What’s the Point, Lord?

5th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/7/21 Job 7:1-7 What’s the Point, Lord? “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Eccl. 1:2). Do you recognize those words? They were almost certainly written by King Solomon, the son of King David. By his own admission, Solomon had everything his heart desired. He lived in luxury. He possessed unimaginable wealth. He was known as the wisest man in all the world. Unlike other biblical characters, we don’t hear of a single situation in which Solomon suffered. But he struggled. His relationship with the Lord God wasn’t what it should have been, at least for a good portion of his life. Without that solid relationship, he tried to find meaning in the things of life, but failed, and failed miserably. The biblical character Job lived about 1,000 years before Solomon. Job, too, was wealthy, very much so. He, too, was regarded as one of the greatest men of his day. What’s more, his piety was second to none. The Bible states, “He was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1). Even the Lord himself held up Job as one of his finest followers. But, you’re probably aware what happened. In one day, he lost all of his vast possessions. But it got worse, infinitely worse. Later that same day all of his children died when what might have been a tornado struck the house where they were gathered and instantly killed them all. And yet Job didn’t sin by charging God with wrongdoing. It’s hard to imagine, but his situation got even worse. He was afflicted with boils on his skin from head to toe. He lived in excruciating pain. And when he couldn’t make any sense of what was happening to him, and his friends couldn’t help him figure it out either, that’s when Job speaks the words of this morning’s sermon text. He makes his way through several aspects of his miserable life and wonders, “What’s the point, Lord?” Have you ever wondered the same thing? Have you suffered through something and wondered why? Have the troubles you faced caused you to doubt the love and mercy of God? You’re not alone. Job did, too. So has every Christian. So, let’s join Job this morning in asking the question, “What’s the point, Lord?” And then we’ll look for our God’s answers in his word. Listen again to Job’s opening words. “Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired man? Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility.” Let’s be clear. It’s a blessing from God to find satisfaction in work well done. In fact, we all have our God-given vocations in life at every stage of life. God blesses us and others as we carry out those callings to the best of our abilities. But that’s the last thing Satan wants for us, and so he will do everything he can to frustrate our efforts to find meaning and satisfaction in our work. In fact, frustrations abound as we try to do our work. Instead of getting cooperation from our fellow workers, they make work harder for us. And when our work environment becomes almost unbearable, we find that the only motivation we have for showing up at work is that we need a paycheck. And yet, there are even some instances in which the laborer isn’t certain about getting paid properly. So, instead of experiencing the freedom to do a job well and to derive a sense of value from it, we feel enslaved. We can’t wait for the workday to end. “Like a slave, [we long] for the evening shadows.” We simply want the workday to end so that we can go home and get some rest, only to do it all over again the next day. Get some rest. Right! We might possibly be able to endure our miserable days if we could count on blissful nights. But I’m getting to that point in my life when I can no longer count on sleeping 6-7 hours a night. Do you know what I’m talking about? We’re exhausted from the day. We have another busy day in front of us in fewer than 10 hours. And we’re confident we’ll be able to meet the challenges of tomorrow, if we can just get sufficient rest during the night. But what happens? Let’s let Job answer that question. “Nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.” Like Job, we toss and turn. We check the time, but only 20 minutes have passed since the last time when checked, and we have hours to go before daylight. It’s so frustrating! We’re exhausted, but we can’t sleep! Job doesn’t state it specifically, but there was a good reason he couldn’t sleep soundly or comfortably. As I mentioned earlier, the final affliction he endured was the loss of his health. He was afflicted with boils on his skin from head to toe. Those boils so disfigured him that his close friends had trouble recognizing him. Listen to his self-description, “My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.” That’s disgusting! He was so miserable that he took a broken piece of pottery and scraped his skin with it, trying to find some relief. Analgesics and antiseptics were primitive, if available at all. To put it bluntly, Job was left to suffer in silence with no relief and no end in sight. So, he did what we would expect. He hoped to die. Life wasn’t worth living. He had lost everything but his wife. His friends only made matters worse for him. And he was terminally ill, undergoing unimaginable pain and suffering. So, what’s the point of living? As Job suffered in silence day after day, he had the opportunity to review his life up to that point. From the final chapter of this book, after the Lord healed Job, we know that Job lived 140 years and saw four generations of his offspring. So, at this point, Job might not have even lived half his life. He was still a young man by ancient standards. He had been full of vigor and life. But it was if he hadn’t lived that long. He likely recalled his days of youth and they seemed not so long ago. He states, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.” He hasn’t lived that long and it appears now that he will die hopeless. What’s the point? We can hear the despair in his voice as he speaks the closing words of our text, “Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.” More than once in this book that bears his name, Job expresses the wish that he had never been born. In fact, he states that those who die at birth are better off, because they’re spared the indescribable pain of life as Job had experienced it. I’m sure you probably disagree with Job, but you understand his cloudy thinking. His current suffering has caused him to forget the years of joy he received from family members and friends. The agony of living in this pain consumed every aspect of Job’s memory. And so, he resigned himself to dying a sorrow-filled death. From his perspective, his life had been pointless. His good days on earth only set him up for an excruciating ending. When he was gone from this earth, his final, loathsome condition would be the only thing his friends remembered about him. So, what’s the point, Lord? You probably haven’t suffered the way Job did, but you know what suffering is and you’ve endured it long enough to know how Job felt. What’s the point, Lord? In his word, the Lord replies that he can only share so much information with us because we are only his creatures, and not his equals. The Lord reminded Job that Job couldn’t even fully understand the workings of nature, so how could he possibly understand the workings of the infinite, eternal God? As much as we might want to fully understand our hardships and sufferings in life, too often we’re going to be left wondering. The solution is to trust that God’s ways are beyond our understanding. What’s more, God’s word informs us that he disciplines everyone he loves. Whether we experience small setbacks or crushing tragedies, God intends every one of them to draw us closer to him, to help us realize that we aren’t in control of our lives and that we need to depend on him for help and strength. Every trouble of life reminds us that, no matter how hard we try, we can never attain lasting peace and happiness in this life. It’s not a perfect world, it’s a sinful world, and we live in it. And that reminds us of our own sins. We don’t deserve happiness and health from our God. Just the opposite. Our daily sins call for God’s righteous and just punishment. None of us could even make the claim that we’ve tried our best to obey him. The truth is, there have been times—too many times—when we knew that what we were contemplating doing was sinful and we wanted to do it anyway. And so, we did it, willfully sinning against our God. Our sins fill us with despair and drive us to the mercy of our God. And there we find the solution to the agony of life. It’s in our God and his eternal love for us, a love that caused him to send us his Son as our Savior from sin. He’s the One who suffered far more than Job did or any other human could, when he suffered the agony of hell for us. His death was your death and now his life from the dead is your life from the dead. In Christ alone we are filled with eternal hope. We have eternal life with our God by faith in Christ. When you die with faith in Christ, you begin that glorious life with Christ. And that’s the point. That’s the only point no matter how happy or tragic your life may be. Thank your God for sharing that point with you! May he use you to share that point with others! Amen.