Will Suffering Weaken My Ministry?

00:00:00.000 | What is the key to effective ministry?

00:00:08.280 | Just about every Christian wants to be used by God to transform the lives of others.

00:00:12.360 | So how does God use us?

00:00:14.660 | How does he make ministry effective in us and through us?

00:00:18.120 | It's a question Pastor John asked and then answered from scripture in front of an auditorium

00:00:22.760 | full of college students at the Passion Conference 2006 in Nashville.

00:00:28.640 | His message was titled, "How Our Suffering Glorifies the Greatness of the Grace of God."

00:00:35.160 | Have a listen.

00:00:36.640 | The purpose of God in creating the universe is to display the greatness of the glory of

00:00:44.360 | his grace supremely in the suffering of his Son.

00:00:52.360 | That's yesterday.

00:00:54.320 | Today the summons, "Will you join the Son in displaying the supreme satisfaction of

00:01:04.520 | the glory of grace in joining him on the Calvary road of suffering?"

00:01:10.800 | Because there's no other way the world is going to see the supreme glory of Christ today

00:01:18.140 | except that we break free from the Disneyland of America and begin to live lifestyles of

00:01:25.720 | missionary sacrifice that looks to the world like our treasure is in heaven and not on

00:01:32.280 | the earth.

00:01:33.280 | It's the only way.

00:01:35.180 | The prosperity gospel will not make anybody praise Jesus.

00:01:40.580 | It will make people praise prosperity.

00:01:43.880 | Of course I'll have a Jesus who will give me a car.

00:01:47.660 | Who wouldn't want a Jesus who gives me health, a car, a fine marriage?

00:01:52.580 | I'll take your Jesus if the payoff is right.

00:01:57.020 | It's not the way you're going to win your campuses.

00:02:00.020 | Dressing the coolest, driving the coolest, typing on the coolest.

00:02:07.580 | It's not going to get any praise for the suffering Christ.

00:02:14.540 | Paul said, "If there's no resurrection, we are of all men most to be pitied."

00:02:24.540 | Listen to how he puts the point on his own experience.

00:02:27.580 | He said, "If the dead are not raised, why am I in peril every hour?

00:02:33.380 | I protest, brothers, by my exaltation which I have in Christ, Jesus our Lord.

00:02:42.420 | I die every day."

00:02:46.300 | So he says two things.

00:02:47.300 | "I'm in peril every hour and I die every day."

00:02:51.740 | I choose, I make so many choices to magnify Jesus in hard places, it hurts me every day.

00:03:01.380 | I would not choose this if it weren't true.

00:03:06.980 | If I couldn't expect a resurrection from the dead where everything would be paid back

00:03:12.860 | to me a thousandfold that I have laid down in the service of Jesus, I wouldn't go this

00:03:18.740 | way.

00:03:21.740 | I'm in peril every hour.

00:03:24.140 | I die every day.

00:03:28.420 | And I want to ask, "Why, Paul?

00:03:31.420 | What are you up to?

00:03:33.460 | What's the meaning of this chosen life of risk and suffering?"

00:03:39.820 | And you need to ask that right now.

00:03:42.380 | Why would I choose to deny myself ordinary, innocent things and take risks with my life

00:03:51.940 | for the cause of Christ?

00:03:54.140 | Why would I do that?

00:03:56.020 | And I want to take you to Colossians 1.

00:03:57.740 | If you have a Bible and you can see it, then you can look at it with me if you'd like.

00:04:02.900 | I'm going to read Colossians 1.24-29.

00:04:07.020 | Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

00:04:11.100 | He was a very strange man, wasn't he?

00:04:13.860 | I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

00:04:19.300 | And in my flesh, his body, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.

00:04:27.900 | For the sake of his body, that is, the church.

00:04:34.420 | Let's just stop there.

00:04:35.420 | That's enough.

00:04:36.420 | Let's focus on that.

00:04:38.460 | I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, talking to the church, and in my flesh, I

00:04:45.620 | am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that

00:04:53.220 | is, the church.

00:04:56.380 | That's almost heresy.

00:04:58.860 | Almost.

00:05:00.500 | To say in my body, my fallen sinful body, I am completing or filling up what is lacking

00:05:09.100 | in the sufferings of Christ, that's almost heresy.

00:05:13.540 | It would be heresy if he meant the sufferings of Christ lack something in their atoning

00:05:21.780 | worth.

00:05:24.300 | In the death that he paid for sin, there's not enough there.

00:05:28.820 | I'm going to add the rest so that the world can have an atonement that is sufficient for

00:05:35.420 | their sins.

00:05:36.580 | That's heresy.

00:05:38.460 | And that's not what he meant.

00:05:40.500 | What did he mean?

00:05:42.020 | What did he mean when he said, "In my body"?

00:05:44.660 | What would you mean if you walked out of here tomorrow and said, "All right, I am God helping

00:05:53.900 | me, going to fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on my campus or among

00:06:01.540 | the unreached peoples of the world."

00:06:03.780 | What would you mean?

00:06:04.780 | You really should be able to say that.

00:06:07.660 | I hope you will.

00:06:10.100 | I think what you should mean is not that you add to the atoning merit or value or worth

00:06:19.260 | of the death of Christ, but that you add the extension of that suffering to those for whom

00:06:27.180 | he died in your own body and suffering.

00:06:31.380 | There's a parallel statement to this, Colossians 1:24 in Philippians 2.

00:06:39.500 | The situation is that the Philippian church loves Paul.

00:06:43.220 | Paul is in prison in Rome, hundreds of miles away.

00:06:46.900 | Epaphroditus says, "I am willing to take the offering and the blessing that we as a church

00:06:52.740 | want to show, the love that we have for Paul we want to show."

00:06:56.020 | So Epaphroditus takes whatever it was, we're not told, it could be money, it could be books,

00:06:59.660 | it could be food, whatever, clothing, and he takes it to Rome and he almost dies.

00:07:04.980 | He suffers in doing this.

00:07:06.180 | He suffers in extending the love of the Philippians to Paul.

00:07:11.820 | And then you have this sentence where Paul encourages people to praise such a one as

00:07:19.900 | Epaphroditus, "Because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to

00:07:26.980 | fill up what is lacking in your service to me."

00:07:31.860 | He said that to the Philippians.

00:07:33.300 | You got almost exactly the same wording in Philippians 2.30 as you do in Colossians 1.24.

00:07:42.200 | Almost exactly the same wording.

00:07:43.860 | "I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ."

00:07:48.660 | Epaphroditus fills up what is lacking in the service of the Philippians.

00:07:53.380 | Now what was lacking in the service of the Philippians?

00:07:58.320 | Listen to this commentator Marvin Vinson.

00:08:00.140 | I think he gets it exactly right.

00:08:02.460 | He says, "The gift to Paul was a gift of the church as a body.

00:08:07.380 | It was a sacrificial offering of love.

00:08:09.660 | What was lacking was the church's presentation of this offering in person.

00:08:16.380 | This was impossible.

00:08:17.760 | And Paul represents Epaphroditus as supplying this lack by his affectionate and zealous

00:08:23.500 | ministry."

00:08:24.500 | I think that's exactly what Colossians 1.24 means.

00:08:29.000 | When Paul says, "I rejoice in my sufferings for you and I fill up what is lacking in the

00:08:34.660 | sufferings of Christ, the afflictions of Christ, in my body, in my flesh," he means Christ

00:08:42.260 | died for millions of people all over the world.

00:08:46.420 | People on your campus, people in the unreached peoples of the world.

00:08:49.260 | Their debt has been paid and they don't know it.

00:08:53.460 | They can't taste it.

00:08:54.860 | They can't feel it.

00:08:56.100 | They can't sing that song.

00:08:57.860 | "I thank you for the cross, my friend.

00:09:00.660 | I thank you for the cross."

00:09:02.500 | There's something missing in this offering.

00:09:05.540 | It's not showing up.

00:09:08.380 | It's not connecting.

00:09:10.140 | There's something lacking in the sufferings, namely the presentation of the sufferings.

00:09:19.220 | Here's the amazing thing.

00:09:20.220 | You might say, "Well, obviously the gospel has to be spread."

00:09:22.980 | It's not obvious what he's saying here.

00:09:26.060 | He's not saying simply the gospel has to be spread.

00:09:30.540 | He is saying it is through my body and my sufferings that the sufferings of Christ arrive

00:09:41.860 | in the unreached peoples of the world, on your campus.

00:09:45.820 | How do the sufferings of Jesus arrive on your campus?

00:09:51.620 | They arrive through your sufferings.

00:09:55.220 | That's the meaning of Colossians 1.24.

00:09:58.260 | "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, filling up what is lacking in the afflictions

00:10:07.220 | of Christ in my own flesh."

00:10:11.060 | It's an amazing statement.

00:10:14.480 | And just think about the history of missions for a moment.

00:10:17.780 | If you have any inkling of how we got to where we are today with 1.3 or 4 billion people

00:10:24.620 | professing faith in Jesus Christ when it started from 12, how did we get there?

00:10:30.340 | You know what the answer is?

00:10:32.580 | Suffering.

00:10:33.860 | There never has been a breakthrough into an unreached place or people without suffering.

00:10:40.400 | If you're going to be a missionary, mark it down.

00:10:43.860 | Pain, loss of a child, malaria, marital strife, tensions on the team, demonic opposition,

00:10:53.300 | martyrdom, it's going to come.

00:10:55.900 | Don't think it's strange when it comes.

00:10:59.380 | It's the price.

00:11:00.900 | He paid his life for our salvation.

00:11:07.080 | We join him in that suffering to display the nature of it.

00:11:13.700 | How are they going to see how satisfying he is in us if we look like it's the computer

00:11:22.060 | toy that is really satisfying?

00:11:26.020 | The computer toy.

00:11:27.420 | That's amazing.

00:11:28.420 | That was from a sermon preached at a college student conference in 2006, 18 months before

00:11:34.380 | the iPhone was announced.

00:11:37.000 | So if I can take the liberty to restate that last line, I'd put it like this today.

00:11:42.180 | How are others going to see how satisfying God is in us if we look like the smartphone

00:11:47.940 | is where we're getting satisfied?

00:11:51.500 | That's powerful.

00:11:52.580 | This entire Passion Conference 2006 message is online.

00:11:57.420 | Search for the title, "How Our Suffering Glorifies the Greatness of the Grace of God."

00:12:03.460 | Whether you listen in the car, at the gym, doing chores, thank you for inviting us into

00:12:07.220 | your day.

00:12:08.220 | And if you haven't done so yet, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast

00:12:11.980 | app in YouTube or in Spotify.

00:12:14.660 | And to find other episodes in our archive or to send us your own question, go online

00:12:18.500 | to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:23.820 | Well if God's will always prevails in the end, is it pointless to pray for what I want?

00:12:30.700 | This is a question from a podcast listener named Andrea, and it's a good one.

00:12:35.260 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:12:36.260 | We'll see you next time on Friday.

00:12:38.180 | [End of Audio]

00:12:38.680 | 1.

00:12:39.680 | Is there a reason why you're not a Christian?

00:12:40.680 | 2.

00:12:41.680 | Is there a reason why you're not a Christian?

00:12:42.680 | 3.

00:12:43.680 | Is there a reason why you're not a Christian?

00:12:44.680 | 4.

00:12:45.680 | Is there a reason why you're not a Christian?

00:12:46.680 | 5.

Will Suffering Weaken My Ministry?

Chapters