Introduction:

Suffering is a subject our society finds difficult to handle. Usually we avoid thinking about it, until it happens to us or someone we love, and then the bubble of our cosy lives is suddenly burst and we are caught unprepared.

The bible has a lot to say about suffering, indeed the central idea of the bible is the suffering of the Son of God for our sins. And God doesn’t want his people caught by surprise and falling prey to the evil one, when suffering comes our way. That’s why he gives us books like Job.

Job contains nearly forty chapters of misery! Misery, not just from Job’s terrible misfortunes, but from the endless nagging and bad advice of his friends. The story of Job is no doubt the source of the old saying, “with friends like that, who needs enemies!” Today’s sermon will concentrate our thoughts for the next twenty minutes or so on Job chapter 29. That chapter begins with the words, “Job continued his discourse.” And a miserable discourse it was that he resumes here. But let me start by reminding you of Job’s story and of his complaint to this point.

Job was rich, but godly. He prayed for his family every day, offering sacrifices to God on their behalf. In chapter one we learn how the devil wants to see if Job’s faith is just because God has blessed him with many things. God allows Satan to afflict Job, and Job loses his wealth, his children, and his health. But Job continues to be faithful, refusing to give up his integrity or his faith in God’s justice. Job never learns the reason for his suffering. Yet his faith continues, and at the end he learns a valuable lesson.

Job’s friends started out well, and with good intentions. But they really didn’t know how to handle the outpouring of Job’s grief, and Job’s accusations that God was afflicting him for no reason. They responded with an inadequate theology of suffering. Chapters 4 to 32 record their longwinded attempts to fit Job’s suffering into their theological framework. Their basic argument was: “Job, God blesses the righteous with life and health and wealth and strength. But he curses those who have sinned with illness, poverty, and weakness. You have been cursed this way. Therefore you must be guilty of some great sin that you have not confessed. The solution is simple - own up to it, and God will bless you again.” It was all nice and neat, and theologically orthodox. But it was wrong.

Let me assure you, this way of thinking has not died out. There are many theologies like this even today, both Christian and non-Christian, ranging from the prosperity gospel to the karma of TV shows like my name is Earl. Now it is true that all suffering is the result of sin – but it is Adam’s sin, the sin that ejected the human race from the garden of Eden where there was no suffering or sickness or death. In a general sense, suffering is caused by human sin, but we cannot be more specific than that. There is no simple link between individual suffering and individual sinful acts. Job’s friends were wrong.

But Job’s theology was also inadequate. He used the same paradigm as his friends, in reverse. He too thought that good people get rewarded and bad people get bad fortune. That was why he kept asking ‘why?’ That was why in the end he comes pretty close to charging God with wrongdoing.  God you’re not playing according to the rules. I know I haven’t sinned. I have acted righteously, and I’ve offered up sacrifices for any sins I may have done. There is no deceit in me, no unconfessed sin. God you’re not playing fair!

I think it usually takes personal experience of suffering to make someone realise the true horror of suffering and evil in this world. It is an experiential, not an academic problem. If you opened a newspaper or watched TV this week, you will have come to know about the most horrific murders, tragedies, and vile acts. We hear of dreadful diseases, children starving, people divorcing, property stolen, people in pain. A person may happily live for years hearing news reports like these. Those things trouble us, but we can keep them at an arm’s length. Yet in a moment, when it is their husband who runs off with another woman, their wife with motor neuron disease, their home that is burgled, their parents who die early, their own body racked with osteoporosis, their own pain, their own suffering, suddenly they realise, as if for the first time, that life is not fair. That God is not fair.

This change of fortune can come suddenly, as in the case of Job. But sometimes it’s something that just creeps up on us gradually. Sometimes it can be caused simply by growing older. Look at how Job continues his complaints in this chapter. He starts with:

“How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me...”

He is looking back with fondness to the good times before the present distress. And he speaks of the days when he was in his prime, with his children surrounding him. Old age can have the same effect as this series of disasters had for Job. Perhaps some of you feel this way right now. That the best is past. That you are way past your prime in life. That your children have all gone away. That there is no longer anything to look forward to or live for. It’s a very real problem, particularly in our society which doesn’t honour old age in the same way that Job’s did.

Now there is nothing wrong with sorrowing at a loss of health and strength and vitality. It’s not as though we should do mental gymnastics and pretend that physically and mentally we are better off than we were and there’s nothing to worry about. The message of the book of Job is not “grin and bear it,” “keep the stiff upper lip,” or “don’t worry, be happy.” The bible acknowledges the reality of our suffering, and its real effect on us. But, do you notice the mistaken assumption Job makes here? He goes on to put two and two together and get five. “How I long for the months gone by, for the days WHEN GOD WATCHED OVER ME...” Our natural tendency is to think that God was watching over us when things were going well, but that when disaster strikes he has somehow blinked or is busy looking elsewhere. Job shows by his attitude in these verses that deep down his theology of suffering is not so different from that of his friends. He feels that God is no longer watching over him because of what has happened to him.

But Job’s lament is not just for the loss of physical comfort and possessions and family. It is also spiritual. The more serious underlying anguish comes from a belief that he has lost God’s friendship. He says that he misses, not just the olive oil and the cream, not just the physical blessings, but he longs to have back those times in verse 3, “when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness!” Or verse 4, “when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house...” Or verse 5, “when the Almighty was still with me...” Job sees his fundamental problem as a spiritual loss, not merely a physical or emotional one. He fears that he has lost God’s friendship.

Now the book of Job has its own satisfactory solution, when Job meets God face to face and that is enough for him, even though he never learns the reason for his suffering. But I want to turn to the New Testament for a further perspective on this. Because there we find most clearly the kind of attitude and belief that can counter the false assumptions Job made about the relationship between his suffering and God’s friendship. There we find that when we suffer, it does not mean that God has left us, any more than the lack of suffering means that he is with us.

First, look at the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 2. He says “God ...works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” That purpose is not determined by, or influenced by, the things that happen to you. Elsewhere, in Romans 8, Paul reminds us that God works for our good in all things, both good things and bad things, that happen to us. God’s good purpose for us he can include bad things happening to us. And for this reason, Paul is able to command the Philippian church, “ Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.” Job is an example to us of faith in the face of suffering, but he is not an example to us in this way. Because Job misunderstood what his suffering meant. He lost sight of the truth that God works in us to will and to act according to his good purposes for us. He did not understand that his suffering did not mean God had withdrawn his friendship from him. Indeed the New Testament assures us that if anything God is even closer to us in times of suffering.

It’s also a matter of direction. Job was only looking backwards and desiring to return to the past. But in Christ, we look towards our glorious future. And we know that our suffering is the path we take to get there. Our final state will be, like Job’s at the end of this book, far better than we could ever have imagined. And even if we lose everything, like Job did, we will get it all back in the end. Contrast the attitude of the apostle, who is languishing in prison, with that of Job. Paul says to the Philippians, and to Timothy, that he is looking forward to his life being poured out as an offering of thanksgiving and praise to God. He is not a masochist. He is not looking forward to the pain of death, but he knows that all of his life, including his suffering and death, is something God can use to his praise and glory. He says in 2 Timothy 4 “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

When Paul looks back he is able to say that God has used his life, and he has no regrets. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sin and make mistakes. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have done some things differently if he could have his time over again. But he doesn’t wish for those times again, looking nostalgically back and complaining that they are gone. Instead he realises that the only thing that matters is that he has come to the end of his life with his faith still intact. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Even if you make it to the finish line with a failed marriage, or a life of missed opportunities, suffering, sickness and faults, the main thing is that you make it. Paul is not looking back, he is looking forward and looking upwards. That’s why he says elsewhere, I push on, towards the goal of the upward calling of Christ Jesus.

The final perspective of the New Testament on our suffering and loss in this life that I want us to think about is that there is only one kind of looking back that is helpful. Because without this looking back, we cannot look forward in the way the apostles do, to the crown of life. Instead of looking back and going over our own failures and our own lost successes, instead of lamenting that we no longer have our health or vitality or relationships or possessions, we need to take our eyes off our own life and look at the suffering and loss of the Son of God for us. He suffered the loss of all things for our sake. His suffering was such that even Job could not have comprehended its depth, as he took upon himself the sins of the whole world.

Faith will not necessarily ease your pain or mental and emotional anguish. But the suffering of the Son of God for us means not only that he knows and understands and sympathises with us in whatever we may go through, but also that our suffering cannot separate us from God’s love. If God the Son was willing to do this for us, then we know that he has taken the punishment of separation from God the Father than our sins deserve, and that when we experience suffering in this life, it cannot mean that God has removed his friendship from us, if we are in Christ. We ought not to say with Job that God is no longer our intimate friend or that he no longer watches over us because bad things are happening to us. Rather we say with the perspective of the New Testament that God is with us, even in our suffering.

You may be pining for the past. For missed opportunities, for health that is gone, for relationships that are no more. But God has not left you. You may feel that you are past your spiritual prime. That you no longer have the intimate relationship with God that you once did. But you do not need to look back to the past for that, except to look back to the cross. That is the place to rekindle your spiritual flame. God is not in your past. He has not ceased to be with you. He is in your present and your future, no matter what you may be going through right now. For what can separate us from his love? No one and nothing. Listen to those wonderful words again as I read them. The Apostle says “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”