Bittersweet Fellowship

9/21/1995

This is sort of a change of gears, but there was something else I wanted to share that was just really, that’s been very helpful to me. It’s in 1Peter chapter 4. I guess one of the things that has been on my mind has been, too, with all of this is that I don’t want to be in any way afraid of pain. And that there will be suffering with these different things. And just wanting to appreciate more and more that, that’s meant to be a part of my life, that it’s a good thing and a right thing. I know I don’t know anything of what it means to suffer in the sufferings of Christ. I am sure that I have just known very little of what it means to suffer over sin or really suffering of Christ that is a holy thing, that’s meant to be in place. I know that I know very little about that. But I feel like I am getting just a little taste of God really wanting us, wanting me to have a real appreciation for and not at all any kind of grumbling or complaining at all and not a fear of suffering or pain. That it undoubtedly will be a part of our lives as we are wanting to change things.

If there isn’t suffering going on as we’re dealing with these things, then we aren’t really dealing with anything. If there’s not times where we really hurt on the inside. And I’m not talking about the kind of suffering because you’ve blown it, like we were talking about that, too. Just how there is just the sort of suffering that you go through because of the curse of sin, where you’ve separated yourself from God – that kind of suffering where you just feel miserable and yucky. There’s that suffering. That’s not what I’m talking about. I am talking about the suffering that Jesus went through which was when He said about He learned obedience from the things He suffered. Well, that suffering couldn’t possibly be because He was separated from the Father, it was because He was willing to take the pain and take the nails and day by day by day take up His cross and not lash out at His disciples and not get angry with people. He chose to humble Himself and live as a man and take the pain of day to day situations. That’s the kind of suffering I’m talking about.

That if we are really changing, there will be things, tangible times when we know that we’ve been through some pain, there has been some pain. There’s been heartache inside of us. There’s been difficult things we’ve had to face, and we’ve chosen to love Jesus instead of loving ourselves. We’ve chosen to love God’s Word and humble ourself and accept the thing that He has brought into our life, to not push our rights. We have chosen to open our hands up and lay down what we want. We have chosen to identify with Jesus in certain situations that we could point to. And so all this stuff will come with pain. And that’s okay, because that is the way to life is through the cross. There is no other way. Joy follows suffering as life follows death. There’s definitely a place there for all of that. Carrying around, as Kevin always talks about that one in Corinthians, about carrying around the death of Jesus that the life of Jesus might be revealed in you. There is something about that that it’s just really precious, though. It really is a gift that we could share in the sufferings of Christ.

The place in Philippians where it says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” But just that phrase “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.” The fellowship is what we’ve been given as children of God, walking heart to heart, very closely with Jesus. The fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. It’s not something that you go through apart from Jesus, it’s something you go through with Jesus. It’s kinda that bittersweet thing where you are with your Lord, but it hurts. But you are with Him, so it’s going to be okay. It’s a fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, sharing in His sufferings, which means He currently is going through that, too. He doesn’t want to go through those things by Himself. He can’t. We are the ones on the earth who were meant to go through those sufferings with Him. He went through it when He was on the earth, and the way it’s going to be expressed now is through us – the same suffering.

Anyway back to 1 Peter 4, “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.”

So there is something about there where Peter’s encouraging, admonishing us to arm ourselves with the same attitude he had to be like Christ. That there is going to be some suffering, and he who has suffered in this body is done with sin. That verse used to really bug me. It really made me chafe like I don’t like that, that being done with sin is connected to suffering. Ya know, just grinding. But God wants to soften our hearts and help us to see that, help us to understand it, help us to want to embrace that, want to walk in it. If it causes you some “arm’s length” thing right now, it doesn’t have to. You can talk to God about that and say that you want to give your body, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. If you want to be done with sin, it’s going to require some suffering. You’re gonna have to settle that in your heart before God, that you’re willing to undergo suffering because you want to be done with sin for His sake. And being done with sin is connected with being holy.

And as a result, because of that, guess what? You will no longer live according to human evil desires, but instead you will live for the will of God. And that has to be our heart cry, just wanting to live purely and solely and only for the will of God, being motivated to do God’s will only, not because there’s evil human desires that are driving us. We are done with those things, it says. If we are willing to go through the suffering and the pain of rejecting sin, rejecting fleshly appetites, rejecting bad patterns of thinking, if we’re really committed to walking this thing out, there will be suffering, I guarantee it. There has to be. There will be suffering. If there isn’t suffering that goes on in connection with making progress, then there isn’t a whole lot going on in your life. If you’ve gone by with weeks without having suffered anything in your heart about battling with sin. But when that happens, as a result, you will live for God and His will rather than for your own human desires.

So, I’ve been reminded recently, too, that God did promise that as we lose our life that He would give us life. And the things that fill my needs or my thoughts that aren’t from God, that I think I really need, that God really wants to give us something so much more glorious. And there’s things in our lives that we hold onto because we are just afraid to lose them.

And we somehow think that we won’t be fulfilled if we lose this particular thing, if we lose the right to have a husband, if we lose the right to have what we want to eat when we want it, if we lose the right to have our way with certain things or we hold onto certain opinions about people or about God or whatever. We feel like if we lose control of those things and we lose those rights that somehow we are going to be left empty or unfulfilled or barren or somehow we will be too vulnerable and we’ll be hurt by it. But really Jesus said that if you lose your life and lose your rights and open up your hands and let go of the things that you think are so important to keeping you together, you lose those things, lose your identity of having to be somebody important, having to tell your story, having to prove some spiritual thing – if you lose your rights, your identity, your opinions, all that stuff thrown to the wind – if you lose those things, God promises that He’d fill us with His life so much more.

And I’ve been reminded of that recently. That it is a promise of His that if we lose our lives, He really would fill us with something far more than we could ask or imagine. He will give us far more than what we ever thought possible in this lifetime if we are willing to let go of the things that we have allowed to take a place in our heart over the years. We have allowed things to sit in there and take our hearts. Just even subtle things – just protecting our time. Ya know how you can be generous with your time to a measure but there’s these little things of time that you hold for yourself, ya know, like “I deserve this time.” I’m not talking about time with Jesus, I am not talking about the right kind of time alone. I’m talking about the wrong kind of time, where you just need some space, you need to get away, you need to be alone, you need to have your space. There’s certain protections that we have.

If we are willing to lose all of that and give up all of our time – which is what we should be doing anyway – and all of our space, all of our rights, Jesus promised He would fill us with so much more than we could ever ask or imagine. He really will. He’ll be our fulfillment from A to Z if we would really, really trust Him with those things. And that’s really what it comes down to, is trusting Jesus that we can let go of these things – our fears, our apprehensions, fleshly desires, whatever it is – that we really can trust Him with those things.

Also the scripture that we read last week about “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” You guys may have gone back and read that, but the whole part preceding that has to do with receiving discipline from the Lord. I think that’s in Hebrews 12. The beginning of Hebrews 12 is all about “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” He goes into all the thing about running the race and “consider Jesus who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood…” That whole section has to do with resisting sin and changing and God bringing His discipline because He loves us. And “No discipline is pleasant, but painful. However, it will produce a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.” That whole section before the part about “without holiness no one will see the Lord,” (Hebrews 12:14) has to do with being trained, being disciplined, being done with sin, going through some of these painful times. Then he goes right into talking about, “make every effort to live at peace with all men and to be holy, for without holiness no one will see the Lord.” So I thought it was interesting that the suffering part was kinda tied in with the part about his admonishment to being holy.

Also in Hebrews 5, verse 7, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.”

Just that whole thought of…if Jesus when He lived on the earth, of part of His life was having to cry out to the One who could save Him from death. Jesus, God had to cry out to the One who could save Him from death. If He hadn’t done that, He wouldn’t have walked with God. He had to make choices to cry out to the One who could save Him from death, because He was on the earth. He was hanging in the balance. He chose to come down here and take a chance and walk it out. But He was living in our realm, right here on the earth. He was just as much subject to all the laws of the spiritual realm as we are, just as subject. If He chose to sow bad seed and sin, He was subject to all those things, all the temptations, all the physical things, all the limitations and opportunities to turn to God or not turn to God. He had all of that stuff. He was in the in-between world. He wasn’t “safe and sound,” so to speak, up with His Father. He had to make choices with His life, very tangible choices.

One of those things was crying out to God with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death. If Jesus needed to do that, the One who is without sin, and the Lamb sent from God’s side who humbled Himself and became like a man. If that was part of the humbling of His life, was crying out to His Father in heaven, knowing very clearly that He must have His Father’s Life continually with His Father. How much more do we need to be living the same kind of life if we expect to be delivered over from death, so to speak, in our day-to-day lives.

And because He chose to do that, He learned obedience by what He suffered. There’s no way to learn to be more and more obedient to Jesus and learn to walking in His ways if there is not going to be a degree of suffering that goes along with it. It’s a good thing. It’s with Him, it’s not apart from Him. Suffering isn’t something separate and then you come back to Jesus later on. It’s right with Him. Like sacrifices of praise might happen in those times, for example; singing to God in the midst of a barren womb, ya know, we’ve talked about that same kind of thing – seeing your barrenness, seeing your need and crying out to Him, singing to Him in the midst of those things. That kind of suffering is a good thing, it’s a healthy thing, it’s part of what teaches us how to be obedient to Jesus and how to love His ways and walk in His ways.