The Ministry of Presence

Intro

So I’d like to open today with a little mental exercise. I’m gonna say a phrase, and I’d like you to think of some words that come to mind. Some adjectives or descriptors. You don’t have to answer out load, just in your head or if you’d like, you can share your thoughts with someone next to you.

Ok you ready?…

“Job’s three friends”

When I say this phrase, what descriptors or adjectives come to mind? What mental images do you have?

When I asked this of some folks this past week, these are some of the responses I got… “arrogant, worldly, scoffers, assuming, short-sighted, proud”.

Needless to say, I did not receive many platitudes concerning Job’s 3 friends. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are 3 names that would likely not be found on many Christmas card lists.

So when I began to prepare for this message, I had a difficult time seeing how this passage fit into the book of Job. It just didn’t seem to make sense that in 42 chapters filled with extreme suffering and great lament, that there could be the slightest hint of a positive theme in these three verses. On top of that, there was just no way that Job’s friends could be credited with any good considering what they’re about to pull for 28 chapters.

This passage just seemed so out of place. But I knew that God had to have put it here for a reason. It’s not as if God just snuck this text in after the fact because He thought His editors might cut it before it went to print. God does not waste words. Scripture tells us that His word does not return void and Jesus tells us that we shall live by every word from the mouth of God.

So I kept asking God, “Why is it here and what are You trying to say to Your people?”. As I meditated on this text more, it became apparent to me that Pat’s title The Ministry of Presence was on target, and I believe that what God is trying to show us here is that Godly comfort begins with a Godly heart.

Godly comfort begins with a Godly heart.

While it’s true that Job’s friends don’t finish well, I believe that you will see today that initially, their hearts were in the right place. And I believe most of us will be able to relate.

Most of us have been there. We hear the distressing news of some tragic event or situation in the life of a loved one. A car crash that’s claimed the life of a friend’s family member. An unfavorable diagnosis from a doctor. A loved one losing a job, left to wonder how they’re gonna support their family. A friend or family member going through a divorce.

I don’t know about you but the first thing that typically comes to my mind in these types of situations is, “What do I say?” Another might be “What can I do?”

Now while those thoughts and questions themselves aren’t necessarily bad, and in fact could be good, I think what’s more important is what lies beneath. What is the intent? And what I believe God is trying to show us in this text today is that before anything else, we should first ask the question, “Where is my heart?”

“What am I doing this for?” More importantly, “Who am I doing this for?”

Today, I want to show you three attributes of a Godly heart that we see in the text. The three attributes are commitment, compassion and companionship. And then I want to talk about some complications that we’re almost certain to encounter in our endeavors to comfort those who are suffering.

Three Attributes of a Godly Heart

Commitment

The first attribute of a Godly heart I’d like to talk about is commitment. For those of you who know him, this is what my friend Dennis Lommen might refer to as “being intentional”.

On our call last week when Pastor Pat, Pastor Michael and I reviewed my outline, Pastor Michael pointed out that in verse 11 Job’s friends heard, and they came. They’re made aware of their friend’s plight, they’re compelled to do something, so they make an appointment together and they set off on their journey to go to their friend.

While there’s some debate as to the exact locations of Job’s homeland and those of his friends, most commentaries seem to agree that Job’s friends came from a great distance to see him. One commentary I found estimates the distance to be about 100 miles.

Now 100 miles may not sound like a great distance to us today, but it’s not like Zophar can just jump in the truck and pick up Eliphaz and Bildad on the way to Job’s. No, we’re talking about strapping on the sandals and hoofing it to Uz.

To give you a bit of perspective of the journey they faced, 100 miles would be the equivalent of walking from here to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, which according to my iPhone would take 1 day and 15 hours without stopping for food, rest or bathroom breaks.

So Job’s friends would have to walk for days, if not weeks to see Job, leaving their families and livelihoods behind. As far as we can tell, they have no idea what they could possibly offer Job in his great suffering, they just know that they need to be at their friend’s side.

We are extremely blessed at FCBC to have brothers and sisters whose lives reflect this level of commitment consistently.

There are likely many here who have gotten a call or a visit from Pastor/Elder Doug Chamberlain. If you’ve been here before but don’t recognize Doug’s name, rest assured that there’s a good chance he knows yours. Doug makes it a point to remember the name of everyone he meets at FCBC, and there’s a good chance that God is hearing your name from the lips of Doug in prayer.

When we first started attending FCBC there was a SURV project which involved a house renovation, and there were Doug and his bride Sue, sacrificing themselves day and night, weekdays and weekends, so that a family would have a place to call home.

When I had a procedure done to treat my AFib a few years ago, Doug made it a point to stop by that evening and see how I was doing, on his way home from caring for other members.

Ray and Linda Wible… When I was in the O.R. during that procedure, Ray was there in the waiting room praying with my wife Alyssa. If any of you are friends with Linda on Facebook, you’ve probably seen pictures of her, adorned with tiara and tutu, giving her time with the goal of glorifying God in support of a sister in Christ.

A few years ago, we went to Concord Hospital to visit an FCBC member who was going through an extreme trial. When we arrived, we found out that there were so many visitors that they had to move us. Faith Community Bible Church was given their own waiting room.

I know I’m leaving out countless examples. There is no shortage of committed believers at FCBC. Do you have any idea what a blessing it is as an elder to see this level of commitment in the flock? Christ’s work in you and through you is on display for the world to see. His light shines for all to see and they know that you are His disciples by your love for one another.

Another way we see Job’s friends’ commitment is in their staying. This isn’t a quick Pop In to Say Hi visit. They aren’t looking to check off a box so they can get on to more important things. Job’s friends show that they are here for him and that they’re here for the long haul. One would have to think that at some point over the course of the next seven days of silent solidarity, that Job felt at least some level of comfort in this.

When it comes to commitment, there is no greater example than Christ. Romans 5:6-8 says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 John 4:8 tells us “God is love” and 1 Cor 13:8 assures us that “love never ends”. His love is demonstrated in part by His commitment and I believe that commitment can be seen in the initial actions of Job’s friends.

A second attribute of a Godly heart that I think we see in this passage is compassion.

Compassion

I think it’s evident that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar’s hearts are in the right place. Verse 11 seems pretty clear on this. “They made an appointment together to come… to show him sympathy and to comfort him.” They come to love on him.

We just talked about how they’ve committed themselves to going to see Job and now we see purpose. A purpose that I argue is pure, not motivated by anything other than a desire to let their friend know that they love him.

I’m also inclined to believe that their actions when they arrive on the scene provide further evidence of their heart condition. We read in verse 12 that when Job’s friends see Job’s condition, they raise their voices and weep. Job’s friends are so moved by Job’s condition, that the mere sight of him moves them to audible wailing. They then tear their robes, sprinkle dust on their heads and sit in silence for seven days and seven nights- a ritual seen elsewhere in Scripture in the most dire of circumstances.

Joseph mourned his father for seven days when Jacob died. Joshua tore his clothes and fell to his face when God punished Israel by allowing them to suffer defeat at the hands of Ai. The poet in Lamentations 2:10 writes how the elders sat on the ground in silence, throwing dust on their heads after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Job’s situation is so extreme in the eyes of his friends, that they resort to actions associated with God turning His face from His people, the destruction of His people’s homeland, and death. In fact, one commentator even goes so far as to say that their actions suggest that Job’s friends essentially see Job as just that… dead. It goes without saying that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are overcome with compassion for their friend. Their response clearly shows this.

If you’ve read my testimony you know that I was unsaved when I started attending FCBC back in 2017. Needless to say, I didn’t really know what the Bible said because I didn’t actually read it. And because I didn’t read it, I didn’t understand that our salvation doesn’t come from what we do but instead comes from what Christ has done for us. I didn’t know that our works are not to gain salvation, they’re to reflect God’s love for us. And I certainly didn’t understand that the world would know that we are Christ’s by our love for one another, as Jesus tells us in Jn 13:35.

But that all changed when we started coming to FCBC. We heard the gospel preached and we saw Christ’s compassion lived out through His body. One of the first books I read was Paul’s letter to the Romans. In chapter 12, verse 15 Paul writes, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

There was one night, early on in our time here at FCBC that Alyssa and I had scheduled a meeting with Pastor Pat to talk about some struggles we were having. During the meeting, my bride was overcome by grief and began to cry. Pastor Pat moved a box of tissues across his desk and Alyssa took one. Then I watched as Pastor Pat pulled one out of the box and wiped tears from his own eyes. It was at that moment that I knew that Pat was His disciple. And I knew I wanted to be too.

So here’s my question… Does the world see Christ’s compassion through you? Have you ever given thought to how your witness during another’s trials reflects Christ?

In John 11, Jesus goes to Bethany after Lazarus falls ill and dies. While there, we read in verse 33 that “When Jesus saw (Mary) weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” John goes on to write in verse 35 that “Jesus wept.”

Now I want to point out that Jesus knew that He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He told the disciples before they left that Lazarus’s illness “(wouldn’t) lead to death” and that “it was for the glory of God, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it” (Jn 11:4).

Jesus knew that the sorrow and weeping would be replaced by joy and amazement in minutes. But Jesus wasn’t focused on the result, Jesus was concerned for His sheep. Jesus saw their pain and their pain became His pain.

We serve a compassionate God. I pray that the world sees His compassion in us.

Companionship

The last attribute I want to talk about is companionship.

As we’ve learned in the last couple weeks, Job has lost all his children. His wife has told him to curse God and die. He’s lost all his belongings and all his prosperity. If we look ahead in chapter 19, Job shares that his brothers are far from him and those who knew him are fully estranged from him.

He goes on to say that his relatives have failed him, his close friends forgotten him and his servants as well as the guests in his house count him as a stranger. Job has gone from being the “greatest of all the people of the east” to sitting in an ash heap, scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery… alone.

And when we consider the time that it would have taken Job’s friends to travel, we can deduce that he’s been in this state for at the very least, days, if not weeks or even months. Imagine how Job feels at this time.

So here’s Job, alone, in an ash heap, in excruciating pain, for a substantial amount of time. He looks up and he sees his friends. He sees their tears, he hears their wailing, they tear their robes in distress like he did in chapter 1, and they sit… with him.

In that moment, Job is no longer alone. And I don’t believe it’s just their physical presence that matters. God could have just said “they cried, they sat”. But He doesn’t say that. Instead He tells us that they “sat with him on the ground”. They identify with him in his suffering.

Do you have anyone that you know will be there for you in times of trials and great suffering? Are you in a one on one discipleship relationship with a committed believer at FCBC? Are you involved in a small group? If not, I’d like to invite you to please consider joining one. Handouts containing a list of them can be found on the table as you enter the sanctuary. I know that in the small group that I’m a part of, we take time to share with one another the ups and downs of life. Throughout the week, we use a group messaging app to share prayer requests, blessings and curses.

Now we may be rugged individualists here in New Hampshire, where if you can see your neighbor’s house you’re too close, but deep down I think we know that we don’t want to be alone. And there’s a reason for that… that’s not God’s design. In Genesis 2:18 God said. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Up to that point in the creation account God says repeatedly of all that he’s creating that “It is good”, and then we get to this point and we read that God says “It is not good”. Companionship is part of God’s design.

And because you’re such good Bible students here at FCBC, you have an even deeper understanding of this. As good Bible students you can see this as a reflection of the relationship of the Trinity, “God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, three in One”.

And the most amazing part of this all is that God has created us to be in relationship with Him! The Bible tells us that God was with man in the garden, God was with His people in the wilderness and God is with His people in eternity.

Ok Don, so that’s two past events and one in the future, what about right now? Another phenomenal question that I am so glad you asked…

If you’re a believer, God is with you right now. Jesus says that He will not leave His disciples as orphans in John 14:18. He promised that as a result of Him going away, that He would send the Helper, or as some translations say, the Comforter.

A few verses later in Jn 14:23, Jesus promised that if “anyone loves (Him)”, that “(He) and (His) Father will love him, and (they) will come to him, and make (their) home with him.” Anyone… who loves Him. Anyone, as Paul writes in Romans 10:9, that “confess(es) with (their) mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe(s) in (their) heart that God raised him from the dead, (they) will be saved.”

Let me pause for a minute and ask a question. This applies for everyone but I especially hope it’s received by anyone here today who isn’t a believer or someone who might be questioning…

Does it ever feel as if there’s something missing? Do you find complete satisfaction in the things of this world? Do you ever find yourself saying, “If I could just get that next promotion…”, or “If I could just have that car, or that house”… “then I’d be happy”.

Or maybe it’s something we just talked about, relationship, something that God created for good. “If I could just get that girl or that guy”…

Have you ever found true satisfaction in any of these things? Or do you find yourself just saying these things on loop? “Just that next promotion. That bigger house. That nicer car.”

What if… what you’ve been looking for, what you’re missing, is something that God, your creator, has created you for?… Relationship with Him.

And what if I told you that He wants that too? What if I told you that in this word, God promises reconciliation with Him through His son (2 Cor 5:18), that He yearns jealously for you (James 4:5), and if you accept His offer He calls you His friend (Jn 15:15)?

If this sounds too good to be true to you, I wouldn’t blame you. It did for me too. So I did what I encourage you to do, check it out.

There’s a movie called A Case for Christ. In it, there’s a sign hanging in a news room that says, “Your mother says she loves you… check it out.” So I’m here today saying, “Your Father says He loves you. Check it out.” Come talk to one of us, talk to someone who brought you. We would love to show you in this word.

Complications

So we’ve talked about commitment, we’ve talked about compassion and we’ve talked about companionship. What I hope to do now is open our eyes to some of the ways we go wrong in our comforting of others. Some stumbling blocks, if you will, that we put in our paths that cause us to lose sight of why we’re there in the first place. For the purposes of this sermon, let’s refer to them as complications.

Complexity

The first complication we see in this passage occurs when Job’s friends first arrive on the scene. I’m gonna keep with my theme of using words that start with “c-o-m” and use the word complexity.

What I mean when I say “complexity” is that it’s not always cut and dry.

Let’s look at verse 12, “And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him.” Job’s friends have had all this time together, traveling to see Job. One would think that in this time, they might discuss what they thought they would encounter when they get to Job.

They likely think they have a handle on the situation. But when they arrive on the scene, they discover that Job’s suffering is far worse than what they thought. It is so bad, that they don’t even recognize him.

The last time they saw Job, he was the greatest of all the people in the east. The Job they discover is now covered in loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he’s had all this time to scrape away at his flesh with broken pottery. It’s apparent in their response that they were not expecting what they found.

Is it ever? When we hear of a friend’s suffering, does the reality match the image we’ve created in our mind? In more cases than not, we find that it doesn’t.

And when we discover that we didn’t have it all figured out, you’d think this might result in us keeping our mouths shut and sitting with our friend in sympathy. And even if we somehow manage to pull that off, like Job’s friends will show us in a couple chapters, it’s only temporary.

So what happens? What do we do?…. Just like Job’s friends, we think we can diagnose and solve.

Who remembers our list describing Job’s friends from the introduction? No worries, I wrote them down if you don’t have them… “arrogant, worldly, scoffers, assuming, short-sighted, proud”.

Kenneth Haugk writes about what we do in Don’t Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart. He says, “In these instances and many others, the caregiver interjects his or her memories and experiences, removing the focus from the suffering individual. Instead of shining the soft light of love on the other person, the speaker shifts the spotlight to him- or herself.”

“I’m so sorry” becomes “You know what might help?…”, “You know when I was going through what you are…”.

Nobody in the story knows what we know. We as the reader have been given the details. We’re in the know. We know that God is calling all the shots here, that only He knows exactly what’s going on and only He knows what’s needed. Only God is sovereign over Job’s suffering and only God is sovereign over our suffering.

So how could we possibly grasp the extent of the situation and why do we even fathom to think that we can pinpoint the cause, let alone fix it? How do we go from genuine care and concern to lousy comforters like Job’s friends? Why is it that “we do not do the good that we want to do”, as Paul writes in Romans 7?

Our human hearts fail us.

The Bible tells us why this is…

Genesis 6:5 tells us that God saw “that every intention of the thoughts of (our) heart(s) are only evil continually”. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Paraphrasing Jesus in Mark 7:21-23… “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts… wickedness, deceit, slander, pride, foolishness.”

So how do we fix this?

Here’s the bad news… we don’t.

But now, let me tell you the good news… God promises that He will.

Ezekiel 36:26… “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

And how did He do this?

God sent His Son.

The Gospel

God made an appointment. He made an appointment to leave His throne and come down to His people. In our great suffering, “dead in our trespasses” according to Ephesians 2:1, Jesus was sent as the perfect sacrifice, to live the sinless life that we aren’t capable of, and to suffer the punishment that we deserve.

Isaiah 53:5 tells us, “he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities” The King of the universe rendered unrecognizable - unrecognizable to the human eye but greater still, unrecognizable to the Father as He cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”. Alone on the cross, the face of the Father turned from Him because of the stench of our sin. He died alone and was buried.

But that’s not where the story ends. Three days later, the stone was moved, the tomb was empty and sin and death were defeated. The unrecognized King risen and as a result, we are recognized as His.

That’s commitment, that’s compassion, that’s companionship. And for those who believe, that’s comfort.

Conclusion

So what do we do with what we’ve heard today?

We commit ourselves to Christ in our comforting of others. We put our trust and our faith in Him, recognizing that only He is sovereign over suffering. We believe that God has a purpose in suffering, so we submit ourselves to His purposes.

In committing ourselves to Christ, we commit ourselves to those who we seek to comfort, striving to show the compassion of Christ. We are beneficiaries of His compassion, therefore we seek to share that compassion with others.

And we rely on the companionship of Christ in our comforting of others. If we believe this Bible then we know that we have been given His Spirit, so we ask Him to guide us in our comforting of others.

In summary, we seek to show God’s heart in our comforting of others.

I’d like to close with a quote from a book titled Untangling Emotions by J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith. In it they write, “It’s not wrong to want grieving people to feel better. It’s a sign that you love them and wish they weren’t in so much pain. It’s understandable that grief seems like a problem that needs to be fixed, and it’s difficult not to let the desire to provide care degenerate into ‘fixing’. But a better approach is to view helping not as ‘making it better’ but as being someone’s companion in the journey through grief to healing. Be a companion, not a fixer.”

At this time I’d like to invite the men to come forward as we take part in the Lord’s Supper. As the men come forward, I’d like to ask that if you’re not a believer, or if you have any unconfessed sin in your life, or if your heart isn’t right before God, please let the elements pass by. And I say this not to be exclusionary, but out of love. Paul writes in 1 Cor 11:27-29, “[27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”