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The sermon presents God’s grace as the decisive cause of conversion, spiritual sensitivity, perseverance, and final salvation. Because believers were no better by nature than those who remain hardened or perish, they must renounce boasting and give all glory to God. Sovereign grace also grounds hope for the salvation of seemingly unlikely people. The proper response is prayerful perseverance, humility, gratitude, and increasingly devoted service to Christ, while recognizing that even good works remain dependent on mercy.
Theological center: Salvation and perseverance are attributed entirely to God’s sovereign, distinguishing grace rather than human merit or works.
Applications: Cultivate humility · Keep praying for others · Serve Christ more fully · Consider undeserved grace
Primary texts: 1 Corinthians 4:7 · 1 Peter 1:3 · Jude 1:24
“For who maketh thee to differ from another?” 1 Corinthians 4:7 OR as it is in the Greek, “For who distinguisheth thee?” “Who giveth thee distinguishing and discriminating mercy?” “Who maketh thee to differ from another?” Pride is the inherent sin of man, and yet it is of all sins the most foolish. A thousand arguments might be used to show its absurdity, but none of these would be sufficient to quench its vitality. Alive it is in the heart, and there it will be, till we die to this world and rise again without spot or blemish. Yet many are the arrows which may be shot at the heart of our boasting. Take for instance the argument of creation, how strongly that thrusts at our pride. There is a vessel upon the potter’s wheel, would it not be preposterous for that clay which the potter fashions to boast of itself and say, “How well am I fashioned! how beautifully am I proportioned, I deserve much praise!” Why, O lump of clay, whatever you are, the potter made you, however elegant your proportions, however matchless your symmetry, the glory is due to him that made you, not to yourself, you are but the work of his hands. And so let us speak unto ourselves. We are the thing formed, shall we say of ourselves that we deserve honor because God has formed us excellently and wondrously? No, the fact of our creation should extinguish the sparks of our pride. What are we after all, but as grasshoppers in His sight, as drops of a bucket, as lumps of animated dust, we are but the infants of a day when we are most old, we are but the insects of an hour when we are most strong, we are but the wild ass’s colt when we are most wise, we are but as folly and vanity when we are most excellent—let that tend to humble us. But surely if these prevail not to clip the pinions of our high soaring pride, the Christian may at least bind its wings with arguments derived from the distinguishing love and peculiar mercies of God. “Who maketh thee to differ from another?”—this question should be like a dagger put to the throat of our boasting—“and what hast thou that thou did not receive?”—it would be like a sword thrust through the heart of our self-exaltation and pride. We shall now for a moment or two endeavor to put down our pride by observing wherein God has distinguished us and made us to differ, and then by noticing that all this comes of Him, and should be a reason for humiliation and not for boasting. I. Many of us differ from others in God’s providential dealings towards us. Let us think a moment how many there are of God’s precious and dearly beloved children, who at this momen…