Here's a talk that I gave on Job. Feel free to download from the other site or ask me to email it to you (transcript in softcopy or audio file that's 14MB and a whopping 31 minutes!)
Before you listen...
- read God's speeches in Job 38-42 aloud, loudly!
- read Job 1 & 2, if you're keen
- and if you're really keen, soak up the rest of Job.
During the sermon... refer to this outline:
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Fear the Lord
1:1, 1:8, 2:3, 1:9, 6:14, 9:32-35, 13:9-11, 13:21-23, 21:6, 23:3-4, 23:6-7, 23:15-17, 27:2-6, 28:28, 31:23, 31:35-37
God answered Job – Mystery & Power of Creation
Wisdom & Folly
Creator & Creation
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After you listen to the sermon... read some 'blog extras' ~ outtakes, commentary, gag reel:
- I said "after"!
- 1 Peter makes a great reading companion to Job, as a book on suffering.
- the 62th version of the talk was going to consist entirely of questions to convey the bigness and perplexity of Job, and highlight the number of contemporary issues that it raises.
- Have you noticed that God asks a lot of questions in the Bible?
- The working title of the sermon was "Job, the Comedy of Wisdom". We often think of Job as a tragedy because it's filled with suffering. But as a genre in literature, Job would be classified as a comedy. Job, the hero fulfills the quest by continuing to "fear God for nothing". At the end, God does not retract his approval of Job as a righteous man. (c.f. A tragedy where the hero does not accomplish the task. Alternative, tragic endings: Job loses his fear of the Lord, Job charges God with wrongdoing, Job curses God and dies, Job stops waiting for God's vindication.) Plus, there's definitely a happy ending!
- It's interesting that Christians tend to shy away from suffering. We always pray for it to be taken away and are often surprised / indignant when it happens.
- Suffering weeds out those who are only "in it" for the blessings from those who are really in it for God. Job proved that he was only in it for God. God's shower of blessings at the end is a completely free and joyful gift (not a bribe as Satan insinuated).
- Job makes a cameo in Ezekiel 14:14 and James 5: 11 as one of God's favorites and a blessed man who persevered through suffering.
- a sermon on Job's friends could be called "Pity the Fool"
- I realised that a friend saw me as one of Job's friends when he said "Hon's got an answer for everything".
- an adapted therapy idea for people made deeply introspective from suffering: read God's speeches (Job 38-41) to them. Loudly and forcefully. So they feel pinned to the wall and stung by a bee. (And hopefully get shaken out of their despair and face God's bigness and power!)
- Job is as much about suffering as Ecclesiastes is about significance.
- An exploration of The Fear of God in the Bible hit the cutting room floor.
- Omitted illustration from King Kong to show how God's raw power might have inspired good fear and trust in God who loves you:
Jungle predators were no match for him. King Kong could not be subdued by natives, chemicals or chrome steel chains. Sheer brute force. There was a scene when Kong fights off a pack of dinosaurs who were attacking Ann. She gets away but then finds herself face to face with a hungry T-rex, who looked intent on eating her. Kong drops in behind her and… she steps back into his shadow… waiting for him to fight for her once more. Yes, he could still crush her with one hand, but he was using his power to protect because he cares for her. Raw power evokes blind terror, but power with love was her security.
- Ideas for a series on Job:
· Grace in Job
· Christ in Job, Emmanuel
· Theodicy & Morality in Job
· Our right responses to suffering
2 comments:
No time to read your exposition just yet, but I did an exegesis subject on the book of Job and loved it - I think it is required reading for any Christ-follower. Some key ideas I recall off the top of my head:
- God's not safe (a la Aslan in Chronicles). He is good and He is kind, but He can do as He pleases. And He does do as He pleases.
- In suffering, 'blaming' or calling on God is an act of faith - for who else BUT God??? Besides, God can handle it. He's God after all.
Good one, Leng! Found myself going "yeah...! Yeah!" to your comments
God's not tame at all! (No need to defend him). People often miss God's freedom in Job. And therefore, they miss God's abundance grace in Job, too.
I like what you wrote about complaining being an act of faith! It's really commendable that Job was still quarreling with God until to end. (although there were signs of waning and he started if someone, anyone would hear him)
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