How To Respond To God Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: January 22, 2010

Date Preached: January 31, 2010

Where Preached: Oak Park (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: A Series on Job

Sermon Title: How To Respond to God

Sermon Text: Job 42:1-6 [HCSB]

1 Then Job replied to the LORD: 2 I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted. 3 [You asked,] "Who is this who conceals [My] counsel with ignorance?" Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 [You said,] "Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform Me." 5 I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You. 6 Therefore I take back [my words] and repent in dust and ashes.

Introduction:

Last week I told you that Job had a great and wonderful encounter with God, but I also told you that the encounter he had was NOTHING like he had envisioned it. In fact, we can find that this most important encounter he had was paved with terrible grief and suffering. Job met God, and was ultimately blessed BY God, but on that journey, Job experienced great grief.

Let me remind you of where Job was coming from… in ONE single day, Job had lost his children, his property and all wealth and position in the community. All of this was taken away, and he did not understand why. But not only that… Job was stricken with boils from head to toe… sick from his physical maladies AND broken hearted from his personal losses… JOB sat in sackcloth and ashes, wishing that he had NEVER been born!

I can only imagine the grief and pain; it must have been SO severe. Job must have wondered if the pain would EVER go away, but through all this pain and suffering, at the end of his journey, Job was surprised by his one-on-one encounter with the living God.

This morning I want to share 3 various aspects of how Job responded to God, and I pray that we allow this to become a pattern for us as we respond to God in our lives:

God is so powerful…a healthy fear is the appropriate response.

God is so loving… we must recognize that His gift to us is His grace.

God is the Creator God of the Universe...and therefore Obedience is the only proper response.

She had no idea that a seat was reserved for her for the 2002 State of the Union address, or that the President of the United States would recognize her before a world-wide television audience within the first few seconds of his address. But then again, the entire world had changed since Sept. 11, 2001, and Lisa Beamer had already assumed her life would never be the same.

Lisa’s husband Todd had been on United Flight 93, the fourth plane hijacked on the darkest day in America’s history since Pearl Harbor. But upon finding that three planes had already been used as missiles against American landmarks, Beamer and his fellow passengers decided they would fight back.

And although many of the details of that final struggle will forever be buried in the Pennsylvania field where the plane crashed, Todd Beamer’s challenge of “Let’s roll” had already rung an important chord with the entire country.

President Bush said, “In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.”

“We have seen it in the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground -- passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me to welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer, here tonight.”

The applause was thunderous, and Lisa didn’t know what to do with the standing ovation. And so, very slowly, she stood with the rest of the country. “Standing there in my borrowed dress, with the eyes of the whole world on me, I somehow managed to remain standing,”

Lisa wrote in her book, Let’s Roll. “I glanced down at the floor of the Chamber and saw the faces of our national leaders looking back up at me, applauding. It was an extremely strange feeling. No doubt if Todd were alive, he’d be laughing and saying, ‘Can you believe this?’”

There was much more, of course, for Lisa Beamer. National talk show hosts demanded to talk with her, before audiences of millions. She’d meet with the President and his wife again, privately. She would soon write a national best-seller about her memories of September 11.

Can you imagine how dramatically and instantly life seemed to change for Lisa Beamer? On Sept. 10, 2001, she was the mother of two, and dealing with the first stages of pregnancy. No one could have convinced her that in less than four months, she’d know the President of the United States! (Source: Let’s Roll. Lisa Beamer, page 248.)