Ep 124 | Cover to Cover 3 | Pastor Ryan Clark | Jan 18, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

📍 Hello this is Pastor Ryan Clark You are listening to a message from St John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo Minnesota Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Show of hands, how many of you have ever opened your mouth and said the wrong thing? Anyone? All right.

We all have, right? We've all been there before.

Well, as I was preparing for this message this week, I was looking online and I found all these testimonies.

Of people that wrote in and shared times when they too had opened their mouth and said the wrong thing, and I thought some of 'them were kind of funny.

So I, thought I would share them with you here today.

The first one says, at the time I was a first year nurse, I was talking to a patient who had a bunch of flowers in his room, and I said to him, I wish I could have some of those flowers at home, but everything I touch seems to die.

He just looked at me horrified until I realized what I had said.

I quickly said, plants.

Plants, not people.

He laughed, but I still cringe every time I think about it.

Then there was this guy, he says, my now ex-girlfriend was confiding in me that she was self-conscious about something in her appearance.

I thought what she said was slightly odd, and I intended to say something reassuring and comforting, but what came out was this, well, that's strange.

Of all the things you could be self-conscious about.

Did I mention she's my ex-girlfriend? And then there was this guy once I was having an argument with my wife.

She had a problem with me always correcting her.

She said, listen, I know I'm not the brightest tool in the shed, but there's no need to always correct me.

I couldn't stop myself.

All I said was sharpest tool in the shed.

I don't think that went over well either.

We all go through these times where we say the wrong things, but we don't want to do that, right? Especially when somebody is going through a difficult time, or especially when somebody is grieving.

As we continue our sermon series that's going to be going on this year and next year, going from cover to cover, looking at what the Bible has to say, we are now in the Book of Job, and by the way, people have asked me why did we go from Genesis to Job and then we go back to Genesis.

Well, this is a chronological study of the Bible.

So as we're going through it, we're going through it in the order of it, how it probably happened.

And so we're going to be bouncing around a little bit, but it should make it just a little bit more interesting.

But we are in this book of Job, and as we're going to see, there were three guys that came alongside Job, and they were just like those people in the illustration at the beginning of this message.

They said the wrong things.

And we want to learn from that and make sure that we don't do that when it comes to our own lives and the people that are grieving in our lives.

So we're introduced to this guy, Job.

In Job 1, it says, in the land of Uz, there lived a man whose name was Job.

This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and he shunned evil.

He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants.

He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

So Job indeed is a great guy in every way.

He loves the Lord.

He seeks to follow the Lord.

He's so blessed.

He's got all of these animals.

He's got all of this wealth.

He's got a big and beautiful family.

He looks like he's got the world by the tail, and then one day in just a matter of minutes, it's all taken away from him.

His oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his servants, his camels.

They're either killed or stolen.

In just a matter of minutes.

And then if that wasn't bad enough, all 10 of his children, and I can't even imagine this, were all together and the roof caves in on them and kills all 10 of his children.

And then in chapter two, we read this, then Job was stricken with painful sores from the soles of his feet, all the way to the crown of his head.

He lost everything.

He lost his wealth.

He lost his family.

He lost his health.

Everything disappeared in a matter of minutes.

That's when his friends show up.

When Job's, three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes to sympathize with him and comfort him.

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him.

They began to weep aloud and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.

No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.

We're going to look here today at seven.

Things we can learn from these three friends, and the first one is this.

1.

When someone is grieving, sometimes the best thing you can do is not say anything at all or at least just a little bit and focus on the ministry of presence.

Did you catch how long those guys stayed with him without saying a word? Seven days and seven nights.

They just sat with him.

In his grief.

And you know what? As long as they did that without saying anything, they were doing a really good job.

Sometimes when we come upon people that are grieving, the best thing you and I can do is simply be there for them.

When you go to a funeral or you go to somebody that's grieving because you've got a lot of love in your heart, You want to say the perfect thing that's going to fix it, right? But if someone has lost a loved one, there's nothing you can say that's going to fix it.

The best thing you can say is this: I'm so sorry for what you're going through.

I'm praying for you, and if there's anything I can do, please let me know.

Beyond that, it's probably going to be the wrong thing.

What people really need to know is that you are there for them.

And you know what? These three guys for the seven days that they just sat with him, they were doing a really good thing.

Right after this happened, It says, At this Job, got up and tore his robe and shaved his head.

Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart.

The Lord gave and the Lord is taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."

In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

I think one of the things we can learn about grief is that when something really hard hits somebody, they may initially be in a state of shock.

And I can only imagine the shock that Job was in after losing everything.

And so what did he do? He did an amazing thing.

He went to God and worshiped him.

But always what happens in the next few days or the next couple of weeks, you start to go through those stages of grief.

And that can get pretty ugly.

In Job 3, it says, After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

He said: "May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, 'A boy is conceived.'

Why did I not perish at birth and die as I came from the womb?" That's pretty strong language.

He's saying, why am I here? I wish I was never born.

And that's some of the grief that people can go through in the days and weeks after losing somebody or after going through something very traumatic.

Well, once again, those three friends should have just remained quiet.

But this is a hard thing just to listen to.

It says, then Eliphaz, the Timonite replied:,If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands, Job.

Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.

But now trouble comes on you and you're discouraged; it strikes you, and you're dismayed.

You know what he's saying? You've really helped everybody else go through tough times, but now tough times hit you.

I'm surprised at you.

You're not handling it very well.

Probably not the right thing to say.

Right? And that leads us to number two.

2.

When somebody is grieving, don't get scared away by grief's initial hopelessness.

Grief is not something that you just get over quickly.

Grief comes in waves, and there's no timeline for when it's going to get better.

Like I said, initially, grief can look ugly, and the reason for that is, is right after you've gone through something traumatic or you've lost a loved one, grief starts coming in these large waves, and initially it feels like those waves are right on top of one another.

People have said it feels like I can't breathe.

Now as time goes along, you still have those waves, but you might have a little bit of good time in between where you even might smile or even laugh a little bit.

But at first it's just one wave right after the other.

And that's where Job was in Job 3, and his friends just should have remained quiet during that time.

3.

When somebody is grieving, realize that many of the bad things that happen to us have nothing to do with anything that we did.

The rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous alike.

In Job 1, we have the curtain pulled back so that you and I can see what's going on in the heavenlies, that all of this took place with poor Job.

It says, One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them.

The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.

Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied, have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? So the Bible pulls back the curtain and we see all of the angels coming before God, but amongst those angels comes Satan as well.

And God has this conversation with the accuser and he says.

Have you seen my, my boy Job? Ah, he's a great guy.

And Satan, whose name means the accuser, begins accusing him.

He's like, he's not such a great guy.

You think he loves you for nothing, God? He only loves you because you've given him everything but permit me to take away it all and we'll see how much he loves you.

And so God allows Satan to take away some of the things that he had given to him.

And then in Job 2, God says, See, Job still is maintaining his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.

Ah, skin for Skin.

Satan replied, A man will give all he has for his own life, but now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.

The Lord said to Satan very well, then he is in your hands, but you must spare his life.

And that's what we see Job now without anything.

Was it because of what Job had done? Was Job being punished or disciplined for something that he had done wrong? Not at all.

Not at all.

Not everything bad that happens to us is because we did something wrong.

Sometimes it has nothing to do with that.

Now, remember, Job and his friends, they didn't get to pull back the curtain and see what was going on in the heavenlies.

Oh, we get to, but they had no idea what was going on.

And Eliphaz, one of Job's friends says this, Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so don't despise the discipline of the Almighty, Job.

What was he saying? It's something that you did and you just be happy that God's correcting you by taking everything away from you.

That's harsh.

I'm sure they meant well.

But that was the wrong thing to say.

Fast forward 2000 years, we have Jesus with his disciples and they come upon a blind man.

And in John 9, it says, As he went along, he saw man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? Was it this man or was it his parents who sinned that he was born blind? Neither this man nor his parents sin, said Jesus, but this happens so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Jesus is saying the same thing.

It had nothing to do with anyone's sin that he was born blind, but God is going to use him to bring glory to his name by giving him back his sight.

4.

When somebody is grieving, it is not the time for a lecture for correction or, and I think this is an important one, for thinking you've got to defend God.

In Job 9, Job says, Even if I had summoned God and he responded, I don't believe that he'd give me a hearing.

He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason.

One of the stages of grief that people go through is anger, and Job had kind of gotten to that stage here in Job 9, and he's directing some of his anger at God.

Maybe you've been there.

Maybe you've been with people that have been there where they say, why, why is this happening to me? That's pretty normal.

That's one of the stages of grief that we go through.

But once again, Job's, friends just can't handle it.

Then Bildad, the Shuhite replied, How long will you say such things job? Your words are a blustering wind.

Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right? What was he doing? He was trying to defend God.

And in the process he was saying, you're speaking a lot of ridiculous words.

Job.

Hear this.

You don't have to defend God.

He's got big, broad shoulders and he can defend himself well enough on his own.

Now there will be times in our life where we will speak for God.

But when somebody is in the throes of grief, that is not the right time to think that you've got to be the one who defends God against this poor grieving person.

5.

When somebody is grieving, realize that grief can oftentimes mask itself as anger.

Don't take it personally.

I've been a Pastor now for 23 and a half years, and I, I have oftentimes said, I am so glad I'm a Pastor and not a doctor.

Sorry, Tia.

I am so glad that I am not a doctor.

Why? Because whenever somebody goes through the loss of a loved one, it is such a hard emotion to deal with, just to come to the realization that you've lost this person that is so important to you.

And so a lot of times, instead of dealing with that emotion, it's a lot easier to deal with an emotion of anger.

And so they've got to find a place where they can direct their anger, and oftentimes, I've seen it directed at the doctor.

it's your job to make sure that my loved one got well, and you didn't do your job.

Grief can oftentimes mask itself as anger and as much as you can, don't take it personally.

Job started aiming his frustration at his buddies.

He said, Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

But my brothers are as undependable, as intermittent streams.

And then it gets worse in Job 13.

He says to his friends, You are worthless physicians.

For you, that would be wisdom.

Ouch.

Now, these guys weren't saying all the right things, and like I told my wife, if I said some of these things, I fully expect that you would never talk to me again.

But he is really aiming his anger at these guys.

And instead of the guys learning their lesson and zipping their lip, it just gets worse and worse and worse.

And in this next week, we're going to see that, we ain't seen nothing yet.

It's going to get really intense between Job and his friends.

6.

When somebody is grieving, don't speak out of emotion.

Speak carefully, and here's the key words, only after prayer so that you are in line with what God is saying and doing.

The Lord is close to the broken hearted, the Bible says, and so when somebody is going through grief or going through loss, the Lord is right there.

And oftentimes he is trying to work something in the person's life.

He's trying to comfort them, help them to let them know that he's there with them.

And we want to make sure that we are on the same page as God saying the same things that he's saying and not fighting against him saying the opposite things.

How do we know when we're saying the right things? We've got to pray.

We've got to spend time and prayer saying, God, what should I say to this person that's going through these difficult times? If you fast forward all the way to the end of the Book of Job that we're going to get to here in a couple weeks, in chapter 42, it says, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me as my servant Job has.

Evidently these three friends did not spend a whole lot of time in prayer before opening their mouths, and in chapter 42, God says, I'm upset.

I'm trying to work this thing in Job, and you're fighting against me by the things that you say.

How do we keep from doing that? By spending time and prayer for the person before talking to the person.

VIP: Our very important point of the day is this, "Saying the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing."

Now, there were plenty of things that these three guys said that were wrong.

There were also other things that were partially right, but if they would've prayed, they would've realized God says, this is not the time to share some of those things.

The goal of every one of us has to be through prayer to say the right thing at the right time.

7.

When somebody is grieving, remember these words, "I don't know why this is happened, but what I do know is this: That God loves you and he's with you."

You know it's okay.

It's okay not to have the perfect words, and especially when someone has lost a loved one, you're not going to have the perfect words.

And if they ask you, why is this happening to me, it is perfectly okay to say, I don't know.

But then you want to point to what you do know, and you say things like, I know that God loves you and I know that he's going to be with you.

Now, if you think about that, that's amazing, right? In Job 15 it says, What are mortals that they could be pure, or those born of women, that they could be righteous? It's saying here that nobody is righteous on their own, and in our unrighteousness, it says in Isaiah 59 that our sins separate us from God so that God can't be with us.

So that he can't love on us.

How did God fix it? In 2 Corinthians 5, it says, God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

How did God make us righteous so that he could come and be with us and help us and love on us in our worst days? By taking all of our sin, all of our unrighteousness, and putting it on his Son, and then on a cross, Jesus paid for it all so that we in turn could get his righteousness.

In Job 14, Job says, My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.

What beautiful words.

That idea of covering over something is the word atonement.

It means it is covered over in such a way that you can't see it any longer, and that is what God did to our sin through Jesus.

He covered it over, he washed it away so that it would never keep us from having a relationship with God.

So that God wouldn't have to stay far from us, so that he could come near to us and help us in our time of need.

And by the way, Job 14:17, we said every week there would be a verse that you could highlight.

Job 14:17

That's the verse that you can highlight.

There are highlighters in your pews if you would want one, but just feel free to highlight that verse, Job 14:17.

Job 14:17

In Romans 8, it says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

If you believe in Jesus and what he did on that cross, and if you've been baptized, there's no more condemnation for you.

Remember, in Job 1, when Satan came with his accusations and his condemnations.

Oh, he would like to do the same thing for you, but the Bible says that because of the cross, something dramatic happened.

That guy that was right there in God's courtroom accusing has been thrown out of the courtroom forever and ever.

We see that in Revelation 12, where it says, Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

So what this means is there's no longer a prosecuting attorney standing before God.

There's only one attorney in that room, and that's the defense attorney.

That's your attorney.

That's Jesus Christ.

There are no more accusations against you.

Thanks to what Jesus did on that cross.

You know, it all comes back to the cross.

It all comes back to the cross when you don't understand what's going on in your life and there's going to be time.

Look to the cross.

You do know what happened there.

Secondly, when you wonder about God's character, is he good? Then why is this happening to me or to my loved one? Look to the cross.

When we wonder if God really forgives us, what do you do? Look to the cross.

When we wonder if God will come and help us in our time of need, what do you do? Look to the cross.

Just like it says in Romans 8, If he didn't spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not along with him graciously give us everything we need? And so in every situation at all times when we don't understand.

When we go through difficult things, when we're trying to help people that are going through grieving times, what do we do? We can't go wrong by going to the cross.

And may God grant it to each one of us for Jesus' sake, Amen.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.