Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

"I long to share in His sufferings." That is the language of love. To one who does not know love it will forever be a mystery. But to the lover it is easily comprehensible. Any real mother can understand it. Down in Tennessee a few years ago a mother was out riding with her little boy. The horse took fright and ran away. The buggy was wrecked. The mother escaped without injury. But the little lad was so crippled that he was never able to sit up again.

Now, before this tragic accident the mother of this little wounded boy had been very active in the life of her Church and community. But with the coming of this great sorrow she had to give up all outside work. She gave herself instead night and day to the nursing of her boy. At times she would hold the little fellow in her arms for almost the whole night through. At last, after three years, the angel of release came and the patient sufferer went home. And there were those in the community who said, "I know that his mother will grieve. Yet his home-going must be a bit of a relief."

But what said the mother when the minister went to see her? She met the preacher at the door and as love's sweet rain ran down her face she did not say anything about being relieved at all. But this is what she said: "Oh, Brother, my little boy is gone and I can't get to do anything for him any more." Why, it was the grief of her heart that the little fellow had gone out beyond the reach of her hand where she could no longer have the joy of offering herself a living sacrifice upon the altar of his need. She longed to continually share in his suffering.

So Paul wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ because he loved Christ. Then he wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ, in the second place, because he knew that suffering was involved in being like Christ. You may suffer and yet be un-Christlike, but no man can be Christlike and fail to suffer. If you ever, by the grace of God, become a partaker of the divine nature you must also inevitably become a partaker of His sufferings.

To be Christlike is to suffer for the very simple reason that Christ cannot be what He is and fail to suffer in and for a world like ours. What is the nature of Christ? Christ is like God. Christ is God. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But what is God? There are many definitions. There is only one all comprehensive and all inclusive definition. That is that sentence of pure gold that fell from the lips of the apostle that leaned upon the bosom of his Lord. "What is God?" I ask this man who had such a wonderful knowledge of Him. And he answers, "God is love."

Now since God is love He must suffer. He cannot look upon the lost and ruined of this world without grief. He cannot behold the tragic quarrel of man with Himself without taking it to heart. There is nothing more true nor, in the deepest sense, more reasonable than this tender sentence: "In all their afflictions He was afflicted." Our afflictions must afflict Him because "His nature and His name is love."

J. Wilbur Chapman tells how he one night explored the slums of New York with Sam Hadley. About one o'clock in the morning they separated to go to their own homes. Dr. Chapman said he had not gone far before he heard Mr. Hadley saying, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" And he looked back to see his friend wringing his hands in deepest agony. He hurried to his side thinking that he had been taken suddenly ill. "What is the matter?" he asked. And the great mission worker turned his pain-pinched face back toward the slums out of which they had come and said, "Oh, the sin! Oh, the heartache! Oh, the wretchedness! It will break my heart. It has broken my heart."

Now, just as Christ cannot be Christ and not suffer in a world like ours, so He cannot be Himself and fail to make a sacrificial effort to save this world. What says the gem of the Gospel? "God so loved the world that He gave." What was the song that abidingly made Paul's heart to pulsate with heavenly hallelujahs? Just this: "He loved me and gave Himself for me." Love grieves. It does more. It serves. Love beholds the city and weeps over it. But it is not satisfied with that. It also goes to the Cross for that city over which it weeps. Sam Hadley wrings his hands in grief over the wretched in New York's slums, but he does more. He goes to their rescue.

So when Paul said, "I long to share His sufferings" he meant, "I long to be, in the truest sense, like Him. I long to see the world through His eyes. I long to feel toward men as Christ feels toward them. I long to sacrifice for them in my finite way as He sacrificed for them." And what was the outcome of this longing? There are some ambitions that God cannot gratify. To do so would only mean our impoverishment and our ruin. But such is not the case here. God graciously granted the satisfying of this longing of Saint Paul.

Listen to the testimony to the truth of that fact from his own lips. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Again he says, "For to me to live is Christ." That is, "For to me to live is to reproduce Christ. For to me to live is for Christ to live over again in me." In a most profound and vital sense he has come to share in the divine nature.