2-7-2021 Grace - Benson & Vail Sermon

Job 7:1-7 Sermon. February 7, 2021. Grace-Benson and Grace-Vail.

When life goes terribly and tragically wrong; what is the Christian way to handle it? How does a God-follower respond? Do they smile and whistle when their money and possessions are torn away? Do they sing a hymn and skip when their loved ones die? Do they shout praises to God from a bed of desperate sickness?

The answer is; no. There may be some exceptions, but typically a smiling face during suffering is not what God expects or demands. Instead he allows and even seems to invite honesty, raw emotion, articulation of the suffering. That’s what we find in Job 7. God allows Job to speak. From Job’s words we learn how God uses pain as an arrow. An arrow that pieces, an arrow that points.

Job knew pain and tragedy. Chapter 1 tells us about a conversation about Job between God and Satan. God said, “Hey Satan, consider my servant Job. There’s no one like him who does what is good and shuns evil.” Satan responded, “Well of course he serves you. You’ve blessed every area of his life. But take all those blessings away and he will curse you.” In response, God gave Satan permission to make Job’s life a living hell.

In one day, Job heard horrendous news after horrendous news. 2 raiding parties stole his camels and donkeys and killed his employees. Any one of those things would’ve been terrible and traumatic. But Satan wasn’t done. A fire fell on his sheep and shepherd and burned them to ashes.

Then maybe the worst, his 7 sons and 3 daughters who he loved and prayed for daily, they were all in one house, and a tornado wind blew down the house and killed all 10 of his children at once.

Even if he woke up the next day and said, “this is a nightmare. But at least I have my health.”

That didn’t last. Satan inflicted painful sores all over his body. Job’s wife saw all this and told him to curse God and die. In such a short time his life went from pleasurable, rich, and full to truly hellish.

Then to make things even worse he had some friends come by and visit him. Those friends said things like, “Job, no one suffers like this unless they did something terrible and God is punishing them for it.” They said things like, “Job, God’s got some good in this for you. It’s a blessing in disguise really, you should see it that way.” Job had to respond to their argument, all while grieving and suffering agony. That’s the situation when he spoke the words you’ve heard in chapter 7. In them Job expressed how the arrow of pain pierced.

“Isn’t man’s time on earth like being compelled to serve in the army? Aren’t his days like those of a hired man?” All of us are thrown into life without our asking or choosing. You had no say over when you’d be born, who your family would be, what kind of experiences would be thrown on you. Into this life we’re thrown, like a dog without a bone. It can certainly feel that way at times. Job didn’t ask to be given 10 children, only to have them all die in a single day. Job didn’t ask to be given wealth and abundance, only to have it all taken from him at once. He was forced to respond to the pain of his experience. Like a man being compelled to serve in the army.

Imagine you are going along with your daily life, and you get a notice in the mail, you have been drafted to the army. You will leave for training and then fight in a war. And imagine the next day you got a knock on the door and an army officer was there to take you away. How disrupting and disturbing that would be. There are times we all feel like the details of our lives fit that description.

We're forced into a place where bullets are flying around, and we’d rather not be there. But we don’t seem to have a choice.

Like a hired man. A hired man doesn’t get to choose what he’d like to do. A hired man doesn’t usually get to say, “Hey boss, I like painting, so I think I’m going to do some painting today.” Instead the boss tells them what they will do. Now we live in a very blessed time where lots of choices are available to us that weren’t available to people throughout history. But still, we don’t always get to choose what to do with our energy, resources, interests.

Like a day laborer waiting for his pay. When is my payday? When will I get what I truly long for, and really have been working towards? We can all feel like we’re living paycheck to paycheck, and the currency isn’t money; it’s meaning, satisfaction, purpose. When will we get paid? It always seems like the payday is never quite enough, never quite gives me what my heart deeply longs for.

Job expressed the feeling of meaninglessness. “Months of futility. Nights of agony.” Job had worked hard to maintain his estate. He even prayed for and cared for his children. Then suddenly, with no warning, all was taken from him. He had no way to prepare for the tragedy. No way he could have woke up that fateful morning and thought, “I better prepare myself for the worst catastrophe imaginable.” No warning. He expected that at the end of the day he’d still have his property and children. And suddenly they were all gone. All with no explanation. God didn’t let Job know that he and Satan had talked about him. He had no clue.

God doesn’t always tell us before tragic and terrible events come our way. Often we’re left to wonder, “How did I get into this mess? How do I get out?” Unexpected loss of money or job. Sudden death of a dear loved one that leaves you with regret. Blindsided relationship breakdown or betrayal.

The agony is real. The futility is hard.

Even time seemed to work against Job. Notice how at night time slowed down when he wished it would speed up. “How long until I get up?” and the night drags on without rest for him. But then during the daytime, when Job wanted to be productive, “my days pass by more quickly than a weaver’s shuttle.” A weaver’s shuttle was for making clothing. Today you’d say, as fast as a machine in a clothing factory keeps zooming and running, that’s how fast my productive time slips through my fingertips, and nothing useful happens. The time flies by when he wants it to move slow and moves slow when he wants it to fly by. Time looms over us as well: lingering over our suffering, and speeding past any productivity.

We haven’t even touched on Job’s physical pain. Flesh clothed with maggots, caked with dirt.

Skin scabbed and oozing. It’s terrible. When the body suffers, it affects the whole person. Your spirit cannot help but be devastated when your body is in pain. Physical pain cannot be ignored away. Hard to imagine how terrible it must have been for Job, whatever disease and illness he was dealing with.

There are times when human bodies endure horrendously painful circumstances that push the limits of imagination. You’ve heard stories of physical pain that challenge imagination. Perhaps you’ve even endured some of it yourself.

And finally, maybe the worst of all: lack of hope. My days come to an end without hope. Job had no reason to think tomorrow would get any better. Hope has to do with expectations for the future. Considering the future is an advantage, but also a terrible burden. When things are ok, that’s good. But that;s just today. What about tomorrow or next week or next year? And when things are bad there’s this: even if you manage to drag yourself out of the pit you’re in; you know death still waits. We all constantly calculate how to play the game of life and win over time. But we all know, in the end, death is not a win. Death is no consolation. Instead a looming, threatening, terrible destiny which you have no guarantee on your own that death won’t make things a thousand times worse than it is now. Death is so final. It snaches away hope, especially when life is agonizing and terrible.

Job experienced all this at once. He knew: pain is an arrow that pierces. It cannot be ignored, it demands a response. One response is to ask, “Why?” What’s the lesson, what’s the reason for pain bursting into our lives? The Bible does have answers. Most basically and generally, all pain is a result of disharmony between people and God; a brokenness to our relationship with God, alienation from him is at the root of all pain. This alienation comes from active rebellion against God. He is the maker of all that is good. It’s so easy to take all the good in life for granted and forget the giver of all good.

When we start to think and live like life would be better without God, he allows us a glimpse of what that would actually mean. Things fall apart and break. Pain pierces like an arrow.

Now, not all pain has a 1 to 1 correlation between a person living in wrong relation to God and getting pain as a direct result. You will not be able to make that link when you’re in pain. But God did announce to Adam and Eve after driving them out of paradise after their rebellion; he said, “There will be pain in childbirth, in work, and you will return to dust.” Why? One reason: to remind you that as good as this life is; it’s not the best that human life could be. You still need God, you still desire God. Pain is a way of waking you up to your need for God. Pain is a teacher.

It was for Job. At the end of this terrible time; his faith connection to God ended up stronger.

Even his life got even better than before. That’s God’s goal in allowing pain. Satan has his goal too.

He wanted Job to curse God, instead the opposite happened. There’s no reason that can’t be you as well. Your connection to God made stronger by the pain you endure. It’s not automatic. You can go in the other direction as well. But God wants pain not only to pierce, but also to point.

Imagine you’re a healthy self reliant person, and you get hit by a real arrow. Pain spreads through your body. What would you do? Most of us would call for help. The piercing pain would point us to look outward for help. Where did Job’s pain point him? Look at v. 7. “Remember that my life is just a breath. My eyes will never again see good fortune.”

At first glance this might seem like another gloomy phrase. You need to know who he was talking to. Who did Job want to remember him? Not his friends, he was talking to God. If people would remember him, that’s no comfort. But if God would remember, he’d have a sliver of hope. Job mustered up whatever small glimmer of faith he had in God, and directed his agony toward God, in his direction. He was saying, “my hope is gone. But God, remember me. God, you can do something about this. God help, I’m hit with an arrow. I’m bleeding. I need you.” He refused to curse God or walk away or find answers elsewhere, even when his life turned hellish. He stuck with God even while suffering torment and agony. How could he? How can we?

Remember Satan’s theory? Basically Satan thought: God gives people stuff - wealth, family, health - and people like him for that. But take the stuff away, and they will curse God to his face.

Why? Because then he’s not a God giving you good anymore. He’s a God who allows pain into your experience. Who can trust a God like that? Who would worship a God like that? But Satan was proved dead wrong with Job. Job’s story shows, when people are pierced by terrible pain; and the pain points them in the direction of God; they don’t find a God cruelly rubbing his hands together in delight at their suffering. They don’t find a God callously turning away leaving people to suffer themselves. Instead they find a God who knows what it is to lose a son to horrendous torture and murder. Now Job couldn’t have seen this quite like you and I can. We can look at Jesus on the cross and see a Father losing a Son to tragic death. We see God as a vulnerable human suffering not only a hellish nightmare, but experiencing the essence of hell itself.

Job did not have the worst day in human history. Jesus did. Raided of his security and safety. It all started when he went to pray in a Garden, instead of comfort, he was given the cup of human suffering. Jesus was robbed of his life, cruelly killed, they turned his body to a corpse; yet he trusted.

He asked honestly while nailed to the wood, “Why have you forsaken me?” But he asked in the direction of “my God, my God.” Let your pain point you to a God who experienced the worst pain - as a human, for you. He was not thrown unwillingly like a hired man into this. He volunteered. He came knowing what it would mean, and he did it anyways. He faced crucifixion with honest, raw emotion; but with trust.

Jesus, as the perfect Job, as the perfect human sufferer, refused to curse God when the sharpest, most terrible arrow pieces him.

His pain like an arrow points you to the extreme love of God for you. Even if you suffer, God’s love has not vanished. He offers you a love which stays with you even in suffering and pain. His love doesn’t make pain vanish, but gives you a resource to endure.

It’s as if when the arrow strikes you, and you look to God, expecting that what Satan thought would be true, that you’d see a God worth cursing and not praising; instead, shockingly, you see a God who suffers. At the cross you see that even pain can be a tool in the hard of God to bring good, to lead people closer to him. Jesus taking the arrow of the cross shows his love for you.

Jesus did this all not by avoiding pain, but by experiencing and overcoming it for you. Jesus gives you rest, meaning, purpose. He heals your relationship with time. He gives you a body back that will be perfected one day. He gives you hope no matter how dark the day. His love will transform you into a person one day who is incapable of feeling pain anymore, you’ll be so changed by the reunion between you and God. The closeness to him will make all the pain and suffering you experience in this life a thing of the past. By dying and rising, he restores to you the hope of a painless life in the future, and the promise of a companion for the painful moments of this life. Let your pain be an arrow pointing you to Jesus. Ask him to remember you, he promises he will.

The final way your pain can be an arrow is to other people. When others see how you suffer with real pain, but also with real hope; they may be interested to head in the direction of Jesus. For Job, his suffering was not only about him. He was able to help his misinformed friends come to a better understanding of God. Countless thousands of people have benefited from reading his words, seeing his struggle, and yet the triumph of his faith. Job was an arrow to his wife that she was wrong, to Satan himself that he was wrong. Job’s endurance points to the power of faith, which is greater even than Satan’s worst schemes.

For you as well. Your suffering is not only about you. The way you endure suffering in faith may be a benefit for others. When you get hit with an arrow, and you turn to Jesus for help and find it; another person may see and be better prepared when the next arrow hits them. They’ll know who to turn to for help. Your endurance can help friends, family. Your endurance can send the message to Satan that his worst schemes will only have the opposite effect; instead of driving a wedge between you and God it only brings you closer to him. Your pain can point you and others to the power of a faith connection to Jesus which overcomes even the evil one.

If someone would have asked Job, “Job, what kind of person are you?” His answer would have changed after his suffering. Afterward he could have said from experience, “I’m the kind of person who can endure the vicious attack of Satan, the loss of possessions, death of servants and children, terrible illness, abandonment from my wife, ridicule from friends - I can endure all that and not lose my faith in God. Why? Not because I’m so great. But because God is.”

You can say the same when the arrows pierce and point you. What kind of person are you?

How will you know? Let pain play teacher for you. You are the kind of person who can endure the vicious assaults of Satan against you; who can endure loss of finances and family, loss of health, you can even face death itself and keep on living. Not in your own power or strength, but in the power and strength of Jesus’ dying and rising love for you. Pain can teach you - this is who you are, nothing less.

So keep listening and learning from Job. When your arrows pierce, let them also point. And call out like he did. “Remember me, O Lord.” He has, and he will. Amen.