Job (Sep.2, 2007)
JOB M3 September 2, 2007
Text: Selected passages from Job 38, 39, 40 and 42
In the movie Forrest Gump, after Forrest Gump returns from serving in the Vietnam War, he and his commanding officer in the war Captain Dan (who lost his legs in the war) go into the shrimp fishing business… at first they can’t catch any shrimp… and captain Dan asks Forrest where is this God of yours? See what happens and how Captain Dan responds.
(Show clip of Captain Dan shouting at God from the shrimp ship in the storm—from movie Forrest Gump.)
Like Captain Dan and Forrest Gump, Job has been through a storm of suffering…
Like Captain Dan, Job in his own way will cry out to God…
In one singular, tragic day, Job lost his businesses, his investment portfolio has been wiped out, most painful of all he lost his 7 sons and 3 daughters as a wind storm blows in from the desert knocking down his oldest sons house where he and all his siblings are having a party…
At first he responds with remarkable poise: he falls on his face in worship and prays (Job 1:21),
21 and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."
Then he ends up contracting a terribly disfiguring skin disease—open sores and boils have broken out all over his body, his skin begins to darken then fall out. He has a wife that tells him, “Curse God and die.” His “friends” as we saw last week, explain to Job that he’s suffering because he has sinned. Job finds that he is submerged by tidal waves of despair and begins to question whether God is good and just and powerful. In the midst of his suffering, Job begins to launch into a series of complaints against God. In Job 15:25, Job shakes his fist at God. And in Job 27:2, Job talks about the God who has denied him justice…. In Job 30, 31 Job demands God answer him!
The scriptures contain many stories of people who cry out to God in protest. God is assumed to be both good and all-powerful. So people featured in places such as Psalms 73 cry out, “Why do the evil prosper and the innocent suffer?” Abraham, Moses, David, many of the prophets question God’s justice. And throughout Scripture we see that God does not blast the questioner with lightning for these seemingly impertinent questions.
Job has no idea why he is suffering. He is unaware Satan has placed a wager on Job. He does not know that Satan has bet that Job will not continue to serve God if God allows Job to suffer. Satan assumes the only reason Job serves God is because God “pays well.” But Job has no idea, of this cosmic wager and Job demands that God answer him.
In Job Chapter 38, God does, in fact, answer Job…
The LORD Speaks
1 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?
3 Prepare to defend yourself; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
When God created the world, the angels spontaneously sang for joy.
8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
And God asked Job, “Have you ever asked the oceans to come this far, and no further? Have you ever made a sandcastle on the beach when the tide was out? As the tide was coming in, it turned to the proud waves and commanded them to come in no further? Job, have you ever walked on the bottom of the ocean?”
In verses 19 and 20, God points upward:
19 "What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings
And in verse 22, God asks, “Do you know where I make snow, or where I store hail? Do you know how I make frost on a windowpane, or cause dew to drip from a spider’s web?”
In Chapter 38: 31-33:
31 "Can you bind the chains [b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons [c] or lead out the Bear [d] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up [God's [e]] dominion over the earth?
God asked Job, “Who set the constellations of the stars in place? When you are out on a dark night in the interior somewhere, perhaps camping, and you look up at the star-spangled sky, do you understand how these were set into place?” And Job realizes that he is surrounded by a world that he does not understand…surrounded by a world of things over which he has no power…he is ignorant and impotent.
Even thousands of years later, there is so much of the universe that we don’t understand... Carl Sagan in one segment of his astronomy series, Cosmos, describes the Milky Way He shows a giant photograph of the Milky Way and says, “You probably imagine that we are right in the centre. No, we are way out here—in the corner. And what we call the sun is just one little sun among billions of suns in this one galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies. Sagan reminds us that we are just one little planet in one galaxy in the midst of billions of galaxies. And we dare to presume we understand what is going on!”
Einstein once remarked, “The more I study, the more I realize how much I do not know about the universe…”
And like Job, we are ignorant and impotent. We have no idea…
Chapter 39: 1-2: God continues to question Job about the animals.
1 "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
2 Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?
“When the mountain goat trots across the Himalayas, I see it. Every time a wild deer gives birth, I stand it on its feet and help it out. I am present.”
Chapter 39: 26-27:
26 "Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high?
The hawk takes flight by God’s wisdom and the eagle soars at God’s command (Power point slides for the animals)
Chapter 40: 1-2
1 The LORD said to Job:
2 "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!"
Job having seen all that he has is in stunned silence:
Chapter 42: 1-6:
1 Then Job replied to the LORD:
2 "I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
4 "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.'
5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes
With a certain vengeance Job has questioned the universe--but now he has allowed the universe to question him!
And God is big enough for us to question God, the universe.
In the Peanuts cartoon strip where Charlie Brown is standing on the pitcher’s mount, he says, “Boy! It sure has been bad lately.”
Little Linus comes up to him and says, “Don’t criticize the world, Charlie Brown. Were you there when they laid the foundations of the earth? Who laid its corner stone when its morning star sang together? Who shut the sea with doors of the sea when it burst forth from the womb? Charlie Brown, have you entered the store house of the snow? Who can tilt the water skins of the universe? (As he holds up his pitcher’s mitt to the sky). Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Do you give the horse its might? Is it by your wisdom the hawk soars and spreads its wings to the south?”
And Charlie Brown just stands there on the pitcher’s mound wondering, “Do I deserve all this?”
“Don’t criticize the world, Charlie Brown,” Linus repeats, as he walks away.
Charlie Brown shouts after him, “How would it be if I just yelled at the umpire?”
What Job is telling us is that it is OK to question the umpire of the universe, but then let the umpire of the universe question us. And, as we allow the universe to question us, like Job, we will not receive any easy answers, but like Job we may come to a greater awareness the wisdom, power, and goodness of a God whose ways we do not fully comprehend…
Victor Frankl the Jewish psychotherapist who was in a German concentration camp during the World War II who wrote the classic book Man’s Search for Meaning.
Frankl said that in the death camps those who survived were the ones who stopped asking what is the meaning of life and instead allowed “life” to ask what is the meaning of you? Instead of asking life what is your purpose, those who survived instead allowed life to ask, what is the meaning of you?
It’s ok to question God, but as in Job a door to life opens when we allow God question us.
Recently, I was with a friend who has been on a very interesting spiritual journey. She went to a prestigious, elite school on the East Coast… she became a feminist, believed that perhaps there was some higher power, but didn’t believe in a personal God…
She was working as a journalist in New Hampshire and was looking for a place to live. An opportunity emerged for her to live in beautiful place situated at the convergence of two rivers, each covered bridges, by open fields and a beautiful view of mountains…
All this and at a really good price, the only negative in her mind was that she would have to live with a Christian roommate…
This roommate was very educated, intelligent… had black belt in Karate…
Barb was challenged because she normally didn’t put the words highly educated, intelligent and Christian together…
One day when Barb was riding in her car, she heard a voice (almost audible in side her head)… You believe in the supernatural, why don’t you believe in me? This so stunned her that she was pulled the car over to side of the road… she later drove a church and talked to the minister about this… This minister asked Barb if she could pray for her… Barb said yes… The minister simply prayed that God would give her a sign of his existence…
Barb had this Dog Cody a Golden Retriever who was 10 years old at time… Barb notice this massive swell developing in his chest, like a balloon being blown up doubling the size of his chest… she went to the vet and the vet said, through an ultrasound we’ve identified a massive cancerous tumor on Cody’s heart… because the tumor was so large Cody was actually going into cardiac arrest… The vet we’re going to have put him down…
Barb sat in her car with her dog… tears streaming…God are you there? If you are I need to know? In the midst of that—all of a sudden a tide of gratitude welled up inside… Jesus was there… she couldn’t see him, but she could almost physically sense his presence holding her… It was Jesus not the “impersonal force” she had believe in.
Barb decided she wanted pursue treatment for Cody’s cancer either--chemo therapy or surgery for Cody. The next week she was took Cody to the SPCA animal hospital… The swelling in Cody’s chest began to diminish, he was his normal self. When they opened him up they were not able to find the tumor… The doctor said, “the only thing we can find is his heart.”
Barb had lots of questions about God, but she allowed God to question her. By allowing God to question her Barb came to know God and through knowing God came to know more about the meaning of her life…
This experience of God working in Cody enabled Barb to believe…
and ever since this experience has been a cornerstone… it was sign of God’s love for her, enabling her to know that she can trust God even in suffering…
We may say, I could believe if God showed me an act of love like that…
He has….when we look at God in the face of Jesus Christ we see a God who has come close to us… who taken on flesh and blood to draw near to us and enter our suffering… God doesn’t come to us simply with an idea or with advice but actually comes to us…
On the cross—he gives us himself, he suffers for us… Like many us of who live here in the city of Vancouver, the garbage in our life was piling and the cross Jesus mysterious took the garbage of our life upon himself, the sin so we could be set free… God came for us on the cross…
God comes to us now, he comes to us in the car of life—he may or may not heal our Golden retriever or heal us in exactly the way we want here and now…
But God comes to us and with us and enters our suffering… He is beside us…
Tim Keller, one of my teachers who serves as minister in NYC, says the answer to the most important question of our lives is not a “answer” but it’s a question, it’s the question of Jesus Christ on the cross, when he asks, God his father, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.”
The answer to our most important question, is not an answer, but the question of Christ on the cross… Why have you forsaken me…?”
When we see that Jesus Christ was willing to be separated from God in order to restores to God, when we see how deeply we are loved by God in Christ… we may not know why we are suffering, we can know that the loved by maker of all things….
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread…
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
Text: Selected passages from Job 38, 39, 40 and 42
In the movie Forrest Gump, after Forrest Gump returns from serving in the Vietnam War, he and his commanding officer in the war Captain Dan (who lost his legs in the war) go into the shrimp fishing business… at first they can’t catch any shrimp… and captain Dan asks Forrest where is this God of yours? See what happens and how Captain Dan responds.
(Show clip of Captain Dan shouting at God from the shrimp ship in the storm—from movie Forrest Gump.)
Like Captain Dan and Forrest Gump, Job has been through a storm of suffering…
Like Captain Dan, Job in his own way will cry out to God…
In one singular, tragic day, Job lost his businesses, his investment portfolio has been wiped out, most painful of all he lost his 7 sons and 3 daughters as a wind storm blows in from the desert knocking down his oldest sons house where he and all his siblings are having a party…
At first he responds with remarkable poise: he falls on his face in worship and prays (Job 1:21),
21 and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."
Then he ends up contracting a terribly disfiguring skin disease—open sores and boils have broken out all over his body, his skin begins to darken then fall out. He has a wife that tells him, “Curse God and die.” His “friends” as we saw last week, explain to Job that he’s suffering because he has sinned. Job finds that he is submerged by tidal waves of despair and begins to question whether God is good and just and powerful. In the midst of his suffering, Job begins to launch into a series of complaints against God. In Job 15:25, Job shakes his fist at God. And in Job 27:2, Job talks about the God who has denied him justice…. In Job 30, 31 Job demands God answer him!
The scriptures contain many stories of people who cry out to God in protest. God is assumed to be both good and all-powerful. So people featured in places such as Psalms 73 cry out, “Why do the evil prosper and the innocent suffer?” Abraham, Moses, David, many of the prophets question God’s justice. And throughout Scripture we see that God does not blast the questioner with lightning for these seemingly impertinent questions.
Job has no idea why he is suffering. He is unaware Satan has placed a wager on Job. He does not know that Satan has bet that Job will not continue to serve God if God allows Job to suffer. Satan assumes the only reason Job serves God is because God “pays well.” But Job has no idea, of this cosmic wager and Job demands that God answer him.
In Job Chapter 38, God does, in fact, answer Job…
The LORD Speaks
1 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?
3 Prepare to defend yourself; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
When God created the world, the angels spontaneously sang for joy.
8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
And God asked Job, “Have you ever asked the oceans to come this far, and no further? Have you ever made a sandcastle on the beach when the tide was out? As the tide was coming in, it turned to the proud waves and commanded them to come in no further? Job, have you ever walked on the bottom of the ocean?”
In verses 19 and 20, God points upward:
19 "What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings
And in verse 22, God asks, “Do you know where I make snow, or where I store hail? Do you know how I make frost on a windowpane, or cause dew to drip from a spider’s web?”
In Chapter 38: 31-33:
31 "Can you bind the chains [b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons [c] or lead out the Bear [d] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up [God's [e]] dominion over the earth?
God asked Job, “Who set the constellations of the stars in place? When you are out on a dark night in the interior somewhere, perhaps camping, and you look up at the star-spangled sky, do you understand how these were set into place?” And Job realizes that he is surrounded by a world that he does not understand…surrounded by a world of things over which he has no power…he is ignorant and impotent.
Even thousands of years later, there is so much of the universe that we don’t understand... Carl Sagan in one segment of his astronomy series, Cosmos, describes the Milky Way He shows a giant photograph of the Milky Way and says, “You probably imagine that we are right in the centre. No, we are way out here—in the corner. And what we call the sun is just one little sun among billions of suns in this one galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies. Sagan reminds us that we are just one little planet in one galaxy in the midst of billions of galaxies. And we dare to presume we understand what is going on!”
Einstein once remarked, “The more I study, the more I realize how much I do not know about the universe…”
And like Job, we are ignorant and impotent. We have no idea…
Chapter 39: 1-2: God continues to question Job about the animals.
1 "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
2 Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?
“When the mountain goat trots across the Himalayas, I see it. Every time a wild deer gives birth, I stand it on its feet and help it out. I am present.”
Chapter 39: 26-27:
26 "Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high?
The hawk takes flight by God’s wisdom and the eagle soars at God’s command (Power point slides for the animals)
Chapter 40: 1-2
1 The LORD said to Job:
2 "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!"
Job having seen all that he has is in stunned silence:
Chapter 42: 1-6:
1 Then Job replied to the LORD:
2 "I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
4 "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.'
5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes
With a certain vengeance Job has questioned the universe--but now he has allowed the universe to question him!
And God is big enough for us to question God, the universe.
In the Peanuts cartoon strip where Charlie Brown is standing on the pitcher’s mount, he says, “Boy! It sure has been bad lately.”
Little Linus comes up to him and says, “Don’t criticize the world, Charlie Brown. Were you there when they laid the foundations of the earth? Who laid its corner stone when its morning star sang together? Who shut the sea with doors of the sea when it burst forth from the womb? Charlie Brown, have you entered the store house of the snow? Who can tilt the water skins of the universe? (As he holds up his pitcher’s mitt to the sky). Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Do you give the horse its might? Is it by your wisdom the hawk soars and spreads its wings to the south?”
And Charlie Brown just stands there on the pitcher’s mound wondering, “Do I deserve all this?”
“Don’t criticize the world, Charlie Brown,” Linus repeats, as he walks away.
Charlie Brown shouts after him, “How would it be if I just yelled at the umpire?”
What Job is telling us is that it is OK to question the umpire of the universe, but then let the umpire of the universe question us. And, as we allow the universe to question us, like Job, we will not receive any easy answers, but like Job we may come to a greater awareness the wisdom, power, and goodness of a God whose ways we do not fully comprehend…
Victor Frankl the Jewish psychotherapist who was in a German concentration camp during the World War II who wrote the classic book Man’s Search for Meaning.
Frankl said that in the death camps those who survived were the ones who stopped asking what is the meaning of life and instead allowed “life” to ask what is the meaning of you? Instead of asking life what is your purpose, those who survived instead allowed life to ask, what is the meaning of you?
It’s ok to question God, but as in Job a door to life opens when we allow God question us.
Recently, I was with a friend who has been on a very interesting spiritual journey. She went to a prestigious, elite school on the East Coast… she became a feminist, believed that perhaps there was some higher power, but didn’t believe in a personal God…
She was working as a journalist in New Hampshire and was looking for a place to live. An opportunity emerged for her to live in beautiful place situated at the convergence of two rivers, each covered bridges, by open fields and a beautiful view of mountains…
All this and at a really good price, the only negative in her mind was that she would have to live with a Christian roommate…
This roommate was very educated, intelligent… had black belt in Karate…
Barb was challenged because she normally didn’t put the words highly educated, intelligent and Christian together…
One day when Barb was riding in her car, she heard a voice (almost audible in side her head)… You believe in the supernatural, why don’t you believe in me? This so stunned her that she was pulled the car over to side of the road… she later drove a church and talked to the minister about this… This minister asked Barb if she could pray for her… Barb said yes… The minister simply prayed that God would give her a sign of his existence…
Barb had this Dog Cody a Golden Retriever who was 10 years old at time… Barb notice this massive swell developing in his chest, like a balloon being blown up doubling the size of his chest… she went to the vet and the vet said, through an ultrasound we’ve identified a massive cancerous tumor on Cody’s heart… because the tumor was so large Cody was actually going into cardiac arrest… The vet we’re going to have put him down…
Barb sat in her car with her dog… tears streaming…God are you there? If you are I need to know? In the midst of that—all of a sudden a tide of gratitude welled up inside… Jesus was there… she couldn’t see him, but she could almost physically sense his presence holding her… It was Jesus not the “impersonal force” she had believe in.
Barb decided she wanted pursue treatment for Cody’s cancer either--chemo therapy or surgery for Cody. The next week she was took Cody to the SPCA animal hospital… The swelling in Cody’s chest began to diminish, he was his normal self. When they opened him up they were not able to find the tumor… The doctor said, “the only thing we can find is his heart.”
Barb had lots of questions about God, but she allowed God to question her. By allowing God to question her Barb came to know God and through knowing God came to know more about the meaning of her life…
This experience of God working in Cody enabled Barb to believe…
and ever since this experience has been a cornerstone… it was sign of God’s love for her, enabling her to know that she can trust God even in suffering…
We may say, I could believe if God showed me an act of love like that…
He has….when we look at God in the face of Jesus Christ we see a God who has come close to us… who taken on flesh and blood to draw near to us and enter our suffering… God doesn’t come to us simply with an idea or with advice but actually comes to us…
On the cross—he gives us himself, he suffers for us… Like many us of who live here in the city of Vancouver, the garbage in our life was piling and the cross Jesus mysterious took the garbage of our life upon himself, the sin so we could be set free… God came for us on the cross…
God comes to us now, he comes to us in the car of life—he may or may not heal our Golden retriever or heal us in exactly the way we want here and now…
But God comes to us and with us and enters our suffering… He is beside us…
Tim Keller, one of my teachers who serves as minister in NYC, says the answer to the most important question of our lives is not a “answer” but it’s a question, it’s the question of Jesus Christ on the cross, when he asks, God his father, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.”
The answer to our most important question, is not an answer, but the question of Christ on the cross… Why have you forsaken me…?”
When we see that Jesus Christ was willing to be separated from God in order to restores to God, when we see how deeply we are loved by God in Christ… we may not know why we are suffering, we can know that the loved by maker of all things….
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread…
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
posted by Shigematsu at 7:56 AM
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