Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Job 38:1-14
August 9, 2026
If we were to summarize sin into a single word, we might say that it is pride. But then we must ask, what is pride? Well, pride is no less than putting God on trial for what we perceive as His failures, and at its most it is the desire to occupy God’s throne.
Job was at that point; he was starting to question the Lord’s motives for allowing all his life’s suffering. Essentially, if we go back to chapter 31, we hear Job’s complaint. “If I’ve been sinful or disobedient, if I’ve horded for myself, if I’ve looked at women with lustful intent, if I’ve rejoiced over the ruin of others, if I’ve not helped and given to the poor, then everything you’ve heaped upon me is deserved including my body’s failures, losing my family, losing my wealth, losing everything, all deserved if I’ve been sinful. But if I’ve been righteous, and I’ve kept myself pure of lust and deceit, of greed or of waste; if I’ve helped the poor and treated others with love and grace, then why,” asks Job, “do I deserve this?”
The Lord sends Elihu, a young man and son of Barachel of the family of Ram, to feed some humble pie upon old Job. He reminds Job that God is greater and it’s pure stupidity to stand against Him. That God is justice and it is pure futility to put God on trial. This young boy stands up against old Job and with words, knocks some common sense into his mind and crushes his heart, why? Because the Lord is about to speak. And that’s the Old Testament reading for today.
One translation opens chapter 38 like this: “Who is this who spreads darkness over my plans with his ignorant words?” And then the Lord tears into Job a bucket of new ones and very quickly Job’s pride crumbles and his God-trial is dismissed.
The Lord reminds Job of just how little he is compared to the Lord, how Job’s knowledge is but a speck of dust compared to the infinite vastness of the Lord’s mind, and even how Job’s cheap excuse for being “righteous” is inconsequential when stacked up against the Lord’s surpassing righteousness and holiness and grace and abundance. We don’t have it in the reading today, but Job responds and says, “No, I am insignificant. How could I reply to you? I will just put my hand over my mouth and say not another word.” Smart answer Job – just shut up and let the Lord speak. You got nothing on Him.
Why did Job suffer so much? The Lord doesn’t really answer that question. Was it fair or just that Job should lose everything? Not the point.
What IS the point? God is God and you…are…not. God is God and you are not and you cannot even begin to imagine His mind or His heart or His works or His ways, so stop challenging His will and ways; stop putting Him on trial, put your hand over your mouth and listen. That’s the point.
Being created in the image and likeness of God, our pride sometimes gets the best of us, and we think we are a lot more like God than we really are and a lot more on the same page as God than we really are.
That’s what sin does. It makes us fall blind by this illusion that somehow, we are equal or better than God, that if we were God, we’d do it better, that His judgments and decrees, His law, His rules just aren’t fair.
How many times have we heard in these past several decades where secular progressive philosophy rules, that if God is love, that it’s not fair that He should ever threaten His creation with wrath, but that He should just affirm and embrace and not call anything sinful?
Or, when someone visits a church and they judge the church and its ministry, not by what it teaches, but by how they personally feel about what it teaches. This is playing God with theology and it’s not what God’s children are supposed to do.
We put God on trial and then we try to take His throne by subjecting His mind and will to our own. We find it perfectly right and good to judge what Scripture says and shove it through the human understanding grindstone until it comes out making sense to us and fitting our ideas.
Or, when tragedy strikes, we ask, “Why would God allow this,” and then we put Him on trial and some people stop believing in Him altogether, they quit the church, they get mad at the pastor for calling them to repentance.
Our being made in His image and likeness, combined with our sinful nature, makes us sometimes very miserable people. We honestly think that questioning the Lord will somehow pay off, that we might win, that He might just get up from His throne and allow us to sit for at least a moment. Yet we can’t even predict what will happen a second from now, let alone tomorrow.
Pride and God-trials. And think of the disciples in the Gospel reading. The sea is raging and the winds are high and Peter thought that he could up and walk on water like his Lord, but when it all came crashing down; when he saw the troubles around him brewing and threatening his existence, all he could do was cry out, “Lord, save me.” All the puffing up of his chest and looking like the big man among the disciples…Peter was just a weak child with no ability to help himself, save himself.
Job had to learn that lesson, and we have to learn that lesson every day. Pride is the enemy of faith, and when troubles come and the waves of life threaten to capsize everything, pride will not save you; hubris will not deliver you.
But Jesus will. At the end of the Book of Job, after Job repented and humbled Himself and acknowledged that he was but an infant compared to the Lord, the Lord restored everything to Job and even 2 times as much! And Job lived and thrived and saw four generations of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and he died old and fulfilled by a long life.
Peter, while momentarily walking on the water toward Jesus, he fell into fear and doubt and cried out to the Lord, and Jesus immediately reached down and rescued him. Peter had to feel deep in his bones his complete dependency on his Lord. Peter wasn’t in a state where he deserved to be rescued or where his faith was strong so that he could be rescued. Peter was lost and the Lord saved him.
And only Jesus could rescue Peter because Jesus was there when the foundations of the earth were laid. Jesus was there and through Him all things were made, and all things are under His control. The eternal Word of the Lord can call the winds to be still, the waves to stop, and the sun to shine. We don’t know how He does it, but He is God. And if God can create the universe from a word, then surely, He can rescue us from the pit of despair.
This doesn’t mean every question is answered or every trouble is resolved. Job still died; Peter was martyred upside-down on a cross after facing years of persecution and pain from those who hated him. God never said He would reveal His mind to us in this life or that every bit of pain and struggle we endure would make sense.
But He has said that He will never leave us or forsake us, and His mighty arm will save us, if not in this life, then certainly in the life to come. But most importantly is that Jesus suffered on our behalf. He died because of our sins and our wanting to be like God. We built the cross, sin by sin by sin, the wooden throne upon which the only Son of God was murdered and His blood shed, and this is the true wisdom of God. That from darkness He creates light, from death He creates life, from sorrow He brings joy to the full.
For in the beginning there was darkness, and God spoke and light ruled over the darkness. And at the cross, at His death, darkness covered the earth. But on the 3rd day, light and life walked out of the tomb and now we live with Him for all eternity.
So, when tempted to pridefully put God on trial, repent and like Job, with hand over mouth, be silent and listen. Because the Lord has provided for you, not answers to all of life’s difficult questions, but the one answer that matters most – Christ and His cross – so that when it is all said and done, you will have the wealth and glory of eternal life and two times as much. Today, depend on your Lord’s saving hand so that tomorrow – on the Day the Lord returns – you might feast with Him in paradise. Amen.
