8/24/09 Leader's Guide

Torn
Job 3 - 37
The Week of August 24th

Getting Started

1) We’ve had some hot days this summer. What’s the hottest place you’ve ever visited?

2) Who is your one? – We’re inviting each of our members to have one person they are reaching out to. Who is that person for you? What have you done to share with them? How can we best pray for them?

Digging Deeper

In Job chapters 4 through 37, the advice of Job’s “three friends,” or “comforters,” is recorded, as well as Job’s responses. These men took the position that Job’s suffering was the result of sin in his life. Read these verses listed below and answer the following questions: 7:20, 13:3, 13:24, 19:7, 23:3-5, 23:8-9, and 30:20.

3) How is Job’s response different here than in chapters 1 & 2? What does this difference tell you about some of the emotional and theological turbulence we face in suffering?

There does seem to be a shift in Job’s posture towards God. It was one that moved God to address him in the later chapters of the book. It was also that for which he repented of (Job 42:1-7). Yet all things considered, God rebukes Job’s friends saying, “they have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” (42:7). Job was on good ground, but his position was less than perfect and worthy of some face time before God. This reminds us that we can hold good ground in a way that may deserve better.

4) Job wonders whether God is absent, or passively observing him, or purposely opposing him. Have you ever experienced a similar feeling? How do we maintain our faith when God seems to be something different than a kind Father in Jesus?

On the authority of God word as he testifies of himself that he is all love and no anger towards those who are in Jesus Christ. We must resist what experience may strongly suggests, and affirm that in such experience, we conquer through Jesus (cf. Romans 8:28-39).

5) Job seeks to state his case to God. What does he hope to accomplish? Was this a bad request by Job? Compare this with Hebrews 4:16. What does it mean that we are to boldly approach the throne of grace? Can we rudely approach the throne of grace?

He hopes to receive a clear explanation for how he can be innocent and suffer the way he does. Since God never gives him an explanation, it seems that God would rather have Job trust that there is an explanation rather than trying to get one.

As one studies the dialogue between Job and his friends (chapters 4-37), some principles regarding God’s character emerge. Read the verses listed below and answer the following question: Job 9:14-15, 10:8, 12:10, 14:13-14, 16:19-21, 19:25-26, 21:22, and 23:13.

6) God is Judge, Creator, Sustainer, Advocate, and Sovereign. What do these attributes of God mean? How do God’s attributes affect Job in trouble? How should these realities affect you and I?

Judge – God is morally upright / God will deal righteously with Job.
Creator – God made all things / God has the authority over Job.
Sustainer – God upholds all things / Job existence is always God-dependant.
Sovereign – God controls all things / God has a handle on good and bad things.
Advocate – God is for us in Jesus. / God is for Job.

Chapters 32-37 record the words of another “friend” named Elihu (32:6). He told Job that he needed to humble himself before God and see “trials” as a purification process. He concluded that suffering is God’s method to “chasten” us (33:12-28) and to “teach” us (35:10-11). After reading 33:12-28, answer these questions:

7) Was Elihu’s conviction that God uses pain to purify us a sound conviction? Did it apply to Job, who is called upright and blameless? Does it apply to us?

Though Job was “blameless,” was still sinful (Romans 3:23). We are to consider trouble in life as a way that God gets us more like Jesus and less like ourselves (Hebrews 12:3-11).

8) Was the timing of Elihu’s pronouncement good or bad? Discuss the importance of saying the right things at the right time. What are some sensitive ways of encouraging people in their faith when they’re struggling with faith?

Read Job 9:32-34 and answer the following questions.

9) Job asks for someone to arbitrate between him and God. Do we have someone to arbitrate between God and ourselves? (Read 1 Timothy 2:5). In what way does Jesus serve as a mediator?

Putting Into Practice

10) Silence is golden. Can you think of a person who needs someone simply to listen to them without offering explanations and solutions? Find that person and listen.

11) Review the attributes of God covered earlier. Pray that this week you would have an appropriate response to the “Godness” of God.