The Old, Old Story - 1 - Called to Suffer

1 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” 3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” 4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” 6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. 9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

World Communion Sunday

Opening Prayer:

Eternal One, whose thoughts and ways are not ours,

you alone are God, awesome, holy, and most high.

School us in the ways of faith and wisdom,

that we, like Job,

may learn to truly see and hear,

and in humility find blessing. Amen.

Called to Suffer (World Communion Sunday)

The Way of the World

The Leaves are falling, the nights are getting cooler, and a new season is upon us. We might argue about what season it should be called and considered, but it is safe to say that from now until Christmas, it is Candy season.

Several years ago, one of our college students asked me to play a candy game called BeanBoozled. I know Ecclesiastes tells us that everything has a season and that there is nothing new under the sun. It teaches that old things become new again, but I pray that the season of BeanBoozled is over and it does not come back. If you've never heard of it, I'll explain it to you.

BeanBoozled is like Russian Roulette with Jelly beans. Or Wheel of Fortune, where the spinner lands on candies instead of dollar amounts. That isn’t so bad by itself. Jelly beans come in many beautiful flavors. However, they use unique flavors in BeanBoozled, such as liver and onion, stinkbug, stinky socks, wet dog, and worse. The best one of their flavors is probably toothpaste. Each is colored precisely like some of their standard fruit-flavored jelly beans, so you can’t tell what you’ve got until it is in your mouth. As the few good jellybeans are picked, more and more of the bad ones are left in the game, and it truly becomes pick your poison. You don’t even know the choices until it’s too late, but you know they are bad.

That’s how a lot of people feel about the Book of Job. They know it’s a long story in the Old Testament with a lot of suffering. Most people avoid it whenever possible. It is not easy to read, and it has little to do with the names of people in the story and how to pronounce them.

Bible scholars suggest that Job may be the oldest book of the Bible. You might assume that should be Genesis because that’s the story of God starting everything in the first place. However, the Bible tells us that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were not written down until the time of Moses and afterward.

Another difference concerns ancestry. Job doesn’t have one. The earlier books of the Bible trace family history back to Adam and Eve. Job is not mentioned. His very name in Hebrew sounds like a cross between the phrase “Who is my father?” and the title “persecuted one.” Both of those meanings fit him pretty well because we have no idea who Job’s father is, and this entire book is the story of his persecution and eventual redemption.

This story is not in our Bible just because it’s old. It is there because it is a story that we all relive over and over again. For everyone, the oldest story is losing everything and trying to keep your faith because our faith is tested by suffering.

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Tested Faith

Chapters one and two of Job function as a double set-up. They give us the lay of the land in some of the same ways that Genesis chapters 1 and 2 work together. In the throne room of heaven, God is glorified in the presence of all the angels and heavenly beings. Almost as a response to the power of the creation account, God boasts about how faithful his servant Job is to him.

Satan, who has not been hanging out in heaven but instead has been roaming around through all creation, thinks otherwise. Anyone can be good if they receive good, he says. But the moment life gets challenging, people lose their way. It is a challenge to God, questioning why God cares about people so much. But God takes him up on that challenge.

God allows Satan to mess with and eventually destroy everything that belongs to Job. People and property were all considered possessions, even children back in those days, and Job lost all his children. But God forbid Satan from touching Job at all. His wife was also spared. This tragedy cuts even deeper because we are told that Job prayed every day and offered sacrifices to God, not only on his behalf but also on behalf of all of his family. He ensured he always gave a little extra to God, just in case one of his family members fell short that week. All this shows that Job was one of the wisest, most faithful, and most loving people that ever lived. The question arises: why would God allow this tragedy to befall him?

But Chapter 1 ends with the statement that throughout this whole tragedy, Job did not sin by accusing God.

Chapter 2, as I mentioned, is set up like Chapter 1. God is still boasting in heaven about Job’s faithfulness—maybe even more now because Job stayed faithful despite losing nearly everything. But Satan is not done. Skin for skin, he says. People care more about their health and well-being than their property. If you mess with that, he will turn and curse you.

Once again, God permits Satan to mess with Job, but he tells him he must spare his life. So Job faces disease, and his whole body is covered with sores. All this when he has barely had time to mourn the loss of his family. When it rains, it pours. He sits in ashes, using a shard of a clay pot to scrape the dead and itching skin from his body while his wounds ooze. It is here that his wife steps in and tells him to curse God and die. He has nothing left to live for. Or at least that’s how she feels. But Job responds to her, “Should we accept good from God but not trouble?” Again, he is praised for not sinning against God with his words throughout all this. His faith was tested by suffering, and he came out on top.

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Tried and True

Jesus taught his disciples that they would all face suffering and called them to do it with Grace and dignity. That’s easier said than done, which is why Jesus did more than insist or command us to carry our crosses. He carried his cross first. He lost his friends and family first. He offered the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, knowing it would not save us from suffering but might help us suffer differently. But the question remains: why does God allow us to suffer?

A short answer is that it pleases God when we live out our faith while we suffer. That’s an excellent answer for days when we feel good about ourselves. But on our tough days, when we are grieving lost loves, lost health, lost purpose, it just doesn’t sit well.

So, we have to start from a place of real visceral honesty. When we hurt and grieve, no amount of reasoning will be enough. We can say, along with Job, that we know the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. We can admit that we should bless God on good and bad days. We can agree that we have no right to a life of blessing without trouble. We can think and say all of that, but we may not be able to mean it.

Four thousand years ago, God‘s people might remember Job’s story as a reminder that God calls us into suffering to show our faith. Two thousand years ago, the people of God got an upgrade. Not only do we have the story of Job, but we also have the example of Jesus leading us. We know that Jesus was every bit as human as Job was and as we are. We know the devil came to mess with him, tempting him in the wilderness. Jesus did not have property or family that the devil could take away, but he had his own physical well-being, and he had a future ahead of him, filled with glory and victory over evil and death.

The gospel writers tell us that Satan left Jesus just like Satan left Job when he could not get them to betray God. In the gospels, it tells us that Satan left until he could return to a more opportune time. That time was the night before Jesus went to the cross. That evening, Jesus was in anguish, asking his disciples to pray for him because he knew what was ahead. His disciples couldn’t even stay awake, so Jesus was left alone. His suffering had only just begun, but he knew how bad it was going to be. Lord, if there is any other way, please take this cup away from me. He was not accusing God of making him suffer. He was asking for mercy. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

That is the example of faith that Jesus set for us. He calls us to suffer with him when he asks us to pick up our crosses and follow him. We know we will suffer, but we know we will not suffer alone. Today, on this world communion Sunday, we remember this, the oldest of stories, and recognize that we have our place in it alongside everyone who follows Jesus. Like a tree that has withstood a thousand storms, our faith reaches up to heaven, making God proud.

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Seek Jesus

How do we face suffering with integrity? Seek Jesus.

Temptation leads us away. Pain leads us away. Grief leads us away. Sometimes, well-meaning loved ones who face their pain and grief lead us away. Sometimes, people who cannot understand why suffering happens for no reason lead us astray unintentionally. Job tells us the Devil is working behind all of it, with one purpose in mind: to put something in between us and God because he hates how proud God is of us.

But the opposite is true as well. We may be so used to living our lives trying to scrub the sin off our skin and chase it away from our loved ones that suffering makes us immediately think we have failed. Our hurt and heartache may feel like God must be displeased with us. But Job tells us that is not the case. When we suffer seemingly without cause, there is an opportunity for our faith to shine and show Satan what our relationship with God is built upon — a trust that goes beyond our own understanding.

When we are hurt and do not understand, we seek Jesus for help, comfort, healing, peace, and relief. We trust in His timing because we know this present life is just a drop in the bucket of eternity. And we remember that, although God owed us nothing, He chose to leave his throne in heaven and join us in suffering so that we would know forever that we are not alone.

So today, we come seeking Jesus, knowing that Christians worldwide are remembering the suffering that Jesus went through for us and that He calls us to follow Him to and through it into a glory that will far outshine any blessings we have had in the past.

Closing Prayer

Lord, today we remember that You are greater than anything we will face in this life. We remember that Your glory outshines our suffering and that Your presence is more powerful than our pain. We come seeking You, reaching out for new life and love in our brokenness. We come for ourselves. We come on behalf of our family. We come on behalf of those all over the world who have heard your call to pick up their crosses and follow You. Give us today our daily bread as we seek the grace we need to remain your faithful people. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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