Friends - Sympathy To Empathy Series

We continue our study of Job, a man described as blameless, upright, feared God and shunned evil. We noted God allowed satan to test Job. But even after losing just about everything, including all his children, and was given a disease with painful sores from head to toe, Job humbled himself before God and actually worshiped and praised God, in spite of all the loss and pain! We read even after being attacked by Satan, “Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing and Job did not sin with anything he said!”

So far so good? Job was a godly man; likely more godly than you or me! But, let us remember that Job was human; we will note more of his humanity after 3 friends visit him as he dealt with a painful disease.

Please open your bibles to Job Chapter 2…. Read along with me Job 2:11-13…

What can we learn from this simple passage? Let us summarize what happened…

Look briefly back to V6-10: with me….

Job was dealing with uncurable painful sores from his toes to his head!

2 significant truths about Job we need to note:

a. He humbly dealt with his painful disease. We note that the sores were so bad, he tried to scrape them off with a piece of pottery. He sat among the ashes; i.e. the sores were so bad, he was scraping the junk off his skin at the dump! Job was in so much pain his wife told him to just “curse God and die”! But as God states for us at the end of v10….

b. Job did not sin in what he said!

V11-13: Three friends heard about all the troubles that came on Job! And so, in other words, these were good friends of Job who kept in touched enough to know the problems going on.

But not only did the friends acknowledged Job’s hardships… The friends met and agreed together to see Job, to sympathize and comfort him! Let us note that instead of the word sympathize, other English Translations of the Bible state “to mourn” with Job, which is actually a better translation from the Hebrew! And so, after learning about Job’s troubles….

a. The friends met, agreed, and planned to mourn (sympathize) and help Job!

And when these friends finally saw Job, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. What does it mean back them to tear one’s robe and sprinkle dust on their head? It meant they were truly mourning for Job in their sorrow and grief!

b. The friends truly mourned for Job with his afflictions!

Now, we noted that the friends planned on not only mourning for Job but also to comfort him, to try and help him somehow; but what do we note?

c. They saw how great Job’s suffering was and they really could not help him! And so, what did the friends do? The friends just sat on the ground with Job for seven days and seven nights without saying a word! Remember that Job sat among the ashes, humbly mourning in the garbage piles! The friends sat in the garbage with Job for a whole week! The friends placed themselves in the same situation as Job; this is defined as empathy!

d. The friends empathized with Job; placing themselves in the same situation!

These were good friends of Job who kept abreast of what was going on with Job, then they sympathized with Job, planned and took action, and since they could not really help Job, they empathized with Job!

What can we apply for our lives today from this passage?

Again, first of all…. Let us note that God allowed severe troubles on Job but yet he did not sin. How about us today?

1. God will allow troubles in our lives but yet as Christians, we have power not to sin! Let us memorize, understand, and put into action 1 Corinthians 10:13…. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

And I believe we should also memorize, understand, and put into action Philippians 4:4….. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!!! How does one rejoice in the Lord? We can only rejoice in the Lord if we have faith in the Gospel of the Lord! And so, the way to rejoice in the Lord is to always remember the Gospel of the Lord; to grasp the love of God for us! Another of remembering Christ always in our lives is to daily put on the Belt of Truth, who is Jesus Christ!