Discovering the Gospel in Job – Tim Keller

Learn How to Suffer Well (Job 1:1-22)

* Learn from Job how to suffer well.

* Don't think that you did something wrong [even if you did] (Jn 9:1-3).

* Own your suffering (Job 1:20-21). Accept your situation/suffering. 

* The ultimate value and purpose of our suffering (Rom 8:28-29).

* No need to know why except that God is good in all that he does.

Affliction, Adversity, Anxiety and Anguish is Good for Me (9/25/23)

• "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word" (Ps 119:67).
• "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees" (Ps 119:71).
• "I know, Lord, that your laws are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me" (Ps 119:75).
• "If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction" (Ps 119:92).
• "My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?" (Ps 6:3).
• "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?" (Ps 22:1).
• "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins" (Ps 25:16-18).
• "I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul." "My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak" (Ps 31:7, 10).
• "I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart" (Ps 38:8).
• "My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me" (Ps 55:4).
• "Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities" (Ps 107:17).
• "The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow" (Ps 116:3).
• "If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales!" (Job 6:2).
• "Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 7:11).
• "Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up" (Prov 12:25).
• "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit" (Prov 15:13).
• "Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them" (Isa 30:20).
• "But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul." "Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back" (Isa 38:15, 17).
  
• "See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction" (Isa 48:10).
• "In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old" (Lam 1:7a).
• "Look, Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed" (Lam 1:9b).
• "I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord's wrath" (Lam 3:1).
• "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall" (Lam 3:19).
• "For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone" (Lam 3:33).
• "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" (Rom 12:2).

 

Blameless, Just, Fear God, Shun Evil (Job 1)

"Job...was blameless and just, one who feared God and avoided evil" (Job 1:1b). "...a man blameless and just, who feared God and avoided evil" (Job 1:8). "Does Job fear God for nothing?" ("Would Job worship you if he got nothing out of it?") Satan replied (Job 1:9).

What is the relationship between perfect character and perfect life (Job 1:1, 8)? Are the two inevitably related? This question is at the heart of the book of Job.

Job 1 directly and indirectly poses all kinds of theological questions: