Why Did Jesus Come to Us?

Good morning, I’m excited to be back with you today and we are going to spend just a few minutes this morning looking at 1 Timothy 1:12-17. Last night we answered the important question: Who is Jesus? This morning we are going to answer the question: Why did Jesus come? What was it that Jesus Christ came to do? Jesus didn’t come just to live like any other human being, He came with a set purpose. So, why did He do it? Why did Jesus, the Son of God, put on flesh and dwell among us? Why did He experience homelessness, abuse, persecution, and die on a cross? So many people have different ideas as to what Jesus’ purpose in life was. Some will say that He came to be a prophet, that’s what the Muslims believe. Some will say that He came to be a moral example or a teacher. Some will say that He came with no set purpose but Jesus came for a reason. He came to do what no one else was able to do and we are going to see what that reason was in the words of the Apostle Paul. In 1 Timothy, Paul is writing to one of his co workers in the Gospel, Timothy and Paul is encouraging Timothy to continue enduring through the work of the ministry and as we will see, Paul points to himself as an example as to why Jesus, why the Gospel needed to be sent and shared. Let’s open up in prayer and then we will read 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

1 Timothy 1:12–17 NASB95

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, 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; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. 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. 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. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul the Example

The first thing that I want us to do with this section of Scripture is look at Paul as an example. Paul begins this section of Scripture by taking Timothy back to who Paul was before he became a Christian. If you have read the book of Acts, the way that Paul describes himself in these verses should sound familiar. We see Paul in the early chapters of Acts from Acts 7-9 being a violent man that adamantly opposed Christ and the church. He not only hated the message of Christianity, he actively went out to hunt down Christians, had them arrested, and sought out their deaths. And he claimed that he was doing all of this out of zeal for God. Paul was a Pharisee and he truly believed that what he was doing was following the Law of Moses and pleasing to the Lord. It wasn’t until after Jesus appears to him on the road to Emmaus that Paul realizes that he is persecuting the very church that God Himself has established. You see Paul recognizes something about himself that each and every one of us needs to recognize. What happened to Paul is the same thing that every lost man, woman, and child needs to have happen. The Holy Spirit needs to reveal to us the depths of our sinfulness, the Holy Spirit needs to reveal to us just how far removed we are from God, just how sinful we really are. Paul recognized that he had sinned. In verse 13 he acknowledges that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent aggressor. In complete unbelief he lived his life but God showed him mercy. At the end of verse 15, Paul says that he was the foremost or chief of all sinners. This isn’t Paul just putting on theatrics. This isn’t Paul’s way of eliciting pity from Timothy, no Paul fully believes that he is the greatest sinner to have ever lived. No, Paul feels the weight of sin in his life and we need to feel that weight in our own lives. Notice too in this verse, that Paul is speaking in the present tense. In Paul’s eyes he is still the chief of sinners yet God in His mercy has given grace to the chief of sinners. Grace abounds to the chief of sinners. God has spoken in HIs Word, He has given us the law, and each and every single person on the planet stands guilty before the righteous Judge of the universe. Have you recognized that you are a sinner? Have you recognized that your life is not just one little white lie that God will overlook if the rest of your life looks pretty good. No, we need a Savior and we cannot save ourselves. You need a savior. Every hour we need a savior. John Murray writes, “Paul did not glory in his sin but he did freely recognize and glory in the mercy of God. The mercy of God means that we are complete debtors to the grace of God. We have to face the vileness, the sheer godlessness of our sin and the enormity of our guilt. When we learn what mercy is, and glory in the salvation that mercy has wrought, then we know no plea but grace.” Paul recognizes his problem, he recognizes the depths that he has been removed from God, he recognizes that he needs mercy. What’s the answer? The answer to what he should do is the same answer to our question of why Jesus came to us.

Christ, the Savior of Sinners

Read again 1 Timothy 1:15 “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.” Why did Jesus come? He came to save sinners. He came to save those that have hated Him, that have cursed Him, that have blasphemed Him, that have lived contrary to Him. He came to save sinful men and women. This was the message that the angels told Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. Matthew 1:21 says, “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Jesus understood this mission. He didn’t stumble into it; it was the entire reason that He came. Christ says in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Jesus did not come to save the righteous, He came to save the unrighteous. He didn’t come to gather together a group of people that had all their ducks in a row. He came to save that which was lost. Praise God for that! Praise God that He so loves the world that He gave His only begotten Son that so whoever should believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. I hope that you all have seen that there is no other name under heaven by which we are saved. There is no other path of salvation. There is no other way to earn God’s favor outside of faith in Jesus Christ. That is why it is so important that you understand what sin is, who you are, and who Jesus Christ is. If you do not know the Jesus that is found in Scripture, you don’t really know Jesus. You can claim to know Jesus but unless He is the Jesus that is found in Scripture, you don’t know the real Jesus. There is only one Gospel and there is only one savior and if you are looking for salvation anywhere outside of this Jesus, this Jesus that came to save sinners, you won’t be able to find it. Paul writes in Galatians 1:6–8 “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” Paul was worried that the Galatians were falling into a false gospel with a false Christ because he knew that only the true and living Gospel, only the true Christ could save. That’s my concern for each and every one of you here, are you worshipping the true Jesus? Are you worshipping the God that is found in Scripture. Let me explain it in this way, one thing that I love about living in the city and living near Raleigh is that there is a pretty good size population of mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses. Now if you were to go up to them and ask if they were Christians, if they have been saved, they would say yes. They’ll even try to convince you that our beliefs are similar but if you really look at what they teach and what they believe, you will see that they don’t worship the same Jesus that we find in Scripture. To steal a line from Adrian Rodgers, they’re saying our words but using their own dictionary to define those words. For example, the mormons believe that Jesus is a created being, that he is the spiritual brother of Lucifer, that he has not been God for all eternity, and that God the Father is just one god in a long history of gods. None of that is seen in Scripture and yet they claim that they believe in Jesus as savior but the problem is, this is a totally different Jesus. That is a Jesus that doesn’t exist and that is a Jesus that cannot come to save sinners. When I’ve engaged with them, when I’ve pushed them on key doctrinal differences, 99% of the time they go back to their personal feelings and their personal experiences and how in their heart they know that what they believe is true but feelings don’t make up for facts. If I feel like it’s ok to murder my parents, we would all say that was wrong. Mormons and Christians alike agree that it is wrong so we can’t appeal to personal feelings as the say all be all of truth. God is truth, He does not lie and that means that what God has spoken in His authority is the final word. We have no other argument, we have no other plea. Where God speaks, all else falls silent and if He says that it is only in the Christ of Scripture that we are saved, it is only through Jesus Christ that we are saved. Some people complain that God is unfair in saying that only Jesus can save because what about all of the people that worship other gods and believe that they can save? Shouldn’t He honor that? Understand just how bad sin is. If 1 sin can condemn the entire human race, how much evil and wickedness can be in all the sins of all people? If 1 sin was enough to lead the Son of God to die, how much worse can a lifetime of sin worshipping another god be? The fact that God offers any salvation should cause us to burst out in praise. The question shouldn’t be, “Why doesn’t God save everyone?” The question should be, “Why would God save anyone?” As bad as I am, why would Jesus possibly save me? Not because of what I have done, but solely because of what He has done. If a guy like Paul can be saved by the grace and mercy of God, who are we to say that His grace doesn’t reach far enough? When you recognize who Jesus is, what He has done, and why He came, you will be just like Paul in verse 17. In verse 17, Paul bursts forth in praise because he can’t think of any other response that is good enough for what he has just written about. Look again at 1 Timothy 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” John Calvin writes, “His enthusiasm breaks out into this exclamation, since he could find no words to express his gratitude. These sudden outbursts of Paul’s come mainly when the vastness of the subject overpowers him and makes him break off what he is saying. For what could be more wonderful than Paul’s conversion. At the same time he admonishes us all by his example, that we should never think of the grace shown in God’s calling without being lost in wondering admiration. This sublime praise of God’s grace swallows up all the memory of his former life. How great a deep is the glory of God!” Praise is the only response to what God has done. We know who Jesus is, we know why He came, and now tonight we are going to see exactly what Christ accomplished. As you go about your day today, I want you to ask yourself this question: If Jesus Christ has died for me, what can I do to live for Him? Let’s pray.