INTRODUCTION
Main emphasis: We should see all the hardship and suffering that comes to us in life as something that God brings to us to do us good, strengthening our trust in him and our obedience, and ultimately increasing our ability to glorify him. It seems to me that the suffering which God allows us to experience from time to time in this life may at times include physical illness, which God in his sovereign wisdom decides not to heal. There may be in fact be many cases when, for various reasons, we do not feel freedom to ask in faith for God to heal. Yet even these cases the heart of faith will take God’s Word as true and believe that this also has come into our lives “for good,” and that God will bring good to us from it. Therefore, God can bring increased sanctification to us through illness and suffering—just as he can bring sanctification and growth in faith through miraculous healing. But the emphasis of the New Testament, both in Jesus’ ministry and in the ministry of the disciples in Acts, seems to one that encourages us in most cases eagerly and earnestly to seek God for healing, and then to continue to trust him to bring good out of the situation, whether he grants the physical healing or not. The point is that in everything God should receive glory and our joy and trust in him should increase.
Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. Today we’ll read verses 24-26, and give our attention mainly to verse 24.
We have now arrived at the point in Paul’s letter where he is finished with his introduction. In most letters, even the ones that we write, a person begins by saying in effect, “Hello! How are you doing?” And that usually includes saying a few things about that person. “I’ve heard you are doing well in school. I hear you bought a new house. Your brother says you were in an accident. I hope you are feeling better.”
And after that introductory portion of the letter, typically it is followed with some information about you. “I’m doing OK. The kids are enjoying the snow. We’re thinking about going to the Grand Canyon next summer.”
Well, we’re at that point of Paul’s letter today. He first talked at length about the Colossian believers: how glad he is to hear of their love and faith in Christ, how great is the salvation that belongs to them in Christ, how amazing is the person of Christ, and how their perseverance in the faith is evidence of the work of Christ in them.
Now he says what’s happening with himself. His thoughts turn to his suffering for Christ.
Paul endured afflictions of many kinds for Christ, but he had God’s perspective on the trials he experienced, and he was able to rejoice in the midst of his suffering. He gives us that perspective in this text. He gives us a theology of Christian suffering that can help us embrace the afflictions in our lives with courage and with hope. And it applies to us whether that suffering is persecution for Christ, or illness or the many hardships that are part of living in this world.
You may be here this morning with relatively little suffering going on in your life. For you, this text is preparing you for what lies ahead. Or you may be here very aware of troubles that you are facing. For you, this is to give you strength for the journey.
Let’s read verses 24-26 and then I’ll pray for the Lord to bless his church through the preaching of his word.
READ COLOSSIANS 1:24-26
PRAY
What I hope to show from the text and from Paul’s description of his suffering is that…
All suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ and with Christ. (2x)
There is a suffering that believers experience because of their sin that is not suffering for Christ. But there is a suffering that honors Christ, that will be rewarded with eternal blessings, and in which Christ himself walks with you. And knowing that can make all the difference in whether we run from it or whether we embrace it with faith and hope.
We’ll start with a description of Paul’s sufferings. Next, we’ll see the purpose of his sufferings. Then, we’ll try to understand what he means by “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Finally, we’ll take an extended time to see how this applies to the average believer.
1. Paul’s sufferings
Paul said, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake…” What were his sufferings? Well, probably what was first on his mind was his current situation. He wrote this letter from prison. Later on in chapter 4, verse 3 he says
…pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison--
Paul was arrested and locked up, had his freedom taken away, because he had been preaching about Christ. He was at that very moment suffering persecution from the governing authorities who saw his activities as illegal and worthy of punishment.
So certainly prison is part of his suffering. But we know from other Scriptures that he suffered a great deal more than that. He is thinking not just about his current suffering but about his multitude of sufferings in general. He rejoices in his sufferings (plural).
The most comprehensive list of what Paul suffered is in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28. Let me read Paul’s description of what he endured.
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
That’s a picture of suffering. And notice what it includes. There’s the severe physical trial that came from persecution. He was stoned once. That’s recorded in Acts 14 where he had been preaching the gospel in Lystra and the Jews stirred up a crowd to stone him. The stoning was so effective that they actually left him for dead. But he recovered. He was whipped 39 times on 5 different occasions by the Jews, each time his back shredded and turned to a massive open wound. He suffered severe physical persecution.
So his suffering included that. But it also includes things that are not necessarily persecution or the direct result of preaching the gospel. He was shipwrecked three times. Bad weather forced him into the sea where he floated for a night and a day. That isn’t something the Jews or the Romans did to him. It was just the kind of suffering that could happen to anyone, like being in a car accident.
Paul’s sufferings also included the day to day trials of living in this world that many of us can relate to. He had nights he couldn’t sleep. He toiled, which means he did hard, exhausting work. Sometimes he went hungry. And he was anxious about how other people were doing. These are things we can relate to.
This is the range of suffering in Paul’s life, everything from the life-threatening to the
uncomfortable. That’s the subject matter we’re dealing with here. And Paul was able to rejoice in those sufferings.
Now let’s ask the question, “What did Paul suffer these things for?”
2. What did Paul suffer for?
Well, he says he suffered these things for your sake, and for the sake of [Christ’s] body, that is, the church. In other words, he suffered these things for the church. He had a calling on his life related to the church, and as he was pursuing that calling, he suffered.
According to verse 25 Paul was given a stewardship from God for you, that is, God gave him a task to complete on his behalf; a life calling that was for the churches, whether the one in Colossae or wherever. And the stewardship was this: to make the word of God fully known, to make known what he calls the mystery hidden for ages …but now revealed to his saints. Paul’s task, his stewardship from God was to go to the non-Jewish world of Gentiles and make known to them the good news that he later calls “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
It was an apostolic calling, a stewardship to go about building churches through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as he was doing it, he encountered suffering. The words of the Savior that he spoke to Ananias about Paul in Acts 9:16 came true. He said, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."
Paul suffered many things on the path of obedience to the stewardship God had given him. He met resistance and challenges of every kind in this fallen world of sin where the creation is subject to futility and where men love the darkness rather than the light. He didn’t go out looking for suffering. He went out to be obedient to God in his calling, and God appointed suffering along the way.
Now, that much is pretty clear, pretty straightforward.
But here’s where it gets confusing. Paul said this also about his sufferings. “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Now what does that mean?
3. What does Paul mean by “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”?
Now I consulted four different sources on this text to see whether there was any consensus among the best scholars and pastors as to what that means. And this comment from Sam Storms, who is one of those best scholars and pastors, pretty much sums it up. He said, “Colossians 1:24 has consistently baffled and bothered Christians for centuries.”
Now that’s not too encouraging to a pastor who has to preach on this text! However, though it has baffled and bothered Christians for centuries, that don’t mean we can’t say some things for sure, though we may not be able to say all that it means.
Let’s first rule out one possibility. Does it mean that Paul’s suffering is making up for some deficiency in Jesus’ suffering and death? That the cross didn’t go quite far enough to secure the forgiveness of the saints, or to guarantee their transfer from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, or to fully reconcile them to God? And now Paul’s sufferings are supplying that extra measure needed to do that? Does he mean that?
No, most definitely not. All of those blessings I just mentioned, which are found in chapter 1, were accomplished fully and completely on the cross of Christ. It’s in Christ that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, not in Christ and Paul. We are reconciled to God, made friends of God, by [Christ’s] death, not by Christ’s death and by Paul’s suffering.
Whatever was lacking in Christ’s afflictions, it was not the sufficiency to save his people. There is no deficiency or lack in the value of the suffering of Christ to fully and finally pay the penalty for the guilt of our sin. As God the Son His suffering and death are of infinite value to pay for the sins of his people, and infinitely powerful to bring us into our heavenly inheritance.
So in what way are the afflictions of Christ lacking and being filled up by Paul? Well, I think the key to understanding this phrase is in something Paul said that was almost identical in Philippians 2:30. If the context doesn’t tell us everything, then we go to similar things the author has said to shed some light on it. You might want to turn to Philippians 2:30 to follow this. And I owe a debt here to John Piper for his explanation of the connection between these two passages.
The situation in Philippians chapter 2 is that the church in Philippi put together a love offering to supply Paul’s needs while he was in prison, probably in Rome. They couldn’t all come to deliver it in person, so they picked a man to be their messenger, to be the gift-bearer. His name was Epaphroditus. While Epaphroditus was on the way to deliver the gift, he got sick near to the point of death, according to Philippians 2:27. But God spared him and he recovered, and he delivered the gift.
In verse 29 Paul told the church that they should honor Epaphroditus when he returned, and here’s the reason why in verse 30: for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.
Epaphroditus complete[d] what was lacking in [the Philippians’] service. That’s almost the same phrase as “filling up what is lacking” in Christ’s afflictions. And what it means in Philippians 2:30 is this. What was lacking in the Philippians’ service or gift to him wasn’t the gift itself. It fully supplied his need and he was very grateful for it. What was lacking was the personal presentation of that gift by the church itself. Paul would have loved to have had the church there in person to do that. But that just wasn’t possible, so Epaphroditus completed or filled up what was lacking in [the church’s] service by his personal presentation of the gift, by his personal communication and demonstration of the love of the church on their behalf.
And that’s what it means in Colossians 1:24 as well. In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. The lack isn’t in the afflictions of Christ to save his people. They fully supply the need of the sinner. The lack is in the personal presentation of those afflictions, of Christ’s all-sufficient love offering to sinners. The lack is that the infinitely hope-giving and soul-satisfying value of Christ’s afflictions is not known in the world, and it requires messengers like Paul to make it known.
And Paul is saying that is the lack that he is filling up, that is the lack he is supplying. In his flesh, that is, in his own sufferings for Christ, he is presenting the afflictions of Christ to sinners on Christ’s behalf. It’s true that he was presenting the crucified Christ in his preaching of the word of God. But what he has in mind here is that his personal afflictions in the path of obedience to Christ are a personal presentation of the glory of Christ’s cross of affliction.
John Piper put it this way:
God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his people. God really means for the body of Christ, the church, to experience some of the suffering he experienced so that when we offer the Christ of the cross to people, they see the Christ of the cross in us.
In other words, Paul suffered for Christ that people might see more of the suffering Christ. That’s how he filled up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions by enduring his afflictions for Christ’s sake.
Now, let’s come up out of the deep water here and ask how this relates to us. This is all interesting theology, but nobody here is the apostle Paul. If this is just about Paul and his suffering, how does that relate to us?
4. How does this apply to the average believer?
This is how it relates to us. Nothing that we’ve said about filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions is unique to Paul or to Paul’s apostolic ministry. A person doesn’t need to be an apostle in order for others to see the Christ of the cross in the way we handle suffering. Any believer can make a personal presentation to the world of the soul-satisfying and hope-giving value of the Savior and his suffering for them.
Paul had a specific stewardship from God, a particular ministry to preach the gospel and plant churches. And he suffered in the course of completing that stewardship. But you have a stewardship as well. Right now that stewardship might be called “student” where you are growing in knowledge and skill, finding and developing the right way to use the gifts God has given you. Your stewardship might be called wife, or mother, or father or businessman.
There is something God has called and gifted you to do that has its part in bringing glory to Christ in this world. And as you walk the path of obedience in that calling, you will suffer affliction in the course of that stewardship. It’s guaranteed, because Acts 14:22 says “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
And you’re going to be faced with a temptation in your afflictions. You’re going to be faced with the temptation to run away from your trials, to say that it isn’t worth it, to do what Job’s wife recommended to Job in his affliction, which is to “curse God and die”(Job 2:9). It’s the temptation to say that Christ’s afflictions don’t bring you ultimate hope, but what brings ultimate hope is getting rid of your afflictions.
But when you endure that affliction and proceed with faith instead of running away, you fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. You give a personal presentation to the world of the infinitely hope-giving and soul-satisfying value of Christ’s afflictions.
And this isn’t limited to obvious persecution for your faith. All suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ.
Here’s how we know. Remember the list of things Paul said that he had suffered in 1 Corinthians 11, the things he certainly had in mind when he talked about his sufferings… for the sake of …the church. Some of it was severe physical persecution for preaching Christ. He was lashed. He was beaten. He was stoned. I think we have no trouble seeing how that is suffering for Christ.
But do you remember what else was on Paul’s list of affliction? He was shipwrecked three times. That’s not persecution. That’s getting in a ship to go someplace and not making it there because a storm blows up and crashes you onto the rocks.
His afflictions included toil and hardship, the exhausting work of everyday life that was
accompanied by difficulties and setbacks and obstacles. That’s not persecution either.
Are these things suffering for Christ?
Yes they are. They are because they are afflictions that happened to Paul as he was walking in obedience to his stewardship. It makes no difference that they aren’t direct persecution. They were afflictions that carried with them the temptation to give up, to stop trusting Christ and obscure the soul-satisfying value of his cross. They were all part of the many things the Lord ordained that he suffer for his name’s sake. They were all part of God’s plan for Paul to suffer for Christ that people might see more of the suffering Christ and so believe in him.
And so it is with the afflictions God has ordained for you in the path of your obedience to the stewardship he’s given you.
All suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ.
Let me give an example of what this looks like.
We might ask, is physical illness suffering for Christ? What about things like the flu, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or vertigo or failing organs in your body? If we suffer through that, is that suffering for Christ, or is that just plain suffering?
Well, in our former church of a pastor friend of ours, he has a friend named Becky. She’s a devoted wife and the mom of three boys. She’s an enthusiastic greeter and someone who seeks out the visitors to make sure they are welcomed. She and her family are close friends to our pastor friend for more than 20 years together. At the beginning of summer she found out she has breast cancer. And it’s a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.
Since then she’s been going through many rounds of chemotherapy. She’s lost her hair. She feels sick a lot after the treatments, and it is yet to be seen if the treatments are successfully eliminating the cancer.
Is she suffering for Christ? Yes she is, because what she’s going through is no different than Paul’s shipwreck. He was doing what God called him to do and suddenly he was in danger of drowning. She was doing what God called her to do and suddenly her life is in danger from cancer. In both cases it’s something God allowed in their lives and in both cases the temptation is the same: to lose hope, to quit the race, to say “Christ’s affliction for me is not enough to satisfy me. It is not enough to satisfy you.”
But like Paul, she didn’t do that. She has been persevering in the faith. She has responded the way Paul did in Philippians 4:11-13. I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. …I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
She was abounding before the cancer. Now she is brought low. And she has learned to be content in Christ, and to draw hope from Christ’s affliction that has guaranteed her eternal joy. And just a few weeks ago, she was honored by the women of the church for her example of contentment in her affliction. And the church is being built up by it.
That’s suffering for Christ. That’s filling up what is lacking in Christ’s affliction. That’s showing the world that there’s a Savior who is better than life, and who endured suffering for our sakes. And that’s what you do also when you endure physical affliction in the course of your obedience to the calling on your life, whatever that is.
And I know several of you or your loved ones are going through difficult physical illnesses that may seem like just plain old suffering. But like Paul’s shipwreck, those illnesses come from the hand of a sovereign God whose desire is to show something of the Savior through you.
And friends, that is the case for all your afflictions as you go about following the Lord in life. Whether your pain comes from cancer, or from a difficult marriage, whether it comes from long hours of toil trying to provide for your family or to get through school, whether it comes from leaving relationships because of relocating for the sake of the gospel, if that is your pain on the path of obedience to the call of God on your life, that is suffering for Christ. And we have the opportunity in that to show the world that the source of hope is Christ and him crucified, not good circumstances.
God has ordained that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And the reason it is so is because the value of Christ and his cross is not demonstrated mainly in things going well for us. Things are probably going well for our unsaved neighbors too without Christ, at least on the surface. But Christ’s value is most demonstrated when you suffer constant migraines or your car gets totaled, or your wallet gets stolen and you say with hope, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8). The possibility of that glorifying Christ to our neighbors and coworkers and fellow students is much greater in those situations. That’s when we most fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions by a personal presentation of his great worth.
There is no meaningless suffering in the path of Christian obedience. There is no affliction of God’s people that does not have God’s purpose behind it to glorify his Son through you. And that understanding can keep us from discouragement and despair in our suffering, and even make it possible for us to rejoice in it.
All suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ.
CONCLUSION
Now, I want to close with two encouragements about your suffering that I haven’t mentioned yet. It could be that as you’ve listened to this view of suffering, the thought has crossed your mind, “Well, I’m suffering sure enough, but I’m not reacting to it the way Paul did. I complain about it. I haven’t shown the soul-satisfying power of Christ’s afflictions. So I’m not encouraged.” I want to leave you with encouragement from the Lord.
I began this message saying that all suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ and with Christ. So how is your suffering on the path of obedience a suffering with Christ?
Remember that in verse 24 Paul said he suffered for the sake of [Christ’s] body, that is, the church. The church is Christ’s body. He is pictured as the head of that body in Ephesians and other places. This is imagery that reminds us of our union with Christ, that we are connected to him in a spiritual and mystical way that is real and in which what happens to us happens to him, and he takes up our suffering to himself.
This is reflected in statements like Jesus saying to those who did not care for his people in Matthew 25:45 ’Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ It’s reflected in what the Lord said to Saul on the road to Damascus when he was pursuing believers to put them in prison. The risen Christ said to him Acts 9:4, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
Richard Sibbes commented on this passage in his book, The Bruised Reed. He said of Jesus,
He died that he might heal our souls …and by that death save us… And has he not the same heart in heaven? ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ cried the Head in heaven when the foot on earth was trodden on. His advancement has not made him forget his own flesh. Though it has freed him from passion, yet [it has not freed him] from compassion towards us.
The Lord who said, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” walks with you in your suffering, as one who has compassion on you, because he is, as Isaiah 53:3 says, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
All suffering that a believer endures in the path of obedience is suffering for Christ and with Christ.
And there is one more encouragement for you in your suffering. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:17. He said …this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Your affliction may not seem light or momentary right now. I may seem burdensome and endless now. But in the scope of eternity, it is both light and momentary. And what it is producing for you is glorious rewards in heaven beyond your imagination.
So be encouraged brothers and sisters. Your afflictions, whatever they are as you seek to follow the Lord, they come from his gracious hand that you might show something of the suffering Savior to the world. He is with you in your suffering. And it is producing for you an eternal weight of glory far beyond our imagination.
PRAY
