God’s Greatest Goals for Your Life
Part 3: To Know the Fellowship of His Sufferings
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Nov. 8, 2009
*Last week I mentioned The Beverly Hillbillies to you. But when it comes to goals, Eric Thomas makes a good point from the Professor on Gilligan’s Island. Eric said: “So many of us are living our lives like the Professor on Gilligan’s Island. We can make a battery last for 7 years, create record players out of bamboo and vaccines from algae, -- but we never find the time to fix the hole in the boat... (1)
*We get so busy doing other things that we forget the main things. But God has great goals for our lives. Paul shared 3 of the greatest goals in Phil 3:10:“That I may know (Jesus) and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,” Today we will focus on the fellowship of His sufferings. God wants all believers to know the fellowship of His sufferings. Let’s look into His Word and see why.
1. First: This fellowship helps transform our character.
*In the last part of Phil 3:10 Paul was saying this: “I want to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, being conformed, molded, shaped, or transformed into His likeness, even to His death.” Paul wanted to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, being conformed to His death.
Of course, Paul was not talking about suffering and dying for his own sins. When Jesus died on the cross, He was the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins. And one of the last things He said on the cross was “It is finished.” That means “paid in full.” The price for our sins had been paid in full. Christ’s suffering for sin was over. And all we need to do is receive God’s gift of salvation by receiving the risen Christ as our Savior and Lord.
*Praise God Christians, we don’t have to suffer God’s wrath for our sins! But as we serve the Lord and as we suffer in this world, we can have a special fellowship with the Lord. It is a life-changing fellowship that makes us more like Jesus, even to the point of being conformed to His unselfish, sacrificial death.
*And this transformation process can be hard. Elias Reyes explains: “The closer you get to Christ, the greater an enemy you become to Satan. As you go down the road of knowing Christ, you will run into challenges that are tough, awkward, and painful. At these times, the decision you face is crucial: Do you really want to know Him?
*At the place of suffering there is also the simultaneous call to intimacy. In trials we often ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ Very often, the reason behind our trials is that God will take us to the next level of intimacy with Him as we trust Him and grow in Him.
*Think about a shirt being ironed: A hot, heavy iron presses down on that shirt, moving over every inch with its pressure. But this process is required to get out all the wrinkles.” (2)
2. The fellowship of His suffering helps transform our character. And it helps us see our close connection with God.
*When we open our hearts to receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, God’s Spirit comes to live in us. And at the same time, He puts us in Christ. In a very real and spiritual way we are in the same body. So in Eph 1:22-23, Paul tells believers that God the Father “put all things under (Christ’s) feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
*We already have this unique connection through our relationship with Jesus. But the fellowship of His suffering helps us see it, because Jesus takes on our sufferings. He makes them His own. He shares in our suffering. God’s Word makes this clear to us in Acts 26:9-15, where Paul gave his testimony to King Agrippa. Paul began with his life before Jesus and said:
9. “I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
10. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many of the believers in Jerusalem to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death.
11. Many times I had them whipped in the synagogues to try to get them to curse Christ. I was so violently opposed to them that I even hounded them in distant cities of foreign lands.
12. One day I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests.
13. About noon, Your Majesty, a light from heaven brighter than the sun shone down on me and my companions.
14. We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ’Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the oxgoads.’
15. I asked. ‘Who are you, sir?’ And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.’”
*It has always impressed me that Jesus began by saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” -- Not “Why are you persecuting my people” or “Why are you persecuting my church?” -- But “Why are you persecuting me?”
*Believers, our connection with Christ is so close that Jesus feels your every pain. Everything that hurts you hurts Him. Jesus takes on our sufferings. And this fellowship of suffering helps us see our close connection with God.
*Dot Van was a lady I witnessed to several times back in the 1990s. Her son went to church with us at Emmanuel. Dot passed away in May of 1999. She had some good qualities, but had made some bad mistakes. And she was always very hard-hearted when we talked about the Lord. Dot thought you had to earn your way into Heaven. And she felt that she was good enough to go to heaven on her own. She didn’t want anything to do with Jesus.
*But the last time I saw Dot, she had completely changed. It was astounding, amazing, even glorious! Dot was very sick with cancer but she did not complain. Instead, she took the time to tell me how had been saved. God had started working on her heart 6 months earlier. The Lord showed her she wasn’t good enough to get into heaven on her own. So, around Christmas of 1998, she asked Jesus to save her. And Dot said, “I know that He has.” You could hear it in her voice. You could see it in her eyes. I walked out of that hospital room a foot off the ground!
*Dot said that when she got her cancer, God told her that it was going to be bad, but that was O.K. because He was going to be with her. And He was! As her son bent down to rub her forehead, Dot’s last words were, “Jesus is with me son.” -- Jesus is with me.”
3. And Christian, He will be with you, too. The fellowship of His suffering helps us see our close connection with God. And it helps us find God’s comfort.
*Christ’s fellowship comes with the promise of God’s comfort. Paul speaks about this comfort in 2 Corin 1:2-5, where he tells Christians:
2. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4. who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.
*The word picture for “tribulation” here is great pressure from anguish, persecution, trouble or distress. But Christians, when we find ourselves in tribulation, God will find a way to comfort us.
*David DeWitt reminds us that Jesus knows the hard times we go through in life. David said, “When I think of the sufferings of Christ, I almost always think of the cross and the pain of enduring the crucifixion. However, it is helpful to remember that Christ suffered in many ways during His life and was no stranger to sorrow and grief.
-Jesus lost His father, Joseph, sometime before His ministry began.
-Jesus lost His friend, cousin and partner in ministry, John the Baptist.
-Jesus also lost His close personal friend, Lazarus. It is from this passage that we find the shortest verse within the entire Bible: “Jesus wept.”
-Today, I can tell you with confidence that God not only knows your pain but he understands because He has experienced it through Jesus.” (3)
*So God is more than able to bring you help, healing and hope. He is the God of all comfort.
4. The fellowship of His suffering helps us find God’s comfort. And it helps advance the cause of Christ.
*As Paul talks about his suffering in vs. 3-6, there is no doubt that he is suffering for the cause of Christ. And his suffering greatly helped to advance the cause of Christ. It’s not that God wants His people to suffer or takes pleasure in our suffering. But Rom 8:28 tells us that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” And here in vs. 3-6, we see how our suffering can help advance the cause of Christ. The first way is by sharing God’s comfort with other people. Look at vs. 3-4, where Paul said: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
*As John Jowett once said, “God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.” (4)
*We advance the cause of Christ by comforting other people, and by sharing salvation with other people. As Paul said in vs. 6: “If we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”
*Paul was concerned about their salvation. Paul travelled hundreds and thousands of miles because he was concerned about people’s salvation. He went through incredible suffering, because he was concerned about people’s salvation. How bad was it? -- Later on in this same letter, Paul wrote:
8. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9. persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed
10. always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
11. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
12. So then death is working in us, but life in you.
13. But since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke,’’ we also believe and therefore speak,
14. knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. (2 Cor 4:8-14)
*Paul wanted to know the fellowship of Christ’s suffering so that the cause of Christ could go forward.
*Most of you know that last Thursday Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a murderous rampage at Fort Hood in Texas. The attack killed 13 people and wounded 30 others. Thank God for Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer who ended the carnage by shooting Hasan. Don’t pay attention to the psycho-babble coming out in the liberal press about Hasan suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. He had not even been to the battlefield.
*The truth about his life-story indicates that Hassan is a radical jihadist, just like the Taliban our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan. He once made a presentation that justified suicide bombing, and even attended the same radical mosque that some of the 9-11 terrorists attended. (5)
*How are we to respond to this outrage?
-With prayers for the wounded and the grieving families.
-With an expectation of justice against Major Hassan, if he survives his wounds.
*At the same time we cannot consider all Muslims to be violent jihadists. Most of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world today are not extremists. All of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world today need Jesus. And God wants us to love them like He loves them. God wants us to do everything we can to reach them for Jesus.
*Some of them will trust in the Lord, in spite of the danger they face from the radicals around them. And He is already doing miraculous things to reach them. Our IMB has a monthly e-newsletter for students called “The Task.” The December 2001 issue gave this report: “In the Western world, we often limit God to revealing Himself through sermons, Bible studies and the advice of godly counselors, but we discount dreams and visions as suspect. By contrast, many people in other countries, including most of the Muslim world, consider dreams and visions as standard vehicles through which God will speak to them.
*Dayna Curry Masterson is one of our missionaries who were jailed by the Taliban for sharing Christianity. Speaking at Two Rivers Baptist Church Dayna said that God is reaching Afghan Muslims through their dreams.
*Dayna mentioned an Afghani woman she knew who was under stress, wondering how to feed and clothe her eight children. One night, the woman had a dream that Jesus walked into her home, placed his hand on each of their heads. Jesus told her ‘not to worry because I will be their father.’ Dayna then said, ‘The woman came to us and wanted to know how to get closer to Jesus.’” (6)
*Sometimes it means suffering and sacrifice, but God wants us to do all we can to advance the cause of Christ. And He will fellowship with us in this most crucial cause.
5. The fellowship of His suffering helps advance the cause of Christ. And it helps build our confidence in Christ.
*In March 2001, Dayna Curry Masterson and Heather Mercer followed the call of God to Kabul, Afghanistan, working with the relief organization Shelter Now International. On August 3, 2001 Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry Masterson were arrested by the Kandahar Taliban for spreading Christianity, after showing the “Jesus” film to an Afghan family. Under the Taliban regime, the penalty for sharing the Christian faith with Afghanistan Muslims was death.
*For 105 days, throughout the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the ensuing fighting between the U.S. and Taliban forces, the workers were held as prisoners. Their trial before the Taliban hung in the balance. So did their lives. But Christians all over the world began lifting up prayers around the clock. In the early morning, November 15, 2001, God answered their prayers when U.S. Special Forces miraculously rescued the prisoners.
*Listen to this testimony from Dayna and Heather:
(Showed video clip from “Somebody’s Praying Me Through” - Created by Karla Worley and Gary Rhodes - Word Music - 2003) Text is below:
Dayna Curry Masterson:
“When Heather and I were in prison under the Taliban, God gave us this Scripture to encourage us. It’s 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 (NLT): ‘I think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we learned not to rely on ourselves, but on God who can raise the dead. And he did deliver us from mortal danger. And we are confident that he will continue to deliver us. He will rescue us because you are helping by praying for us. As a result, many will give thanks to God because so many people’s prayers for our safety have been answered.’”
Heather Mercer:
“As our friends and I spent those days in that Taliban prison facing the pressures of death, we knew many days that our only hope was to put our confidence in the promise of God: that for those who believe, nothing is impossible and that God can and will do a miracle. And God raised up many, millions from all over the world to pray for the impossible, to pray for a move of God. And as we’ve seen, God has not only set us and our Afghan friends free, but He’s done a move of His Holy Spirit in the nation of Afghanistan and the nation has been changed.” (7)
*Dayna and Heather have come to know the fellowship of His sufferings. And God wants us to know it too. Here are His great goals for our lives:
-To know Him.
-To know the power of His resurrection.
-And to know the fellowship of His sufferings.
*Do you know Him?
-Open your heart to receive Jesus today.
-You can do that now as we go to God in prayer.
*Then set your goals on Jesus: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
1. Online sermon “Shine” by Eric Thomas, Pastor FBC Norfolk, VA - Matt 5:13-16
2. Adapted from SermonCentral Sermon “THAT I MAY KNOW HIM” by Elias Reyes - Phil 3:10 - Aug. 11, 2002
3. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “The God who Comforts” by David DeWitt - 2 Cor 1:3-5
4. John Henry Jowett (1817-1893) - Edythe Draper, Draper’s Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 1501-1503. (Found in SermonCentral sermon “Blessed Comfort” by Mark Beaird - 2 Cor 1:3-7)
5. www.onenewsnow.com/AP/Search/US/Default.aspx?id=758860 and hotair.com/archives/2009/11/07/report-hasan-attended-same-radical-mosque-as-911-hijackers/
6. thetask_orgstudentseNewslettersFall01_12
7. “Somebody’s Praying Me Through” - Created by Karla Worley and Gary Rhodes - Word Music - 2003 - p. 60
