Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3380
“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.
THE Apostle was anxious to stir up the Corinthian Church to generosity. They were a Church of very great talents. They were an unusually gifted Church, so that they were able to maintain in their midst a form of worship which is not often maintained and could not conveniently become the general form in the Christian Church, namely, that a large proportion of the members spoke to edification, whereas in most other Churches there was no such abundance of spiritual gifts. They were in the midst of a city of polished inhabitants and it had pleased God to call in that city some of the ablest men. But they seem to have been far from taking the front rank in some respects. They needed to be exhorted to purge themselves from a sin which no Church had ever tolerated that had a ministry, and which only that Church would allow, because it was nobody’s business to look after it—and so it was not looked after. This sin was a great lack of generosity in giving. Now, in order to excite the Church at Corinth, the Apostle uses as an argument, first of all, the great generosity of the far poorer church in Macedonia. He says that in the midst of their poverty, they gave, not only up to their power, but generously beyond it. It is right for us to stimulate the zeal of one Christian by the example of another Christian—and it is the bounden duty of all Believers so to walk that they may be worthy to be examples to the rest of the flock.
But even this argument is a poor one compared with that which the Apostle was more constantly using, namely, the example of Christ, the Church’s great Head and Exemplar. He deals, indeed, an efficient blow at all selfishness when, leaving the Churches of Macedonia out of the question, he says, “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, that blessed Master of ours! Surely He is useful to us in ten thousand ways! There is not a single part of Him—there is no position He takes, no action He performs, no word that drops from His lips, no thought of His heart, no aspect of His matchless Character that is not serviceable to us, His people! Even in His poverty He becomes our Instructor, just as in His death He becomes our Savior. Without staying longer in the text, we shall, first of all, ask you to consider the example presented to us, contemplating it in its various phases. And then, secondly, let me, in few but earnest words, urge you to follow His example in acts of gratitude.
I. The Example Presented to Us
It is that of our Lord, of whom Paul said, “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It seems, then, that Christ’s coming from Heaven to earth to suffer for us is here called, “Grace.” It was an act of Grace on His part—an act purely gratuitous! He was not bound to have done it. We did not deserve it at His hands. It was no foreseen merit of ours, or of any other kind which could have been potent to attract Him from the skies and drag Him to the manger and the tomb! But He came as an act of free mercy to undeserving sinners. It was Grace which was the source and fountain of His coming. That eternal Love of God, by which we were first chosen, was the same Love which sent the Savior to redeem the chosen. It was that Grace from which all Covenant mercies spring—the ancient wellhead of distinguishing Grace— which brought the Savior here! It was because He, being God, was Love. Because He, being God, was full of Grace and Truth, that He, therefore, left the realms above that He might lift us up to them by His coming down from them into the depths of our misery! “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We ought to perpetually gaze upon the Cross, I
think, in the light of its being altogether an act of Grace on Christ’s part—and the result of Grace towards us on the part of the Divine Father. Oh, you see nothing there, Sinners, towards you but Grace—
“‘Tis mercy fills the Throne.
While wrath stands silent by.”
The wrath falls upon the Savior, but all that you have to see in Christ, today, is Grace, pure Grace—Grace to take away the sin which made Him bleed—Grace to accept the sinner who was guilty of His death. The Cross reveals to us Grace on the Throne of God, Grace at its culminating point, Grace triumphant and resplendent in the uttermost degree! Who would see Grace, let him behold a bleeding Savior bearing the griefs of men upon Himself and suffering in their place. “You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the kindness, the bounty, the benevolence, the generosity, the compassion, the condescension, the tenderness, “the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”