Rev. Steven Davis
October 4 Sermon - "The Tests" - based on Job 1:1,2:1-10
Posted on: 10/06/2009 16:41
THE TESTS
OCTOBER 4, 2009
CENTRAL UNITED CHURCH, PORT COLBORNE
THE TEXT: JOB 1:1;2:1-10
(Rev.) Steven Davis, BA, MDiv
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. ... On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Him. And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited Me against him to ruin him without any reason.” “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. (Job 1:1;2:1-5)
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Every night, somewhere someone steps up to a podium, taps a microphone and says “testing, testing.” No one pays much attention because this, of course, is not the main event of the evening, although I have been to meetings at which the sound test is actually more interesting than the keynote speaker! Still, no one really stops to listen to the sound test in the expectation that anything profound is about to be said. We ignore things like that. It’s been a while since I’ve heard these words on TV: “this is a test of the emergency broadcast system.” Those tests were so frequent during the Cold War that I wonder if anyone actually would have listened during a real emergency. Certainly those tests were nothing more to me as a child growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s than an irritating interruption to the really important business of cartoon watching! But not all tests are unimportant. School exams are important, of course, as we work our way through the education system, and tests of faith matter, too. Last week, we spoke about four different circumstances in which James recommended prayer: when we’re in trouble, when we’re happy, when we’re sick and when we’re sinning. This advice represents a test of sorts – will we remain faithful to God through all the varied circumstances of life? This week, and through the rest of October, we’re going to discover that a man named Job illustrates an Old Testament theme that life itself is a test, with the rules for the test laid out in the biblical covenant between God and Israel. As Christians, we rejoice in being the people of a new covenant: the new covenant in Jesus’ blood, as we’re reminded every time we celebrate Holy Communion, and we face tests of our faithfulness to that covenant, and I want to consider the testing of our commitment to the new covenant by reflecting on the testing of Job’s commitment to the old covenant.
Job was tested to answer this question: How sincere was he in his love for God? It was a valid question, and Satan (who makes one of his few Old Testament appearances in this passage) was right to ask it. After all, Job had been a rich and successful man. He had everything that anyone could possibly have asked for: money, power, family – and he loved God, but Satan argued that Job loved God only because God had been good to him and allowed him to prosper. The first test Job faced, which we didn’t read this morning, was to have his possessions taken away from him. How sincere would Job’s faith prove to be once he had lost everything? Job passed the test – he blessed the Lord. Still, Satan wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a more difficult test: “stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.” God gave permission for this second test, and Job was stricken with a terrible disease. How sincere would Job’s faith prove to be when his own well-being was at stake? Again, Job passed the test – he blessed the Lord.
Our Christian faith, of course, is tested from time to time. We suffer illness, poverty, grief and injustice and through it all we wonder why we should remain faithful to God in the face of it all. Why remain disciples of Jesus? What’s in it for us? Faith doesn’t take our problems away, so what’s the point? A new covenant we may well be under, but we have the same problems after we become Christians as we had before and our faith is still tested, just as Job’s was: will we remain faithful to God in the tough times that test our faith? If we can’t pass that test - if our faith is based only on the benefits we get out of it - then it may be faith of a sort, but it certainly isn’t the type of relationship God wants with us. The point of all tests of our faith is to allow us to see if we’re motivated by a pure and unselfish love for God. In Job’s case, he remained faithful to God in the midst of adversity and demonstrated the sincerity of his faith with simple and yet profound words: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord;” and “shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive also the bad?” Those tests proved Job’s faith to be an unselfish faith, and they demonstrated that Job understood an essential point about the nature of God: even though bad things might happen, God is good. Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist, survived Auschwitz and came out of the experience of the concentration camps with a new understanding of the meaning of life and death. In a 1956 book called Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl wrote: “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a reason in suffering. Suffering … is an ineradicable part of life. … The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult of circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life.” Job would have understood those words.
Thankfully, we don’t generally undergo the types of tests faced by either Job or Victor Frankl, but there is an element of testing in the Christian life nonetheless; a testing of our commitment to the new covenant. Do we turn to Jesus out of pure and unselfish love? We have to ask ourselves what it is that makes us respond to Jesus. It’s surely not for personal gain. All of us here today must have suffered in one way or another at some point in our lives from some type of trouble: grief, finances, health, conflict. Jesus and our faith in Him didn’t spare us from facing those struggles, and yet we’re still here offering Him our devotion. We must be here then not because of what Jesus does for us (although He does far more than we can ever give adequate thanks for) but rather simply because of Who He is to us. He’s our Lord, our Saviour, our Friend. And today, we’re called to demonstrate our love for Jesus.
In a few moments we’ll celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. When Paul wrote about Holy Communion in 1 Corinthians, he made testing an essential part of the sacrament: “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” The point is not to examine ourselves to see if we’re sinless, but to make sure that we realize that we’re not sinless. That’s what matters today, because the whole sacrament is about celebrating the forgiveness of sin. This remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice is, to us, a sign of love: our love for Jesus and His love for us. When we receive the bread and cup, we receive also the divine love that Jesus died to demonstrate to us. We’re all welcome in this place and we’re all welcome at the table. Jesus Himself, extending His love to us through His death and resurrection, has extended the invitation.
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Comments
Pilgrims Progress
Posted on: 10/11/2009 05:44
Thank you for this sermon on Job and the test of suffering. It's helped explain why my faith has grown, rather than be diminished, by my own suffering.