Lesson 1: Learn to accept the reality of suffering (Job 1:1-5):

Pray

Reading: Job 1:1-5.

Meditation

As little children learn to talk, there are a few common phrases and words that they typically say. Among the most well known are: “Mummy”; “Daddy”; “No”; “I want…”; and on it goes. If you have boys, “Truck” or “car” seem pretty typical, and they usually make a valiant attempt at saying “dinosaur” pretty early on (I’m not quite sure what little girls say – I grew up with three brothers and I have four sons!). There is one other popular phrase that comes along pretty early on as well: “It’s not fair.” It’s amazing how quickly children develop a sense of justice, and if one of their siblings takes something belonging to them or perhaps gets something they want, those words tend to come out pretty regularly: “It’s not fair!”

We can see this in children easily enough, but I wonder if we as adults are not also guilty of this kind of thing too. It might not look the same, we don’t generally whine and complain by saying: “It’s not fair.” It will probably look more sophisticated than that, but essentially that is what’s going on. We respond to difficult things we don’t like in a way that communicates: that’s not fair. Maybe we complain, or criticise, or get moody, or argue. Sometimes it’s just that something comes up in our day, and the inner thought crosses our mind: “Great! This is the last thing I need.”

The Book of Job has a message for us in such times as this. “Yes”, God says, “This is exactly what you need.” There are reasons why God is letting your difficulty happen, and the Book of Job is custom designed to help us come to terms with this reality. As we scan through this book, we quickly see that most of it consists of dialogue between Job and his friends. We’ll get to that later, because the first thing we need to do is focus on Chapter 1. This chapter is a kind of a key to the whole book, and it sets out the context for everything else.

The first lesson that the Book of Job brings to us is that we must come to terms with the reality of Christian suffering. Suffering, in one sense, is a common human experience. We live in a fallen world, and we all share in the painful consequences of sin. However, there are some unique dimensions to suffering when it comes to the experience of a Christian. In particular, faith fundamentally changes the dynamic when it comes to suffering.

Scripture says that without faith it’s impossible to please God. When a person believes in and trusts in God, it changes everything about their lives, including how they view and experience suffering. For the unbeliever, every suffering is a foretaste of the coming judgment of their sins. For the believer, they are no longer under judgment, and suffering may be seen by faith to be – not judgment – but loving discipline, correction, or instruction. There may be other divine purposes behind our suffering as well.

The narrative of verses 1-5 in chapter one begin by showing us that Job was a model Christian. Of course Job lived in the days of the Old Covenant, and so – strictly speaking – he wasn’t a “Christian”. He was, however, very clearly a man of God and a man of faith. Our text takes great pains to make that point. Job wasn’t just an ordinary Christian, he was exemplary. In his day, he was the greatest, most mature, most godly man on the face of the planet. Imagine if this was God’s testimony about you? “There is no one like him on the earth.” God actually said that about Job! This is an incredibly godly man.

Be ye doers of the word...

Consider the superiority of Job. God invites Satan and the heavenly host to do just this. Consider Job in comparison to yourself. It’s so easy to form an opinion and judgment about the actions of God’s people recorded in scripture. Our summary of Job might be: “Job? Job got arrogant against God, and God put him in his place!” But consider this: if you lost all your wealth and family members in a day, would you kneel down and worship at the end of that day? Job did. One of the reasons why