Interact with this presentation to consider what God wants of you.
The Bible’s story of Job is remarkable. Pain, doubt, questions, misinformation, and faith are all met with the same thing: The answer of the Almighty. This week and (likely) next week you’ll walk with a character from the story through their thoughts. Though we won’t walk through Job’s thoughts (you can check that out here on your own sometime), we will look now at the thoughts of Job’s terrible friends.
(If you’d like an excellent, quick summary of Job’s story, click here.)
Can you find the common threads in these words? Before you interact with this image, get out some way to take notes—hopefully, one you can use next week, too. As you interact, write down one or two broad implications of the things Job’s friends say. In other words, when they see Job’s suffering, what assumptions do they make about the cause and solution of the suffering?
(It may help to first click on the full-screen button on the bottom-right of the presentation.)
Think about the extra weight that questions can bring with them.
In an attempt to show the significance of the questions people ask about life, meaning, and the universe, much has been written. For example,
“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
(However, while this is a nice-sounding idea, it’s also exhausting.)
If the pressure to “make the world significant” is on the questions you’re asking, as the quote suggests, do you feel the extra weight? It’s no longer just about having a question and finding out an answer. It’s about making the world work—a heavy burden to bear, indeed.
Solomon, the king of Israel who brought the country to its height in power and prestige, summarized this extra weight this way:
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
The extra weight that comes with questions takes many forms.
Questions come with…
emotions like
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memories of
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challenges like
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As you look at a list like this, you can understand why people who are asking important questions often feel like they’re looking for more than an answer—they’re looking for relief from all this extra weight.
Which of the pictures in the image below does the best job of showing the weight of your questions?
(Or would you describe the weight of your questions another way?)
While there is a lot to say about how the extra weight of questions can be managed (we’re almost there!), there’s also the undeniable truth that you will spend time with questions and those questions will come with extra weight. The good news is that you don’t have to wait for the answer to a question to find relief from the weight.
Consider how David, the father of Solomon, described himself. What implications does the main, repeated metaphor of Psalm 131 have on finding relief in the midst of questions?
Psalm 131
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.
Listen and meditate on this song.
Asking questions, wanting an answer, and bearing the weight of waiting for an answer are exactly as common as just having questions. It’s universal—every human has done it and will do it. Even Jesus, as he lived his life, asked unanswered questions of God.
The song The Silence of God is about the times you have questions but no answers, and it beautifully connects that experience to Jesus, who knows exactly what it feels like. (The song’s lyrics are posted below the video player.)
The Silence of God by Andrew Peterson
It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith;
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane,
When he’s bleating for comfort from thy staff and thy rod
and the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God.
It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart—
when he has to remember what broke him apart.
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
when the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.
And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got,
when they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
then what about the times when even followers get lost?
’Cause we all get lost sometimes…
There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
in the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
and he’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone
all his friends are sleeping and he’s weeping all alone.
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
what sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought.
So, when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
the aching may remain, but the breaking does not…
the aching may remain, but the breaking does not
in the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.
Takeaway
Questions have baggage,but carrying burdens is Jesus’ specialty.
Discuss the reality of ordering pizza.
How can the answer to “What should we order?” change when…
the number of people changes?
the dietary restrictions of the group change?
the place the pizza will be eaten changes?
the person(s) paying for it changes?
the time for eating it changes?
There are as many “correct” pizza orders as there are people—it’s a question with what some call “1,000 right answers.” A similar phenomenon happens when you set out to identify the ways that the questions people hold become burdensome to them—it changes from person to person.
Though that variety does mean it takes a little more work to actually answer a person’s question in a way that is effective for them, don’t be too surprised. As was discussed in the first week of this Spotlight series, it’s never really been about the answers. Instead, it’s about love, and finding ways to love the actual person in front of you. (At the end of the day, that’s what pizza is about, too.)
Let’s work on identifying the baggage.
We know that “We all possess knowledge.”
But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.
Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.
But whoever loves God is known by God.
These words from chapter eight of 1 Corinthians are very wise and speak to the core of how to handle questions. Do you know what specific topic they were originally addressing?
There are several “extra implications” that are brought up in this section. How many do you see?
(Here’s chapter eight of 1 Corinthians again:)
1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.
4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.
“Knowledge puffs up while love builds up.”
People carry a lot of burdens—many of which they put on themselves.
They take on the burden of answering for the universe.
They take on the burden of answering for guilt.
They take on the burden of controlling relationships.
In every case, human beings can’t bear those burdens and only end up angrier and more uncertain. Letting the Almighty answer creates space that lets others be others and trusts love (and don’t miss what 1 Corinthians 8:3 said about love) to cover all.
Discuss the bridge in the picture above.
Its job is to support cars as they cross the water. What are the different methods it employs to hold the cars above the water? More importantly, how might the method you point out be a metaphor for the ways people are supported as they carry their questions?
Takeaway
Explaining the world may improve your love —but it is not your purpose.
Meditate on God’s desire for your questions using the video below.
Here’s the procedure:
Share with your group the name of one person you’ll be praying for in your mind when you get to praying in just a moment.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer, as it is written below, out loud together, in unison.
Pray slowly so that you can take in each line. This aspect of it might lead to this not going super-smoothly. That’s okay.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
are yours now and forever.
Amen.
Finish up with this song.
In God’s kind response to our questions — as he takes the burden off your shoulders — what was pain becomes beautiful grace.
(The song’s lyrics are posted below the video player.)
Brokenness Aside by All Sons & Daughters
Will your grace run out if I let you down?
Because all I know is how to run.
I am a sinner if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Caught up in words tangled in lies.
Oh, but you are a savior,
and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.
Will you call me child when I tell you lies?
Because all I know is how to cry.
I am a sinner if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Caught up in words tangled in lies.
Oh, but you are a savior,
and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.
You make it beautiful.
I am a sinner if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Caught up in words tangled in lies.
Oh, but you are a savior,
and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.
Takeaway
Give God your questionsand you'll get more relief than you knew you needed.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.
(2 Corinthians 13:14)
