I Rejoice in My Sufferings, Col, 1:24

We're privileged this morning to look at Colossians 124 and behold the Lord through his word. So as we look at this passage here, we need to take a look at what were Paul's circumstances when he's writing this, because these are particularly relevant as we look at this passage.

One of the things to note, he was under house arrest there in Rome, awaiting a hearing with the emperor. In addition to that, he says that he was in bonds or shackles, and we had a picture of that in the prior posting of the verse there. He also made mention, as we're going through Philippians, he was constantly chained to a Praetorian guard. The Praetorian guard was a guard that had special appointment to guard the emperor in any of the emperor's interests, interestingly enough, including any Roman citizen who had made appeal to the emperor. That doesn't mean that being chained to one of these guys was a good thing or a nice thing. One of the Christians in subsequent decades who wrote about being chained to one of these guys said it was like being chained to a wild beast.

So if you can imagine what that's like, Paul's going through quite a time. Finally is dealing with the legal system. You can imagine the legal system in our era, and I'm sure at various points in time you've become frustrated with it or heard of people who have. And Paul experienced no exception to that. The Roman bureaucrats were no better, sorry to say.

Paul made reference to being in prison or in chains in a number of places. Paul is recorded as being in prison or in chains, as Luke records Paul's life in the last half of Acts. We have, of course, the two books we're studying currently, Ephesians and Colossians, that each have reference to it, and other of Paul's letters mentioning it as well. When we looked some months back at the similarities between Ephesians and Colossians, one of the things we saw, of course, is that Paul is a prisoner.

He wrote in each of these books that he was emphasizing Christ, and we find the pattern that There's the believer's identification with Christ brought up in both of those books. The first half of each of those books addresses the eternal position of the believer. The second half addresses our present condition. Both of those books also delivered by this fellow named Tychicus. Now, take a look at this fellow Tychicus and what he had to do.

Here's Rome and then there's Ephesus. We're talking about two months journey, approximately, between Rome and Ephesus, depending exactly how you went. There were some possibilities of short-cutting it with a ship. That was generally not taken by someone who was just wanting to get somewhere, but that was a possibility. Bottom line, if you can think of it this way, if Tychicus had started now, it would be into the early part of November before he'd get to Ephesus. That kind of a trip, walking every day. Long trip.

From there, to carry the letter a little farther to the next city where he was carrying it, you would have Colossae a few days beyond that. So you're looking into, again making the comparison, into being about the middle of November. If you were to start now, leaving Rome and then walking all the way to Colossae to deliver this letter. Now, here's Paul and he says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

When we look at this verse, the question is, does it raise any questions? Do you read that? Does it raise any questions in your mind? I want to welcome you to the most controversial verse in the Book of Colossians. We're going to be studying that this morning. Congratulations, you've arrived there. There are several big questions that come out of this, and that's why it's controversial. But we won't settle for controversy. We need answers. So let's take a look at there. Immediately, some questions just come popping out of this verse, and we'll give some for instances.

Rejoicing in sufferings? How's that different from masochism? Okay? Whoopee, I'm having a tough time. Alright? Or, for your sake, from anything we can tell, Paul never went to Colossae. What does he mean for your sake? How can that be? Or, here's another question. What does he mean by lacking in Christ's afflictions? Now that is an incomprehensible thing for him to say. Or is it? How can Paul even hope to fill up what's lacking in Christ's afflictions?

And that assumes that we understand what he means by that. Well, anyway, those are some immediate questions. You might have some others, but let's step into these. We're brave, right? Okay. Remember, we looked at last week, Colossians 1, verses 21 through 23, and that's the preface to this. And as we looked at it, we saw this progression. There was a past alienation before they were believers, in verse 21. There was a present reconciliation that they had experienced now, having believed.

There was finally an eternal position and then the turning point, which is Paul's ministry. See, up until the end of verse 23, he's talking about those who believed, their prior condition, their present position, and now at the end of verse 23, he turns a corner. He talks about, in verse 23, the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and finally uses this as a turning point of which I, Paul, was made a minister. Paul had a special assignment, and that's his turning point It turns here to verse 24.

So he starts off with, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. Alright, we want to take a look at that. Sufferings. Why is he going through this? How come it isn't just blessings the whole way? Why isn't he just blessed like crazy? He's a Christian now, right? Isn't he supposed to have just piles and piles of blessings and nothing else?

After all, we could ask the same question. Since we're believers, doesn't God just give us an overflowing of blessings? Don't you just get abundant blessings all over the place because you're a believer now? Don't we have physical health just for the asking? Why, as a believer now, all of our paths should be just glowing. We should be on a highway of ease as believers, right? shouldn't we be just abounding with material blessings? The Lord just blessing us so fast we can't give it away quickly enough. Since we're believers, doesn't God just remove every single roadblock? After all, we're Christians now.

Isn't that the way it works? Not exactly. Okay? Not exactly. We don't want to take a look at that. Now, this is just to make the point here. It's true, we've been blessed massively with every spiritual blessing, and I don't think this is a heavenly donkey, by the way, but we have been overwhelmingly blessed as believers.

What Scripture makes clear, and we saw in Ephesians 1.3, is that these overwhelming blessings, as a matter of fact, Paul later on calls them unfathomable blessings, these massive blessings are in the heavenly places. I don't think the donkey's headed for there, but anyway. So when we say, what, no blessings? Yes, abundant blessings, massive blessings. But not here. Not on this planet. They're heavenly blessings.

One of the things we see as we look through Scripture is we don't see this example of, hey, now I'm a Christian, everything is just hunky-dory. Everything is just a highway of ease. No, we find as we look at Scripture that Christ Himself had no place to call home.

One of the things we covered in our Bible backgrounds class just a week or so ago is we looked at the lives of the apostles and we found from every evidence that we have, John appears to be the only one who died a natural death. All the rest of them went off into the continents, all the continents of the Eastern Hemisphere, and died martyrs' deaths from every record that we have. John alone appears to have been the last one. None of them, by any record that we have, had any earthly treasure. They spent themselves completely passing along the Gospel. This here is a view from what is traditionally called John's Cave at Patmos.

Now, all total, Paul himself spent several years in Roman prisons or under house arrest in Rome. Probably a couple of years in house arrest in Rome, probably a couple of years at the prison in Caesarea, which was a Roman military colony. We know that Paul worked hard as a tent maker, I'm sure often at odd hours, to make ends meet so as not to burden the churches. Ten maker, I'm sure, didn't make a lot of money, but made a living.

Paul continued to make these references to prison, but it's interesting as we see one place where he references his time in prison, he cuts all these multiple references short. In 2 Corinthians 11, 23 through 29, those in the 2 Corinthians elective will have the privilege of studying that sometime later. The first thing he mentions is imprisonment, so he just sums that up in one word. Isn't that interesting? Multiple evidences of it, but one word. Why? He's got a bunch of other sufferings to tell us about.

In danger of death, 5 times 39 lashes. We don't have a record of all of those, but certainly he's recording it here in summary. Three times beaten with rods, stoned and left for dead. Three times shipwrecked. We have record of only one of those. Three times shipwrecked. A day and a night spent in the deep.

And by the way, the people of the New Testament era were deathly afraid, and I don't use that as a pun, they were deathly afraid, very afraid of dying in the waters. That to them was the worst death possible. Then dangers from rivers, robbers, countrymen, Gentiles in the city and in the wilderness, on the sea and among false brethren, through sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food and in cold, and exposure. How's that for a good list? Any volunteers? Oh boy.

Colossians 1.24, he says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

This word rejoice is Cairo. It's from that Keres family of words that we brought up before. We listed them particularly as we went through the book of Ephesians. Cairo is grace-given joy. What? I rejoice with grace-given joy in my sufferings. Wow! Grace-given joy with God as its source.

It flows not from the circumstances. It's not whoopee, I'm in trouble. not from the circumstances, but from the very life and person of Christ. That's where it comes from. Paul is not being masochistic. He is instead looking to the Lord and not his circumstances for this joy. The Lord is the source. It doesn't just rejoice when the trial passes. It rejoices, look at it, in my sufferings.

It rejoices in them. Just in case you think Paul's all alone in this perspective, and by the way, here's a picture of where Paul was shipwrecked that we have record. That doesn't record the other two. 1 Peter 4 records this for us. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.

But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing. so that you may, at the revelation of his glory, excuse me, that also at the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with exultation." Twice using that word, the root word kairo, rejoicing, a grace-given joy with God as its source. James writes in James chapter 1, he gets through saying, Hi, my name's James, and then he starts in. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. continues on addressing this issue through verse 4. But it's interesting as you look at verse 1, the essence of the Greek there is an imperative verb.

You must esteem it ultimate joy. Ultimate joy. Now, what do you think of as an ultimate joy? It's a wedding. Todd and Janelle probably think having a baby is probably one of those, except when it wakes up. But that might be an ultimate joy, wouldn't it? Something that you really rejoice at. What does he say here? You must esteem an ultimate joy when?

Encounter various trials. That word various is the word where we get our word in English, polkadot. Big ones? Scattered about. The whole spectrum of trials, you must consider it ultimate joy. How about that? So Paul isn't alone, is he? You see, it's in part at least a matter of perspective. One is a matter of time. If we just look at time as, hey, we've got a few decades here, you only go around once, then all a trial is is just in the way. You just want it to be over. You want it to get done. You want to be away from it and through with it.

However, if we have a view with the perspective of eternity, it takes on a very different understanding for us. Time is a part of the perspective. It's a matter of place. Where am I? If I'm a believer and I'm just here, and here is all that matters, and I'm just waiting for that other place, then, yeah, what counts here on planet Earth is what matters. If, instead, our position is where Paul tells the believers at Ephesus they're seated, then the place that you are at, spiritually, is going to hold a whole different set of values for you than the one who sees right here, right now is what counts. If my resources and my life and everything I can muster is what counts, if that's all that matters, then definitely trials are a drain and let's just try to minimize them and get past them and get out of them. If instead my life's resources are the very life of Christ in the midst of whatever trials are coming, I've told in times past about a project that I went through which was pivotal for me, some all seven years or so ago now and the project was nightmarish.

It was one of those where I was getting phone calls in the middle of the night, on weekends, holidays. People were irate and I was there to try to solve a problem that another engineer had caused and my job was, they said, just get it fixed. So meanwhile, it was a fiery time. And there were times where physiologically I was having a tough time handling it.

And I came to Galatians 2.20 and said, it's no longer I who live.

Lord, I do not have the life sufficient for this trial. Your life is the only way I'm going to get through with this. Live it, because I'm done. His life is the only way that we have sufficient resources for this life. If we're just looking at me, if I just got to look at this guy and say, hey, this is what you got, then that's not going to do it. If I'm just looking at me in my life, I'm going to say, get me out of this trial, I'm sick of this. How do I get this thing over with and out of here quick? If instead, it's the person of Christ that I'm looking to instead of me, I have a whole different picture. A whole different picture.

Colossians 1.24, he says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

Now here's where we come into the question, we don't have any record that he ever went to Colossae. So how can he say this? One of the things that he's not saying, he's not saying, I'm suffering in your place so that you don't have to suffer. He's not saying, I am substituting for your suffering and so you guys will have it easy because I'm having a hard time. That's not what he's saying.

Those who were in Colossae who believed did so because Paul had given the message to this fellow Epaphras, who had in turn taken the message to Colossae and the neighboring cities of Laodicea and Heropolis. It was because of the Gospel having reached Colossae through Paul's ministry and message, through Epaphras, that he could say, for your sake.

And he says then, in my flesh, and there we run into a question. Which kind of flesh? After all, the word is used in different ways. And by the way, the Greek word is not any more helpful by itself. It's context. The word sarx is the word that's translated flesh, and it means several different things.

Is this Paul's sinful nature or his physical body? Which one? Should we vote? Maybe not. The sinful nature, by the way, doesn't wish to do anything on behalf of the body of Christ. The sinful nature says, hey, do you want to suffer? You ask the sinful nature that question, and it says, where's the next door? The sinful nature wants out.

Paul is referring here to his physical body. He says, here I have this physical body. That physical body is suffering. And then he says, I do my share. I do my share. What does he mean by that? Paul's share is his portion as a part of the whole body of Christ, isn't it? The entire body of Christ is the body of Christ, not just these apostles. As a portion of the body of Christ, he is taking and receiving his share of the sufferings that will come upon the whole body of Christ.

Then he says, on behalf of his body, and we have this nice Greek drawing here that I decided to put the words over the top of because these guys haven't got a stitch on. So anyway, in Greek culture, those who competed in athletic games did so on behalf of the city they represented. Paul uses the same terminology when he says, Okay, his body, real interesting. He is not done making athletic references.

Let's take a look here. Now at Ephesus, there was a theater and we've actually had a couple of people in this church body who have been there to see this. The theater is open and it's been cleaned up and rubble cleared off and it's not covered with weeds. At Colossae, it is one place that has not been excavated. Here's the theater, it's covered with weeds. Nonetheless, they would have athletic competitions and some of those were held in kind of the bottom floor of the theater where it was the kind of competition where if people are running, obviously it isn't going to work, but for things that could be held at one place, boxing and wrestling and things of that sort. What we see is he goes on just a few verses later in Colossians 1 29 through 21. And by the way, I've got a few slides here that aren't in your handout.

So if you want to make note of it, feel free to do so. He says, for this purpose also I labor, striving, and this is the word agonizomai. We get our word agony from it, but it is the word used for athletic competition in those days. And he goes on to use a word that is obviously related to it. According to his power, which mightily works within me, for I want you to know how great a struggle, agon, I have on your behalf. how great an athletic competition I have representing you, is what he's telling them, using athletic terminology again.

It's the same words here, on your behalf, as he has assembled in Colossians 1.24.

Colossians 3.15, he comes up, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and he uses a word that means umpire or athletic official. He's not done. He speaks of Ephraphus, this is the fellow who had carried the gospel from what appears to be Ephesus into Colossae, who is one of your number, likely from that city itself, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly, the same word we saw there in 124, agonizomai, an athletic competition, laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God."

Then he says, as he goes on in Colossians 1.24, his body which is the church. This is a message that is held out consistently in both Ephesians and Colossians, and one of the reasons why we study the two books together.

Ephesians 5.23, Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body.

And Colossians 1.18, which we've already studied, he is also head of the body, the church. Very clear definition. And these two books here are the pinnacle of Paul's teaching in this area, as Christ is the head and the church is the body of Christ. He's carrying that on again here, obviously, in verse 24, making reference to it.

Oh boy, now we get to the fun part. In filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Are you ready for this? Here's where we get to the really good questions. Earlier we brought these questions up. Let's get back to this. What in heaven is lacking in Christ's afflictions? And how can Paul even hope to fill up what is lacking? What a thing to say. Okay, some things to note here.

Christ's sufferings on the cross are in no way deficient. We can't add anything to them. We can't supplement them or enhance them. We can't make them complete. We can't improve upon them. There is nothing that we can do to better Christ's sufferings on the cross, or fill it up, or do the rest. We can believe, period.

John 19.30 is where Christ said, it is finished. He didn't say, it's almost finished, or it's half finished, or my half is done. He said, it is finished.

Ephesians 2.8, which we've looked at before, says, for by grace you have been saved. Spells it out real clearly there.

Hebrews 10.10 says, for by this we will have been sanctified, excuse me, by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Both in Ephesians 2.8 and Hebrews 10.10, saved and sanctified are in the perfect tense.

It's a completed past action with ongoing results in the future, also implying permanence. Since it's a completed past action, I cannot add to it to finish it. I don't need to. It's a done deal. Entirely his doing. Once for all is epipax, once given, perpetually valid. One time. There is no need for a re-sacrifice. There is no need for a re-presentation of the sacrifice. It's done. It is finished. It's complete. Entirely.

Paul also is not offering to contribute to the effectiveness of the cross. When he writes to the church at Corinth, he's asking questions which in the Greek have a built-in answer. Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Paul's not adding to Christ's crucifixion. He's not pretending or offering to add to Christ's crucifixion.

Now, so we see this phrase again here. We've got some clarification. We've still got some questions. "...and filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." Hmm. This word, afflictions, slipsis, and by the way, you've got to watch it there. You get the lisp carried on too far. It'll be slipsis if you're not too careful. So watch that. It occurs about 45 places in the New Testament. Nowhere does it refer to Christ in His crucifixion. There's never once use of Christ's suffering on the cross. Never once.

It is hard to imagine that Paul would somehow, out of dozens of uses, suddenly intend to apply it here, especially where it teaches contrary to that everywhere else. So, the question still remains, what does Paul mean? What does he have in mind? Now, let's go back to a time. Paul is on his way to Damascus, and his name at that point is Saul.

And his intent, as he describes to the Roman officials later, he says, I persecuted the church to the point of death. That was his intent. He says, if I have to take these guys out completely, erase them, fine. We did that to Stephen, worked for him. If that's what we've got to do, we're going to take them out. The believers in Damascus, we're going to root them out, go from house to house.

They're through. On the way, the Lord confronts Saul, now Paul. He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting? Look at what he says. He didn't say, why are you persecuting the church body? He says, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? Saul, of course. And he said, Jesus, of course. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Twice he emphasizes that the persecution is not focused upon the body of Christ, but Christ takes it personally. Personally. He says, Saul, you are persecuting me.

Paul and Saul never actually personally persecuted Christ in Christ's first coming, but since the church is the body of Christ, then Christ took Saul's persecution of the body of Christ as persecution of himself. The truth that we have here, Christ is done suffering for us on the cross, it's finished, but he is not done suffering with us. He is not done suffering with us. When the body of Christ suffers, the Lord is not standing apart saying, that's too bad. He sees that persecution as personal. He takes it personal. He is suffering with us in the midst of the persecution. He takes that persecution as upon himself.

In 2 Corinthians 1.5, Paul conveys this, for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. The suffering of Christ is common to believers.

Philippians 3.10, which we looked at some months back, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. There is a fellowship in these sufferings. Suffering is not about us suffering independently. Suffering is about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Suffering is about our fellowship with Him and with each other.

That is key. In 1 Peter, we look at this passage here again, to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing. He uses the same words that Paul does for sufferings and for rejoicing. But there's another principle at work here. Christ tells the disciples in advance in John 15, and we'll move ahead to verse 20 there, If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. And we see his perspective in Acts chapter 9 there.

That persecution of you, I take it personally. From the day of Pentecost to the rapture, the church has been subject to this affliction through persecution. It will not be done until the day the Lord comes for His church. Only when the church goes home to be with the Lord that measure of persecution be full. Paul's suffering on behalf of the believers is part of his filling up the whole measure. Until that full measure is filled when the Lord comes for his church, each believer who suffers fills the cup, the full amount of the suffering. Each believer is afflicted and that affliction fills it up until the day he comes.

There is a perspective that comes out of this in Romans 8.18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in us. No comparison. Way out of balance. That's part of the perspective that the Lord conveys, isn't it?

This is terrible what this person is going through. There are believers now that are going through horrible things. We think of the early churches going through sufferings. More believers have died for their faith in Christ in the last hundred years than all the prior centuries before combined. Now is a time of suffering, even now.

He's filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. This anticipates the day when the Lord will take His church to be with His home. The measure of afflictions will be filled up with the last suffering saint. This morning we're going to be taking the Lord's table And as we do so, I would remind you that when Paul makes reference in 1 Corinthians 11 to this Lord's table and what the Lord said at that point in time, he ends it up with, until he comes. Just like Paul is pointing to in this passage we looked at, there is an anticipation when the measure is full. This also anticipates the Lord's coming. Christ said twice, do this in remembrance of me. Do this in remembrance of me. And we will do that here this morning.

One of the things we pointed out a few months ago when we were taking a look at this very Lord's Table event, just as the Passover was for Israel a looking back on the event of the Passover and a looking forward to the cross, We're doing the reverse of that. We're looking back to the cross. And what does Paul end up that passage with?

Until he comes. It is an anticipation. And the full measure that what is lacking is only lacking until the Lord comes. That will be the full measure. Even in what Paul told us this morning in Colossians 124. There is an anticipation of his coming. Of that time when the measure will be filled up. Until he comes. Let's pray. Lord, we look indeed forward to the time when you come.

But until then, we have purpose and we thank you for that. This morning we could not even cover it all, but we thank you that there is indeed purpose in what you have laid out for the body of Christ. We don't know when and where and how sufferings will come upon us through persecutions overt or covert. But Lord, what a wonderful and marvelous thing that we can count upon you with us, with us, and us with you, your very life. In Jesus' name, Amen.