Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2833
“But by the Grace of God I am what I am.” 1 Corinthians 15:10.
THIS confession, suitable on the lips of Paul, is equally appropriate in the mouth of each one of us who have known and proved the Grace of God. We must consider Paul, according to his own account of himself, as being “not meet to be called an Apostle”—though “not a whit behind the very chief Apostles”—because he had persecuted the Church of God. In respect of personal merit, he knew that he did not deserve to be accounted of at all, yet, when the sole ground of approbation was not the service he had rendered to his Sovereign, but the favor which his Sovereign had bestowed upon him, he could say, “By the Grace of God I am what I am.” Take the meanest lamb in Jesus’ fold, the feeblest heir of Grace, the most timid and fearing—the most hopeless and helpless of all disciples, the man most devoid of talent, the man who stands the very lowest on the list of the saints of God—surely he may and must say that “by the Grace of God” he is what he is, so far as he is in Christ—a Believer, with all the privileges that Believers have a gracious right to claim! Let this be your comfort, you little ones, that the same Grace that made an Apostle of Paul has made a Christian of you. The same power that has quickened the mightiest man in the army of the Lord of Hosts has also quickened you. The Grace that saves the greatest saves the least. If the largest and brightest gem in the crown of Christ reflects His Grace and glorifies His love, even so shall you, though you are as the smallest pearl that shall be set in His glorious diadem of honor!
Then, next, take the Apostle Paul in the other way he describes himself in our text. In the preceding verse, he says he is the least of the Apostles, yet he also says, “I labored more abundantly than they all.” It is equally true, whether you put him in the meanest place among converts, or in the very forefront of the army of faithful soldiers of Christ—among the feeblest of pensioners or the most zealous of all the laborers in the vineyard of the Master—the acknowledgment must be made, “By the Grace of God I am what I am.” Be our attainments never so eminent, our knowledge never so extensive, our usefulness never so great, yet still we stand, in the sight of God, on the same footing as the very meanest member of the Church of Christ! The song which begins among the little and the timid gathers strength among the great and the brave. It is not altered in the slightest degree—the language is the same, the strain the same, the song the same—“By the Grace of God,” we, all of us, must say, “we are what we are”!
I am going to speak of my text, first, doctrinally. Secondly, experimentally. And, thirdly, practically.
I. First, DOCTRINALLY. Each one of us who is a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can take this sentence as his creed and say, “By the Grace of God I am what I am.”
That is to say, first, I am not what I am as the result of something good which God foresaw would be in me. God has not vouchsafed His love, His favor, His mercy to me because He foresaw that I would repent of my sin and trust in His dear Son. No, there is a deeper cause for His love than anything that could be found in me! Indeed, there is nothing that could be found in me that is lovely in His sight, but it would be proved, immediately, that He had, first of all, freely given that lovely thing to me, or created it within me. If I am a child of God, an heir of Heaven, the wellspring of God’s love to me is in His own Sovereign Grace. Nothing in my disposition or character could move His heart to me. His heart must have moved spontaneously—it must have welled up because of its own deep love—and it must have flowed towards me
in its own Divine channel simply because God, in His Sovereignty, would have it so! “By the Grace of God,” I am elected unto eternal life—
“Grace first inscribed my name, In God’s eternal book.”
‘Twas Grace which set me apart, in distinguishing love, before the stars were made! ‘Twas Grace that separated me from the mass of mankind. ‘Twas Grace that laid hold of me while I was but as a pebble in the brook—and ordained that I should be a bright diamond in Christ’ s crown! It was God who, in the beginning, by His own Grace, decreed that I should be what I am and, therefore, to begin there, we take this as our creed, “By the Grace of God”—as manifested in eternity and, by that alone have I been caused to be “what I am.”
Then, next, my text also means I am not what I am as the result of any creature strength, or any means of my own. I am not what I am because I chose to be what I am, for if I had been what I chose to be, I would still have been “dead in trespasses and sins.” If I had followed my poor, blind free will, it would have been, to this day, leading me to Hell! It would never have led me Heaven. If I had made it my guide, I would have wandered further and further, and further away from God. With my back to the Savior, I would never have moved towards God. It is the same with all of us—if there is anything good in any of us, we must confess that God Himself put it there. He taught our souls to pray. He made us feel our need of Divine Grace. He stripped us of our boastful pride. He delivered us from our refuges of lies. He leveled the legality of our hearts by bringing us low with labor, exhausting all our strength. Twas He who cast the first ray of hope into our soul! He opened our blind eyes to see the beauty of Christ! He gave us the first glimmering of faith! He enabled us to see that our sins were washed away by the precious blood of Jesus and He has kept us alive to this day and will not let us go!