Wednesday Curriculum

WEDNESDAY CURRICULUM

THIS WEEK’S CONTENT

Shari Letts2021-04-15T11:10:16-06:00

2021-04-21- Job: How Job’s Friends Got It Wrong

SMALL GROUP MATERIAL

Inward Prayer

SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS

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?
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?
Job’s friends base their understanding of God on the Retribution principle (righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer), this leads them to 4 reasons why Job is suffering:

– All suffering is the result of someone’s sin
– If you just repent you won’t suffer
– People get what they deserve
– The innocent don’t sufferWhich of these do you fall into when you think about or experience suffering? How does it make you view God?
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?

Outward Prayer

MESSAGE NOTES

“How Job’s Friends got it Wrong”
Theology Gone Bad[Job 4-37]

WHAT’S THE POINT?

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.

WORD UP

Job 4:7-11

WAKE UP

Talk about last week’s message. Give a quick summary.

Helpful intro to talk:

Throughout the course of our lives, we will come across various messages that we believe to be true and consequently they shape how we see the world, our circumstances, God, and ourselves. It’s not that these statements or principles are not true, but often they are very short-sighted. Think about some of these:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” (This person obviously never went to Jr High.)
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” (Really? I’m not sure that is true every single time / think of an example.)
“Time heals all wounds.” (This may be the case for a lot of people but there are those who have been holding onto wounds for a very long time.

These principles or messages are not bad, they have elements of truth to them, but they are short-sighted and don’t speak to every story. This is what we will encounter in today’s message in the book of Job. We are going to highlight some of these principles and theological messages that are short-sighted and narrow, which must be rejected because they live inside of us. And if we don’t identify them they will negatively impact our relationship with God and make it difficult for us to process through suffering, pain, and grief in a healthy way.

READ Job 4:7-11 – This is the guiding principle of the conversations Job has with his friends.

WHY DO I CARE?

JOB’S FRIENDS

Job’s friends usually get judged harshly when we read the story of Job, but they do 3 things which are really good and commendable, and what any good friend should do when someone they know is suffering:

They visit Job when they 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 silently for 7 days allowing Job to mourn and simply be 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 its 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 basically goes something like this:

Friend 1 says something, Job responds.
Friend 2 says something, Job responds.
Friend 3 says something, 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.

Before we talk about the bad things Job’s friends said, they actually said some good things in the opening conversations:

– “Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.” Job 5:2
Resentment kills and envy slays: this is true and good advice.

– “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

All of these statements by Job’s friends are true and good, but what we learn in the conversations between Job and his friends, is that they apply God’s truth, or good wisdom, 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.

Insert your own biblical example here, Chris will use:

Think of it in this way, The Bible says to “rejoice always”, but if you come up to someone who has just lost a loved one and tell them to rejoice… you will be seen as harsh and ill-timed. The Bible says to forgive, which we spoke about a few weeks ago… but if you come up to someone who just found out that someone had betrayed them deeply and you immediately tell them, “you have got to forgive!”, it will come across as insensitive and ill-timed.

JOB’S FRIENDS BAD THEOLOGY

Week 1 we introduced The Retribution principle: “A common belief that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer.” This was the governing theology 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 beliefs, theology and advice is marked by this principle, that if you are good, God will bless you, and if you are bad you will suffer.

There are four theological messages of Job’s friends that live inside us today. Even though this is one of the oldest books of the Bible, thousands of years old, we today in 2021 can fall into the same trap as Job’s friends did. And when we do it makes it really difficult for us to understand suffering, grieve well, and trust God. So here they are:

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 of the 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.
For example- if somebody has an affair, their sin will cause much suffering.

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.

Example of how this plays out in our thinking:

– I failed that test, it must because I didn’t pray hard enough
– My girlfriend broke up with me, it must because I looked at porn
– My mum & dad split up, it must because I haven’t read my Bible in years

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. Like Bruce Almighty we see God as a God who just wants to smite us when we do wrong. 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, as we learned a couple weeks ago, 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 ________”
(fill in the blank) (fill in the blank)

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. You get what you deserve

We spoke about this in our ‘Things Jesus Never Said’ series a couple of weeks ago. And if you were here you would know that this statement is absolutely not true. But it’s what Job’s friends believe and often what we end up believing.

And this theological 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 your 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 that there are larger forces of injustice in play in the world.

Think of an area of injustice that this belief doesn’t reckon with.
Chris will talk about poverty:
The belief that if poor people only worked hard enough they would be successful, but often those in marginalized and underprivileged communities work exceptionally hard but have been dealt a bad hand. It is not because they deserved it but because they found themselves or were born into injustice.

When we end up believing this principle, we end up relating to 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.

4. The innocent don’t suffer

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.

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.

WHAT DO I DO?

How do you relate to God when you suffer?

Do you have principles or underlying theologies that you believe about God which are not actually true?

Have you believed that your suffering or other’s suffering is directly correlated with someone’s sin? Meaning that the way you relate to God is fear-based, waiting on him to punish you?

Have you believed that your suffering or the suffering of others is directly correlated with a formula? That you haven’t repented enough, or not had enough faith, or not been loving enough? Meaning that the way you relate to God as you suffer is transactional? You do something to try and persuade God to bypass suffering and pain in your life?

Or do you believe that God does not work the retribution principle? That actually sometimes bad things happen to good people which is exactly what happened with Jesus. Yet God chose the redemptive principle so that no matter what sin, hurt, pain you have committed… God because of his grace and love, not anything we have done, would make us clean, blameless and pure again through Jesus.

This means that at some point in our lives we all will suffer. It is the result of living in a broken world. But we have a God who we don’t have to relate to with fear or transaction, but who we can relate to with love as a God who gets it. He understands our suffering. He understands our pain. And promises to be with us in it.

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.