Small Group Questions:

1. Have you ever read the story of Job before? What in today’s talk was new to you or something you hadn’t thought of?

2. Why do you think the story of Job is in the Bible? What does it teach us about God and humanity?

3. “The difference between a spiritually healthy person and someone who is not healthy is the ability to recognize grief, sorrow, and sadness and lift it up to God, rather than suppressing it.” Where do you go when you grieve? Why do we so easily try to run away from it?

4. When we experience pain there are a few ways we respond:

• Stuff it
• Sooth it
• Transmit it to others
• Lift it to God

Share an example of how you have responded in any one of these ways.

5. “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground and worshipped. Job holds grief and God together. Job lost everything, how do you think he was able to still worship God in the chaos and pain? What can we learn from Job?

THE MAIN POINT

Suffering does not discriminate, how we respond impacts our reality.
It’s possible and necessary to hold grief and God together.

THE BIBLE

Job 1:1-12, John 16:33, Psalm 34:18

THE CONTEXT

We get surprised by suffering, something in our brains wants us to believe that pain is not common, it’s for someone else or for somewhere else, and when we experience it we are surprised that it would happen to us. Jesus promised us that in our broken world, we will have pain and we will have trouble. When it happens we often try to distance ourselves from the feelings of pain and grief, but the story of Job gives us a different perspective.

Biblical scholars have not come to a consensus about the author, date, or place where Job was written. It is written in an archaic and strange form of Hebrew which is unlike any other book in the Bible. It has more unique words than any other book of the Bible. Some have argued that the story of Job is a literal story, word-for-word, whereas others have argued it was simply written as an analogy to make a point. The fact is, we don’t know.

The one thing we do know, and all scholars agree on, is that the Book of Job is part of the Wisdom Literature of the Bible. Meaning that its purpose is to give us wisdom around a certain topic, the topic Job heavily leans on is suffering and grief.

God chose the Book of Job to be in the Bible for a reason. What this story suggests is that God wants us to take suffering seriously. Suffering does not discriminate but happens to everybody, and we are to address it properly with wisdom.

“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” – Augustine

THE CORE

As you prepare the core of the message using personal story and questions keep in mind these points:

1. SUFFERING DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE: What do we know about Job? He was blameless and upright, feared God, and shunned evil. He was married with 10 kids and very wealthy. We get this opening picture that Job was a great man. A man who loved God, loved his family and cared deeply for others. If there was an award for being the best person alive, Job would have been a strong candidate to win! By every worldly standard, Job was a good person, yet he still suffered.

2. SUFFERING COMES FROM MANY PLACES: We know that suffering can be caused by our own sin, or by someone else’s sin. We see in the story of Job that there is also a third way we can experience suffering: spiritual forces. In this opening chapter, we see a scene in the heavenly realms where Satan challenges God’s relationship with Job. Satan claims that the only reason Job loves God is because God blesses him.

In Job’s day much like today, there was a principle that guided people’s thinking: The principle being, that people like Job who were good and had a better relationship with God, were blessed more. This principle is called The Retribution principle.

“A common belief that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer.”

In Ch 1 & 2, God permits this principle to be tested. He allows Satan to take away Job’s possessions and his health. The core of this book is the nature of Job’s relationship to God. Does being a good person mean that God will bless you more and that you won’t suffer?

The age-old question of why do bad things happen to good people?!

3. WE ALL RESPOND TO SUFFERING: Whether we like it or not, we all will suffer and we all will respond to it. We may respond in a few ways: stuff it, soothe it, or transmit it to others, Or we can lift it to God. Stuffing, soothing, and transmitting all leads to more suffering. We become numb, addicted, or abusive. But when we lift our suffering to God, something amazing happens. Look at Job’s response to losing everything: “Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground and worshipped.” JOB LAMENTS! [def: to express one’s deep grief about] This is important because if we don’t have a theology (an understanding of God) that allows us to feel, to be sad, to be sorrowful to lament, then our humanity and spirituality are deeply compromised.

Even though Job was grieving he knew it was better to do that with God than without God. He worships in the midst of his pain. It’s possible and necessary to hold grief and God together.

THE APPLICATION

As you prepare the application, challenge and/or encouragement, keep in mind these points:

• Job gives himself permission to feel, to grieve, and to be sad, do you?
• “Watch what you reach for when you are in pain.” Aaron Stern
• The difference between a spiritually healthy person and someone who is not healthy is the ability to recognize grief, sorrow and sadness and lift it up to God, rather than suppressing it.