If you will, I want you to look
at 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10. That scripture says this, by
the grace of God, I am what I am. Now, I'm interested to know who
said this and why he said it and what were the conditions
under which he said, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Well, it's the Apostle Paul speaking. And the Apostle Paul ministered
to this church at Corinth almost two years. Somebody said a year
and a half he was down there. But while he was there, he said,
as a wise master builder, I laid the foundation. That foundation
is Christ. Other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid, Christ our Lord. He laid that foundation. He preached faithfully the gospel
of Jesus Christ our Lord. And after he departed, problems
began to arise in the church, and he wrote this epistle, 1
Corinthians, to correct these errors, to rebuke these people,
to deal with their problems. Now, what were some of their
problems? Well, the church was filled with factions and divisions. He said, you're acting like infants,
you're behaving like little babies. You're behaving like carnal men,
not like spiritual men, whereas there's divisions among you and
factions among you. Some of you say, I'm of Paul,
and some of you say, I'm of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and so forth. He said, are you not acting like
carnal men? The thing that ought to characterize
believers is love and unity. By this shall all men know you,
my disciples, not by your debates and arguments and divisions. but by your love for one another.
That's how people know you're my disciples, if you love one
another. And then intellectualism had invaded the church. Worldly
wisdom had crept in. They're trying to appeal to the
world and get along with the world. And then Paul had to rebuke
them about that. He said, when I came to you,
I didn't come to you with enticing words of man's wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. He said, I preach Christ to you. that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, not in the arguments of men, but in
the Spirit of God. And then they allowed open sin
to go unjudged and undealt with. And then brother was taking brother
to courts of law. He said, I'm shocked. Dare any
of you having a matter against another go to law, to the courts
of law before unbelievers? Then marriages were in trouble.
People's homes were breaking up. Some people were even questioning
apostolic authority, and when they did, they were questioning
the Word of God. Some were even questioning the resurrection.
How say some among you, there is no resurrection of the dead?
They were misusing the guilts, tongues and healing and other
guilts. They were taking pride in their
knowledge and their wisdom. The Lord's Supper had been violated
and turned into some type of feast of pleasure. and feast
of fellowship. And the apostle wrote the book
of 1 Corinthians to deal with these errors, to deal with these
problems in the church. And when he had faithfully dealt
with these errors, here in the latter part of the epistle, chapter
15, he sets forth again the very foundation of our faith. This,
he said, this is our message. This is the thing that brings
us together. This is the thing that unites
our hearts. This is what we came to preach.
We didn't come just to straighten out men's lives and behavior
and conduct and these things with laws and rules and regulations. This is that which unites the
believer. This is that which joins us in
a living relationship with Christ, and that is the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Brethren, he said, I preach to
you the gospel. I preach to you the gospel, and
you receive this gospel. And you said you were standing
in this gospel and that you were saved by this gospel. And he
said, that you are, if you keep in memory what I preached unto
you. What did I preach unto you? Salvation by work, salvation
by law, salvation by human merit, salvation by ritualism? No, sir.
I preached unto you that Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures. That's our hope. That's our life,
that's our refuge, that's our message, that's our foundation.
Christ died for our sins. The Son of God went to Calvary's
mountain, and there He suffered, just for the unjust, that He
might bring us to God. In bringing us to God, He brought
us to one another. Oh, great is Mount Sinai, where
we see the thunderings and lightning and hear the voice of God as
He gives His great law to Moses. And great is Mount Orib where
Moses saw the bush that burned what was not consumed and heard
the voice of God give him directions about leading the people out
of Egypt. And great is Mount Pisgah where
Moses stood and looked over into the promised land and then went
or by God's power into the very presence of the Lord and great
is Mount Morau where Abraham would sacrifice Isaac and God
gave a ram to take the place of Isaac and thereby demonstrated
the gospel of his son. Great are these high mountains
of purpose, but greater, far greater, infinitely greater is
Mount Calvary where Christ died for our sins. This was Paul's
message, this was Paul's objective, to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ. I'm determined, he said over
and over again to this church at Corinth, I'm determined to
know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And
the gospel that I preached unto you is the gospel of God's Son,
His Son who died for our sins, who was buried and rose again.
Now watch this statement here, according to the Scriptures. You see that? It's there two
or three times, right there in the first four verses, according
to the Scriptures. What does that mean? Well, it
doesn't mean according to the report of the apostles in Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, although that's true. The apostles gave
an accurate eyewitness account of the sufferings and the death
and the burial and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But when Paul comes to this church
at Corinth and said, I've preached to you the gospel, I've declared
unto you the gospel, and you've received this gospel by which
you're saved, and this gospel is how Christ died for our sins,
according to the Scriptures. He was buried and rose again
according to the Scriptures. He means by that, according to
the Old Testament Scriptures. That's right, my friend. He died
according to the Old Testament scriptures, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, all the
way through Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all of the Old Testament scriptures.
These testify of me, Christ said. To him give all the prophets
witness. Moses wrote of me. Christ said
all things must be fulfilled in in Moses, in the Psalms, in
the prophets concerning me. All of the prophecies, promises,
and pictures of Christ are fulfilled in the death, burial, and resurrection
of the Son of God." And that's what Paul's saying. This gospel
I'm preaching to you is no new gospel. It's the ancient gospel. It's the eternal gospel. It's
the gospel of God from the beginning, from the foundation of the world.
Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Almighty God decreed that Christ should be the surety of that
everlasting covenant, His blood should be the blood of the everlasting
covenant, and everything done from the creation of Adam to
the day that Christ died on that cross pointed to that cross.
That's right. Every sacrifice, every priest,
every atonement, all the ministering about the tabernacle, Everything
pointed to Christ. All the prophecies and promises
and pictures and types and symbols of the Old Testament are pointing
to Christ. That rock in the wilderness is
Christ. That Passover is Christ. That ark floating on the waters
of judgment is Christ. All the way through the... I
wish I could get that across to you. I wish that every time
you opened the Old Testament, my friend, you would see what
God would have you see, and that's Christ, His Son, the Redeemer.
the Redeemer. Abraham saw my day. He saw it
and rejoiced, Christ said. Moses wrote of me. When our Lord
died, he was buried and rose again according to the Scriptures,
fulfilling the Scriptures. And then he said, after his resurrection,
the Lord Jesus was seen by Peter, he was seen by the other disciples,
and then he was seen by over 500 brethren at once. And then
he was seen by James, and then Paul says, last of all, he was
seen by me as one born out of a due time or an abortive birth.
In other words, he said that when he's talking about a birth
here, a child is conceived and it spends nine months in the
womb and it's born. If it's born prior to that time,
it's an abortive birth. It's one born out of due time. It's born not in its season,
not in its intended time, not in the full time, but born out
of due time. That's what Paul is saying. The
other apostles walked with Christ. The other apostles lived with
Christ. The other apostles were chosen by Christ during his life
here on earth. But Paul said, I saw the Lord
as one that wasn't following that pattern. Not born like ordinary,
like the ordinary twelve disciples. One born out of due time. But
I saw him. I saw the Lord. And I received
my gospel from the Lord. I was not with the apostles when
they walked with Christ. I did not stand with him in the
early days of persecution and death. I was a persecutor myself. He said I stood with the Pharisees
against him. I stood with the enemies of the
gospel and the enemies of the cross. He said I'm the least
of the apostles. Although I am an apostle, I'm
not worthy to be an apostle, but I am an apostle. I've not
earned any rights or respect, but I'm still an apostle. For
I persecuted those who were called by his name. But, now here's
where he comes to my text, but by the grace of God, I am what
I am. You see what I'm saying? By the
grace of God, I am what I am. Whatever I was, It matters not. Wherever God found me, whatever
road I traveled, it matters not. Wherever God brought me from,
it matters not. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. And you can say that. If you're
a child of God, you can say that. Where I serve, in whatever capacity
I labor, the abilities or lack of it, the guilts or lack of
them I possess, matters not. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Whether I'm known or unknown,
whether I'm rich or poor, whether I'm old or young, whether I'm
male or female, whether I'm black or white, it matters not. By
the grace of God, I am what I am. That's what Paul's saying, by
the grace of God. whether I'm acting as a bond
slave or whether I'm acting as a servant or whether I'm acting
as an apostle or whether I'm acting as a messenger of God
or whether I'm under the chastisement of God or the trial of God, whether
I'm in prison or whether I'm free, I know how to abound and
how to be abased, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. My friends, this is the attitude
and the spirit and the watchword of every true believer. By the
grace of God, I am what I am. I want to divide this into four
parts. I'd like to share with you four
things that I see in this text. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. First of all, this is my doctrine. I'm a preacher, I'm a pastor.
I've been a pastor of a church 38 some odd years. And this is
my doctrine. When I preach to you, this is
my doctrine. By the grace of God, I am what I am. His grace
elected me. He said, you didn't choose me,
I chose you. He says that very plainly. We
love Him because He first loved us. If God had not loved me,
I never would have loved Him. If He had not chosen me, I never
would have chosen Him. If He had not sought me, I wouldn't
have sought Him. If He had not called me, I wouldn't
have called Him. Herein is love, not that we love
God. We don't love God by nature, we love ourselves. But He loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Oh,
He was in the world and the world knew Him not. He came unto His
own, His own received Him not. But to as many as received Him,
to them gave He the privilege to become sons of God, even to
them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of
God. Born of God. By His grace, He
elected me. And by His grace, He redeemed
me. It's not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. For by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, it's the
goodness of God that led you to repentance. Peter said, we
know that we're not redeemed with corruptible things such
as silver and gold from our vain conversation received by tradition
from our fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. He
redeemed me. And it was by His grace. His
grace made Him my surety. His grace sent Him into the world
as my representative. His grace took Him to Calvary
as my sin offering. His grace took Him into the grave
as my scapegoat. His grace brought Him forth as
my justifier. His grace enthroned Him as my
mediator. His grace crowned Him as my King
of kings and Lord of lords. His grace. I didn't have anything
to do with it. And then by his grace he called
me. Paul said that. God who separated me from my
mother's womb was pleased to call me by his grace. He had saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before
the world began. I'll maintain this truth against
all comers. It's by the grace of God that
I am what I am. It was not my will that brought
me to God, but His will. He made me willing. Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. But it's still true
whom He foreknew, He predestinated to be conformed to the image
of His Son. And whom He predestinated, He justified. Whom He justified,
He glorified. And whom He glorified, whom He
called, He glorified. What shall we say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? By His grace, He
keeps me. I'm convinced of these things.
This is my doctrine. I'm not ashamed of it. By His
grace, He keeps me. Now, my friends, we teach a twofold
keeping. The Bible does. There is preservation
and perseverance. Preservation is this, unto Him
who's able to keep you from falling. Perseverance is this, we're kept
by the power of God through faith. You see that? But we wouldn't
persevere without His preservation. That's exactly right. Now unto
Him who is able to keep you from falling. When life's journey
is over and I, the dear Savior, shall see, I'm going to praise
Him forever and ever for saving a sinner like me. That's my doctrine. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. That sums it up. All right. Secondly,
this is my experience. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Now, that's not only my doctrine. And that won't do if
it remains a doctrine. It's hard as nails if it remains
a doctrine. It's dead, cold, dry letter of
the law if it remains a doctrine. It's got to be heart and experience.
I mean this. It's my experience that by the
grace of God, I am what I am. Every day, I am reminded of the
fact that His grace makes the difference. 1 Corinthians 4,
7 says, Who maketh thee to differ? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now, if you received it, why
do you glory as if you didn't receive it? My friends, not a
day goes by that I'm not made aware of the depths of my own
depravity and sin. Can you say that? Paul said it. He said, the things I would do,
I do them not. The things I would not do, I
do. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. He finally said, O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thank
God I have deliverance in Christ. I'm reminded of my sin and depravity,
the depths of my corruption every day. I think things I shouldn't
think and say things I shouldn't say and do things I shouldn't
do. Do you? I'm reminded every day of my depravity. Not only
that, but not a day goes by that I'm not aware of the dullness
of my heart spiritually. Do you pray like you ought to
pray? Do you love God like you ought to love God? Do you love
your neighbor like you ought to love him as yourself? Do you?
Do you give thanks in everything? In everything, give thanks? Do you pray without ceasing?
Do you have perfect faith or lack of faith? If you had faith
as a grain of mustard seed, you could say that mountain be thou
removed and cast into the sea. You moved any mountains lately?
Aren't you aware of the dullness of your spiritual life? John
Newton was. He said, "'Tis a point I long
to know, oft it gives me anxious thought. Do I even love the Lord
or no? Am I His or am I not?' By the
grace of God, I am what I am." And my friends, when I witness
the fall of others and the departure from the faith, I ask, why not
me? Why not me? David said, Lord,
who am I and what is my house that we should persevere? Christ
said to Peter, Satan hath desired you that he may sift you as wheat,
but I prayed for you that your faith fail not. That's the difference. By the grace of God, I stand.
And no longer than His grace enables me to stand. Not a day
goes by that I'm not aware of the blessings and mercies of
God on me and my friends. And I know that every good gift
and perfect gift comes from God. And I want to say praise God
from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here
below. Praise Him above, you heavenly
hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost by the grace of God. I am what I am. That's my experience. And then thirdly, that's my comfort.
By the grace of God, I am what I am. In 2 Samuel chapter 24,
verse 10 through 14, David, impulsive David, yet blessed David, sinned
against God in numbering Israel. He knew better. Joab told him
better. But he went on and numbered Israel,
and God was angry with him. And God said, David, I'm going
to chastise you. Now I'll give you some choices.
You want this, this, or this. And David said, Lord, listen
to his reply. Lord, do what you will. Only
don't let me fall into the hands of my enemies. Let me fall into
your hands. Lord, let me fall into your hands,
for your mercies are great. You just deal with me like you
will, and I'll be satisfied. This is my comfort. For God to
order and determine my life, my blessings, my prosperity or
failure, my sorrow or joy, my trials or my happinesses, I leave
them to Him. What's the hymn writer? What
did he say? My times are in thy hands, my God, I wish them there. And we know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, to them who are the
call according to his blessed purpose. That's my comfort. Whatever happens, it doesn't
matter how dark the valley, how deep the valley, how rocky the
road, how dark the clouds overhead, how stormy my surroundings, my
God is too wise to make a mistake and too good to do wrong. That's
my comfort. And everything He brings to pass
in my life, everything I mean, everything, is for my eternal
good. And I believe for His eternal
glory. And I give thanks. I give thanks. All right, here's the fourth
thing. This is my testimony. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. If I were to be permitted to
give a testimony tonight, I believe this is what I would choose.
I believe I would prefer to stand before the whole world and say,
this is my testimony. This is my doctrine. By the grace
of God, I am what I am. This is my experience. By the
grace of God, I am what I am. This is my comfort. All my comfort
is based on this. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. And then this is my testimony. This is my testimony. I worship
God in the Spirit. I rejoice in Jesus Christ. I have no confidence in the flesh,
yours or mine or anybody else's. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Now, this will do two or three
things. Number one, if this dawns upon us and we realize it, number
one, It will teach us and lead us to praise God. If I learn,
by the grace of God, I am what I am, then it will lead me to
praise and glorify God for all things. If He's the source, if
He's the fountain, if He's the giver of all that I have and
all that I require and all that I need, then I praise Him. I
give Him the glory. I won't rob God of His glory.
I give Him all the glory. Secondly, it will teach me to
be humble. My friends, this thing of humility,
I know there are a lot of jokes about it, but there's just one
way to receive it, and that's by the grace of God. You know,
John Newton said this, for a recipient of God's grace to be proud is
the most inconsistent thing in the world. For a man who says,
by the grace of God, I am what I am, it's totally inconsistent
for him to take any credit or any praise or seek any. or revel
in it. It's just inconsistent. And then
thirdly, it'll teach me to love and forgive. Be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ's
sake has forgiven you. If I've received everything I
have, I'll be generous with it, I'll be grateful for it, I'll
be thankful for it, and I'll be free with it. And then it'll
teach me to wait on the Lord. I want to give you a little poem
that I learned one time. I think it fits right in with
what I'm trying to preach here. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. It was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it
scarcely worth his while to waste much time on an old violin. But
he held it up with a smile, and he said, what am I bid, good
folk? Who'll start the bidding for me? A dollar? Two dollars?
Somebody make it three. Going for three. Going once,
going twice, but no. From the room far back, a gray-haired
man came forward and picked up the bow. And tightening the loosened
strings, he played a melody on that old violin like a caroling
angel sings. And then the auctioneer, in a
voice that was subdued and low, said, what am I bid now for this
old violin? And he held it up with a bow.
A thousand? Two thousand? Three thousand,
going once, going twice, going and gone, cried he. The people
cheered, cheered, and some of them cried. We don't understand
what changed the worth of that old violin. And he said, the
touch of the master's hand. And many a man with life out
of tune, and we're out of tune by birth, and by nature and by
practice, and battered and scarred. We're not only battered and scarred,
we're battered and slain by sin. He's auctioned off by a foolish
crowd, just like that old violin. But the master comes, the master,
the only one who can, the one who has the power, the one who
has the will, the one who has the ability, the one who has
the grace, the one who has the love, the master comes. And the
foolish crowd can never quite understand. And it's beyond man's
natural understanding what God does for a sinner. Stuart Hamlin
wrote that hymn. What was it? It is no secret
what God can do. It's a secret to everybody who
doesn't know God. It's revealed to those who know
God. The foolish crowd don't understand it now, and they never
will understand it. But the man upon whom God's grace
is operative and the man in whose life God's grace has been revealed,
he understands. But the foolish crowd never can
quite understand the change that's wrought in a sinner's heart and
consequently in his life by the touch of the Master's hand. That's
my testimony. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. I give no soul winner credit
for it, no preacher credit for it, no man credit for it, and
take no credit for it. Whatever I am, by the grace of
God, I am what I am.