JOB 7:1-7 JESUS CHANGES THE WAY I LOOK AT TOMORROW
Why should I be excited about tomorrow? That is a question that every person thinks about from time to time. Why should I be excited about tomorrow? “Because it’s good for you,” we are told. “It’s healthy.” And it’s true, that having a positive outlook on life is healthier than having a negative outlook on life. And so I’ll be excited about tomorrow, I’ll be hopeful about tomorrow, because it’s good for me.
That’s easy to do when things are going well. But what happens when things aren’t going well? Let me make up a situation for a moment… What if you were the worker at NASA – hired just a few years ago. The space shuttle crashes. And after the investigation is over, they determine that you are to blame. You are responsible. Maybe you are a mechanic, and you didn’t fix something right. Or maybe you work at a desk, and didn’t file something right. Whatever happened – you are responsible. It’s all your fault that those people died.
Now what do you do? Can you still be excited about tomorrow? Are you going to wake up and have a positive outlook on life because it’s healthy? It doesn’t work in that situation. Where do you go, then, when you know that you’re the reason the whole nation is flying the flag at half-mast, and everyone is going to know that you are the reason all these bad things happened?
Thankfully, the situation is made up. But if this were you, what would you do? Where would you go for comfort and strength? A Christian is someone who knows where to go. No matter what you’re situation, no matter how desperate or hopeless life seems to be, there is a place you can go, and there you find what you need when life has tossed you into the depths. Today we’re going to talk about that place, and we’re going to talk about those depths, as we see how Jesus Christ changes the way you look at tomorrow.
Perhaps there is no better example of someone in a desperate situation than Job. Job was a man who had lost everything. At one time he was rich, but then he lost all of his wealth. At one time he had 10 children, but then all of them died in an accident. At one time he was healthy, but now he was covered with sores and was slowly dying. At one time he was respected, but now he had lost his honor – everyone was talking about him. And so, as Job thought about tomorrow, he fell into the sin of despair. What exactly is despair? Listen to Job. Verse 3, “I have been allotted months of futility.” In other words, my whole life has been one big waste of time. Verse 4: “When I lay down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.” Job couldn’t sleep. Physically, he was suffering too much. Psychologically, he was too depressed to sleep. Verse 6: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to and end without hope.” Job felt no hope as he thought about the future. Verse 7 is the most striking: “Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; me eyes will never see happiness again.” Perhaps that is the best picture of despair: I will never see happiness again.
Job was at a point in his life when he hated to think about tomorrow. There was nothing good about the future. I will never see happiness again. Job had fallen into the sin of despair. He felt like he had nowhere to go.
What could bring you to a point like this? Well, perhaps, like Job, you lose your entire fortune. You lose everything you own. Maybe, like Job, you lose a child – to bury your own son or daughter is a terrible thing. Maybe, like Job, you lose your health – you become incurably ill. Or maybe, like Job, you lose your honor, your reputation – you become the talk of the town, the laughingstock, because of something you said or did. Imagine if all these things happened to you at the same time. And you feel like you will never see happiness again. You have fallen into the sin of despair, and feel like you have nowhere to go.
Some commit suicide. You see this in the news from time to time – a depressed person kills other people, and then turns the gun on himself. It’s the sin of despair – to stop believing that God is in control, that God cares about your life.
We have all fallen into this sin of despair from time to time. Maybe not to the degree of Job, but we’ve all had our moments. Moments when we’ve thought: “God’s not in control.” “God doesn’t care!” We’ve all had moments when we have fallen into the sin of believing that God is somewhere else, far far away, that he doesn’t care, and we have nowhere to go.
But look at our Gospel lesson for this morning, Mark 1:29 and following. We see Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is not somewhere else. He is not far away. He’s right here, on our planet. In Mark chapter one, we see that he does care. He is in control. We see Jesus in the home of Peter, healing Peter’s mother-in-law. We see him in the midst of sick people, healing them and all the demon-possessed. The more we look at Christ, the more we realize that we don’t need to despair. These sick people had a place to go, and that place was Christ. He does care, very much. Yes, the more we look at Christ, the more we realize that there IS a reason to hope, there IS a reason to be excited about tomorrow, there IS a reason to have joy in our hearts, regardless of our earthly circumstances.
The moment you begin to think that God has stopped caring about your life, then it’s time to repent. Then it’s time to stop thinking about yourself, it’s time to stop wallowing in self-pity. It’s time to run to Christ. Think of what he has done for you on the cross. This same Jesus who healed all these people, this same Jesus who is the Son of God a few years later, allowed himself to be crucified on a cross for you. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is proof that we do not have a God who is far away, or a God who doesn’t care. God cares about us so much, that he became a human being, and lived among us, and gave us his Word, and died on a cross to take away our sin. We have a God who rose from the dead, and promises that someday he’ll raise us from the dead too. We have a God who forgives us for all the times we have fallen into the sin of despair, and who promises us that someday we’ll be in heaven with him.
If you just focus on your problems all the time, you’ll think that God doesn’t care. But if you run to Christ, it changes the way you think about tomorrow. There once was a child who liked to touch everything. He would hold vases and flowerpots and electrical cords - anything he could get s hands on. One day, he was holding one of his mother’s priceless decorative dishes – a family heirloom handed down from generation to generation. And he held that dish in his hand, and then he dropped it to the floor, and it broke into a million pieces with a crash. And at that moment, that child knew that he was in trouble. He had broken something that could never be fixed. And has he heard his mother running toward him, through the house, he said to himself, “I will never see happiness again.” Nowhere to go.
Isn’t that a picture of happened to our relationship with God? The most precious, the most priceless thing in the world - our relationship with God. But then Adam and Eve fell into sin, and at that moment, our relationship with God shattered into a million pieces. It was unfixable. Adam and Eve probably felt that they would never see happiness again.
But God didn’t turn his back on the human race. Instead, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, who did the unthinkable. Christ took that shattered relationship and put it back together again. Jesus has created a place to go when life seems unfixable, and that place is the cross. There he shed his blood for you. There he sacrificed his life for you. There you are forgiven by God, no matter how big the sin. The cross is where Christians go, when their world is turned completely upside down.
Eventually, God proved his love to Job by restoring him. God gave back to Job his health, and double the wealth he had had before. He gave to Job 10 new children, and restored his reputation in the community. If you ever find yourself in the midst of a disaster, whatever it might be, have faith that God is in control, and that he does care. Have faith that God can restore you, just as he restored Job. And if God in his wisdom chooses not to restore you this way, then have faith that God is still in control, and that he still cares, and that he will work our all things for your good.
And when you are struggling in your faith, then flee to the cross of Christ. Place your feelings of despair at the foot of the cross, and let Jesus heal you with his forgiveness and love. “How do you have so much peace?” the doctor asked the patient, a woman who was dying right before his eyes. Every day, the cancer seemed to take its toll on her. She was so young – and she had a husband and three small children. She probably wouldn’t last a few more days. And yet she seemed so peaceful. “How do you have so much peace?” the doctor asked the woman.
The woman talked about her faith. “I believe that God is in control,” she said. “I believe that God is caring for me right now. And the reason I believe,” she said, “is because I saw what God did for me on the cross. I saw him die for me. I saw him rise from the dead. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that I will see him when I die, and that he will take care of my family when I’m gone.”
The doctor walked away utterly baffled by what she had said. He had never met someone like her before. When he saw that woman, all he saw was her pain. What he couldn’t see was that she was literally clinging to the cross of Jesus Christ, and Jesus was giving her an incredible amount of hope and strength, and even joy in the midst of her suffering.
This is where you go when you get those feelings of despair. Go to the cross, and look, not with your eyes. But with your heart. Look here in his Word, and you will see him. And he will change the way you think about tomorrow. Amen.
