Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Old Testament lesson (Job 38: 1-11). ����������������

"If you're so smart, then tell me this�" Heard those words before? They're usually words children speak when they're playing a game of one-upmanship. One child challenges another's ego, and the response "Oh yeah, well if you're so smart then how did you get a C on that last science test? If you're so smart� If you're so smart." ����������������

Unfortunately it's not just children who say this. We adults may be more subtle, but still nonetheless challenging of another's perceived superiority. "If the president is so smart� If that city commissioner is so smart�. If that doctor is so smart� If that Pastor is so smart�" It is sometimes appropriate to challenge another human, while still respecting their authority (Romans 13), because humans can be wrong. But do we sometimes want to challenge God as if He were just another person? ����������������

The Old Testament Reading contains God's Words to Job at the end of the lengthy discussion, even dispute, between Job and his 3 friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, plus a fourth named Elihu. Finally, in Chapter 38, God speaks. His silence throughout the long days of Job's illness no doubt parallels the silence of God during some of our tough times. At least it may seem as though God were silent. But God is not silent. He proves that in the events surrounding our text when he says: "2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand." ����������������

As Job forgot, and as we may well be reminded this morning too,

GOD IS SO SMART THAT WE CAN TRUST HIM EVEN WHEN LIFE SEEMS OUT OF CONTROL. ����������������

Lots of people think they know better than God does, and they need to hear these words. The atheists, the secularists, the skeptics who say "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist." Others too. They've spoken "words without knowledge." They've "darkened counsel" to use the words of the text. ����������������

If the truth is known, we play that game with God often as well. It's just that we don't express it quite so crudely. We don't say "I know everything." We say "Well my degree is from� or I'm a self-made success despite my 8th grade education� or I know I'm smarter than those who speak on these issues." Perhaps we even say "I know the Bible says it's wrong, but in my case�" And then God says, "Who is it that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? (v. 2). Could it be that most of us have at times thought we knew better than God when we wanted an illness healed, a war stopped, or a voter's meeting decision to go our way?

A man found a cocoon from which he knew a butterfly would come. He saw a small opening in the cocoon and sat and watched for several hours to see the butterfly emerge. It was a slow, tedious process. The butterfly struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. So the watcher decided to help the poor creature. He took a pair of scissors and snipped a bit of the cocoon to make it easier for the butterfly to escape. The butterfly looked strange after it emerged. Its body was swollen and its wings were shriveled. The man continued to watch, thinking that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand and be able to support the body, which would get smaller. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. The man in his eagerness to help did not understand that struggling through the small opening in the cocoon was God's way of forcing fluids from the body of the butsterfly into its wings so that it would be able to fly when it achieved freedom from the cocoon. So it is with our struggles in life (from [email protected], July 2001. � � �

Let's learn from Job this morning. His degree was from USC, the University of Suffering and Catastrophe. Remember how God had bragged to Satan about Job's faith and uprightness, then Satan challenged God about Job: "He only serves you because you're making life easy for him. You let me afflict him and he'll curse you to your face." And so Job has been suffering � lost his children, lost his wealth, lost his health. ����������������

Job's friends come to comfort him in his agony, and they graciously sit with him for a week without speaking. But when they begin to speak, they have nothing comforting to say to Job, nothing helpful or supportive. They begin to accuse him of harboring some secret sins that have caused his calamity, his suffering. In reply, Job protested his innocence, virtually ignoring the fact that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23). ����������������

Several times in the book Job requests that God speak to him: "Oh that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense � let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing" (31: 35). Job has been saying "I know my situation better than you do, God. I know I'm innocent. I know I don't deserve the rough lot I've had." ����������������

Then in our text, God answers. "If you're so smart, tell me this." "4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ��5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"� ����������������

Pretty good questions aren't they? The Lord goes on for several chapters quizzing Job and his friends about the creation of the earth and sea, light and storms, lions, ostriches and hawks. God's Words testify to a sense of beauty and order in the world that we still marvel. Many of these questions we still can't answer, even with our advanced science. But we can be confident that God is in control, that Jesus can still the storms, that he knows what is happening in our lives as well. Well, that's what God says; now for what he doesn't say. Does it strike you as odd that God doesn't debate with Job or answer his questions. He doesn't even refer to Job's suffering. Instead, God raises Job's sight from his own troubles to the marvelous order that forms the world. He patiently instructs a man who needs to see the bigger picture. Job never learns all the facts about Satan's temptation and how God allowed the suffering! Job has to operate by faith, not by sight. God invites Job to love him for no reason than that God is worthy of love. God invites a humble perspective that is willing to learn and listen. He says, in short, that it's more important to know God than to have all the answers, even for those of us who like to have all the answers. ����������������

We don't have to have all the answers � because God does � even when things seem their worst, even when everything seems out of control as it did that dark day 2000 years ago on Calvary when it appeared that Satan really had won. That day the disciples had no clue why their Master, who could quiet storms with his voice, was abandoned by the heavenly Father to die on a cross, why He was suffering even worse than Job. Jesus' disciples didn't have the answer, but God did. Christ bore our sins, Job's sins, Eliphaz's sins, your sins, my sins on the cross that we might not have to die for our own sins. We know that through the preaching of the Gospel. And unlike Job, with Christ's resurrection, we did come to understand God's reasons � our salvation and the disciples' and Job's. We know that our Redeemer lives and has stood upon the earth (Job 19: 25) and now sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. His work on earth has cast the accuser Satan from heaven (Luke 10: 18) and will completely remove sin, death and the devil when the Father wills the Son to return. ����������������

Well how does the Book of Job end? What's the result of Job's meeting with God? In the final chapter Job says, "Now I'm satisfied; I've seen you with my own eyes" (42: 5 paraphrased) and he repented in dust and ashes. Today you and I have met with God. We are meeting with him right now. He is present in his Word to instruct, comfort, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness (2 Timothy 3: 16). He is present in the gathering of believers, wherever two or three gather together in Jesus' name. He is present in the Sacrament. He invites us to learn with Job that we need not have all the answers as long as we have the Answer, that is our Lord Jesus Christ. We need not know why certain things happen as long as we know that he loves us in His Son Jesus Christ.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)

(The structure and details of this sermon were modified from but highly dependent on a sermon by Rev. Dr. Joel Heck published in Concordia Pulpit Resource, July 2003)