How many of you have a trait of forgetfulness? Do you ever forget things like car keys, cell phones, pens, glasses, and T. V. remote controls?
The average adult loses an average of 4 things a month. It's amazing what we do to recover what we lose.
What do you do when you lose something that you feel can't be replaced? Jobs, marriages, purpose, and dreams?
Have you heard about a man who lost everything named Job? Your worse day and Job's worse day is miles apart.
Job 1:6-12 New Living Translation (NLT)
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.
Job eventually loses His camels, sheep, family, and health.
Did you notice whom volunteered Job for this test?
It was God.
Did you noticed why He was volunteered?
Job was pleasing to God.
1. When suffering hits us, we sometimes ask why?
It is the first question that we ask, but it's the hardest to answer. It's how the devil keeps us in the here and now.
Our life makes sense without pain, but pain happens unwelcomed and unannounced.
About Job, there is a heavenly conversation between Satan and God, but Job knew nothing of it.
Satan wants us to blame God in our pain, leave the Church, and get stuck in the moment.
Job's pain was a test. God gave permission, but God gave the parameters too. God didn't cause it, but He allowed it.
Job 17:9 (NLT)
9 The righteous keep moving forward,
and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.
and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.
God may allow bad things into our lives, but God can take bad things and use them for good (Romans 8:28).
The better question is not why, but God who are you when I am suffering? Is God still good? God gave Job the okay to ask such questions.
Sometimes life is messy, and we go through seasons of doubt. Tell God. I don't understand it, but I'm trusting you in it anyway.
Job 2:11-13 (NLT)
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.
2. We suffer from the words of others in our pain.
It's important not to avoid people in their pain. Job's friends were at their best when they kept their mouths shut. We might mean well, but they were mean when they spoke.
Job suffered with the silence of God, and suffered with the words from his friends. People say some of the dumbest things. People try to compare their pain to your pain. It just hurts. It minimizes another's pain.
Sometimes we seek comfort in people which only God can provide. God's Holy Spirit is call the Comforter. God is called the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3).
His friends said that Job's trouble was connected to his sin. Jesus's disciples did this too in John chapter 9 about a man born blind, and Jesus's refuted it.
Isn't it human nature to try to attach blame. Jesus told His disciples that the blind man's suffering was for the glory of God.
Isaiah 50:4 (NKJV)
4 “The Lord God has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.
God, please give us the tongue of the learned. Say to those in pain. I have no idea what you are going through.
What I lack in words. I just trust them to the Lord. Healing comes when you step into someone else's pain, and lift up their burden.
Some of you need to take doubt and negativity and kick it all out. Jesus did this in healing Jarius' daughter in Luke 8:54.
When you say what God says, it is living and active (Hebrews 4:12), so it is planted deep within you. God can teach you how to minister to others.
3. Transform your pain into praise.
Job 1:21 (NLT)
21 He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”
How could Job praise the Lord in His pain? Job was saying in the verse above that I'm a steward of all I had, and I'm not an owner of it. What God has given to us is still God's during our stewardship. We hold all that we have in open hands.
What is our response to what God has entrusted to us? It must be worship. The way I feel and the way I believe are not always the same.
We must believe in the character and nature of our God's goodness even in the darkness of our pain. Even when pain's noise barks into our ears.
Job 42:10 (NKJV)
10 And the Lord [a]restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Your ending can be better than your beginning. Job never lost his 10 kids. They were living in the presence of God. God doubled them by giving him 10 more kids on earth.
Can you reach a place in the middle of your suffering where you can say? I can't recover it, but God can redeem it.
Can you say in your suffering? "God, though you slay me, yet I will trust you!" When we walk through tragedy if we look into heaven,it changes us.
God Himself chose suffering for His Son, Jesus, when He placed the fate of the world upon Him.
Isaiah 53:5 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
You and I will never go, where our Lord and Savior hasn't already been. Jesus is here now and anything can happen.
Notes taken from Mike Haman, Healing Place Church, teaching on loss.
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