Small Group Questions:

1..Job’s friends start out helpful:

• They visit Job when the hear the news of his suffering.
• As Job mourns, tears his clothes and puts dust on his head… his friends do the same thing.
• They sit silent for 7 days allowing Job to mourn and simply be available for him.

When you know someone who is suffering, what do you do that is helpful?

2. We learned that simply having good theology (beliefs about God) is not enough:

• You can have good theology, but bad timing.
• You can have good theology, but a bad spirit.
• You can have good theology, but bad application of it.

Where have you seen this play out in your life? What examples can you give?

3. Job’s friends base their understanding of God on the Retribution principle (righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer), this leads them to 3 reasons why Job is suffering:

• All suffering is the result of someone’s sin
• If you just repent you won’t suffer
• The innocent don’t suffer / you get what you deserve

Which of these do you fall into when you think about or experience suffering?

How does it make you view God?

4. We learn that God operates on the redemptive principle (because of God’s character and grace he saved us, nothing with what we’ve done) not the retribution principle.

How does this make you relate to God in your suffering? Why do we often go back to the retribution principle and not the redemptive principle when we think about suffering and pain?

THE MAIN POINT

Not everyone has your best interests at heart, even when they think they do. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

THE BIBLE

Job 4:7-11

THE CONTEXT

Job’s friends usually get judged harshly but they do 3 things which are commendable and what you would expect from a good friend when you are suffering.

1. They visit Job when they hear the news of his suffering.

2. As Job mourns, his friends mourn quietly with him.

3. They sit silent for 7 days allowing Job to mourn and are simply available for him.

After this moment in Chapter 2, it goes downhill for his friends. They begin to speak, and what they share seems harsh and it’s guided by their principles and theology of how they see God and how they see the world. Between Ch 4 and Ch 37, there is a lot of conversation between Job and his friends which goes something like this:

Friend 1 says something inaccurate, Job responds.

Friend 2 says something misguided, Job responds.

Friend 3 says something harsh, Job responds defending himself.

And they go for round 1, then, 2, then 3 and there are about 30 chapters of conversation between Job and his friends. Job’s friends actually say some good things in the opening conversations:

“Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow. Will they not instruct you and tell you? Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?”

Job 8: 8-10

Job’s friends are saying let’s learn from the people who have gone before us, let’s learn from the wisdom of our elders. This is good and true advice.

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.”

Job 11:7-9

Job’s friends are saying we cannot fully understand God’s ways. He is too big. Too mysterious. This is good and true advice.

These statements by Job’s friends are true and good, but what we learn in the conversations following, is that they apply God’s truth incorrectly.

We learn that:

1. You can have good theology, but bad timing.

2. You can have good theology, but a bad spirit.

3. You can have good theology, but bad application of it.

Week 1 we introduced The Retribution Principle: “A common belief that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer.” This was the governing belief of the day, in how people thought about God, goodness, and suffering. The age-old question of ‘why do bad things happen to good people?’ Job’s friends were marked by the principle that if you are good, God will bless you, and if you are bad you will suffer.

There are 3 theological messages from Job’s friends that live inside us today. Even though this is one of the oldest books of the Bible we can still fall into the same trap as Job’s friends did.

THE CORE

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

Here are the three messages we hear from Job’s friends for why he is suffering, and we get told the same things today:

1. All suffering is the result of someone’s sin (chapter 4)

Sin is responsible for the suffering that we see in the world. When Adam & Eve were disobedient to God they sinned and launched suffering into the world. But to believe that all suffering you face is due to sin that you have committed is dangerous and wrong. Jesus rejects this theology in one sentence in John 9:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (v2-3)|

In this simple but profound response by Jesus we see that he rejects the notion that suffering is always caused by somebody’s sin. Does it happen sometimes? Of course it does. But the problem is, when we take this statement as absolute truth and it begins to sit deep inside of us, we end up using the excuse that all suffering is caused because of somebody’s sin. That if something bad happens, we can point the finger and blame someone. We get judgemental, we get harsh.

Not all suffering is directly correlated to someone’s sin

Here’s an example of how this plays out in our thinking:

– I failed that test, it must be because I didn’t pray hard enough

– My girlfriend broke up with me, it must be because I looked at porn

– My mom & dad split up, it must be because I have been bad

When we believe that ALL SUFFERING is caused because of SOMEONE’S SIN, we see God as a God who is ready to throw down the harmer. Ready to catch you in the act. Ready to punish you. We end up relating to God in a fear-based way and not a love-based way.

2. If you just repent you won’t suffer (Ch 7:5-6)

Because Job’s friends base their theology on the Retribution principle, some of their best and only advice is to tell Job to repent because he probably did something wrong to deserve his suffering. But we know from the opening chapter of Job that he was an upright man, in good standing with God who had not sinned in a way to deserve this suffering. The idea that repentance will get rid of our pain is a flawed formula because nothing can safeguard us from suffering. We live in a broken world full of sin and death and at some point in our lives we will experience suffering and repentance won’t keep us protected from experiencing it. Christianity doesn’t say that if you repent you won’t experience pain. In fact, Jesus says that if you “follow me, you will have pain.”

As humans we are always looking for formulas to help us:

“If you just _________ then you will get ________”

But what happens when you do something and you don’t get it?

When we end up believing these formulas we get angry and frustrated with God because he doesn’t hold up his end of the deal. We believe that our faith and the way we see God is transactional. God becomes our genie in a bottle, and when the genie doesn’t grant the wish we try and do everything we can to convince him.

We end up relating to God in a transactional-based way and not a love-based way.

3. The innocent don’t suffer / You get what you deserve

Job’s friends guided by the Retribution principle believe that innocent people don’t suffer. Job must have done something wrong, something that put him at fault, something that directed the blame towards him so that he would suffer.

This belief makes it seem as if God always rewards or punishes someone based on merit. Work hard and live right, all will go well. If you don’t work hard, and you sin, all will not go well for you.

What this belief does is it completely strips out the grace of God. What this belief doesn’t reckon with is there are larger forces of injustice in play in the world. When we end up believing this principle, we see God without his grace, without his love and without his mercy. All we see is his wrath. And we ignore that God is a God who loves justice and loves mercy, and we just see him as judge, jury and executioner.

But the simple response to this principle is look at Jesus.

• Jesus was perfectly innocent.
• Jesus had done nothing wrong.
• Jesus suffered deeply.

The reason why a lot of people in Jesus day could not fathom who he claimed to be was because of the retribution principle. They believe Jesus must have done something wrong to deserve the cross. But what we know, and what the Bible teaches us is that Jesus was not experiencing the retribution principle, he was enacting the Redemptive principle. That Jesus, as the perfectly innocent, spotless lamb of God, would take on the sin and suffering of the world not because of any merit we have but because of the grace and love of God towards us.

God’s grace is conditioned on his grace, not our merit.

When we understand that God operates out of a redemptive principle and not a retribution principle, we can come to him in our suffering and pain as the God who is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

THE APPLICATION

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

• You may want to close by reading Psalm 23 and let the students meditate on it. This is who God is for us. He is our good shepherd.