Cambridge sermons

Contents

I.— The one Life

II.— Who loved Me

III.— Choose whom ye will serve

II. Who Loved Me

—————

SCRIPTURE LESSON: Romams viii: 14-39.

TEXT: Who loved me, and gave himself for me. . Galatians, li t20.

HERE was an apostle who delighted to speak

of himself as “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” It was not that man who wrote the words which have now been read to you. Yet quite as much as his brother did St. Paul exult in the love which Christ had for him. Indeed, these words are a better expression of love than those which are used by the beloved disciple. St. John seems almost to shut out others; “that disciple,” he says, as if there were no others whom Jesus loved. This apostle is broader in his thought. He draws in the love of God to himself; he feels how much more it is to him than it is to the world; he takes it to himself as if he stood alone; yet he does not shut out the world from the affection which Christ offers to all for whom he gives himself. The words of St. Paul are broader, again, in that they | 31 contain the method in which this love of Christ manifests itself. When St. John called himself “that disciple whom Jesus loved,” or at the period in which he places those words, the creat manifestation of the love of Christ had not been made. When St. Paul wrote, Christ had given himself to the cross, and the love had manifested itself in its own way. Therefore he wrote more fully as he rejoiced to write, ‘* Who loved me and gave himself for me.” Indeed, the expressions which St. Paul uses touching the love of Christ are all of the strongest character. He finds words insufficient as he rises into the vast regions which are beyond language, and beyond thought even. Thus, in his mind, the love of Christ while it is something to be known, “ passeth knowledge,” and reaches infinitely far away. Again, this love of Christ which comes to him is not something which touches his life, and with which he has no communion; but it is something to which his own heart is so bound that it is not possible for anything in this world, or in any world, to part the two asunder. Again, this love which Christ gives to him is a love which not only brings him the victory, but, going beyond that, bestows more than the victory, for, ““we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” And again, this love which Christ has for him is not only a love which incites him to good deeds, and inclines him to do those things which please

‘ Christ, but it comes with its constraining and compelling force, until he feels himself taken in hand by a strong power, and carried on to that which Christ requires of him. We have but to read these thoughts wherewith St. Paul expands the love of Christ, this sentence in which he declares that Christ loved him, to find how marvellous is this conception, how profoundly it is settled in his soul, and how wonderfully it is governing his life.

If we ask when it was that this love was given to him, the thought rises yet more in our minds as we remember that this love of Christ was before Christ died for him, and when this apostle was not his friend. The man was indifferent to him; the indifference grew into hostility ; the hostility broke into violence of the most cruel and relentless kind. Yet Christ gave himself for one who did not love him, and continued to give himself, and give his affection, when St. Paul had become the violent persecutor. We find this affection coming to him, and working out for him this help through the cross, at a time when, if we are to trust our own thoughts, he might be reached in some other way. For St. Paul was an honest and amiable man, an upright man, and a religious man after the custom of his fathers, and very devout and very scrupulous in his religion; and it was when he was religious, and when he was honest, that Christ loved him and gave himself for him. His life had turned aside; he was misunderstanding Christ. What was needed more than that the Spirit should come to him and inform him in a quiet way who Christ was, and, working within the recesses of his soul, turn his thoughts towards Christ, and his life into the service of Christ? We are somewhat startled when we find that the want of this religious man is not met but by the Christ; that the want of this upright man is not met by any instruction or any spiritual power, but only by the compassion of Christ who loved him. “J, who am careful in my religion beyond all men—a Hebrew of the Hebrews—I claim this mercy of the Christ, who, that he might save me, loved me and gave himself for me.”

I think we can make a creed out of these words, and a very large creed, and a very deep and rich creed, whose articles might run somewhat in this way: I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who is strong enough to give himself for me. I believe in my necessity that the Son of God should give himself forme. I believe in the love of Christ which impelled him to give himself for me. I believe in a godly iife which can be lived by the faith of the Son of God “who loved me and gave himself for me.” I believe in a destiny of everlasting wealth and eternal blessedness which will be given to me for the sake of him ‘‘who loved meand — gave himself for me.” How large a confession it is; how profound an utterance of his acknowledgment! What an expression of his reverence, of his faith, of his contrition, of his hope, of his rejoicing ! ‘The whole expansion of his thought, the whole love of Christ, is condensed into this single sentence which spreads before us like the light of heaven, ‘* Who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

It was very natural that the working out of this principle in the mind of the apostle should be what it was. Even without reading his history we know what must come of this which he has here told us. These three things must come, certainly.

It must come to pass, first, that he will love the one who has loved him and given himself for him. There is but one thing which the loving heart is content with giving, and that is love. There is but one thing which the loving heart is content to receive, and that is love. It is an absurdity to offer anything less: it is an injustice to receive anything less. Even in our common relationships here there is but one thing which matches love, and that is love. A marriage between love on the one hand and money on the other is an abomination in the sightof God and man. Friendship which is between affection on the one hand and service on the other is a mockery and a shame. Piety which is between God’s love on the one hand and a man’s regard for the commandments on the other is not rational; is not acceptable to the man’s conscience, and is not received in the court of Heaven. But one thing fits to love; but one thing contents love, either in the receiving or in the giving, and that is love itself. It is not until one comes to give this answer that he is very deeply conscious of that to which he is making his response. I suppose the reason that St. John applies to himself the words which, so far as we have any record, no one else applied to him, “that disciple whom Jesus loved,” was that he had a constant conviction that he was that disciple who loved Jesus. How much Peter loved he did ‘not know; how much Andrew and Thomas loved he could not tell; but he knew by every beating of his heart, by all the force of his thought and his love, that he loved Christ, and by that token he knew that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. For it is inevitable when this man comes into the consciousness that Christ loves him, that his love should flow out as nothing else could draw it; that he should know there is nothing less that he can give ; there is nothing less that Christ will receive.

Then there will come from this, in the second place, a trusting. It is impossible that one should know Christ and love him without trusting him, because he seeks to be depended upon according to that which he comes to do, and that which he promises to do, and that which we need to have him do. We cannot feel that he will fail us. The teaching of the apostle comes with force, ~ and always awakens one response: ‘*God who gave his Son for us will give us everything that we need. Christ who gives himself for us will not withhold anything we need. It is enough that he beholds the necessity. Hven there our Lord himself left it: ‘Your Father knoweth;” that is enough. Your Father loveth; that is enough.

Therefore the man trusts him for the present and for the future. It is out of this consciousness of a

common love that he comes into that sublime

confidence: “I know whom I have believed.”

Well, what is he, who is he? Who is this whom

you believe? “I believe in him who loved me and gave himself for me; and I know that I shall

receive a crown of righteousness in that day, for

he who will give me the crown has already given

me himself.” He knows there can be no wasting

of this love. Feeling within that his love for Christ

can never change, he is yet more persuaded that

the love of Christ can never change. Indeed, he

might write out his own thought in the words of that English woman who has sung so well of the

permanence of the love of Christ, the continuance

of his affection for us:

**Oh, never is Loved ONCE, Thy word, thou Victim-Christ, misprized friend; Thy cross and curse may rend;

But having loved, Thou lovest to the end!”’

And he would make answer, still in the words of this sweet singer :

** Those never loved, Who dream that they loved ONCE.”’

I think that by all which is true in the sacred affections of our hearts, we believe that if there is anything about us which will last, it is our love for that which is lovely. The old doctrine, so pleasant even in the sound of its words, of the perseverance of the saints is nothing but the doctrine of the permanence of love. As long as Christ’s love is true and fresh, they who love him once love him forever. You ask the assurance that we shall enjoy his presence forever: it is that we love him here to-day. I know that it seems sometimes as if love had passed away. It may be because it never existed; it was a mere emotion not worthy of that God-word, love. It may be that it is merely obscured, as sometimes that which is recent comes in to cover that which is dearer to our hearts. Still, the singer is true, and the Christ is true, and your hearts are true: “Those never loved who dream that they loved once.” ‘They who feel within them the assurance of an unchanging love for Christ need no argument to prove to them the unchanging love of Christ for them; and upon that they rest their hope in quiet trust.

Then there follows a third thing, of course, and that is, the pleasing Christ. For the love at once seeks to do that which will gratify the one who is loved, recognizing this out of its own experience, that there is nothing so exacting as love; that we always demand the most of those we love the best; that we are always the most solicitous for the welfare of those who are dearest to us. You are more anxious that your child should do his best than that my child should do his best. You always hold up the highest standard before him who is nearest to you, and expect from him the most truthfulness, the most kindness, and the most devotion. Yet on the other hand there is nothing so small, if it be heartily given, that it is not dear to you—the flower which your child has picked from the wayside, the bright stone which he brings in out of the road, the simple utterance of his affection, the simple clasping of his arms about your neck. There is nothing too small for love to take, there is nothing too great for love to ask. One who knows this, finding it in the love of Christ for him and his love for Christ, at once feels that nothing can be too great that he shall do; that he can count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord, and count all things easy which shall please him who pleased not himself.

The apostle has come here upon the law of life. The one principle of life is stated in the strong and precious words before us. First, this is in God’s life, for God is love. God is more than love; God is light also. God’s love is not centred and restrained within his own heart; it must go out, or it is not love; it must give itself, or it is not love. He is not content with living and moving eternally in the sphere of his own affection, but his love must reach out to men, to every one who lives. Hence, if God loves men he must go ont to men; he must meet them where they are; he must meet them in their necessities and do for them what love requires. If at any time it becomes necessary, he must put himself in sacrifice for men. I wish that we might see the marvellous reaching out of this simple truth. It was the fine saying of a man whom we all delight to honor, who never stood with more majesty than when recently among missionaries and the friends of missions he declared the sufficiency of the love of God, and uttered that sentence which might well be committed to our memory as a fact of history and a prophecy for all that is to be. “Christianity proclaims,” he said, “in three words, of one syllable each, the grandest discovery ever made, the sublimest truth ever uttered.” There are but three words in the language which answer that description. ‘here are but three words in the Bible which can come to your minds in that connection — the grand, divine, eternal truth that ‘God is love.” It is God’s love that is his hfe. Take it away, and you have taken away so much from God; you have taken God from God. The principle of God’s life within himself, the principle of God’s life among the

WHO LOVED ME. Al angels and among men, is the principle of a love which goes out and finds men, and blesses them according to their need. Hence, if one asks in Gethsemane why it is not possible that the sacrifice may pass away, there is but one answer. If it is a matter of will, it can pass away. Why cannot the cup pass unless it be drained by the Christ? Simply because those whom God loves need to have it drained. Love will stop at nothing. If men can beblessed by seeing the grapes upon the vine, let it be so; if they can be blessed with maxims of ethics and philosophy, let it be so. The time has come when those whom God loves can only be blessed in that cup; therefore it

_is not possible that the cup should pass away until it has been drained. And the reason it is not possible is, that God is love.

We come again upon this principle of life in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is here in the world as the embodiment of the thought: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.” Christ so loved the world that he came into it, and went about with ministries of mercy, until at last he stretched out his hands upon the cross, loving men and giving himself formen. Take away the love from Christ and what have you left? Possibly the teaching, perhaps the purity of his life; perhaps an example white as marble, and moral maxims cold as snowflakes and as little nourishing to the heart. The one thing which

Bs makes Christ dear to you, the Saviour, the Comforter, the Helper, is that the life of Christ is love.

Hence, obviously, when you come to the Christian life the principle is the same. ‘T'here is but one life in Heaven and in earth, and that is God’s life. The life that we live in the flesh is the life of God in us; and when we come to the Christian life, it is the life of Christ. There never was but one Christian life, and that is Christ’s life. I will not play with words. If one chooses to say that this is a Christian nation, and that men can be Christians though they do not believe in Christ, very well. They are not the Christians of the New Testament. You know the testimony of the poor Chinaman at the West who found himself abused, insulted in the streets, beaten and stoned, and who wrote back the piteous tale in his simplicity: “The men who did it are Christians, but they are not Jesus-Christians.” Now the only “ Jesus-Christians”’ in the world are the Christians in whom Jesus is. It is only as Christ is in us that we are Christians ; it is only as Christ’s life is in us that we have the Christian life. Even as it flowed out from the hands and the lips and the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth must it flow out in our lives, in all that we do and in all that we are, as we go our way through the world. It comes to take us up and control us and exalt us forever—the one Christian life. I can come to Christ as the greatest of teachers and sit calmly down to receive his instructions; I can come to him and mark the purity and simplicity of his example; I can follow him until I am attracted by the charity and benevolence of his spirit; but I have not found the Christ. No man whose heart was ever full of the love of Christ was content to say, “ Who loved me and taught me the Sermon on the Mount;” “ Who loved me and healed the sick and raised the dead;” “Who loved men and taught them by a holy example that he could do what they could never do.” No Christian heart talks in this way. It is the heart far away from him which says it; it is the Christian, perhaps, but it is not the “ Jesus-Christian.” ‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall teach men to pay their debts,’ — who said it? Never the Christ, never the disciple, never the man whom Jesus loved. * Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” Now we know what St. Paul means: “ Who loved me and gave ’’— not his words, not his miracles, — “ who gave himself for me.” I gather up his teachings and all which is matchless and precious in his life, in this one gift; for when I have my friend, I have my friend’s house, I have his words, I have his example, I have his love; I get all when I get him ; I get everything which any one else gets, and I get more when I get the Christ who gave himself. Taking himself in his hands, he gave himself over to me and became mine, my own, my own Saviour. I do not believe that I shall ever | learn, even from the Sermon on the Mount, the spirit which will make me kneel down before my —

Judas and wash his feet. If ever in God’s grace I become able to do that, it will be because there stands before me the Christ girded with a towel, and with a basin of water in his hands, and love in his heart. I do not believe that I can ever go in selfforgetful devotion through the world because | I know that Christ fed the multitudes and taught sweet lessons of charity. I do not believe that I can ever lose my life for Christ’ssake while J content myself with gathering up his parables and taking | their blessed lessons to my heart. But at thecross there is this spirit; in the cross I seek it; from the cross [ take it. ‘I can do all things,” do you say, “for I know that Christ stilled the tempest on the sea of Galilee, and I know that he said we should render unto Cesar the things thatare Cesar’s, andunto God the things that are God’s?” Oh! do it if you can. If Iam ever able, I believe if you are ever able, to make up a Christian life in the world, it will be under the constraint of that word which this man wrote: “I can do all things through Christ,” “ who loved me and gave himself for me.”

I think we have found many instances besides those which are recorded in Holy Scripture where this principle rules. We need not go out of our own homes to find the controlling power of love, if not the freshness and the strength of it; the love which makes a man toil unto old age for those whom he loves; which makes a mother watch through the weary nights, nor mark the hours, for those she loves; the pure sparks from the glowing heart of God’s affection. If we look _ at those who have stood out with marked lives of usefulness and devotion, we find this principle. That missionary mother separating from her children on a foreign shore, sending them away from her home that they might receive the nurture of her native land, and as the boat pushes out which is never to come back, lifting up her heart to say, ‘I do this for thee, Jesus,” has a love like the love of Christ; “I do this for thee, Jesus,for thou hast left thy Father’s house for me,” that is her thought. Then there are those words of that noble man who wrote to his children in England, out of the heart of Africa, “Tell them I have left them for the love of Jesus, and they must love him too.” Hear his cry, “O divine Loye, I have not loved Thee strongly, deeply, warmly enough.” ‘“O Jesus, fill me with Thy love now, and, I beseech Thee, accept me, and use me a little for Thy glory.” There is but one force which can do this; there is but one power which bears men into this divine usefulness; and the power lies within this brief sentence: “I do this for him who loved me and gave himself for

29 ° me

Friends, the lesson for every one of us is this — not for those without the Church more than for those within the Church ; it is the great lesson for © all men: —that if we are to live the lfe which is worthy of us, it must be as we receive the life of the Christ, and the Christ at his best. When your life moving up blends with his life, when the love of Christ comes into your heart to take possession of it, there can be but one result. It will save you, for Christ gives himself to save sinners; it will bring you up into the Christly life, for Christ comes, the vine, to give his life unto the branches; it will govern your thoughts, your purposes, your steps; it will exalt your life and sanctify and glorify your spirit; it will bring you at last into that grand fulfilment which the beloved disciple saw and could not describe: ‘*We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Whosoever sees Christ as he is, sees Christ loving him and giving himself for him. Oh! see it, friends; look until you see it; look until the sun goes down; look until the morning comes; wait, gaze, look, look with longing eyes until you see it! When that thought becomes your thought, when it takes hold upon you as a part of your life, then will God be glorified in you, and you will live in the faith of the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.

Let me turn as I close to the teaching of Christ himself — uttered not in Syriac syllables, nor in English sentences, which we might not understand, and whose power and beauty we might not perceive —the words of Christ spoken in this body of Christ which is here set forth again before us. There is Christ. Do you want to come close to him? You will find him there. He said that we must eat his flesh to have life; we must drink his blood to have life; we have not seen him until we have seen him on the cross; we have not found his love until we have found his love crucifying itself; we have not entered into his grace until his pierced hands have held us against the bosom of his divine, redeeming love.

They say sometimes in Scotland, in their quaint phrase, that the Lord’s table is “fenced.” You do not see the fence here; there is none —not a wall, not a door open or shut. There is but one guard around that table: a circle of light streaming out from the bread and from the wine, a circle of light around it, made of these divine words: “ Who loved me, and gave himself for me.” You must not think to step over it, to pass under it, to remove it. You draw near, and stooping down, you lift it in your hands, you hold it to your heart, and thus you come to the Lord’s table, which is the table of your Saviour, and he gives you to eat and drink with him. There is no fence about the Church. On its threshold lies a single line: “ Who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Take it up in your hands and hold it in your heart and the

Church is open. The door of Heaven is always open. Across the threshold of Heaven there lies one line of light. You take it into your life and pass on with it to the throne, carrying it in your rejoicing, “Who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved, And we must love him too,

And trust in his redeeming blood, And try his works to do.

III. Choose Whom Ye Will Serve

SCRIPTURE Lesson: S. Matt. vii: 13-29.

TEXT: Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” oshua REV? 1S.

MUST ask you to read the last two chapters

of this Book of Joshua, to recall to your minds the circumstances under which these words were spoken. Joshua was an old man; his life as a chieftain and a statesman was about to end. He was giving his last words to the people. He did not carry them through the details of the life which they were to live; he did not give them commandments arranged in systematic order; he brought them rather to one point where they were to stand, and, standing there, or moving from that point towards God, they were to make up their life. He did not mean that they were to choose between one God and another, although the form of his words might suggest that. He knew there was not a man among them who would choose the gods of the Amorites, or the gods on the other side of the river, instead of 49

Jehovah. What he did was to state in a strong way their duty and privilege; that they should choose as he had done; that they should choose the Lord to be their God. Moses had been placed in somewhat similar circumstances on the day of the worship of the golden calf, when, standing before the people, he cried with a voice of indignation and reverence, ‘‘ Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.” Later than this, in the days of Baal, Elijah cried with the same spirit: * How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him.”

It is evident that this mode of presenting the claim which God makes upon us is somewhat different from that in which it is usually presented. This form of words has very much passed out of use, and the thought which les within the words has been in a measure superseded. We are not saying to-day, ‘“‘ Choose you whom ye will serve;”’ we are saying, “choose you whom ye will trust.” We have passed over from this idea of a life which is to be lived for God to a life in which God is to take us up and carry us on, promising us Heaven, alluring us with pleasures all the way, and indulging our wishes at every point, if so be, in our condescension, we will consent to be saved. I think that it is for lack of the strong element which the Scriptures always present, that it is man’s duty to obey God, our piety has fallen so much upon inefficiency; that it lacks nerve; that even our belief of the truth grows feeble and our obedience of the truth feebler; that our devotion to God is an uncertain thing, and our service almost as variable as our states of mind. We need to have breathed into our thoughts a feeling of duty ; a sense of something which we must do; of a life which we are to live. I gather it all up into this saying of the old Hebrew statesman in which we are called upon to choose whom we will serve ; to choose God and to serve him continually.