Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2364
“For you know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be rich,” 2 Corinthians 8:9.
I AM very weary, tonight, having had day after day, almost without cessation, to make a supreme effort to address large assemblies. I felt, therefore, that the only subject that I could handle would be some theme that was restful and did not require any great thought on the part of the preacher or his hearers. I want to have a bath and rest myself while I am speaking to you, and, perhaps, it may not hurt you, either, for I doubt not that you often grow weary with daily cares. So we shall have no difficult problem, no mysterious doctrine to consider at this time, but shall only talk about things that we know.
The text begins, “For you know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You know this, for you believe it. You have no doubt, whatever, that there was a wondrous graciousness in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is an attribute of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—and you know that there was infinite Grace, favor, compassion, in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ—and it was that and not your merits, which constrained Him to lay aside the royalties of Heaven and endure the sufferings and the griefs of our mortality. “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
You know this Grace, too, because you have learned to perceive the outcome of it. You not only know it as a seed, but you know the blessed flowers that have grown out of it because, in His Grace, He became poor that you might be rich. And, in taking of those riches which He has procured for you, you have not only drunk of His bitter soup, but you have drunk of the spiced wine of His pomegranate, so that you now know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ by that which is the fruit and the outcome of it.
I think that the Apostle here meant that we also know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through what He has done for us. We might have known, as a matter of fact, that Jesus was gracious, but we could not have seen it so as practically to know it if He, having been rich, had not become poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich. The way the Apostle shows that Truth of God is just this. He was urging the Corinthian Christians to liberality. They were a far richer community than the Church at Philippi, but He tells them that the Churches of Macedonia, out of their poverty, had often been generous to the poor and he persuades these Corinthians, who were better off, not to be behind the Philippi-ans.
After Paul had quoted this example to them, he felt that he had a far stronger argument to fall back upon. He seemed to say, “How am I to know your Grace except by your works? How am I to know that you have Christ in your hearts except by what you give out of your gifts to help your poorer friends?” He then gives this as the proof that we must see Grace by the results it produces—“You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ by this fact, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be rich.” The same Law of God, that the Grace within must be manifest by the action without, applies to Christ as well as to us. If He had not become poor to make us rich, how would we have fully known His Grace? And if you and I do not give of our substance, and of our talents, to the poor, and to the cause of Christ, how shall we know and how shall others know that there is any Grace at all within our hearts?
Beloved, as I have said before, I may say to you, again—you know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ because you have not only heard it, but you have seen it—you have tasted and handled the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your hope
of Heaven lies in that Grace! Your daily comfort lies there. If Christ were not gracious, you would be graceless. If you did not know His Grace, you would have no Grace of your own, for certain—for it is from Him, as from an ever-flowing fountain—that all the streams of Grace come to you. Happy men and happy women if, as I read this text, “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” you can each one say, “Yes, I do know it, glory be to God!”
There are two things for me to talk about tonight. They are both very simple and lie on the surface of the text. The first is, the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the second is, the riches of His saints.
I. First, let us think of THE POVERTY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST—“Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.”
This poverty was voluntarily undertaken for our sakes. There was no need that Christ should be poor except for our sakes. Some persons are born poor and it seems as if, with all their struggles, they could never rise out of poverty. But of our Lord Jesus Christ it can truly be said, “He was rich.” Shall I take you back in thought to the glories of the eternity when, as very God of very God, He dwelt in the bosom of the Father? He was so rich that all He possessed was as nothing to Him. He was not dependent upon any of the angels He had created, nor did He rely for Glory upon any of the works of His hands. Truly, Heaven was His abode, but He could have made ten thousand heavens if He had willed to do so! All the greatest wonders He had ever made were but specimens of what He could make. He had all possibility of inconceivable and immeasurable wealth within His power, yet He laid aside all that, denied Himself the power to enrich Himself, and came down to earth that He might help us! His poverty was all voluntary—there was a necessity laid upon Him, but the sole necessity was His own love. There was no need, as far as He was concerned, that He should ever be poor—the only need was because we were in need and He loved us so that He would rescue us from poverty and make us eternally rich!