Why did this happen to me? #7 - God Responds

Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund explores Job 38-41, where God finally responds to Job's suffering—not with direct answers, but with powerful questions that reveal His infinite wisdom and control. This message offers instruction, comfort, and challenge for anyone wrestling with pain and disappointment, reminding us that God's ways are higher than ours and He remains sovereign even when we don't understand.

Summary and Application

We all carry expectations about how life should unfold. As Kurt observes, "if any of us took a snapshot of ourselves when we graduated high school and the people that were around us and we said, what is it that you expect in life? Very few of us would say, well, I expected hardship and difficulty." Yet disappointment, loss, and suffering touch every life—sometimes devastatingly so.

The book of Job confronts this universal human experience head-on. After chapters of Job's suffering and his friends' explanations, God finally speaks in Job 38. But His response surprises us: instead of explaining why Job suffered, God asks a series of powerful questions that reveal something even more important.

God Doesn't Answer the "Why" Question

When we face hardship, our instinctive cry is "Why?" We want explanations, reasons, something that makes sense of our pain. But as Kurt points out, "God doesn't answer the why question." Instead, God responds with questions like:

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" (Job 38:4)

"Have you ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place?" (Job 38:12)

"Do you know where the mountain goats give birth?" (Job 39:1)

These aren't dismissive questions. They're invitations to recognize the vastness of God's wisdom and power. Kurt explains: "when he asks all these questions, part of what he's doing is he's saying, even if I tried to explain all of this to you, it's not like you would understand because you don't understand these things either."

The instruction here is clear: God's ways are beyond our comprehension. This may feel uncomfortable at first, but it's actually foundational to faith. We must accept that "it can become unhealthy to demand that God give us an answer. It can become unhealthy to speculate about what God is doing if we don't have clarity."

God's Power is Our Comfort

The second major theme emerges through God's descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan—creatures of immense power that only God can control. This reveals something crucial: God's incomprehensibility is actually our comfort.

Kurt uses a helpful analogy: "It's like you're playing computer chess against the ultimate computer, except not at all like it. Here's how it's like it and how it's not. It's like it in that the computer can see moves that are so far beyond what you can see... But here's how it's not like it. When you play computer chess, you're against it, and it's impersonal. God is personal, and he's for you."

This is the profound comfort Job offers: even when circumstances seem hopeless, God sees possibilities we cannot imagine. As Romans 8:35-37 declares, nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

The comfort comes in recognizing that our inability to understand doesn't diminish God's power—it actually highlights it. Kurt notes, "Sometimes we think, if I can just explain it, then I can control it. But the comfort here is to be able to say, no, this is really beyond me... And that's a good thing, because it means that God is working maybe in ways that we can't put all the pieces together."

God is God, and We Are Not

The third theme is the most challenging. Twice God tells Job: "Brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me" (Job 38:3, 40:7). This is confrontational—but necessarily so.

The challenge is this: God is in control, and we must surrender our demands for explanation. Kurt shares a pivotal moment from a conference where John Piper said, "I'm so sick and tired of people being mad at God... how dare you as a creature come against the God of the universe and tell him that you're mad at him."

This isn't about suppressing honest questions—the Psalms are filled with them. But there's a difference between bringing our pain to God and harboring anger against Him for not meeting our expectations. As Kurt reflects on his own experience: "what I needed was to be challenged and to be said, you are not God and it is a good thing."

Living with Mystery

Job's response models the right posture: "I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth" (Job 40:4). He doesn't receive direct answers, but he encounters the living God—and that proves sufficient.

Kurt connects this directly to the gospel: "the way that we come to faith is by acknowledging that there is a God who is beyond us, that he set a standard that we don't keep, therefore we deserve hell punishment. And yet God sends his Son Jesus on our behalf." Just as salvation requires acknowledging we don't fully comprehend God's ways, so does living through suffering.

The message concludes with beautiful honesty about a friend's devastating loss. Kurt admits, "I have to be honest, my initial answer was I don't know that anything helps." But then he returns to Job's story and God's response: "The instruction is I'm still in control even if it doesn't feel like it. The comfort is I'm in control even if it doesn't feel like it. And the challenge is I'm God and you're not."

Questions for Reflection

1. Which do you need most right now: the instruction that God's ways are higher, the comfort that God is in control, or the challenge to surrender your demands? Take time to honestly assess where you are and what your soul most needs to hear today.

2. Are you harboring anger at God for something you don't understand, or are you bringing honest questions while trusting His character? Consider the difference between wrestling with God (like Jacob) versus shaking your fist at Him in demand for answers you may not be equipped to understand.

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  Last week, I got a text that was from a dormant text group. Do you know what a dormant text group is? It's one of those text chains that you've been in that you haven't seen a text in for some time. And it was a group of people who I had been friends with in high school. And high school for me is a ways back, if you didn't know that.

  And so this was a text that was talking about an event that was coming up and asking the question, are you going to be at the event? And I haven't been back to where I grew up in a lot of years because my parents moved away. They've passed away. There's really nothing back there at this point for me to go back for. So I just responded quickly with the nice, hey, I'm not going to make the event. Hope it all is good for those of you who can be there.

  And then as other people started to respond, one of the women who was, again, one of our high school friends, posted in this little chat or put into this chat a picture of her where she had gotten married. And everybody, rightly was very excited for her. Just, this is great to see that you got married. And it caused me just to reflect for a moment on her name and some of the other names that were in the list.

  Some of them I've lost touch with and don't remember their stories very well, but others, I still know their stories. And this particular woman was getting remarried because her first marriage had been really difficult. It had been almost a disaster and had gone through just a lot of hardship to get where she was. And as I looked at some of the other names, I was reminded of friends who had lost children, who had gone through huge health issues, whose careers had really not been what they had hoped had been just filled with disappointment.

  And my guess is if any of us took a snapshot of ourselves when we graduated high school and the people that were around us and we said, what is it that you expect in life? Very few of us would say, well, I expected hardship and difficulty. It's a moment of hope where you say, what I'm hoping for is that things will go basically well for me. And I don't think the group of friends that I had in high school are that unique that most of us could say the people we've known over the years, if it's not our own story, it's certainly stories of people that we're close to that we say there have been big disappointments.

  Well, over the last few weeks we've been looking at the book of Job together. And Job is a fairly straightforward book, other than the fact that it's a little hard sometimes to follow the narrative. And by straightforward, what I mean is the book is simple. Job suffers a lot, and then his friends come and they give their ideas about why he suffers. And it's in cycles where they basically come one after another and talk. And then Job talks, and we've looked at those.

  And then another friend comes, his name's Elihu, who gives maybe a closer explanation. But the one thing that we haven't really seen since the very beginning of the book is God actually addressing the question. And when I say it's a simple book, what I mean is it's simple in that it asks a question in a way that all of us ask. And that is, God, why is this happening to me? God, where are you in this?

  Whether you're a person of long time faith or newer to faith, when things go poorly in our lives, we have a tendency to say, God, where are you? God, why is this happening to me? And now finally, when we get to chapter 38, God speaks. But do you know what God doesn't do here? He does not actually answer the question.

  I mean, this is when you would expect God to say, okay, okay, let me peel back kind of all of the veneer that we live with, and let me answer the question directly. Let me talk about why these hard things have happened. But do you know what he does instead? He answers the question with a series of questions.

  And what I'd like to do today is read a section of this, because this is poetry. So it's not just meant to instruct, but it's meant to make us feel something. Read a portion of this so that we hopefully can feel a little bit of this. And then just ask and answer some questions about how it applies to you and to me. And when we read through this, I hope that what you'll be able to do is move from even saying, this is about Job and something that's ancient, to your own disappointments, your own frustrations. Where you say, God, why God? What? Where have you been in the midst of this? And I know that in a room this size and those watching online that we have so many different stories and many of us could say, here's been my disappointment, God, where have you been? And God now begins to speak to it.

  God's Questions to Job

  And I'll start again. I'll read some of this intermittently just to try to get the feel of it. I'll start, in Job 38, verse 4. It says, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" So his first question is, where were you? He says, where were you when the earth began? I was there, basically. Were you there?

  He says, "Tell me, if you understand, who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know." So his question is, who? Who set the earth in motion? Who made its dimensions? You must know, Job, since you've been so quick to point out how I've misruled the universe? "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?"

  "Who shut up the sea behind the doors? 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."

  Have you? And then he goes on a little later, so his first question here is, where were you when I made the earth, when I made the stars, when I made the seas? Do you have any recollection of those things? Starting, so here's God just simply asking these questions and saying, okay, you think you understand. Where were you at the beginning?

  And then he moves in verse 11 or verse 12 of chapter 38, and he asked a different question. And this is basically, have you ever. So, so first it's where were you? Now it's, have you ever. Verse 12. "Have you ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place?" I love that imagery. Have you ever commanded the morning? Did you ever get up in the morning and say, sun, rise. He's saying, have you ever done one of these kinds of things?

  Verse 13, "That it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal. Its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken."

  "Have you ever journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?" Basically, have you ever gone to the bottom of the ocean to see how things work there? "Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you ever seen the gates of the deepest darkness?" Do you understand what happens when a person dies? Have you been not just with them, but actually in the experience with them? The way that I've been is what he's asking.

  "Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me if you know all of this." So he says, I want to know. Do you understand this? Have you ever been around for all of this?

  Verse 22, it says, "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow and seen the storehouses of hail?" Do you know how the weather's created and what I do with it? And then he says, "This which I reserve for times of trouble, for the days of war and battle. What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed? Or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts the channel for the torrents of rain and the path for the thunderstorm to water the land where no one lives?"

  So he's here, and he's just saying, not just the snow and the hail, but the rain. Have you understood it? Have you ever been there when this has all been produced?

  Verse 31. He talks now about the stars, the constellations. He says, "Can you bind the chains of Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their season? Or lead out the bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the Earth?"

  And what he's doing here is he's saying, when you stand outside and you look at the stars, were you the one? Have you ever been there to see how these things really work? And so he's asked the question, where were you? Have you ever. And then he asks another question, verse 39, and following into chapter 39, and this is, do you know.

  Verse 39. "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in the thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know where the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time that they give birth? They crouch down and bring forth their young. Their labor pains are ended. Their young thrive and grow strong in the wild. They leave and do not return."

  So now he says, do you understand? Do you know basically every animal that's born, the way that it works for each species, even the ones that seem somewhat irrelevant, maybe, to you?

  Verse 19 says this. "Do you give the horse its strength, or clothe its neck with a flowing mane? Do you make it leap like a locust? Striking terror with its proud, snorting? Its paws, fiercely rejoicing in its strength and charges into the fray. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing. It does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against its side and along with the flashing spear and lance."

  And so again, here he's just taking these images and repeating them and saying, have you ever. Do you know. Do you understand how these things work?

  Chapter 40, the Lord said to Job, "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him." So now he gets direct. He's asked these general questions, and now he says, will you counter the God who knows all of this?

  Basically, then Job answered the Lord, "I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer twice, and I will say no more." And so here he's in essence saying, God, I understand that I don't totally get it, but God isn't done yet.

  Behemoth and Leviathan

  The next section brings about two images that have brought about a lot of speculation. He talks here about Behemoth and Leviathan, chapter 14, verse 15. He says, "Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you, and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, the power in the muscles of its belly, in its tail sways like a cedar, and its sinews of its thighs are close knit." And he goes on and describes this mammoth creature, massive creature.

  And then in chapter 41, he talks about Leviathan. He says, "Can you pull in Leviathan with a fish hook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life?"

  Now, there's been speculation about this idea of what is Leviathan and Behemoth. Some say it's a land creature, a sea creature that was known in the ancient world. Some say this is like ancient dinosaurs. Some say these are mythical creatures. But the point of this is really just God saying, there are creatures that are beyond your ability to navigate or to fully control, and where were you basically when they've been here, or do you have the power to address them? And he's saying, but I did, because I create them.

  And so this is kind of God's response to Job's queries. He doesn't answer the question directly. But he poses several questions to say, do you get it? Do you understand what's going on?

  Three Applications

  So what does that mean for you and me? Well, let me just ask a couple of questions. Basically, how does this instruct us? How does this comfort us? And how does this challenge us?

  How Does This Instruct Us?

  So the first question is, how does this instruct us? And the answer is fairly straightforward in that it shows us that God doesn't answer the why question. And God is in essence saying, my ways are beyond your ways. You do not get it. You can't possibly understand the things that I understand.

  Now, that may not feel very comforting at first, but it's important to just acknowledge that and say, God will often work in a way that you and I can't comprehend and can't understand. And when he asks all these questions, part of what he's doing is he's saying, even if I tried to explain all of this to you, it's not like you would understand because you don't understand these things either.

  This is a little bit like trying to explain calculus to a toddler, a toddler who's just learning maybe their first math problems. Two plus two, two times two, these kinds of things. And you're going to say, let me explain calculus now. Someday a child can grow up and master calculus. But for you and for me, what God is doing is he's saying, it's like you can't possibly get everything that's going on.

  And again, you may say, well, okay, is this helpful in any way? It is natural to ask the why question, but here's what's significant. It can become unhealthy to demand that God give us an answer. It can become unhealthy to speculate about what God is doing if we don't have clarity. And it can become really unhealthy to tell others what we think God is doing in their life when something is happening. Because God's ways are higher than your ways. His understanding is beyond our ability to comprehend. So that's what it teaches us.

  How Does This Comfort Us?

  What does it comfort us? Or how does this comfort us? And we see this just in these images of behemoth and Leviathan because it tells us that God is beyond us, that his power is beyond us. And again, you may say, well, how is that helpful to what I'm walking through today? Well, let me put it this way. Have you ever played chess with a computer? Any of you ever do this? Okay, some of you, maybe. Some of you haven't. If you haven't. If you don't care for the game.

  The computer version usually has a slider on it, and you can make the slider really easy so that it's dumb computer chess. And you can beat it, or you can make it computer chess. That's on the other side, where you just get beaten, like four moves.

  Okay, here's the analogy that I think is helpful. It's like you're playing computer chess against the ultimate computer, except not at all like it. Here's how it's like it and how it's not. It's like it in that the computer can see moves that are so far beyond what you can see that as much as you can hold in your brain and say, I can see all these moves, the computer has the capacity to recognize other moves that you don't even see as possibilities.

  But here's how it's not like it. When you play computer chess, you're against it, and it's impersonal. God is personal, and he's for you. That's what we learn throughout the Bible and even in the book of Job. And all he's doing is he's saying, you don't understand it. And the reason this should be a comfort is because the fact that you can't understand it doesn't mean that God is less powerful. And it actually works as a comfort because you can say, God is in charge in ways that I may not even understand or see, and yet he's working all things together for my good. That's what Romans 8:28 teaches us.

  Sometimes we think, if I can just explain it, then I can control it. But the comfort here is to be able to say, no, this is really beyond me. This is something I can't totally understand. And that's a good thing, because it means that God is working maybe in ways that we can't put all the pieces together.

  In Romans, chapter 8, we read this. Verse 35 says, "And who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" In other words, when the game looks so bleak, it's not over. Because in the computer chess, there's still another move.

  Verse 37. "No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

  The comfort in the middle of something is to say, no matter how bleak it looks, it is not over for the God of the universe. And he holds everything in his hand.

  Do you know how Romans chapter 8 starts? Verse 1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." You see, Romans 8 has this sweeping statement at the end about how God is in control and nothing can come against Him. But where it starts is, it says, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Meaning, if you've come to a place where you say, I've trusted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, then I won't face condemnation. And whatever I'm facing, God holds it in his hand in such a way that the story is not over.

  And that should bring some comfort.

  How Does This Challenge Us?

  So the question, what do we learn? Or how does this instruct us? God is in control. How does it comfort us? God is in control. How does it challenge us? Well, this is seen in a couple places, but probably most notably in chapter 38, verse 3, and then in chapter 40, verse 7, it's the exact same verse. It says, "Brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me."

  I mean, that's a little abrasive in some ways from God here in the middle of all these questions, he says, brace yourself like a man. Be ready for this. And what he's doing, I think, is he's challenging him with the same thought. What is the challenge? God is in control. God is God, and we are not.

  I remember years ago, I was at a conference, and I don't really love going to conferences because they're long and you have to sit there for days. But I was at a conference, and John Piper was speaking. And John Piper, I think I quoted him. I did quote him last week. His article, "Don't Waste Your Cancer." And John Piper is kind of an acquired taste as a speaker, as a writer. And I've grown to have more appreciation for him over the years. But at this point, I was just like, I guess I'm here. I guess I'll go.

  And I was sitting there, and to be honest, as the talk was going, I was in the—you know, if I left right now, I could get in my car and I could beat the traffic and I could be on my way. Have any of you ever been there? Some of you are like, I'm there right now.

  But I want you to know that sometimes just staying in your seat is a good thing. Cause I sat in my seat that day, and he was talking, and all of a sudden he's kind of doing this whole, you know, there's a lot of pain in the world and everything. And he's going down this path of saying the psalmist, they brought their complaints to God and it's a good thing to bring your complaints to God. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's kind of how I see it. And then all of a sudden he just stopped and he kind of paused.

  And I'm not going to match his intensity, but he basically then said this, and that is, I'm so sick and tired of people being mad at God. He says, how dare you as a creature come against the God of the universe and tell him that you're mad at him. You can bring your questions, the psalmist did. But to come before God and say, I'm mad at you because you've done me wrong is the height of arrogance. That's all John Piper. So send him the email.

  And what happened for me in that moment was I realized that with some of my own pain in life, I was just kind of harboring a little bit of anger at God, saying, God, why did you let this happen? And what I needed was to be challenged and to be said, you are not God and it is a good thing.

  And so what do we see in this section? We see the instruction that God is in control and we are not. The comfort, God is in control and we are not. And the challenge, God is in control and we are not. So let me just ask you, which of those words do you need most today? The comfort, the instruction, or the challenge?

  A Personal Story

  I mentioned getting a text this last week, kind of the text thread from some of my old high school friends. I got another text last Saturday night as I was leaving church and it was from somebody who has a mutual friend saying, hey, have you seen that his son just died. And I had not seen it and I kind of responded and here's a picture of my friend's 16 year old son who had just died.

  And I show you this, it posted on social media, so I'm not sharing anything that's private, but I want you just to see the picture for a moment because it brings us home and it gives you just a window maybe into me today. Because this week as I've been reading through this text, getting ready to talk on this text, this has been in my mind and not just that he died, but in the statement that they again released publicly, what they said was that self harm was involved. I cannot imagine what it feels like to have a child through self harm not continue as part of this world.

  And so I'm asking the question as I'm reading this text this week, how does this text hold up in a situation like that? I have to be honest, my initial answer was I don't know that anything helps. But then I thought, what did Job lose? Kids, health, family status in the community, financial resources? And what is God's answer here? The answer is I'm going to ask you all these questions and the instruction is I'm still in control even if it doesn't feel like it. The comfort is I'm in control even if it doesn't feel like it. And the challenge is I'm God and you're not. And you may not get it, but I'm still in control.

  And if I can live in that place, you can live in that place. Then whatever the hardship is that comes into our lives, we're able to say, okay, God, going to trust that you are somehow at work even in this situation that I don't see and I don't understand.

  The Gospel Call

  And by the way, we're told in First Corinthians 2, verse 8 through 11 or so that one of the reason people didn't come to Jesus is that they couldn't believe because they couldn't see beyond what they thought. Here's just simply what that means, that the way that we come to faith is by acknowledging that there is a God who is beyond us, that he set a standard that we don't keep, therefore we deserve hell punishment. And yet God sends his Son Jesus on our behalf. And it seems like foolishness to those who are perishing. But it is exactly in saying I don't get it that we come to a point of faith. And it isn't just faith that saves us for the future, but it's a faith that allows us to say, even in the moment that I'm in today, God's ways are higher than mine.

  And that'll carry us in the days when we don't know how God will carry us.

  Closing Prayer

  Let's pray together. God as we're gathered here. I don't know the situations of most who are gathered, but I know enough situations to know that many of us come here today with significant pain.

  And God, I know that you rarely give us the why answer that we so desperately often want, but you ask these questions to remind us that you are God and we are not. Help us to find comfort and instruction and to respond to the challenge of that truth.

  God for any of us who are here and our thought has been that we do good to get good instead of trusting Jesus as our Savior, I pray that even in this moment we would be drawn to the reality that all of our experience with you is based on the goodness that we don't deserve expressed in Jesus Christ and that even in that we would have confidence for whatever we face today. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

  This transcript has been edited and formatted by AI for readability. While efforts have been made to accurately represent the speaker's message, minor edits may have been made for clarity and flow. Please refer to the original recording for the complete and exact presentation.