Looking at Suffering through the Eyes of Job
When Suffering Strikes - Job 1
Pastor Brad Bigney
February 07, 2010
Job chapter 1
:1 "There was a man in the country of Uz named Job. He was a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil."
... through ...
:22 "Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything."
Three Critical Pillars in the Theological Framework of Suffering
Pillar #1- Your Suffering Will Always be Shrouded to Some Degree with Mystery
Job 1:2 "...blameless... fears God... shuns evil..."
Job 1:3 "He was the greatest of all the peoples of the East."
Worldly axiom:
•Good things happen to good people.
•Bad things happen to bad people.
Proverbs:
•Choose wisdom or life = blessed
•Choose foolisness or death = suffering/sorrow
Galatians 6:7-8 (HCSB)
"Don't be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit."
Incorrect ways to avoid the mystery of God in Suffering:
1. Just try harder to make the formula work!
2. Redefine God so that you don't have to be disappointed in Him
"When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Harold Kushner
Some things just happen and God can't stop it
3. Reject God altogether so that you don't have to wrestle anymore with a good God in a world of sin and suffering
Richard Dawkins (All is random: "DNA just is.")
Romans 11:33-34 (HCSB)
"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?"
Do study, but understand that you will never exaustively get to the bottom
Isaiah 55:8-9 (HCSB)
" 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.' This is the LORD's declaration. 'For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.' "
Pillar #2 - Your Suffering is Always Limited and Ordered by a Sovereign Loving God
Job 1:12 (HCSB)
"Very well," the LORD told Satan, "everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself." So Satan went out from the LORD'S presence.
God is not the instigator of Evil
Satan came to kill and destroy
Do mot minimize God's power and authority
Satan has no authority of his own
Luke 22:31-32a (HCSB)
"Simon, Simon, look out! Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail..."
If God is not the author of evil and God is absolutely in control then why does He allow suffering to happen? Why does He let Satan do this to Job?
Pillar #3 - Your Suffering is Always an Opportunity to See Your Own Heart and to Grow in Glorifying God
Job 1:20-22 (HCSB)
Then Job stood up, tore his robe and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Praise the name of the LORD. Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.
Paul's prayer for Christians who were suffering
2 Thessalonians 1:3-4 (HCSB)
We must always thank God for you, brothers, which is fitting, since your faith is flourishing, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you among God's churches-about your endurance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions you endure.
v. 11-12
And in view of this, we always pray for you that our God will consider you worthy of His calling, and will, by His power, fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and you by Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul doesn't ask God to get them out of the suffering but to make them worthy
Phil 1:29 suffer...
Conform to the image of Christ
John 9:2-3 (HCSB)
His disciples questioned Him: " Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," Jesus answered. "This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him.
John 11:4 (HCSB)
When Jesus heard it, He said, "This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
Exodus 4:11 (HCSB)
The LORD said to him, "Who made the human mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
Brad: "Suffering spit-shines us to be the mirrors that reflect the glory of God."
Which is better--a life without suffering or a life without knowing and glorifying God?
Romans 5:8 (HCSB)
But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!
John 3:16 (HCSB)
"For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
~Matt
-- Posted from my iPhone
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