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[0:00] Well, we come to our last week in the study of Donnelly's book, Life in Christ. And we've been studying the benefits that are ours in Christ, in Him.

[0:12] Fruits of our union with Christ, justification. All of Christ's righteousness is ours, if He is ours. Freedom from sin's reign. We've died with Christ to sin and risen to new life in Him.

[0:27] Fruitfulness. We have all the divine resources for living the Christian life since we are attached to this fruitful vine. And then last week we saw that union with Christ means that we have union with every other believer in Jesus.

[0:45] We are all one in Christ Jesus. These things are all ours because of our union with Christ.

[0:58] Now we come to the last chapter then of Donnelly's book. There's something else that is ours because of our union with Christ. And that is suffering. Now, suffering might not sound like that which ought to be ours if we're in union with this glorious, victorious Savior who's ascended into heaven and He sits on the throne.

[1:22] Why would being united to this conquering King mean suffering for us? But several scriptures link our suffering to union with Christ.

[1:34] 1 Peter 4.13 says, You share Christ's sufferings. You share them. You participate in them. Romans 8.17, Now, if we are children, then we are heirs.

[1:46] Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings, in order that we may also share in His glory. And several other scriptures that we'll come to in the course of our study this morning.

[2:02] Now, some of our sufferings come to us just because we're human beings. They're part and parcel of the human experience that come to all men. Physical sickness and disease.

[2:14] The aches and pains of growing old. The emotional pain and frustration of life's disappointments. Injustices.

[2:26] These things happen to all men. And we are not exempt from them. Man is born to trouble. As surely as the sparks fly upward, Job says. So this is a common feature of life on planet Earth by all of its inhabitants.

[2:44] But then on top of these types of sufferings, there are sufferings that come only to Christians. And they come to Christians precisely because we are united to Christ.

[2:57] It's our union with Christ that brings us these sufferings. Now, God only gives us four points on this matter of our sufferings.

[3:09] First of all, they are evidence of our identity in Christ. So far from being contradictory for someone who is in Christ to suffer, these sufferings actually prove that we're united to Christ.

[3:25] Let's think for a moment. If the Lord Jesus was to come back today and to carry on his life and ministry in this world as he did 2,000 years ago, what kind of reception would the Lord Jesus Christ receive today if he were to come back?

[3:47] I mean, let's talk about Christian America, okay? Let's talk about our nation. What kind of reception do you believe that Jesus would receive if he were to come and live among us again today?

[4:04] Pardon? He'd be banned. From where? From where? What about our churches?

[4:18] You think there's some Christian churches with crosses and that call themselves by the name of Christ that he would not be allowed in? He would receive the same treatment today that he received 2,000 years ago, right?

[4:38] Has man changed? No. Has Christ changed? No. Then when we read our Bibles and we see the way that mankind received him, then we should say that's the response that this world would have to the Lord Jesus today.

[4:57] He would not be allowed into many pulpits. He's too narrow. He's too dogmatic. He's not politically correct. He's not tolerant enough. He spoke of a literal hell where all people go who do not repent of their sins and come to him as if he holds the destinies, the eternal destinies of all men in his hands.

[5:19] And if he were to get into churches, he would empty many of them as, again, he was too strict, too penetrating in his applications of the moral law, the requirements of God's law, stretching beyond just our outward behavior, but right down into the very thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.

[5:41] To demanding in his call to obedience, to repent and to mortify sin, his attacks on pride and self-righteousness were devastating to men's self-esteem and warm feelings about themselves.

[5:55] So when we think of Jesus coming to this earth, we must read our Bibles and see what would happen to him today.

[6:08] Anyway, there are those passages where the Bible says, the Gospels say that the common people heard him gladly. And we read of them flocking to him in great numbers.

[6:24] But if we are not careful, we'll get the wrong idea. Yes, they flocked to him in great numbers. Yes, the common people heard him gladly for a while.

[6:35] Now, they came and wanted to make him a king by force. They were so happy with him and wanted him to be their king. But the more he taught them and the more they understood what he was about, who he claimed to be, what his gospel was, the less they liked him.

[6:53] In fact, the more they hated him. So that the same crowd that filled their stomachs on his free food, when they heard him preach about himself alone being the bread of life, which if a man eats, he'll live forever.

[7:07] Well, then John's Gospel says many of his disciples followed him no more, such that he turns to his own twelve and says, will you also want to leave me? His sermons were real crowd thinners, weren't they?

[7:22] That was the same crowd that was ready to make him their king. In John 7 and verse 7, he says, the world hates me because I testify that what they do is evil.

[7:38] People don't like, when they're walking in darkness, they don't like a flashlight in their eyes. Read through John 8 and follow the many that had some kind of belief in him.

[7:54] And then Jesus says to those who believed in him that they were children, not of Abraham, but of their father, the devil. And that because they did not do the works of their father, Abraham, but they did the works of their father, the devil.

[8:13] And by the end of that chapter, they're picking up stones, aren't they? To stone him. Same crowd that had some kind of belief in Jesus were all excited to listen to Jesus.

[8:26] The same crowd that cried Hosanna as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday were found crying, crucify him a week later.

[8:37] Isaiah 53.3 says of our Savior, He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

[8:50] Now this is none other than the loving, gentle, meek, self-controlled Lord Jesus. And yet He was despised and hated by men.

[9:00] Sometimes Christians are hated because of our stupidity and our brashness and our lack of sensitivity and lack of respect.

[9:11] Jesus had none of that. He was the perfect Son of God and yet they hated Him. It was His holiness, His truth, His claims, His law and gospel that they found offensive.

[9:26] Now, sometimes we forget this, that we are united to one that they hated and killed.

[9:42] We're in union with the crucified one. This is the vine we're attached to. This is the vine that we're drawing nourishment from and we're becoming more like.

[9:54] And that is to shape our expectations on how we will be received by this world. You see, the world can't get their hands on this Jesus. But they can touch and interact and talk about and slander and insult His people in whom He is being formed.

[10:11] So, we ought to have in our expectation of how we should be treated in this world something of the way the world treated our Savior. It's the same darkness and same light that exists today as did then.

[10:27] And Jesus says this is the verdict, that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And they would not come into the light lest their deeds should be made manifest.

[10:41] And so, the world is still darkness and the Christian with Christ in his heart is still light and the darkness still hates the light.

[10:53] Now, tell me, how does the light in you come into contact with darkness? In what forms does that happen? How is it that darkness is irritated with light?

[11:06] What might that look like? Yes, Lou? You won't conform to sinful standards.

[11:18] You won't conform to sinful standards. So, the world has its way of doing things. Now, you all just fit into that pattern and everything will be fine.

[11:29] But you won't. Peter talks about that. They think it's strange that you don't plunge in with them into the same flood of dissipation, reckless living, and so they heap abuse on you.

[11:41] You don't fit in. You're a nonconformist, and so you're hated. You don't join in laughing at their filthy jokes. You don't join in their wild parties, their filthy movies, their gossip, their talk of sexual exploits.

[11:59] You don't have a part in it, and so they heap abuse upon you. Light. How else does light come into contact with darkness?

[12:12] Ed? You stated some don'ts. Don'ts, there's some do's. We seek after righteousness, and holiness, and we seek a lifestyle that brings glory to Him, which is contrary to it.

[12:26] Hmm. Positive holiness. Positive righteousness. To live with Jesus was to be convicted of your own pride.

[12:38] Just by living with Him. Just by seeing how humble He was. So holiness is light, and as nonbelievers come into contact with God's light and His people, it convicts them.

[12:53] Ooh, I'm not like that. And they either humble themselves and repent, or they become hardened against the light and attack the light. How else does light come in contact with darkness and stir up animosity?

[13:07] Steph? We're not content to leave the lost. Lost. Hmm. Seek after them, like the glory. Okay. The very fact that we have a burden for the lost, and we're not willing to let them go to hell unspoken to.

[13:24] And that annoys them. That we would have the audacity to talk to them as if they're lost and going to hell. Dennis? That was my comment, speaking of the gospel.

[13:36] Okay. When we speak the truth, and speak of Christ, and of His gospel. Again, this is the world in which we live. Now, turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 3.

[13:53] And our whole thesis then this morning is that being joined to the crucified Jesus will mean suffering for us because we're in Him.

[14:09] 2 Thessalonians chapter, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, and verse 10, Paul starts to talk first about his own personal persecutions and sufferings that he endured.

[14:23] You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings.

[14:34] What kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra? The persecutions I endured. Go back to Acts and read about them. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

[14:45] So here he's referring to all these horrendous persecutions that he suffered from the world. And we might begin to think, well, sure, if you're an apostle, you're going to get the abuse of the one that's aimed at Christ.

[15:00] If you're a sent one, an apostle of Jesus, then you ought to get some of the abuse that's aimed at Christ. But notice verse 12 wakes us up that these sufferings are not just for the big apostles, but that we, non-apostles, are here addressed.

[15:19] He's spoken of his own sufferings, and now he says in verse 12, in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life, what's the next three words? Sorry?

[15:34] In Christ Jesus. Isn't that our phrase for union with Jesus? Doesn't that leap off the page? Everyone who wants to live a godly life united to Christ, what does it say?

[15:48] will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, and so on.

[16:00] So, there are sufferings that are part and parcel of being in Christ Jesus, living a holy life in Christ Jesus. Over to 1 Thessalonians 2, and verse 14.

[16:18] For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus, the prophets, and also drove us out.

[16:37] They displeased God and are hostile to all men. Now, we might think at first that this anti-Christian sentiment is just something Jewish. Jesus came into Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee and among the Jews and he came to his own and his own received him not.

[16:54] This is something that was just their animosity because he was claiming to be their Messiah and he wasn't. But now Paul shows us that this is not just something Jewish.

[17:05] This animosity against Jesus is not something just Jewish. Rather, he says to these Thessalonians, these Greeks, you found the same treatment in Thessalonica from your countrymen as the church in Judea found from the Jews.

[17:25] In other words, this animosity, this hostility is something found in all unregenerate men, the world round. All darkness hates light.

[17:36] It's because you're in Christ Jesus again, he says. It's due to your union with Christ that you're hated. And then over in chapter 3 and verses 1 to 4, So then, we could stand it no longer.

[17:50] When we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who's our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith so that no one would be unsettled by these trials.

[18:05] You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted and it turned out that way as you well know. Now, Paul had direct revelations from heaven at some times.

[18:22] But I don't believe this was a direct revelation from heaven that he had a special word from God that these people were going to be persecuted. Paul knew that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

[18:34] Paul knew that darkness hates light and because the light has come to you, therefore you will be hated. And that's exactly what happens. He said, that's why I warned you when I was with you.

[18:45] When I brought the gospel and you believed, I warned you then. I said, be ready for persecution. Now, there's far too little of that instruction being given to babes in Christ today.

[18:56] The Christ-like nature of the Christian will draw upon him the animosity of the world.

[19:06] And that goes right back to Genesis chapter 3 where God pronounced a curse upon the devil. And he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

[19:20] And so, we have had two seeds down through the line of human history and the whole family tree of the family of Adam.

[19:38] And you have those who are Christ's and you have those who are still of the devil. And there's this hostility. God said he would put it between these two lines, these two seeds.

[19:50] Christ and the devil and all of his seed, his descendants in him and all the descendants of Satan. John 15.

[20:03] Turn over there. The Bible is just loaded with this theme and it's good for us to remind ourselves of it. It's the Lord Jesus then that says to us in John 15.

[20:17] 18. If the world hates you, just keep this in mind, that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.

[20:32] That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

[20:43] If they obey my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. Some sufferings in the Christian's life come because of our union with the Holy Lord Jesus.

[21:00] So expect these sufferings. That's the notion of the New Testament. That's the book of 1 Peter. Don't treat these things as if something strange is happening to you.

[21:15] He says in chapter 4, 1 Peter 4, 12, Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you were suffering as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.

[21:29] Rejoice that you are so one with Him that you would actually receive the treatment from the world that He received. That ought to be a cause for joy because it's proof that you are united to Jesus.

[21:44] Isn't that why the apostles came from their whipping, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ? That, good night, there must be something of Christ's life in me if the world would treat me as they treated Him.

[22:03] That's cause for joy. It's evidence of your union with Jesus. And so, we ought to take heart.

[22:15] We shouldn't expect to be popular with this world that hated Jesus. We should rather be alarmed and concerned if we find ourselves too popular in the same world that crucified Him.

[22:29] Woe to you, Jesus says, when all people speak well of you. Woe to you. If everybody has nothing but lavish praises for you. Woe to you.

[22:40] Because this is the praise of the world that crucified me. Matthew 5, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[22:52] Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.

[23:03] For in the same way they treated the prophets who were before you. They treat everyone who's united to Christ in this way. Indeed, all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

[23:17] So we expect it. Donnelly says, this is an age that preaches tolerance. But the one thing that this tolerant age will not tolerate is the dogmatism of God's Word.

[23:32] the exclusiveness of the claims of Christ. I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. Our world is tolerant of Muslims, isn't it?

[23:44] Increasingly sensitive to minorities. Unless that minority would happen to be Bible-believing Christians. And then it's fair game, isn't it?

[23:56] It's always open season on Christians and on Christ. If someone in the media was to blaspheme Muhammad or Allah, well, they'd be fired at once.

[24:13] But it is nothing to blaspheme the holy name of Jesus. It happens on television every night and nobody's up in arms about it and nobody's getting fired.

[24:25] Donnelly says, there is a venomous hatred of Christianity bubbling beneath the surface of our society. And this satanically inspired enmity is showing signs of erupting ever more aggressively.

[24:41] Before Jesus returns, the Bible says, Christians will endure tremendous suffering. We need to be ready for that.

[24:54] We shouldn't be shocked by it. We should expect it. They crucified our Savior. So that's the first point. This is evidence that we're united to Jesus. Any thoughts or comments before we move on to the second and third and fourth points that will be much more briefer on?

[25:10] But this is where Donnelly brings union with Jesus. All these blessings that are ours in Christ. Well, it also brings us suffering in this world.

[25:23] All right? Number two. Suffering is the pattern of our conformity to Christ. It's not only the evidence of our union with Christ, it's the pattern of our conformity to Christ.

[25:34] Jesus is our Savior. He's also our example, our pattern. And He's left us a pattern in the shape of a U. He came down to earth.

[25:45] He suffered. He died. He was buried. And then He rose again and ascended into heaven gloriously. Now, this was not grasped by the disciples of Jesus, even though their Old Testament scriptures spoke of it often.

[26:02] They could not conceive of Messiah going down and down and down, dying, suffering. We have those two disciples on the road to Emmaus on the day of His resurrection.

[26:15] And they're all down in the mouth and say to Jesus, who looked like a stranger walking along, we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. We had hoped.

[26:26] We have no more hope of such because He was crucified three days ago. And He said to them, how foolish you are. How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

[26:41] Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning Himself.

[26:55] Yes, the scriptures of the Old Testament, their Bible, what they had, was full of passages on the glories of Christ. But there was also Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and scads of other prophecies in the Old Testament that said that Messiah would suffer and be despised and hated and crucified before He would ascend in glory and reign in glory.

[27:27] And so Jesus opens up the scriptures both about His sufferings and His glories. He did the same with the rest of the disciples that night when He got back to Jerusalem and He opened the scriptures.

[27:39] All the scriptures, not just those on His glory but those on His sufferings. 1 Peter 1.11 talks about the prophets trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

[27:57] Even the prophets, Isaiah, and these men who spoke of this period of suffering and glories of Christ wondered when's this going to happen and they were filled with interest about that when they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

[28:16] You see the order. It's the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. Suffering before glory is the pattern.

[28:27] And we need to get that order because that's the same pattern for our conformity to Christ. How is it that Jesus brings us into conformity with Him?

[28:38] You say, well, I want to be like Jesus. Make me more like Jesus. Well, then, be prepared to go down. Down. Death. And then, resurrection. And be prepared to do that over and over again.

[28:51] Paul says, I die daily. And so, in this letter of 1 Peter where Peter talks about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, he shows that that's the same pattern for the Christians.

[29:04] Sufferings now, glories to follow. 1 Peter 4 and verse 13. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.

[29:25] Chapter 5 and verse 10. And the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ. There it is. In Christ. After you have suffered a little while will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.

[29:41] He's the God of all grace. He's called you to glory but after you've suffered a while He will then establish, strengthen, and settle you. Same thing is found in the Apostle Paul.

[29:55] We will share in His glory if we share in His sufferings. Romans 8, 17 and 18. So, remember, we're hooked to His belt. Remember the two belts? The two giants?

[30:06] There's Adam and there's Jesus. If we're hooked to Jesus' belt then we go down with Him. That's the teaching of Romans 6, isn't it? We die with Him.

[30:16] We're buried with Him. And we come up with Him. We're resurrected to newness of life. We're ascending into heaven with Him. And that experience is found in conversion.

[30:29] You go down in conversion before you come up, don't you? Down with the load of sin. Down with the despair. There's no hope. I can't fix the problem. And then you come up with the hope in the Redeemer, the Savior.

[30:43] It's the same in sanctification. as we die to sin and we're made alive unto God and we live unto righteousness.

[30:53] We put sin to death. We cut out right eyes and so on. This is painful. But then there's the glory of reigning with Christ and no longer being slaves of sin.

[31:06] The same pattern is found in our Savior. Hebrews 2, 9 and 10. We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

[31:23] There's Jesus. He's now crowned with glory but because he suffered death. And the next verse says, in bringing many sons to glory it was fitting that God for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

[31:43] Jesus was made perfect through suffering. Chapter 5 and verse 8 although he was a son he learned obedience from what he suffered. It doesn't mean he had sin and he needed to learn obedience in the way that you and I do in that sense.

[31:58] But he had to learn it in real life experience. He had to have the situation put to him in life. Now here you are Jesus. What will you do? Will you go the easy route or will you go the will of your father?

[32:13] And he suffered for going the will of his father. And it was through suffering that he was learning obedience that he was working out this obedient life that he might have a righteousness to give us a son learning obedience from what he suffered.

[32:29] And so we too will learn in the school of suffering. Donnelly says when we ask God to make us more Christ-like we should tremble as we make that request.

[32:46] Lord, we pray I have an unforgiving spirit. Please make me a more forgiving person. Well, how is God going to answer that request? Well, by surrounding us with wonderfully kind people who do us nothing but good?

[33:01] No. We become forgiving people by practicing forgiveness. So God will allow us to be hurt and criticized and wronged by others and it is in the pain of working through this and learning to forgive them freely from the heart that we're changed and our prayer is answered.

[33:16] We become meek as others metaphorically slap us across the face and elbow us out of the way. We learn patience by having to wait wearily and long.

[33:28] God makes us more loving by bringing into our lives individuals who are unpleasant and difficult to love. Our strength, our faith is strengthened during those times when the Lord takes away the props we've been leaning on and brings us into places of darkness and fear.

[33:42] In the words of John Calvin, For whomever the Lord has adopted ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.

[33:56] Beginning with Christ, his firstborn, he follows this plan with all his children. You see, the pattern of conformity to Christ is suffering.

[34:11] Suffering is now and glory to follow. Ferguson says, Conformity to the risen Christ is possible only when conformity to the crucified Christ is present.

[34:24] So we go down and that before we come up. Thirdly, suffering is not only the pattern of our conformity to Christ, it's part of our service to Christ.

[34:35] Let me just touch on that. We've spent that greater part in the first point showing that suffering was part of the very work of Christ.

[34:45] It was part of his very mission to this world. Indeed, the greatest work of his mission was a cross of suffering, was death, death, and even so, faithful service to Christ will involve suffering for us.

[35:00] When Christ calls a man to follow him in discipleship, it's a call to come and die. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, Jesus says.

[35:11] Follow me. Where are you going, Jesus? I'm going to Jerusalem to die on a cross and then be raised gloriously and reign forever. So there's no cost-free, easy, comfortable way to serve Christ.

[35:24] It's service to Jesus is always painful to the flesh. It will drain us, it will exhaust us, it will break our hearts, it will draw the fire of the world and the devil, but all this is to be expected.

[35:35] It's part and parcel of the cost that we were told to count before we ever took one step with this Jesus of Nazareth. The way of discipleship to Christ is the way of the cross.

[35:49] And so, our service to Christ will involve us in suffering. Remembering, we're united, we're in union with this Savior who suffered.

[36:00] And lastly, suffering is a channel for our communion with Christ. Remember when we talked about union with Jesus, being carried on by communion with Him.

[36:13] We fellowship with Him and He speaks to us and we speak to Him. So the Bible is a means of our communion and prayer is a means of our communion. So is suffering, Donnelly says.

[36:25] So is suffering. Paul speaks of wanting to know Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings. There's a fellowship in sufferings. You ever see people who've passed through the same experience of suffering and how they get on so well?

[36:41] Maybe they fought in the same war. Never met each other before. And then in conversation, they realize they fought in the same war. And they're talking like buds from way back real quickly.

[36:52] Or maybe they had the same disease, the same form of cancer that they lived through. Went through the same treatments. And there's this camaraderie, this fellowship.

[37:03] Maybe it's even in the office of the doctor's office where the treatments are given. You haven't met that man before, but he's going through the same thing you're going through and there's something between you now.

[37:14] So it is with the suffering Christian and his suffering sympathizing Savior. Our sufferings bring us closer to Christ.

[37:24] They open up a window into his life. They bring scriptures to life. We read in Psalm 69 about Jesus. And Jesus says in that Psalm, Those who hate me without cause.

[37:39] I've become a stranger to my brothers. I look for comforters but found none. And perhaps by your sufferings you can identify with that. Maybe you're the only Christian in your family.

[37:52] And you know what it is to be a stranger to your own brothers. To look for comforters where you would expect to find comfort in finding none.

[38:04] Maybe you know what it is to be hated without cause. And so when you read Psalm 69, suddenly you feel for your Savior and what he was going through. there's this fellowship between you and him because now you know what he must have been going through.

[38:20] You've shared in his sufferings. You hear him praying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And you've prayed the same when you've been facing some fiery, terrible trial.

[38:34] Oh no, Lord. I don't want to go through this. Remove the cup, please. And you've been denied. And God has said, No, child.

[38:45] My grace will be sufficient for you. You must go through this. You must drink this cup. And as you see Jesus in Gethsemane, you begin to have this sympathetic fellowship with him.

[38:58] I understand, Lord, what the Lord was doing a bit more in Gethsemane when he prayed because I too have been there where I've cried for the Lord to take this cup from me.

[39:12] But even more wonderful than the fact that our suffering brings us to understand Jesus better and to fellowship more with him, our sufferings evoke a tender sympathy in him to draw near to us in our sufferings.

[39:29] He remembers what it was like to go through that trial. And so he draws near to us because he himself was tempted. He is able to help those who are being tempted.

[39:41] We have a sympathetic high priest who understands what we're going through. And so because of our union with Jesus, he draws near to us.

[39:54] He sees a suffering and he comes to us and identifies with us in our sufferings. In all their afflictions, he too was afflicted. Isaiah 63, 9. So suffering is a channel for our fellowship with Christ.

[40:11] All over the world, Donnelly says, Christians are suffering and the Lord's great heart has moved with pity for them. He comes to them with special outpourings of his love and grace.

[40:23] You know, it was when the three Hebrew young men were in the fiery furnace that they came to know the sweet fellowship of the fourth who appeared with them.

[40:35] And we found the same, haven't we? It's in suffering. It's in trials. It's in our, it's in those painful times that the Lord draws near with his comfort. Suffering is the channel, then, for our communion with Christ.

[40:48] It's the evidence of our union with Christ if the world treats us as it treated him. It's the pattern for our conformity to Christ, suffering before glory.

[41:03] Thirdly, it's the, what, part of our service to Christ. All service to Jesus in this fallen world will know something of suffering.

[41:16] and lastly, it's the channel for fellowship with him. So, we're blessed. Even this is, is a blessing, isn't it? We're talking about our blessings of being united to Christ and it started out looking like what sort of blessing is this that, that we should get suffering because of our union with Christ.

[41:34] Well, we see now what a blessing it is. It proves we're one with him. It, it, it brings Christ near to us. Donnelly ends with that.

[41:46] illustration. Think of a human family with, say, four children. The parents love all their children equally. They make no difference between them, nor should they. But on a particular occasion, one of the children is ill, crying, fretful, and distressed.

[41:59] Is it not the case that although father and mother love all in exactly the same way, in this crisis there is one child who is the special focus of their most tender care and attention?

[42:10] And they devote themselves especially to this little one and make allowances and provide extra treats and the other children do not take it badly for they understand that their brother or sister is not well and mommy and daddy need to look after them.

[42:24]  That's how we should think of the Lord Jesus and one of his suffering ones. So it's glory in our union with Jesus and in the suffering that brings him near. may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may