Matthew 1:18-25

Matthew 1:1-17

Kicking off Advent, we turn to Matthew’s gospel and what we discover is a genealogy. But far from a random list of names, what we have is a declaration of hope. With the birth of Jesus the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Him. This genealogy is rich, pregnant with hope. And it declares the glories of our God whose plan it was to send us his Son so that we might have the sure and certain hope of redeeming grace anchored in Jesus. Main Idea: The hope of redeeming grace is secure because Christ the Savior is born

James 5:11

What is the fuel for genuine Thanksgiving? What James points to in his letter and what the book of Job reveals in the life of Job is that beholding God clearly for who He is…this is the fuel for thanksgiving. When we come to see that the Lord is compassionate and merciful thanksgiving that flow into erupting worship will be the patter of our lives. So on this Sunday before the Thanksgiving holiday we set our eyes on our God in order to fuel our worship with that which endures—who our God is. Main Idea—Our compassionate and merciful Lord is the fuel for genuine thanksgiving.

Job 42:1-17

Job 40:6-42:6

Last week we saw God speak from the whirlwind and address the protests of His suffering servant by reminding Job—“I have the whole world in my hands. I am in control over the continuing presence of evil.” And what we discovered is that this landed on Job with great comfort (40:3-5). But we also said that more must be said about the chaotic evil in our world. After all—but Job has dead children. His fortune has been shattered. His health is hovering on the brink of death. Therefore, enter God’s second speech. What Job still needs to know, and what every sufferer wants to know, is if the chaos and evil and suffering we experience in this world will one day be defeated. Main Idea—God is the Just Warrior who will one day defeat evil.

Job 38:1-40:5

Job’s three friends have come and gone. Elihu, a fourth friend, has even entered into the conversation and moved closer to the truth. Yet in the end, the wisdom of man has left Job with no answers. And then the one thing Job has desired and simultaneously dreaded finally takes place—he gets his chance to talk with God. But what becomes immediately evident is that the conversation is not going to unfold how he dreamed it would—but as we will see, this is for God’s glory and Job’s good. Main Idea—God has the whole world in His hands, including the continuing presence of evil.

Job 29-31

After hearing God speak Job plunges back upon the ash heap of his suffering. He has one last appeal to make to God, his heavenly Friend. Job’s approach is to remember the past before his suffering, lament his present loss, and express his longing for a secure future with God. This past of ‘that was then/this is now/what will be?’ is a pattern that common to sufferers. In this way Job gives us an approach on how to look to God even when it seems that best days are in the past and the loss and pain of suffering will never go away. In these moments in our suffering how can we know our future is secure and that we are right with God? It’s at this point, NT believers will be able to see that the answer to ‘what will be?’ is found in Jesus. Main Idea—When past blessings become present loss, remember that your future is secure in Jesus.

Job 28:1-28

Ever since Chapter 4, we have been bombarded with the wisdom of man seeking to make sense of Job’s suffering all to no avail. The three cycles of argument have been born from Job’s howls from the ash heap of his unexplainable suffering in Chapter 3 where Job screamed out the agonized question of every sufferer—the question of “Why?” What 24 chapters of conversation have revealed is that Job still has no answer to the ‘why’ of his suffering. And furthermore, what these chapters have also revealed is that God has not answered Job’s question of “Why?”

All of this produces the question—“Why will God not answer my question?” Chapter 28 shepherds us to see—What if the security we desire on the ash heap of suffering isn’t found in the wisdom of an answer for why we suffer. Instead what if the security we want is found in the wisdom of getting more of God himself through our suffering. Main Idea—While the wisdom we seek for why we suffer isn’t wrong; ultimately the wisdom we are to seek is Christ himself.

Titus 3:8-15

Titus 3:1-7