Five Lessons From Suffering

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Go forth with courage, integrity, and joy. Trust the One who has brought you this far—He will be with you every step ahead.

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Introduction

Rejoice with those that rejoice, mourn with those that mourn.

This week our church suffered an unbelievable tragedy with the loss of our brother and friend, Kevin Doggett.

This hasn’t been the only hard thing that we have gone through as a body this month. Many of you are suffering and hurting. Some of you have been suffering quietly for a long time. Today I want to take my time here to address the question, Why must I suffer like this, “Where is God in my suffering?”, What am I to do with this?

I’m going to do this by look at a person in the Bible, a man called Job.

The Book of Job chronicles the life of this man and it zeroes in on a time of tremendous loss.

Five Lessons From Job On Suffering

I think there are 5 lessons we can learn about suffering through the person of Job.

Here’s the first one…

1. Godly People Will Suffer

We Mistakenly Believe Godly People Will Not Suffer - I’m not sure if it’s bad teaching or just our own souls yearning to return to the Garden of Eden, but many of us grow up believing that if we become a Christian, if we do all the right things, if we always cross our t’s and dot our i’s, we won’t have to suffer, that God will keep us from suffering. This simply isn’t the case. We see this in the person of Job.

Job 1:1 ESV

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.

Job Was A Good Man - Job is one of the few people in the Bible that is declares to be blameless and upright. This was a good man. Now scholars of the Bible will be quick to make sure you know that Job was not a perfect man, as the Hebrew word used here means a good person in the general sense of the word, not in terms of holiness or perfection. Job was a good man, he wasn’t Jesus though.

But I do think we all understand this. There are good people in this world. We know that. Some of you are those people. You have never done terrible things in your life. You’ve avoided evil and even the appearance of it. You know you aren’t perfect, but you are living a morally upright life. You have done good to others and treated people well. You may have a lot in common Job.

Through Job We Realize Godly People Still Suffer. Job feared God. He walked according to the ways of the Lord. Yet, as we will see, he still suffered greatly.

We also see that our suffering is not a result of ungodly living. Job suffered in spite of the fact that he lived a godly life.

Through Job We See Money Doesn’t Keep Us From Suffering. If you don’t know the story, Job was a rich man. He was very well off on top of being a morally good man. I saw that Elon Musk was listed as the world’s first Trillionaire the other day. For his time, Job was of a similar status. In the verses following we see Job was blessed beyond measure. Here’s a list of what it says:

He had seven sons and three daughters

He has 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female donkeys.

He has many servants.

He is the greatest of all the people of the east.

2. Satan Causes Some Of Our Suffering

Notice I said “some”. As we will see Satan definitely causes suffering and perhaps he is the root of all suffering, but other things also cause suffering in our lives - sin, the flesh, our own selfish choices, even the sins of others cause us suffering. Now even in this some of these things can be traced back to Satan or demonic influence.

The Book of Job offers a fairly clear explanation of the cause of at least some of our suffering and it comes through our enemy - Satan. In the book of Job we are introduced to Satan (the Hebrew name used here is Accuser), and we see that Satan presents himself to God and upon evaluating Job, we see that he immediately starts accusing him. And these are baseless accusations by the way.

Job is accused of only serving God because God has blessed him so much.

Job 1:9–10 ESV

Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

Satan Sets Out To Prove Job Is A Fraud - In one day, at the hand of Satan, we see that Job loses everything. His oxen and his donkeys were killed. His sheep were burned and killed by fire that fell from the sky. The Chaldeans raided his property and destroyed stole his camels and killed his servants. And finally a wind blows a house down while his children were all inside of it and kills them all. Every single thing that’s listed as a possession of Job is gone. This is true devastation.

Through all of this though, Job doesn’t turn from God. He remains steadfast in the midst of the storm. Satan is proved to be a liar, through the actions of Job. In fact, at the end of this chapter, we get this incredible statement from Him.

Job 1:21–22 ESV

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Job Recognizes That God Is Ultimately In Charge - While Satan may be causing the suffering in Job’s life, Job still recognizes that God gives and he takes away. This leads to the third lesson we learn from suffering…

3. God Has A Role In Our Suffering

Satan May Cause Our Suffering, But God Allows It. This is probably the hardest thing for most of us to swallow. It’s in the Book of Job that we see that God does allow suffering in this world. Satan comes to God twice in this book and both times we see that it’s ultimately God who allows Satan to afflict Job.

God puts limits on what Satan can do to Job. In the first instance, he says you can touch everything Job owns, but you can’t touch Him. In the second instance, we see this unfold…

Job 2:3–6 ESV

And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”

God limits Job’s suffering in sparing his life. Maybe that doesn’t seem like much to you. Now, some will say God will not give you more than you can handle, but that’s not been my experience. God does give us more than we can handle. He gives us more than we can handle so we will have to depend on Him in the midst of our suffering.

Our God Is Comfort - In America, our god is comfort. We worship it. If I’m not comfortable, I must fix it, I have to change it. Even when we mourn, we have don’t like the idea of mourning or sadness, so we try to escape it. We would much rather have a celebration of life service over a funeral. We do everything we can to avoid discomfort.

Let me give you permission to be…

Sad

Lonely

Angry

Hurt

God sees you. He created emotions and its ok for you to feel these things. It’s not something that needs to be fixed. It’s a part of how we were made. This world is filled with injustice and God gave us these emotions so that we could properly cope with the realities of this work.

Good Community Helps In Our Suffering. As The Story of Job unfolds, we see that God sends some friends to just sit with Job. One of the most powerful things you can do when someone is grieving is called the Ministry of Presence. It simply means to be present with them. You do not have to fix it. You don’t need to say anything to make it better, what the person really needs is your presence. Be there for them.

Job’s friends sit with him for 7 days before saying a word, and honestly its at that point that they ruined it. Sitting with him for those 7 days was the best thing that could do, opening their mouths was the worst thing they did.

Job’s Friend’s Offer Terrible Advice That Sounds Good - It’s at this point, from Chapter 4 on, that the Book of Job becomes a conversation between Job and his friends. His friends essentially blame Job for all of his problems. Perhaps this is where we get the phrase, “blaming the victim”. Poor Job curses the day he was born and his friends are there saying, yep, you deserve this.

This goes on for 34 chapters. His friends keep saying, Job you must have done something wrong. There must be some sort of secret sin that you haven’t confessed. You must have brought this on yourself in some way. And we all think like this. We look at someone laying in the gutter and we say, he must have done something to end up like that.

Job consistently responds that there is nothing. And he is right. We already discussed that at the beginning of the book we are told that Job is a righteous man!

And even in the midst of suffering, Job does not curse God. He continues to steadfastly submit his life to God, in spite of his suffering. This culminates in one of my favorite lines in the book, when Job says this…

Job 13:15 NIV

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him…

Now what would possess a man to say that?

Job Understands Suffering Has A Point. Over the course of the book we see that Job’s view of suffering is ours is radically different. And this leads us to the fourth lesson on suffering that this book teaches us.

4. God Uses Suffering For Our Benefit

Suffering Has A Point. It’s for us. Now, this isn’t easy to say or even think about. I hate suffering. I am no different than you. This week I lay in anguish in my bed, unable to sleep, thinking about what Courtney and those little girls are going through.

In fact, I’ve had many sleepless nights since I became pastor. I realize I cannot carry your burdens for you, and even though I try my best to help lighten the load, at the end of the day, I cannot fix it. But there are many nights that I’ve laid awake, crying, praying, contending and wrestling with all the pain and suffering I’ve seen you go through.

What Gives Me Peace Is There Is A Point. Job realized this. In the midst of the conversation with his friends, he says this, defending the fact that God has allowed this suffering to come into his life…

Job 23:10 ESV

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

Our Suffering Is A Trial. Job lost everything and he realizes that this is a trial from God. He says, God is trying him. He’s testing Him. And when he comes through this trial, his expectation was to be refined gold. Now the Bible actually uses this imagery quite often. We see the refining fire as a way that God purifies us. It’s one of the ways that He makes us more like Him.

One of the goals of suffering is that it exists to drive us closer to Him.

Isaiah 38:17 NIV

Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish…

The Book of Job records this conversation between Job and his friends and really the only thing you see Job asking for is an audience with God. He wants to understand why this suffering has befallen Him. Now this book highlights one of the fundamental ideas under this topic.

Even Though Our Suffering Is For Our Benefit, We May Never Understand It.

The Book Culminates With Job Getting His Wish. Job wanted a meeting with God, well, God shows up. And God answers Job, but not in the way that he had hoped. Job is wanting understanding, and God essentially says, there’s a lot you don’t understand about this world, who are you to question me? God says this…

Job 38:4–7 ESV

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

There are almost three full chapters of God asking Job these rhetorical questions. He knows Job can’t answer these things. And Job knows he can’t answer them. He says…

Job 40:3–4 ESV

Then Job answered the Lord and said: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

God continues asking him these questions in Chapter 40 and 41 and he challenges Job throughout to answer him and Job cannot.

God is trying to get Job to realize that he doesn’t need to understand the reason behind his suffering, he needs Job to ask the most important question…What do you want me to do with my suffering?

And that leads us to the final lesson we learn about suffering from Job…

5. God Uses Suffering To Bless Others

After Job repents for questioning God, God turns his anger toward his friends. His friends have spoken falsely about God (even though it sounded good). Job however spoke words that were true about God. So they are instructed to make an offering to God and Job intercedes for his friends.

God was using the suffering of Job as a means to bless Job’s friends. Job prays for them. He intercedes for them. He blesses them. And it says that God accepted Job’s prayer.

God will do the same for your suffering. If you will allow Him, he will give you a testimony to share, he will bring people in your path that you can pray for, that you can encourage.

Having been through all of the suffering in my life, it no longer surprises me when God puts someone in my life that is going through something similar as to what I have gone through. My prayers for them are more passionate, more real, because I have walked in their shoes.

Allow God to use your story. Don’t be ashamed of your suffering. Don’t be ashamed of the refining fire that God has brought into your life. Allow Him to use it for his glory. Don’t be too proud. Often, we don’t share our story because we are afraid of how others will look at us. My encouragement, share you story because it may be the very thing that saves someone’s life.

Decision

If you are here today and need prayer for what you are going through, the altar is open. If you need prayer for something you went through long ago, the altar is open. If you are just hurting and need a place to cry, the altar is open. Please come.