They Were Not Serving Themselves

1 Peter 1:10-12

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Verse 12 of our text says that it was revealed to the prophets of the Old Testament that they were not serving themselves but you. The “you” would be the readers of this letter.

The text does not say how it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but future generations. Maybe Daniel 8:26-27 gives an idea. An angel says to Daniel, “The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.” Daniel would not live to see his prophecies fulfilled. He would not benefit from them. In fact, it cost him to be the conduit of God’s revelation. The next verse says, “I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.” So Daniel’s task was to be given something he did not fully understand, that would only benefit other people, and that would leave him exhausted and sick.

Daniel was not the only prophet to have a tough time of it. According to Jewish tradition, Isaiah was sawed in half by order of King Manasseh. We don’t know that for sure, because the Bible does not say it directly, but it does say in Hebrews 11:37, “They were put to death by stoning, they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword.” The “sawed in two” probably refers to Isaiah.

Jeremiah is another prophet who had a tough life. He was beaten and put in stocks by order of the priest Pashur, according to Jeremiah 20:2. He was thrown into a dry well in Jeremiah 38 and would have been left there to starve to death had he not been rescued by a sympathetic palace official. And Jeremiah spent so much of his life lamenting the fallen state of Israel and God’s judgment upon it that he became known as the weeping prophet.

Elijah is another. In 1 Kings 19 he was so depressed that he did not want to go on living. He knew he had a price on his head, and he felt isolated with no support.

So the prophets had hard lives. They had a rough go of it.

Generally speaking, we can endure a tough time if we know that we will receive some benefit for it. For example, I work a fairly physical job at a chemical production plant. And it is not always pleasant. But there is a paycheck at the end of it. Every two weeks I get paid. And I get benefits too. And that renders the job endurable. It would be much harder if I were doing the same work but someone else was getting the paycheck.

The prophets of God, despite all they had to endure, were told, “Someone else will benefit from your work. Someone else will reap reward from your labor. Not you.” As it says in verse 12, “it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you.”

The prophets were not alone in being given the task of rendering service to their inferiors. Hebrews 1:14 is a stunning verse that says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

That text says that angels - all angels! – serve the people who are being saved. If you and I are being saved, that means us. Angels serve us.

What makes that especially noteworthy is the fact that angels are so much greater than we. The Bible says so. 2 Peter 2:11 says they stronger and more powerful than we. We get a hint of how much stronger when we read in Genesis 19 that it was just two angels that were sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And then in 1 Chronicles 21:15 we learn that just one angel was sent to destroy Jerusalem. If somehow there were to be warfare between the United States military with all its nuclear weapons and one angel, I would bet on the angel.

Not only are angels more powerful than we, they are closer to God than we. We human beings can’t quite see God. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God.” And the Apostle Paul wrote, “Now we see through a glass darkly.” But it is different with angels. In Matthew 18:11 Jesus said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” We can’t see God’s face but angels can.

And then there is that account in Luke 1 where the angel Gabriel tells the priest Zechariah some good news. Zechariah’s prayers have been answered, and the prayers of his wife. They’re going to have a son, a great son. When Zechariah pushes back against that good news and questions Gabriel’s credentials, Gabriel almost seems to be ticked off. He says, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God.” We see that Zechariah is about to get put in his place. Zechariah knows that he can’t stand in the presence of God. The closest he can get is a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the Holy of Holies in the temple. That’s his closest approach. Zechariah cannot abide the full presence of God. But that is where the angel Gabriel lives.

Angels are stronger than we. They are closer to God than we. They are definitely holier than we. Yet somehow, just like the prophets, they are given the task of serving us. We who are weak, mortal, sinful human beings. Angels serve us.

If angels were capable of sin - like their fallen counterparts, the demons - I wonder if they could be tempted to a kind of resentment over their task. I can picture an angel saying, “God, you want me to serve him? Paul Lundquist, that lowlife? Couldn’t you get me someone worthier of my assistance?”

In our text from 1 Peter 1:12, where it says that the prophets were told that they were not serving themselves but you, just a couple clauses later it says, “Even angels long to look into these things.” What does that mean? At least part of it can be understood this way. If you long to look into something, it’s because you don’t understand it right away. It sparks your curiosity, your sense of wonder, but you need more wisdom, insight, and explanation to get a grip on it.

That is what our salvation is like for angels. They long to figure it out. I imagine angels thinking to themselves, “How could God love these rebellious creatures so much that he would become one of them and subject himself to death by torture at their hands in order to welcome them into fellowship with him – the same fellowship that we enjoy? How could God do that? How does that work? How could he love them so much?”

In 1738 Charles Wesley wrote the hymn “And Can It Be That I Should Gain.” In one of the stanzas he imagines a mighty angel, the first-born seraph, standing on the deck of a ship that floats on the high sea. The sea represents the love of God. The angel has a long rope with a weight at one end of it. That rope is used to measure how deep the water is. In nautical terms that is called sounding the depth of the water. You drop the weighted rope overboard and let it out bit by bit until you feel it hit bottom. Then you pull up the rope and measure the wet length of it to see how deep the ocean is at that point. But this angel has a problem. Wesley writes,

In vain the first-born seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine.

The angel just keeps letting out the rope until there is no more left and it still has not hit bottom. The ocean of God’s love is too deep for any angel to measure. He’ll never have enough rope for that. Wesley concludes,

Tis mercy all! Let earth adore. Let angel minds inquire no more.

So far we have seen that great prophets of the Old Testament served us rather than themselves. Then we see that mighty angels serve us rather than themselves. Most amazing of all is the service that Jesus, the Son of God, has rendered to human beings.

In Luke 22:27, Jesus said, ‘I am among you as one who serves.” In Mark 10:45, He said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Philippians 2:6 says, “He took the form of a servant.”

In John 13 he gave an illustration of that service by taking a bucket and towel and washing his disciples’ feet. In their culture only servants did that, or the lowest-ranking member of a family, like a child. Rabbis didn’t wash feet. But Jesus did.

What conclusion should we draw from all these examples in Scripture of the greater serving the lesser? Prophets serve not themselves but future generations. Angels serve not themselves but sinful human beings. Jesus served not himself but his disciples to the point that he washed their feet and then the next day gave his life for them. What conclusion should we draw?

I’ll tell you a conclusion we shouldn’t draw. We should not say, “Well, I guess I must be pretty special. Prophets serve me. Angels serve me. Jesus serves me. I exist to be served! I’m no servant myself. I’m nobody’s slave. I have no obligations to others. I’m a child of the king! Everybody else serves me.”

Jesus explicitly stated when he washed his disciples’ feet that he was teaching them to be servants to one another. He said in John 13:14-15, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

When we learn that prophets serve us, angels serve us, Jesus has served us – that should humble us. It should prompt us to ask, “How should I serve? How might I act in such a way that benefits others even if I don’t benefit myself? How might I serve even when it works to my detriment? What opportunities lie before me whereby I can imitate the example of prophets, angels, and Jesus Christ?”

A classic Christian answer, and it’s a good one, is to volunteer your service in ministries that are already up and running. Maybe that’s tutoring disadvantaged youth in an after-school program. Helping out with a nursing home chapel service. Conducting a Bible study for men at a homeless shelter. God may call you to something even more ambitious. My sister and her husband were the ones that the local police would call when kids were taken away from abusive parents, or when parents were arrested and the kids needed immediate foster care. Whatever your station in life, whether you are retired, middle-aged, or in middle school, there are opportunities for service if you just open your eyes. And if nothing is readily apparent, pray this prayer: “God, what good thing should I do? Is there some place I should serve that till now I have overlooked?”

In our natural state, which is fallen and selfish, it may not occur to us to ask that kind of question. I’m reminded of an experience my mother had 35 years ago. She was flying back from New York after seeing my sister and her family with their kids, adopted kids, and foster kids. The man next to her on the plane said he was going to Chicago to be on the Oprah Winfrey show. The theme of that show was “Suddenly Rich.” Oprah had several guests who came into wealth overnight. Maybe through an inheritance, or winning the lottery. I don’t know how my mom’s seatmate got his money. My mom watched the show, and he was on it. But my mom said she found the show depressing. Because every one of the guests talked only about what they were now able to afford, and how they were indulging their desires for luxury – whether for travel or a new car or a new house. The theme was, “Here’s the stuff I can get now that I’m rich.”

None of them talked about the good that they could accomplish now that they could afford to give money away charitably. That issue didn’t come up. It was all, “How can I be served?” rather than “How can I serve?” “What good thing can I enjoy?” rather than, “What good thing can I do?”

I don’t think it is a controversial point among Christians that we ought to serve. If you’re a Christian, you go to church, you read your Bible, then you know this already. It is a lesson we needed to be reminded of rather than taught afresh. Even so, I think I have detected areas of rhetoric and cliché among Christians where the theme of service gets lost. It dissipates and disappears unnoticed rather than being incorporated into the forefront of our decision-making.

I’ll mention three such areas which have nothing in common other than the fact that I became interested in them as they sprang from iconic moments in my life and have shaped my thinking over the past 40 years.

The first has to do with giftedness - God-given abilities. 1983, my junior year of college at Wheaton. The guest speaker for spiritual emphasis week, Jill Briscoe, asked a group of us, “Are you willing to do a job badly?” Here’s the context. My alma mater is obsessed with gifts, talents and abilities. They talk about it all the time. You will hear a student say something like, “I feel God calling me to move in my area of giftedness because he has endowed me with talents and abilities and I need to locate the right arena where I can lean into my calling to glorify him through my gifts and talents and abilities because I can be effective if I am utilizing my gifts and talents and abilities to their maximum potential.”

Well. The Bible does speak of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes to believers. Those are good things. The problem is when they become idols, when our giftedness becomes an excuse to avoid an obligation that has landed in our lap. And we justify our refusal to do the necessary thing by saying, “Oh I’m not good at that. It’s not my gift. I could only do C-level work, and I should serve where I can do A-level work. I need to serve where I can shine.”

Ok, but if no one else is available for some necessary work that is outside your area of expertise, will you leave it undone out of pride? Are you willing to do a job badly, simply because it needs to be done, and you’re the person available?

To be a servant you must be humble. And sometimes humility demands that you do your pitiful best at a job that everyone can see you’re not very good at. Spiritual gifts are for service, but they must not become obstacles to service. It is good to ask Jill Briscoe’s provocative question, “Am I willing to do a job badly?”

The second area has to do with mate selection. This may apply directly to no one here ever. I still think it is a good thing to have in the back of one’s mind.

Preachers like to talk about the kind of person you should marry. They will give you a list of qualities. I heard a sermon by Alistair Begg where he gave his list for both men and woman. A woman should look for a man who “leads with boldness, laughs heartily, lives prayerfully,” and a bunch of other things. A man should look for a woman who is “an initiative taker who is willing to submit, who exhibits behavior that builds confidence, a kindness that touches others, has a kind of humor that takes you through adversity,” etc.

Another pastor that I heard on the radio gave his list. After his first wife died and he was looking to remarry he prayed, “God, if you have somebody for me, here’s what I would like: someone who is (1) intelligent (2) godly (3) sweet (4) humble (5) attractive and (6) Let her not have complications in her personal life, like grown kids who run around the house smoking dope all the time.”

I have problems with such lists. First, they seem to assume that you have dozens of people who all want to marry you and you are in the privileged position of getting to pick the best one. That’s just not the case for most people. I think most people, if they are to marry at all, have to settle for somebody, just as their partners have to settle for them. Secondly, such lists exhibit strong self-regard. When the widowed pastor said he wanted someone intelligent, godly, sweet, humble, attractive with no complications, he was saying, “I’m worthy of such a person, because I’m all those things. I don’t expect my wife to excel in virtues that I lack. I just want someone who is intelligent godly sweet humble attractive and care-free like me.”

17 years ago when I was single a widow kindly offered to match-make for me and asked, “Can I help you find someone? What are you looking for in a woman?” And I said, “I just want someone nice.” Has to be a Christian of course. But I don’t have a list of qualities she must fulfill. I just want somebody nice.

What that widow did not know at the time was that I had already determined that she was the nicest person I had ever met. We married a few months later and she made me the most happily married man I have ever known.

As for those lists of the qualities that some preachers think you should demand in a mate, I have noticed all of those lists lack a feature that I think is important to consider. How about seeking to marry someone whom you can benefit? Someone whose need or longing you can help satisfy? All the lists I have ever heard were self-centered. They never looked at marriage from the perspective of, “Is there someone out there for whom I can do some good?”

The greatest romance in history that I know of sprang from that consideration. On April 23, 1956, C. S. Lewis married Joy Gresham, a divorced mother of two. He did it strictly as a favor to her. He was a content 57-year-old bachelor with no designs on marriage. But Joy, a friend and intellectual sparring partner, had a problem. She was an American living in England with her two boys, and she wanted to stay, but she couldn’t. Her visa was about to expire and would not be renewed. She could however stay if she were married to an Englishman. So she asked Lewis if he would be willing to marry her. He thought and prayed about it and reluctantly agreed. It was to be a marriage on paper only. They had a brief civil ceremony, no rings exchanged, they would live apart. He did this for no other reason than as a favor to her, to serve her and her boys. That’s why he agreed to it.

But not long after that, Joy got cancer. Advanced cancer, considered terminal. Then Lewis took her into his home and cared for her lovingly. She was not expected to live long. She had a brief remission before she died two years later. And Lewis grieved inconsolably. Read his book A Grief Observed and it will rip your heart out. A book written about their marriage, Through the Shadowlands, is the only book that ever made me cry. Lewis said to his friends that what started out as friendship turned to pity, and then pity became love.

The point I am trying to make is that Lewis married Joy Gresham not because he was considering his own needs and had finally found a woman who fulfilled his criteria. He married to serve her. I wish more Christians thought of marriage as a service that by God’s grace they might lovingly render to someone else.

I have one more iconic moment in my life where I was stirred to think of service in an area where I think Christians are prone to overlook it.

20 years ago I heard a talk given at a religious conference by the former commissioner of baseball Bowie Kuhn. It turns out that Bowie Kuhn was devout Catholic. As he traveled around the country to different cities that had baseball teams, he would drop in at a local Catholic church to attend Mass. One day a bishop challenged him and said, “When you show up at a church in Pittsburgh or San Diego or wherever, go sit at the very front.” Kuhn asked, “Why?” The bishop said, “To strengthen the priest!”

The bishop was saying, “You’re not in church just for your own sake. Your presence ministers grace and encouragement to that man who is conducting the service as well as to others who have gathered. You’re setting an example for them.” Kuhn took that advice to heart. From then on when he went to Mass he didn’t slip in late, sit in the back, exit at the first opportunity. He marched to the front as example for others and to provide encouragement for the priest.

I want to be clear that where you sit in a church sanctuary is not so important as just showing up in the first place. I used to sit at the front like Bowie Kuhn to encourage the pastor, but I don’t do that anymore for the simple reason that I am old and I fall asleep every single Sunday when I listen to a sermon that I’m not preaching. Given that I will fall asleep, I want to do so inconspicuously at the back rather than right there under the preacher’s nose. That might discourage him.

I know a good many Christians who don’t attend services at all. And I’m not talking about people who have a good reason for it – like they have a bad back that prevents them from sitting, or a crippling social anxiety that makes it hard to leave the house. Or they have to stay home to take care of a disabled love one. I’m not talking about cases like that. But when you have an able-bodied, able-minded free Christian who refuses to worship God in the company of his people, and you ask them why, I guarantee you that 100 percent of the time they will give you an answer that focuses on themselves, that puts themselves at the center.

They might say, “I feel closer to God going for a walk in the forest than sitting in a pew.” Or, “I get more out of listening to an Andy Stanley sermon online than I do going to church.” They are only thinking about their own benefit, and it doesn’t seem to enter the periphery of their mind that their showing up and participating in worship would be a blessing to other people, a service to them, and an encouragement to those leading worship. That thought hadn’t occurred to devout Bowie Kuhn until a bishop brought it up. The notion of serving others by their mere presence for some Christians does not jiggle the needle on the Richter scale of their conscience. They have to be made aware of it. They need to be shown that they are only thinking of themselves. We are all tempted to think only of ourselves.

The prophets served us. Angels serve us. Jesus has served us. Therefore let us serve one another, and may the Holy Spirit open our eyes to galling discoveries of our own self-centeredness, so that we might repent of it and imitate our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.

Father, we thank you that we benefit from the sacrifices of others. Like mystified angels we wonder that your Son Jesus should sacrifice himself to serve sinful rebels like us. Teach us to follow your Son, and please, even this week, point us to some area of service that till now we have avoided or not even noticed.

What Would You Do If Jesus Called You A Dog?

Matthew 15:22-28: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

What would you do if Jesus called you a dog?

I am not asking you to answer that out loud. But I am asking it seriously. It is not a rhetorical question, and I am not being flippant or ironic. What would you do if Jesus called you a dog – or more precisely, if he implied that you, like this Syrophoenician woman, belonged in the category of dogs?

I can imagine how some modern evangelicals might bat that question away. Someone might say, “Oh, Jesus would never call me a dog. He loves me unconditionally. Nothing I can do can make him love me more, nothing I can do can make him love me less. He rejoices over me with joy. He cradles me in the arms of love and calls me his friend. He’s never mad at me. He’s just madly in love with me. So he would never call me a dog. I don’t even have to think about that.”

Well. The real Jesus – not the Jesus of sappy, inane, biblically under-informed evangelical rhetoric, but the Jesus who actually exists - called some people terms much worse than “dog.” For example, he called Herod Antipas a “fox.” In Luke 13:32. He said to Pharisees, “Go tell that fox [Herod], ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’

In their culture “fox” did not mean someone who was crafty and wise. That image comes from Aesop’s fables hundreds of years later. For the Jews, a fox was a worthless, insignificant, good-for-nothing pest. We might say a rat or a cockroach or a mosquito. It was definitely an insult.

It gets worse. Jesus called the Pharisees and teachers of the law “sons of hell” in Matthew 23:15. He called them “sons of the devil” in John 8:44. In John 6:70 he called Judas a devil. He even called Peter “Satan” one time. He said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” I would be lying if I said that I have never set my mind on the things of men, but only on the things of God. Jesus’ term for people who value the things of men over the things of God is “Satan.” In my opinion, that’s a lot worse than calling someone a dog.

Therefore I do not shrink back from putting myself and the members of this congregation into the sandals of the Syrophoenician woman this morning and asking the question, “What would you do if Jesus called you a dog?”

I have 4 observations that may help guide toward something of an answer.

1. It’s “puppies” actually.

The usual Greek word for “dog” is kuon. When used metaphorically of human beings in the New Testament, it is always negative. Very negative. For example, Jesus said, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or cast your pearls before swine.” (Matthew 7:6) The apostle Paul said “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.” (Philippians 3:2). St. Peter said, referring to people who turn their backs on the way of righteousness, “The dog returns to its own vomit.” (2 Peter 2:22). And St. John said concerning the holy city, “Outside are the dogs, the occultists, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Revelation 22:15). Those were all dogs, kuons in Greek. Metaphorically they always refer to bad people.

But the word used here with the Syrophoenician woman is the diminutive form of that word, kunarion. Not “dogs” but “little doggies.” Puppies. These would not be stray dogs in the street that might have rabies. They’re household doggies, pets. They are even at the kitchen table where they might pick up a scraps dropped by the children. In the New Testament it is only in this conversation with the Syrophoenician woman that this term “little doggie” is used.

I lived for a time in 3 different countries of Latin America. And I learned that the term “gringo” – depending on the region – could have an insulting, derogatory edge to it. But you could take that edge off or even make it affectionate by using the diminutive form “gringito.” “Some of my best friends are gringitos.” I suspect there is some flavor of that in this text. Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman did not use the derogatory term for a mongrel stray dog but rather a household puppy.

That said, they are still distinct from children. Puppies do not have the same status or the same privileges as children of the house. And that leads to my second observation, which is, Jews first.

2. Jews first.

The Bible makes clear repeatedly that Jews have priority in the unfolding of God’s plan for humanity. It’s Jews first, Gentiles like me second. In Matthew’s account of the Syro-phoenician woman, Jesus rebuffs her at first by saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” That echoes what Jesus said when he first sent out his 12 disciples during the course of his earthly ministry. He said to them in Matthew 10:5-6, “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” The Gentiles would have to wait their turn.

And that is how the apostles and early Jewish Christians carried out their ministry. Acts 11:19 says this: Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. (Then after that some spoke to Gentiles.)

When Paul embarked on his missionary journeys, he always went to his fellow Jews first. In Acts 13:46, he and Barnabas said this to a hostile Jewish audience in Pisidian Antioch, We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.

Paul did the same thing in Acts 18 when he took the gospel to Corinth. Verses 5 and 6 there say, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

So Gentiles like me – and I think like most or all of you – we do get to share in the blessings of God’s work. That too is part of God’s plan. But the Jews are first in line. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:16: I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes – to the Jew first, then to the Gentile.

Now this should not be understood to mean that all Gentiles are damned to hell until Jews reject the gospel and then that leaves the door open a crack for Gentiles too. No, the Bible is full of examples of righteous saved Gentiles even in the Old Testament, like the Ruth the Moabitess or the widow of Zarephath in Elijah’s day. Then at the birth of Jesus you have Gentile wise men worshiping him. So when I say “It’s Jews first,” that does not mean that Gentiles were damned. What it does mean however is that there were certain advantages or privileges given to the Jews over the Gentiles. Paul lists some of those in Romans 9:4-5 when he writes, to them (the Jews) belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

So there was great privilege granted to Jews. And that privilege was reflected in the ministry of Jesus and the early apostles. So, for example, Jews might get some healings that Gentiles did not. Does that seem unfair to you? If that seems unfair to anybody, please remember this: With great privilege comes great responsibility. Jesus said in Luke 12:48: To whom much is given much will be required. Privilege implies accountability. I know people who experienced the miraculous and yet later turned away from God. It would have been better for them not to have experienced the miraculous in the first place. Privilege is a two-edged sword.

And if I may be vulnerable with you, it is the sobering truth that privilege carries responsibility that gives me pause when contemplating my death or the return of Christ, and the moment arrives when I stand before Jesus and render an account of deeds done in the body, good or bad. I will give an account of my stewardship of the resources entrusted to me. The reason that troubles me is that I personally have been privileged beyond measure. I was raised by godly parents in a Christian home in a peaceful suburb in the most prosperous nation that planet earth has ever known. I have the Bible in my language and have received instruction from the finest teachers the Church has to offer. No man in the world has fewer excuses for sinful thought or behavior than I. May God have mercy on my soul.

But let us circle back to the Syrophoenician woman. She was an unprivileged, second-in-line distraught Gentile at a time when Gospel truth and miraculous healings were being granted to a few privileged Jews. Imagine she has heard how others received miracles from Jesus, and maybe she would want to say to him, “You healed that woman’s demonized daughter – why won’t you heal mine?” And Jesus says, in effect, “Because that woman is a Jew. You’re a Gentile. She’s a child; you’re a puppy. Jewish children have privileges now that Gentile puppies don’t.”

How is the Syrophoenician woman to respond to that? One way would be to draw back and say, “Well I never! How dare you treat me with such disrespect just because I’m a Gentile! I will be treated as an equal with dignity or else I’m done with you. How do you like that?”

It puts me in mind of that account in the Old Testament when Naaman the leper approached Elisha the prophet to be healed. It is in 2 Kings 5. Elisha sent a servant to Naaman with the message, “Go wash yourself 7 times in the Jordan, and you will be cleansed.” And Naaman was offended by that. He thought that Elisha himself should do him the honor of coming out to greet him personally. The text says that Naaman went away and said, “’I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage.”

Fortunately for him his servants intervened and talked some sense into him. They pleaded with him that it was a very simple thing that Elisha was asking of him. Just do it, just wash in the Jordan – what have you got to lose? So Naaman swallowed his pride, bathed 7 times in the Jordan and was healed of leprosy.

Here in the New Testament I believe that Jesus, among other things, was giving to this woman a test of humility. (That is my third point, (3) A test of humility). Jesus did test people sometimes. The Bible says in John 6 that he tested Philip by asking him how they were going to feed a multitude that had gathered. That was a test because it says that Jesus already knew what he was going to do. The Bible also says that he knew what was in people’s hearts. It says that in John 2:25. I believe he knew what was in this woman’s heart. And he was giving her a test that he knew she would pass with flying colors. It was a test that would stand as a rebuke to the privileged Jews all around her. Would she now walk away angry and offended, or would she humbly accept his designation of her as a “second-class citizen,” a back-of-the-line Gentile, a mere puppy?

Listen. If you would come to Jesus Christ, you must do so humbly. You do not square up your shoulders and stand tall and proud. You bow. You accept his designation of you as a sinner 100% in need of his grace. You do not come to Jesus with a list of demands - and if he fulfills them then you’ll do him the favor of stooping to be his follower. You come to Jesus as a beggar with no options, no bargaining chips, no leverage that you can use against him. You speak to Jesus as this Syrophoenician woman did. “Lord, son of David, have mercy on me.” “Lord help me. I’m not saying I deserve it. But please, help me.”

Many years ago when I was young in my Sunday School class we would sing a unity song that had the line, “We will work with each other, we will work side by side. And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride.” Thankfully, even as a child I had received enough sound teaching to know that that was dead wrong. We will not guard each man’s dignity and we will not save each man’s pride. Not if we love them. Satan guards his dignity. Satan saves his pride. And he longs to do the same for us, because he knows there is no greater barrier to blessed union with God than creaturely pride.

The Bible says in James 4:6 and elsewhere, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So, if you come to church to have your dignity upheld then boy have you come to the wrong place. We come here to be humbled. We come here to be convicted of sin. We come here not to celebrate our greatness but the greatness of God, to revel in his glory and not our own. We kneel at the foot of the cross of his Son Jesus Christ. As it says it Psalm 115:1: Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory.

Jesus tested this woman to see if her sense of dignity and self-worth would be an obstacle to receiving his blessing. She passed the test. She passed that test through the gates of humility, as must we all.

4, I believe that Jesus was also testing the woman’s persistence and perseverance.

The woman came to Jesus because she was troubled. Her daughter had a demon. She wanted deliverance for her daughter, and only Jesus could help. But how badly did she want that deliverance? How much did it really matter to her?

I have already suggested one scenario where a prideful woman might take offense, stamp her foot and say “Well I didn’t come here to be insulted!” and walk away with her pride intact but with a daughter still held captive by a malicious demon. Which raises the question, “Did you really want Jesus’s help?”

Recently I heard a host on Christian radio talking about how easy it was to be born again. It was the typical rhetoric I hear all the time of “Jesus did it everything, all we have to do is believe.” And she wanted her guest to answer a challenge that she thought might come from unbelievers. “How can it be so easy? There’s got to more to it. It can’t be that simple, right?” I did not get to hear his answer because I was on my break from work and I had to go clock back in.

But I know how much we want our rescue to be easy, simple, effortless, demand nothing of us, present to us no obstacles or challenges. The problem is I’ve read the Bible. Lots of times. And for the life of me I can’t see how Jesus made it simple or easy for people to be his disciples. He regularly put obstacles before people who wanted to get saved the easy way. He said “Count the cost”. He said “Whoever does not give up claim to everything he has cannot be my disciple.” He said “If you do not value me over your own family members you are not worthy of me.” He said if you would come after me, deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me. And when he had too many followers in John 6, he got rid of almost all of them by giving them a tough message about how he had to be their lifeblood, their food and drink, spiritually speaking. That was a bridge too far for thousands of people, and they walked away.

For those who are half-hearted and insincere, there are off-ramps. There are plenty of them. And over the past 30 years I have seen many people take those off-ramps and abandon the Lord Jesus Christ for one reason or another. For the Syrophoenician woman in this account, an off-ramp has opened up before her in the form of an insult to her dignity. She has been told, “Ma’am, you are a second-class citizen, you are a puppy not a child. The children get served first.”

But thanks be to God. Along with those off-ramps by the path for those who are half-hearted and insincere, there is also the theme of pushing forward on the narrow path, and of God rewarding those who persevere in seeking him. God rewards perseverance of that sort. Think of Jacob, who wrestled with the pre-incarnate Christ in Genesis 32 and said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” Think of blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10 crying out, “Jesus son of David have mercy on me!” People told him to shut up, but he would not shut up. He just shouted all the more, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” Think of Mary Magdalene grasping the feet of the resurrected Jesus in John 20 until he says, in effect, “You can let go now Mary. I have not yet ascended to the Father. I’ll still be around.”

God rewards those who pursue him earnestly. He says in Jeremiah 29:13: You will seek me and find me when you seek with all your heart. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” Jesus said, “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and it will be given.” And Hebrews 11:6 says “Anyone who comes to God must believe he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

I told you a minute ago that there two words in Greek for dog – kuon and kunarion, dog and doggie. In the same way there are two words for “seek”: zete’o and ekzete’o. Scholars seem to think that that second word is more intense – seek earnestly, seek diligently. That is the word used in Hebrews 11:6. God rewards those who seek him earnestly. Do you really want God’s help? How badly do you want it? Are you sure that you want him to remake you into the image of his Son Jesus no matter what that costs you? Or are you kind of hoping to be deterred from that transformation? Would you welcome an off-ramp?

The Syrophoenician woman in this story has tunnel vision for the deliverance that only Jesus can give, and she will not be deterred. She will take, in full humility, whatever scrap he is willing to give her. She says, in effect, “Ok, I’m a puppy. Fine. But please, even the puppies get to eat the children’s leftovers.” You know how the story ends. Jesus commends her faith and grants her request. As I said before, I think he knew what was in her heart all along.

A former coworker of mine was an atheist until I think about 6 years ago. He didn’t believe in God, and he acted in accordance with that unbelief. Then God did a work of grace in his life by filling him with terror and severe distress. It was really bad. He ran to back to God, and God rescued him from the pit.

Then in October of the year before last he and his wife had their first child. There were life-threatening complications in the delivery. There was the real possibility that he would be left a childless widower. He cried out to God in desperation. He told me how he prayed. I talked to him the other night to confirm the details. I can’t repeat to you his actual prayer because he used some colorful words that I don’t say. (We’re still waiting for God to redeem his tongue.) But it was an honest prayer. He said, in his own way, “God, I’m a freaking piece of foul refuse. I don’t deserve anything, I know I’m a bleeping expletive bleep bleep bleep. But please. Save my wife. Save my son.”

That was not a proud man’s demand for justice but a beggar’s plea for grace, and God in his mercy granted that request. When I talked to him the other night on the phone I could hear his son in the background. He said he was chasing his son as he ran around the house. And his wife is fine too.

Now at last I am in a position to answer the question that I started with. What would you do if Jesus called you a dog? I can’t answer for you, I can only answer for myself. “Paul, what would you do if Jesus called you a dog?”

I would sit up and beg.

Let us pray.

Father, we come to you now not as colleagues demanding an explanation but as beggars pleading for grace. We’ll take whatever you are willing to give us. You have given us so much already, and we thank you for that. I’ve already testified that I am privileged beyond measure. But we are bold to ask for further grace to be conformed fully to the image of your Son Jesus Christ so that when we see him it will not be a day of sorrow and regret but joy unspeakable and full of glory. In his name, amen.

The God Who Requires Prayers He Does Not Need

Scripture text: Genesis 20

There are many things in this story that are worthy of attention, but I am focusing on just one thing, the prayer of Abraham for Abimelek. Why was that prayer prayed? Why was it commanded? What can it teach us about prayer when compared to other Bible passages?

Abraham was an immigrant in an area that he thought was dangerous. He did not trust the locals. He had a beautiful wife, Sarah, and he felt he knew what happened to beautiful women in that area. They were taken into the king’s harem. And if that beautiful woman was married - especially to a friendless immigrant - that was no obstacle. They would just kill the husband and cart the woman away.

That is what Abraham was afraid would happen to him and Sarah. Was Abraham right to be suspicious of King Abimelek in thinking Abimelek capable of murdering him just to get at his pretty wife? Maybe. After all that is pretty much what King David did a thousand years later – he killed a guy to get at his wife. And David was a loyal servant of the Lord God of Israel. Abimelek was a pagan with no connection to God that we know of. Abraham said in verse 11, “I knew there was no fear of God in this place.”

The rest of the story shows that Abraham was probably wrong in his cynical appraisal of King Abimelek. What little information we have in this chapter suggests that Abimelek was a man of integrity relative to his time and culture. But Abraham did not know that. And that is why I am willing to cut Abraham some slack rather than condemn him as a cowardly fiend who trafficked his wife in order to protect his own hide. I have heard Abraham denounced like that by many Christian teachers. It may be a valid criticism of him. But it is also possible that Abraham reasoned like this, saying to his wife:

“Sarah, one way or another you’re going into Abimelek’s harem. I can’t stop it. But this can happen one of two ways. With me dead and unable to help you in the future, or with me still alive hanging around the outskirts, waiting for an opportunity to spring you so we can resume our life together. If you would tell people you’re my sister, I can live for another day and eventually figure out a way to rescue you from the harem.” That is possible. I don’t know. What I do know is that Abraham prayed a prayer in this story that was answered, and that is what I want to highlight.

King Abimelek took Sarah into his harem. As a result, God afflicted Abimelek’s household with barrenness. The women were unable to have children. Then God spoke to Abimelek very bluntly. God said to him, “You’re a dead man, because you have taken a married woman into your harem.”

Abimelek protested his innocence. He said, “I didn’t know she was married. Her husband lied to me. He said they were brother and sister. I’m innocent!”

Notice then what God did not say in response. He did not say, “Oh. You didn’t know? I’m sorry. My bad. Now that I am better informed, I’ll fix the situation. That sure was a close one, wasn’t it, Abimelek? Good thing you told me. I’m so glad I didn’t act rashly and kill you on the spot.”

No, Abimelek did not tell God anything he did not already know. That theme will come up again. God said, “I know you’re innocent. That’s why I did not let you touch her, just in case you were wondering why there was always some obstacle whenever you wanted to consummate the relationship with her. That was me acting behind the scenes to protect both of you. Now, return the man’s wife.”

It would seem that things could wrap up nicely right there. But they don’t. God had one more item on the agenda. He said to Abimelek, “Abraham will pray for you, and you will live.”

If I were Abimelek, and if I dared to speak back to the Almighty, I might say, “God, no disrespect, I’m not complaining, don’t get mad – but I don’t understand. Why does Abraham have to pray for me? You already know the situation. You know that I’m innocent. And I am giving Sarah back, I’m not touching her. I’m even throwing in 1,000 shekels and telling Abraham he can live anywhere he wants in my territory. Isn’t that enough? Why do you want Abraham’s prayer in addition to all that? He can’t tell you anything I haven’t already told you. And I’m more honest than he is. You don’t need that liar telling you what to do.”

One thing I cannot do is give God’s precise answer to those hypothetical questions. I don’t want to put words in God’s mouth.

But what I can do is see from Scripture that God requires prayers. Prayers he does not need. Prayers that don’t provide him with information he does not already have. Prayers that don’t counsel him so he’ll have a better idea what to do. He already knows the right thing to do. But for some reason, rather than acting directly to restore Abimelek’s household to natural fecundity, God said, “I want Abraham to pray for that. Then I will respond to his prayer.” To complete his action, God insisted on the prayer of a weak, sinful, foolish mortal.

That is not the only time this happens in the Bible. We see it again in Job chapter 42. Job suffers horribly and three of his not-so-helpful friends blame him for it. Their names are Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Starting at Job 42:7 God says to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.

In that text, God shows mercy to Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. They have committed the grave sin of misrepresenting God. They said things about God that were not true. May I say parenthetically that the possibility of my saying untrue things about God makes me tremble. And that is why for every sermon that I prepare I pray that God would help me say what is right and true and helpful. And if I say anything that is wrong or displeasing to him, that he would give you the congregation the grace to forget that and let it slip quickly from your minds. God forbid that I, standing here as God’s representative, should misrepresent him and through that do damage to your souls.

Sometimes I have heard God’s representatives ask people to imagine what God would say to them if he were present and spoke to them audibly. Almost always it is something nice and reassuring about his love and fondness of them. I don’t think I have ever heard a preacher tell his congregants to imagine God saying to them what he said to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you.” I wonder what went through Eliphaz’s mind when God said, “I am angry with you and your friends.” Eliphaz and the two others had been arguing with Job, trying to get him to see the light and repent of his sins. But then God says to him, “Job was right and you’re wrong. I’m mad at you.”

But thanks be to God - even in his righteous anger there is mercy. Of course to receive that mercy we must do what he says. God tells Eliphaz, “Take 7 bulls and 7 rams and go to Job. Offer sacrifices.” I imagine they probably also had to say something like, “Job, I’m sorry.”

But even that is not all. God isn’t done. He says, Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer. Once again God requires a prayer to seal the action. Just like in the Abimelek story. God required a prayer that did not inform him, advise him or change his mind. But God still wanted it. He commanded it even. Then upon hearing those prayers, he acted upon his promise to restore Abimelek’s household and rescind his wrath upon Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar.

God still requires prayers he does not need. When I was about 10 years old, I was in the backseat of the car that my dad was driving. Mom was next to him. Suddenly, the car engine caught fire. Flames were shooting out from the under the hood. My dad pulled over immediately. He popped the hood and did his best to put out the fire, slapping at the flames with a rag. Some of the flames skipped out onto the ground and burned up some of the oil or gas on the pavement. Some of that flame singed hairs off my dad’s legs but his pants didn’t catch fire and his flesh did not burn. The fire died down. Dad put it out, and we were safe. Damaged car but we were ok.

Things got interesting the next day. My aunt Ethel, Ethel Burns – yes her last name was “Burns,” ironically enough, called my mother, her sister, and said, “Was your family in any danger last night around 7 o’clock?” My mom told her about the car fire and Ethel said, “It was right around that time that I knew I had to pray for you. The feeling was so strong that I had to stop what I was doing and go off by myself to the other room to pray for the Lundquist family.”

Here’s my question. Did Aunt Ethel need to alert God that our family was in danger? “Wake up, God, the Lundquists need your help!” Of course not. God was the one who alerted her to pray. He knew the situation, he knows everything. But rather than intervening directly, it pleased God to tap my Aunt Ethel on the shoulder and move her to pray for our protection. Then, in response to that prayer, he acted to protect us.

Why do you suppose God requires these prayers that clearly he does not need? I believe it is worth thinking about that question because it seems to me that some habits of prayer or traditions of prayer reflect a poor understanding of God and how we relate to him. Sometimes our prayers are more pagan than Christian. Jesus warned us not to pray like the pagans. In Matthew 6:7 he said, "When you pray, do not keep babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words."

When we pray, we are not telling God something he does not know. 1 John 3:20 says God knows all things. When we pray, we are not counseling God, we’re not offering him advice so he’ll do the right thing. He is wiser than we. His thoughts are above our thoughts. Paul writes, “Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

And when we pray, we are not rousing God from his lethargy or cajoling him or pressuring him to do what we want through sheer force of will and a show of numbers. That seemed to be the attitude of the pagan prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. Four hundred of them prayed to Baal for hours. They shouted loudly. They cut themselves with swords and spears to get Baal’s attention. Elijah made fun of them saying “Shout louder!... Maybe he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”

But when God responded favorably to Abraham, and Job, and Elijah, and Aunt Ethel, it was just one person praying one short prayer.

Suppose you have a prayer request. Something dear to your heart. You have 10 people agree to pray for that. Is that enough or would you like to get 100 people to pray for it? Why stop at a 100 - a thousand would be even better! Go on social media and get perhaps many thousands more.

Be careful. It is good to pray to God, it is good for thousands of people to pray to God. But I am urging Christians to consider the question “Why? Why do you want many people praying repeated prayers – the same prayer for the same thing over and over again?” Because if the motivation is, “Well prayer is power, and 10 people praying – that’s not enough oomph. It’s like signing a petition drive. If the governor of Illinois receives a petition with 100 signatures he can ignore that. But if it has 500,000 signatures, then he’ll sit up and take notice. That’ll get his attention. We’ve got to get God’s attention and let him know we’re serious.”

I’m sorry, that is pagan. That is a sub-Christian view of God.

When the Apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh - whatever that was - he prayed 3 times for God to take it away. Not hundreds of times. Three times. And when God said, “My grace is sufficient for you,” Paul did not say, “Well I’ll just have to contact the churches to put me on their prayer lists and generate more prayer power to push God past his reluctance so he’ll give me what I need.”

Prayer is not about us getting what we want but about God getting what he wants. I don’t think Abraham wanted to pray for Abimelek and his family. That wasn’t the top item on Abraham’s prayer list. But that is what God wanted. I don’t think Job wanted to pray for his friends’ forgiveness given how badly they had treated him. But that is what God wanted him to pray. If we were to look at Job’s prayer request list, I imagine it would include things like relief from painful skin boils, restoration of lost property, a more sympathetic wife. (She had told him to curse God and die.) Maybe God wanted him to pray for those things too, I don’t know. I do know that God wanted him to pray for his mean-spirited friends. That’s in the Bible. The best prayers are the ones that God tells us to pray, the prayers that God inspires within us.

There is a wonderful verse, Ephesians 5:10, that I wish would receive more attention. It says, “Find out what pleases the Lord.” Find out what pleases the Lord. You already know what pleases you. You know what you want. But that is not what prayer is about. Prayer is about what pleases the Lord. Find out what God wants. Ask him that. Say, “God, what do you want me to pray for?” Search the Scriptures, and you will see repeated descriptions of what God wants - the will of God, the desire of God - and those are always pretty safe things to pray for.

For example 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says it is the will of God that you be holy and abstain from sexual immorality. So if I pray for holiness I know I’m praying for something God wants. Or if I pray for people to repent and be saved. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Or if I deliberately pray for my enemies. Jesus said, "Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." (Luke 6:28). Or if I pray for God to send out missionaries. Jesus said "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest." (Matthew 9:38)

Or if I pray the Lord’s Prayer. The disciples of Jesus said, “Teach us to pray,” and Jesus said “Pray this.”

I don’t know in advance if the things that I want are the same things that God wants. I don’t know how well those things align or overlap with each other. But I do know from Scripture that God requires prayers for the things that he wants, and that it is my duty as a pray-er to find those things out to the degree that I can, and to pray those prayers.

The question that I posed from the beginning still remains though. Why would an all-powerful, all-wise God call forth the prayers of weak, sinful, foolish mortals like us? Aren’t those prayers superfluous? What do they accomplish? I confess to you that one of my sinful temptations is to say to God, “God, you know what to do – just do it. I trust you, you don’t need my input.”

That’s disobedience masquerading as faith. God demands our input. But why?

I can think of 3 quick reasons for what it’s worth. One is just a simple matter of human reconciliation. Imagine Abimelek summoning Abraham. I suppose he’d like to give Abraham a piece of his mind. “You dirty liar. You know what you put me and my family through? Take your ‘sister’ and get out of here!” Instead Abimelek has to say, “Abraham, your God appeared to me. I need you to pray for me. Please.” They bow their heads together and Abraham prays, and there is a restoration through forgiveness and trust that would not have occurred without that prayer.

Similarly, I think of Eliphaz, shaking in his boots, pale as a ghost. He goes to Job with a bunch of sacrifices and says, “Job, I’m sorry. Look, God is mad at me. Could you pray for me?” Job is a righteous man, and he prays for Eliphaz and others. They are forgiven, and friendship is restored.

More than 40 years ago Pastor E. V. Hill from Watts Los Angeles told a group of us college students that there was a woman in his church who was antagonistic toward him, and made life difficult for him with her complaints. He said, “The feeling was mutual.” But one day she approached him and said that in her woman’s Bible study group they agreed to pray for the staff members of the church. They put the names of church leaders on slips of paper and put them in a hat, and when it was her turn she drew out the name E. V. Hill. She thought, Rats. I don’t want to pray for him. But later she told him, “Now that I have been praying for you, I don’t hate you anymore.” And he said, “Praise God for that! I guess I’ll have to try it on you.”

A second possible reason why God requires prayer for things he can do all by himself. He wants to partner with us, fellowship with us. This is a stunning feature of his character that prompted the Psalmist to ask, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, the son of man that thou visitest him?” Who are we that God should stoop down to our level and care about us and even involve us in his work?

It is one of the many indications of his love for us that he includes us in his work. We can get some idea of this in the way that we relate to our own children if we love them. A good father has his 5-year-old help him wash the dishes or rake the leaves even though the little boy’s clumsiness contributes little of value and the father could actually get the work done more efficiently if he worked alone. But efficiency is not the end goal. Love is. 1 Timothy 1:5: “The goal of this commandment is love from a pure heart.”

Perhaps my proudest moment as a father came when my son Ben was in 6th grade. His teacher divided the 24 students into 6 groups for group projects. She selected her 6 best students as leaders of the groups, and Ben was one of those, and she had the rest count off – 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc to be divided into the different groups. By luck of the draw Ben wound up with the 3 weakest students in class, including two special needs students who had been mainstreamed into the regular curriculum. The teacher told us that her other leading students would have complained about those assigned partners or just done the whole project themselves without bothering to involve them. But she said, “Ben immediately sized up the situation and gave to these weaker students tasks that they could handle so that they could contribute to the project and be a part of it.” And then she said, “I knew Ben had a good mind. But that’s when I found out he also had a good heart.”

Well in this case God is the one who has a good heart, and we are the hapless, confused special needs students to whom he stoops and says, “I have a job for you. I want to include you. And you need to do it this in order for the project to get done. Your contribution is required. Your job is to pray.”

One last reason why God wants us to pray prayers he does not really need. Thanksgiving. It is good to give thanks. Psalm 92:1 says, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to your name, O Most High.”

When we pray for something and God answers, we give thanks – or at least we should. It’s a horrible selfish tragedy if we pray for something and God grants it and then we don’t even bother to say thank you. We see that in the story of the 10 lepers Jesus healed in Luke 17. Only one of the 10 praised God and returned to Jesus to give thanks.

Answered prayer is a cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving. So God requires prayers that he wants to answer so that we can give thanks and be glad participants in his eternal joy. That is all for our good and his glory. Thankless people are miserable. But people who pray the prayers God draws forth from them and that he delights to answer will find within themselves a steady stream of ongoing joy.

I close with this thought. This is something I believe in my heart though I acknowledge that it will be hard to embrace in moments of disappointment and woe. Christians can rejoice when God says “Yes” to our prayer requests. But we can rejoice even more when he says “No.” Because that can only mean that what he has in store is better than saying “Yes” to our prayer.

Let us pray.

God, teach us to pray. Call forth from us the requests you want to hear and delight to answer. Delete by your grace our foolish requests that spring from narcissistic self-regard and have no concern for your glory. Thank you for stooping to include us in your work. Remind us to give thanks when you say yes to our prayers, and to trust your wisdom and goodness when you say no. In Jesus name, Amen.

Astonishing Hope For The Truly Wicked

Text: 2 Chronicles 33:10-13
Title: Astonishing Hope For The Truly Wicked

The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. 11 So the LORD brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. 12 In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 13 And when he prayed to him, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.

Manasseh never should have been born. His father, King Hezekiah, was 38 years old when he got sick and the Lord told him through the prophet Isaiah, “You are going to die. You are not going to live. Put your house in order.” Interestingly enough, Elizabeth Clephane, the Scottish hymnwriter I mentioned last week, was the same age, 38, when the Lord called her home. But Hezekiah, though he was mostly a good man, was not quite the hero of faith that Elizabeth Clephane was. Because when God told him to prepare to die, he complained. He thought he deserved better because he had been so good. 2 Kings 20:3 says he prayed to God saying, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And the text says that he wept bitterly.

So God gave him 15 more years of life. And that was the worst thing that ever happened to him. 2 Chronicles 32:25 says that his heart became proud. Rather than relying on the Lord, as he had done earlier in life, he sought to rely on Babylon. He tried to form a political alliance with pagan Babylon, even to the point of showing off the temple treasures to them in a transparent attempt to say, “Look how rich I am! See what a good ally I would be.” Well, if you choose to link arms with Hitler it will come back to bite you. The prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah that future generations would pay dearly for his foolishness, and they did. Later on the Babylonians ransacked the temple and destroyed the city.

But there is something else that happened during those 15 years of extra time in Hezekiah’s life. His son Manasseh was born. The Bible says that Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king. So he was born during this 15 year window. Manasseh became the longest-reigning king in the history of Israel and Judah - 55 years. He was also the wickedest king. The Bible says he did more evil than the pagan kings who were in the land before the Israel became a nation. The Bible also says that he led the people of Judah to behave wickedly. Among other things, he was a mass murderer. 2 Kings 21:16 says that that he shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end. The streets ran red with the blood of the innocent during Manasseh’s reign. Among his victims were some of his own children. 2 Chronicles 33:6 says that he sacrificed his own children in the fire. The purpose of those sacrifices was to curry favor with a demon that was represented by a foreign idol.

Last week I mentioned that Job was probably the holiest man in the entire Old Testament (though maybe Daniel and Joseph could be mentioned in that conversation.) But today we are looking at the opposite extreme, and considering what may well be the wickedest man in the Old Testament. There were a total of 39 kings in the nations of Israel and Judah. Some of them were pretty bad, but Manasseh was the worst. You could not find two men more different than Job and Manasseh. They represent for us opposite poles of moral behavior.

Would there be any way to get through to Manasseh to turn him around? I can illustrate how difficult that would be. Two weeks ago a coworker of mine at Flavorchem, Isaac, came to me and said, “I’ve got good news.” Isaac himself has been a Christian about 5 years. Before that he was an atheist, didn’t believe in God at all, much less Jesus Christ. But God did a work in his life, and through some severe trauma and he trusted Christ. The good news he wanted to share with me was that his brother-in-law was coming to Christ. His sister’s husband. The surprising thing about that was that his brother-in-law had always been a hard-core atheist himself, very opposed to hearing anything about God or religion or Jesus.

But recently a coworker of that brother-in-law said to him, “You love your sons, right?” Of course. He has two sons, both teenagers. “You would do anything for your sons, you would lay down your life for them, right?” “Yes, yes, I would die for them.” “Well,” he said, “that is how much God loves us. Jesus laid down his life for us. Jesus willingly died for us just the way you would willingly die for your sons.”

Somehow that struck a chord with this man. I don’t know that that approach will work for everyone. But the idea that he could be loved by God in the way that his sons were so deeply loved by him affected him. It rattled him in a good way, and drove him to acknowledge the God who, up to that point, he had refused to believe in.

What if we tried that approach with Manasseh? Imagine saying to him, “Manasseh, you know how much you love your children?” He would have stopped you right there and said, “Love them? I burned them in the fire when I needed a favor from Molech.”

How do you make spiritual headway with a man like that - a man so wicked that you can’t even appeal to him on the basis of something so fundamental as fatherly affection? Manasseh brings to my mind the handful of people I have known through the years who are so evil that I literally don’t want to be in the same room with them. To me these few people seem too far gone, too toxic. Like they’re the living dead. With such people you think there is no way you could make spiritual progress with them because you can’t gain a foothold in the sheer vertical wall of their stone-cold narcissism. There seems to be no humanity that you could appeal to.

The prophet Isaiah wasn’t able to get through to Manasseh. According to ancient Jewish tradition, Manasseh killed the prophet Isaiah by having him sawn in half. That story isn’t in the Bible in so many words, but it may be referred to in Hebrews 11:37, which says of certain heroes of the faith, “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword.” That might refer to what Manasseh did to Isaiah.

Nobody could get through to Manasseh. Well, nobody but God. Verses 10 and 11 of our text in 2 Chronicles 33 say, The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.

That got Manasseh’s attention. Words meant nothing to him - he wouldn’t listen to God or the prophets. But then came the moment when the Lord completely wrecked his life. God gave permission to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon to invade Jerusalem, capture Manasseh and shackle him with chains. The text says that he put a hook in Manasseh’s nose. That’s literal. It is not a metaphor. We have ancient historical records to the effect that the Assyrian king would put a hook through the nose and or mouth of his conquered rivals and attach that to a rope so that the humiliated former king could be led along like a fish on a hook. Manasseh was dethroned, tortured, humiliated, and led away captive.

As I say, that got his attention. He humbled himself before the Lord, and cried out to him. He sought the Lord’s favor. And God did what God always does when sinners cry out to him in shame and remorse and penitent humility. God had mercy on him. The text says the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

The Bible has a constant, consistent record of truly evil people calling out to God in their desolation, and God hears their cry and has mercy on them. Here is a rapid-fire list of 6 such individuals.

Number 1, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. At one point he set up a golden statue and decreed, “Worship this idol or you will be burned alive.” But later God afflicted him with an illness that turned him into a lunatic for 7 years. When he recovered he sought the Lord’s favor, and then he said this: Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Daniel 4:37)

Number 2, the king of Ninevah. The Ninevite kings were as cruel and violent as Manasseh. But in Jonah chapter 3 we read this: When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

Number 3, the tax collector in a story Jesus told. The tax collectors of Jesus’ day were regarded as traitors to their own people. They enriched themselves by extorting money from fellow Jews so as to increase tax revenue for the oppressive Roman government. One of these human swine stood at a distance from the temple, ashamed to get near, looked down and said “God be merciful to me the sinner.” God was merciful to him. Jesus said he went home justified.

Number 4, the prodigal son in another story Jesus told. This idiot held his good father in contempt and demanded inheritance money ahead of time. Then he spent that money on liquor and prostitutes. He came to his senses, went home and in utter humiliation and shame begged his dad to take him back as a humble servant. His dad, a symbol for God in the story, received him with joy and forgave him.

Number 5, the criminal on the cross next to Jesus. We don’t know exactly what his crime was, most likely some form of terrorism. It was so bad that he himself acknowledged that he deserved to die a death by torture. In his shame he humbly begged Jesus to remember him. And as one preacher imaginatively put it, dying Jesus said, “Hold on death! I can’t die yet. There’s a sinner calling on me.” Jesus absolved him and promised him paradise.

Number 6, a man who actually confessed, “I was the worst of sinners.” That’s saying a lot. But the apostle Paul, before he became a Christian, hunted down Christians and signed their death warrants. Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and when Paul realized he had been opposing the Son of God who loved him and died for sinners like him, he was so overcome with shame and remorse that he did not eat or drink for 3 days. Perhaps just hours before he would have died of dehydration, he heard the gospel of Jesus, believed, was forgiven and baptized. Thirty years later he was still remembering that moment, and wrote this (in 1st Timothy 1): I was a persecutor, a blasphemer and a violent man…Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.

This constantly repeated pattern of God being merciful to the worst of sinners when they humble themselves before him in shame did not stop in the first century AD with the closing of the New Testament cannon. It has continued for 2,000 years right up to this present moment. The most famous example is probably John Newton. He was the captain of a slave ship in the 1750s. He said that earlier in his life he was so depraved that he bragged that there was no sin that he not committed. But God turned him around. He felt deep remorse for his crimes and he never forgot about them. Decades later he said, “I have lived for years with the company of 20,000 ghosts - those I made into slaves. Their blood is on my hands." John Newton became a pastor and an ardent abolitionist and labored hard to end slavery, and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace: "Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

Moving forward to this century we have David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” killer who terrorized New York in the mid 1970s, killing 6 people and wounding 11 others. He’s still alive. He’s 72 years old, in prison. He acknowledges that he deserves to be in prison and will never get out – he will die there. He became a Christian some years ago, and he grieves the horrible crimes he committed when he was a lunatic. My nephew was a prison guard in the New York penitentiary system who knew David Berkowitz personally. He says that Berkowitz is a model prisoner and a man of God. What I am saying to you is that King Manasseh is not the only serial killer upon whom God has had mercy. These shocking stories of God’s grace on the pages of Scripture come alive in our day before our very eyes.

One more, and this will surely blow the mind of anyone who has not heard the story. Jeffrey Dahmer. I have decided not to speak to you here this morning of the specific nature of his crimes because they are too gruesome and graphic to be mentioned in polite company. I don’t want to trigger anyone or make you sick.

At his trial, Dahmer took full responsibility for his crimes. He said in his closing statement, “I know my time in prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get because of what I have done. Thank you, your honor, and I am prepared for your sentence, which I know will be the maximum. I ask for no consideration.”

In prison, Dahmer asked for a Bible. He trusted Christ, and was baptized. He repeatedly affirmed that he deserved whatever punishment he got, including death. On November 28, 1994, a fellow prisoner, Christopher Scarver, bludgeoned him to death. Scarver later testified that Dahmer did not resist or cry out. In fact his last words, according to Scarver were, “I don’t care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me.”

Last week I told you that I would like to meet in heaven the hymnwriter Elizabeth Clephane, a godly woman and a saint among saints. I’d like to thank her for her words and her example. It’s a stunning thing to realize that also in heaven we will be able to meet with King Manasseh and Jeffrey Dahmer, and celebrate with them God’s extraordinary grace to the worst of sinners.

All of the redeemed souls I have mentioned these past two weeks - from saints like Job and Elizabeth Clephane to beasts like Manasseh and Jeffrey Dahmer – all of them have something in common.

In a word, it’s shame. Embarrassment, guilt, regret, remorse. It’s the thing that drives them to God, in whom alone there is mercy, forgiveness, welcome, and then, ultimately, joy unspeakable in the presence of God.

It is for that reason that when, back in February, I heard a heretical sermon from a guest preacher at an evangelical church in which he condemned shame as a bad thing, I contacted the pastor of that church and said, “If you don’t preach a rebuttal sermon I’d be happy to do it myself.” That bad sermon and the discussion that followed with the pastor provided the impetus for me to prepare these past two messages for you here. Because I find that the efforts to reject shame and denounce it as a demonic thing have crept into the church - and that imperils the souls of those who are deceived by this false teaching.

Therefore I say to each of you in dead earnestness, “You don’t have to beware of shame.” You have to beware of pride. The heretical guest preacher said shame is a disfigurement of who we are and a dishonor of who God is. Wrong. Pride is a disfigurement of who we are and a dishonor of who God is. I beg you to recoil from the attitude that says, “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” That’s the poison, that’s the soul killer. The Bible says repeatedly, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” I have tried to show you that great saints like Job and Elizabeth Clephane humble themselves before God. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, notorious villains like King Manasseh and Jeffrey Dahmer, when they do the same, when they humble themselves before God, they find that God’s mercy extends even as far as them.

But you must know that there remain some people who don’t want God’s mercy. They don’t think they need it. They believe they are worthy of God’s love. And they are insulted by the notion that they must penitently beg God for the grace he freely offers.

This month, July 2025, an article appeared in the liberal Christian journal The Christian Century with the title “Dear Jesus, Am I Broken Enough Yet?” It was written by ex-evangelical Mackenzie Watson-Fore. In that article she lambasts her evangelical upbringing for trying to make her feel guilty. She ends her essay by writing that she wishes now she could go back to visit her 15-year-old self and take her younger self by the hand. Her 15-year-old self says, “Don’t I need to be forgiven?” Her adult self shakes her head and says, “Nothing is wrong with you. This is the good news.” The article ends there.

“Nothing is wrong with you.” Is that the good news?

The words “good news” are a literal translation of the Greek word for “gospel.” That’s what the word gospel means – good news. In all 76 occurrences of that word in the New Testament it never means there is nothing wrong with you. Rather it frequently refers to the fact that there is a Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves sinners so much he died for them, and rose again for them. Believe in him and you will be forgiven and saved. That’s the good news. He won’t force his forgiveness on you if you don’t want it because you don’t think you need it. But his forgiveness is there for the asking for any penitent souls who bow their heads humbly before him. That includes Job, Elizabeth Clephane, King Manasseh, Jeffrey Dahmer, and you, and me.

Let us pray.

Father in heaven, I pray that no one here would believe the devil’s lie that there is nothing wrong with us. Thank you for this opportunity to rebut the heretic who said that shame is a disfigurement of who we are a dishonor of who you are. Before this congregation I say to you publically that I am ashamed of my sin, and I am as much in need of your mercy as anyone else. God, you know how I stand in this pulpit not as a worthy saint qualified to condemn others and throw stones at them, but as a poor beggar who tells others where they too can find food. By your mercy use this spoken or written word to capture the heart of some poor sinner so that in his or her miserable shame he or she might turn to you and receive eternal grace through Jesus Christ your Son in whose name we pray, Amen.

A Curious Feature Of The Truly Righteous

Title: A Curious Feature Of The Truly Righteous
Text: Job 42:1-6:

Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job was a righteous man. How righteous was he? Pretty righteous. The first verse of the book of Job says, In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

Job was so righteous that God bragged about him twice. In Job 1:8 God said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” That’s what God said about him. He said the same about him again in chapter 2 verse 3.

Satan asked permission to afflict Job, and God granted it. Job lost his wealth, his servants were murdered, his children all died in a natural disaster. Job responded to that by saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And the Bible says, “In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.”

Then Job was physically afflicted with painful sores on his skin. His wife wasn’t much help in their mutual grief. She told him to curse God and die. He responded to that by saying, “Shall we receive good from the Lord, and not trouble?” And again the text says, "In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."

I think it is fair to say that you and I do not measure up to Job. I know that I don’t. Though it may be unwise to compare our righteousness to someone else’s, I know that if I were to stand next Job, spiritually speaking, it would be clear that he is a giant and I am a dwarf.

In the 31st chapter of Job, Job defends himself against false accusations. His friends have been assuming that he must have done something wrong to bring down all this misfortune on his head. He denies all charges. He says thing like, “I rescued the poor. I helped widows and orphans. I provided hospice care for dying people. They blessed me. I supplied needs of the blind and the lame. I defended victims from bullies and oppressors. I never cheated anyone. I never exploited anyone. I never even rejoiced over the downfall of my enemies.” Job goes on like that for 40 verses.

In his long list of good works that he did and bad works that he didn’t do, there are two that stand out to me because they seem to form bookends of great moral behavior. One of them involves a temptation that doesn’t afflict anyone today – no one that I know of. And the other is a temptation so universal that few men have ever resisted it. With regard to the first temptation, Job said If I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.

Have you ever been tempted to worship the sun or the moon? I haven’t. For us the sun is a flaming ball of gas and the moon is a rock in space that astronauts have landed on. No one here has ever offered a sincere prayer to the sun or moon. We don’t sacrifice to them or beg their favor. But that was a real temptation in Job’s day. Many people did that. Job, however, declares with a straight face, “I resisted the temptation to worship the sun and the moon. I never even blew them a kiss in secret - I swear!”

We can laugh at that. But no worthy man laughs at what he says in verse 1 of that chapter: I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. Inappropriate desire, desire for the wrong person, is not culture-specific like sun worship. Inappropriately indulged desire - lust – is everywhere. It is universal in all times and places and virtually all men understand this.

What I find striking about this covenant that Job made with his eyes is that he is the only one in the Old Testament that I know of who did this. Who else abided by this covenant? Abraham had concubines, plural, according to Genesis 26:2. So he not only looked at young women, he slept with them. Jacob had 2 wives and 2 concubines. David had 7 wives and 10 concubines. Solomon notoriously had a thousand. And none of those men, as far as I can tell, ever expressed any guilt or shame over that. They only seemed to regard it as wrong if they took a woman who belonged to somebody else – as when Reuben took his father’s concubine Bilhah, or Judah took a woman who should have belonged to his third son, or David took Bathsheba who belonged to Uriah. All these men knew that you couldn’t take someone else’s wife. But in their minds, as long as the woman was single, you could have as many as you wanted or could provide for.

Not Job though. Job went beyond the local custom that you couldn’t take another man’s wife, and realized that he also had to be faithful to his own wife. He refused to ogle other women, even if his culture told him that that was ok as long as they were single.

The point that I am trying to make is that Job was righteous from A to Z. He resisted sins that were culture-specific and sins that were culture-universal. He resisted sins of commission and sins of omission. A sin of commission is a bad thing that you do, while a sin of omission is a good thing that you neglect to do. Job not only avoided evil, he actively practiced good, and his goodness had a timeless quality. If you plucked him out of his era and plopped him down at any point in the timeline of human history, he would remain a righteous man. The same cannot be said of heroes like Abraham, Jacob, or David.

One more thing about Job’s goodness. He was not falsely humble. That is, he did not say “Oh I’m just a worthless piece of garbage – you have no I idea how bad I really am. My heart is truly dark within.” No, his self-assessment agreed with God’s assessment of him. As we noted earlier, God said twice that Job was blameless. Job agreed with that.

There is a famous verse, Job 23:10, where Job says, “When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” All my life I have heard that verse interpreted to mean, “When God puts me through suffering, it will refine me. It will make me better. These trials will burn off impurities and leave only gold behind.” That is a nice and noble thought. And there are other verses that make that point – most notably in James chapter 1.

But that is not what Job meant. What he meant was, “When I am put on trial and all the evidence is laid out, I will come off smelling like a rose. Everyone will see that I am innocent. In fact, I want my day in court. Put me on the witness stand. Call forth the witnesses. I’ve got nothing to hide. On that day when all is known and made public, I will be exonerated. I’ll be found not guilty. I will come forth as gold.” Job was not speaking of the refining power of suffering. He was talking about his confidence that he would be vindicated when his case came to trial - if only he could get a hearing in God’s courtroom. That is what he says in Job 31:6: "Let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless."

I hope I have established the point that Job was a good man. That is what the text says about him, that is what Job says about himself, and that is what God says about him. But these facts leave us with a mystery. Why, at the end of the book, is Job ashamed of himself? Why does he hate himself? That is literally what he says. He coats his sore body with dust and ashes as a sign of repentance and declares self-hatred. He says to God, "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Was Job right to feel such remorse and express it to God? If so, there is a troubling follow-up question. If as good a man as Job felt such shame before God, what should I feel? If Albert Einstein fails a physics test, how am I going to do on it? If Hercules says, “This rock is too heavy,” how will I lift it? Do I need to be at least as ashamed as Job?

I am sorry to say that some preachers teach that it is wrong to feel shame before God. I cannot overstress how alarming I find that teaching. Back in February I heard a guest preacher say this: “Shame is a disfigurement of who we are and a dishonor of who God is...Shame has a heartbeat that says ‘I am not worthy,’ and that is the ultimate lie of Satan.” This preacher believed that we dishonor God by feeling shame. According to him then, Job’s shame would have been a disfigurement of himself and a dishonor to God. By believing himself to be unworthy, Job was falling for “the ultimate lie of Satan.”

False teaching like that damages the soul and must not be allowed to stand unrebuked. Therefore I say to you, in dead earnestness, if you are ashamed of your sin, you are not dishonoring God. If you say, “I am unworthy,” you are not believing a lie of Satan. Rather you are believing a truth from God – a truth that must be acknowledged in order to receive the good news of Jesus Christ.

If you read the Bible and pay attention, you will find again and again that God’s chosen ones acknowledge their unworthiness. They give full expression to a deep sense of shame. When Isaiah beheld the glory of God he said, “Woe is me, for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” When Peter saw Jesus manifest divine power, and he fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” A tax collector felt unworthy to approach the temple and was too ashamed to lift his eyes heavenward, so he looked down and said miserably, "God be merciful to me the sinner.” A criminal crucified next to Jesus said, “I deserve to die like this.” John in the book of Revelation said, “I fell at his feet as one dead.”

None of these people were ever rebuked for feeling ashamed and unworthy. To the contrary, they are held up as examples for us. Jesus said that that miserable shame-filled tax collector went home justified – but not the Pharisee in that story who felt no shame. All six of the shame-haunted men that I just mentioned are saved: Job, Isaiah, Peter, the tax collector, the thief on the cross, John the Elder. Those of us who make it to heaven will see them there. As Jesus said to the crucified thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

The heretical preacher I mentioned a minute ago who derided shame said this: “Shame blames, shame hides, shame makes you say you’re not worthy of love. The ultimate lie.” In response to that I say, yes, shame blames – it blames oneself and makes no excuses. Shame hides – yes it hides, as well it should. Can you imagine Adam and Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, if they didn’t run and hide? Can you imagine them standing around the garden calmly chomping away at the fruit? God appears, and they say, “Oh hi, God. (chomp chomp). Yeah, you told us not to do this but we’re doing it anyway. We decided that being ashamed would disfigure us and dishonor you, so instead we’ll be proud of defying you.”

Does shame make you want to hide your face? Of course it does! When hymnwriter Isaac Watts wrote of the sun going dark at midday during Jesus’ crucifixion, he compared the sun’s bashful modesty to our own:

Well might the sun in darkness hide and shut his glories in
When Christ the Mighty Maker died for man the creature’s sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears.
Dissolve my heart to thankfulness and melt mine eyes to tears.

Pride struts boldly before God. Shame cowers, and humbly covers its face.

And as for shame making us say that “we’re not worthy of love”? Of course it does that. Thank God it does that! Because in direct contradiction to the preacher who said “It’s a lie to say we’re unworthy of God’s love,” the truth is, we are unworthy of God’s love. If you think you are worthy of God’s love then you do not have a clue as to what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Jesus died for the unworthy. The Bible insists on that. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

God’s true saints have always acknowledged their unworthiness. Elizabeth Clephane, 19th century Scottish hymnwriter, wrote this:

From my stricken heart with tears, Two wonders I confess:
The wonders of redeeming love, And my unworthiness.

She also acknowledged her shame. She wrote,

I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face.
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss;
my sinful self my only shame. My glory all the cross.

Let me tell you something about the author of those words. Elizabeth Clephane was an orphan. Her father died when she was 8. Her mother died when she was 13. Her caretaker older brother abandoned the family. But despite the cruel hardships she endured, Elizabeth was known for the kind acts of charity she performed even though she herself was physically frail. She died at the age of 38.

I want to meet her in heaven so I can say thank you.

True saints of God like Elizabeth Clephane never dream of saying, “I am worthy of God’s love.” Instead, they bemoan their unworthiness. They are ashamed of their sin. It is the proud sons and daughters of hell who are unashamed, who count themselves worthy, and who think that God - if he exists – definitely owes them something.

Which brings us back to Saint Job. We have said that Job, like Elizabeth Clephane, was a profoundly good person. God said so himself. But that leaves us with this mystery. Why, at the end of the book does Job feel ashamed and in need of repentance? Why does he say, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”?

Let me give you one general reason and one specific reason. The general reason is this. In Job chapters 38 through 41, Job has a direct encounter with God. God speaks to him at length. And I think it is fair to say that no one comes out of such a direct encounter with God unshaken. Because then you’re not merely talking about God or thinking about him or even talking to him. He is talking to you, he’s manifesting himself to you. Who can stand upright before that? All your bluster is taken away in an instant. All your posturing and self-confidence evaporate like dewdrops before an atomic blast.

When Moses asked to see the glory of God in Exodus 33, God told him, “Moses, that would kill you. I’ll cover you, and pass by, and then you can see the back trailing end of my glory. More than that you cannot bear.”

When Job heard directly from God it was more than Job could bear. Then Job was no longer saying, “God, I’m a good guy – why are you treating me so badly?” Even the best of men become conscious of their sin in the blinding white light of God’s holiness.

But there is also a specific thing that Job is repenting of. He is now ashamed of the fact that he criticized God. He had complained that God was being unfair to him. We see that several times in the book of Job. When the crises first hit him he said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” and “Shall we accept good from the Lord, and not trouble?” But later, after his friends bore down on him so unrelentingly, Job began to break. He could no longer hold on to his humble piety and he began to challenge God.

In Job 10 he said, “I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me?"

In Job 16 he said, "God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked...He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground."

In Job 19 he said, "God has wronged me and drawn his net around me."

There is much more, but that will give you the idea. Job backtracked on his original commitment not to charge God with wrongdoing. He could not quite maintain the faith he had at first. It reminds me of the way that Peter stumbled in his faith when he was able to take a few steps on the water but then was overcome with doubt and sank into the sea. I also think of Peter saying to Jesus in Matthew 26:35 “Even if I have do die with you, I will never disown you.” He certainly meant that when he said it. But within 8 hours his courage gave way and he was denying that he ever knew who Jesus was.

Great saints like Job and Peter can maintain their courage and piety for a while. But they are sinners like us and they have their breaking points. All of us have our breaking points. The Bible says, “There is none that does good. No not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

In recent years there has arisen, unfortunately, a bevy of preachers who urge us to commit Job’s folly by challenging God and questioning the wisdom of his decrees. They call this foolishness “being honest with God.” They say “Don’t sugarcoat your prayers – tell God why you’re mad at him and how he let you down. Just put it all out there.” Philip Yancey has been the poster child for this “authenticity,” and even wrote a book with the blasphemous title, Disappointment with God. I must warn you about such teachers, because they now write bestsellers that turn up in Christian study groups. My lovely wife had to endure one of these awful books in her women’s group, (Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton). Again and again throughout the book, Staton gives advice like this:

If you can’t pray in phrases of praise and adoration, don’t fake it. Pray your complaints, your anger, or your confusion.

Talk to him about the ways he has let you down or disappointed you.

Tell God your disappointments in prayer, and don’t water it down. Forget your manners. Tell it like it is.

We have to invite God – the very One who broke our trust – into the muck with us.

God broke our trust? God let us down? God disappointed us and we’re going let him have it? That is the attitude that had Job hanging his head in abysmal shame and despising himself at the end in Job 42. The fact that he had dared to challenge God and question God’s wisdom had him repenting, deeply remorseful, in dust and ashes.

This morning I have come to you with a solemn warning against that dangerous teaching running so rampant in today’s evangelical culture. Just as there are preachers who say it is wrong to feel shame – that it dishonors God, and it’s wrong to believe we’re unworthy of God’s love, it’s a lie of Satan – so also there are teachers now who urge us to commit the only sin that we know Job was guilty of, the sin of saying to God, “What’s the matter with you? Why are you doing this to me? You shouldn’t allow this.”

I want to close by giving you a couple stories of two modern day Elizabeth Clephanes. Two women who did not regard themselves as worthy of God’s love, but who trusted absolutely in his good sovereign will no matter how it affected them personally.

One was my mother. When my father died suddenly when I was a teenager, my mother grieved with sorrow unspeakable. And she was asked by a well-meaning but misguided soul, “So, are you mad at God?” The expectation was of course she would be mad at God. That would be perfectly understandable. How could God so abruptly take away the love of her life?

Mother was baffled by the question. No she wasn’t angry with God. She was sad, saddened to the point of despair, so sad she did not want to go on living. But she knew that God had the right to take her husband home, and she had no standing by which to challenge his wisdom in doing so. She trusted God. She trusted God, and in so doing set an example for her 5 children to follow including me.

Another such woman was Beth Norton. I never met her. She was the first wife of my friend Herb. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30, and she made it through 10 years of treatment before the cancer took her life at age 40. Herb’s father, her father-in-law, would take her to chemo treatments when Herb had to go to work. Herb’s father was not a believer. But one day he asked his daughter-in-law, “Do you ever ask God ‘Why?’” And she answered, “Why not me?” She had a peaceful acceptance of her condition, knowing that she was no more immune to suffering and death than anyone else. She simply trusted God, whether that meant her earthly life was long or short.

Many years later, at the age of 99, Herb’s father finally yielded his life to Jesus Christ and God saved his soul. Herb firmly believes that one of the streams of influence that led to his father's conversion was his daughter-in-law’s testimony in the face of her suffering and death. Beth Norton was not a shameless woman who proclaimed herself worthy of God’s love. Nor was she an angry soul who challenged God’s wisdom in allowing her to be afflicted and terminally ill. She was a humble servant of God who knew that she was a sinner saved by grace, and who acknowledged that all her ways were directed by a good and sovereign God.

Yesterday I called Herb to confirm the details of Beth’s story. Afterward I sent him a copy of this sermon in an email. At 6:23 this morning he sent me the following text: “Paul, today is Beth’s birthday. Thank you for the special remembrance of her. I shared this with my two sons this morning. May God bless your message in a special way today to all those there. Your friend, Herb."

Let us pray.

God, if there are any here who should feel shame but do not, then please, by your grace, induce that now. Cast down the eyes of any who would dare to look upward in brash self-confidence. Awaken to wisdom fools who think they know better than you, and who believe they would act more justly than you if only they had the power. On behalf of fellow sinners who acknowledge our unworthiness, I ask you to be merciful to us, and grant us more grace, so that through your Spirit we might be transformed into the image of your Son Jesus who died to save our souls. Amen.