May God bless us as we're together
now and turn to his word. We'll turn to the chapter that
we read in the first epistle to the Corinthians and chapter
15 and we'll read together verse 10. First epistle to the Corinthians,
chapter 15 and reading verse 10. But by the grace of God, I am
what I am. And his grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than
they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. You will notice in this verse
we read three times that word grace. I wonder, you children
may wonder sometimes what grace means. What do we mean when we
talk of grace, particularly the grace of God? Well, let me give
you an illustration. A number of years ago there was
a man in America who had bought a new car. He had spent gold
money and bought a new Jaguar. It was very expensive and it
was very fast. And one day he was out on the
highway and there were no other cars around. And he thought,
I'll see what this car can do. And he put his foot down. And
it went faster and faster down this straight highway. And he
came to a little brow of a hill as he reached maximum speed. And standing the other side of
that brow of the hill was a policeman with a speed radar. And he hadn't
seen him before. and the first he saw was in there
with his speed gun to see how fast he was going. Well, he slowed
down after a while, it took him a while to slow down, pulled
over and waited for the inevitable. The policeman walked his way
down the road to his car. He ran down his window waiting
for the speeding ticket. Well, can you imagine if then
that man, that policeman, came along and wrote out the ticket
and said, well, actually don't worry about paying that ticket.
I'll pay the ticket instead. I'll pay that ticket so that
you don't have to. Well, imagine he's surprised
if a policeman said that and he didn't have to pay anything.
for what he had done wrong. And then imagine even more his
surprise when the policeman says, well why don't you get in the
back of my car, I'll take you to the nearest coffee shop and
buy you a drink and then why don't I escort you in your car
to the next petrol station and we'll fill you up so you have
a car full of petrol and I'll pay for that. And then I'll give
you some money as you go on your way so that you can spend as
you would like to and go off back to your house. The debt
has been paid, the fine has been paid, I'll cover that. And I'll
give you all of these things as well. That would be just a
little illustration of grace. Of what God's grace is. that he pays the price that we
deserve to pay and gives us more in abundance. He gives us every
blessing as well. And it is right to say that every
Christian, every Christian, in everything that a Christian is,
In everything that a Christian has and in everything that a
Christian does, all is a result of God's grace, of God's favour
towards us which we utterly do not deserve. All that we are,
all that we have and all that we do is God's grace. And that is what the Apostle
Paul is saying when he writes this verse in this chapter, because
he says, by the grace of God, I am what I am. His grace was
not bestowed upon me, was not in vain. I labor more abundantly
than thou, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with
me. All that I am, all that I have,
all that I do, is God's grace. And from conversion to glory,
the whole of the Christian pathway from beginning to end, we are
and we prove to be trophies of grace. We prove His grace every
day. Well, what does the Apostle here
then say about grace, about God's grace towards him. Well, he speaks
really in this verse of three elements of grace, three different
ways of looking at it, or three different areas of his life that
he received God's grace. He speaks firstly of converting
grace, converting grace. He then speaks of equipping grace,
equipping grace. and finally he speaks of constraining
grace. So converting grace, equipping
grace and constraining grace. First of all this morning he
says this, by the grace of God I am what I am. By God's grace, he was converted
and made a believer. Who was the Apostle Paul? Sunday school children here have
an unfair advantage because you were all thinking this morning
about the conversion of the Apostle Paul. So you can answer these
questions very well, I hope. Who was the Apostle Paul or who
was Saul of Tarsus before he was converted? What was he like?
Well, he was outwardly a very righteous and what might appear
holy person. He was of the tribe of Benjamin,
one of the tribes of Israel. He was a Pharisee. That means
he was very well taught in the things of the Bible, the law
of the Old Testament. It means that he tried in his
utmost to keep that law perfectly and rightly. It means that he
also tried to keep additional laws that other people had added
to the law and additional traditions and ideas that the Jews had added.
He was, as a Pharisee, someone who people would look up to.
would see and think to be a good example of a good righteous follower
of the Old Testament. Saul was knowledgeable. He knew a great deal. He grew
up and was taught under the feet of a great Pharisee called Gamaliel,
who taught him a great deal. and Saul knew a great deal of
the Old Testament. He could explain it, he could
debate about it, he could expound it and he sought to follow it
and encourage others to do so. Saul rather was zealous in the
things of God. He was going about doing his
utmost to keep the law. He was zealous, he had enthusiasm
in himself, in the ways that he lived. Many must have looked on and
held Saul of Tarsus up as a great example of a good, holy Jewish
man. But yet, none, none of that,
none of his life of learning, none of his good works, absolutely
none of it saved him. None of it made him a believer. None of it brought him into God's
family as a converted, forgiven Christian. Saul of Tarsus was not just an
outwardly righteous man. He was also zealous in persecuting
and putting down the Christian church. He saw that in his life
of serving God through the Old Testament law, he must also put
down anything that he thought to be wrong. And his understanding
was to believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah was wrong and
was error. And he persecuted the church. He hounded them to prison. He
presided over the stoning, the martyrdom of Stephen and he went
off to Damascus with letters to arrest the Lord's people and
take them to Jerusalem as prisoners. He persecuted the church and
we know that through that he also, as it were, persecuted
Christ, Christ's people. Christ was persecuted through
his people. Paul was zealous. But that shows
that really Paul was against God. He was against the truth
as it was revealed in Jesus. That did not save him, for he
was guilty. He was guilty. And he admits
what he was, doesn't he? In that verse that we read, verse
9 in this chapter, he says, I am the least of the apostles. and not me to be called an apostle
because I persecuted the church of God. This is what he was and
he admits his guilt. He admits that he's guilty. He
admits that he was an enemy of the church, an enemy of God's
people, an enemy of the Lord himself. This is what Saul of
Tarsus was. He terrified the church. He terrified
them. You think of when Ananias was
told to go and seize Saul of Tarsus following his conversion
on the road to Damascus. Ananias was terrified. He said,
I've heard of this man. I've heard what he's done. I've
heard what he has come here to do. He has come to arrest me.
He has come to take me and others off to Jerusalem as prisoners.
This was a notorious man, a man the church was scared of. This
is like the most extreme, as it were, of the Islamic extremists
today, who go about wanting to eradicate the church, who want
to kill the Lord's people. And they think they serve God
by doing so. This is the equivalent of who
Saul was to the Lord's people in these days. And yet he says,
By the grace of God, I am what I am. We know what he was, but
what did Saul become? What did Saul become? And what
did God do for and in him? Well, God called him, didn't
he? God called him. That road to Damascus, he said
his name, Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou me? God called him. God spoke to him, singled him
out. The others who he was with, they
saw a light, but they didn't hear the voice. And yet the Lord
spoke to Saul. He revealed himself to him. I
am Jesus who now persecutes. He revealed himself to Saul of
Tarsus, a great sinner, a persecutor of the church, and yet he revealed
himself. as the Christ, the Son of God. He opened his eyes. When Anais
came, we read that those scales fell off his eyes and he saw,
literally he saw, but the Lord opened his eyes to see by faith
that all that he had opposed, all that he had spent his life
being against was actually truth. and that Jesus of Nazareth was
not someone to be persecuted and his people quashed out. He
was the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour, his Saviour. He
opened his eyes. He forgave him his sin. He washed him clean. He was baptised
immediately by an Ananias, the sign of washing, the sign of
a new life, the sign of a soul who's been forgiven, a follower
of Christ. and he made him a member of the
family of God, a member of the very church that he had spent
his life persecuting, and yet within days the Apostle is found
meeting with the members, meeting with believers and preaching,
and expounding that Jesus Christ, whom he had persecuted, was indeed
the Saviour. What a change. The Christians,
I'm sure, could hardly believe it, when there, sitting amongst
them, or there, coming through the door with Ananias, was Saul
of Tarsus. Really, has he come with an army?
Has he come to arrest us? And he sits down in the company,
and he worships amongst them, and he stands back, and he stands
up, rather, and expounds that Christ has appeared to him as
Saviour and Messiah. What shock! How amazing it must
have been for the Church to see Saul of Tarsus in this place. What had happened? Why had he changed? How had he
changed? What had he done? Well, he had
done nothing, because he tells us, but by the grace of God,
I am what I am. It was God's grace that had completely
transformed him. It was God's grace that he had
come to him. It was God's grace that he had
awakened him. It was God's grace that Saul
had cried out. It was God's grace that Christ
had revealed himself. It was God's grace that his eyes
had been opened. It was all a result of God's
grace. And we go from Saul of Tarsus,
the persecutor of the church, and we come to Paul the Apostle,
who can say this, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. That is an utterly changed man
who speaks. That is one who has received
God's grace. Unmerited, unearned, and yet
blessed as it were the fine paid and the blessing poured out on
this man Saul of Tarsus. By the grace of God I am what
I am. Every believer, every Christian
from that day before that, but certainly from that day to today,
can say exactly the same words. No one has anything to boast
of. No believer can boast of anything
that they have done or anything that they have given to God to
earn their salvation, or anything that they have paid, each believer
today and throughout the ages could only say, I am what I am
by the grace of God. It is not who we are, it is not what we know, and it
is not what we do that earns salvation. The Lord does not
save us because we have a good heritage and godly parents. The
Lord does not save us because we do things to please him and
we are righteous in our lives. The Lord does not save us because
of the things we know in our head. The Lord saves his people
because he is a God of grace. because he looks upon his people
in mercy and in love and he works, he works to show us our need,
to reveal himself and to open our eyes. By the grace of God,
I am what I am. We deserve We deserve his anger. We deserve hell. We deserve his
wrath. We deserve that we should pay
the fine for all that we have done wrong. That would be just. That would be right. But yet, God's grace is that
he does it for us. We deserve it and yet he shows
grace. Isn't that the most wonderful
truth? Isn't that the best news? That God himself could look upon
us where we are as sinners, guilty and deserving his wrath and that
he could see us there and yet choose us in eternity past and
love us with a glorious and eternal love. That he could die and pay
the price on that cross for his people. That he could come in
the power of the spirit and regenerate his people to new life and make
them and give them a new heart, new desires and prayers. That he could call us and bring
us up out of darkness into life That he could give us faith when
once we didn't care, we didn't understand, we didn't desire
the things of God at all and yet he works to bring it to life,
to make it reality, to give us faith, to receive it and to love
it. That he could do that for sinners
who could give nothing and could do nothing and deserved his anger.
That is grace. That is grace beyond measure.
That is amazing. grace. And if we're a believer
here this morning, the Lord has worked in our hearts. We are
only what we are because of his grace and we must give glory
to him. How tempting it is sometimes
to lift ourselves up, to think that we're doing well or to think
that the Lord is pleased with us, to think that we did something
that encouraged the Lord to make us a Christian. How tempting
it is to lift up our own pride and yet we must only praise God
because we are what we are by His grace and without that grace
we would not be a believer. We would not be here. If we're not a believer today,
if you're here today and you're not a Christian, you don't know
the Lord, then this reminds you that you cannot earn salvation.
It reminds you you cannot make yourself a Christian. You cannot decide one morning
to be a Christian and think then that all will be well. You cannot
earn it. You cannot do it by yourself.
The believer is only a believer. You can only be a believer. The
Lord's work is that you might cast yourself upon him by his
grace. Because only He can give you
what you need. Only He can save you. It's His
grace. Nothing of us. And His promise,
His promise and His work is still seen today that He pours out
His blessing on sinners who do come and do cast themselves on
Him and come empty and come helpless and come and say, I need grace. I need unmerited favour, I need
God to be merciful when I deserve His anger and judgement. He promises and He does pour
His blessing on His people, but only when they come like that.
only when they come dependent on His grace. The Apostle expounds
to us and he tells us, doesn't he, that all should be for the
glory of God's grace. All should be for the glory of
His grace. He says in these wonderful opening
words to the Ephesians, Blessed be the Lord and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us
in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace. You see the things he expounds
here. Blessed be God who has given us spiritual blessings,
who chose us, who made us holy and without blame, who predestinated
us to become children of God. All of that should be to the
praise of the glory of his grace. That is all grace that we should
be called, chosen, brought to life, predestinated into God's
family. Praise to the glory of his grace. So we have here then converting
grace. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. The Apostle also goes on and
says, his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. His grace that was bestowed upon
me was not in vain and here he is speaking of equipping grace. This is not saving grace, as
it were. This is grace that God has bestowed
on him to give him the gifts that he needed, the graces that
he needed to equip him for the life that he had to live. The
grace that was bestowed on him, that he gave him, that he poured
upon him. That grace that he gave, equipping
him for his service. That grace was not in vain. Equipping grace. And what a role, what a commission
the Apostle Paul had. When he was called, he was to
go as an apostle primarily to the Gentiles. He was to go to
spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. He was
given those necessary gifts and abilities and graces needed in
order to do that. He needed to go and to preach
and to minister to the people. He says again when he writes
the Ephesians, I was made a minister according to the gift of the
grace of God, given unto me by the effectual working of his
power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this
grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ." He felt to be the least of all the saints,
the least of the Apostles, and yet God gave him the gift of
grace to make him the minister, the preacher to the Gentiles. God gave him that gift and it
was of his grace to do it. Paul had been schooled, Paul
had been trained at the feet of Gamaliel. Paul had learned
much And all of that was vital and important so that he could
go and expound the scriptures and preach Christ. And that was
God's grace to give him those opportunities even before he
was converted. And it was God's grace that gave
him the ability to preach and gave him the ability to write
his epistles and expound doctrine. It was God's grace that gave
him the desire to preach and the desire for souls so that
he could say, woe is me if I preach not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It was the grace of God that
made him humble so that he could say, I am least than the less,
less than the least of all saints. It was God's grace to give him
wisdom and understanding and strength and help. He equipped
him for the service that he had him to do. All the gifts that
he needed. All the gifts that he required
were given. by God's grace. The Lord doesn't
send his people in his service, whatever that might mean, and
not equip them and leave them to themselves and leave them
to go off in their own strength. The Lord gives us what we need
and we all have those different talents and abilities, those
graces that God has poured out upon us. so that we might serve
him in the way that he has called us to do so. And he says that
grace then was not in vain. It was not in vain. I received
the blessings from God and I used them. I was given the help to
understand the word and I used that to expound it. I was given
the wisdom and understanding of the Old Testament and I used
that to expound it, to reveal Christ. I was given the ability
to preach and the desire to do so and I used it so that I might
reach the Gentiles. The grace that was bestowed upon
me was not in vain. God gave me the gift and gave
me the grace to use it. We have that parable, don't we,
that the Lord tells us of the talents. One who is given those
talents and traded and gained those more. And yet the third
one who had one talent and buried it and didn't use it and thought
that it was enough just to give back to his Lord what his Lord
had given to him. And he was cast out. He was judged
that he didn't use his talent, didn't use what God had given
him. Let us consider this morning.
Is the grace that the Lord has bestowed on us, could we say,
well, that's in vain. It seems to be in vain. because
I've buried it, I've ignored it, I've not used it for His
glory, for His service, I've not used it for the Master. What
does that show what we think of Him? What does that say what
we think of our Master and what He's given to us? What indication
does He give? buried it in the ground and gave
it back. He didn't labour for it, he didn't work for his master,
he didn't care for his master, he just gave back what he had
been given. Oh may our graces, may the gifts
that the Lord has given us, whatever that might mean, in the church,
or in our families, or in our workplace, or the ability to
pray, perhaps the blessing of being able to intercede for others
and pray for others, whatever gifts the Lord has given to us, Has it been in vain? Well, Paul
says, this grace that was bestowed upon me was not in vain and he
sought to use for God's glory. So, we have the equipping grace
that God had given him. Again, all that he needed had
come from God. All that he was had come from
God. Finally, he goes on to say, but I laboured more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me, the grace of God which was with me. Here we have constraining
grace, constraining grace. You see, God's blessing in his
life, God's grace towards Saul, or Paul as he is now, God's grace
towards him constrained him to go on, constrained him to go
on in his labours. He laboured more abundantly,
yet not I but the grace of God which was in me. The grace he
had received, the grace and the blessings and the gifts he had
received and the grace that he encouraged him and was with him
every day made him go on, constrained him to go on despite many sufferings. despite many difficulties, despite
much persecution, the Apostle went on. We read, don't we, that
well-known list as he describes what he went through. He says,
are they ministers of Christ, I speak as a fool, I more in
labours more abundant, strikes more often, in prisons more frequent,
in deaths oft, Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes,
save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods.
Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck.
A night and a day I've been in the deep, in journeyings often,
in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine
own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the
city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness. Think of what the Apostle went
through, what he was called by the Lord to endure in his service,
in his calling, in his commission, and yet the Apostle goes on The
Apostle labours on because of the grace of God, because God
gave him grace which constrained him to go on in those labours. And he proved very truly that
to follow the Lord was to take up his cross. Christ says, whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and
follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the Gospels, the same shall save him. And
that's an important qualification. Lose his life for my sake and
the Gospels. Doesn't mean that we should just
give up everything. Doesn't mean that we should try
and earn God's favour, as it were, by trying to lose everything
that we have. We give up things for his sake
and for the Gospels. And if his service requires us
to deny ourselves, deny our pleasures, deny our possessions, whatever
it might be, then this is Christ's call to us. And the Apostle did
that. The Apostle obeyed that call.
But God strengthened him every day, you see. This is what he
says. God strengthened him every day. God enabled him every day. And as Paul therefore went on
and he reflects on God's grace towards him and he looks back
and sees what he's been blessed to do and what God has done in
his own heart, he says, it was not me that laboured. It wasn't
me who just went the next step in my own strength. It wasn't
me It was not I, for the grace of
God which was with me. He says, don't he, I can do all
things. And how many people think we
can do all things? How many people even in the Church
are seeking to do all things in their strength, in their ability,
in their wisdom? But the Apostle doesn't say that.
He says I can do all things through Christ. that strengthens me. And that's the secret. That's
the difference. That's the essential ingredient.
And without that, he could not do all things. In fact, he could
really spiritually do nothing. There would be no real benefit,
no lasting good for many of his labours, for many things that
he preached, without Christ who strengthened him. Because it
was not I, but it was the grace of God which was with me. His grace strengthened him and
his grace in the past encouraged him to go on. Oh, may we know
it and prove it and give thanks to God for it today. That it's not I that take the
next step. It is not I that goes on in my own strength. And it's
not I that seeks to follow and worship the Lord in my own ways,
in my own strength. It is not I as we seek to witness
to an unconverted world. It's not I. But it's the grace
of God And I can't do it and I can't go on. But when I remember
his grace to me and when I prove his goodness every day and I
say it's the grace of God which is with me and then I can do
all things through Christ which strengthens me. May we thank
God every day as we prove his help, as we prove his grace,
as we're given ability, opportunity, and desire for His work. By His grace, His people are
converted. By His grace, His people are
equipped. And by His grace, His people are constrained. Everything
we are, everything we have, and everything we do is all of God's
grace. What a wonderful God we have.
What a merciful and gracious God we have. What a God who deserves
our worship and praise and honour. What a God to look to, to come
to, to cast our all upon. What a God to look forward to,
seeing and being with, that by his grace his people shall be
taken home to glory. What a wonderful truth we have
here. We look to an almighty and gracious
God. When we come to it all, we come
to the end and we come to our last day, in the right spirit
we shall join with those who said we are but unprofitable
servants. We have done what was our duty
to do, but the grace of God that was with me, that is what kept
me going. Oh to grace How great a debtor
daily I am constrained to be. Let that grace, Lord, like a
fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. By the grace of God
I am what I am. His grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain. But I laboured more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me.