The Grace of God in the Life of Paul - Christopher G. Brenyo
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Pastor Christopher Brenyo preaches on 1 Corinthians 15:9-11.
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Amazing Grace 2011 - Classical Whimsical by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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- 00:10
- This is God's holy and infallible word. Moreover, brethren,
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- I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which
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- I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first of all, that which
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- I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
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- After that, he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remained to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
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- After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then, last of all, he was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time, for I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
- 01:19
- But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not
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- I, but the grace of God which was at work with me. Therefore, whether it was
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- I or they, so we preach, and so you believe.
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- May the Lord add his blessing to the reading, the preaching, the understanding and application of his word.
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- Please pray with me. O Lord Jesus, we are thankful for your grace.
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- We are thankful for the example we have of Paul here, and I pray that we would emulate him and respond to your grace in the way that he did.
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- I pray this would bring you much glory. And we ask these things in Jesus' name.
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- Please be seated. Today, the title of the message is
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- The Grace of God in the Life of Paul. It's a shorter title in your bulletin,
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- The Grace of God, but the fuller title should say The Grace of God in the
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- Life of Paul. And today we have a little bit of diversion from Paul's train of thought, in the sense that he talks a little autobiographically.
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- He has been speaking about defense of the gospel and proclamation of it, and he's about to enter into his great defense of the doctrine of the resurrection.
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- But in this little section, he talks about his own experience and acquaintance with Christ and his grace.
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- And I thought today it would be good for us to emphasize and to think about what the grace of God means in the life of a believer.
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- What happens when the grace of God appears and impacts the life of a
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- Christian? Well, in our text we have an example of what the grace of God did and yielded in the life of Paul.
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- So the question that I have, and I hope to answer, is what did the grace of God yield in the life of Paul?
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- And that answer will give us some insight into what grace can do even in our own lives.
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- Let's look again at verse 8. This is the end of the testimony of the eyewitnesses to the resurrection.
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- He says in verse 8, Then last of all, he was seen by me also as by one born out of due time.
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- Now, in the interest of time, I'm not going back to rehash the conversion experience of Paul.
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- We did that several weeks ago, but if you need that refresher, maybe this afternoon a good activity on the
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- Sabbath is to reflect on the sermon, go back and read Acts 9 and the events surrounding
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- Paul's conversion. Paul was on his way to Damascus for the explicit purpose of persecuting
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- Christians, those people for whom Christ died. He was a great enemy of Christ and his church at that time.
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- But Christ miraculously takes him from that enemy and that hostility to make him one of his apostles.
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- And he describes himself as being one born out of due time. He comes after the twelve.
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- That language is the same language where we get miscarriage and abortion. He says,
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- I am like a miscarried child when it comes to my place as an apostle.
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- So the first thing we must see about Paul and his acquaintance with grace, and the first thing that should be our response to grace is humility.
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- Humility. If you're taking notes today, I have a five point outline. The first point is the answer to the question, what did the grace of God yield in the life of Paul?
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- And the first answer is humility. We're going to talk a good bit about humility.
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- The second thing, and we'll discuss this as we progress, is abundant and fruitful labor for Christ and his kingdom.
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- It's a second response of Paul in our text to abundant and fruitful labor.
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- The third thing was a burning desire to preach Christ. So number two, abundant and fruitful labor.
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- Number three, burning desire to preach Christ. And number four, and I think this may be where we're lacking a bit, there is purposeful labor in Paul's preaching.
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- He actually wants to see people saved, as basic as that sounds.
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- I think sometimes we are more content with defending the gospel than advancing it.
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- Widely distributing the gospel. So he has a burning desire to preach
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- Christ, and that doctrine moves and transitions into a burning desire and love for the people that they might hear the gospel, might believe, and that they too might be in awe of his grace.
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- And finally, I have at least four areas of application to use to apply from the text.
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- Let's talk about first, humility. Paul says in verse 9,
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- For I am the least of the apostles. I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
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- First place I like to look is Ephesians chapter 3. And as we turn back,
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- I'm going to rattle off a few more texts of scripture. Start with Ephesians 3.
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- I want you to hear Paul's description of himself here, beginning at verse 1. For this reason
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- I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles, if indeed you heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the
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- Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body, the partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, of which
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- I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.
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- Now here's the part I want you to listen to carefully. To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the
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- Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which has been from the beginning of the ages, has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the
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- Church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our
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- Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him.
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- The first thing that happens to Paul is he's humbled by the grace of God and what is grace other than unmerited favor?
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- Grace says we get something we don't deserve. And one of the things
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- I think for us who belong to the reform camp, we are champions of the doctrines of grace and rightfully so, but we are empty on the area of humility.
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- The most competent theologian among us who grasps and understands and apprehends the mystery of the riches of God's grace should be the most humble.
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- Because by definition we recognize that we did nothing to contribute to this salvation.
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- Paul could never say that I earned my salvation through my law keeping. He could never make that claim because of his radical transformation to Christ on the
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- Damascus Road. So Paul was greatly humbled by the gospel.
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- He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Some have speculated that he's on the path to being like the highest of the order as a young man.
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- He has a Ph .D. in Phariseeism. He is at the height of his theological learning and among his contemporaries advancing above them in his knowledge and understanding.
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- And he is absolutely halted and stopped in his tracks by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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- If there be a haughty spirit in you, or me, if we are filled with pride, then we're showing a lack of our understanding of the doctrines of grace.
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- Because the first fruit of grace that appears, using Paul's example, is humility.
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- To understand that God sovereignly, in His grace and His mercy, saved you from sin and death.
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- The first response, when you think about yourself, should be of humility.
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- There's some other verses. I'm not going to have you turn there. I just listed them and I'm going to read a few of them to you to convince you.
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- Of course, this pops up a lot in places like Proverbs. I didn't record all of those, but here's just a few from the
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- New Testament. Luke 14, 11 Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
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- 1 Peter 5, 5 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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- 1 Peter 5, 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.
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- Paul said earlier in our book, in 1 Corinthians 4, 7 And this is heart searching.
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- If you will lay hold of it again. I don't know if you remember this. Many of you weren't here when
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- I was preaching this. It says in 1 Corinthians 4, What do you have that you didn't receive?
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- And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn't received it?
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- I want to stop here for just a moment. If, echoing a comment, a quote from Augustine, If there be any good thing in you, it's because of God and His grace.
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- All of the bad stuff in you is from you. If there be anything good, it's because of the grace of God in your life.
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- Are you good at something? Do you have skills? Do you have talents? Do you have abilities? You didn't do that.
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- God in His grace furnished those for you. So we have no opportunity to take pride in anything.
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- In our physical prowess, athletically. In our business mindedness. In our beauty.
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- Whatever it is that we think we have. All of it is a testimony to the grace of God in Christ.
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- He gave you those gifts for His glory. For the furtherance of His kingdom.
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- For the gospel sake. And isn't it funny how we take pride in everything.
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- There is an important balance. I want to be careful how I say this. But there's nothing in the scripture that talks about you having a high self esteem.
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- In fact, the miracle of this seems to be if you have a proper,
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- God informed, humble view of yourself. You will never suffer from those issues of self esteem.
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- If you humble yourself and recognize that God has done it for you. That He has made you for His glory.
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- Then some of that pressure is taken away. What do you have that you didn't receive?
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- Of course, I could go on and say a lot about stewardship.
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- And I'm convicted about the talents that the Lord has given me. I may not have been a good steward thus far of those talents and abilities.
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- We all need to cultivate those for the glory of God. But whatever we have, we have to acknowledge
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- God's gifting. He's given it to us graciously. The powerful words of James 4 .6
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- God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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- There's something interesting. It seems here there's a circle. If you have grace showered upon you, the response is humility.
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- Properly. In several of these places, it seems that God is going to give more grace to those who understand
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- His grace. Two lines again.
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- God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He who humbles himself will be exalted.
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- God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble. The language crosses over.
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- If I'm humble when I respond to the grace of God, guess what? It seems in God's economy that He's pleased to give me more grace.
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- I don't know about you, but I want all the grace that I can get. Every drop of it.
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- I want every last bit of the grace that I can get from the Lord. There's something else to think about when it comes to humility.
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- I've been thinking about this this whole week in connection with Paul and his response to grace.
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- Some years ago, I may have wanted to give you some counsel to say, don't think anything about your sinful life before Christ.
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- Think about the forgiveness that He has given to you. But I think
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- Paul, by the grace of God, had a memory always with him.
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- Because in all these places in the New Testament, he refers back to that time. He says,
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- I'm the least of the apostles. I used to be a persecutor of the church of God.
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- I think grace is magnified in our lives, in our minds, when we remember how bad we were.
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- And so the benefit of our former sinful life is that we can look upon it and say how desperately
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- I needed the grace of God for salvation and to remember what sort of person
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- I truly am apart from Christ. I am capable of all of those evil things.
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- I have no room, I have no grounds to be haughty in spirit because of what I used to be apart from Christ.
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- So I would say your sinful past can serve a helpful function now when you remember the grace of God in Christ.
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- And I think with all of his accomplishments, Paul never forgot who he was apart from Christ.
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- Remember that great discussion in Philippians about himself. He would give everything up for the knowledge of Christ.
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- Let's go back to our text in 1 Corinthians 15. There's something else that happens when the grace of God comes.
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- I don't know about you, but I'm under conviction. I've been under conviction thinking about this. I'm not as humble as I should be, and I'm not producing the fruit that I would like to.
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- There needs to be an abundance of labor in you and in me to have tasted the grace of God.
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- Who says in verse 10, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not
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- I but the grace of God which was with me. When we think about grace, it's the opposite of works, right?
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- Unmerited favor to give. God gives it to us. Salvation is a gift.
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- However, when the gift comes, and we actually possess it, it necessitates and it follows that I should have some fruits worthy of that repentance and faith.
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- It's inconceivable that I would be unmoved and unchanged by the grace of God revealed to me in Christ.
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- I want you to think a little bit about the abundance and the fruitfulness of Paul's labors.
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- He wrote at least half of the New Testament. He went on four, if you count it the way a lot of people do, three or four missionary journeys where he took the gospel to the world.
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- He made personally hundreds, if not thousands, of disciples in the proclamation of that gospel.
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- He discipled them actively and personally in all of those churches.
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- He planted churches. He appointed elders. He built those churches up.
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- He equipped the leaders for service. And the gospel spread like wildfire.
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- So Paul knows something about being effective in ministry. So we say, well what were
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- Paul's methodologies? Now maybe how a modern man would say, we've got to emulate the methodology of Paul in order to have his results.
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- That's actually not true. What we need to emulate in Paul is his recognition of the grace of God and that we would be fearless in our proclamation of his gospel and recognize if there be any fruit, if there be any salvation, if there be any discipleship, if there be any holiness of life, it's all because of the grace of God.
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- I think what happens to the Christian, to the pastor, is they start to believe that they are the instrument of change.
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- Christ is. His Holy Spirit is. His gospel is. So look again at verse 10.
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- By evidence, by obvious results, Paul labored more abundantly than all of the other apostles.
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- But how does he describe it? He says, but it wasn't me, but it was the grace of God which was at work with me, in me.
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- So that gives me a lot of hope. Does that give you a lot of hope? Because I have that grace of God too, in Christ.
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- This isn't limited to super apostles. This comes to every
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- Christian, every believer in Christ. We have the grace of God. So as a product of our life, there can be an abundance of fruit.
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- There can be fruitful labor for what we do for Christ. So maybe we should be laboring more.
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- Maybe we should be working harder for the gospel of grace. That we might proclaim it to more people.
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- That we might live it in such a way that people could see our lives and be convinced that this gospel is true.
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- Isn't it funny, in our pride, if we were privileged to make a disciple, we would go home and pat ourselves on the back for our disciple making.
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- We would forget that it was God who did it. How pleased and privileged we should be to be his servants to participate in this great work he's accomplished.
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- I think Paul had a full handle on that. It's also interesting that circumstantially in his life
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- Paul was humbled from without. He's writing to a group of Christians who are in existence largely because of his influence and they deny the legitimacy of his apostleship.
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- That would be humbling, wouldn't it? That would be frustrating. But you see
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- Paul continues to preach Christ and him crucified. Paul keeps preaching grace knowing that the offense is not to him that they need to be instructed more excellently in the way and he doesn't take on the responsibility and burden of selfishness here but he preaches
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- Christ. I think you and I so much of our lives are filled with trouble because we've taken on the mantle of selfishness and pride.
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- We're trying to feed a beast with a never -ending appetite. Instead we should be trying to cut off his head.
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- And I think Paul had some sense because of his experience. He saw things clearly and rightly.
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- You and I have some room to grow here because we still intend toward the pride side not the humility side.
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- What else happened with Paul and his acquaintance with Christ and his grace?
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- The third thing is he had a burning desire to preach Christ.
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- I told you a few times that famous quote from Martin Luther that he who has been touched by the gospel touched by the grace of God cannot be silent about it.
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- When was the last time you were bold in your proclamation of Christ and his gospel to an unbeliever?
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- At Thanksgiving when your unbelieving relatives were around your table did you preach the gospel of grace to them?
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- Tell them that they can be alive in Christ? The fear of man set in.
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- When was the last time that you boldly preached Christ to someone?
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- It seems when you understand the gospel of grace that one of the outworkings of it is a desire to make
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- Christ known. When my sons buy me the 2018
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- Z06 Corvette I'm going to boast about what they've given to me.
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- Thank you. I'm just kidding. But the reality is
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- I have something I possess something so much better but I'm not shouting on that.
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- I take a picture of my nice hairdo. I don't have a nice hairdo but you know what I'm saying. As a lady I take my selfie of my nice hairdo or something
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- I'm pleased with, I'm proud of. But why am I not boasting about Christ and his gospel and the grace that he has showered on me?
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- Why am I boasting about other things and not about Christ? Something in me if I'm not boasting has forgotten what grace has meant to me.
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- And I should have a burning desire to make Christ known. And this burning desire is not selfish.
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- I could say this as a pastor. What I should want is for every citizen of this little town of Longwood to come to know
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- Christ. And if the church down the street leads them to Christ, Hallelujah Amen.
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- It's not just us whoever does it. We should long to see the gospel preached in our communities.
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- And lives transformed and disciples made but I'm not sure how much we want it.
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- I'm not sure how eager we are to make Christ known. Well there's something else and it comes here in verse 11.
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- It says therefore whether it was I or they of course he's referring to Cephas, Apollos, the other teachers but his desire is that the gospel may be preached.
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- So be preached he says and so you believed. I told you
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- I struggled some years ago with an unloving spirit toward unbelievers.
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- Some unbelievers. Very select few. Because there are people who are bad people.
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- And I didn't want them to know the grace of God. It's very wicked. It's only a few people. Generally speaking
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- I wanted the lost to be converted. But there were some people I didn't want them to experience the forgiveness that I had because they were such bad people.
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- I didn't want their sins to be forgiven. I wanted them to be punished. What was wrong with my thinking?
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- I forgot about the grace of God that had been poured on me. I didn't respond with humility.
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- I didn't want the labors to yield fruit. We should preach the gospel not only so we feel good about defending the gospel.
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- We should earnestly desire the salvation of sinners. Paul says we preached and you believed.
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- Our thoughts about the preaching of the gospel is of necessity. The rightful fruit of our proclamation of the gospel is repentance and belief in those who hear us.
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- I'm not sure that's how we preach the gospel today. We preach saying they probably won't believe anyway.
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- Do you believe in the power of the gospel? That power transformed us.
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- And we like Paul can look back at our lives and the train wreck that we were apart from Christ and we can say with great faith and assurance if he did it for me he could do it for them.
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- What should the grace of God yield left Paul? What did the grace of God yield left
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- Paul? The answer, humility, abundance, and fruitful labor.
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- A burning desire to preach Christ. Preaching that was fruit bearing to salvation and the hearers and making of disciples.
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- But what about us? The grace of God worked mightily in the life of Paul.
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- That's the truth of this passage. But what about us? Well, we too must put the grace of God on display by being humbled by it.
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- And the two things that come to mind are worship and thanksgiving.
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- Your hearts should overflow with thanksgiving and worship for the Savior who died for us on the cross.
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- That never gets old for the Christian who knows what grace is. And what we need to do is realize the hunger and desperation of the lost around us.
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- God has some elect out there numbered among all these pagans. And we have to preach
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- Christ to them because they need rescuing. They need the gospel. They need to taste the grace of God that they might be thankful in awe and wonder of His grace.
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- That they might get on this cycle of grace and humility with us. If there's something else, we should labor for Him.
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- I think we feel inconvenienced any time we're asked to do something. But we need to labor for Christ as an act of love.
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- We should be like Paul and eager to proclaim His gospel that those who might hear could repent and believe and live in awe of His grace.
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- Well, what about taking this and running with it? Well, the first thing is as I've already mentioned, in the quietness of your heart now,
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- I would ask you, are you really worshiping Him? Are you falling on your face right now on your heart and worship to Him?
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- You should be moved. Some people with tears that the grace of God has come to you and to your house.
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- That should drop you to your face. Prostrate before God that His grace has come to you.
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- Instead of grumbling and complaining about all the little inconveniences in your lives, you ought to be giving thanks.
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- How grateful are you for the grace of God in your life? Yesterday I was making a list of all the little problems
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- I have in my life and it's very convicting today because by all accounts
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- I'm among the most blessed men on the face of the planet. I've got a wife who really loves
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- Jesus and all of my children seem to be walking in faith today. I've got children who say they want to get married and have a bunch of kids.
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- So I'm going to have a bunch of little, another generation of people to influence. I am the most blessed man in the world, but I forget.
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- I grumble and I complain. So our hearts should turn to God in thanksgiving.
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- There's nothing worse than an ungrateful little rich kid and that's what we are.
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- We are some rich kids in the kingdom and nothing looks more disgusting than a spoiled brat.
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- Let's not be that way. Let's be humbled and thankful. Third, we really need to talk about His grace.
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- We need to regularly remind each other, I used to be a dirt bag sinner and now
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- I'm alive in Christ. We need to talk to each other that way and remember the grace of God in our own lives.
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- We need to talk about it personally and we should be shouting it from the rooftops.
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- And fourth, finally, we need to be helping others grow in grace. One of the things that's amazing about a church, even a small little church like ours, is the gifting and the talents of the members.
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- You say, well, I don't have as much to contribute as that next person. You'll find that people who you view as being very strong in some areas are very weak in others.
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- And you may be strong in the area where others are weak. We need to help in each other as iron sharpens iron.
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- We need to serve and assist each other in our growth in grace. We need to grow up in the faith and we need to remember that Christ and His grace is the way that we grow up.
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- But we need each other. So we need to be reaching out and trying to help each other grow in grace.
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- Well, very simply, in this amazing section of Scripture of the
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- Resurrection, we have this little small diversion into the grace of God and the life of Paul.
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- Very simply, we need to ask the question, what is the result of this?
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- What conclusions can we come to when we hear about the grace of God at work in the life of Paul?
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- Well, in conclusion, like Paul, the grace of God is reflected in us by our humility.
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- So I'm going to ask again, how's your humility today? Are you filled with pride and self -seeking?
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- You've forgotten about the grace of God. Great news, it's right here in the pages of Scripture and your own experience.
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- You can be reminded. You can get back on the train, the wagon you've fallen off. You've forgotten about grace if you're not being humbled by it.
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- Another thing that's produced is fruitful labor for Christ. Are you spending any time in your week laboring and serving
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- Christ? Or is everything about your interests? Are you devoting any time or effort to laboring for Christ?
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- If not, you need to. You're wasting your time if you're spending it on other things.
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- Purposely seek to labor for Christ. Are you eager to preach the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ so that the hearer would repent and believe?
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- Do you have that desire? If not, you're not thinking about God's grace to you.
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- You're thinking about something else. Today, I hope it's true for you, but I am really thankful for the grace of God.
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- And I'm saddened that I haven't responded properly to grace, but knowing what grace is, my frown can turn to a smile because we've needed this all along.
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- We've failed miserably. We've failed, and we will again. But the grace of God is alive and well, and that is ours in Christ.
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- So today, I want you to be thankful that God took a rotten sinner like you and made him or her, made you alive in Christ.
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- You have tremendous wealth and riches untold. You have no idea how lofty your standing is in Christ.
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- Instead of being prideful, it should humble you and cause you to want to serve Him. May the
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- Holy Spirit be pleased to use this feeble sermon and the pages of Scripture here today to make this happen in us.
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- Amen? O Lord, we see
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- Your grace at work mightily in the life of Paul, and in some ways it seems distant and far removed from us, but Lord, we know that that same grace has been at work in us.
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- O Lord, I pray that You would stir that hunger and desire to remember about the grace of God in Christ that's been revealed to us.
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- O Lord, if there be any who do not know You here today, from the youngest to the oldest,
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- I pray that You and Your love Father would draw them to Yourself.
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- That Christ would have borne their guilt on the cross and the Holy Spirit would apply that work of redemption to them that they might be saved and be alive in Him.
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- O Lord, we look at all that, we recognize that we contribute nothing. We only contribute the sinfulness that requires us to need salvation.
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- O Lord, I pray that we would be the most humble and Christ exalting and self -lowering people around.
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- That they would see us in our love for Christ and love for His people, love for His truth, and they would see very little self -interest in us.
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- They would see us using our gifts and talents to build the kingdom of God. Lord, would
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- You cause that to come to pass. We have much room for growth in this area. I pray that You would start sanctifying in this regard.
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- That we would desire fruitful labor for You that would lead to sinners coming to know
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- You and being disciples and growing in Godliness. And most of all, most humbling when we look at ourselves and our lives.
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- We are wearing filthy rags and our skin is covered in oils.
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- We're not very attractive to look at. But Your dear
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- Son, You, Lord Jesus, have washed us, You've transformed us,
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- You've clothed us in fine linen, and You've taken us to be Your bride.
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- This is too wondrous for us to apprehend even. Lord, it's so big and so grand that You would desire to have a perfect communion with us.
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- And You've accomplished it through Your work on the cross. Lord, I pray that we would come and feast at Your table and long to have greater intimacy and communion with You, both now and forever.