I’ll ask you to repeat with me this wonderful, ringing affirmation from the New Testament:
But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
I know. I know the one in whom I have put my trust. I know.
Several years ago I mentioned that I was planning to offer a course in church history on Wednesday nights. I was going to indulge one of my own interests, and fill in the gaps in your knowledge by romping through twenty centuries of Christian history. But my balloon was deflated quickly when one of you said, “What good does it do us to know history when we do not know our own hearts?”
Wow! What a thing to say! The only thing worse than telling the pastor that what he is about to do is off in the wrong direction is telling him that what he has already done was off in the wrong direction! It may be true, but it doesn’t feel good! But that’s the point. That is exactly the point.
For sometimes, you see, we give ourselves to a host of good things and ignore the one thing that is most crucial – that is knowing who we are and how we stand before God. We do a lot of good things. We stay busy. We pour ourselves into a mountain of work and a flurry of activity. But we miss the one thing that matters most: knowing who we are and how we stand before God. We do the “feel good” stuff, but we miss the point.
“What good does it do us to know history when we do not know our own hearts?”
We’ve just finished a wonderful celebration of Black History Month. I think it was one of the best we’ve had. We had music, we had liturgical dancers, we had poetry, we had moments in history, and, most of all, we had gospel messages. Not just historical treatises, but gospel messages. Not academic exercises, but sermons that probed our own hearts. Did you notice that? The speakers didn’t spend a lot of time rehearsing history; they put our focus on the Lord and on what He has done. And that’s exactly right. For that reason alone it was one of the best celebrations we’ve had of Black History Month.
In fact, I guess you could say that February was “all kinds of history month”. There is more than one sort of history that was celebrated in that shortest month of the year. The first Sunday of the month is always Baptist World Alliance Sunday, and some years, when I get to preach on that Sunday, I do something with Baptist history. I have felt it was good to know who we are in the great sweep of the Christian movement. It’s good to know some history.
And then somebody let out my own secret and revealed that February is the pastor’s birth month, so we ended one of our services with that great hymn of the church, that glad anthem, that stirring gospel chorus, “Happy Birthday to you!” Not exactly liturgical music, but it was fun. And made better by the fact that you did NOT sing the next verse, “How old are you?” To that burning issue I will simply respond that I’m too old to be afraid of being unemployed and too young to quit my job. Amen! That feels good. My history.
Black history, Baptist history, pastor’s history. We did it all in February. That’s good. But is it possible that in the midst of all that history we missed one critical thing, one basic issue? Is it possible that we know our history, but we still do not know ourselves? “What good does it do us to know history when we do not know ourselves?”
Job arrived at a place in his life that was not pretty. Job is frightening as you watch his heart and mind wobble on the brink of disaster. Job is really a mess, at many points. I know you’ve heard about “the patience of Job”. Well, put f that aside. Forget that. Job is no plaster saint, sitting sweetly, slurping soothing sayings on a garbage pile. Job is a tortured soul. He is a mess. He is in trouble. Let’s not forget it. Let’s not pretty him up. You and I would not want Job in our living rooms or across the back fence, because he is a mess.
But he is a hopeful mess. He is a mess that might get fixed, because, here in Chapter 9, he opens up, and we see him as he really is.
Now one of the reasons that Job is a mess is that his friends have tried to teach him history. They are full of facts and figures. They know their stuff. They’ve got it down pat. Do you have any friends like that? They know their Bibles cover to cover and the covers too. They don’t spare the horses. They insist on telling Job he’s got to get it right. Bildad and Eliphaz and Zophar – they tell Job, who has lost everything except life itself, that they know the answers, they know the equations: God gives you what you deserve. So admit it, shape up, get with the program, Job. In their cash register minds they figure that Job is paying the price for misbehavior, and so, Job, if you will just acknowledge your history, if you will just know how God works, it will make things better. Two plus two equals four, always has been and always will be. Job, learn the history of God’s laws.
But when Job speaks of knowledge – when Job speaks of what he knows and does not know, he goes to the heart of things. To his friend’s contention that God gives you what you deserve, Job answers, “I know”. “I know.”
"Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a [person] be just before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength -- who has resisted him, and succeeded?“
“I know”. Job knows that they are correct. Everything they have said is beyond argument. God is God and good is good and so forth and so on. But Job says that that’s not the real issue. That’s not the big question. The real question is, “How can a man be just before God? How can I get right with God? How can I get out of this mess? How can I be reconciled? How can this be fixed?”
And then this frightening, awesome verse, these incredibly full three pungent phrases. Job says – are you ready for this? – Job says:
“I am blameless; I do not know myself; I loathe my life.”
Repeat those three phrases with me, will you? Let’s soak in this:
“I am blameless; I do not know myself; I loathe my life.”
In those three phrases lies the whole issue – I know history; I do not know myself.
I
At one level, you see, it is possible to feel blameless. It is easy to put guilt and shame away and pretend that it isn’t there. If you live life out of nothing but your history, and never look within, you will bop along thinking of yourself as blameless.
Some of us blame everything that’s wrong on our history. We are not the ones messing up; it’s our history, it’s our background, that causes us to mess up. So we are not to blame.
We blame our family history. What our parents did to us. Oh, my mother made us go to church and say our prayers and give our tithes, and I vowed that when I grew up I would never do anything I didn’t want to do. So my faithlessness, you see, is not my fault. It’s my mother’s fault. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has told me that they did all that religion stuff when they were kids, got more than enough at that time, and were not about to go there again. They know their family history, and blame everything on that.
Some of us blame our cultural history. We put it all on the surroundings in which we were brought up, and pretend that we cannot rise above our culture. I was dealing with a woman who was about to die, and encouraged her to put herself right with the Lord and with the Lord’s people. She had been estranged from the church for many years. Her answer? “You have to understand, pastor, that I was raised in Kentucky, and we didn’t have anything to do with black folks there.” So? So you know your cultural history; but what about you? Will you die because of your cultural history? I told her that I too was raised in Kentucky, but God can forgive even that!
Some of us blame our family history, some of us blame our cultural history, and some of us blame our spiritual history. Oh, we are blameless, because, back there, some pastor was not all he ought to have been. Some Sunday School teacher was out of character. Some deacon didn’t deac. And so, because we know that history, we think we are off the hook. A number of years ago a church was torn up by a series of scandals that you wouldn’t believe. The pastor and his wife separated, and soon thereafter he married a deacon’s daughter, who had just left her husband. Then a very knowledgeable Sunday School teacher left his wife and took up residence with another very capable Sunday School teacher who left her husband. The marriages in that church began to fall like dominoes, one after another after another. A young woman in that church came to Margaret and me and said, “I no longer believe in marriage. I no longer believe in faithfulness. I no longer believe in church. And I am not sure I any longer believe in God.” That young woman went off to live a kind of uninhibited, loose lifestyle, with no concern for moral boundaries. And yet -- I will tell you, because we hear from her about once a year – she is still on a spiritual search, she is still struggling to find the truth, she is still trying to know herself. She knows much about her spiritual history; but she does not know herself.
When we live life out of nothing more than our history, and just know the facts and figures about where we came from and why we are the way we are, that’s good as far as it goes. But it’s really just denial. It’s really all just denial.
Remember what Job said? “I am blameless; I do not know myself; I loathe my life.” “What good does it do us to know history when we do not know our own hearts?”
II
After Job had dealt with the prescription answers of his friends, who essentially told him that he just ought to accept the past and live with it, Job came to the startling conclusion that he did not know himself. “I am blameless” – but “I do not know myself.”
I submit to you that we Twenty-First Century Americans do not know ourselves. There is too much to keep us from knowing ourselves. There is the bombardment of constant noise, traffic, media, chatter. And we do not allow ourselves the silence that might let us listen to our own hearts.
Do you do what I do? If I come home, and Margaret isn’t there, I turn on the television set or I punch up the radio. Surround sound stereo! If I am driving, once I get the engine started and the seat belt fastened, the next thing is to turn on the radio and get one of my favorite radio stations. I want some noise! By the way, occasionally I drive the church van, and – great day! – what are those stations you all select? But I guess my Eighteenth Century noise is not much different from your Twenty-First Century noise, because the truth is, few of us can stand silence. Silence makes us listen to ourselves. And we do not like what we hear. We do not know ourselves.
I think about the way we worship. We are uncomfortable with silence in worship. The Bible says, “Be still and know”, but somehow for us it’s “Be up and clapping so you don’t have to know.” The Bible says, “The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him”, but for us it’s “Make a joyful noise, noise, noise unto the Lord, and let that preacher fill every moment with talk .. ” – so that we do not have to think about ourselves before God.
The other day a Jewish lady called me about something, and in the course of the conversation she said, “I’ve never been to a Baptist church, but I understand there is a lot of energy there. I think I would enjoy that.” Of course I urged to come and see, but I also had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “Yes, but in your own Jewish tradition, at least there are some silences where you might hear the voice of God.”
I have a friend who takes a retreat every year at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a Catholic monastery where the monks do not speak. They maintain absolute silence, the better to hear God and to hear their own hearts. Some of us think we would go nuts in all that deafening silence.
We Twenty-First Century Americans prefer to surround ourselves with noise so that we will not know ourselves, lest we become like Job and realize that we do not know our own hearts. Lest we become like Paul, who wrote that he did not understand his own actions. We do not know ourselves, and are not sure we want to, lest we not like the fellow in the mirror, and that would be devastating.
We echo Job: “I am blameless; I do not know myself” And then, in frightening words, he added one more thing, “I loathe my life.” “I loathe my life”
Say it all with me. Job’s story: “I am blameless; I do not know myself. I loathe my life.”
III
Oh, what a place to end up! What a horrible place to end up! In despair. Feeling awful about ourselves. Feeling all wrong, when only a little while before we had said we were all right. It’s only a short distance, isn’t it, from “I am blameless” to “I loathe my life”. And that short distance goes right through “I do not know myself.” Oh, Job, Job, Job! We are just like you! We know our history, but we do not know ourselves. We are on the slippery slope toward finding that what we do know we do not like. And what can anyone do about that?
Men and women, there is good news. These is an answer. We can know ourselves in knowing Jesus Christ. We can know ourselves as God knows us, in Jesus Christ. And that makes all the difference. That brings hope to the mess.
Job said that when he traveled that road from denial, feeling blameless, through the noise, where he did not know himself, he got to the end, and hated what he saw. “I loathe my life.” But, praise God, he also asked the right question: “How can a person be just before God? How can we make this thing right? How can I be reconciled to God?”
The answer is that when we know ourselves in knowing Jesus Christ, we are made right. When we know ourselves as God knows us, in Christ, there is hope for the mess.
The Lord Jesus, standing in an upper room, just hours before He would be betrayed and crucified, surveyed the men seated before Him. He knew their hearts. He knew them far, far better than they knew themselves.
He knew that Peter would deny Him – that Peter would go into deep denial and would try to act as if he were blameless. “I do not know this man .. I never even heard of this Galilean”. Peter could have echoed Job, “I am blameless.” Jesus knew this Peter, but loved him just the same.
Jesus knew that each man around that table had lived life at the surface, had focused on pounding the pavements, getting the job done, being a good disciple. Each one had focused on doing things right, active, busy – but few had looked at their own hearts. Few had understood themselves. Why, when Jesus announced that one of them would betray Him, each one – each one – said, “Lord, is it I?” Each one suspected himself, for they knew nothing – nothing – of their own hearts. Each one could have echoed Job, “I do not know myself.” Jesus knew these men, but loved them just the same.
And Jesus even knew that Judas would betray Him – that Judas would follow the blandishments of Satan, clamoring after thirty pieces of silver. Jesus knew that Judas, bent on betrayal, was also hell-bent toward self-destruction. Judas could have echoed Job, “I loathe my life”. And yet – dare I say it? – I believe I can - Jesus loved even Judas! Jesus loved him to the end.
Whatever your story – whatever your history – whatever you are trying to hide – whatever you do not understand – whatever nameless misery your heart still harbors – hear the good news, know this: that in His amazing grace He loves you. He wants to receive you to Himself. He wants to make you right before God. He wants to rebuild your life. It is never too late, it is never too low, it is never too wrong for Him.
Come to this Table, and hide no more. Pretend no more. Dodge nothing. Bring it all here. And leave it with Him. He knows your history; but it is you He wants, not your record. He knows your heart; He will teach you what is in it when He has that heart. He knows your doubts, your fears, your anxieties; He will banish them all and will give you hope and peace. You will know yourself as He knows you, and you will be made whole.
“Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
“Just as I am, tho’ tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings within and fears without, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!”
I know my history; but better, in Jesus Christ I know myself. I know that I am in Him. And I am no longer ashamed. I am no longer ashamed. I am made right with God. I say with Paul:
But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
Say it, feel it, believe it, know it with me:
But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
