St. John Studies

Have you ever received advice from others and when it was all over, you wish your “comforters” had not come to “comfort” you?

Job suffers his disasters and then his three friends arrive.  First of all they sit on the ground with him for three days and then they repeat over and over that Job is suffering because he is a sinful man.

Job does not appreciate their opinions, calling them “worthless physicians”, “miserable comforters” and people who talk “nonsense.”

Have you ever assumed a friend or family member needed your advice when maybe they didn’t?  In my years of teaching interpersonal communication, I can tell you that unsolicited advice does more harm than good.  Yet people keep on doling it out with the misguided idea that their wisdom and experience can help another.

What are the chances that your advice can really help another person; someone who has a particular problem that springs from their unique experiences?  Really the chance is slim to none.

What do we need to do when we have a friend who is going through problems?  Listen.  Encourage them to talk out their troubles.  Let them solve their problems the best way–by posing their own unique solutions.

When someone insists that you give them advice, be careful when you give it.  Let the troubled person know that your advice is probably not going to work for them and then ask them seriously “do you still want to hear it”?

People who impose their advice on others may just be giving someone something they don’t need and don’t want.  Unsolicited advice can result in further disaster as people can try your solutions and your solutions don’t work in their life.

One of my favorite writers John Stott comments on Job’s comforters.  Stott tells us that “we may not quote anything out of the comforter’s speeches as Scripture, for their speeches are included in order to be contradicted not affirmed.”

Consider the advice you give to others; is it comfort or does it cause discomfort?  Should it be contradicted, instead of being affirmed?

“It is God’s will.”

I was at the funeral visitation and the older woman approached the relatives of the deceased with that message, “It is God’s will.”

Of course one can look at death that way.

In my opinion, that’s the short term view.

What will be the long-term view of the death of this person in the casket, the long-term effect of the loss on the lives of the ones left here on earth?

Gerald Sittser’s experience,  another illustration used by Pastor Idleman to make his point….. Gerald is a professor at Whitworth University who lived through a horrible automobile accident, an accident that took three generations of his family, his mother, his wife and his young daughter.  Can you imagine the woman coming to the caskets telling Gerald “It is God’s will.”

Gerald wrote a book about the loss of his three loved ones and he says in his book that the loss was not the one point in his live that defined his life.  He did not let it define him.  He will never forget this horrible thing that happened but he found a way through our Lord and Savior to move beyond that time in his life.  Instead of letting grief envelope him forever and anguish turn him away from God, he allowed his faith to take over.

Loss in life is a part of life.  It is not good to dwell on it on a daily basis, but the day will come when everyone loses someone they love.  How we respond to these events is what makes us the Christian that has the capacity to grow beyond the event itself, the Christian God wants us to be.   There is always more life to live and more work to do in the name of Jesus Christ.

The long view is that blessing and growth can spring from grief…if we do not let loss be our defining moment.  If we don’t let grief be our lasting occupation…

2 Corinthians 7:10 [NIV]  “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”

Question:  Have you seen people not handle loss well?  How did you feel about their Christian witness as you watched them struggle?  [no names please]

My wife and I don’t get into a deep theological discussion that much [if at all] but yesterday we were walking and she raised a good point, “Who would want to be Job?”

In this popular Old Testament book, Satan is betting that Job will run for cover when hard times come.  God is betting that Job will stand firm.

Idealistically, what an honor to have God trust us and believe in our faith….but look what Job had to endure as he experienced that honor.

Would we be happy to be chosen by God as His example of a stalwart believer?

Maybe we would say, “Nah, I think I will pass on that one God.”

Proverbs 20:30 says [NIV] that “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.”  That is exactly what Job was experiencing.  Circumstances [undeserved I might add] were pounding him into the ground but he held firm.  God won the bet with Satan but Job had to pay the price.  He lost everything.

But what did he gain?  Job says [42: 5] “my eyes have seen you [God].”  Imagine being able to say that.

Read on: God blesses Job more in the latter part of his life than the first, much more livestock, many more children [nowhere in the land were found women more beautiful than Job’s daughters], and Job lived 140 years, seeing his children and their children to the fourth generation.  God recouped all Job’s losses many times over.

I guess to answer my wife, I would say we need to take the long-term view if we can.  God wants the best for us even though the horrible times come.  If we wait long enough He will restore us…just like Job.

Pastor Idleman in Chapter 3 is hitting us hard with example after example of difficult circumstances in peoples’ lives and he does that to get the reader to recall those bumps in the road that we all have experienced.

Sometimes it seems like a lot more than a bump.

Sometimes a difficult circumstance is a little more.  Sometimes it is a deserved circumstance.

The Bible has Job who suffers due to difficult circumstances.  Satan is betting that Job will distance himself from God [go to the Distant Country] but Job does not.  You know the story: children died, house collapses, painful sores from top of his head to the soles of his feet–he lost everything.  Why?  It does not seem to be his fault.  He is in the midst of difficult circumstances.

Sometimes we bring about our own demise and I would call this situation a deserved circumstance.  We make a series of bad choices that lead to serious trouble.

Whether it is a difficult circumstance or a deserved circumstance, how do we respond?  Job’s AHA moment occurred because of his difficult circumstance and he said”My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you God.”  He chooses to draw closer to his God.

What will we do when difficult circumstances or deserved circumstances happen?  Draw closer or move further away?

Your choice……..

I don’t know how many of you are studying along with me but Chapter 3 really gets into the moments of crisis that God uses to draw us closer to Him.  Pastor Idleman has a long list of times when people get to the “end of their rope.”  Here are some: “she filed for divorce, I heard myself say I am an alcoholic, people found out about my secret, I woke up in the hospital after an overdose, I found myself in the back of a police car, I was fired for embezzlement, the affair was discovered” etc.etc.

Idleman really gets into the difficult circumstances of our lives and poses the question, what would you change?

How many of you would say I would rewrite my past completely!  I had so much pain and my family has suffered so much!

I hope some of you have bought the book AHA.  If you have not, you can catch up to Chapter 3 easily and there are 13 chapters.  We will be in AHA for 10 more weeks after this week is over.  Chapter 3 has a fascinating exercise in it.  I don’t want to spoil it for you but it is the “story of Jillian”.  Psychologist Jonathan Haidt developed this exercise and Pastor Idleman asks us to read it and erase the “pigpen moments,” those times when Jillian suffers.  Imagine she is your daughter.  What would you erase from her life?  That hardship that taught her to pray to God?  That hardship that taught her that she has a lot of joy to celebrate in her life when she is not going through tough times?  That hardship that shows her that her life has a purpose?  That hardship that causes her to reach out to others in love and caring?

Pastor Idleman’s point; “pigpen moments” or difficult circumstances lead us to God.  We need them.

Where have your “pigpen moments” guided your life?  Do you agree that they are valuable?

We have all known people who are going through hard times.  Heck we have all had hard times.

Have you heard anyone say “This is part of God’s plan for you” or “God won’t put any more on you than you can handle.”  It is almost as if God has caused bad circumstances to be a part of your life.

How many of you believe that?

How many of you want to hear those words above coming from someone else when you are struggling?

Probably none of you want to hear those words at all, yet does God cause the tough times?

Pastor Idleman does not deal with the cause as much as the use of tough times in Chapter 3.  He spends Chapter 3 telling us that God uses tough times for our own good because they make us draw closer to Him .

Think back on some of the toughest times you have ever had.  One of the toughest, most gut-wrenching times of my life resulted in me crying out to God and He answered.  At that time I needed Him so badly but the irony was that it was the first time I ever asked Him for help.  He  helped.  I won’t get into the gory details about what was going on in my life but I needed something.  I was about to lose all that was dear to me.

I cried out–He answered–I was “born again” and have had a relationship with God ever since.

Yes, God used my tough times.  It is clear to me now as I reflect back on my 16 years of walking with Him.

Question: Some of you have had hard times.  Do you believe God has used those for your good?  If not, did you cry out in earnest for Him to help?

As we get to the end of Chapter 2, Pastor Idleman concludes with a prayer.

He references 2 Kings when Elisha the Prophet was attacked by King Aram.  Elisha saw that God was with him but his servant did not.  The servant cried out in fear but Elisha said not to fear because God is with us and will defeat any army.

Then the servant awakened and saw his master was right.  God was there and they were safe.

We need that reminder.

This past week I have commented on friends who can offer correction to us when we are making mistakes, alarms that can go off when we are about to sin, our unwillingness to listen when clear messages are delivered that warn us, sleepwalking that takes over as we stumble into sin thoughtlessly and finally,  the billboards of life we need when we just aren’t getting it any other way.

All of these things can keep us from moving away from God or as Idleman says “going to the Distant Country.”

Let’s add prayer to the list.

Yes, there are people in your life that are praying for you to have some victory in your life, people who are praying that you will learn to put on the whole armor of God, people who want you to have some freedom from sin.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

To pray for someone in your life to experience this just ask God to help them WAKE UP!

Questions based on Chapter 2

Do you have friends that are trying to help you make better choices or do you spend time with people who are not a positive influence on your life?

Are there alarms going off in your life right now and you are going back to sleep?

Are you a person who is so wrapped up in your own life that you are not processing messages from others–not listening?

Are you sleepwalking through life, not taking time to reflect on your choices?  You don’t even think about what you are doing half the time.

Are you the kind of person who needs a “billboard”?  It needs to be obvious that the mistakes are being made and the punishment cannot be ignored?

So far I have “cherry picked” important ideas out of Pastor Kyle Idleman’s book AHA. I have written about how God is trying to communicate with us because He loves us.  I believe He really does.  He does not want us to move away from a relationship with Him.  He wants us to be close.

I have commented on the distractions of fast-paced life and our inability to stop and listen to God.  We are moving so fast that we don’t even realize that we are sinning.  I have suggested that we are sometimes not very sensitive to the signs that we are about to sin.  The activating event is about to happen and we ignore it and go ahead and sin.

Today I am going to write about what I call the billboard.

I have a friend who has not always had a “relationship” with God.  She was always “religious” but did not understand that minimal commitment was not enough.  She was going through one of those times in her life when she was experiencing quite a lot of pain; the sins were committed.  You know what she was dealing with—the guilt.

Anyhow, she was in pastoral counseling and had many questions.  She asked her pastor one day, “Why did I not see the signs, why did I not feel the feelings as I was going down the wrong path?”  The pastor said “some people need a billboard.”

Pastor Idleman says as much in chapter two when he points to other people who are sinning.   His book  has so many good examples–the kids who are in the tv show Scared Straight,  his daughter who wants to pet the rabid Dominican dogs.

Can’t we watch others and see how they are doing and that is our warning?  As they exhibit bad behaviors and suffer, can’t we see that this could be us?

No, sometimes we say things like “I won’t fall into that trap” or “I am better than that.”  Really?

Idleman makes a good point that we can see the man who has stolen money from his employer and is spending time in jail, the neighbor who has not been able to have that affair without the husband noticing and the student who has cheated her way through school and now is in over her head.

Wake up people.  This will be you if you keep going down the wrong path!

These are the ones who have gone before us—the billboards.  If you don’t think that what they are suffering is what you are going to suffer…really??????  You need to think again.

Pastor Idleman turns to the Cain and Abel episode in Genesis to explain what we normally feel when we sin.

Now before you go there, most of us don’t murder our brothers so don’t draw that parallel because the murder of Abel is just a “representative” sin.  What did Cain do before he committed his sin?  He ignored the warning.

Sin sensitivity is something that is in the arsenal of the “Christian in Practice”, a term I prefer to use instead of “righteous Christian.”  Righteous Christian could be turned into self-righteous Christian too easily so I am uncomfortable using that term.  The CIP is someone who is trying to live a better life; it may be obvious to others or it may not be.  The CIP is not calling attention to their life choices; he or she is just living it.  If they are making good choices and if others are paying attention to them, that’s cool.  If others are not, that’s ok.  They just plod on and experience that “peace that passes all understanding.”

We can have sensitivity to sin by looking at what triggers the sin.  In Cain’s case it was the rejection of his 2nd rate offering to God.  Then came jealously, upset and anger because Abel’s offering was blessed by God.  Rejection is the first trigger.  The negative feelings were the 2nd trigger and after these two experiences, Cain murdered Abel–the sin.

The triggers were the warnings which Pastor Idleman writes about when he has God saying “Now wait a minute, Cain. Push pause.”  You know the end result.  Pastor Idleman says Cain “sleepwalks” through all this and lures his brother out and murders him.

The question of the day:  Do you sin on a regular basis?  What are the triggers to your sin?  Hint:  smells, emotions, images, friendships……[this list is very long].  Is there anything you can to do increase your sensitivity?  To stop sleepwalking and when God says “push pause”– you hit that button.

Over my years of teaching communication, one of the favorite subjects I taught was listening.  I don’t know why.  My wife tells me often that I am not very good at it.  Guess why…I am always talking.   She is a much better listener than I am.  I admit it.  What is required to be a good listener?  Well there are many things, but one of the most basic is honest regard for the message of the other person and the ability to put one’s thoughts on hold.  In short, shut up and let someone else talk, really making a mental effort to comprehend the message of another.

In the context of Pastor Idleman’s book AHA, he states that the Lord warns us about the problems we are about to have.  Chronicles 36:15 is cited: “And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them…” NKJV.  God does not want us to fall.  God does not want us to suffer.  God wants the best for us.

Sometimes we just don’t accept His best.

We just don’t listen, especially to those early warning messages.  Life is too hectic, we are all wrapped up in our own desires, we are too tempted and the list goes on and on……

One of the basic problems in listening is the booming buzzing environment we all live in.  Our minds jump from one idea to another, from one stimuli to another and we don’t stop to listen.  Life today is constant physical and mental movement.

Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.”   In the Book of Psalms we encounter this command that we all need to listen to,  a message we need to have honest regard for.  In Isaiah 55:3 we find another, “Incline your ear and come to Me.  Listen that you may live.”

Why does God do this for us?  Look at the end of Chronicles 36:15  …”because He had compassion for His people.”

He loves us