I would like to ask you to turn to Philippians. You know, we have been considering together Philippians 3:10-11. We will read those verses. Chapter 3, did I say? Three, 10 and 11.
This is the word of the apostle Paul:
That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
becoming conformed unto His death;
if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
And just that part of verse 10 again: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.”
Then look in chapter 1, verses 29 and 30. This is what Paul had to say to the Philippian church:
Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf;
having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.
Let us just pray.
Lord, we bring Your Word back to You. We are always conscious of our need for the Holy Spirit to visit us during such times, and of the absolute lack of value if the Holy Spirit does not.
I always remember those words of Peter, when so many were offended and turned back. And You looked at them and said, “Will ye also go away?” And he uttered these words:
To whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.
Lord, we come to You saying that we are here in Your presence, desiring that You alone speak. If there is something You have for us this morning, speak, Lord. Thy servant heareth.
Your words are words of spirit and life, and we look to You to speak such words to us this morning. In Your precious name, amen.
Well, I think most of you know by now that I have been sharing from Philippians 3:10. We have really been focusing upon this single verse. We have shared twice already; this obviously is the third time, and there will probably be one more time, and then we will be finished.
We said a few things about the Philippian letter. First of all, it is a unique letter. We said that it was Paul’s last letter to a church. His other letters that followed this were two letters to Timothy and one to Titus—to individuals.
It is less doctrinal, and it is very deeply personal. You need to understand that when you read the book of Philippians, or the letter to the Philippian church. It is a love letter. Above everything else, it is a love letter.
And I once again quote our brother Stephen, if he does not mind: of all the letters written by the apostle Paul to the churches, this is the most intimate letter written by him.
So I think you begin to understand the nature of this letter. That is important, because in this letter the apostle Paul shared his deepest secrets and his highest passions.
It seems he waited, and with those he loved—and if you read the Word very carefully, it says he loved and longed for them; those were words of love—he shared these deepest of his secrets. He called them his joy and his crown.
That is this letter of Philippians. They are his deepest secrets. They are his highest passions, and he shared them with those he loved.
Now, we looked at a few things. The first message was, “To know Him.” Brothers and sisters, that was the apostle Paul’s deepest secret. It was to know Him.
Often, as believers, we have a lot of information. And as people, we like to collect a lot of information. But in the end, it is not information. Information will never get you into eternity. Information will never conform you to the image of the Lord Jesus.
It is this single secret that will make a difference: to know Him. Not just to know about Him, not just to have information about Him, but to know Him. That was the deep thing that he shared.
It was and is the supreme knowledge. It is above every other knowledge. And if you will let me, I will read verse 8 from this same chapter. This is Paul’s emphatic declaration about the importance of this knowledge:
Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ.
That was the supreme knowledge.
You know, last time we looked at this second phrase: “and the power of His resurrection.” Brothers and sisters, think about it. To know Him, He makes all of His resources available.
Can you think of a greater power than the power of His resurrection? But that is precisely what God has made available to us in Christ Jesus.
Christians often talk about power. I know I was saved through the Jesus Movement and the charismatic movement, and our number-one word was power. But there is a power that exceeds every power, and it makes every provision for you to live the Christian life. It is the power of His resurrection.
So the apostle’s deepest secret was simply this: to know the power of His resurrection. He knew that was the secret of getting through. He knew that was the only way through. He knew that was the only way to overcome.
It was not in Paul to do this. As a matter of fact, it was impossible for Paul to do this. But it was in Christ to do this, and in Christ that power is made available to us. That was essentially what we talked about when we talked about the second message.
Today, we will look at the fellowship of His sufferings. Now, I will not tell you who it was, but a brother at the copier machine said, “What are you sharing on?” And I said, “The fellowship of His sufferings.” His words were, “Oh, good grief.”
Now, I think sometimes that is the way Christians think. We love to talk about the power of His resurrection, but we dare not want to talk about the fellowship of His sufferings. And this was Paul’s secret.
These two are intimately connected. You cannot separate them. They are inseparable. Now, I did not say insufferable; I said they are inseparable.
You cannot have the power of His resurrection without knowing the fellowship of His sufferings. Do you understand? They go hand in glove, as the expression says—hand in hand, as some might say.
When we know the Lord Jesus and we know Him in His all-powerful resources, we also come to know the Lord in sharing His sufferings. So that is the secret of the apostle Paul.
And last, we will talk next time, whenever next time is, about being conformed to His death. I can hear the groans even as I tell you it.
But brothers and sisters, there is a fellowship to be discovered in sufferings that you cannot, and will not, discover in any other sphere. And that was the deepest secret of the apostle Paul. He knew it, he walked through it, and he learned from it.
Now, I suppose, as you hear these four things, you might say, “Well, now I get it. Paul had four secrets. First, to know Him; then the power of His resurrection; then the fellowship of His sufferings; and then to be conformed to His death.”
But brothers and sisters, it is only one secret. It is not four secrets. The only secret that the apostle Paul knew was Christ Himself.
Look at the emphasis: “to know Him”; “the power of His resurrection”; “the fellowship of His sufferings,” not Paul’s sufferings; “being conformed unto His death.”
Brothers and sisters, it is absolutely clear. Paul had but one secret. It was Him. It was His. It was His. It was His. Altogether, one perfect secret and one supreme passion. That is what Philippians 3:10 is about.
Robert Govett said this about the apostle Paul: that he wanted to know the Lord Jesus experimentally. We said he wanted to come to know the Lord Jesus in his experience.
Coates said this—and it is a new quote that I love:
These are the burning desires of a Christ-absorbed heart.
I have found a new prayer, a new devotional prayer. I have said, “Lord, would You give me a Christ-absorbed heart?”
That was the secret of the apostle. It is not so complicated that you cannot remember it. It is altogether Christ. It is everything in Christ. The mystery is Christ.
I remember how little I play golf. People ask me, “Do you play golf?” I say, “Well, most people would not call it that.”
But I went for lessons to play golf. I knew there was a secret. I thought, if I could only discover the secret, I could play the game.
The first time I hit the golf ball, let me tell you, it was a beautiful shot. My coach, who was giving me lessons, said, “Quit your day job, boy.” My head swelled. I thought, I never hit a seven iron like that again.
But then she began to make me notice all kinds of things. Four days, four lessons. She said, “Now, let me see you keep your head right over the ball. Keep your head still, get your feet right. Let me see your grip. Hold the club right. Do this right. Do that.”
By the time I got to the fourth lesson, she took the club out of my hand. She said, “I do not even know you.” There were too many things to look at. There were too many things to emphasize. It was too complicated for me.
But Christ—the mystery of God, the supreme secret, the one and only passion of the apostle Paul—is easy for me to remember.
There is a story of a dear old Christian woman. Dr. S. D. Gordon told this story. This little old lady was a walking Bible. We could learn something from this little old lady. She had memorized most of the Bible. Think of that. Just think of that.
I think of the poverty I have and the few verses I know, and I think of this lady who knew so much of the Bible. As she aged and began to lose her memory—by the way, folks, that is a little bit of what you have coming—
she retained but one verse. It was Paul’s verse. He spoke about suffering, saying in 2 Timothy 1:12:
For which cause I also suffer these things: yet I am not ashamed;
for I know Him whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able to guard that which I have committed unto Him against that day.
That was her secret. She knew whom she had believed in. She was persuaded that He was able to keep what had been committed to Him against that day.
As she continued to age, more and more slipped away. Soon only part of that verse remained. She could repeat, as she weakened, “That which I have committed to Him.”
As she drew near her deathbed, her children gathered around. They saw her lips moving. They did not know if she was in need, so, being good children, they went to their mother and said, “What are you saying? What do you need?”
As they drew closer and closer to her, the only thing she was uttering, three times over and over, was:
Him.
Him.
Him.
Now think about it. You would think this poor old lady had lost her health, lost—well, some might say—her mind, lost her memory, lost the Bible, lost everything.
But think about it. She discovered the one and only secret. All she retained in the end was Him. That is enough.
This is what the secret of the apostle Paul was about. Now today we are going to look at the fellowship of His sufferings. They are so closely related to the power of His resurrection.
There is something we can learn that we will learn nowhere else. Now, we will look at a few things.
First of all, there are solitary sufferings. Those are what He endured; we do not endure those. We will explain.
There are shared sufferings. This is what the fellowship of His sufferings means. There are things in this life that you, as a Christian, will endure for righteousness’ sake if you stay in fellowship with Him.
And finally, behind it all, there is the great purpose: they are shaping sufferings. This gives the great explanation.
Let us begin with solitary suffering. This is what He endured. We need to be very careful when we read this verse: “the fellowship of His sufferings.” It is His sufferings.
When we think about the sufferings, so great, of our Lord Jesus—what we have participation in—there are the vicarious sufferings of our Lord Jesus that we have absolutely no part in.
Let me put it another way. We have no part in the vicarious suffering, such as the atoning death. But we benefit from those solitary sufferings. We greatly benefit from those solitary sufferings.
But in that realm there is a loneliness, an aloneness, a solitary walk that only the Lord Jesus Himself could do. They are His vicarious sufferings.
Now, you may not be so familiar with that word vicarious, and you may not use it every day, but it simply means performed or suffered by one person as a substitute, to the benefit or advantage of others.
Now, do you get it? These are sufferings that the Lord Jesus went through alone, that He suffered by Himself to do the will of God—all of the will of God—to accomplish the purpose of God. We are the benefactors of those sufferings, but we never have part in them.
I often think of Isaiah 63:3, where it says:
I have trodden the winepress alone;
and of the peoples there was no man with Me.
The Lord Jesus—these are solitary things, solitary sufferings that He suffered for us, but we benefit from.
Just think of a few as we move on in our subject. Think of Golgotha. Think of the cross. We were remembering it today. Can you think of a more lonely place of suffering in all of eternity than Golgotha? There is not one.
Our Lord Jesus, alone on that mount of crucifixion, suffered the loneliest place of suffering ever known in all of eternity.
I always think, for example, of those unutterable words that He spoke from the cross in Matthew 27:46:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Can you imagine? Those words never crossed the Lord’s lips in unthinkable eternity—that the Son of God, the Person of God, the Son, would ever utter those words: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Solitary suffering. Unimaginable, but for us. Because He suffered those solitary sufferings and became sin, we are now saved. We benefit.
Because He went to the cross, you will never see judgment—except that family judgment regarding reward. Because He went to that cross and darkness descended upon Him like no other being in eternity, we live, and we shall ever live.
Or I think of His sufferings as the Son of Man. You know, every human being failed. From Adam up to the advent of the Lord Jesus—the incarnation, the first advent of the Lord Jesus—every human being failed.
Even the best of the sons of Israel failed: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. You cannot find a character in the Old Testament that did not fail in some way or another.
So God was looking for a man: the Son of Man. He came. Can you just imagine the limitations when He became incarnate as a man?
Can you imagine Deity taking on those supreme limitations and suffering in a solitary way as the Son of Man? But brothers and sisters, because of this, we are accepted in the Beloved.
He was the One who suffered as the Son of Man and never sinned. He was the One who never failed, when all of creation had failed, including the archangel. Here is One who never failed. Is that not wonderful?
What sufferings! What compression into humanity He must have experienced. I cannot imagine the limitations. We often talk about our limitations, but can you imagine the God of Deity, the Son of Man, compressed into the womb of a woman by the Holy Spirit and coming out to live as an ordinary man for thirty-three years?
Can you imagine such a thing? Those were His sufferings. We have no part in them.
I think of the temptation. Matthew 4:1 says:
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
I think you all know—we have just been studying Matthew not that long ago—that He went up to be tempted of the devil.
Now think of it. I do not want to burst your spiritual bubble about yourself, but I would suggest that maybe Satan himself is not always occupied with tempting you. He might just send one of his emissaries to tempt you, one of his many legions.
But it is as if this moment of temptation was so extreme and so important, he said to his legions of demons, “Boy, step back. This is mine.”
Here was a conflict like no other conflict: Satan, who desired to be who the Son was and to take everything from the Son; and the Son, in His weakened condition, being tempted. Thank God, He overcame—sin apart.
Because He overcame, we have a great High Priest who knows the feeling of our infirmities and who can deliver us in any situation whatsoever. These are His sufferings.
Finally, just to give you an idea, I think of Gethsemane. What a dark moment Gethsemane was. I think it may only be in Luke—I am not sure; you correct me, feel free. I think it is in Luke 22, maybe verse 42.
When Luke describes the agony that the Lord Jesus went through, it says, “His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.”
Can you imagine such suffering? I believe the Lord wanted fellowship at that moment. You remember He took James, John, and Peter, and as He took them to the garden He said, “Wait here. Watch with Me just this one hour.”
I believe the Lord was looking for fellowship. And once again, man failed. They fell asleep. But the Lord did not fail.
He uttered those words: “If it be possible, take this cup from Me.” You may think that was a sign of weakness. It was not.
He said, “Nevertheless, Thy will be done.”
Here is One who suffered beyond comprehension. You think of that verse in Hebrews 5:8: “Though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered.”
Can you take that in? We use an expression now—I guess we picked it up from the kids—it is hard for me to wrap my mind around that verse.
But this Son of glory, Son of God, Son of Man, learned obedience through the things He suffered. Do you think it will be any different for us? I suppose not.
In that moment of darkest trial, He came through. He came through, and He did the will of God. He was the first to do all the will of God.
This is solitary suffering.
I was reading a book by Paul Billheimer, Don’t Waste Your Sorrows. I think you know it is a classic. Some of you may have even bothered to read it.
He said—you may be surprised at this statement—that the infinitely happy God is the supreme sufferer of the universe. That is solitary suffering.
And he went on to say there was a reason: it was to obtain His eternal companion. He said that God knows His bride could not be obtained without the infinite suffering of the Godhead.
If God was to realize His purpose in creation—to obtain an eternal companion for His Son—He had to suffer. It was unavoidable. If the bride was to be qualified to rule with Him, she also has to suffer. I would say it is unavoidable.
Therefore, suffering is inherent in God’s universe. It must be of extreme importance. And listen to this—I think it is a beautiful expression: it is the cost of voluntary love.
Now, that is the second point: shared sufferings. There are things the Lord did on His own, solitary things in which we have no part. We only benefit. But there are things that we suffer for righteousness’ sake.
If we allow the Lord to do His work through these things, then we once again benefit. This was the secret that the apostle Paul shared.
Now let me help you here, I hope. It helped me. If it does not help you, we can get another speaker to clarify it.
There are two words that are not to be separated: fellowship and suffering. Sometimes, when you hear people speak about this issue of suffering, everything is on suffering.
Now, if it is just suffering, we do not profit a whit. But there is fellowship in His suffering. We have fellowship with the Lord Jesus. We are never alone through those things.
Often, those things that have been predetermined for us to go through are so that we learn to go through them in fellowship with God Himself.
Do not ever, for a moment, separate these two words. Paul did not. He called it “the fellowship of His sufferings.”
He knew his calling, but he knew it would bring him, through this calling, into the greatest, most intimate, and most profound fellowship that a human being could ever experience.
Think of David. David said in that most famous psalm—probably the most well-known of all writings in the Bible—Psalm 23:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me.
What could be darker? What could be more ominous? What could be more fearful than that? But in it David had a secret. “I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.”
That is the secret. The secret is fellowship. The secret is not suffering by itself. The secret is knowing Him in fellowship and being enlarged through fellowship, whatever He calls us into.
That was the great secret of the apostle Paul. It is a shared secret. Fellowship means sharing. It is a shared suffering. Fellowship means partnership. Fellowship means participation.
Mere sufferings will do nothing for us. It is a fellowship. It is a sharing. It is a partaking. It is a partnership.
This was not for Paul alone. Let us look again at Philippians 1:29:
Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf;
having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.
Listen to what Peter said in 1 Peter 4:13:
But insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice;
that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.
If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye;
because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you.
For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer,
or as a meddler in other men’s matters.
That seems to be a Christian sport, if you have not noticed.
But if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name. There are shared sufferings in which we are to partake.
Look at 1 Peter 2:20-21:
For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently?
But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
For hereunto were ye called:
because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that ye should follow His steps.
Notice those words: “For hereunto were ye called.” There are words maybe we have not thought about.
I read a great book, an old book. I have it on my shelf, a little book. I do not even know if it is still in print. You could ask Mac. It is by Theodore H. Epp, and the title of the book is Why Do Christians Suffer? I think it is a marvelous book. What insight our brother had.
It would take chapters to explain what I am talking about today, and this little book is so helpful. But he said this remarkable thing: only in the Bible do we find the solution to the mystery of suffering. It is only in the Bible.
Men have been confounded. Men have been perplexed. Men have wondered. The first question that often comes out of our mouth in suffering is, “Why?” Think about it.
But brothers and sisters, I want to change your thinking, if I can—and my thinking surely needs it. We should not first ask why; we should first ask who.
“Lord, are You taking me through this to bring me into fellowship? To teach me what I could not learn in any other realm? Lord, is this Your hand?”
If it is the enemy’s hand, surely you should stand against it. But if it is the Lord’s hand, you should embrace it. That is the fellowship of His sufferings.
He said the Christian suffers so that God’s image, lost because of the fall, might be restored in him. That is the reason we go through things.
You know, the Bible is a remarkable record of sufferings. I think one writer said that of 150 Psalms, ninety deal with suffering in some measure.
Well, because we do not have time and we are only trying to highlight this matter of the fellowship of His sufferings, I want us to think about two people: one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament.
Maybe, if we see those two people, we will have a better appreciation of what the fellowship of His sufferings is. You know who they are already. I would not have to tell you. If this were a game show, you would all win.
The first is Job. The second is the apostle Paul.
These folks—if I can use that Southern word, folks—were elect vessels. Now, first of all, it does not mean that you will suffer like these elect vessels suffered.
I can hear people now, my brother at the copier and all the rest, saying, “Oh, good grief. What does this mean?”
These were elect vessels. They were special vessels. When you think of suffering in the Old Testament, you immediately go to Job. And when you think of suffering in the New Testament, as far as man goes, outside of the Lord Jesus, you have to go to the apostle Paul.
He was an elect vessel called to suffer. But think of Job. I often wonder—it is a mystery to me—but God said to Satan, “Hast thou considered My servant Job?”
Think of that. I tell you what, sometimes I think Job must have had second thoughts about that. He must have wondered.
God said, “Have you considered My servant Job?” It was a divine invitation to His arch-enemy to consider Job. He was righteous. He eschewed evil. God went on to say, “There is no one like him.”
He became an elect vessel. And Satan, who surely misunderstands the mind and heart of God, said, “It is because You shelter him, and You cover him, and You keep him from evil, and You do not let him go through anything. That is the reason he loves You. It is the only reason.”
So, unthinkably, God gave divine invitation to Satan to touch Job—his possessions, his family, his health—all in one day.
Now, if you can come up here and tell me those are your sufferings, then I will say, “You are Job.” How incredible.
But brothers and sisters, it says the most remarkable thing in that book. Job 1:22 says:
In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
Is that not remarkable? I would have been whining so loud everyone would have heard me.
He discovered a secret. Job’s own words were, in Job 23:10:
But He knoweth the way that I take;
when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
There was a secret. God was producing something. He was using His own enemy. He was using horrific circumstances. He was trying Job, but there was an end in view. That end in view was transformation to gold.
That is this elect vessel in the Old Testament.
And finally, we come to the end. You know, Job really did err. I think some people say he became a bit self-righteous. His friends came along and said, “Well, surely, Job, you are the problem.”
With friends like that, what is the old expression? We do not need enemies.
Surely he tried to justify himself, but ultimately, in the end, there was a purpose behind all that he went through. It was a new unveiling of God Himself to Job.
Now, brothers and sisters, that is the fellowship of His sufferings. You must go through things. You will go through things. You will not go through things alone. You will go through things with Him in fellowship.
But the end of those sufferings is some deeper discovery of God Himself. Job said:
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
but now mine eye seeth Thee:
wherefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.
That was one elect vessel who knew the fellowship of His sufferings. One brother put it this way: in Job’s experience, we see a master key in understanding the purpose of suffering. He received a new revelation of God.
Brothers and sisters, that is what we need. That is what he did. That is why Job is an encouragement to countless millions down through the centuries.
The message of Job is not that what Job endured, you will endure. The message of Job is this: because I have gone through these extreme things and discovered God, you can go through anything and discover God Himself. That is the message.
I think of the apostle Paul. You remember when he was called, and Ananias was sent to that blinded Paul after the Damascus Road experience. The Lord said to Ananias, “Go to him.”
Ananias did not want to go because he knew of Paul’s persecution and madness to go after the saints. But the Lord said, “He is an elect vessel unto Me.”
He is a chosen vessel unto Me,
to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel:
for I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.
That was the word to the apostle Paul. Now, it does not mean you are going to suffer what the apostle Paul suffered. He is the extreme case. He is the textbook case. He is the case of the divine law.
The end of that divine law says, “I will take this elect vessel through the most serious of things, and I will prove to men who follow him that, in the fellowship of My sufferings, you will be able to go through anything.”
That is the message. That is the message.
The apostle Paul, in the New Testament—how extreme! He was given that thorn in the flesh. You know all about it in 2 Corinthians 12:7. Think of the way the Bible describes it: “a messenger of Satan.”
Now, did God make a mistake, giving this great apostle, this representative of Him, this apostle to the church, this apostle to the Gentiles, this thorn from Satan—a thorn in the flesh?
But he discovered a secret. Even with that thorn in the flesh, he discovered: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
Think of the countless millions that has comforted when they found themselves in a situation impossible for them to reason away, impossible for them to overcome—facing darkness, facing trouble, facing infirmity, facing suffering, facing doubt.
They discover a secret: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” That is fellowship of His sufferings.
Paul went through so many crises. Look at 2 Corinthians 4:7. I just want to read these verses.
This is a secret he discovered. This is the secret we need to discover:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves;
we are pressed on every side, yet not straitened;
perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken;
smitten down, yet not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
Brothers and sisters, this is the fellowship of His sufferings. These two words: “but not.” You are not overcome. You are not overwhelmed. You are not undone.
He has made provision for us that, in whatsoever He takes us through, the end of it, like Job, will be an enlarged place. That is the secret he shared.
I remember one of the first bumbling messages I ever shared was from David in his psalm: “In pressure Thou hast enlarged me.” What a secret. It should be our secret.
Well, you get the point. This is the apostle Paul, and he even came to rejoice. We have been studying Colossians. This is what it says in Colossians 1:24:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,
and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh
for His body’s sake, which is the church.
“Now I rejoice in sufferings.” Can you imagine? Who of you would say that this morning? Line up, and we will take testimonies.
But this is where this elect vessel came to: “Now I rejoice in sufferings for you.” He filled up that which was lacking of the tribulations of Christ in his flesh for His body, which is the assembly.
Now the last point I want us to focus on is the why. There is a why. There is a reason. I would like to call this shaping sufferings, because what God is doing is shaping us, conforming us, making us in His image.
It is the work of the Master. Every stroke, everything allowed, and everything we go through is with this single, supreme purpose in view: that we would be conformed to the image of His Son. That is the reason. That is why.
I have this pen, one of my favorite pens. Brother Jim Ellis made it, by the way, back there. I have three of your pens.
You should see the things he shapes on a lathe. He has this thing called a warbler—I cannot even say it, Jim. It is a piece of craftsmanship that he did with the cutting of the knife that is unbelievable.
We bought an ornament from you. This thing is so beautiful. Linda and I got it from him. It was crafted from this ordinary piece of wood, full of flaws—full of flaws—into something beautiful, through shaping, through the cutting of the knife.
I think of Jeremiah 18. God told Jeremiah the prophet, “Go down to the potter’s house,” verses 1 through 4. Jeremiah obeyed, and he went down to the potter’s house.
It says, “And behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.” That is you and me. We are a work, individually and corporately, that is being wrought upon the divine wheel of God.
The divine Potter is making something. The divine Potter is shaping something. The divine Potter puts His hand on the outside with pressure, and His hand on the inside with pressure, and He molds that clay into something absolutely beautiful: a vessel.
Jeremiah 18 says we are to be that vessel, that eternal companion of the Lord Jesus—the bride of Christ. He must shape us. He cannot leave us as an ordinary pile of clay.
It says a strange thing in Jeremiah 18. It says the work that He was doing marred in His hands. How often we mar in His hands. It collapsed.
You would think the potter would throw it away, have nothing else to do with it, say, “Worthless vessel.” But the extraordinary thing in Jeremiah 18 is that He did not throw it away.
He took that marred clay and remade it into a vessel as it was good for Him to make. This is shaping circumstances. This is shaping suffering. How He uses these things.
The grand secret, the secret above everything, the ultimate goal of sufferings, is Romans 8. You know the verse, but I will read it to you. Romans 8:28-29:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good,
even to them that are called according to His purpose.
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Brothers and sisters, that is the explanation of the fellowship of His sufferings.
We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. He is doing a work with clay that will often mar in His hands, but He will not give up. He will continue to work.
Oh, I think of Michelangelo, that famous sculpture of David, almost seventeen feet high—that giant sculpture. Do you know that piece of marble was cast away and discarded stone? It was started by another artist and, for twenty-five-odd years, lay in a churchyard as waste.
And Michelangelo came along with his commission, and he took that discarded rubbish. He made it, shaped it, and conformed it into what is widely recognized as one of the world’s most beautiful sculptures.
Think of it. Is that not what God is doing with us, individually and corporately?
I believe it is the only explanation to suffering. I believe it is the only way we can understand. There are other things about suffering; we do not have time. But it says it is for a little while. Is that not a beautiful verse? It is for a little while.
The apostle Paul, who was this infinite expression of suffering in the New Testament, said, “Our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”
Here is one who understood the fellowship of His sufferings.
Well, brothers and sisters, that is the burden that is on my heart. Let me read 1 Peter 5:10 to close.
And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ,
after that ye have suffered a little while,
shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.
To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
When we have suffered a little while, Himself—Himself—shall make perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground. To Him be the glory and the might for the ages of ages.
Paul Billheimer, even though he wrote that great work, said this: “The greatest regret I have is that I have been slow to learn.”
But listen to what he said: “My greatest joy is that God did not give up on me.”
That is the fellowship of His sufferings.
Brothers and sisters, there are things we are called to. Some are unexplainable; some may even be unspeakable. But know this: if you are His, and if He is allowed, He is doing a work on the wheel.
You are His work. We are His corporate work. And that work is a necessary work, because if He is going to find the one that is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, that answers to His heart, that is His eternal companion, and that is suitable to be His bride, those ones will walk the path that their Lord walked before.
But they will not, as our Lord walked it before, walk it alone. They will walk it in fellowship with the Most High.
When the Lord left His disciples, He had this parting word:
And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
This is the fellowship of His sufferings. We must see what He endured: solitary sufferings. We must see what we are to endure: shared suffering, fellowship. And we must see why we endure it: it is shaping work.
Go spend an afternoon with Jim in his workshop. You will see the patient, loving hands that go behind shaping. You will never doubt again His tenderness and His care when you go through something, however unexplainable.
You will look up, and you will say, “Lord, make me into Your image.” That is what the response ought to be.
Lord, we leave these words with You. We are so ill-equipped to say what is in Your heart.
Oh God, teach us the fellowship of Your sufferings. We offer ourselves to You afresh.
You know us, Lord. We would always be saying, “Bless us, bless us.” But Lord, we want to say together with renewed confidence: take us, mold us, make us.
Do what You need to do in us, that You can return and find Your eternal companion ready for You.
This we ask together in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.