Job 38: 1-11
What God’s Greatness say about you?
Today we look at our humanity in the perspective of God’s glory;
his majesty and power. We can see this when it is evidenced by the Father’s
creation. Most often, we tend to think of ourselves in relation to others. Yet,
do we ever stop and think of ourselves with respect to God?
The LORD God lets Job know about His greatness in His power of
creation.
With the Father’s creative power as a background, we see ourselves
as we really are. This morning’s Old Testament lesson asks us to consider, what
God’s greatness says about you and me.
1. We see a
human as temporal – Vs. 4
A.
To make
Job realize his humanness, finiteness and smallness, God asks, “Where were you? Where were you at the time
of creation?” (v.4) Obviously to be there at the dawn of time – or
before there was such a thing as time; or a “sun, moon and stars which mark
time - would simply mean that man was eternal, yet we humansare temporal. We
are born in time, we live in time, (Psalm 90:10) and we end in time.
What some refer to as our “time of grace.”
In eternity, we will live forever - yet on this earth, our days are numbered.
B. “Where were you when the sea was put in its
boundaries?” the Lord asks. If you were not there – how then can you know
or understand God’s power and wisdom? His way is beyond and past finding out.
God is to humans incomprehensible.
Transition: Man is temporal. We may ask, “Why then does God allow a good person to suffer?” No one knows. The
finite is incapable of the Infinite. This is the first supposition in religious
thought. We simply cannot presume to know the mind and the will of God. He is
higher than we are. Yet, you can trust that the Father knows what He is
doing.
2. We see humans
as finite – Vs. 5 “Who marked off its dimensions? Surely, you know! Who
stretched a measuring line across it?”
A. The Lord calls Job to
an account. Who can answer God? Can Job, or any man, stand before God in light
of his sin? Our sins rise before us. They condemn us.
B. Because man is finite
and God is Infinite God is too great for man’s comprehension. Job realizes his
insignificance and is quiet – he is shut up in silence.
C. There is no answer to
why the righteous suffer. The Lord does not give Job the answer to his
question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Is it left to fate? Does man
deserve what he gets? Is God somehow out to get even?
Transition: This question has been asked for centuries. We can only
trust in the power, wisdom and goodness of God.
3. We see a
human as powerless – Vv. 8-11
A. Luther
best summed up man’s utter helplessness in these words, “I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus
Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the
Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true
faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole
Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the
one true faith. In this Christian church, he daily and abundantly forgives all
my sins, and the sins of all believers, and on the last day, he will raise me
and all the dead and will grant eternal life to me and to all who believe in
Christ. This is most certainly true.” [1]
B. Because
of this condition – the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ into time and space to
be our Savior. Paul put it this way, “You see, at just the right time,
when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will
anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly
dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were
still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his
blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” Romans
5:6-9
John would remind us “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” It was your flesh; your
mortality that the Word took on, it was your flesh that the Lord of Life made
himself a beggar. Patiently, he assumed
your frail weak flesh as he hid his divinity in your humanity so that you might
once again learn to love him, to have the image of God restored.
I was ready to be sought by those who did not
ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here
I am, here I am’ to a nation that was not called by my name, I spread out my
hands all the day to a rebellious people says the LORD in the Book of Isaiah.
The maker of heaven and earth begging for a rebellious people to return to him,
so that he might love them.
Yet it wasn’t enough only to know that this
world is broken and that the righteous suffer so often indiscriminately.
Knowing we are helpless only goes so far.
Instead, the Savior left his throne, set apart
his divinity, took upon himself your flesh, and dwelt among us; actively
seeking you out, redeeming you by the patience of his love, allowing himself to
be known to us not in a burning bush or a pillar of fire; not in the parting of
season or in the creation of the sun, moon, or stars; instead he became human.
Your poverty became his. Your impatience became
his. Your anxiety his own. Your disease his own. Your anger his own. And
perhaps, most importantly, your sins became his. All in patience, all kin love;
the invisible God becomes visible, for us men, and for our salvation; Christ
was made man.
He bore your sin in his own body so that in your
weakness you may look to him and live. The pinnacle of God's wisdom is His plan
of salvation that culminated in the Cross and the Blood of the Lamb shed for
you. The incredible love of the Father
for you is a love that knows no end.
Like Job, our pathetic intellect cannot compare
to God's wisdom. We must repent of the
constant attempts of our sinful flesh to darken God's wisdom.
No matter how many times God speaks to us out of
the whirlwind of His Law, our sinful nature still wants to ignore the Law. No matter how many times we drown our old
Adam, he keeps coming up for air. The
Word of God shows us a clear path to follow, but our weak flesh keeps steering
us crooked.
This is why we need to be constantly taught by
the Gospel of grace: We cannot be faithful to God. He must be faithful for us. We cannot do all the things we must. So He does them for us.
The same God who set limits on the sea and
controls the waves, He has created even more marvelous in you. He who brought forth life in the sea has
brought forth life from the waters of Baptism in you. He who knows every drop of water in every
ocean, He gave His Son and sent His Spirit so that He could know you eternally.
Everything the LORD created, from the tiniest to
the grandest, from the most beautiful to the most powerful, among all the
wonders of God's masterwork of the universe, the great treasure that He
cherishes above all things is you. He
did not send His Son to die for any other part of His Creation. He sent Christ in human flesh to redeem you.
Job learned of the vastness of God; the enormity
of his power. Today you are reminded of his clemency, his rescue, His mercy His
grace. And grace trumps all; for his mercy endures forever.[1]
Passive Sentences –6%
Readability – 80.8%
Reading Level -5.2
[1]Tappert, T. G. © 2000, 1959. The book of
Concord: The confessions of the evangelical Lutheran church (The Small
Catechism: II, 6). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
[1] Portions of this homily credited to Andrew Eckert, Wellston, OK; Trinity 4 Ken Kelly, Johnstown, PA Christmas Day
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