The sufferings of the church present the sufferings of Christ

In one of the more confusing statements in the New Testament, Paul says, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24). Now that is a weird verse. What in the world is lacking in Christ’s afflictions?

Paul does not mean that he somehow improves upon what Christ has done on the cross. After all, Paul is zealous to tell us that all he preaches is “Christ and him crucified.” That’s it. Christ’s work on the cross is complete in the sense that his suffering and death pays the penalty for our sin, once and for all. And we need only come to him in repentance and faith in order to be saved.

So what could possibly be “lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions”? Nothing is lacking at all, in terms of the merit and completeness of Christ’s work. But what is lacking is the presentation of those sufferings to a lost world.

It’s like if you and I were separated, continents away, let’s say. And I want to make up what is lacking in my love for you by presenting to you a gift. Well, what’s lacking in my love for you? Nothing at all in the sense that I love you whether I am near or far. But what is lacking is my expression of that love for you. And so I might a send a messenger to bring you a gift, in order to make up what is lacking – namely, the presentation of my love.

This is analogous to what Paul is trying to say in Colossians 1:24. Listen to how John Piper explains it.

Christ has prepared a love offering for the world by suffering and dying for sinners. It is full and lacking in nothing – except one thing, a personal presentation by Christ himself to the nations of the world. God’s answer to this lack is to call the people of Christ (people like Paul) to make a personal presentation of the afflictions of Christ to the world.

In doing this we “complete what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.” We finish what they are designed for, namely, a personal presentation to the people who do not know about their infinite worth.

Here is the astounding upshot: God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his people. God really means for the body of Christ, the church, to experience some of the suffering he experienced so that when we proclaim the cross as the way to life, people will see the marks of the cross in us and feel the love of the cross from us. Our calling is to make Christ real for people by the afflictions we experience in bringing them the message of salvation. (John Piper, Desiring God, 225)

One example: J. Oswald Sanders tells the story of an indigenous missionary in India who walked barefoot from village to village preaching the gospel. After a long day and many miles and much discouragement, he tried to speak up for the gospel in a particular village. They shouted him down and ran him out. Dejected and exhausted, he slouched down under a tree and fell asleep.

When he awoke the whole town was gathered to hear him. The head man of the village explained that they came to look him over while he was sleeping. When they saw his blistered feet they concluded that this must be a holy man, and that they had been evil to reject him. And according to Sanders, the whole village believed (Story told in John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, 94-95).

This is the way the Great Commission is going to get done – through the presentation of the sufferings of Christ in the sufferings of his people.

We died before we came here

What will living for Jesus cost you?

Time
There are needy people around us, who need to talk or to just to be with you, and that takes time and intentionality. If you're seeking to invest in the people God puts into your life, you're probably going to have less free time than most.

Money
It will costly you financially, as you give generously to work of the gospel here and abroad. The gospel pushes you to be generous as you consider the generosity of Jesus to you.

Comfort
It will cost you comfort as you step out and form new friendships and are intentional about sharing the gospel with the friends you already have. If you're an introvert, this is no small thing.

Reputation
This isn't just true for students. Adults play the status and popularity game too. It's hard to be neutral about Jesus, and the more accurately you declare and demonstrate him, the more it's going to get a reaction out of the people around you. Some will be attracted. Others will be repelled. That's the deal.

I spent a summer in Japan and we heard story after story of Christians being demoted, or not advanced, because of their openness about their faith. That scenario is not as far-fetched here in America as it once was.

Security
This might be in the form of finances - you won't save as much as you could, because you want to give money away. It might take the form of encouraging your kids to go on mission trips. It might mean following God's call to live in a neighborhood and minister in an environment not nearly as secure as the one you live in now.

John Piper always tells the story of interviewing people to come on staff at his church in downtown Minneapolis. He gets frustrated when the first question people ask is, “Are my kids going to be safe?” Piper says, "Ask that question tenth, not first." Whoever said your kids are going to be safe in the call of God? Is that in the Bible?

Life
The gospel cost Jesus his life. It cost Paul his too. And they both knew it was coming. Martyrdom still happens today – the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, China. Chances are (if you are reading this in America), you aren’t going to face something that drastic. But you never know, and we need to be prepared like Paul to say, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me” (Acts 20:24).  Martyrs are not made in a minute, but in a lifetime of choosing to die to themselves and to live for Christ.

James Calvert was a young pioneer missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands. On his voyage there the ship captain tried to talk him out of going through with his mission. But Calvert would not be shaken. Finally the captain yelled at him, “You don’t get it, man! Make no mistake: you will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” Calvert calmly replied, “You don’t understand. We died before we came here.”

The gospel is costly

“I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me” (Acts 20:23).

Living for Jesus is a costly thing. The gospel costs us something, if we are going to submit to it, live according to it, and attempt to communicate it to others.

Paul knows this. He knows that suffering is part of God’s plan for the church. And he wanted to prepare his people for that. I’m of the opinion that there are a lot of burnt out and disillusioned Christians today, because they were legitimately surprised to find out that after they became a Christian, life wasn’t all champagne, strawberries, and walks on the beach (or beer, pizza, and a ballgame - depending on your preferences). Life is hard. Loving people is hard. Getting the marriage to work is hard. Ministry is hard. And if we’re not prepared for that, and if our expectation is otherwise, then we won’t make it.

Paul knew this. He had read the Old Testament. He knew the servant songs of Isaiah, he read the pain-stricken psalms, he was aware of the accounts of the afflictions of the prophets. But even more, he knew the ministry and example of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus knew that he had to suffer. But he also prepared his followers for the same. “Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man” (Luke 6:22).

Paul’s expectations were such that he believed it was normal for Christians to suffer something for the gospel. It was normal for Christians to experience pain in the pursuit of God’s plan for our lives. That’s why he could say “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me” (v. 23). He knew that suffering awaited him in Jerusalem, and still he went there.

This is antithetical to everything our culture would teach us. "Paul, if you know there’s pain in Jerusalem, go the other way. Go somewhere else." But Paul couldn’t, because he was compelled by the Spirit, and because he was convinced that God had other plans for him than a trouble-free life.

The Gospel is costly. If the Gospel has not cost you, cost you big, then perhaps you haven’t been running the race the way God would have us. If the Gospel is not costing you financially, socially, physically – we need ask if we are really pursuing the race that God has set out for us.

The Lie: God Wants You To Have An Easy Life

“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)

That was Paul’s desire for himself, that he would finish well. But it was also his burden for his people. That’s why he was so concerned that he meet with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, so he could have a few more moments with them, to prepare them for what they might face in the weeks and months and years and decades to come.

There are “savage wolves” even today that would challenge our faith, and tempt us to turn from the gospel. These come in many forms, but I am convinced that the most insidious and infectious and devastating of these in the American church is the temptation to believe that God desires for us primarily to have a comfortable, easy, trouble-free, problem-free, pain-free life.

Freedom from fear, freedom from pain, freedom from inconvenience, freedom from want, freedom from boredom. These are the prized values of the society in which we live. These are the ultimate goals, the good life, the American dream. Advertising tells us this. Music tells us this. Television and movies certainly do. And what’s sad is that the church often has adopted a similar mentality.

“God wants to bless you.” And he does, but we often interpret those promises through the lens of material comfort, and physical security, and financial abundance. And so God, in many of our churches (and perhaps in many of our own minds), becomes a means to the end of an easy, comfortable, trouble-free life. And the Holy Spirit begins to seem something like a force, that if we could just tap into in the correct way, we could somehow bend God’s power toward our personal goals and ambitions.

Let me suggest to you that this is a lie. And it is killing the church, and it can kill your spiritual life.

I was telling a group of parents when I was a youth pastor, that there are several things that I worry about with regard to teenagers. For guys I worry about things like pornography and lust getting a hold in their lives. For girls I worry about body image and the dangerous ideas and self-doubt that this can cause. For both, I worry about drugs and alcohol. But the number one thing I worry about for Christian teens, the number one thing I think might cause them to cop out and be mediocre, pew-sitter, lackluster Christians (in other words, the thing I think most likely to take them out of the race Paul is running) is materialism and consumerism.

It’s all over the place. It’s difficult to escape. And when we spiritualize it, it gets even more dangerous. We start to think in terms of what we’re entitled to, what we’re owed. As if instead of Jesus dying for the forgiveness of sins, we think he died in order that we might grow our businesses, or so that we could put a pool in the backyard.

The lie that many of us in America are believing is that Jesus died in order to secure for us an easy life.

Trading eternity for $30k

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Matthew 6:24 ESV)

Roger Hershey is a regular circuit speaker with Campus Crusade for Christ. He works at Penn State now, but he was my Campus Director at Miami University for three years. He tells the story of sharing his faith with a local video store owner. Hersh (that’s what we called him) presented the gospel to this man. The guy seemed convinced that Jesus was the God-Man, able to save those who put their trust in him. At the end of the conversation, the man said that he wanted to become a Christian. But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Hersh asked him what was holding him back. He said, “I know that if I begin to follow Jesus, he will ask me to stop selling X rated videos. I make $30,000/year in pornographic video sales. I can’t give that up.”

A Principle of Non-Attachment

“The love of worldly possessions entangles the soul and prevents it from flying to God.” - St. Augustine

Rich Mullins died about a decade ago. Recently people are starting to learn how amazing his life was, outside of music. For example, at the end of his life Rich’s records were selling at the top of the Christian charts – he was easily making 6 figures a year. But in an attempt to free himself from the temptations of greed and materialism, he decided to take the average man’s working wage, which at the time was $24,000 a year. The rest was administered by his accountant and friend Jim Dunning to be given away to those in need. In an interview, Jim Dunning told a typical story about Rich Mullins:

Rich called me one time and said, “Do I have any money?” and I said, “Sure, what do you need?” He then told me about a teacher he met [who] was trying to raise money to send some kids on a wilderness trip, and he needed around three thousand dollars to do it. Rich said, “Do I have enough to do that?” He had more than enough, but he didn’t want to know how much. I told him, “Yes,” and he said, “Then can you send it to this guy?” And I did. (Quoted in James Bryan Smith, Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, 169)

Not all of us are called to Rich's lifestyle (he was single, with no dependents, and often had people provide him with meals and lodging because of who he was). But we can all work toward non-attachment, not becoming a slave to material things. The less you own, the less you have, the less you are controlled and dominated by things of the world, the more freedom you have to live a generous life toward God and other people. Simplicity and non-attachment are aids to living a big life.

Mistakes: Learning from the first public sin in the early church

Acts 5:1-11 tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They were members of the early church. Presumably they loved the Lord, or at least found themselves attracted to the body of Christ. They had seen a generous man generously sell some land and give the money to the church. And they aimed to do the same. They sold their property, but rather than give all the money to the church, they kept some back for themselves.

So what's this story about?

It's NOT about Ecclesiastical Authority
At times, this passage has used as a proof text for the use of force by ecclesiastical authority. Ananias and Sapphira try to get away with some money that belongs to the church (they steal), so Peter kills them. Sadly, this was used by the church at times (especially in the Middle Ages) as a justification for the church as being the enforcers of civil law, including capital punishment.

But this isn’t what the text says. Peter confronts Ananias, and Ananias dies. Peter predicts Sapphira’s death, and she dies too. But nowhere in the account is Peter said to have caused it. He doesn’t strike them. He doesn’t pray that God smite them. He doesn’t hire a street tough to do his dirty work for him. And even more - Acts doesn’t it even say that Peter wishes that they would die.

“When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died… At that moment, [Sapphira] fell down at his feet and died.”

It's NOT about the way guilt affects your health and happiness
Some commentators make a lot of medical speculation about their death as a way of pointing out the disastrous affects of deceit on your physical constitution. Annanias and Sapphira are so surprised and terrified and ashamed that they are caught in the act, they have a stroke or a heart attack and die right there on the spot.

I don’t find that very convincing. Nor do I think that’s the main point of what Luke is trying to get across. The truth is: Luke’s not that concerned with the medical definition of the cause of their death. This is even more significant when we take into consideration that Luke is a doctor. The fact that he doesn’t give us the medical details should tell us the point is something else. He’s not concerned with an autopsy here.

It IS about Sin and Judgment
Luke wants us to know that Ananias and Sapphira received the consequences of their sin – namely, death. God is at work. God’s judgment has come. Rather than spelling out the medical details, Luke wants us to be aware that sins brings judgment, and that God doesn’t miss anything.

It IS about Greed
Annanias and Sapphira loved the church. Maybe they loved God. But they loved money more. This is a dangerous thing, friends. And it should be a solemn warning to us. Money is important in the Bible. How we spend it is important to God. As we grow in our faith, this should be reflected in our giving. And it’s not about how much you give, as much as it is about how much you are willing to sacrifice. Remember the poor widow from Mark 12. She only gave two copper coins, while others gave much more, and Jesus commends her giving, because she gave sacrificially.

It IS about Hypocrisy
The deepest sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not greed. Peter even addresses this. The land belonged to them from the beginning. It was theirs. Commentators have their own debates about this, but most now seem to think that there was no compulsory giving in the early church. Remember Peter says, “Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?” As if to say, if you wanted the money, you shouldn’t have offered it as a gift in the first place. The issue here was not that they didn’t give enough. The issue was their deceit, and their hypocrisy. John Calvin says it well: “Luke condemns Ananias for only one crime, his wishing to deceive God and the church with a false offering.”

It IS about Jesus
Their sin is so grievous because their calling is to imitate Christ, and display him for the world around them. But consider the contrast:
- Ananias and Sapphira refused to put the money at the apostles’ feet. Jesus laid his very life at the feet of the Father.
- Ananias and Sapphira refused to share their money with their friends. Jesus handed his life into the hands of his enemies.
- They kept some back for themselves. He expended himself completely on behalf of the world.
- They tried to gain their life and they lost it. Jesus willing lost his life, only to gain it, along with the lives of those he redeemed.

What I've Been Reading (Jan 2011)

Some ever so brief reviews of the books I read in January.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings (London: Penguin, 2003; orig 1843), 288 pages.

I love A Christmas Carol and plan to read it every year during Advent. Some of the other stories in this collection I had never read before. I especially liked “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton.” This edition is great – attractive hardcover, perfect size for reading, built in ribbon bookmark. It’s this kind of book experience that keeps me resistant to ebooks. *****



Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 230 pages.

Very helpful book on mercy ministry. I recommend it to any church or ministry working with the poor in their community (or any who want to start working with the poor). The authors do a great job making the Biblical case for ministries of mercy and compassion. They also show the pitfalls that many of us fall into – creating ministries that make us feel good, but have little lasting change. My only wish is that they would have spent less time identifying problems in typical mercy ministries, and more time advocating for better approaches. Still, very helpful. All diaconal ministries should read this book. ****



A.S. Peterson, The Fiddler’s Gun (Nashville: Rabbit Room, 2009), 293 pages.

Pete Peterson (A.S.) is the brother of singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson, whose work I greatly admire. That’s why I picked up the novel. I was hoping for more. The story is of a girl growing up in an orphanage during the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Through a series of events, she kills some British soldiers, has to flee for her life, and winds up aboard a pirate ship. It’s a story designed for young adults (age 10-16 probably), and has some adult themes. The setup up for the story was interesting, and Peterson can write, but I just didn’t believe the main character. I hate be so negative, because there were some good spiritual and redemptive themes, but I wasn’t crazy about the book. **



Tim Chester, From Creation to New Creation: Making Sense of the Whole Bible Story (The Good Book Company, 2010; orig 2003), 170 pages.

Tim Chester is a gifted teacher. Much like Tim Keller, he’s fantastic at taking massive topics and boiling them down to essentials that can be digested by just about anyone. This is Chester’s attempt to tell the story of the Bible. He takes 4 major themes and traces them throughout the whole Biblical story. This is a very helpful book, and a good companion to the more theological Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson, and the more thorough Far as the Curse is Found by Michael Williams. ****


If you just had to read one: A Christmas Carol, of course.

The gospel in mime

There's a tension in any kind of mission. Mission is God's work. And yet, he wants to accomplish his work through us. It's difficult to understand how all that plays out.


I spent a summer on a mission trip with Campus Crusade in Japan. I spent time all summer with a guy named Toshioki. I shared the gospel with him ten times or more. We went to baseball games, camping; he hung out at our apartment. And finally, at the end of the summer, Toshioki told me he wanted to receive Christ. We prayed together and he asked Christ to come into his life and forgive his sins.


I was so pumped that day, I was fearless and ready to proclaim the gospel to anyone I could find. So I bumped into a guy on the way back from Toshioki’s place. This man spoke no English at all, and I spoke even less Japanese. I had a bilingual gospel tract, so I preceded to just flip pages and point. It was the gospel in mime. At the end, to my incredible surprise, this guy decided to pray. Having no idea how much he understood, or even what he was indicating, I arranged for him to meet with a Japanese Crusade staff member the following week. I'm not sure how we even set that up through our limited means of communication. But sure enough, he showed up the following week. He talked with the Japanese Christian, and it seems his conversion was real. He became involved in a disicipleship group right away.


With Toshioki, God used all of who I was – time, interest, knowledge. I laughed with him, asked him questions, went out of my way to get to know him. With the second guy, I just showed up. 


Whenever I think about the sovereignty of God as it relates to evangelism, I come back to that day in Tokyo where two students prayed to receive Christ in very different ways. Mission belongs to God, and yet he graciously wants to use us to make it happen.

What kind of extremist will you be?

I've been cool-shamed into not ever wanting to appear "extreme." That's unfortunate. Because why wouldn't I want to be known as an extremist, as long as I was an extremist for the right things?


On Good Friday in April of 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested during a peaceful protest in Birmingham. Five days later, the Birmingham News printed a letter written by eight clergymen, Christian and Jewish, criticizing King’s “impatience” and “extremism.” King responded to that letter with what we now have as the “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” In response to the critique that he was too extreme:

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" – then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience

Though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.