Philippians 3:10,11

Philippians 3:10

The Fellowship with Christ's Sufferings.

I. It is manifest that there are senses in which we can have no community with our Lord in His sufferings, in which they were peculiar and His own. For they were meritorious sufferings, whereas we have not, and can never have, merit in God's sight; they were voluntary sufferings, whereas all our sufferings are deserved, being entailed upon us by sin. They were also distinct from ours in degree, as well as in kind. Jesus knew all things which should come upon Him; He saw the whole cup brimming over with woe, and every ingredient of every bitter drop to come was known to Him. This we are spared. That cup is dealt out to us in drops only; we never know whether we are not close approaching its end. In capacity also for suffering He surpassed us equally. It is a token of God's mercy, as well as of our infirmity, that we are ever benumbed by pain. Beyond a certain point, the anguished eye puts on darkness, the fevered frame subsides into lethargy. But so was it not with Him whom we love. In that long procession of human sorrow of which the world's history, disguise it as we will, is but the record, His mourning has ever been first, and chief, and unapproachable. Look and see whether there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow.

II. The first point of fellowship with Christ's sufferings is grief for sin, deep, earnest personal affliction for our own guilt and unworthiness. Enter into fellowship with Christ's sufferings, learn to know what sin is, and this very knowledge shall relieve you from the bondage of sin. Begin to grapple with the strong man armed that keepeth thine house within by the aid of that stronger one, who shall help thee at last to bind him and spoil his goods. It may, and it will, cost thee suffering; but is it not worth any present loss if we may live freely, and purely, and blessedly, and die without terror, and fulfil in a higher and perfect state all the best ends of our being in the sinless and everlasting service of Him from whom that being came?

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. Hi., p. 160.

Conformity to Christ's Death.

This shaping in the form of Christ's death is one of the Christian's earnest endeavours and most cherished objects in life. No advantage of birth, no distinction of rank, no triumph of intellect, no extending and pervading empire of the will, nothing, in short, that tempts ordinary men of the world, can attract him in comparison with this.

I. Christ's death was a death unto sin; and all conformity to His death must be conformity begun, continued, and completed by death unto sin. Suffering on account of sin is a very different thing from death unto sin. Fellowship with Christ's sufferings this is the restless, endless conflict of the believer's course, ever raging, ever distracting, ever wearing and wearying him; conformity to Christ's death this is the deep calm of indifference to sin, and to the solicitations of Satan, and to the allurements of the world, which is ever setting in together with and over against the conflict. This deadness to sin is the first and most essential element of conformity to the death of Christ.

II. Let us follow out this conformity to His death into some of its attendant circumstances. (1) Sin and the devil will not let us alone in its various stages. The nearer we approach in likeness to Him, the more will His enemies treat us as they treated Him. (2) Again, that death of His was a death to all mere human ambition. In conformity to His death we also must read the death-blow to all other ambition. (3) And, once more, all self-righteousness is sacrificed and nailed to His cross in those who are made in the likeness of His death. (4) Nor should we entirely dismiss such a theme without one look onwards. "If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him." The Christian should never end with Calvary, nor with the mortification of the body, nor with deadness to sin, but ever carry his thoughts onward to that blessed consummation to which these are the entrance and necessary condition.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 173.

A Sermon for Easter Day.

I. First of all, what is the event itself, the resurrection of Jesus, of which this day is the joyful commemoration? Of whom is the resurrection? Lazarus was raised from the dead by Christ; wherein did Christ's own resurrection differ from that of him whom He loved? In two most important particulars. Lazarus underwent no change from suffering, death-doomed flesh and blood to a body of the resurrection. As he entered the tomb, so he came forth from it. Then, which is closely dependent on this, Lazarus died again. His was in some sense aresurrection; but it was no part of theresurrection, of which the Lord is the example and firstfruits. For "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more"; He brought up His body out of the grave changed and glorious, with no more infirmity, no more blight of sin upon it.

II. Need we ask how the resurrection of Christ can extend beyond Himself? If these faithful and careful ones bore into the tomb the dead form of the Son of man, of our collected and concentrated humanity; if there welay with and in Him, watched by ministering angels during that solemn and mysterious pause in the Life of our life, who can tell what happened when that same form was lit up again with the returned spirit, when the Godhead again entered into its fleshly tabernacle, or rather, having taken down its frail and temporary tent, entered into its new-built and eternal temple, when those lacerated feet began their glorious and onward march of triumph, and those pierced hands unfurled God's banner of everlasting victory? He rose not alone; we, our humanity, in its whole reach and extent, rose with Him. Thus mankind, and the myriads on myriads of whom you and I are units, burst but from that tomb in and with Him, and stood complete in His resurrection. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But this power of His resurrection does not begin to be exerted in the next life; does not then first act when the mute clay bursts out into songs of praise. It is acting all through the Christian's course below, and its action is shown here by the springing up and waxing onward of that new life in His spirit which, expanded and glorified, shall continue its action through eternity.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 187.

References: Philippians 3:11. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 114; E. L. Hull, Sermons,1st series, p. 28.