Christ Magnified - Part 1

I'm thinking particularly of the 20th verse according to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as always so now Christ shall be magnified in my body. I used to think that in the second letter to the chronic of Corinthians and chapter 5 well Paul gives us a kind of summary there of his theology he believes that if we're absent from the body we're present with the Lord knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men we must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ and then verse 14 I've always considered was the thing that really motivated him he out preached everybody out suffered everybody he out prayed everybody I thought that 14th verse the love of Christ constraineth me was his main motivation along again with the obligation to present Christ in all his majesty all his glory to remind us as dear Keith said one day in my office we were talking about the roads he said well all roads lead to the judgment seat which is true they do whether a Democrat an autocrat a plutocrat or any other crat or a liberal or what you are whether we're slaves or free men intellectuals or ignoramuses black or white rich or poor all roads lead to the judgment seat without exception. Now I've come to this conclusion reading recently in Philippians here that the motivation of the Apostle in his zigzag course not up and down spiritually but zigzag in prison out of prison in wilderness in fastings in painfulness in tribulation in dress distress in perils of his countrymen in perils of the deep in perils of Robert whatever it was the one thing that motivated him I believe is in this 20th verse as now always Christ shall be magnified in my body or some put it by my body whether it be by life or by death the thing that gripped me as I read it this week Christ may be magnified not in my ministry not in my miracles not in my super love I out love everybody else in the world today I out preach them I out suffer everybody but he says that Christ may be magnified in my body.

If you turn over to the where is it chapter 4 verse 8 this explains his life I think he says be careful for nothing be careful in everything and be thankful for anything that covers a lot of territory doesn't it the King James Version of course the best one says be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and thanksgiving prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto the Lord I believe that's a territory in which he lived and moved and had his being.

Now this epistle is very beautiful you know why because it's a love letter some of you ladies remember the first one you got I guess it's stuffed away somewhere now tied up with a ribbon maybe or you threw it in the garbage as soon as you read it I don't know but anyhow love letters are beautiful a fellow in our church fell in love with my sister he wrote a letter to her boy Shakespeare couldn't have done better he saw everything she dies like stars and her cheeks were rosy and she was this I never knew I'd live over 20 years never noticed one of the things he said she had because beauty again is in the eye of the beholder this is a lovely epistle for one thing there's no mention of sin in this epistle at all I think what Paul is actually saying here that in the greatest suffering you can have the greatest joy we like the bonuses we're not too anxious to have the burdens are we if you read the epistle carefully you find that 14 times he mentions joy and he's in a stinking hall of the prison we wouldn't put a dog in in these days no bed in it no creature comforts the rottenness food just a hellhole and yet here he is sending a letter of greetings and cheering to other people who should be writing letters to him so with all the greatness and all the pressure he says it's possible to have this boundless joy again he does not mention sin he mentions flesh once and then dismisses it he's showing us that there's a grace of God far more exceedingly abundantly above all that we can either ask or think the great old Scottish saint Samuel Rutherford some of you know that great hymn the sands of time are sinking he didn't write it mrs.

Cousins extracted phrases out of his wonderful diary and put that marvelous marvelous hymn together I think it's maybe the greatest hymn ever written but he says I have to go into the King's cellar to find the King's wine I remember old houses not far from where we live we got in one one day the owner's son was a friend of mine he said ever been in a huge underground cellar I said no we went in and out there were all the old wine racks we searched dozens they were all empty it's a blessing they were I'm sure I'd have got drunk that day I was so thirsty in that old basement but he said look at the old wines he used to keep labels you know from Portugal and Spain and here and there and champagne from France and all the rest of it but they're not stored upstairs in the refrigerator they're stored or were stored in dungeons in the dark places and we would like God to serve up as it were the wine of heaven just while we're living on the level without any interruption of trial or tribulation or testing but that's not the way that God works let me look over here a minute I've lost my marker here let me see I'll find it well or you can be looking right now at Rome well you know it anyhow you know Romans chapter 12 I'm thinking of places where Paul talks about his body he doesn't talk about yielding your mind really he says in Romans 12 1 and 2 I beseech you brethren therefore by the mercies of God that you present your body a living sacrifice not your brain not your emotion not your spirit but if I said to somebody look here's my watch well it's a fairly modern one you know it doesn't have a battery I don't have to wind it up the old one they had works in you know they were marvelous old things they used to call them stem winders they're collectors items now if I give a man my watch I gave him the works I gave him the hands I gave him the face I gave him everything well if I present my body a living sacrifice surely I'm presenting everything that I have my spirit my soul and my body for which Paul prays you remember when he's praying to the speaking to the Thessalonians when Thessalonians 523 he prays the very God of peace sanctify you holy and I pray that your spirit and soul and body be preserved but blameless unto the coming of the Lord faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it so I give my body in its entirety to God again a girl not very well known in England years ago wrote a beautiful hymn all for Jesus all for Jesus all my beings ransom powers all my thoughts and