Charles Spurgeon preached his first sermon at sixteen.
By twenty, thousands of people packed in to hear him.
He wrote more words in his lifetime than almost any Christian in history.
Sounds like a beast, right? A genuine Gospel hero.
Here’s what most people don’t know: the same man who filled stadiums also battled depression so dark he told his own church he wondered if he’d survive the week.
Wildly Successful Spurgeon and Wallowing in Sorrow Spurgeon were the same man.
How could that be?
Everything Spurgeon was was grace.
We want the gift of greatness, but God is interested in giving grace.
Grace for sorrows and grace for successes.
Spurgeon knew this. It’s why he leaned on a verse across his ministry.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:10
• By the grace of God–Paul mentions his grind but not because it was the key to his work– the grace of God was. Paul doesn’t open with his resume. He starts with a gift he didn’t earn.
• I am what I am–Paul was not “what he built.” Whatever Paul is, God’s grace made him that.
• His grace... was not in vain–grace didn’t just save Paul once and walk away. It kept working. Kept producing. Kept energizing on the hard Tuesdays, not just the good Sundays.
Gifting cannot get the glory. Grace must.
We look at someone gifted–a preacher, an athlete, a parent who has it together–and we assume the gap between us and them is effort or talent.
If I just worked harder. If I just had more discipline. If I just had what they have. If it clicked for me like it clicks for them.
Paul says the gap isn’t effort. It’s grace. And grace isn’t something you muster up.
Grace is given and received.
This will terrify you if your confidence is built on your accomplishment.
If grace didn’t hold Spurgeon together, his own performance sure wouldn’t have.
The man who preached to thousands wrote his darkest words in his darkest seasons.
With all of the success He saw in preaching, he missed nearly a third of the Sundays in his final twenty years because of illness.
Grace held him anyway.
Best Sunday. Worst Tuesday. Same grace. Same God.
If you’re in the middle of success–you need Spurgeon’s grace-giving God.
Where are you relying on or boasting in what has been given to you as if you had accomplished it?
As 1 Corinthians 4 says, “What do you have that you did not receive?”
If you’re in the darkness of sorrow–you need Spurgeon’s grace-giving God.
God had grace to carry you through today, and He’ll be generous again tomorrow.
Spurgeon is not the hero of his own story.
Grace was his story, not strength that built success. Grace was his stronghold, not weakness that threatened to take it all away.