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JESUS CHRIST OUR HOPE – A LESSON FROM JOB
There was a man in the
(Job
1:1-5 LITV)
The Bible is a
book of hope. Within its pages we learn that man has received his life from
God, was condemned to death for his rebellion, and has the hope of salvation
through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. The word “hope” itself appears in various
forms about 150 times in the Bible, compared to “faith” at about 350 and “love”
at about 500. But He in whom we have our hope is the central character of the
Bible. In fact, hope, along with faith and love, is one of the principle
components of the Christian’s character. Paul writes in his letter to the
Corinthian church these words:
And now faith, hope, and love, these three things remain;
but the greatest of these is love.
(1
Corinthians
Hope has a
very strong presence throughout our lives: When I was younger I remember hoping
for the freedom that would come with being older yet now that I am older I find
myself hoping instead for a good day at work, pleasant time with my family, and
to have some type of meaning to attach to my life. We all have hopes of our
own, some of you are hoping that I don’t speak to long,
others of you may be hoping that I say something worth leaving your home for. Overall
we are creatures of hope, we love to find joy in the anticipation of the good
things we believe are, or should be, coming our way, and in the good things we
already have. Without hope the difficulties and joys of life would be
impossible to bear.
Hope is a
curious thing, however, for we are only able to hope for something that is
possible to obtain and which we do not already have. When I was younger I hoped
for the freedom of adulthood because it was something that I knew would come
with time. Now that I am older, having the appearance of an adult, and have the
hoped for freedom I can no longer hope for it, it is something I already have
and so I hope for something else. The Bible this as well in Paul’s letter to
the Roman church, where he writes:
For we were saved by hope, but hope being seen is not hope;
for what anyone sees, why does he also hope? But if we hope for what we do not
see, through patience we wait eagerly.
(Romans 8:24-25 LITV)
Hope fills our
hearts and in so doing it overflows into our daily lives. Those things that we
hope for are frequently what others know best about us since it is these things
that we talk most often about. In the weeks before this Christmas just past my
youngest son voiced his hope to receive a toy saxophone on an almost hourly
basis. He was so filled with this hope that he couldn’t contain it and it came
spilling out into his conversation and everyone he spoke to knew what he hoped
for (which, by the way, his parents did give him). In his first letter the
apostle Peter speaks indirectly to the fact that we constantly talk about out
hopes when he gives this encouragement to his readers:
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be
ready to give an answer to everyone asking you a reason concerning the hope in
you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that while they speak
against you as evildoers, they may be shamed, those falsely accusing your good
behavior in Christ.
1
Peter 3:15-16 (LITV)
While Peter is
certainly not talking about a toy saxophone here he is with equal certainty
discussing a hope that so completely filled his readers minds that they could
not help talking about it. It possessed their lives and was noticed by the
people around them. Earlier in his letter Peter establishes what the hope of
his readers is:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He
according to His great mercy having regenerated us to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and
undefiled and unfading, having been kept in Heaven for you the ones in the
power of God being guarded through faith to a salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time; in which you exult; yet a little while, if need be, grieving in
manifold trials, so that the proving of your faith, much more precious than
perishing gold, but having been proved through fire, may be found to praise and
honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
whom having not seen, you love; in whom not yet seeing, but believing, you
exult with joy unspeakable and being glorified, obtaining the end of your
faith, the salvation of your souls.
(1
Peter 1:3-9 LITV)
This is the
fundamental message of the Bible: That you and I have been transferred from
death to life through the blood of Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of our
hope through His resurrection from the dead.
The world
around us has its own idea of hope. The overwhelming message of our culture is
that hope can be placed in a multitude of things, examples of which include:
Favourite sports teams, relaxing vacations, retirement savings, and
possessions. The principal difference between where the world would have us
place our hope and where the Bible teaches us to place our hope is this: The
world has us placing our hope in things, material items, while the Bible has us
placing our hope in a living person, Jesus Christ. Jesus addresses this
fundamental difference in the following words:
Do not treasure up for you treasures on the earth, where
moth and rust cause to perish, and where thieves dig through and steal. But
treasure up for you treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust cause to
perish, and where thieves do not dig through and steal.
(Matthew
6:19-20 LITV)
The things of
this world can and will fail. Inflation or the roller coaster ride of the stock
markets can cause our retirement funds to be less than we would desire. Our
shiny new car comes with a guarantee which carries with it the suggestion that
it will break at some point. Even if all goes well we have the assurance that,
regardless of the care that we take of ourselves, our health will at some point
fail us and the best of our plans will not be of any help to us. The goal of
the Bible through teaching us of Jesus is to encourage us to put our hope in
something that will not fail.
Job, probably
one of the most tormented men of all time, had hope in something that would not
fail him. In the midst of Satanic oppression, all ten
of his children dead, all of his riches destroyed, reduced to sitting on a heap
of ashes and scraping the sores of his body with a piece of pottery. He is
confronted by his friends who grandly tell him that all this is due to some sin
he has not confessed and by his wife who simply tells him to curse God and die.
Yet in the midst of his despair, when life has taken its darkest turn Job
speaks some of the most inspiring words in the Bible:
For I know my Redeemer is living, and He shall rise on the
earth at the last; and after my skin has been struck off from my flesh, yet
this, I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold,
and no stranger.
(Job
19:25-27 LITV)
Job has been
reduced to poverty and suffering as few men have ever suffered and yet he has
not lost sight of his hope, he knows that after his death he will see his
Redeemer with his own eyes and speaks not only of the eternal power of God but
also of the regeneration of the earthly body into a heavenly one.
Peter’s
message of being ready to defend the reason for our hope is also surrounded by
warnings of suffering. The main thrust of his first letter is to encourage his
readers not to loose hope in the face of persecution. Hope is then, as far as
Peter and Job are concerned, not something that keeps bad times away but it is
something that keeps bad times from being deadly. The 19th century
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who was mostly wrong, did get something right
when he said:
Men and women
can endure any amount of suffering as long as they know the why of their
existence.
which can very well
be paraphrased to say that men and women can endure any amount of suffering as
long as they have hope. This is not to say that hope makes suffering enjoyable
but that it makes it endurable because what is known to lie beyond the current
difficulty is far greater than the joy that the has been taken, as Paul has
said:
For I calculate that the sufferings of the present time are
not worthy to compare to the coming glory to be revealed in us. For the earnest
expectation of the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God.
(Romans
8:18-19 LITV)
We come now to
the “Why” of the matter. Why is it that hope can give
us strength to endure hardship? The answer lies in the proclamation of Job and
his use of the word “Redeemer.” He did not say God, or Father, or Creator, but
Redeemer. Job saw God as not only his creator but also his redeemer. It is
interesting to note that never once thought that he was suffering because he
had sinned, he knew that he was suffering unjustly and that was the heart of
his cry to God.
Behold, He will cut me off; I will not wait, but I will
justify my ways before His face. He also is my salvation, for an ungodly one
shall not come before Him. Listen, hear my word, and let what I say be in your
ears. Behold now, I have set my cause in order; I know that I shall be
justified. Who is he who will strive with me? For then I would be quiet and
die. Only two things do not do to me, O God, then I
will not hide myself from Your face: Remove Your hand from me, and let not Your
terror make me afraid. Then call, and I will answer;
or let me speak, and reply to me.
(Job
13:15-22 LITV)
He wanted
justice because he knew that what was happening to him was not fair, there was
no reason for it that he could see. He also knew that he was guilty of sin for
he earlier has said:
If I justify myself, my mouth will condemn me; though I am
perfect, He shall declare me perverse; though I were perfect, I would not know
my own soul; I despise my life.
(Job
9:20-21 LITV)
He did not
regard himself as a perfect man but as a righteous man, a man who had done
wrong but who had been forgiven. He knew that no matter how close to perfection
he was God’s standard was still to high for him to
reach and regardless of his own perfection God would still consider him a
sinner. He knew his condition but he also knew that he had a Redeemer who had
forgiven him. He knew also that he would see his Redeemer after his death not
because he was a perfect man but because his Redeemer had forgiven him. God
himself, when confronting Job at the end of his trial, does not condemn Job for
his sin, but as a created thing, one who has no right to question the actions
permitted by his Creator.
And Jehovah answered Job out of the tempest and said: Now
gird up your loins like a man, and I will question you; and you make Me to know. Will you also set aside My
judgment; will you condemn Me so that you may be justified? And have you an arm
like God; or can you thunder with a voice like His? Adorn yourself with majesty
now, and with grandeur, and clothe yourself with glory and honor;
pour forth the outbursts of your anger; yea, look on everyone who is proud, and
bring him down low; look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, and trample
the wicked in their place; hide them in the dust together; bind their faces in
darkness. Then I also will confess to you that your right hand can save you.
(Job
40:6-14 LITV)
This message
began with the opening words of the book of Job, among them being the
following:
And it happened, when the day of feasting had gone around,
Job would send and sanctify them. And he would rise early in the morning and
offer burnt sacrifices according to all their number. For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their
hearts. This, Job always did.
(Job
1:5 LITV)
Job offered
sacrifices on behalf of his sons and daughters in case they had cursed God
during their feasting. Now the sacrifice of an animal on behalf of a person had
no power in and of itself to remove the guilt of sin from the person. It was
effective only as a symbol of the removal of the guilt of sin by a Sacrifice
far greater than the sacrifice of an animal, as it is written in Hebrews:
For the Law had a shadow of the coming good things, not the
image itself of those things. Appearing year by year with the same sacrifices,
which they offer continually, they never are able to perfect the ones drawing
near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? Because
those serving did not still have conscience of sins, having once been cleansed.
But in these there is a remembrance of sins year by year, for it is not
possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
(Hebrews
10:1-4 LITV)
Today we know
that Jesus Christ is the greater Sacrifice of which the earlier sacrifice was a
symbol. In the days of Job the person of Jesus Christ was unknown but that such
a person was necessary to perform the work that He would do through His death
and resurrection was both known and symbolized by every aspect of the worship
of God. Job’s Redeemer could only be Jesus Christ, there was no other
alternative.
We have
discussed in passing the temporary ability of earthly things to be worthy of
our hope. What of Jesus Christ, is He worthy of being our hope in spite of
everything, even death itself? The apostle John writes of Jesus that He was
real, that He existed, and that whatever John and others have said about Jesus
could be trusted because they had seen him and touched him:
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we
have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and what our hands touched, as regards
the Word of Life. And the Life was revealed, and we
have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you the everlasting Life
which was with the Father, and was revealed to us. We announce to you what we
have seen, and what we have heard, that you also may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
(1
John 1:1-3 LITV)
In his
biography of Jesus the apostle John also says that Jesus is God in the form of
man:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into
being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has
come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
(John
1:1-4 LITV)
So, based on
the testimony of John we know that Jesus is real, that He walked and talked at
a specific moment in history, and that He is also God, the creator of all
things. If He made all things then He had to exist before anything was made and
He therefore will also exist after all things that have been made are destroyed
and made perfect. He is eternal. In His own words:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending,
says the Lord, the One who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.
(Revelation
1:8)
Here is One in
whom we to can hope. Here is One who lived before we
or anything we know had been made. Here is One who is both
our sacrifice and our God, who will come again at the end of all things and
take us home. Here is a place to put our hope without fear that it will be
misplaced. Let us put our hope in Him and trust Him to hold our lives secure
regardless of what may come. Let us say with Job:
For I know my Redeemer is living, and He shall rise on the
earth at the last; and after my skin has been struck off from my flesh, yet
this, I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold,
and no stranger.
(Job
19:25-27 LITV)
We shall see
Him who loved us to the point of death and who dying remains eternally alive.
There is no other place for hope than Him.