Church – Page 3 – Broken Believers

Job’s Friends, They Want to Help!

By John Piper

(The following is an edited transcript of the audio.)

Can we learn something from Job’s friends about how to help the hurting?

Absolutely. Those first seven days were their golden hour. If they had stopped there they would have been heroes, I think, because they would have shown compassion and patience. And that’s what we should learn.

When you walk into a horrific calamity you should be really slow to speak and quick to listen. You should be quick to cry, quick to hold, and quick to meet needs, bring meals, and wait upon the Lord. The theological wrestling comes later, probably. It’s different with different people.

But I think the lesson we learn from the progress of the book of Job is that while those three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—were sitting in dust and ashes, aching with their friend Job, he was helped by them. And many people are helped just by the loving presence of another.

I don’t think this nullifies the importance of truth. Let me give you an example.

I’m a colleague here with Tom Steller, who has been with me for 24 years. And Tom and I have sometimes said to each other, “It would be great to stay together long enough to die together, Tom.” And depending upon which one of us comes to visit the other in the hospital at our dying moment, we know, because of 24 or (perhaps by then) 54 years together, we don’t have to say a word. It’s all been said.

We have a common theology.

Neither of us will have to preach to the other in order to fix their ideas. We will all know that God reigns, God is good, God is loving, and God is wise. We’re perplexed, but you don’t need to preach. Let’s just take each other’s hands and pray and fight this fight of faith together.

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Friends Advice (momsfirstscreenn.wordpress.com)
Job Intercedes for his friends desiringgod.org

Learning “Persecution Love”

Learning how to forgive

Once I was punched in the face while preaching. At the time I was an evangelist with SOS Ministries in 1987. I was leading a group to Haight/Ashbury St. in San Francisco. I remember it was really busy, and it was a good team, and they were excited to take their church to the streets.

Haight/Ashbury was the place the “summer of love” kicked off, it peaked in 1968. It has a certain sense of notoriety, and even in 1983 it still had a dubious reputation as a center of the counter-culture. “A cult a day is born in San Francisco,” a pastor friend once shared with me.

Normally the neighborhood where I took a team would direct me on how to preach. Tonight I focused on God’s love for sinful people.

That message seemed appropriate for this place, especially on this street. God loves these people very much.

A young man came forward. He told me that he was a backslidden Christian, and his father was an Assembly of God pastor. He had run away from home. Suddenly he began to weep. The entire team seemed to lean forward and I know they were praying earnestly for him. It seemed to me that he was teetering on the brink.

His punch however came unexpectedly.

His fist hit me square in the nose. My eyes began to water. Oddly enough he took a step back and began to really cry out. My team wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but I hoped they prayed even harder. I sort of gasped and tried to shake it off. Someone must have called the police.

The Holy Spirit was very much present, both convicting and comforting each of us.

One or two minutes went by and suddenly he stopped sobbing and he became really angry. He took a step and then tried to kick me in the stomach, but I dropped the mic and caught his foot. I was ready for him this time.

About 20 minutes went by before SFPD showed up and asked if I wanted to press charges. I thought for a bit, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the will of my Father. Maybe I should of, I don’t know. But I thought about my own sin and couldn’t judge no one.

The Father was reaching him while teaching me!

God loves His prodigal children very much, He understands the guilt and shame (and frustration) they feel. The Father however is always watching and waiting. He works through life’s circumstances to lead them home. Each belongs to Him. He continues far past what we think is possible. He will never give up.

“We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

1 John 3:16

I suddenly saw a “wounded” brother, very confused and quite angry. Not with me, the team, or the music–but with God who created him, and died for him.

At that moment I just happened to be God’s love for this prodigal.

“How did Jesus expect His disciples to react under persecution? (In Matthew 5:12 He said), “Rejoice and be glad!” We are not to retaliate like an unbeliever, nor sulk like a child, nor lick our wound in self-pity like a dog, nor just grin a bear it like a Stoic, still less pretend we enjoy it like a masochist. What then? We are to rejoice as a Christian should and even “leap for joy” (Lk. 6:23).”

John Stott

Learn more about SOS Ministries, San Francisco and Berkeley, California.

The Church Collects Sinners

The following excerpt is from the devotional book, “Living the Message,” by Eugene H. Peterson. This pastor-professor is probably the person I want to grow up to be like; he has a gentleness and eloquence that is seldom seen–and highly respected.

Dr. Peterson died in 2018.

The author of many books, and his translation of the Bible, titled “The Message” is regarded by many as a masterpiece of the English language.

Additionally, he has recently focused on the pastor, and on the many issues, a pastor might face. He understands being a servant of the Gospel and the Church.

I encourage you to read his stuff.

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“When Christian believers gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner or later does. Outsiders, on observing this, conclude there is nothing to this religious business, except perhaps, business…and a distant one at that. Insiders see it much differently.”

“Just as a hospital gathers the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the Church collects sinners.”

“Many people outside are just as sick as the ones inside, but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised. It is similar with sinners outside the church.”

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Some other quotes by Eugene Peterson:

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”

“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves. “

“When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.”

“American religion is conspicuous for its messianically pretentious energy, its embarrassingly banal prose, and its impatiently hustling ambition.”

More Eugene Peterson Quotes…

Sifted Wheat, [Trial]

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.”

“So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 22:31-32

I’ve been thinking about failure; it is something that I am really, really good at. In my over 40 years of walking with Jesus, I realized that I’ve experienced more weak moments then strong. I have easily failed more than I have succeeded. I am embarrassed by this. I’ve sinned, and failed more as a Christian, than I ever did as a pagan sinner. And things sometimes show little sign of improving.

Simon Peter is about to undergo a trial so intense and difficult, that unless Jesus intervenes it will probably destroy Peter.

(The only other blatant attack where Satan seeks permission is in the life of Job. It is reasonable to believe that the forces of hell are concentrated on Peter.)

You and I undergo some of this onslaught ourselves. We go through periods of intense trial. Everything just falls apart, and we lose hope. I’ve had several periods like that, it’s like a tornado from hell bears down upon my life.

But there is something remarkably good in all of this.

First, Jesus is praying for me to endure. He is the faithful intercessor for my soul.
Second, He gives us a modicum of understanding by warning us of the approaching storm. Peter is told ahead of time of what was going to happen.
Third, the wheat will be sifted. Sifting or winnowing of the grain is necessary, it’s a good and godly work of the Holy Spirit. It is a good thing, as it builds your faith.
Four, you will survive to strengthen your brothers and sisters.

All pain and failure gives us a mandate to serve others. Our weakness gives us a spiritual license to become a shepherd of mercy and hope. (You could say that you are now a licensed minister.)

We can ask for nothing more; it is a good and profound work to serve others.