For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 1 Corinthians 15.9-10
The phrase ‘a humble confidence’ comes from Derek’s sermon Sunday on perseverance. It sums up the way that we live out GRACE. We are gifted a view of ourselves and God which allows us to understand our absolute inability to be holy and yet gives us an assurance that we will be. In all of this, GRACE gives us the motivation needed to run the race set before us. Paul describes humble confidence in the verse above:
HUMBLE | For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God | I am a sinner saved by grace. I do not deserve any part of God: His love, His protection, His strength, His goodness, or His forgiveness. I deserve punishment. Anything that I have is mercy.
CONFIDENCE | But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain | My hope is in the fact that God has called me His and is at work within me. I can approach this life with an expectation, knowing that God will complete the wok He has begun in me.
WORK | I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me | I can work hard knowing that my work comes from the work of God within me. I know that while I, in myself, have no ability, that with the Spirit I am able to accomplish good work for His glory.
We must all be spurred on to work toward goodness. This means wrestling the bondage of sin in our own lives. It means confronting the pain and injustice of this world. It means infusing God’s love and goodness into the world. It means seeing our lives as an opportunity to make sure the GRACE given to us is not in vain.