Suffering Produces...

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 14th chapter.

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Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side while He dismissed the crowds.

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And after He had dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came,

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He was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.

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On the fourth watch of the night, He came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said,

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It is a ghost, and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart, it is

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I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered Him, saying, Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.

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He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid.

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And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him,

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O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshipped

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Him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

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All right, so I just spent a week in California. I have Disney on the brain, and you'll know that Disney owns the

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Star Wars franchise. But if you think back to the Star Wars prequels,

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Master Yoda was examining young Anakin Skywalker, considering him for the role of becoming a

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Jedi Padawan, and he detected in him a lot of fear. And so do give me a little bit of leeway here as I do my best

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Yoda impersonation. But listen to the quote. We all know it. Fear is the path to the dark side.

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Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. We all can hear

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Yoda speaking this way. But here's the thing. A lot of people consider

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Yoda's quote here to be full of wisdom, something that actually has some spiritual value to it.

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But we Christians know that there's more to the quote. And suffering leads to perseverance.

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And perseverance, character. And character, hope. You see, there's a reason why we suffer in this world, and the reason why we suffer is because of sin.

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Now, as Christians, we must hold fast to the gospel. When we experience suffering, and we do, the suffering that even goes along with growing old and having to deal with achy bones and big black bruises from swimming in the ocean and things like this, right?

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We, as our bodies are falling apart, we experience suffering. But the one thing we as Christians must hold on to is this idea that the suffering that we go through is not a result of God deciding to punish us for our sins in the same way that God punishes evildoers for their impenitence, for their obstinacy, for taking

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His words and casting them behind them. Scripture is clear that because Christ has suffered, note the emphasis on the word, has suffered for our sins, bled and died in our place, we have been reconciled to God.

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We have been reconciled to Him, and as a result of Him, we have been adopted into the family.

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We have been forgiven of all of our trespasses, Christ bleeding and dying for every one of our sins.

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But you'll note then that we as Christians are still called to a life of suffering.

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The one thing that we can take off the table is the idea that we are suffering because God is punishing us.

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That's not correct. Instead, God allows us to suffer for our own good, for the purpose of building our faith, for the purpose of helping us get to the end of ourselves.

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Think of it this way. We've all run into that fellow, and that fellow, the one

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I'm talking about, is the fellow who is the one who is completely arrogant, self -righteous, knows it all, and never ever is ever wrong.

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You usually call guys like this narcissists, right? But you'll note, is the narcissist somebody who's a good candidate for being a

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Christian? No, not at all, because pride is the devil's sin.

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And so what does God allow to happen to the narcissist, the one who is most like the devil?

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In his great love and care for the narcissist, in his desire that the narcissist be forgiven and saved of his sins,

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God will allow the narcissist to go to the school of hard knocks. And boy, is it tough to graduate from that place.

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But when you are graduated from the school of hard knocks, you've had all of the self -righteous wind knocked out of your chest, all of your arrogance knocked down, and you basically no longer see yourselves as the top of the world, the king of the world, and things like this.

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Instead, you see yourself rightly as somebody who is a sinner, in need of forgiveness and grace.

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And suffering was part of the way in which God prepared you to hear the gospel. So as Christians, then, we must not go to Deuteronomy 28 in the curses section of the

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Mosaic Covenant for looking at whether or not our suffering is because God is trying to smite us.

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That's off the table. Instead, we must look to the book of Job. The Job is the place to go.

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In fact, there's a bigger context to our Old Testament text. You'll note in Job 38, our

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Old Testament text, God shows up and decides that he's going to ask some very tough, fatherly questions of Job.

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But we miss the whole story. We kind of miss the context of what's going on. What makes

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God come barreling down the highway in a supercell thunderstorm that's dropped a tornado and decides to speak with such firmness against Job?

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Well, we all know the story. Let me give you a quick flight over the Job battlefield, if you will.

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We all know how the story goes. There's Satan. He's presented himself before God with the holy angels, and God asks him where he's been, what he's been up to.

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And then God, I kid you not, God is the one who starts off by saying, have you considered my servant

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Job? Satan wasn't there to talk about Job. That wasn't necessarily on his agenda docket for the day.

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But since God brought it up, he knows all about him and says, yeah, listen, the reason why Job loves you,

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God, is because you've made his life cushy. The guy lives in the top one percentile of richest people on planet

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Earth. And he's got so much money and goods and things like this. He's the most powerful, influential person on the planet.

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But if you, God, take all of that away from him, he'll curse you to your face. God says, bet.

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And it's on. And God puts one limit on Satan. You can't kill him. Well, you can't kill

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Job, but what does Satan end up doing? Killing all of his children. Taking all of his goods, his assets, his flocks.

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They're all gone. And then strikes his body to the point where he's in so much agony and pain from boils that have broken out on his skin that he wishes he could die.

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But death is not anywhere near him. And so he is made to suffer horribly.

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And then in the midst of all of this, he is given three, three comforters.

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And I like to think of his three comforters as Satan, the world, and the flesh. The unholy trinity.

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It's a terrible group. And boy, you listen to their theology, it is completely wackerdoodle.

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In fact, one of the guys sounds so much like a Word of Faith prosperity heretic that I cannot read the book of Job without hearing

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Joel Osteen's voice when I read him. It's fascinating to read. But then in the midst of all of this, in his dialogue with his comforters,

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Job goes too far. To the point where he claims basically for himself sinless righteousness.

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Oh no, that's not at all something that Job can claim for himself nor something you or I can claim for him.

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And so God begins the pre -rebuking work with Job by a young fellow, younger than Job, a guy by the name of Elihu.

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And Elihu comes and he rebukes Job and this guy is speaking good theological sense.

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And listen to a portion of Elihu's rebukes in chapter 33 of Job, which will help us set the context for our

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Old Testament text. So hear now my speech, O Job. Listen to all my words.

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Behold, I open my mouth. The tongue in my mouth speaks. My words declare the uprightness of my heart and what my lips know, they speak sincerely.

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The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

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Love that statement, by the way. The Spirit of God has made me. The breath of the Almighty gives me life.

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That's an interesting thing for Elihu to say considering that he was obviously, like the rest of us, conceived in his mother's womb.

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But that's very true. And so something we should embrace here. A little aside, and that is that God is the one who has made each and every one of us through his own breath.

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Even though we were not there in the garden, we were there, if you were, in the proverbial loins of Adam.

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And as a result of it, we can all rightly say along with Elihu that God Almighty is the one who gives us life and has breathed us into existence.

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So he then says to Job, answer me if you can. Set your words in order before me and take your stand. Behold, I am toward God as you are.

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I too was pinched off from a piece of clay. Behold, no fear of me need terrify you.

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My pressure will not be heavy upon you. Sounds like Jesus. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

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There's an interesting connection between Elihu and Jesus. So surely you have spoken in my ears and I have heard the sound of your words.

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You say, Job, I am pure without transgression. I am clean.

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There is no iniquity in me. Here's the issue. When you claim that, what does

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Scripture say? If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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If we say we have no sin, we make God to be a liar. So it makes me wonder here.

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You'll note that God is the one who first brought Job up to Satan. It makes me wonder if the reason why he did is because Job needed a good knocking down.

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Isn't it always the case with us? We as human beings, as sinful human beings, we struggle with our sin and then when we have those seasons where it feels like we've got our acts together, our spiritual egos inflate to the point where we suck all the oxygen out of the room and we finally think that we've figured it out, we've achieved it, we've done it and all we've done is just feed our ego and God has to come in and just take the needle and pop the whole thing and bring us back down to size.

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And so we learn here that Job has got a problem and that is that he thinks he's achieved sinless perfection in his life and he hasn't.

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So that being the case, by saying these words, he's now making

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God out to be the one who's transgressed him. He's made God out to be the sinner.

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He's made God out to be the evil one because obviously if Job is sinless, then

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God has done him evil by making him suffer. At least that's how logic thinks about such things.

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But I would note something here. We've got to be careful when we start thinking this way because how many sins did

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Jesus commit again? Yeah, not a single one of them and yet he was made to suffer horribly for your sins and mine.

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Suffering is no indicator of God's love because God truly loves the Son and yet Christ suffered horribly in order to save you and me.

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So Elihu continues and I'll back up to you, Job. You say, I'm pure without transgression. I'm clean.

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There is no iniquity in me. Behold, he finds occasion against me. He counts me as his enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks and watches all of my paths.

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In other words, he's blaming God. Behold, in this you are not right, Elihu rebukes him.

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I will answer you for God is greater than man. Why do you contend against God saying he will answer none of man's words?

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For God speaks in one way and in two, though man does not perceive it.

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In a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep falls on men while they slumber on their beds, then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings that he may turn man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man.

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He keeps back his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword. Let me give you a quick paraphrase of what

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Elihu just said. Elihu basically said God, when he acts and he speaks, he does so in order to turn us aside from hell, in order to keep us back from falling into the lake of fire so that we do not perish eternally.

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When God acts, although we do not understand our ways, God understands them.

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And although we do not understand God's ways, God knows exactly what he's doing and he legitimately has your best in mind.

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Even when you are made to suffer, God is doing this to keep your soul back from perishing in the pit.

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Elihu continues, Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bones so that his life loathes bread and his appetite the choicest food.

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His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen and his bones that were not seen stick out.

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His soul draws near to the pit and his life to those who bring death. If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand to declare to man what is right for him, and he is merciful to him and says,

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Deliver him from going down into the pit. I have found a ransom. Beautiful picture when you consider what

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Job is preaching here. Elihu is right on the money when he talks about how, alas, if there was only a mediator, an angel, maybe like the angel of the

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Lord himself, who can declare over you or I that we are to be delivered from going down to the pit.

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Why? Because he's found a ransom for us. In saying this, Elihu is making it very clear that even

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Job, as righteous as he was and rich in good works, and he truly was, still, even he needed to be ransomed from the pit.

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Even he needed to be forgiven of his sins. And here you get a great allusion to a connection to the gospel of Jesus Christ because Jesus is the ransom for Job.

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He's also the ransom for you and I. And so when we are rebuked by God with pain to the point where we even loathe what we're eating, note then that God is still at work in delivering us from the pit itself because he has found a ransom for us in Christ.

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Let his flesh become fresh with youth, God says of him. Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.

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And here's where the Christian hope must come into play. Because as Christians, we look at this life and we look at what's happening to us, we look at our suffering, we look at our bodies and recognize that things are going derelict quick.

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Yet there is a day coming, and we know this is true because Christ is risen from the dead, where God will declare to each and every one of us, even though our bodies decay and molder in a grave,

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God will say to us, let his or her flesh become fresh with youth. Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.

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I cannot wait to be 18 again. None of you will recognize me.

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It's going to be tough. Unless you've seen my cheesy photos and portraits from when I was young with the cheesy grin that I had and the great body that has disappeared a long time ago, none of you are going to recognize me.

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But that's kind of the point. That youthful vigor is coming back to us. And so note that plays into our suffering.

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Our hope is not in the complete alleviation of our suffering in this life because that may not ever happen.

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Our hope is in the alleviation of our suffering and the renewal of our youth and the resurrection. Job is rich with true, sound theology if you listen to the right person,

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Ali, who is one you should listen to. So, his soul draws near to the pit.

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A mediator led his soul. His soul draws near to the pit as life to those who bring death. If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of a thousand to declare to man what is right for him.

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He is merciful to him and says, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. Let his flesh become fresh with youth and let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.

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Then man prays to God and he accepts him. He sees his face with a shout of joy and he restores to man his righteousness.

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He sings before men and says, I sinned and perverted what is right and it was not repaid to me.

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He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit and my life shall look upon the light.

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Behold, God does all these things twice, three times with a man to bring him back, to bring back his soul from the pit that he may be lighted with the light of life.

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So pay attention, O Job. Listen to me. Be silent and I will speak. If you have any words, answer me.

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Speak for I desire to justify you. If not, listen to me. Be silent and I will teach you wisdom,

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Alihu says. If you haven't read Job lately, it's worth the read. It's a good read, one to consider, especially in light of our suffering.

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But that forms then the big context of our Old Testament text because after Alihu does kind of the pre -work in rebuking

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Job, God decides to show up because God has been wronged by Job, by Job's self -righteousness, by him declaring himself innocent and somehow beyond God's rebuke or even that God has caused him to suffer in ways that was unjust.

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He's rebuked God, and God now is going to set the record straight. And by setting the record straight with Job, he sets the record straight with all of us.

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So we ask these tough questions. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? I wasn't there.

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Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Was it Jesus? Who stretched the line upon it?

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On what were its bases sunk? Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

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There's a picture here of the creation that even Genesis doesn't give us. Somewhere along the days of creation,

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God also created the angels. These are the sons of God that are referred to here in Job 38 .7.

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And you'll note that they were the eyewitnesses of the creation itself. And as God was doing

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His work on the six days of creation, these angels were shouting for joy, cheering

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God on, excited by what was taking place and rejoicing and praising

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God as He concluded each and every step of the way in making the heavens and the earth.

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He notes then, Who shut in the sea with its doors when it burst out from the womb? When I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band?

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And I prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said, Thus far you shall come and no farther.

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And here shall your proud waves be stayed. And here you can see a connection to our gospel text because in our gospel text,

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Jesus is able to command the sea. He's able to give orders to it and the sea obeys.

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If you see anybody claiming to be a Christian today, claiming that they have authority over weather like hurricanes and things like this, ignore them.

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They're wackerdoodles. They've lost their mind. Their brains have been baked in the sun too much and the glory has clearly stunted their mental capacity.

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As a result of it, these people are wack. I think of Kat Kerr. Every single hurricane season, she parks herself on the

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Atlantic seaboard when a hurricane is heading towards the United States and she takes a stick that looks like something a wizard would wield from the

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Lord of the Rings and she tries to bat those things off the coast. Every single hurricane that she has barked orders to in the name of Jesus, every single one of them have ignored her and the things that she said will not happen have happened even worse than before.

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So if you're living in Florida and Kat Kerr is speaking to hurricanes, flee the state. You're about to lose your home is the best way

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I can put it. But not so with Christ. Not so with God. God truly, when he commands the creation and gives orders to storms and other things, they obey.

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Have you commanded the morning since your days began, God, asks Job, and caused the dawn to know its place that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it.

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It is changed like clay under the sea. Its features stand out like a garment from the wicked. Their light is withheld and their uplifted arm is broken.

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Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Nope. Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

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Nope. Have you seen the gates of the deep darkness? Nope. Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

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Nope. Declare it if you know all of this. And you see the point that God is making.

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And the point that God is making is this. You are of such finite knowledge.

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You know about this much if you know anything at all about how the world really operates.

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But how many people have you run into? How many times have you done it? Acted like you knew it all.

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You knew exactly how everything operated and how the world and the universe behaves and all this kind of stuff.

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You don't know anything. You don't know nothing. And so when you come along and you get a hangnail and you curse

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God because you're in pain and agony over your hangnail, you don't know a thing.

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Consider that then in light of our gospel text. You'll note that Jesus has just fed the 5 ,000.

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And Jesus is now going to make his disciples get into a boat. As it's getting dark, he's sending them out on the

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Sea of Galilee, and he's God in human flesh, so he knows full well what the weather report is.

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He doesn't even have to check the app on his iPhone. He knows what the forecast is. And you know what he did?

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He sent all of his disciples in that boat into danger.

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Those in peril on the sea indeed. And Jesus is the one who put them in peril.

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Does he not care about them? Does Jesus, is he just so, so reckless that he would endanger their lives so recklessly?

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You think about it this way. If this happened today and these fishermen worked for Jesus' corp, this would be an

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OSHA violation. Do you ever take off in your plane when there's a big old storm in the horizon?

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No, you don't. You stay on the ground. You wait for that thing to pass. Jesus didn't follow any of the safety rules.

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None of them. I mean, we're talking like hundreds of thousands of dollars of worth of fines and violations for what has occurred here.

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Does he not care for his disciples? Absolutely he does.

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The thing is is that the worst thing that can happen to his disciples is not that they die. The worst thing that can happen to the disciples is that they perish eternally.

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The worst thing that can happen to you is that you perish eternally. And believe me when I tell you, God has no problem steering you into suffering or even into danger in order to open your eyes to the fact that you just really don't understand how everything operates and he does and you can trust him but you shouldn't trust yourself.

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That's a hard thing for us Christians to learn. So immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.

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After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray and when evening came, he was there all alone.

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But the boat by this time was a long way from land beaten by the waves. The wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, this is a tough night.

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These guys are exhausted at this point. Their boat was beaten by the waves.

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The wind was against them. And so Jesus, in the fourth watch of the night, came walking on the sea.

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We learn from a cross reference to this text. Look it up. In one of the cross references, it says that Jesus' intent here was to keep on walking by them.

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Let that one sink in. Check the cross references. I think it's either Mark or Luke. Jesus, his full intent was to just keep on walking by them, but they saw him.

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They freaked out. They freaked out. They said, oh my goodness, it's a ghost, basically thinking they're about to perish.

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And Jesus spoke to them and he said these words, take heart.

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Ego eimi. He doesn't say it is I. He says I am. Jesus is speaking here his identity as God.

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He is the I am of Exodus 3. He's the one who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

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Take heart. It is I. I am. May phobos they. Do not be afraid.

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Of course, Peter is basically gone all different strokes on him.

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He says, what you talking about, Willis? If that's really you, Jesus, in great doubt,

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Peter says, Lord, if it's really you, you tell me to come to you.

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Isn't that the same kind of language that Satan used with Jesus? If you're really the son of God, then command these things to do these things.

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You'll note that Peter here, in a sense, you can almost argue was putting Jesus to the test.

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Is that really you? Prove it. Same kind of temptation. So he's putting

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Christ to the test here, and he doesn't get rebuked for doing so. Jesus says, all right, come.

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Why? Because in this case, Jesus, his identity wasn't being challenged in a way that Jesus doubted his identity.

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His identity was being challenged in a way where Peter questioned his identity. So to make it perfectly clear who he was,

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Peter then comes out of the boat and walks on the water, but that doesn't last long. He ends up sinking, and then saying that wonderful three -word prayer that we all should be praying every day,

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Lord, save me. Lord, save me. We need to pray this in the midst of our difficulties and trouble.

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So Jesus immediately reached out his hand, took him saying, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?

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And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly, you are the

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Son of God. So Christ sends them into danger, and at the end of all of this, they now confess who

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Jesus truly is. They recognize that he is God of God, light of light, very

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God of very God, and the text says that they all worshipped Christ at the end of this.

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But are we supposed to then look at this and say, well, God, you could have done this differently.

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Why did you have to put them in danger to get them to worship and obey you? God knows what he's doing.

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Why did you have to strike me with a terminal disease to knock me on my butt and take away all of my hope of having a great life, and the only thing

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I can look forward to is death? Why did you have to do that, God, so that you'll worship him?

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Why did you make it so difficult for me in this life in order to take away your self -sufficiency?

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You can kind of see how this goes, and this goes a million different ways, and believe me when I tell you, each and every one of us, because we are so sinful, sinful beyond even what we comprehend in ourselves, that when

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God causes us to suffer, it becomes more than an annoyance, and when God causes us to suffer in a way where the solution is nowhere in sight, you have to just look down the calendar.

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Each day ahead, you can say, is going to be filled with pain and difficulty and problems. You know, when that happens, you are left with no choice but to despair or to trust.

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These are hard choices, but at the end of the day, God knows what he is doing.

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So, brothers and sisters, when we are made to suffer, and if it hasn't happened to you yet, give it five minutes.

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When you are made to suffer, do not despise God and what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing, and his methods and his means are his to choose, and there ain't nobody who can rob

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God of his glory or rebuke God for what he has done and say, who are you to be doing these things to these people?

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God knows what he's doing, and he's working all things together for good for those who love him.

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So let us rejoice in this, that God also knows exactly what it means to suffer, because that's what

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Christ did for us on the cross. God doesn't cause us to suffer without himself knowing exactly what it is that we're going through.

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In fact, I would argue we haven't even begun to suffer as greatly as Christ did, because Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, for your sins and mine, so much so that even the

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Father had to turn his face away from Christ, and Christ, in the cry of dereliction, cried out, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And yet, in the midst of all of that, Christ knew that what was about to take place was for the good of you and I, and so for the joy set before him, despised the cross and its shame, so that he can have the joy of finally seeing us face to face when he renews our strength and renews our youth, and we can join him in a world without end that he is creating, in a world where our righteousness will be restored to us and sin will be no more.

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The disease is horrible. The cure is difficult. There's nothing easy about it.

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Do not despise Dr. Jesus when he prescribes for you a bitter pill of suffering, because when you receive that bitter pill, it's difficult to go through, but it's necessary so that you can continue to rely on him and have all of your self -reliance and self -righteousness fall away.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. We thank you for your support.

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