LWML Sermon
Nineteenth Sunday a. Pentecost
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
LWML Sunday
September 29, 2002
“The Compelling Love of Jesus Christ”
Introduction: In March of 1972, over thirty years ago, NASA launched on of its most successful missions ever when a giant Atlas launch vehicle sent Pioneer 10 hurtling into space. Its mission, to go farther than any manmade spacecraft had gone, to explore Jupiter and it’s moons, and to send back important information on it’s magnetic fields. To get there, however, it would have to pass through a dangerous asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is about 170 million miles wide and is made up of material ranging in size from small dust particles to rocks the size of the state of Alaska traveling at about 720 miles per minute.
Pioneer Ten made it through the asteroid belt safely, and proceeded on to its mission of exploring Jupiter. However, what is so amazing about the Pioneer Ten mission is not that it made it to Jupiter and completed it’s mission, but that it just keeps going. While the spacecraft was designed to function for three years, in fact it continues to travel further into outer space. It has now gone some eight billion miles and has continued to send signals with information thirty years later. It just keeps going, beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, impelled by the initial rocket blast that sent it to Jupiter.
God, much more that what is illustrated by this example, is able to accomplish great things beyond our human ability to even dream of. He can make us useful for His purposes, as He did the apostle, who wrote our sermon text today. Paul had been an enemy of the church, he was an accomplice when Stephen was murdered by the angry mob, he was convinced that the Christian movement had to be stamped out, and so he persecuted Christians, dragging them in chains to prison. He latter admitted that he interrogated prisoners, trying to get them to blaspheme, and that he voted for the death of many people.
And yet we see here how things turned around for Paul. He, who had been an enemy of Christ and a terrible persecutor of God’s people, now has been called by God to dedicate himself to proclaiming the message of salvation in Christ Jesus. But in doing so he is confronted by many obstacles, he suffered much physically - attacks by angry mobs, beatings, shipwreck, imprisonment as well as the emotional stress and strain of the criticisms and oppositions that were coming from within the church at Corinth. Yet he just kept going forward with his task, he continued to do his work of proclaiming the gospel. He did not allow himself to become sidetracked, even when many might have thought that he would give up. Why? How was Paul able to remain firm in his faith and steadfast in his mission? What kept him going in the work to which God had called him? In our text, Paul explains it when he says, “For Christ’s love compels us.”
“Christ’s love compels us.” This is the theme of LWML Sunday this year, for it helps us to understand something about the things that motivate us as people of God to do what we do. It also helps us to understand the underlying motivation for the mission of the church. We are compelled by Christ’s love. Paul make two important points that help us to understand how all of this works. He points out, first, that Christ died for all, and, secondly, that therefore we live for Him.
I. Because He died for All.
Perhaps the most well known passage in the Bible, the “gospel in a nutshell” as it is called, is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This is a powerful and meaningful passage that demonstrates just how deep God’s love runs, that He was even prepared to hand over His own Son to die for us. His love for fallen humanity is so profound that He was willing to make what most of us would say is the ultimate sacrifice, to give the life of His Son Jesus Christ as the payment for our sinfulness, so that, as Paul says here, “those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”
This is really the problem of humanity, isn’t it? Paul says, “Those who live should no longer love and live for the for themselves” but for God. The problem is that we do live for ourselves, don’t we? We do put ourselves first. We have a difficult time putting the needs of others before our needs. It is called egoism, or being egocentric, and it means I put myself in the center of my universe: I put the satisfaction of my needs at the center of my life. It is played out at every level of human existence, in individual lives, in our local communities, and internationally, as nations wage war against nations, and millions of lives are lost, as each nation defends it’s own interests. But it all starts with human sin, with the desire to live for oneself, to put the “self” in the center. It is interesting to me that often some of the first words spoken by a little child are “mine” or “me”.
In a healthy sense, this concern for self is normal and not evil in-and-of-itself. Of course we need to “take care of ourselves. However, the problem lies in the ways we let that concern for self-override concern for our neighbor, or the good of others, or the will of God. That is when jealousy, dishonesty and greediness creep in, which can manifest themselves in even more overt sins. If we were to analyze all the sinfulness, all the violence, all the hatred and animosity in the world, it all boils down to this: A love for self is placed before a love for God and neighbor.
And yet, God’s love is so profound that He provided means to overcome this situation in which we find ourselves. He provided the means for us to get out of ourselves, to overcome the sin that affects us so deeply, when He sent His Son to die for us. Paul said, “We are convinced that one died for all...” The fact of the matter is that all are spiritually dead and in need of that reconciliation with God. And God provided the means of that reconciliation when He sent His Son Jesus Christ; to live the perfect life we are unable to live, and to suffer the punishment for our self-centeredness.
He did this for all! This is an important point, to know that all sin, no matter what we have done was paid for by the death of God’s Son Jesus Christ. There is nothing that can’t be forgiven for the sake of Jesus death. Sometimes we have a hard time believing that.
The Apostle Paul was keenly aware of God’s forgiveness in Christ. He was well aware of the greatness of Christ’s love, having been saved from a life of hatred, murder and evil. Paul must have shuddered when he thought about his participation in Stephens’s death, for example, and the way in which he hated and persecuted the Christians. He was well aware of how great Christ’s love was, in saving him from his life of sin and evil. He once wrote, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” But them he immediately remembered the gospel and added the answer: “Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!”
II. Therefore We Live for Him.
Therefore, compelled by Christ’s love, that is, the great love that Christ has shown for fallen mankind in giving His life for our salvation, Paul was able to live his life, not for himself, but for Christ. He says, “And (Christ) died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”
Who are we why are we here? Most of us have asked those questions. It is true, unfortunately, that many people do not see a purpose for their lives. They wonder through life, getting by from day to day, but without a sense of what it all means, or believing that it ultimately has no meaning.
As Christians we have answers to these questions. The answer to who we are and why we are here is found in Jesus Christ. In Him and in the cross that He bore for us, we find our identity. We see His great love poured out for us. Through it, and by faith in Him, we are called God’s own children. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s love becomes a compelling force in our lives. We cannot help ourselves as we are carried forward in greater service to God and to our neighbor.
As we serve God the way in which we live changes. Our lives are lived for Christ. The most important way in which we live, “not for ourselves but for Him”, is to see that the pure message of the gospel is proclaimed to those who do not yet know the love of Christ. As we do many things to help people with their physical needs, showing Christian compassion, we must always remember the “one thing needful”, that we share the message of Christ’s love given in the blessings of forgiveness and salvation,
That is what Paul’s ministry was all about, taking the gospel to those who did not yet know Jesus. That is why some people are willing to leave their families to go to foreign countries, learn different languages, live in dangerous surroundings and risk their lives to proclaim the gospel. Christ’s love compels them. That is what we are all about today as well. That is why, for example, the members of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League do what they do. They give of their time and their talents and their financial resources to make the proclamation of the gospel a reality in out fallen and suffering world. They show the love of Christ in their acts of compassion. They join Paul in a mission that they are compelled to do, compelled by the love of Jesus Christ their Savior who himself was compelled only to save them – giving His life for the life of the world.
Conclusion: Christ’s love makes it all possible. Like Pioneer 10, which has continued to stay the course far beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, sending information from outer space. Christ’s love made it possible for Paul to continue on his mission. And Christ’s love makes it possible for us to stay the course and continue proclaiming the good news. The information that we give to the world, which is proclaimed by our LWML, comes from God. It is the message of life found only in the Son of God.