Yet… Not I, But by God’s Grace
Yesterday I said we should all know the phrase “yet God is merciful”. And many of you know that part of the story already. You know that you’ve been forgiven. You don’t live with a sense of guilt because you discovered long ago that Christ is a Saviour, and that your stains could be washed away by Him. And so you’ve been living for him ever since.
Paul was a great man of God, he did an amazing amount of good for the church and for the cause of Jesus Christ. Many people make much of Paul, and lift him up as godlike in his own ability. But whenever people started to take their eyes off of Jesus to put them on Paul, he would throw a big old “YET” at them, as we see in 1 Cor 15: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10 NIV11)
Grace, Not I
“I worked harder than anybody”, he says, “Yet! Not I, but God’s grace in me”. This is a yet that should be on the lips of every Christian, all the time. Yet not I, but God.
A doctor on the mission field restored to health the greatly loved child of one of the natives. In gratitude he knelt at the doctor’s feet and not only thanked her but worshiped her as a god. She stopped him, saying that she was a mortal like himself and worship belonged only to God. He replied that no one but a god could have saved the child’s life.
“Whom would you thank and praise,” the missionary replied, “for a beautiful gift sent by the hand of a messenger—the servant or his generous master, the giver? I am but God’s servant by whose hand he has been pleased to send you this great gift of healing.”
That’s a great mindset. She was saying “yes it’s a wonderful gift – YET not from me… but from the gracious hand of God”.
There’s an old Proverb which has often been attributed to St Francis of Assisi which says “There but for the grace of God go I.” If not for grace, who knows what would have happened to me. It’s another way of saying yet not I, but God’s grace.
Christ In Me
Think of your life today. Does this yet come into your thinking, your speech, often enough? Are you often, always, deflecting praise and turning it to God?
One of the things I loved about watching the rugby world cup last year was the way the South African guys deflected the glory to God. When Siya Kolisi and the others were interviewed they said “thanks be to God our Father” and didn’t take the glory for themselves. Yes we won, yet not us, but God in us.
I want to be a “YET not I but through Christ in me” type of person. How about you?
