Note: I usually post an initial sketch on Monday or Tuesday of each week; then, I come back with a revised piece on Fridays. I hope my thoughts nourish your thoughts, that something here helps you think in the right direction for the congregation you serve. Cheers!
-----------------------------
I. Introduction
We began our journey through Job
just three weeks ago, a journey through suffering. We all experience suffering,
pain, loss, hurt. And, we all want explanations. If we can figure what causes
the pain in our lives, we might be able to avoid the suffering…lessen the
suffering.
Job the man dealt with pain and
suffering. As we go through the book of Job, as we walk along with Job (and his
‘friends’), we gain a deeper and better understanding of both suffering and
faithful living.
At the beginning of the book, Job
loses his property, his herds, and his family—his children. In the face of all
his loss, he mistakenly thinks that God is the author of his suffering and
declares, “The Lord has given and the
Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
He has it half right. The Lord does
give, does bless…but what was taken from Job was taken by the Satan.
We may or may not get things ‘half
right,’ but we often get things upside-down. How many times have we moaned when
things didn’t go our way, “Why is God doing this to me?!” Our son, Andrew, was
learning to ride his scooter when he was three or four years old. He had
practiced a route that ran from the driveway, around the big oak tree and down
the sidewalk in front of the house. He had done it time and again…and one day,
we were outside with the video camera. “Dad, record this!” So I did. As he
rounded the tree, his little front wheel fell right into a crack and stopped
dead. My son and the rest of scooter spilled over head-first smack on to the
sidewalk. He came up wailing. As we consoled him, he declared, “God made me do
it!” Grateful for the theological moment, I steered him in a better direction.
But, some folks never grow out of
that—when bad things come along, they cry out, “Why is God doing this to me!”
Perhaps just as bad as blaming God
for every hurt and pain, when good things come along in life, we tend to take a
deep breath, put on a little swagger, and declare, “Man, I am GOOD!” That
special someone agrees to go out on a date, and it’s, “Yeah, I’m the man!” We
work a good deal on something we need—a car, a fridge, a suit—and it’s, “I can
deal it, I can deal it!” For some strange, mixed up reason, we think we’re
good…or great! We think we make the good things happen in our lives.
We have things so upside-down. The
bad is from God, the good is from our own amazing selves? In a right-side-up
world, we would recognize that “every good and perfect gift comes down from the
Father of heavenly lights,” and every pain, mess, disaster grows out of the
work of Satan, our own foolishness, or the brokenness of this world.
Job the book teaches us that God is
the Author of all things good…and that there are forces—spiritual forces—in
this world that wish us any and every harm, and that our own decisions leads us
to disaster at times.
Today, we resume our study of Job.
Let’s see what God has to teach us today….
Scripture: Job
14:7-15 (NIV)
7“At
least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and
its new shoots will not fail.
8Its
roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, 9
yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
10
But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
11As
the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, 12so
he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not
awake or be roused from their sleep.
13“If
only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
14If
someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait
for my renewal to come.
15You
will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have
made.
II. A Shift—from Lament to…?
Vs. 7-9: Job considers a tree. Job points out that the tree seems
to find new life even after it seems dead.
I saw this to be true very recently, in fact.
When we returned from youth camp, I noticed that there had been small fire at
the edge of a field near the Stripes down near where we live. The land was
scorched black. I remember thinking, “Ah…bad time for that in the middle of the
dry season—that’ll be there until the next rains in September.” I was wrong.
Just this week as I passed that patch of ground, I was surprised and pleased to
see that new grass had sprouted, the mesquite tree there was covered in green
leaves, and other weeds were slowly covering over the scar of the fire.
Evidently, the fire had burned off the surface of the ground, but the roots and
seeds in the ground were still there. Job was right—these plants and trees can
return with new life.
Vs. 10-13 – Job considers
humankind.
But, people? No new life there!
Once we are knocked down, once we’re stripped of life, there is no renewal.
When we’re done, we’re done. When we’re burned out and cut down, we humans don’t
tend to rise again. And, we can easily imagine that Job feels burned out,
stripped bare, cut down…and he senses that when he is dead, he will be dead.
BUT…in vs. 14-15 – We sense a change…a shift. Job
realizes that he is NOT dead yet. He may be sitting in ashes, but he is not
completely burned out. His world has been cut down…but he is not cut down
completely. He has voice, he has thought…and as long as he is alive, he has HOPE!
The tree may live again and humankind may find no new life…but, AS LONG AS I
LIVE, THERE IS HOPE!
We hear this again clearly later in Job’s discourse (Job
19):
23“Oh,
that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,
24that
they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever!
25I
know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26And
after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
27I
myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns
within me!
In the midst of his sorrow, loss
and suffering, Job holds on to HOPE. In fact, we should not even be surprised. He
is a man of faith…and a large measure of faith has to do with hope. Do you know
the words Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome?
“…We know that
suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans
5:3-5)
Suffering produces perseverance
which produces character which produces hope! Job knows what suffering is…his
suffering resulted in perseverance…character and…Hope! His journey through the
darkness, the loss and pain has brought him to a new place. Job has HOPE! And
hope…well, hope is everything.
III. The Power of Hope
Patrick Seger was the Samaritan’s
Purse team leader in the Philippines for the first month after Typhoon Haiyan
in 2013. “It’s been said that a person
can live 40 days without food, four days without water, four minutes without
air, but only four seconds without hope. Why? Hope provides the power that
energizes us with life. Hope is a powerful thing. It keeps us going when times
are tough. It creates excitement in us for the future. It gives us reason to
live. It gives us strength and courage.”
Also in 2013, Time magazine published an article called “How Hope Works.” The
author points to scientific data, psychological experiments…and the very real,
everyday experiences of people to show first of all that there is a direct link
between HOPE and work productivity & academic achievement. The author
points out that hope is NOT the same as wishing. Hope is a deliberate process
that recognizes where one is…where one wants to be…and a willingness to take
the steps to get from one place to the other. In the studies, they found that
people with a higher level of hope had a greater tolerance for discomfort,
inconvenience…and suffering. Hope has power!
In 2015, The New York Times published “The Power of Hope is Real.” The
author points to multinational studies that have shown that people who are
stressed, impoverished and hopeless can have their lives turned around when
they are given hope. While Karl Marx, one of the founders of the communist
movement, once said that ‘religion is the opiate of the people,’ these studies
found quite the opposite…that religion—a hope-filled religion—is the
amphetamine of the people! In the end of the study, what did they discover
works to lift people out of extreme poverty? The power of hope!
These 21st Century
writers, newspapers, magazines, and studies all serve to confirm what the
Scriptures told us 2000 years ago. Hope gives life. Hope carries us through
suffering.
IV. A Faith of Hope
Jesus is the author of hope for us.
What could we do without God’s forgiveness? What could we expect without the
work of Jesus on the Cross? Who would we be today if not for the life-changing
faith that God gives us in Christ Jesus? Jesus’ call to repentance is a call of
hope—we can change! Jesus’ call to discipleship is a call of hope—we can live
differently. Jesus’ call to mission (“Go therefore into all the world….”) is a
call of hope—we can change the world…as God’s people.
V. Conclusion
So, where has Job taken us today?
We see that even in the midst of suffering, even when we feel we may have lost
EVERYTHING, there is still a place for hope.
In fact, Paul reminds us that hope comes out of suffering. We see where we are.
We see where we need to be. We determine to do whatever is necessary to get
from point A to point B—and hope is born. As Christians living three or four
thousand years after Job, we know that two of the greatest things we can do as
followers of Jesus: 1) Hold on to the hope within our own lives; 2) sow seeds
of hope in the lives of others—help them to see that our God is a God of
change, that change is possible. What is your hope? What seems ‘hopeless’ in
your life? Where there is hope, there is possibility.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment