Today is All Saint’s Sunday on the Church calendar. We talked in our Ministry Moment during worship about the saints in our congregation who have already gone to their reward, but had poured the love of God and the example of their lives into us before their deaths. Following that, this was the basics of my sermon… focusing on Job, his wife and his friends.
{Job 1:1-12, New Living Translation}
1 There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters. 3 He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.
4 Job’s sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them. 5 When these celebrations ended—sometimes after several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.
6 One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.7 “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.
Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
8 Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”
9 Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! 11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.
In the rest of the chapter, and then in chapter two as well, we read about Job’s children being killed, his flocks, and herds, and servants being decimated, and, ultimately, even his body is affected by the demonic attack unleashed by Satan who is merely using Job to try to prove God wrong.
Job is the story of a follower of God who endures a lot of stuff.
But isn’t it interesting, that the book of Job starts with a description of Job, but the first action in the book is God and Satan. In fact, God is BRAGGING to Satan… about Job.
Essentially, God is picking a fight with the devil… who’s known here as the Accuser.
God picks a fight!
Job has done nothing wrong. Nothing to justify what happens to him after that encounter between God & Satan.
Satan hears God boast about Job and he takes the bait. He asks for permission to test Job… to prove that the only reason Job is a good follower of God because God has blessed him with so many blessings… God is SO confidant in Job’s devotion and service that He gives Satan permission to remove any blessing Job has received: children, money, wealth, possessions, and, later, in chapter two, even his health. Satan does his very best to try to make Job so miserable that he’ll give in and fall away from God.
God doesn’t cause it… but he allows it. Why? Well, to be honest, Scripture doesn’t tell us God’s reasons… in fact, at the end of the book God makes it pretty clear that “WHY?” isn’t a question He feels compelled to answer.
However, there are at least two possibles I think I see in here:
(1) God knows that Job, if he relies on his Lord, is able to handle whatever Satan tries… Now the question is WILL he choose to handle it?
(2) God knows that Job will come through this time of trouble and trial and be an even better and stronger man of God when it’s over.
Now, on this All Saints’ Sunday, I want to turn our attention and focus, not on Job, but on the people around Job. If you’re going through trouble, you know that you can look to Job as an example and draw strength from his success in enduring trouble without cursing God. If he can do it, so can you and I.
But today we want to look at Job’s wife and friends… because that’s where most of us will find ourselves… Being the family or friend of someone who is enduring great hardship.
The first one, the closest one, to Job is his wife. She cracks under the pressure and finally, in an almost suicidal kind of statement, tells Job in verses 9 & 10 of chapter 2, to “curse God and die.” She gives up and just wants the pain to stop… and is willing to give in to whatever she needs to give in to in order to make it stop.
And there’s a here-and-now warning for us as well. The psychologists and statisticians tell us that when a family endures the death of a child or some other catastrophic trauma, the marriage is likely to be the next victim. Divorce is on the horizon in most cases. You and I, under the same circumstances Job faced, would find divorce as one of the options that begins to look attractive.
If you are married to someone that is going through a tough time, you are the one and only person that can really help, or hurt, the most. Your encouragement, or your discouragement, will be one of the strongest forces in your spouse’s ultimate healing or eventual failure. And in due course, it may be the death, or rebirth, of your marriage relationship based on your choices as the supporter or detractor in the midst of trouble.
That’s why, still today, the marriage vows include the promise of staying together through “better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health…”
You know, we never read anything else about Job’s wife, so we don’t know what she did in the end, but we know that Job refused to give up.
But now, let’s look at the three that make up most of the rest of the book.
Job has some friends. Chapter 2 verses 11-13 says
- Eliphaz,
- Bildad, and
- Zophar
…came to Job when they got the news of all the troubles that had befallen him. Scripture says that they came “to mourn with him and to comfort him.”
In the next few verses we read that they Cried with him, They were present with him, and they were silent.
Those were the good things they did as friends. Chapter 3, finally, Job tells them how he feels and then, and only then, do Job’s three friends start to share and talk and express their feelings.
Unfortunately, they’ve heard the lies that Satan likes to tell that say “if you’re good, then good things happen to you and if you’re bad, then bad things happen to you.” Sometimes, even today, that lie is stated like this: “Everything happens for a reason.” Those are lies that try to make everything either YOUR fault that bad stuff is happening to you or that it is GOD’S fault that bad stuff is happening to you. No grace. No mercy. No blessings. Just a mean old God that sits around cooking up bad stuff because “it happens for a reason” and that reason just might be that you, the one suffering, ticked God off somehow.
So out of their own concern and belief, they start trying to FIX Job and SOLVE Job’s problems. The problem, of course, is that God is working in the background and this attack on Job is an attack from Satan, not God… so they CAN’T solve it!
In the past few years, our country seems to have been having more and more problems… The news has been full of examples of death and destruction… whether it’s a marine base being bombed, a naval ship attacked, an embassy under siege, hostages taken, or the attacks inside our own nation like September 11th and just last week, someone deliberately driving into a crowd in order to kill and cause panic. At the same time, we’ve had drought and flooding, unquenchable fire and unquenchable thirst, disease, earthquake, plane crashes, people shooting other people, and war after war after war. The chances are becoming greater every day that you and I will be impacted by these national and worldwide events.
On top of all that, there are personal stories of tragedy: the stock market plunges and someone loses all they own, a cancer hits home and no cure is found, a job is lost as a company downsizes, or a loved one dies.
In the Church, we are full of stories and examples of how there are people all around us everyday who are essentially Job incarnate. We’ve tried to understand WHY this one gets sick or WHY that one dies and even why does another one get healed and get back on her feet???
And as the friends… we don’t know what to do or what to say… some can’t even stand it to visit at the hospital… because we’re so terrified of saying the wrong thing and making our friend or loved one feel even worse.
I believe we can learn something from Job’s friends about what NOT to do and what we really SHOULD do when we are the spouse or friend of a Job.
Throughout much of the rest of the book of Job, the friends do everything wrong… They try to figure out who or what is to blame for Job’s problems. They try to figure out ways to fix Job’s problems. They try to explain WHY it all happened.
If you’ve ever been in a time of struggle or grief, you know these are the LAST things you want to hear. In fact, since the first time I preached this message a few years ago, I myself have ended up in the hospital having surgery in order to try to deal with cancer. And I was amazed at some of the things people said to me, trying to comfort ME… Sometimes it was even pastors… and I could tell they were trying to offer comfort, but were struggling to understand and trying to figure out something to say that would make sense.
I’m especially glad that the Bible doesn’t just tell us what was wrong… but also what was right. Look with me at verses 11, 12, and 13 of chapter 2, if you would.
11 When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 12 When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.
First of all, they CAME. When they heard their friend was in crisis, they came. He was in SO MUCH distress that they didn’t even recognize him at first. I know of some who are afraid of this part of being a friend to someone like Job because they can’t stand the sight of all the tubes or machines they might see at the hospital… or the grimace of pain on their friend’s face… and they simply want to be able to remember them the way they were…
But just being present is a ministry. It’s one of the promises that consoles us so much in the 23rd psalm… “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for THOU ART WITH ME…” We’re never promised that we won’t face the valleys of life or even get to avoid the pain of death… for us or our loved ones… but we ARE promised that even there, GOD IS WITH US!!! In fact, less than two months from now we’ll be celebrating Christmas, when we hear the Scriptures declare that Jesus is also known as IMMANUEL… which literally means God is with us. If we are friends to a Job, we can minister to them, just by being present like Job’s friends were.
Second of all, Job’s friends MOURNED… The Bible says they experienced the grief and the emotion and the pain that Job was going through. That’s something we can do when we have a Job in our lives… we can be real. That’s supposed to be the Christian thing to do anyways… We read in Romans 12:15 that we “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.”
When our friends are facing adversity, they don’t necessarily need our words, they need our empathy… If we are friends to a Job, we can minister to them, just by being real with our own emotions… But that doesn’t mean that we deal with our emotions by telling the one facing tragedy, disease, or suffering about all of our experiences… or Uncle Joe’s wife’s cousin’s second wife’s tragedy that made you so sad because it was “just like this!” When you start using the word “I” you’re no longer comforting… you’re essentially trying to ease your own discomfort by passing it off to the one you’re there to comfort. NOT very helpful. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of helpful. Deal with your own emotions BEFORE you arrive.
Third, Job’s three friends LISTENED. In fact, Scripture says they sat with Job in silence for seven days. And when they started having conversation, it was only because Job himself broke the silence.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have been hailed as a great counselor when all I really did was SHUT UP and listen! Of course, I was involved and talked and asked questions, but the greatest thing I did was be quiet and reflectively listen to the other person. And those are the times that have been healing and hopeful to one in need.
If we are friends to a Job, we can minister to them just by being silent and listening.
Ultimately, at the end of the book of Job, God restores Job to health and restores his status and finances… but Job comes through this period with a better understanding of God and who God is and what God is like… and Job comes out of this time “walking humbly before his God.”
And it’s not that God just gave everything back and took away all of Job’s griefs. His ten children are still DEAD. His original servants are still DEAD. His favorite horse or mule or camel is still DEAD. Yes, God brought a restoration, but not everything is the same.
When we, or those around us, come through a tough time, we too can look forward to a restoration… but it’ll never be the same as it was before. There’s a new reality in place. A new “normal.” And that is another of the griefs and pains Job has to adjust and adapt to.
You know, we, as friends, get to walk with our Job, and we can help minister and help grieve…
SO…
Here’s the question of the day…
WHO IS JOB IN YOUR LIFE & CAN YOU BEFRIEND THEM?
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