Paul's Suffering

Good morning.

Today's reading is from the Book of Colossians, chapter one, verses twenty-four through chapter two, verse five.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.

To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all of those who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance and understanding, and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

This is the word of God.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here.

Hey, kids, it's great to see you in here.

Raise your hand if you're a kid.

Wow, great job.

Couple of adults.

Good.

Good.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm gonna pray real quick and then we'll move into our text for today.

Holy Father, we thank you for our gathering together to hear your word and what you have for us this morning.

Lord, what a joy to gather with the saints and worship you.

Thank you for all that you have given to us, Lord, this Independence Day weekend.

We thank you for our freedom of assembly to come together and rejoice together in what you have done and what you have accomplished on our behalf.

Lord, I pray that you would give us hearts that are open to be able to receive your word, and that your spirit will work in our hearts to apply that word to us.

Lord, let us see how you have used your servant Paul.

And Lord, let us understand how that what that means for how you might use us as a church and each of us in our own lives.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we've seen Paul throughout this letter move from this intro, which is this just this thanksgiving for the Colossians and that this church has formed in Colossae.

And that moves into this overflow of gratitude for who Christ is.

And then out of that overflow of gratitude for who Christ is, we see a Christ and you picture of what Christ has done and what that means for us personally.

And we saw that our knowledge of Christ is always a personal knowledge, that Christ made himself a person for us.

And so it makes sense that this next section, Paul starts describing his own life to the Colossians.

Because Paul's ministry is deeply personal.

When he's writing these letters, it's not as though he's writing some sort of textbook where it doesn't really matter who the author is, and you don't need to have any sort of real relationship to the author in order to understand what's being written.

No, he's writing a letter to people who he hopes to know and encourage, and he hopes will in return know him.

And so today we get a picture of who Paul is and what his life is and what that means for the Colossians that he's writing to.

The key thing to see here is that ministry is always personal.

It can't be accomplished by just books on a shelf.

It always takes place in a personed and embodied way, where we need to know each other in mutually related commitments, in relationships to one another.

That's where true ministry takes place.

And so we see that take place for Paul.

We're going to see Paul explain two things, why he is able to rejoice in his sufferings.

And then we're going to see why he wants the Colossians, the church, to know about his personal sufferings on their behalf, that they might be encouraged.

And then I'm going to exhort you as a church to share your sufferings with one another, because we can trust that our sufferings are made useful, that they're made purposeful because of what Christ has accomplished.

So let's begin by looking at Paul's own sufferings.

In Colossians 1, verse 24, he says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.

Colossians 1:24

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

Now it's a strange thing to say that you rejoice in your sufferings, but I think that the principle is something that each of us can understand and understand pretty simply.

Yeah, heard of Legos?

Yeah.

So his use of Legos involves an incredible amount of suffering because there's missing pieces, and he has these ideas for race cars that he just can't realize in his mind, which I deeply relate to.

All of the race cars I imagine taking place in my life, I barely get half of them.

And in that process of this intense suffering of, oh, there's a missing piece, and I can't realize this idea, and I tried to make this thing, and oftentimes tantrums and throwing and things like that, uh, calls for help and uh uh uh immense amounts of time as a as a father trying to discern the idea that's in my son's brain.

All that suffering could be avoided if he just stepped away from the Legos, which I think is impossible.

But he, in a s in another sense, rejoices in that suffering because occasionally, often even, it results in a race car.

And that's about the best thing that there could possibly be.

Is a new Lego race car to play with and be refined and tweaked.

Right when I said that's the best thing that could be, I saw JT's head pop up and go, hey.

Yeah, so he agrees.

So if we think that our suffering, if invested, will ultimately prove effective, that it will that it will show results, then we can endure incredible amounts of suffering.

If we think that it will prove useful, we can keep going and even find ourselves rejoicing in that suffering.

I mean, this is Colorado.

I uh I know one of you did a triathlon for fun.

That's insane.

But there's some amount of just rejoicing in that suffering.

But oftentimes our suffering doesn't look useful at all.

And in fact, Paul's particular suffering that he's experiencing now, that he's uh drawing, that he's explaining and showing to the Colossians, this particular suffering that he has now is like the definition of what seems like useless suffering.

Paul's call on his life that he knows and has so deeply identified with and heard so explicitly from the Lord is to spread the gospel to the Gentiles.

And his suffering right now is being under house arrest, where he's not even able to move around.

He's grounded completely.

And so this type of suffering seems like the picture of useless suffering, the type of suffering that doesn't amount to anything.

There's no race car at the end.

And I know you can relate to that.

That's the type of suffering where we know that's not the type of suffering we rejoice in.

That's the type of suffering that's just suffering.

I invested so much energy in this business to see it come together and to see the fruit of it realized out in the world, and now I'm going to have to turn another direction and shut this down.

It seems utterly fruitless.

Well, that's the type of suffering, that apparently fruitless suffering that Paul is saying he rejoices in.

And he says even more than that.

He makes this outrageous claim where he says, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.

Filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions?

That's maybe overstating it.

Now, what does he mean?

Obviously, Christ's afflictions were sufficient for our salvation.

They were sufficient for our reconciliation to the Lord, for our justification, for our future glorification with the Lord, for our present sanctification.

Christ's sufferings were sufficient for all of these things, but what is lacking in Christ's suffering for the Colossians?

It's not present.

Paul is able to make the sufferings of Christ present for the Colossians.

And so he's filling up what is lacking in Christ's suffering.

And in doing so, he's demonstrating the very love that Christ has, that Christ has for this church, for the Colossians, by his own suffering.

By his unwillingness to abandon the gospel, even though it means imprisonment, he's filling up this suffering for the sake of the Colossians.

Now, this makes sense when we consider just the very language that he says.

I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.

So Paul views himself as a small part of Christ's body.

And we know that Christ's body suffers afflictions, but they're not useless afflictions.

They're the most meaningful afflictions ever experienced.

They're the ones that accomplish the renewal of all creation.

And Paul is saying that by being a part of his church, he sees himself and understands that all of his sufferings are under this category of the sufferings of Christ's body.

And that means none of them are useless.

And in fact, they're effective for the very people that Christ loves, who Paul has learned to love himself because of the love that he sees Christ having for the Colossians.

And because of that, Paul is able to rejoice.

Now, as being a part of Christ's body, we share in the sufferings of Jesus.

That means there is suffering that is apportioned to us.

But don't confuse this with a sort of merit, as though there is something insufficient in Christ's sufferings that you need to make up for in yourself in order to achieve salvation.

That's not what this means.

What this means is that our sufferings in Christ, although they do not merit our salvation, they make our self Christ's merit, makes our salvation, excuse me, makes our sufferings meaningful.

All of our suffering is meaningful.

There is no wasted suffering for the Christian.

So Paul seeks to share this.

And he says, he continues on, and he says, Of which I became a minister, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.

Listen to this, to them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Paul looks back on his life and he says, I've been given this stewardship of the gospel to share with the Gentiles.

And what is it that I am sharing?

I'm sharing this reality that God chose to make known to them the riches of his glory in this, the bottom floor, the foundation, the source of his whole message, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The foundation of Paul's message is that when you realize that Christ is in you and that your sufferings are just a share, a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ, then you see that Christ being in you means you are participating in a hope of glory.

Now, what does that mean?

When we think hope, we think something that might happen, a hope of glory.

When Paul says hope, he's talking about something that is certain in the future that you can bank on.

And this hope is that you will share in the glory of Christ.

And so don't you see how Paul's message to the Colossians just perfectly matches the medium in which he's expressing it in?

He's writing from prison a place where it looks like he's experiencing an absolute futility.

And he's saying, but I have this trust, and the message that I'm sharing is that we have a hope of glory.

Even us mortals who live our lives completely in the shadow of death.

We have a hope of glory.

So here I am writing in a place where I've been rendered futile, perhaps, where I'm unable to participate in the ministry in the way that I would like, that God has called me to.

And yet I have this unshakable hope of glory.

The medium of Paul's message perfectly fits what his message is.

And that's why Paul is sharing himself.

He's sharing the very position that he is in to say, look, you think you're you think you're useless.

I'm in jail right now.

All I can do is write.

And sometimes I can't even do that.

But because he sees the hope that he has in Christ, he's able to rejoice and calls us into that hope.

Now, this is the mission statement of Paul's life.

In 128 through 29, he says, Him we proclaim that's Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.

This is the driving force of Paul's life, to proclaim Christ, to warn.

If you are outside of Christ, you are hopeless, to teach that in Christ we have an absolute hope of glory, no matter the circumstances, to share this with all wisdom so that we might each be able to apply this to our lives and to the life of the church that we are a part of.

And his purpose is that everyone might be presented mature in Christ.

This is the whole purpose of his letter to the Colossians, that they might be made mature in Christ.

This is why Paul struggles and toils with all the energy that the Lord works within him, the all the energy that the Lord gives to him to share, he uses for this end that Christ might be made known.

This is the purpose of his life.

And that's why Paul shares his life.

Because of what Christ has done in him, when he shares himself, he's sharing Christ.

Now he goes on in Colossians 2.1, and here we start to see what is the benefit of Paul sharing his sufferings for us.

In Colossians 2.1, he says, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.

I want you to consider what this is, you know, who he's talking to.

It's kind of like, you know, you you you imagine you just get caught up in this story.

The Colossian church has just been caught up into this story as they've learned the gospel, and they're getting their bearing still.

Okay, Christ has come and we are reconciled to God, and just by faith in him, we've become a body, a people.

And you sort of look out and say, what else is going on in this story?

Is this happening anywhere else in the world?

And then you get this letter from Paul, and you realize there have been other people who have been sacrificing so that we might know this, so that we might be able to participate in this story.

And so Paul is saying, I deeply desire for you to understand the suffering that I have experienced on your behalf, because in your understanding of that, you'll begin to see the greatness of what Christ is accomplishing in the world.

And you'll be able to see the love that He has shown to you through His body, which is the church, that is being shown throughout the whole world that people you don't even know are suffering on your behalf, working for you.

It makes me think my sister adopted my nephew from China.

And I just consider all of the adoption is like so hard.

It's so challenging.

There's just outrageous, it's like the paperwork Olympics.

And you're meeting and signing, you're dealing with the international regulations and hoping that you, you know, you're trying to, you're, you're, you're passing tests from people who are coming and just looking at you and your house, and you're trying to look good, but don't look too good because then that looks fake.

You know, and there's all of these dynamics.

And so the and then there's there's the your heart breaking for of this hope for for this child who you desire to make a part of your family.

There's all that suffering that was taking place between my my sister in the heart of my sister and brother-in-law for the sake of my nephew.

But my nephew had no idea that was happening when it was happening.

And then when he becomes a part of the family, there's this opportunity to share.

Look, we we went through all of this with you in mind.

We had this constant hope of bringing you into our family.

And so there's this desire, we want you to know the depth of suffering that we went through on your behalf, so that you might know that you were loved even when we didn't know your name, that you were loved, that the Lord was seeking you to bring you into our family.

That's what Paul is saying here.

Look, I haven't seen you face to face, Church in Laodicea.

I haven't seen you face to face, Colossians, but I want you to see that I love you, and you can see that in my suffering.

And then he shows, what does this suffering accomplish?

What does the knowledge of Paul's suffering accomplish in his body, in Christ's body, which is the church?

Listen to this list, it's incredible.

I want you to know the depth of my suffering, that their hearts may be encouraged.

Think of what it does.

Okay, there's other people out here with us.

When uh the missionary family who were uh supporting came and visited several weeks ago, it sort of exploded my imagination for a reminder of the way that God is working all over the world and how we just get to participate as a small fraction of that.

And just thinking of the labor that's taking place for the sake of the Lord all over the world, and the suffering that's being endured for his name, it encourages my heart.

It makes me think, you know, we can stay in this together.

And it shows me, it reminds me of the value of who Christ is.

And then through that encouragement, we might be knit together in love.

That us together as a church might be knit together in love.

What is it about Paul's sufferings that makes us knit together in love?

I think there's there's a fellowship of suffering.

Where we see, if we look at the at the weight that others in our church are enduring, I was talking about this just a little bit ago with some folks, but if you've grown up in Christian culture, uh then there has been some point, maybe at a youth camp or something, where you got involved in something like a testimony off, which is which is competitive testimony sharing.

It's like Toastmasters, but for what Christ has done in your life.

And those, there's this sort of strangeness, and sometimes you'll meet someone and they'll come into the church and they'll just like plow you with their testimony, and it's like, whoa, okay, you win, you know.

Congratulations.

Uh the most work.

But then what starts to happen is in when you play a role like I like I play in our church, and I hear so many of your stories.

You hear so many of the uh of your st of the ways that the Lord has uniquely worked in your life.

It's like, oh man, I could I could never uh you you get this sense of like, I don't want to do a testimony off anymore because it here's the here's the way that I think about it.

It's like, I wouldn't do a testimony off in this room, this room with you people, because there it you don't stand a chance.

There's too many amazing stories.

There's too many wonderful ways in which the Lord has worked in the lives of the people in our church, and too much suffering endured on behalf of the gospel, and too many people who have every right to walk away from their faith and yet strongly stay close to the Lord.

You see, when we know each other's stories and we share the sufferings of what we see each other go through, then we become knit together in love for one another, mutually encouraged by one another.

And so Paul wants that because ministry is always personal.

And so Paul's not saying, I'll just write this and maybe get to know this church later.

He's saying, I want you to know my sufferings, that our hearts may be knit together, and that some of my sufferings become some of yours, and some of yours become some of mine.

And look at what that results in.

To reach all the riches of full assurance, of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.

In our being knit together in love, understanding one another's sufferings, that's where assurance takes place.

We get to know as we hear the story of the gospel playing out in one another's lives, then we become assured of its effectiveness.

So many of us have this quest for assurance.

If we could just know factually that the gospel were true and that this really happened, then we could finally rest easily and commit ourselves to it.

But assurance does not take place just internally.

Assurance takes place corporately as we experience and share together the work of the gospel in our lives.

And what do we get to know?

We get to know the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, as we share in his sufferings.

So that's why Paul rejoices.

He's suffering on behalf of the gospel, but he shares it with the Colossians.

And that builds up the Colossians as they join together so that they might better know Christ, which is the whole aim of Christ, uh of Paul's life.

So here's the simple lesson, an exhortation for our church.

Share your sufferings with one another.

Rejoice in the midst of them with a hope that Christ is using them.

This past week, after I had COVID for a couple of weeks, I was feeling so anxious, a type of anxiety that I that I hadn't experienced in years.

And I called my I called a friend of mine who's in our church, and I was like, man, I'm so anxious.

This is insane.

I'm having mornings, you know, like where you're throwing up in the morning because there's a whole day ahead.

It's like, oh, a day.

You know how that happens?

You know.

Some of you know.

Some of you, it's nighttime.

Not for me.

At nighttime, I get to sleep.

It's one of the best parts of life.

But mornings.

So I was experiencing this intense anxiety.

And I called my friend and was reminded by his story of the way that the Lord works.

And I was strengthened in my heart by hearing his story of, you know, the Lord has met me in these places before, he's transformed me, he's worked in me.

And I was given a hope that I couldn't muster on my own.

To be able to trust the Lord does work, the Lord does see, the Lord does help, he does hear.

So my exhortation is follow in the footsteps of Paul with one another, to share your lives together.

That way we might share and know and come to a full assurance of the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.

All right.

Now, let's move into a time of communion.

Let me pull up our communion text.

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

As we partake of this meal, this is a remembering that Christ's death and his sufferings were effective for us, that they have completely merited our salvation.

And so by faith in him and participating in him, we know that the sufferings that we are in now are not useless, but they are effective for his gospel, and that we might even seize them as an opportunity to build one another up and to know him more completely as the church.

Let's remember his sufferings on our behalf, share in them and receive them for his glory.

Holy Father, we pray that you would attend this time of communion, that we would take and eat for the knowledge that you have given to us, and that in our participation with it we might grow in an assurance and love of you more completely.

Lord, I lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.