What can you do to a friend who is suffering?
• Support him. 2 Cor 1:3-4 “… the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
• All of us can be used by God to be a comfort and support to someone who is suffering.
We are going to learn from Job’s friends today, how they came to comfort Job in his suffering, and learn the things they did right, and the things they did wrong.
• Let’s turn to the book of Job. Job lost everything in one day – you can read it in Job 1:13-19.
• Job lost all his livestock – the oxen, the donkeys, the sheep, and the camels - and all his servants too, except the four remaining ones who escaped to tell him the bad news.
• He lost all his children on the same day – 7 sons and 3 daughters – when the roof collapsed on them when they were partying at the oldest brother’s house.
On another day, Job was inflicted with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head (2:7)
• Despite all of these sufferings, 1:22 says “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing” and 2:10c “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”
• His 3 friends heard of his troubles and came to see him – let’s read Job 2:11-13.
Those first seven days were the most precious moments.
• The friends “met together by agreement” – they came on purpose to comfort him.
• They wept and mourn with him, for 7 days without a word.
• Your presence matters. Your presence comforts. Our quiet presence with a friend who is suffering does make a difference.
Paul shared with Timothy in 2 Tim 4:16-17 “At my first defence, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength…”
• When someone that we know is going through a rough patch in their lives, it is good to be physically present so that they have someone to lean on or to talk to, even if we don’t really have anything to say.
• What is important is to be present and to provide a listening ear, to allow the one who is suffering a chance to pour out their grief to someone who cares to listen.
When I was young, I felt a little uptight when I visit people in the hospitals, nursing homes, or funeral wakes — anything that required me to get close to people who are sufferings. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. But we don’t really need to. You don’t need to say anything. It is important just to visit, just to be there. Your presence is already a comfort and an encouragement.
Chapter 3 tells us Job speaks. The friends provided listening ears to a man in grief and pain.
• If they had remained that way, it would be nice. Job would have felt their compassion and support.
Unfortunately, once Job started to share about his troubles, the friends felt the need to respond. They felt they needed to say something.
• This was unfortunate. Job was not expecting them to fix the problem or give answers to the sufferings.
• The friends jumped to their own conclusions and made wrong assumptions. They shared their take on the reasons for all that has happened.
At best, their views can only be good guesses because God has not spoken. At its worst, these views revealed their self-righteous judgement of an innocent friend.
• Throughout the long discourse, you noticed, God was exceptionally silent. Not until chapter 38 did He speak.
• I think He did that to show us the folly of man’s so-called wisdom. We don’t know everything, so don’t presume we know and don’t be too quick to judge.
These 3 friends presumed they know the answers, from their observations and limited understanding. They were overly confident and inwardly self-righteous.
• They judged Job and blamed him for the misfortune. Job must have sinned and God is punishing him right now.
• They wrongly assumed that Job’s suffering was the result of his sin, and they began to give him a lengthy lecture about repentance.
You noticed the author deliberately highlighted the only evidence we have – right at the beginning of his book, he stated clearly that Job “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1), and in his revelation of what God said, twice he stated - Job 1:8 God spoke to Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” And again in Job 2:3.
• You can sense the writer’s desire to set the record straight that this suffering has nothing to do with Job’s sinning.
• But sadly the friends were ignorant. The Lord says, “No one on earth is like Job” which means not even these friends equalled Job in his righteousness and upright behaviour – and yet they were judging him.
Suffering can come as a result of our sin, but not all suffering comes as a result of sin.
• The flip side of the coin is to presume that those who are living according to God’s ways will never suffer. The righteous person is not immune from sufferings.
• Both are rooted in a wrong assumption; it’s just the two sides of the same mistake.
Suffering can come as a result of the mistakes of man, the attacks of the evil one, or the testing of God.
• James 1 says trials are for the testing of our faith.
• 1 Peter 1:6-7 “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
The simple answer to all of these is this - we just do not know. We do not know why some things happen, only God does.
• Therefore the best support we can give to a friend who is hurting is not to give our opinions, to judge or to preach. We tend to speak presumptuously.
• James 1:19 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak…” Listen and allow your suffering friend to off-load his burdens and grief.
• Our quiet presence serves a better good than a wrong word.
You know what Job said to his friends? Job 6:14-21
• They were undependable. When he needed them most, they did not give him what he needed most.
What can we learn from this about giving our friends the SUPPORT they need?
(1) Your PRESENCE Matters. Stay with them through it all.
(2) Be Quick to LISTEN. Don’t presume to know.
We tend to reason quickly with our head why some things happened, but reasoning doesn’t help. When someone is suffering, his struggle is with the heart.
We do not know what God is doing in someone else’s life. Even if the person made a bad choice and suffers, our job is not to keep pointing that out to him but to help him find healing and restoration. Our job is to comfort and encourage. This is how we really show God’s love – by supporting them in the recovery process.
(3) Be POSITIVE. Relate the Promises of God.
It is not about “this is what I think” but “this is what God said”.
• Tell them the promises of God. The Word of God will give them the strength and hope they will need.
When I finished my preparation of this sermon two days ago, I came to realise that this is JESUS – that’s Jesus in the Gospel.
• He spend time with people, he gets close to them and touches them. He eats with them and listens to them. He hears the pleas of those who cry out to Him. He shares with them the truth, so that they can be set free.
• This is the role we are called to play today. We’re playing the role that Jesus played – giving comfort and hope, and by the grace of God, walking with them back to health.
• Let us give our friends the support they need, when they needed us most.
