Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 912
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, January 23, 1870
“Now He that has worked us for the same thingis God, who also has given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 5:5.
IT is a very comforting thing to be able to see the work of God in our own hearts. We can clearly enough perceive the effects of the Fall—the workings of our inward corruption are always sufficiently perceptible. We have not to search long for the foul handiwork of Satan within us, for his temptations vex us day by day, and too often wound us to our dismay. The evil influences of the world are also exceedingly apparent to the eyes of self-examination. It is, therefore, consoling to the highest degree when, amidst all this disfiguring of the vessel by the hands of evil, we can see growing traces of the Great Artist’s hand still fashioning the clay upon the wheel and undoing the mischief of His enemies.
It is a sweet thing to be able to say with the Apostle that God has worked us to the most grand of all designs. When the Creator of the world puts His all-wise hands to the work of our new creation, we are favored in the highest degree, and ought to be filled with gratitude.
It appears from the text that the Apostle found the indications of the Divine work in a groan. Observe, “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” In that groan of his burdened soul he saw the working of the eternal God, and he exclaimed, “He that has worked us for the same thing is God.” Believers may trace the finger of God in their holy joys when the soul, like the lark, mounts up towards Heaven and carols her song of gratitude. But, just as surely is the Holy Spirit present in their sorrows for sin, their inward conflicts, their hungering and thirsting after righteousness, their deep-fetched sighs, and their groans which cannot be uttered.
My Brethren, so long as it is the work of God it is comparatively a small matter to us whether our hearts’ utterance is song or sigh. Let us be assured that it is worked by the Spirit, and either the one or the other is a token for good. If it is but proven that “the Lord is there,” we hear a voice which says, “It is I, be not afraid.”
Our text brings before us a great work of God with a distinct object—our being “clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven.” And looking at the words minutely, we see that the one design is accomplished by three great processes. The Lord has worked in us desires after the heavenly Glory. “He that has worked us for the same thing is God.” The Apostle had twice over spoken of groaning after the heavenly House, and we understand him here to affirm that this groaning was worked in him by God.
Secondly, the Lord has worked in us a fullness for the eternal world, for so the text may be understood. “He that has fitted us for” the heavenly inheritance of which the Spirit is the earnest. Then thirdly, God has given to Believers, in addition to desires after and fitness for an earnest of the Glory to be revealed, which earnest is the Holy Spirit. Let us speak of these three things as the Holy Spirit may instruct us.
God’s work is seen in our souls in causing us exciting, vehement DESIRES AFTER being “clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven.”
This earnest desire, of which the Apostle has been speaking in the preceding verses, is made up of two things—a painful groaning and sense of being burdened while we are in this present life, and a supreme longing after our promised portion in the world to come. Dissatisfaction with the very idea of finding a continuing city here, amounting even to groaning, is the condition of the Christian’s mind. “We look not at the things which are seen,” they are not worth a glance. They are temporal and therefore quite unfit to be the joy of an immortal spirit.
The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world. He is like a traveler in an inn, perfectly satisfied with the inn and its accommodation, considering it as an inn, but putting quite out of all consideration the idea of making it his home. He waits by the way, and is thankful, but his desires lead him ever on-
ward towards that better country where the many mansions are prepared. The Believer is like a man in a sailing vessel, well content with the good ship for what it is, and hopeful that it may bear him safely across the sea, willing to put up with all its inconveniences without complaint.
But if you ask him whether he would choose to live on board in that narrow cabin, he will tell you that he longs for the time when the harbor shall be in view, and the green fields, and the happy homesteads of his native land. We, my Brethren, thank God for all the appointments of Providence—whether our portion is large or scant we are content because God has appointed it—yet our portion is not here, nor would we have it here if we might!—