As we get started, would you please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15? It is the end of 1 Corinthians. I think all of you know this chapter. It deals with resurrection; that will not be our topic. But there is one verse in particular that has been deeply impressed upon my heart. Look at verse 10. We will read this one verse again: 1 Corinthians 15:10.
Listen to what the apostle Paul said:
But by the grace of God I am what I am:
and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain;
but I labored more abundantly than they all:
yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
And listen to this closing phrase: “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Now, Lord, we always know that when we come to Your Word, we are utterly dependent. We always say, “Lord, because we need You so, that You alone have the words of eternal life.” There is no one else we can go to.
And as we come, as we have read this one verse from Your Word, we pray the Holy Spirit will enlighten it. We pray the Holy Spirit would enlarge it. We pray the Holy Spirit will enliven it, so that we can see the Lord Jesus as that grace of God. Open our eyes today, Lord. We commit ourselves to You. We are asking You to speak, and we are praying that there would be a real seeing of this great matter of grace as we are before You. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.
Well, I think you know the subject. It is grace. That is what we will be speaking about.
About a year ago—over a year ago, at the end of the year—some Indian brothers and sisters invited me to Ohio. Not Indian as in American Indian, but India Indian, if that helps. Please do not think I am being racist, any Indian brothers and sisters who are here.
I went to them, and their whole weekend had to do with dedicating the upcoming year of 2015 to the promise of God. And that promise of God was grace.
I shared, and I have shared since I came back, that after that time, following that time, for the year, this word grace would not leave me. It stayed with me. It seemed to impress me.
One day, while reading in the Word, this singular testimony of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10 jumped off the page. Let me just read it again:
But by the grace of God I am what I am:
and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain;
but I labored more abundantly than they all:
yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
It began to dawn on me how comprehensive this single verse is. How deep was the grace of God that the apostle Paul saw? How large was the grace of God that the apostle Paul seemed to see?
In this verse, the word grace occurs three times. Now, that only occurs one other time in Scripture. It occurs in Romans 11:6. There it also occurs three times.
But in this little diamond, at the close of 1 Corinthians 15—which is a great book, a great chapter on resurrection, the climax of 1 Corinthians—Paul shares with us his testimony. And his testimony is: It is all of grace.
The burden that is on my heart, which I will share the next number of times that I speak, will be the complete work of grace.
I think there is something we as brothers and sisters need to see. We are so familiar with grace as a word that we have some understanding of. Many times, many Christians—particularly evangelicals—their understanding is grace for the beginning. They understand the grace to be saved, but do we understand the grace that makes us? Do we understand the grace that conforms us? Do we understand the grace that enables us to finish the course?
It seems to me that when you look at what the apostle Paul stated here in his testimony, you see all of those things. You see what made the man. You see what kept the man. You see what conformed the man. You see what brought the man to be the man that he was.
His testimony surely would be: All of grace.
The depth of this verse reminds me of that phrase speaking of the love of God in Ephesians 3:18. I think you know it: the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the love of God. Likewise, I think when you read this verse, you see the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the grace of God as Paul shares these things with us.
So I would like for us, in the next number of times that I share, to look at the four parts of this verse.
The first part will be: “But by God’s grace I am what I am.” What a testimony.
The second part says, “Which was toward me has not been vain.” Now, that is not today—just the first part. Think of that. It is possible that all the grace poured out on us, all the provision made available to us, could be in vain.
The third part is: “But I have labored more abundantly than they all.” Now, I think that is when we get nervous. Whenever we think of work, it is a four-letter word to us. Whenever we think of labor, we think, “Oh, good grief. What can I do?”
But the apostle Paul’s testimony was that he labored more abundantly than they all. I think, at the heart of it, if grace is going to do its complete work, we need to cooperate with the grace of God.
If we do not cooperate with the grace of God, if we do not allow grace to be grace and grace to do its work, if we do not labor and work and even—now, this might drive you crazy—but strive that the grace of God would be the true testimony in our life, then it may not be. That is the third part.
And finally, the last part. I think it is a beautiful phrase. I do not want to give away too much, but it is the secret. It says, “Yet not I.” That is the secret. That is the secret of the Christian life.
So many people have said to me—you have heard it, you have heard it until it drives you crazy when I say it—so many people have said to me, “Brother, the Christian life is difficult.”
And I have said again and again, ad infinitum, unashamedly, “The Christian life is not difficult. The Christian life is impossible.”
Unless you understand this singular phrase, “Yet not I,” that is the secret of the Christian life: “But the grace of God which was with me.”
So that is where we are headed. I hope you understand the burden. The complete work of grace is what we are going to look at.
D. L. Moody, talking about the abundance of grace, said this. I think it is applicable to us believers today: “Many are satisfied to go into the stream of grace ankle deep, when God wants us to swim in it.”
How we need to know that grace—that all-sufficient grace—for every circumstance.
I know many of us treasure that definition of grace as unmerited favor. I love that definition. It is certainly true. There is nothing we have done to deserve the grace of God, the abundant grace of God that has been poured out on us. Nothing you have done.
Therefore, this utterly brief definition is an excellent one. But just because—you know I get a bit wordy—I do think there is more to the definition of the grace of God than just unmerited favor.
So this is my own definition. You may like it; you may not. You may want to go back to the original, but at least listen to me.
I think grace is God’s unmerited favor to reconcile us to Himself. That is the first part. But it is also His unlimited provision to transform us. And thirdly, it is His power to conform us to the image of His Son.
It is all those things. It is more comprehensive than us getting what we did not deserve. It is more comprehensive when God showers upon us His endless, unlimited, unfathomable grace than just unmerited favor, as good as that definition is.
Maybe you like a shorter version of that: Grace is the unmerited favor of God’s unlimited transforming power toward us.
I believe that is the heart of what 1 Corinthians 15:10 speaks of.
Now, there are three things I want us to look at today—just three things. You know that is a habit, do you not? You knew that was coming.
The first one is grace as our testimony. Now, we see what Paul’s testimony was. He said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now the question is: Is this our testimony?
Are you able to say, “I am what I am by the grace of God”?
This was so real to the apostle Paul. Campbell Morgan tried to describe it: when he came to this fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, he broke into these—this is the apostle Paul, not Campbell Morgan—he broke into these exultant words and said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
That is Paul’s testimony. But brothers and sisters, that needs to be our testimony.
He said in 1 Corinthians 15:1:
Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you,
which also ye received, wherein also ye stand,
by which also ye are saved.
This testimony—that by the grace of God I am what I am—was the apostle Paul’s, and it was the Corinthian believers’. Brothers and sisters, it needs to be our testimony.
Some people look at ones who have come to success, maybe in this world without much benefit to get there, and they have declared, “That man or that woman is a self-made man or a self-made woman.” I know you have heard that.
People who have risen from rags to riches, perhaps people who did not have all the blessings that society sometimes gives to ones, and yet in the end they made it to a place which seemed unlikely in the first place—they are called self-made men.
I do not think any Christian’s testimony can be, “I am a self-made man,” or “I am a self-made woman.” I cannot imagine it. Can you imagine us standing before the throne of grace in that day and saying, “Lord, I am a self-made man”?
I believe when you read the apostle Paul’s testimony, his testimony is, “I am a grace-made man.” What a difference.
Is that our testimony? Do you know grace in that way? Has grace arrested you and captured you and made you a grace-made man?
I believe this is very important. If anyone could say he was a self-made man, it was the apostle Paul.
You know, in Philippians 3 he shares his pedigree. He goes to great pains to share his pedigree, and he is talking about if any could trust in the flesh—if any had any room to boast about being self-made—it was me.
He said, “I was of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day,” the best tribe. He went on to say this remarkable statement: “A Hebrew of Hebrews.” Think of that.
He was the best of the best. He was the best of Israel’s sons. He went on to say, “As touching the law, blameless.” Can you imagine? Would anybody in this room dare stand up and make testimony today that, as to the law, “I am blameless”?
Here is the best of the best. And yet, his testimony in the end was, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”
There could not have been a finer example. You know, I think of—I do not know if they still do it, by the way. Dr. Glenn can tell me. The old Richmond magazine that used to come out—I used to look forward to it—the best and worst of Richmond. Do you remember that? Do they still do that? Good grief. Oh, they still do, sisters.
Everybody wants to be the best: the best restaurant, the best coffee shop, the best small business, the best this, the best that. No one wants to be on the other list. We read that other list and check them off and say, “Honey, not going there tonight.”
But here is the best. And here is one who, in the end, described himself in the most unusual way. In 1 Timothy, he said, “I am the chief of sinners.”
Here is the best. Brothers and sisters, no one is self-made.
He said to the Ephesians, “Look with me in Ephesians 2.” I think you know this verse. I have believed, after all these years of meeting with John Blanchard, that this is his favorite verse—Ephesians 2:4. But I want to look at Ephesians 2:8-10.
For by grace have ye been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not of works, that no man should glory.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.
I think this is the basic gospel. Everybody knows that. It is God’s gift. It is none of ourselves. No one can boast. It is all of grace. That is our testimony.
When the apostle Paul, persecuting the church, took those letters and was on the Damascus road, something incredible happened to him that day. I believe divine grace arrested him.
A light as bright as the noonday sun struck him down and knocked him off his horse, and he met grace in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This zealot, this perfect man according to the law, this best example of religion that anyone could put forth—that day met his end when he met grace.
From that day on, his testimony became, “It is all of grace. It is nothing of me. It is all of grace.”
Spurgeon said this about that incident: “He makes bare His arm of irresistible grace.”
Brothers and sisters, is that your testimony? Is that what has happened to you? Has the arm of irresistible grace been made bare to you?
Spurgeon said of himself—this is a beautiful phrase; you know how I love sayings—“Then He gave me the effectual blow of grace.”
That was Spurgeon’s testimony. There was no resisting the irresistible. It conquered. It conquered my depraved will and made me bow to the scepter of His grace.
That is what happened to the apostle Paul. This great man, this Hebrew of Hebrews, this self-made man, on the Damascus road met the scepter of His grace, and the blow of His grace brought him to the end of himself.
Brothers and sisters, I think that is the key. We understand it because we read Paul’s testimony in Acts 9:5, how he bowed to the scepter of grace.
It says in verse 5, his first question—you know it—“Lord, who art Thou?” First question. That is bowing to the scepter of grace.
His second question: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me do?” I think these are the two most important questions for anyone who has been confronted with irresistible grace.
I remember when I was saved, something like that happened to me. I do not want to bore you with my own story, but on February 4, 1972, irresistible grace arrested me. I will never forget it.
I did not have any religious upbringing. I did not even know what a Bible verse really was. I told you the story. I remember going to a Bible study shortly after I was saved, days after I was saved, and they said, “Could you please turn to Genesis 1:1?” I thought, “What on earth are they talking about?”
Yet in a little Assemblies of God church, in a revival service in 1972, the grace of the Lord Jesus appeared to me in a profound way, and I was slain in His presence. I will never forget it.
There was a song we sang that night over and over. I had never heard this song. You who grew up in religious homes may not even understand it, but I had never heard the song “Amazing Grace” in all my life.
That song, “Amazing Grace,” became real to me. I remember going home, and the Spirit of God embedded that song in my memory. I remember singing over and over as I went down the road in my little Renault—if you know what that is—my little baby-blue Renault.
I remember singing:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
The irresistible grace of God must be our testimony. Is it your testimony? Have you met the grace of God?
Is your testimony someone else’s testimony? Well, you say, “Well, I know this brother who believes—he is just a tremendous brother. I know this sister—boy, when you hear her testimony, you melt in their presence to hear about the grace bestowed on her.”
But the question stands: Is this your testimony? Have you experienced the grace of God in this measure? Has the irresistible taken hold of you and laid hold of you, so you can say like the apostle Paul in Philippians 3, “I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus”?
He was literally taken over by the grace of God.
Brothers and sisters, that is the first thing I think comes out of these verses. That is something that seems to me to be very precious. Paul made this declaration: “But by God’s grace I am what I am.”
You remember the story of John Newton, who wrote the song “Amazing Grace”? I know you know the story. This one slave trader—grace got hold of him in such a way that this man transformed much of England.
To this day, his testimony of the irresistible grace of God is transforming life after life after life down through the centuries.
A brother went to him late in life, near the end of his life, and talked to him and read this portion of the verse: “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”
This is what Newton said: “I am not what I ought to be.” How many of us could say that? “How imperfect and deficient.” How many of us could say that? “I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. I am not what I hope to be.”
“Soon I shall put off mortality, all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, or what I wish to be, or what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was.”
That is the testimony. We are not what we once were.
I remember that next day, waking up, being born again, knowing the Lord Jesus as my life. That day, the whole world had changed before my face.
I know my fellow students in my last semester at college thought I had lost my mind. I came to school with a Bible in one hand and a “Jesus Saves” pin on my lapel. They thought, “Pittman, this must be a joke.” It was no joke. I was not what I once was.
And this is what Newton said: “And I can hardly join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’”
This is our testimony. Is this your testimony? This needs to be our testimony.
It reminds me of that hymn of Robert Robinson. You know the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” We all know this beautiful hymn. We have some beautiful hymns, and if you look at them, many of them are laced with grace—an understanding of the deeper and more complete experience of grace than many of us have ever known.
In that hymn, it says these words:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
Brothers and sisters, this man lived a hard early life. He lost his father when he was only eight years old. His mother sent him to London to become a barber—I guess you would call it a hairdresser today; I do not know what you would call it.
There he fell among the worst of the worst. He fell among a gang of hoodlums, and he lived a total, absolute debauched life.
So much so that when he heard of this evangelist, George Whitefield, coming to town, this rowdy group of guys decided they would go out to Mr. Whitefield and make scorn and fun of these crazy Methodists.
As he stood and heard those words, grace intervened. Grace intervened. Something happened to Mr. Robinson.
Here, this seventeen-year-old hoodlum, the worst of the worst, was arrested and captured by the living Christ. He became a minister, and he wrote this hymn at twenty-three years old.
Now, you know Robinson was not perfect. He lapsed into sin, and he would often lapse into unfaithfulness. We know believers like that. But I do not think grace ever let him go.
Later in his life, he was in a carriage ride, and there was this lady. She was humming this very hymn to him. In her bold witness, she said, “Do you know what this hymn is?”
You can imagine how it struck him. He lowered his head and said, “Madam, I am the poor soul who wrote that years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to experience now what I experienced then.”
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here is my heart. Take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.”
I think there is a little bit of Robert Robinson in all of us. Is our testimony, “By God’s grace I am what I am”?
He is able to save the greatest sinner. He is able to save the best person, often with more difficulty. Sometimes He will have to knock them off their horse with the brightness of grace as the noonday sun.
But if you bow to the scepter of grace, you will begin to be on the road to discover the complete work of grace.
Well, I hope you understand. Is this our testimony? There is a beautiful verse about grace. I want to just read you part of it. It comes from Romans 5:20-21, and it says this about grace. What a terrific verse:
Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.
Listen to these words. I think this is the way the King James Version puts it: “Grace did much more abound.”
It does not matter how deep sin is. It does not matter how far away we are. It does not matter how far we have wandered, like Robinson did. Grace is always calling back.
This perfect word is in the Scripture: where sin abounded—think about it—not just was present; it abounded. It was not in limited supply. And then it says grace did much more abound. Is that not a good word, brothers and sisters?
This is our testimony. I think of John Bunyan. You know John Bunyan. You know what his autobiography is titled? His autobiography should be all of our testimony: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.
That was his testimony. May the Lord make it true for us.
Think of it. Just think of it for a moment. Where would you be today without the grace of God? Where would I be today? I cannot imagine.
I have a cousin, a first cousin, who killed a man—shot him in the back of the head to steal his motorcycle. My own blood. Could I have been that man? I could have been that man, but by the grace of God.
There is an old idiom, an old saying: “But by the grace of God, go I.” You know the saying. I think you all know the saying.
Really, the one who said it was a minister, John Bradford. He was an old English Reformer, and he actually saw a condemned sinner being taken to execution. This is what he actually said—we have made it more generic, so it applies to us all.
He saw these condemned ones, he saw these sinners, and he said, “But by the grace of God, there goes John Bradford.”
That is us.
Oh, the grace that brought salvation’s plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span!
This is our testimony. We were completely lost, without hope in the world, Ephesians says, without Christ. We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
Now, I know none of you feel too dead this morning. You have a pulse, you are walking around, you are breathing, you are smiling—maybe. Maybe you are frowning at me.
But we are really dead when we do not know the grace of God. We are dead dead. You have heard the old expression, “Dead as a doornail.” It means quite dead. It means really dead.
It comes from the old thing of those large, hulky old wooden—steel studs or iron studs—that they would drive into a door to put the door together, and then bend over in the back to clinch the wood. Once they were bent over, they were of no use. They were dead.
Even we are like dead men walking. You have heard that. You remember there was a movie about that years ago.
I remember years ago reading an illustration about the way they used to do the death house on death row for people condemned. When those condemned—rightly condemned—individuals were walking from the death house to the place where the ultimate penalty would be carried out, and they would give up their life because of their penalty, the other prisoners would, in this very sobering tone, repeat again and again, “Dead man walking. Dead man walking.”
As he passed another cell, “It is a dead man walking.” That is all of us but for the grace of God.
We were dead in our trespasses and sins. There was nothing in us until that day our testimony became, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Thank God for that testimony. Is that your testimony?
I believe this is to be our testimony. You know, not only was it the apostle Paul’s testimony; it was the church’s testimony.
There is a beautiful verse I love about the grace of God. It is in Acts 4:33. It says of the early church in their very beginning, “And great grace was upon them all.”
This was their testimony. This is the reason the church was so alive. We wonder why we are so dead in so many ways, and why the early church was so alive in so many ways. I believe in this little thing we discover a secret: great grace was upon them.
That is what we need, brothers and sisters. That is what we need. This issue of grace is so important.
It applies directly to our Lord Jesus in His early years, His hidden years. We do not know much; the Bible is pretty silent.
In Luke 2, we know the story of when the Lord Jesus went with His family to Jerusalem, to the temple. You remember they left and the Lord stayed back. You remember when they came, so worried about their Son whom they loved, they wondered why He stayed back, and He said in Luke 2:49, “I must be about My Father’s business.”
We know that much of His early years. But in Luke 2:40, this is all we know. Brothers and sisters, this is enough.
And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom:
and the grace of God was upon Him.
That was the last thing that was said. If you think, “Surely the Lord Jesus does not need the grace of God,” remember that the definition of what marked Him in those early hidden years was that the grace of God was upon Him.
Well, brothers and sisters, I hope this is our testimony. Can you say like the apostle Paul, “But by God’s grace I am what I am”? He gave credit to nothing else. At that moment, he said, “It is all of grace. It has all been done by grace. Everything I owe is to this irresistible grace that apprehended me.”
May it be our testimony.
Now, the second point. They get shorter, by the way. I will comfort you with that little bit. You should know that habit by now. Usually the burden is filled out, and, you know, I have a few more things to say.
But not only is grace to be our testimony; grace is our beginning and our end. I think this is very important, brothers and sisters. Grace is our beginning and our end.
Turn back to 1 Corinthians 15:10. In the first mention, he says, “But by God’s grace I am what I am.” Then at the end he says, “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
With the apostle Paul, his testimony was, “Grace is my beginning,” and his testimony was, “Grace is my end.” Brothers and sisters, in a moment we are going to go further than that, but grace is our beginning and grace is our end.
I believe the Christian life is a lot like a long train trip, although I have not taken many train trips. The last one I took, I was late. I do not want to be late to be with the Lord.
When you come into the train car, at your beginning, you see a sign over the door that says “Grace.” You see it.
When you exit the train, at the end of your long journey—you understand, this is an analogy; you get that, right?—at the end of your life, you step out of the train and realize all that you have gone through: all the horrendous stops, all of the shaking, all the things that went on in this long, seemingly endless journey.
You look back at that door and read the word “Grace” again.
It is like Zechariah 4. When Zechariah saw that temple, and he saw the headstone, or the capstone, being put in place, he said there were shoutings of “Grace, grace, unto it.”
That is our testimony. Grace is our beginning and end.
This is what the apostle Paul said: You cannot start without grace. You try it; you will have a miserable testimony. You cannot end without grace.
I think some people understand the Christian life as though He saves us, and then we are on our own to live it out. How deplorably sad that would be if grace was not our portion at the beginning and grace was not our portion at the end.
There is grace to finish. There is grace to start.
You remember the apostle Paul made a big deal out of this. I will make it a quiz. I do not have a prize, so I will make it a quiz. How many books are there in the New Testament?
Twenty-seven, correct. You win the prize, whatever it is.
How many of the books, or letters, were written by the apostle Paul? Did I hear thirteen? Thirteen. So you think of it—you win the second prize. I do not know what it is; we will figure out something.
But think of it. Almost half of the New Testament was written by the apostle Paul. If you look at the beginning of every one of his letters, he starts it with grace. If you look at the end of every one of his letters, he ends it with grace.
You may be tempted to say it is just a greeting and just a salutation. But if you understand the testimony of this man, knowing the complete work of grace, you know it is his life. He begins and he ends with grace.
Let me just give you a few examples. I am not going to read all thirteen, because you will throw me out of here.
Look at Romans 1:7. Some of you may not have focused so much on these, but I went through all of them, and it is quite remarkable. He is the only writer of the New Testament who does this.
To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at the end of the book, Romans 16:24:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Look again at 1 Corinthians. We are reading from 1 Corinthians; it is our text. But look at 1 Corinthians 1:3:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at 1 Corinthians 16:23:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Look at another—the last one I will bore you with. Look at Galatians 1:3:
Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at Galatians 6:18:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.
He knew something so few Christians know, and he knew something in depth that we need to know. He knew it was grace that was our beginning, and it was grace that was our end.
It became such a thing to him that he would not begin any letter without first saying, “Grace to you.” He would not end any letter without saying, “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all,” or something to that effect.
All letters. You can take the first letter, you can take the thirteenth letter, you can take the longest letter, and you can take the shortest letter, but the apostle Paul always began with grace, and he always ended with grace.
Everything begins and ends with grace.
Now think of the whole Bible for a moment. Everyone knows about the story of creation—Adam and Eve. That is the ruin of sin. That is where we can say this phrase comes: “Where sin abounds.”
I tell you, if you look around today at the media and this world we live in, I think we would have to say sin abounds. Things we would not talk about in public twenty years ago, we witness every day. Things that would never have been seen, the click of a mouse can take you to in an instant.
Sin abounds. But thank God, grace much more abounds. He knew grace is everything.
Now, in the Bible we have Genesis, the ruin. We have the curse passing down to all men. Now, you are a sinner, whether you want to accept this or not. You can be offended with me if you want. You are a sinner by nature and by conduct.
A lot of people do not like the idea that I am a sinner because Adam was the sinner. They do not buy into this whole federal headship. Well, if they do not buy into this whole federal headship, where are they with the Bible? Then Christ cannot redeem them.
Because just as the sin and disobedience of one passed down from that one to every known human being, so the obedience of that One and the righteousness of that One likewise can go to every human being who knows the grace of God.
This is the beginning of the Bible. How depressing it is. But when you come to chapter 6, God begins—let me use these words, if you do not get offended with me—a semi-recovery. It is not the full recovery, because the full recovery never comes until the Lord Jesus comes. But it is a semi-recovery.
So there is this man Noah. The words it says of Noah—do you know these words? These are the first time the word grace occurs in the Bible in English.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
That was the beginning of the turning.
But think of the New Testament. Think of the beginning. Grace is our beginning. John the apostle shared a remarkable thing that none of the other writers of the Gospels shared. He had an insight into what really happened with the Lord Jesus coming that the other writers did not seem to have—or at least they did not seem to share it.
Think of it. Turn to John 1:14. Leave the parenthesis out about “and we beheld His glory,” and read these words:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth.
That is the Lord Jesus. That is how He comes. That is how He is introduced. It is the introduction of grace at the beginning of His ministry.
Look at John 1:16. John says this remarkable thing—no other writer had it:
For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace.
One writer explained it like this: “It is grace piled on top of grace.”
When the Lord Jesus comes, He opens the floodwall of grace. What we get to experience as newborn babes in Christ is not only grace for the beginning, and not only grace for the end, but grace for everything in between.
He is full of grace and truth. How remarkable.
It goes on, if that was not enough to make it clear, in John 1:17:
For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, that one verse explains the whole Old Testament and the whole New Testament. That one verse.
The law came in. It was an interruption, if you will. It was a divine interruption, but it was an interruption to convince man that they would need the grace of God.
Paul said in that famous chapter we have all agonized with, Romans 7:7, “I had not known sin, except through the law.” The law puts the spotlight on sin, and you say, “Boy, that is sin.”
But it is not just to put the spotlight on sin. It is to put the spotlight on sin so that we will know we need the grace of God. It is a training; it is an intermediary step.
You know, I do not know, the Lord laughed about it: “Let them labor under this for a number of centuries and see how convinced they are that, ‘Yes, all that You say, we will do.’”
I believe they should have gotten a hint when the Lord said in the Old Testament, “Be ye holy; for I am holy, saith the Lord.” Can you imagine? I would hope someone in the crowd said, “Lord, we cannot do that.”
But they said, “All that You said, we will do.” And they labored under the curse of the law for centuries until grace appeared in the person of our Lord Jesus.
That is our testimony, brothers and sisters. I believe that is what we need to see.
There is another point I want to make—the last point. Grace is not only our testimony. Grace is not only our beginning—oh, I forgot one. I was wrong to do this. I should never have forgotten this.
Have you ever read and memorized the last verse of the Bible? Have you? Who has memorized the last verse of the Bible? Third prize—unnamed prize. There are two. We have a competition. You all are well taught.
Listen to Revelation 22:21. This is the end of everything. This is the end of the Bible:
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen.
Not some of the saints—all the saints. That is the end. Grace: our beginning and our end.
And then grace, the last point, is everything in between.
Do you know, brothers and sisters, that there is grace for every circumstance in life? You do? Thank God for those who do. They are a living testimony of the complete work of the grace of God.
There is not a thing you can go through, however deep, however dark, however small, however great, that grace is not available for.
Brothers and sisters, this is a complete work of grace. Not only is He saying, “You are what you are by the grace of God,” not only is He saying, “I have grace for you to start, and I have grace for you to finish,” He is saying to us, “There is grace for everything in between.”
Is that not glorious? What an encouragement that is.
The apostle Paul had to learn this lesson in quite a hard way in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, I believe it is. You remember the story of the thorn in the flesh? Do you remember that?
I think some people who push so strongly the prosperity gospel must have trouble with this verse. I cannot explain it. But here is the reality of Paul’s testimony: the Lord put him in a straitened place, a difficult place.
Who would think God would give a messenger of Satan? Now, if I were counseling God—and He has never asked for that—I would say, “What were You thinking? What were You thinking?”
But it was all for one reason, one supreme reason: that this one who went through so much was to learn this one single lesson. This one single lesson was, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
Now, brothers and sisters, if you are still—and I like the King James Version; I often quote it from my memory of verses—if you are still a King James person only, and I know there are a number of you in here, and you like the red-letter version, you will notice in the New Testament, apart from the Gospels, that word is in red.
Why is it in red? Because it is the Lord’s word direct to the apostle.
He said, “Paul, I want to show you a lesson that every believer who is going to understand the complete grace of God needs to know. That lesson is that the grace of God is all-sufficient for every circumstance in life.”
That was a lesson. How hard for him.
Now, I do not think any of us—many of us, maybe none of us—will go through what Paul went through. But many of us, some of us, a few of us may go through deep waters.
I want you to know I am a wimp. I do not like going through deep waters. But every time the Lord has taken me through deep waters, I have learned something of His grace and something of His joy that I did not know previous to that.
On the other side, I could say like the apostle Paul, “His grace is sufficient for me.”
I believe that is the lesson we need to know: all-sufficient for every circumstance.
I believe our circumstances were engineered by grace to transform us into what we should be. I believe the grace of God is the golden thread that runs through every one of life’s circumstances.
For the believer, if they do not waste those opportunities, and if they do not say the opposite of what the apostle Paul said—“The grace for me was in vain”—if they can say like he said, “God’s grace was not in vain,” they have learned something of the deep grace of God.
I will end with this story. All of you know the hymn, “He Giveth More Grace.” Hey, you can put those—well, nobody is here. Nobody is here to put the words out. We will not do it.
“He Giveth More Grace,” Annie Johnson Flint. Does anyone know who Annie Johnson Flint is? Oh my, come on, Jim.
Well, that is where we were headed, of course. But Annie Johnson Flint, a remarkable lady who suffered so much and learned so deeply of the grace of God.
You know, she lost both her parents when she was just six years old. Think how traumatic.
She developed arthritis as a teenager. A teenager. It ruined her dream, her golden dream, to be a concert pianist.
Her arthritis developed so badly that her hands locked into balls. Yet she found solace in the grace of God and wrote poem after poem of His grace that is all-sufficient.
She pounded on the typewriter with her knuckles to write of the grace of God. Here is a remarkable testimony.
These were her words in this hymn, “He Giveth More Grace,” verse one:
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He add