What is Lacking in Christ's Suffering

What is Lacking in Christ’s Suffering?
Colossians 1:21-29

[I preached this sermon at Nordel Fellowship. Pastor Barry Nielsen and I switched pulpits this week. Some of this if from a sermon I preached last Spring at Gateway. I have been greatly inspired by John Piper on this topic]

I originally planned to preach a sermon that I had recently preached at Gateway on the topic of Hymns and worship, but this week the Holy Spirit led me in another direction and so I am preaching this text to you today.

Let me give you some background for why I’m going to take this text in the direction I am going to take it: This past January, our Elder’s decided that, instead of planning a missions emphasis month, we were going to make it a missions emphasis year (and I am considering extending it into a missions emphasis decade). As a result of that emphasis, I have been spending much of my preparation time reading the biographies of missionaries and trying to gear my preaching to emphasize the missiological principles taught in scripture.

1. One of the conclusions that I have reached as I have allowed the topic of missions to saturate my meditations and my studies as well as my preaching is that the Bible is a missionary book- from beginning to end it is about missions; it’s about God sending his Spirit, his angels, his people, his nation, his son, his church, to tell the world that God reigns.

2. Another conclusion that I have reached is that we are all called to be missionaries. Some of us are called to go to hostile nations abroad and some remain as home missionaries. Those who remain also have the responsibility to finance the missionaries, as well as to pray for them and to recruit new missionaries and train them.

One of the remarkable things about the age and place in which we are living is that we are able to accomplish world evangelization and home missions without ever leaving home because we live in the rare time and place when God is bringing the nations to us.

Over a hundred years ago, Adonirom Judson, after writing to his father-in-law saying he may never see his daughter again… in this life, took his wife to Burma. They set sail for India and on the voyage he became a Baptist, and he lost all his funding from the mission society. Judson eventually landed in Burma where he remained for most of the rest of his life, being beaten, imprisoned, suffering the loss of seven children and two wives.

About 3 years ago, Dan Chapman asked me if our church could host a Burmese church plant. We allowed them to meet in a room in our church that wasn’t much better then a broom closet. The pastor, Jimmy Oo still uses the bible translation that Judson produced. I remember people scoffing because of the lack of Burmese, or Myanmar, people in Vancouver. *

Four months ago however, the Myanmar government evicted 500 of its citizens, because they were Christians, the very Christians that Judson had evangelized. Our government graciously opened the doors for them to come to Canada. Pastor Jimmy estimates that possibly 150 of the refugees will be coming to his church. I call them refugees, but really they are missionaries.

When you consider that the book of Acts records how God used persecution in Jerusalem to force the expansion of the church beyond Israel, it is staggering to conceive the missionary impact that 500 Myanmar missionaries will have in Canada. Especially when you consider that they are the fruit of one man’s suffering in Burma over 100 years ago. And my church gets to be a part of it. Do you think that’s worth giving up a broom closet and having to fix a few dents in the wall?

Being a missionary is not a specialized task, we are all sent with the gospel, we are all given the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, we have all received the Holy Spirit in power to be witnesses to Jerusalem and Judea as well as to Surrey, Delta and the ends of the world. Spurgeon once said, “If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king.”

3. One other conclusion that I have come to regarding missions and missionaries is that, by and large being a missionary involves suffering.

Here’s what I mean: Some missionaries only lose a bit credibility; others may lose limbs and some must lose their life (look around, some of you may become martyrs- or it may be your children). So with those three main conclusions*, let me ask you a very personal question before we look at our text:

Aside from attending church on Sunday and whatever private devotions you may
be involved in, how is your life different enough from your pagan neighbour to
make him think that being a Christian is any different from not being a
Christian?

I mean, he’s got two cars, you’ve got two cars; he works 9 to 5, you work 9 to 5; you go to the same places for vacation; your kids are in the same sports teams; your conversations with others are about the same issues- pop culture, politics, things that irritate you; if you have an itch you scratch it or an urge you indulge it just like your pagan neighbour…. So what you makes you different enough so that he won’t say, “His religion gives him the same lifestyle as me, but I don’t have to go to church!”?

Let me ask the question differently: What is lacking in your Christian life that will fulfill Christ’s sufferings? Read Colossians 1:21-29

I want us to focus on what Paul just said in verse 24…. Let’s pause to take that in (re-read v. 24).

A cistern monk* was once asked by a reporter, “Suppose when you die, you realize that the atheists were right and there is no God?” This monk answered that, “even if I were to die and find out it was for nothing I would still say that my life was better living as though there were a God- all this that I have sacrificed has made my life better!” And many Evangelicals today would agree with him.But that’s not what Paul would have said. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Indeed, Paul was no 21st century Evangelical, otherwise he would be saying, “Hey, if Christ isn’t raised, so what, it’s been a pretty good ride- I got to go to church every Sunday and according to recent statistics from sociologists, Christians live longer, they’re healthier, and they have more money”- the very things that drive our pagan culture to sacrifice at the altars of self centredness.

Acts 13 records that in the church of Antioch, a group of men gathered to pray and fast. As a result of that prayer meeting, God launched the greatest missionary thrust ever seen. One small multi-ethnic church’s prayer meeting resulted in the conversion of the Empire, at least nominally, within two centuries- despite some of the worst persecution ever seen. Paul’s epistles were written as a consequence of this missionary thrust. And today, there is a church in almost every nation on earth- even the most repressive nations like North Korea and Afghanistan have a remnant.

All that came as a result of insurmountable suffering. In fact, everyone of us is here today, because of the suffering of an innumerable cloud of witnesses. Thank goodness they weren’t like us- thinking the Christian life was a pretty good ride. No, they hated their lives for the Kingdoms sake; otherwise (apart from God’s sovereignty) we might still be in darkness.In the last century Evangelicalism has grown three times faster then the world’s population. At the same time, Christianity has become predominantly Asian- a testimony to the labour of missionaries from the West; People like William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, Henry Martyn, and the many unnamed missionaries who believed the whole of the gospel answered the call to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s suffering… with joy… for the sake of the church.

We need the attitude of Hudson Taylor who said, “If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China.”1. Look at what God is doing in Africa. During the period from 1945 to 1970- sub Saharan Africa has seen the Christianity grow to as high as 50% Christian. There may be a lot of syncretism and cults included in that number, but God is sovereign and He has a growing remnant in the African church. 2. Did you know that in 1900 there were about 250 000 Protestants in Latin America? Today there are over 40 million Evangelical Christians. There are more Christians in Brazil then in all of Europe.3. And look at what God has been doing in the Orient. In 1885 there was not a single Protestant Church in Korea. The church there was built on the blood of the martyrs like Robert Thomas who even while being bludgeoned to death continued to extend his arms to offer Bibles to the very men who were killing him because the love of Christ compelled him.

One of the Korean men in that angry mob went on to have a major impact on the Pyongyang revival of 1907 that earned Pyongyang the title, “Jerusalem of the Orient”.* Today, South Korea sends more missionaries then Canada and is about to overtake the US as the number 1 missions sending nation on earth.

What did Paul mean by filling up what is lacking in Christ’s suffering? I think it may have something to do with his commission, God promised in Acts 9 that, “Paul is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles… for I will show him how many things he must suffer for may name in order to bring my message to the world” (Acts 9:16).

Towards the end of his life, Paul looked back on his suffering- look what he endured (Read 2 Cor 11:23-24)*How can shame and suffering in mission perfect our Joy? For one thing, it causes us to release our grip on this world, the thing which causes us so much grief. For another thing, it brings us into fellowship with the Son who suffered on our account.A couple of years ago some children were playing in a mine field in Bosnia when they set off one of the mines. All three of them died. But not right away… the people heard the little girl calling for help for hours before she succumbed to her injuries, but no one would go help. Would you go? Do you hear the nations all around you? How can you not?

Robert Moffat, that great Presbyterian missionary to Korea in the early 1900’s wrote of Korea saying, “In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.” He heard the cries.C.T. Studd, the English missionary to China, India and Africa whose motto was, “If Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” Studd once wrote, “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.”

Listen to What John Piper says about Missions calling:

"God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful
worshippers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He
has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations.
Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of
His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global
purpose."

Does that resonate with you? Does your spirit cry out to God, “Here I am, send me so that I can fill up in my flesh what is lacking in your afflictions”?

Application:

Why does this church occupy this parcel of land? To be a gathering place for cultural Christians? 50 or 60 people sitting for about 5 hours a week on 3 million dollars of property? Or has God granted you this building for its stewardship- to fulfill what is lacking in Christ’s suffering?

If you believe that Jesus could return at any moment, will you be ashamed of how you used his resource? Last year we tried to move the Burmese out of our building because they were taking up too much time and it was costing us a lot of money to host them. They’re a Fellowship church. Would you believe that not a single Fellowship Baptist church would give them space? Not that they could not have, they just would not!

Maybe it requires more suffering then they can bear. God is bringing the nations here, how are you responding? Have you suffered enough yet?