Have you ever gone outside late at night, glanced up at the heavens and stopped in your tracks as you noticed the beauty and the majesty of the night sky? On more than one occasion, since we have moved to Chuckery (where there is not so much interference from the city lights and the smog) I have happened to step outside, looked up and been amazed at the clarity of the night sky. It is beautiful, to say the least.
But even here, we are still only 20 minutes away from the lights and smog of Columbus. While up in Michigan a week or so ago, we were more than an hour away from any major city. One night, we happened to be out on a clear night, looked up at the sky, and we were amazed at the sight. Usually (because of all the competition from civilization) only the brightest of stars can be seen, but on that night the sky was literally bright with millions and billions of stars. The stars you can normally see were that much brighter, the stars that are normally hidden filled in the gaps between. It was amazing. Looking out in the vastness of space, comprehending that it goes on forever and realizing that each one of those tiny little specs of light represents stars, and solar systems, and even entire galaxies, seeing it in greater clarity and witnessing it in its greater majesty you couldn't help but feel small. You couldn't help but get a tinge of what Job must have been realizing as he heard God speaking to him the words of the text that we have before us.
God and Job were having a conversation. Most of the time when we talk to God he doesn't talk back, at least not so we can hear him. But Job had suffered a tragedy. He thought he didn't deserve it. And he let God hear about it. He called God out on the mat to have it out with him. Job talked tough to his friends about God, claiming that God had no right to make him suffer the way he did, claiming that he was innocent and that God was unjust, that God had done him wrong. And then, much to Job's surprise, God showed up.
Okay Job, you want to have it out. You want to challenge God. Put 'em up and get ready to fight like a man.
Job quickly found out that he was unmatched with God.
Job suffered from a severe misunderstanding. A great distortion of the nature of God. Job is not at all alone in this misunderstanding – it is one that all of us struggle with probably every day. Job thought he could determine what God thought of him according to how things were going in his life. When things are going the way we want them to, we thank and praise God and at times will even assume God has blessed us because of our great work ethic, or our faith or our understanding. But then when things don't go the way we would like them to, we assume that God is displeased with us. We wonder what we did wrong to make God angry. At the very heart of this is a theology, an understanding of faith that believes that we can earn God's favor by what we do. We call that works righteousness.
Job did not suffer because he had committed some sin. Job did not suffer because God was vindictive or seeking revenge. In fact, God never really tells Job why he suffered. Job wanted to know why, but God didn't owe it to Job to explain why. Job didn't need to know the reason. He didn't need any explanation. But that didn't change the fact that Job wanted one. It didn't change the fact that he actually thought he deserved one.
The same is true for us. We always want to know why. God, why did you do this to me? Why did you make me this way? Why did you put me in this situation? Why did you put me with these people? What are you doing in my life?
We want to know what God is doing and why He is doing it. We regularly make the exact same mistake and commit the same sin as Job. In our pride and arrogance, we think God should tell us. We don't need to know. We already know how the story will end, God is bringing us to salvation. God will deliver us from sin from death and from Satan when it is all said and done. It's like we have read the last page of the book – we know the ending. No matter what happens on the pages between, the story will end the same. God will bring us to heaven. All we need to do is nothing – God is God. He will take care of us. We don't need to know what he is doing and why he is doing it. All we need to do is trust Him and believe that He will do what he said he will do.
Essentially, that is the point of this text.
God took the time to remind Job that he was God. Our text begins...
“Where we you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurement – surely you know! Who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone when the morning star sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
I am sure that you have all had the experience of gazing out into the stars and realizing this creation is much greater and grander than what we so often even realize. This world, that we stare out into and marvel at, that causes us to step back and be amazed, for God it is like a construction project. He measured it all out, set its boundary lines in place, manufactured the necessary materials and put it all together.
Imagine that. There are entire libraries, people who devote their lives to understanding and deciphering the many mysteries of the universe. God has drawn it up and put it together. God drew the blueprints, manufactured the raw materials, and assembled it all, all on his own. No help from anyone else. No building committee, no consulting firm, no site surveyors, not even a work crew. Just God.
We marvel and are amazed when Ty Pennington and his design team, not to mention the crew of hundreds of workers from Extreme Home Makeover can create a house from scratch in a week's time. For God, that is child's play. In six days God made this entire universe – with all its beauty and complexity, in all of it magnificence and majesty.
God goes on...
“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth from the womb?”
We have all seen the shots taken during a hurricane of the waves that come crashing up onto shorelines and swamp the man made embankments in a spray of ocean water. We have all seen the photos and videos that were shot during the Tsunami a few years ago that killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed untold amounts of property. Imagine running from the force and power of a huge wall of water thousands of miles wide and 30 feet high! Have you ever asked yourself “What stops that from happening every day?” Why is it that the ocean waves know to come up only so far onto the land and then stop? Why doesn't the ocean flood the entire earth, or randomly sneak out and destroy people and property. Because that's how God made it. God created the sea and put it in its place. Like an animal trainer who commands the lion to sit down and stay put, God has placed His limits on the mighty ocean and will allow it to go no further. We call it gravity. Gravity is simply the hand of God
Or the heavens, the stars in the sky, the moon, the planets, the sun that goes down and night and comes up again the next morning. Yes we know that the sun rises and sets because of the rotation of the earth. But why does it do that? Why is it that the earth has a regular rotation on its axis? Why is it that the earth has a regular rotation around the sun that creates seasons? For us it is a marvel and a mystery. Scientists use telescopes, and satellites and computers to help them just help them figure out how it all works. For God, it is like a gigantic sheet that he could grab at both ends and shake it out, like you might do as you are folding your laundry.
Even the deepest and darkest places of the world, places we have never been and could never go. Even to the gates of death itself, these places are not hidden from God. They are within his hand, under his influence and respond to his beckoning. God is God! He stands over this entire world. He has every piece of this world and this universe in his hands. He knows and understands everything.
And to think that we would complain about a few little minute details that don't quite go our way. To think that we would challenge Him and doubt him? To think that we would wonder at his intentions and his purpose.
Do you want to know the intentions of God? Do you want to know His ultimate purpose? Do you want to know why you suffer? Or why God does or allows things to occur in your life?
Look at our gospel text!
Jesus. The Son of God, and the Son of Mary came to his disciples who were out on the lake in a boat. He didn't come on a surf board. Or by jet ski. He wasn't lowered down by a helicopter. He walked through the wind and the waves along the surface of the water.
Those of your who have studied physics and natural sciences know about buoyancy and surface tension and understand that there are mathematical laws to explain these phenomenon and understand how they work. People don't walk on water, we sink. But Jesus did. He did because He is God. He wrote these laws that govern how water behaves. He put those in place for us and for our benefit. And he suspended them at the appropriate times again for our benefit.
He walked out on the water. He got into the boat and he caused the wind and the waves to cease.
If Jesus can suspend natural laws of the universe. If he can walk on water and then command the wind and the waves, then He is and must be God, the God who created these things.
And if he has the power to stop a storm, to calm the wind and the waves surely he had the power to calm the crowds who were crying out for him to die. Surely he had the power to influence the minds and the actions of the chief priests, of Pontius Pilate. Certainly he could have stopped all of these things from occurring He could have preserved himself from suffering and dying on the cross. But he did not. According to his own will and desire, He went to the cross, suffered and died so that he could save us from our sin.
That has been done – finished. Complete. Your salvation is already yours. It's a done deal. There is no taking it away.
If salvation is been done, then is there any need to worry? Is there any cause for concern about your life? Your family? Your children? Your occupation? Your bills?
What about your health? What about your children? What about school? What about the economy? What about the election? What about our society? Our culture? What about television? The internet? Child predators?
God says, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the world? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know.”
We don't know. Not even something as fundamental and elementary as creation. How will we ever understand the complexity of a world that damaged and destroyed with Sin. But God does. In his foresight he sees everything that has happened and will happen. He sees even the smallest details of what is in our hearts. He knows what we will do before we do it. And so in His wisdom he He guides every action in the entire universe. We may not know what will happen today, what will happen tomorrow, but one thing we do know. The God who made all of this and controls and guides and gives all things is a God who loves us and cares for us and who has sacrificed himself so that we could have life forever in heaven. That is a done deal.
