Transcript

Who Are You Living For?

2 Corinthians 5:11-15
June 29, 2014
Pastor Randy Smith

In 1858, Frances Ridley Havergal visited Dusseldorf, Germany where she saw a copy of Sternburg's great painting "The Crucifixion" which depicts Christ, wearing His crown of thorns as He stands before Pilate and the mob. The painting had a subtitle associated with the picture asking: "All this I did for thee; what has thou done for Me?"

Inspired by this probing question, Havergal wrote her poem, "I Gave My Life for Thee." As the story goes Frances was not pleased with the poem and tossed it into the fireplace, but a strong downdraft blew the paper out of the fire and onto the hearth. Feeling that this might have been providential, she took the slightly-scorched paper, folded it, and sent it to her father in England who composed a tune to match the words and had it published. Years later, Phillip Bliss wrote the more familiar tune of this now great hymn entitled, "I Gave My Life for Thee."

I gave My life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
That thou might'st ransomed be,
And quickened from the dead;
I gave, I gave My life for thee,
What hast thou given for Me?

This question has plagued all true Christians throughout the centuries. We know that salvation is a free gift. We know that we can't nor are we ever commanded to repay Christ for our salvation. Yet we know, as we learned last week, verse 9, to have it "as our ambition…to be pleasing to Him."

We grieve over our sins that break our Lord's heart. But the root of our sins and that which is more grieving to our own heart is the simple fact that our hearts are too often characterized by an infrequent and half-hearted desire to please the Lord. We know His desire for us. And despite that, we simply do not always have the same desire for Him. We are all guilty of self-serving, self-pleasing and living for self. As Walter Chantry said, "That monster [in us] cries out daily to be served (Studies in Self-Denial).

This morning I would like to provide for you what I have learned this week from the Bible that will assist all of us in this area. So how can we cultivate a heart that desires to be more pleasing to God? Let's go to the Word of God and find out. Here we go!

1. APPEARANCE OVER HEART (verse 12)

First of all, point one, we must always remember that God looks at and is ultimately concerned with our heart. The classic verse is 1 Samuel 16:7, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

So we just recognized Father's Day. I was so blessed by my children. They made it a point to spend time with me. They went out of their way to prepare personal cards expressing with carefully chosen words the ways they are thankful that I am their father. I was honored that they didn't just go through the customary motions regardless of how extravagant their gifts might have been, but rather based upon their actions they gave me their hearts. Every parent, every person can identify with these sentiments. God operates in the same way.

We admit that every day is Father's Day for our heavenly father. We admit that we desire to please Him as well, but the tokens of our offerings are sometimes just religious activities totally disengaged from the heart. We pray, but are we really focused? We go to church, but do we really want to be here? We confess He's number one, but we're more interested in following the world and consumed with their approval. Jesus nailed it when He said, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me" (Mk. 7:6).

Let me provide the context. This section of 2 Corinthians 5 is no different than what we have seen throughout this letter. Remember the purpose? The apostle Paul was being attacked by false teachers that were seeking to undermine his authority . They knew if they could turn the church away from Paul, they could infiltrate the flock and spread their destructive heresies. Paul had to first be taken out. Their strategies were effective. The people were uncertain, who to follow, which way to go.

Paul was in a tough predicament. He had to defend himself because he spoke on behalf of God. Remove Paul who was an apostle for Christ and you remove Christ! So he appealed, end of verse 11, to their consciences.

Yet Paul also knew that in defending himself he could be accused of being prideful in the wrong way. So in verse 12 he made it clear that he was "not again commending [himself] to [them] but [was] giving [them] an occasion to be proud of [him]" in the right way "so that [they] will have an answer." In other words, he was providing them with ammunition to stand on his behalf against these false teachers. And what made these false teachers different than Paul? The end of verse 12, they took "pride in appearance and not in heart."

Remember, the context is pleasing the Lord (verse 9). These false teachers had impressive actions but no heart. Paul says it was all external . Pride in their letters of recommendation. Pride in the payments they'd received. Pride in their ethnic and spiritual pedigree. Pride in their oratorical skills. Like people today. Pride in their confirmation or baptism. Pride in their family's spiritual heritage. Pride in church attendance and ministry. Paul's point, unlike him, with the false teachers there was no heart. Make a comparison Paul tells the church. Look for what God looks for! And what is that? A heart that loves Him and wants to please Him!

2. FEARING JUST GOD (verse 11)

So with that as a backdrop, how do we do that? As we cooperate with His grace, how do we love God with a sincere heart that really seeks to please Him? Two ways:

First, our second point in the sermon, we must fear Him. I get that directly from the beginning of verse 11. "Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord."

Let me first say what this is not. The Christian need not fear God as it relates to His wrath and eternal punishment. Because of our relationship with Christ, we know that all of our sins were taken away through His sacrifice on the cross. Justice was accomplished and Christ received the punishment we deserved in our place.

Yet what this does mean is that the Christian, though fully loved and accepted by the Father, still approaches God with a spirit of fear - awe and reverence. According to Proverbs, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Pr. 9:10). We pray, "Hallowed be Your name" (Mt. 6:9). He's not just the man upstairs. He is the living God, the holy One, the King of the universe.

When Paul speaks of fearing God in verse 11, it comes directly following his comments in verse 10 that all Christians "must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." Knowing that there will be a coming day of accountability in the future, leads all believers to fear displeasing Him in the present.

I believe this is the heart of fear our heavenly Father desires. Fearing man dishonors Him. But fearing His displeasure brings Him great satisfaction. After all that is what love is - not fear of what the person I love may do to me (cf. 1 Jn. 4:18), but rather fear of what I may do to hurt the person I love. It's fear of doing anything to damage the relationship. So an unbeliever's fear drives him to hide from God. A believer's fear drives him to run to God and fear displeasing Him.

3. CONTROLLED BY LOVE (verse 14)

So if fear of displeasing God is one way, from a negative perspective, we can be pleasing to the Father, from the positive perspective, being controlled by love (our third point) is another way we can be pleasing to the Father. Here we see the Judge who knows all things in our hearts is also the Savior who loves us deeply.

Look with me at verse 14. "For the love of Christ controls us." NIV puts it, "For Christ's love compels us." Literally we can say, the love of Christ "hems us in." In other words, because of Christ's love, Christians are on a road where there is no veering off course. We are "hemmed in" with only one direction, with only one logical and commanded and satisfying direction for us. And that direction is to live for His pleasure. Christ's love becomes the compulsion freeing us from all the things that enslave us to ourselves so we can be reoriented to live our lives in a totally new direction of liberation.

The motivation here to live for Christ is clearly the love of Christ. With every thought, decision or action we make, we remember the One who loves us dearly. And that love He has for us is the motivation for us to love Him in return. And why do we love Him? 1 John 4:19, "We love, because He first loved us." And how do we love Him in return? John 14:15, "If you love Me , you will keep My commandments ." It becomes the law of love. We find ourselves serving the Lord out of devotion and not out of duty.

It reminds me of a story I just read this week: A husband and wife didn't really love each other. The man was very demanding, so much so that he prepared a list of rules and regulations for his wife to follow. He insisted that she read them every day and obey them to the letter. Among other things, his "do's and don'ts" indicated such details as what time she had to get up in the morning, when his breakfast should be served, and how the housework should be done.

A few years after the husband died and the woman fell in love with another man, one who dearly loved her. They were married. This husband did everything he could to make his new wife happy, continually showering her with tokens of his appreciation.

One day as she was cleaning house she found tucked away in a drawer the list of commands her first husband had written for her. As she looked it over she realized that even though her new husband hadn't given her any kind of list, she was doing everything her first husband's list required. She was so devoted to this man because of his love for her that her deepest desire was to please him not out of obligation, but out of love. Doing things for him became a great joy (R.W. DeHaan, Our Daily Bread).

It is the same with Christ. "The love of Christ controls us" (2 Cor. 5:14). He loves us. We love Him. We show that love by seeking to deny self and please Him through obedience.

That is asking a lot, pastor! How do I know He really loves me? Verse 14 continues, "Having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died." How do you know that He really loves you? Answer: He died for you, Christian! While you were yet a sinner in rebellion to Him, before you ever reciprocated an ounce of love in return, He went to a cruel wooden cross, accepted your sin upon Himself and was slain in your place. The excruciating physical pain. The intense emotional pain. And worse off, the horrific spiritual pain of separation from the Farther. He paid it all so that we might have the only hope of being forgiven.

In other words, as a human representative, He stood in our place. He died on our behalf. And when we come to Him we identify with Him. We acknowledge Him as our Lord. We die to self. And only as we decrease in that area will we increase in our love for Him. That's verse 15, "He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf." We now live lives with the primary ambition to no longer please ourselves, but to please Him.

4. LIVNG FOR CHRIST (verse 15)

So as we conclude now with the fourth point we come full circle to the point where we began. How do we live for Christ? How do we please Him? According to this passage in 2 Corinthians it's both a negative side and the positive side of the same coin. We are continually motivated by a reverential fear of displeasing Him and grieving Him through our sin, and we have a love for Him that overflows from knowing His great love toward us. We can call it the fear factor and the love factor. The fear and the love motivate us to realize that living for Christ is living like Christ.

I find it interesting how opposite this is as compared to how we before Christ lived our lives. Receiving Christ is simply on the basis of faith. But when He then enters our life, it brings about total transformation. Being hemmed in by Him brings true freedom. Death brings life. Fear brings love. And love brings obedience. Pleasing self is gone and pleasing Him from the heart now becomes our primary passion.