Christ Church NC

Chapter 28 is a calm in the storm during which Job has a chance to reflect on what God is doing in his life. Although Job still has no specific answers to his questions and although God still seems distant, Job recognizes that God uses “life storms” to make good men even better just as men use mining and refining to make good metals even better.

Job’s friends are so committed to their understanding of God that they refuse to reconsider it, even when confronted with evidence that challenges their conclusions. Job, however, allows his suffering and his observations of the world to expose the inadequacy of his theology. He doesn’t abandon God when his explanations fail him. Instead, he continues pursuing the God he cannot understand, becoming less confident in his understanding of God without becoming less confident in God Himself.

Some of Job’s speeches to his friends are actually speeches he’s making to God. Job is picking a fight with God, calling Him to the mat, and approaching Him boldly. Though we may bristle at hearing Job pick a fight with God, we should admire the fact that he is as open to being body slammed by God as he is to being blessed by Him (perhaps the two aren’t mutually exclusive?). If we read Scripture carefully, we’ll notice that Job is in good company with other righteous men who wrestled with God. Parts of Job’s assessment are incorrect, but his fighting spirit is worth imitation—as is God’s response to those who wrestle with Him. We shouldn’t only practice dishing it out—we should also be able to take it when others wrestle with us.

This sermon canvases Job’s argument with his friends and shows that there is more going on here than clumsily offered counsel. Job’s friends are little satans furthering the accusations made against Job by Satan at the beginning of the book.

Job is a good man. The Bible’s description of him as “blameless and upright” prevents us from explaining his suffering as punishment for wrongdoing. Unbeknownst to him, Job’s faithfulness serves purposes larger than his own life, as he serves as God’s star witness in a heavenly court case wherein Satan questions God’s wisdom. Job’s faithfulness includes deep mourning and fierce lament. Humility is not docility, and trusting God does not require us to pretend that the evil He brings good out of is itself good.

The book of Job is God’s Wisdom 201 course. Job is an example of the faithful and wise son that the book of Proverbs aims to produce. But Job’s mastery of proverbial wisdom didn’t mean that there was nothing else to learn. It meant that God enrolled him in the 200 level course, where he would discover both the limits of his own wisdom and the depths of God’s.

It is typically assumed that infant baptisms are not believer’s baptisms. That assumption is based on the assumption that babies are not believers. Psalm 22, Psalm 71, Psalm 8, and Luke 1 (to name a few) contradict that assumption. Babies can believe and that means that at least some infant baptisms are believers baptisms.

Sometimes our operating assumptions, even as sincere Christians, aren’t as biblical as we think they are. We’ve got theological traditions wedded to a cultural inheritance mashed together with an extended family of intuitions that have been shaped by all kinds of influences. We must remain open and allow the Bible to set our assumptions straight.

This sermon taught that 1) babies can believe, 2) we’ve got good reason to believe that faithful Christian’s children do believe, and 3) that, given those first two points, plenty of Paedobaptisms are believer’s baptisms.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-6 Paul helps us understand that membership in God’s covenant people does not guarantee final salvation.

When the New Testament authors seek to shape our understanding of baptism, they shape it around the stories, patterns, and redemptive events of the Old Testament in a way that sheds a great deal of light on the meaning and administration of baptism. If baptism corresponds to Noah’s family being saved from the flood (1 Peter 3:18-22), the circumcision of infants (Colossians 2:9-12), and the Exodus (1 Corinthians 10:1-6), then baptism is a family affair that lives inside of God’s “to you and your children” pattern of redemption.

Matthew 28 teaches us that belonging precedes maturity. Baptism is God’s way of welcoming people into His family. He places His name on us, ensuring that we belong, and then that belonging shapes us into mature disciples over time. God doesn’t make us pass a doctrinal examination before He claims us as His own. Baptism marks the beginning of the life of a disciple of Jesus, it is not a graduation into a higher level of the program. This baptismal truth underscores God’s generosity and big-hearted desire to bring all people into His family, hence the presence of this teaching at the heart of the Great Commission. Baptism is a wide open front door to the Kingdom of God, not a hurdle that’s hard to clear.