Sharing in the Sufferings of Christ

Well hello everyone it's the start of Lent and the start of a new teaching series

A Passion for Christ and what better way to inspire some passion than to talk about

suffering okay this is going to be interesting to be honest if I'm going to share the gospel

with someone if I'm going to talk about why I follow Jesus I'm not sure that suffering would

be where I'd start you know it's not a very attractive topic but we can't ignore how often

Christians suffering and sacrifice appear in the Bible we follow Jesus the suffering servant who

told us to take up our cross and follow him Jesus who suffered and died for us and Paul well he talks

about suffering a lot in fact he uses the word suffering more than any other writer in the New

Testament and this letter of his to Corinthians seems to hold suffering right at its heart

which is why as Paul starts the letter with his standard thanksgiving to God

he refers to him as the father of compassion and the God of all comfort

right from the start what does Paul want the readers to know about God he wants them to know

that God is with us when we suffer that he comforts us in our troubles and it's because of that that

2 Corinthians has so much to say about following Jesus and suffering and well the first thing we see

is that suffering shows us that the gospel matters

if the good news of Jesus is just some idea we have a nice way of thinking about life then

there's no point in suffering for it it's just bland philosophy it doesn't matter

but Paul knew that the gospel he had been called to preach was vital it was life-changing world-changing

even and because of that he knew that everything he went through whether good or bad had a purpose

look at verse 6 if we are distressed it is for your comfort and salvation that's Paul's perspective

the well-being of the church and the opportunity for more people to follow Jesus

was well worth the suffering that he and his fellow Christians faced and if you look through

the book of Acts you see that the church suffered a great deal right from the beginning but they thought

that suffering was worth it for the gospel but that's not all verse 6 continues if we are comforted

it is for your comfort which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer

so when suffering comes to an end that has a purpose too in this case providing encouragement for

other Christians who are still suffering it says well God rescued them surely he'll rescue us too

so the point here is not that we need to seek out suffering we don't need to deliberately make our

lives hard in order to serve God rather we accept that following Jesus isn't always easy and that if we

truly give our whole selves for God's purposes then our own desires for an easy life have to come

become second or third or fifth or gonna last now a few years ago I met someone who seemed to really

embody this idea he had just become a vicar and had decided to wear his collar all of the time just

whenever he went out no matter what he was doing he looked like a vicar and this was an opportunity

to see real blessing because he would run into strangers on the street and they'd see him as somebody

safe to talk to and so he had the opportunity to share God's love with so many people that might not

otherwise experience it but the flip side of that was that he also took a lot of flack for it and not

everybody that he met would respond positively to seeing him and he described all sorts of things

happening to him he would get yelled at in the street he had somebody follow him home he even had someone

throw a brick through his house his house window once and as he described these things he then

paused and he sort of went hmm Jesus was crucified

and that took the wind out of me I remember sitting there thinking oh my goodness what a challenge

but this guy's the real deal you know here's someone who is living with the reality that the son of God

died for him and it completely changed his priorities and because of that he put himself in a position yes

to experience suffering but also to see God do amazing things which brings us to my second point which is

that suffering shows us that God is good it seems a strange thing to say doesn't it surely we say that God is

good when good things happen we praise him for the good gifts he gives us and that is right and good but

here's the thing one of the most dangerous temptations that Christians can face is to say that God wants nothing more than for us to be healthy wealthy and happy

and that if we have everything we want then surely God must be smiling on us or maybe we want to say that yes

we go through hard times you know who doesn't but they can't really be that hard because God's looking after us he won't

make us go through anything more than we can handle

well what's Paul's take on this verse 8 we do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia

we were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired of life itself

well this following Jesus business is getting more and more attractive by the second isn't it

i hope some of you are still around and you haven't switched off your computers and run away

we need to hear stuff like this particularly i think in the uk where being a christian is

relatively safe you know the church is more part of the establishment in this country you know i've never

suffered to the point that i've despaired of life itself the most trouble i've faced for following

jesus actually is the occasional bit of ridicule or disagreement but right now we have brothers and

sisters around the world who are be facing persecution and imprisonment and even death

for their faith and we must not be uninformed of the price some christians pay

but verse 9 this happens that we might not rely on ourselves but on god who raises the debt

he has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us again so there's that perspective thing

that's what we're doing again again the church suffers and in their suffering they get to see god

at work they face more than they could possibly hope to endure and yet here they are still standing

so what else could that mean but that god has rescued them and paul while he has this eternal

perspective who is the god that he serves well he's the god who raises the dead who offers

eternal life and that god is trustworthy he delivered us once he can do it again

now as a church that isn't being persecuted in a country where we can worship and pray openly without

fear i think we have a duty to pray for that deliverance to to call out to god to show his goodness for

christians who are suffering and through that prayer we will see that we are united with them because and

this is my final point suffering shows us that the church is united now how awesome is prayer i think i

need constant reminding actually to appreciate prayer more to appreciate that privilege that it is to spend time

in the presence of god in the presence of god and to be involved in his saving work you know it's no small

thing that paul describes at the end of our reading on him we have set our hope that he will continue

to deliver us as you help us by your prayers then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious

favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many we can't ignore the significance of that as you help us

by your prayers now paul's trust is very much in god but he recognizes the impact that the corinthian

church's prayers have had on him these people are hundreds of miles away from where paul is and yet

paul says to them you are united with us in our struggles through your prayers you know it's no

coincidence that our worship includes prayer for the world it's a product of god's grace and a sign of

his desire for us to work with him that he chooses to act through us and in answer to the prayers of

his people when we pray for our fellow christians in times of need our voices are raised with theirs

to the throne of god and it doesn't matter how far apart we are from them

i remember several instances in my teens when a crisis would unite my church normally it would be a

serious illness or injury of someone in the community and the call would go out to drop

everything and start praying often the church building would be opened up as well and people

would come together to pray and we truly became family in those moments the church is

at its best when the petty squabbles that are often so visible from the outside give way to the

suffering and the need of our sisters and brothers we're reminded in those moments that we are truly

one in christ and just as the need of one becomes the need of all of us as we pray so as god answers those

prayers the blessing of one becomes a blessing to us all we share in the story we praise god for his goodness we give

thanks for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many

god wastes nothing whatever your circumstances at the moment i hope that you take that away that god

is at work in your comfort and in your suffering

we are called simply to offer ourselves trusting that in good times and in bad god is working all things

for good so as a church let's share in each other's sufferings let's bear one another's burdens and in doing

so let's see the goodness of god as he answers the prayers of his people amen

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