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Amen, amen, all glory to God
through Jesus the son for the great things he has done. Let's turn now our attention
to God's holy word. First Corinthians chapter 15.
First Corinthians chapter 15, verses one through 11. This is God's word. Now I would remind
you brothers of the gospel I preached to you. which you received, in
which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold
fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of
first importance what I also received, that Christ died for
our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried. that he was raised on the third
day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,
then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than
500 of the brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive,
though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then
to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles,
unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church
of God. But, but by the grace of God,
I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not
in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder
than any of them. Though it was not I, but the
grace of God that was in me, whether then it was I or they.
So we preached, and so you believed. This is the word of God. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for your word unfailing, true, fixed
in the heavens, and the words of eternal life. You alone have
the words of eternal life, oh Lord. So would you write the
words of eternal life on our hearts that we might hear from you, oh Lord.
Not the words of men, but what we truly need is the word of
God. So speak your word to us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, you may be seated. When I was a kid in the late
1970s, I lived in California, the Sacramento area, and I remember
coming home from school and watching public television, Sesame Street,
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and The
Electric Company. And in between those shows, sometimes,
a little video featurette would come on, and it had this great
theme song. The most important person in the whole wide world
is you, and you hardly even know you. And then later they sing,
the most important person in the world to you is you. Now, in a sense, I guess this
makes sense, right? I mean, we all live with ourselves
constantly, right? No matter where you go, there
you are. You can get away from everybody
else in your life, but you can't escape yourself, right? And all
of us live with our own inner dialogue going on in our heads
all the time, and much of that, at least for me, if I'm honest,
is about myself, right? So I get it, sort of, but the
truth is, I am not the most important person in my life, much less
in the whole wide world. I did not create myself. I do
not keep myself alive, I have not made myself what I am, and
I cannot make my work or any of my efforts truly count or
have a lasting impact on anyone. All of this is beyond me, but
not beyond God. One of the traps of falling into
a self-absorbed for me it happens in the space
of five minutes I get puffed up with how great I'm doing and
what a great example I am and then one of my kids does something
to set me off and I lose my temper and say something I shouldn't
have said and then I think man what is wrong with me I'm just
a total dirtbag and a hopeless cause and, you know, I'm down
in the depths, like, you know, it's this rollercoaster ride,
this sort of yo-yo swinging back and forth between these opposite
evaluations of ourselves. But today's passage offers us
a better way to think about ourselves and about others. And by the
way, just a little plug, When you came in to get your bulletin,
you may have seen little stacks of books called The Freedom of
Self-Forgetfulness. Very helpful sermon that was
turned into a book on this topic. So I put those out this morning
for you to take if you want to think more deeply about this
self-forgetfulness and a Christ-centered view of yourself. On top of our natural tendency
to be self-obsessed, which our culture encourages, with selfies
and social media and all this kind of stuff, we also live in
a celebrity-crazed culture, which the Corinthians also did. And
Paul knew that in a celebrity-crazed culture, like the Corinthians'
culture, like our culture, The idols of our age can be treated
with either high reverence or with absolute despising, and
sometimes at the same time, right? I mean, you just have to turn
on celebrity news if you really want, I mean, the only thing
I'd like to watch less than political news is celebrity news. You know,
put on anything else, anything. Anyway, but all you have to do
is watch celebrity news, and you'll see that people are at
the top of the mountain, and they're being praised, and they're
loved and adored, and then they're the worst possible person in
the history of the world. Your reputation can change in
a heartbeat. in a celebrity-crazed culture.
It's kind of an extension of this back and forth that we do
with ourselves. And so Paul knew that when it
came to his place in the mind of the Corinthians, there were
people in the Corinthian church that were in both of these camps.
And he's been addressing this throughout the letter. There
were people in the Corinthian church who went so far as to
say, well, I follow Paul. Paul was the founder of this
church. Paul was the one who brought the gospel to us. We
are followers of Paul. And he rebuked that way of treating
him. But then there were others who
said, Paul, you mean that really short and unimpressive Jewish
tent maker from Tarsus? Boy. He's nothing to write home
about. Yeah, he brought us the gospel,
and we're thankful for that, but man, he's no Apollos. He
doesn't bring the heat like the real orators in Corinth do. And so they kind of had this
despising view of him. So Paul corrects both of these
mistaken assessments of himself, and we can correct the mistaken
assessments of ourselves. And he does so by focusing attention
away from himself and onto the grace of God. And sometimes he
does so using quite shocking language to jolt the Corinthians
out of their complacent cult of celebrity worship and toward
a proper focus on God. So we've been working through
this passage for the past few weeks, and as we pick up today, we're
picking up in verse eight. And in verses, four or five through seven, he's
been listing the people who were eyewitnesses of the resurrection.
He appeared to Cephas, and then to the 12. He appeared to more
than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive,
some have fallen asleep. He appeared to James, then to
all the apostles. Then, last of all, as to one
untimely born, he appeared also to me. Now the word Paul uses
here for untimely born is actually a very shocking word. It's a
word that was used of a stillbirth, of a stillborn child, and sometimes
of an abortion. The point Paul is making is that
he is so unworthy to be an eyewitness of the resurrection, that he
is like a stillborn child among the eyewitnesses of the resurrection.
He is one who is really not fit to live naturally on his own,
and yet he does live. And he did see the Lord Jesus
on that road to Damascus. Why would Paul have this view
of himself? Well, he was Saul of Tarsus. He was a Jew by birth
of the tribe of Benjamin. He was also a Roman citizen by
birth. He was a Pharisee by training, so he belonged to the strictest
sect of Judaism. He was a Pharisee. He was one
of the rising stars in the company of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish
ruling council of 70 elders. One of those, probably the most
prominent rabbi on the council, was a guy named Gamaliel, and
he was Paul's personal tutor. in the faith, so he was being
personally discipled by probably the most prominent rabbi in all
of Israel. And as this rising star with
the Sanhedrin, then Saul of Tarsus was there when the Sanhedrin
put Stephen on trial. And in anger, they rushed Stephen
outside of the city gates and they stoned him to death. And
Saul stood by holding their coats as a faithful disciple of this
murderous mob. That didn't jolt him awake and
cause him to repent. Rather, he decided he was gonna
go and do what they were doing. He got arrest warrants from the
chief priests and he went house to house arresting believers
in and around Jerusalem. And then finally, he was so zealous
in his cause that he was riding out to Damascus in Syria. We say the road to Damascus.
Look on a map from Jerusalem to Damascus. It's quite a way
to ride. And he's writing here in the zealous pursuit of Christians
that he can arrest, that he can drag back to Jerusalem for trial. And it was on this road to Damascus,
this is about four years after Christ had ascended back to the
Father, that Jesus interrupted this violent persecutor of God's
people and saved him. Now we need to keep in mind that
Saul was not seeking Jesus. He was not searching for spiritual
answers. He was not someone who wanted
God to show him a better way in life. He was determined and
confident in his misguided and wicked ways when God, when God
by sheer grace saved Paul, commissioned him to be the Apostle Paul for
the Lord, for the Lord he was persecuting. Now here's the truth that all
of us need to see. no matter who you are, no matter what your
background is, no matter how you grew up, you were saved by
the same sheer undeserved grace of God. While you may not be
an eyewitness of the resurrection, You too were born out of due
time. You and I were spiritually stillborn
into this world and we have no more natural right to life than
Paul had, spiritually speaking. We were utterly undeserving and
we were even undesiring of the saving grace of God when God
rescued us from death and hell and gave us life and salvation. Ephesians 2 tells the amazing
grace story of every believer, no matter what our background
may have been, And you were dead. See, I told you, we were all
spiritually stillborn in this world. And you were dead. in the trespasses and sins in
which you once walked, following the course of this world, following
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived
in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the
body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like
the rest of mankind, but God. The late R.C. Sproul said the
most important word in the Bible is but. And it was definitely
one of Paul's favorite words. You can hear it in 1 Corinthians
15. For I am the least of the apostles,
unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church
of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am. And here he says
we were children of wrath like the rest of mankind, but God,
being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he
loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive
together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might
show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus. That is the truth of the saving
grace of God and this is what that means for us. Our past does
not determine our future. God does. Now this is true whether
you were raised in a Christian home and even baptized as a covenant
child, that does not guarantee that you will enjoy God's saving
grace and will get to glory in the end. God must save you. And it's also true if you wandered
from the faith, had a head full of doubts, indulged in rebellious
behavior, or grew up far from God. That past doesn't seal your
destiny away from the saving power and presence of God. It
is God who is rich in mercy, who saves us and makes us alive
because of his great love for us. His love is not something
that we could even begin to speak of deserving or even desiring
in and of ourselves. It is all of grace, all of his
sheer loving kindness, his saving goodness and power. Think about the distinction of
why Paul would call himself the least of the Apostles. All the
rest of the Apostles, these capital A, directly commissioned by Jesus
Apostles, these were all followers of Jesus during his earthly ministry.
They were trained by him in a kingdom apprenticeship for three years.
They were anointed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and they
took Jesus' training and the filling of the Holy Spirit's
anointing and they went out and proclaimed the gospel. During
all that time that they were doing that, Paul was training
to be a Pharisee. He was being trained by the enemies
of Jesus and he took all of his training and the raging hatred
of Jesus from his mentors and teachers and he went out to persecute
the church. And this has implications for
us. When Paul says, I am unworthy to be called an apostle, it's
a reminder to us that no one in ministry of any kind should
ever think that they deserve to be there. If God's called
you to a ministry of any kind, In any way, whether he calls
you to share the gospel with one of your co-workers, and you're
able to lead them to the Lord, or he calls you to be a witness
to your family, or he calls you to the music team, or the sound
team, or the web streaming team, or you're part of the setup crew,
or you're an elder, or you're a deacon, or you serve hospitality,
whatever ministry God has given you, you should not think that
you deserve to have that ministry. because you're so well fit for
it, and God was really clever to pick you for that. Hopefully
none of us think that. Applying for a position as a
pastor is kind of a strange experience because it tests what you really
believe about all of this, right? Now, I can say in all sincerity
that within the PCA, both the churches and the candidates are
seeking the will of God and His calling and His commission, and
I trust that that's true in faithful churches outside the PCA as well,
but still, it can end up feeling a bit like a job interview, which
is not what it should be, right? It can be easy to fall into this
pattern of thinking, I deserve to be your pastor because I have
all of this training and all of these gifts, and so I'm the
best candidate for you. rather than just being honest
about who you are and where God's brought you from and seeking
the Lord's will. One of the great things that I enjoyed about the
process of being called to be the pastor here at Forest Hill
is that Tim Wilson and Matt Miller and the core group knew me. They had known me for a while,
so I wasn't gonna come in and impress them with my resume.
They knew me. They knew my shortcomings and
my failures. They knew what I was good at and what I wasn't really
good at. And so we could set all that aside and just seek
the Lord for His will. So if you're a believer, I said
before, if you've been given a ministry. So let me rephrase
that a little bit. If you are a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, then He has called you to belong to His church. and he has called you and gifted
you for ministry in the church. This is what we went over in
chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians. Everyone who belongs to Christ,
the head, is a member of his body, and we are all called to
serve his church by the gifts of the spirit, but none of us
should ever think that it's something in us that makes us well fit
for the ministry. Rather, what Paul says in 2 Corinthians
9, 8 is true, and God is able to make all grace abound to you,
so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you
may abound in every good work. So our salvation is all of God's
grace. Our ministry to the body of Christ
is all of God's grace. But it's not just that, it's
also our true identity, who we really are, and our real worth
come by the grace of God. And this is where we come in
verse 10. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not
in vain. Here we see the secret of living
a life of true humility and sincerity. Of being secure and confident
without being puffed up and egotistical. You see, in our nature, in our
flesh, it's easy to be one or the other, right? It's easy to
be confident, right? Self-assured. and cocky, arrogant,
right? Or it's easier to be sort of
humble, at least as the world defines humble, which isn't really
as the Bible defines it. Kind of having a low view of
yourself and your own gifts, but then you're very fearful
and anxious and timid and hesitant. Only the grace of God brings
us to a place where we can be secure and confident and yet
humble and dependent at the same time. Only the grace of God. His undeserved favor and kindness
to us when we deserved the opposite. That's what grace is. Grace is
God giving us kindness, God giving us favor, God giving us To show
the grace of God in our lives is with some pretended show of
self-righteousness. If I can show people that I'm
really good, that I have impeccable character, that I am really trustworthy,
that I am really a great guy, then they'll see how wonderful
God is. But God says that his grace is
best displayed in our weakness, in our need. when we trust in
Him and not in ourselves. One of the reasons why I love
the Psalms is that they continually call us back to this perspective. Listen to Psalm 62. If you have
a Bible, you might want to open up to it, Psalm 62. For God alone,
my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken. There's confidence, but it's
from God. How long will all of you attack
a man to batter him? Like a leaning wall, a tottering
fence. That's what David is in and of
himself. He's a leaning wall, a tottering fence being attacked
by men. They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse. Selah. For God alone, O my soul,
wait in silence. For my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and
my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is
God. Trust in him at all times, O
people. Pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge to us. Those of lowest state are but
a breath. Those of highest state are a
delusion. In the balances they go up, they
are together lighter than a breath. You see, it's neither our riches
nor our poverty that count for anything. God alone is our refuge
and strength. And so we say with the Apostle
Paul, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And I love how John
Newton meditated on this truth. John Newton, you know him as
the author of Amazing Grace. He also wrote Glorious Things
that They Are Spoken and many other wonderful hymns. You may
know he was a slave trader and a slave ship captain before God
saved him and eventually led him to abandon the slave trade
for the pastorate. He wrote this wonderful meditation
on this powerful verse and he said this, I am not what I ought
to be. I am not what I want to be. I am
not what I hope to be in another world. But still, I am not what
I once used to be, and by the grace of God, I am what I am. Oh, that's such great truth.
I'm not what I ought to be. I'm not what I want to be. I'm
not what I hope to be in another world. But still, I'm not what
I once was, and by the grace of God, I am what I am. And so
what are we by the grace of God? Let's take a moment to reflect
on what God, by His grace, has made of us in Jesus Christ. If you belong to the Lord Jesus
Christ by faith, if He is your Lord and Savior, if you're trusting
in Him for your salvation and not in yourself, this is what
the Bible says about you, about who you are by the grace of God.
One, you are a child of God, adopted by your heavenly father
and made a part of his family forever. Two, you are completely
forgiven of all of your sins, which have been washed whiter
than snow by the blood of the lamb. Three, you are an heir
of God and a co-heir of Christ. Four, you are a living stone
in the holy and living temple of God. You're being built up
together with the other living stones into a living temple to
bring glory to God forever. Five, you are a member of the
body of Christ. Christ is the head and we are
the members of his body. Six, you are a new creation. Old things are gone, behold,
all things are new. Seven, you are washed, justified,
and sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by
the Spirit of God. Eight, you are a citizen of Christ's
heavenly kingdom. Your citizenship is in heaven. And nine, you are loved with
an everlasting love. And 10, you are a saint, a holy
one, made holy by the Holy One, the Lord Jesus. The Bible says
more, but those 10 are pretty stunning. And you know what? If you or I were to say those
things about ourselves, or if we were to think that somehow
we deserved any of that in and of ourselves, that would make
us obnoxiously self-righteous. But by the grace of God, this
is who he has made us to be. When we deserve the opposite,
he gives us all of this in Jesus Christ. By the grace of God,
I am what I am. This had a profound effect in
the Apostle Paul's life, knowing this. It didn't make him lazy. It didn't make him complacent.
He didn't sit back and say, well, I'm signed, sealed, delivered.
Punched my ticket to glory land, now I can kick back in my easy
chair and coast in to eternity. He didn't do that. Receiving
such undeserved grace from God only motivated Paul to work harder
for the glory of God. He said, his grace toward me
was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder
than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that
was with me. If you look at the life of the
Apostle Paul, he had, by just about any measure, the most spectacularly
successful missionary career in the history of the church.
He is almost single-handedly responsible for the spread of
the gospel in the whole Eastern Mediterranean world. From Crete
and Cyprus to Turkey and Greece, he planted churches, He preached
the gospel. He went back and strengthened
those churches. He trained up pastors for those churches. He
helped to settle major theological disputes. Later he took the gospel
as far as Spain. He did all of this in less than
20 years. Five or six years of that were spent in prison. So
really, 15 years of ministry. probably the most successful
missionary in the history of the church. He worked hard. And yet, he doesn't claim any
of the credit for himself. He says, it wasn't me. It was
the grace of God with me. And he doesn't just mean that
as, you know, that's what religious people are supposed to say. He
means it. He knows that in and of himself,
he couldn't plant a single church or bring a single person to Christ.
God has to do it. Energetic work for the gospel
is not enough. The work must be empowered by
the grace of God to bear fruit for the glory of God. It must
be the work of God's grace or it is all in vain. We've seen
this in church history. How many times have people built
big churches, started Bible colleges and seminaries, sent out missionaries
and yet have seen little real and lasting fruit because it
was the work of men and not the work of God's grace? There's
a famous line by a great Scottish missionary, C.T. Studd. You've
probably heard it before. It's part of actually a longer
poem he wrote. But he said, only one life, t'will
soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. And I'll
modify it just a little bit with apologies to the great C.T. Studd. Only one life, t'will
soon be past, only what's done by Christ will last. It is his kingdom after all.
He is the king. It is his sovereign grace that
empowers our work to his glory. And so Paul ends this section
by returning to the gospel again. He says, whether then it was
I or they, so we preached, and so you believe. And if you look,
At the scripture passage, Paul in verse 11 is going back to
where he started in verse one. I would remind you, brothers,
of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which
you stand. He said, whether it was I or
they, so we preach, and so you believe. Sometimes we ask the
question, is the gospel something we preach or something we live? And the Bible's answer is yes,
of course, always. Another famous figure from church
history, Francis of Assisi famously said, preach the gospel at all
times, and if necessary, use words. I would like to modify
that a little bit too. Preach the gospel at all times,
and because it is necessary, use words. but not words only. Don't let it just be a message
that comes from our mouth, but the pattern of our lives. Because
what is the gospel after all? The gospel is a good news story
about how the grace of God in Jesus Christ changes everything. We need to tell that as clearly
as we can because the world needs to hear it. We need to hear it
coming from our own mouth and We need to live it, because if
it's true, it will be the pattern of our lives, living, breathing,
standing, walking in the gospel of Jesus Christ, saying, by the
grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not in
vain, and so I'll work harder for the glory of God, not I,
but the grace of God with me. Amen? Let's pray. Father, your
grace is amazing and abundant and overflowing in kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus. Father, forgive us for those times when
we are self-obsessed, self-reliant, either self-exalting or self-despising. We choke to death sometimes on
our own selves. Father, get our eyes off of ourselves
and put them on Jesus. Help us, whenever we're wrapped
up like that, to stop, to say no, and to seek Christ, and to
seek all in Him, for He is our all in all. He's our hope and
our strength and our glory and our crown, and we praise you
in His name. Amen. Amen.
By the Grace of God
Series 1 Corinthians Sermons
| Sermon ID | 412211359413013 |
| Duration | 35:03 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 15:8-11 |
| Language | English |
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