Audio Transcript

We are going to look at the Book for about ten minutes and focus on Colossians 1:24. Paul says,

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

Now, I think the key to understanding is asking good questions. And I could ask maybe six or seven here, but we have time for two. First, Paul says, “I rejoice in my sufferings . . . for the sake of . . . the church.” How in the world do you do that? And the second question is, What in the world does it mean that he’s “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”? That almost sounds like blasphemy, doesn’t it? I mean, what could be lacking in the sufferings of Jesus? Those are my two questions.

How Do We Rejoice in Suffering?

Let’s take them one at a time. The way I go about trying to answer these questions is to ask, Where in Paul (or Jesus) do I find words like rejoice and words like suffering occurring together?

For example, Romans 5:3–4 says, “We rejoice in our sufferings . . .” Now, next comes the ground participle. You could translate it as “because.” So, we could say, “. . . because we know that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character” — or character could be translated as “approvedness.” It’s the sense that you’ve gone through the fire, and you came out on the other side. You think, “I made it. I’m proven like steel.” And then, “ . . . and character produces hope.” There’s the bottom-line answer to how rejoicing comes out of suffering. It’s because this suffering produces hope. That’s the first answer.

Here’s the second answer. Second Corinthians 4:16–17 says,

So we do not lose heart [which is another way to say you keep on rejoicing]. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction [and that means a lifetime] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison . . .

That’s the second answer. How in the world do you rejoice in suffering? Because your suffering is working for you an eternal weight. It lasts forever, and it’s gloriously heavy. This joy is heavy on you. That’s the second answer we would give to the question, How do you rejoice in suffering?

Here’s the third one. Philippians 2:17:

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Paul pictured his life being poured out like an offering to make their faith either come into existence or get stronger. He says, “I’m glad to be poured out. I’m glad and I rejoice with you all.” Now, that “with you all” means this faith here that just got made strong by Paul’s enduring things for them, being poured out for them — that faith must include rejoicing. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense. So, as their faith grew, their joy grew.

In Philippians 1:25, he calls it “the joy of faith,” and he’s giving his life for the joy of faith in his converts. And he says, “I rejoice with you all,” which means that when your life is poured out for another person’s joy or faith, your joy gets bigger in their joy. That’s the third answer to the question.

Those are three answers to the question, How in the world can Paul say, “I rejoice in my sufferings”? There are more. But let’s just jump to Jesus. Here’s Jesus’s answer:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad . . . (Matthew 5:11–12) Just let that sink in, because that’s going to happen to you. And it hurts, right? It hurts. Somebody persecutes you. Somebody speaks evil against you. Somebody lies about you. Somebody slanders you on campus, and it’s not true. You think, “That’s not true. You shouldn’t say that about me.” And it hurts. It makes you angry. Then there’s another kind of human being, and it’s this kind: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

So, those are four answers to the question, How in the world can you join Paul in rejoicing in your sufferings?

How Do We Fill Up Christ’s Afflictions?

Here’s the second question, and this one is more immediately, obviously missions-oriented. That one is clearly for missions as well because you’re going to see in this second question that missions involves suffering. And if you can’t rejoice in your sufferings, you simply won’t survive. You will not survive — not Christianity life, anyway.

Here’s the second question: What does Paul mean when he says, “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s [sufferings]”? How would you go about answering that?

Well, first of all, what I do is try to nail down the question, Is it possible to improve upon the actual atoning sufferings of Jesus? Can you improve on that? Well, right here in Colossians 2, it says that God canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. He set it aside, “nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). My debts are canceled. It’s over. There’s no degree here. My debts are canceled. They’re not 90 percent canceled or 80 percent canceled or 99 percent canceled. Therefore, my sufferings can’t improve on the cancellation of my sins. So, I just rule that out.

Here it is again in Romans 8:1. It’s the same proof that you can’t improve upon the atoning work of Jesus. Paul says,

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I mean, you should just take a deep breath. There’s no condemnation in your life. I woke up feeling guilty. That was the devil. I repent. I turn away from all my sins. I clothe myself with the righteousness of Jesus. I cover myself with his blood. There’s no condemnation. It can’t be improved upon. And he goes on to say why that is: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Whose flesh? Jesus’s flesh. Whose sin? My sin. My sin condemned was condemned in his flesh. That’s called substitutionary atonement, and it cannot be improved upon.

So, that’s not the right answer. You don’t read Colossians 1:24 and say that “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” means “when Jesus died for me, that wasn’t enough.” It was enough. Well, then what in the world does it mean? What would you do to answer that question?

Sending Affection to Paul

I do the same thing I did with the first one. I want to know, in the apostle Paul’s letters, if there are places where he uses up this “filling up” language and this “lacking” language together. If I could find those two phrases back-to-back in another place, that might shed light on how this works. And there are. I’m talking about a concordance here. You know what a concordance is. They’re all online now. So, get your Bible app, do your searches, and find where “filling up” and “lacking” occur together. Well, here’s the most significant place, I think, for shedding light on this text. It’s Philippians 2:29–30:

So receive [Epaphroditus] in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.

When you hear that, bells go off and make you think, “Okay, this is going to be helpful.” What happened here? Because that’s going to shed light back on Colossians 1:24. You have those same things back-to-back. So, what happened with Epaphroditus? He filled up what was lacking in their service to Paul. Now, what’s the situation?

Epaphroditus was part of the church in Philippi. The church in Philippi wanted to bless Paul, but they were separated by hundreds of miles. He was in prison in Rome. How were they going to help him? Let me show you the situation in Philippians 4:10. Paul says,

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.

There were hundreds of miles between them. It would be like if you loved somebody and you said, “I wish I could be with you to hold you, to hug you, after the death of your mom. I wish I could be there.” That’s the situation for the Philippians. They had concern for him, but they had no opportunity. He says, “I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent” (Philippians 4:18).

So, here’s the solution. The church in Philippi loved Paul. Paul was in Rome. They were in Philippi. They didn’t have any opportunities to love him face-to-face — no opportunity to give him the food and clothing he needed. What did they do? They created a missionary called Epaphroditus. And they sent him, and Paul said, “I’m well supplied. I got it all. I received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.”

So, what then does this mean when Paul says, “He risked his life to fill up what was lacking in your service to me”? Now, if this was a class that I was teaching, I’d say, “What was lacking? What was lacking in their service?” Love was not lacking. What was lacking was a personal connection. They couldn’t touch Paul. They were far away. So, they were going to fill up this lack with Epaphroditus, and Epaphroditus was going to embody their affections for Paul. So the Philippians put their affection (their love) in Epaphroditus, they sent him to Paul, and Epaphroditus loved Paul and met his needs.

Presenting Christ’s Dying Love

I think that’s what this means in Colossians 1:24.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

What was lacking? Jesus is in heaven, risen from the dead in his body. And there are unreached people groups all over the world, and he loves them, and he means to get his love to them. And what’s lacking is the connection. And you’re it. You’re it.

In conclusion, God’s plan is that the nations be drawn to Christ, in part, by experiencing the suffering of missionaries. Paul says, “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking.” The suffering of missionaries is filling up the personal presentation of the sacrificial love of Christ. Missionaries are people who embody Christ. They are Christ to unreached peoples. And their sufferings are the sufferings of Christ. When people taste the love of missionaries suffering and laying down their lives to bring the gospel, they see Christ. And in that way, a church is planted.