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You Must Have Done Something

September 27, 2026 44:13 Cross Church Surprise
Bible Group Guide Service Handout
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Transcript

· That bad theology often doesn't come from enemies.

· It often doesn't come from villains.

· It comes from our friends who mean well,

· but who say things that either aren't biblical

· or that are biblical-ish,

· but taken out of context and said in the wrong way.

· And often we have friends who love us, who mean well,

· and they hand you a verdict for your problems

· when what you needed was a chair to be pulled up alongside.

· So hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it

· and flip open to Job chapter four.

· Job chapter four, we're gonna continue on

· in our series through there.

· And as you're flipping there,

· we've been talking about suffering and pain and hardship.

· And we're in week three of talking about that.

· And don't worry, we only have nine more weeks

· after this Sunday, all right, sorry.

· But I want to read you, as we get started,

· some real sentences that get spoke to hurting people.

· People who are in the middle of the pain,

· in the middle of the struggle.

· Words that get spoken at funerals and in hospital rooms

· and even in church lobbies.

· And they mean well,

· but sometimes they don't land the right way.

· And I wanna have a little fun with this, all right?

· We're gonna play a game.

· We're gonna call it biblical or heretical, okay?

· And I'm gonna read out the statement,

· you give me your guess.

· Is it biblical or is it heretical, all right?

· You ready for this?

· Nah, I'm gonna wake you up soon.

· Here's the first one.

· Everything happens for a reason.

· Heretical, hey, Romans 8.28,

· we know that all things work together

· for the good of those who love God,

· who are called according to his purpose.

· Did that say everything happens for a reason?

· No, it says that God is working something

· in the woes he loves, but that he has a plan.

· Not just everything happens for a reason.

· All right, it's getting better, all right, here.

· I love this one.

· God needed another angel.

· What's your vote, biblical or heretical?

· All right, you guys are good Bible people, so.

· Acts 17.24, I love this.

· Neither is he served by human hands

· as though he needed anything.

· God didn't need anything,

· since he himself gives everyone life and breath

· in all things.

· There's two problems with that.

· That is one, we do not become angels when we die.

· Two, God does not need anything from you.

· This is a tough one.

· God won't give you more than you can handle.

· Second Corinthians 1.8.

· We were completely overwhelmed beyond our strength.

· This is like a dude who was writing the Bible

· inspired by the Holy Spirit.

· Paul, that wrote this.

· He said, so that we even,

· despaired of life itself indeed,

· we felt that we had received a sentence of death

· so that we would not trust in ourselves,

· but in God who raises the dead.

· It's like Job in the New Testament.

· And here's my favorite.

· This is the one that nobody usually says out loud,

· but they might imply by the little things they say

· over and over again when they look at you

· and they see the situation you're in,

· they see the hardship you've endured,

· they see the stuff that may be a result

· of some of your actions,

· and they say it nicely, but they're like,

· well, you must have done something.

· It's heretical.

· Job chapter 42 verse seven,

· which word's gonna be a few weeks before we get there,

· but God says to Job's friends,

· my anger burns against you and your two friends,

· for you have not spoken the truth about me

· as my servant Job has.

· You see, many of us have either have

· or known someone who has been burned by bad theology.

· And the thing is that bad theology

· often doesn't come from enemies.

· It often doesn't come from villains.

· It comes from our friends who mean well,

· but who say things that either aren't biblical

· or that are biblical-ish,

· but taken out of context and said in the wrong way.

· And often we have friends who love us,

· who mean well, and they hand you a verdict

· for your problems when what you needed

· was a chair to be pulled up alongside.

· If you've been with us in this series

· through the book of Job,

· we started in Job one and two,

· and we saw that Job was this guy who had everything,

· but all of a sudden, there's this thing

· he couldn't see, this invisible war waging

· where God and Satan were in heaven in the throne room

· having a wager that he knew nothing about.

· And in there, Satan's like, let me tempt this guy.

· Let me go after this guy.

· Let me take everything from him,

· and he will reject you.

· And God's like, go ahead.

· And throughout, as the story progresses,

· Job loses his wealth.

· He loses his family.

· He loses his health.

· Everything that Job had was taken away.

· Last week in Job chapter three,

· we saw some of the darkest passages in the Bible

· where Job cries out.

· Job anguishes about the pain he is in.

· And throughout all this in these first three chapters,

· here's the beauty of what we see

· is it never was about why it was about who.

· Job asks why, why, why, and he never gets an answer.

· He asks why, why, why, and he never gets clarity.

· But what he does get clarity on

· is the who, the God of the universe,

· was there all along.

· But here, as we progress in this story to chapter four,

· as Job has been sitting with his friends

· and they've been quiet and they've been silent

· and all of a sudden he thinks that things are going better,

· all of a sudden those friends start to open their mouth.

· And what comes out is a lot of the statements

· like we just read.

· And here is the suffering reality that we see

· that as we move into chapter four is the book of Job

· takes us from why to who as we saw,

· but everybody wants to answer why.

· And Job's friend, and the first one that comes forward

· is Eliphaz who talks in chapter four.

· He can't help himself, but to be like Job,

· I know why you're doing this.

· Job, I know why you're experiencing problems.

· Job, I know why your life is messed up

· and I'm going to give you the answer as to why.

· And if we're honest, all of us have either

· been in that situation of telling our friends

· why their world and their life is messed up

· or we've had other people do the same thing

· into our lives.

· And what we see in this passage and in this path

· that we are going to go down is we feel the need

· to explain people's pain because often an answer

· to their pain feels like control.

· Think about it this way is if you can explain

· someone else's pain, then you can give reason

· of either how to avoid that pain

· or when it comes for you how to get through it.

· So you use other people's lives like a test dummy.

· You're like, man, your life is jacked up.

· Let me give you advice on how to fix your life.

· I hope it works because then when it happens to me,

· I'm going to try that out.

· And if it doesn't work, that's all right.

· I'll have another friend who has other problems

· and I'll test drive on them as well.

· And Job's friends really this morning

· as they're getting into it, they are hoping

· that they can find the solution to the same pain

· that they know might come for their life one day.

· So this morning as we dive into our text,

· we're going to listen to two voices.

· First, Eliphaz and he's going to give us

· these simple answers that do not help.

· And then we're going to see Job

· who gives us these honest answers that need help

· but don't find the solution from his friends.

· And at the end of all this, we'll meet the only one

· who has ever answered suffering the right way.

· So let's start into this and first,

· starting with these simple answers that don't help.

· And here's the first one coming straight from Eliphaz

· is he gives Job as you are tired and you are transgressed.

· You are tired and you are transgressed.

· Job chapter four, starting in verse one,

· we're covering four chapters today.

· So I hope you're comfortable.

· One o'clock football games, don't even worry about those.

· You can watch them on replay.

· But four chapters, don't worry,

· I'm going to bounce around and talk a little fast.

· But we're starting chapter four.

· So looking at verse one, it says this,

· then Eliphaz the Temanite replied,

· should anyone try to speak with you when you're exhausted?

· How many people have asked this question

· to your spouse before?

· Yet who can keep from speaking?

· And then you said that second part, right?

· Indeed, you have instructed many

· and you have strengthened weak hands.

· Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling,

· embraced the knees that were buckling.

· But now that this has happened to you,

· you, Job, have become exhausted.

· It strikes you and you are dismayed.

· Isn't your piety, your confidence,

· and the integrity of your life your hope?

· Consider who has perished when he was innocent?

· Where have the honest been destroyed?

· In my experience, those who plow injustice

· and those who sow trouble reap the same.

· As we start this time with Job's friend, Eliphaz,

· who is the oldest, who is supposedly the wisest,

· if that's going to tell you

· how the rest of the speeches will go.

· But as he starts off,

· let's give him some credit at the beginning.

· In verse two, he acknowledges Job,

· he said, should anyone try to talk to you

· when you're exhausted?

· He acknowledges and as he looks at his friend Job,

· he's like, man, you are tired and I can see it.

· And why wouldn't Job be tired?

· He lost his family, his kids are gone,

· his wealth is gone, his health is miserable,

· he is in pain day and night,

· he has reason to be tired.

· He sees Job worn out and he calls it.

· And in verse three and four, he even compliments Job.

· He's like, Job, you've been strengthened,

· you throughout your life have strengthened so many people.

· Job, you've been the encourager,

· Job, you've been the best of us,

· Job, we love you and we have seen

· how you have pulled other people up.

· But he said, now it's come for you Job and you're tired.

· So far, this sounds great.

· This is a friend talking,

· but here's the problem is the compliment was a windup

· and he's about to throw the pitch.

· I watched the Diamondbacks throw a lot of pitches

· that led to 10 runs and losing yesterday, all right?

· I'm a little angry about it, the Phillies need to lose

· and the Diamondbacks need to win to make the playoffs,

· but that's a different story.

· But here's the windup and in verse seven,

· listen to just the gut punch of this verse,

· consider who has perished when he was innocent?

· Where have the honest been destroyed?

· These are rhetorical questions that Eliphaz is asking.

· In my experience, he says,

· those who plow injustice in so trouble reap the same.

· Eliphaz goes to one of the oldest theologies

· our world has ever seen.

· He's like, hey, in my experience,

· bro, you did something wrong and you're guilty for it.

· In my experience, good things happen to good people,

· bad things happen to bad people.

· Our world has a word for that.

· It is not a new word,

· but it is always a word that finds different trends

· in our culture, it is known.

· Does anyone know what that word is?

· Karma.

· Just yesterday, if you watched week one

· of college football, the big news of that week

· was Michigan should have lost to Eastern or Central

· or Western or Western,

· one of the Michigans that nobody knows exists, right?

· But Michigan should have lost,

· they got time added back on

· and they threw a Hail Mary and beat like a D2 school

· and stormed the field, it was super embarrassing, right?

· But all the nation outside of Michigan,

· the University of Michigan was like,

· they should have lost that game.

· Fast forward to yesterday, they played Iowa,

· there's two seconds on the clock,

· one play and what does Iowa do?

· They chuck a pass right in the corner,

· about 20 yards, the dude makes a toe tap,

· they walk off, they win the game

· and online people like, karma came for Michigan.

· That's how we see the world, right?

· Eventually that dude who cuts you off on the freeway,

· he'll get his.

· Eventually that person, right,

· you watch the little YouTube shorts

· where all of a sudden it's like,

· they call it the instant karma,

· they do something wrong,

· the guy robs a store and then he immediately

· fall trips on his face and gets arrested.

· It's like, we want to see justice happen.

· We love karma when it's aimed at somebody else's life

· and notice how then Eliphaz backs up his claim of karma,

· his theology here.

· He says, in my experience, with my eyeballs,

· under my perspective, and here's what's crazy,

· here's a fun homework assignment,

· read verses 12 through 16,

· he tells a story about being visited by a ghost.

· Mike, I think you lost some credibility here,

· Eliphaz, all right?

· He talks about a spirit glided past his face

· in the night, like he brings this spooky,

· like mysticism into his grief counseling session with Job.

· But church, here's the problem,

· and you already know it

· because you've read chapters one and two

· and Eliphaz hasn't and Job didn't know this

· but Job didn't do anything wrong.

· God himself called him blameless two different times.

· The only, the one case that Eliphaz is standing over

· is the one case that shatters under this formula.

· Now, to be fair to him, because this,

· when we look at this, this theology is built on stuff

· that is true-ish, right?

· If you sow gossip, you will eventually reap loneliness.

· If you sow laziness, you will reap being broke

· and poor in needing a job.

· But that does not mean that we take that

· and we apply it to every stage of our life.

· As the Bible says, a man reaps what he sows.

· Some suffering really is a harvest

· but he takes this general proverb

· and he wields it into an iron law

· that all suffering every time must be

· the harvest of their actions.

· In iron law of karma, here's the problem,

· it cannot explain how a blameless man

· can go through suffering.

· It cannot explain how an innocent man endures hardship.

· Centuries later in the New Testament,

· Jesus' own disciples are still running

· the same theology of Eliphaz.

· They see a blind guy and they tell Jesus,

· they're like, who sinned, his father or his mother?

· One of them had to mess up to make this guy blind.

· And what does Jesus respond?

· Neither.

· Instead, what they would show is God used that situation

· for his glory to turn people to him.

· But here's the thing is, Eliphaz is not done.

· You see, he gives this sentence down.

· He gives this theology that is twisted and is not right.

· He gives the diagnosis but bad diagnosis

· always leads to a bad prescription.

· Here's a second thing of this kind of helpless answers

· that he gives that do not move Jobalong

· is he tells him, you need to repent and be restored.

· You need to repent and be restored.

· Flip over to chapter five and down to verse eight.

· As he continues on in his speech,

· he's continued just to beat down Job.

· But in verse eight, he says this,

· however, if I were you, it's a good start,

· I would appeal to God and would present my case to him.

· Job chapter five, verse eight, he says four words

· that should almost be never be said to a suffering person.

· When someone is going through hardship,

· when someone is struggling,

· when someone's dealing with a death,

· when they're dealing with a job loss,

· when they're dealing with whatever it is,

· these four words do not help if I were you.

· You see what Eliphaz is saying?

· He's like, if I were you, in other words,

· I wouldn't be in your situation

· because I'm smarter than you.

· I'm better than you.

· I'm holier than you.

· But if I was, here's how I would get out of it.

· And then in verse 17, listen to how he expands on this.

· He really, he doubles down for he says,

· in chapter five, verse 17, he says,

· see how happy is the person whom God corrects.

· So do not reject the discipline of the Almighty.

· Verse 18, for he wounds, but he also bandages.

· He strikes, but his hands also heal.

· He will rescue you from six calamities

· and no harm will touch you in seven.

· Here's what makes Eliphaz so dangerous

· is what he says here is technically not a lie.

· Like what he's saying about God is true.

· That sentence could later sit in the book of Proverbs

· and would line up with so much of it.

· But even in the New Testament,

· Hebrews 12 says, God disciplines the one he loves.

· And Eliphaz's words are true,

· but they're true about a different situation entirely.

· You see, in this situation, this is not God's discipline.

· Earlier, we watched heaven say that Job was blameless.

· God was not hurting Job for all that was happening.

· Yesterday, or two days ago,

· I went and had to pick up a prescription

· for my two and a half year old daughter.

· And as I did that, as we go to fries

· and I saw in their pharmacy,

· and I feel for all those people,

· because there are just so many people

· trying to pick up prescriptions, right?

· And I'm like, I called to see if my prescription's ready

· as I'm coming, as I'm driving back

· and picking up the other kids from school.

· And I'm putting on hold and then I could tell

· they're busy and then the call somehow drops.

· So then I call back and I'm on hold,

· then I talk to someone and he's like,

· oh, that's gonna be ready in 20 minutes.

· And I'm like, well, sorry for you,

· I'm gonna show up in the drive-thru in five minutes.

· So I hope it's ready then.

· And then as I go to the drive-thru,

· I'm there and then the first time this ever happened,

· it says our drive-thru is closed because systems are down.

· I was like, oh.

· I was like, I gotta go inside.

· So I go inside and I pull my kids in

· and actually I know like four employees there

· so I got to say hi to them.

· And then I'm waiting in line

· and I'm just seeing all these people angry.

· And I'm slightly angry on the inside

· but I'm wearing a shirt that says

· let's make Jesus known together.

· So, I'm just smiling and enjoying the moment.

· All right?

· But as God like literally calms me down,

· be like, it's fine, whatever, wait.

· I'm looking at the pharmacy

· and I'm watching just this dance

· of how these techs and these pharmacists

· are working so hard precisely at a pristine pace

· but not recklessly.

· And here's why.

· Because that pharmacy is full of medicine

· but you give the wrong medicine

· to the wrong diagnosis and it's tragic.

· Chemo's a miracle drug for cancer

· but it's poison for a broken leg.

· And you see what Eliphaz is doing

· is it's like he's in a room full of pharmacy

· and of drugs and he's like, hey, Job, take this.

· Hey, Job, take that.

· Hey, Job, I know you're sick.

· I know you're hurting

· but just start taking stuff and see what works.

· But when you do that,

· you just see how none of it's helpful,

· how all of it's more hurtful in the long run

· and the problem is because this matters,

· it's most damage done to hurting people in God's name

· is not done with heresy.

· It is done with Bible verses

· that are prescribed for the wrong disease.

· When we don't know our Bibles,

· when we don't know the context of our Bibles

· and we don't know our people,

· in the context of their struggle,

· we start giving them a solution

· for something that isn't really their problem.

· And Eliphaz's prescription here starts to get cruel.

· Back in chapter five, verse four,

· he said the children of a fool

· are crushed at the city gates with no one to rescue them.

· Who do you think he's talking about?

· He's talking about the 10 kids that Job buried.

· He's talking to a father who had to go through this

· and his advice is Job, repent

· because we know why your kids died.

· Oh, we're all turning on Eliphaz real quick, aren't we?

· We're like, this bro, he has the audacity to say that

· and then listen how he wraps up his first speech

· in verses 27 of chapter five.

· He says, hey, we have investigated this.

· This is him and Job's other two friends

· and it is true, hear it and understand it for yourself.

· He's like, Job, the case is closed.

· Me and our other two friends

· that we're gonna get to hear in the coming weeks,

· he's like, Job, we've been watching you from a distance.

· We've seen your suffering.

· We've seen how much you hurt and it's unanimous.

· This is your fault.

· But here's what should chill you

· because where have we heard this math,

· this statement before that suffering means sin

· and blessing means obedience

· and the whole thing runs like a vending machine

· that when we are bad, God gives us bad stuff.

· When we are good, God gives us good stuff.

· It's the same accusation that Satan made

· in Job chapter one.

· Job asked God, Satan asked God, he said,

· does Job fear God for nothing?

· He's like, take away the blessings

· and he's gonna curse you.

· He's like, start to make him suffer

· and he's gonna hate his life

· and he's gonna reject you

· and what's hilarious and irony about all this

· is the church going friend named Eliphaz

· starts giving the same message as the devil himself.

· So we need to watch out

· for this vending machine type faith

· that good things lead to,

· that good acts lead to good things,

· that bad things lead to bad actions.

· A God you can operate

· is not a God you can worship

· and the whole reason that Job is on the ash heap

· is that heaven is proving a man can love God for God,

· not what God gives him.

· So that's the first voice in the story

· and now Job gets to answer

· and I wanna say before we actually read Job's words,

· props to Job by not punching his friend in the face.

· It's not in the scripture, maybe he did

· but I think I would've punched him, all right?

· Even if I was wearing my

· let's make Jesus known shirt together,

· I still would've punched him

· but Job sits back, he lets all that rain on him

· and then he leads into his section

· and I want us to look at two honest answers

· that need help, honest answers that need help

· of Job just crying out of his hardship and his distress

· and the first thing that Job says

· is that I'm weighed down in let down.

· Keep going in chapter six,

· Job continues on into his section,

· it says then Job answered and check out verse two,

· if only my grief could be weighed

· and if my devastation could be placed with it

· on the scales, he's saying see how much I've suffered.

· Verse three, for then it would outweigh

· the sand of the seas, that is why my words are rash.

· Surely the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me,

· my spirit drinks their poison,

· God's terrors are arrayed against me.

· As Job responds, the first words that come

· out of his mouth are about weight

· and he's saying, he's almost telling Eliphaz this,

· he's like Eliphaz, you're grading my grief

· like it's a term paper but he says first

· before you do that, why don't you actually weigh

· and take an account into what is it I am carrying?

· He's saying this grief that I'm carrying,

· he says it outweighs the sand of every ocean

· and he's like, well if you look at how much

· I am carrying, how hard my situation is,

· he says then tell me if my words are harsh.

· Verse four, he says the arrows of the Almighty

· have pierced him, his spirit drinks their poison,

· this is a man who is weighed down

· by the hardships of life and then he turns

· to his friends and this might be one

· of the most important verses in these four chapters,

· kinda like the anchor verse that kinda opens up

· and illuminates the heart of what Job

· is trying to get across, skip down

· to verse 14 of chapter six.

· In verse 14 of chapter six, Job as he is talking

· to his friends, he says this,

· a despairing man should receive loyalty

· from his friends even if he abandons the fear

· of the Almighty but my brothers are as treacherous

· as a wadi, as seasonal streams that overflow.

· If you're a highlighter, if you're a marker

· in your Bible or you know in there,

· verse 14, I would underline that verse

· because here's what Job is saying,

· when someone is in hardship, when they're in despair,

· when they're grieving, when they're hurting,

· the job of a friend is not accuracy, it's loyalty.

· And catch this, even if you have a friend

· who's going through a hardship and their faith

· starts to wane, they start to doubt,

· they start to question God, your instinct

· as a friend and a good Christian friend

· is not to be like, hey, let me correct

· your theology and your doctrine real quick

· before we go on, instead it's to be with them,

· to love them, to be loyal with them

· and first identify, I know you are hurting right now.

· And I think this is a word for us church

· that when somebody in your Bible group

· is in pain and their theology gets shaky,

· that's not your cue to correct and be like,

· let me tell you how you're wrong,

· verse note, here you go, you're messed up.

· Instead, that's your cue to hold on to them

· because here's the thing is we can always

· steady their doctrine later but we need

· to love them first and that's why

· this whole process here on earth,

· it's called sanctification because we're all

· messed up, we will continue to be messed up

· and we are slowly getting closer to God

· but we need to slowly chip off those rough edges.

· But instead, this is not how Job's friends operate,

· instead verse 15 is how Job describes his friends,

· he says, my brothers are as treacherous

· as a wadi as seasonal streams that overflow.

· Now, anyone know what a wadi is?

· Yeah, I didn't think so, all right,

· it's an ancient Hebrew word but as he's talking

· about wadi, here's what we would say

· in Arizona is this would be a wash.

· You notice when we get a lot of rain

· and we get kinda, and when we say a lot of rain,

· it's for five minutes and thunder's and lightning

· and fun story, our house lost power again

· for about four hours last week,

· I'm in a new build, I've lost power twice

· for over four hours in a month,

· APS, they're my next call that I'm gonna

· be on hold with, they won't see

· my let's make Jesus known shirt as I'm on the call.

· But when a storm comes, well what's awesome

· is it dumps so much water in those washes,

· like when you sometimes on Google Maps

· you go over a bridge and it shows

· there should be water there

· and then you look over and you're like, it's dry.

· Like the wash gets flooded during a huge storm

· but then very quickly it's dried out.

· And here's what Job is saying,

· a wadi would be filled during the wet season

· but in the dry season when there's a caravan

· going through the wadi and they actually need water,

· the dirt is bone dry.

· And what Job is saying about his friends,

· he's like, hey, when times were good,

· you guys were there for me but I didn't even need you.

· But when the times are bad and I needed you

· and I needed your love, I needed your support,

· I needed someone to cry to and be there for me,

· you guys weren't there.

· He said they were all dried up

· and check out where this leads him in verse 21

· of chapter six.

· He says, so this is what you have now become to me.

· When you see something dreadful, you are afraid.

· Job calls him out.

· He's saying, you look at my life and you're scared

· because if a blameless man like Job

· can land on an ash heap, can land in the suffering,

· can land in a hard place, then if karma is real,

· if that formula matches up, then they are in trouble

· because they're like, if bad things can happen to Job

· who's a pretty good man, what does this mean for us?

· If we can't find what actually caused this issue,

· how do we prevent it in our own life?

· You see, when we explain somebody's pain,

· oftentimes we are just like Eliphaz's situation,

· the other friends as we're usually not trying

· to protect them, we're actually protecting ourselves

· when we want to get to the root of why they're hurting.

· You see Job shows how he is weighed down,

· how he is let down, but here's the last thing

· we see from Job in chapter four.

· You see how we just covered four chapters?

· That was pretty impressive, right?

· Moved quick.

· This last one that Job just gives this honest answer

· for is he says, I am sleepless and hopeless.

· Chapter seven, looking at verse three, he continues on,

· he says, so I have been made to inherit months of futility

· and troubled nights have been assigned to me.

· When I lie down, I think, when will I get up?

· But the evening drags on endlessly

· and I toss and I turn until dawn.

· Just, I want you guys to note something here

· on a side note.

· This was written thousands of years ago

· and think of how it still applies to us today.

· How many times are our nights like this

· or our days like this?

· The poetic, just nature of this,

· but how it reaches to our heart today in the humanity

· is just crazy.

· Technology changes, but mankind does not.

· Verse five, my flesh is clothed with maggots

· and encrusted with dirt.

· My skin forms scabs and then oozes.

· We're seeing the physical pain of Job.

· My days pass more swiftly than a weaver's shuttle.

· They come to an end without hope.

· In chapter seven, we are taken into Job's nights

· and if you're kind of following

· a little bit of a timeline here,

· we said before this is Job's friends sat with him

· for seven days and seven nights

· before they started opening their mouth,

· but Job has said he's had months of these nights.

· So probably before they ever want to see him,

· before they approached him, before they went with him,

· Job was literally living in agony for months on end.

· And anybody who has suffered knows this,

· that the pain is usually the loudest

· in the middle of the night.

· At 3 a.m. when all of a sudden

· you can't put your mind off,

· you can't go back to sleep.

· You see, daylight are days that are so busy

· they have distractions,

· but at the night, it's just you and your brain.

· It's you when you look up staring at the ceiling,

· it's you grabbing your phone and scrolling nonsense.

· You cannot escape in the night

· and anyone who has laid awake with a broken heart

· or a wandering mind understands

· what Job is feeling in this moment.

· You know, one of the things that I have sleepless nights

· about is people talk to me,

· so I'm like, you know, what keeps you up at night?

· And here's the thing is, being a part of a church,

· people will come and go and relationships hurt.

· And they're like, does it keep you at night?

· Sometimes the people that leave a church,

· they maybe go to another church,

· and I'm like, no, that's great.

· Like, get people in church.

· Like, that does not bother me.

· I want them to be in a church and thriving.

· What keeps me awake at night

· is thinking about how many people in our city

· do not know Christ and one day may die

· and be separated from him for all of eternity.

· What keeps me up at night is in 27, 28, and 29,

· in the next three years in surprise,

· 60,000 people are gonna be moving to our city.

· And what keeps me up at night

· is will we have enough churches in our city

· to reach those people?

· What keeps me up at night is this thought,

· are we doing enough to make a kingdom impact

· for what God is doing?

· And for all of us, there are these things

· that when we are at night, just like Joe,

· they just shudder and they move and they go

· and all of a sudden we cannot get rest.

· But then Joe ups the ante and says,

· hey, the days aren't better.

· In verse six he says,

· my days pass more swiftly than a weaver's shuttle.

· They come to an end without hope.

· He has sleepless nights and hopeless days.

· You stay up all night,

· but then your day passes like this

· and you feel like you didn't accomplish

· anything you wanted during the day.

· And all of a sudden the cycle continues.

· But now watch what Job does with all of this

· in verse 11, chapter seven, verse 11.

· He says, therefore, I will not restrain my mouth.

· Like, have you been restrained before, Joe?

· I don't know, this guy's in.

· But he said, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.

· I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

· Here's a big shift in this passage

· as Job is not talking to Eliphaz

· and his friends any longer.

· Instead, for the rest of the chapter,

· Job starts talking straight to God.

· And one thing I think we can't miss in here

· is in these four chapters,

· Eliphaz talks about God constantly,

· but he never once prays to God on Job's behalf.

· But Job here says wild and raw and bleeding things

· and he says them straight to God's face.

· And at the end of this book,

· God will say which one spoke rightly

· and it is not Eliphaz, it is Job himself.

· And listen to how Job wraps this up

· in verses 20 and 21 of chapter seven.

· He says this, if I have sinned,

· what have I done to you, watcher of humanity?

· He's hearing all that Eliphaz has said

· about this karma nonsense.

· He's like, but I haven't done anything

· that warranted this, but he's now talking to God.

· God, if I did sin, what have I done?

· Why have you made me your target

· so that I become a burden to you?

· He's like, God, I wasn't a burden to you before,

· but now I'm complaining to you day and night.

· 21, why not forgive my sin and pardon my iniquity?

· For soon I will lie down in the grave

· and you will eagerly seek me, but I will be gone.

· Do you hear what Job is communicating in this?

· Underneath the complaints and the grieving

· and the struggle, Job is groping for something

· that his theology cannot give him

· and the theology of his friends cannot.

· Not an explanation, not a pardon.

· Job is asking for something that does not exist yet.

· He is asking for someone that would come

· and would remove something that he cannot remove himself.

· You fast forward to the New Testament

· and we look at another grieving situation

· in John chapter 11.

· And in John chapter 11, we're at a graveside

· and there's this man named Lazarus who is dead.

· And when Lazarus is dead, he is a friend of Jesus,

· but Jesus was a friend of the family.

· And when he dies, his sisters are a wreck.

· And Jesus walks up.

· Now think about who's standing there for a second.

· Jesus knows exactly why this whole situation happened.

· He knows that he's actually gonna raise Lazarus

· from the dead.

· And if anyone had the right to say,

· hey, everything happens for a reason,

· it was Jesus right here.

· He's like, cause I'm about to raise this guy

· from the dead and it's gonna be awesome

· and everyone's gonna lose their minds.

· He knew the reason, but listen to what he does.

· John chapter 11, verse 33.

· It says this, when Jesus saw her crying,

· he's talking about the sisters,

· and the Jews who had come with her crying,

· he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.

· Jesus knew why this was happening.

· Jesus knew he was gonna raise this guy from the dead.

· Jesus is God.

· But he is still sympathizing with them

· in a way that Job's friends never did.

· In verse 34, he says, hey, where have you put him?

· They said, hey, come and see.

· And in 35, the shortest verse in the entire Bible,

· it says, Jesus wept.

· He wept.

· The shortest verse in your Bible,

· and it might be one of the loudest verses

· in your Bible, is the one Jesus with all the answers,

· the God man who would raise this man from the dead

· when this grief was happening

· and these, his sisters and his family

· and his friends were a wreck.

· Jesus cried.

· He didn't hand Mary a verdict and be like,

· hey, this is why this is happening.

· And don't worry, it's gonna work out okay,

· just hold on.

· He instead, he entered into her grief

· and he wept in it.

· That's what a God who does,

· that's what our God does with suffering,

· is he doesn't shout explanations

· down from a safe distance.

· Instead, the Bible tells us that the word

· became flesh and dwelt among us.

· So here's how all this links into our chapters

· from Job and this enduring truth that we see today

· is real friends don't explain your pain.

· They don't explain your pain.

· They enter into it.

· They understand it.

· They know it.

· They're there with you.

· They're sitting next to you.

· They're walking through you with it.

· And here is the greatest hope we have of this

· because if we stop there,

· this is just a fun little grief counseling session

· and there is no hope.

· But here is the hope of the gospel

· that enters into that is Christ already has.

· Real friends don't just explain your grief away

· and say it's good, be with it,

· you're fine, figure it out.

· Instead, they enter into it.

· But the God man, Jesus Christ,

· has already done exactly that.

· You see, every simple answer keeps its distance

· just like Eliphaz does.

· Everything happens for a reason

· is something you say from across the room

· when you don't wanna get emotionally invested.

· But in Jesus, God refused the distance.

· In Jesus, he knew hunger.

· He knew betrayal.

· He knew sleepless nights face down in the garden.

· Joe begged for someone to enter into his suffering

· and in Christ, God did.

· Go back to Eliphaz's big question.

· He says, who has perished when he was innocent?

· Guys, who has perished when he was innocent?

· Jesus Christ did.

· Eliphaz thought that that question ended the argument.

· He said, nobody, Joe, the innocent man

· does not perish, does not die.

· Oh, Eliphaz, one day your question

· would get an answer in the New Testament

· for all of eternity and the answer has a name.

· It is Jesus Christ.

· One truly innocent man perished

· on purpose, not by accident.

· The blameless man took the ash heap.

· He took the arrows.

· He took the sleepless nights, the abandonment.

· He took the reaping for what we sowed.

· You see, karma.

· Karma says you get what you deserve.

· But the cross says that Jesus got what we deserve.

· And because Jesus took the price for our pain,

· because Jesus took the sins

· that have eternal weight and price on it,

· he paid it on the cross

· because he is greater than us and more powerful us.

· When he rose from the grave, he defeated that sin.

· So no longer this rule of karma goes on

· that good things happen to good people

· and bad things happen to good people,

· but that we are all bad.

· We are all sinners.

· We have all made mistakes.

· But in the greatest friend we can know in Jesus Christ,

· guys, he entered into our pain.

· He entered into our sin.

· He entered into our ash heap

· so that good things can happen to bad people

· like me and you.

· And one day we will experience a glorious thing

· in heaven for all of eternity

· as we get to spend our lives with God forever.

· Not because we are good,

· but because Jesus is great.

· So what do we do with this today?

· I think for us, first we need to see

· is if you have friends who are hurting,

· who are struggling,

· the answer is not to just give them a line.

· Everything happens for a reason.

· Peace out, man.

· Good luck.

· But it's to enter their pain,

· to pull up a chair

· before you pull up a solution to their problems.

· And maybe today that's not you,

· but you're going through the suffering.

· And my encouragement to you

· is that you don't just keep going like you are,

· but that you say yes to the God of the universe,

· the greatest friend in Jesus Christ you will ever know

· who has entered your pain,

· who has paid your price,

· and who changes your life for all of eternity.

· Church, let's not be Eliphaz this week,

· but let's go preach the gospel,

· the hope of Jesus Christ,

· to a world full of jopes

· who our experience are hurting they don't understand,

· but they can know a God who does understand it

· and who saves us from it.

Part of Series

Job

Job

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