03) The Testimony of a Sinner
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today we continue in Paul’s letter to Timothy. Two weeks ago we looked at the close relationship between these two men. Between a mentor and a disciple. These two men were very close and Paul had urged Timothy to lead the church in the city Ephesus.
Last week we looked at the context of the city that Timothy was serving in. A large city filled with pagan idol worship. A city whose economy was intimately connected to the worship of false gods. We saw that the church here had been supported and grown by some of the prominent people in the new testament church.
Paul spent many years himself along with Timothy, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos, among others. As Paul left the church in great hands he warned them of a danger that was lurking in the background.
28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Men will rise up even from your own number and distort the truth to lure the disciples into following them. 31 Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I never stopped warning each one of you with tears. 32 “And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.
Paul’s warning had been given years before the letter to Timothy that we read today and the wolves had arrived and were amongst the flock.
3 As I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine 4 or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith. 5 Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, although they don’t understand what they are saying or what they are insisting on. 8 But we know that the law is good, provided one uses it legitimately. 9 We know that the law is not meant for a righteous person, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverent, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral and males who have sex with males, for slave traders, liars, perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which was entrusted to me.
The false teachers had come in and claiming to have great wisdom of the Law they were leading people astray with made up stories and ideas about genealogies and he concludes with “whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conformed to the gospel.”
The gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God. This gospel, that was entrusted to me. To Paul.
Paul’s goal was for these leaders was to guide them back to love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. The goal is restoration. Because the false teachers were not acting in love they were acting in selfishness and pride and they were leading other believers away from the truth of the gospel message that Paul had recieved and states was entrusted to him.
Paul lived to share this message. We saw that for 2 to 3 years he would go to the lecture hall in Ephesus and speak on this message daily. When was the last time one of us spoke about something we believed in daily for years. This is what Paul cherished and shared this message over and over again.
Why was he so passionate about this gospel. Why would he write a letter to Timothy to have him correct any person who was teaching something contrary to his message. Why? Because to Paul the message was life, freedom, mercy, and grace.
And this is where Paul goes next. He gives a testimony of the work of the message of the good news of Jesus as he had experienced and was still experiencing.
Turn with me to 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and let us read the words of God.
12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to 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.
Giving Thanks to the Work of the Gospel
Giving Thanks to the Work of the Gospel
He starts by giving thanks. It is reminiscent of the author of Hebrews toward the end of Chapter 12 when he says
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Because what God has done and because what he has given let us be thankful and here Paul says it this way.
12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—
He starts with the single object of all that we are to be thankful for. He says I give thanks to Christ Jesus. This is the center and the fullness of the gospel. He is a believer’s Lord. He includes Timothy in this statement as he says our Lord instead of my Lord. There is no doubt in Paul’s mind that Timothy is a believer.
It is Jesus who has given Paul the strength that he rests in. If you know much about Paul, this ministry was a far cry from the celebrity lifestyle pastor that leads in many places today. Paul was persecuted, beaten, stoned nearly to death, imprisoned, shipwrecked, walked untold amounts of miles sleeping in rough condition. This was not a walk in the park lifestyle. He did not get rich. Was probably not very popular.
The people he would train and lead would turn against him and slander him at different times. Paul was not a super hero of super human strength and endurance. He was not just a glutton for punishment. He was simply a man strengthened by Jesus. By his Lord.
13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
When we look into history of the martyrs and missionaries that lived in outrageous circumstances and situations. Who would loose loved ones and be betrayed by those they love, what is it that gives them strength to continue. It is simply the strength of Jesus.
Was this some supernatural strength only given to special people like Paul. Well Paul says the strength he has comes from the fact that Jesus considered him faithful. Paul believed that Jesus, though he was unworthy, entrusted him with this message.
Jesus has chosen Paul and appointed him to the service and ministry of taking the message of salvation to the gentiles.
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
Do you remember the first time your mom or dad entrusted you with something precious to them? Who remembers the first time that you were allowed to take the car our on your own? Or a family heirloom is given for you to be entrusted to pass it on to the next generation.What is your first reaction. Really? Thank you. You take it and care for it. Paul was thankful and humbled that God would send this message through him.
This was a big deal for Paul. Why? Let’s say you have this car in your garage.
1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe. In 2022, one of these sold for around $135 million. The car is delivered and you are looking at it admiring your new toy. Who is on the list of approved drivers? Are your kids? Wife or husband? The neighbor across the street. Do you even dare to drive it yourself? It is so precious and valuable. Who would you trust to drive it.
What if you pick a person and asked them to drive it. You ask how many hours do you have behind the wheel? The gentleman says I have a lifetime of driving. I have driven more hours than anyone else who drives cars. This is good. How many accidents have you been in, how many car wrecks? Well all of them. What do you mean all of them? Every car I have driven I have totaled. I believe it is my purpose to destroy as many cars as possible and I have proven to be the best of the best at destroying cars. Would you hive him the keys?
Paul felt completely unworthy to be given such a great task. because of who he was before Christ.
The Gift of the Gospel
The Gift of the Gospel
1 Timothy 1:13–14 (CSB)
13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. ...
Paul states three things that define who he was before Christ. A Blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man.
A blasphemer: Complete irreverence against God and sacred things. He is not saying that he blasphemed from time to time. This is a quality of who he was. In the same way that a person is called a lier and a character trait verses one who lies. Paul was irreverent towards God.
He was a persecutor against the people of God. He willingly and intently sought out to find these people and to even coerce them to say false confessions.
10 I actually did this in Jerusalem, and I locked up many of the saints in prison, since I had received authority for that from the chief priests. When they were put to death, I was in agreement against them. 11 In all the synagogues I often punished them and tried to make them blaspheme. Since I was terribly enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.
If there was ever a person on a mission it was Paul we look out the tyrants of history and we don’t think of Paul but his heart was all in this. Enraged he pursued them hoping that in the end they would be put to death. And he was in agreement with them.
57 They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep. 1 Saul agreed with putting him to death. On that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. 3 Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison.
A man who stands and watches men stone Stephen for what for preaching the truth about Jesus. A man who was coldly satisfied with these actions.
A blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. In simple terms an aggressive bully. This is the man that God chose to use to be entrusted with the precious message of God’s love for sinful man to the gentiles.
There was no misunderstanding in Paul’s mind of what had taken place by his hands and his words but more deeply was what was in his heart at that moment. There was no one worse at the time fighting against the truth of the gospel. and he was zealous and murderous.
But...
1 Timothy 1:13–14 (CSB)
… But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Paul truly that he was acting out in his unbelief. As Jesus was hanging on the cross and prayed” Father forgive them for they know not what they were doing”. Paul was in ignorance and even though the list of offenses against God were long and even terrifying. On a level of no other man at the time.
He recieved mercy. In God's patient love he withheld the punishment that Paul truly deserved and bestowed an overflowing as super abundance of God’s grace. The gift of love, salvation, and blessing that Paul in no way of his own merit deserved.
Along with that Paul recieved that faith and love that are only found in Christ Jesus. Along with grace and salvation comes faith and love. A love that out pours to those around us.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death.
The thankfulness Paul is expressing comes from the responsibility bestowed on him who was a persecutor of the Way and now through the mercy and grace of God he now carries to the gentile nations.
He then give a very distinct statement about the Gospel.
The Gospel
The Gospel
15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.
There are 5 trustworthy sayings. These were statements that would have been well know amongst the community of believers and here he presents one of them in the middle of his testimony.
“Christ came into the world to save sinners”
Christ, is title as Messiah. The one who will come and and save them. The future king that was promised.
Jesus the name given
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
31 Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”
Came into the world. He was not created in the world. A reference to Jesus’ incarnation. He was before the world was formed and came into it.
28 I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
to save sinners. The word for sinners here was used to describe gentiles. The enemies of God. Men and women separated from God. Transgressors of the law. the wicked. This is who he came into the world for
9 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
We see that the church was not filled with the cream of the crop. with the polished and the refined. The kingdom is filled with redeemed, washed, sanctified, justified sinners. Paul states that he is the chief, first, the lead. When you open the dictionary of the person who typifies the definition of a sinner he claims that it is his picture that is there. The definition is followed by the reference
See Paul page 21.
Paul then give the reason for him receiving this mercy.
Example of the Gospel
Example of the Gospel
16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life.
Paul calls himself the prototype, the example, to those who “would believe”. God used Paul as an example to those who were to believe in the future. Paul’s life was used as hope and encouragement that all who call on the name of the Lord may be saved.
Have you ever been speaking to someone about God and they say “Well you don’t know what I have done”. Well he had the answer. I can just hear him telling someone, well let me tell you a story about a young man named Saul, … jesus demonstrated is patience and love to me so you to may believe in him and have eternal life.
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Paul claims to be an example of God’s grace and mercy. This was not a boast in his own worth as never felt worthy of the calling that God had for him.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
8 This grace was given to me—the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, 9 and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.
The false teachers had come and were drawing people away from the truth of the gospel. With made up tales that were inticing and plausible, the false teachers were a rot in the church. So Paul in his charge to Timothy goes back to the central part of his faith. The saving work of Jesus on the cross, to pay for the punishment that he deserved. A punishment that was a long list of wickedness. A list of murder, blasphemy, aggressive violence.
But God. Paul finishes this short testimony by praising the one who deserves all of the credit, all of the praise for everything that had taken place in his life. God the father.
The Source of the Gospel
The Source of the Gospel
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
King eternal or King of the ages
16 The Lord is King forever and ever; the nations will perish from his land.
9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one seated on the throne, the one who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before the one seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne and say, 11 Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.
Immortal. Imperishable uncorruptible, incapable of decaying. there is nothing that can tarnish or remove any portion of who God is. He perfectly unchangeable.
15 God will bring this about in his own time. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal power. Amen.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Invisible. Impossible to see.
18 No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
27 By faith he left Egypt behind, not being afraid of the king’s anger, for Moses persevered as one who sees him who is invisible.
12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.
The only God. The lone God, single. There is no pantheon of God’s and we believe it the most powerful. There stands a single God. Not three separate Gods of the father, spirit, son. The persons one God.
24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.
Be Glory and honor forever
11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to you. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom, and you are exalted as head over all.
This world everything in the heavens and on earth belong to him. It is he who has provided the plan of salvation, who receives all glory and praise for the work in our lives. If we remember from Hebrews we read
1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Paul has given his charge to Timothy to address the false teachers. This task would not be easy as they are likely elders in the church. But before he starts to address the issues that were being caused by these false teachers, he reminds Timothy of the power, mercy, grace, faith, and love that God bestows on his children. This may have been to remind Timothy that he was no different in the sense that he has the same story of redemption as Paul even if his sin looked different.
He was still lost and condemned because of his sin and there fore separated from God. But God sent his son God the son into the world to do the will of the father to save sinners. This was the message that the false teachers were to not pollute or corrupt.
12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—
We need to remember the work of the cross in our lives. It is to be a source of great thanks as we too recognize that we were like Paul. That we too have been redeemed because of his will in our lives.
We also need to see that anyone can be saved. I just have to wonder what was going through Ananias’ head when he was told he was going to meet this man. Saul. The one used as an example of the wicked sinner being redeemed and restored by a great God.
We too have the message of hope. If you are a born again believer, you too have the message of hope. The story of I once was but now I am. The old wicked sinner has been made new. That we too have recieved God’s mercy, grace, love, and faith.
This message is to be in our minds, hearts, and lips as he does a work in our life.
A couple of questions to leave you with today.
Are you thankful?
Have you forgotten the work of God?
Are you in need of a savior. That you hear the message of Paul and want to be saved, redeemed, restored, and reconciled to God?
If this is you I hope you will grab me and we can talk. I would love to answer any questions you have about the amazing and glorious God that has saved me.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
5 Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.