Our scripture reading this morning is from First Timothy
chapter 1, verses 12 through 17. I thank Him who has given me
strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful,
appointing me to His service, Though formally I was a
blasphemer, persecutor, an insolent opponent.
But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly, and
unbelief and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the
faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
And our focus this morning will be on the remainder of these
verses. The saying is trustworthy and
deserving of full acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the
foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as
an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be
honour and glory forever and ever.
Amen. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, Father in heaven, we thank you for these
words, these simple words which now reflect on the month in
which we celebrated your incarnation.
And now today we look with this pastor of this small church with
words from his mentor that help us gain another facet of insight
into the incomprehensible mystery of God becoming man.
O Holy Spirit, by your gracious teaching ministry, will you
drive spiritual nourishment deep, deep within our hearts,
that we might not just check off the box of going to church the
Sunday after Christmas, but we might drink deeply from the well
of everlasting life. Lord, we thank You for these
words. We entrust them to the glory of
Your holy name, in which we pray.
Amen. Please be seated.
So imagine if you would the best documentary filmmaker makes a
documentary about you. But it's not about things that
you do or places that you go or accomplishments that you
achieve. It's about your thoughts and
your feelings and your attitudes.
It's it's about your inner life. And the narrator at one point
might say something like here we see them smiling while quietly
resenting last week's disappointments.
Or the voice over at some of their point in the film might
say, notice the sincere posture of prayer and the mental To Do
List running at full speed simultaneously, punctuated by
lingering displeasures of recent personal conflicts.
Then several frames of late night scrolling.
The narrator says this isn't rest, this is more futility in
the pursuit of emptiness. But you and I both know that God
has already seen every scene and heard every line of dialogue in
our life, and he still has not cancelled the documentary.
In fact, instead of rejection based on faulty content, the
Lord still loves us. And from the month that we've
just spent together learning about the incarnation, we see
that in fact, God's glory is revealed in the salvation of
those Christ came to save. And this saying is what Paul
says we are to fully accept and to trust.
Now, trust is a heart issue. Trust doesn't just first live in
the head, It settles in the heart.
When we trust someone or something, we do so because our
heart believes it to be truly real, truly reliable, and truly
worthy. And when Scripture speaks of
trustworthy, it names. It aims not just at our
thoughts, but on our loves. And our verse today is truth
aimed straight to our hearts. Twice in First Timothy, the
apostle Paul introduces a statement by saying this is a
trustworthy saying. And Timothy's little
congregation is being told to receive what follows without
reservation, not cautiously, not partially, but fully.
Mind and heart together. And we are being told the same,
not just acceptance, but full acceptance.
Every word, every facet, every implication, truth you can lean
the whole weight of your life upon.
And So what are we to believe? Three simple life defining
realities. Christ Jesus came into the
world. He came to save sinners, and the
person writing these words under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit is the worst of them. The purpose of the Incarnation,
the uncreated Creator entering His creation, the eternal second
Person of the Godhead taking on flesh.
God with us, not just to keep U.S. company, but to rescue us.
Now you and I are in this world because someone else made that
choice. Our parents made that decision,
and their parents before them, and their parents before them
and so on and so forth and so on until we get back to our
original parents who were created in the image of God in
the splendor of the Garden Temple.
But Jesus is different. Jesus chose to come.
He chose to be born. You see His humiliation in this,
to leave the celestial chambers of the divine Trinity and
condescend to earth. Before Genesis 1, Christ Jesus
eternally existed without beginning in the eternal
generation of the Trinity. The beginningless beginner,
sometimes called the Angel of the Lord, sometimes called the
commander of the Lord's army uncreated, the second Person of
the Godhead, the agent through whom all things were created,
the eternal Son, who, who in the counsel of the Trinity, before
the foundation of the world, willed that he would come to
earth. And in the fullness of time he
came into the world in a way that he had never been before.
Not as an Angel, not as a some kind of theophany, not as a
warrior, but as a baby. This one who when he sang stars
came into existence, now screams because of hunger.
The one who never needed food now survives on his mother's
milk. He has a human mind that learns
lungs that breathe, stomach that digest, liver and kidneys that
purify, human hands that builds things, fixes things, gets cut,
needs to be washed. Human nerves that receive an
unleash pain, and yet He is no less God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Very God, a very God begotten, not made of 1 substance with the
Father. And our confession says it even
more plainly, that in the unity of the Godhead there are three
persons of 1 substance, power, and eternity, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God.
Being very and eternal, God did, when the fullness of time has
come, take upon Himself man's very nature, with all the
essential properties and common infirmities included, yet
without sin. You know, this is one of the
things that separates Christianity from all other
religions. Christianity is not a
philosophy, it's not a social performance, it's not a
privileged status, It's a person.
It's a perfect person. He is the perfect person, and
His grace overtakes us, and He comes to lodge at our house in
our hearts. And that person looks like you
and me, flesh and blood, yet God Incarnate.
You can have Buddhism without Buddha, you can have Hinduism
without any deity. But you cannot have Christianity
in its goodness and purest form without Jesus Christ, very God
and very man in one glorious person.
And this very God, this perfect person, is pursuing you in his
love yesterday, today, and he will again tomorrow.
And when life is upside down, he still loves you perfectly.
When the job is lost, the finances collapse.
Someone offends with a harsh word.
His love is still perfect for you when it doesn't make sense,
When disease and death visits our threshold, His perfect love
for you is never compromised. Ever.
Now the second saying in our passage today is just as
staggering as the first. He came to save sinners. 2 words
that trouble many people today save and sinners save from what?
And does sin even exist? But the word save in this
passage, sozo is the word, and in its form here it's pregnant
with meaning because it doesn't just mean to be rescued, it
means to be transported from a certain state or place to
another certain state or place. In other words, this one four
letter word encompasses the whole sweep of redemption, not
just saving from sin, but also from eternal no separation.
Sin is more than missing the mark.
It's any lack of conformity or transgression of God's law which
was given to any reasonable creature.
And Jesus sums it up beautifully when he says, love the Lord your
God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of
your soul, with all of your strength, and love your neighbor
as yourself, which I'm sure you have done perfectly.
Any any nonconformity with this or any transgression of these
things, loving the Lord with everything within us, loving our
neighbor as ourselves is sin, and sin is separation from God.
When we sin, we are saying we don't want to be in the Lord's
presence. And we know from our own
personal experience and from science that separation in and
of itself is extremely unhealthy.
For instance, babies in that are neglected in orphanages have
been shown to develop an array of physical and mental health
issues as well. As if that's not enough, a
proclivity to self harm. Isaiah says, But by your sin you
have made a separation between you and your God.
Colossians says once you were alienated from God because of
your sins. But for those whose life is
hidden in God through Christ, nothing can separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus. You know, we have people in our
lives we know that have latched on to some besetting sin and,
and we sense the separation of from true fellowship.
We we separate ourselves from others because we judge them.
We would rather stay separated than reconciled.
We recoil from sinners, but Jesus draws near to us.
We want to punish sinners, but Jesus bore our full punishment.
The gospel is for every nation, every race, every tribe, every
age bracket. It's for successful people and
really, really bad people. Dane Ortland says that when we
send the very heart of Jesus reaches out to us.
So the word save fully explains that Jesus is saving his people
from eternal separation from an unending obscurity from the
devastation of FOMO. Now Pete was kind of to remind
me in between services that not everyone understands this
overused acronym FOMO. So for those of you that need
the Cliff notes, fear of missing out sin deceives us.
That it's sin is the antidote to FOMO, when in reality sins
consequences lead to an irreversible FOMO.
Sin is separation from all that ultimately satisfies the human
heart. When we refuse to reconcile a
broken relationship, we are saying that our sense of justice
is higher than God's, that we understand the human heart
better than he does, and we become intoxicated with our own
haughtiness and we're fine to be separated.
We will stay alienated. Scripture teaches us that this
problem runs deeper than our actions.
In Adam, humanity fell. Adam's desire to rule
independently of God corrupted our nature.
We are not sinners because we sin.
We sin because we are sinners. Augustine said it this way.
Our nature itself was soiled by sin and doomed to death.
This is why Jesus came. Not to save the strong, not to
rescue the impressive, but to heal the sick.
Hospitals are not for the healthy.
Hospice is not for marathon runners.
Churches are for sinners who gather to give thanks for being
saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Jesus came for the worst of the worst, the weakest, the
loneliest, the most broken. Now Paul gives his own testimony
to this. Look at verse 12.
Paul says in verse 12 he calls himself a blasphemer, which by
the way, I might remind you, in his legal system was a capital
offense. Then he goes on to say that he
was a persecutor and he went door to door with documents
seeking to arrest and deport Christians.
The text actually says more more vividly, that he was a violent
opponent. He was opposing people trying to
care for widows and orphans, for people trying to help the poor,
and seeking to be civil and kind and loving towards others.
But the Lord pursued Paul regardless.
God saved a murderous elite who hated Jesus, and he turned Paul
into one who would carry the name of Jesus to the world.
He's the poster child for all of us blaspheming persecutors and
insolent bullies. God chose to save Paul, also
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, knew that He would
be an example for you and me. Look at verse 16.
Jump ahead to verse 16. But I received mercy for this
reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might
display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to
believe in Him for eternal life. Even today we still understand
Paul as an example, that no one is too evil to be saved.
He came for Paul, He comes for you.
He chose you before the foundation of the world, that
you should be holy and blameless before him.
He was for known before the foundation of the world, but was
made manifest in the last times For your sake, the Lamb that was
slain before the foundation of the world, we see him who was
made lower than the angels. Jesus crowned with glory and
honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace
of God He might taste death for everyone.
And there it is. He was born to die.
The purpose of the incarnation. You can't have a death without a
birth. His death was a substitution for
you, born for you, to die for you.
A Christmas Eve confession of sin included these words that we
said together as a congregation. God Incarnate came to save us to
the uttermost as man, to die our death, to shed satisfying blood
on our behalf, to work out a perfect righteousness for us.
If the man who died in our place wasn't the perfect God, then he
could not satisfy divine justice.
If the man who died in our place wasn't the perfect man, then he
couldn't represent the ones he came to save.
Humanity owed the debt for sin. A human must pay for it.
However, because the debt was infinite, only God could pay it.
The surpassing mercy of God and His irresistible grace
transformed Paul, the chief of sinners, into one of the
greatest witnesses of his covenant love.
So too those of us chief here today, transformed to be
witnesses of His grace and mercy.
Salvation is the Lord's faithful work to glorify Himself, not our
glorifying ourselves in order to be saved.
So now how does Paul respond to this trustworthy statement?
This, this sentence, deserving of full acceptance, the vilest
of the vile, saved by God's Amazing Grace.
What's his response? Well, about 7 times in Paul's
writing he will stop midway through whatever he is speaking
about and launch into a pure doxological expression of praise
to God. He is so overwhelmed by the
incomprehensible mystery of God, lovingly condescending in human
flesh to redeem His people so that we can be gathered in His
presence forever. And to consider these
unfathomable mysteries unleashes Paul into explosive worship, as
it should be for you and me. And Paul speaks without
restraint in verse 17. Look at verse 17.
To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only
God be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen.
Paul has been ramping up to this geyser of praise.
It's like the angels that appeared at the Manger where
they were behind the clouds and they couldn't stand it any
longer because of the magnificent mystery of the
second person of the Godhead becoming a human being, and they
explode with praise. Suddenly there was with the
Angel a host of other angels saying glory to God in the
highest. It's this is like Paul's version
of that. It's like a breathtaking stunt
in Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise accelerates at full speed
up that ramp of the Cliff in Norway.
Remember that. It's like this trustworthy
saying is the fuel that's accelerating that motocross
engine up that mountain incline, the powerful plan of Jesus
bearing upon himself the full wrath of justice that belongs to
the worst of the worst. Paul, realizing the divine grace
triumphs human depravity, that God will accomplish his faithful
purposes and promises even when we are powerless to fulfil our
own. And as he's scratching his nib
across the papyrus under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
Paul's heart bursts open, realizing the magnitude of what
Jesus Christ has done for us. He can't hold it back any
longer. And it's like when Tom Cruise
flies off the Cliff and he drops the cycle.
And in that glorious freefall, Paul suddenly soars into
celebration of praise and worship.
And in this freefall the Lord pulls the ripcord, and his
saving chute deploys, and emblazoned on the Kevlar
strength nylon salvation of Paul are the words to the King of the
ages, immortal and visible, the only God be glory and honor
forever and ever. Amen.
The one most guilty under the law becomes the greatest witness
of Christ's covenant faithfulness.
Paul's life reminds us that God's purposes are accomplished
not through our performance record, but through His eternal
mercy and grace. We worship God because He is
sovereign over time and history, as promises are sure and
unshakable, He displays his glory by saving the most
undeserving. And so our fitting response,
lifelong worship, repentance, confession, reconciliation for
salvation is entirely God's work.
And for His glory alone. Well, maybe you're here the
Sunday after Christmas because you're in town and it wasn't
part of your itinerary, but here you are.
And these things that we've said of Jesus actually may be true of
you. You're saved from what does sin
really exist? And this may be the day that
you're here to consider these things, that there is a perfect
Savior pursuing you. If that's you, Pete and I, or
anyone in this room who loves Jesus, would love to talk with
you. Paul himself calls himself the
foremost of sinners, yet God's sovereign mercy transforms him
into a faithful disciple and calls him into service and
worship. The same could be true for you.
And this paradox, the chief of sinners displaying the riches of
divine grace, as we see in the apostle Paul, vividly
demonstrates that God will fulfill his promises not through
human merit, but by his grace and mercy.
In Christ the guilty are saved, the undeserving are called, and
the glory of God alone is magnified by grace.
You have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.
It is a gift from God so that you don't get to boast about it.
Whoever believes in him will not die, but will live forever.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you
will be saved, says the word of God.
So regardless of how thick your file is, or how bad the content
of the documentary has been will be, God's glory is revealed in
the salvation of those Christ came to save.
And this is the purpose of the incarnation.
Perhaps the theologian Gerhardus Voss summarize it best with
these words. He gained down from heaven to
seek mankind. So he still comes down silently
from heaven in the case of each Sinner, and pursues his search
for that individual soul, following it through all the
mazes of its waywardness, all the devious paths of its folly,
sometimes on the very brink of destruction, till at last His
grace overtakes it. And Jesus says, I must lodge at
your house. Father in Heaven, these few
simple words from this dear mentor to this young pastor in
this small congregation many centuries ago now ring so
vividly in our hearts, calling us to bow before Your sovereign
will in all of life and to worship You, regardless of our
understanding of how life is going, that Your glory is
revealed in the salvation of those You came to save.
And today, as we begin the long March toward that tree, having
celebrated so gloriously this season of the Incarnation, now
we turn our faces toward Jerusalem, knowing that you, O
Christ, were born to die for your people, that you might
satisfy righteousness and bring glory to yourself through your
work of redemption. We bow before you and worship
and Thanksgiving, humbly praying in your holy name, Amen.
Would you stand please?