August 13, 2023 Text: Job 38:4-18
Dear Friends in Christ,
One of our great weaknesses is our understanding of God. When we misunderstand Him, we also confuse His Word. As an example, the Christmas story. We have heard it our whole life and figure we pretty much know everything. Do you now? How many wise men? Wrong. The Bible doesn’t say. We assume three because they brought three gifts. Where did the wise men greet Jesus and family? Not in a manger. In a house. The shepherds went to the manger. Which gospel writers wrote of this penultimate event in the life of the world? Nope, incorrect. Only Matthew and Luke were scribes of the Christmas story. Go home today and read Matthew 1 and 2 and Luke chapter 2 and see if you don’t go, “Huh?”
Today God is going to talk directly to Job, and he still is not going to comprehend. We are in the same place before God as we lack a clear understanding. God talks to Job and to you and I and is asking . . .
“WHO ARE YOU?”
Years ago, Woody Allen made a movie called “Sleeper.” In the movie he wakes up in the future saying, “Where are my friends? They’re dead. How could they be? They ate organic rice.” You know how it is. Just when you think you can avoid all of life’s negatives, you can’t. Even if you eat organic rice. Or, as someone once noted, “Living is like licking honey off a thorn.” We have the goodies of life and the pain.
Job went through life’s negatives. Talk about licking honey off a thorn. Job did have it all: wealth, health, family, and most important, a strong faith. Then the evil one took it all away. His flocks were stolen, his children died in a freak storm, his body became covered in sores. Job’s wife’s answer was to curse God for his suffering. His friends came by not to console him, but they wanted him to admit God was punishing him for some hidden sin.
For a while, Job kept the strong faith, but then he began to waver. He begins to challenge God. Right before our text God says in verse 2 about Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge.” Job is speaking about things he knows nothing about. God is basically saying to Job, “Who are you, why are you telling me about my creation?” Job had no understanding of what God had created. The vast dimensions. The intimate details for the seas. Job thought he understood good and evil, but the poor guy was in the dark.
Job’s sin was that he was confusing his relationship with God. He was basing his relationship with God on his own knowledge about who God is and what He has done. Job was placing his intellect over his trust and faith in God.
You say, “Sometimes I feel like Job?” Now, when was that? We live more on our knowledge than our faith. We place our trust in what we know or think rather than on the One who is the source of our knowledge. We are skewed because we think of ourselves as better than we are. As science discovers more about creation, we miss the questions that still come up. I still love Isaiah’s words, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” Knowledge is important. The reason we go to Sunday School and Bible study and listen to the sermon. We expand our knowledge of God and creation. But our knowledge is far from complete and even at times faulty, like with our Christmas quiz.
God speaks to you and I: “Who are you?” Our Lord can be a little sarcastic, I love that, don’t you? “You think you got it all figured out. You think you can trust in your knowledge and be like me. Who are you?”
Why, we are forgiven sinners, of faith no stronger than Job but forgiven no less than every other sinner. This forgiveness does not come from our knowledge of God, but as a gift from the creator of the world. He even commands the winds and the waves as we heard in our Gospel for today.
We cannot fully understand God’s plan to save mankind, which would lead God’s own Son to die on a cross. We cannot comprehend how this Son of God, Jesus, would rise from the dead, conquering sin, death, and the evil one once for all time. We cannot reason in our minds that water poured over a child “included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word” would create faith in the promises of our Savior, Jesus.
What God has done goes against all logical explanation, yet this is most certainly true! We believe the promise that because Jesus’ death on the cross, our sins are forgiven. We trust that because of Jesus’ resurrection, we have the promise of life forever with Him. We simply have faith that in our Baptism, we are His.
We believe that if God asked, “Who are you?” we could honestly answer, “We are sinners, forgiven and set free by Jesus’ death on the cross.” Trust in Him and lean not on your own understanding.
Amen.