With great confidence people will often quote twisted scripture and skewed ideas they’re convinced represent God’s thoughts and perspective. Some of these diverged ideals have become so common they’ve even been absorbed as truth into our contemporary church culture. These ways of thinking are popular, but misleading. This message series will help us translate what God really says.

Job’s friends wrongly assumed his suffering was a result of sinning. But that was not true. We can all expect suffering—it is an inevitable part of our broken world, but don’t forget the powerful resource that you have in Christ. Entrust your life to His ever-present care and control. He loves you. He will help you endure and will use your suffering for good.

Message Notes

“Suffering is the result of sinning.”
False.

Job is the age-old poster child for suffering.
His three friends believed he was suffering because he sinned.

Far from being a sign of sin, suffering sometimes comes when we are most obedient.

But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons.

Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated.

They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.
Hebrews 11:35-39

We may never know why we suffer—Job didn’t.

But Jesus will always be with us.
We can hold on to God and know that he will be with us.
He will use our suffering for good purpose.

Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you.I will never abandon you.”
Hebrews 13:5
I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
John 16:33

There IS PTSD.
But there is also PTG.

Post-traumatic growth is positive change experienced as a result of suffering or struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event.

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
Isaiah 48:10
So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.
I Peter 4:19

Bottom Line:

Suffering is part of life in our broken world, but Jesus will never leave us alone.

Next Steps: