The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost  (July 5, 2009) 

Pastor Willitz     

Text: Job 38:1-11            

Theme: “Here Is Where Your Proud Waves Halt!”

    I. God stills our pride.

II. God stills our complaints.

III.God stills our fears.

May the God of peace fill you with all joy in believing! 

            Lord our God, in the storms of our lives we pray that you would lead us to humility.  Keep us from trusting in ourselves and our own supposed “goodness.”  Teach us to understand how frail, weak and unworthy we are, that we are but rebellious creatures, and you are our creator, with almighty power and infinite wisdom ruling and guiding all things.  When the storms of life seem to overtake us, lead us to look to our Savior who commands even the wind and the waves, and they obey him.  Show us your salvation.  Lord God, sanctify us by your truth; your word is truth!     Amen. 

Dear followers of our Lord, who stills the storms of our lives;

            Look how far mankind has come!  We have landed men on the moon.  We have developed automobiles, ships and planes to take us where we want to go.  We have progressed in the area of communication, so that with great ease we can speak on our cell phones and send messages and pictures instantly to people all around the world.  We can surf the world-wide web.  What great strides we have made in the area of medicine, so that we can prevent, treat and cure many diseases that claimed so many lives years ago.  We can produce more food and larger harvests than ever before.  We have TVs and DVDs for our entertainment, and computers, machines and modern-day appliances to do our work for us.  Look how far we have come!

            But are we really any better off?  We can travel anywhere, even to the moon, but our problems and troubles go right along with us  When we return, it’s the same old place, and what really have we gained?  We can communicate with others like never before.  Still we are just as lonely, and have just as many, if not more, strained relationships where communication has failed.  We have our time-saving devices, but we are just as busy, and our lives just as complicated, if not more-so.  We can defend and protect ourselves with bars, locks, high-teck security systems.  We can protect our nation with modern nuclear weapons.  Still we are just as vulnerable as before.  Our lives are filled with insecurity and fear.  Our inadequacies, failures and shortcomings still haunt us.  We have great harvests, but there are probably more people starving in the world today than ever before.  We have cured so many diseases, but so many more have come to the fore-front.  No matter how far we go in this world, finally, the outcome is the same; we still end up dead and gone.  What really have we gained for ourselves.

            The words of our verses, spoken to the sea, could just as well be spoken to us: “This far you may come and no farther; Here Is Where Your Proud Waves Halt!“  The storms of life are as fierce and violent as ever.  My friends, we cannot still those storms.  Let us look to the one who does still storms, and let us see how God uses those storms to still the greater and more dangerous storms in our lives.  He stills our pride.  He stills our complaints. And he stills our fears.

            My, what storms there were in the life of God’s faithful servant Job.  God had richly blessed Job with health, wealth, family and friends.  But then in the space of one day Job’s oxen and donkeys were stolen by the Sabeans, and the servants who cared for them were put to the sword.  His sheep and the servants who cared for them perished by fire.  The Chaldeans carried off his camels and killed more servants.  Then the house in which his children were feasting was struck by a mighty wind and collapsed, killing them all.

            We see Job’s great faith in his response: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

            But then Job lost his health.  He was afflicted with painful sores from head to toe, and it appeared that he would soon die.

            I doubt if any of us have gone through troubles that severe.  Still the Lord permits storms to come into our lives too.  The question is: Why?  This side of eternity we never fully know why God allows this or that difficulty to come into our lives.  But we do know that God uses suffering and loss to test us, to teach us, and to draw us closer to himself.  Specifically, God uses those storms in our lives to still the deadly storm of our pride.

            When all is well in our lives and everything is going our way, we so easily think it is because we are great, we have gained prosperity for ourselves, and we deserve such fortune.  That is exactly when we need the Lord to lay our sinful pride bare, to chop us down to size and remind us that we are nothing, and worse than nothing.  For we are rebellious creatures who deserve nothing but grief, loss and misery.  The storms in our lives show us that we desperately need help from God.  We desperately need salvation.

            Even Job, though he had a strong faith, demonstrates also his sinful pride in his reaction to his troubles.  He complains against God.  The book of Job is written for our comfort, that God allows even his great believers to falter, especially in adversity, and then graciously bears them up.  God stilled Job’s complaints, and he stills ours too.

            Job had three friends who came to comfort and encourage him in his difficulties.  But they didn’t do a very good job.  They told him: “Job, all these horrible things must be happening to you because you’ve done something bad.  You’ve been wicked, and you’re being punished.  Job argued: “I put my trust in God and strive to live according to his ways.  Why should I be punished while the wicked prosper?”  And this led Job to complain against God for not being fair.

            We can understand when bad things happen to bad people.  But what about when bad things happen to good people, to God’s faithful believers who live according to his word and ways.  What about when bad things happen to us?  Do we despair, look for some wicked thing we have done and think that God must hate us and is punishing us?  Or do we complain: “God, you’re not fair.  I serve you with my life, and look what I get for it.  Those who rebel against you are better off than I.”?

            Let us clearly understand that by ourselves we are not good people.  We are sinners who deserve nothing but punishment from God.  But God does not punish us.  He does not punish his believers because our sins are all taken away in Christ on the cross.  So then the question remains: “Why does God let troubles enter our lives?  And we so easily find ourselves complaining against God just like Job: “It’s not fair, God.”

            While Job complained about his troubles, a storm came.  We can imagine that the flashing lightning, crashing thunder, roaring wind and pounding rain made Job feel somewhat small and helpless.  God answered Job out of the storm.  He didn’t answer Job’s questions, or reply to his complaints.  God didn’t explain his actions in Job’s life.  He didn’t need to.  He’s God.  He spoke simply to bring Job to humility and repentance.  May his words do the same for us!

            “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” God says.  What a shattering question!  “Who are you to complain that my ways are unjust?  What do you know?”  “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” the LORD says.  “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  Who marked off its dimensions?  Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone–while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

            What could Job say?  What can we say?  “LORD, you know.  LORD, you were there.  LORD, you created all things including me and my life, and you very well know how to run this world and my life.  LORD, I wasn’t there.  I am but your creature.  I am ignorant and know nothing about how things should be run in this world and in my life.”  The LORD’s stormy confrontation with Job was a final test to purge Job of his pride, bring him to realize his own sinfulness and helplessness and lead him to trust more firmly in the LORD his God.

            In the following verses and chapters the LORD pelted Job with questions about this world, this life, the universe, about 77 questions, to show Job his ignorance.  Job needed to learn an important lesson in humility.  How dare Job, and how dare we question God’s ways.  How dare we approach God as our equal and tell him how he should do things in this world and in our lives.  May we simply be still, and know that he is God, and let him be God.  We may not understand why he lets trouble come to us.  It is enough for us to understand that God is a gracious God.  God is good, also when he smites.  God is just, also when we don’t understand him.

            At the end of this interrogation, Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.  You asked, `Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’  Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.  You said, `Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

            Let us also consider the other question in our text.  God asked Job: “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, `This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?”  Water — three-fourths of the earth is covered with it.  It is powerful.  It is dangerous.  Consider how God destroyed the earth in the flood.  After the flood God  set his rainbow in the sky and promised: “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” [Genesis 9:11]  Psalm 104 describes God ending the flood: “At your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them.  You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.”

            Who is it that controls the waters, and stills the waters, the wind and the waves?  Obviously, the Lord.  It is the same Lord who stills the storms in our lives, the same Lord who stills our fears.  When problems and troubles come our way, we feel small, weak and helpless.  We become afraid.  We wonder what will become of us.  Our frailties help us to realize that we have a bigger problem, a problem with our creator.  We have not been the perfect creatures he created us to be.  Therefore, we are mortal and face death.  This is really a cause for fear.  What will become of us then?  How can we in eternity face our creator and stand before him?  Let us look to the one we saw in our gospel lesson today, the one who commands even the wind and waves, and they obey him.  The Lord stills our fears.

            By stilling that storm Jesus demonstrated that he is the very LORD who spoke to Job in our verses.  He is God of all, who controls all things in the universe, in our world, and every last detail of our lives.  By stilling that storm Jesus also showed his care and concern, his love for his disciples, and so also for all of us.  In everything that happens in our lives, even in our problems and troubles, our Lord is carrying out his good and loving purpose for us.  Jesus stills the storms of our lives too, so we need not be afraid when our life seems to be falling apart.

            More than that, Jesus stills our greater spiritual fears.  What about death?  What about facing God for eternity?  The Lord in his great wisdom came to our world to endure our storms for us, even the cross itself, winning our forgiveness.  May we realize that in that storm finally all of our storms are stilled.  Job knew his LORD and declared: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes–I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!” [19:25-27]

            God did once again bless Job with health, wealth, family and friends.  But the humility and trust that the Lord worked in Job’s heart through his trials was actually a greater blessing.  May the Lord use our sorrows and sufferings to strengthen our hearts, to work a humble trust in us, that the Lord who won our eternal life is also in control, and is carrying out our good in everything that happens in this life.  God’s answer to the storms of our lives is found in our Lord Jesus.  “The waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while he lived below!”  Amen. 

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority now and forever.  Amen.

Join us every Wednesday evening at 6:30 P.M. for a study of the parables Jesus used to teach the people.  Everyday pictures convey heavenly meaning that is still relevant today!

“Old” Norwegian Synod

Statements and confessions adopted in the era of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1853-1917).

“Little” Norwegian Synod

Statements and confessions adopted before our synod took the name Evangelical Lutheran Synod (1918-1955).

Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Statements and confessions adopted since our name was changed to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (1955-).