1. "Pain may be the sensation of weakness living in the body."

2. "It's very vulnerable to admit what disappoints you because then all of a sudden you're admitting these are things that are limits to your own power, your own control."

3. "Our part is not to run away from the pains, but to walk through the briars and thorns and let Christ teach us how to turn each scratch into positive learning about the depths of God's love."

4. "The one you love the most will be the one you fear in the sense of regard the most, desire to please the most. And the one you fear the most will be the one you love the most."

5. "God used Job's pain to expose the truth of his heart to himself and to others around."

6. "There is inherent in the human conscience and our being made in the image of God an awareness that to take our own life is an act above our pay grade."

7. "How often have what appear and what are to us trials—how often, in fact, have they been part of God's provision for us and protection of us?"

8. "Job was being taught the difference between saying that there is no reason and I don't see the reason right now."

9. "How we bear our trials gives testimony to why we bear them, and to our trust in God and His purposes."

10. "To win those who are breaking our hearts, we must strive to enjoy the Great Heart Sustainer more than ever."

Observation Questions

1. In Job 3:20-21, what two groups of people does Job describe as those who "long for death" and "dig for it more than for hidden treasures"?

2. According to Job 3:23, what two conditions does Job say characterize the man to whom light is given—what is hidden and what has God done to him?

3. In Job 3:24, what does Job say comes "instead of" his bread, and what are his groanings compared to?

4. What specific things does Job say he lacks in verse 26, and what does he say "comes" instead?

5. Looking back at Job 3:25, what does Job say has happened to him regarding "the thing that I feared" and "what I dread"?

6. In Job 1:4-5, what did Job do continually for his children, and what reason did he give for doing this?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Job's questioning in verses 20-23 assumes God is the giver of both life and the circumstances of life? What does this reveal about Job's understanding of God even in his suffering?

2. The sermon points out that in Job 1:10, God had "hedged in" Job protectively, but in Job 3:23, Job uses the same language to describe feeling trapped. How does this irony help us understand the difference between God's perspective and our experience during trials?

3. According to the sermon, how does Job's experience begin to build a biblical category for suffering that is not caused by the sufferer's specific sin? Why is this category important for understanding Christ's suffering?

4. Job describes fearing certain things (like harm to his children) while also fearing the Lord supremely. How does the sermon distinguish between having ultimate fear of God and having appropriate secondary fears, and why does this distinction matter?

5. How does the sermon connect Job's statement that "what I dreaded befalls me" (v. 25) with God's purpose of revealing the true loyalties of Job's heart? What was being tested through Job's suffering?

Application Questions

1. The sermon suggests that how we bear our trials gives testimony to why we bear them. Think of a current difficulty in your life—what would it look like this week to bear it in a way that demonstrates trust in God's purposes rather than resentment or despair?

2. Job was vulnerable enough to admit his disappointments and fears openly. What fears or disappointments are you tempted to hide from others in your church community, and what is one step you could take toward honest, accountable relationships this week?

3. The sermon emphasizes that we need long-term relationships in a local church to help us discern if the Lord is our governing fear. How are you currently investing in relationships that can speak honestly to you about patterns they see in your life? What might need to change?

4. Consider the distinction between "there is no reason" and "I don't see the reason right now." When you face circumstances that don't make sense, what practical habits of prayer or Scripture reading could help you trust God's character even when you cannot see His purposes?

5. The sermon challenges us to consider whether anything rivals God in our ultimate affections and fears. What person, possession, or outcome are you most tempted to fear losing? How might you practically entrust that to God this week through specific prayer or action?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Job 1:1-22 — This passage provides essential context for Job's suffering, showing that God had protected Job and that his trials came through Satan's challenge to test whether Job feared God for God's own sake.

2. John 9:1-7 — Jesus teaches that suffering is not always the result of specific sin but can exist so that God's works might be displayed, reinforcing the sermon's point about innocent suffering.

3. Romans 8:28-39 — Paul explains how God works all things for good for those who love Him and assures believers that nothing can separate them from God's love, connecting to the sermon's theme of trusting God's sovereignty in suffering.

4. Psalm 103:1-14 — This psalm, quoted in the sermon, celebrates God's mercy and compassion, reminding us that He does not deal with us according to our sins but with steadfast love.

5. Philippians 1:19-26 — Paul describes his own tension between longing to depart and be with Christ and remaining for the sake of others, illustrating a godly perspective on death that contrasts with despairing longing for death.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: A Humorous Illustration of Our Innate Sense That Pain Is Wrong

II. Job's Trouble Teaches Us About Pain (Job 3:24-26)

III. Job's Trouble Results in Job's Longing for Death (Job 3:21-22)

IV. Job's Trouble Teaches Us About God (Job 3:20, 23)

V. Job's Trouble Introduces the Central Topic of Sin (Job 3:20)

VI. Conclusion: Christ's Suffering and Our Call to Follow Him Through Suffering to Glory

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Sir, I had thought the terms of our agreement were quite clear.

You were to provide me length of days, model children by a wife, support for the same, keep far away all disaster, man-made or act of your own, and to death, If not quite painless, at least sudden without humiliation. I in turn would confess you, Creator of all things seen and unseen, offering customary praise and adoration. Regarding line four above, your performance has been marginal at best. And I have now confirmation from two physicians of what I must deem willful disregard as to length of days and dying. I therefore recognize no further obligations whatsoever to provide the aforesaid praise, et cetera, or indeed to acknowledge your existence.

Any further communication should be directed to my counsel who assures me that he knows you from of old.

That's how one retired civil servant humorously summarized our innate sense that pain is wrong and that there is someone who can do something about it.

Pain is what we've thought of in the last couple of sermons in Job chapter 3. And we would like to conclude our consideration of that chapter this morning. Our text is Job chapter 3. It's that last section, verses 20 to 26. Let me invite you to go ahead and turn there.

You should find it on page 418 in the Bibles provided, page 418. If you don't have a Bible at home that you can read, feel free and take this copy of the Bible home with you to keep as your very own and use and read it yourself.

As you're turning there, let me remind you of the situation. In chapters 1 and 2 we find an account of this ancient man Job. The book begins, There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. But then chapters 1 and 2 are filled with tragedy in this man's life. He had his flocks and their tending shepherds suddenly burned to death.

There was no insurance to claim for such things. He was, at a stroke, impoverished.

Then the more devastating tragedy occurred. His servants and camels and even His children were suddenly killed.

Finally in chapter 2, Job's own health is taken from him. In chapter 2 verse 9 we read, Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. '

Job responds with a statement and then sits in broken, silent mourning for hours, for days.

Some three friends come to mourn with him and they joined him in this silent mourning for a week, just sitting with him, saying nothing. And then he's the one who ends the silence. He opens up his mouth.

Here in chapter 3, and this is what we've been looking at, that we've been considering this in the two messages before this. And today we come to these final verses in chapter 3, and so I want us to consider what Job's trouble, as he called it in the last verse of the chapter, what his trouble teaches us about pain, about death, about God, and about sin, about pain, about death, about God, and about sin.

Look at that section in Job 3.

In a broken, fallen world like ours, pain has a place.

Pain can be remembered. Pain can be anticipated.

And many days, pain is simply present. That's the way it is for Job here in these verses. Job asks some universal questions because of it and then concludes with his own experience. Listen now to Job chapter 3 beginning at verse 20.

Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not? And dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave. Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.

For the thing that I feared comes upon me. What I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet. I have no rest.

But trouble comes.

Friends, I pray now that God will teach us from His Word about pain, about death, about Himself, and about sin. Let's begin with the end of our chapter, Job's trouble here teaching us about pain. Job's pain was his fear. Realize what I dread comes upon me. Look again at those last three verses.

As He describes the experience. For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. So you see bread and water, normally the basic sustaining meal, instead of that, what does He have? He has nothing that He takes in, but rather He has sighings, that come out from him, groanings that he gives out. He takes in no nutrition, instead he's simply exhausting himself.

For the thing that I feared comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I'm not at ease, nor am I quiet. I have no rest, but trouble comes. So in the first half of our passage, 20 to 23, Job asks questions that his sufferings have provoked, and we'll get to those in just a minute. But first, consider his own experience of such undeserved suffering.

Here he sketches in just a few words what he felt like his God-forsaken state was like his pain. And remember who Job was. Look back in chapter 1, look at verses 4 and 5.

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them. And he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, 'It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' Thus Job did continually.

Friends, what did this ancient man know about God? I don't know. What residual knowledge was there left? Was he a contemporary of Abraham? Had the Lord revealed some things?

What knowledge was left from the time of the garden? Job knew enough to know that he was concerned for his children. Job was continually trying to do that was good and right because why? It seems like he had concerns. Feared.

I remember as a young man hearing a friend joking, saying, Pain is only the sensation of weakness leaving the body. Well, I think Job would say that pain may be the sensation of weakness living in the body. Notice how honest Job is in admitting his disappointments. It's very vulnerable to admit what disappoints you because then all of a sudden you're admitting these are things that are limits to your own power, your own control.

But Job does it openly here. You look at that pain self-portrait in the last verse. Suffering is very carefully described there in verse 26. In sequence, first there's no ease, and then no quietness even, the silence that would have come from ease and peace. And then finally, even says there's no rest.

His internal experience. There's none of it. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet. I have no rest. But trouble comes.

And by trouble, He's referring, it seems, to those things that happened in chapters 1 and 2. Those things that He had dreaded, those things that He had done, those sacrifices, it seems, in part, to make sure it didn't happen. But that's what happened to Him. Brothers and sisters, we're not alone in our sufferings. It seems that we can see from reading our Bibles that this life is a journey through various kinds of trials.

When Connie and I lived in England, we got to know a Presbyterian minister named Jack Miller who lived in Philadelphia. He was a pastor there. And Jack had a very well-known struggle in his life with his daughter Barbara, and he wrote about it. And one of the things that he said was that our part is not to run away from the pains, but to walk through the briars and thorns and let Christ teach us how to turn each scratch into positive learning about the depths of God's love.

I think that's accurate. I pray that God will help you to do that today. As you consider the pain in your own life, whatever your trials and pains are, I pray that they will give you evidence that you're not home yet. That's true. We're not done with our journey and at home, but we are on our way home.

We can know that from the very truths we've seen and that we've been singing about. Comparatively, we only have a few more miles to go. So resolve to press on to the end through whatever pain you endure. The misery of this life rightly forces us to consider the next. I think of the way Paul wrote to the Corinthians when he says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, if for this life only I have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

No, we want to live our lives in such a way that we are wagering it all on the truth that it's resolved after our death, that we are placing it all on Christ and the truth of His gospel. Why would Christians today undertake such dangers of persecution, prejudice against them? Unless all this were true. We see this willingness, this resolve to continue on even through the pain here in Job's example. But a second thing he says, sorry, that was confusing the way I said that.

I'm not moving on to my point two. I'm inside this pain.

Just look above, we looked at verse 26 there for a moment. Look up at 24 and 25. He's describing this and he says, For my sign comes instead of my bread and my groanings are poured out like water. The thing that I feared has come upon me. What I dreaded befalls me.

When he says what I dreaded, I thought Job only feared the Lord.

So what does it mean to fear the Lord and what is this fearing other things as well? Well, Job did fear the Lord. God himself says that in chapters 1 and 2 in the sense of taking the Lord as his ultimate concern. When we talk about fearing the Lord, we don't fundamentally mean we shake in terror at the thought of him, though that may sometimes be part of our response. It means that we regard Him supremely, that we have chief regard to Him, that we care most about His evaluation of us.

It's allied with loving Him most, with Him being the chief object of our love and desire. There's no contradiction. It's not how can you love and fear the same one the most? No, no, the one you love the most will be the one you fear the sense of regard the most. Desire to please the most, and the one you fear the most will be the one you love the most.

And yet, though Job loved God most, he feared God. He also had other things in his life that he cared about. Now let me just break in here and say, if you're here at church today because a friend told you to come and you're not normally at church and you're certainly not used to listening to a sermon on something like Job or pain, that I wonder what you do with your fears. Not that anybody around you even knows you have those fears. Let's say you've lived successfully so that no one around you knows that you have any fears.

But you know the truth and I'm just asking you, what do you do with those fears? Those fears probably are disposed of variously. It depends on who you fear. It depends on what kind of fear we're talking about. We tend to think all kinds of other things are most worthy of our fear, our reverence, our devotion, our allegiance.

But time reveals the truth. And Christians are those people who share a common primary the ultimate fear, a fear of the Lord. We share that supreme regard. One question that we Christians have is this: Can we both fear God and other things? And as I've already indicated, I think the answer is yes.

We do this all the time. It's partly wise, but God must be our chief fear. All right, let's approach this a little differently. Is it wrong to fear other things? Well, if that fear is ultimate, yes it is.

But temporarily fear and secondarily fear, well some it's appropriate to and some it's not. It's not wrong to fear unemployment. It's not wrong to fear your boss. But it would be very wrong and distorting to fear either unemployment or your boss more than you fear God. Because God is the one who is sovereign over those things.

God is the one who is sovereign over every aspect of Job's life. So Job's chief fear had to be reserved for God.

How do we know if the fear of the Lord is our chief fear? Well, look at the pattern of your life. Go to Galatians 5 and see the works of this flesh.

The flesh that Paul lays out and the fruit of God's Spirit. See which of those contrasting lists more describes your life.

And don't try to figure that out alone. Get others to help you with it. That's why you join a local church. That's why you try to establish long, honest relationships, not mainly for your emotional fulfillment, but for your spiritual survival. And so you can help others.

We've pledged in our church covenant to help bear each other's burdens and sorrows. That's what you should use your friends and your elders to help you do. How can we grow in fearing the Lord most? Study Him, read passages of the Bible like Psalm 119, Grow in knowledge of His Word. Grow in His knowledge of what He's done and what He promises to do for you.

Trust God to be sovereign and over those lesser things that you're sometimes tempted to fear as much as you are God. Know who He is and consider God's love for you. Consider the hymns that we sing. The promises that we hold on to, consider the Savior and His love for you, consider anything that would rival Him in your attentions, trace your attraction to specific desires in your heart, become a student of your own heart, fight at the root wrong attractions that you have. Pray.

Pray for your own fear of the Lord. Parents, pray for your children to fear the Lord. Study. Confess to others. Act against wrong fears.

See them, acknowledge them, and oppose them. Don't be passive, just saying, I can't help it. This is the way I am. If that were the case, God wouldn't have brought it to your notice.

And one more time, join a church. This should help you figure out if the Lord is your governing fear. And that's why it's important to establish relationships, even long-lasting relationships here, because merely attending the services, as good as that is, what tremendous services they are, merely Merely attending the services will not give you the kind of close relationship that you need that can know you over the years, to be able to speak to you about tendencies that they see, or joys that are evident, or evidences they can remember of how God has been at work in your life in the way He has used you, that you yourself may forget someday.

So we want to grow in fearing the Lord Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So in the most immediate and common sense use of the word fear, well Job had clearly feared for his children. We see that by the way he was doing those sacrifices in chapter 1. And in fact, what he had feared came true. What he dreaded, as he puts it in our passage, came to pass.

So his deeper fears, in the sense of allegiances, were put on trial. Did he fear the Lord even more deeply? Did he love the Lord even more deeply than his cherished children?

God allowed Satan and circumstances to act in such a way that would reveal if Job truly had a fear of God greater and deeper than his fear and concern for his own children.

That's what we want to notice about Job's pain here. God used it to expose the truth of his heart to himself and to others around.

Now, secondly, and more briefly, Job's trouble results in Job's longing for death. We see that in verses 21 and 22.

Look there in chapter 3.

What we've seen really as a theme throughout the first 20 verses of the chapter, and we consider death, you'll remember, much more lengthily, was really the whole message, the last message in this series. You can listen to that on the website if you'd like to think about it again or more. But death appears here in verses 21 and 22. And we should simply notice this, verse 21. Who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave.

If Job is really describing himself there, it's significant that we have no record of him attempting suicide.

Many people long for death at various points in their life who never try to take their own lives. There is inherent in the human conscience and are being made in the image of God an awareness that to take our own life is an act above our pay grade. We can honestly long for death for decades. And yet do nothing to forward it, knowing that that is not our business. It's the Lord's business.

He gives life, He takes life.

There may be some wonderful times we long for death and the sense of longing for the Lord and His presence, Paul in Philippians 1. In that sense it's not really death we're longing for and He even in that instance weighs up things that would cause Him to stay here in this life. Other times, death may just seem simply a fact of life medically. Maybe we're thinking about the end of a certain condition. Perhaps we're very old.

We might just decide to forego more medical care and just take hospice care because it's that time of life. But there is something more here. Job is Depicting a person who, because of the trials of life, is basically desiring to throw it away, a premature ridding of life.

Here he is not so much contemplating suicide as he is desiring its result. Friend, if you're thinking about suicide yourself, or you have a good friend who is, Talk to those of us here about that. Talk to friends here. Talk to those of us at the doors on the way out. We want to help you with that.

No one can fix that for someone else, but you can gain real help by talking and letting people understand and helping them equip you with things for your own battle or your friends. Job is reflecting on this pain that's caused his life to turn so sour And so he is longing for death, not acting to bring death on himself. But it's really a moving longing and it's a terrible longing. Proverbs 2 uses this kind of language about exceeding joy and longing for finding wisdom and the knowledge of God and finding God. And that's what you and I are made for.

But here in Job 3, What Job has said that his troubles have made him do is to be like those who long for death, who dig for it and rejoice exceedingly when they find it. Friends, it is unnatural to desire death.

I said that last night, and one friend said, Mark, but you told us that when Herb Carlson was older and he was 100 years old, this godly saint who's recently passed on to be with the Lord, that he had asked, why is the Lord leaving me here so long? And there was a kind of longing for death in that sense. Yeah, but that's very different. That's when you can tell things are played out. There's nothing left in this life.

I'm a hundred years old. What Job is talking about here is a far more common, far more tragic response to the experience of loss when you're in this sort of full flood of life. And to see someone who is literally made in the image of the ever-living God. Take what Paul in 1 Corinthians calls our enemy, death, and long for it. That's not good.

It's unnatural. It's sad for someone who reflects the image of this existent, ever-living, eternal God. To long for death. It's a moving image that he paints there in verses 21 and 22. Dig for death more than for hidden treasures.

I mean, the irony of spending effort to bury ourselves, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave. Christian, we have better material to exult in and to rejoice in than finding death. Death will find us soon enough.

We don't need to labor for that. It is coming for us at its appointed time. But there are other things for us to rejoice in that the Lord has appointed. Job even had things ahead of him to rejoice in in this life that he didn't know of at that moment.

Isaiah 6110, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God. Some scholars have suggested that the background image here really was the image of grave robbers, like those say that would break into the pyramids of Egypt looking for the Pharaoh's riches. Because in ancient Egypt and ancient Sumeria, the great wealth would often be buried with the ruler so that he could use it in the afterlife. And because they knew that the ruler would not be alive to defend it, they would both put curses on it. Let that be widely known.

And try to physically hide themselves and their treasures, both where the site of their burial was or if the site of the burial was known, inside the structure itself make it difficult to find the actual tomb with all the treasures in it. So here he depicts this joy of these grave robbers as they find this sudden treasure. These were the hidden treasures that they were searching for. But all of this is just an ironic use of something. That really itself is nothing but tragic.

Friend, are you longing for death? There is so much more to live for. God has made you in His image. He sent His only Son to live a life of perfect love and holiness, trusted in His heavenly Father. He gave His life on the cross as an offering, a sacrifice in the place of all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in Him.

So you can be forgiven for your sins. If you trust in Christ, you can be born again. You can have a whole new life. Friends, there might be prospects before you that you have no idea of, that you should seriously consider. Talk to again, talk to the friend you came with, or talk to one of us at the doors about what it might mean for you.

To become a follower of Jesus Christ, to be adopted by Almighty God as a daughter or a son, to be forgiven for all your sins, to be given a new set of loves where God reigns supreme. That's what's presented for us here by contrast. You could have a better and different life today. If you come to understand more of what the Bible teaches about death. You know, what the Bible teaches about death is important and what we understand about death affects so much of how we live.

So kids, here's a question for you. Kids, just listen for a second. Ask your parents at home how what they believe about death affects their life. Ask them, how it affects how they raise you.

Friends, talk to each other about this at lunch. The power of grief shows that longing for people, longing for times now gone is strong. Could it be that God put that strong longing in us for purposes that aren't finally sad but that are happy? What do you think God's intending to do with those longings that we feel? Good thing for you to talk about over lunch.

Well, Job once more helps us think about death. But let's notice a third thing. We also learn about God. Look again at the question Job poses there in verse 20, After the sharp personally focused questions and statements in all the rest of the chapter from verses 3 to 19. Here in verse 20, Job turns and he raises the basic and difficult question of suffering which is undeserved or innocent.

He says, why is light given to him who is in misery and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in. Now this is really one long question, at least conceptually, asking why. In boiling it down, the question is, if the person is going to be in misery, bitter in soul, or of a hidden way, meaning here away from God's blessings, hedged in, which doesn't mean protected like it did back in chapter 1, but means trapped. Okay, if it's going to be all these bad things, then why give them life at all?

And that question points directly at God. After all, He is the giver of life. So if this sovereign God would give life, why give such a life only to bring misery and bitterness? Why trap them instead of protect them? Now, of course, one of the many ironies of this book, and it is rich in irony, is that the reader knows that God had hedged in Job in the sense of protecting him, and that that's the only reason he was still alive and that he had survived at all.

But Job didn't know that. How often have what appear and what are to us trials How often, in fact, have they been part of God's provision for us and protection of us? We experienced them sincerely as trials, and yet looking back, we can see God actually used that to protect me from this.

That would be an edifying way to spend your lunchtime, wouldn't it? Thinking of situations that you once lamented or saw as burdens that now, looking back, you see as blessings, sharing that with each other this afternoon. I wonder if any just come quickly to mind.

Job's very questioning here assumes that God is sovereign over life and over death and within life over blessings and trials. Job needs to understand that nothing Nothing can touch him that doesn't first pass through the hands of his loving heavenly Father. God is in control. We are utterly dependent on God. We're utterly dependent on his strength.

Friends, that's why we spend so much time in prayer. Some people have commented to me when they first start coming here that they're not used to going to a church where so much time is literally spent praying. And friends, if you've just come to the morning service, you've not even seen it has begun to to pray. I mean, we spend more time in our evening service praying. That's why we gather again.

That's why we're so obnoxious trying to beg you to change your schedule and come on Sunday night and pray with us, both for the things we pray about together then, but also for what you learn to pray about yourself then during the week. Because prayer is our understanding of God's sovereignty being put into action. When we believe that this is the sovereign one who has this power. And so, like Jesus says, when we see the harvest is plenty, what does He say? Make everybody feel really, really guilty so everybody goes?

No, He says, Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers. Pray. So friends, we want to give ourselves to pray because we see who God is. We understand something of his sovereignty. We know that the only way we will make it through whatever suffering he apportions to us is by relying on his strength.

So Job was being taught the difference between saying that there is no reason and I don't see the reason right now.

Job was being taught the difference by his suffering.

Between saying, There is no reason, and I don't see the reason right now.

Is that a lesson that you're needing to learn?

Of course, God will continue to be a consuming center of attention of this book. In one sense, the book of Job well captures life itself, the book really is a journey from a man with his family, to a man in severe loss, to a person then reflecting on his own moral life with his friends, to their joint contemplation of God and his ways in justice, to finally an encounter with God himself, which causes all of Job's other experiences, even his loss and his grief, to pale in comparison. Job's book is a journey to God. We'll think about that more next week, Lord willing, when as Nick introduced, I want to provide one sermon to go through the whole book. Because having looked at this one piece of it so carefully, I think you'll be helped to know how to look at the book as a whole.

And rather than us spending a year, well, 42 times 3, 126. So two years going through every chapter in Job with three sermons. I've given you one as a sample, and then, Lord willing, we'll do an overview next week. Just to be clear, I do not plan on reading the entire text out loud next Sunday morning.

Job's journey to a more profound encounter with God was beginning in suffering. I wonder if that's how you first turned to God. Was it a time of suffering? You need feel no shame if it were.

Friends, God is sovereign over the circumstances of our lives. A time when things are hard is a time when naturally we reevaluate. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing psychologically twisted about that. Friend, if you're experiencing trouble now, consider where God is in your life and what He's made your life to be.

The darkest hour is just before dawn.

Friend, come lay down your burdens before the Lord. Trust Him entirely.

Job's book encouraged us to finally trust God with all that we have and all that we love. All of this leads us to introduce what will become a central topic and contest in the rest of the book of Job, and that's the topic number four of sin. You may say, well, where is sin in this? Ah, it's right there in verse 20. Look at the initial question, the basic question really in Job's book.

Why is light given to him who is in misery?

Randy, if you want to summarize the question posed by the whole book, that's it. This is the genesis of it all. Job is right to sense that something is off in combining life... that's what the light given to him means, life... and misery.

The God who makes life, who creates this world and us in His image is which is evidently good, proven in 10,000 ways.

So Job knew that God was good. He knew that He was holy. Remember Job's concern for his children. He was doing all those sacrifices back in chapter 1 continually. Job knew that God was sovereign, that is, that He was the one to whom why could be asked.

There was one who took responsibility ultimately for the happenings of this life. And yet Job had never experienced the contradiction so sharply as he had in his recent losses. So now he questions how this misery could be caused or even allowed by the God who is good enough to knit him in his mother's womb and to let him see the light of day.

And friend, this is where almost every instinct in those who knew the truth about God would point to the answer: sin.

Sin is the reason. It was there in what Nick read to us at the beginning of the service. Did you hear it? It was right there in Psalm 145.

Oh, you read us 146. 146, there we go.

The way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Psalm 146:9. We know that. That's a basic truth in the Bible. Ever since our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden, it was sin that was the explanation for death and suffering and loss in this world.

The suffering of sinners goes along with the justice of God. A just God who does not punish sinners is in fact not just. He's not holy, he's not good. He's as unreliable as a judge who takes bribes or the businessman who lies in his contracts. Apparently undeserved suffering drains the meaning out of life.

That's what Job's saying here in our passage, and it's itself a conundrum. It's mysterious. That's why Job is so restless. He can't understand why a good God would do this. Still, you realize that it is Job's stubborn and bold assertion of his own righteousness in this particular matter.

It wasn't saying he never sinned in any way, but he's saying he did not sin in such a way as to cause this in particular. It's this that pushes the book forward in its argument for 40 more chapters. Job's bold to assert his sufferings inexplicability by normal standards of, well, you must have sinned. So Job is confident of his own righteousness, but he's also confident of God's righteousness.

So his life doesn't make sense. He's trying to understand. Friends, the normal cause of suffering in this world is sin. That's right. Eliphaz knows that.

The first counselor, the first friend to speak up, look there in Job 4, the very next chapter, he says it in verse 7. Eliphaz says, who that was innocent ever perished?

Who that was innocent ever perished? The Lord has a great interest in the innocent not perishing. You look at Abraham's going back and forth bickering with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, what if this many righteous people, what if that many righteous people? God does not want to see the innocent suffer.

Job knows this about God. Job knows that he's a good God, and he knows that in this particular regard he's innocent. And we know from chapter 1, He's right.

But He doesn't understand in what's happening. And Eliaphaz just pushes the normal line. Well, then you must be in sin. Who that was innocent ever perished? It's like the Lord would later say in Isaiah 48, There's no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

It's as if he had read Romans 3:23, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In this world there is no such thing as truly innocent suffering, except in Jesus' case.

It falls to Job in the Bible to start building our understanding of suffering that is not caused by sin, but that is innocent or undeserved. So please watch very closely here. The part that God has assigned to Job is to begin to construct our understanding of the cross.

No small part to be assigned. Beginning to build a category for suffering that is not based in the sin of the one who suffers.

It's an unusual category of suffering in the Bible. It's not most suffering in the Bible, but it is extremely important suffering in the Bible. And it falls to Job in God's providence to begin to construct that category in the witness of Scripture.

It's not that there is no reason for the suffering, but it's not the normal reason. There is a purpose in the suffering, but it's not either the damnation of the lost or the discipline of the elect. There's another way suffering can come and suffering can be used. And it's really Satan who takes us through it in the first couple of chapters. For his own malicious reasons, suffering can be used to pare back for ourselves and clarify to others who it is we most truly love, are most fully devoted to.

Who we fear most.

God was bragging on Job.

The question Job poses is, Is there truly innocent suffering? And as Christians, we have to answer that strictly, only once, is there perfectly innocent suffering? And that suffering was substitutionary. Romans chapter 3 will tell you more about that and explain it.

But apart from Christ, there is no truly innocent suffering in the world. As terrible as the suffering may be of a terrible disease that strikes someone, or tragedies like in Turkey and Syria, these sufferings are not caused in any way that we know by a particular sin of an individual, but they are caused by the sin of our first parents, by the whole world being thrown off and being broken in its relationship with its Creator.

And yet God is a God who is not only just, but who normally wants to make His justice apparent. In that case, what do we do with the apparently innocent suffering of someone like Job? Surely proverbial wisdom tells us that they've done something specific to deserve this.

But then we hear the Lord Jesus. Do you remember that time in John, chapter 9, he encounters the man born blind? John 9:1, As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And see, being from birth means there's nothing that man could have done to deserve it. So, okay, now it's sharpening the question, a man blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, his disciples, Good students of the counselors of Job, The disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Now he was not saying, Here you found the one perfectly righteous son of Adam other than me. No, he's just saying in this regard there was no sin on his part or his parents' part that brought about this blindness. God had other purposes.

This blindness was there because of God desiring to display His power through these circumstances. So friends, there's a whole other gear that you can go to when you encounter suffering. Yes, very straightforward to wonder if there's some foolishness that may have caused it, some sin, but the Christian has not exhausted our repertoire of understanding when we've dealt with the question of a specific sin. No, like John 9 here. We see it's like Job 1 and 2.

The world is about more than us. The world is about God. And God will have His own purposes for the suffering. So we trust God in God's amazing and inscrutable providences, just like we're seeing in Romans 8 to 11. It's the same thing we've been studying on Wednesday night.

Paul is wondering, why are all these Jews, my fellow Jews, not accepting Jesus as the Messiah?

And Paul goes through a long argument to show what is going on. And his conclusion of this argument is there in Romans 11:33, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever.

Amen. Friends, it's like Paul says to the Ephesians in chapter 3 about the church, Ephesians 3:10, where we read, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to whom?

Not to ourselves, but to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Friends, there's a whole other category of intelligent beings that God cares about being glorified in front of. There's a whole other strata of understanding of the world as a stage in which God's glory is being played out. I remember reading of an aged Christian who this sister wrote, I dread another long cold winter, but with all the other troubles that with all other troubles must soon pass away. And it will matter little how much I have suffered, but how I have borne it.

How we bear our trials gives testimony to why we bear them, and to our trust in God and His purposes.

So much for what these verses have to teach us about sin. So friends, there it is, chapter 3. We've seen in Job chapter 3 that Job was troubled as that which he feared and dreaded most has come upon him. Job spoke of it with breathtaking honesty, cursing the day of his birth, cursing, but never doing as his wife and Satan wanted him to do in cursing God. He doesn't do that.

He's shown us how to suffer. From Job's meditation on coming death in the middle part of chapter 3, we learn that death equalizes us all, it brings some to rest in relief, it removes earthly privileges and possessions, it stops human troublers, and it can shake us so badly that it may make us question the reason for our own lives. And in these final verses, we've considered what Job's troubles have taught us about pain, and about God, and about sin.

I wonder if all this makes sense to you. We spent three times together looking at this one chapter. The topic is so important because all of us suffer. It doesn't matter how popular or wealthy or healthy or young or beautiful someone looks. Everyone suffers.

If you think that somebody doesn't suffer because of one of those characteristics, you've just proved you've not gotten to know people very well. Everyone suffers. The question is simply how.

Many times suffering and sorrow just confuse us. We experience them and we don't know why and we get discouraged. But I think so much of what Job does for us is Job helps for us to consider suffering honestly. Not make it seem like not so bad. Oh, it's a light thing, really.

Not much of a problem. Stiff upper lip. That's not the way Job presents it. But he shows us there is such a thing as a larger purpose. However big and bad the suffering is, There can be a purpose that is larger and more important and more weighty and worth more than the comfort or pleasure I forego.

Job gives us an example of pain not being personally deserved, but being for this larger purpose. And in that sense, even though the pain is not removed, it is and it is used for a worthwhile purpose.

My friend, if you're not a Christian, I think we're speaking about a little more than you understand.

There is more to life than meets the eye. You come to see that more and more clearly through Jesus Christ. Especially in those dark times. I think I can explain to you how we Christians think through times like this. It's not that suffering isn't scary to those of us who are Christians, but God enables us to trust Him more.

It's like, you know, when your kids were little, some of you have, like I do, have kids who are older, grown. When the kids were little, Something like a dark room can actually be very, very scary to them. So let's say you're standing with your three-year-old and you're about to enter the room, and for some inexplicable reason, there is no light switch by the door. The only way to get to the light is to walk to the other side of the room. You could sit there and reason all day long about how the Loch Ness Monster can't survive outside of water, you know, or there have not been any space aliens identified for several days in the area.

These balloons recently sighted, it's gonna be fine. But my guess is the child is not gonna walk across that dark room to get to the light because of any of your arguments. The child will take your hand because they know you, because they trust you, because they've seen you work for their good. That's the only way you're gonna get through this life. You will not get enough arguments for every trial you face.

But I pray you will come to know God well enough through Christ, that you can trust His character, that knowing that this God is the God who loves you, that Him you can trust through the darkest of trials. When we suffer, we have to learn that how we suffer is rooted in why we suffer.

John Piper is well known as a preacher and an author. What people often don't realize is that John Piper is a gifted pastor and a good friend. Twenty years ago now, John wrote to me and Connie during a particular trial in our family. He sent us these words of advice of how we could love our daughter in a hard time. John wrote, Continue to glory in your own salvation by grace.

Let her see that you are mainly enjoying the Lord's goodness to you in sustaining you in this pain. We do Christ wrong when our pursuit of others feels like we are mainly angry at how they have let us down or broke the rules. They need to see in us a resting in the gospel so that it looks better than what they have. It's an irony. To win those who are breaking our hearts, we must strive to enjoy the Great Heart Sustainer more than ever.

Savor these truths especially. Psalm 103:8-10, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Friends, that was wise counsel.

Understanding purpose to endure suffering gets infinitely more important when we look at the suffering of Christ.

You see how Job's experience of undeserved suffering acts like an exploration of Christ's truly innocent suffering.

He's beginning to build our understanding of that. Job is establishing the category. So when you're studying Job, you're beginning to study and understand some of the foundations you'll need to understand Christ. We follow Christ's example of faithfully receiving even agony as it comes to us in the way of following Christ. Knowing all this comes from a loving heavenly Father.

You look here in our passage and we see that Job knew trouble. That last verse, Job says that he knew no peace, no quietness, no rest, but only trouble. Of course, Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Jesus was troubled for us. Jesus was troubled in His spirit, in His heart.

He told His disciples, I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Job, he says here in verse 20, he knew bitterness of soul.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, over those who refused Him, over the crowds. Over those who were like sheep without a shepherd.

Job knew real misery.

Jesus told His disciples that His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

Job longed for death that didn't come then. Jesus wanted the cup of suffering and death to pass from His lips.

But even more than that, he wanted his father's will.

What Job feared and dreaded happened. Jesus desired a way around the cross, but he feared ultimately God and desired his will most.

Job's way was hidden. When Jesus was on the cross, the Son's light was hidden as the Son of God was hidden from his heavenly Father's blessing.

Job knew sighs and groans. He said, My groanings are poured out like water. Jesus sighed deeply in His Spirit. He saw the results of sin all through His creation. And He groaned from the cross, My God, my God, why have youe forsaken Me?

I'm poured out like water. Friends, none of us, not even Job, suffered more than Jesus. And yet in all of this, Jesus Christ suffered and then entered into His glory after the suffering. Christian, the question is straightforward. Will you come this way?

Suffering, then glory. Even when Would youd teach us, Lord, to look to why we can suffer and then help us in it? For your glory and for our good. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.