Suffering and Joy of a Christian
“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake…” Philippians 1:29.
“Rejoice in the Lord always [and] again I say, Rejoice.” Philippians 4:4.
Do we believe in Christ? If we do, then we shall have to suffer for His sake. But if we believe in Him with a living faith, we shall also rejoice in Him always.
There are two phases to the Christian life: suffering and joy, in this order. At first we suffer and then we rejoice. We suffer because of the burden of a sinful life without hope, a life without a goal, and suddenly, we meet Jesus, our Redeemer and personal Saviour. What a joy! We suffer in the first stage of our life with Christ as through the subtle and thorough work of the Holy Spirit in our heart we are made aware of the sinfulness rooted in our flesh, but we rejoice in the experience of forgiveness and in the dependence we can have on Christ to be protected from our own selves. We suffer under the attacks of the enemy of our soul who so often corners us either with his temptations or accusations, but again we rejoice at every victory obtained through the power of the blood of Jesus. We suffer when we share this wonderful message with a receptive soul and go through many battles together, but we rejoice when he finally gives his soul to Jesus. We suffer all along as we grow in the knowledge of God’s grace and become aware of our responsibility and see people all around us who reject this marvellous gift or we experience a lukewarm or self-righteous attitude in the church, that leads to disunity, but we rejoice to belong to the body of Christ and have a family in Him.
There is joy and suffering also when we live without Jesus, mostly in this order: first joy and then suffering. There is much joy, much glamour in the numerous entertainments the world has to offer; there are many lights, many feasts, many opportunities to go places, to have interaction with interesting people, to succeed professionally, to obtain almost everything our soul wants, but there is also suffering when one realizes the vanity of all this, that it leads to nothing, that it leaves us empty and that sometimes for the joy of a wrong choice, one can live a life regretting, suffering and sometimes in sheer bitterness.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians speaks much about the joy of a Christian and actually there is one verse in particular that is frequently used to encourage souls and even the congregation to be happy, ” Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice.” (Phil. 4:4) We should not forget though, that the joy Paul speaks about here is a joy in the Lord and not a happy-go-lucky attitude deprived of depth, but the result of a life of consecration to the cause of God.
This consecration brings suffering, but there is joy in that suffering. Was Paul a masochist who rejoiced in pain? By no means, his sufferings had a repercussion on the well-being of others; they worked for their salvation. His sacrifices motivated by love toward the souls entrusted to him made him always rejoice.
In every chapter of the letter to the Philippians we can read about this joy, ” What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Phil. 1:18). Paul explained that his imprisonment has worked for the progress of the gospel and many brethren had become more daring to confess Christ, while others preached Christ out of contention, but what counted is that Christ was spoken of and that is a reason to rejoice. Paul saw the result of the fact that to believe in Christ is to suffer for his sake, but that suffering brings joy and is not without fruit.
In Philippians 2:17, we read, ” Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.” Paul was the one disciple of Jesus Christ who did not try to shun pain or suffering. He was inwardly so moved by the great sacrifice done on his behalf, he was so much aware that he was saved by grace, that he welcomed trial and sacrifice as a privilege, as a way of sharing in Jesus’ life and being more Christ-like. In the past, he had been a persecutor of Christians, ready to drag them to be sacrificed for their faith, thinking that by doing so he was serving God; now he rejoices in service, in being sacrificed in order to gain souls for the kingdom of heaven. What a change the new birth brings in our heart, in our whole life! It turns us inside out completely, empties us of self and fills us with Jesus’ love and care for others.
Paul knew very well what it was to suffer for the sake of Christ, as a result of his faith in Him, ” Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I [am] more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty [stripes] save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; [In] journeyings often, [in] perils of waters, [in] perils of robbers, [in] perils by [mine own] countrymen, [in] perils by the heathen, [in] perils in the city, [in] perils in the wilderness, [in] perils in 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. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28)
” For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake…” Paul was always ready to suffer for His Master. The love of Jesus was nestled in his heart and that love was manifested in his care for others. His eyes were completely turned from himself to the outside world. The disciples who knew Jesus personally, the ones who shared so many experiences with Him, who lived with Him for three and a half years, were not joyful at the thought of offering sacrifice for their Lord.
James and John wanted to sit, one at the right hand and the other one at the left hand of Jesus, when he would come in His glory. What was Jesus’ answer? ” But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? ” (Mark 10:38). In other words, ” Do you believe in me to the point of being ready to suffer for my sake?” Peter tried to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem where he was going to be sacrificed for the sake of us all. It took Peter many bitter experiences before he could accept the fact that a disciple of Jesus is a partaker of his sufferings, but finally he reached the same conclusion as Paul and in his first epistle, chapter 4:1 we read, ” Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;” He also discovered that there is joy in suffering for Christ, ” If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy [are ye]; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” . 1 Peter 4:13, 14.
Many times we suffer in the spirit because of the consequences of our sins, but the suffering of a real Christian is suffering in the flesh and there is always pain in the flesh when it is submitted to the spirit. Jesus Christ, our perfect example, went through this pain and suffering of the flesh, ” Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:7, 8). Have we already been in agony on our knees praying for the Father to uproot a sin that is very deeply set in our flesh? There is much pain in this pleading, desperate supplication. It is a necessary experience for the cleansing of our soul. But the reward is so big that all pain later on seems like nothing.
In the third chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, Paul speaks again about joy and he is very concise this time, ” Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.” (Phil. 3:1) How many things are entailed in these few words! Maybe the most important one that summarizes the whole concept is the declaration in verse 3, ” For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” When we worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh, our only joy is Jesus Christ! The chapter goes on explaining how all the achievements of the flesh one could boast of are just vanity, worthless compared to the ” excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” . The greatest joy of Paul is that he was set free from his self-righteousness that had led him to be a persecutor of God’s children, ” And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). This is the greatest experience of our Christian life, our passport to freedom, to be set free from the power of our own concept of righteousness, to be aware that all our logic and reasoning amounts to nothing and can be even dangerous to ourselves, others and the cause of God, and to bring every thought and feeling into captivity to Christ. By dying daily, Paul grew in grace to the point of being able to declare, ” But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Gal. 6:14).
There is not a single drop of presumption when Paul urges his brethren, ” Be ye followers of me, even as I also [am] of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1), or when later on he says to the Thessalonians, ” And you became followers of us, and of the Lord” (1Thess. 1:6) and explains ” For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us, for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you.” (2 Thess. 3:7). Jesus was everything in Paul’s life and serving Him faithfully was the greatest motive of joy.
The climax of all these reasons to rejoice is the well-known verse in Philippians 4:4 ” Rejoice in the Lord always [and] again I say, Rejoice.” But these words are not to be used as an omen, with a magical connotation, without realizing that this assertion is the conclusion of a whole process of awareness, cleansing, surrendering of the will and fitness for service. To use this verse isolated from the rest of the epistle, to apply it to a person isolated from his personal experience is only shallowness. It is the same as using the promise in Joel 2:28, ” And it shall come to pass afterward, [that] I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” and ignoring the previous verses, the preparation and conditions for receiving the gift of the Spirit.
The information we have of Paul’s life and character leaves no room in our imagination to think of him as the cheerful and easy-going type. He was certainly a circumspect man who served the Lord with fear and rejoiced with trembling. (Psalm 2:11)
The same man who tells his brethren, ” Rejoice in the Lord always [and] again I say, Rejoice” , suffers extremely for the situation he sees around him, in the church, among his brethren, ” My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.” (Galatians 4:19, 20). His life was a continual joy in the Lord and pain for his brethren, ” I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren…” (Romans 9:2, 3).
He also rejoices for the faith, love and generosity of the Thessalonians that had spread like a blessing all over the peninsula, for the consecration of his son in the Lord, Timothy, who was one of the few ” like-minded” who ” naturally cared” for the state of his co-believers instead of seeking his own as most did. (Phil. 2:20, 21)
Suffering and joy, joy and suffering and a perfect balanced life that like a fragile boat plies the deep ocean in the assurance that it will reach the shore because the Lord’s grace suffices for each one of us. May we rejoice in this thought always so that we can be ready to suffer for His sake at any moment.
AMEN.