PRAYER:
Father God, Help me to believe that you can forgive my sexual impurity and unfaithfulness. May your Spirit teach me the power of the blood of your Holy Son Jesus Christ and that your grace is sufficient even for me.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
* * *
1 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001) p. 206.
5. Job’s Naked Worship
We have seen that pleasure and comfort can pull us away from God, but so can pain. In the bitter seasons of life, people wander away from God because they feel He has let them down. Most, however, struggle on and experience a numbing distance towards the Lord. Here we are dealing with the searing pain, failures, and disappointments of life that can distract and dull our love for Christ.
Have you been journeying through a time of spiritual darkness? Are you caught in the pitiless waves of grief? Or burnt out with anxiety about your family, money, health, or ministry? Maybe these things have wasted away your enjoyment of Jesus. You still believe but the gospel feels disconnected. You are a believer and you know you are alive in Christ, but you feel spiritually suffocated by disappointment and sorrow.
I Can’t Pray
As we will see, suffering doesn’t have to shift our eyes away from the Lord. Of course, life can really challenge and test our faith. At these times, we are desperate for God’s comfort but feel abandoned in our grief, plagued with questions that God fails to answer. One Christian family who lost their healthy toddler in his sleep begged for prayer because their grief and shock had left them spiritually mute; they could not pray. Job too, and many of us, have been stunned by God’s painful providences. In the book of Job we find a man very honestly wrestling with God, yet staying faithful in suffering. Job’s wife, however, stands in contrast to her husband. She allows her grief to turn into an anger that pulls her into a spiritually desolate place. Her anger is her pitfall and she does not fight for worship.
Naked Worship
Job was a godly man with family (ten children), money (a lot of camels), and power (lots of servants) (Job 1:1-3). He had it all … Until he lost it all in one tragic afternoon. Then, when all he has left is his health, he loses that too, reduced to a shadow of a man sitting in black ashes. Job is as broken as the pot he uses to scrape his blistering skin (cf. 2:8). And what does he do? He worships.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ (Job 1:20-21)
It’s easy to gloss over the tragedy of Job’s situation and just think of him as a Bill Gates reduced to a smelly, nauseating beggar. But think about his grief in relation to yours. Job is completely heartbroken. All of his babies are dead, all his possessions have been ripped from his hands, he has no physical relief, no bed, no medicines, and no comfort in his wife (cf. 2:9, 19:14). He says he is naked because he has nothing; everything has been stripped away. But Job still worships. The pain is endless and he wants to die (7:3).
Yet he does not backslide.
He does not sin.
He fights for worship.
Faithful
We can sometimes misunderstand the author of Job and think that Job was perfect; but he wasn’t. He was a sinner like you and me. Otherwise God would not have needed to challenge him in chapters 38 to 41. But as a man passionate for God’s glory (Job 1:5), Job keeps himself above reproach. Through these painful providences he is faithful. God knew Job would maintain his spiritual integrity, that’s why God did not stop Satan’s hand (Job 2:6). And so, James uses him as a model of faithfulness in suffering.
As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:10-11)
God has Gone
But Job’s steadfastness doesn’t minimise the spiritual strain and distress he is in. Job recalls his walk with God when all was well. ‘I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me’ (Job 29:4-5). How we also pine for past seasons of joy, safety, and content, when we are in the spiritual and emotional darkness of loss. And like us, Job too attempts to articulate his pain and make sense of it. ‘And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me’ (Job 30:16). Job continues saying that God ‘multiplies my wounds without cause’ (Job 9:17); ‘Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?’ (Job 13:24).
Many of us know some of Job’s trials: when the cancer or the car accident that only happens to other people is now in our own skin and bones. Or when we are attacked by our church family and inflicted with deep wounds. Suffering tests our faith, we can feel far from God, and it is difficult to worship.
Suffering and Satan
In part, we backslide in suffering because we don’t resist Satan. Peter warns us: ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1 Pet. 5:8). Satan wants to kill faith. Don’t forget if Satan was writing this book it would be a ‘how to’ guide; he wants us to stumble and fall. He is probably quite content with lukewarm Christians. Satan triumphed in the life of Job’s wife when she said to him ‘curse God and die’ (Job 2:9). Both Job and his wife knew God was responsible for their grief. But while Job weeps and worships, she curses God. She was happy to worship God when she had her family and wealth. She wanted God’s gifts, not Him. She is like many of us; when all God’s gifts are stripped away she backslides in unbelief and anger.
Suffering is Pointless
In the 1999 film Notting Hill, Bella, a character paralysed from falling down the stairs and struggling with infertility, offers her take on suffering. ‘Don’t take it personally. The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. No one knows why some things work out and some things don’t.’ This is typical of the world’s view of suffering: we sometimes have bad luck, it is arbitrary and meaningless. This means the world sees the damning diagnosis — relentless unemployment or miscarriage, the despair of dad leaving, the unsolvable nag of financial debt, the dark silence of depression, loneliness or infertility, and death stealing away someone we love — as completely pointless.
But there is no such thing as pointless suffering in the Bible.
The Biblical Theology of Suffering
As those who trust in a good and sovereign God, it is impossible for Christians to believe their suffering is pointless. Firstly, because of the cross. The suffering and death of the Lord Jesus at Calvary is the climax of God’s work and purposes. There God ordained immense and undeserved suffering to bring about eternal redemption and glory. Christ’s suffering is the lens through which we should see our own. Of course, our pain is not redemptive like His, but it also has eternal significance.
… But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you … When he was reviled, he did not revile in return, … but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree …. (1 Pet. 2:20-21, 23-24)
And secondly, because the Bible teaches us that our own trials test and work out our faith in the same way pulling weights builds up our muscles.
… you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory …. (1 Pet. 1:6-7)
Like Job, we have to fight for faith, wielding a biblical theology of suffering when the pain and the darkness is unyielding, giving us deep gospel hope that keeps us blessing t
he name of the Lord.
THINK:
Are you excusing sin in your life because you are going through a tough time? What changes can you make?
Part Two: Gospel Comfort
What we need when we are lukewarm and backsliding is mighty, meaty truths of the gospel to comfort our souls and re-fix our eyes on King Jesus.
6. Embracing Lukewarm Weakness
At the moment Hollywood is inundating us with superhero films. It seems every few months a new superhero emerges with a different story of zero-to-hero, new superpowers, and a freshly ironed cloak. In the good old days, it was a martial arts flick: Bruce Lee or Mr Miyagi elegantly restoring justice to the world with lightning fast blocks and seamless round-house kicks. No CGI; just authentic Kung-fu.
But have you ever wondered why these fighting machines or superheroes are so cool … why we like watching them? Or, if you are not into superheroes, why do we human beings find it exhilarating to watch films or programmes about high-flying entrepreneurs or fast cars? Why are these things so appealing to us?
Power. It’s about the power. Feeling your own invincibility pulsing through your veins, the money to live literally on top of the world, to do whatever, whenever, or the roaring shift of 300 plus horsepower with a squeeze of your toes. There is a subtle desire for power in all of us. We crave it and get a thrill when Hollywood or the BBC dish out imaginary moments of it.
Glorious Weakness
But when we are struggling in our faith and broken over our sin, we have no power. We are weak and helpless, cut-up by our vile pride and the ugliness of our hearts, depressed by the spiritual darkness in which we find ourselves. We hate this brokenness and weakness because we want to be self-sufficient and in control; we want to feel power. But, of course, this place of weakness is a good place to be. These moments show us the truth of our spiritual condition. Perhaps you are now painfully aware of your rebellious, wandering heart, and feel sorrow for the sin inside you. You’ve lost your spiritual self-sufficiency and busyness. Embrace it! Being spiritually weak and broken is glorious because it makes us hungry for God.
Paul was weak before God and he embraced it … he even boasted about it! ‘I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (2 Cor. 12:9). Don’t get me wrong; Paul’s weakness was presumably not lukewarm faith and no one should boast about their sin. Yet in light of his thorn in the flesh, Paul bragged about his weakness because the Lord had said to him: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12:9). One radical and counter-cultural gospel comfort to the lukewarm and backsliding, is their own weakness and Christ’s perfect strength.
Beggars before Christ
Jonah was a high-profile preacher who disobeyed God and got more than just stuck in a puddle of fish phlegm; death was so close he could taste it (Jonah 2:1-7). He became a perfect picture of spiritual weakness and helplessness. He couldn’t buck up and break out. He couldn’t enter his ‘mind-palace’ to outwit the fish or God. In Jonah chapter 2 we find him begging for God to hear him. He throws himself on God’s grace because he knows without it he is lost forever.
We are all weak and in glorious need of Christ. For it was ‘while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly’ (Rom. 5:6). There is a legend that written on a scrap of paper, or from his lips, Martyn Luther’s last words were:
We are beggars. This is true.
We are all beggars before Christ; prophets and preachers included. We are the leper who got on his knees and begged Jesus to heal him (Mark 1:40) and the woman who stealthily touched Jesus because she was desperate to be healed of her bleeding (Mark 5:25-34). Whether the gospel is new to us or we have preached it for decades is irrelevant. As Christians, we are those who have cried out with the blind man at the roadside of Jericho: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ (Luke 18:38).
If you are broken and desperate for God’s grace to heal and strengthen you, then call on Him. Our God restores the lukewarm and the backsliding with tenderness. ‘A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not quench’ (Matt. 12:20).
PRAY: Psalm 102:1-2
Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you!
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!
7. The Shepherd’s Joy
When I drive through Wales I think on the odds of the parable of the Lost Sheep. There are a lot of sheep in Wales, and when you think you have seen all the sheep there are to be seen, you realise you have only just got off the M4 and actually the sheep have only just got started.
So, one asks: when sheep are in such excellent supply, would a shepherd really leave 99% of his goods unwatched to go off to find one daft sheep that has wandered off? Would he really bother when he has so many? I mean it’s just one sheep!
But we miss so easily the point of this parable. Sheep were a treasured commodity in Jesus’ day. That’s why they were given a shepherd. They weren’t left to roam around unattended on roadsides like they are now. But were valued as significant to one’s livelihood and status, and tended by a loyal caretaker. Back then, it was never ‘just one sheep’!
It is the same for us. If we stray away from Christ, we are not left to our own devices, brushed aside as an insignificant fraction. We are never ‘just one sheep’! Jesus told this parable because the Pharisees were criticising Him for spending time with sinners.
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. (Luke 15:4-5)
Jesus tells them He will always go out and hunt for His lost sheep. And when they are found, He is overjoyed, ‘When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost”’ (Luke 15:6). Although like fickle sheep we may wander away and end up getting stuck on a steep mountainside or tangled up in barbed wire, Jesus Christ, with His endless grace and mercy, always hunts us down.
Doesn’t God want me Back?
Many of us have experienced times when we feel abandoned by God and we find ourselves asking Him, ‘Don’t you want me back?’ But King Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is not a hired hand. He is deeply committed to His people and has bought us back from our backsliding with His own blood. Jesus endured the pain and horror of the cross for us so He isn’t going to just let us go. He said:
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:14-15)
After He tells the parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus moves onto the parables of the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:8-32). Both stories make the same point: Jesus Christ finds lost things! And His grace pursues us both B.C. and A.D.; before we become a Christian and all the way through our lives.
God’s Joy
It is important for us to notice that throughout these three parables in Luke 15 Jesus speaks of heaven’s joy. With the sheep safely secured upon the shepherd’s shoulders (there’s a tongue-twister) He compares the joy of the shepherd with that of heaven when we repent: ‘Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons’ (Luke 15:7). And again, after the coin is found: ‘“Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ (v. 9b-10). And in the story of the Prodigal Son, the father doesn’t run, embrace, kiss, and throw a mean party because he is disappointed. Instead he says, ‘it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found’ (v. 32).
It is this joy that drove God to extend His
saving arm to sinners; it is this joy that led Jesus Christ the Son of God to the cross. ‘Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Heb. 12:2, emphasis added).
Some of us talk about Christian Hedonism and our joy in God. But we can also revel and dance because our salvation in Christ Jesus gives the mighty Godhead, and the angels, deep joy. And this is the case when we call upon Christ for the first time, the second time, or the twenty-third time.
MEDITATE:
When they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him … they crucified him and divided his garments among them (Mark 15:20, 24)
[John] turned and saw a man … clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash round his chest. (Rev 1:12, 13)
… Twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him … And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him (Mark 15:17, 19)
The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow (Rev 1:14)
They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, ‘Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?’ (Luke 22:64)
… His eyes were like a flame of fire (Rev 1:14)
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30)
Prone to Wander Page 3
