St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Epiphany 5 -- February 6th and 9th, 2003
Job 7:1-7
1 Does not man have hard service on earth?
Are not his days like those of a hired man?
2 Like a slave longing for the
evening shadows,
or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages,
3 so I have been allotted months of
futility,
and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
4 When I lie down I think, ‘How long
before I get up?’
The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.
5 My body is clothed with worms and
scabs,
my skin is broken and festering.
6 "My days are swifter than a
weaver’s shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember, O God, that my life is
but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.
Dear children of our heavenly Father. Amen
Have you ever had one of the those days, months or years? I mean have you
every had ONE of those types of days, years or months? I think you all know
what I mean. The kind of day or week where everything seems to go wrong. The
kind of week where all the bad things that can happen, do happen. The kind of
week where you can watch your car break down, your family gets sick, one of the
appliances breaks in your home, things aren’t going well at work and to top it
off you look at the mail only to find a pile of bills. You insert your problems
and we have all been there
Today we are going to look at the life of a man who had one of the worst
days, weeks and months that I could ever think about. We are going to look at
the life of Job. If there was ever a person who could have just thrown his arms
into the air and gave up, it could have been Job. Today as we look these words
from Job, we are going to see that life is not always easy and that sometimes we
are going to have tough times. But more importantly we are going to see that as
children of God we never will reach a point in our lives where things are so
bad that we give up on our God. It is my prayer that these words from Job will
lead us closer to our God, especially when we are facing the troubles and
worries of this life. With that in mind, we will grow in our faith using the
theme:
Sermon Theme: In Times of Trouble I Call to You
1.
I am weak, but you are mighty
As we look at the life of Job, it
would do us well to recap some the key points in the life of Job. Job 1:1-3
recaps this very well, "In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name
was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2He
had seven sons and three daughters, 3and he owned seven thousand
sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys,
and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the
people of the East." Satan came to God and said that Job was only a
follower of God, because he had everything. God knew that this wasn’t true and
let Satan bring earthly hardships upon Job. God was using these earthly
hardships to test the faith of Job. Satan could take away his wealth and his
family as well as bring physical ailments upon him, but he couldn’t take his
life. Satan thought that Job would give up his faith, when things weren’t going
well. God knew that Job would draw closer to him during these times of trouble.
Over a period of time Job lost all his wealth and his children. He also was
stricken with boils over his whole body. He was in such terrible physical shape
that even his friends had trouble recognizing him.
As we live our lives on this earth
we might wonder why do such terrible things happen in the world, and even worse
why do such terrible things happen to us? Why did I lose my job? Why did
someone in my family get a terrible disease and die? Why can’t I make enough
money to make ends meet? Why are things so tough? As we look at the life of
Job, we realize that God doesn’t bring these terrible things upon us. He is not
the author of evil and terrible things. These terrible things that happen to
us, happen because the devil and sin is in this world. Because of sin, we are
going to get sick and people are going to die and life is not going to run
smoothly. People will lose their jobs and families are going to struggle
financially. God uses these tough times in our lives to test our faith. He is
looking to see if our faith stand firm under the pressures of sin and the
devil.
But we always need to remember that
we have God’s promise that he will be our side through all of these things. He
and his saving Word will never leave us. Just because the things of this world
seem to be falling apart, our God has not left us to fend for ourselves. He
will always give us a way out from our troubles.
The words from our text occur after
everything began to fall apart in Job’s life. In the chapters just before this
we see that Job didn’t get much help from his fronds and not even from his
wife. In fact his wife said, "Are you still holding on to your
integrity, Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9) Job’s wife followed the ways
of this world, which says that we must have a terrible God because he lets
terrible things happen in our life. Job also had some friends come and try to
comfort him during these tough times. His three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and
Zophar all had advise for him. Eliphaz had given his advice to Job in chapters
4 and 5. And the words of our text follow in response to Eliphaz’s comments.
Eliphaz wasn’t a vary good friend. Eliphaz told Job that the only reason that
bad things were happening was because Job must have done some kind of evil or
sinful thing and God was punishing him for it. All these terrible things were
brought on himself, because his life must have strayed from God somewhere.
The words of our text are in response
to these words from Eliphaz Job wasn’t in a very good frame of mind at this
time. He uses a number of word pictures to describe how miserable and tough his
situation was.. He talks about his life being like hard service much like that
of a hired worker or even a slave. He talks about living his life in futility
and that the nights were just as bad as the days, because he was in such
physical agony. There wasn’t any relief as his body was full of painful boils
and his skin was just raw from scratching. How would you handle these tough
circumstances? Would you cave in under all of these earthly problems? As we
listen to these words from Job, we see that the sinful nature in all of us will
rear its ugly head. As we look at the life of Job, we see that he went through
times where he wasn’t so strong in his faith. He was almost to the point of
having no hope, because these earthly troubles were so great. He writes, "My
days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without
hope." Job must have been at a very low point in his life as he talks
about his life having no hope.
Have you ever reached that point in
your life? Have you ever just sat back and said to yourself, "It just is
too much – I give up?" Have you ever said to yourselves, There is nothing
more to live for – My life is so bad.?" Have you ever had a moment or time
in your lives where your faith was so shaken that you wondered if you had any
hope left? I’m sure that many of us have. The Devil and all the evil of this
world are always pounding down around us. There are times where our faith is
terribly shaken almost to the point of total despair. Because of the sin living
in us we might say words or think thoughts which almost sound like our faith is
gone or dead.
But is it all right to do this?
Because we are sinful and live in a sinful world, is it OK to give up hope in
God and his power? Are we justified to say that our faith was so shaken that I
had every right to think in this way? Certainly not! Job wasn’t justified, and
neither are we. But this does point out to us why we needed to call out to our
Heavenly Father whenever we are in trouble. We will never win the battle over
the devil and his evil temptations on our own. Our faith will not stand firm by
our own strong will and determination. Job knew this and he spoke some words of
hope for us in verse 7
2. I
am in need, but you are my Savior
Job says, "Remember, O God,
that my life is but a breath." Job in all of his despair realize that
his only hope for help, both physically and spiritually was going to come for
God. He remembered his mighty Savior God who had promised to save him. Job
wasn’t asking God to help him because of his good life. He was asking God to
look upon him in mercy. Job wasn’t necessarily asking God to take away his
earthly ailments, but Job was asking God to carry him through his time on this
earth and use it to build up his faith. He was remembering that his time on
this earth was only a small time and that it would go by quickly. He was
trusting in the almighty strength of his God who was strong enough to create
him and this world we live in. He knew that this God would be able to save him
from all that was afflicting him, especially his sinfulness.
If you read through the rest of
this book you see the roller coaster that Job was riding as he endured these
hardships. Job’s life wasn’t always one to model, but we can see that this book
ends with a wonderful conclusion to this test that Job was going through. Job
realized that he had sinned as he showed his lack of trust and how he lost
hope. Job said, "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and
ashes." And then we hear, "The LORD blessed the latter part of
Job’s life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, a 1,000 yoke
of oxen and 1,000 donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three
daughters." (Job 42:6, 12-13) By God’s grace alone, Job withstood the
test of his faith.
As we study this story, we might
loose track of what the main theme of this book is. It is more than a story of
a man who endured hardship and serves as a good model of how to handle
adversity. It is more than a story to highlight the fact that bad things happen
to even Christians. It is a story, which reminds us that God’s grace and love
are always the most important thing in our life. It is a story, which points
out to us that God’s grace will be with us no matter what is happening in this
world. It is a story that is trying to lead us to look to what is the most
important thing in our whole life – the Gospel message that Jesus died for us
and that we do have an eternal home in heaven. In love Jesus died to free us
from our sin, and in love Jesus is always there to lead us through the earthly
problems of this world. Amen