For whom I have suffered the loss of all things
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things. - PHILLIPIANS 3:8
NOW, let me urge, by a few motives, that ye be not choosers of the cross, but let all without reserve be at his service.
MOTIVE 1. Absolute resignation of ourselves to the will of the Lord is necessary to evidence our sincerity. There is no reality where there is any reserve, for where Christ has the chief room in the heart, every thing will give place to him, Acts 20:24. The will must be the first sufferer, if ever a man suffer to purpose. It must be melted down into an universal compliance with the will of God.
2. Christ's standard will never be kept up in the world by a company of men who have any thing with which they cannot part for Christ. Persecution is like a fire, that will burn on and consume, aye and until it meet with something that will not burn. The wicked's malice will not end, till they can go no farther.
3. It is in some sort all one what we suffer for Christ; for in our own strength we cannot acceptably suffer the loss of any thing for him; but in his strength we are able to sustain the greatest loss, and yet say, "we have all, and abound." Peter denied Christ, at the voice of a maid; but when strengthened by his Master's grace, his boldness was so astonishingly great, "that even the rulers took knowledge of him that ho had been with Jesus." The Lord gives people strength suited to their burden. It is as easy for a strong man to lift a stone weight, as for a child to lift a pound.
4. The small things we lose for Christ, are lost indeed as to divine acceptation, when not willing to part with all for him. He will not be served by halves, nor according to our will, Mal. 1:13; 2 John 8.
Lastly, Christ stood at no loss, as too hard for us. He took the whole cup, and wrung out the dregs of it. What had become of us, had Christ dealt with the Father, as we do with him? No, but he was content to be the Father's servant in all, Psal. 40.
DIRECTIONS 1. Labour to get your hearts loosed from the world. "Love not the world, neither the things of the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Now if you would be thus loosed from the world, then let your hearts be going out more after heaven. I must put these together, for there is no parting of them. The heart will never give up its hold of the world till it be to fix on heaven. So you must do with your hearts as they do with children, when they offer to take one thing from them, they must do it by putting another thing in their hand. Now if the heart were loosed, worldly things would fall off easily, as ripe fruit from a tree; and the affections set on heaven, fit for suffering, Phil. 3:18, 19, 20.
2. Strive to get the coal of holy zeal blown up in your spirits. A bird shall as soon fly without wings, as one suffer aright without zeal for God. Zeal is an heat of the affections to Christ, his cause, his truths, and way. It is properly an affection that is betwixt married persons, by which they resent the affronts put upon their yoke-fellow, especially with respect to their chastity. "For I am jealous over you," says Paul, "with godly jealousy," 2 Cor. 11:2, 3. (Greek,) zealous over you with zeal. And if ever there was a time for this zeal, it is now, when so many are crying, let Zion be defiled, when they are setting themselves to deal with our mother as with an harlot.
3. Study experimental religion. There is no disputing against sense and feeling. Hence the unlearned, but experienced Christian has stood it out, when the disputers of this world have fallen. Study to keep up the power of godliness, communion with God in duties, and to feel the power of truth upon your hearts. Personal holiness in men's private walk is an excellent help to their keeping right in public trials.
4. Renew your repentance, and let there be no standing quarrel betwixt God and you. Unmortified, unrepented sin, leaves a sting in the conscience, deprives us of confidence with God, and so unfits us for bearing the cross.
Lastly, Live by faith. "The just shall live by faith." Let faith be employed to cast your burden on the Lord; the burden of your duty, protection, provision, and through-bearing on Christ, and to keep in your eye the promised reward, Heb. 11:26.
I should now come to speak of these things of which the saints suffer the loss, in point of confidence, for Christ. But I have before, on the third verse, spoken of these things, internal and external, with which they give up in point of confidence. I will only hint at two things:
1. The saints suffering the loss of their sufferings for Christ, in point of confidence in them. Sirs, you heard what you may be obliged to lose for Christ; but I will tell you one thing more which you must give up for him, when you have suffered the loss of all these; and that is, all confidence in these your sufferings, or else you will lose them all indeed; as when you have done, so when you have suffered, "you must say you are unprofitable servants." They will perish in their sufferings, who make their sufferings their confidence before the Lord. Consider,
1. This has been the way of all honest sufferers, Gal. 6:14; compare 2 Cor. 11:23. See also Rev. 7:14, 15. When they have lost all for him, they have renounced confidence in all, and fled naked to the horns of the altar, and durst not plead for his favour for their sufferings, but for the Lord's sufferings.
2. To plead upon sufferings for Christ is a dreadful mark of a graceless sufferer, Matth. 20:12–16. It is a sign men seek themelves and not the Lord in their sufferings, therefore they get their penny, the credit and reputation among the saints that they were seeking, and that is all.
3. What is the Lord obliged to us, when we have suffered the loss of all? Have we done more than our duty; yea, than our interest led us to? If a beggar should come in, and crave his alms as debt, because, forsooth, he stood at your door, and would not go away, though a heavy rain was falling on him all the time, what would you think of his plea? So it is with us, if we plead the merit of our sufferings.
4. None of our sufferings will abide the trial of the law, so that in our best performances that way there is sin to condemn us. So that if God would enter into judgment with us for our sufferings, we would be ruined by them. The greatest patience wants not a mixture of impatience, and the strongest faith some remaining unbelief.
Lastly, It is our honour to suffer for Christ, and considering our unworthiness and sinfulness, we may wonder if ever God honour the like of us to bear his cross. And therefore such persons are deeper in debt to free grace than other persons; because that they had any thing to lose for Christ, which many have not, and that when they had it, they had a heart to part with it for him.
2. I would take notice of the difficulty of parting with these things, in point of confidence. Such a difficulty it was to the apostle, that it was a perfect suffering on his part. He had a difficulty in renouncing them, but yet he did it.
1. It is difficult, for it is above nature to do it. It is harder for a man to renounce confidence in his suffering, than it is to suffer; or in his duties when done, than it is to do them. The latter are not beyond the power of nature, the former are, Phil. 3:3; Matth. 5:3. The influence of the law may bear a man out to the latter, but gospel grace is necessary to the former.
It is contrary to nature to do it. Not only nature cannot do it, but cannot but resist the doing of it. Nature bends always to the way of the covenant of works, which was to depend upon the good done by the man himself, and is opposite to the way of believing, which carries a man out of himself to Christ. This is a suffering to a proud heart, to have its beautiful feathers thus pulled down and trampled in the dust. To be obliged to another for life, while it thought it had a sufficiency of its own. To be at pains to do and suffer for the Lord, and after all to be obliged to renounce all it has done and suffered, and betake itself to the doing and suffering of another: to work for the winning of heaven, and then to overlook all as if they had done nothing. It is no evidence of acquaintance with the heart, where men find nothing of this difficulty. This weed grows in all men's hearts naturally, however few do sweat at the plucking it up. Amen.