Sharers in Suffering (Hebrews 10:33-34)

Hebrews chapter 10, we're gonna begin reading at verse 32. We'll read through the end of the chapter.

Hebrews 10, beginning at verse 32. But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For in yet a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Let's pray. Father, it is according to your great mercy and grace that we are able even to gather here together around your word.

You have preserved us and kept us. You have granted us this freedom, this opportunity, and this place.

These are all your gifts to us, and we thank you that we can enjoy them together this morning. And we pray that you would send your

Holy Spirit to be our teacher and our guide as we examine your word and look at the afflictions that your word promises some of those who have believed.

We pray that you would grant to us understanding and discernment and wisdom, contentment, and also the grace to be unwavering and to stand strong in our faith and in our love for Christ.

Unite our hearts together, we pray, and illuminate us together in your word, by your word, and in the power of your

Holy Spirit. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. The history of Christianity could be called a history of persecution, a history of opposition and hostility to the faith.

And that's a great way to start a sermon, isn't it? Because you're thinking to yourself, oh, this is gonna be another tour down Encouragement Boulevard this morning.

You're getting used to this in Hebrews chapter 10. Early Christians were no strangers to persecution or to hostility and opposition to the faith.

In fact, Acts could be called the story of the spread of the gospel in the face of almost unthinkable hostility and opposition to the truth.

And yet, in spite of all of that opposition and hostility and the persecution that was unleashed on Christians in the early church, the gospel went to the remotest parts of the world and continued even after the lifetime of the apostle

Paul. You see the persecution that the apostles were subjected to in the early chapters of Acts. In fact, you're not very far into the book of Acts.

You get into chapter three, where Peter and John heal a man who was lame at the temple gate.

And they are immediately thrown into prison for that, not because they healed a man, but because they healed a man and then preached the truth to the crowd that had gathered around.

So we read in Acts chapter four, verse three, and they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening.

And they grilled the apostles and they threatened the apostles and then released the apostles. And the apostles did what you have to do if you're gonna be faithful to the faith, and that is to preach and proclaim the truth.

So they went right back to it. And so then in Acts chapter five, verse 17 and 18, we read, but the high priest rose up along with all his associates, that is the sect of the

Sadducees, and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in public jail.

That's Acts chapter five. Then in Acts chapter seven, Stephen is stoned. In Acts chapter eight, we read of a young man who was there watching that happen and holding the garments of those who were putting him to death.

Acts chapter eight, verse one, Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day, a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Some devout men buried

Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women.

He would put them in prison. Of course, you know that that's not the end of the story for this man named Saul. He eventually was converted on the road to Damascus and became

Paul the apostle. In Acts chapter 12, before we even really get to the unfolding of the story of Paul the apostle, in Acts chapter 12, we read this.

Now about that time, Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them.

And he had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. And he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest

Peter also. Now it was during the days of unleavened bread when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the

Passover to bring him out before the people. So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church of God.

That's all the way up to Acts chapter 12. And then we get to Acts chapter 13, and the focus goes from Peter and John and the apostles in Jerusalem.

The focus goes to this young man, Saul of Tarsus, who's persecuting the church and rounding up Christians and putting them into prison in Acts chapter eight.

And then he is converted in Acts chapter nine, baptized and then goes away into hiding. And then you get to Acts chapter 13, and the focus switches over to Paul.

And we find out ironically in the providence of God that this one who was once imprisoning Christians, now he himself is going to be put into prison.

Acts chapter 14, verse nine, but Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

It's right after that the apostle tells the church and the Christians who watched him get stoned. He said to them, it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of heaven.

Acts chapter 14, verse 22. Then in Acts chapter 16, when Paul went to the city of Philippi, says the crowd rose up together against them and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.

When they had struck them with many blows, they threw him into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely. And he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stalks.

And really, the apostle Paul's ministry, one of the defining characteristics of it is his imprisonment. That is one of the most remarkable things about him, the one whose first appearance in the book of Acts is throwing

Christians into prison. He later on becomes one who spends an incredible amount of time in prison.

After his three missionary journeys, Paul was arrested in the city of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 21, and then for Acts chapter 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28, the apostle

Paul is in prison. He's in chains, two years in the city of Caesarea. And then after that, he gets on a ship and sails to the city of Rome where he spends another two years, all of that under house arrest.

Four years the apostle Paul spent in prison. And because of that, we have four of his epistles,

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the book of Philemon. After the end of the book of Acts, the apostle

Paul was briefly released from prison, but then re -arrested again for a second imprisonment, during which time he wrote 2

Timothy, the book that Dave read from this morning in the scripture reading. And eventually the apostle

Paul, not too long after writing 2 Timothy, he was executed by being beheaded along the

Appian Way outside of the city of Rome. Now, what was Paul's perspective on his imprisonment?

That's a good question. The apostle who wrote two thirds of the books of our New Testament, and was so influential in the spreading of the gospel from the city of Jerusalem all the way to the remotest parts of the earth, even at one time, intending to go as far away as Spain to spread and to preach the gospel.

What was his view of his chains and his imprisonment? In Philippians chapter one, verse 10,

Paul says, now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the

Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. How would you summarize

Paul's perspective? He would say, my imprisonment has been for the advance of the gospel and for the encouragement of other

Christians, and therefore, my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.

Paul was not concerned that he was in prison. He was only concerned that being in prison, he would be faithful to preach the truth.

Now imagine, if you will, that the church was not born in the midst of affliction and hostility and persecution, and imagine, if you will, that the

New Testament was not written at all in that environment to Christians who face that. Imagine for a moment that the

New Testament church was born under the same kind of blessings and benefits and freedom and grace that we have enjoyed in our country for the better part of the last 250 years or more.

Imagine that the New Testament were written at a time when Christianity and the spread of the gospel and religious tolerance were sort of the order of the day, and that the church was birthed in that environment.

If that had been the case, you and I would be concluding just from reading the New Testament today that persecution and opposition to the gospel are an anomaly and not the norm.

We would actually have very few examples in the New Testament of anybody ever suffering for the faith.

We would have no books written by anybody who suffered for the cause of Christ in prison if it had been birthed in different circumstances.

We would conclude that the church can only grow and grows at its finest when the church is at peace and when the church is secure and when

Christians are safe and when hostility and persecution do not exist. We would come to the conclusion that the church is at its best when it is in favor with all of the institutions of our society and culture.

When the government is influenced by Christians and those who are in government rule and administer their offices

Christianly and when justice is being done and when there is freedom, that's when the church flourishes.

We would come to the conclusion that the church is at its finest when it is at its freest if the

New Testament had been birthed under different circumstances. But because the

New Testament was written at a time when the hostility and opposition to the gospel was at a fervent pitch, for that reason, we have examples of godly and righteous and pious and devout men who suffer physical affliction and persecution and we have instructions on how to think about that persecution and how to respond to that persecution and we have instruction on how to prepare for that persecution.

I think we're at a stage now when we need to be thinking about how to prepare and how to respond and how to think about these things and Scripture tells us exactly what we are to look forward to.

And one such example of that is right here in this warning passage in Hebrews chapter 10. We have been looking at those who had endured the reproach of faith.

In fact, verses 32 to 34, I just wanna remind you of the overall outline of this entire passage because we are taking some weeks to go through it.

Verses 32 to 34, he tells them, reminds them to remember their enduring of the reproach of faith.

And then in verses 35 through 39, he tells them to look forward to receiving the reward of faith.

Those who endure faith's reproach receive faith's reward. That is a statement that I want you to get into your mind.

Those who endure the reproach of faith will receive the reward of faith. Those who endure faith's reproach get faith's reward.

And you're gonna hear me say that over and over again. I've already said it a number of times because that is really what carries us all the way through chapter 11.

In chapter 11, the faith chapter, we have example after example of people who endured the reproach of faith and then looked forward to receiving the reward of that faith.

And the author is here spelling out that very same thing. We look forward to a better possession, a lasting one, a great reward, receiving what is promised, the preserving of our soul.

All of that we anticipate with eagerness because we are those who do not shrink back to destruction, verse 39, but instead we have faith to the preserving of the soul.

We endure faith's reproach so that we look forward to because we look forward to receiving faith's reward.

So we've been looking in recent weeks at this great conflict of sufferings described in verse 32. What did it look like?

There were two different kinds of sufferings, by the way. Today we're looking at the shared sufferings. Last week we looked at the individual sufferings, the ones that people had personally themselves endured, described in verse 33.

They were made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations. You'll notice that there is a division here in the types of suffering that they were enduring.

Some partly had become a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations. Some shared with those who were so treated.

There's two different kinds of persecution that is described here. Persecution that came to them and persecution that they went to.

Persecution sometimes will find you. Sometimes you have to go find persecution and you have to look forward to it and kind of seek it out.

Now we would always prefer that persecution find us. We never try and pursue or to find persecution.

Nobody wants to live in that kind of environment. But there are two different groups of people here. Those who had endured public spectacle, becoming a public spectacle, endured a reproach and endured the tribulations.

They had endured those things. Then there is this other group in verse 33 that had shared with those who had been treated that way.

Indicating that they themselves had not necessarily been treated that way, but that they in some way participated with and joined in the affliction of those who had been suffered in that way.

Sometimes persecution puts its force against people who are immovable and unwavering and do not go along with the spirit of the age.

The persecution that will find you is the persecution that comes to you when you are doing nothing to seek it out, nothing to necessarily deserve it, but you are just unwavering and unbending in the truth.

You know what the truth is and you stand there and you proclaim it and you rest in it. You are content with it and you just are obedient to the

Lord and when you do that and the current of the culture is going an entirely different direction and it seeks to just roll right over top of you, that's when persecution finds you.

There's nothing you can do to stop it. It's just gonna happen because this is the way that the world is going and you can see it happening in our culture today.

You can see the direction that everything is going. Have you ever stood by a river that is where the water is moving rather quickly past you and you can see that under the surface of the water there is a rock there that is immovable and unwavering and you can see the water come up against that rock and the rock does not move, but the water is forced to go around it and sometimes over top of it and you know that there is pressure being put on that rock or if there's a stick that is sticking up out of the water, you can see the water hit that stick.

You know that the water is putting its pressure against that stick, but the stick or the rock is immovable and unbending and does not snap off.

It does not waver. It does not move at all and the culture, the current of that river is going against it and putting its pressure against it.

You know what the stick can do in order to not feel any of the pressure of the current of the river? It can break off and go along with the river and if you are just drifting down the river and not standing against it, then you don't feel any of the pressure, any of the current, any of the opposition at all, but if you will remain unbending and unmovable and not shaken at all and stand in the truth, when the culture begins to flow like a rapidly flowing river and you don't move, you are going to feel all of the pressure of that and it will come up against you, it will be all around you and it will even go over top of you.

That's how you need to envision that. You're not a stick or a leaf that is being pulled along by the current, but you are standing immovable and if you stand immovable, you're gonna feel that pressure.

That's the persecution that will find you. Listen, you don't need to go looking for persecution.

Just be patient. It will find you soon enough and when it does, then you will know that you are in this first group.

These things happen. We are being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations. Then there is a second group.

That's the persecution that they chose. You see, this is kind of a voluntary persecution.

When those who are so treated, you join in and share with them. You don't necessarily have to, right?

Or do you have to? You kind of do, you kind of don't. I'll get to this later. You kind of do, you kind of don't, but you join in and share with them in that persecution.

That is the second group that we're looking at today. There were some who had endured these things, they were treated this way and then there are others who joined in and jumped in and shared with those who were so treated.

Two different kinds of persecution. I want to make an observation that should be obvious to all of us, but it does need a little bit of, it should require us to think a little bit about this.

We should give some time to consider this. Not everyone suffers the same kinds of persecution or the same degrees of persecution.

You understand that, right? Not everybody suffers equally. Some are made a public spectacle, reproached and endure tribulations.

Some jump in and participate with those who are treated that way. God does not evenly distribute suffering.

You can observe this just looking around you. God does not evenly distribute suffering or persecution.

This is true of physical infirmities. God does not make everyone blind, though he does make some people blind. God does not make everyone deaf, though he does make some people deaf.

God does not make everyone crippled, he makes some people crippled. God is judicious according to his wisdom, his providence and his sovereignty to assign to us varying degrees of physical abilities as well as disabilities.

God is not fair in his distribution of money, talent, looks, skills, opportunities, natural abilities.

God is not concerned with fairness. We are preoccupied with it in our culture, but God is not at all concerned with fairness.

He does not distribute to all of us equally spiritual gifts, natural abilities, talents, stations in life, prosperity, or any of the other things that he distributes as his gifts.

And it is the same thing with suffering. You are not currently enduring the same kind and the same degree of persecution that your brothers and sisters in Christ are enduring in Afghanistan at this very moment.

You're not enduring that. I thank God for that. I'm grateful for that. It makes me pray for them and to be aware of what they're going through, but he has not distributed suffering to us in the same way that he has for them.

And even in the turning against Christians in our own culture, we're not seeing an equal degree of suffering even in our own nation.

We can name probably off, most of us probably could, off of the top of our heads, a couple of pastors who were arrested recently in recent months in Canada, James Coates and Tim Stephens.

Those two men were arrested. They weren't the only pastors in Canada with their churches open.

I know this because I know people in Canada. And I know they were attending church. I know some of them were attending church underground.

Some of them were attending church publicly. But not every pastor was arrested in Canada for having their church open.

Those two men were. They were granted the grace of suffering in that way that other pastors in Canada were not.

In our own nation, John MacArthur was threatened with all kinds of fines and possible imprisonment and other things for opening up Grace Community Church.

There are other pastors in this church that had their churches open at the same time that John MacArthur did, right? He became a target.

I did not become a target, even though we were meeting at the same time on the same day of the week. So God does not distribute his suffering and afflictions equally or fairly.

Peter, Paul, John, thousands, I would say tens of thousands of others have been asked to suffer things that I have never been asked to suffer.

You may be asked to suffer things that nobody else in this congregation will suffer. Other people in this congregation may be asked or given the gift to suffer things that you will never be asked to suffer.

The church at Thessalonica faced opposition and persecution that the church in Kootenai has never faced. God is unequal, unfair, as it were, in the distribution of his suffering.

But who ultimately controls who suffers, where they suffer, when they suffer, and how they suffer? Who controls that?

God controls it, and would you want it any other way? Would you want governing authorities to be the ones who determine that?

Would you want the wicked to be able to be the ones who determine that? God is the one who, as a sovereign

God in his providence, appoints suffering and affliction and persecution to his people, in his timing, for his purposes, for our good.

It's for his glory, and it is for our good, and these two things are not at odds with each other. Everything he does is ultimately for the best for his people that it could possibly be.

He milks from our every situation our maximum good out of that situation, whatever he appoints for us, and he at the same time milks out of that same situation maximum glory for himself.

God has so, in his providence and in his wisdom, orchestrated all of the events of human history so that all of it will unfold in a way that brings him the maximum amount of glory and does the maximum amount of good for his people, the church.

That is how God, in his wisdom, has orchestrated it, and since he is the one who orchestrates all of that and ordains all of it, you and I should not envy others who suffer less than us or more than us.

If we see somebody who is suffering persecution to a lesser degree than us, if we envy them, if we wish that we were them, if we complain against that station in life, then really what we are doing is we are calling into question, according to our judgment and our discernment, the wisdom of God, the goodness of God, the grace of God, and the providence of God, and we are saying to God, I would be more able and more wise in the distribution of these things than you are, and I would know better who should suffer and who should not suffer than you do, and I am more able to judge the right and proper disposal of all of your creation than the sovereign

God of the universe is able to judge those things. So even in the distribution of suffering, unequally as it is, you and I have to say that if it has been granted to us to suffer, just like it has been granted to us to believe, that's

Philippians 1, verse 29, if that is granted to us, then suffering is a gift.

It is not a gift that we ask for, is it? How many of you this morning, in your private, quiet time, asked the

Lord for suffering this morning? You did not. It is one of his gifts. Philippians 1, verse 29, for to you, remember

Paul wrote this in prison, to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but to suffer for him, for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.

To you it has been granted to believe, that is a gift from God, your faith is a gift from God so that you can believe, that is granted to you, that is bestowed upon you as a gracious gift of the

Father. Not only is your faith to believe a gift, whatever suffering he appoints for you is his gift to you as well.

That is how we are to think about it. So John Owen says, let every one of us be content and rejoice in whatever so way

God shall be pleased to call us to suffer for the truth of the gospel. So whether we are in the group who are so treated or the group who shares with those who are so treated, whatever our station in life is, whatever our allotment in life is, we are called to not be envious and to not complain, to see it as God's gift, ordained for us, appointed for us, it is through many tribulations that we must enter into the kingdom of heaven.

We should expect this, we see it coming. If he should so allow that nobody here ever suffers for the truth, then we will praise him for that but if he should so allow that all of us in some measure would suffer for the truth, we would praise him for that as well because that will be his good gift to us.

And those of us who do not face the hostility and the being made a public spectacle and the seizure of our property, we have an ability, scripture says, to share with those who are so treated.

That's verse 33. Sorry, yeah, 33. Partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

That word sharer is koinonioi. That sounds familiar, it's because it comes from the word koinonia which is translated fellowship so often in scripture.

It is fellowship. Typically, when we think of fellowship, what we mean is a bunch of guys or women getting together and just gabbing over food or coffee or drink.

We're just getting together, talking about life and the kids and blah, blah, blah. We just have visiting, catching up, getting together. We call that fellowship. That's really not what the

Bible means by fellowship. Now, the idea of fellowship doesn't exclude that but that is not the sum total of fellowship in the

New Testament. The idea of fellowship in the New Testament, it's actually a word that describes a partnership or an association, an active, experiential, participatory involvement in something with somebody else.

So if you and I went into a business venture together and I contributed my good looks and you contributed all the money and we went in together on this and we both had a share in this and an interest in this, then you and I could be said to be sharers or fellowshipers in that business venture.

If you and I got together and did some activity where we both invested our time, our talent or our treasure in something and then we reaped the rewards equally in that so that we had a common interest, a common goal, a common participation, a common work and interest in something and an investment in something, then we would say to be sharers in it.

We had shared with it. We had become participants or associates, partners in it, companions.

It describes one who joins with you in something, someone who shares in it with you.

And if we take the commands of the New Testament and the teaching of the New Testament seriously, then this kind of fellowship is unavoidable because you and I share a common interest.

The gospel that we preach and that we believe, it is the same gospel. We have the same name of Christ that interests us, the same kingdom truths, the truth of Scripture.

We have the same Lord. So your interest, if you're in Christ, your interests are my interests. His suffering is my suffering.

Your suffering is my suffering. His people are our people. His truth is our truth.

We have these things in common because we are one people with the Lord. We are of the same bride. We are of the same body.

We are of the same kingdom. We are of the same people. Our election and our calling, we share that in common so that everything that is his is ours.

We have the same inheritance. We have the same future. We get some of the same rewards. We worship the same

Lord. We sing the same music. We have the same family. We enjoy the same citizenship and it's not here on this earth.

All of these things we have an interest in. We are invested in those things. And listen, the more these things concern me and I am in these things, and the more that these things concern you and you are in these things, the more we are drawn together in these things and the more we participate in them together.

So if I am going to be biblical and if you are going to be biblical and we are going to do the one another's, love one another, serve one another, be kind to one another, forgive one another, be generous with one another, fellowship with one another, exercise hospitality with and to and for one another.

If we are going to do these things, then it is inevitable that we would be sharers and partakers in this common journey.

And so if I'm a sharer or partaker with you in our fellowship, in our Lord, in his sufferings, in his kingdom, in his interests, then when he is assaulted, you are assaulted.

And if you are assaulted, then I am assaulted. Once again, in our business venture where I put up the looks, you put up the money, and we are together and we're sharing in this thing.

If one of us is assaulted, let's say I'm killed and I no longer have the good looks to contribute to this venture, that hurts you, doesn't it?

Because you're a sharer with this in me. And so if something happens to me to compromise my investment in this thing in which we share, in which we enjoy this fellowship, something happens to me, it's happening to you as well, isn't it?

So in one sense, this sharing in this suffering is an unavoidable, an unavoidable consequence of our union together with Christ.

These things draw us in to the suffering of others. How did they share in it? It's verse 34, for you showed sympathy to the prisoners.

You showed sympathy to the prisoners. Now, you can't read the New Testament without coming to the conclusion, as I did at the beginning of just a survey of verses, that prison was a common thing in the first century church.

Being in jail for the faith was not an anomaly, was not an oddity, a rarity, there were a lot of them. In fact, later on in the book of Hebrews, the author says, take notice that our brother

Timothy has been released, with whom if he comes soon, I will see you. Timothy had been in prison.

We know that Paul had been in prison. Paul had probably been executed before the book of Hebrews was written, but Paul had been in prison, and then the author of Hebrews knew

Timothy, and he said that Timothy has been released, take note of that, so that if I come to you,

I'm gonna bring Timothy with me. In the New Testament, in the early church, and this is actually true for most of the ancient world, prison or imprisonment was not like you and I imagine it today.

Three hots and a cot, and not so much. Three hots and a cot, a taxpayer expense, not so much.

Whereas today, I mean, apart from obviously having the limitations on your freedom, that's obviously a detriment, the prisoners of today, in our prisons today, don't suffer anything like what they would have suffered in the first century, not at all.

In fact, prisoners in the first century, once they were in prison, they were often abandoned by loved ones and by other people, by their friends, and once they were in prison, if nobody came to bring provision to them, they didn't have provision.

Nobody showed up with a hot meal on a tray and slid it under the door or through the bars at that time.

If somebody didn't, somebody outside the prison did not show up to bring you food, you didn't eat. If they didn't show up to bring you a change of clothes, you didn't have a change of clothes.

If they didn't show up to bring you something to read or any kind of creature comfort at all, you went without that.

There was no infirmary where you could go and have your teeth worked on or get a new pair of eyeglasses or sit and cruise the internet.

There was no hospital, prison hospital, where you could go and have a sex change operation at taxpayer expense.

None of those blessings existed in the first century. None of that, none of those creature comforts. You went into prison, if somebody else didn't share in you with that and contribute to you, you were absolutely destitute.

Somebody else had to bring something to you, and so it fell to Christians. It fell to Christians to do that for the prisoners, the people in their own congregations who had been put into prison.

You say, but what about their family members? Well, what if your family members are the reason you're in prison? Oh, you say that never happened.

Oh, it did happen. It did happen in the early church. Because some of these people to whom this author is writing, they are people who had walked away from the temple and all of the old covenant, and they had embraced

Christ and come out of that, and then what do you think, how do you think that that made all of their friends and family feel who were committed to all of those features and forms of the old covenant?

They resented that, and that is why they were suffering this persecution. They had walked away from that.

So for many of those who were in prison, it is not a stretch to suggest that the imprisonment could have been caused by the betrayal of their friends and their family members, maybe even their spouse or their kids or their loved ones, their parents, who had betrayed them because they had abandoned what they considered to be the true faith and had instead turned to the

Messiah and left that old covenant, and now they were facing persecution for that. So what do you do if your family members have turned against you and they're the reason that you're in prison?

Then your only family in that case is actually your true family, which is the body of Christ and the people who know the

Lord and have fellowship with you in that. They had become sharers, and I think that this word, this idea of fellowshipping here, because it's not just the idea of sharing visiting, right, just visiting with somebody.

That's not the idea here. The idea is an investment, an act of participation in this suffering. They had become sharers in their suffering.

In what way? Well, you can imagine that they would have shared their possessions with one another, because some of them, you read in verse 34, had their property seized.

That's the same group that had been made a public spectacle or approached tribulation who had been put into prison. They had had their property seized.

And so this gave opportunity for those who had not had their property seized to take some of their property and to use it for the blessing and benefit of those who had had their property seized and were in a destitute situation, namely prison.

So they shared in that way. They also shared by associating with them. And this is the sense in which this suffering was avoidable.

It is avoidable because you can imagine a situation in which a bunch of people are thrown into prison for the faith, and all you have to do to avoid that is nothing.

That's all you have to do. You have to do nothing. That's a low bar. You just have to do nothing. You just have to lay low for a couple of weeks, keep your head down, don't say anything, don't visit them, don't contribute anything to them, do nothing to draw the attention of the governing authorities or the wicked people who are causing this suffering for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

All you have to do is nothing, and nothing will happen to you. Just be quiet.

Maybe even slightly, as a number of pastors in Canada did, and a number of pastors here in the United States did concerning John MacArthur, even just sort of a little snarky thing like, well, they got what they deserved, they're violating the law.

Just put that out there to sort of show that we're on the side of the people who are doing this to our brothers in Christ.

All you have to do is just lay low. So in this sense, this was avoidable suffering. But in the other sense, if they are going to love one another and pray for one another, be kind to one another, give to one another, serve one another, provide for widows and orphans, be generous and care for one another, if they're going to do that, then they have to actively participate in the suffering of others, and of course that would make them a target.

Because when your brothers and sisters are in prison, and you show up with a hot plate of food, and a change of clothes, a pillow and a blanket, guess what that indicates to everybody watching?

That you are one of them, and that you share with them in that, and that you put yourself in their position, and you consider their suffering to be your suffering, and you are doing everything you can to alleviate them, because you belong to them, and they belong to you.

And if that is the case, then you make yourself a target. You make yourself a target for other people who want to persecute

Christians. Hebrews 13 verse three says, "'Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, "'and those who are ill -treated, "'since you yourselves are in the body.'"

2 Timothy chapter one, those verses that Dave read at the beginning, "'The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, "'for he often refreshed me, "'and was not ashamed of my chains.

"'But when he was in Rome, "'he eagerly searched out for me and found me. "'The Lord grant to him to find mercy "'from the

Lord on that day.'" And you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus. Onesiphorus is just a, that's a guy

I want to meet in heaven. I know I'll meet him in heaven. We got a long time there. But Onesiphorus is one, Onesiphorus, and I'll have his name right when

I meet him in heaven. Onesiphorus is one of those guys that I'm looking forward to meeting in heaven. He was a man who, when he was in Rome, knowing that Paul was in prison in Rome, he sought

Paul out. He had to look for him. Hey, where can I find Paul, the apostle? You know, enemy of the state, number one.

The most well -known Christian whose suffering has become well -known throughout all the Petroleum Guard and all the believers, in fact, all of the

Roman world, everybody knew the apostle Paul was in prison. He had written letters from prison. The news of his imprisonment had spread all around.

What they didn't know was which prison is he at, where can I find him? But when Onesiphorus got to Rome, he sought for Paul, eagerly sought for Paul.

Why? So that he could refresh Paul, he could do something for Paul. This is somebody who didn't wait for persecution to come to him.

Onesiphorus went and he found persecution. He made himself a target by sharing with those who were so treated.

Onesiphorus in 2 Timothy chapter one is a perfect example of the very thing that we're talking about here. I hope that you can see how body life, life in the body of Christ is essential to being able to do this for other people and with other people.

You cannot do this if you are forsaking the assembly of yourself with other Christians. You cannot do this if you are not actively committed to and involved with the life of other believers in a

Christian church. It is impossible. You can't do this watching the live stream at home every

Sunday and never meeting the people who are in the audience. You cannot do this if you stay home and you hunker down in your bunker and wait for the bad times to happen and keep the

Christian church and your Christian family and other believers at arm's length. You can't fulfill these commands. You can't possibly participate with others in that way.

We need body life and life in the body. We need to do life with one another, be with one another in order to not only know the needs of others in the body of Christ, but also to meet those needs.

And this is how we model that behavior. It's more difficult when we are far away from people than it is when we're close to people.

I was thinking about this this last week. You hear about the persecution going on in Afghanistan and Sudan and other places around the world.

My heart goes out to them in a certain measure because they're my brothers and sisters in Christ. So I know that they are suffering.

I don't know any name in particular unless I read it online. I haven't gone and searched out that information. But I don't know their name.

I've never met with them. I've never had a cup of coffee with them. I've never sat down and talked to them. I don't know their life story, their kids' names, any of that, don't know any of it.

My heart can feel for them to a certain point, but only to a certain point. But if that type of affliction were to happen to people in this congregation, the

Christians that I know who are close to me, it's an entirely different thing, isn't it? You recognize that?

Imagine, if you will, that an entire quarter of our congregation was put in prison for the faith.

A quarter of us was just missing. That's different than reading about the suffering that is on the other side of the world.

Suddenly it becomes personal. Suddenly I know these people. Suddenly I love these people. Suddenly I have had dinner, fellowship dinners with these people in their homes.

I know their names. I know their kids' names. I know their story. I know how they got converted. I know what their needs are. I know what they struggle with.

I know their proclivities. And now it becomes personal. Imagine that a quarter of our congregation were in prison.

That's an entirely different thing. And I say this, imagine our brother Ed, just one of them, Ed was in prison.

And this time not for a swim in the Rio Grande, but for the faith. Imagine he was in prison for the faith.

Faithful to the truth and they threw poor Ed in the clinker again, but this time for the faith. Imagine that.

All of a sudden our hearts would break. We would move into prayer for this man. We'd wanna know how do we contribute to his family? How can we help

Ed? How can we visit him and encourage him and lift his spirits? We can do those things because we are close to one another.

We can't do that for our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. We can send money through organizations. We can pray for them.

But there's a tangible and real way that we can participate in the sufferings of others when we are doing life together.

That is something that is entirely different. So what do you do with this? I'm not in prison.

You're not in prison. We're not in prison. We don't know anybody in our congregation that is in prison.

So is all of this just theoretical? I would suggest you know it's not. You and I need to be preparing ourselves mentally, spiritually, and emotionally for whatever suffering

God may appoint for us. This is true in good times and bad, by the way. I know it's tempting at this point to think,

Jim, you believe in a pre -trib rapture. You think we're gonna get out of here before it gets really bad. That's not what people who believe in a pre -trib rapture believe.

It can get really bad before we ever get out of here. We just know, at least I'm confident, that we're gonna be out of here before it gets really, really, really, really bad.

Before the badness described in Revelation hits, I don't think we'll be here for that. But that doesn't exclude us from all badness or all bad things that might happen.

We can still endure a lot of bad without ever getting into the Great Tribulation. So we need to mentally, spiritually, emotionally, in terms of our body, prepare that way.

Prepare for that. Exercise your spiritual muscles now so that when the time comes for you to lift yourself up or to lift others up, you will be ready to do it.

And what do I mean by exercising your spiritual muscles? You start living now in the body with other people, getting to know them, if you haven't already.

You don't live in isolation. I know the tendency in our Western culture is to think that the best thing to do in difficult times is to buy a big chunk of land as far away from civilization as we can, build a bunker, hunker in the bunker, and keep everybody at arm's length because we can't trust anybody, we can't love anybody, we can't be near anybody, and I'm better off on my own.

No, Scripture says that the opposite is the case. The opposite is the case. If you live your entire life with your

Christian family at arm's length, you are gonna find that when you suffer, your entire Christian family is at arm's length because that's where you've put them.

And it always boggles my mind when Christians who have a loose and apathetic and very trivial connection to a local church body, they do this, and then they're always surprised when they start suffering that they're suffering alone.

What did you expect? You wanted to live alone, you wanted to be alone, you didn't want to be around anybody else, so should it surprise you that when something bad happens that you're all alone, nobody knows what's going on?

You know how people know what is going on? When you are with people who can know what is going on, and they can help you and they can live with you through that, and they can strengthen you so that if you're enduring it, they can share with you in that affliction and that suffering.

So when I talk about exercising our spiritual muscles in preparation for this, I mean that we are to exercise hospitality, we are to share our lives with others, that's biblical

Christianity. Bearing the burdens of others, allowing others to bear our burdens, becoming strong spiritually so that if we are asked to lift a heavy load, we will be able at that point to lift it, and if we are asked to share the burdens of others and lift their heavy load, then we'll be able to lift their heavy load as well.

We can be using our time now to prepare for whatever might come. Now, what is the worst case scenario of what might, what if nothing bad happens to me?

Oh, well, then I guess you wasted your life getting to know and love other great people. I guess you wasted your life serving and being compassionate and being generous, and you wasted your life getting to know other people, letting them get to know you, and sharing the little burdens in life.

Worst case scenario is that nothing bad, no suffering for the truth ever comes to you, but you have enjoyed others in the body, you have strengthened your spiritual muscles, you have participated in spiritual disciplines, you've been obedient to scripture, and you get to reap the rewards that such obedience promises.

That's worst case scenario. Well, maybe there's something else worse. I guess it's possible that suffering for the truth does come to you, in which case, you get to enjoy all of those things, and then you get to use your spiritual muscles that you spent some time building for the benefit and blessing of other people.

And then, having borne the reproach of faith, you can look forward to faith's reward. It's described in verse 34, a better possession and a lasting one.

And we'll look at what that means next week. Pray. Our Father, we thank you for your grace, your sustaining grace.

We thank you for your infinite, beautiful, perfect wisdom that you, as our sovereign

God, have promised to dispose of all of your creatures and your people and this creation according to your purposes, according to your perfect wisdom.

You are the one who has orchestrated all of this. We know that everything that has happened and is happening is under your sovereign control.

And we can trust you and rest upon your word and upon your character, your faithfulness. And at the same time, pray that you would strengthen us and give us grace to strengthen ourselves and to exercise these spiritual disciplines, these spiritual muscles, so that we may be prepared to bear the burdens of others, if so called upon.

And if not, then we get to enjoy the blessing and the benefit of being in the body and living according to the way that you have called us to live in obedience to your word and to the promptings of your spirit.

We are grateful for your work in us and through us. And we pray that you would be glorified in your church and amongst your people, here, now, and forever, that you would strengthen the brothers and sisters that we have in foreign lands who do suffer persecution.

Keep them faithful. Give them strength to be unwavering and to face whatever it is that you have appointed for them.

We know that having borne faith's reproach, they will receive faith's reward, and they will be abundantly rewarded for all that you have called them to endure when they do so with faithfulness.

Continue to build your church, we pray. Glorify your name and strengthen your people and give us grace to look forward to the reward that is to come.

We anticipate this with great expectation, knowing that you are faithful to give us all that you have promised.