Why did this happen to me? #5 - Reflect and Evaluate (Dr. Kurt Bjorklund)

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund explores Job 28-31, examining Job's claim of blamelessness and what it reveals about God's grace. He shows that when we confess our sins, God removes them "as far as the east is from the west"—freeing us from both the fear of divine punishment and the burden of wondering "Why did this happen to me?"

Message Summary and Transcript - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-post/2025/10/20/why-did-this-happen-to-me-5-reflect-and-evaluate

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Transcript

Last weekend I traveled to Michigan, just north of Detroit, to a wedding. It was my nephew who was getting married. My wife and I got in our car, one of our sons came with us and my mother-in-law, and the four of us drove to Detroit. The plan was that we would pull up to the airport at a specific time and one of my other sons and his wife, who had been at another wedding, were going to fly into Detroit. We would pick them up, proceed to the wedding, and arrive in time for the wedding, clothes pressed, ready to go and participate.

I'm happy to say that all went fine. We made it to the wedding in good shape. But there was one detail that I missed in this whole thing, and that is when we were going to the airport in Detroit, I assumed—I hadn't been to Detroit's airport in many years, and certainly not as a driver—I assumed that it was like a lot of airports where you pull in and it's all one big circle from one terminal to the next. But they actually have two terminals that are a bit of a drive apart.

When we were coming up to the airport, we realized we didn't know what flight our son was on. We just knew the time we were to meet him there. We texted him, but he was in the air. All of a sudden we were in this moment where it's like, well, which terminal do we go to? And it will matter because if we're late picking him up, it'll throw us off in order to get to the wedding and everything else.

We were trying to pick which terminal and it mattered in that moment. Now, we did pick right—we just chose Delta, which goes to Detroit, worked out. (By the way, some people have said that stands for "doesn't ever leave the airport.") We ended up getting there and everything else.

Now, the reason I tell you that story is because in a way, we've come to a point in the book of Job where we need to decide something about how this story unfolds. And that is, is Job really blameless or is he not?

The Structure of Job

Throughout this book, kind of what's happened is it starts off chapters one, two and three, and it says Job was blameless, he feared God, he shunned evil, and yet all this bad stuff happened. Then Job says, "I'm going to worship God anyway." What we've sat in the last few weeks are these cycles of the speeches of the friends and Job's responses. There are three cycles, three friends—Eliphaz (some call him Eliphaz), Bildad, Zophar.

They come along and they tell Job why they think he's suffering. And Job responds. The basic gist of all of this is: "Job, you're suffering because you've sinned. You've done wrong. The reason people suffer is they get what they deserve."

Job's reaction is basically to say, "I'm not suffering because I've sinned. God must be unjust in some way."

The problem that we've tried to point out is that we often say, well, if God is just and I haven't done anything wrong, and there's this thing called the retributive principle—this idea that if I do good, I get good; if I do bad, I get bad—then somehow either God has been unjust or maybe I've been bad and that's why I'm suffering. What Job asserts here in kind of his summary defense, chapters 29 through 31, is, "I have done nothing wrong."

Understanding Consequences and Grace

We certainly understand that sometimes when we make choices, do bad things, we get consequences. That makes sense to us. A lot of us will even understand that sometimes when we make bad choices, we get good things. And we call that grace, God's grace in our lives. But what's hard for us is sometimes when we feel like, well, I've done the right things, I've done good things, and yet I'm still suffering, I've gotten bad—then where is God in this? Why is this happening to me?

Even if you're a person who's been around church for a long time, or you're a person who says church is new to me, it's a natural question when we suffer to say, "God, where are you? And why is this happening? Did I do anything to bring this about?"

On one hand, when we come to this, Scripture addresses this idea of goodness very clearly. This is Romans chapter 3, verse 10. It says this:

"There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There's no one who seeks God. All have turned away and have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one."

So Romans says there's nobody who ever does good. And yet Job says, "I'm blameless."

Got to decide: is Job blameless or is he covered by Romans chapter three?

Job's Claim to Blamelessness

I'll give you my quick answer, and I'm going to take some time to develop this. My quick answer is that I believe that Job was somebody who was not asserting that he was sinless, that he would agree with Romans 3 because he made sacrifices. But what he was asserting was that once he had made sacrifices, his standing before God had been taken care of by his looking forward to Jesus Christ, and therefore he didn't feel as if his sin should be counted against him.

Now, you hear that and you may say, "Okay, well, what does that have to do with me?" Well, it has a lot to do with you and me. Because if we ask the question, "Why is this happening to me?" or "Where is God in this?" what happens very quickly is we can get into a place where we either blame God and say, "God has done me wrong," or we blame ourselves. And I think both are detrimental to our spiritual health. That's why I say this is kind of like standing at the terminal.

Job 29: Looking Back with Nostalgia

Let me just make a few comments on Job 29, Job 30, and then the bulk of our time will be in Job 31, where Job really asserts his blamelessness. Job 29 is a portion of Job's final defense where he is looking back.

Verse 2 of Job 29 says:

"How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness. Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house, when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me."

What does he do at this point? He starts to look back at the past with nostalgia. He's looking back and he's basically saying, "As I look back at the past, I say that was the good time. And I wish I could go back."

Sometimes what happens when we're in pain is we start to look back at a former time and we say, "That's when things were good." And the challenge with that is sometimes when we remember the past, sometimes we're remembering it correctly, and sometimes we're exaggerating how good it was.

Here's the danger. If you read through all of Job 29, you see the pronouns. In fact, if you're somebody who highlights in your Bible, just highlight all of the pronouns. Because what he does is he's looking back and he's saying, "I, I, me, my." All of it is about him. His focus is completely on what he had, what he lost. It's like he's stuck almost saying, "That was good. And now I'm in a bad space."

Now some of that's natural—you walk through a hard time to say, "I'm going to look back and wish for a better day." Of course, that doesn't seem unreasonable. But there's a sense here again that what he's doing is he's so elevating the past that he gets stuck.

There's an old song that talks about glory days and how they pass you by. The simple point of Job 29: Job is looking back and saying, "Those were the good old days." There's some nature to it. But don't get stuck looking back when you're in the middle of pain.

Job 30: Lamenting the Present

In Job 30, he spends time lamenting where he is. We see this in Job chapter 30, verse 27. All through the chapter it says:

"The churning inside me never stops. Days of suffering confront me."

What he's doing here is he's simply lamenting where he is. It's natural to lament our pain. One of the great takeaways from the Book of Job is that it's good and natural to name our emotions and to say where we really are. God doesn't frown on that in our journey.

Job 31: Job's Defense

But then we get to chapter 31, and this is where Job makes his real defense. I'm going to take some time and just read part of this and make some comments on it. I want you to get the force of this text and what he's saying, and then I'm going to make some comments about how it applies to us.

Here's how Job talks about his life, and he's still talking about this retributive principle. Here's what he says. Job 31:1:

"I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high? Is it not for ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong?"

He says, "I'm not going to look at a woman lustfully." Then he restates this retributive principle: "Isn't it God who says if you do wrong, you're going to get bad things?" Do you hear how that's right here in this text? And his assertion is, "But I haven't done wrong things. I haven't looked at anybody in a way that's inappropriate."

Then he goes even a step further. In verse five, he says:

"If I've walked with falsehood on my foot, or my foot has hurried after deceit, let God weigh me in honest scales, and he will know that I am blameless."

He says, "Not only have I not looked at anybody inappropriately, I have not lied. My mouth has uttered no deceit."

Notice now he brings in this structure, this "if, then" structure, where he says, "If I've done this, then let this be the result." He's taking this idea of saying, "If I do good, then I should get good, or if I have done bad, then let me get bad." And his assertion again is, "My thoughts, my words, they've been pure."

In verse 13, he talks about his actions toward others:

"If I've denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they have a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?"

You know what he's saying here? "I've treated people well. I've treated people with dignity and respect at every turn."

In verses 24 through 28, he talks about his wealth and not letting wealth become a source of pride for him. Here's what he says:

"If I put my trust in gold, or said to pure gold, 'You are my security.' If I've rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained..."

What's he doing? He's saying, "If I have taken pleasure, found security in how much I have, what I've earned, what I've secured for myself, then somehow I've gone off." But he says, "I haven't."

Then he talks about his pride:

"If I have rejoiced over great wealth... If I have regarded the sun and its radiance or the moon in splendor, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage."

In other words, he's saying, "I have not made much of myself."

Then he talks about how he's treated his enemies. Verse 29:

"If I have rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against their life."

He says, "Even when people have been against me, I've treated them well."

Then he talks about how he's cared for the needy. Verse 31:

"If those of my household have ever said, 'Who has not been filled with Job's meat?' But no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler."

Then he goes on in verses 38 through 40 and talks about how he's stewarded the environment:

"If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I've devoured its yield without payment, or broken the spirit of its tenants..."

Again, just for reference, he says: my thoughts, my words, my actions toward others, my wealth, my pride, my care of my enemies (or response to my enemies), my care for the needy, my stewardship. He says, "I have done it all in a way that's blameless."

So let me ask you: you hear that list? Do you say check, check, check, check, check—I'm good at every point? Do any of us say that? You might. You're deceived if you do.

Does Job Really Believe He's Blameless?

The question again is, does Job actually think this is true about himself? This is why some people have come to the conclusion that Job is not a historical book, but a parable, an extended parable written to say Job has been blameless. Now, I stated earlier, and I believe that Job is a historical book. So I don't think that's the easy route out of this, is just to say this is talking about a mythical person to give us poetry. I had some reasons for that.

But the point here is, does Job actually believe that he's blameless? As I said earlier, I don't believe he does because he makes sacrifices both for himself and for his kids. What sacrifices were in the Old Testament was a way to say, "I am making atonement for my sin, not personally, but by offering a sacrifice that prefigures Jesus Christ." In prefiguring Jesus Christ, I'm looking ahead to what Jesus Christ does as my way of salvation, my way of acknowledging my sinfulness.

So the fact that he does this, in my estimation, is his way not of saying, "I am blameless and I've never violated, never sinned," as much as it is his way of saying, "It has been covered." And yet he still has this "if then" thinking. And he still is kind of stuck here saying, "Somehow God has let me down."

Biblical Reasons for Suffering

Here's what I'd like to do for a few moments. I'd just like to show you some other portions of the Bible that speak to why we suffer. Anytime you kind of jump out of a text and say, "Let me show you what the whole Bible says," there's a little danger that I'm going to pick some things, and some of you will say, "Well, why are you picking this and not that?" You're going to say, "There's five reasons for suffering. There could be seven." You're absolutely right. There could be seven, there could be ten. This is not meant to be exhaustive.

This is meant to make a point. And here's the point that I want you to ultimately get, and that is: we don't always understand why we're suffering. And that's a good thing.

Let me show you a few reasons, and then I'll come back to that point.

1. Natural Consequences

The first is this: sometimes we suffer because of natural consequences. We've said throughout this series that this idea of the retributive principle is tough because there are places where the Bible teaches this idea of natural consequences. If I do good, I get good. If I do bad, I get bad. It teaches it in Galatians 6: "Whatsoever a person sows, this he will also reap."

There are times that we have consequences from the choices we make. If we make health choices, if we make relational choices, if we don't repair broken relationships, and then we suffer as a result. We don't invest in our marriages or in our spiritual life, and then at some point we say, "I don't know why I am where I am." Sometimes it's just a natural consequence.

We see this in 2 Samuel where David got with Bathsheba and then his family and his kingdom was torn apart. It was a natural consequence. It wasn't that God necessarily punished him. It was just the outflow of it. It's true in 2 Samuel 15 through 18, where Absalom came along and had his experience of trying to rebel against David. Then he ends up in a bloody battle. So there's natural consequences.

2. Divine Chastening

But there's a second thing that we see, and that is sometimes there's divine chastening. I say that because Hebrews chapter 12 says that the person that God loves, he disciplines. The idea is that sometimes when our behavior or our attitudes, our affections are out of line, God is going to send something into our lives to chasten us, to bring us back, to correct us.

But not all divine chastening is necessarily corrective, because in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, we're told that Paul was sent a thorn in the flesh so that he wouldn't become conceited. It was God's way of giving him something that was hard to be a corrective in his life, not so that he was corrected from a wrong, but a corrective to make him more conformed to the image of God.

So sometimes God will allow suffering in our lives to bring about character or to correct something that is out of line. So we have natural consequences, we have divine chastening.

3. Living in a Broken World

Then I would say sometimes we suffer because we live in a broken world. Very simply, because the world is full of brokenness, we suffer. Jesus illustrates this in a very clear way in Luke chapter 13. In fact, I'm going to read this because it's so compelling. This is Jesus. Luke 13:1 and following. First there's a setup, and then Jesus speaks:

"Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices."

Okay, so the Galileans gone to worship, sacrifices. Pilate ordered them to be probably executed from the appearance of this. So people going to worship were killed going to worship. The disciples come and say, "What's going on here? Why is this happening?"

"Jesus answered, 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?' He says, 'I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all perish.'"

Then to make sure that his point is clear, Jesus adds another situation. They just asked about this atrocity that Pilate perpetrated on the Galileans. And Jesus says:

"'Are those 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.'"

Now what's Jesus doing? He's saying, "You have experienced wickedness in your world and said, 'Did they get what they deserved?' He says, 'No, this is so you know that this world is broken. And you turn toward Jesus.'" Then he says, "And let me tell you about a natural disaster or a construction disaster. Some people just randomly having a difficult hardship happen in their lives." He says, "Do you think they're having it because of their sin, their worst sin?" He says, "No, it's so that your mind is open to the idea of repentance, turning toward me."

So we have natural consequences, divine chastening, because we live in a broken world.

4. Divine Repositioning

And then fourth, I would say we have the idea of divine repositioning. We see this in Genesis where Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery. In Genesis 37, he's sold. In Genesis 39, he's in Potiphar's house. Then he has a false accusation against him. He's put in prison. And he rises to become the second in command in Egypt. Through his administration, he not only brings food to the region in a famine, but he saves his own family—the very people who put him in prison—because of the food that he gives.

What did God do? God took something that looked like a negative and a hardship, and he repositioned him for a greater purpose. Sometimes God will take what to us feels like a dead end, a broken thing, a bad thing, and he'll reposition us through that so that he can do something greater in our midst. It happened for Paul and Silas in prison in Acts 16. They go to prison, but God used it so that the Gospel would spread even further.

5. Spiritual Battle

And then there's a spiritual battle. We see this in Job chapter one and two. This is where you get the idea basically of God and Satan having this conversation and God saying, "Have you considered my servant Job?" And he says, "Well, of course Job worships you. Everything's going his way. Let me afflict him in some way, and then he won't worship you." Notice that Job never knows about this.

Yet what happens is Job is afflicted by Satan with all of these things. So when I say a spiritual battle, what I'm talking about is this: there is a being, Satan, who wants to destroy your faith. If he can get to your faith by creating hardship in your life, he will want to do it. Sometimes God allows it, but you may never know.

But it happens sometimes when we get isolated, when we start to say, "God has let me down because this is happening to me," or "I've done wrong, therefore I'm getting wrong." What happens is we get to a point where what we're doing is we're losing our way because of a hardship. That could be a spiritual battle in our lives.

Now, I mentioned Job didn't know. And that's kind of my bigger point here.

The Freedom of Not Always Knowing

When you look at your life and you say, "Why am I suffering?" you may be able to say, "Well, I'm suffering here because of this natural consequence." But in all likelihood, it's really hard to be able to say it was one of these or all of these. It could be 1, 2, 3, 4. You just don't always understand why you're suffering.

Now, certainly if you can trace a natural consequence and you can say, "Let me take that out of my life," great. But sometimes the consequence remains.

But here's what I really want you to get when we back to the terminal, standing, driving, getting ready to go to one terminal or the other: when we say, "I did wrong and that's why I'm having this," our vision of God, our version of God, becomes one of a capricious God who likes to mete out punishment on his people. If we are still on the side of saying, "Well, I've done right, but God has done wrong," then we have a God who's not worthy of worship.

What we need to be able to do is say: the God of the Bible is a God who loves to justify sinners and declare them right.

As Far as the East Is from the West

There's something that happens when God does this. Let me just show you one verse from Psalms that gives a picture of this. It's not so much a theological statement as a picture, but it fits with the New Testament. Psalm 103, verse 12 says this:

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

Now why does it say east from west instead of north from south? Do you know what happens if you go north? At some point you cross over the North Pole. In what direction do you go? South. And if you go south, at some point you cross over the South Pole. What direction do you go? North.

What happens if you go east? Do you ever start going west? You actually don't. You just keep going around and around and around, and same thing if you go west. So when he says, "As far as the east is from the west," what he's saying is these two will never meet again. That's how far God has taken our sins from us.

Why does that matter? Because if your vision and version of God is "God is punishing me for what I've done in the past," what you're doing is you're bringing your sins to bear and you're saying, "I'm still under the judgment of God for something that Jesus Christ has already forgiven." If you've confessed your sins to God, if you've repented, if you've turned toward God, why is that important? Because it's freedom.

It means when something bad happens in your life, you can say, "If I have confessed my sin to God, then I don't need to sit around with the question, 'Am I being punished for what I've done?'"

Not only this: when you hear people talking about judgment in the future for believers and "every word, everything will be brought to account"—yes, it will. But do you know God has already declared it paid for? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, meaning you don't need to live with fear of judgment now or in the future, if you've come into a relationship with Jesus Christ. That is freedom. That is something that gives us a worthiness of God to say, "He is worthy of my worship."

Grace, Not Karma

Karma is not a Christian principle. Grace is. We have a God who says, "Your sins are paid for. They're as far as the east is from the west." If we are still paying for our sins, then our sins are open to double jeopardy. We are under double jeopardy for judgment rather than under grace that has been paid for by the work of Jesus Christ.

If we get this, then we don't turn. When we suffer, we may still struggle and say, "I don't understand why." In fact, you probably won't. Job never did. But you'll be able to say, "Whatever is happening here, it's not that God's capricious and God is somehow let me down. And it's not that I'm being punished for my sin. I'm going to trust that God is somehow at work in the midst of whatever is going on today." It changes how we live and how we worship.

Confession and Freedom

Let me just say one other thing about that. It's not automatic. You know what 1 John says, chapter one, verse nine:

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

Confessing our sins in the big sense is saying, "I have sinned, I need a savior. Jesus is my savior. I confess and I invite Jesus to be my savior." Then all of our sins, past, present and future, are forgiven. So we are under double jeopardy if we ever put it back to judgment.

But even if we sin after that, if we confess our sins, then the divine chastening side of that—I believe it is as far as the east is from the west. We may still have natural consequences, but we are done with the divine chastening as soon as we confess our sins. And it leads to freedom.

If you're here and you've been a follower of Jesus, this should inspire worship, to say, "Whatever I've done, not done, left undone, the mistakes I've made, they are not held against me. Praise be to God."

If you're here and you're saying, "You know, I'm not sure about this Jesus thing, God, I mean, I've always thought that I have to do good to get good," do you hear the good news of what Jesus offers? If you come to Jesus, you don't live by karma, you live by grace.

So you can come and say, "God, I acknowledge that I'm a sinful person and Jesus has paid the way. And I want all judgment, past, present and future to go to him, not to me."

The next time you suffer, if you're suffering now, you can at least say, "It's not that I did something that I deserve this because it's been paid for as far as the east is from the west. And I don't need to think that God's capricious. I may not understand it, I may not like it. I can lament it like Job did. But I can also anticipate that maybe God is doing some divine repositioning, that maybe there's something else going on here that God is at work in, in a way that I don't get." And it'll let you live in the midst of hardship with hope and freedom.

Prayer

Let's pray together.

God, today there are many of us walking through things that are difficult. And it's natural to ask the question, "Did I do anything that brings this on?" But God, I pray that as we confess our sins to you, that we would be granted the freedom to say, "As far as the east is from the west, this has been taken away and it has been declared right in your sight." And it would lead us to freedom and worship. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for being here. Have a great week.

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