Choose Faith Over Suffering Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: December 29, 2009

Date Preached: January 03, 2010

Where Preached: Oak Park (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: A Series on Job

Sermon Title: Choosing FAITH over Suffering

Sermon Text: Job 2:9-10 [HCSB]

9 His wife said to him, "Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!" 10 "You speak as a foolish woman speaks," he told her. "Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?" Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

Introduction:

In this sermon, I am going to ask you to take a look at 3 things choosing faith WON’T do for someone who suffers, and THEN I want us to look at 3 things that choosing faith WILL do for those who are suffering: Before we get started let’s take a look at an overview of what we are going to look at this morning:

FIRST… I want us to understand that when we CHOOSE FAITH in the midst of our suffering it is NOT going to:

Take away the pain of the situation; the pain will still be there!

Stop our mind from asking all those difficult questions or others from asking questions, but finally when we choose faith in our suffering we need to realize that it is NOT going to:

Bring us to a logical reason for our suffering… in other words it won’t answer the ‘why me’ question!

Now as depressing as that MAY sound, I want us to also look at what CHOOSING FAITH in the midst of suffering will do for us:

The first and most important thing it does is that it reminds us that God is the One in control,

The second thing that choosing FAITH in our suffering is that it is a rare gift to God from us… which leads to the 3rd thing I see and that is that it…

Is going to bring you closer to God when you choose FAITH in the midst of your suffering!

Commentary on our passage of Scripture for the morning!

We know that Satan is our enemy and he tries to get us to fall into sin… to destroy our witness and our lives, but what I want to tell you this morning is THAT is not what is happening here in the book of Job.

Job was a faithful servant of God in all aspects…but Satan believed he was only obedient because God was blessing him so he asks God to allow him to take away those blessings and surely Job would curse God.

In our passage this morning we find Satan attempting to tear Job down thru his wife, and by the time we reach our passage Job had lost EVERYTHING that was considered by the world to be worth anything and in the eyes of the world he was DONE… finished… his life was over!

His wife simply was the voice of the rest of society around Job… Job had not only lost his worldly possessions but he had lost his health as well, as he was covered from head to toe with sores… it was a most disgusting sight.

Now you may not be sitting in ashes and you may not be covered with sores from head to foot, but have you ever been where Job was? Has the downturn in the economy ‘stole’ from your nest egg and now you don’t know how you are going to make it?

Has a disease or sickness caused you to believe that your life is OVER? Have you ever been to the point in life when you want to strike out at God because of what sickness or disease has done to you or a loved one?

I believe that we all have been there at one time or another, but one thing we have to remember is that God did not bring sickness or disease into this world, but it entered the world when humanity sinned against God and turned its back on God in the Garden.

Another aspect of this is seeing how God has dealt with his children throughout history when it comes to suffering. God has always been there for His children and has never left them… some may have thought God had abandoned them because of the severity of the storm in their lives… but in reality God was right there with them. Also, as difficult as it is to understand, we also know that God uses trial and suffering to mature and grow His children.

But even in the middle of all his suffering we find that Job doesn’t shake his fist at God but is humbled. It is NOT Job but his wife that is discouraged and troubled. I have found that when loved ones are suffering, there are many who get angry with God for ‘allowing’ this suffering, and they begin to make demands of God!