We turn for our second reading to 2nd Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians and chapter 5. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, we'll read together the first 17 verses of this chapter. Our text for tonight is taken from the verses 14 and 15 of this chapter. 2 Corinthians 5, and reading from verse 1. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, and house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan. earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must 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. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. But we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Amen. Thus far we read in God's most beautiful and inspired word. Our text for tonight, as I said, is taken from the verses 14 and 15. We read there, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. of the congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this second letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians is very much a pastoral letter. It's not all that long ago that we worked our way through and finished off going right through the first letter to the Corinthians. And we saw very much likewise that that was a pastoral letter Paul had to deal with a great deal of the sins and the schism and the divisions which were present in that congregation and yet dealt with them wonderfully, lovingly, pastorally and pointed them to the gospel in all of that letter. But Paul's letter to them, God's word to them through Paul and the grace of God, the work of the Holy Spirit had worked mightily amongst the Corinthians and they had turned much from that sin. But that doesn't mean that therefore everything was wonderful in the Corinthian congregation. Not at all. There were still many struggles that were there. And in particular, they were being troubled by some who were trying to bring down the gospel ministry by attacking Paul personally and by attacking other preachers of the gospel to try and discredit them. And because of that, Paul needs to take time to actually speak of the ministry. to consider the beauty and the triumph of the Christian ministry. Because there were those who were trying to destroy the gospel by attacking the integrity of them, Paul here particularly points out the very real encouragement and life that is to be found in Jesus Christ, which was the motivation, which was everything that was behind what they were doing in ministry. So here in our text, particularly in verses 14 and 15, what Paul is doing is he's revealing, if you like, the heart or the central theme of the whole of his life and ministry. And that was not to live to himself, which in fact he was accused of, not to live to himself, but rather to live his entire life unto Christ. In the text, he also reveals how it is possible for him to do this and why he does it. As a minister of the word, obviously he was to live under Christ. minister of the word he ought to live unto Christ despite facing much discouragement and opposition and yet with all that discouragement with all that opposition and we know what Paul went through in his ministry yet he continued to live to work to do that ministry with great courage and great enthusiasm and gladness not considering himself and yet we're all called to live unto Christ every single one of us aren't we We are all ministers. To be a minister is in fact to be a servant. We're all servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, called to serve Him. We are all Christians, are we not? Is that not the name that is upon us, that I am Christ's, that I belong to Him, that I serve Him, and that therefore I carry His name upon me? If that's the case, then if that's who you identify as truly, then are you not to live unto Christ, the one by whose name you go? So, what does it mean to live unto Christ, as our text says? How is that possible? And what's our motivation for doing that? Let's consider these things under the theme, living unto Christ. And we'll consider three things. First of all, the meaning, what does this mean? Secondly, the possibility, the only way that that's possible for us to do that. And finally, we consider the motivation that's found here in our text as well. Living unto Christ. Notice our text talks about living unto ourselves. In verse 15 it says, and that Christ died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. To live for yourself means that the very reason why you live, the reason why you go about doing all the different things that you do each day, why you get out of bed in the morning, why you have the cereal that you have, why you drive in a particular way, what sort of work you do, everything you do, to live for yourself means the reason why you do those things is for me. It's for me. That's to live for yourself. Do you know we do that automatically? That's our default position, that I live for me. Every single person, every man, woman, and child that exists on this earth, naturally, what we are by nature, we live for ourselves. Now, many people might say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't live for myself. I live for my work. I live for my work. I live, in fact, to do my work involves serving people and doing lots of things for people, and I live for that. I don't live for myself. But when you start to get down to it and start to consider what people live for, they might live for sport, they might live for fame, they might live for money, they might live for their work, they might live for all those things, but why are they doing those things? The reason why they do those things is because that's what they love. Why? Because that makes them feel good, or that brings them something. In other words, once again it all comes full circle and back around, living for self. That's what it's all about. Do you know that to live itself is actually a state of death? And our text tells us that. Can you see that? The implication of our text here is that We're told here that they which live, and they now live, those which now live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, that they are now living ones. Okay, that's literally those that live are living ones. What that's implying is that when we did nothing but live for ourselves, we were dead ones. So to live for self means death. That's a life of death. And that's all that it is. Even though men and women have physical life, when their whole of their life is lived for themselves, it is a state of death. And the ugliness and the wretchedness that that is. That's not terribly surprising because that was the sin of Adam, wasn't it? Going right back to the beginning. There are many different ways to describe the sin of Adam, our forefather in the faith, but this is certainly one that very clearly was this. What did Adam do in the garden? The tempter comes to him, the liar, the deceiver, and says, has God really said that? You're missing out. Why should God have to tell you what is good and evil? Take the fruit of the tree. You make up your mind what is best for you. Don't live for God. Live for yourself. Elevate yourself. You can be as God. You can decide what's good and evil, and it'll be all for you. And Adam took that up. He fell into that idolization of self. And guess what? That same sin, it came upon all of us in Adam. So our natural state always, our default will always be to live for self. And we cannot do anything else unless we are changed from that state. What does that mean? What does that mean to live for self? What it means is a number of different things. It means that not only do I want everything to benefit me, I want everything that exists around me actually to be good for me, to doing what I think is good. I want other people to treat me well. In other words, I want people to bow down and worship me. Now, we might say, oh, no, no, I don't want people to bow down and worship me. But you want other people to be nice to you, don't you? You want other people to do what is your will, okay? This is my will. This is the way I think it should happen. This is the way that I think that things should proceed. You want people to bow down to you, to do your will, not God's will, but your will be done. That's to be godlike. It's to set yourself up as a god. Okay? Not only that, but we want other people to think we're pretty good. Okay? I want people to recognize I'm okay. I'm a pretty good person. They need to recognize how much I'm doing. Look how busy I am. Look how wonderful things that I'm doing. People better give me thanks and praise for this. Do you realize how much work I'm putting into this? I deserve glory. I'm a god. There's only one who deserves glory, and he sits in heaven. None of us deserve glory. But I set myself up as God when I say, I want thanks, I want praise, I want glory. I live for myself and not for God. We see this in all sorts of ways, don't we? We get upset and frustrated because things aren't happening the way they ought to be and I get annoyed and I'm not sitting back and saying, Lord, your will is being done. But I'm annoyed and angry and frustrated and this is not right. Me, the God here. It's horrendous. We know that in all sorts of ways, don't we? Husbands and wives, do we not know of that? The two of us come together. If there's this beautiful submitting to God perfectly, then we would be walking in a lovely way with one another. We wouldn't get frustrated with one another. Why are we getting frustrated with one another when God's will is always being done? Because we're living for self. comes out there. Children, children, you know, when mom and dad are doing this and saying that and telling you to do this and you're going, oh man, you know, mom and dad don't understand. Mom and dad just don't get it. Why? Living for self. There's a problem, isn't there? For all of us as members of the church, one with another, as we live with one another, Yeah, it comes out time and time and time again. We do not naturally desire to have God's will rule in our life. We are those that are not naturally thankful for everything that happens in life to us, even though God is exercising his perfect will in the whole of our lives. We are those that tend to live for self. and what I want, and what I need, and what I think should happen, and I want pleasure for myself. We are not thankful for the things that happen to us that God sends, that are His will, that are meant to radically change us, to transform us, that are working in our lives, even within the church, those that are around about us. Do we understand that this natural way of living for self, that Christ died to rescue us from that? Christ died in order that we might not live that way anymore. That's what our text says. And that Christ died, verse 15, that they which live, those who are the redeemed, the living ones, those who have been regenerated in Christ, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Christ, who died for them and rose again. To live unto Christ. God has redeemed us from sin in order that we might not anymore be slaves to the idol of self, but instead, with a new heart, have a freedom to live unto Christ. So what does it mean to live unto Christ? What does that mean? We've seen what it means to live unto self. What does it mean to live unto Christ? To live unto Christ means to live to him personally. It means that in the forefront of my thinking, in everything that I do, instead of having me there, because that's immediately what we do, don't we? As soon as anything is there in our life, I'm immediately thinking, how does this affect me? When something comes up and a decision needs to be made, we say, what do I want to do? But to live to Christ means you take the me and the I out of there and discard it. And instead, it is Jesus Christ that is there. So when anything happens, to live to Christ says, when this happens, how does this affect Christ and his glory and his name? Whenever any decision needs to be made, then it becomes, what would Christ have me to do? What would it be that would most glorify and honor His name? And me and I does not appear there. But it's Christ, to live for Him. You see, everything we do, everything we do, Our First Catechism says, what? Man's chief end is to glorify God. His main purpose is to glorify God in Jesus Christ. Now that means, therefore, that in everything that we do, no matter what it may be, you can think of all the different actions that you go through in your personal life. When you get out of bed in the morning and you start to do things and the activities that you do through the day, we will either be Doing those things with Christ at the center and seeking to walk in his ways and honor him in which case we will be glorifying God or We'll be living unto ourselves and we do them because of me in which case we're dishonoring God We dishonor him When we live with ourselves at the thingy, this will be best for me. This will be nicest for me This is what should happen because this is what I feel like to live under Christ. What is it that honours him? What is the best way of doing this, that this will bring the most honour and glory to his name? What is the words that I should speak that will honour him the best? What is the decision that I should make? What activity should I undertake? How should I drive? What sort of attitude should I have in my mind? Most honour and glorify my God and my Saviour. we will worship Him. We'll worship Him. So that what will characterize our life will be worship. Most of all, that in my heart and my mind, if I would live under Christ, then Sunday stands out as a day that is like this bright, shining beacon in my week. And I say, that is the day. Wonderful day and which I can come and probably we worship him like I do at the moment, but I can spend that that whole day Catechism class in the public and private exercises of his worship Beautiful a wonderful day honoring him and I can put everything else aside and honor him but that will continue through the week So that the things that will stand out in my my week my personal devotions when I worship him personally Family worship when we come together as God's people together in our family homes to worship him there and the fact that my life will be constantly punctuated by offering prayers to him because I will have a prayerful attitude. Pray continually. Worship as I live under Christ. It means that I will know his word. I will know his commands. If you love me, says Christ, keep my commandments. then I'll know what he calls me to and the principles that guide my life. And I will want to walk in these ways. It's these principles which will guide what I do, not what I feel like doing, but what he says is beautiful and good and honoring to him. And that's how I will walk. We will desire that in everything we do, that others would actually see in us a love of God and a love of Jesus Christ. So they will look at us and go, Man, it is obvious from the words that they speak and the attitudes of their heart and the way they live their life that they love Christ, that they want to give their whole life to him. So that others will see that in all that we are, the tone of our voice, the attitudes that we have, the decisions that we make. But you know, there's something even more than that to live unto Christ. It's this. It means also to live unto Christ's body, to live unto the church. Why is that? Why is that? Well, it's necessarily implied because you cannot have Jesus Christ who is sent to be the savior of his body without his body. That's not possible. It's brought out in places in scripture where it talks of the body having many members, remember in 1 Corinthians 12, and then it doesn't say, so also is the church, it says, so also is Christ. There is such an identification of the church and Christ. That's how the Bible speaks. When Saul, who became Paul, was persecuting the church, there's such an identification that Jesus Christ says, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou? Me, me. Okay, you persecute the church, you persecute Christ. So if you live under Christ, you live under the church. You cannot rip the body away from the head. If we are to live under Christ, then we need to live under the church. But you know, it's even found in the context here of our text. Notice what Paul says in verse 13, just before he actually says this. He says, talking about the way in which they exercise their ministry, So he says in verse 12, we don't commend ourselves, but he says, I desire that I may show you something that you may see and speak of this. He says, verse 13, for whether we be beside ourselves, what's for the purpose? It's to God, okay? So there it is, you see, it's for God that we devote ourselves to God. But then he says, or whether we be sober, what does he say? It's for God, no? He says it's for your cause, for the church. In everything we do, it's for God and it's for the church. And those two things are put side by side. And therefore, if we are to live unto Christ, then we're to live unto the church. The church. That's us. All of us here. We are the church. We live unto the body of Christ. To all of God's people. That means we live under the church generally. We praise and honor the church as the body of Christ. We subject our will to the will of the church. As the church lives according to the word of God, then we subject and we give our lives for the church. But more specifically, we're to live unto all the members of it. My life is to be molded into the life of the church. That's how a body works. You don't have many pieces wandering here, there, and everywhere, and it sort of comes together on Sunday, and then it all wanders off again. The body is molded into itself so that it works in a unity and a harmony and with one another. And therefore, every single part of the body is working for the body. And there's no sense of any other life apart from a life that is devoted to the body, to the church. We live in that way to serve all the other members of the church. Now that will come about specifically when we live in families, then the very closest members to us in the body are husband, wife, children, parents, and necessarily there in the family is that beautiful picture of the broader family of the church. But it will, therefore, expand out from that into every activity and the meetings of the Church where we are molded into and living in that very organic life of the Church. Our lives, as I said, are to be molded by and molded into the life of the Church, being servants of Christ's body, to live unto Christ, to live unto Christ's Church. Notice our text also says, henceforth. Henceforth, the idea here is that it's not just a once-off thing. This is not just an occasional thing, so on and off, sometimes doing this, sometimes not doing that, no. Continuous action forever. There is never an end to our living unto Christ. There is never anything, there's not one single activity that we are ever to undertake that is not lived unto Jesus Christ. And that's further brought out by the fact that we live not just unto him who died for us, but also unto him who rose again from the dead. Christ rose for our sakes as well as dying for our sakes. He rose in order to give us resurrection life, so that we are now alive in him. But not only that, but the Christian's great hope is the resurrection which is to come. Do you see, we will be living unto Christ and living unto Christ Church for all eternity. The body of believers, you and I, as we trust in Christ, we will be with one another for eternity. And right now, we get to practice. We fail so much, don't we? But we get to practice what we will be doing for all eternity. living unto Christ together, living unto each other in that most beautiful and wonderful way. Totally opposite to what we are by nature. But that leads to the question, if it's totally opposite to what we are by nature, and this is what we're called to, and I don't know about you, but as I speak these things, wow. What's the possibility? How is it possible for us to be like this, that is so contrary to who we are in Adam? Well, that's found in verse 14. In verse 14, we actually have what's called a conditional sentence. A bit of an English lesson. A conditional sentence. It's an if-then statement. If this, then that. And we're going to make a judgment here. That's what Paul's saying. This is a judgment. This is something that you do some reasoning about and you come to a conclusion with an if-then type statement. So conditional sentence. Notice here, Christianity is a reasonable thing. We don't just love the Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, we love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of our mind. And we put our minds into gear. Christianity is eminently logical and it is intellectually satisfying. Why? Because in it is the most profoundness of the mind of God. Therefore love the Lord your God with all your mind and with logic and reasoning because it is found right throughout scripture. And here's some of that again here. Here's a conditional statement, all right? Now, the form of this statement indicates that the conclusion is absolutely true. Why is that? Well, there are various types of conditional statements in the Bible and particularly in the Greek. And this is a particular type of conditional statement. It's not a maybe one. There are maybe ones in the Greek as well. This isn't one of them. A maybe conditional statement in the English is things like, tomorrow, if it's not raining, I will mow the lawn. If it's not raining, then I will mow the lawn. But that's iffy, that's maybe. I don't know whether it's going to be raining tomorrow or not. And therefore, the conclusion, I don't know whether that will come to pass either. It depends. If, maybe, don't know, That's inconclusive. But that's not what this kind of a statement is, this if-then statement. This is one in which the first statement is absolutely true, and then Paul is saying, if this is true, and it is, then the second statement is also absolutely true. Now, a statement like that is this. If the sun went down tonight, it is now evening. Okay? Did the sun go down tonight? Absolutely. Is it evening? Conclusion, yes it is. Okay? That's an absolute statement. If the first thing is true, then the second one is absolutely true. So, what is it saying? It says, Verse 14, if one died for all, and that's Christ, isn't it? If Christ died for all. Now we need to pause, don't we? What's it saying? Christ died for all? Does that mean Christ died for every single person head for head that's ever lived in this world? Well, we know such teaching is false. Christ died for the elect only. And we can turn to parts of God's word to show that. John 10, 15, where Christ said, I lay down my life for the sheep. Christ does not say, I laid down my life for everyone. Christ laid down his life for the sheep. And he indicates that there are only some of the sheep later in John 10 when he says to the Pharisees, but you don't believe because you are not my sheep. He says, you ones are not my sheep. I don't lay down my life for you. Very clearly, Christ only lays down his life for those that are his people. But we need to look at the text itself. We don't even need to go outside of the text for this. The text says all, but whenever we say all, we need to look at what it's saying to determine who the all is. If I say, all may shake my hand at the back of the door after the worship service. Do I mean every single person in the world and the whole earth can come and? No. When I say all, I'm obviously referring to all that are here. That's what I'm referring to. It's the context that's important. Paul says all here, but it's been defined. It's the us that's also mentioned here. The love of Christ constrains us and the us are the all. Well, who's the us? Well, that's defined by the beginning of the letter when Paul is writing to all the saints that are in Corinth and all of them that are in all Achaia. He's writing to the saints. And by implication, that extends out to all the saints that are found in all of history. That's who it is. But even more than that, have a look at the text. It tells us, he speaks of those who were once dead but are now the living ones. The all are the ones who were dead in their trespasses and sins but are now made alive in Christ Jesus. They are the all. So either you have to say from this text that when it says Christ died for all that it means that every single living person that has ever been on earth are all saved and are all taken to heaven and there's no such thing as hell and that's completely contradictory to the rest of scripture or you need to say that the all is the sheep. whom Christ knows and saves and takes from being dead to being alive. But it is all. The Holy Spirit says all. Christ died for all. And what that emphasizes to us, first of all, is that it is all Christians. But secondly, we all needed Him. We all needed Him. There's not one of us here who didn't need the very Son of God to come and die for us. We're not any different. None of us are any better than anyone else. Every one of us needed the same savior to die for our sins. But he died for all. He died for all. And that's a comfort as well. Jesus Christ does not forget one of his sheep, not one of his lambs. He does not leave one behind. He knows them all by name. And he calls every one of them to come unto him. And he will not leave any. Christ died for all. That is the if part. If Christ died for all, every one of his sheep and every one of his lambs, what's the conclusion? What's the then? If that, then this. Then all died. Now, in that I have to actually say to you, then it says, then we're all dead. That's probably not the best translation there in the King James. And a better translation would be, because this is what we call an heiress verb, it should be, then all died. Okay, then all died. All died. What does it mean, all died? Is that talking about the fact that we died in Adam? No, it's not. All did die in Adam when we sinned with him. We died a spiritual death. We were separated from communion with God and became totally depraved. And what did we become? Those who lived unto ourselves. So what is this talking about when it says, if Christ died, then all of us died. It's talking about the fact that we died in Christ on the cross. Okay, we died in Christ on the cross. When Christ died on the cross, we all died with him. You find that in the teaching of Romans 6 verses 3 and 4 that we read earlier. Know you not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes and saves us, he takes us and joins us to Christ. That's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit radically changes us in that baptism, whereby we are joined to Christ. And in being joined to Christ, we are dead with him. We died with him. We were so joined to Him that when Christ died upon that cross, because we were baptized and joined to Him, then we, in that horrible nature of sin, sin and death, died for us upon the cross. It was put to death. John Owen puts it, the death of death in the death of Christ. Okay? The death of death in the death of Christ. Death for us was put to death. The horrible deathly living for self, the horribleness of sin which so kept us in bondage was put to death on the cross because we're baptized by the Holy Spirit and joined to Christ. If Christ died for all of us, then all died. Do you know that? You all died in Christ. If you are joined with Him in faith, when He died upon the cross, then you died in Him. That aspect of you, which is that horrible bondage of sin. And that's amazing. Do you understand the amazing implication of that? In Christ's death, we are made alive because our death has been put to death. He died on behalf of us. and He took all of our sin and all of the guilt and that shame and that's all been taken away and we are made fully alive because His life is given unto us. We have a new life within us. We have a communion with God who is the giver of life. What a most wondrous thing. That's the inescapable conclusion. That horrible death which so bound you so that you could do nothing else but live for yourself, It's dead. It's dead. And it has no more dominion over you. And that's what Paul was talking about in Romans 6. Do you understand that sin no more has a dominion over you? That you are able to live unto Christ. And most wonderful, most wonderful was that Christ died for us while we were yet dead. While we were in our spiritual death and the vileness of our sins and despite our hatred toward him and a rebellion toward him, he loved us. He loved us from all eternity. He loved His people right through that time when He was preparing for Himself to come to earth. He loved His people and set His face steadfastly toward the cross. He loved His people in taking all of their shame and all of their guilt upon Himself and suffering the wrath of God. And He loves His people as He ascends up, rises up and ascends into heaven and sits upon the throne and He is the mediator and the intercessor for us even now. Wondrous, marvelous love. And it's that wondrous and amazing love that constrains us. We've seen that calling to live under Christ. We've seen the possibility of it because Christ has caused that love of self to be defeated, for our death to be put to death. But now do you see the motivation to live unto Christ? Let's have a look at that. What is the motivation for us to live in such a way? Notice what it's not. It's not a command. There are lots of commands in the scriptures. There are the Ten Commandments. There are lots of commands, imperatives that are given all through even 2 Corinthians here if you read through it. There are lots of commands that are given. But it's not a command that motivates us to live under Christ. What else is it not? It's not a friendly affection or a feeling that motivates us either. Sometimes we can feel like the warmth of someone's affection or an emotional plea can be so persuasive towards us, can't we? There is a word in the Bible which is also translated love sometimes, which means an emotional warm affection, but that's not the motivation here either. What is the motivation to live under Christ? It's this. It is love. It is God's love in Christ Jesus. Love is an attribute. It's part of the very being of God. 1 John 4 verse 16, God is love. He is love. And that love is that whole being, decision of God. to do nothing but good toward his people, to delight in his people and to seek the closest fellowship and communion with his people. This is the love that God had for his people before the world began. Can you understand that? This is the love that God is within Himself. This is the love that the Father has for the Son in the Holy Spirit, that the Son has for the Father in the Holy Spirit. This is the love that God has within Himself, being love. And He has determined that He will condescend to show that love unto us in Christ Jesus. He determined that before the foundation of the world. He chose His people in Christ Jesus. That means that as you are Christ's, as you believe in Him, He knew you and He loved you before anything of this universe came into existence. He knew you and loved you before anything else existed. Now that's astounding. He has so worked everything in the whole history of the world to bring you into existence and he formed and fashioned you in your mother's womb to be exactly who you were in love. He sent His only begotten Son, who is glorious God Himself. Who put aside His glory and came and lived on this earth. As a man, to look at him you wouldn't think anything of him. If you saw him, there is no beauty or comeliness that you should desire him, says Isaiah. He looked like an ordinary man. Put aside all that glory in order that he may be made under the law, that he may live a perfect life of righteousness. Why? Because he loved you. And he put up with the scorn and the mockery He was the one who could have called legions of angels down to help him. And yet he had men spit upon him. This is God, the Lord of glory. He did that for you. He loved you with an everlasting love. so that He put up with mockery and scorning and the crown of thorns and being spat upon and being taken out and given the humiliating death of the cross and what's more, far more, He took your sins upon Himself. Do you know what it's like when someone else says to you, You know, someone else has done something wrong and someone blames you and you say, oh nuts, not me, it was him. Jesus was the sinless one. He never did anything wrong. And he took every one of your sins upon himself gladly and suffered the infinite wrath of God upon him because he loved you. Do you see? Do you see that love? Do you know that love? You see, it is this love of Christ, as it's revealed to us, as we know that love, that constrains us. Do you know, it's the most powerful word that's used here, that word constrain that Paul uses. The meaning in the original, it has this idea of actually something coming along and grabbing you and pressing you and lifting you up and even carrying you along. So that's the idea here. That we are taken in our lives as we know and understand the love of Christ. That it lays a hold upon us, it presses us, it squeezes us, it lifts us up and it carries us forward with an impetus. The love of Christ constrains us. Jesus Christ, he lived, he died, he rose again for me and for you, for his people, the sheep and his lambs whom he knew and loved before the world began. The love of Christ is that kind of wondrous power that comes and works in our lives. And when that spirit brings a spiritual understanding of that love into our heart and into our soul, then it works within us a love of him. We love him because he first loved us with such a love. As we think upon, as we meditate upon, as we wonder upon so greater love, it cannot be that our hearts do anything else but soar with a love and devotion. It lifts us up and carries us forward. See and know that love. Have a sure and certain knowledge of that love in your heart and mind. Live unto Christ as His love constrains you. Amen. And let's stand to pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank You, we praise You, we glorify You for such a love as this, that Your love is shown forth in sending Your only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be the propitiation for our sins. That One who has loved us, His sheep, from before the foundation of the world, and delighted to do his father's will, laying down his life for us. And he ever lives to make intercession for us. We thank you for such love. Open to us from your word. We pray more and more that we may therefore love you in return. that we may turn aside from, oh, Lord, you know, the wretchedness that we have of living unto ourselves. And instead, we may not do that anymore. We may more and more know what it is to live unto Christ. Hear our prayers. Bless us richly with the truth. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen.