Sermon Cloud

God Is Big Enough to Comfort My Suffering: There is a purpose in our pain.

(Outline: John Ortberg)

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord. Satan came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth going back and forth in it.” The Lord said to Satan, “If you consider my servant, Job, there’s no one on earth like him—blameless and upright, fears God, shuns evil.” “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household, everything he has? Blessed is the work of his hands so his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has and surely he will curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, everything he has is in your power but on the man himself do not lay a finger” (Job 1:6-12).

“A man will give all he has for his own life, but now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones and he will surely curse you to your face” (Job 2:5). The Lord gives Satan his consent, so long as Satan does not kill Job.

The root of reverence

“Does Job fear God for nothing?”

“…there is nothing behind the universe--nothing behind the force of life beyond the drive to survive.” Richard Dawkins

Mourning with those who mourn

“So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of the feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes”. (Job 2:7-8)

“Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)

“In all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” (Job 1:22)

“mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15)

“God gives, God takes away but the name of the Lord be praised.”

Whatever you are experiencing is what you have called on yourself by how you live. (from Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature)

“If only I knew where to find God. If only I could go to his dwelling. I would state my case before him. I would fill my mouth with arguments.” (Job 12:3-4)

“Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, and uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland, make the wasteland sprout with grass?” (Job 38:25-27)

“She flaps her wings joyfully like she thinks they are going to get her somewhere when they aren’t. She has a limited IQ, she lays eggs, she can’t even remember what she did with her babies, but when she runs,” the writer says, “oh my, the ostrich laughs at horse and rider.” Summary Job 39

God goes on to talk about how he delights in the wild ox that will never plough and the wild donkey that will never be tamed and the mountain goats who will give birth in the secret places where no man will ever see. And the Leviath that no one will ever eat. Nothing on earth is his equal.

The Creator loves “pizzazz”.

“My ears had heard about you…but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5)

"I am angry with you because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has." (Job 42:7)

He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yolk of oxen, 1,000 donkeys, he had seven sons, three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Kezjah, and the third Keren Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. (Job 42: 12-15)