Sermon 44, Job 11:13-20
“Those who think they supply their lack by seeking help from creatures will only feed on wind.”
What a great line from Calvin. It is Calvin’s conviction, and now mine, that what we “need” isn’t available to us from other people or objects. First of all, we need to very much know what it is that we really “need”. Secondly, we have to go about finding it the correct way.
The theme today, at least to me, is the importance of self-examination coupled with prayer. “Let us consider now the hidden recesses of our hearts, and let us examine ourselves to discover what is within us. Let us not think highly of who we are and believe that black is white, for we will gain nothing by doing so.”
What’s needed is for me to realize how sinful, disgusting, imperfect I am. I have to search that out constantly. And that takes brutal honesty. No pretending or deflecting. And to be truly successful I need help. So broken am I, that I don’t even know how broken I am. I need to read scripture always looking to see how it exposes my inadequacies, I need to reflect and be quiet, I need to ask God for the “heart of flesh” to replace “heart of stone”. Then, with some inkling of my total depravity will I better appreciate Jesus. And this is the way to wholeness.
The sermon today is also compelling in that it exhorts “scrupulous integrity”, twice in fact.
And also to how this scrupulous integrity is manifest in our interactions with others. There is work for me to do here.