The Trouble with Trouble

Sermon in a sentence:

Job wishes he had never been born. Job’s hopelessness is understandable. When life doesn’t make sense, we need support, not criticism.

Introduction:

In this letter, a pastor begins to truly see Laura, a member of the congregation who has Tourette’s: “I realize now that when I first met you I was confronted with my own weakness and limitation. As much as I’d like to, I can’t ‘fix’ you. When pastors can’t fix folks, it makes them feel small and dumb. It makes them want to hide. But you seemed to be used to things that can’t be fixed. So being with you has taught me how to be okay with my limitations. And how to trust God. In all your pain, you’ve never questioned God’s existence. You’re teaching me how to trust God with big things, a little bit at a time” (Mandy Smith, “Dear Laura: About

Your Mental Health,” Christianity Today, December 17, 2015,

https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2015/december-web-exclusive/dear-laura-about-your-mental-health.html). Bearing witness to someone else’s experience without fixing it can bring encouragement to both parties.

The Book of Job

Job is a difficult book, but it raises a lot of questions that we struggle with today. Questions about suffering, obedience, spiritual rewards, and prosperity by works all pop up. The book of Job never answers the question of why there is suffering in the world. Job is righteous (Job 1:1), and he suffers. For many of uis, this shouldn’t make sense. Good people should get good things. But that’s just repackaged. So we ask other questions: Is God cruel, or doesn’t he operate under the same idea of a “just” world like we assume he does? In the final moments of the book, Job understands that our limited perspective gives us insufficient cause to accuse the God of the universe. We simply can’t understand the complexities. However, God commends Job, saying “that Job has spoken rightly about him.” Now this is surprising because it can’t apply to everything Job said. I mean, we know Job drew hasty and wrong conclusions, but God still approves of Job’s wrestling. How Job came honestly before God with all of his emotion and pain and simply wanted to talk to God himself. And God says that’s the right way to process through all of this, through the struggle of prayer. The book concludes with Job having his health, his family, and his wealth all restored—not as a reward for good behavior but simply as a generous gift from God. And that’s the end of the book. So the book of Job, it doesn’t unlock the puzzle of why bad this happen to good people. Rather, it does invite us to trust God’s wisdom when we do encounter suffering rather than try and figure out the reason for it. When we accuse God but based on limited evidence. And so the book is inviting us to honestly bring our pain and our grief to God and to trust that God actually cares and that he knows what’s doing.

Our Passage in Context

Our passage gives us a glimpse into Job’s despair. He essentially wishes he was never born (Jb 3:1-3). He wonders why God didn’t just allow him to die at birth (v. 11) rather than have to live this painful life. For then, at least, he might have known rest (v. 13). he is in this place where there is no joy—only bitterness, misery, and trouble (vv. 20-26). These feelings are real, and they are intense. Consider that many in your group today have experienced this level of despair, including your church leaders. We ought not look away from the pain that people may be carrying. In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us his ear. So, it is His work that we do for our think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find int among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening” (Bonhoeffer, 97-98). Are we listening to one another? Job’s friends were quick to offer their opinion on his sufferings. God rebuked them for it (Job 42:7). In our merely earthly wisdom, we sometimes say stupid things to those hurting. While we want to support our friends in good times and difficult ones, pausing before we speak is wise. We want to be better comforters than Job’s friends proved to be. Here is a list of what not to say:

Everything happens for a reason

God needed an angel

Time heals all wounds

You have to be strong

If you need anything I am here

God knows best

You will get over this in time

Trouble tampers with your Perspective

“When God removes the hedge, you can expect “hell” to wreak havoc.” Job has lost his fortune (prosperity), family (posterity) and his health in a short amount of time. In chapter one, Job’s response to his trouble was rest in God’s sovereignty and maintain his integrity. Satan’s attack on Job’s posterity, prosperity, and his possessions failed. In chapter two, the sons of God, anAgain, the sons of God and Satan presented themselves, but we are privy to the interaction between God and Satan. Again, God asks him two questions: (1) from where have you come and (2) have you considered my servant Job? We have the same two questions, and God still approves of how Job handled the set of trouble he faced in chapter one. Satan then asks for permission to attack Job’s physical body because he believed that Job would succumb to sickness and then curse God. God allows Satan to strike Job with sores from “the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7). Even his wife suggested that he curse God and die because trouble tampered with her perspective. Job’s friends arrive and sit with him in silence for seven days and seven nights to show sympathy and comfort their friend.

Trouble tampers with your Purpose

As Job questions God’s presence in his life, he questions his very existence. He began his speech by cursing “his day” (3:1). Job laments the time he was conceived, the fact that he was born, and the time in which he is living and suffering. It is important to understand that Job’s curse in reality was a complaint because he cursed things that cannot change, specifically past events. “Do not allow harsh circumstances to speak ill of your purpose.” This is a sharp turn from his first response of trust in God, to now feeling as if God has abandoned him, and alienated himself that led Job to wish that he simply did not exist. In Hebrew thought, it was impossible to isolate a relationship with God from the ordinary concerns of work, family, and body. God was known through these ordinary things of life; these things were the means by which the presence of God could be experienced. The loss of these ordinary things was both a loss of humanity and a loss of God. One’s relationship with God did not lead to indifference toward bereavement, poverty, and pain. The only conclusion Job could draw from his situation was that he had lost God; and if this was true, then his life had no place in God’s world.

Though Job did not curse God, he felt that he no longer had any place in God’s creation or purposes. Job did not deny the goodness of God’s creation, but he did deny that all of God’s creation is good. He used the language of creation to challenge the goodness of his own existence, which is to implicitly challenge the goodness of God. As happens so often in human passion, his grief made him presumptuous about his relationship with God. His losses led him to assume God was not present with him and therefore that his own presence within creation was not good. The suffering and loss experienced by Job are not on the same level as ordinary suffering. The exceptional suffering of the exceptionally pious shakes the very foundations of order in the world and within society (Clines 1989:91). Job now realized as never before that the order of society is not secure and does not provide peace. 

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 49.

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 47.

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 47.

Trouble tampers with your Peace (God gives you vision in darkness)

Job’s grief moves him to the point where death was better than life. Job is in deep lament changes the tenor of his tone from chapter one to now a tenor that seeks peace through death. Sometimes life doesn’t make sense. There are no easy explanations for why

people suffer. We can’t fix every problem. These truths are difficult to accept, but they are the reality. Job wanted to give up. Many of us have felt that way. We just have to keep going. In an interview with Rhitu Chatterjee, Doreen Marshall offers great advice for those who may be struggling with despair or love someone who

is having suicidal ideation. She notes that “the kind of intense emotions that might make someone act on an impulse, ‘usually resolve or become manageable in less than 24 or 48 hours’” (Rhitu Chatterjee, “Reach Out and Listen: How to Help Someone at Risk of Suicide,” NPR, December 22, 2022,

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/20/707686101/how-to-help-

someone-at-risk-of-suicide).

“Do not allow present day trouble to disturb your peace.” Here is the tension: God still provides life and light when he was in such a miserable condition (Eccl. 11:7). Job is complaining against the God who is the source of life. He goes on further to question why would God give life to those who have no future, whose lives God has hedged in with trouble. The loss of everything could only signify that Job’s plight was hidden from God (Isa 40:27). Job could not triumphantly wait for renewed strength, as Isaiah had exhorted Israel (Isa 40:31); Job could wait only for death, which would not come. Israel could look to the broken covenant as the cause of her suffering, but for Job there was no possible explanation; he could only long for escape. Remember, Job’s story is one of absolute faith. He did not contemplate suicide because such an act would have been a failure of faith, a taking of life into his own hands a life that was not his to take, for it was a gift.

All of us are very aware of the troubles that beset life, and we seek to live so we may avoid them. Job’s fears may have been those he had in the time of his prosperity, for even then he lived with scrupulous care (1:5), but he most certainly described even further his present dilemma and his lack of peace. It would seem the worst he imagined was a continual reality, so completely had his life been hid from God’s care. Yet he continued to have life, undesirable though it was. His situation demanded an explanation.

Two possible solutions to Job’s dilemma are provided in the dialog that follows. One is to assume that we understand God’s ways and are obligated to defend them. The other is to conclude that we do not understand the ways of God. This brings us to realize what is perhaps the worst of all fears: we have no means of determining our fate and avoiding suffering. This will be Job’s position, but it is not one he will accept without challenging the God who continued to give him life.

Helping others persevere through these moments not only honors one another but brings glory to God. Alan Noble writes, “We must see that each choice to do the next thing is an act of worship, and therefore fundamentally good. Feeding your pets is an act of worship. Brushing your teeth is. Doing the dishes. Getting

dressed. Going to work. Insofar as each of these actions assumes that this life in this fallen world is good and worth living despite suffering, they are acts of faith in God. Choose to do the next thing before and unto God, take a step toward the block. That is all you must ever do and all you can do. It is your spiritual act of

worship” (Alan Noble, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living,

[Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2023], 45). Making it through dark times

in life and its impacts on our mental health aren’t glamorous. Concentrate on

moving forward, however incrementally, until the light begins to creep back in.

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 50–51.

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 50–51.

 August H. Konkel and Tremper Longman III, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 6: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 50.