“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; 14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. 15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” NASB
It is noteworthy that these verses of our text come on the heels of Paul’s admonition to Timothy to give warning and instruction to men, apparently embedded in the church in Ephesus, who in their driven lust for position and acclaim as teachers, have engaged in myth-telling and Scripture bending and hair-splitting, presuming to teach things they themselves do not understand.
I don’t think Paul was intending to compare himself with these false teachers, but what a sharp contrast we have here, between those who see themselves as righteous and knowledgeable and worthy of recognition as teachers of the Law, and this humble servant who wonders daily why God would deem to use him, but understands that by the grace of Christ alone he is what he is, and understands that it is this grace which he has been sent to preach.
I said I don’t think Paul’s intent was to directly compare himself with these false teachers, but I do think he very much intended to compare the right reasons for teaching with the wrong.
In verse 5 he says that the goal of ‘our’ instruction – the word ‘our’ meaning himself and those who traveled and ministered the Gospel with him, - the goal is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.
Let me rephrase that. The goal of the Apostles’ teaching was to keep a clear conscience before God, expressing His love by keeping their hearts pure, desiring God’s will above their own and submitting every thought and action to His purifying Spirit, and calling people to a sincere faith that exalts Jesus Christ and never man.
In contrast, the false teachers about whom he warns Timothy have strayed from these things, he says in verse 6, and have turned aside to ‘fruitless discussion’; meaningless, empty talk.
Christians, the Word of God and His Spirit working in our hearts are what keep us on track. As soon as we begin to answer the siren call of the flesh to be fed; the fallen man to be obeyed; self to be served; we will be turned aside from truth and begin to entertain ‘fruitless discussion’.
Many a preacher has taken this route; many a church has followed this path to destruction. Paul often warned against drifting away and he kept to the right road himself by keeping his focus sharp and his message simple. Preach the Word. Preach the grace of Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father. That is the singleness of purpose we will follow today.
PEOPLE OF THE LAW
Before going to our text verses we need to look at verses 8-11 of this chapter and make a distinction.
“But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers 10 and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.”
Now I won’t spend a lot of time here since these verses are not today’s text. As I said, I just want to make a distinction.
The Law is for the lawless. Paul says that in verse 9. Think about this.
Most of us don’t go through our days telling ourselves we have to be careful not to rob a bank or burglarize a house. The only people afraid of the laws pertaining to those crimes are the people who commit those crimes.
On the other hand, those laws cannot prevent people from committing those crimes. They only provide punishment for those who do, and hopefully justice for the victims.
The Law of Moses and the keeping of its dictates are for those who are otherwise lawless, and as we have read, Paul lists for us some of the things that mark lawless people. The Law is not for the righteous, for in the case of the righteous man God has placed His Law within his heart, as we read in Jeremiah 31, quoted in Hebrews 8, where God says that in accordance with the new covenant He will put His laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.
Paul was once 1 Timothy 1:8-11. That is not to accuse Paul of the specific sins listed there, but just to say that he, as we all, was lawless in nature and had within him the potential for all sorts of evil.
By the grace of God he was made to be 1 Timothy 1:16, one in whom Jesus Christ demonstrated His perfect patience, as an example – a pattern – for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Let’s go and talk about that now.
WORST SINNER OF THEM ALL
What we need to understand, and this is the first thing that anyone needs to hear before they can come to Christ, is that when the Bible says ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’, what is being said is that everyone born of Adam’s race is radically depraved. Paul uses three words of his past self in verse 13. He says he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent aggressor.
I’m going to avoid doing a word study for a particular reason, but just be aware that when he says ‘blasphemer’ he refers to a direct sin against God as one who denied Christ and attributed the things He did to the devil, as did other Pharisees. When he says, ‘persecutor’ he meant that he persecuted Jesus, as Jesus accused him of on the Damascus road. When he says ‘violent aggressor’, he speaks of his violence against the church and against Christians, who he arrested and turned over for trial and martyrdom in Jerusalem.
I point this out because these were sins specific to the pre-converted Saul of Tarsus, although all of us were guilty to some degree of these same sins at one time.
The reason I avoid a specific word study though, is that what we really need to understand is that whether we are considering this list of sins, or the list Paul gave us in verses 8-11, or Romans chapter 3 or any other Bible list of the fruits of the fallen flesh, we must avoid getting hung up on specifics, by which we either condemn or acquit ourselves, and just know that within each of us is the potential for every kind of evil.
Anytime I am reading a mystery novel or watching a mystery story on television, and someone tells the detective that a friend or family member being investigated doesn’t have it in them to hurt anyone, or to commit that particular crime, I think to myself, ‘yes, they do’.
I understand, of course, that the character is voicing their faith and trust in that other person to be innocent of the crime in focus, but my mind goes back to Romans 3 and I can’t help remembering that ‘All have turned aside; together they have become useless’ there is none who does good, there is not even one”.
According to our fallen nature we inherited from Adam, we are radically depraved and there is nothing in us for good to appeal to; nothing redeemable; no part of us that can or even desires to be right with God.
I’ll refer you just briefly back up to verse 9. When Paul makes a distinction there between the lawless man and the righteous man, by saying ‘righteous’ he does not mean someone who lives an upright life and avoids breaking the law.
He is making a distinction between the lost and the saved; the unregenerate and the regenerate; the one still dead in his sins and without God, and the one who has been given spiritual life from above and declared justified.
All of mankind, with Christ being the only exception, is born with a nature to sin. Sin comes out of his or her very nature. We are not innocent until we sin, we are by nature depraved and out of our depravity comes the commission of sins.
Paul will go on near the end of our text to say that his salvation by grace serves as a pattern for all who will come to believe later, and we will talk about that before we finish, but although it is not specified here in the early verses what he is actually giving us is the same type of pattern only in the negative sense. He is calling himself an ignorant unbeliever who did these depraved things – what we can take home from this is the awareness that not one of us was any less guilty, any less depraved, any more deserving to be shown mercy.
We can all say with Paul, ‘I am the worst sinner of them all’.
The man or woman of the world would claim that when they stand before God He will find some good thing in them over which to declare their worthiness for Heaven. They would argue that they are not all bad and if God is a God of love He will see the good in them and grant them access.
The poet, Robert Service wrote a poem about a man who committed all sorts of atrocities in his life and when he died he was brought before the judgment seat. In this poem, after hearing the long list of sins attributed to this man, God sentences him to numerous lives in which he will have opportunities to live rightly and purge himself of the guilt of sin.
This can never be. It is appointed for men to die once and then stand in judgment, and there is not even one who can ever justify himself before God, no matter how well he lived. We are born depraved and will die depraved unless all of our sin is first judged and paid for. This we can never do.
Does this all sound hopeless? It should, because the condition and circumstance of every man, woman and child of this world is that of hopelessness and godlessness and helplessness to do anything to affect change for themselves.
I WAS SHOWN MERCY
It is Christ, and Christ alone, who brings hope; for it is He who came into the world to save sinners.
Notice that Paul does not mention one thing about himself in reference to the saving process. He does not list any one thing he did to pull himself up or to make amends with God. He could not and neither can we.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, among whom we all are.
Look back at our text and look at the phrases Paul employs to describe the actions of Jesus Christ toward him, even while he was a blasphemer, persecutor and violent man of aggression.
“I was shown mercy”.
Such a simple statement that it almost sneaks past your notice, doesn’t it? I was shown mercy.
Christians, mercy is something that is bestowed like a gift. No one can demand or extract mercy from another. Mercy, by definition, issues from a merciful heart. If it is not in the heart it cannot come forth, any more than an empty womb can produce a viable life.
Take deliberate, conscious thought of the contrast. The sinful, faithless aggressor, in the throes of his dark activity, was shown mercy.
Now if you remember that Paul has already labeled himself the chief of sinners, then this is meant to be a word of the greatest encouragement for you and for me and for the drug addict and the prostitute and the murderer and the pedophile and the homosexual and the homeless drunk sleeping behind the dumpster, that where you are right at this very moment Christ has a heart of mercy for you!
Does He condone or close His eyes to what you’re doing? No! He is holy. But, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, among whom you are!
But wait, there’s more; as they say on the commercials. Look again, at verse 14.
“…and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant…”
One paraphrase says “…and then He poured out His grace upon me…”
One translation says “…the grace of the Lord overflowed…”
The idea being conveyed is an excess of possession, or a supply that surpasses more than enough. Think of yourself pouring water from a pitcher into a glass, and when the glass is full to the brim you just keep pouring and water runs down the sides and spreads out all over the counter top.
While Paul was in the midst of his persecutions, while you and I were in the midst of our rebellion, sinning deliberately and liking it, enemies of God and hating Him, mercy shined forth from His heart and He poured out grace in such abundance that it filled you and engulfed you at the same time and it brought you to be with Him forever.
But wait, there’s more to be said about it than that! This abundance of grace that was poured out on Paul and on you was overflowing with the faith and love that are found in Christ Jesus.
What does that mean? It means by grace alone He supplied you with faith in Him and love for Him; the kind of saving faith and holy love that can only come from Him.
EXAMPLES OF GRACE
In Acts 9:1-2 Luke writes:
“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”
Strong’s lexicon says of this word, ‘breathing’, ‘threatenings and slaughter were so to speak the element from which he drew his breath’.
Saul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He excelled among his peers in all things pertaining to the Law and the Prophets. Saul was so sold out to his cause, so given over, so dedicated to wiping out any possible threat to the religion he held dear and indispensable, that venom fairly dripped off his lips as he went through his days, drawing his every breath from the threatenings and visions of slaughter that rose up like bile from his belly.
This is the man who was traveling to Damascus. This is the condition of the heart that moved down that road, letters from the high priest safely tucked under his robe, and in Acts 22:6 Paul says of himself “And it came about that as I was on my way…” He was on his way. He was on his way to commit sanctioned murder. He was on his way up in the world. He was on his way to high prestige and acclaim among the Jewish nation. He was on his way…
…and in a split second, with a blinding flash of light he later described as brighter than the noonday sun, mercy and grace transformed him from violent aggressor to virtuous Apostle!
He came to Damascus to destroy the church, he left Damascus the Apostle of the heart set free; greatest apologist and teacher of Christian doctrine ever raised up by God and put into service.
Only God’s marvelous grace could have made this choice and brought about this transformation. And Christian, this same grace is poured out on you and all those God calls to Himself (Acts 2:39).
Christ-followers, you and I and everyone chosen of God will stand forever as examples of God’s perfect patience and His irresistible grace.
Look at what Paul cites as the reason, in other words, according to God’s plan – from God’s mind – God’s purpose and reason, that he received this unmerited mercy and undeserved provision of grace.
“…in order that in me as the foremost…” or the worst of all men, the chief of all sinners, “…Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.”
He did not say this in the sense of himself being an example to follow, as we might say of the lifestyle of a good father for his young son.
What Paul is conveying here is that as the one who, to his own thinking, had committed the worst atrocities possible against a loving, holy God, the example of his salvation and transformation serve as a pattern for all who would come after, to see that if God could save Saul of Tarsus He can certainly save anyone He chooses.
Do you know anyone who, when you talk to them about Christ, says that they do not need Him? Then you have to tell them that they are a sinner in need of a Savior. Don’t let the world or the liberal church tell you that words are antiquated and out-dated. Sinners they are and that is the word to use to declare their need.
Do you know anyone who, when you talk to them about Christ, says that they are not good enough; that they have to clean up their life before they can ever come to church, much less come to Jesus? Then you have to tell them that Christ is able to save the chief of sinners even in the throes of his sin. You need to tell them that even in their faithless ignorance of Him, His mercy is extended and His grace pours out in excessive abundance and that if He can save you, He can save anyone.
Christ-followers, whether you have been a believer for a day or many decades, the truth remains that you were lost and dead in your trespasses and sins, you were without hope and without God in the world, you were hopelessly destined for eternal hell, when you were chosen by grace alone, made brand new and established in Heaven and glory forevermore.
The perfect patience and mercy of Christ was applied to you when you did not know it, life and faith were given to you when you did not have or even seek them, and grace was poured out on you to the everlasting glory of the Father.
This is your testimony and you must be ready to tell them that if He can do this for you He can do it for all who will believe in Him for eternal life.
Come ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Full of mercy love and power!
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream,
All the fitness He requires,
Is to feel your need of Him!
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
