown to be wrong and shallow, my guess is that we won’t wonder why we suffered so much but rather why we didn’t serve more.
Imagine the marvelous grace he will extend to us when as forgiven prideful sinners he says, “Welcome home, thou good and faithful servant. At that moment you can have the audacity to go into heaven, and his presence, as a perfect person, ……humbly bowing on your knees.
