Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Ever since the fall, humans have wrestled with the existence of evil and suffering.

Regardless of if you’ve been a Christian for years and years, if you’re a new Christian, if you’re not a Christian or if you want nothing to do with God this morning, chances are you’ve asked this question a time or two: Why did this evil thing happen?

We’ve been there, haven’t we?

Why did this happen to this person?

Why does cancer exist?

Why do seemingly good people suffer so greatly?

How can God allow this to happen?

So many are searching for an answer and it’s easy to settle on an unBiblical solution to this problem.

Some approach these situations like this: The God of the Bible is said to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.

Yet, evil exists.

So God must not either, 1) not be powerful enough to defeat evil, 2) not know how to defeat evil, or 3) if He is all-powerful and if He is all-knowing then He finally must not be all good… This problem of evil has existed for years and it continues to baffle people today!

Why does suffering exist?

Who is to blame?

Where can we turn?

The next 2 weeks we’re going to turn to the book of Job in the middle of the Old Testament to provide some answers.

These 2 sermons are connected so much that if you miss one you’re going to be up a creek without a paddle.

If this is your first Sunday here, we’re so grateful that you’re with us first off but you NEED to be here next week as well to see the full picture of this topic!

The story of Job is one of the most amazing and difficult to understand stories on Scripture.

It’s one of the oldest books in Scripture, yet it is one of the hardest to grasp.

It is easy to treat Job and some of the other wisdom literature as the “fly-by” section in our Bibles and to skip from the historical books straight to the Gospels.

We lose so much whenever we do this, though.

Job, as difficult as it might be to truly “get”, teaches us so much about the goodness of our God and the mystery of why God allows things to happen.

In difficult moments in my life, the book of Job has been a reminder to trust in the Lord’s providence and goodness.

That even though things might not make sense in my moment of suffering or disaster, there is a God Who reigns over creation as King and Who holds me in His hand and calls me His own.

Whenever I am reminded of His greatness and goodness, I quickly remember that I have nothing to fear.

I quickly remember the best that society can come up with is that bad things happen to good people because of bad luck or because of random accidents… I’m so thankful that the Bible gives us a much better answer and a much stronger hope to hold on to on those difficult nights.

In the middle of the why, in the middle of our suffering, in the middle of our groaning, we can either have confusion or we can have confidence.

We can have anxiety or we can have assurance.

We can have brokenness or we can have boldness.

Whenever your “worst” comes - whenever suffering and disaster comes knocking on your door, will you stand on God’s Word, or will you sink into despair?

Our only hope of standing is to know the Who before we get to the Why.

Let’s learn from the story of Job how we can trust in our Lord even in times of suffering.

Who is God and Who is Job? (1-12)

Before we can attempt to understand this literal story, we have to understand the background here and see who exactly Job is and, most importantly, who God is.

Have you ever watched the beginning of a Star Wars movie?

If you have, you know how the opening credits always begin with the same phrase: A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away… This is what we have at the beginning of Job - we have an introduction to a great person.

He has complete integrity, he fears God, he turns away from evil.

He serves God faithfully and from the outside looking in, he is blessed by God with possessions, family, and wealth.

He wasn’t just kind of blessed… He was the greatest man around!

Not only did he have good character but he even sought to help his family as he cared for them and their relationship with the Lord as he offered sacrifices on their behalf.

This was a good man and if you were an outsider expecting someone to suffer, you wouldn’t expect it to be Job.

If we use this linear equation that bad people deserve bad things from God and good people deserve good things from God then after these 5 verses we’d expect God to bless this man because of all that he does.

Yet, as this book will unfold before us, we will see that God’s ways don’t always make sense to us and that this truth doesn’t give us an excuse to stop trusting in His ways.

If Job is a faithful father in his family, God is the one who Job is faithful to.

This opening section of verses share with us that God is ruling and in control of His creation.

He has blessed Job’s work and He has increased his land.

He has protected Job and his possessions.

To this God and to this servant, Satan comes to do what he always does: oppose God and God’s people.

Have you ever read this passage before?

Has it ever baffled your mind as to how Satan came before the presence of the Lord?

Satan believes that Job only follows God because God has blessed him and that if God would curse him then Job would turn on God.

The question is simply this: Do we worship God for the things God gives us or for Who God is?

Do you and I give thanks to God because of His greatness and character or do we only give thanks to God whenever He blesses our lives the way we’d like Him to?

Job is one who serves the Lord and suffering is about to come knocking on his door.

Satan has permission from the Lord in these opening verses to inflict catastrophe on his life.

The man who has experienced much good from the Lord in terms of blessing is about to have his whole world flipped upside down.

How will he respond?

How would you respond?

Let’s continue reading.

Job’s External Suffering Leads to Internal Shaking (13-22)

Think about the worst day you can imagine or the worst day that you’ve lived through.

This is naturally going to lead to some negative emotions and that’s ok because if we can’t grieve together at church where on earth can we grieve?

I’m reminded of the story of Horatio Spafford the hymn-writer of It Is Well.

Spafford had accumulated some wealth in real estate but lost much of that wealth in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

Around this same time his 4 year old son passed away because of scarlet fever.

With all of this loss he felt like his family could use a getaway so he sent his wife and kids on a boat bound for England planning to join them after finalizing some business in the city.

He received word that the ship they were on had crashed and that everyone on board had passed away.

Spafford, like Job, lost his family, much of his possessions, and easily could have lost his joy if it weren’t for his faith in the Lord.

Think of the worst you’ve been through and how it seems like the hits keep on coming one after another.

This is Job here.

These 4 messengers arrive and they share what has taken place with Job and the hits pile up like a snowball tumbling down the snowy mountainside.

First his livestock and servants are killed and stolen.

This man is blessed by God - maybe this hurts a little bit but he has other livestock as we saw at the beginning of chapter 1.

But then another messenger shows up and shares that fire came down from heaven and burned the sheep and his servants… Usually fire from heaven is in reference to lightning… 7,000 sheep being burned by lightning is nearly impossible for us to comprehend and this is on top of losing his oxen and donkeys.

This bad day went from bad to worse but then a 3rd messenger shows up before this 2nd one is done and shares that now his camels have been taken away and more of his servants have been killed.

This man woke up in the morning with a large number of servants and 11,000 sheep, goats, camels, oxen, and donkeys and 3 messengers in and he has been informed that it’s all gone!

But it’s not over yet… Verse 18 shares that a 4th messenger showed up before the 3rd was even finished and informed Job that now all of his sons and daughters had passed away because the house collapsed.

So often we want to be encouraged whenever we come to church and the Bible shares much in the realm of encouragement and joy and hope as we studied throughout Philippians the last few months!

However, there are times in Scripture where we read of awful, stressful, heartbreaking moments that fail to encourage us and instead they challenge us.

Sometimes we are tempted to skip over stories of tragedy because after all we all love a happily ever after story… But it’s important to not only address but study these types of Bible stories and see how we can find hope in the midst of tragedy because our lives are not a fairy tale.

Our lives are marked by suffering of varying degrees and we have to understand that there is joy to be found even in those dark moments where the bottom drops out from underneath us.

This is Job’s worst day… Think about yours.

What did you do whenever the bottom dropped out? Did that shake you to your core?

What is fascinating here is that Job doesn’t blame the servants, the weather, the Chaldeans, or any of these people… He says that the Lord gave and blessed him and it is the Lord who has taken away.

The Lord is the explanation.

The Lord is the One behind these actions.

He didn’t charge God with wrong or blame God - He acknowledges that God is doing something here that he cannot see yet.

Job knows that God is the owner of all things and that he has the right to take all things and this leads Job to worship the Lord in his moment of loss!

What a testimony!

This would shake our world… But for Job it only shook him to the place of worship.

I’m not sure about you but I get upset and place blame on others pretty quick if I’m not careful.

It’s easy to rejoice and thank the Lord during the season of blessing… But it’s almost just as easy to get upset at the Lord whenever the paycheck doesn’t arrive in time or whenever the situation at work or school doesn’t go our way.

Yet, Job models how to deal with external suffering - trust completely in the Lord who is involved in what is taking place.

The Lord gives… the Lord takes away.

What a statement we must learn to not only accept but rejoice in!

Job’s Internal Suffering Leads to Public Profession (2:1-10)

This scene plays out similar to the first scene in chapter 1 but Satan doubles down and shares that the only reason Job didn’t turn on God was because he himself was off limits but that Job would sing a different tune the moment that suffering impacted him specifically rather than just impacting his possessions or loved ones.

Now, Job had just praised the Lord in the middle of losing his family… we would expect things to get better for him, right?

After all, our society shares that God helps those who help themselves and that blessing always follows obedience.