Today, in the Second Cycle of arguments, Job reflects on one aspect of his suffering that’s been of great interest to 20th C writers, philosophers, social scientists and artists and we ought to recognize this feature of life and suffering as being more painful and perplexing than we sometimes understand. The feature I have in mind is ALIENATION.
It’s the sense that I’m out of touch or disconnected or separated from others, from myself, from my purpose, from nature and from God. An alienated person feels like he/she doesn’t belong, is out of place and strange for reasons he can’t diagnose or change.
I’d like to explore this condition from Job Ch 19 and see, in the passage, in perhaps the most beloved and famous words in the book, the remedy to this trauma. Let’s look at:
1) The Pain of Alienation
2) The Hope of Redemption
3) The Space Between Alienation and Redemption
Sermon Series: Why Be Good?| The Book of Jōb
Sermon Title: “The Standard Formula (Cycle One)”
Sermon Text: The Book of Job CH 19
Delivered by: T. J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church
A Reflection Before the Service
May 12. 2024
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis , 1915
A man walks down the street
He says, “why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard?
I need a photo opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
‘Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard”.
― Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”, track 6 from the
1986 album, Graceland
All is of God; the only thing of my very own which I contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.
― William Temple (1881-1944)
The Call to Worship: The One-hundred-fiftieth Psalm
Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
Praise Him with trumpet sound;
Praise Him with harp and lyre.
Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!
(Prayer)
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Church Website:
good morning good morning welcome to Park Road Presbyterian church so good to be with you on this second Sunday of May and we of course want to wish all of our moms and grandmothers here today A very happy Mother’s Day we hope that you are uh celebrated today we thank you for all that you do for us for your families so happy Mother’s Day to you all uh a few announcements for us hopefully you received one of these bulletins on your way in if you would uh pull that out and just flip to the last few pages just a couple of short things uh for us this morning um we just concluded our second week of our new Sunday School classes that meet during our Sunday school hour of uh 10:15 to 11 uh we have two offerings one is a kind of biblical study of the book of 1 and 2 Thessalonians upstairs in the fellowship hall you can join us for next week we’d love to have you and then second is our new inquirers class for those of you who are new to Park Road who have questions about what it means to belong to a local church or questions about who we are it’s a great opportunity to ask those questions and so uh there still room to join in if you’re interested in taking part in this Inquirer class um second you’ll find uh just a a host of different announcements there on page 12 and 13 ways for you to be be involved in the life of our church and things that are upcoming and also just to remind you on the back of your bulletin you’ll see that QR code and we have a wonderful Church app where you can access everything in the bulletin uh as well as calendars uh all of our past sermons podcasts uh you can view past services on the app it’s free I want to encourage you to make use of that as much as you can uh as that’s a great way to stay in touch with the church um I think that’s all for me I want to invite Eva Miller up who is our director of women’s ministry she has a short announcement for us this morning right thank you um I wanted to share um an exciting partnership um that I’d like to invite you to be a part of the women’s ministry and the youth ministry are partnering together um to um do a baby bottle campaign with hope um women’s centers so um in the back of the narx you can pick up a baby bottle all of the money that is donated goes to the Women’s Center and it it’s used to um help uh give resources and support to um expect moms in need and there’s three ways for you to donate you can pick up a bottle in the um narx there you can put change cash you can write a check or there’s a QR code on here that you can scan and you can uh give directly online and this is pro this is going to run today first day through uh June 16th which is Father’s day and then on uh Father’s Day you can bring this back and turn it into me I will be in the NX and if you have any questions on this you can contact me or Jonathan Lacy okay thank you thank you Eva uh Jenny Carpenter came back from a year in Ireland and hoped to spend about a year uh uh drumming up more support and then uh that year turned into a little longer when uh her mom had a health [Music] [Laughter] concern and uh Jenny and God’s good Providence was here to help Mary and the rest of the family walk through that and during that time she became I think more convinced that it really was God’s will for her to be in Ireland this time in Northern Ireland she’s um been prayerfully raising support from a lot of different churches and she’s uh just about at I think 90% is that about right Jenny and uh she plans to leave this Tuesday and um then she’ll have a lot of things to kind of step up and find a place to live in and and all that other stuff in um in Ireland Jenny would you come up and Mom and Dad would you come up too and let me ask for the session members of our session if you could stand up and come on up to the front we’re going to pray for Jenny come on all the way do you want to say anything sure okay Jenny uh has agreed to sing for us this morning you guys don’t want to hear that um uh yeah I guess just thank you so much um for everybody’s love and support um in so many ways of me um for my family for my mom over these past couple of years I’m really thrilled to finally be getting to Belfast for my fiveyear term um as TJ said I leave on Tuesday um so please just be praying that travel goes well the getting to the field goes well um please be praying for the churches and the people that I’ll be working alongside there okay yeah thank you guys thank you um just a couple more things before we actually pray for Jenny um she will go with Serge that’s the sending agency that we have used with Brad and Stacy Hunter to go to Vienna they planted a church there also Jenny Sando who’s in Burundi she’s the teacher for the children of the of a medical team who are teaching medicine in Burundi great ministry and um Serge has been a great joy to us and a great help to us in our missionary endeavors today we’re going to be praying for her as a congregation and as we pray we’re also committing to support her right okay good so that means we uh will pray for her in an ongoing basis uh she needs more than just this one big prayer today she needs an ongoing prayer support base and we’ll continue to give because that’s uh important for Jenny’s support to be able to uh carry out the work there so as we pray for her uh we also commit to the Lord uh to be uh an ongoing support to her after the service today we’ll have a reception I want to thank Eva uh for helping us with all that and it’s so always a beautiful uh time so let’s uh see Jenny in the back get a prayer card for her be a good reminder for you uh to pray with that said let’s let’s pray for Jenny father we thank you for the first experience that our sister had in Ireland that it was a good and joyous time a time where she uh knew and felt her gifts being used by the Lord and so we pray uh all the more for a double portion of that Spirit poured out on her as she prepares to go back this time to Northern Ireland Lord we pray that you would keep Jenny beautifully a lord to Jesus as she goes that U more than a job or even a calling she would see this as a sweet compulsion to be able to tell people about the Living God and about Our Redeemer who lives and we pray that she would serve out of an overflow not a desire for affirmation or any of those things that our tricky Minds try to do but instead daily filled with your spirit and the fullness of Jesus that she would move toward others uh with that joy we pray for team relationships that you be the oil in the gears we pray for Michael and Mary Danielle and uh uh all the family father that you would uh fill in that Gap that she leaves and help us to know that we are giving our best and brightest uh for the world so that Jesus might be crowned King and Lord of Ireland Lord be glorified in her and now we commend her into your gracious and all powerful hands in Jesus name we pray amen thank you would you turn please to page one in your bulletin and listen to God’s gracious invitation calling us to Behold Him and worship him this from the 150th Psalm praise the Lord praise God in his Sanctuary praise him in his mighty expanse praise him for his mighty Deeds Praise Him according to his excellent greatness praise him with trumpet sound praise him with harp and liar praise him with timberl and dancing praise him with stringed instruments and pipe praise him with loud symbols praise him with resounding symbols that everything that has breath praise the Lord praise the Lord father we ask now in Jesus name that you would help us to do that very thing remove from us the clouds of self-obsession that so often get in our way of seeing things clearly and help us to see you as you really are the essence of truth beauty and goodness the holy holy holy God who has turned to us in Mercy Lord be glorified in this moment as we come before you and receive from you all that you have for us all that’s necessary for life and godliness in Jesus in whose name we pray amen let’s stand and worship God [Music] s are you hurting are you hurting and broken within overwhelmed by the weight of your sin Jesus is call have you come to the end of yourself to your thanks for a Dream from the well Jesus is calling oh come to the altar the father’s arms are open wide forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ [Music] leave behind your regrets and mistakes come today there’s no reason to wait Jesus is [Music] call bring your sorrows and Jo Joy From the Ashes like his morning Jesus is Calling come to the altar of the father’s arms are open right forgivness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus [Music] savior isn’t he wonderful sing Hallelujah Christ is [Applause] R bow down before him for he is love sing Hallelujah Christ is RIS wait on the Lord wait on the Lord he will renew your strength so wait I say wait on the Lord wait on the Lord he will renew your strength so wait I say wait on the Lord wait on the Lord he will R your strength so wait I say he [Music] my hope is built my hope is BU on nothing less than Jesus and righteousness I did not trust her SP [Music] for on [Music] Christ cor we strong in the saor through the soul [Music] [Music] when darkness seems when darkness seems to p face I rest on his unchanging gra in every high and stormy day my holds within sing that again my anchor holds my anchor holds within sing it out Christ Alone Christ Alone Cornerstone we strong in the savior’s love through the storm he is is Lord Lord [Music] of when he shall come when he shall come with trumpet sound only I there in [Music] rest in his [Music] rightousness far forless to stand forless to stand before the thr Christ the lord corer Stone we made strong in the sing of Love through the storm he is Lord Lord of all yeah Christ Alone cor and stone weak made strong strong in the savior’s love through the Lord he is Lord Lord of all yeah man you may be seated amen did you turn to page four in your bulletin as we come now to a time of prayer this morning you can follow along on the screen behind me as well you hear these scripture passages and then we’ll go to God In Prayer children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a the promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth let your father and mother be glad let her Who Bore you rejoice my son give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways let’s pray father we confess that we have failed to appreciate and honor those in authority and that these failings are ultimately in a front against you our father we thank you for our mothers and for those who have mentored us guided us and nurtured Us in the Lord these are gifts from you we pray for mothers and grandmothers and ask that they be helped in their tasks encouraged in the Lord comfort comed in their sorrows filled with hope and endowed with all the fruit of the spirit that comes by faith in Jesus Christ and now we address the perfect parent in that honored way our savior gave us to pray saying Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen amen amen we now come to the Declaration of our faith and so I’ll invite you to rise if you are able this morning we’ll use the words of the nyine Creed to do this and join with Christians around the world so I’ll ask you the question Christian what is it that you believe we believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and Earth of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God of his father before all worlds God of God light of light very God of very God begotten not made being of one substance with the father by whom all things were made who for us and for our Salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under pontious pilate he suffered and was buried and the third day he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father and he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end and we believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of Life who proceeds from the father and the son who with the father and the son together is worshiped and glorified who spoke by the prophets and we believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic church we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of SS and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come amen praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise Him All Creatures here below Praise Him above the Heavenly Host praise Father Son and Holy Ghost [Music] you may be seated I want Jesus to Walk Away me I want Jesus to walk with me all along my P journey I want Jesus to Walk to Walk with me in my trial Ro walk with me in my tri walk with me when my heart is almost breaking I want Jesus to Walk to Walk With Me O [Music] [Music] when I’m in TR oh walk with me when I’m in Lord walk with me when my hand without in sorrow I want Jesus to Walk to Walk to walk with [Music] [Music] [Applause] me amen good to see everybody uh we have children’s church today I see Mr and Mrs loges ready to receive our young children so let me pray for them if you have children fifth grade and younger after I pray uh they’ll be invited to children’s church so I why don’t you to embrace them right now again only if they’re your children but uh and then uh and then we’ll pray for them let let me pray for them now thank you Lord and we pray for our children that their great desire in this life and the next would be for the Lord Jesus Christ to walk with them that they might have an overwhelming thirst and yearning to know the Living God like a deer pants for the water we ask now that you would bless uh Mr and Mrs loges as they open up God’s word in simpler terms for our children that they might hear the good news and be drawn to you and now Lord as I read your words to your your people may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be ever pleasing in your sight oh Lord our Rock and Our Redeemer amen amen let’s have our children stand please and you guys can head to the back Mr and Mrs loges are waiting for you would you look now on the top of page 8 you’ll find this whole chapter from job 19 I’m going to read that out loud to us then job responded how long will you torment me and crush me with words these 10 times you have in insulted me you are not ashamed to wrong me even if I have truly heed my error lodges with me if indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me know then that God has wronged me and has closed his net around me behold I cry violence but I get no answer I shout for help but there is no justice he has walled up my way so that I cannot pass and he has put Darkness on my paths he has stripped my honor from me and remove the crown from my head he breaks me down on every side and I am gone and he has uprooted My Hope like a tree he has also kindled his anger against me and considered me as his enemy his troops come together and build up their way against me and Camp around my tent he has removed moved my brothers far from me and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me my relatives have failed and my intimate friends have forgotten me those who live in my house and my Maids consider me a stranger I am a foreigner in their sight I call to my servant but he does not answer I have to implore him with my mouth my breath is offensive to my wife and I am loathsome to my own Brothers even young children despise me I rise up and they speak against me all my associates abore me and those I love have turned against me my bone clings to my skin and my flesh and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth Pity Me Pity Me Oh my friends for the hand of God has struck me why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh oh that my words were written oh that they were inscribed in a book that with an iron stylus and Lead they were engraved in the rock forever as for me I know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will take his stand on the earth even after my skin is destroyed yet from my flesh I shall see God whom I myself Shall Behold and whom my eyes will see and not another my heart faints within me if you say how shall we persecute him and what pretext for a case against him can we find then be afraid of the sword for yourselves for wrath brings the punishment of the sword so that you may know there is Judgment the word of the Lord I hope that reading cheered you up this morning and good sermon for Mother’s Day uh we’ve been looking at the Book of Job for some weeks now and um job is a kind of Pawn uh finds himself unbeknownst to him in a kind of wager between God and the Satan and after God has pointed job out to the adversary the accuser the Satan and said this is my servant job have you considered him then Satan returned that in the form of an accusation and said yes Lord you’re proud of your job your servant and he does serve you but let’s be honest he serves you only because you’ve made it worth his while and if you’ll take away his perks I will will take away job and he will leave you and curse you to your face and so immediately The Wager is engaged and all the perks are taken away from job and he finds himself at once the greatest man in the East and an instant later All Is Lost His children 10 adult children die in a building collapse his business is gone marital bliss has evaporated and finally his health as he is stricken with with like um shingles from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet overwhelmingly painful excruciating Soares in his skin and finally he loses all contact with his community everyone has seen him as a blessed man and now all the blessings are removed and everyone wonders what did job do to deserve this from God and worse of all job being a devout man The Devout man wonders why did God do this and what have I done to deserve this from God today in the second of three Cycles where each of the friends speaks and job responds to that friend in turn job reflects on one particular aspect of suffering which we may not consider to be that important in the midst of all the others and that is a kind of social aspect to suffering and it is a subject that has gained a lot of interest in late 19th and early 20th century philosophy and writers and social scientists even artists I think of the uh very famous painting by Edward monk called The Scream which is all about what I’m about to talk about today and I think as we see it we’ll all agree that we ought to pay greater attention to this particular aspect of life and suffering and it’s I think we’ll discover more painful and makes suffering more perplexing than we sometimes understand and this aspect of life and suffering I want to explore with us today is alienation it’s this sense that I’ve lost touch with my people I’ve become disconnected or separated from others from myself uh from my purpose in life from nature it’s like nature is against me everything is against me and finally God is against me and an alienated person feels like he or she doesn’t belong doesn’t belong anywhere is out of place can’t get back home feels strange for reasons he or she cannot readily diagnose this person feels like a pariah like an outcast like no one understands me and no one even really wants to relate to me and I’d like to explore this condition of alienation from this particular chapter Job chapter 19 and I want to see also in the passage in these most beloved and most famous words from the whole book of Job I want to see a remedy for alienation a remedy to this overwhelming trauma today I want to look at number one the pain of alienation number two the hope of redemption and number three the space between alienation and Redemption again the pain of alienation the hope of redemption and thirdly the space between alienation and Redemption uh France Kafka who was a Czechoslovakian born in Germany he thought a lot about this uh phenomena of alienation and he wrote several stories about it one of which a very famous Nolla called The Metamorphosis and it opens with the words as Gregor Sansa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect and we realize as we start to read this work of modern philosophy that this is a kind of absurdist allegory or absurdist metaphor for alienation Gregor’s family doesn’t know what to do with him he no longer feels quite human his his body is betraying him he doesn’t know even how to get out of bed people seem to be afraid of him since he is now become a 6ot tall cockroach wouldn’t you like to have him over for dinner and he no longer feels at home anywhere even in his own his own body it’s really a picture of modern man alienated and not only is this theme of alienation of great interest to philosophers and those in the academy and in high culture but artists and filmmakers and songwriters singers also in pop culture show a great interest in this topic of alienation so for instance Paul Simon wrote The Words a man walks down the street says why am I so soft in the middle So Soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard I need a photo opportunity I want a shot at Redemption I don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard it’s alienation like he looks in the mirror and says how did I become home Omer Simpson or David burn and Talking Heads you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack you may find yourself in another part of the world you may find your yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile you may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife and you may ask yourself how did I get here MC Jagger I Can’t Get No Satisfaction the list just goes on and on movies works of art songs all the ways modern people feel unnatural feel estranged feel detached and disconnected somehow filled with angst and irritability somehow trapped in a life that I think someone else has chosen for me and I find myself asking how did I get here in some ways these songs that I’ve quoted and so many others are like secular Psalms of lament and these Psalms are filled with uh symptoms of people feeling alienated and we can’t help seeing in this chapter as job speaks all of these descriptors of alienation piled one on the other his loved ones are aloof they don’t know what to do with him at the very moment in his life when job is in greatest need of love and sympathy and presence people don’t know how to relate to him and they stay away from him which by the way happens this very day when people find themselves in nursing homes in prisons their loved ones don’t know how to deal with them and people stay away at the very moment when they need human contact the most people are afraid to be near job his employees don’t know how to relate to him he used to raise raise his head and they would run to him now he rings the bell he calls them and they still don’t come they treat him like he’s a foreigner like they can’t understand his language his wife it says my breath has become offensive to my wife men use toothpaste no no this is that it has nothing to do with that it’s it’s about when my wife hears me breathing she wishes I would stop breathing even little kids run away from him when little kids approach him job hears their parents saying get away from that thing look at all the categories he he covers in verses 13- 20 acquaintances Brothers relatives intimate friends those who live in his house his wife his children Associates those I love how did I get here I don’t feel like I belong in my own space I don’t feel like I belong anywhere and the Very friends who have come so many hundreds of miles to comfort and counsel with job his friends as we’ve seen have become fiends and they relentlessly attack him so that he has to turn to them and ask in verse 22 are you not satisfied with my flesh I mean my very body is falling apart in front of you and you still think I deserve more more suffering isn’t it enough that God is against me that you also my friends have to be against me and he’s even alienated from his own body he can’t eat he says my bone clings to my flesh elsewhere he speaks of insomnia he wants to sleep his mind is saying sleep sleep but his body is betraying him and he’s disconnected mind from body but as we’ve been seeing because job is indeed a devout man what’s even more painful than being betrayed by his body or betrayed by his friends or being separated from his old way of life which was so good and Rich what’s worse for job is that job is alienated from God and unlike Western man me Western Godless philosophers and filmmakers and artists who try to excise and separate God from the world as if they could do that it’s like separating the wetness from water and because they can’t do that they have nowhere to put their alienation but job sees alienation from God as being the source of all other alienation and job’s thinking about God is literally decomposing like a uprooted tree it’s part of his alienation from self his thinking about God is like turning on itself he has become spiritually skitso in the truest sense of that word and if you look up the word schizoid like Schism or sism the root meaning of schizoid is having mutually contradictory or antagonistic Parts changing frequently between two opposite States and job sometimes thinks on the one hand that God is against him that God wants to shame him and kill him like Moses said to the children in the wilderness they thought that God brought them into the Wilderness to kill them and so Jo sometimes goes in that direction God is going to Snuff me out and he’ll say things like know this God has wronged me he has closed his net around me he has walled up my way so that I can’t pass it’s a dead end he puts Darkness on my path he breaks me down on every side he has considered me his enemy and as I keep trying to say every Sunday if you think that if that’s true of you to reverse St Paul’s quotation if God is against you who can possibly be for you and all this strangeness and alienation says job I know it originates with God pity me he says Pity Me Oh you my friends for the hand of God has struck me and sometimes he thinks of God in that way and yet then after reflecting on the truth that God could if he wanted to stop this suffering but God won’t stop the suffering therefore job concludes this must be God’s will for me God wants me in this place of suffering on the other side then job says the words the dearest most famous words in the whole book of Job one of the greatest works of liter in the history of the world job says the words as for me I know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will take his stand in the dust I know our translation says in the earth it’s only a word word translated only a few times Earth over 90 times it’s translated by the word dust that’s really what job meant to say and what job did say he will take take his stand on the dust and even after my skin is destroyed yet from my flesh I will see God I know that my redeemer lives and the question is who is this person who’s going to come and make things right for job now our Bible translation that we use capitalizes the word Redeemer more than suggesting but determining that job is speaking of God and I don’t really like the capitalized words sorry but in this case I do agree that job is speaking of God himself and on the one hand job sees that God is absolutely in control of everything and if God wanted job’s suffering to stop it would stop immediately so the fact that job’s misery continues means that God Wills for job to suffer but on the other hand God is Job’s Redeemer and even if he tries to think that God is evil he can’t he keeps thinking despite everything I’m undergoing God is still good there is an unresolved mystery says job that God has put me in anguish and yet God will show up I know as my redeemer and the whole idea of the Redeemer it’s not a word that you use has anyone Ed the word Redeemer in your secular life this week it’s not a word we run around saying hey I need a redeemer here sometimes we’ll say I redeemed coupons but we don’t usually use the word Redeemer and you should probably know that the word redeemer is found in the Jewish book of law the Torah especially in Leviticus chapter 25 where it specifies if a fellow Countryman of yours becomes so poor that he has to sell part of his property then his nearest Kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold old and that word Kinsman is the word Gaal in Hebrew the word translated Redeemer and it’s the same word translated as buy back the relative should come say hey man I’m so sorry you had to lose some of your property I have money I’ll buy it back from you and that word is Gaal it’s your Gaal Kinsmen who will Gaal redeem you and using this same word job is basically saying I don’t have it all figured out guys I admit and I want this suffering to stop ASAP and I don’t know everything about it but I do know this one thing God will most definitely show up as my kinsman redeemer and God will Ransom me God will buy me back and God will set me free and God will take his stand next to me on the same dust on which I am standing before I die and he will stand with me in the dust again not the Earth the dust and we want to ask job which one is it in this schizoid view of God that you have is God against you or is God for you is is God your enemy or is God your enemy your relative and rescuer a Kinsman a brother Redeemer who will stand with you and vindicate you as you cry on the ash Heep job is God for you or is God against you and I think job would have said I don’t have it all figured out and I can’t explain it all but I can just tell you this one thing as for me I know that my redeemer lives and God will show up and God will Ransom me I know I may not know how I may not know when I may not know why it’s taking so long I may not know why all this is happening but one thing I know I know that my redeemer lives and you see we too and I don’t know everyone here obviously we have some visitors today I don’t know uh those of you who are Christians and those of you who are only thinking about Christianity but God is inviting us and calling us into that same kind of certain uncertainty that job exhibited and if you’re a Christian you’re being invited to say with job I don’t have it all figured out but this much I have figured out I know that my redeemer lives and we are being invited to say a kind of echo of that phrase found in the writings of St Paul who said I know whom I have believed and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return now you might say TJ do you think job having lived many centuries before the coming of Jesus Christ as job talked about God as his Redeemer do you think job also had some image in his mind of Jesus Christ the God man coming to redeem him and my answer would be no these were things Angels long to look into but didn’t know about it and job didn’t really see it again job knew that God had Afflicted him and that God would rescue him and that God was his Redeemer and that Redeemer would take a stand and be in the dust right where job was hurting but that’s about all job knew about the Redeemer but we know a little more we know whom we have believed and we have seen Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity the infinite Eternal unchangeable God we have seen him unite himself to our human nature and at a per moment in human history he actually incarnated and God came and stood right down on our dust He Walked on our Dusty streets he washed the dusty feet of the fishermen there was even one particular occasion where he wrote in the dust he became one with us in order that he might become a Kinsman to redeem us a real human being made of dust who intimately knows our frame as it says in Psalm 103 that we are but dust and Jesus Christ took job’s situation to himself he took my situation to himself in fact if you are a Christian today and if you believe in Jesus Christ today you will begin to know that he took your situation to himself when Jesus Christ became the number one most alienated human being who ever lived he lived the life I was required to live but failed to live he died the death I deserved to die he was alienated from people when they spat on him what could be more alien than that they ridiculed him even children were told to stay away from him but they couldn’t they just kept running to him his brothers alienated themselves from him you remember the occasion where they came to the house where Jesus was teaching and one of the brothers ventured forth and said hey could you get in there and get my brother he’s he’s the one Speaking there he’s um you know lost it his brothers failed to believe in him and were alienated from him we find him in the garden completely abandoned alienated from everyone estranged and finally he was estranged from the father whom he had loved from all eternity it was a love that had no beginning it was a love between persons in the godhead that was eternal Harmony and joy in the Eternal community of the one God Father Son and Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ knowing that Eternal harmony with the father is now alienated is now the criminal is now the stranger the ultimate Outsider the one who suffered infinitely and who on the cross cries out the ultimate epitome of alienation when he says my God my God why have you forsaken me and it was God as it were alienated from God in this supreme mystery that reconciled job’s skitso view of God a god infinitely holy and yet also infinitely loving a god supremely exalted above everything in the universe and a God who humbles himself to wash the dusty feet of the fisherman a God who was humbled all the way down to the dust and finally Jesus Christ the Redeemer that job trusted even though he didn’t know him he was indeed humbled to the dust crucified and dead he was buried in the dust he was placed in a tomb until on the third day he took his stand and therefore all Christians have to celebrate the truth that all the churches recently have celebrated so vocally Easter where we say I may not know everything but I know that my redeemer lives and up from the grave he rose now for those of you who are believers in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of God’s people we ought to know and recognize that we live now in the already and the not yet and we live in this tension we live in what CS Lewis called the shadowlands we sometimes endure profound suffering I know people in this congregation right now who are profoundly suffering or who know people who are suffering so badly they wonder what in the world is going on and we sometimes endure profound pain and deep alienation but we do so as Christians with our eyes always fixed on the Redeemer and in this Shadow land often times things don’t fit neatly into our categories and we wonder in the midst of suffering if God could stop this suffering but doesn’t is God really good is God against me and knowing all of us I trust that profound sense of confusion that sometimes comes on us in the midst of life and in the midst of suffering we therefore avoid approaching people with Pat answers we don’t want to become fiends like job’s fiends who only added to his anguish with their Pat answers and we have to realize that we live in the tension between alienation and Redemption we hear God speaking through the prophet Isaiah saying for a brief moment I forsook you but with great compassion I will gather you in an outburst of anger I hid my face from you for a moment but with Everlasting loving kindness I will have compassion on you says the Lord your Redeemer and you know we living in the shadow land tension between alienation and Redemption we really feel modern man’s dilemma we feel modern man’s deep sense of estrangement about which the artists speak and write and compose literature we all know that we all those redeemed and those not redeemed we live not in the garden anymore we live East of Eden and we also know that there’s a remedy and yet knowing that remedy and tasting that remedy shouldn’t or can’t make us cocky or smug I think the last thing that a Christian should be in the modern world is cocky or smug but instead we are ready to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty and get down in the dust to care for people who are in the throws of alienation and confusion about life and don’t know what to do it because they can’t say with job I know my redeemer lives’ and on one hand I can say I know that my redeemer lives and I know whom I have believed Rock Solid confidence constant hope assurance and on the other hand I see what I deserve you say TJ when do you see when you deser what you deserve every time I look at the cross of Jesus Christ I see what I deserve the cross is the reconciliation of alienation and Redemption and my confidence is always held in tension between humility and confidence and so the position that I take in the modern world as a believer in Jesus Christ as I walk through the shadowlands living confidently and yet living in a fallen World As We await our final Redemption the posture or the approach that most makes sense is articulated I think most clearly in these words by the Apostle Paul in his letters to Rome and to Ephesus we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as Sons the Redemption of our body and again from Romans chapter or Ephesians chapter 4 do not grieve the holy spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption see you’re always looking forward to the day of redemption let all bitterness and wrath anger and clamor and slander be put away from you lose the cocky smug attitude it’s really what Paul is saying be confident be supremely confident in the res the resolution of your alienation in the Cross of Christ do away with slander along with all malice be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ has also forgiven you let’s pray together Lord I pray first for my brothers and sisters we we pray that you would help us to know what it is and to live as redeemed people and with that Supreme confidence that we know Our Redeemer Lives to be able to approach life to be able to Humble ourselves to be able to approach people and not run away from them and I pray also for my friends on the internet and here in the sanctuary who have not closed with Christ have not come to say with job I know that my redeemer lives would you Lord move into the lives of these folks and liberate them to believe and believing may they bear great fruit as they walk through this Shadow land in Jesus name we pray amen let’s stand now and sing [Music] when the best of breathing when I’m not somebody I believe it hold on to me when I miss the light night is St when I’m sing on doors you open hold on to [Music] me hold on to [Music] hold on to me when it’s too dark to see when I am sure I am reach the end hold on to me when I forget I need you but I let go hold me again [Music] when I don’t feel like I’m worth defending when I’m tired of all my pretending hold on to me when I start to break it desperation underneath the weight expectations hold on to me hold on to me hold on to me when it’s too dark to see you when I am sure I have reached the end hold on to me when I forget I need you when I let go hold me again I could rest here in your arms forever cuz I know nobody loves me better hold on to me hold on to me please stick around uh for a while say hello say hello to Jenny and say goodbye to Jenny and uh get a card uh so that you can pray for her and keep on supporting her we’ll have cookies in the back thanks to the women’s ministry team for preparing that for us and uh Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms let’s receive now God’s blessing now the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now and forever more amen amen amen a f me from the instrumental 1 2 3 4 5 [Music] [Applause] 6 your regrets and mistakes come today there’s no reason to wait Jesus is Calling bring s train Joy From the Ashes new like this Jesus is [Music] call foress the preious bur Jesus h [Music] for he is Lord of all sing Hallelujah Christ is r [Music]