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The Gospel Project® for Adults
Leader Guide CSB, Unit 1, Session 6
© 2018 LifeWay Christian Resources
Permission granted to reproduce and distribute within the license agreement with purchaser.
Suffering and God’s Presence
Summary and Goal
We don’t know for sure when Job lived, much less when the book telling his story was written.
However, it is likely that Job lived during the time of the patriarchs.
So this session on Job is included in the midst of the patriarchal period in early Genesis to follow the chronology of Scripture.
As we move through a quick view of Job’s story, we will learn a critical lesson about God’s presence in the midst of suffering, which has its origin in our rebellion against God.
What is your typical response to suffering in your life?
Session Outline
1. God is in control, even over our suffering (Job 1:6-12,20-22).
++2.
God is present in our suffering, even if it may not feel that way (Job 9:14-16,32-35).
++3.
God uses our suffering to draw us closer to Him (Job 42:1-6).
Session in a Sentence
God is present and in control of our suffering and uses it for good.
Christ Connection
In his time of suffering, Job yearned for a mediator—someone to bring him and God together.
Jesus is the mediator who suffered, even though He had never sinned, in order to pay the price for human sin and put an end to suffering on earth.
Missional Application
Because we have experienced the goodness of salvation through the suffering of God’s Son, we trust God in our suffering and comfort others in their suffering by assuring them of God’s great care and love.
Group Time
Introduction
Say: We don’t know for sure when Job lived, much less when the book telling his story was written.
However, it is likely that Job lived during the time of the patriarchs.
Commentary: Three reasons to conclude Job lived during the time of the patriarchs in early Genesis: 1) Job’s wealth is measured in terms of livestock.
2) There is no mention of organized worship or the law in the Book of Job. 3) Job served as a family priest, much like Noah and Abraham did for their families.
1
Explain the significance of the story of Job dating back to some of the earliest moments of history: It is comforting to know that from the earliest days of the human race, we have wrestled with the idea of suffering.
We are not alone in our struggle to come to terms with the pain we experience in our lives—we stand together with every other person who has ever drawn breath.
· The mid-level manager who is called into his boss’s office to learn he has lost his job and now wonders how he will provide for his family.
· The expectant mother who braces herself for what her doctor is about to say following the opening, “I’m sorry, but I have some bad news to tell you.”
· The husband who comes home to find all of his wife’s belongings gone and a note on the counter.
· The parents whose teenage child is on a destructive path but refuses to listen to them.
Read the following paragraph in the DDG (p.
56).
Collectively, we have been groping for an answer to why suffering happens and how we are to navigate adversity.
The answer that we seek takes focus throughout the chapters of Job.
The answer does not come to us from God but rests in God Himself dwelling with us—even in our suffering.
Though God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim.
6:16), He chooses to be an immanent presence for us always.
Interact: Ask group members to answer the following question with honesty.
Make sure to insist your group be a safe place for honest and transparent responses from group members.
When have you suffered, perhaps even to the point of leading you to doubt God’s presence in your life?
(be prepared to give an answer of your own to jump-start the conversation)
Summarize: As we move through a quick view of Job’s story, we will learn a critical lesson about God’s presence in the midst of suffering, which has its origin in our rebellion against God.
Point 1: God is in control, even over our suffering (Job 1:6-12,20-22).
Read Job 1:6-12 (DDG p. 57).
6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.
7 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?
”
“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered him, “and walking around on it.”
8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?
No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
9 Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns?
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
12 “Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power.
However, do not lay a hand on Job himself.”
So Satan left the Lord’s presence.
Say: When we’re in the middle of suffering, the one thing we want most is relief.
We just want the pain to end.
So we call out to God and plead, or bargain, with Him to intervene as if His back were turned from us.
But we must remember that our pain does not negate God’s authority.
He is not absent; He is right there with us and fully in control.
Explain: Show from the text how God remained in control over the suffering of Job: 1) The Lord brought Job to Satan’s attention (v.
8), and 2) He limited the reach of Satan’s tempting of Job through suffering (v.
12).
Commentary: When Satan came in from roaming around—mostly likely to see what distress he could cause humanity—God was the one to point out Job’s faithfulness.
God brought Job to Satan’s attention, not the other way around.
Here we have a man living such a faithful life that the God of heaven points him out—not because of disappointment but because of His joy in Job.
Notice two things when God responds to Satan’s claim that Job blesses God only because he is blessed:
· First, Satan—the great adversary—knows he cannot act without God’s permission.
This is not even up for debate, and Satan does not argue the point.
· Second, when God does permit Satan to act, His permission comes with limitations.
Satan did not have authority to affect Job’s health (though later he would, but he could not take Job’s life).
At this point, Satan was only allowed to destroy all that he owned, which extended to the deaths of every one of his children in the collapse of a house by a powerful wind (vv.
13-19).
Say: God was not the author or cause of pain in Job’s life; Satan was (v.
12).
But it was in the greater plan of God to allow Job to be tested.
Fill in the Blanks: Provide group members with the answers for the call-out in their DDG (p.
57).
When you suffer, God hasn’t abandoned you.
He is well aware of the brokenness of the world, the pain that our sinful choices bring, and how the enemy seeks to wound us.
But in all of it, God is still in control.
Read Job 1:20-22 (DDG p. 57).
20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head.
He fell to the ground and worshiped, 21 saying:
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
22 Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.
Explain: Job’s response to the suffering that came his way was not anger but faithful worship.
Likewise, our response to suffering reveals our faith in God to ourselves and to others.
Commentary: Job recognized that life and all of its good gifts have their origins in God’s kind and gracious provision.
The same Lord who had authority to give him what he had also had the authority to take it away.
Knowing this, Job chose to trust God, and our suffering presents a similar opportunity for us.
Our faith in God can shine brightest in our times of suffering and pain.
Worship through clenched teeth with tear-soaked cheeks glorifies God in a profound way.
It cements our trust in God in our own hearts while simultaneously showing others the power of the gospel.
Pain is but one more pathway to trust.
Read the following paragraph in the DDG (p.
57).
The pain we face in our suffering is real, and we should be real about it as well.
This is what Job did.
Even as he maintained his faith in God during his suffering, he wept and mourned.
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