Daniel's Notes

God Loves Me Though I Am Nothing

4 min read

💡Big Idea

Takeaways and Next Steps

📖Bible Passage

Scripture

Points

  • It is particularly difficult to remain humble while defending your honor and refuting slander
    • Yet Paul exemplifies this in 2 Corinthians 12
    • Paul explicitly says that the people of Corinth put Paul in this awkward position where he must defend his honor.
      • “I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me.”
    • Really this is not about Paul’s honor. It’s about God’s.
      • If Paul allowed the Corinthians to continue to slander Paul and his office as apostle, he would be demonstrating ungratefulness toward God, who is responsible for all of Paul’s accomplishments.
  • The Corinthians should have stood up for Paul, defended and vindicated him.
  • humility is having a fair and just estimate of ourselves.
    • There is nothing humble about falsely deprecating yourself. In fact, it shows ungratefulness toward God who gave you those abilities and accomplishments.
    • If we truly looked at ourselves we would see that ultimately we can take no credit for anything good in ourselves. Whatever good we have is from God and all glory ought to go to Him.
    • ⭐: Brothers and sisters, do not devalue the accomplishments and abilities that God has done for you and through you.
      • Rather bless the LORD for it!
        • Give Him the glory.
        • Use those accomplishments and abilities to further the Kingdom of God.
  • The adversity that Paul faced:
    • Those who hated Paul viewed him as a zero.
    • Those who envied Paul also viewed him as nothing.
      • Allison: “If the envious cannot quench the sun, then they at least can point to its spots, and blind men to its honor.”
    • Those who wanted the Gospel to be about nothing but the flesh.
      • gnosticism : tried to reduce the Gospel to abstract concepts and philosophies.
        • 2 Corinthians 3:12 : Paul pushed against this, despising man-centered logic and instead saying we speak plainly.1
  • How does Paul view himself? Paul says “I am nothing”
    • This is quite different from how Paul viewed himself before becoming a Christ follower.
      • He would not have claimed he was nothing.
    • No he was considered a Hebrew among Hebrews. Highly esteemed. Paul lists his credentials in 2 Cor. 11
    • Yet Christ miraculously entered into Paul’s life and changed his heart.
      • Paul was a radically different person afterward.
      • Despite all of Paul’s prior credentials, Paul now says “I am nothing”.
      • Paul considers his credentials as nothing compared to Christ. Philippians 3:8
      • Romans 7:24
    • Clarification: When Paul says “I am nothing” he means “I am nothing in comparison to the LORD”
      • If you’ve never met the LORD, you may aim for humility but it will be incomplete. It is when you face the LORD that you truly see that you really are nothing compared to Him. It is only when you face the LORD that you can truly see this.
    • ⭐: Restrain every feeling of pride for it is a noxious, dangerous, fume.
      • Pride is deadly.
    • Clarification: Paul also meant that he is nothing to trust in
      • It is when we begin to trust in ourselves that we are most susceptible to temptation.
      • The threat of temptation is just as common to the old as it is to the young. In fact, the Bible is filled with older, wiser men who succumbed to temptation: Noah, Judah etc.
  • Humility also enables us to prevent the censures of others:
  • He who is humble is able to find contentment and happiness.
    • Mr. Somebody has honor and clout, and must preserve and protect it.
    • But Mr. Nobody does not need to protect his pride.
      • He already knows that he is nobody.
      • And he is grateful that God ever loved him.

Application

Further Study

💬Discussion Questions

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. I’m confused about this point. I don’t see plainly in the verse. I see speak boldly. ↩

Graph View

Backlinks

  • No backlinks found