In the sermon 'Eyes of Faith,' Todd Strawser explores the profound transformation in Job's understanding of God as described in Job 42:1-6. Strawser emphasizes how Job's trials and the subsequent divine questioning lead to a deeper spiritual insight, moving from merely hearing about God to seeing Him with spiritual 'eyes of faith.' This transformation is likened to the Apostle Peter's realization of his sinfulness in the presence of Christ's miraculous works. The sermon highlights the importance of repentance and humility as foundations for genuine worship, encouraging believers to contrast their own shortcomings with God's holiness. Through this process, believers are urged to seek a deeper relationship with God, driven by the Spirit to repentance and a clearer understanding of God's sovereignty and grace. The sermon concludes with a call for believers to live in faith, focusing on their heavenly calling and identity in Christ, rather than earthly concerns.

Amen. Let's pray. Oh Father God, we thank you that your wind that you've created praises you. That the fire, the clouds, and all of creation, all creatures that you have made come to praise you and worship you. And even the rocks cry out, Father, if we don't.

So Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for bringing us another day, rising the sun. It shows us your glory. Father, we Thank you for the hope that you've beset within us through your Son Jesus Christ. And Father, as we discuss your word this morning, would you bring it forth by your Spirit with power, to convict, Father, to edify, to encourage, to propel us forward, Father, to praise you and worship you yet again in Jesus name.

Amen May be seated Thankful for the Opportunity just to share a bit this morning. My name is Todd Strasser elder at Reformation Church from Colorado and we are very pleased to be here. It feels very much like family to us already and we just appreciate the fellowship and the love of the brothers and sisters here so we're very thankful for that. Well you know I don't know about you but just these messages, these excellent messages from our brothers over the past few days have just kind of been marinating in my mind on worship and on sorrow and the comfort Christ brings. And then even last night on the intimacy of our God by which he leads us, which we heard from our brother Mark.

So you know in all these what's been marinating in my head is just a passage has come to mind really from the last chapter in the book of Job, in chapter 42. You can turn there if you like. Just wanna share this morning what the Lord's been bringing to my heart regarding this. You know that Job in his life had been through quite a bit. He'd been through some difficult trials, and then God kind of capstones it at the end in the last few chapters by asking Job about fifty questions that he really can't answer.

God asks, were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth? Do you know at the time when the wild mountain goat will bear her young? And Job is thinking, I don't even know where the goat is. Does the hawk fly by your wisdom? And of course, Job doesn't have the answers to any of these questions, but in chapter 42 verses one through six, there's a very important truth for us today, I think, and I want to read that right now.

So Job chapter 42, one through six. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear and I will speak, I will answer you and you will make it known to me.

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." And here Job recognizes the sovereignty of God. He said, I've said things to God that I don't even understand there in verse 3. He says, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me I did not even know.

But let's take a look at verses five and six specifically this morning, just in this devotion. I have heard you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Therefore I abhor and despise myself and repent and dust in ashes." You know, Job had certainly heard of the Lord, right? Perhaps as he grew up, perhaps from his parents, perhaps his whole life. And most recently his friends have told him a lot about God, as we know from this book.

But Job is effectively saying, God, I've heard of you. I've heard of you my whole life. I know of you back to when I was a child. I was taught by my father. My friends have told you more about you.

You've talked to me, God. Most recently, I knew something of you. I knew something of your power and your sovereignty and your majesty but I didn't know you this well through this trial through these words you've just spoken to me. I now see with spiritual eyes and I know you I know you more I understand more the power of your truth your holiness which I didn't know as well before and so we as Joe we learn a lot about God don't we through life and it's it's very important it's particularly for children or young adults or new believers because we know that hearing hearing the Word of God is how the Lord bears faith out. Romans 10 17 here faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God so so our hearing just with Job lays an important foundation of faith And so just as a side note, there's a lot of young people in here, if you ever have the opportunity to hear the Word of God, to be discipled in the Word of God, I just encourage you to just take full opportunity of it, to lean in.

You know, if your parents are doing family worship or something like that, show up early. Show up on time. Ask questions. Be ready. Mind the depths of God's Word.

It's the one thing around here that's lasting. That's going to go on. That's going to still be here in 300 years. I don't know if this structure will even be here, but the Word of God will. It'll stand.

Invest in that as much as you can. So lean in and lay that strong foundation. Back to Job. He'd heard of these things. He'd heard of God.

But now he says, but now my eyes see you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. You know, some of you may have heard the phrase, oh, I see. In other words, like let's say you're talking to a friend and you're trying to explain something and they're just not getting it. They're like, what are you saying?

I don't understand. And you're like, okay, let me just start over. Let me explain from a different perspective. And they go, oh, I see. I see what you're talking about now.

And so it's on some degree, That's what Job is experienced on a much more significant level with the Almighty God. He now sees the holiness of God. And in a way this is a shift for Job and he's completely open. It drives him, as the word says, to be completely undone, to be to be bare, open, bare before the Lord. That it leads him even to repentance.

So now Job is seeing with with eyes of clear understanding, giving him a clear sight of his living Messiah, his Redeemer. And what he had heard of God, what Job had heard in the past, it came greatly short of what he now experienced spiritually, what he had seen spiritually, had now a more clear view of God's sovereignty and holiness and wisdom and goodness. So in other words, in all that hearing about God, that the Lord lays that foundation of faith, when it's enlightened by the Spirit of grace, Our knowledge of God is propelled even further and his attributes exceed what we can kind of experientially even see or understand by that work of the Spirit. Job's response is very actually very similar to the Apostle Peter's response to Christ. One of Christ's miracle in Luke 5.

You remember they're out, Jesus is out with them on the boat. They're out fishing. In fact they've tried to fish all night in this type of fishing. They cast their nets down, different than the fishing maybe we're used to with poles and string today. But they would cast their nets off to the side of the boat and wait, and hopefully it would be filled up with fish and pull them up.

But they'd done this all night to no avail. There was no fish. So Jesus says, Put your nets on this side of the boat. The fishermen say, we've been fishing all night. But they say, we will.

We will anyway. And of course, this miracle is performed. They pull up the nets, they're full of fish, and so far they have to ask another boat to come over. So they put all these fish in both of the boats and both of the boats start sinking. It's an amazing miracle.

But what would our response be to that? Praise God! Praise the Lord! But look at Peter's response. It's not what he says.

He says, depart from me. I am a sinful man, O Lord. So what is that response? It's very similar to Job's. The power of God and seeing him in contrast to ourselves.

We see the Almighty God in contrast to ourselves. We're humbled. We're broken. And isn't this really the foundation? Isn't this a basis to worship the Holy God?

What a starting point from now, humbled in this way, as Job did, where we abhor ourselves even, in the contrast and the sight to the Almighty God. What a place for genuine worship to start from. What a place where we can get a glimpse of who we are, save the blood of Christ, the blood that saves, redeems us, and brings us into communion with the Holy God. God's grace through faith brings a deep longing in our soul and drives us to repentance. As it says, as Job said, I abhor myself and repent.

We can't know such abhorrence and repentance even experientially. We can't turn the dials in life and create a revival. It has to be the Spirit of God at work. It has to be the Spirit's conviction within us that we may know God more, as Paul said in Philippians 2, that I may know Christ more, that I may know him more in the power of his resurrection and share in the fellowship of his sufferings. And that's the prayer for all of us today, amen, is that we would pursue God more, that we would know him more, that our identity would be so fully consumed in him and nothing else, not in the world and the flesh and the devil, but the Spirit would convict and show us that holiness of God.

So perhaps you've heard of God, perhaps you've been to church a hundred times, you've sat through 5, 000 family worships, you've read your Bible a million times, and in the depths of your soul, when you by faith see yourself what you are in contrast to the living God, you're driven. We're all driven to repentance like Job. And this is what happens when we see God by faith. Matthew Henry said it very well. He said, by the teachings of men, God reveals his son to us, but by the teachings of his spirit, he reveals his son in us.

And so changes us into the same image. Or 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So where has all this led to Job? Where all the trials, the questions from God led? Well, this all led to true penitence in Job.

He saw his sins deeper than he ever had. He saw the outward afflictions that sin brings. And perhaps we do. Do we see, you know, we sin and we see the effects. We reap what we sow here on earth.

But is that where it ends for us? Or do we mourn over our sins in the same way? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, mourn over their sins, for they shall be comforted. As Brother Penning talked about to us yesterday morning, that comfort that Christ gives even in mourning.

So how will we respond? Well, there's a great hope. We don't sit in our sin and wallow there do we? By the saving blood of Christ my chains fell off my heart was free. I rose again and followed thee.

By faith we now live in the new man that is in Christ. We're redeemed We by love divine Reconciled to an almighty God who forgives all our iniquities by the blood of his son and so that's the word for us today, which is applicable to young and old in here is to learn about God, to know about him, to hear of him. That strong foundation of faith may come and then we see God and he brings that to us by the Spirit. We see him with spiritual and eyes that be able to enables us to see a glimpse of that contrast yet again between us and the Almighty God, the Holy God. The Spirit will usher that in in His providence like He did for Job, like He did for Peter, like He does for every one of us.

It will drive us to deep repentance. Oh, to see the Almighty God in His holiness, to see Him unfiltered, even for a glimpse, what glory He receives in that from His children. This is repentance. We see our vile, we see our wretchedness, we see our sin, and then we cry out as Peter did to the living God, to our hope, to our Redeemer, and we set our eyes upon Him and we can step forward in the faith that He's given us to walk in the Spirit, to walk in truth, to walk in love. What a foundation, what a place from which we can genuinely worship our holy God.

We're not to question God, are we? But to trust in Him. And that's where Job's journey ends, right? The Lord blessed him and restored to him as a picture to us of the Lord's redemption to us. Repentance and knowing our God then and knowing our identity in Christ is His children holding fast to our confession.

This is the heart of what the Lord has for us. And so this is our challenge today for each of us to quit trusting in ourselves, right? To quit living, trying to live our lives on an old dead body, but to turn to the living God, to repent, to walk in the Spirit, to grow in faith in the Almighty God, to look unto him with the eyes of faith and to see our God in that way. So may we go forth today and in an exhortation that it's brought to us from Titus 3, that we would look unto the blessed hope of the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and see Him with those eyes of faith. Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you that you have given us these eyes of faith to see spiritually you at work Father. To see that great contrast even as Peter did seeing your mighty work to see who we are compared to the Almighty and Holy God, but to know that somehow through your grace and your mercy you have called. We have not chosen you, but you've chosen us, and you have redeemed us, and you have saved us and rescued us, Lord. What mercy and grace, what peace it brings to even be called to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of light. Lord, we thank you for this grace and mercy that you bestow, that you've poured out upon us.

Father, we pray that you'd propel us in faith this day. You'd fix our eyes upon the things above, and we would not look down to the things of the earth, but our eyes would be fastened and fixed upon you. All our wills, our affections, our thoughts would be looking upward, upward unto your call in faith. And we thank you. We pray this in the mighty mighty in the saving name of Jesus Christ our Savior amen