Sanctification and Suffering

Becoming Like Jesus (Romans 8) Sermon 3 of 5

April 8, 1990 - Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Romans 8:16-17

" ... fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him ..."

Romans 8 Series: Becoming like Christ involves more than just beautiful theory.

INTRODUCTION

This is Palm Sunday. The jubilation of the throng is recognition of Christ's divine majesty. Shining through every word Jesus ever spoke, and every deed He ever did is the fact that Jesus is King of Kings. But this is also Passion Sunday. It is time to think of how much the love of Jesus costs Him.

[We usually relegate the serious thoughts of Christ's sorrow and suffering to the Thursday and Friday services of Holy Week — and this year Holy Week is 'getaway time' for many of our people.]

On that first Palm Sunday, before He entered Jerusalem proper on the back of a donkey— before the Triumphant Entry, Jesus paused on the Mount of Olives, probably at a place opposite the Temple, and there He wept openly.

What made Jesus weep?

And what does that weeping have to do with you and me?

Does this text - "... we are fellow heirs with Jesus if indeed we suffer with Him ..." — have anything to do with Christ's sorrow on the hillside that first Passion Sunday?

I. WHAT MADE JESUS WEEP?

NOT THE CROSS
It was NOT the cross that made Jesus weep. "He endured the cross, despising the shame." And why? For the JOY that was set before Him. The cross was the final scene of a battle that Jesus won for all of us. Jesus did not weep because He was about to suffer.
NOT THE SHAME OF BEARING OUR SIN
It was NOT even the separation that was the final, keenest agony of the cross. "Don't weep for Me!" Jesus told the women that followed Him along the route to Calvary.
Jesus hated the idea of bearing sin's penalty. He prayed that if it were possible that the cup would pass from Him. He sweat as it were great drops of blood in the agony of the burden of my sins. But that is NOT why Jesus wept.
JESUS WEPT OVER OTHERS
JESUS WEPT OVER THE LOST! For "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often I would have gathered you ... but ye would NOT!" Jesus saw the suffering and sorrow and death that lay ahead for the people who would reject the salvation that only He could bring them.

II. WHAT DOES THAT WEEPING HAVE TO DO WITH YOU AND ME?

[What is the "sorrow" which we can share with Jesus?]

IT IS NOT SACRIFICE TO GIVE UP ANY SIN
Certainly NOT a sorrow for the sins we have had to leave behind. Some people have bought into the idea that God is GOOD, but God is NOT ANY FUN. Never ever feel sorry for people who give up their sins to follow Jesus!
GENUINE SACRIFICE IS NOT WORTH MORE THAN A PASSING TEAR
And don't shed more than a passing tear for the genuine sacrifices you may be called upon to make for Jesus. [Have you ever made any real sacrifice?] (See verse 18)
Jesus didn't spare Himself. He knew that there was real JOY set before Him if He endured His cross. He calls on us to take up our cross, each one. If there must be tears, lets get them over with. THAT is not what made the Master weep!
SHARING JESUS' SORROW IS CARING FOR OTHERS, AND PARTICULARLY FOR THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE FATHER
The nearer we come to Jesus, the more we will see that we need to weep for the sorrows of those who refuse the Gift of Life! We need to weep for the things that made Jesus weep!
MOTIVATION IS EVERYTHING!
1. Weeping isn't something we can simply turn on and off like a faucet. There must be emotional involvement. We will weep over the things that really matter.
2. One must get the focus off me and mine and even ours. Even in following and serving Jesus it is all too easy to find the focus HERE. It is all too easy to want the right hand of Jesus, the place of prominence, the seat of authority.
  The necessity of "building the church" or even of "witnessing" and laying aside things of this world and lesser pursuits and following Jesus— all good and to be commended— all these can still be done in order that the "I/WE" might be lifted up!
3. Can you see the purity of Jesus' motivation? On this day of celebration — in the Garden of Gethsemane— on the Via Dolorosa —and hanging on the Cross between heaven and earth, Jesus sought the salvation, the reconciliation, the peace of OTHERS!
4. IT IS (PROBABLY) IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE ONE'S OWN MOTIVATION
  The question then is, "How can you and I submit our mixed motivation to God, and be willing to share in Christ's love for others until it breaks our hearts, and we can in some small measure share in His suffering?"
  Charles Wesley prayed with his pen, and I echo him and pray his prayer for myself, and, I hope, for you:
  Oh, that in me the sacred fire Might now begin to glow, Burn up the dross of base desire. And make the mountains flow!
  Refining Fire, go through my heart; Illuminate my soul; Scatter Thy life through every part, And sanctify the whole.
  We cannot simply decide that we shall love like Jesus and weep like Jesus and be redemptive like Jesus. But if we are willing to share in Christ's love, the love that CARES, I believe the scriptures promise us that in some measure, we may!!

[CONCLUSION:]

III. DOES JESUS CARE? IS JESUS WEAK? DOES JESUS BRING HOPE?

DOES JESUS CARE?
Does He care for ME, that my motives are mixed? For YOU, in your search for holiness? Certainly Jesus cares! The writer of Hebrews tells us that "Jesus, that He might sanctify (us) with His blood, suffered outside the (city) gate." Jesus suffered OUTSIDE for us! Jesus CARES for a lost world, too. Jesus died for the lost.
IS JESUS WEAK?
From this side of Calvary, from this side of the Resurrection— YES! Before the cross— YES! Isaiah the great prophet tells us that Jesus:
" ... was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a Lamb that is led to the slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hands. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By his knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And he will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. -Isaiah 53:7-12
What a picture of weakness! What a Man of sorrows! Can we always be seeking the pathway of power when Jesus deliberately chose the way of weakness?
DOES JESUS BRING HOPE?
Hope for what? [What do we mean by "hope?"] That we won't have any hard times? That we will always be healed of that life- threatening disease? That we will never physically die?
Hope for what? [What do we mean by "hope?"] That if we come to Him we will somehow be His favorite children, and the rest of the world can go to hell in a handcart but that somehow we won't have to suffer?
Hope for what? That if we ask Him He will let us suffer with Him, and then reign with Him, and know the JOY that He knows? Isn't that what our text is saying?
IF WE REALLY WANT TO SHARE IN CHRIST'S PASSION, WE HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF "GOING OUT TO JESUS":
(Hebrews 13:12-13) "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. HENCE, LET US GO OUT TO HIM OUTSIDE THE CAMP, BEARING HIS REPROACH." [Here in the Book of Hebrews is that theme of sharing Christ's suffering, again. We begin by being willing to have our motives purified, by being willing to identify with the suffering, rejected, "out-side" Savior! We continue as His concerns and His sorrows become our very own!]
This is Palm Sunday. The jubilation of the throng was the recognition of Christ's divine majesty.
But this is also Passion Sunday. We often limit serious thoughts of Christ's sorrow and suffering to Holy Week and Good Friday.
But if we are going to let God do a work in our fellowship as well as in our individual lives, we will ask God to help us to go to Jesus, where He is [outside the gates] to see what He sees [the needs, the spiritual death of others] and we will ask the Father to have His way in us, even in OUR weakness.

[SHALL WE PRAY:]

Lord Jesus, the sin and sickness of our world is almost overwhelming! But You have taken Christ's weakness, and through His Cross You have demonstrated Your power and victory over sin and death.

Will You let us enter into Christ's weakness? Will You help us to go to Jesus and bear His reproach? Will You demonstrate Your power in Your church once again?]

EH 23 Jesus Comes with All His Grace