Suffering , Patience , Job and You

A Study of Job –A Patient Man

Intro As we start to prepare for the fall season of celebration, a time when Christ was born, a time of Festivals in the desert

1. Why does God allow it?
2. Why doesn’t God if he exists intervene?
3. How can you rejoice in it?

Who was this man Job?

• • Job 1 :1-3

1. 1. Job was wealthy
   2. He was blessed by God
   3. Had the best of everything
   4. Position only most of us dream about

Satan’s Accusation Job 1 : 9-11

• • Said God was bribing Job to worship Him

1. 1. Due to Jobs great wealth & prosperity
   2. Was serving God for the benefits

• • great house
  • great family
  • great money
  • great food

1. 1. had to bribe Job to show Gods laws could be kept
   2. Job couldn’t do that without the bribe
   3. Satan said God was paying off Man
   4. Buying his alligence to God
   5. Enticing man with material possessions
   6. "Do this------Get that" sort of mentality

• • divine bribery!
  • Remove the benefits and Job will curse you to your face! Said Satan
  • Job 1:9
  • See it on TV today—sow a seed get a blessing
  • Takes away from God "he will have mercy on whom he wills"

1. 1. Satan suggested take away his stuff and Job will curse you.
   2. So 2 tests going on here

• • One for Job
  • One for God was he asking too much, did he know the end from the beginning and could He judge human motives

Jobs Trials

• • Job 1: 12-22 read

1. 1. Lost everything rapid succession one could not get done talking
   2. Had no more stuff
   3. Jobs response

• • 22: in all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly
  • do we do that when things go wrong
  • what about if we lose a job or income
  • was similar to the homeless we went to at Lake Eola
  • they had nothing, praised God for it

• • Satan was not convinced of Jobs worship to God

• • Felt Job was not for real
  • You ever feel like that
  • Feel like people are not genuine Job was
  • He worshipped God for who God is ie God

• • Job 2: 7-10

1. 1. Bad health
   2. Wife told him curse God and die
   3. Jobs response

• • Told his wife she was talking foolishly
  • Should we only receive the good and not the bad from God
  • 2:10 in all this Job did not sin with his lips
  • do we do that---why God Why?

• • Job 3-37

1. 1. All about Jobs friends
   2. False accusations said he sinned and God dealing with it
   3. Job lost respect as well

• • They said Job was a secret sinner
  • God was punishing him for those secret sins

1. 1. Job did not sin thru it all:

• • Job 19: 23-27

 

• • Job 42: 5-6

1. 1. Don’t question God

• • Series of questions from God Job had no answer to
  • We don’t always have the facts that God does

1. 1. Job saw his smallness compared to God

• • Job 42: 7-10

1. 1. Be ready to forgive those that accuse or hurt you
   2. Love your neighbor as yourself that’s what Jesus is talking about
   3. Gods final test to put Satan to shame

• • Job forgave his friends
  • He prayed for them
  • God restored Job

Jobs Lessons------why there is suffering!

• • Suffering and lack keep this world from being too attractive

1. 1. No one would want to leave
   2. No one would prepare for eternity too comfy here
   3. Bible says we are "pilgrims" sojourners" here

• • This is not really our home, no more than we are what we see in a mirror
  • 1 Pet 2:11
  • Heb 13:14

1. 1. God has something better for us

• • Heaven, paradise and work to do then

1. 1. It can bring out the best in us

• • During disasters
  • Financial help
  • Support of friends

1. 1. early Christians rejoiced in their trials

• • Rom 5:3-4
  • Knew this developed character

1. 1. can silence Gods enemies

• • Jobs friends
  • Foolish people those that say we’re only Christians for the good stuff
  • World may see us as hypocrites talking love but not showing love
  • We need to change that
  • World acts like Christ and don’t know it à the church is to be like Christ and don’t show it

1. 1. makes us appreciate what we have now

• • not take things for granted breath, seeing
  • good friends
  • family
  • Phil 1: 3-8 Paul was appreciative in suffering
  • Think on what you have , not on what you don’t have

1. 1. Suffering makes us more dependent on God

• • We think we are it self sufficient
  • My hospital stay when 7 yrs old doctors gave up my parents depended on God
  • Was it due to my sins, their sins or to show that God is God
  • Act 17:28 In Him we live and have our being
  •  

1. 1. Suffering purifies us

• • Makes us into who we become
  • Illust---An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them: "A fight is going on inside of me...it is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.
  • One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
  • The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
  • This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person."
    
  • They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
  • The old Cherokee simply replied... The one you feed."

• • What do you feed fact you have nothing or fact of what you do have

1. 1. Teaches us to pray

• • To turn to God
  • To worship God
  • To talk to God
  • Realize it is from God, thru God back to God
  • Rom 8:26 To pray ernestly, perserveringly with groanings which cannot be uttered
  • Do we forget how to pray when things get better?

 

 

 

Conclusion

• • How will it be with you?

• • Will you moan groan and curse God
  • Will you fail to see that Jesus came to heal the pain and suffering
  • He prepares a place for us, better than here and now and He will and is coming back to get us

• • A man found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn't seem to force its body past a certain point.
  • Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.
  • He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.

• • The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God's way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The "merciful" snip was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need

• • What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger
  • The struggle purifys us
  • Don’t let Satan think you only care about God in the "Good times" don’t lose your faith, be string in the grace or power God has given each of you to survive and perservere in this life as we get ready for the next.