Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go back to 1 Timothy as we’re doing a verse by verse, chapter by chapter exposition through this New Testament book. It’s a, a letter, a letter written by the esteemed Apostle Paul to his younger associate pastor Timothy. Timothy is in the city of Ephesus there overseeing the local church and Paul’s writing these things to Timothy to tell Timothy how to fashion and function as the bride of Christ. The local church is the bride of Christ and I, I like that terminology the Bible uses, the bride, not because, well, it’s not important because I like it, it’s important because God used it and he wants us to see something that’s precious and special and beautiful to him, and his church is special and precious and beautiful to him. So as we talk about the local church, we’re not talking about just some cold, ah, abstract thing, this is a living body, a beautiful bride, and our job and my job as a leader among the elders is to make sure we are fashioning this bride and functioning as the bride God wants us to be. So Timothy is a great great book to understand many of the practical things that God wants us to understand about the church.

Now as Paul writes this letter to Timothy and tells him, “Now Timothy, here’s the things I want you to do now, to keep this church right, to get it straightened up and fixed and functioning the way I want it to,” right out of the gate he begins to deal with false doctrines and false teachers and we’ve been looking at that over the last few weeks. He said, “These guys, it’s, it’s an unrelenting effort of the enemy to creep into the church, put on some Christian clothing, put on some Christ-like cosmetics, yet what they end up teaching and what they end up doing to the church is polluting it and undermining it.” So he tells Timothy in effect, “Be vigilant. Be intentional. Be unrelenting in the good fight of guarding sound doctrine and exposing and removing the wolves that always try to find their way into God’s sheep pen.”

Now he continues on and he’s gonna do something interesting, now he’s gonna talk about himself. Paul writing to Timothy is going to say, “Now I am the example of a true minister. I’ve talked to you, Timothy, about understanding, exposing and removing false teaching that comes into the church, but one of the ways you’ll know false teaching is by comparing it with a true teacher.” So in this exposition of 1 Timothy 1:12-17, I’m gonna talk about “The True Serving Minister,” and again what Paul’s doing, he said, “I’ve told you a lot about how these false teachers are doing, now I want to lay myself down beside them for the contrast. I’m the true one, they are the false ones.” And that’s one way you can, ah, ah, be discerning. Now have I challenged our fathers? Have I challenged the heads of our households lately to be discerning men of God? You’ve got to be wise, you’ve got to be discerning. Everything that calls itself Christian, everything that sheds a tear, seems sacrificial and passionate about the work of the Lord is not genuine. Emotions doesn’t make it real. You’ve got to be wise and discerning in this day, so it was true in the first century as Paul writes to Timothy.

Look at our text. 1 Timothy 1, beginning in verse 12. Paul says,

12 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, Christ Jesus 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.

Now actually what I have done, I’ve taken my sermon and I’ve made two sermons out of it so we’ll actually look at this same text, Lord willing, next Sunday morning but this morning we will look, ah, in effect from the human side and next Sunday morning more from the divine side, alright? But this morning is the true serving minister as Paul again lays out his own experience as an example of what a true minister looks like so that they may understand better how to identify a false teacher or a false minister.

Now first of all, let’s note under the Apostle Paul’s description of his own journey into true ministry, first of all he says, I., “I was the enemy of Christ.” He says, “I actually started out as a false teacher. I started out on the wrong side. I started out against Christ. I was the enemy of Christ.” Look at it there in verse 13, he says, ” even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.” He means all of this was against Christ and against his church.

Now let’s unpack this a little at a time. First of all, he says, “I want you to know when I started out, I was against Christ and against Christ’s church. I blasphemed the things of God.” Now A. T. Robertson was the most eminent Greek scholar among Baptists and probably one of the most eminent Greek scholars the world’s ever known, A. T. Robertson said this word “blasphemer” comes from two original Greek words, one word [unintelligible} simply means “stupid.” Don’t you love the eloquence of the Bible sometimes? It just means stupid. You can’t make it mean anything else. The other word means “speech.” So a blasphemer is that one who spews stupid speech. The point is what could be more insane, what could be more base, what could be more lacking in dignity, what could be more stupid than speaking against Jesus Christ and his church. That’s the point Paul’s making. “I was a blasphemer, stupid speech.” You don’t get any more stupid than trying to undermine Jesus Christ. He’s the truth. He’s God Incarnate. He’s King of kings and Lord of lords. You don’t get any more stupid than speaking against Jesus Christ. He said, “I was that kind of a blasphemer.” Ah, ah, ah, it, it has the broad idea, the word “blasphemer,” of being that which is against what is truly and rightly good.

Does that not speak of our culture today? Is not our culture more blasphemous than any time in our lifetimes, for sure, as person after person, ah, ah, ah, area after area, segment of culture after segment of culture comes forth with their viewpoints and their narrative and they seem to be against what’s really biblically speaking good and right. They’re, they’re blasphemous in tone.

Now in Paul’s day as he talks about himself being a blasphemer, he says, “I was against the two truly good things that exist, I was against the Christ of God. I spoke against the Christ. I verbally tried to assassinate His character and slander who He was and put a spin on everything He said and did to make Him, Christ, look like He was an evil one. I spoke against the only true, rightfully good One that’s ever existed.” Then the other entity that he spoke against which is good is the church. He blasphemed the church. As a matter of fact he says, “I tried to get them to blaspheme,” and we’ll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment.

So Christ, the great and glorious good which is in heaven, Paul said, “I was against them in my speech. I blasphemed Him.” Then he says, “The church, the greatest good that is in the earth, I blasphemed the church.” Christian church member, listen to me this morning, the one great good in the universe outside of the spiritual things in the, in the earth’s universe, that is, is the church. That’s why we have to be passionately, intentionally, local church-centered. When Paul was a blasphemer of the good things of God, who did he attack? He attacked the churches and, boy, don’t we see that today. We’ll unpack that thought a little bit more in just a moment.

Let’s go to the second word, he said, “I was an enemy of Christ. I spoke against Christ and his church as a blasphemer.” Secondly he said, “I was a persecutor,” and these really overlap but one builds and amplifies on the other. “I was a persecutor,” verse 13. The word “persecute” means “to pursue and to put to flight. I pursued them to diminish them, to scatter them. Literally I persecuted them to crush them.” In Galatians 1:13 as Paul writes to the church of Galatia, he reflects back on his life before his conversion and he says, “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” He says, “That’s what I was, a persecutor.”

He builds on that word “blasphemer” and “persecutor” with the next word, the New American Standard translate it, translates it “a violent aggressor.” He said, “I, I didn’t do anything halfway.” Paul was a type A. Paul was an overachiever. He had learned that an entity, a religious system, had risen up to oppose the Judaism of the day, to oppose at least in his thinking the law of Moses, and the rule of Judaism in the earth, and he said, “I was 110% totally against this whole movement, even to the extent that I violated, violently rather, was aggressive in trying to destroy it.”

When he was before King Agrippa giving the defense of how he left Judaism and became a Christian minister, he says in Acts 26:11, “And I, as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme.” Now let me stop right there. Look at the upside-down-ness of this. He’s the blasphemer but the culture was such that if you loved Jesus and followed Christ and became a member of his church, you could no longer embrace Moses and Judaism as, as your hope of salvation, now you’re embracing Christ as your hope of salvation which to the culture of that day was defined as blasphemy. So actually he’s, he says, ah, I would try to get Christians to, ah, claim that their hope is Christ, which means their hope was not Judaism, and their hope was not Caesar, that always helped the Jews a little bit in this day to say you get Judaism but you’ll also get Caesar so they get the Romans to back them up, and he says, that, I tried to get them to blaspheme the establishment, the status quo of the day, when he says in reality, I was the only true blasphemer.

But notice the wording here in Acts 26:11, the middle of the verse, “and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.” Paul doesn’t pull any punches in laying out for us what he was before he was apprehended by Christ. Blasphemer. “I was against God. I couldn’t reach God physically so I just tried to destroy His work in the earth and that’s His church.”

Then he says, “I was a persecutor, a violent aggressor against God and against God’s church. Any visible expression of God’s goodness and God’s holiness in, in the earth, I found myself working against it.” And brothers and sisters, why are we shocked when this happens to us today? Why are we surprised when this same spirit comes against us in our world today? And young people, as you grow up and you go through school, don’t try to, ah, fabricate a Christianity that gets no resistance. Don’t try to dream up a way to follow Christ that gets no one at odds with you. Now you never go out and try to be a problem, but you just love Jesus and you’ll be a problem to many.

It, it, it goes without even, um, having to look for it if you’re just listening to any news. Our Vice President, I have no confidence that Donald Trump knows Jesus Christ. Zero. Ah, one of the, one of the attributes of knowing Jesus Christ is humility. Now I voted for him and I’ll vote for him again because they, the choices were terrible, and I do like his manly courage on principles and things. By the way, just what he’s done in the judiciary was worth voting for him. Now you can just do what you want to do but this is my pulpit and I can say what I want to say, alright? I don’t like a lot of stuff, I don’t like a lot of things but that, that he personally does in his personal life and I think a lot of that’s hopefully in his past, but ah, anyway, I don’t want to get on Trump.

But I want to talk about our Vice President, Vice President Mike Pence. In every sense, he seems like a good man, a man who probably does know Christ. He has a, a, a good Christian testimony of coming to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Because of his commitment to Jesus Christ, he has a conviction that he will not be in a car or in a room or a private setting with any woman other than his wife or maybe his daughter. Oh, and he’s been ridiculed for that and he’s been slammed for that. “Oh, you’re, you’re sexist. You’re gonna treat women differently. Oh, you’re misogynist. You, you just hate women.” And all these attacks against him. Why does that shock us? It’s always been that way. There’s always been blasphemers and persecutors against those who try to do good and try to do right.

And by the way, those are good convictions and that’s the convictions of our staff. I’ll never forget, um, begin in seminary class and my, the President of the school, Dr. B. Gray Allison, would talk about how you’ve got to be disciplined about these appearances in your life and he said, “If I’m driving down the road and there’s a raging storm and I see a senior adult lady walking down the road in that rain, I will not put her in my car.” Now, Dr. Gray might have been a little bit extreme but his point was you don’t compromise your appearance in these kind of areas.

Well, that’s the way Mike Pence is. I did a little bit of reading on Truett Cathy this last week as I was thinking about persecution in the culture. You know, Truett Cathy began the Chick-fil-A restaurants, and by the way, did you know Chick-fil-A even though they’re closed on Sundays so his employees can go to church, Chick-fil-A by average makes three times the profit per restaurant as Kentucky Fried Chicken? Men in business, honor God. Honor God and see what he might do.

Ah, Truett Cathy’s passed on now. By the way, Truett Cathy taught a boy’s Sunday school class for 47 years in his local Baptist church. No matter what he did in his business, he was there for that Sunday school class every Sunday. He’s not a perfect man but there’s a lot to respect about this man. The purpose statement that he designed for his, his business was this, to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. His life verse was Proverbs 22:1, “A good name is rather to be desired than great riches.” He said, “When I was a little boy going to the public elementary school there in Atlanta, the teacher had every student to bring a Bible verse every Monday morning and the teacher would pick a Bible verse out of all that we brought in that Monday morning and we’d all memorize that verse in our class for that week,” and he said, “That’s the one my mom and I picked out, Proverbs 22:1, ‘A good name is rather to be desired than great riches.'” Don’t you wish our public schools did that today? And he’s followed that in his business.

Now his son has taken over the business and they have given a lot of money to, ah, ministries like Fellowship of Christian Athletes whose doctrinal statement, like our doctrinal statement, believes in traditional biblical marriage. And oh, have you seen in the news lately the liberals are coming unglued. They’ve, they’ve thrown him out of one airport and now, ah, now the Buffalo airport says you can’t have a Chick-fil-A in here, and it was some time ago what parts of New York City said, you can’t have a Chick-fil-A here because you’re such haters and you’re so against goodness and you’re so against the LBGTQ+ and whatever letters they put on it. Why should this surprise us? Yet his restaurant, restaurants still make three times per restaurant what Kentucky Fried Chicken makes. Good men, good women, who want to honor God will find those who come against them but I can tell you this, brother or sister, you find you a good church that’ll stand with you, not help you compromise but help you stand through the storm. Thank God for men like Mike Pence and men like Truett Cathy.

In John 16:2, the Lord was speaking to his disciples and he said, “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” These groups that attack Christians and attack Bible doctrines and Bible convictions, these folks actually – listen to me now – they actually genuinely believe they’re doing the Lord’s work and that’s what Paul was doing. Paul was convinced as he persecuted the church and blasphemed the name of Christ, he just knew he was doing God’s work. He was an enemy of Christ and so it is in every generation.

Well, II., not only did he say, “I started out as an enemy of Christ, blasphemer, persecutor with aggressive violence toward the church and toward Christ,” he said, “I was a blinded unbeliever. I was a blinded unbeliever.” Look at it there in verse 13, if you will again. He continues on here and he says, “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.” In other words he’s saying, “I did not consciously understand just what I was doing.” Now I read a very, ah, reputable commentary writer that I think is wonderful, I’d encourage him, and he spent a lot of time here trying to show how Paul is actually saying he wasn’t as bad a sinner as other sinners because he didn’t understand all he was doing. I don’t think that’s the point at all. I think the point that Paul is making is is that we are all blinded in unbelief, we are all ignorant of what really matters until God through his Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit turns the lights on in our hearts and souls and we see with clarity finally our condition and who Christ truly is.

He said, “I was like all the rest of us.” Now all the rest of us perhaps were not under commission of the chief priest, ah, that would be the government of the day, to go and physically persecute Christians, but we are all the enemies of Christ until we’re converted. You say, “Wait a minute, pastor, I, I, I, I don’t know Christ. I don’t know that I’m saved but I’m not the enemy of Christ.” Yes, you are. Listen, the very fact that you spend one more second assuming you don’t need him to save you or be the boss of your life is an attack against him. Now did you hear me? The finest, sweetest, ah, junior girl in this church who honors her parents, is respectful to authority, has pristine good morals, publicly speaking, if she hasn’t come to Jesus Christ, she right now stands against Jesus Christ. That’s what Paul’s saying, we are all the enemies of God.

Now he comes to say, ah, secondly, it’s because we’re all blinded in unbelief. We are ignorant of who he is. We are ignorant of what we need. Paul says, “I didn’t realize who it was I was fighting and what it was I was fighting against.” What he did, Acts 9:14, he says, “and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon thy name.” Blinded unbelief and, by the way, blinded unbelief that works against God’s calls in the world is very very prominent and active in our world today.

You probably noticed that, um, maybe it’s more of recent. I, I don’t watch that much of the news, I only watch Fox News because I want to be slanted in the conservative direction, but I heard Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, recently talk about doing the Lord’s work. That was her phrase, “We’re doing the Lord’s work.” Now to be honest, I don’t know exactly the context of, of what Ms. Pelosi was talking about but I do know she is an ardent supporter of killing unborn babies. I do know she’s at least giving an, an affirmation by her silence of the new infanticide laws we have in our country where if a baby survives abortion, we’re to walk away and let the baby die. Folks, this is wicked to the core of wickedness. I do know that she’s in strong favor of promoting that which God calls sin and evil, things like homosexuality and fornication and adultery. These folks don’t take a stand on any of these things. I do know that by her own speaking she attacks the things that matter biblically speaking. She attacks the things that are right and good and best for our culture yet, and I believe she means it. I believe she thinks she is doing the Lord’s work just as Paul attacking the church of Jesus Christ would tell you, “I thought I was doing the Lord’s work. I was blinded in my unbelief.”

According to Christianity Today Magazine, the 10 most violent cultures to live in as a Christian, the 10, ah, countries where you’re just very highly likely to be physically assaulted if not martyred for holding to the name of Christ. 1. North Korea. 2. Afghanistan. 3. Somalia. 4. The Sudan. 5. Pakistan. 6. Eritrea. 7. Libya. 8. Iraq. 9. Yemen. 10. Iran. Do you know what’s consistently clear about every one of those? In every one of those, they will tell you ardently and with conviction, “We persecute Christians to do the Lord’s work.” Now their lord is Allah, that’s who they call God, but they’ll tell you that, “We’re pleasing God. We’re honoring God by persecuting Christians.” You say, “Wait a minute, pastor, none of those are Islamic countries and we know enough about the, the, the study or, or, or rather the doctrines of Islam to know they’re against Christian doctrine, they’re against Christians, so we understand that 9 of the 10 are, are, are, are Islamic but North Korea is not Islamic.” No, North Korea worships that crazy guy who heads the country and they will tell you that, “Persecuting Christians honors our God, the chairman of the country.” So in every case the top 10 countries most likely to persecute Christians are those countries who believe they’re serving God by persecuting the two things that are really good in all the universe: Jesus Christ and his church.

Isn’t it amazing? Nothing’s changed in 2,000 years. Brothers and sisters, this book is accurate to every generation, every day, and every issue that comes up so we shouldn’t be surprised that there is lots of blinded unbelief still working in our culture. As a matter of fact, if you don’t know Christ, you wander in blinded unbelief. You’ll try religion. You’ll try cleaning up your life. You’ll try going back to church. You’ll try 1,001 seemingly good things except coming to a brokenness and a surrender at the cross and embracing Christ and Christ alone is your only hope of salvation, and embracing Christ is the only wise, Lord, boss of your life. No man can do that unless God removes his blindness. 2 Corinthians 4:4, “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God.” They just can’t see it. That’s why, ah, being a Gospel witness and sharing the Gospel with people and, and primarily the preaching of the Gospel is so important because that’s the instrument God uses to take off the blinders and help a person come to true saving faith in Jesus Christ.

There was a, a guy I knew in my high school and I’ll never forget the day that he stood up in a civics class, I think it was, something of the Bible came up and he very ardently argued to the class that the Bible was written by men, you don’t know that it has any authority, you can’t tell me that’s the word of God. What proof do you have of that? That guy was blinded in unbelief. That guy was me. I was blinded in unbelief, thinking I was wise, thinking I was intelligent, thinking I understood things these narrow-minded simple Christians didn’t understand, and then one day driving my car back to Middle Tennessee State University, the light of the Gospel of God invaded my soul. I’m telling you, I wasn’t intellectually convinced, I was heart convinced. I saw my sin and I embraced Jesus as my Savior and now I’m your pastor.

That’s what Paul is saying. “I didn’t know and I can be honest with you, I didn’t understand what I was doing. Now I’m still accountable before the judgment bar of God had I gone to face my Lord before conversion, but nevertheless I was blinded.” Paul said, “I was blinded in this unbelief.” John 3:3 reminds us again, Jesus talking to the brilliant intellectual leader among the young men of Israel and he couldn’t understand what Jesus was teaching. Some of you are sitting here under my voice and you’re saying, “It just don’t, I just can’t connect the dots. I just don’t see what do you mean born again? What do you mean Spirit regeneration? What do you mean the blindness taken out of your heart and soul? What do you mean?” Well, that’s where Nicodemus was with Jesus and, “Jesus answered, answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again,'” literally born from above, the Spirit comes and does a spiritual rebirthing inside of you, “‘he cannot see,'” interesting word, “‘cannot see the kingdom of God.'”

Is it not true and friend, this is where some of you are this morning, men tirelessly seek to enter God’s kingdom in their own understanding? They try to see it through the lens of science. That’s where I was. Men can take the scientific method and they can learn what’s right and what’s good and what’s wholesome, what’ll make a better society. They try to find the kingdom through science, the lens of science. Some try to find the kingdom through the lens of sentimentality. “Well, if I hear a preacher or hear a, a testimony and it moves my emotions and it, and I see they’re sincerity and I, I see the tears and my heart’s brought to tears, then that must be how you find the kingdom of God.” My friend, you can cry a thousand tears and walk down a thousand aisles in the church and take a thousand pastors by the hand and never know Christ.

It’s not the lens of sentimentality, it’s not the lens of science. Some look for the kingdom through the lens of personal experience. “If I have this experience and that experience.” And nobody believes in the necessity of the Spirit’s new birth more than I do but listen to your pastor this morning: you must not wait for the experience, you must go to Christ now. Are you hearing me? You don’t wait. You know you’re a sinner. You know you’ve fallen short. You know you need a Savior. You turn to Christ now and believe on him. Don’t wait for an experience. Don’t try to find the kingdom through the lens of personal experience, through the lens of sentimentality, through the lens of science.

Some try the lens of rigid discipline. “Boy, I’m gonna discipline my life. I’m gonna be ordered. I’m gonna do more right things. I’m gonna structure myself.” That can’t help you to see the kingdom.

Some try to look through the lens of religion. “I’m going back to church. I’m gonna talk to the pastor. I’m gonna start taking the Lord’s Supper. I, I’m gonna start attending the table of the sacraments. I, I’m going, I’m going to be more faithful in my church. I’m gonna start giving a tithe.” That will not enable you to see the kingdom of God.

It’s not through the lens of religion and it’s not through the lens of morality. “I’m gonna stop gambling on the ballgames. I’m not gonna be unfaithful to my marriage vows anymore. I’m gonna stop looking at that stuff I’m looking at. I’m gonna clean up my life morally.” The lens of morality, that cannot enable you to see the kingdom of God.

The lens of good works and on and on we could go, all the lenses men look through and Jesus said, “Nicodemus, put down your microscope, put down your telescope, you have to be born from above to see the kingdom of God because you came into this world and you’ve lived in this world in blinded unbelief.”

Well, Paul said, “I’m, I’m a true minister of God, a true servant of God, and I, I came though, first, as an enemy of Christ and an enemy of His church and I wandered around in blinded unbelief,” like we all do, and then thirdly, Paul said, “I then became a humbled believer.” And by the way, those always go together. Verse 15 of our text, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance.” Here’s what he’s saying, “All of us who’ve come to know Christ as Lord and Savior, we know what I’m about to say is the truth. We don’t need it explained to us. Ah, we don’t need to debate about it. We don’t need a seminar to understand it. We know this is true.” Well, Paul, what do all believers know for certain is true? Verse 15, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.” That Christ came into this world to save sinners. We know that Christ did not begin when he was born in the, ah, the, the manger there in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary. We know that he was the pre-existing one who came of his own volution into this world, yes, born of the virgin but he came into this world not to condemn the world but to save the world. Now he will come in a condemning spirit at his second coming but at his first coming, he came to save sinners and you can’t be saved if you’re not a sinner. Did you know that? You don’t qualify for salvation if you’re not a sinner but all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Let’s unpack that word again, harmotolos, the word for sinner, harmotolos. It has that simple idea of missing the mark. Sinner. It means you fall short of the divinely ordained standard set for you. When God made you as a human being, he has an irrevocable, immutable standard for your conduct and your dignity and you fall short of it. God made man to the highest standard. God made mankind with the highest of dignity. He marked us with his own image, in the image of God he created them, the Bible says, male and female, both have the image of God. That’s why 1 Peter 1:16 tells us, “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” because we are made in this high dignity of being the image-bearers of God. From our innermost heart to our every deed, we are to be godly. We are to be as God would be. That’s what godliness means. We’re to act like he would act. We’re to think like he would think. We’re the godly ones but all have sinned and fallen short of that immutable, unthwartable, divinely ordained standard.

Listen very clearly: religious men in far too many pulpits are beginning to pull the standard down to make men feel better about themselves, to make men want to come to church, and when they pull the standard down, they pull God down and they pull Jesus down to where they’re just a tiny holier version of us. You listen to your pastor this morning: God is infinitely beyond us. He is radically extremely holy and we all fall short. We don’t measure up. We don’t match the dignity for which he made us. For example we’re made in his image and he’s good, God is good. Can I ask you this morning, do you always have good thoughts in your mind? Do you always have good motives in your heart? Do you always and only do good deeds? Of course you don’t. We fall short of the dignity of the being made in the image of God.

God is love and, boy, I have to give some balanced clarification here. Not this goofy, lust-filled perverse love our culture throws at us but the way the Bible defines God in his holy love, his covenant love. Do you always and only have a righteous love in your heart? Do you always and only have a righteous love in your minds? Do you always and only conduct yourself in a righteous loving fashion to your wife, your husband, your children, your fellow man, your work associate, your friends at school, students? Of course you don’t. You fall. But that’s just two attributes, God has unlimited attributes. You fall way short of the divine standard, the immutable, unchangeable standard. You see, God can’t change his standard because the standard’s a reflection of his very being so the standard can’t be lowered. The law cannot be diminished in any way.

We all fall short and then just to show you how capable we are of perverting our own dignity he made us with, how capable we are of diminishing and polluting the glorious holiness, the godliness we’re to have, we’re very prone to take what God says is good and redefine it as evil and we’re very prone to take what is evil that God calls evil, and start calling it good. We see it all around us. Isaiah 5:20, ” Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” God said, “I’ve told you clearly what’s right and what’s moral, what’s true and what’s good, and lo and behold if I don’t look at the countries and the cultures and too often the pulpits of the world and they’re beginning to embrace that and calling it good that I’ve always said is evil, and they’re beginning to call things evil that I’ve always said is good.” How we have fallen short of the great dignity he made us to maintain, to hold and to live out in our lives.

Paul said, “There’s one thing that’s clear among all true believers, and that is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the harmotoloses, the sinners, all of those, all of those, all of those who have fallen so short, and therefore,” listen to your pastor, “therefore rightly stand condemned at the holy bar of God.” God said, “I didn’t make you like this and you live in a less than holy manner, in a less than godly manner, and a less than the, the, the dignity I ordained for you to walk in.” We’re all sinners and Paul said, “I want you to know something about me,” look at verse 15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and here’s this humble believer, “among whom I am foremost of all.” Paul said, “You want to see somebody that’s a fallen sinner?” He said, “I’m the worst. I feel as though I have fallen further than anyone.”

Now one aspect of this is because Paul openly, actively, with ferocity worked against Christ’s name and Christ’s churches but nevertheless, this is the feeling of all true believers. All true believers when the light comes on in our hearts and we begin to see our sin like God sees our sin, when we begin to just begin to grasp the transcendent holiness of our God and we begin to see what we are compared to that, we agree with Paul, we’re humble believers, we believe we, we are the worst of all. I, Jeff Noblit, feel I’m the worst of all and no healthy Christian filled with the Spirit and walking with God feels any differently. A humbled believer.

You know, you do not know your heart as God knows your heart. You cannot see your sin as God sees your sin. Acts 15:8 says, “God who knows the heart.” Only God really knows the contents of every man’s heart but, secondly, you do by the Spirit’s help, you do know your heart better than any other person knows your heart. Not better than God but better than any other person. So therefore there’s a sense in all of us that we carry that says, “I’m the worst of all.” Paul says, “I want you to know I’m the true minister of God in contrast to the false ministers. I was an enemy of the church, an enemy of Christ and an enemy of the church. I was blinded in my unbelief but I’ve become a humbled believer in Jesus Christ. I’ve been saved. I’ve been converted.”

Number 4, our last point this morning: an instrument of encouragement. He said, “God had a purpose for all this. God did all of this in my life that I might be a trophy of grace, an instrument of encouragement.” Look at verse 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.” Actually the Greek reads this way, “as an example for those who were destined to believe in Him for eternal life.” He said, “God foreordained that my experience would be what it is so that as I became God’s minister, I’m an ever-living example that God – listen to me, it’s very simple, powerfully profound – that God saves sinners.” That’s the best news you’ve heard in your whole life. He saves all of us harmotoloses, all of us who have radically fallen short before this Triune holy God and Paul said, “I march through the earth and I say, ‘Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. That means God will save you.'” God will save you. Paul said, “I’m an encouragement not by what I do,” even though he did tell folks to imitate his Christian life, he had enough confidence in his walk with God, he could then have them follow my example, but that’s not what he’s saying here, he’s saying here, “I’m a trophy of God’s saving grace.”

Sir, can I just ask you this morning, are you humbly grateful that God saved a wretch like you? If you are not, then you must repent and get your heart right with God. There’s no place for arrogance or pride before the cross of Jesus Christ.

I remember with such vividness, such vividness the weeks after God invaded my car as a freshman in college when I was converted and in those weeks after my conversion, I felt like the blackest, most vile worm before God and I began telling everybody that and bless their hearts, some of the old Baptist stalwarts in my community would say, “Don’t, stop talking like that. Quit saying that.” Do you know what they should’ve said? “Oh, Brother Jeff, it’s worst than you know. Oh, you don’t even know yet.” But Christ is mighty to save.

Do you remember Jerry Clower? I’ve told you this before but, good heavens, when you’ve preached to somebody for 38 years, you’re gonna hear stories twice. Jerry Clower, the mouth of the South they called him. He was from Liberty, Mississippi, 720 population. He was a fertilizer salesman and told such good, clean, funny stories that became his life. Jerry Clower talks about when his aunt would babysit him. She was a good bit older than him. He said, “I would walk through the den and my aunt would be over there ironing and she wouldn’t look up but as I’d walk through the room she wanted to teach me the things of God, she’d say, ‘Jerry!’ And I’d stop.” He said, “She just, she would look up.” “Yes, aunt,” I forgot her name. “Jerry, the devil is mighty but God is almighty. You’re a mighty sinner but Jesus is an almighty Savior.” Woo! That’s good news! If you’re not a sinner, I can’t help you, but if you’re a sinner, this is good news and Paul said, “I’m an ever-living instrument of encouragement to everyone who’s a sinner. God saves sinners!”

When you come to Jesus Christ, Jesus comes into you and he begins to live his life out in this earth through you, imperfectly but you should be progressing in sanctification, and then in a mystery beyond comprehension, we are immersed in Jesus and when the Father looks on us, he sees the high dignity of Jesus Christ. He says, “Look how I saved these fallen short ones. I’ve made them exalted, dignified ones in My Son, Jesus Christ.” Wow. Wow.

Isaiah 1:18 charges us, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet,'” The Hebrew word means “double deeply dyed.” The scarlet mark of pollution and sin has dyed the inner core of your being all the way out through the outer parts of your being. Though your sin is so thoroughly wretchedly polluted and bad, “They will be as white as snow.” How can that be? “Though they are red like crimson, They shall be like wool.” Not just wool, the Hebrew means the virgin wool that’s never known a stain. Why wouldn’t you come and reason with that kind of a God? Come, let’s talk about this. God says, “I have a provision whereby though you are stained to the core of your being with a corruption and a fallenness that no human can fathom how to fix, I have a provision to make you white as snow, like virgin wool in My sight.”

Romans 5:20 and, “The Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increases, grace abounded all the more.” Literally the Greek means grace super-abounded all the more. Listen to me, listen to me, listen to me: you cannot begin to fathom the depth of your pollution and fallenness but beyond that, above that, you cannot fathom the greatness of the grace that will save the most fallen. Grace, God’s favor to those who are unworthy, grace is superabundant to those who will turn to God through Jesus Christ.

Here’s what Paul’s saying, he’s saying, “Look at me, I’m the true minister of God. I understand I was the, the enemy of God, I was all of those terrible things, I was a blinded unbeliever, I’ve become a humble believer and not just my teaching but my life is an encouragement that God’ll save sinners.” And it’s in effect that God is or Paul is saying here, “This is my story. This is my testimony.” Can I ask you, dear friend, what’s your testimony? Have you seen yourself as the enemy of the cross? Have you seen yourself as a blinded unbeliever? Have you see yourself as a fallen one in sin? Have you embraced Christ and Christ alone as your Lord and Savior?

Paul said, “This is my story.” Fanny Crosby, the simple hymnwriter wrote,

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine O what a foretaste of glory divine Heir of salvation, purchase of God Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood

Perfect submission, perfect delight Visions of rapture now burst on my sight Angels descending, looking above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.”

Is this your story, perfect submission all is at rest? I see how wretchedly I’ve fallen below the dignity of God but I have come to Jesus Christ and though I don’t deserve it, I’m at perfect rest in him. Perfect submission. Now perfect submission doesn’t mean you submit every day like you need to, it means you’ve submitted everything you need to be saved to him. Everything you need to gain a right standing before a holy God, you’re resting fully and only in him.

“Perfect submission, all is at rest I in my Savior am happy and blessed Watching and waiting, looking above Filled with His goodness, [boy, Paul could say this] lost in His love.”

That’s Paul’s story.

“This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long.”

This is my story. This is Paul’s story. Is it your story?

“This is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”

Don’t you love the word of God? Is there anything better than that? Wow.