Alan Dunn
What did serving Jesus Christ mean for Paul? He tells us in Acts chapter 9, “The Lord said to him,” –Ananias is told of The Lord’s words to Paul– “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
Bearing of the name of Christ is simultaneous to the suffering for Christ. They’re not two things, it’s not bearing the name of Christ as one thing and then suffering as another thing, but they’re both seen together. The call to be an apostle for Paul was also a call to suffering for Christ, suffering for righteousness, suffering for Christ’s sake, is an essential component of Paul’s apostleship. In fact, suffering for Christ validated Paul’s apostleship. You remember his ministry at the church in Corinth? There were false apostles that penetrated into that church, and they did not give credibility to the Apostle Paul. They tried to discredit him, and so there are places in Paul’s writings to that church where he has to demonstrate the validity of his apostleship. He tells them in 2 Corinthians 6: 4-10, in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 12-33, he lists all if the ways in which he has suffered, and he’s saying to us much more than simply, “I’m so committed to Jesus, that I’m willing to suffer for Him.” He’s saying something much more than that! He’s saying that the suffering for righteousness is a validation of his apostleship. He’s telling the Corinthians, “Do you want to know whether or not I’m a true apostle? See how much I’ve suffered for Christ. It gives validation, because when He called me to be an apostle, He also called me to suffer for His name’s sake.”
Let me draw your attention to what he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, because he uses a very interesting word here that is helpful to us to understand that suffering for Christ is itself a demonstration of the Gospel. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4 we read from verse 7, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.” Now, the word that attracts our attention here is a word in verse 10 and verse 11 translated “manifested”; it means “to make something known,” “to make something evident,” “to cause something to be clearly seen.” It’s used in the Gospels to speak of Jesus’ deity, that His glory is manifested, His divine nature is evidenced and seen by the things that He does and the things that He says. And Paul is telling us here that through his suffering for Christ there is a manifestation of Gospel victory, of the life, of resurrection power that is made evident and manifested.
Robert Plummer, in his book Paul’s Understanding of the Church’s Mission writes, “Paul thinks suffering not only accompanies the proclamation of the Gospel, but is a proclamation of the Gospel.” It just doesn’t accompany the proclamation, it is itself a manifestation, a disclosing, a making-known of the Gospel of Christ. So that when you heard Paul preach, you heard the Gospel, and when you saw Paul suffer, you saw the Gospel. You see, Paul was the media to which the Gospel was communicated, not only through his words, but through his life of obedience, suffering for righteousness. You see, the messenger of the Gospel is himself to be a picture of the message; he is to be a manifestation of that which he proclaims. The message concerns the cross and the resurrection of life over death. The messenger must be a replication of that message. The Corinthians absolutely despised that, that was definitely uncool, definitely un-corinthian! But Paul refused to accommodate his method of communication to the demands of the Corinthian culture. He refused to put away the foolishness of preaching and to learn how to be more culturally-relevant. He said, “No, the manner in which the Gospel is preached has to be itself a testimony of the message.” The Gospel appears foolish as a message, and the preaching appears foolish as a method, and the man who preaches it does not impress you at all! It’s a demonstration of weakness, it’s a demonstration of the cross being the vehicle through which life is communicated.
In Colossians chapter 1, in verse 24, Paul, again, speaks about his suffering, he says, “Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” This tells us that Paul suffered for others, not in the same way that Christ suffered, as though his sufferings were making atonement for sin, but he is indeed suffering for the sake of the church, many of whom, most of whom, in fact, all of whom in Colossae, did not see Jesus die on the cross. Paul, by his own suffering, will give to them a visual aid, he will help to fill the afflictions of Christ, if you will, to be himself a demonstration of the afflictions of Jesus Christ, so that when they saw the man and understood his sufferings, they were given a picture of the Gospel: an innocent, Godly preacher who’s suffering hardship for the sake of righteousness; so that the man himself pointed people to Jesus Christ by the way in which he suffered for righteousness. You know, in our day of overheads and videos and dramas and pageantry and elaborate productions, let me suggest to you brother, and my preacher brethren especially, that the most powerful visual aid that you can give to your people is you. You are the most powerful visual aid that you can give to your people.
What is God’s method for missions? What is God’s strategy for the Gospel? John chapter 1, verse 6, “There came a man sent by God, whose name was John.” “There came a man.” The man himself is the media, he is the visual aid, he is the manifestation. He is the demonstration, not only in what he proclaims, but also in the way in which he conducts spiritual warfare in the midst of persecution, opposition, and hatred of the world. You see brethren, we, in our very persons, in the lives that we live, in our pursuits of Christ and His righteousness, in our doing of good deeds and acts of kindness and benevolence, in our words of Gospel truths, we are the media! We are the way in which the Gospel is communicated to other men. We are to manifest the reality of this Gospel, this Gospel that speaks of victory through death into resurrection. We are the ones who follow the suffering servant of The Lord, and like Paul, who’s apostleship involved suffering, so to our discipleship involves suffering.
Extract from a message on persecution by Pastor Alan Dunn. To read the entire sermon, click here: https://heraldofgrace.org/biblicalexpositions/persecution-part-1/