Say, my friend, have you sometimes felt "constrained" or compelled to do-- or not to do-- something? Oh, I am sure you have; all of us have. Let me ask you: what constrained-- or compelled you so? Think about it and I will be back in a moment.
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Now, our program today is about being "constrained" or "compelled" to do something--or, maybe constrained not to do something. What are we constrained to do-- or not to do? A-n-d, what is it that constrains us or compels us?
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We are reading today from the book of Second Corinthians, chapter 5. I am going to begin at verse 12. “For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” And I read through verse 15. Now let us go to God in prayer. Our Father and our God, we worship You as the one and only true and living God, the creator and the preserver and the ruler of the universe, and the giver of life and all that it consists of. And we thank You, Father, for the revelation of your will toward us in your word and that we may read it and study it and know what your will is for us and our responsibilities and our opportunities with You. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
It has been said that the apostle Paul probably revealed more of his true self, his true character in his second letter to the church at Corinth than in any other-- or maybe even, all of his other writings combined. And I suspect that is true. If you are familiar with the Bible you are aware that we are introduced to him as "Saul" in the last paragraph of the seventh chapter of Acts. And, the Lord introduced him to Ananias as "Saul of Tarsus," meaning "Saul" of the city of Tarsus in Acts chapter 9, verse 11. Tarsus was probably the chief city of Cilicia at the time, which was the southern area of what is known today as Turkey. Paul says of it that it was "no mean city" (Acts 21:39). Saul was Jewish and educated in the School of Gamaliel, where he was taught strictness in the laws of the-- well, as we would say today-- the Hebrew "tradition." He said he was "taught according to the strictness of the law of the fathers." He was a suitable, even a hopeful prospect for a seat on the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of the Jews in the days of Christ and for a time before. He was very zealous toward God.
It was from that background that he became a violent "persecutor of the church of God." Yes, he persecuted Christ (Acts 9 and 4). He persecuted Christ's disciples (Acts 9 and 1). He persecuted "the Way" (Acts 9 and 2). And he persecuted the church in I Corinthians 15:9, all that being the same. Being educated in the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, Saul probably had seen Jesus-- maybe several times, may have even spoken to Him or had a conversation with Him. We don't know that; the Bible doesn't say so; but it is a strong probability because they probably crossed paths there in Jerusalem just as probably that as Jesus was going in and coming out of Jerusalem that Saul heard Jesus preach, and had seen His miracles, heard his claim to be the Messiah or the Christ, the Son of God. But he didn't believe that, any of it. Surely he knew-- well, we know he knew of the crucifixion of our Lord, because he said to Governor Festus that King Agrippa had to know it, because it was not "done in a corner" (Acts 20:26)! He also knew that beginning on Pentecost day that year that the apostles began preaching and teaching ceaselessly, that "God had raised up Christ" from the grave, and that He lives! But, he didn't believe that either. As a matter of fact, that is why he was persecuting Christians. He believed that to be the "mother of all lies"-- well even worse than that, "the mother of all heresies," and he felt compelled to silence these people!
Well, that is why he was going to Damascus-- to silence the heretics-- to bind them and imprison them; to kill them if necessary just as he was doing when we were introduced to him at the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. It was on the road to Damascus that he saw the risen Jesus (I Corinthians 15:8). He even talked with Him. And that was enough for Saul. How wrong he had been! Oh! How wrong he had been! He became a believer at that time! And, what of all the blood of the Christians that he had shed for what he so honestly and sincerely believed to be heresy? Oh yes! He believed in Jesus now! "So he, trembling and astonished said, Lord what do You want me to do? Then the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do" (Acts 9 and 10). Now, if you have been taught all your life and you have believed that a person is saved at the moment he believes in Jesus, you must be thinking: "Whatta ya mean do? Well, all you have to do is believe." Well, let us see.
Because he had been stricken blind by the light, those who were traveling with him led Saul into the city where he prayed three days and nights. No, no my friend, he didn't repeat after Ananias something called the "sinners prayer." No! No! No! That is a 21st Century offer of forgiveness. It isn't even mentioned-- or suggested-- in the New Testament. But He prayed so fervently and so unceasingly, that he didn't even pause to eat a bite of food or take a drink of water. That is what he said. But, friend, people aren't saved by "praying through." Saul wasn't saved even yet, not even after all that praying. I know that because no one had come yet to tell him what he had to do. Finally, Ananias came. What did he tell him? Well, read it for yourself in your own Bible. And in reading Acts 22:16 in the New King James Version says: "Why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." Must Saul be baptized? Do you think he questioned that? No, no friend, he didn't. The Bible says, "...he arose and was baptized" (Acts 9:18). The King James Version says "immediately." What is so important about his being baptized? Did Ananias tell him wrongly, when he said, "...be baptized and wash away your sins?" No, he was told rightly, and he did it promptly to wash away his sins, too.
Well, you may be saying, "I always thought sins were washed away by the blood of Christ. And you are telling me that water washes away sins." No, my friend. You are right; you are very right; you are very, very right when you say only the blood of Christ washes away sins and I am not telling you that water does it. The water of baptism does not wash away sins. Revelation 1:5 tells us that it is the blood of Christ that washes away sins, and only that has the power to do it. Romans 6:3 and 4 tells us when it does. And that verse says, "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." That is it! In baptism we re-live the death of Christ in our own lives, and here is where we reach the atoning blood of Jesus.
Now, let us get on with Saul's life after his conversion. At that moment, well that very moment-- and at the moment any person is born again-- born of water and the Spirit (John 3:3 and 5) as Saul was, Christ gives him a new life. And that is what He did for Saul. Look at what Saul said when he said it himself in his visit with King Agrippa in Acts 26:16 to 18. He is telling about the Lord's appearance to him on the Damascus road, and here is what he says, "So I said, who are you Lord? And He said I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet: for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision..."
Our Lord was calling Saul, who was given the name Paul, to be His apostle to the Gentiles, his representative, his witness to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been called to be His apostle to the Jews in Galatians chapter 2, verse 7. So, he began his letter by saying, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God" (2 Corinthians 1:1). He had greeted them with the same words in his first letter to them in I Corinthians 1:1. And to the church at Rome: "Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle..." (Romans 1:1). He makes it even stronger to the Galatians: "Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead" (Galatians 1:1). You see, some denied his apostleship then even as some do now. So it was necessary to affirm it again and again. He had to repeat it over and over, that it was by "the will of God" and not of men. He wrote thirteen (some think fourteen) of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. With the exception of the two to Timothy and one each to Titus and Philemon, they were written to churches of the Gentiles. Paul knew, as any Bible student knows, it was God's intent to bring all people, Jews and Gentiles together in one body or church. You read Ephesians and study Ephesians chapter 2. His becoming a Christian-- and a preacher of Christ's glorious gospel irritated and antagonized the Jews so greatly that they persecuted him very sorely. Even many who had been converted to Christianity became very bitter enemies. They said he was fickle, proud, unimpressive in appearance and speech. They said he was dishonest and unqualified as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He had to write them about that. He said, "I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles. Even though I am untrained in speech, and yet I am not in knowledge. But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things."
Of his critics he asked, "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool-- I am more; in labors more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness-- besides the other things, what comes on me daily; (please notice) my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak," he asks, "and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascences with a garrison, desiring to arrest me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands" (2 Corinthians 11:22-32).
Why would a man with Paul's education and grasp of life willingly submit himself to such reckless abuse? What compels people to sacrifice themselves and all they have and are for a cause like that of Christ? First, he not only abandons the faith of his fathers for generations all the way back to Abraham, and he becomes a Christian, but he then offers himself to suffer at the hands of his enemies, both Jews and Gentiles and some of his brethren in Christ. Why? It couldn't possibly be tradition that compelled him so, could it? Or duty? The answer is in the text we read at the outset of the program: "For the love of Christ constrains (or compels) us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died." Jesus said it this way: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). It was, first, the love of Christ for us that compelled Paul to obey Christ in baptism. And, secondly, it was Paul's love for Christ that compelled him to endure such sufferings for the Savior. What would it take to compel or to constrain you, my friend, to obey Christ? Let us pray. Father, we pray that we may examine our hearts and be compelled by your love to obey You as we need. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Whether "The love of Christ constraineth us" (as the King James Version has it) or compels us (as the New King James has it), whether it means Christ's love for us or our love for Him is really unimportant. The latter implies the former, doesn’t it? His love for us is the flame that kindles our love for Him. And He said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word;...He who does not love me, does not keep my word; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent Me" (John 14, verses 23 and 24). This was Paul's dominant passion. It shouldn't surprise us that a person who really does love the Lord is driven to be a "different" kind of a person and to do things differently. Of what value is a belief in Christ if it doesn't so compel a person to live it and to do it? And the world has many ways and standards by which it measures people, by birth and wealth and position and education, and all that. But to a man filled and fired with the love of Christ as Saul was or Paul was these things are not important. Do you love the Lord enough to keep His word-- His commandments, my friend?
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Before I leave, let me extend you a very personal and very hearty invitation to visit a church of Christ. They are the reason, those people are the reason that we are here every week. Say thanks to all of us to all of them. And I hope you can be with us again next week, and that you will do so. God bless you now. We love you. |