Quid pro quo. Do you know what that Latin phrase means? It translates literally as “this for that.” Conversationally, we might say, “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.” For example, if I head out on vacation and ask my neighbor to take my garbage to the curb while I’m away, it’s perfectly reasonable for him to expect me to return the favor when he goes away. He does something for me; I do something for him. Quid pro quo. That’s the way the world works.
Or, at least, that’s the way we expect the world to work. How would you feel if your neighbor borrowed your toolbox every weekend for a year, and the one time you need to borrow something from him, he says no? You’d be annoyed, right? “It’s not fair,” you’d say. “We had a deal (even if we never said it out loud). Quid pro quo! If you won’t give me the quid, I’m not going to give you the quo!”
Is that also how we approach our relationship with God? Do we have a quid pro quo kind of faith—an unspoken agreement with God that says, “Lord, if I behave, then you’ll bless me, right?” That was Satan’s accusation against Job. He claimed that Job only loved God because of what he could get out of the Almighty for behaving. Satan challenged God to take away those tangible blessings to see if Job would still love God for God’s own sake rather than loving him for the stuff the Lord gave to Job.
At first, Job passed the tests with flying colors. Job still praised and honored God even though he lost his wealth and then his health. But Satan kept chipping away at Job’s love for God like the brat who won’t stop teasing his little sister until she is in tears. For over 30 chapters, Job’s friends served as Satan’s mouthpiece, for they had fully bought into the quid pro quo mentality in spiritual matters. Listen to this sample from Eliphaz. “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you…23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored…27 You will pray to him, and he will hear you...28 What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways” (Job 22:21, 23, 27-28).
Job’s friends thought that God’s justice is absolute. If you do wrong, then you will be punished. If you do right, then you will be rewarded—no exceptions. But that view is simplistic, and Job knew it. Job countered that God’s justice is arbitrary—that there seems to be no discernable pattern for who gets the VIP treatment from God and who doesn’t. Job countered: “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? 8 They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. 9 Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them” (Job 21:7-9).
You can understand where Job is coming from can’t you? In our first sermon in this series, we tackled the question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We learned that the premise of that question is wrong because none of us are really the good people God wants us to be. Having said, I’m sure you know of people who seem to be a lot worse than you. And yet their lives appear to be a whole lot easier than yours. What gives?
Oops. Did you catch it? That’s a quid pro quo attitude. We’re really saying that God should bless us because we are (or at least seem to be) better than others. We want a reward for our behavior, and if we don’t get it, we’ll be upset. Job too eventually demanded: “How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin” (Job 13:23). Job felt that if no one could show him his sin, then he shouldn’t have to suffer the way he was. But here was Job’s sin. Job was upset with God because he thought that God was being unfair and should operate on a quid pro quo basis. But he doesn’t. Another one of Job’s friends would make that clear.
We spoke about Elihu last week. He was the youngest of Job’s friends and so was the last to speak. While he didn’t speak in a very loving way, he did make pronouncements worth remembering. Elihu observed: “[God] does great things beyond our understanding. 6 He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’ 7 So that everyone he has made may know his work, he stops all people from their labor. 8 The animals take cover; they remain in their dens” (Job 37:5-8).
I was surprised one afternoon on the island of Antigua when I received a phone call from my three o’clock appointment. The individual said: “Pastor, I can’t make it today. It’s raining.” Well, yeah, it was raining, but it wasn’t a hurricane or anything—it wasn’t even a downpour. So, I still went out but quickly learned why things shut down when there is sustained rain across the island. The topography is such that the rainwater rushes down the slopes and pours onto the roads turning them into rivers. I didn’t get very far before having to turn around. Likewise, when many of you said that the snow here can shut everything down, I thought to myself: “Well, I spent 18 years in Canada. I can handle snow…” except when it comes down at a rate of several inches an hour like it did this winter so that I couldn’t even plough through it in my Buick Park Avenue! 😉
With the weather (or with a pandemic), God can remind us who is really in control. That was Elihu’s point. What plans did you have last year that were cancelled or put on hold? We had a high school graduation that was cancelled. That didn’t seem fair to our daughter and her classmates who had worked hard on their studies and were looking forward to that day. How many weddings were put on hold? How many funerals were sparsely attended? How many people lost jobs? What did we do to deserve all this we wonder? But there it is again—the quid pro quo attitude.
Elihu reminds us that God doesn’t work that way. He is going to do what he is going to do, based on his plans, not ours. Should that be a reason for us to feel helpless? Yes, but not hopeless. We are not hopeless because the one who controls the weather and everything else in this world is a good and loving God! His plans and his actions are meant to bless us. We learned in our first sermon on Job that trials refine faith because they remind us of how little we are and how much we need our savior-God. We’ll expand on this truth in our last couple of sermons in this series.
Right now, I want you to rejoice that God doesn’t deal with us on a quid pro quo basis. Sure, you may feel that God owes you for every hour you sit in church, or for every dollar you put in the offering plate, or for every time you spoke a prayer or were kind to others. But what should God give us for the countless times we mumbled through our prayers, or gave an offering out of a sense of obligation? What should he give us for the times we used our God-given voices to complain instead of to praise God, or to curse others? He should give us the sentence he gave to his Son, Jesus: death and hell.
Job had complained: “…the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power… Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them…” (Job 21:7, 9). No, God’s rod of justice has not fallen on the wicked (and that includes us); it’s fallen on Jesus instead. Like a knight’s shield that absorbs the blow from an enemy’s sword, Jesus absorbed God’s anger over our sins to keep us safe. Will this Jesus, who went through that pain and suffering on Good Friday, abandon us now? No. So while God is mysterious, we can be certain that he is not malicious. As Elihu pointed out, we don’t always understand God’s ways, but we can trust that what he does is always in our best and eternal interests.
We are also learning through this series that the real purpose of life is not to avoid all unpleasantness, or to gratify our personal ambitions and desires. Our real purpose is to glorify God because that’s where we find true and lasting happiness. (John Jeske)
That’s something the prophet Habakkuk came to learn. In his day, like in Job’s day and in ours, it seemed as if the unrighteous prospered while believers suffered. Habakkuk complained to God about this, and God simply replied: “Habakkuk, I’ll deal with the unrighteous in my own time and in my own way. Don’t concern yourself about that.” God also went on to assure Habakkuk that the difficulties he was facing were not evidence that God had abandoned him. That promise moved Habakkuk to write this beautiful psalm of praise. “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
Isn’t that a splendid confession of faith? From Job’s experience, we know that Habakkuk was not misguided for writing those words. Job did suffer, but not forever. In the end he came out ahead, just as all those who have faith in Jesus will come out ahead when they stand with their glorified bodies next to their glorious Savior. And so, getting angry with God in the meanwhile because our lives are more difficult than we think they should be is like getting angry with your contractor for ripping out your old carpet and ruining it, when what he’s come to do is replace that carpet with beautiful wood flooring.
Sure, it can be scary to realize that we are not in control of our life. It might not seem fair that we still can get cancer even though we eat all the right foods and exercise regularly. Or that we might lose our job even though we are the best employee. Life isn’t “fair” that way. Oh, but we are getting something better than what’s “fair,” we’re getting what we don’t deserve: heaven. Come back next week as we study what motivated Job to hang in there until God made his love for Job obvious once again. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
The Latin phrase quid pro quo means _______________________. It refers to how we expect others to do things for ________ if we do things for _____________.
How did Satan imply that Job had a quid pro quo kind of faith?
Egged on by his friends, Job claimed that God’s justice was arbitrary—that there seemed to be no discernable pattern for who gets the VIP treatment from God and who doesn’t. How do we often show that we too have this quid pro quo kind of faith?
What important point did Job’s friend, Elihu, make regarding God’s actions?
Although we often feel helpless we are never hopeless. Why not?
Job complained: “…the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power… Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not on them…” (Job 21:7, 9). No, God’s rod of justice has not fallen on the wicked (and that includes us); it’s fallen on ___________. This truth helps us understand that while God’s ways are still often _____________ they are not ______________. We are also learning through this series that the real purpose of life is not to avoid all _______________, or to gratify our _____________________. Our real purpose is to ______________________ because that’s where we find ____________________.
(to do at home) Memorize the following passage, or write it out in calligraphy and/or illustrate it. Then post a picture of the finished product on social media as a witness to the confidence you have in your loving God.
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
How did Job’s experience show that Habakkuk’s faith (see passage above) was not misguided?
