Fellowship of His Sufferings

It was J. Sidlow Baxter who said, How can a man, full of himself, preach to Christ who emptied himself? The Christian experience, friends, is one of self-emptying, as we follow a crucified Christ along the narrow way. God builds his servants through his divine process of reducing and decreasing. Gold must be reduced to its purity in the furnace of affliction.

A branch must be trimmed back and decreased before it can grow more fruit. If we desire further usefulness to God, then we must submit both to the refiner's fire and the divine pruning knife. In order to be fruitful boughs that bring glory to the Father, we must be willing to be reduced to nothing so Christ can be everything through us.

The title of my message today, friends, is The Fellowship of His Sufferings, and my text can be found in Philippians 3.10, which states that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. I submit to you, friends, that you cannot have the experience of the power of his resurrection apart from the fellowship of his sufferings. The apostle Paul was deeply familiar with the fellowship of his sufferings.

Jesus himself predicted Paul's sufferings for him at the time of Paul's conversion. In Acts 9.16, Jesus told Ananias concerning Paul, For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Notice the emphasis, friends, on suffering is plural here.

Great things meaning many things. Many persecutions and trials awaited the apostle Paul, but we have Paul's laundry list of the fellowship of his sufferings as related by Paul to the Corinthian church. In 2 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 23, we read, In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths off, Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

Thrice I was beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a day and a night I have been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils of the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. I will stop there, friends. Paul had his share of sufferings for Christ Jesus and the sake of the gospel.

I'm afraid modern pastors today tend to honeycoat becoming a Christian by telling us that when we come to Christ everything in our life will be honey blossoms and sunshine. But that's not true, friends. Jesus taught his followers all about his rights and claims on their lives with the doctrine of discipleship of the cross and the life of the believer.

A crucified Christ must have crucified followers. We must remind ourselves that if we follow Christ then we will share in the fellowship of his sufferings. The next time you find yourself, friend, in the midst of a heap of trial and adversity and perhaps even those of your own household are against you because of your stand for Christ, remember this message today and ask God for the grace to get you through for his great glory.

Let us pray.