Is Anyone Listening?(2)
Job 23
Psalm 22
I recently read about the
movie “Shadowlands.” C.S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) one of the important theologians of
our time fell in love with a women called Joy
Gresham. Not long after the wedding, Joy had cancer. She died and it was
not easy for C.S. Lewis.
His friend comes one day to
comfort Lewis.
“What’s new?” asks his friend
called Harry.
“Good news, Harry,” Lewis
answers. “I think good news.”
“I know you have been praying
hard, and now God is answering your prayer.”
Lewis answers: “That’s not
why I pray, Harry,” Lewis says, “I pray
because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the
need flows out of me all the time: walking and sleeping. It does not
change God; it changes me.”1
Well, I can understand C. S.
Lewis. I also believe that God can change His mind or anything or anyone, or
any circumstance and does not need my permission. Yes, God is sovereign and
unchanging, yet God is imminent and loving, a God of compassion and mercy, a
God who can send his Son Jesus Christ who died on the cross because of our
sins. God is a moving God and not static.
How are you feeling today?
How are you feeling when you heard about another country having a nuclear bomb?
Do you feel safe in this world? It is a mad world. How do we find answers to
our “why”s?
I look this morning to the
book of Job; I see that he did pray a
lot. Praying does not mean you can have whatever you want. Job’s life was
changed and he survived all this pain and trouble because he could pray. A prayerful life made him stronger. He prayed
and waited. (Patience)
We fall in the trap of not
being heard; therefore God is absent.
The 20th century
poet W.H. Auden once said, “Our dominant experience of God today is God’s
absence, of his distance.” Unfortunately, for many this is a reality. When you
read Job you can find these sentences:(23:8-9)
8 "But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no
glimpse of him.
Job feels terrible. He feels no one is listening.
It reminds me of David in Psalm 22:
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.
It is a
very difficult feeling to be discouraged.
The old legend tells a story about the devil
holding an auction to sell his tools.
There was fear, lust, greed, and selfishness. Yet, there was one which was not
for sale. The customer asked what is was and why it was not in the auction.
Devil says, “I can spare my other tools, but this is the most useful
implement that I have. With it, I can work my way deep into hearts otherwise
inaccessible. It is the tool of discouragement.”2
But both of the authors Job and David had
turning points. David said: “Yet you
are enthroned as the Holy One…. In You our fathers put their trust; they
trusted and you delivered them…. in you they trusted and were not disappointed”
(3-4). If you read Psalm 22, you will find that starting from verse 20 David is
praising God despite of his feelings and questions. I see here that the Devil’s
trick did not work on David. It did not work on Job, either.
Job
does not know that he is in a test.
He does not know that Satan and God talked about him and all these events are
just a test. What job sees is God’s indifference about his life. The key of the
victory in this story and in David’s story is that they did not rebel against God. They had complaints.
They raised their complaints. But they
learned to trust God. They learned to have faith when they did not see the
whole picture “Faith is… the evidence of things not see” (Hebrews 11:1) (KJV).
I like to go back to the Amish community. Do you think these mothers and fathers who lost
their daughters do not have questions? Of course, they do. It is most likely that
they have complaints, too. But they have learned in their spiritual life that
they need to trust God when there is darkness in the world. They have learned
that they can be healed and liberated from the agony of pain if they obey God through Jesus. The Amish
practiced that slogan WWJD, “What would Jesus do?” Jesus would forgive. They
forgave. And their forgiveness was practical. They invited the murderer’s wife
and children to the funeral. Then they went to the funeral of the killer. Do
you see what is happening. “Faith is… the evidence of things not seen.”
Job’s story ends with God restoring
everything to him. Not all stories end that way in this life. If we trust in
the Lord, our stories will end with God’s blessings.
Doubts, disappointment.
Why
do good people suffer? Questions we all will have. The problem, these questions
will always hit us. We wonder if God is absent. I read from a pastor following
words: “One thing is for sure: there is
no sense of absence where there has been no sense of presence. What makes
absence hurt, is the memory of what used to be there but is no longer… You
cannot miss what you have never known, which makes our sense of absence—and especially
our sense of God’s absence—the very best proof that we knew God once, and that
we may know God again.”3
I was having a discussion with an Armenian
person who had had solid Christian education as a child. Then he came to the
You see the bottom line is having faith in God, having
a relationship with God through Jesus Christ despite of your feelings and
circumstances. Finding a goal and
meaning in your existence is important. My goal is to worship and have fellowship
with God, and be an obedient servant in His Kingdom. Everything that I do are
forwarded in that direction. King David continued worshiping God and praising
Him. You can keep asking God why? God has a unique way to answer us. Instead of
giving answers to your questions, God gives Himself. God gives you His
presence. This is Good News.
Where are you today? Where do you take your
disappointments? My sermon’s title is: Is anyone listening? Yes, the answer is Yes,
but are you listening and communicating?
You can answer this, not me.
Amen
1 eSermon
illustration. Ducan, King. Sermon: An Empty Cup
2 Dennis and Barbara Rainey,
Moments Together for Couples (Ventura, California: Regal Books, 1995)
3 Brown Tayler,
Barbara “The Day We Were Left Behind”