Sermon Tone Analysis
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Fear
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Analytical
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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Job is hurting.
Time has passed since the initial testing, and although the response from Job initially was good, now He is completely nonfunctional.
How do you help someone who is hurting to the degree that Job is hurting?
Believe it or not Job’s three friends actually do something right initially in their attempt to help a hurting Job.
And we can glean several important truths that will better equip us to help others when they are hurting.
When my kids get hurt they rarely come to daddy.
I can just see one of them getting hurt outside playing with their brothers.
You hear them coming long before you see them.
Not even the walls of the house silence their wails.
Then the sound intensifies as they open the door and slowly plod up the stairs.
I happen to be their waiting for them, and I ask, “what’s the matter?”
They look at me, (I am obviously not their main objective) and then continue to howl as they turn and head down the hall with eyes searching for something or someone.
Who are they searching for?
Mommy.
Mommy makes everything better.
She has the medicine to help the hurt, daddy just does not cut it.
Sometime we feel this way when we try to help those that are hurting.
We feel like we don’t have the right “medicine” to help in anyway.
We feel useless and slightly embarrassed, so we do nothing because we do not know how to help those that are hurting.
3 commendable qualities of Job’s friends that are important in helping the hurting.
I.
A willingness to help
A. Genuine Friends
When Job’s friends hear about the suffering that he is going through they agree to travel together to Uz in order to be a help to Job.
It would seem that some time has passed before Job’s friends arrive, perhaps a few weeks or months.
These friends were wealthy sheikhs, like Job
The location of their homeland is uncertain, but it would seem to indicate that they traveled some distance to arrive in Uz.
These were not “fair-weather friends.”
While everyone else abandons Job, not these three, they travel from a distance, give up their time, and actively engage with Job with a goal to comfort him.
B. Genuine Lonliness
They were the only ones who were willing to engage Job in his suffering and at least try to help.
Everyone else had abandoned Job.
Job has now been in constant pain
probably for at least a few weeks or maybe even months.
No longer does he enjoy his position of honor in the gate, but he is now sitting as an outcast in the city garbage dump- in pain and misery, completely alone.
At least these three friends had a willingness to help Job when no one else would.
How can you help—or hinder—those grappling with illness, loss, or injustice?
Personal embarrassment prods us to avoid the sufferer.
We wouldn’t know what to say.
Suffering alone compounds the suffering (Ps.
142:4).
II.
The goal of being compassionate
A. Good Motives
Notice the stated goal of the friends- “to mourn with him and to comfort him.”
Motivated by love and their commitment, these men came to console and to comfort Job.
The word to console (Heb.
nûḏ) means literally “to shake the head or to rock the body back and forth” as a sign of shared grief.
To comfort (Heb.
niḥam) is to attempt to ease the deepest pain caused by a tragedy or death (e.g., 2 Sam.
12:24; Isa.
66:13).
With the noblest intentions, these three earnestly desired to help Job bear his sorrow.
B. Good Intentions
So with the goal of consolation and comfort Jobs friends travel to find their friend, and upon getting their first glimpse of Job from a distance they were astonished.
All of Job’s former estate, which would have most likely dominated the landscape, was completely obliterated, and Job himself was unrecognizable, because his body was so disfigured by disease.
When they saw this site they cried aloud and wept and rent their mantles.
They through dust, symbolic of death and disease into the air.
The Hebrew expression is curious; literally, “they threw dust on their heads heavenward.”
This gesture expressed the depth of their sorrow at such horrifying affliction.
Job’s friends obviously had good intentions.
Good intentions, however, are no guarantee that I will really be helpful.
Had they just sat with Job and grieved with him we could commend them.
Instead, their words to Job misrepresented God, who ultimately told them to bring sacrifices lest he “deal with them according to their foolishness.”
III.
A determination to enter into his grief
A. A good initial response
1.
The rending of his garment indicated Job had suffered great loss.
a) The garment was worn by people of rank.
b) Tearing it meant imploring God at this moment was more important than the symbol of his position.
2. Job did not question God.
3.
He consoled himself by recognizing God’s ownership of all.
4.
He worshipped God in spite of his losses
5. Job unwittingly verified God’s earlier assessment of him.
The person may even respond to additional loss well enough that we conclude they are walking with the Lord and will be fine.
1. Next, Job lost his health when he was stricken with a painful disease.
2. The one thing he did not lose, his wife, was telling him to go ahead and sin.
3. Job, however, attempted to correct his wife.
4. Job again did not sin with his lips.
Discussion/Application:
a) At this point, Job seems committed to a course of action and cannot be faulted.
b) But this is only the initial response.
c) We can make a mistake here of projecting our own response to some trauma onto the person who is actually suffering.
B. A radically different response
1.
They initially said nothing for they saw that his grief was very great.
2. Job was apparently in something of a catatonic state by the time they arrived.
He was so overwhelmed by the situation that he was either unable or unwilling to speak for a week.
He simply could not function.
Story of train engineer
3. So, the immediate responses as reflected in Job’s words have given way to a radically different response after a few weeks/months.
Job’s friends sat with him for a week.
They entered into his grief.
They gave Job the gift of their time and presence.
Job’s friends were willing to “roll up their sleeves” and put themselves in an uncomfortable position.
They were at least trying to help.
IV.
Practical Ways to Help
Layton Talbert, Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job.
1. Be Inclusive
We focus all our attention on Job, but Job’s wife lost everything, too.
Be attentive to background sufferers.
Affliction rarely affects isolated individuals.
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