Episode 187: June 30, 2024 - Walking With The Broken

Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. For the last five weeks we’ve been reading the book of Esther, asking ourselves: how do we walk with the strong without being corrupted by power? It has been such a rich and important conversation. Equally important, now we prepare to ask: how do we walk with the broken? That question takes us in so many directions. How do we walk with the broken and not be corrupted by simplistic answers? How do we walk with the broken and not be beaten down by compassion fatigue? How do we walk with the broken instead of just avoiding them? This leads us into the life of Job. Job is a righteous man, blameless and beloved by God, and yet he suffers. We struggle to reconcile the two. Throughout the book, his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, offer him cold comfort wrapped in simplistic answers. They represen the best thinking of their time, but that doesn’t help them see Job or be present with him in his pain. In their book, How to Read Job, scholars John Walton and Tremper Longman III provide us with three important insights that are often missed: Job has trials, but he’s not on trial.The book is about God, not Job.It is about the reasons for righteousness, not the reasons for suffering. Friends, you may feel like Job. Don’t confuse the trying times you’re walking through with a trial imposed by God. Surround yourself with the people of God who will lift you up in prayer instead of tearing you down. In the middle of suffering, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and fulfiller of your faith. We don’t want to misread the book of Job. In the same way, we don’t want to misread our own suffering. As Walton and Longman tell us: “His suffering does not give us direction about our suffering, but his reasons for righteousness should make us think about our own reasons for righteousness.”