WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.540 Okay, we're going to go back to Job chapter 42. As I said earlier, we looked at the first 00:00:07.540 --> 00:00:14.460 six verses last Sunday morning, and we're going to look at from verse 7 to the end of 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:23.980 that chapter under the heading of the surprise of grace as opposed to the shock of repentance. 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:29.900 Because I know it's cheating a little bit to just go into the end of the book, but there's 00:00:29.899 --> 00:00:34.920 such a great insight into God's character throughout this book. It's a really unique 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:41.799 book in the Bible in many ways, and very probably one of the earliest books in the whole Bible 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:51.420 in terms of chronology, in terms of its time. And yet it's full of His grace in most surprising 00:00:51.420 --> 00:00:57.519 ways. The whole book is a surprise in many ways, because it is a book that deals with 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:02.220 suffering and it deals with Job's suffering. But it is important, and obviously we don't 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:06.960 have time to go into all of these things. But from the very beginning it's a surprise, 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:12.379 because it's Job who instigates the whole experience, that's what it's God who instigates 00:01:12.379 --> 00:01:20.240 the whole experience that Job goes through. And there's this curtain pulled back to the 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:30.479 unseen spiritual world with Satan and with God. And what we do find is that God is unfolding 00:01:30.479 --> 00:01:38.199 and unveiling His character throughout. His integrity is challenged and is at stake just 00:01:38.199 --> 00:01:46.759 as much as Job's is. And we find that God is answering the whole issue of His sufficiency 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:54.840 for us as a Savior in suffering and in loss. And then that huge problem that confronts 00:01:54.840 --> 00:02:06.080 all of us in our lives with respect to why suffering happens, at least what we do with 00:02:06.080 --> 00:02:11.240 suffering, because we know what happens. And throughout it all, or towards the end of it, 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:16.879 we see His victory and the mystery of His victory is revealed. And it puts out a great 00:02:16.879 --> 00:02:23.800 challenge to us in our day-to-day living, both in our relation to suffering ourselves 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:31.320 as Christians. But specifically, we'll look at this evening how we relate to other people 00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:35.760 in their battles and in their struggles and how we respond to them and how we respond 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:42.919 with the lens of grace at the experiences other people are going through without being 00:02:42.919 --> 00:02:48.679 judgmental. Because grace for us changes everything. It's very similar to what Grant 00:02:48.679 --> 00:02:56.439 was saying this morning about we are in Christ. We are in Christ, and that makes a huge difference 00:02:56.439 --> 00:03:02.319 to everything that we are because we belong. It's not that we try and do things in order 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:08.400 to belong, it's we belong. We are in Christ, we are united to Christ. And the grace that 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:16.560 has been inferred to us is grace that transforms our character. It's very easy for us to judge 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:25.359 God and judge other people very harshly and justify ourselves in life. And I just want 00:03:25.359 --> 00:03:31.039 to throw out a few thoughts this evening on the second half of Job 42 with respect to 00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:38.959 the character of grace and how grace changes the way we think about ourselves and God and 00:03:38.959 --> 00:03:48.199 other people. And the first thing I want to say about the character of grace that's revealed 00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:53.199 throughout the book of Job, but primarily in these last few verses, what does God reveal 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:57.079 about the character of His grace? The first thing I want to say is that the grace of God 00:03:57.080 --> 00:04:05.520 has muscle. God's grace has muscle. I think there's a tendency for us to think of God's 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:15.800 love and God's grace as soft and spineless. But that's not really the biblical picture 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:24.160 we have of grace. God's grace has plenty of torque. It's strong and it has muscle. And 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:33.000 in this passage, God takes no shame in blasting the good guys. He blasts the good guys in 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:38.000 this story. In verse 7, after the Lord had spoken these words, Job the Lord said to Eliphaz, 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:43.520 My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:53.440 what is right. He's angry with them. In His grace, as we go on to see, He seeks and looks 00:04:53.439 --> 00:05:00.040 and offers their forgiveness. But they made assumptions about God and about God's character 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:06.240 and about God's relationship to Job and about what God was doing to Job and Job's life. 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.800 They knew God better than God, or so they thought. They were judging on a period, it's a hugely 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:21.600 significant fact that God is revealing at this very early stage in Revelation, probably 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:32.600 before Abraham, probably before the Covenants as they were formally revealed. God is recognizing 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:42.120 that there is a heart knowledge that is hugely significant and that we can't judge in appearances. 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:46.720 They had assumed that the God that they knew was a God who was made in their own image in 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:51.760 many ways, and they had a closed mind as to what was happening. It wasn't that they were 00:05:51.760 --> 00:06:00.040 asking, remember there's been 27 chapters of them telling Job how wrong he was and how 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:04.960 much under God's judgment he was and how he needed to repent of some secret sin that he 00:06:04.960 --> 00:06:12.240 obviously was not willing to repent of and that they were representing God in their thinking. 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:16.639 God was interestingly in the whole, if you read the whole book of Job, go through the 00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:20.600 whole book of Job, you'll find this challenging because you'll want to agree a lot of time 00:06:20.600 --> 00:06:27.120 with them. You will, I guarantee it. You'll want to agree often more with them than you 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:35.160 will with Job. And yet interestingly here, God's is justly angry with them and not with 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:43.520 Job. There's a complete turnaround in God's revelation of his character. They're the ones 00:06:43.520 --> 00:06:50.320 who needed a mediator. They're the ones who needed to offer sacrifice. They're the ones 00:06:50.320 --> 00:07:02.520 who God asks Job to pray for. And that's interesting and that's challenging for us. God is working 00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:11.879 in each of their hearts to change their attitude to God but also their attitude to Job. And 00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:19.319 that's hugely significant and hugely important. And within that, we see that God is also working 00:07:19.319 --> 00:07:27.560 in Job's heart. Not only is God revealing that he wants his grace to change them but 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:33.560 Job also has to recognize that he's been worked on by the living God as well. He's not allowed 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:40.600 to gloat. He's not allowed to say, well, I told you so. Or say, well, I was right all 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:49.680 along. And isn't that our natural response when we find ourselves being justified by 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:55.720 someone maybe greater than us and other people being exposed as being wrong? We kind of want 00:07:55.720 --> 00:08:03.200 to say, well, I told you so. Or to be angry or vitriolic against those who have spoken 00:08:03.200 --> 00:08:07.600 against us. Would that not have been our natural reaction to the three friends of Job for the 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:15.880 27 chapters of relentless opposition that they offered to him? Job is not allowed to 00:08:15.880 --> 00:08:24.440 gloat. Job is asked to pray for them. Huesily significant and important and interesting 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:34.879 command by God for Job. Job is to pray for them and to recognize that he not only has 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:41.720 repented, they must repent and that they are actually all in the same boat together before 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:49.799 they're living God. It's so easy for us, isn't it, to think it's just other people in the 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:55.759 battles and struggles and oppositions that we face. It's easy for us to think that it's 00:08:55.759 --> 00:09:02.279 other people, if only other people recognize their need of forgiveness and their need of 00:09:02.279 --> 00:09:11.399 a Savior. And yet God always brings grace to play in our hearts, even when we're wronged, 00:09:11.399 --> 00:09:22.199 even when we're the ones who are innocent before each other. It's also easy for us to 00:09:22.199 --> 00:09:28.319 know better than God or presume we know better than God to judge the motives and intentions 00:09:28.319 --> 00:09:35.960 of the hearts of other people. We do it all the time. We judge people's motives and intentions 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:43.240 all the time. We make snap judgments and we come to a conclusion about why they have done 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:50.519 what they have done. And when we're wronged, we also have to recognize that God will be 00:09:50.519 --> 00:09:56.759 dealing and needs to deal with our own hearts. So there's a great sense in which grace has 00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:06.600 muscle here in this chapter. It's also a recognition for us that grace and the grace of God as 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:14.120 He's dealing with these characters is something that sees our God in His grace, sees into our 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:22.399 hearts and recognizes who we are in our hearts. It's interesting that twice in verses 7 and 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:30.399 8, He speaks about Job and reveals what He knows of Job in His heart. He says twice, 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:38.439 He says, Job, my servant, my servant, Job, the one who's mine. He's my servant and He's 00:10:38.439 --> 00:10:45.159 spoken. He says, He's spoken of me what is right. God is revealing Himself as the one 00:10:45.159 --> 00:10:50.000 who looks into the heart of Job and He's spoken of me what's right, which is very interesting 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:56.519 because He's all, what does that mean? Because He's already challenged Job in chapter 38 00:10:56.519 --> 00:11:02.559 saying, Who is this that speaks to me with words without knowledge? So it seems to be 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:07.639 contradictory, doesn't it, that God is exposing Job for speaking without knowledge and then 00:11:07.639 --> 00:11:12.759 here He says, Job is the one who has spoken of me what is right. How can we deal with 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:19.559 that? It seems in contradiction here. Well, we know that Job is already repented before 00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:28.199 God because he realizes who God is and how little he does actually know. But the reality 00:11:28.199 --> 00:11:34.399 is God is reminding us here that He sees into the heart and He sees the trust and faith 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:44.559 that Job has expressed even in the ignorant cries of his anguished heart. He is see and 00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:52.359 he understands that Job took his doubts and his questions and his ignorance to the living 00:11:52.359 --> 00:12:00.719 God in prayer and in cries and in frustrations. And that revealed a heart that had faith towards 00:12:00.719 --> 00:12:05.639 the living God. It's not here when he says that Job spoke of me what is right. It's 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:11.759 not talking about perfectionism. It's not saying that Job was faultless. It's saying 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:20.600 that Job was honest and trusting. He takes his wrong words to the right place. He repented. 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:27.360 And it reveals that the job here as a disciple, as a learner, that's what a disciple is, 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:34.159 it's just a learner. And that's a hugely significant recognition for us in our own understanding 00:12:34.159 --> 00:12:40.439 of our relationship with God, is that we don't hide anything from Him. We don't take to Him 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:46.680 perfectionism, but we recognize that we will speak right in God's presence when we take 00:12:46.680 --> 00:12:53.760 all our doubts and fears and cries into His presence with acts of faith and trust and 00:12:53.760 --> 00:13:01.480 of repentance when He reveals to us His character, His grace and His goodness. And it reminds 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:10.080 us that others are learners too. We are quick to often associate ourselves with Job and 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:16.800 being learners and making mistakes, but slow to recognize the same characteristic in others. 00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:25.840 We're all learners in this kingdom following Jesus Christ, and therefore we reflect that 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:32.360 in our attitude towards the failure of others. Grace sees into the heart, and grace also 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:38.960 we see restores, it's the great passage of verse 8, now therefore take seven bowls, seven 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:43.200 rams, go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, my servant 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:47.800 Job shall pray for you, and I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according 00:13:47.800 --> 00:13:52.280 to your folly, for you have not spoken of me what is right. 00:13:52.280 --> 00:14:00.440 There's this great restoration for both parties here, or both parties, Job and his three friends, 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:11.120 because at this point Job's identity almost seems to have been obliterated in his suffering, 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:21.000 but he's immediately given dignity and purpose and belonging as God restores him into this 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.440 place where he hears God saying, this is my servant, and where he sees this is my mediator 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:35.560 for these people, please pray for these three friends of yours and be the one who mediates 00:14:35.560 --> 00:14:40.880 on their behalf, and I will hear your prayers on their behalf, and I'll accept your prayers 00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:49.680 even though they've done what's wrong. His prayers therefore are powerful and effective 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:56.800 and restorative, as is the task he's been given by God, restoring identity and significance 00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:07.120 to him. And in many ways, in this act Job himself becomes a type of Christ. He becomes 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:14.039 a mediator, pointing forward. We remember everything as an ever-present to the living 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:20.679 God, and we know that God knew what was to lie ahead with the Savior, and that this is 00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:29.919 a whisper into Job's own plea for a mediator in Job 930, who will mediate between me and 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:39.479 God. And Job becomes a mediator here, but pointing forward to the role of God the Son 00:15:39.479 --> 00:15:46.639 who himself without sin becomes the sacrifice and a great high priest, and who now lives 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:54.279 to, in the same way he lives to intercede for us through our suffering and through her 00:15:54.279 --> 00:16:04.120 sin. And there's that great restorative character to God's grace, both in the dignity that he 00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:10.000 gives to us, in the work that he gives us to do, in the inheritance that he gives us, 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:18.320 but also in the work of prayer and restoration of others. We speak about grace being restorative 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:24.320 and God's grace being restorative, but that isn't something that is hyper-spiritual. It's 00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:29.440 something that involves the body of Christ, and it involves you and it involves me in 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:36.320 the way that we deal with and treat others who have wronged us, so that we see a restorative 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:43.640 power through suffering and through darkness and through opposition. Because we often talk 00:16:43.640 --> 00:16:47.440 about Job, the book of Job as being a book that speaks about the suffering that he went 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:52.760 through, and that's right, because we say he lost his wealth, he lost his family, he 00:16:52.760 --> 00:16:58.520 lost his income, he lost everything that he had, his dignity, his position. But we often 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:06.279 forget not just that suffering, but the great hurt that he experienced from the rejection 00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:11.279 of his friends and from the wrong diagnosis spiritually that they made in his life. So 00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:17.279 there was a huge relational element to it. Now I would say to you, the vast majority 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:27.400 of churches and Christian communities are broken and divided and often separated relationally. 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:34.240 Not always about how God has dealt with us, but very often where we are wronged and have 00:17:34.240 --> 00:17:40.600 been wronged individually within a Christian community, and that's a huge part of our experience. 00:17:40.600 --> 00:17:48.200 And yet we need to recognize and see our role in being restorative and our role in being 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:56.040 mediators to bring restoration and bring harmony within the Christian community. So Grace 00:17:56.039 --> 00:18:01.960 restores, you're always looking to restore the lives and the hearts of those who are 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:10.879 Christ. And Grace we also see is beautifully profligate. It's profligate. The end of Job's 00:18:10.879 --> 00:18:19.319 life, which there are quite a lot of difficulties in understanding exactly the blessings he receives, 00:18:19.319 --> 00:18:25.359 but the end of Job's life or the latter part of Job's life was uber-blessed, more so than 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:31.199 his earlier life. And it was real. It was real blessing, but I would suggest again it's 00:18:31.199 --> 00:18:40.000 almost typological. It's pointing forward to a bigger picture of the end game of Grace 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:46.479 in the life of every believer. That for every... It prefigures, I believe, spiritual truth about 00:18:46.479 --> 00:18:53.519 God's plan for all His people beyond this present veil of tears. I know it was physical 00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:58.319 and practical and real for Job, but I do think that there's a spiritual dimension that is 00:18:58.319 --> 00:19:02.319 pointing forward in the same way that the land flowing with milk and honey was a real 00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:08.200 land that they entered, but it spoke forward to greater and new heavens and the new earth 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:13.720 within dwells righteousness. And there's a sense in which the blessing of Grace that Job receives 00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:20.920 here is a whisper of life to the fool in God's purpose and plan for us in Him. The joy, the 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:27.240 community, the wholeness, the sweet touch of God's unbroken love. I don't think this speaks 00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:34.680 into a health, wealth and prosperity gospel which some would take it maybe to refer to. 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:41.880 That's far too small a vision of what is being spoken of here. But it's encouraging us to 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:46.940 point forward to something far greater that we can look forward to and ought to be looking 00:19:46.940 --> 00:19:50.440 forward to more and more in this life. And it's an old quote I've probably used it here 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:55.720 before. If I haven't other people I'll see. As Lewis in the weight of glory, it would 00:19:55.720 --> 00:20:01.519 seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures 00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:06.759 fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:11.759 child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what it meant 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:19.640 by the offer of a holiday at the sea. Far too easily pleased. We don't see what lies ahead. 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:28.040 We don't grasp the great unimaginably wonderful future that we have in Christ that this speaks 00:20:28.040 --> 00:20:34.320 of the movement from suffering and difficulty into blessing and joy that is spoken of here. 00:20:34.320 --> 00:20:43.960 So grace is beautifully profligate. Very briefly then, what does grace mean for us specifically 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:51.519 as we consider it in our own lives, as we consider God's working in our lives? Again, 00:20:51.519 --> 00:21:00.279 just to reiterate what we've done, I think God's grace warns us about being surfers on 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:08.920 a sea of faith and no offence to my aquatic friends. But the danger is that we're just 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:17.960 living on the surface in a similar way to the... I think a similar way to the comforters. 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:23.080 They had an intellectual and a philosophical knowledge of God but they didn't allow the 00:21:23.080 --> 00:21:27.279 mystery of God to penetrate into their own hearts and into their own needs. They had 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:33.240 a programmatic response to the suffering of others. They tended to be impatient, judgmental 00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:39.880 and increasingly frustrated with Job rather than reflecting grace and they were probably 00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:44.680 their best when they were silent. But let's not be harsh on them because we're all like 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:52.440 that. That's how we are naturally. We're much more like Job's comforters than we are like 00:21:52.440 --> 00:22:02.000 Job himself. And it's a warning to us not to keep our relationship with Christ skin 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:08.559 deep. God doesn't just want our minds and our knowledge and our intellects and our ritual 00:22:08.559 --> 00:22:16.079 and our attendance. He wants our hearts. They're dirty, broken, selfish and damnable. And that's 00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:24.119 what He wants. That's where He wants to shine His light. He wants to shine His light into 00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:31.719 the depth of our hearts to live like that matters, that that's important and not just 00:22:31.719 --> 00:22:44.199 to live thinking, if only everyone else changed. He's saying, no, no. Look at our own hearts. 00:22:44.199 --> 00:22:52.639 That's part of the conception we have here of God. It is God too wonderful for us. I 00:22:52.640 --> 00:23:01.320 doubt that for most of us. Is our hearts at our hearts no go areas for the living God? 00:23:01.320 --> 00:23:07.400 Is the light of Christ shine too deeply and we just don't go there? Is our faith simply 00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:17.800 a worldview or should repentance as spoken of here be a way of life for us? It should 00:23:17.799 --> 00:23:24.079 be as we allow His heart, His grace into our hearts because His grace probes deep into 00:23:24.079 --> 00:23:30.240 our beings that there isn't, there can be really such a thing as cheap grace, grace 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:37.279 that doesn't work into your core, isn't going to change you. And when you're wanting to 00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:46.359 get fit physically, you need to work on your core and to allow that foundational physical 00:23:46.359 --> 00:23:52.679 part of your body become fit. And so it is spiritually, we've been gifted life, but 00:23:52.679 --> 00:23:58.079 within that life, there is the pain of His healing. There's idols to be smashed. There's 00:23:58.079 --> 00:24:06.159 pride and security and power and bitterness and grace as it's revealed in Job is all about 00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:17.960 us changing and even in suffering, molding us towards Him rather than away from Him. 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:25.320 But we also need to remember that His grace as we saw is also profligate. It's overwhelmingly 00:24:25.319 --> 00:24:35.639 good for us. It's full of His blessing and His generosity. Job had three named daughters, 00:24:35.639 --> 00:24:47.559 new named daughters here and their names, I mean peace, fragrance and beauty. And he, 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:55.240 we presume, broke with convention, certainly convention that later became part of ancient 00:24:55.240 --> 00:25:00.680 Near Eastern convention where property was left to the sons and he shared his inheritance 00:25:00.680 --> 00:25:07.599 with his daughters and all his family. He shared what he had, his blessing. It was something 00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:17.680 that he embraced. Even it talks about his brothers and sisters who probably hadn't been 00:25:17.680 --> 00:25:25.240 terribly sympathetic to him and yet he embraces them all back and his grace is poured out 00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:30.920 to all those around him. He's not embittered and he's not merely surviving as a believer. 00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:40.400 He understood grace. Holiness, holiness is never aligned to meanness. Financial, social 00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:48.320 or attitudinal. Grace is profligate and outrageous and I think we've often tamed it far too 00:25:48.320 --> 00:25:57.160 much and made it far too mean. We often serve with a grimace and we allow ourselves to be 00:25:57.160 --> 00:26:05.519 bitter and angry and mean and small-minded and yet hold on to salvation as if it's ours 00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:13.599 by right and our God is a miser. We've kind of got a, sometimes we can have a miserly 00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:18.680 God and that's reflected in the way we think and we live. 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:24.759 So we have here an amazing picture of grace in many ways. So early in Revelation history 00:26:24.759 --> 00:26:32.160 God puts down a marker about the reality of, and the mystery of suffering yet reveals his 00:26:32.160 --> 00:26:38.040 sovereign presence and victory in and through it. And who could have envisaged even at this 00:26:38.040 --> 00:26:44.320 early point in humanity that his ultimate and complete answer to the suffering was he 00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:54.800 himself nailed to a tree? Experiencing the suffering that unbridled and defeating the 00:26:54.800 --> 00:27:00.240 power of hell and death on the cross. Who could have ever have imagined the God of Job, 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:05.680 the God of chapters 38 to 41, being the same God who'd been nailed to a tree in order to 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:14.839 be a redeemer? So please walk with Job for a week or two, reread the glorious book from 00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:23.640 beginning to end, particularly the conclusion, and ask the Holy Spirit to let the prayers 00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:31.680 and the revelation of God and of the characters involved be something that continues to transform 00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:38.960 you and me and allow it to sink into our lives. I mean, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:48.920 and pray that you would teach us to learn more from the mystery of your word and not 00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:57.519 come to our own conclusions based on our understandings and our presumptions about you. We recognise 00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:09.320 and the book of Job certainly doesn't minimise and treat tritely or loose lightly the reality 00:28:09.320 --> 00:28:17.360 of suffering. It devotes a whole book to the mystery and the brutality of it. And yet 00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:27.719 we find that it is moulding a picture of grace that is only finally understood on the cross 00:28:27.719 --> 00:28:34.519 for us and a God who enters into our suffering in order to redeem us ultimately from it. 00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:42.079 And as we battle in this world, mixed between what we already have and what is yet to come, 00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:49.199 He promises never to leave us or forsake us and indeed to use the bleakness and the battles 00:28:49.199 --> 00:28:55.359 to transform us and to renew us. And we pray that we would always look into our own hearts 00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:01.639 and allow His grace to transform us. Huge battle. It's huge to how much easier, Lord, 00:29:01.640 --> 00:29:12.520 we confess it is to challenge you and to find fault with others than to sit or to kneel or 00:29:12.520 --> 00:29:20.280 to lie prostrate and simply ask you to deal with our own hearts. Give us the courage and 00:29:20.280 --> 00:29:26.800 the strength and the grace to do that and to see our union with Christ and all that 00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:33.319 it means in this world. Amen.