The End of the Matter

SERMON: 2006-07-13--js0624--the-end-of-the-matter SOURCE DURATION: 00:34:31.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker introducing the topic (Book of Job) and concludes with a sustained theological exposition on suffering and glory, encompassing both opening and closing material. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:32:01.740-00:34:25.480 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Now, let me tell you at the outset this morning that hard as it may be to believe, not everybody is equally happy with the "he lived happily ever after" ending of the book of Job. There are in fact Bible scholars and Bible critics, particularly of the quote unquote liberal persuasion, who are rather offended by the way the story of Job ends. They're offended because it sounds too much like a fairy tale. It sounds too unrealistic. It doesn't do pastoral justice, they say, to many people who suffer and die in agony. And there's truth to those claims, of course, because it is true. Not everybody that has suffered loss ever experiences, in this life at least, restoration. And not everybody that has undergone tragedy sees that tragedy turned around. Yet such Bible scholars and such critics fail to understand that the book of Job is written from a particular literary point of view, a literary point of view that has a message and a purpose. And that purpose is to reveal to us the character of God. Listen again to how James puts it. Verse 11 of chapter 5, "You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." There you have it, the end of the matter. The story ends the way it ends. Because God is trying to illustrate to all creation his character, namely that he is a God full of compassion and full of mercy. And what I want us to try to do this morning as we look at the concluding verses of the book of Job is try to see how this story illustrates for us in three ways the compassion and the mercy of God. Here's the first way, God reaffirms his relationship with Job. Verse 7 of chapter 42 of the book of Job, "After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Timonite, 'I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.'" Twice in these concluding verses of the book of Job, God calls Job his servant. Now the word servant in Hebrew is the word ebed and it means anything from a slave to a bond servant to a worshipper. And it's really an expression of covenant intimacy. It's a picture of a greater and a lesser being bonded together. The greater provides all the needs for the lesser and the lesser acknowledges in servanthood and in worship the fact that he receives these things in covenant relationship. So while the Lord here is angry with the friends of Job because they haven't spoken correctly about him, he reaffirms his relationship with Job and he says Job and I were on good terms together. Now that's no minor matter because you will recall from last week that Job and the Lord have had some significant words together. Job has railed against God, has said, "God, I want you to treat me justly. I want to argue my case. I want to find you all that I could plead my case." And the Lord on the other hand had enough of it and he told Job a few things like, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? You know, who do you think you are?" And God put him in his place and that encounter, you will recall, ends then with a confession on the part of Job that says, "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes." Job finally understood that God is God, he doesn't have to explain himself. Job is but the creature of his hands and in submitting to God's authority and in trusting in God's wisdom, the two of them have worked through their controversy and God can now come to Job and he says, "Job, you are my servant. We have this covenant relationship together." And there's a principle there that we need to understand, I think, a principle that is very, very important and that's this, there is something about engaging another person, whether that be God or somebody in a relationship with us, there's something about engaging another person and working through the issues that come up to a proper conclusion that restores and then cements our relationship. Think of two lovers quarreling, think of parents having a fight with their children or two friends who have a go at each other because they are offended at each other and there has developed a gap in their relationship. A lot of us are afraid of that kind of engaging and for good reason because experience tells us it'll be the end of the relationship and a lot of us learn how to keep things in and many of us have learned that the hard way because if you really say what you really think people can't handle it and then each of you is in your own little quarter and there are many, many people who can't go there because they can't afford the storm and the battle. There are many people who don't dare engage God, lest God be angry with them and cast them into hell. And so what happens in that process of self-protection is that each of us draws into our corner, but what we lose is a sense of connectedness and a sense of intimacy. Far better for us to be able to engage each other and to do it in such a way that we can process what is really there because the net result of that then is an intimacy in relationship that we had not experienced previously. And again that's what happens between God and Job. They take each other on, God knows that he's God, Job humbles himself before the face of God and as a result Job gets to know God in a way that he had never known him before. God not only acknowledges him as a servant, but Job now knows God experientially in a whole new way. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you, therefore I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. You see what he says? I had heard of you before, I knew of you in an intellectual fashion, but now that I have engaged you, now that we have gone the full round and you have won and I am humbled before you, now I know you in a whole new way because I now know you experientially. I'll never forget years ago Lord and I had a major controversy, it had to do with my dating, my wife Michelle. We had gotten together, had gone together for a season when I sensed the Lord saying to me that he wanted us to break up. I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of situation, you don't know what cross bearing is until God's will crosses your will. And I'd love to be able to tell you that instantly with gladness and with joy I said Lord not my will but yours be done, but I'd be lying to you. And I had a terrible time trying to persuade myself this can't be the Lord, he brought us together, why would he ask us to do this now? And so this went on for a season but the Lord began to put the pressure on. Almost got into a car accident over it I remember and then I got sick over it and then I finally said well Lord if this is really you then this is what I need to do. And that is what we did. We broke up. And I thought it was for good. Now Michelle, she knew it was only a matter of time and I'd be back, but I didn't know that. I had no assurance whatsoever as far as I was concerned this was laying my Isaac on the altar. The most difficult thing I think that I've ever had to do and absolutely no guarantee that it would have a happy ending. But you know here's what I remember about it. As hard and as difficult as it was, it was followed by a period of joy in the Lord unparalleled to anything that I had ever experienced previously. There was something about having wrestled with God and having been wrestled to the ground that gave me joy unspeakable on the inside because I knew that God was bigger. Now as time went on we were apart I think for five or six weeks and after that we both had a sense of release in our spirits that God was saying you've come through the test, I can bring you back together and of course as they say the rest is history. We hope to celebrate Lord willing this year our 35th wedding anniversary. You want to get to know God better. You want to get to know other people better than the price we pay is engaging each other in the places that really count and God has a way doesn't he of flushing those places out where in the rawness of our relationship with him we're not just mouthing pious platitudes but it is exposing the very thoughts and the very intentions of our hearts and when like Job those places are yielded to God then God can come along and he can say Job you're my servant I love you I am restored to you because the suffering has had its purpose. One of the mysteries or one of the reasons God sometimes takes us through difficult times is because it's only in those difficult times that we get to know not only who we are in terms of our real heart desires but who God is that he is compassionate and full of mercy. So the Lord reaffirms his relationship with Job and then interestingly enough he entrusts Job with ministry verse 8 still speaking to Eliphaz Job's friend now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice burnt offering for yourself my servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. Notice how the Lord invites Job now to pray for his friends now to pray for somebody is to occupy a priestly position you'll remember that in the Old Testament as God led his people Israel he raised up three levels of leadership for them three levels of leadership that had an unusual anointing by the Holy Spirit prophets priests and Kings now prophets spoke forth the word of the Lord God through his prophets told his people where to go and how to get there Kings reigned with God's authority and exercised God's kingdom rule but a priest occupied a position between a holy God and a sinful people and here in being invited to pray for his friends Job is being called to a priestly responsibility God invites Job to take a stand between the holiness of God on the one hand and the sinfulness of Job's friends on the other hand and his job is to help them to recognize their sin deal with it repent of it confess it to God and then receive God's forgiveness and God's restoration the burnt offering points to the cross of Jesus how he ultimately died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and Job here in his priestly office he bridges the gap between God's anger over here and the sinfulness of Job's friends on the other hand and the story ends then with verse 9 and the Lord accepted Job's prayer and there were two things in that story then that would be helpful for us to pick up on and the first is this God often uses people to bless us now God of course can bless us directly and often he does but there are many other situations in life particularly when we have become alienated from God by sin that God uses other people to bridge the gap in a priestly ministry James as Lord willing we'll see you at some future date later on in chapter 5 picks up on that theme when he says is any one of you sick he should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well the Lord will raise him up if he has sinned he will be forgiven and later on yet he says in the book of James brothers if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back remember this whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins why does the Lord encourage us in the book of James to go to the elders when we are sick and to receive prayer for healing well many reasons and we'll get into them Lord willing when we get to that passage in the book of James but one of the reasons is this all through scripture God invites his people to be the channel through which his grace and love is mediated to a sinful world I could point you to so many examples in scripture going all the way back to Genesis chapter 2 where the river of the water of life flowing from Eden splits into four symbolizing God's grace flowing to the four quarters of the earth the covenant God makes with Abraham when Abraham will receive the blessing of God and he in turn will lead to the blessing of the nations all the way to the book of Revelation where you have the river of the water of life coming from the throne of God feeding the tree of life bearing fruit every month and its leaves are for the healing of the nations God invites us to share in a priestly ministry Peter puts it this way he says to the church you're a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light one of the greatest tasks that we have as a church is to occupy that priestly place of intercession where we link hands to a sinful world on the one hand a holy God on the other hand and we take people by the hand to the feet of Jesus where they can receive forgiveness and restoration and be born anew into the kingdom of God that's what Job does here and that's why just for the record the Lord expends so much time effort and energy on your life and my life so that the river of the water of life that flows forth from our hearts is as pure as possible we've probably all been in situations where we've had people pray for us or over us or we've heard people pray for other people and almost intuitively you recognize that their prayer is not so much geared to the person that they're praying for or the need of the person that they're praying for it is more geared out of their own woundedness and out of their own brokenness and God wants to move us to maturity so that more and more the river of the water of life that flows forth from us is clear as crystal as is the river in the book of Revelation am I making sense here that's why God expends such energy trying to make us a holy nation because we are a royal priesthood many of God's blessings come to us through other people you'll notice that in Job when the foundation of his financial recovery his family and friends each of which brings a gift to him which now becomes the foundation of what God blesses and restores Job to incredible prosperity God often uses people to bless us and then testing can often increase our fruitfulness now this is not the first time Job prays for somebody in the opening chapter of the book of Job we're told that Job prayed continually in an intercessory fashion for his sons and his daughters Job was a man of prayer asking God that if his children had sinned that their sins would be forgiven constantly making sacrifices for them but now I think you can make a good case that his ministry expands beyond his immediate family and he is called upon to intercede for his friends and I think there's a principle there and that principle is this as God tests us and if we can come through the testing successfully then God can entrust us with greater fruitfulness and greater responsibility Jesus puts it this way every branch that bears fruit he does what he prunes that it may do what bear more fruit see sometimes we think if we experience the disciplining hand of God in our lives or we see it happening the lives of other people that that automatically means that we are inferior or somehow or another there is sin in our lives and in other people's lives and there might well be I say repeatedly that's always the place for us to begin but notice in scripture how sometimes those who bear the most fruit experience the most pruning because for God to take us to the next level of life he's got to bring us through that greater level of testing and you can experience this in your own life and you see this happening a lot of areas it's the person who has come through a broken marriage who gains authority and strength to be able to help people through that next level of journey it's the person who has struggled financially or who has struggled health wise or who in some other way has experienced the valley of the shadow and who has come through it by God's grace better instead of bitter whose territory expands because you see it gives us a whole new level of authority you see it in the life of Jesus where he not only learns obedience through what he suffered according to the book of Hebrews but when he starts his public ministry the spirit drives them into the desert to be tempted by Satan 40 days he undergoes the challenges of hell and then when he has overcome Satan and angels have come and ministered to him the Bible says he went forth in the power of the Holy Spirit and he began his public ministry I think you can make a good case biblically that whenever God wants to launch you into a new phase and this is true not only individually it's also corporately when God wants to launch you into a new phase of fruitfulness and authority in his kingdom almost inevitably you'll go through a time of challenge a time of testing that lays bare everything that is inside that burns off the dross that makes the gold shine and that enables God to entrust you and me with the next level of responsibility do you understand what I'm trying to say testing will often increase our level of fruitfulness if God is gracious and he helps us to stand and to endure the test earlier you will recall James talks about the crown of life that is laid out for those who have persevered so God reaffirms his relationship with Job he entrusts Job with an expanded ministry and then of course he gives back to Job double of everything verse 10 of chapter 42 of the book of Job after Job had prayed for his friends the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first he had fourteen thousand sheep six thousand camels a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys and he also had seven sons and three daughters and at first glance it seems as if he gets everything back double except his sons and his daughters because he had ten to begin with and he lost ten right for many years I've wondered why double of everything else and why not double the children and then I read something just this past week that helped put it in perspective for me apparently in Hebrew thought family members that die of course go to a place called Sheol but they're still considered as part of your family even though you are separated now by the Gulf between the living and the dead actually Christians confess a very similar thing when we talk about communion of saints because communion of saints and bodies not only the saints that are alive but also the saints that have preceded us now that is a correct understanding that not only does Job get back double what he lost in terms of his animal population he also gets back double his children because he not only has the ten that are now deceased and in the realm of the dead called Sheol but he still has ten new children that God has given him and that of course brings us full circle to the question why double and what's the significance of the double portion well here's the significance of the double portion the double portion in the Old Testament was the portion of the firstborn and the firstborn was the heir the official heir of the father the one who would carry on his name and would carry on his estate and so when God here gives to Job double everything that he had before God is saying to Job Job you're not only my servant you are my son in whom I am delighted and I consider you an heir of my kingdom everything that I have everything that I am I am giving to you and we know from the New Testament of course this finds its ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus Jesus was faithful even unto death therefore God has highly exalted him given him the name that is above every name that at the mention of the name of Jesus every knee should bow all authority says Jesus in heaven and on earth has been given to me and today Jesus Christ who was despised humiliated rejected whose story in so many ways parallels the story of Job at the Father's right hand has received all that God is and all that God has and as you well know when by faith you and I are joined to Jesus and when we persevere in that faith in good times and in bad times we share in his inheritance Paul writing to the Roman says that in Christ we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ do I know what that fully means how that plays out in time and in eternity no because the Bible says eye hasn't seen ear hasn't heard the heart of man has not even begun to imagine what it is that God has prepared for those who love him but we do know that through the Holy Spirit God already gives us a foretaste of that joy and of that glory in this life and therein lies the mystery of suffering do we always get answers to our questions no does two and two always add up to four in the here and now I can tell you it does not life we would love to reduce to the simplicity of Job's friends do good and you'll get blessed don't get blessed because you've not been doing good life's not that simple what we do know is that the suffering of this present age is not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed and one day you look back as God draws back the veil and draws back the curtain and you'll discover that no tear has ever been wasted no stitch in the embroidery has ever been put in the wrong place no valley has ever been gone through without purpose or without reason and we'll discover in the final day that we see the end result that God is filled with compassion and with mercy because you see he will have expanded our capacity to receive the greater [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:32:01.740; remove through 00:34:31.000] glory that he [CUT] has laid up for the children of God to receive the greater glory that he has laid up for the children of God to receive the greater glory that he has laid up for the children of God to receive the greater glory that he has laid up for the children of God to receive the greater glory that he has laid up for the children of God to receive the greater glory 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