THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERING

THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERING Philippians 3:10-11 November 29, 2009 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction We have been parked in the driveway of Philippians 3 for three weeks now and made a study of this most important passage from the apostle Paul. Here, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, the great apostle/missionary has revealed some of his personal history, his reflections on his life and some of the core stuff as regards his mission for Christ. Before we move on to the last third of the Philippian epistle, I wanted to return just one more time to this passage, because there is a topic I believe we need to explore.   That topic is suffering. In verses 10 and 11, Paul emphatically says he wants to know Christ. He uses the verb GNOSKO which emphasizes the deep way in which he wants to know Christ. This verb has to do with more than studying the facts about Jesus; it has to do more with experiential knowledge. He wants to be thoroughly acquainted with Jesus, as an avid follower, a devoted disciple, a companion and a committed worshiper. To be that intimately acquainted with the Lord Jesus, Paul adds some detail—that he wants to be familiar with the resurrection power of Christ, but he also wants to join Him in the kinds of sufferings He endured. Read text of Philippians 3:10-11. While we apply ourselves to understand what Paul meant by the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, my prayer is that we will learn a good deal more about the nature of suffering, and how it benefits us as followers of Jesus Christ. First, we need to understand that we will suffer, and there is no avoiding it. We rehearsed this truth in the passage from 1 Peter 3 that we read earlier. Jesus warned that in this world we would have tribulation; in fact, He made it clear that to follow Him would mean to insure that our suffering in this world would be even worse, because the world hated Him and would most certainly hate us who love and serve Him also. Did you notice that Peter also wrote that believers suffer “according to the will of God”? Listen, Christian, if you are being taught that because you follow Christ you have the right to live in a kind of perennial victory that keeps you from any kind of suffering or troubles, you are getting something very different from the New Testament. If having faith in Jesus Christ is a protectant from suffering, it didn’t work for the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter. And if you are a follower of Christ, your experience has taught you, too, that life in this world is hardly ever fair or easy. Suffering is a part of life in a sin-scarred world. And it is a part of the life of Christians as well, and that by the very plan of God. 1 Peter 4:19 says that our suffering is very often “according to the will of God.” And don’t forget that back in the first chapter of this letter, verse 29, Paul told us, along with our Philippian brothers and sisters: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him… I want to tell you this: when you go through suffering—even very harsh and brutal times of trial—it does NOT mean your faith is weak or your relationship with God has soured, or He doesn’t love you any more. In fact, some of our suffering is actually evidence that God loves us. “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons . . . God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” (Hebrews 12:7, 10) Paul’s deep desire is to “know Christ”, and in order to fully experience Jesus, he knew he had to participate in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. We’ll see in a moment or two how we are brought into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ through our bearing burdens of suffering. That’s one reason Peter said, “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ” and Paul said, “I want to share in the fellowship of his sufferings.” Let’s look at this issue of wanting to share in the fellowship of his sufferings. Have you ever known someone who truly puts his life on the line in order to serve Christ? Someone who has given it all up for the Lord? They’re different, aren’t they? They’re stronger, they’re deeper, they know Jesus Christ better. When you give up pleasures, protections, privileges for the sake of serving the Lord Jesus, you get closer to Him. Usually that involves suffering. You move into a whole new level of fellowship with Christ. You share in the fellowship of His sufferings. When you suffer for the Lord’s sake, you are drawn closer to Him. Dr. Bruce Waltke told of 2 personal experiences with his daughter. He said that they once rescued a wren from the claws of their cat. The bird’s wing was broken, but even after he got the bird away from the cat’s grasp it kept struggling to escape His hands. He contrasted that story with the time when he took his daughter to the doctor. Her strep throat meant a shot was necessary. Frightened, she cried, “No, daddy. No, daddy. No, daddy.” But all the while she gripped me tightly around the neck. Pain should make us more like a sick child than a hurt bird. If you want a deeper love for Christ, step off into a dangerous assignment of obedience to Him. Say “yes” to him even if it means you are setting yourself up for suffering as a result. Because the longer-range and more important result will be that you will have learned to love the Lord in a way you could never have reached any other way. Paul knew this secret passage to a deeper love for Christ, so he prayed for opportunities to share in the fellowship of His suffering. I spoke at the Belleville Exchange Club’s God and Country Dinner last week. As part of my remarks I complemented the club for their honorable goals and the good work they do for the community. I could tell in an instant who their best members were—the ones who worked the hardest. They were the ones whose eyes misted over as I spoke of dedicated service beyond the call of duty. They are the ones who love the organization and give selflessly. You learn to love what you work for. There is another important benefit that comes with suffering for Christ. You become a better witness for Him. Ask people about what influenced them when they became Christians. Very often you’ll hear something like this: “Well, here’s how it happened. Someone in my department at work became a Christian, and I was suspicious, because I knew him. But I watched him, first for a month, then for six months, then for a year, then for two years. Every time something bad happened to him he took it in stride. Over time I saw in his life what I needed in mine—an inner strength, a ballast, a purpose.” When someone who knows Jesus suffers with dignity and demonstrates that quiet confidence in Christ the Holy Spirit whispers to those who watch, “This is a miracle. This is what I am all about—this is my power perfected in weakness. This is my grace sufficient for you.” I tell you, you can go over the four spiritual laws and rehearse the gospel with someone for years and seemingly not get anywhere, but when they see your faith at work when the chips are down, they know you have found something deep in Christ. The fact is that growing deeper in your faith through the trials and difficulties that the Lord allows to come your way, is really the fast track to Christ-likeness. Suffering does certain things in us that really could never happen in any other way. Suffering prepares us for greater service for Christ, because it toughens our faith and builds strength in us 1 Peter 5:10. One of the reasons suffering makes us better servants is we learn by experience that God will not abandon us when the going gets tough. We learn that He is faithful to help us in times of trouble-- not to keep us from them, but to help us in them. We actually learn to overcome fear and trust in God’s sufficiency for us. Few things evoke fear like the great white shark. This powerful predator seems omnipotent, with its ability to rip and tear any foe. Any foe, that is, except a small, delicate flatfish that makes its home in the Red Sea area. It looks like any other ordinary flounder or sole. But the innocent-looking “Moses Sole,” so named by the Israelis, is in reality a giant killer. In experiments conducted by researchers with the National Geographic, the huge shark would race directly at the “Moses Sole” with its saw-toothed mouth gaping open, ready to devour the helpless little fish. But its great jaws never snapped shut. Instead the great white would race away frantically shaking its head with its powerful jaws frozen open, while the little “Moses Sole” would continue swimming around contentedly as though nothing had happened. The Moses Sole secretes a milky poison from secret glands. The toxin is lethal attacking the muscles and nerves of predators. The secretion shoots into the water and shrouds the tiny fish with a halo of protection. Jesus has already conquered every enemy of ours, including the last enemy, death. He is our defense against anything that would truly harm us. And He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Many never learn to trust His power to deliver and help them because they always run from situations that threaten them, even though they may know the Lord is leading them. So they never experience what the Lord can do for them. When we undergo trials and suffering, ennobled and enabled by His grace, we learn to trust Him, to rely on His power to not only keep us from anything outside His perfect will for us, but also to make every situation work out for the good of the kingdom. It was in His suffering, the Bible says, that Jesus learned obedience (Hebrews 5:8) and it was in His sacrificial death that He won the ultimate victory over Satan and evil. Jesus’ greatest moments were not when people oohed and ahhed and thanked Him after He worked miracles, nor was it the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, because the very ones who praised Him called for His blood two days later. The crowning moment of the greatest life in human history was when He suffered infinitely more than we can imagine, and died, rejected and alone on the cross. This is the fellowship Paul said the Christian is called into—the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Paul knew the Lord in this way, so he prayed and stretched himself to a place where he longed for more of the fellowship of his suffering. Paul challenges us, “Do you really want to live for Jesus in the extreme? Are you willing to get elbow deep in ministry for Him? Take a few risks? Break out of your comfort zone, which too often is a euphemism for a disobedience zone? If you will courageously declare with the apostle Paul, “I want to know Christ…and to share in the fellowship of his sufferings”, you will not lead a comfortable life, but you will also not lead a dull life. I enjoyed reflecting on a comment one celebrity made about Sarah Palin. In the same breath she said, “She’s boring” and “She is dangerous.” It strikes me that, no matter who it is, if she’s dangerous, she is certainly not going to be boring! Here’s what Paul is saying: there is something to fear that is worse than suffering or death—and that is a wasted life—a life that could have advanced the cause of Christ with its gifts and opportunities, but didn’t. Here is the point at which the follower of Christ is perfected and moves into the image of Christ—when he says, “Jesus is Lord” and whatever sufferings I must endure in order to enter the fellowship His sufferings, I welcome them. Suffering does not destroy Christians; it perfects them. During the 19th century the only way to ship fresh North Atlantic cod from Boston to San Francisco, where there was a high demand was to sail around South America, a trip that took months. Putting the fish on ice failed miserably. They tried placing the fish in holding tanks full of water and shipped them live, but the fish were pasty, tasteless after so long without exercise. Then there was a stroke of genius. “Why not put some catfish in with the cod?” The catfish were the cod’s natural enemy. Sure enough, they add a few catfish and the cod remained alert and active, and they arrived in perfect shape and wonderfully tasty. Christians are at their best when there is an enemy to be watchful for, when there is persecution threatening them and when temptation and trials crowd them. Why? Because it is then, when they most acutely realize their own limitations and lack of strength, that they turn to their Lord . As he closes verse 11, Paul ties the goal of knowing Christ through the fellowship of His suffering to the hope of the resurrection. One chapter ago, Paul celebrated the fact that because of Christ’s obedience to the point of death on a cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the highest name and eternal glory as Lord. And so it is, in similar fashion, for us who follow Christ. We know that by the promise of our faithful God, it will be worth it all. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will award to me on that day—and not to me only, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. It will be worth it all on that day. But we need to understand that for Paul the full meaning of the resurrection is not just in the glory that is coming; it’s also in the resurrection power that is now available to the Christian. In Ephesians 1, he prayed that they eyes of the believers’ hearts would be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead… In November 1964, anarchy broke out in the Belgian Congo. Assemblies of God missionary J. W. Tucker knew he was at risk, but he stayed where God had placed him. One day, a mob attacked and killed him with sticks, clubs, fists, and broken bottles. They took his body, threw it in the back of a truck, drove to the Bomokande River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and then tossed his corpse to the crocodiles J. W. Tucker had risked everything, yet he seemingly had nothing to show for it. But 30 years later, the truth of how God used that missionary's sacrifice emerged. The Bomokande River flows through the middle of the Mangbeto tribe, a people virtually without the gospel. During a time of civil war, the Mangbeto king became distressed with the violence and appealed to the central government in Kinshasa for help. The central government responded by sending a man called the Brigadier, a well-known policeman of strong stature and reputation who came from the region of Isiro. J. W. Tucker had won the Brigadier to the Lord just two months before he was killed. The Brigadier knew the only real way to peace was through the gospel. So he prayed that he might present it well. He heard of a Mangbeto tradition that said: "If the blood of any man flows in the Bomokande River, you must listen to his message." This saying had been with the Mangbetos for generations. The Brigadier called for the king and all the village elders and he told them: "Some time ago a man was killed, and his body was thrown into the Bomokande River. The crocodiles ate him up. His blood flowed in your river. But before he died, he left me a message. "This message concerns God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to this world to save people who were sinners. He died for the sins of the world; He died for my sins. I received this message, and it changed my life." As the Brigadier preached, the Spirit of God descended and people began to fall on their knees and cry out to the Lord. Many were converted. Since that day, thousands of Mangbetos have committed their lives to Christ and dozens of churches have opened as a result of the message from the man whose blood flowed in the Bomokande River. For those who want to be like Paul, those who want, like him, to be like Christ; for those who want to know Christ, to experience Him fully; for those who are willing to follow Him in obedience no matter what level of suffering may be involved; for those who want to enjoy the power of his resurrection then and now; for those who want to experience the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death; for those . . . They will receive, as Peter put it, a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.     [ Back to Top]