physicians are you all? Oh, that you would keep silent and it would be your wisdom. So we would come to this portion of Job's prayer to God, but before that, let's pray. Lord, in your economy of mercy, I'm just a beggar telling others where to find some bread. So Lord, open my lips and I would declare your praise. Give us ready hearts to hear your word, for you alone have words of life. You can give us faith and hope and love. Amen. So I'll read the two parts from Job 13 and 14. Job says to God, only grant me two things. I won't hide myself from your face. Withdraw your hand far from me. Let not dread of you terrify me. Call. And I will answer. Let me speak, and you reply to me. How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy? Will you frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff? For you write bitter things against me, and you make me inherit the iniquities of my youth. You put my feet in the stocks. You watch all my paths. You set a limit for the soles of my feet. Chapter 14, verse 7. There is hope for a tree, if it's cut down, that it will sprout again, that its shoots will not cease. Though its root would grow old in the earth and its stump even die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. But a man dies and is laid low. Man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and is laid low. Man breathes his last. He rises not again. Till the heavens are no more, he will not awake, nor will he be roused out of his sleep. Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is passed, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait till my renewal should come. Then you would call and I would answer you. You would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps. You would not keep watch over my sin. My transgression would be sealed up in a bag and you would cover over my iniquity. That's for the reading of God's profitable word. Please be seated. So Thomas's new favorite thing to do is to listen to music, and especially watch music videos. So I was watching some of them with him a couple weeks ago. I actually wrote the date, because it's been three weeks since I've been here. And one of these songs was Rick Astley's cover of the song Titanium. Now Sia is the normal one who recorded that song. It's a really powerful vocal performance. I have to be honest, I actually like the Rick Roll song, so I thought I'd give it a listen. Thomas didn't care. He thought it was great. Something stood out to me, besides the fact that Rick Astley's voice is really not aged well. He doesn't do the song justice. He gave a little bit of a sermon before that song, as a lot of artists do. He said, this song is perfect for right now. for the time that we live in, because we've all got to find something inside us to make us feel a little stronger, to get through the days we're going through. And he's not wrong about what the song says. The song, just a few of the lyrics say, I'm criticized, but all your bullets ricochet. You shoot me down, but I get up. I'm bulletproof. Nothing to lose. Fire away. Fire away. But Krishna, is that how you think about suffering in this world? That we're just immune to it? Are we bulletproof that it won't hurt us when it comes? Or do you actually agree with him that really the only hope we have is to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps? The only comfort we might look to is from ourselves or maybe from a singer. We've been looking through the book of Job at an accelerated pace. I want us to remember God isn't primarily telling us to look at Job as an example. of how to suffer and how to suffer well. Job is not just an example of patience. This is something we are lacking as we are moving through it quickly. Job is really sarcastic. Job lashes out in anger and pain, especially at his friends, sometimes at God. Job will get more and more self-righteous. He can be arrogant. Although he never actually crosses that line of blasphemy. He never gives up his faith. It's actually kind of cool, later, to see how God and his forerunner, Elihu, will talk Job down from the ledge. And, of course, to be generous, Job didn't have the full scope of scripture like we do. Neither did Job know those key parts, the real setting of the story, that divine counsel. Remember Job 1 and 2? Job didn't know that his sufferings were part of a bigger plan to prove that God saves people, and God is going to undo the fall, and God is going to judge Satan forever. So all this to say, I don't want us to think for a second that what we're supposed to hear from Job, and as we read Job, that we're just bulletproof titanium, or that we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. In this passage, we see a bit of the hope of resurrection glory, but that's only a part of the glory for Job and for every believer. Honestly, if Job is hoping for future blessings, if that's his end game in all this, as we'll see at the very end, chapter 42, if that's what Job is waiting for, then Job would have just fallen in the trap and proved Satan right, proved his counselors right. Job, you're just in it for the money. I want you to hear this. If heavenly riches are your only comfort, peace with other people in heaven, finally a time when Facebook won't be filled with, you know, dross and whatever else, you need to hear this message and take it to heart. Because for Job, for every believer, We have a present comfort, even in the midst of the worst temptations, even in the midst of our trials and sufferings in this life. This present comfort is the very presence of God, which Job longed to have in fuller expression. That leads us to the main point, which is that because God in Christ, by his spirit, is with us, we, just like Job, we have a present comfort. which is built on the resurrection, and this will sustain us even in the midst of our present sufferings. So firstly, what kind of comfort does Job long for? Secondly, a second point that we'll look through is what hope grounds Job's comfort? I've already spoiled it, it's the resurrection. And lastly, I'd like to consider a larger point at the end, a point of application, how does this lead us to live differently? How does this comfort affect us? So firstly, Job's comfort, which is the presence of God. In these chapters, at the very end of the first cycle of Job's friends, debate between him and his friends, we see a rise in his state. Job has kind of always had depressive moments, and we don't blame him. He's been brought to nothing. The thought that we saw in the last section that Job must have a mediator able and willing to plead his case before God, and this mediator is Jesus, this thought has lifted his spirits. He'll state this most clearly in the next several passages, most emphatically in Job chapter 19, but we see glimpses of this hope even here. What is Job's hope? What keeps him from falling to pieces? Is it just the hope of resurrection? It is the hope of resurrection, but I want to make the point that's coincidental to Job's true hope, which is God with him right now, the loving presence of God. I want you to see in two ways those verses from chapter 13. Job is really asking for one thing, that God would not abandon him, but be present with his servant. If you are one to pick up your Bible, we're looking at verse 20, Job 13 verse 20. Job's saying, I don't want to hide from you. And later in 24, he says, I don't want you to hide from me. Job is really asking for one thing, that God would be with him and before him. In verse 22, Job asks God to summon me. And this is a legal term. Job is asking for a promise. He wants to get this in writing, that he'll get a court-appointed visitation. Behind all of this is Job's desperate desire to be near his God. He's like a lost child at Disneyland. I mean, he's surrounded by things, but he really just wants his father. In fact, the second half of verse 24 is really touching. Job is doing a play on words there. Job isn't just lashing out when he says, why do you count me as your enemy? That second part of verse 24. He's saying his own name. You see, Job's name means something like, where is the father? I'll try to pronounce it in Hebrew. It's something like, Elav. And you might hear that last syllable. It's kind of like Abba or Abraham. There's also a pun on his name here. The Hebrew word for enemy is oyev. It's just the vowels flipped around. So Job is pining after his God, not just with his words, as he's been saying, you seem so far from me. Is it really true that you're against me, like my friends say? It's like he's saying, God, have you so forgotten me? You don't even know how to say my name anymore. Am I really your enemy now? instead of your dear Job. Where is my father? So when we see Job asking that God would summons him, as if he was saying, sue me, Job is asking for anything that'll bring God close to him, or that'll bring him close to God. Praise God. Job's longing is answered for us. in Christ Jesus. In the incarnation, our God himself came down to us in this world of hurts and sorrows. Jesus was lonely. Jesus has suffered. He was betrayed. Jesus has been sick, lost his appetite. He has suffered. He died on the cross. He was abandoned by all his family, all his friends, all his people, all his own people. Jesus was afflicted and he didn't deserve any of the sufferings. He didn't come to us with just empty words or with a confrontation. He came to us knowing that what we needed is for him to be with us. To paraphrase Tim Keller from his sermon series on Job on the same sort of passages, he said, when we think of what Christ has suffered, when we consider the sufferings of Jesus, while we still don't know the reason for our sufferings as we go through them, now we know what isn't the reason. It isn't the case that God is mad at us, that God doesn't love us, that he's against us, that he's forgotten our name, that he seems to be treating us like his enemy, like how Job is expressed here. That leads us to a second point. How, on what grounds does Job have for this hope? And I'll spoil it a little bit. The answer is the resurrection. Job brings us to this image of a tree in chapter 14, verse seven. He introduces this. He says there might be hope for a tree, right? Trees have this ability to regrow if you cut it down. But Job doesn't seem so sure about people. After considering this idea of a tree, he turns to consider mankind, really his own situation. He says, my body's been destroyed. My family's been ruined. My business is done. And when people go to die, it's always a one-way street, as Job says. We're more like a dry riverbed. A riverbed can't make itself wet again. can't make themselves alive again. Not in this lifetime, not in this fallen world. But Job isn't just offering discouragement and pessimism. Neither should we despair when we consider how frail we are. Job gives a reason for his present hope of God's presence. He does this with a hopeful wish in verse 13 and a hopeful question in verse 14. So verse 13 of chapter 14. He says, oh, that you would hide me in Sheol. Job has spoken of the grave and of the place of the dead in the past, hasn't he? This time is a little different. Now he's not hoping for rest apart from God. Now he hopes for God himself to hide him for a short while, to somehow change the grave to not be a place where he would go forever. Verse 13, Job asked that God would conceal me. And he says, remember me, remember me, he says. Put me back together, reattach me, make me new again. And later, verse 15, he says, call me and I will respond. But dead people don't respond unless God calls them. We might think immediately of how Jesus called Lazarus And Lazarus came out of the grave. Verse 14, Job says, the resurrection would transform his present trial. And isn't that true for us? Haven't we thought that when you're going through something you don't think you can handle? Wouldn't you say like, God, if only I knew what you're doing in my life, why is this happening? Then I would be able to handle this with grace. Wouldn't it seem to make it easier for us? But for Job, he says, even if I knew that, even if I knew that assurance of resurrection, even if we knew that he would come out of this alive, even if he knew that, that's not what Job's asking for. Not immediately. Job is asking not just for a future hope, but for a present trust in the Lord. Come whatever may, forever and always. That's the recurring theme of Job. You know, actually this reminds me of some, there's a lot of TV shows that seem to be covering this kind of a theme, asking the question of what happens when a person dies? What about purgatory? What about the afterlife? One in particular, The Good Place, that just ended, so spoilers. I haven't watched it myself. It doesn't seem that good. There's a picture of heaven, finally, at the end. And it's not absolute freedom as they say it is. At first it seems like with a snap of your fingers you can do whatever you want on this picture of the world. You want to go to Paris? Bam, you're there. You can 3D print whatever kind of amazing food you want to have. The problem with this, and they even explore this, although they do it without hope. They say, this is actually slavery. Slavery to yourself. Slavery to the limits of your imagination. Never really looking outside of yourself to something that would, to someone maybe. who would forever capture your attention, who is forever and everlastingly good, true, beautiful. Such a vision of paradise is actually just a personalized hell. And because all of these pictures of paradise lack Jesus, they're just pictures of hell, to paraphrase Samuel Rutherford. I want to say, even for your most stereotypical introvert here, You wouldn't be happy in solitary confinement. For a stereotypical extrovert, you would get bored with the same crowds of people who are never actually together, but just living their own lives, and finally, choosing to end them. For any kind of human being, such a picture of heaven is not a paradise at all. John Piper put it this way in a sermon he titled, God is the Gospel. He said, the critical question for a generation For every generation is this, if you could have heaven with no sickness, with all the friends you ever had on earth, with all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, no human conflict, no natural disasters, could you be satisfied with that heaven if Christ was not there? I'll put that question to you, would you? Every believer with Job would answer, no. We want to see Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus. And that's what Job is saying in verses 15 to 17 there. In the resurrection, God would call Job by name and not treat him like his enemy. Look at verse 16. Do you see how Job has now reversed the words he said in chapter 13, verse 27? There he complained in prayer that God is like a stalker God is eyeballing his every move. He's not letting him have a break or anything. He's watching his footsteps, maybe like a cop, watching someone do a sobriety test and failing miserably, stumbling all over the place. Here, in 14 verse 16, Job says God would count his steps in love like a father watching his baby beginning to walk for the first time. Only then Would sin be fully removed from Job? Sin would be sealed up in a bag, buried forever, tossed in the sea, never to be seen again. So just to answer that question, is there hope for renewal? That a believer who dies in the Lord would live again? Yes. Yes. A hundred times yes because of what Christ has done. As surely as Christ has been raised again, we who trust in him will be raised with him, never to die again. But is that what Job's asking for? That God would just promise him a fairytale ending? He wants God's presence now, and I hope that's your desire too, Christian. We see this explicit promise that God would be with us. Jesus says this in Matthew 28, verse 20. He says, by his Spirit whom he sent. Jesus says, behold, I will be with you all the days, even to the end of the age. And again, Hebrews 13, quoting what God said to Moses and Joshua to comfort God's people in that church underage in the wilderness. God promises, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. We hear throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, he teaches them that where two or three gather in my name, I will be there with you. And this is, there's a lot of context there, but mainly I want you to think in corporate worship as we gather as a church. Finally, there's a lot of, I think this is worth us considering. Jesus says this in his, in John chapter 14 and 15. Let me read a few of these. Jesus says, I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. The spirit of truth. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you also will live. And that day you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you. Later, Jesus says, if anyone loves me, he'll keep my word. My father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. He says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. And again, finally, in chapter 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Job himself says this plainly in our own passage, verse 13. He says he can hope that God would make the grave and shield a temporary resting place Even then, Job asks that God himself would be the one to lay him to rest. He says, I want you with me then, even there, to hide me in the grave, to tuck me in. This is also what just all the covenants in scripture tell us. And because covenants are the way that God has structured how he's revealed himself to his people, this is worthy of our discussion, of our thought. God in his covenants reveals himself and says he is doing this in order that he would be our God and we would be his people. We see this from the beginning of scripture in Genesis and we see this at the end of scripture in Revelation. We see a glimpse there of heaven, much better heaven than that of The Good Place or really any of these other Netflix shows. There, God would dwell with his people we will see his face in Christ. And there, it'll be true what the psalmist says in Psalm 16. In his presence is the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. That's what Job longs for. That's what every Christian longs for. And we have that full confidence that Job longed for. That God's presence is enough for us. So, how should we live then? As people who belong to the new creation as people who have been born again, who know God and have him dwelling with us. That's our third point. For starters, we could live this life by faith and not by sight. We can pray for and minister to the lost, the last, the least. They would be gifted faith that they too would find peace and joy for their souls in Christ. We can also involve ourselves in other things and not just the work of the church and all kinds of other earthly vocations. We might involve ourselves in politics at a local, state, and even national level. Knowing full well that every nation, every community will fall to pieces on the last day. Just because this world is doomed to perish doesn't mean that We are not obligated to love our neighbors in this way. In theological terms, this is the second and third use of the law. And Christians of all people should be ready and willing by God's grace to love our neighbors. We also can endure our sufferings when God is with us. Knowing that our sufferings don't mean that God is mad at us, or that he's turned his back on us, or he's reopened our case and is pronouncing judgment on us. We can live this life with joy, There are good things in this life, but we can also live this life with kind of open hands, not clenching the things that we have whenever we do enjoy things in this world. It's okay if we don't have the nicest cars, or we can't go on vacation, or won't have a smooth retirement. Dare I say, it's okay when our children are not perfect like we hoped they would be. We don't have as many as we would want, or any at all. We can accept that in this world we might not own anything at all, and yet we have a sure inheritance already in Christ Jesus. He promises every blessing of the Spirit coming down from the Father. This hope of resurrection also just It comes from our enjoying this presence of God with us, our union with Christ. This hope also makes us a giving people. This should cause us to be willing to give of our lives away, to give our finances, to give our youthful time and our elderly time to the work of the church. There are many different callings that God gives us in this life. and we might work them well, working to the Lord, not to men. Do you see, brothers and sisters, how freeing this is? If you have Christ in your life, in this life, and the next, what more could we want? If we have Christ now, can't we endure light and momentary afflictions? If our heart's treasure is in heaven, Can't we be open-handed? Can't we love the lost without care for our own reputation? Can't we engage in politics and other ways of loving our neighbor in this world with a loving heart, without being argumentative and attacking? Can't we order our lives around what will last and is what is most lovely to God? which is his people. So, in conclusion, while Zophar, the third friend, said that Job doesn't know even the half of God's judgment, because of what Christ has done for us, we can take Job's words on our lips. Job says earlier in chapter 13, behold, He slays me. I have no hope. Yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation. The godless do not come before him. The worst thing in the world to Job is not misery, suffering, but God's silence and his apparent absence. And that caused Job to beg God for a vision, for a hearing, even for God to sue him if that's what it takes. We don't need to ask for the same kind of vision like Job, because God has revealed himself to us in Christ. God has revealed his heart to us. And in Jesus, God assures us we will see his face again. And so, in a different way, we do ask God for a vision. We say, come Lord Jesus, come, come quickly. We will see his face again ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. This hope is ours right now. and it will be more fully realized in the resurrection. As the psalmist says in Psalm 23, surely goodness and loving kindness shall pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall return to dwell in the house of Yahweh forever. And the center of that psalm is a good answer to Job. It's a good answer to our longings. The center of that Psalm 23 says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. May this be our comfort, now and forevermore. Would you pray with me? Lord God in heaven, make your word applicable to us. Cause us to grow in love towards you, towards our neighbor. Cause us to honor you in all that we do. May we fix our eyes on Jesus in hope. Thank you for reminding us that you are indeed with us. Cause us to remember this when we have times of trial, when we cry out like Job. Come quickly, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.