church

INI
23rd Sunday after Trinity
November 15, 2009
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION
Job 14:1-5

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that
great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is
well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Today the Holy Spirit directs our attention to the word of Job,
chapter 14, beginning with the 1st verse, as follows:

Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth
like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue. And
do You open Your eyes on such a one, and bring me to judgment with
Yourself? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! Since his
days are determined, the number of his months is with You; You have
appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass. This is the Word of God.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Who is the Resurrection and the Life, Dear Fellow
Redeemed,

If you're a Hemingway fan, as I am, you've probably read the novel For Whom
the Bell Tolls sometime in your life, possibly more than once. You probably
know that it's an adventure story, about the experiences of an American fighting
in the Spanish Civil War. What you may not know is where Hemingway got the
title for his novel. It comes from a poem by John Donne, about the transitory
nature of human life. The poem pictures church bells being rung for a funeral
and concludes, Send not to know For whom the bell tolls -- It tolls for thee.

Hemingway understood, as did John Donne, that death comes to every human
being. It's no use sighing in relief when you hear of someone else's death,
because your turn won't be far behind. At first glance, it may seem that our text
for today is little more than that - a sad lament on the brevity of life and the
inevitability of death. But it is more than that. And when the rest of the Bible's
promises are added to the words of suffering Job, we see that the lot of the
Christian is far different than that of the unbeliever who has no hope. Maybe
you're the kind of person who intentionally avoids thinking about death. Or
maybe you're the other kind - you think about it all the time and it fills you with
anxiety and fear. Either way, our text for today is for you. Our theme for this
morning is borrowed from the title of the hymn we just sang:

BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION

I. Because of sin, life is short and full of trouble.
II. But Christ offers a life of eternal joy

Mind if I ask you a personal question? How's your stress level lately? Perhaps
you're going through a relatively smooth period in your life right now. I hope so!
But maybe you've got some difficult issues confronting you at the moment,
things that are causing you physical or emotional suffering. At the time he
spoke these words, the patriarch Job was experiencing extreme suffering.
Suffering the likes of which most of us will never see. Formerly a wealthy man,
in a matter of days he had lost his wealth, his flocks and herds, his family, and
finally even his health. Job didn't know it, but God was testing his faith. And it
is at times of testing that the cracks appear.

I took a welding class at a tech school once. On my first try I produced a
perfectly smooth bead of metal joining two pieces of steel together. It looked
great. I thought, "There's not much to this welding business!" Unfortunately, as
my instructor explained, the strength of a weld is not measured by how it looks
resting on the workbench. How they measure it is by putting it into a machine
and bending it 180 degrees. My weld, which was defective, immediately
cracked. As did my next seven attempts. Only on my eighth try was I able to
produce a weld that was solid enough not to crack under extreme stress.

In the life of a believer, it is during times of testing that the cracks appear. And
Job was starting to show some cracks. He believed in God. He trusted in God.
But he just couldn't understand what God's purpose could be in allowing these
terrible things to happen to him. Have you ever felt like that? Our text for today
is a cry of suffering on the part of faithful believer. In the midst of his suffering,
he makes several observations about life that are profoundly true. But he also
says at least one thing that is wrong, and that no believer should ever say. Let's
have a look at his words.

"Man who is born of woman is of few days..." It was Albert Einstein who first
theorized that time and space are relative. Well, I don't know about space, but
time sure seems to be relative. When you're a child time seems to crawl by, but
by the time you're an adult it simply flies. Those of us 50 and older, are starting
to realize how quickly our lives have passed to this point, and how quickly our
life in this world will be over. BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION. Job
says the same thing: Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of
trouble.

He comes forth like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does
not continue. How brief is man's life? As brief as a flitting shadow, as brief as
the bloom of a flower. You may have thought that the picture on the cover of
this morning's bulletin was a bit unusual. But I chose it very deliberately. It is a
plant of the cactus family called Peniocereus greggii, or "Night-blooming
Cereus." This cactus is famous for having the shortest blooming period of any
plant in the world. It blooms once a year, during one night only, and by morning
the flower is withered and faded. What a perfect picture of the transitory nature
of human youth and beauty! Millions of dollars are spent on facial treatments
and cosmetic surgery to try to retain the bloom of youth, but all in vain. Time
marches on. The grass withers, and the flower fades.

But Job goes on. Not only is man of few days, but those days are full of
trouble. Now, that's just the opposite of what people want, isn't it? We would
like our days to be long and free of trouble; instead they are short and full of
trouble. Why should that be? It shouldn't be, really! For God didn't create
human life to be short and full of trouble. God created mankind to live forever.
He created Adam and Eve holy and righteous, prepared for a life of joy in
serving God and each other. But Satan came with his temptations. And sin
came. Paul tells us that through one man sin entered the world, and death
through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned-- Rom 5:12.

All of us have inherited that sin from Adam. To it we have added our own sins.
In fact, if our lives are full of trouble, all too often we have no one but
ourselves to blame. Isn't it true? You in your life have all too often listened, as
Eve did, to the temptations of the devil. You've done things you shouldn't have
done, and left undone the things you should. What's the real reason that our life
is brief and trouble-filled? That we fade like flowers? Let's face it, it's sin. The
sin that surrounds us in this world, and the sin inside ourselves. Isaiah tells us:
We are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. --
Isa 64:6.

Job complained bitterly about his lot. He used the brevity of life and its
troublesome nature to protest against God's judgment: Do You open Your eyes
on such a one, and bring me to judgment with Yourself? Who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? No one! "Lord, my life is so mean and insignificant -
why would you ever stoop to judging me and persecuting me as you are doing?
I'm an unclean child of Adam just like everyone else, why pick on me?" Under
stress, Job's faith was cracking at the seams. Job accused God of judging him,
but in reality it was Job who was judging God. But my fellow Christians, what
Job said in a spirit of bitterness and complaint, we need to say in a spirit of
humility and repentance. "Yes, Lord, because of sin, our lives are brief and full
of trouble. We confess our sin, Lord. We humble ourselves before you and
plead for your mercy, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ." And when we do
that, something wonderful happens. All those shortcomings and limits and
sorrows and boundaries that Job's just been talking about…we discover that, in
Christ, there's a way around all of that!

BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION. It is true that, because of sin, life is
short and full of trouble. But even in the midst of this vale of tears, there is
hope. For Christ offers a life of eternal joy.

I'd like to go back to that question Job asked, "Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? No one!" Humans beget humans, sinners beget sinners. Sinful
fathers and mothers beget sinful sons and daughters, who in turn become sinful
fathers and mothers. But Job's blanket statement isn't quite true, is it? But there
was one exception. In a week we'll begin the season of Advent, that time of the
church year when we remember the single occasion on which something clean
came from something sinful. It was predicted by Isaiah five centuries before it
happened: Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin
shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. -- Isa 7:14. It
was predicted by Gabriel nine months before it happened: And the angel
answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power
of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be
born will be called the Son of God. -- Lk 1:35.

BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION, it's true, but this Holy Child would
offer to the world a different life - a life that is eternal and that is full of joy.
And that's another sense, isn't it, in which God IS able to take the clean from
the unclean. For in Christ, God is able to take wretched, unclean sinners like
you and me and make us pure and clean and holy in His sight. He does it by the
power of His Holy Word. The Word goes into your ears and into your heart.
The Holy Spirit causes you trust that Word, to trust - against all appearances -
that in Christ there IS pardon and forgiveness, even for a sinner like you! In
fact, when you think about it, our Lord Jesus has taken all the words of Job and
turned them on their head, hasn't He? In this world, man "...comes forth like a
flow and fades away." But Christ has earned a place for you in another world,
where your inheritance is "...incorruptible and undefiled and does not fade
away, reserved in heaven for you, -- I Pet 1:3-5.

In this world, man "flees like a shadow and does not continue." Nothing
"continues." Everything changes. And the writer to the Hebrews says the same:
"Here we have no continuing city, but," he says, "we seek the one to come."
We seek the heavenly Jerusalem that is ours in Christ! Suffering Job thought
God was persecuting him, just looking for an excuse to judge him and condemn
him. But in Christ we learn the truth. In Christ, our God is " merciful and
gracious" toward us, "longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth." --
Exo 34:6.

Job said man's "...days are determined, the number of his months is with You;
You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass." And this too is
absolutely true. It is God who sets the limits of our lives, not we ourselves. And
there's not a thing we can do to add one more day to the limit God has set. I
kill, and I make alive, says the Lord. But even to this, even to the absolute
certainty of death, Christ has made an exception. For if you trust in Christ, you
can pass those limits. If you believe in Jesus, He promises that you will step
beyond that boundary of death, into a life of eternal joy. Despite his suffering,
Job himself must have known this down deep in his heart. For five chapters
later we hear him utter those immortal words of faith and hope: For I know that
my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my
skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 27 Whom I shall
see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart
yearns within me! -- Job 19:25-27.

Yes, BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION. It is short and full of trouble.
But what a wonderful life is waiting for us in Christ. A joyful life that will not
be brief, that in fact will have no end at all! It's a life where no blooms shall
fade, where no shadows will darken our path, where no tears will interfere with
our joy and happiness. In a picture of heaven, John tells us in the Book of
Revelations, And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be
His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 "And God will
wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow,
nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed
away." -- Rev 21:3-4.

Most of you know Tom Caulton, who occasionally plays the organ for us. He
always says that you shouldn't play Christmas music until Thanksgiving is
officially over. But I have to admit I cheated. The other day I listened to one of
my favorite Christmas carols, "In Dulci Jubilo." It touches on many of the same
issues we've discussed this morning, only instead of a bitter complaint like
Job's, it is an overwhelmingly joyful hymn of praise. BRIEF LIFE IS HERE
OUR PORTION. Because of sin life is short and full of trouble, but Christ
offers a life of eternal joy. Or, to put it in the words of the Christmas carol:

Now through His Son doth shine
The Father's grace divine.
Death o'er us had reigned
Through sin and vanity;
But He for us obtained
Eternal joy on high.
May we praise Him there!
May we praise Him there!

Oh, where shall joy be found?
Where but on heavenly ground?
Where the angels singing
With all His saints unite,
Sweetest praises bringing
In heavenly joy and light.
Oh, that we were there!
Oh, that we were there! AMEN.