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A Gospel Interlude:
The Amazing Grace of God,
Part 1
1 Corinthians 15:8-10
June 6, 2004

Introduction

John Newton’s Personal Testimony

If the most well-known Bible verse in the world is John

3:16, the most well-known hymn in the world is, hands
down, “Amazing Grace” written by John Newton.
Newton was born in 1725 and he died in 1803. The first
11 years of his life were spent in education. But when
he left school to work as a shipmate, the next 13 years
were spent in utter foolishness, trouble-making and
wickedness.

His life had a couple of strange turns which continued to

plunge him further and deeper into foolishness and
sinfulness. There were seasons of calmness during
these 13 years, and he used this time to further his
shamefulness. And there were also seasons when he
was treated as a slave under the most horrific
conditions. Yet even during this time, there was not the
slightest pang of conscience regarding the condition or
future of his soul.

But it was during a voyage in January 1748 that the Lord

met him suddenly. The ship he and his mates set to sail
in was not fit for the ocean. But since they all seemed to
be foolish drunkards, they set sail anyway in a ship that
was “greatly out of repair and very unfit to endure
stormy weather.”
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In God’s providence Newton had about three godly
books which he had acquired through the years, yet he
didn’t treasure the God taught in those books. But
during the first day or two of that voyage as he read the
book Imitation of Christ by Thomas A’Kempis, the
question suddenly came to his mind, “what if these
things are true!” Sadly his response was to shut the
book and conclude that if it was true, he simply had to
endure the consequences of his sin.

Then a storm of what seems to be of hurricane

proportions hit the sad little boat filling it with water,
threatening to sink it for close to two days. The men
worked for forty hours around the clock pumping water
from the ship. Newton worked from three in the morning
to around noon and then he dropped from exhaustion.
He was called back an hour later to pump again but all
he could do was steer the ship.

He and his mates watched all their food and livestock

wash overboard, and with only a few fish left over below
deck to eat. Despite this they managed to keep the boat
afloat for these two days. But conditions worsened after
they feasted on their remaining rations, celebrating
because one of them saw land. It was not land at all but
a cloudy mirage.

They had hardly any food to eat, and they already had
used what clothing they had to stuff the holes in the
boat to keep it from sinking. And the twelve men who
survived that storm lived on a half a cod a day for their
rations. They lived like this for four more weeks,
enduring the blistering sun, with no masts and hardly
any sails to catch the wind.

It was during these four weeks at sea that Newton

thought as he wrote, “I began to think of my former
religious professions, - the extraordinary turns of my life,
- the calls, warnings, and deliverances I had met with, -
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the licentious course of my conversation, - particularly
my unparalleled effrontery in making the Gospel
history…the constant subject of profane ridicule.”

Then comes Newton’s key statement, a statement which

I contend is at the heart of a sinner’s doorway to Christ.
He wrote, “I thought, allowing the Scripture premises,
there never was or could be such a sinner as myself; and
then comparing the advantages I had broken through, I
concluded at first, that my sins were too great to be
forgiven.” There, beloved, is the heart of a true
Christian being transformed! Here is a man who, while
his life and path to the gospel will probably never be like
ours, his testimony should be ours that we are surely
sinners and in love with our sin before God saved us!

Newton was able to write “Amazing Grace” because

God’s grace had been demonstrated so amazingly in his
own life. It was out of the depths of sinful filth and
wickedness which God called him. That is why Newton
wrote in the very first verse that God saved a “wretch”
like him. He writes, “I once was lost but now I am found,
was blind but now I see.”

Such a testimony sounds like the apostle Paul. To be

sure, the apostle Paul loved God and had devoted his
whole life to God’s service. He had devoted his whole
strength to keeping the purity of the religion he loved so
much. He would have been considered the antithesis of
Newton, in that Paul was not as “wicked” as we read of
Newton being.

But their similarities can be seen in that they both were

vile sinners. One loved sin and the other claimed to love
God but killed His followers. It is in this vain that Paul
could speak of himself as he does in our text for this
morning, 1 Corinthians 15:8-9.

The Apostle Paul’s Personal Testimony

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At the tail end of Paul’s vindicatory eyewitness evidence

to the resurrected Jesus Christ, Paul signs his own
signature. This is just like Paul to put himself last and to
recognize his place in this list.

First, Paul was the very last apostle to see the

resurrected Christ. I am speaking primarily of those who
saw Christ after He rose from the dead, but before He
ascended to heaven. Paul missed those opportunities,
yet the ascended and glorified Christ appeared to him,
calling him to be the final apostle. This office was that
special office commissioned by Christ Himself when He
personally selected men to follow Him, learn from Him,
and preach about Him. And Paul was the very last one
personally selected by Christ Himself to preach His
gospel. It was precisely because he was not chosen until
after Jesus ascended that made Paul put himself last on
the list of the apostles. This is why he says in verse 8,
“Last of all, I saw him, too, long after the others, as
though I had been born at the wrong time” (NLT).

Second, Paul put himself last because of his wicked

efforts to destroy the very thing Christ came to build.
That is why he writes in the very next verse, “For I am
the least of all the apostles, and I am not worthy to be
called an apostle after the way I persecuted the church
of God” (v. 9). This horrific part of his biography is
something he is sure not to forget when he shares his
testimony. That part of his life is found beginning at the
end of Acts 7 (v. 58, where he was the chief religious
leader giving approval to Stephen’s stoning) and on
through Acts 8 (where he continued his resolve to arrest,
imprison and even murder Christians wherever he could
get his hands on them) and into Acts 9 (where he was
eventually converted on the road to Damascus where it
was his intent to imprison more Christians).
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In his defense before the Jews in Acts 22, the bulk of his
message centers on his own personal testimony where
the first thing he preaches to them is his own previous
personal hatred of the very thing he now loves so dearly.
He said in verse 4, “I persecuted this Way to the
death…” He then follows with a detail account of his
strategy for imprisoning Christians, concluding with his
Damascus road experience. The last statement of his
testimony concludes with these words in verses 19-20.

“ ‘But Lord,’ I argued, ‘they certainly know

that I imprisoned and beat those in every
synagogue who believed on you. And when
your witness Stephen was killed, I was
standing there agreeing. I kept the coats
they laid aside as they stoned him.’”

The same testimony is given before Agrippa in Acts 26.

Paul explains beginning in verse 9,

“I used to believe that I ought to do

everything I could to oppose the followers of
Jesus of Nazareth. Authorized by the
leading priests, I caused many of the
believers in Jerusalem to be sent to prison.
And I cast my vote against them when they
were condemned to death. Many times I
had them whipped in the synagogues to try
to get them to curse Christ. I was so
violently opposed to them that I even
hounded them in distance cities of foreign
lands” (vv. 9-11).

This is the same Apostle Paul who while traveling do

Damascus with the authority and commission of the
leading priests was struck to the ground with the glory of
Jesus Christ. This is the same Apostle Paul who was at
one moment a persecutor of Christians and in the very
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next moment an apostle and preacher of the gospel of
Christ.

Now this is the subject I want to focus on this morning

for a few moments, for it is the focus the apostle Paul, if
he were here this morning, would want me to focus on
rather than his testimony. But to be certain it is his
testimony that serves to magnify and glorify the grace of
the exalted Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s why he used
that testimony so often. He himself knew that it was
only unexplainable, indescribable amazing grace that
could call him – a Christian-killer – to represent Christ
before the world. That’s why he puts himself last in 1
Corinthians 15:8-9.

1. Paul’s Understanding of God’s Grace

That’s why his last words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:8-11

were a summary of the amazing grace of God and a
reminder to keep on preaching it no matter what the
cost. In that passage Paul writes,

“So you must never be ashamed to tell

others about our Lord…With the strength
the Lord gives you, be ready to suffer with
me for the proclamation of the Good News.
It is God who saved us and chose us to live
a holy life. He did this not because we
deserved it, but because that was his plan
long before the world began – to show his
love and kindness to us through Christ
Jesus. And now he has made all of this plain
to us by the coming of Christ Jesus, our
Savior, who broke the power of death and
showed us the way to everlasting life
through the Good News. And God chose me
to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher
of this Good News.”
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There is the gospel in summary. It is about a God who
saved us and chose us. It is about a God who did this
not because we deserved it. Paul knew that well. He
deserved the worst part of eternal hell for persecuting
the people of Christ. Yet God saved him and chose Paul
anyway. That’s amazing grace. It is amazing grace
because God decided before He ever created the world
to save and choose Paul. It is amazing grace that Jesus
Christ decided to show His love and kindness to Paul
when Paul didn’t deserve one ounce of it after what he
had done to so many Christians.

Listen to his testimony to Timothy in the first letter he

wrote to this young pastor. In 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Paul
writes,

“How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord

for considering me trustworthy and
appointing me to serve him, even though I
used to scoff at the name of Christ. I
hunted down his people, harming them in
every I way I could. But God had mercy on
me because I did it in ignorance and
unbelief. Oh, how kind and gracious the
Lord was! He filled me completely with faith
and the love of Christ Jesus. This is a true
saying, and everyone should believe it:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners – and I was the worst of them all.
But that is why God had mercy on me, so
that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime
example of his great patience with even the
worst sinners. Then others will realize that
they too, can believe in him and receive
eternal life. Glory and honor to God forever
and ever. He is the eternal King, the unseen
one who never dies; he alone is God.
Amen.”
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Once again, he records for us his violent aggression
toward Christians, scoffing at them and doing everything
he could to bring them to ruin. Then there’s that
blessed contrast beginning with Paul’s two favorite
words, “But God…” He says God had mercy on him. He
speaks of God as kind and gracious. He attributes all of
his faith and love to the Lord Jesus Christ who filled him
completely with His own faith and love.

And why does Jesus do this? Because Jesus came to the

world to save sinners, no matter how bad they may be.
Case in point – the Apostle Paul. Thus, Paul shared his
own testimony wherever he went because he knew that
if people heard how bad he used to be then they would
know how great and amazing God’s grace must really
be. Such a testimony that God forgives even the worst
sinners would surely give anyone hope that Christ might
forgive them as well.

Finally, if we turn to Ephesians 3:7-8 we see Paul

declaring this amazing truth once more. He writes,

“By God’s special favor and mighty power, I

have been given the wonderful privilege of
serving him by spreading this Good News.
Just think! I did nothing to deserve it, and
though I am the least deserving Christian
there is, I was chosen for this special joy of
telling the Gentiles about the endless
treasures available to them in Christ.”

Again, the least deserving Christian alive, who deserved

nothing from Christ but the same thing he was giving
other Christians, suddenly experienced the wonderful
favor and mighty power of God. From Christian-killer to
Christian preacher. From Christ-hater to Christ-lover. Is
there any other word to explain this action of God
toward Paul than amazing? And that’s just what grace
is. It is often defined as ‘the undeserved favor and
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kindness of God.’ Paul would agree with that definition.
He didn’t deserve it but he got it anyway, simply
because Jesus, before He created the world, decided to
give it to Paul.

2. Paul’s Progressive View of God’s Grace

Now, can I point something out about this amazing grace

of God? I want you to see what it does for someone who
was as bad as the Apostle Paul. And I also want you to
see what it did for someone who became as great as the
Apostle Paul. I used three texts for you to give you a
picture of how Paul viewed himself.

• Returning to our original text as a starting point, in

1 Corinthians 15:9 Paul says he is the least of all the
apostles, not worthy to even be called an apostle.
That was written around the year 55 A.D. It was one
of the third epistle Paul wrote.

• Then in Ephesians 3:8 Paul describes himself as

the least deserving Christian there is. This is Paul’s
seventh epistle. He penned those words around 61
A.D., some six years after the previous statement.

• Then, in his eleventh epistle, 1 Timothy, Paul

described himself in 1:15 as the worst of all sinners,
also translated in other versions as “the chief of
sinners.” He wrote these words around 65 A.D., some
four to five years after he had written the previous
description of himself to the church at Ephesus.

Do you see the progression in Paul’s understanding of

himself? At the beginning of his ministry he considered
himself the least of the apostles. In the middle of his
ministry he doesn’t describe himself with reference to
his apostleship, but rather with reference to himself as
being the least worthy Christian alive. Finally, toward
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the end of his ministry he considers himself to be the
bottom of the barrel, the dregs of the world, describing
himself as the worst of all sinners. So it seems that the
more he grew in the amazing grace of God the more he
saw how deep his sinfulness really was. In other words,
the older he was in Christ the more accurate he was in
his perception of himself before Christ saved him. So
while he certainly grew upward in holiness, he also grew
downward in humiliation. The longer he gazed at Christ
the clearer he saw himself for who he really was.

Application: How to Magnify God’s Grace in Christ

I assert to you then that there are these two things that
must of necessity be true of you if you profess to have
believed in and received this amazing grace of God.

1. First, you must have a view of God’s grace

that continues to grow upward in amazement.

As was true of Paul, so also it must be true of you that

you understand this grace of God that chooses and
saves you in spite of who you truly are. Remember
Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 1:9? God saves us and
chooses us to live a holy life, not based on the things
you have done, but simply because He wanted to show
His love and kindness to you. This grace is called just
that – grace – because you don’t deserve it. With Paul,
you must recognize that you wanted nothing to do with
it. You must understand with Paul what he wrote in
Ephesians 2:1-3.

“Once you were dead, doomed forever

because of your many sins. You used to live
just like the rest of the world, full of sin,
obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the
power of the air. He is the spirit at work in
the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.
All of us used to live that way, following the
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passions and desires of our evil nature. We
were born with an evil nature, and we were
under God’s anger just like everyone else.”

This is the life if every person who has not been given
God’s amazing grace. This was the life of Paul before he
encountered Jesus and His grace. It would have been
the life Paul would have continued to live were it not for
that grace. It would have been the life you would be
living now, if it were not for grace. And for some of you
it may be the life you find you are living now, without
this grace. But Paul goes on to describe this amazing
grace in verses 4 and following. He begins that passage
with those two favorite words again, “But God…”

“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved

us so very much, that even while we were
dead because of our sins, he gave us life
when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is
only by God’s special favor that you have
been saved!) For he raised us from the
dead along with Christ, and we are seated
with him in the heavenly realms – all
because we are one with Christ Jesus. And
so God can always point to us as examples
of the incredible wealth of his favor and
kindness toward us, as shown in all he has
done for us through Christ Jesus. God saved
you by his special favor when you believed.
And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift
from God. Salvation is not a reward for the
good things we have done, so none of us
can boast about it. For we are God’s
masterpiece. He has created us anew in
Christ Jesus…”

Again, do you hear that familiar tune? The amazing

grace of God is something given to us not because of the
good things we think we’ve done. It is given to us
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simply because God desires to give it to us. There is
nothing deserving in us whatsoever. In fact, all that
resides within our hearts and souls is only worthy of
God’s anger. Before we were objects of God’s grace we
were objects of His anger. That’s what’s so amazing
about grace. God gave the riches of heaven to the
poorest of mankind. He gave His only Son to people who
would kill Him. And He has done all of this so that we
would be saved from our sin and from His wrath. We
were given this amazing grace of God so that we might
glorify and magnify our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ. Listen to how Paul describes this in Titus 3:3-7.

“Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient.

We were misled by others and became
slaves to many wicked desires and evil
pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and
envy. We hated others, and they hated us.
But then God our Savior showed us his
kindness and love. He saved us, not
because of the good things we did, but
because of his mercy. He washed away our
sins and gave us a new life through the Holy
Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit
upon us because of what Jesus Christ our
Savior did. He declared us not guilty
because of his great kindness.”

There’s that same tune again. God’s amazing grace

saves us not because of the good things we think we’ve
done, but simply because of his mercy. That means that
He saved us simply because He wanted to. Yet what
was it within us that made Him want to? That’s just it!
There’s nothing there to make Him want to save us! Yet
He did it anyway. Does this not propel your love for this
grace upward and higher to the throne of God where this
grace came from? Doesn’t this amazing grace leave you
in awe and wonder that He saved you when there was
really nothing worth saving about you? If it doesn’t do
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this to you then may I suggest you haven’t been
exposed to the amazing grace of God yet?

2. Second, you must have a view of yourself

that continues to grow downward in humiliation.

This means that just as you want to delight more and

more in God’s amazing grace, you must also learn to
despise your life without Christ more and more.

Two proofs of this have already been given. The first

proof is that Paul clearly grew downward in his
understanding of his sinfulness and depravity before
Christ met him on that road to Damascus. By the end of
his life he saw himself as the worst of all sinners alive on
the earth. As was true of Paul so it also must be true of
you that you see yourself more and more accurately, for
who you truly were and would be without Jesus Christ.

The second proof is found in the mere recording of the

descriptions of what we were like before Christ, as found
in Ephesians and Titus. If we return to these same texts
once more, support is undeniably given for this mindset.
How so? Because these texts were written to be read
over and again by the Ephesians and by Titus. The
Ephesians were to share this letter with other churches
who would copy it and read it over and again. Titus was
to read this letter to his church, who would then copy it
and send it to other pastors and churches who would
then do the same thing.

The point here is that these descriptions of our lives

before Christ were inspired and recorded and preserved
so that we might return to them over and over and over
again in order to gain God’s perspective on what our
lives were like before His amazing grace visited us.

Why is this mindset so important? Because if we don’t

know how sinful we really are, and if we don’t know how
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unworthy we are as recipients of God’s amazing grace,
then we cannot possibly magnify that grace of God that
saves us from our sin and from ourselves. In other
words, I’ve got to know how bad I really am if I’m to
know how amazing God really is in His grace.

I can’t exalt in God’s amazing grace until I have fully

come to grips with my sinfulness. And I can’t learn to
exalt God’s amazing grace in greater and higher ways
until I learn how humiliating I am in wider and deeper
ways. And the glorification I want to give to God
because of His grace will become old, stale, cold, and
numb if I there is no fresh backdrop in my mind for His
amazing grace. That backdrop is provided by a
constant, regular, habitual and daily meditation on how
humiliating I am to God in and of myself.

And the deeper I go in that humiliation, the higher I will

rise time and again to glorify this amazing grace. It only
makes sense that I won’t appreciate God’s grace day by
day until I remember day by day what He saved me
from.

Conclusion

This is called preaching the gospel to yourself everyday.

And if you profess to know Jesus Christ, then this is your
duty so that, like Paul, you become more acutely aware
of your own sin and thereby more gloriously aware of
God’s amazing, incredible, indescribable grace. If you
truly are a Christian, then you should be able to look
back at your life and, like Paul, see that same
progression of thought concerning your sinfulness.

When you think of God’s amazing grace to you, do you

respond like Peter, “Depart from me O, Lord, for I am a
sinful man” (Luke 5:8)?
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When you pray do you pray like the tax-collector did in
Luke 18:13, not even daring to lift your eyes to heaven
as you pray, but beating your chest in sorrow saying. “O
God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”

Or do you pray like the Pharisee did in verse 11?

“I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like

everyone else, especially like that tax-
collector over there! For I never cheat, I
don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast
twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my
income.”

Which man’s prayer seems more like yours? Jesus says

it was the prayer of the tax-collector that shows he is
made right with God.

Do you see yourself day by day, week by week, month

by month, or even year by year as more and more sinful
without Christ? In looking back over the years of your
life as a Christian is there a marked degree of awareness
of just how wicked, evil, and depraved you really were
before Jesus saved you? If you can’t see that, then
make sure you have this amazing grace, because this is
what it necessarily produces in the heart, mind, and life
of a Christian.