Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and
reading throughout text just part of verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse
14. I'll read the whole of the verse
and the one that follows. For the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were
all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that which died
for them and rose again. The Apostle Paul really is giving
the secret of how it is that he continues in a path of much
tribulation, much discouragement, and in a path of serving the
Lord in the way that the Lord had set him in. It wasn't for
money. He made that very clear amongst
the churches that he laboured with his own hands. He was a
tent maker. And so that he didn't make the
churches chargeable, and so that he could. teach and set forth
that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel, but
he himself, so that he could preach that, he did not make
the gospel to be of any chance. That was not his reason. He wasn't
to gain the approval of men. He wasn't seeking by flattering
words to Just see how many people would be followers of him and
how great a name that he could make for himself. But what he
says before us and before the Corinthians here as his motive
is love. The love of God constrains us,
or constrain means compel, but it's not as it were a forceful
but a drawing, a powerful effect of love, that if we put that
together with compelling, if you compel someone to do something,
you force them to do it. They don't have really an option. They must do what you want them
to do. And though all of the service
of the people of God and the Apostle Paul was a free will
offering, a free will service, but Love has such a powerful
effect that he says it is the love, not just any love, but
the love of Christ that constraineth us. And he sets forth then in
the following part of the verse, in verse 15, of how that Christ
died for all of his dear people and those that live because they
are born again of the Spirit then they live unto Him who died
for them and rose again. That great work that is done
in their hearts, the reason for it and why it is done is traced
to the love of God to His dear people in what He suffered and
bled and died for them. Before we look more closely at
the text and the word before us. I just want to make a few
comments on the beginning of the chapter to make it very clear
what is being set forth here. The Apostle knows when he's speaking
of earthly house and this tabernacle he's speaking of our bodies and
our bodies have a soul in them and at death that soul leaves
the body and goes, returns to God, and either to heaven or
to hell. But when that soul leaves, and
that is our person, really, that is who we really are, and it
leaves this tabernacle, it's unclothed, it doesn't have a
body anymore. And so he says that we groan,
desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. There is to be a body, a celestial
body, not a sinful body, but a resurrected body in due time
that we are clothed with. And so this is what he longs
for. He says, we're always confident
while we're in the body, we are absent from the Lord. and he's
labouring, whether we're present or absent, to be accepted of
the Lord. And this is the hope for all
of the people of God, the hope beyond the grave, a hope that
takes into account that the sentence against sin, all the effect on
our bodies with its illness, weaknesses and eventually to
bring us down to the grave, that God has turned that curse into
a blessing. And the apostle says that when
death should come for him, it should be absent from the body,
present with the Lord. And he saw that was the way that
God had determined now that all of his dear people should be
brought to be with him and to see him and to know Him even
as they are known, it is through death. Faith is changed to sight
through death. And it is only through death
that we shall be free of this body of death, with all its infirmities,
its pains, its sorrows, its sighings, and free as well out of the reach
of Satan, out of his temptations, and away from the world with
all of its allurements as well. Those that yield up their breath
to Christ, those that die in the Lord Jesus Christ, obtain
the victory over sin and death and hell. A solemn thing if we're
not in Christ. If when we die, the soul then
is sent to hell and banishment from God. But for the people
of God, it is the hope of that which is set before them. that
helps them to endure the troubles, the sorrows, the difficulties
that are surrounding us here below. And we know that, as our
Lord said, those that kill the body, that is all they can do.
They cannot touch the soul. And that soul then returns to
God. that gave it, and for the people
of God it's a blessed relief. One day we must all die. Whether the Lord chooses in His
sovereignty that we should die when we are a child or in middle
age or in old age and live to great years, in the end we must
all die. And how we die is determined
by God, whether we die in a so-called accident, whether we have an
illness, whether we die of old age with our faculties slowly
failing and perhaps then pneumonia or something else is used to
take us away, there will be something God has appointed that shall
put an end to our life here and shall loose the soul from its
tabernacle and bring it before God. And so may our desire be,
as the apostles was, that we labour, that whether present
or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must, he says,
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone
may receive the things done in his body, according to that he
hath done, whether it be good or bad. And so he persuades men,
knowing the terror of the Lord. But he gives us this way, which
is not a way of terror, it's not a way of fear, of a slavish
fear, but it's a way of walking in a pleasing way to the Lord. Though sin is mixed with all
we say and do, And yet it is a way that is walked because
of love, the love of Christ. It constrains the people of God
to walk in that way. I want to look then at the Lord's
help this evening. Firstly, how Christ's love is
shown and known. And then secondly, what the love
of Christ constrains people to do. And then thirdly, those constrained
by love in the scriptures at least, just some of them to demonstrate
that effect in the Holy Word of God. Firstly, how Christ's love is
known and is shown. Of course, we have set forth
in the Holy Word of God how the love of God is shown to men. All that we know of God and know
of the truths of God are set forth in the holy word of God,
and it is the privilege and blessing of God's children to actually
experience the truth of God. We read in Paul's letter to the
Romans in chapter 5 and verse 8 that God commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. So it is said before us that
we did not first seek him, but he sought us. John tells us in
his epistles that we love him because he first loved us. And God commends his love towards
us on that basis, that while we were enemies to him, while
we were yet wandering in the forbidden ways, and our language
was, depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways,
even for that Christ died for us while we were like that. We
think of our Lord on the cross at Calvary, and those that were
crying, away with him, away with him, crucify him, and the Lord
prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
They knew what they were doing is crucifying Jesus of Nazareth
as they thought, as they felt. He was a blasphemer, and he was
an imposter, and that he wasn't the Christ. But at the day of
Pentecost, when the power of the Holy Spirit came and Peter
preached, they were pricked in their hearts. They knew they
had crucified the Lord of life and glory. They fell under it.
And what must they have felt? I often feel the words in that
Acts 2 can hardly convey what they must have felt. If we had someone that we didn't
really know who they were, we thought they were someone else,
and we maltreated them even unto death, and then afterwards found
out who they were, how it would pierce our hearts. You know,
how we try in our minds to wind the clock back, to redo it, to
do it some other way, but it couldn't be done. And that being
pricked in their hearts, they fell under that. But they were
the ones that literally crucified him. But why he was crucified,
he laid down his life for his people. He died because of sin,
and every one of his people It was their sins, our sins. If we are his children, he says
that he had laid on him the iniquity of us all, all of the people
of God. So Christ's love is shown and
known in Calvary, and that is why especially the Church of
God is to remember that in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper,
this do, In remembrance of me, we're remembering Christ's love
in dying for us, in laying down his life. Greater love hath no man than
this, says our Lord, than a man lay down his life for his friends. Here, my friends, if ye do whatsoever
I command you. What is it that makes us do what
the Lord has commanded? It is His love. So Christ's love
is also shown and known in calling. The calling of God that Paul
speaks of when he writes to the Ephesians, and he says in chapter
2 and verse 4, but God who is rich in mercy for His great love
wherewith He loved us, Even while we were dead in sins hath quickened
us together with Christ, or made us alive with Christ. By grace
ye are saved. And of course, in the ordinance
of baptism, it is buried with him by baptism into death and
risen again in newness of life. And his love is set forth in
quickening a sinner passing by him while he is, him or her,
is dead in trespasses and sins and bidding them live. His love
also is known in chastening. The father's hand prepares the
cup and it is the father's rod. We read in Hebrews 12 that there
is no son that the father receives, but that he does not chasten
and correct. It is a love that is to be understood. We read in Psalm 107 of the people
of God going through one trial after another, many self-procured
trials, trials because of rebellion. They fell down, there was none
to help them. They cried unto the Lord and
the Lord delivered them out of their distresses. And all the
Lord's dealings in that Psalm, at the end we have that whoso
is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand
the loving kindness of the Lord. So the Lord's loving kindness
is to be understood. If a child is given sweets, then
they don't need much understanding to think, well, their parent
loves them, they're giving them nice things. But if they do something
wrong and they're giving a smack or chastening or banishment,
and that hurts, It takes a lot of understanding for that child
to understand there is much love or more love in that correction
of the child than in the spoiling of them or giving them good gifts. And so again, Christ's love is
shown in chastening, and every one of God's children will know
about that. He's known in his gifts as well. The Lord says, of earthly fathers,
if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him? Now the Lord was encouraging
His people to ask. Ask, and it shall be given you.
Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. And it is through the gifts that
God gives his children, they are gifts given by his love. And the greatest gift is the
Holy Spirit, that which was given at Pentecost and that which is
given to every one of the children of God, to quicken them and to
cause them to profit in the things of God. We think then of the blessings
of mercy, His long-suffering, His kindness in many ways, and
His love that is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. The love of Christ that is so
rich and it is so free for His people. It's set before us in
the Word, but every one of God's children, in greater or less
way, they know something of that love. They know how it is shown
towards them. They know it as kindled in their
own hearts because of Christ's love and God's love to them.
And they know that the Lord knows about it as well. When the Lord
dealt with Peter, lovest thou more than these? Nor thou knowest
all things, thou knowest that I love thee. The Lord knows how to make known
his love to his children, and so that they have the sense of
it. They have that upon their hearts,
and that's very evident from our text, because if that love
is to be a constraining love, a love that compels, it is a
love that is felt, it is a love that's seen, it's a love that's
realised. And I would say this, that I
proved in my experience our love is not consistent, is not all
the time. Many times we complain of a hard
heart with very little love, lumpish and crying, maybe much
rebelliousness, even stirred up against the Lord. But the
Lord knows how to soften our hearts. And the hymn writer says,
my heart will move at thy command. And it is when the love of God
is seen and realized and felt, maybe we say, why me? Why me? Why was I made to hear his voice
and enter while there's room while millions make a wretched
choice rather starve than come? Why have I been blessed in this
way and others not? Why have I these benefits and
these helps and others do not? And the love of the Lord sometimes
staggers his people. They say, what is there in me
for the Lord to love? I'm so rebellious and hard-hearted
and such base returns for that love. The apostle here, He says,
this love is a love that when it is felt, it constrains. And I want to then think of,
in the second place, what the love of Christ constrains people
to do. And those things that are set
before us, if we find we cannot do them, the Lord deliver us
from going to the law or terrorists to perform them, but know that
what is the most effectual is the love of God. The Lord would
have willing, willing subjects, willing people to obey Him in
a willing way. The most terrible solemn war
that is going on in Ukraine It has been said there. What does
the Russian president think that he is going to do, even if he
takes the land, to make 41 million people willingly, lovingly obey
him and walk in his ways, when none of them want to be ruled
by Russia? And God doesn't work like that
with his children. He makes them so they want him
to come. and they want to obey him, and
they willingly and lovingly do what he asks them to do. That
is not what we have in a natural way. A man convinced against
his will is of the same opinion still. But if the Lord changes
the heart, renews the will, turns our feet to Zion's hill, that
is a changed character, a willing character. So those things, what
are the things that the love of Christ constrains people to
do? And I put the heading in this
way. I thought, well, I'm going to
put it in the way what the love of Christ constrains His people
to do. But it is really by that constraining
that people find out they are His people. They are a people
that are made willing in the day of His power. And so rather
than have those that hear me tonight saying, well, that doesn't
apply to me because I don't think I'm one of the people of God,
or I don't know whether I'm one of the people of God, but do
we know what it is to have something of the love of God? And maybe
we could even be asked, do you love God? and really say, I hope
I do, but let us think of some of the things that people do. The first thing I'll mention
is repent, and that is to change. The command that was given to
those who were pricked in their heart was to repent or to turn
to change. With the Thessalonians, the effect
of the word being blessed was they turned from idols to the
true and the living God. And it was love that drew them.
The Lord said, no man can come unto me except the Father which
sent me draw him. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. And that drawing is a drawing
by love. And it causes one to turn and
to change direction and go away from those things that our sinful
and wrong, and unto the Lord, and really right through our
lives. We need daily repentance, daily
turning. Our hearts are deceitful, the
world is a strong pull, and very often we're reluctant to let
go of our sins and ways. But let the love of God be shed
abroad, and the hold of the world dropped. And the heart is made
willing and to turn and to change. Do we know what that is? Times
in our lives where the Lord has turned us about. Another thing is obedience. The Lord brings his people to
obedience obedience to his word, to his law, to his directions,
to them, by love. Not by constraint, but love.
As obedient children, children that do so because of the constraining
love of Christ, they want to walk in his ways. They want to
do that which is pleasing to Him. They don't want to grieve
Him. And some of us know what it was.
When we had our mother or father and we loved them, they loved
us. And we did not want to deliberately
do things to grieve them and to upset them. And what was it
really that was working there? It was love. So also it is service. The Lord
will have his people to serve him. His servants shall serve
him. Paul, in one sense, was walking
in that way. When God called him, immediately
he said to Ananias, I will show him what great things he shall
suffer for my name's sake. He wasn't chosen to be converted
and lived for many years, converted just as a Christian in obscurity
and then raised up to service, he was immediately thrust and
immediately preached Christ, Jesus, that he was the Christ. And this is what the Apostle
says here, the love of Christ constraineth us right from the
very beginning. That was the moving power that
caused him to preach Christ and then immediately suffer persecution
for it as well. Another effect of this constraining
love of the Lord is the love to the brethren. We know that
we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples indeed, in that ye love one another. And
it is a blessed thing where rather than denying a brother or a sister
in faith's faults, we are able to say, I love them for Christ's
sake. The image that they bore of Christ
and those things that they did, their prayers it may be, We love
them as we see Christ's image and work in them, though it may
be some aspects of their character and way we find hard to cope
with. That love covers a multitude
of sins or faults or failings and it brings about a love to
brethren. We think of how it was with,
we mentioned Paul, who is the author here writing to the Corinthians,
when he was converted on that Damascus road, when he was going,
bringing men and women to prison, who called upon the name of the
Lord. And God stopped him on that road
and said to him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he said, who
art thou, Lord? The Lord said, I am Jesus, whom
thou persecutest. And he was three days without
sight. But when God sent to Ananias
and said, go to one within the street, it's called Strait, and
that he might receive his sight. And Ananias said, I've heard
of many of this man, the evil that he had done, persecuting
the people of God. The Lord said, go thy way as
a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name unto the Gentiles. When
Ananias came in, he laid his hands on Saul and said, Brother
Saul, God whom thou hast seen in the way hath sent me to open
thine eyes. And all of that fear was taken
away, and there was love there, brotherly love there. because
of what had God had shown him, Saul was to him. The Lord loved
Saul, and because the Lord loved Saul of Tarsus, then Ananias
loved Saul, and he loved the Lord, and he constrained him
to go and embrace him in that way. The love of Christ, it causes
one to take up an office, deacon, a minister, a pastor, all need to be made willing.
Peter did. When Cornelius was told to send
for him in Joppa, Tanna, in the house of one Simon of Tanna,
Peter needed to be prepared and made willing to go and preach
to that people. And every called pastor needs
to be made willing to go to that people. That people needs to
be made willing to call the pastor, call the man. And every office
that is held, we know of many that have felt persuaded that
they should hold an office and have not wanted to do it. They've
struggled, they've resisted it, but God has constrained them
in the end by love to do it and to take that up. With the Apostle
Paul as well, enduring tribulation, all of God's children must. In
the Acts we read of the encouragement the apostles gave to the disciples,
that ye must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom. We are told
in Hebrews that we are to consider him that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest we be wearied and faint in our
minds. The apostle here in the context
was considering him and considering his sufferings, his death, his
laying down of his life, considering his love and what it cost him. And he says, the love of Christ
constraineth us. Our captain stood the fiery test,
and we shall stand through him. And as the hymn writer says,
that his path was much rougher and darker than mine, and shall
my Lord suffer, and shall I repine. For love of me, The Son of God
shed every drop of sacred blood. And it is then the love of Christ
constrains His people to do what He'd have them to do, to obey
Him, to serve Him, to walk in His ways. It is His chosen way
of moving a people, constraining a people with power, and it is
through love. Well what of some of those then
in our third point in the scriptures? We think of Ruth in the book
of Ruth. Ruth the Moabiteess and how she came into Israel. Naomi had gone with Elimelech,
her husband, from Bethlehem to Moab because of a famine in the
land. And when they were there, their
two sons, Marlon and Kylion, married to women of Moab, Ruth
and Orpah. And then both of those sons died
and her husband also died. So she was left a widow. and
her two sons' wives were widows as well. In those days, a widow,
they had none to provide for them. They didn't have the stay.
They were in a very, very poor situation. But you know, Ruth,
she claimed to Naomi. When Naomi was to go back and
had heard the Lord had visited her people, giving them bread,
And at first, both Ruth and Orpah said they'd go back. But Naomi
tried them both and tested them. Did they really? How could she
provide for them, whether there or in the land of Bethlehem,
land of Israel? But Ruth claimed to her. And everything that she did,
it was love. It was moved by love. We read
in that first chapter, Ruth said, And we have a picture when we
come to the end of the account when Boaz marries Ruth and there
is the line to Christ that is made known there. Then she has
the child and in verse 13, the last chapter, Boaz took Ruth
She was his wife, and when he went in unto her, the Lord gave
her conception, she bare a son. And the women said unto Naomi,
Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without
a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And then they say this, And he
shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher
of thine old age, for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, is better
to thee than seven sons hath borne him." And there we have
the line to Christ. Boaz begat Obed. Obed was the
child of Ruth. And then Obed begat Jesse, and
Jesse begat David. And that whole account, it begins
with love, love to one of the Lord's afflicted people in their
afflictions, fellowship with them. And it brings amongst the
people of God, the effect, the constraining of that, so that
Ruth leaves her gods, leaves her land, leaves her mother,
leaves her father, and she goes into a land that she didn't know
of, the constraining of love. Then we have the account in Luke
chapter 7 and in verse 37 we read of a woman that came to
our Lord Jesus and as he sat at meat in the Pharisee's house
she bought an alabaster box of ointment stood at his feet behind
him, weeping, began to wash his feet with their tears." Then
we read that she was a sinner, and the Pharisees, they knew
she had lived in open sin, and they spake against him, they
spake against her, that this man, if he were a prophet, would
have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth
him, for she is a sinner. And so our Lord told them a parable. He says, a certain creditor,
which had two debtors, the one owed 500 pence and the other
50. When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them
both. Tell me, therefore, which of
them will love him most? And the Pharisee, Simon, he answered,
I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. The Lord said,
you judge right. Then he turns to the woman and
he says to Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine
house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed
my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of my head. Now he commanded her in this
way, and he says in verse 47, Therefore I say unto thee her
sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And so that dear
woman, she had the pardon of her sins. She said to the woman,
Thy faith has saved thee. Go in peace. And you see the
constraining of that love that brought her to attend to the
Lord in that way. To kiss his feet, anoint his
head with oil, and wash his feet. with ointment and every effect
of love that she had to him and it evidenced what love he had
that was constraining her to do these things. She had been
forgiven much. And so we have those that have
tasted something of the love of God. The Apostle Paul here
is speaking of that which he himself had received and the
effect that it had in his life. Of course, another effect was
the grace. My grace is sufficient for thee. The grace is that help, that
here is love that rules and gives a real love in all of the service
that is done. It is not like the children of
Israel, with rigor forced to by their taskmasters. But it
is love. Law and terrors do but harden. All the while they work alone,
but a sense of blood-bought pardon soon dissolves the heart of stone. And the people of God, of whom
the Lord bestows his love upon them, will find times in their
lives and in their experience, and especially at times, where
the Lord would bring them, bring them to baptism, bring them to
obedience, walking in his ways, bring them to take an office
in the church, bring them to go into another country, bring
them to walk in a particular path that many might look and
say, well, how did you ever do that? How did you ever walk that
way? And the Lord says, well, it is
because of the constrainings of love. We might look back sometimes
and think, however did I do that? However did I walk in that way?
Whatever made me do that? Well, the word tonight is that
one answer to that, the constraining love of Christ upon us at that
time when it was needed to be felt in that way, to enable us
to do what he'd have us to do. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. And if the word tonight finds
us hard going, hard going with obedience, may we remember the effects of
Christ's love. And it be something we pray for,
that Lord would give us again, that love that constrains us. that has a power upon us, a drawing
power, and it has an effect. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. And may at the last our willingness
to depart this life, our willingness to let go, to be with Christ
which is far better, to have that love of the Lord to make
us willing. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.