Lord, we do worship You this day, to be in Your presence together. Lord, we thank You for the blessedness of being able to put all things aside, turning the eyes of our hearts upon You alone.
Lord, we thank You as we partake of You this morning, that wonderful testimony of Your table. So we come to Your Word now. The real desire of our hearts is to behold You, Lord; to see You in the fullness of Yourself; to cause Your Word to be very living within all of our hearts.
And that Your Word could do what You desire for it to do, both in each one of us individually and together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
So we turn to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5.
To me, this is a testimony of Paul’s life. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says:
For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him Who for their sakes died and rose again.
Earlier, we sang that hymn, “Living for Jesus.” As we look at these verses, I think that is one of the desires of each one of our hearts. If we asked each one in this room, “Do you want to live for yourself, or do you want to live for the Lord?” we would get a unanimous answer. Each one of us desires to live for the Lord, because we see the vanity, the destructiveness, and the futility of living for ourselves.
Paul, in these verses, gives us a key. He gives us a secret testimony within his life of how he was able to live for the Lord and not for himself. That key within Paul’s life is in verse 14, where Paul says that he was constrained. He was controlled. He was captured. He was mastered by the love of Christ.
The love of Christ governed Paul’s life in such a way that he no longer had a desire to live for himself, but he had a desire to live for Him. May that be the desire of all of our hearts. May the love of Christ capture our hearts in a fresh way.
Each one of us, really, is controlled by something. A lot of times we say that our life is out of control. But Paul, in this testimony, was saying that Christ—that love of Christ—was controlling his life.
Now, let us be clear: this is not Paul’s love for Christ, because that would fail. Our love for the Lord is a limited love. Praise the Lord that we can love Him, but that love will fail. His love never fails.
His love is a secure love. His love had captured Paul in such a way that it had mastered his life. That love was working in Paul in such a way that he would live for the Lord and not for himself anymore.
We know from the history of Paul how zealous he was, living for himself while thinking he was pleasing the Lord. But actually, he was living for himself.
May each one of us, in these difficult days and times in which we are living, know the Lord’s love. May that love of Christ touch us in a way that we would be strengthened and enabled in Him to live for Him—to be a testimony unto Him, a testimony of the very living love of Christ.
Now, what is this love of Christ? We speak of it as though it is an elementary thing to us. Do we think that it is merely a children’s song: “Jesus loves me, this I know”?
Brothers and sisters, may that song, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” never become too common to us throughout our whole lives. If it does, may we return to the Lord and ask Him to make it fresh.
“Jesus loves me, yes, I know.” That is a testimony of our lives from the first day we touch the Lord to the very end. It is a love that strengthens. It is a love that enables us to go on.
It is not an elementary love, but a fundamental and essential love within our lives. There is no way we can walk in this life except that the love of Christ keeps us, is our foundation, and encourages us to go on.
When we think of the love of Christ, we might think of other kinds of love. We think of self-love. Self-love loves itself. Self is the primary objective of self-love, and we can see, even in our own lives, the destructive nature of that.
We can think of love as the law speaks of love:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is a parallel, an equality there: love your neighbor as yourself. That is pretty good. We receive commendations in the world for that kind of love.
But is that the love of Christ? The love of Christ loves others more than Himself. It is the love of Christ that laid down His life for each one of us. It was the love of Christ in which He did not consider His own self or His own life.
He was considering the love that He had for the Father, the love that He had for each one of us, and the love that He had for the church. He esteemed that higher than His own life, and He laid His life down.
I remember Brother Kong said one time that when we try to define the things of the Lord, we only confine them. We limit them. We cannot define the love of Christ, but we can describe it. We see it described throughout the Scriptures. We see it described in His life.
In those descriptions, we begin to get a feel for it. We begin to apprehend a portion of it. But, brothers and sisters, the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. It goes so far beyond that we will never, on this earth, fully enter into an understanding of the love of Christ.
We touch a part of it, but we see only in part. Even that small part becomes more and more sufficient for each one of us in our daily lives, so that we can go on and follow Him.
There are Scriptures that speak of the love of Christ.
John 15:13 says:
Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
That is a greater love. Christ is sharing there, trying to describe and help us understand this life.
Ephesians 5 speaks of how Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a sacrifice, a pleasing aroma, acceptable to the Lord.
And 1 John 3:16—kind of the one that goes along with John 3:16—says:
Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us:
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Do we remember the latter part of that verse? We know love by this: He laid down His life for us. Why? That we lay down our lives for one another.
We are constrained by the love of Christ. As we see how much He loved us and died for us, we allow that love to capture our hearts in such a way that we lay down our lives for one another.
Brothers and sisters, this love of Christ—when we speak of the love of Christ, we are speaking of a Person. It is not a thing. It is a Person. It is Christ Himself. It is His very character. It is His very nature.
There was this love within His heart, this love that so overwhelmed Him and so characterized Him, even before the foundation of the world. There was a love there. That is Who He was. He was the Lamb before the foundation of the world.
It was this love within His heart that drew Him out of heaven to leave that throne, to come and be born in a manger, to come in such humility, not loving His own things or holding on to the things that He had.
Taking the form of a man, and even going lower than that, becoming a bondservant—it was a love within His heart that was driving Him to do that.
It was a love that kept Him upon this earth. While He was in Nazareth, most of His life upon this earth was a hidden life. Of the thirty-three years, really, most of it we do not even know anything about. It was hidden.
There was a love there that allowed Him to remain hidden, not demanding to be a great public figure, but denying His own self and going through those hidden years.
Then, when He came out into His ministry, we find that He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But that love constrained Him to go further and further. That love led Him to the cross—all the shame, all the despising, and death on the cross.
That love not only led Him to death, but it enabled Him to become sin on our behalf. He loved the Father. He loved us. He loved the church so much that He actually became sin on our behalf, that we would never have to suffer the consequences of sin.
Oh, what a love that is, brothers and sisters. As we touch it, we begin to see the vastness of it. I pray that, as we merely touch it today, it would stimulate us to go back and meditate more and more upon the love of Christ.
There is a saying about young couples getting married: we always like to say, “Love is blind.” You know, before the wedding, the husband has certain characteristics, and afterwards it is a little different. Same person, but you know.
But, brothers and sisters, Christ was not blind. He went into this with His eyes wide open. He knew exactly what He was doing. He knew exactly what He was in for. He knew exactly why He did it.
He went in with His eyes wide open, brothers and sisters. His eyes are wide open to us. He sees us. He saw us just as we were, and He died for us just as we were.
That love of Christ is so wonderful—how it led our precious Lord to go to Calvary and to die for us. But do you know something even more amazing than that?
That love of Christ is dwelling within each one of us. Oh, brothers and sisters, when we were saved, Christ came to dwell within our hearts.
When we were saved, we received all of Christ. Christ came and dwells in each one of our hearts. Do you know what is dwelling there also? The love of Christ is dwelling within each one of our hearts.
And it is complete. There is no need for that love to be increased. Just as when we were saved, we received all of Christ.
I see perplexed looks. I’m getting there.
Just as when we were saved, we received all of Christ, and daily, as we deny ourselves, we experience more of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, if we say the love of Christ is a Person, then that love of Christ is in our hearts now. And it is complete.
We go through this life and through eternity discovering and experiencing it, because our experience of the love of Christ—our knowledge of it—is incomplete.
But daily, as we deny ourselves, we come into more and more of the riches of the love of Christ that has been shed abroad in our hearts. Thank the Lord for that.
Thank the Lord that as we give ourselves to Him, as we decrease and He increases, that love comes forth in a fuller and greater measure.
Paul prayed for the Philippians in Philippians 1:9:
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and all discernment.
That word “knowledge” speaks of full, experiential knowledge. Paul desired that these Philippian believers would grow in the full knowledge of the love of Christ that had been deposited within their hearts.
Brothers and sisters, may we also come into experiencing the reality of the love of Christ that has been placed within our hearts, growing more and more in a fuller experiential knowledge of it.
As Paul testified that he was constrained by the love of Christ, may our lives also be constrained by the love of Christ.
Now, as we talk about this, we use this word constrained. Some translations say “controlled.” Other translations say “governed.” I like the word constrained.
Actually, when you look at it, it is one of those Greek words that is difficult to translate into English because there are two aspects to it.
One aspect means to restrain, and another aspect means to govern. There is a restraining aspect to the love of Christ.
It is kind of like when Paul said in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.
There is a restraint upon us, almost like the reins on a horse. They guide that horse this way, and they guide the horse that way. There is a restraint there.
Do you notice, sometimes, when you are in a situation and all of a sudden you just cannot do something? There is an inner restraint within you that will not allow you to do it. You used to be able to do it.
But all of a sudden there is an inner restraint that says, “You cannot do that. You should not do that. You cannot do that.” It is a restraint that keeps us from self-seeking. It keeps us from going on our own path of destruction.
That is one aspect of this word constrained. The other aspect means to govern—the governing influence within your life.
I like this word constrain more than control, because when you talk about control, it is almost as though we become robots and do not have a free will.
This word constrain shows how the Lord desires to constrain our lives, to govern our lives, and to master our lives in such a way that we live for Him.
A brother in the last century described the governing aspect of this as seen in Paul’s declaration in Philippians 1:21:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
That is the governing influence in our life. He said that it is an irresistible object which so controls the life of a Christian that he lives with one objective in view, to the elimination of every other possible consideration.
One objective in view. No other possible considerations. There were no rivals in Paul’s life. Paul was constrained by the love of Christ in such a way that when things drew in this direction or that direction, he knew where he was supposed to be going.
We see a picture of this in times of crisis. We saw the earthquake in Seattle this week. I do not know for sure, but I can almost guarantee you that at the moment of that earthquake, every mother whose child was near her did the same thing: she grabbed the child.
She did not think about it. She did not think of the consequences. Her first instinct—the very first thing that governed her life—was her love for the child. She grabbed that child.
We see it over and over again. We read stories of mothers and fathers running back into buildings that are on fire, cars that are on fire. You do not sit and rationalize it. There is something that governs their lives in such a way.
There is a mother’s love that so constrains them. They are not thinking of themselves. They go and protect that child.
That is the way the love of Christ was constraining Paul. He was not thinking of other considerations. His life was so driven and mastered by this love of Christ.
I was reading a story one time about two sisters who went out to China as missionaries. They were going out to the Gobi Desert to serve the Lord. It was Sister French and Sister Cable.
They wanted to go to one of the most remote places in China, which was the Gobi Desert. You do not get much more remote than the Gobi Desert.
They took a cart and followed the Great Wall. They came to the end of the Great Wall, and as they approached the end of that path, they had to go through the mountains.
Their cart could not budge out of the rut it was in. It had been going that way for thousands and thousands of years, and that was the path. They could not go any other way. That was the path to the city as they went around the mountains.
They came into the city, rested overnight, and went out the next morning. There was one gate, kind of the final gate, through which they would go out toward the Gobi Desert.
They went through that gate and looked out. They saw the vastness of the Gobi Desert. They could not believe how vast it was—just total freedom. They could go anywhere they wanted to go.
For days, they had been riding in a little cart that had them stuck in ruts, and that was the way they were going. They were restrained within that cart.
But they went through that gate, saw the vastness of the Gobi Desert, and could go anywhere they wanted to go.
Then they looked across the desert and saw a very faint little path that went off over the horizon. They asked their guide, “What is this path?”
He said, “This is the path of life.”
They said, “What do you mean?”
He said, “There is one path across this desert. You are free to go any way you want to go, but there is one path that will lead you to each of the oases, and it will lead you in life to the other side.”
As they thought upon that, it captured their hearts as a picture of the Christian life. When we are first saved, we have all this freedom. We say, “We are free, and we can do anything.”
But then our Guide, the Holy Spirit, comes to us and says, “You are free to do anything. There is a freedom there. But there is one path of life.”
There is one path of life that we are called to walk.
These sisters started off on this path of life, following their guide. As they went along, they would look over the horizon and say, “It looks like maybe we should go this way. It looks a little easier. It looks a little nicer.”
The guide would say, “No, no.” Day after day, they would ask, “Why do we not go this way? Why do we not go that way? It looks easier. This way ahead there is a mountain. Over here it looks flat.”
The guide would always say no. Finally, after a few days, the guide stopped and said, “Okay, tomorrow we are going to go on one of those paths.”
They woke up in the morning and started down one of those paths. It seemed to be going well at first, but then all of a sudden it started becoming more treacherous.
They noticed along the side of the path many bleached bones—those who had gone before—and vultures. All of a sudden they said, “We understand. We will go back to the path.”
So the guide turned around and took them back to the path. They stayed on that path all the way across the desert.
These sisters said that it was a wonderful picture to them of being constrained by the love of Christ. In yourself, you are free in this whole Christian life to go anywhere you want to go. But the love of Christ has a path that He wants us to go.
The love of Christ has a way that He wants us to go. So often we look at other ways. They seem as though they can lead to more life, an easier way, but they actually lead to death.
Brothers and sisters, as these ones learned to follow this faint path, to follow the guide, there were many comments in this book, The Gobi Desert. They said that you could look ahead and not even see the path. How could you see the path? By keeping your eyes on the guide.
The guide knew the path. The guide did not look way ahead. The guide kept his eye on the path.
They said that on that narrow path they experienced the riches of the desert. You think of a desert as a place of death, but throughout that desert, as they followed this path of life, they saw beautiful things. They saw flowers. They saw trees. They found water.
It was a narrow path, but it was a path of life. As long as they were constrained to stay on this path, they experienced more and more of it.
Brothers and sisters, as we allow the love of Christ to constrain our lives, at times the path may seem narrow. At times we may think it looks better to go another way.
But as we allow the love of Christ to constrain us and keep us, we actually enter more and more into those unfathomable riches of our precious Lord and Savior. There is a wonderful life there. He wants us to experience it daily.
To live constrained means that we are not living for ourselves, but we are living for Him. That is what captured Paul’s heart, and may that capture our hearts—that we, as that song said, would be living for Jesus, constrained by His love.
When we look at this matter of the love of Christ in the Scriptures, Paul actually uses this phrase three times.
I have said the one in Corinthians. I get to ask questions, being up here. Where is one of the other times that Paul speaks of “the love of Christ,” just that little phrase?
Romans 8. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Where is the other time it is used? Actually, it is in the letter Paul wrote that uses the word agape the most: Ephesians. The word agape, in all of Paul’s writings, is used most in Ephesians—more than Romans and more than Corinthians.
Ephesians 3:19 says, “To know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.”
Those are the three times Paul uses this phrase, “the love of Christ.” I would like us to consider this matter of being constrained by the love of Christ using these three Scriptures as a guide to help us understand it more.
First, in Romans 8, Paul speaks of how nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. When you think of the book of Romans, what do you think of?
When I think of Romans, I think of security. I think of justification. I think of sanctification. I think of the truth that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. That is a place of security.
In Romans, we see the security of the love of Christ.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul testifies of all the things he went through—all the trials, the tribulations. He was pressed, perplexed, near death. He suffered this and suffered that.
But as the love of Christ constrained him, he came into knowing the sufficiency of the love of Christ. So in 2 Corinthians we see the sufficiency of the love of Christ.
In Ephesians 3:19, we see the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. In Ephesians, we see the surpassing greatness of the love of Christ.
So turn now to Romans 8. We will look at Romans 8:35-39.
We do not have time to read Romans 8:31-34, but they really give us a basis for all that Paul testifies to in verses 35 through 39.
These are familiar verses to us. There is always a danger when we come to familiar verses that we speed-read through them. We hit the fast-forward button. Or we come to a list of things and kind of zip through the list.
May the Holy Spirit help us to read these in a fresh way this morning.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Even as it is written,
For Thy sake we are killed all the day long;
We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Brothers and sisters, this was a reality within Paul’s life. Paul was not merely trying to be a beautiful poet and give us a beautiful little saying that would encourage us. He had walked through these things. Through these things, he knew the security of the love of Christ.
This word in verse 38, which some translations render “convinced” and others “persuaded,” is the Greek word peithō. It means to win over, to bring about a change by going through an experience.
One brother translated it this way: “I have come through the process, and it is a settled conclusion.” Paul had been through it, and it was a settled conclusion.
He was not persuaded by some mental argument. He had experienced the reality of the love of Christ. He knew that whatever he was going through did not keep him from troubles, but through all those troubles he experienced and learned the love of Christ.
He came into the reality of the security of the love of Christ: there was nothing, absolutely no circumstance or situation, that would separate him from the love of Christ.
It was a law that would not let him go. When he faced any situation, the love of Christ was sufficient and carried him through.
I think that is the desire of all our hearts. May the love of Christ capture us in a way that causes us to know that security.
There is one word that is not in this list, and I want to pose a question. I ask you to listen attentively so that I am not misunderstood. There is a certain word not listed here, and actually the enemy uses it most to accuse us and accuse God that we have been separated from the love of Christ.
Can sin separate you from the love of Christ?
No. Absolutely not. While we were yet sinners, God demonstrated His love to us in that Christ died for us.
Now think for a minute. What happened in the garden when sin entered? When our forefathers, Adam and Eve, were in that garden, sin entered in. There was a separation.
It was separation from His presence. A gap was created. It was a separation in fellowship and communion. They were outside the garden.
But there was not a separation from the love of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, there are many consequences to sin, and I do not want to be misunderstood on this. Sin can separate us from the presence of the Lord. It can separate us from communion and fellowship with Him and with one another.
But never let the enemy tell you that sin separates you from the love of Christ. There is absolutely nothing that separates us from the love of Christ.
There is security there. If we can hold on to that, then surely, when we sin, we need to know the power of that cleansing blood and have our relationship with the Lord restored.
But it is His love that provided the blood of the Lamb to restore that relationship. This accusation of the enemy can cripple us for life. Brothers and sisters, may we know the security of the love of Christ that will never let us go.
I was reading a story of a group of botanists from England who went over to Switzerland. They had been commissioned by the queen to get a sample of every flower in Switzerland.
If you are familiar with Switzerland, it has beautiful flowers growing throughout the mountains. This was before the days of environmentalists, when you could not pick flowers. So these men were gathering different flowers to take back and show the queen the many varieties.
They had been there for a month or so, gathering all these different flowers, and they thought they were almost finished. One time, they were up on a mountain cliff, looked down, and saw one particularly beautiful flower that they did not have.
It was out of reach, and they did not know how they were going to get it.
A little Swiss lad came home from school, and they called him over. They said, “We will give you five Swiss francs. We have a very good rope here, and we will lower you down. You can pick the final one.”
One of the men in the group was very big. He looked like someone who could hold you securely. The little boy looked at that big man, looked down at the flower, and looked at the money. His family needed the money. They were poor mountain folk.
They said, “We will give you ten Swiss francs.” His eyes got bigger. Then he said, “Just a minute. I will be right back.”
He went home, which was not far away, and came running back with another young lad, a little older than he was.
He said, “I will go down and get your flower. I will go down the cliff, but my older brother holds the rope.”
Brothers and sisters, we have an Elder Brother who is holding the rope for us. That boy knew his older brother. He trusted his older brother. They had been through things together, and he trusted that he could go over that cliff and pick the flower because he knew his older brother would not let him go.
Brothers and sisters, we have an Elder Brother who is not going to let us go. He holds ever so tight, and we can put our trust in Him.
There is a security in the love of Christ that remains even though things upon this earth shake. There is a love that will not let us go.
George Matheson penned that hymn after his heart was broken when his fiancée left him as he was beginning to go blind. She let him go because he was going blind. But then, one evening, he penned that song:
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee.
Brothers and sisters, there is a security in the love of Christ that will not let us go. May we know that. May it become a reality, just as it was Paul’s testimony.
Many things come upon us that try to shake us. Are we going to let every little thing shake us? At the time, they do not seem little. They seem gigantic.
But when we read the testimonies of those who have been through impossible situations, what is their testimony? It is not of the size of the obstacle, but of the greatness of the love of Christ.
When they saw the love of Christ, the obstacle paled in comparison. That does not demean any of the things we go through. His love is simply so much greater, so much vaster, and so much more able to bring us through.
Brothers and sisters, as Paul was captured by this love, may we be captured by that love too. Why? That we no longer live for ourselves, but live for Him, and that we would know the security of the love of Christ.
Paul continues in 2 Corinthians and testifies there of how he came to know the reality of the all-sufficiency of the love of Christ.
Throughout 2 Corinthians, you will find many phrases related to sufficiency. Sometimes different translations use the word adequate. Let me read a few.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves;
but our sufficiency is from God.
And God is able to make all grace abound unto you;
that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything,
may abound unto every good work.
Always having all sufficiency in all things.
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Paul testified that Christ was his sufficiency. When I first saw this word sufficiency, I thought, “It almost seems limited.” Sufficient does not sound like a power word. You want it to be more than sufficient.
But I went to the dictionary and looked up the word sufficient. It means “to provide as much as is needed.” As much as is needed.
Whatever situation we find ourselves in, the Lord is able, through His love, to provide as much as is needed of the love of Christ to get us through that situation.
There is no limitation. The limitation comes from our own minds and our own concepts. There is no limitation on that sufficiency.
How do we know whether something is sufficient? Things get tested and proven. This week in Seattle, we found out which buildings were sufficient and which were not sufficient. A lot of them were left standing; others lacked what was needed.
But praise God, Paul testified throughout his life that he found the Lord—the sufficiency of the love of Christ. As it was tested and proven in Paul’s life, he found it to be sufficient.
Let us look at a few examples in 2 Corinthians. Over and over, Paul testifies of this. We will not expand on them too much, but just look at them.
For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia,
that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power,
insomuch that we despaired even of life:
yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves,
that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God Who raiseth the dead.
Here again, Paul learned not to live for himself, but to live for Christ. He was burdened excessively and despairing. I appreciate 2 Corinthians because we see the humanity of Paul. He shares how he felt in each of these situations.
Whether he was despairing or perplexed, he says that in each of those situations, the love of Christ was sufficient.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves;
we are pressed on every side, yet not straitened;
perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken;
smitten down, yet not destroyed.
Brothers and sisters, as Paul went through this, he knew the sufficiency of the love of that treasure which was within his life, and that treasure carried him through.
Finally, look at 2 Corinthians 11. These are verses that we often hit on fast-forward, and we need to stop and really see what Paul is saying.
Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as one beside himself; I more:
in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck,
a night and a day have I been in the deep;
in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers,
in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles,
in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea,
in perils among false brethren;
in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst,
in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily,
anxiety for all the churches.
Brothers and sisters, Paul went through each one of these things, and he knew that he could not make it through them in himself.
To me, it is a wonderful and liberating experience that Paul encountered when he said, “I cannot make it through this. It is not I, but Christ. I cannot get through this situation. It is greater than me.”
“All my strength, everything I am going to try to do—I cannot do it. But I know there is a life within me. I know that there is a sufficiency of love within me that can get me through this situation.”
“I want to yield to that. I want to prove the Lord in this situation. I want to prove that when He says His love is sufficient for me, whether I am in prison, going through perplexity, or in despair, His love is sufficient.”
“I want to allow the Lord to meet me in that situation, that I can testify of the sufficiency of the love of Christ, whatever the situation may be.”
Brothers and sisters, the situations some people face are incomprehensible. They are overwhelming. We cannot even imagine them.
The only thing we can really rely on is simply knowing that the love of Christ is sufficient in any situation. All we can do is give these ones to the Lord and encourage them in that.
There is no way we can comprehend what they are going through, but there is One Who can comprehend it. There is One Whose love is sufficient to meet them in that particular moment and at that particular time.
They gain a treasure. They gain a vastness of knowing the love of Christ that sustains them through to glory.
We end up basking in the overflow of those who have experienced the all-sufficiency of the love of Christ. When you are around a brother or sister who has been through something you cannot comprehend, you know how it makes you feel.
There is an overflow of life. There is an overflow of love. You look upon that person and see the love of Christ carrying them through it. You do not see merely the circumstance; you see how Christ was there, all in all, in every situation.
We can encourage each other in that way.
One of my favorite men from the 1800s was C. H. Spurgeon. I love Spurgeon stories. Spurgeon, if you have ever read anything about him, loved eating. He was very rotund, we will put it politely.
After a meeting one Sunday, a little farmer’s family invited him home to eat at the farm. They prepared a feast, and Spurgeon ate and ate and ate. They had a wonderful time of fellowship together.
Afterward, they walked outside and around the barnyard a little bit. Spurgeon had eaten a little too much, and he was walking it off.
As he walked around, he looked up at a weather vane on top of the barn. He could see that something was written on it, but he could not make it out. So he asked the farmer, “What is written on that weather vane?”
The farmer said, “God is love.”
Spurgeon kind of jumped back. “What do you mean, ‘God is love’ on a weather vane? God’s love is unchangeable. God’s love is absolute. God’s love does not flip here and flip there. God’s love is secure. God’s love is always there.”
“What are you doing making it whirl around like a weather vane?”
You have to give that little farmer credit. He kind of picked himself up off the ground after being chewed out by Spurgeon and said, “Well, what you are saying is true. God’s love is unchangeable.”
“But when I look up at that weather vane and see, ‘God is love,’ I know that the love of God, expressed through our Lord Jesus, is with me whichever way the wind is blowing.”
We know that when the wind is blowing pleasantly, as a gentle breeze. We are getting ready for a snowstorm, a northeaster, or whatever those things may be. Do we know that the love of God, expressed in Christ Jesus, is with us whichever way the wind is blowing?
In ourselves—I mean myself—we are so fickle. We forget it, and we complain. But then His love draws us back, and He says, “I am with you. I never leave you nor forsake you.”
The wind may be a nice breeze, a hot breeze, or a cold breeze. Whichever way the wind is blowing, the love of Christ is with us, brothers and sisters. The love of Christ will carry us through and be all-sufficient.
Now, as we enter into seeing more and more of the security and sufficiency of the love of Christ, how does the Lord express it to us?
At times, we know that we have the Holy Spirit and that the love of Christ has been shed abroad in our hearts. It is there. We know that as we read the Word, the love of Christ meets us.
But there is another way in which the love of Christ is expressed. Paul testifies to this in 2 Corinthians 7:5-6.
Paul had written to the Corinthians, and he was distressed because he loved them so much. He was concerned about how they would respond to that letter, because it was a tough letter. It was a love letter, but it was a tough letter.
In this, we see how the love of Christ meets Paul again.
For even when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief,
but we were afflicted on every side; without were fightings, within were fears.
Nevertheless He that comforteth the lowly, even God, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
The love of Christ was manifested to Paul through Titus. It was manifested through another brother.
Do we receive the love of Christ as it is manifested through one another, encouraging each other?
In Romans, Paul testified of how Priscilla and Aquila risked their own lives for him. In 2 Timothy, Paul testified that Onesiphorus was not ashamed of his chains when he was imprisoned in Rome, but eagerly searched him out and refreshed him.
Brothers and sisters, the love of Christ is expressed not only directly through the Holy Spirit and through the Word, but also through one another.
May we be vessels to one another, manifesting the love of Christ. As it captures our hearts, may we share it. May we allow that love to flow through us.
If Paul needed that encouragement, if Paul needed that, how much more do we need it? Let us not think that we do not need it. The love of Christ is sufficient in every situation.
I will try to wrap this up now.
Where do we look for our security and our sufficiency? There are many things in this world. At times, we can look for the pleasures of the world—in family, jobs, success, and education.
Years ago, people would say, “If you get a certain degree, you will be set for life.” Years ago, if you earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and got a job with an aviation company, you would be set for life.
But all of a sudden, the industry changes. The security of the love of Christ holds those people and allows them to keep going on.
Brothers and sisters, we do not find our security in anything else but Christ.
The question we have to ask is this: Is Christ sufficient for us? Is the security of the love of Christ and the sufficiency of the love of Christ sufficient for us?
It was sufficient for Paul. That was his testimony.
He continued as he was touched by this love of Christ. We will close with this passage in Ephesians.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,
that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
Rooted and grounded—that is the security of the love of Christ, the absolutely foundational and essential element.
As we are rooted and grounded in that love, Paul prays that we would be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the depth, the vastness, and the many-sidedness of the love of Christ.
And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
One brother, in a commentary on verse 19, said that Paul prays that they would know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. He is praying that they would know the unknowable.
How can we ever know it? We can apprehend it in part.
As we come into knowing the security of the love of Christ, and as we know the sufficiency of the love of Christ, it will lead us into experiencing the surpassing greatness of the love of Christ—not only individually, but with one another, with all the saints. That is upon His heart.
Brothers and sisters, Paul’s testimony was that he did not want to live for himself; he wanted to live for the Lord.
As we have that desire within our hearts in these days, may we allow the love of Christ that has been deposited within our hearts to come forth and lead us into experiencing it in a fuller and greater measure.
Let us pray.
Lord, we do thank You for Your love that You have so manifested unto each one of us.
Lord, each one of us sits here today as a token, as a testimony, of the love of Christ. Left to ourselves, we would go our own ways.
But Lord, we thank You that You have loved us with an everlasting love. Thank You, Lord, how You came down. You wrapped Your arms of love around each one of us. You took the initiative. You sought us out and drew us back to Yourself.
Lord, we know that we cannot even purpose in our own hearts to love You. But we can simply be willing, Lord, to follow You wherever You go.
We can be willing to allow Your love to constrain us and Your love to lead us on, that we could all grow in knowing the security, the sufficiency, and the surpassing greatness of the love of Christ.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.