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Job’s Best Life Now (Job 1:1-5 July 31, 2016)

This morning we begin our study together of one of the more perplexing – but important books of the Bible – Job. I am not sure whether you have ever heard the book of Job preached or not. Probably not. It is a hard book to preach. It is a hard book to listen to. It is a hard book to understand. Some fellow pastors raised their eyebrows when I suggested I was going to preach through Job. But I want to preach through this book for two reasons:

1. As an apology to Grace Bible Church. Over the years many of you who have been hurting and suffering, who have had questions about what God is doing in your life have come to me with some hard questions about what was happening in your life. Often I struggled to know what to say. It is hard to counsel someone in pain. At times I gave you what in retrospect were at times some superficial, inadequate and even poor pastoral answers. Often my advice was more like Job’s three friends. I have a little different perspective now. For over fifty years I lived a life with little suffering. More recently God has seen fit to send me a number of trials in health, family and ministry. Pat superficial answers did not help me. I had to work through a theology of suffering. This series on Job is what I wished I had told you all years ago.

2. I want to preach through Job because it is a crucial book for us to understand life in this messed up, fallen world.

As I look out here this morning – I see many beloved saints who I know have suffered much.

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I see some who have gone through the pain of marital strife, others the strain of being alienated from a child, some with handicapped children, others who have struggled through cancer or a chronic disease, some of you have been betrayed by close friends or suffered crippling financial loss, or held the hand of a loved one taken too early. Over the next weeks – you are going to hear some testimonies from some saints in this church who have suffered in various ways. The Elders sat down and talked about who had suffered in this church. I was surprised when I realised how many in this church have been through some painful, testing trials in their life. We came up with a list – a long list – then we narrowed it down and asked that group if they would consider sharing. What took me by surprise – even though it really shouldn’t have – was that two-thirds of those we asked to share declined the opportunity. It was still too raw even though in some cases decades have passed. Suffering is never easy – even for mature, godly saints. Brothers and sisters if you have not lived through a great season of suffering – then you simply have not lived long enough. Eventually suffering comes to us all. And if the suffering is intense enough – in the depths of our pain – which of us has not cried out to God and asked the big question – why?

Why am I hurting if You love me? Why haven’t You taken this pain away? Why haven’t You fixed my problem? Why me? The whys can be big:

Why did I get cancer? But more routine whys can also really hurt:

Why did my car break down? Why does my daughter seem to hate me?

Why? is the searing question Job himself asks again and again.

JOB

WHY?

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Just this week those of you who receive the emails from our missionary Thomas in Central Asia, read about the tragic death of the youngest son of a translator he works with. In his update, Thomas wrote this:

All this of course leads to the big “why” questions ... why did this happen? Why did the little boy get sick? Why did God allow him to die? It’s not just our translator’s son ... we all know of tragic deaths. … Why doesn’t God stop these things from happening? So many questions that can rock us and even challenge our faith.

Thomas continues:

And this is why I believe God gave us the book of Job. When I was a young Christian, before I had really seen much tragedy in life, I read the book of Job and really didn’t get it. Why did it have to be 42 looong chapters? It didn’t seem to go anywhere, just Job talking in circles and his friends talking in circles and in the end God didn’t even tell Job why he had been suffering so much. But now that I am older, and I have seen tragedy and deep unexplainable sadness, I understand the book of Job better. Job had questions, deep questions, that rocked him to the core. … And God did eventually answer him, but not in the way he expected. … May God give us all His faith to trust Him totally, even when tragedies like this just don’t seem to make sense.

We will all have the why questions – but like Thomas – I have come to believe that the key to understanding the book of Job lies in a different direction than needing an answer to the why questions. Or to put it another way – the real question in Job is not why. The real question is who. Job asks why – God never tells him why. Instead, the answer that Job finally receives is a who. Job encounters the glory and majesty of God and it is in this encounter – this full orbed vision of who God is that Job comes to trust the plan and justice of God. The main message is that God will do what is right. But as well, in this book there are hints and revelations that all point to the fact that someone will come to ultimately deal with the suffering of this world once and for all. God is not passive – He has a plan to act – He is dealing with the pain Job and every one of us faces. So if you want to summarise the book of Job – here it is:

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The great question is not why am I suffering but who can end the suffering?

What Job gets is an encounter with the majesty of God – and as his understanding of who God is becomes more robust – He realizes that he can trust this God even with his unresolved tensions about the reasons for his suffering. Job is a good man – but even good men can have an inadequate view of God. Job finally comes to realise that whatever his problem: The greatness of God is enough. It is the lesson Paul learned in 2 Corinthians 12 where three times he begged God to remove his throne in the flesh. The thorn wasn’t removed. He received something greater. An understanding that God’s grace was sufficient. With these thoughts in mind, what Job does is show us three things:

1. Suffering often comes without a why in us. Sounds like a funny sentence – but hang in there. When suffering strikes – our reflex is to cry – why – what have I done to deserve this? What we really want is a simple answer – and thus a simple solution to end the pain. We look for a why in us. I got cancer because I cheated on my wife – so if I get my marriage right God will heal me. But as we will see – there was no specific reason for this suffering in Job’s life. In chapter 2 verse 3 God says to Satan:

You incited me against Job to destroy him without reason. God had His reasons for what happened – but what this verse says is there was no reason for it from Job’s life.

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Most of the time there is no reason – no why in our lives. No sin, no area of weakness that directly relates to the suffering. This is a fallen world – bad things happen. Job tells us that most often suffering has no correlation with a problem in our lives. Don’t always assume you have done something to cause the tragedy in your life. Don’t let others guilt you into searching for some sin.

2. We couldn’t understand the why of suffering even if God told us. Later in this book we will see God telling Job – you really want to know the reason I did this? Problem is that if you can’t even understand basic things – like how I created the universe – how do you think you will understand the far greater complexity of how I work all things together? My plan and My justice are beyond your ability to grasp. You just need to trust that I am good and I work all things together for good. God has His reasons. Next week we will see a glimpse into His sovereign purposes – but it is only a glimpse. We couldn’t understand the fullness of His divine plan if He chose to reveal it to us.

3. What we really need is not an answer to the why of suffering but a who to end suffering.

This book ends and Job never finds out why this happened to him – but he doesn’t need to. Instead God gives him a lesson in the Lord’s power, might and grandeur. God then asks – are you able to create and run the universe? Are you able to subdue evil to save? If not – trust Me. When you get cancer and go to the doctor – you might ask – why did I get it – why me? The doctor might say – look – do you really want to know the current theory of why genetic instability and environmental stimulants lead to disorders of cellular generation – or do you just want to know what we are going to do about it? Most of us would take the cure over the explanation.

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So keep these points at the back of your mind as we work through this book. When suffering strikes – we want to know why – but God goes one better – He gives us a who. The book of Job is a powerful book because it deals with one of the most profound realities of life – suffering. Shakespeare put it this way in Macbeth:

Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face.

There is not a day where someone in this city let alone the world does not face the most profound suffering. How does Job help us to deal with the day these inevitable sorrows come to our doorstep? Theologians and pastors have debated this for centuries. During my long service – I read many books on Job and suffering. Quite a number of the better scholars and pastors said that what Job teaches us about suffering is something like this:

• Teaching the people of God that our suffering is not as important as the glory of God.

It is not that your suffering is unimportant – it is just that God’s glory is more important. Looks right – sounds right – but a few things about this just didn’t sit well with me. It almost makes me feel as if I all I am is a pawn in a game moved about by an uncaring God. It almost says – it’s OK that I suffer as long as ultimately God gets glorified – so just suck it up for the kingdom. Others suggested that Job taught this about suffering:

• Teaching the people of God that the Lord is sovereign even over suffering and uses it for our good and for His glory.

God is sovereign – over Satan and suffering – and works all things – even this – for good. Again – looks right. The message is – just put up with things until God sorts it all out – in this life or in the life to come.

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This is a more prominent powerful theme – but – I looked at these statements. Both are absolutely true. They are vitally important. They are certainly themes found throughout Job. Then, finally I realised what didn’t sit right with me. I already knew these truths – even without Job I knew them. Every one of you already know these truths. If Job wasn’t in our Bibles we would still know these truths. And even worse – I am not sure these truths help me to know how to endure the day of suffering. My problem was not that I didn’t know these truths. My problem was how to apply them in the midst of the heat of scorching trials. This is where I think my previous advice to you lacked. Often my response was to tell you – God is sovereign – God is great – just trust God – but I didn’t tell you how to trust when it hurts so bad and you are ready to give up. This is what Job does so well. So here is how I want to sum up what Job teaches us about suffering:

• It is through grasping the glory and goodness of God that we find the strength to endure suffering.

Job receives no answer to his cries of why. He receives an encounter with the majesty of God. He can trust this God to do what is right. And that faith is well placed. The book of Job tells us that God is not passive concerning our suffering. God is doing something about it. He heard our cries and answered them – not by telling us why – but by reminding us of who He is – and ultimately by sending us a who – sending someone who suffered

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in this world – who understands suffering and who actually dealt with the root cause of our suffering. Knowing Him is where the strength to persevere comes from. Basically, Job tells us the way through suffering is not by escape – but to trust that God does have a plan to deal with suffering and pain once and for all and this hope will sustain us through the darkest of trials. But I warn you in advance – even knowing this does not make suffering easy. We can read a book on suffering and think – yes – theologically that is right. But when catastrophe strikes us – all our theology can flow away very quickly leaving us foundering. Trials can push us away from God, it can rob us of our joy. When the dark days of suffering come – we have to be ready to walk the path Job walked and find the answers Job found. This is crucial because much of the suffering of this life does not end. Yes – some get cancer – and get cured – but some don’t. You might lose your job for years – but usually another does come along. But some injuries cause pain every day and there is no prospect of an end in this life. Job gives us hope – the day of pain will ultimately have an end – but in the meantime there is power to help us persevere until that day. Now, before we get to the text – I want to talk briefly about the flow and purpose of this book. I know this is the boring stuff but there is a point. I want to look at how I believe Job is structured. It seems clear that the author of Job wanted to make the structure of his book obvious for us. Many of you are probably aware that because most of us struggle to pick up different genres of Scripture – the translators of most English Bibles try and help us. Consider the ESV translation of Job 2 and 3. Most Bibles do something very similar. Notice that the narrative parts of the book – the story parts – are formatted just like a novel. It is written in whole continuous sentences. We see this here in Job 2. But, the poetic parts of the book are formatted in short, grouped sentences of similar length.

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The change is so stark even we should be able to get it. Here in Job the translators have made it easy for English readers to see that between chapter 2 and chapter 3 the author moves from narrative or story – to poetry. What we find is that the author of Job used these different styles of writing to outline the book:

Prologue – written in Narrative 1:1-2:13 Body – written in Poetry 3:1-42:6 Epilogue – written in Narrative 42:7-13

The book begins and ends with narrative or story. Then the big part in the middle is given as poetry. When we look at these sections what we find is this: Prologue 1:1-2:13

The earthly picture of innocent suffering Job is pictured as an innocent man who suffers. Body 3:1-42:6

The struggling picture of innocent suffering Job is pictured as an innocent man who is struggling mightily with his suffering. He thinks it is unjust. He wants to know why. This is very much a picture of the emotions and struggles most of us have with sin and suffering. Epilogue 42:7-13

The ultimate picture of innocent suffering Job becomes a picture of the One to come – the ultimate picture of innocent suffering. But here is what I need you to grasp. I suspect that most of you have a basic understanding of Job – but it is probably mainly limited to the beginning and the end of the book. You probably know the book starts with Job – healthy, wealthy and happy.

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You know that God inflicts him with a series of terrible disasters. You also probably know that the book ends by God appearing to Job out of the whirlwind – Job repents for his doubting God – and the Lord restores his health and fortune. But the bits in between are probably murky. You probably have some awareness that three friends turn up but don’t really help much. There are long debates when one after another they hammer Job saying – come on just confess to your secret sin. It is somewhat repetitive and parts can seem redundant. You may also know that finally another man turns up – Elihu – who has some better advice – but still it is not enough for Job. Overall, these are long, hard, tedious chapters – so many of us skip them – or breeze through them. But in many ways – the middle part is a really important part. Not only did the author structure the book to highlight the middle section – but: What I have done in this slide is show you the relative proportions of each of these three sections. If you have heard sermons on Job – they were probably on the beginning and the end. But the vast bulk of Job – almost 95% of it – is the part in the middle. I want to suggest that most of us find it relatively easy to read the beginning and end of Job. But they are often not the parts that will really help us. What if all we had was Job 1,2 and Job 42:7-13? What if the hard middle section was missing? What would Job be like then? We would have a picture of Job suffering more than anyone in this room but staying faithful. After all the suffering he says, “Shall we receive blessing from God, and shall we not receive calamity?” And God saying – In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Then we would see God give Job a happy ending – restoring his health, family and fortune.

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The impression would be that godly men and women don’t ever lose it – don’t struggle to trust the sovereign hand of God – and after a short time of suffering – God blesses them and makes it all right. The message of Job would scream – when suffering comes – be like Job – just trust God – find the problem – repent – and it will be OK! If all we had was the beginning and end we would miss the fact that Christians often go through very dark times and we would miss the journey of how a child of God gets from despair back to faith. We would miss:

The struggling picture of innocent suffering We would miss Job’s despair and accusations and pleading and his encounter with God. We would never see Job collapse and struggle with the question of why God doesn’t seem to be answering his cries. We would never realise that suffering is a megaphone to teach us about God’s plan for the cause of suffering – sin. We would miss the parts we really need. We are not sure how long Job suffered before the pain ended. We know it was at least many months – but probably much longer. In the big part of the book, Job asks some very really questions about suffering – and we see hints that the solution has to come from above. God must intervene in this world. When suffering comes, you will have the same questions as Job. What Job teaches us is that path through dark places is not easy. The answers are not simple. But God has given us the tools, the help, the resources to trust Him. I am not sure where you are at today – doing great or struggling – whether life is good or hard – whether you are trusting God or finding it difficult to have faith in what God is doing in your life or in the world – but if we are honest – we have all struggled or been in pain at some point. At some time, we all have questions about this world – why does evil seem so prevalent, why does suffering come even to the people of God, why me? We watched the 2004 Tsunami kill over 250,000 men, women and children – and even the godliest among us had to ask – why God? This makes no sense!

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And when suffering actually comes across your doorstep – the intensity of your cries goes through the roof. Job has answers. Hard answers. But answers that have satisfied the church of God for millennia. Job corrects the shallow, man-centred, pathetic views of God and His dealings with this world – that will never sustain us in the tough times – will not lead us to victory – will not spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. All right – what I have given you so far is a basic overview of Job. Now we can begin our study of Job by looking at the first five verses. Look with me at Job 1:1–5:

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

I have summarised these verses like this: The Prosperity Gospel How We Think The World Should Work (1:1–5) There is something inside us that believes in a deep and profound way that the scene in these five verses is the how the world should work. If you are godly – you should be blessed. If you sin – you should suffer. It is not just Christians who have this deep seated belief. Every religion has some form of reward and punishment ideology. Whether they admit it or not even many atheists have it. Some of the most ardent atheists I know speak of karma. When a bad thing happens to a bad person – they comment – karma baby.

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If you push them – and ask – Oh, so you do believe in a higher power? They push back – no way – it’s just a figure of speech. They will argue black and blue there is no God – Darwinism explains the world – but deep down they want to believe in karma, the belief that somehow good will be rewarded and evil will be punished runs deep in us – it just seems right. It is how the world should be. Many of the most famous movies of all time originally had darker, more sinister endings. Bad guys triumphing, good guys losing. They screened these endings to test audiences who hated them. So more encouraging endings – Disney endings – fairy tale endings – happy endings – were added. That is how we want the world to run. This how we think the world should work. We want a Disney ending. But in the face of overwhelming evidence that the world does not work this way – why do we still think the world should be this way? Because this is how God originally created the world. And even in this fallen world there are echoes of Eden in our hearts telling us this is not the way the world should be. We think:

Good should triumph. Evil should lose. Good should be rewarded. Evil should be punished.

We want the world to function according to some type of divine reward system. Once it did. In Eden. And it will again. In heaven. The problem is – the world we live in today is a fallen world – a messed up world. Today, the world doesn’t work like this all the time. But for the Christian, there is a flashing question here. Why doesn’t God just restore everything now? Because the root problem with this world is sin and to deal with sin would mean destroying all sin and all sinners – that means you and me.

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Grace means that God has a plan to deal with sin without destroying us. And God is patiently waiting for that plan to run its course. So while God works out His plan of salvation – this fallen world remains messed up. Remember – even though the world is messed up, echoes of Eden still remain. The Bible says that the Lord is good to the righteous. Deuteronomy is clear – there are blessings for obedience and cursing for disobedience. Proverbs is filled with truisms that that godly will be blessed and the ungodly will suffer. If you are faithful to your wife – work hard – love God – in general – life will be better than if you sleep around – lie on the couch – and disobey God. If you sin, there are consequences. Some of my greatest suffering has come from disobedience. These are truisms – but in a fallen world – it is not always this way. Suffering comes to all men – even the godliest. I need to pause here to note that there are some who teach that this is not true. They say God always gives prosperity to the righteous. Be godly and you get health, wealth and happiness. They want to argue that suffering must mean there is a problem in your life. So in these first five verses – at this point in his life, Job would be the poster boy for Joel Osteen or any of the prosperity gospel teachers. In these five verses we do see – Job’s Best Life Now. Prosperity teachers – Joel Osteen is perhaps the best known – teach that if you are godly – the Lord will bless you. Right now in this world – you can have your best life now. Obey God and you get a great life. If you suffer – there must be some sin in your life. Job’s three friends would have loved Joel Osteen – they would have been Osteen fanboys. But fortunately – they are wrong – very wrong – about how God deals with us.

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Prosperity teachers would say – godly Job is just getting what he deserved. The problem for these people is that this book does not end at chapter 1 verse 5. Nor should it. Anyone with two eyes can see that this is not a prosperity gospel world. If this life is the best we get – we are in trouble. Or as the great philosopher Shai Linne said:

If you're living your best life now you're heading for hell! Even the best life can go horribly wrong. Good people do suffer. Wicked people can be blessed. Nor is prosperity always a sign of blessing. I would argue that the persecuted church in Africa and Asia are often much godlier that the prosperous church in the West. So – as much as we might want to believe otherwise – this fallen world does not always mete out rewards based on merit. Job – this godly man is about to suffer greatly and the point of these five opening verses is that his suffering is not because of some deep secret sin. So what we learn from today’s message is the first point we looked at earlier: Suffering often comes without a why in us. As much as at times the world does seem at times to run according to these five verses. It doesn’t.

Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face.

Suffering inevitably comes to us all. It even comes to Job. What we find in these verses is that Job is a godly man. There is no reason in him for what is about to happen. He is not about to reap what he sowed. The fact that Job offers sacrifices on behalf of his family leads us to believe that he lived before the days of priests. Most likely he lived around the time of Abraham. We think the book was probably written around that time as well.

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He lived in Uz. We are not sure where this is but Lamentations leads us to believe that it was the area east of Canaan. But perhaps the most significant thing about him is that Job was an incredibly godly man – he was blameless and upright, he feared God and turned away from evil. Twice – in verse 8 of this chapter and in verse 3 of chapter 2 God Himself uses these very words to describe Job when he addresses Satan. The word blameless does not mean without sin. Later in this book Job confesses that he sinned and committed iniquities in his youth (13:26; 14:16). The word signifies that when compared to other men – Job would be deemed good – a God-follower. Perhaps we could translate this word – faithful or godly. What this means is that humanly speaking – this man is as godly as you can get – God says there is none like him on the earth. If the prosperity gospel is correct – then if anyone should stroll through life with uninterrupted blessing – it is Job. I am no Job – and neither are you. If God ever had a conversation with Satan regarding you – or me – I am not sure how the Lord would describe us – but I am fairly sure God would not say – have you considered my servant … Craig or Mary … that there is none like them on the earth, blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil. But God did say this about Job. This is important so that we know that what is about to happen to Job is not because he has some massive secret sin floating around in his life. What happens next is not karma for some hidden bad stuff. But for now we see him having a great life. He was blessed with ten children – seven sons and three daughters. We are told that when his children gather to celebrate their day – perhaps their birthday – Job would rise early and offer a sacrifice for each one – not because they sinned – but just in case they may have sinned in their heart. As well, Job is not just godly – he is great – the greatest man in the east. This means he was the wealthiest – the most powerful man of the region. Basically he was a king in the days before kings.

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7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants – is an incredible display of wealth. These are the days when wealth was measured in terms of livestock and possessing one camel, one ox and ten sheep put you in the higher wealth bracket. Job was very wealthy. How great was Job? In Job 29:7–11 Job thinks back to these days and says:

When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square, the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood; the princes refrained from talking and laid their hand on their mouth; the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved.

When Job entered – the aged rose – the princes were silent – the nobles were hushed and their mouths went dry. Job was a great man – the greatest of his day. Life was good – really good – for Job. But all that is about to end. Not because of any secret sin. Not because of anything in Job. But because God has a plan for Job that involves suffering. As we finish these first 5 verses – there is a question I want you to answer.

Do you want to live in a world where God blesses us and punishes us according to the righteousness of our lives? Do you really want to live in a prosperity gospel world? There is a big part of us that wants to shout – that is exactly the world I want. We want to cry – I don’t want to live in a world where Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can become President. I do want to live in a world where John Piper or Al Mohler becomes President. I want to live in a world where missionaries are blessed and drug bosses are jailed.

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I want some reward for my offerings, my prayers, my evangelism. However, one of the purposes of Job is to show you that – no – in reality you really, really don’t want to live in this kind of world. Why? Because this kind of world – a prosperity gospel world – has no answer to the question of sin. God did originally construct this world to run along these lines. It was this way in Eden. But then the world fell. And even after the fall – because there is a good God – there are still residual echoes of the world functioning this way. The prosperity gospel is not entirely false. There are blessings for living godly. But clearly this is not always the case. Bad things do happen to good people. Good things do happen to bad people. This is a fallen world. Missionaries speared to death while taking the gospel to the lost. Godly pastors struck down by cancer mid-ministry. Beloved children of believers born with crippling defects. Men, women and children we think deserve blessing – who are suffering. And criminals and deviants who appear to have blessed, carefree, luxurious lives. So why doesn’t God orchestrate this world to always run according to the prosperity gospel? Think about it this way. Do you really want to come to the end of your days and have a perfectly holy God weigh your life and give you what divine justice decrees you should get? Unless you have never sinned in your life – unless you are far godlier than Job – you do not want a holy God judging you – because any sin at all in you means what you deserve is eternity in hell. That is justice. This is one of the key truths Job and his friends need to come to grips with.

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All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We need to fall on our knees every night thanking God that He has not chosen to run this world according to human merit – but according to divine grace. In His infinite mercy, God has a plan for dealing with sin and suffering once and for all. Throughout the book of Job, we will see signposts pointing to the One to come – a Redeemer who will ultimately deal with sin and suffering. This One is the real answer to the great questions of Job. Brothers and sisters, while this fallen world exists – it does not run as a prosperity gospel world. Sometimes bad things happen to the godliest of men. God knew that Joel Osteen’s would arise to deny this – it is one reason He gave us the book of Job. I wondered how Joel Osteen or any of the prosperity gospel teachers dealt with the book of Job. I couldn’t find anywhere they ever taught on this book. Yet they should write on Job. Because as much as you might want to deny it – bad things happen to godly Christians and they need to know it is not due to sin or some problem in their life. Read these five verses again. No one in here is as godly as Job – no one. And yet – terrible things – unimaginable tragedies are about to strike this man. Bad things happen to good people because this is a bad world. I don’t know where every one of you are at today. Some of you are closer to Job in these first five verses. You married a great man or a godly woman. You have been blessed with healthy children. You live in an awesome country. You have steady jobs. You have a good church and great friends. Life is good. You probably groaned at the thought of trudging through the dark places of Job. Others of you are right smack in the middle of suffering. You said – bring on Job – I need it because you know: Suffering often comes without a why in us. This day comes for us all.

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One car accident. One lump under your arm you don’t expect. One telephone call. It doesn’t take much to move from Job 1:5 to Job 1:6. And if things get worse and you find yourself in dark places – places like Job in chapter 3 – places where you wonder if there is any way out – Job is your book. Perhaps you are here this morning and not a Christian. How do you get through the trials and pain of life? Frederick Nietzsche – the famous atheist philosopher made a statement about suffering that many hold to be true. You find this on countless wall posters and fridge magnets. He said:

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. If you have a purpose in life you can deal with anything. The problem with this is that it is patently untrue. Nietzsche himself was profoundly unhappy and struggled to deal with even minor adversities in his own life. At age 44 he had a complete breakdown and remained incapacitated till his death at 55. His philosophy failed him miserably. Job has a different message. One that has stood the test of time.

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He who has a who to live for can bear almost any why. When we place our trust in Jesus – when we live for Him – then we don’t need an answer to why. The solution to suffering – Jesus – is enough. Ultimately Job is anything but a dark book. It is a book of hope. It is a book that points to a Redeemer who will be there as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and will ultimately end all suffering. This is a book that tells us why Jesus had to come. This is a book that tells us we have a hope greater than merely living a prosperous life in this world. Job is a blessing and a treasure for the people of God because it gives us a who to live for.

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Job’s Best Life Now (Job 1:1-5 July 31, 2016)

Main Point: Suffering often comes without a why in us. Read: Job 1:1-5 � What do you know about the book of Job? What do you believe the main point of

Job is? � Have you ever suffered and asked God – why? – and not received an answer?

How did you feel? What did that do to your faith? � What do you know about Job that points to a who – the Lord Jesus – who will come

to end suffering? � When trials come – what are your first reflexes? To ask God why? To look for sin

in your life? Something else? Why do we do this? � Do you agree that often suffering comes without a why in us? Discuss. � Do you agree that we couldn’t understand the why of suffering even if God told us?

Discuss. � Do you agree what we really need is not an answer to the why of suffering but a

who to end suffering? Discuss. � Would you take the cure over the explanation when it comes to suffering? � Do you agree that these purposes of Job are true – but inadequate? If so why?:

Teaching the people of God that our suffering is not as important as the glory of God. Teaching the people of God that the Lord is sovereign even over suffering and uses it for our good and for His glory.

� How does Job teach the people of God to suffer through hope in Christ?

� Why is the long middle portion of Job so crucial? � Do you want the world to function according to Job 1:1-5 or not? Why? � Why is prosperity teaching inadequate? � Do you want to live in a world where God blesses us and punishes us according to

the righteousness of our lives? � What does it mean – He who has a who to live for can bear almost any why?

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