Philippians 3:7-11
The Fellowship of His Sufferings (Phil. 3:7-11)
Preached by Edward Donnelly at the 2001 Southeastern Family Conference, this sermon takes Philippians 3:10 as its text and unfolds four ways in which the believer's sufferings are inseparably connected to union with Christ. Donnelly argues that suffering is not a contradiction of being joined to the triumphant risen Savior but is, in fact, evidence of that union, the pattern by which believers are conformed to Christ's death and resurrection, a necessity in the ongoing service of Christ, and a primary channel through which communion with Christ is deepened. Drawing on Calvin, Sinclair Ferguson, Amy Carmichael, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism, Donnelly dismantles the health-and-wealth gospel and triumphalism while calling believers to embrace suffering as the fellowship of Christ's own suffering, in which Christ himself draws near to his people.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 7 sections · 69 min
- Introduction: The Conference, the Text, and the Problem of Suffering 0:00
- How Do We Typically React to Suffering? 3:19
- The Thesis: Seeing Suffering Through the Lens of Union with Christ 7:43
- First Point: Suffering as Evidence of Our Identity in Christ 11:28
- Second Point: Suffering as the Pattern of Conformity to Christ 21:15
- Third Point: Suffering as a Necessity in the Service of Christ 28:53
- Fourth Point: Suffering as a Channel for Communion with Christ 35:11
Key Quotes
“let us look at four ways in which our sufferings are linked with our union with Christ and in the first place they are linked because our sufferings are evidence of our identity in Christ”
“We're at the cocktail party of the world. And they're snickering at our Savior. And they're pointing at our Savior. And they're making fun of him.”
“The basic pattern of our salvation could be described as a downward parabola. Salvation is likeness to Christ.”
“He says that when you begin to know the power of Christ's resurrection, what's the first thing? The first thing he's going to do in that resurrected life, he's going to lead you into the fellowship of his sufferings so that you may be made more conformable to his death and attain to the resurrection of the dead.”
“And the paradox of the gospel is that naked, agonized, suffering, abandoned man hanging on the cross, He was winning. And He was victorious. And that was His greatest, victory. And He achieved that victory through suffering.”
“Union with Christ is not just a legal link in a covenant. Union with Christ is something to be felt, to be experienced, to be known and realized and nurtured and developed what our forefathers would have called union and communion. It is an existential reality.”
“Not only do our sufferings help us to understand our Savior better, but what is infinitely more significant is that in our sufferings he comes closer to us.”
“My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but I belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”
Applications
All listeners
- Rather than merely enduring suffering as part of the 'not yet,' believers are called to see their sufferings through the lens of union with Christ — a deeper and more transforming perspective than mere resignation or future-hope alone.
- If a believer faces no opposition or suffering from the world, they should ask whether the hated Christ is actually visible in them. Worldly popularity may signal compromise rather than blessing.
- Suffering for Christ is not a mark of shame or spiritual failure but a badge of honor — evidence of identification with a Savior the world hates. It should be embraced with that dignity rather than endured with embarrassment.
- When praying for specific graces — forgiveness, meekness, patience, love, faith — believers should expect God to answer by sending trials that require those graces to be exercised, not by granting them apart from suffering.
- Physical aging, weakness, and bodily deterioration should be received not with despair but with gratitude: each step down the parabola is a step closer to resurrection glory. 'The nearer I get to the bottom, the nearer I am to going up.'
- Church leaders must not tiptoe around scandalous sin, doctrinal error, or disciplinary situations. No matter the cost or opposition, they are called to be 'serpent tramplers' — putting their foot on the serpent even when it bites back.
- Pastors should understand that stomach ulcers, depression, broken hearts, exhaustion, and misunderstanding are not signs of ministerial failure but the actual content of filling up in their bodies the afflictions of Christ for the sake of the church.
- Young people should not be deceived by the world's presentation of Christianity as a soft option. The Christian call is the toughest call on any human life — a call to brave men and women who will fight, suffer, and die for Christ.
- Believers can nurture their communion with Christ through suffering itself — recognizing that in shared experience of trial they are drawn into deeper fellowship with the Savior who himself suffered hatred, estrangement, and loneliness.
- Those on the brink of faith should not let questions, anxieties, or fears hold them back. Christ yearns over them especially in their difficult circumstances and draws near to the suffering with particular tenderness and compassion.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 257 paragraphs, roughly 69 minutes.
Introduction: The Conference, the Text, and the Problem of Suffering
The following sermon was delivered at the Southeastern Family Conference, which was held at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, in July 2001. The preacher is Pastor Edward Donnelly from the Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland. This is my final opportunity to speak to you at this conference. I think I'll not say much about that.
But I'm going to have a hard enough time retaining my composure this evening. But I would echo what Pastor Hendricks has already said. There is in my heart each time I come a lack of faith. And I keep saying to myself, is God going to keep on blessing us the way he does?
Surely some year it's going to be flat and disappointing. It can't go on. God isn't as generous as that. And time and again, God shows us that he is.
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or imagine. I'd like us to read a few verses from Philippians chapter 3, reading from verse 7 to verse 11.
Paul has been setting out his past attainments and privileges before his conversion. The righteousness in which he, he has entrusted.
Philippians chapter 3, verse 7.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death,
if by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
And our subject this evening is a phrase from Philippians chapter 3, verse 10, the fellowship of his sufferings. The fellowship of his sufferings. Suffering is a given in the Christian life. As Christians, we suffer.
How Do We Typically React to Suffering?
We suffer in our bodies. We know aches and pains, disability, weakness and aging.
We suffer in our minds, stress and anxiety and depression.
We suffer in our souls with guilt, with the struggle to be holy.
We suffer from those who do not wish us well.
We suffer sometimes from our friends. We suffer from our friends. Life brings disappointments and setbacks. And none of us are exempt from suffering.
And those of us here who are still comparatively young and healthy and carefree, you need to reckon on this and to take into account that before your life is over, you too, unlikely though it may be, what now seems to you will have your share of suffering. The fact that we are Christians does not exempt us from suffering. In fact, it sometimes seems as if Christians suffer more, not less, in this life than other people.
We've been reminded already of the apostolic statement that we must, and it's a strong necessity, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. How do we react to these tribulations?
Do we feel disappointed?
Do we feel that God has let us down?
Some do.
We have met, no doubt, some very bitter people.
Do we feel guilty because of our suffering?
Have we been affected by the spurious claims of the so-called health problems, of the so-called health and wealth gospel, some of the bizarre ideas of parts of the Charismatic movement, that if only we have enough faith, we will be lifted beyond suffering and sorrow? In other words, if we suffer, it is our fault. What a cruel teaching that is. Well do I remember over 20 years ago, looking into the anguished,
the face of a young mother with a Down's syndrome baby, to whom a Christian woman had come and said, it is your lack of faith that is keeping your child as she is. And I had to try to heal the scars on that mother. Not only was she suffering, but she was told that her suffering was her fault. Or, instead of being disappointed or guilty, do we, as I suspect most of us do,
put up with our suffering as best we can? Do we realize, as we should, that it is part of the not yet of the Christian life? We are not yet fully redeemed. We are not yet in glory.
We are still living in a fallen world. Do we go with our suffering to the Lord and seek help from Him to bear it as bravely as we can? Do we realize that they are, as Paul describes them, the sufferings of this present time, the sufferings which characterize the now, the not yet? And do we focus on the glory which shall be revealed in us when our suffering is ended?
The Thesis: Seeing Suffering Through the Lens of Union with Christ
We should do that. I believe many of us do do that. That reaction is a biblical and a practical one. But I want to suggest to you this evening that it is not enough that we need to go deeper.
And in particular we need to see our sufferings as Christians in a different light through the lens of union with Christ. So we are going to take union with Christ and we are going to look through union with Christ at our sufferings and see how different that makes our sufferings as Christians. As Christians appear. It might seem at first glance as if union with Christ makes the problem more acute instead of lessening it.
If we are really joined to the reigning, glorious, triumphant, rejoicing Savior, if we are part of the body of the Risen One, the One who is at the right hand of God, should we be suffering? Apparently, yes. For the Scripture links us in various ways with Christ in suffering. And the Scripture takes union with Christ and brings it into close connection with our sufferings.
Let me give you several references. Romans 8, 17. Paul says, We are joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him. . . . . . . .
We are one of the characteristics of heirs of Christ. Heirs with Christ, rather. If we suffer with Him, we are heirs of Christ. If we don't suffer with Him, we are probably not heirs of Christ.
The two are linked. 2 Corinthians 1, 5. The sufferings of Christ abound in us. That's a remarkable statement.
Christ's sufferings abound. Christ's sufferings abound in you and in me because we're joined to him Peter says the same in first Peter 4 13 you partake of Christ's sufferings or in the words of our text and how striking it is that this is Paul's goal this is Paul's desire it is his longing that I may know the fellowship of his sufferings this is not something he wants to escape or avoid this is
something he welcomes this is something he prays for and seeks and makes his ambition and his desire I want this he says I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings that brings us to our fourth and last theologian of the day we have at last reached the present day you Sinclair B Ferguson I've given you the dates of all the previous theologians Sinclair Ferguson's birthday is no business of ours whatsoever and I trust that he will be spared
First Point: Suffering as Evidence of Our Identity in Christ
many long years to minister to the church still so no dates this evening and from his book the Holy Spirit we have this sentence conformity to the risen Christ is possible only when conformity is possible only when conformity is possible only when conformity is possible only when conformity to the crucified Christ is present conformity to the risen Christ is possible only when conformity to the crucified Christ is present what does he mean in what sense does union with Christ help us to
see our sufferings in a new way how can you take this doctrine of union with Christ and take it home with you tomorrow and bring it to bear on the sufferings which you are facing or which you will face let us look at four ways in which our sufferings are linked with our union with Christ and in the first place they are linked because our sufferings are evidence of our identity in Christ they are evidence of our identity in Christ Jesus Christ is generally admired nowadays even by non-religious people
they read about him they usually speak well of him they regard him as a good man as a wise teacher as someone who was well-meaning and they will admit that if people were to try to put into practice what Jesus Christ taught about loving one's neighbor the world would be a happier place but he wasn't admired when he was here on earth he was hated and he was murdered and if he were to return again to earth in bodily form he would still be hated and he would still be
murdered if it were in man's power God said at the beginning in Genesis 3 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed that is regeneration that is the new birth there is no enmity and God says I am going to create a new birth and I am going to create a enmity which is not there at present I am going to bring an enmity towards the devil and I am going to put it into people that's regeneration when we're born again God puts enmity towards the devil into us and that enmity is still there it is still there between the two seeds it is still
there between the people of Adam and the people of Christ and it always will be there enmity towards Christ the world hates him and because we are in Christ because we are joined to Christ the enmity directed at him is directed at us also because we are identified with him and we are part of his body and so our sufferings are evidence of our identity with Christ we suffer because we are one with him and are seen to be
one with him our Lord warned his followers about this again and again John 15 verses 18 and 20 if the world hates you you know that it hated me before it hated you remember the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me they will also persecute you so that Paul the Apostle could quote the psalmist in Romans 8 36 and say to the Lord for your sake we are killed for your sake we are killed for your sake
we are killed all the day long the world which hates our Lord hates his people the world which caused our Lord to suffer will cause his people to suffer as Christians we needn't expect to be popular now that doesn't mean that we should go out of our way to stir up opposition that doesn't mean that we should be awkward contentious obnoxious people
some people are some Christians are very obnoxious some Christians are offensive without realizing that they're offensive pastors here have heard one of my favorite stories about the man who went to see a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist said what is your problem and the man said well somehow I don't know why but I just can't seem to get on with people fat face there are people like that they are just offensive and they don't realize how offensive
their being and there are Christians like that we're not to be like that we're not to go out of our way to stir up enmity we don't have to the world is not waiting to welcome us with open arms and what in spite of what some of the church growth theorists say there is not a widespread hunger for the gospel there's a widespread hatred of the gospel we're told that we're living in a very tolerant society. But there is no tolerance for the absolutes of the Word of God. They are forbidden.
In my own country of Great Britain, there is a tremendous sensitivity towards minorities. I have no quarrel with that. And people of all sorts of strange, weird views, people of every religion under the sun, they're shown great sensitivity and tolerance. It will soon be a legal offense to hurt their feelings.
But there is one exception, and that is evangelical Christianity. And it is lampooned and ridiculed and mocked. And evangelical Christians are a fair game for everybody.
Let's not be deceived, friends. There is a venomous hatred bubbling beneath the so-called civilized surface of our society. A venomous, hellish hatred towards the people of Christ.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, 13, We have been made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things. And that Greek word, off-scouring, was used of the dirt and sweat and grease that you scraped from your body in the baths. That's not a pretty metaphor. That's who we are in the eyes of the world.
The filth of the world. The off-scouring of all things. So we needn't be taken aback when we meet opposition and hostility. We shouldn't expect to be popular.
In fact, we should be worried if we are popular.
We should be alarmed if we're welcomed. Didn't our Lord say, Woe to you! When men speak, Speak well of you.
For so their fathers did to the false prophets. If we know nothing of this suffering, we have to ask ourselves some very basic questions. Have we lost our distinctiveness?
Are we getting an easy ride because we don't challenge the world any longer? It is humiliating to be popular in the world. It's an embarrassment to us.
And if we don't face suffering, is it because the hated Christ isn't seen in us?
It's evidence of our identity with Christ. Of our union with Christ. That's why we can rejoice in the fellowship of His sufferings. Because we're in excellent company.
The best company. Rejoice, said Jesus. And be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven.
For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Suffering for Christ is proof of our identity. As Christians.
He says in John 15, 19, If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. There it is. Union with Christ.
Evidence of our identity with Christ.
It is a privilege to suffer with our Lord.
Second Point: Suffering as the Pattern of Conformity to Christ
I naturally think, the Irish are a fine race of people. But I do have to admit that we are a wee bit quick-tempered.
And I think of a lawyer friend of mine. He and his wife, both Christians, an attorney. And some years ago, they were invited to one of these social gatherings at his law firm. Now, this friend of mine and his wife had agreed to differ on one of those matters of Christian behavior where I think, I think there is legitimate ground for difference among Christians.
His wife was a convinced, conscientious, total abstainer from alcohol. She didn't believe she should take alcohol at all, ever. Her husband, they didn't have any alcohol in the house. They didn't drink it regularly.
But if he was offered a glass of wine out on some social occasion, he had no problem about taking a glass of wine. And they differed on that. And they got to this very posh, high-powered, non-Christian reception. And they were offered drinks.
And my friend was offered a glass of wine, and he took it. His wife asked for orange juice. There wasn't any orange juice easily at hand, but eventually they obtained some and gave it to her. She was the only person in the room not drinking alcohol.
And they took their drinks and went over to the side of the room. And a moment later, he looked back at the table from which they'd been given their drinks, and he saw two or three people, two or three of the men sniggering and nudging each other and looking over at them. And he realized that they were laughing at his wife. I'm getting angry thinking about it.
And the red mist came down. My friend walked across the room. He put his glass of wine down. And he said, I've changed my mind.
I don't want your wine. Give me a glass of orange. And there'll be two for you to laugh at. Don't you love that?
Would you give two cents for a husband that wouldn't do that? You laugh at my wife, buddy. You can laugh at me too. You can laugh at me too.
We're at the cocktail party of the world. And they're snickering at our Savior. And they're pointing at our Savior. And they're making fun of him.
And they're despising him. And it should be our honor and our instinct of love to step forward and say, all right, laugh at me too. You're laughing at him. You can laugh at me.
If you don't want him, you don't want me. Because I'm united with him. That's the fellowship of his sufferings. And I would say that man and wife were never closer than when they stood together against the world and shared in the fellowship of suffering together.
Paul knew what he was talking about when he spoke of suffering for Christ. He tells us in 2 Corinthians 11 that five times he was stretched out and received 39 stripes. And another three times he was beaten with rods. And yet another time he was stoned.
He knew what it meant to suffer for Jesus. It was a badge of honor. Secret agents in America are chosen to serve as bodyguards to the President of the United States. I don't know what all the qualifications are, but I know that one qualification, one essential qualification, is to be willing to take a bullet for the President.
And if you're not willing to take a bullet, don't apply for the job. If you're not willing to put your body in between the President and anyone wants to hurt him, and if someone serving the President was to take a bullet and survive, wouldn't that scar be a mark of honor? I took that for the President. Now, it's not a good illustration.
Our Lord's not vulnerable. He can't be hurt. He's the reigning King of glory. But we, the bullets are flying.
Are you ready to take a bullet for Jesus? It's an honor to do so. It's a mark of our union with Christ. Paul, you remember, in the churches of Galatia, was being criticized by Judaizing Christians.
And they said, because he wouldn't insist on circumcision for everybody, they said, because he wouldn't insist on circumcision for everybody, they said, this man's not a good Christian. He's not sound on the mark in the flesh. This mark in the flesh is so important to the faith. And Paul's weak on the mark in the flesh.
He doesn't urge it. And in Galatians 6, 17, Paul says, let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. You want to see marks in the flesh?
Let me show you my back. I've suffered for Christ. That's what he says. Evidence of our identity with Christ.
Secondly, our sufferings are the pattern of our conformity to Christ. The pattern of our conformity to Christ. The basic pattern of our salvation could be described as a downward parabola. Salvation is likeness to Christ.
Following Christ. Being hooked to Christ's belt. Moving. Where he moves.
Going where he goes. Jesus came down from heaven and died and rose and ascended to glory. A downward parabola. Down and died and rose and up to glory.
And we are his followers. And that is the pattern of our conformity to Christ. Down and up again. That's how we're saved.
We saw that in Romans 5. We share in the benefits of his death. And then in the benefits of his resurrection. We die unto sin.
We live unto righteousness. That's true of our sanctification. We saw that in Romans 6. Reckon yourselves dead unto sin, but alive unto God.
The downward parabola. And that's how God makes us like our Savior. By taking us down. By taking us down.
Hebrews 5.8 tells us, though he was a son, he learned obedience by the things which he had learned. By the things which he had learned. which he suffered.
Third Point: Suffering as a Necessity in the Service of Christ
Not that he was disobedient, but he learned the experience of obedience. He learned the reality of obedience, the practice of obedience by the things which he suffered. And so do we.
Conformity to Christ is the downward parabola into suffering and out of suffering into Christ-likeness, greater Christ-likeness, day after day. United to Christ, we've got to go down. We've got to go down.
John Calvin says in his Institutes, Whoever the Lord has adopted ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil. Beginning with Christ, his firstborn, he follows this plan with all his children. With all his children. And that's how we become more like Christ.
We say, Lord, make me a more forgiving person. Now, how do you think God is going to make you a more forgiving person?
He, in his providence, is going to allow people to hurt you and injure you and break your heart. And as that happens, and as you go down into that, by God's grace, you become a more forgiving person. We pray, Lord, make me meek. Right.
Right, says the Lord. I have two or three people in mind who are going to come and slap you hard across the face.
You see, you don't become meek by sitting in the study or in an armchair, reading and thinking and praying about it. You become meek by having to be meek. You become meek by being insulted. You become meek by being pushed to the back of the queue.
We say, Lord, give me patience and give it to me now. But if you want to be patient, the Lord makes you wait. That's the only way you can learn patience. Make me a more loving person.
And the Lord smiles and says, I have got a couple of real beauties for you.
You want to learn how to love. I've got somebody who has a walking advanced course in learning how to love. And he sends somebody so unlovable and so unlikable into your life. But that's how you become.
You don't become a loving person. But by being surrounded by lovely people. That's easy.
We say, Lord, increase my faith. And the Lord knocks the props away and takes the things away that we're resting on and casts us into despair. And we say, Lord, why are you not answering my prayer? He is answering our prayers.
He's making us like his son.
It's the pattern of our conformity to Christ. That explains the strange order of Philippians 3.10. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.
Now, I would have expected Paul to say that I may know him and the fellowship of his sufferings and then after that, the power of his resurrection. But that's not what he says. He says that when you begin to know the power of Christ's resurrection, what's the first thing? The first thing he's going to do in that resurrected life, he's going to lead you into the fellowship of his sufferings so that you may be made more conformable to his death and attain to the resurrection of the dead.
The parabola.
You've got to go down so that you go up.
The triumphalist model of the Christian life is absolutely wrong. What the charismatics are telling us about the Christian life is wrong. It isn't the pattern of the New Testament. It isn't the way.
It isn't the way holiness comes. Conformity to the crucified Christ.
And we need to realize that this same pattern is not just worked out in our souls, but is worked out in our physical bodies.
And that your body and mine, as we are believers, is in this parabola.
Down and up. We're weak. We're dying. Not in spite of being joined to Christ, but because we're weak, but because we're weak, but because we're weak, but because we're weak, but because we're weak, but because we're joined to Christ.
You remember how the super-spiritual people in Corinth despised Paul's physical appearance. They said, his bodily presence is weak.
Paul could have said, well, my bodily presence is weak, but one day I'm going to be glorious.
But in 2 Corinthians 13, 4, Paul understands his frailty and his weakness not as a contradiction of his union with Christ, but as proof of his union with Christ. He says, we are weak in him. But we shall live with him, always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. And I would suggest to you, my Christian friends, that this is surely a different and a refreshing way of looking at our aches and pains and wrinkles and gray hair.
In one aspect, they are the results of the fall. They are the results of sin. But in another aspect, they are the pattern of conformity, to Christ.
Fourth Point: Suffering as a Channel for Communion with Christ
Look at two old people.
Let's say two elderly ladies in their early 80s. One's a believer. The other isn't. They're both aging.
You look at them and there's no difference. Gray hair, difficulty walking, and perhaps some of the senses deteriorating, aches and pains. But think about it.
Think about the total, ultimate, everlasting difference. Between those two old people. The old person who's not a Christian is aging for hell and destruction and death. But that older lady, who is a Christian,
she's moving down and she's near the bottom of the curve. She's going to rise up again. And she's aging for youth and beauty and splendor and vigor and physical resurrection and glorification and everlastingness. And she's going to have a everlasting life because she is united to Christ.
And she's weak in Christ.
And she's aging in Christ. But she'll rise in Christ.
It's the pattern of our conformity to Christ. Our physical weakness is an outward reflection of the parabola of grace in the soul.
And we can thank God for our physical weakness. We can thank God for our added years and our aches and pains. Because, Lord, the nearer and nearer we are, the nearer I get to the bottom, the nearer I am to going up. The nearer I am to home and glory and everlasting youth.
He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus.
The pattern of conformity to Christ.
Then thirdly, our sufferings are a necessity in our service of Christ. Our sufferings are a necessity, a necessity in our service of Christ. How did Christ carry out His work for God? He did it by suffering.
His work was to suffer.
That's how He achieved redemption. By suffering.
By humbling Himself and becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
You remember the classic picture in Genesis 3.15. He shall bruise your head and you, you shall bruise His heel. That is one of the most significant images for me in my Christian life.
I come back to it again and again. The Messiah sees the serpent and the serpent has fangs and there is enmity between them. And the Messiah knows that His task is to crush the serpent. And He knows that if He puts His heel on the serpent's head, the serpent will bite Him.
And He, He will suffer. And He will suffer intensely. But He knows there's no other way to kill the serpent. There is no other way to kill the serpent.
He has to trample the serpent. No matter how painful. No matter the agony and suffering which it will cause Him. He has to put His heel on the serpent.
He can't walk away. Even though the serpent hurts Him as it dies. And so at Calvary, Jesus Christ put His head on the serpent. And the serpent bit Him.
Bit Him savagely hard.
But He destroyed the serpent.
And the paradox of the gospel is that naked, agonized, suffering, abandoned man hanging on the cross, He was winning. And He was victorious. And that was His greatest, victory. And He achieved that victory through suffering.
And we are the body of Christ.
And we are in Christ. And where He goes, we go. And what He does, we do. How are we to do His work in the world?
We're to do it in exactly the same way our Master did it.
Romans 16, 20. Paul writes to the Christians, The God of peace will crush Satan, under your feet, shortly. There it is. That's Genesis 3, 15.
Christ crushed Satan under His feet. And where is His body? And God continues to crush Satan under our feet. We are called to do some serpent trampling.
We are called to put our foot on the serpent wherever we see it. And it hurts. It hurts dreadfully. But that's the only way to serve God.
We're called to crush sin in our hearts. We all have little serpents in our hearts. And some of them have vicious teeth. And we look at our sins.
And we say, to get rid of this sin is going to hurt me. I know it's going to hurt me. But the temptation is to walk away. But friends, we've heard again and again this week, we don't walk away.
We don't walk away. We've got to take our foot and drive it down. And ignore the fangs. Ignore the poison.
Ignore the pain. Drive it down and crush that sin. And then there'll be another sin and another sin. And we've got to trample them down.
And you see it in the church. In some church, some great scandalous sin is committed or some error creeps in or some matter of discipline. Those are ugly, vicious serpents.
The first reaction of the elders is, we do not need this man. Could we not tiptoe around these serpents some way? Could we not tiptoe Could we not pretend we don't see them? Perhaps if we turn our backs, the serpents will just sort of go off somewhere.
No, no, no.
You've got to put your foot on the serpent.
No matter what it costs, you've got to put your foot on the serpent.
It's the same in the work of evangelism. If your church gets serious about evangelism, expect trouble. Expect trouble. Don't expect blessing.
Satan doesn't bother us as long as we don't bother him. But once we start bothering him, then he gets stirred up and he comes. He comes for us. Once a church says we've got to go out into our community, we've got to reach people with the gospel, you wait and see what happens.
That's the serpent. He sees your foot coming down. He knows he's going to get trampled. He's trying to get you to lift your foot.
Or if we go out into the world, if we're serious about taking the word of God into society, we'll suffer. We'll suffer.
There's no easy way. If we're going to serve Christ, we have to pay the price. We have to drive down the hill.
I say to my fellow elders, to the pastors here,
that is our calling then, isn't it? To be serpent tramplers.
In Colossians 1.24,
Paul says, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church. And if a young man came to us and said, what is involved in being a pastor? What is being a pastor about? We could say, being a pastor is filling up in your own flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, the church.
Being a pastor is stomach ulcers and acid indigestion and depression and sleep problems. And a breaking heart and shot nerves and exhaustion and deprivation and misunderstanding. And actually, actually, filling up in your body and mine the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his church. Shortening your life perhaps,
bowing your shoulders, putting grey in your hair. That's the work. That's the deal. It's a necessity.
It's a necessity in our service of Christ.
Some of you will know that poem of Amy Carmichael.
It's Christ who's speaking. He's speaking to complacent, self-indulgent Christians.
He says, Hast thou no scar,
no hidden scar on foot or side or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land. I hear them, I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star. Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent, leaned on the tree to die, and rent by ravening beasts that compassed me. I swooned. Hast thou no wound? No wound?
No scar? Yet, as the master, shall the servant be and pierced are the feet that follow me, but thine are whole.
Can he have travelled far who has no wound, no scar?
Pierced are the feet that follow me. Isn't that true? Isn't that how we do his work in the world?
Paul, chained in the death cell, could say in 2 Timothy 2.10, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Someone once said, when Christ calls a man to follow, he calls him to come and die.
And I say to you teenagers and young people here today, don't believe the world when it presents Christianity as a soft option for wimps and inadequates.
Here's the tough call on a human life. Here's God calling for brave men and women who'll stand in the ranks as soldiers of Christ and fight and suffer and live and die for him.
And the church will not grow in any other way. And the kingdom of God will not be advanced in any other way than through our sufferings.
Suffering, evidence of identity with Christ, the pattern of conformity to Christ, a necessity in the service of Christ, and lastly, our sufferings are a channel for our communion with Christ.
A channel for our communion with Christ. Union with Christ is not just a legal link in a covenant. Union with Christ is something to be felt, to be experienced, to be known and realized and nurtured and developed what our forefathers would have called union and communion. It is an existential reality.
It is an intercourse between us and him. It is something that we know and experience and feel and delight in. It's not just a legal construct. It is a friendship.
It is an intimacy. It is an interchange. It is a sympathy.
Now, how do we nurture our union with Christ? Well, there are various ways in which we can nurture it. We nurture it through worship.
As our soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord, and as we come to Christ, we feel we experience our union with him.
We nurture it through obedience. John 15. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Perhaps that's what's wrong with some of us.
Why? We have so little felt communion with Christ because we're not keeping his commandments. And as we've heard already, when that happens, we can't pray. We can't have fellowship.
The skies are brass. The union is not felt. It's still there, but it's not experienced. It's not enjoyed.
The sun is still shining on a cloudy day,
but we can't see it. We don't enjoy its warmth.
What I want to stress in closing this evening is that we have to is that we can develop and nurture and feed our union with Christ, particularly by what Paul here calls the fellowship of his sufferings. The fellowship, the koinonia, the community, the oneness of his sufferings. That instinctive bond which links people who have passed through the same experience.
Perhaps two veterans of Christ, both fought in the war together and they meet each other. Oh, you, what regiment were you in? Where did you serve? And suddenly they're the best of friends.
They're talking. They've never met each other before. Or people have passed through the same illness. And they start talking about their symptoms.
It doesn't need to be anything earth-shaking. Two ladies meet each other and one of them tells how she had a bunion removed from her toe. I had a bunion removed from my...
And the two of them get started and they talk about it for hours.
Fellowship of sufferings. And our sufferings bring us closer to the Lord Jesus.
Our sufferings help us to understand our Lord Jesus and to know our Lord Jesus. Our sufferings open up a window into the heart and experience of our Savior and give us an insight into his life and into his heart. And so help us to know him better. We read of his experience, for example, in Psalm 69.
Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. And some of you know what it is to be hated without a cause. That's unpleasant.
But it helps you to understand your Savior.
He continues, I have become a stranger to my brothers.
Some of you here are a stranger to your parents.
To your brothers and sisters. To your children.
They look at you with glassy, uncomprehending eyes. They live in a different world. You're united by blood.
But you're a stranger.
And you can understand how our Lord felt growing up in that home in Nazareth when even his brothers did not believe in him.
He says, I looked for comforters but I found none.
Some of you have had that experience in your life. You've been very, very lonely. For one reason or another there just simply hasn't been anyone to come and put an arm around you and comfort you and strengthen you. You've had to go through the valley alone.
And you can understand the feelings of our Lord.
And he knelt in Gethsemane and said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And I know that some of you dear people have prayed that prayer.
You've prayed it with all the agony of your heart. You've seen something coming into your life. You've said, Oh Lord, dear Lord, spare me this. If it's possible, spare me this.
And you can understand your Savior.
We're told in Hebrews 5, 7 that in the days of his flesh he offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears.
And our sufferings give us a fellow feeling for our Savior.
He becomes more close to us, more real to us, that I may know him and the fellowship of his sufferings.
But then the reverse is also true and far more true and far more important.
Not only do our sufferings help us to understand our Savior better, but what is infinitely more significant is that in our sufferings he comes closer to us.
I smile sometimes at some of these high-powered New Testament scholars who have written, I assure you, incredibly tedious volumes on this question. Where did Paul derive the idea of the church as the body of Christ? And they ransacked Greek philosophy. And they go through the ancient world and they look at all the concepts and the systems.
Where did Paul get the idea of the church as the body of Christ? And I wondered if they never read Acts 9. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Jesus?
Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. That's where Paul got his idea of the body of Christ. That when he persecuted the believers, he was persecuting Jesus because of their union with Christ.
What a glorious statement that is in Isaiah 63, 9. In all their affliction,
he was afflicted.
Do you believe that?
Some of you have affliction tonight, haven't you?
You know what affliction is. The scripture says that the Lord is afflicted in your affliction.
I leave the debates about the impassibility of God to those who can understand it. But the word of God speaks of the sympathy of Christ for his people.
Does Christ have favorites? Do you think?
In a sense, no. He loves all his children equally. That's true. But those of you who are parents or grandparents can remember an evening, perhaps a Lord's Day evening, three or four children.
You loved them all equally. But one of your children was sick. One of your children was suffering. Toothache, earache, fever, whatever.
And they were crying. And they were unhappy. And although you loved all your children and kept on loving all your children, at that moment and in that crisis, your heart of tenderness and compassion went out in a very special and unusual way to that child. And you said, Daddy, you go with the others to church.
You stay at home with me, with Mommy, and sit on my knee and I'll read you a Bible story and we'll talk together. And you gave that suffering child special privileges and special intimacy and special care. And your heart was moved. My dear friends,
the heart of Jesus is especially moved towards the Lord. Some of you hear this evening.
I want you to believe that.
I want you to believe that. The fellowship of suffering.
Some of you may be trembling on the brink of saving faith.
You've listened this week. You've been interested. You've been challenged. You've realized that you're not a Christian.
You've perhaps thought that you would like to be a Christian and yet there are factors that we perhaps don't know of that are holding you back. That are holding you back. That are holding you back. Questions, anxieties, fears.
Some of you young people.
Our Lord Jesus Christ yearns over you and He pleads with you and urges you to come to Him.
Some of you are facing most difficult circumstances.
My wife and I have heard several things this week which have made us weep with sympathy.
My dear friend, can you know how tender your Saviour is towards you?
How He yearns towards you this evening? How His heart is filled with compassion and sympathy and understanding and how you are special for you need Him and He knows you need Him. In that He Himself has suffered being tempted He is able to help those who are being tempted. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.
The fellowship of His sufferings and you are going to know the Saviour in a new way.
He is going to be more real to you than He ever has been before and He is going to use your suffering to deepen your fellowship to deepen your love. To make Himself more precious to you.
That's the link between our sufferings and union with Christ and in fact our communion in suffering is so intimate and so intense that the scripture tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ holds on to the very dust into which our bodies dissolve.
If we die we die to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord the dead in Christ blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.
You don't often go to the shorter catechism for poetry but there is one answer which well there are many answers but one in particular which I think is surpassingly beautiful and we tend to ignore the second part of it. The catechism says the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and we are not and do immediately pass into glory and here's the next bit while their bodies being still united to Christ do rest in their graves till their resurrection. What a description
what a description of death what a wonderful thing to be able to stand at the grave of a loved one and say that body being still united to Christ still united to Christ. We often sing from one of the Psalms about the saints love for Jerusalem we sing thy saints take pleasure in her stones her very dust to them is dear but we could reverse that and say the dust of our bodies is dear to Christ our corrupting decaying bodies they're dear to Christ he died for our bodies he's going to redeem our bodies he's going to resurrect our bodies
and we die in Christ and we're buried in Christ and he loves that dust and he's going to raise it from the dead. The first answer to be fair to the whole Reformation tradition the first answer of the Heidelberg Catechism the first question what is your only comfort in life and in death? My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but I belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. The fellowship of Christ.
We've been thinking about union with Christ it can seem an abstract thing it can appear impersonal but I hope we've seen over these evenings that it is an intensely personal thing the Bible speaks of us being in Christ and with Christ and Christ in us the language of love and intimacy friendship safety security we need to keep that in mind as we leave here what awaits us in the long run heaven in the short term
who can tell but if one thing we can be sure the Lord Jesus will never leave us and he'll never forsake us and nothing will separate us from the love of Christ for we are persuaded aren't we that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord let us pray thank you Lord that our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Lord we deserve to suffer for our sins we deserve to suffer to all eternity
but instead has been granted to us the inestimable privilege of suffering not for eternity but for a very few short years and suffering for loyalty to Christ suffering for love of him suffering because we stand with him suffering because we are being made more holy suffering because we are being conformed into his image suffering because we are doing the work of Christ in the world
and serving the church and serving the people of God representing our Savior and bringing the message of salvation suffering so that he and we may know one another better our flesh cringes at the thought of suffering but Lord we are suffering we are suffering we are suffering we are suffering we are suffering but that is not the only place we stand we
we stand and dance and just turn and wave his hands and our hands to seek above all personal peace and affluence, we run away from that glorious, noble, productive
suffering. Father, effect, we pray, a transformation in our minds and hearts. Lord, I confess that I tremble as I pray this prayer. But Lord, make us ready for suffering. Make us willing to suffer.
Make us proud and glad and joyful and hopeful to share in the fellowship of the sufferings of our Lord, to go down, that like him we may rise to life everlasting and to a joy that will never end.
In his name and for his glory we pray. Amen.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The expounded text; Donnelly focuses especially on verse 10 ('that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings') and the four links between union with Christ and suffering it implies.
The protoevangelium image of the Messiah crushing the serpent's head at the cost of a bruised heel, which Donnelly develops as the central picture of how Christ worked through suffering and how his body must do the same.
'In all their affliction he was afflicted' — the climactic Old Testament text establishing that Christ draws near to his suffering people and is himself afflicted in their afflictions.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
More from the archive
If this spoke to you, hear also…
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Submission to His Ways/Apprehension of Promises
1 Peter 1:6-7
layers Duty and Privilege in Times of Great Distress
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