Job: Finding Peace on an Unpredictable Path | The Final Answer to Our Pain (Job 38-42)

One of the easiest ways to make our problems worse is to dwell on ourselves and make everything center around ourselves – make our life all about ourselves. It might seem counter-intuitive, but the way life works better is when we make life about God… because life is about God. With some of the most powerful words in Scripture, God reminds Job that the universe doesn’t revolve around Job. It revolves around God. A life focused on God will never disappoint. A life focused on self always will. Join us for the last week of the series and listen to God’s powerful words at the end of the book of Job.

Transcript

Back in high school, I had a strange release. I went to Luther Prep in Watertown, Wisconsin, and occasionally I would run out to a local cemetery and just vent to Jesus. I found a tombstone with “Lehmann” engraved across the top, a possible relative I never knew, and I would sit in the grass and let it all out with Jesus. To my shame, I directed so much anger at God for things that happened to me in my life, things I was dealing with at that moment, the constant question, “Why, why, why?!” I had the intellectual knowledge that God knows everything and is guiding every world event for the good of his people, yet at heart level there are moments then and now, that I find distrust within me. The accusation, “God, if you really knew how this was affecting me, you would understand why I need this out of my life!” It’s the same struggle Job had, that as he begs to defend himself before God, he forgot who he was talking to. He forgot who is the final answer to his pain, our pain, and the world’s pain. 

Such forgetfulness so easily happens when pain invades our lives, doesn’t it? Has that ever happened to you when you hit your limit and you find it impossible to think about anything else? Job experienced that too! By the end of the book, he is fed up with his friends and their unhelpful advice. He’s demanding an audience with God. He thinks he can prove his innocence to God, and by doing so, he will finally have closure. He was convinced if he could defend his integrity, and finally know the reason for his suffering, that would be the cure. Isn’t that how we think as well? If God would only tell us the “why,” we could get through it. Job needed an answer for his pain, and what he received from God was far more than he bargained for.

Can you imagine a monstrous storm appearing out of nowhere? Hearing a voice deeper and more powerful than James Earl Jones could even deliver? The LORD, Yahweh, appears to Job not in a rainbow with bunnies, but in a mighty storm. He rattles off more than 70 questions to Job and his opening question is really the point of his whole sermon to Job, “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?” Job thought he knew more about his pain than God. He was wrong. Haven’t we all been there? Again, we know that God knows all, and yet we’re often convinced we know better. That’s why God lovingly puts Job in his proper place. God describes the vast, intricate beauty of creation, beyond Job’s understanding so Job could see God for who he really is.

When God finally lets Job speak, do you know what Job’s first words were? “I am unworthy.” Here’s your Hebrew word of the day, קַלֹּתִי. Hyperliterally Job says, “I am small.” As he considers the LORD’s greatness, he says, “I’m zipping my lips. I get it, God.” Has that ever happened to you? God uses life circumstances to remind you of how little we are compared to Him. Just as Job thinks his talk with God is done, the LORD’s just getting warmed up!

The LORD gets even more specific when discussing this incredible sea creature called the Leviathon. We don’t know exactly what it looked like, but God’s point is made: he controls everything in the universe. He sees it all. He directs it all, nothing escapes his knowledge. There is nothing we know that God doesn’t. And you know how Job ultimately reacts to this? His final words in the book? “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” This isn’t self-pity. It’s a recognition of God’s greatness. What was the primary struggle Job had? He thought he knew better than God. Like a student looking at an exam for which he knew none of the answers, Job was speechless. He had the answer to his pain. But what was it exactly? How the LORD speaks to Job can come across as harsh or even condescending, right? Where’s the compassion? Where’s the support? Do you know what such questions expose about us? 

We are so often clueless when it comes to suffering’s answer. We are so bad at comforting ourselves and others which is why God’s response seems so off. His response is perfect. The issue lies with thinking we know the answer to our pain when the LORD knows best. God knew that what Job needed wasn’t an explanation for his suffering. He needed a reminder of who God is. This is why he calls himself “Yahweh” as he speaks to Job, a title specifically designed to remind Job of God’s faithful, covenantal, never-broken love for him. That’s what Job needed. He didn’t need full knowledge of the situation. He needed to remember who his God was and that he was there. Bible scholar Steven Lawson captures this, “God still had not told Job why he was suffering. All Job knew was that God was there with him—and that God alone was sufficient. Job didn’t have to know why. All he needed to know was who.” Our biggest struggle in handling our pain is not a knowledge problem, it’s a memory problem. Isn’t it so true that when you are filled with the comfort and hope that your LORD stands beside you you are given a grace-given strength to face it?

God wants us to see our smallness only so we can marvel even more at his greatness. Job realized there was no stopping God, and he says something absolutely awesome “No plan of the LORD can be thwarted.” And there was one plan God set in motion before the world began to answer our pain, to satisfy our deepest hopes. It was the plan leading up to God’s finest hour. His moment of ultimate greatness and triumph came because his plan couldn’t be thwarted. Like God says in Isaiah, “For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” God would stretch out his hands when the time had fully come (Galatians 4) across the plank of his cross. His hands were stretched, nailed in place, and nothing would make his hands leave that wood until he rescued us. It’s at the cross of Jesus where our “why’s” end, where our aloneness is banished, where the truest love is ours. Jesus gives us the answer to our suffering and it could only come from him enduring every bit of our pain. What does this mean for you?

It means when you’re sitting in the hospital room waiting for news, when the relationship you poured yourself into falls apart, when your mental health feels like it’s caving in, that’s when God wants you to know: 'I’m still here, just look at my cross.” And why does God direct us there? Because that’s what God considers to be his ultimate greatness. As wonderful and majestic as his creation is, God’s finest hour came in a place where greatness seemed nonexistent. The place of the cross where he seemed so small, so helpless, so powerless. It goes against everything this world says is true. The truth is that God’s ultimate greatness is found in pain. C.S. Lewis learned that too, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” The cross is the megaphone of God’s love. His perfect planning. His ultimate triumph. When you ask, “Why, God?” he escorts you again to that beautiful hill where he stretched out his hands, so he can now throw them around you, and assure you, “You can trust me with your life.” And it’s that very life where we see the greatness of God’s grace that we boldly strive by God’s grace to “learn of (Jesus) to bear the cross.”

When we realize our smallness, that before the majesty of God, we are like a drop of water in the ocean, yet by His grace, we are lifted to be His own, we know the answer to our suffering. It’s not that we know better than God. It’s not because we know the why. It’s because we know the Who behind it all. The one who carried all our pain, who identified with our sorrows, and overcame them all. He gave us His Word to unlock the joy of our Christian crosses. We carry them not reluctantly, or bitterly, but joyfully because such crosses are gifts specifically tailored by God for his children just as he planned out his own cross. This pain is our gift so we can marvel at God’s greatness most beautifully seen at the cross of Christ. Can you see the impact this has on how we handle our pain and the pain of the people around us? Can you see that you have the answer to providing the perfect comfort for those caught in the storm?

The answer is not to try to explain pain, to see the reasoning behind it, or to rationalize it. The answer is the gospel. I can speak to that from experience. Those graveyard chats with Jesus never ended with me expressing my bitterness. The tears often would start streaming not because I felt alone, but because Jesus was present through his Word. After venting, I would think of the promises God has made in his Word, dear Bible passages reminding me of his presence, of his promises, of his hope. I could see my own suffering on the cross of Jesus, and how my pain was bonding me to him more and more. Isn’t that what we need when we suffer? And isn’t that exactly what our friends need? What we need most is the reassurance of God, to reflect God’s faithful presence to others. It’s a comfort that breaks down into three parts: 1. Being there. We long to be like Jesus who never leaves us and we give that attention to our friends in need. 2. Avoiding “I know how you feel.” We admit we don’t know all the intricacies of their suffering, and in that way, we acknowledge the severity of their hurt. 3. Pointing to God’s greatness. What would it look like with that hurting friend if you opened your Bible and prayed to God, bringing it all before Him because you know he is infinite in power and never failing in his love, the best combination you could ever have in a friend? Because in him is not only the answer to our pain but the reminder of how the story of every child of God ends. 

Think about that when it comes to Job. Job’s story ends in a way that almost feels too fairy tale, happily ever after, like. But it’s far deeper than that. God gives Job double what he had before and ten more kids. But there is much more here than meets the eye. Think about it. Before God gives him more wealth and kids, he has Job pray for his friends who had given him such cold comfort. Job chooses to have a family again after many in his situation would have said absolutely not. God wasn’t giving Job a classic “I want to make it up to you” gift. He gave him all those things because God simply wanted to love Job, and to point Job to his final life chapter, the same one that Jesus has written for you. Dear child of God, your final chapter doesn’t have a “the end.” Jesus always has the answer for your deepest longings in life: Belonging, joy, no goodbyes, no ends, no pain.

Remember back when we started this journey with Job? His story began with a conversation in heaven, and Job’s story ended with him standing with Jesus in heaven. Do you realize the same is true for you? Before time began, the triune God had a heavenly conversation about you, his plan to save you, his plan for your life, and his plan to prepare a home for you. Imagine living your life keeping that truth always before you! What would this next week look like, if you intentionally filtered your pain through the lens of your final chapter? The chapter Jesus has already written for you that will never end? How about we go and find out, knowing God’s plans are never broken! Amen.