“I Am Afflicted”
(Eph 3:1-13)
Sometimes we can read too much into passages of the bible to make them personal, that they relate to us specifically when they’re not meant to. As we read about Paul today and his afflictions, you might say, “well that was for Paul, how do you see us in that today?” I hope to make the case that while specific trials probably will not touch us today anyway, the general affliction Paul went through is not and should not be that unusual for a Christian of any fame or any time in history.
Let’s read what it says in Ephesians 3:1-13…
We need to give a very brief history here to understand what Paul is saying. He bookends this passage telling the people about his suffering in prison for the sake of the Gentiles, and in the middle he refers to God giving him this mission to preach or proclaim the mystery of Christ to the Gentiles. In verse 7 he lets us know that he was given this ministry by the grace of God through the working of His power. Now when we hear Gentile in the Bible we can translate that into our time as people outside of the church, people who do not have a relationship with Jesus.
Well, we remember how Paul was given this ministry. We see it in Acts 8 and 9. Paul, then Saul was ravaging the church, bringing huge persecution to believers. While he was off to arrest some more of them Jesus knocked him off his high horse and blinded him. For three days he couldn’t see and he didn’t eat or drink. This was his conversion and how God gave him this ministry. Doesn’t sound real pleasant or graceful does it? Yet Paul calls the whole process a gift of grace.
He then spends the rest of his waking life taking this message around the known world having his life threatened, being beaten and imprisoned on many occasions. Paul had no problem discerning when it was time to leave a church or community, he didn’t worry about getting fired or asked to resign, his life was usually in danger if he didn’t leave. It was not a pleasant ministry for Him, yet it seemed to bring him much joy.
One of my questions for us today is whether or not we see our Christianity as an affliction, and can we relate to the identity of being afflicted because of the mystery of Christ that we have been exposed to? Affliction is really suffering for a cause in this sense. Have we suffered simply because we are Christians?
Now there are many kinds of affliction, and some may see simply obedience to Jesus as a sort of affliction. Maybe we can’t do some things we would like to do because God forbids them. Maybe we are not accepted in certain social situations. Perhaps we are at times ridiculed for our faith. These are minor afflictions. This does not include ordinary human suffering that would be experienced by everyone, but suffering specifically because we are Christians.
The first point I want to make is about Paul’s first statement. “A prisoner of Christ Jesus on your behalf”. Now prisoner has a double meaning here because he is actually in prison, but it also means that he is a prisoner for or of Jesus. Even when he’s free from prison he’s a prisoner for Jesus. I’m going to say this very bluntly, you cannot choose how to live a Christian life. Paul would never have chosen this ministry on his own. Grace is a gift that saves but also gives us power to live as God’s workmanship, doing the good works he prepared for us. The Bible tell us how to be Christians and the Church, we don’t decide.
Paul says in 2 Cor 12 that Jesus told him, my grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness, so Paul says, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
Perhaps Paul’s most pertinent passage about this grace is found in Titus 2:11, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age.”
So we might ask, have I just been saved from Hell by God’s grace, or have I become a new creation and prisoner to Jesus through God’s grace? We need to look at this because the next chapter of Ephesians goes into detail about this. Chapter 4 verse 7 for instance referring specifically to all believers, “Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says (in reference to Psalm 68:18) when he ascended on high, he took people into captivity and gave them gifts.”
This is just before he starts talking about the leaders in the church equipping all the saints for the work of ministry. So it seems to me that the greatest affliction of accepting God’s grace is the fact that we become his prisoners, captive to his will through repentance. Now at first that doesn’t sound very nice does it? But it all depends on what we talked about the last couple of weeks, about our level of trust with Jesus. I don’t mind being the creator of the universe’s slave.
But we might say, Jesus said we are no longer slaves but children and friends. Paul’s point is not that Jesus treats us as slaves, but that we are inherently all slaves to something. This is explained in Romans 6. He says a person who is really taken captive by God’s grace will let the old person die so that we will no longer be enslaved to sin… Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves you are slaves of the one who you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
It seems you can’t be slaves to both sin and to righteousness. He goes on to say, “Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching which you were given, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
He talks a little more about this, then talks about fruit. As you now present yourselves as slaves of righteousness leading to sanctification. Now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift from God is eternal life in Jesus Christ.
Did you catch it in there? Twice he says that it is presenting ourselves as slaves to God that leads to sanctification, which is essentially being made complete and holy as a Christian. It also says that the free gift of eternal life comes from not being in sin, but in Christ. Remember our identity to be in Christ is essentially that when we are seen, people see Christ.
So I believe the greatest affliction of being a true Christian is that we die, and we are raised to be slaves to God as his children in this life. So this is not a slavery that is burdensome and cruel, but one that we willingly participate in that leads to the promises of God. We are slaves one way or the other, either to sin or to God. But that means we cannot live our Christian life as we choose, but as God instructs through the teaching we have been given.
So all the rest of Christian affliction seems to stem from this one thing. Imprisonment, ridicule, violence, and other persecutions come from our submission to Jesus as Lord. Who wants affliction? So we do rather what we want to do, and how we define being a Christian, which is safely going to church, safely reading the bible and praying privately in our homes and with other Christians. Giving money to the church and missionaries, volunteering in the church, being nice to people, living relatively clean public lives, and so on.
But do you see what this has done? It excludes the Gentiles, or in our case the people who are not yet part of the church. Have you ever noticed that the Bible is quite silent about the things I just listed as part of being a Christian? These are things we have decided are how we want to be Christians. All of them are good and necessary, but the bible paints a different picture.
In our passage today Paul starts with, I am a prisoner of Jesus, not church, on your behalf you people who do not know God. Jesus doesn’t command we attend church, he does like the idea of reading the Scriptures so that we can know Him and his commands better. But by far the most important commands Jesus gives are to witness to those who don’t know Jesus, to love God through obedience, and to love others. The primary thing Jesus and the New Testament teaches us to make a priority, is the very thing the church has put way down at the bottom of the list, because we really don’t want to do it.
A Christian will never be afflicted by living a private, invisible Christian life. A Christian will be afflicted and persecuted when we publicly and lovingly present Jesus to the unbelieving world, which is the church’s primary task.
When we suffer for doing God’s will we must not ask why. The better question is who am I in Christ, and if Jesus said we will be hated and afflicted, that is a sign that we are truly in Christ, for we are then suffering as he did. It is this I. suffering that glorifies God. Look at what gets people’s attention and often their anger, it isn’t so much his teachings, but his suffering, death, and resurrection from his proclaiming that he is God, that will provoke people one way or the other.
We sometimes think that Jesus suffered so that we wouldn’t have to. That’s not true, he suffered so that when we face trials we can become more like him and point people to him. He died and paid a penalty so we wouldn’t have to, but he never said we wouldn’t suffer in this life. Do you really that God would allow His son to go through a bloody torturous death, and yet be very concerned that we don’t experience any discomfort?
Another reason we suffer again is II. for the sake of others like Jesus and Paul did. Paul and Jesus didn’t necessarily enjoy their suffering, but they endured it because they knew who they were and why they were suffering.
We are also III. afflicted for our own growth. It gives us a deeper understanding and appreciation for Jesus. It also helps us better serve others who are suffering. And most importantly, it forces us to draw closer to God, which is His great desire.
And this one is huge, IV. we are afflicted for credibility. There are two ways this is true. In one way it gives credibility to our faith. If we never live out our faith and pay some kind of price for it, how credible are we as Christians when someone looks at what the Bible says about us? Part of the reason Christianity has lasted so long is because people were willing to suffer for this truth. Who would suffer for a lie? And it also gives us credibility to speak into the lives of others who may be suffering for Christ.
Some might say, well what about radical Muslims who go on suicide missions for their faith. That’s nothing like this. They are doing that because it’s a quick fix to get out of the suffering of this world. They are told that is one of the only ways they can be accepted by Allah into heaven right away. That is their only real guarantee of salvation. Unfortunately their suffering begins after they do this so called act of faith, which is really more an act of manipulation.
So affliction gives credibility to our faith. It also gives credibility to God himself. Paul says in verse 10 of our passage today that we bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
As the church reveals and declares this mystery, which will inevitably bring some kind of persecution, the spirit world even takes notice. The angels both good and bad, see the truth of God’s wisdom in creating the church and go wow! And the evil ones go ooooh.
One last thing about this identity as afflicted. How did Paul and the early Christians view this identity? Were they resentful, did they wish they didn’t have to do God’s will? Right away in Acts the church is taking the message to the people in Jerusalem and they were rejoicing that they were worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name of Jesus.
In Paul’s sister letter Colossians he says in the first chapter, now I rejoice in my suffering for your sake. In 2Cor chapter 1 he talks about being comforted in affliction, as we share in Christ’s affliction, we also share in his comfort.
Have you experienced that?
You may not always experience His comfort when you are going through normal human suffering, especially when it comes as a result of your own choices which it often does. But it is promised that when you suffer for others in the name of Christ, in other words when you are doing His will, you will receive the same comfort he received as he suffered. Talk about building an intimacy with God.
Obedience to God will bring affliction, even if that affliction is simply inconvenience. Sometimes isn’t it true that we do things that we think God wants, but we are really doing it for ourselves. Our pride, some kind of recognition from people or God. But it is very clear that this obedience, this suffering is done for the sake of others, especially those who do not know God.
We strive for the comfort of the world but Paul says in 2 Cor that as Christ’s suffering overflows to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows. Which comfort do you think would be better, the comfort of God or the comfort of the world?
Personal comfort is without a doubt the biggest obstacle to living out our God given mission in life. We choose the comfortable things in our Christian life, but we will even sacrifice those things like Bible reading, prayer, and attending church, which hardly cause affliction, when it’s more comfortable not to.
So that’s the question I leave you with. Are you willing to risk discomfort and potential affliction for the sake of the Name of the one who has died for you? Do you trust him enough after he has done his saving work on the cross, to represent him in the world at risk to your own comfort? Trusting that he will give you his comfort. How might that look for you? It’s probably that little voice that has been nagging you gently over the years that you have consistently tried to ignore, and the longer you refused to obey that voice, the easier it gets to tune it out and justify your lack of action.
Denise and I can speak from experience that God does give comfort and joy when you are willing to sacrifice your desires and comforts for his sake and the sake of others. We wouldn’t be here otherwise, and I know I wouldn’t experience the richness of my relationship with Christ they way I do today. That’s what I want for all of you, because at the end of the day when you compare that to what the world has to offer there is truly no comparison.
