I preached it at:
o Providence REC 02/23/03
02/23/03
PREC
Sexagesima Sunday
I. Intro.
A. Questions
Have you ever considered how boring you are?
B. Paul
From the epistle reading today we might be tempted to conclude that Paul was an evil man. Listen to the litany of woes he details in the epistle reading: Stripes above measure, prisons more frequently, deaths often, beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, danger of robbers & foreigners, hungry, thirsty, and naked. Yet these horrible events were actually occasions of perverse boasting by Paul.
C. More questions.
How many of you have ever struggled w/God’s seeming lack of care? How many have doubted God because of a good God simply would not have let all this evil occur? I would like to turn to another biblical character who also greatly suffered and see what we can learn from his story. I want us to turn to Job, but first let me give you a helpful illustration that my son learned while listening to a Francis Schaeffer tape.
II. Reality is a book.
Francis Schaeffer used to describe reality as a book with a line drawn down the middle of it, like this. One side represents the visible, and the other, the invisible. If we sunder these two halves, and throw away the part representing the invisible, we still have a book, but it becomes indecipherable. That is what our lives are like apart from Scripture. We can see many things happening to us, but we cannot tie them together to understand why. Only by joining the invisible, which the Bible tells us about, with the visible can we hope to be able to read the book of our lives and understand the plot God has written.
III. Job.
A. Credits.
Like anything worthwhile in my sermons, the best parts are stolen. This time parts of it come from "What Happens When Christianity Doesn’t Work?" by Michael Horton. This article is a funeral sermon for a pastor who took his own life. MH uses the book of Job to try to make sense of this tragedy & to give some Godly perspective on the matter. He helps us to see that contrary to the myriad of books, sermons, and friendly counsel you may have received, Christianity simply doesn’t work. At least not like you think it does. Christianity is no shield from debilitating illness, abuse, divorce, depression, overeating, mental illness, rebellious children, and the like. Listen people, IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE THAT. What our faith is, is the ending of God’s anger against us. Our faith means that God’s wrath upon us is spent; His charges against us are dropped, and His requirements of us are satisfied. Against the backdrop of much suffering, MH brings this out in this article. I highly recommend it. Whoever wants the article may have it after the meeting today.
B. Read the book.
How many have read the book of Job? You need to read it. I tell my kids that my favorite book in the Bible is Mark, but this one ranks right up there with it. It is one of the most down-to-earth, this-guy-is-real books in all the Bible. Along w/Ecclesiastes it has more of the "I-can’t-believe-that’s-in-the-Bible" passages that almost any other book.
C. Overview.
Job is a book one of whose purposes is to answer the question, "Is God good or is He sovereign?". In the opening verses of the book, Job is described as at least one of the best if not the best & most righteous men of his time. Most of you know the story: He starts out in the book extremely prosperous, the Bill Gates of his day. Not only is he wealthy, he is also a family man - 7 sons and 3 daughters. Not only that, but he is a spiritual man, too: he acts as priest in his own house. Yet God screws up! He zaps the wrong man! Instead of rewarding this faithfulness, He takes it all away with "Mission-Impossible"-like timing. First, he loses all his children, then all his possessions. Not satisfied w/that, God sees to it that he’s visited w/a very painful and miserable illness, along w/3 friends who savagely turn on him. Job becomes suicidal. If God is good, then only a God of limited power would have failed to save such a deserving person from so much misery. If it were in your power to prevent it, would you let your child go through all these troubles? OTOH, if He’s sovereign, then only an evil God would have caused all this to happen. If He controls everything, then He caused this to happen. If He’s all powerful, why extract good from evil? Why not just banish the evil and bring the good about anyway?
Oops, sorry. Wrong philosophy. Actually, of course, the answer this book gives to the question as to whether God is good or omnipotent is, "Yes". Today I plan to skip around Job highlighting some of the important passages and their meaning, and then tying them together.
D. The Earthly Courtroom.
1. The Accusation.
The book of Job is a trial, two trials, actually. If you’ve ever seen "Law and Order" you can kind of get a feel for what’s going on. The picture jumps from one trial to another, giving the sense that both are happening simultaneously. The first trial is in an earthly courtroom. At first blush it appears that God is the judge, the 3 friends are the tag-team prosecutors, and Job is the defendant. He’s apparently the one whose guilt or innocence is being determined. However, I think it makes more sense to see these roles reversed. Job is the prosecutor, the 3 friends are the defense attorneys, and God is on trial. Listen to Job: 7:17-21. 9:21-24. Understand that Job only has these problems w/God bec he knows Him to be sovereign. Job does not retreat into the spindly, wimpy God that much of the church worships today.
2. The Defense.
God is defended by the second shortest person in the Bible. Listen to verses 8:1-7. If you were wondering who the shortest person is, it is Peter. He slept on his watch.
3. Mediator.
Even in the midst of his pain he realizes that he needs someone who will stand the gap between him and God. Requested: 9:32-35. Found in heaven: 16:19, Found on earth: 19:25-27. A mediator that’s both heavenly and earthly. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be?
E. Heavenly Courtroom
1. Main texts: 1:6-12, 2:1-8. The courtroom shifts, and in some significant and unexpected ways. In both encounters we are shown a court in which the prosecutor (Satan) brings charges of treason (cursing God) against the defendant (Job) while the defendant’s advocate (God) asserts the integrity of His client. Indeed, in both cases, it is the defense that leads out with declarations not only of innocence of a particular charge but also of compliance to all laws. The prosecution, speaking in reply and not as the initiator, seeks to narrow the charge to prove the defendant in violation of the capital offense of cursing God in his heart. Since the heavenly court, unlike an earthly one, can see into the defendant’s heart, the judge (God) allows the trial to continue. It is interesting to note, and this is key so listen closely, that the defense attorney is also the judge. He is not likely to contradict Himself, judge ruling against defense. This speaks of Job’s justification (declaration of innocence) already as the judge is omniscient, knowing beforehand the truth of the matter. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that Job does admit sin (42:6). Job’s innocence, like our own, is based upon God’s declaration of us, not our own righteousness. The judge then turns the defendant over into the hands of the investigator (Satan), who is allowed to gather evidence. What will be proved to the court (the angels) the judge and defense already know. In the first confrontation, God directs Satan to test Job by removing his possessions, but not health. This happens but Job retains his innocence, which is noted at the beginning of the second confrontation. Satan then asserts Job will fail when he is assaulted with physical pain and sickness, which God gives permission for Satan to try next.
2. Hidden part of reality
Job, of course, never sees the heavenly court in his story like we do. If he did, his questions would all be moot. Now, which court’s judgement, the earthly or the heavenly, counts? Certainly for us on earth, the earthly court is much more immediate and tangible. But ultimately, whose court decisions will stand? Our own condemnation of God and ourselves, or God’s declaration of our righteousness?
IV. Confidence
A. Listen how MH sums up the funeral sermon I mentioned earlier:
We are not called here this afternoon to judge God. God didn’t promise any of us health, wealth and happiness. In fact, he tells us that we who expect to share in Christ’s glory will also participate in his suffering. Christianity is true, not because it works for people in that pragmatic, utilitarian way, but because nearly 2,000 years ago, outside of the center-city of Jerusalem, the Son of God was crucified for our sins and was raised for our justification. This historical event may not fix our marriages, our relationships or our messed-up lives the way we would like, and in the timing we would like, but it saves us from the wrath of God to come. And surely in view of this, all else pales not into insignificance, but into secondary importance to that great issue. "For it is appointed for a man once to die, and then the judgment." We are not here to judge God today. ... You see, being accepted before God is not a matter of what we have done or left undone, or we would all be lost. It is a matter of trusting in that which Christ has done, for he has finished the work of our redemption, he has paid the ransom for our sins and satisfied the justice that our guilt required.
The perfect righteousness that God requires of us was possessed by only one man who ever lived, the Redeemer to whom Job and Paul and every other saint has looked for shelter from death and hell. The moment we trust in Christ and renounce our own claims to holiness and acceptability, stripping away the fig-leaves of our own making, God clothes us in the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Because of Christ’s life of obedience, his sacrificial death and his triumphant resurrection, we are accepted by the Father and made his heirs, given the Holy Spirit and promised the resurrection of our own mortal flesh. This means, it is safe to look up to God again. ... It is not his wrath that has sent us pain and suffering if we belong to him, for he intercepts Satan’s designs and fashions even sin and evil into messengers of grace.
B. Perspective
God’s designs are always bigger than we can see. We think that our life is all about ourselves and how we should be good and what will make us happy. If we end up sinning, we wonder how even God could fix this. Yet, it’s not really even about us. Even our goodness is not something that once we achieve we can rest on. When God finally got Job to the wonderful place of obedience, wealth, and health, THAT’s when He challenged Satan w/His righteous creation. Satan did his worst, but could not destroy it. Neither can he destroy you. God hasn’t lost an elect person, yet. Our whole lives, sin and all, are a challenge to Satan that God can do anything; that His work is more enduring than Satan’s, and that Satan himself is a liar. God isn’t worried how you will turn out. When I asked at the beginning "Do you know how boring you are?", I meant that God considers us interesting not bec we have done so much, but bec He has so much to do w/us. He declares us righteous for His own purposes and then writes us into His play instead of trying to help us write our own.
C. Summary
The new Geneva Study Bible, in it’s last paragraph of it’s introduction to Job, sums it up nicely:
When his eyes have seen the Lord and he has repented in dust and ashes, Job has come to understand that God on His throne is sovereign, and rewards those who belong to Him despite times of pressure and pain. The reader learns that Job suffered, not because he was one of the worst of men, but because he was one of the best, and that his ordeal glorified his God.
