Paul: The Foremost of Sinners

I invite you to turn your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 1.

We will continue in our study of the first letter of Paul to Timothy. Starting in verse 12, we'll go to verse 17. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he has judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I have received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus 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, Christ Jesus might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

You may be seated. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do come to you this evening as sinners. We were conceived and sinned as what we know as our natural bent. But because of your grace and because of your mercy, you sought us out. You called us out of darkness into your marvelous light and you gave us your grace that is your unmerited favor.

Nothing in us but simply in who Christ is and his mercy to us. We're thankful and we come to you this evening in his name. Let us look to Paul's words this evening, to Timothy and to the church. And let us be encouraged that we too would see these words as trustworthy and of full acceptance that you came into the world to save sinners. Let us see ourselves in the text this evening and let us run to you as Paul has run to you. And your sons let me pray. Amen.

That's the main point this evening. Really verse 15 is it. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. This single sentence has encouraged countless souls to come to Christ and to believe in him. And I think particularly back to our own church tradition back in the Reformation.

A man named Thomas Building. He was studying law in Cambridge and he later went into ministry and he was among the first men that were martyred for the faith back in the English Reformation. And he stumbled upon this verse and he said the following, This one sentence, though God's instruction and inner working did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins and being almost in despair, that immediately I seemed unto myself inwardly to feel a marvelous comfort and quietness, and that my bruised bones leaped for joy. This is Psalm 51 where David references his broken bones. After this scripture became more pleasant to me than honey.

A few years later he would be burned at the stake for the very same faith that I preached to you this evening. That we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. And this verse, the 15, is kind of the crescendo. It's the pinnacle of this passage, but we'll go back and look at this chapter and give us some context here. Paul's greeting, of course, in verses 1 to 2, verses 3 to 7. Paul addresses the heresy that is going around circulating within the church, marked by vain genealogies and there's a merging of Judaism and Christianity in the early church. Paul is calling Timothy to watch out and call out any of this false doctrine that exists in his church. Then we see that finally he's going to contrast this use of the law, calling out these false teachers, and he's going to put a particular emphasis on the grace and the mercy of God.

He uses his own personal testimony to do so. So what we see in this passage here is that through Paul's testimony, we might see the grace and the mercy of God. First we see in our first point that Paul is thankful for God's grace in verses 12 to 14.

He says, I thank him, Jesus, who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Paul is writing to Timothy and indirectly to the church to tell them that the saints are to work mightily, that they are to rely on God for strength and to do the work of ministry. God planned that Paul would be used mightily in his service. And so God is using Paul and Paul is in response thanking God for the strength that he has given him and the grace and salvation that is his in Christ. God foreknew and foreordained that Paul would be an apostle and teacher and a preacher to both Jews and Gentiles alike. And so God calls him out of this work.

Of course we know the story. Acts chapter 9 on the road to Damascus. But the language he uses here, God judged me faithful, could be translated into God consider me that I would be faithful, evidenced by the fact that he is appointed and brought into this work of ministry. But at the same time, considering his own testimony, he does sense his own lack of worth and he doesn't deserve this. He says, I was the least of the saints to which this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles.

He doesn't deserve to be employed by the Lord to be an evangelist to the Christians. Going back to Acts chapter 9, he was breathing murderous threats against the church. Galatians chapter 1, he says, you've heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the people of God violently and tried to destroy the Christian church.

Ananias even knew about his reputation before he ever showed up. He said, I've heard about this man, how much evil he has done to the saints at Jerusalem. And Saul of Tarsus was already known for his opposition to the church.

But the thing is, again, we have to remember, Paul didn't know the Lord Jesus. He was blind to the truth. He had no eyes to see, no ears to hear. He didn't understand who he was persecuting.

Think of Christ when he said, forgive them for they know not what they do. He didn't. He did not know. He had no understanding.

He acted ignorantly in his unbelief. And the grace of the Lord overflowed for me, he says, with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. We see this pairing of grace, faith, and love all working together to give Paul this testimony of a grace that abounds in his life.

John Bunyan wrote his autobiography. He called it Grace Abounding for the Chief of Sinners. This is an overflowing of grace. There's an abundance of grace and mercy that Paul has in Christ. And so in response, he wants to labor as hard as he can for the Lord Jesus Christ.

One way some have put this is a grace-driven gratitude. The first thing he wants to do as a starving, dying sinner is he finds the bread of life and he wants to tell others of this bread. He wants to feed them and tell them of the life that he has now in Christ. This brings us to our main point this evening that we see why Christ would call such an evil, wicked man like Paul. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. That phrase, the saying is trustworthy, this is a mark, this is a normal phrase throughout the church. Kind of the way the American Evangelical Church says we invite Jesus into our heart, or we know the Roman road, we know kind of the typical language that our culture uses to bring someone to faith in Christ.

The saying is trustworthy is that you can rely on this and believe this. He uses this four more times in the Pastoral Epistles and it's a phrase to say that this is trustworthy, you can rely on this. You should know these things and accept these things as true, that Christ came into the world. This is a reference to the incarnation, that is Christ coming into the world, being clothed in human flesh, and he was among us. Even notice the way that Paul is using this language, he refers to Jesus as Christ Jesus. He puts a particular emphasis on Christ, that is the anointed one. He wants to emphasize the fact that Jesus is the anointed one of God. He is the Messiah that was promised from the Old Testament and now he is in and among us. But he knows Jesus as his divinity.

He does not know Jesus of Nazareth and his humanity. The twelve disciples followed Jesus. They knew Jesus. They knew the man. They knew him sweating blood in Gethsemane.

They knew him as the person that they followed for three years. They knew the humanity of Christ. Here we see that Paul is putting a particular emphasis on what he does in terms of salvation. Peter does the same thing in Matthew chapter 16. He also emphasizes his divinity. He knew Jesus and his humanity, but he also said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, emphasizing that divine nature that is in Christ. But Paul knew the ascended, exalted, enthroned, Christ reigning in heaven, King Jesus. And he knew him because he was called personally by Christ Jesus.

He is thinking of Jesus as not Jesus the man, but God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And before he was incarnate, that is, enclosed in human flesh where we see him on earth, he was in the beginning creating all things with the Father. John chapter 1 verses 1 to 3, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In other words, Jesus was there in the beginning with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, creating all things. We see this in Genesis 1, that he was with God. And then John chapter 1 verse 14, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word that became flesh was the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and full of truth. Verse 9 says that he is the true light that gives light to everyone who is coming into the world. Philippians chapter 2 tells us that he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

He was born in human flesh. Matthew chapter 1, She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who were lost. And that's the goal of Christ coming into the world is that he might save sinners.

And so that's exactly what he does with Paul. He comes into the world and the gospel message goes out, the church begins to grow and Paul is brutally persecuting these Christians, but God mightily works. Jesus calls them out in Acts 9 and now he is drawing men to Christ through his ministry on earth. And he comes to call sinners. He doesn't call the righteous, but he calls those who are sinners. Historically this word was something a Jewish person would refer to a Gentile. Someone who is unclean, the Jews were set apart, they were a holy people, a nation of Israel, but now with Pentecost we see an expansion of the new covenant. We spoke about this this morning in baptism.

There's this expansion of the new covenant and now the Gentiles who were afar off, who were estranged from God, alienated from God, they're now grafted into the covenant here. And then finally, of whom I am the foremost. Paul is telling us that of everyone he is the worst. He tells us that he is the prototype, he's not saying the first person that ever sinned, he's saying that he's the first in line. He's saying that he would be the worst if we were to line up from the worst sinner to the least.

He would say that he is the worst or the foremost of sinners. When you look at his testimony, he might be right considering the times. He is going into Christian homes, Acts chapter 8. He was ravaging the church, he was entering house after house, he was dragging out men and women and committing them to prison. Acts 22 tells us that I persecuted the followers of the way. Didn't even have the word Christian back then, it was just simply those who followed the way. And he persecuted them to the point of death. Think about his credentials back in Philippians 3, he says he was circumcised on the eighth day, he was the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of Hebrews, of the law of Pharisee. I think the most shocking thing about that was he emphasizes his zeal for persecution. Not only was he a proud Jewish, training to be a Pharisee, but he had a zeal and a love for persecuting the church. He would delight in his opposition to the church. If we were to parallel today, Paul's conversion would be like if the leader of the Islamic State was to come to faith. I feel like Osama Bin Laden in December of 2001 was to say, no I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I repent of my sins.

I mean, his conversion is completely unthinkable. But why would God think of it? Why would God do this? Why would God convert Saul of Tarsus? Of all the people that were to come to faith, was it because he needed Paul's knowledge of the law? Did he need his Roman citizenship to access the Roman populace? What was it that he needed?

He didn't need any of this. But God uses the traits of Paul, his citizenship, all this for effectiveness in Paul's ministry. But he did it, verse 16, God gave Paul this reason that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. God saved Paul so that you and I would know that no one is beyond the grace of God.

Anyone can be saved. He acted ignorantly in his unbelief. He was lost. He was dead in his trespasses and sins. But God, because of the great love in which he loved us, even though he was dead in his trespasses and sins, he made Paul alive in Christ. God showed him his error. He showed him in the law where he was guilty and he needed the grace of God. Christ calls him out and draws him to himself. And what we see is that Paul is now a mighty weapon in the hand of God to draw in the Gentiles. It was this illumination of Paul's mind. It was giving him eyes to see the truth of God's word. It was the Spirit of God that enlightens his mind to the knowledge of Christ. It renews his will. He embraces Christ by faith as he is offered him in the gospel. He is converted and obtains mercy for himself to be a witness to God and to others, of God to others. Back in 1918, there was a man in Tokyo.

His name is Tokichi Ichi. He was imprisoned for murder. He attacked and nearly killed a prison guard. He was a career criminal.

He had done 20 different times. He was arrested and finally he was arrested for murder. Before receiving his death sentence, he received a New Testament sent by two Christian missionaries, a Miss West and a Miss McDonald.

I love examples like that. Little, faithful testimonies in history where someone just simply hands over a Bible to the right person at the right time and God works. Resulting in Mr. Ichi coming to know Christ. And when he was sentenced to death, he accepted that as, quote, a fair and impartial judgment of God. In other words, he knew that he deserved the death penalty for his sins. And during that visit, Miss West directed him back to 2 Corinthians 6, verse 8 to 10, which deals with suffering, where Mr. Ichi noted, among other things, the line, poor yet making many rich.

And he wrote of this. He said this, This certainly does not apply to the evil life I led before I repented. But perhaps in the future, someone in the world may hear that the most desperate villain who ever lived repented of his sins and was saved by the power of Christ, and so may come to repent also.

Then it may be, though, I am poor myself, I shall be able to make many rich. He died in faith in his last words, where my soul purified today returns to the city of God. God, through his grace, reached a man who called himself the most desperate villain who ever lived, just as he had reached the worst of sinners nineteen hundred years before.

God's grace can reach anyone. He's not your typical convert, a Japanese murderer from a hundred years ago. It's not who you typically think of as a convert. And Paul, much the same way, is not a typical convert.

I sometimes get this when I go out and do evangelism. Someone will ask me something like, Do you think that Hitler is in heaven? If he was to repent of the Holocaust, would he be in heaven? If Stalin was to repent of killing so many people, would he be in heaven? Marcus Aurelius sent hundreds of thousands of Christians to their death back in the Roman Colosseum. I have to be faithful here and say, Are you defending Hitler? Are you defending Stalin? Are you defending Marcus Aurelius?

No, I'm not defending any of them. What I'm trying to say is that God's grace has no limits. I don't know to the extent in which God might save someone. If they were to truly repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with real repentance, that they've sinned against God, that they've sinned against others, and that they are sorry for their sin, might it be that God would save them? Can we look at Paul and see that he's a Christian murderer? There is no limit to God's grace.

We don't know. I'm just defending the fact that God can save anyone. Think about Jonah. He lamented the fact that Nineveh repented.

He was reluctant. He ran away from God. God pulled him back and said, Go to Nineveh. Call them to repentance. Nineveh was a den of iniquity. They were evil.

They were vile. They hated God. He goes in reluctantly, preaches the gospel, and says, Repent of your sin.

They do, and he's not happy. He's bitter at the fact that they repented. We ought to be thrilled when God saves.

Even your worst enemy, you ought to praise God that he would save the most evil, vile person that you personally know, the person that you still hold any sort of measure of bitterness against. We ought to be thrilled that God would give them repentance and faith. And if it's true, if there's real evidence of true repentance and true faith, they will be forgiven and reconciled to God. It would be a great thing to see. You'd be surprised when we get to heaven who's there and who's not.

It will be quite shocking. But Paul, he's repenting of murdering Christians. He's sinned against the church. He's sinned against the Lord Jesus Christ. And the church welcomes him in.

It's amazing. I think about, he might have walked into the church, and people have thought, what on earth is he doing here? But again, he's coming in having been appointed by Christ directly. It's an amazing testimony that he would murder Christians and be a terrorist, but God breaks through, saves him, and makes him a powerful apostle that writes a large portion of the New Testament. I love the quote from A.W.

Pink, When tempted to be disgusted at the dullness of another, or to be revenged on one who has wronged you, call to remembrance God's infinite patience and long-suffering with yourself. Hearing Paul and his testimony, you can get a certain measure of assurance and understand God's long-suffering nature to convert one of the greatest of sinners. You might think of your own friends and family and say, there is no way they would ever come to faith.

Impossible. People would think they have left the faith and they would never come back. You think they're never going to darken the door of a church ever again.

But we don't know that. Life is long and we have no idea that they might one day believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And where we shared the faith with them when they were a young person, that fateful witness of a family member, of a Sunday school teacher, can last a lifetime.

An unfaithful witness might also last a lifetime, and there we might need to go back and repent and say, sorry about my poor witness as a Christian. Sorry where I sinned against you personally. I repent to you and before God I was wrong. They might want to hear that. They might need to hear that to be drawn into the Lord Jesus Christ and back to the church. And really you might be the instrument in which they hear true repentance and a clear Christian model of repentance and faith. Considering your own life for those who have come to faith at a later age or joined the church with a sincere desire to follow Christ, think back for a moment on your own life. Think back to where you were outside of Christ. Just like Paul, you had a crowd who knew you, not as a Christian.

They knew you as someone completely different. John 6, verse 42 says, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? Jesus dealt with it. Isn't that just Joseph's son, Mary's son? Isn't he the carpenter?

Isn't that just a guy? Everyone deals with this. A prophet has no honor in his hometown and these days neither does a Christian. So when you come back and you tell them that you've been redeemed, when you tell them that you're a new creation in Christ, there might be this mocking.

There might be this laughter. They might remind you of the foolish things they've done, but think about what it was like for Paul to go back, for him to brush shoulders with an old Pharisee friend from long ago, for him to run back into someone from back in the day when they were in school together. It would not be, look how foolish you were, it was you have left us, you have abandoned us, you have left a thousand years of beautiful tradition to be one of those Christ followers. You're the enemy now. You will be persecuted by us.

We will hunt you down. Philippians 3, he says, Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. And so he walks into the church, a former murderer, I think Luke 18, with the Pharisee and the tax collector. He's coming in, kind of steps to the side, he's praying privately to the Lord, and someone had to have thought, why is he in here?

Do we need to run out the back door? What's going on here? And like the tax collector, he says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Paul is reconstituting himself.

He is identifying himself as a Christian. He has a new life in Christ. He tells us in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Do you remind yourself of this? If I could have anybody read one verse every day, it would be Galatians 2.20, to see our new identity in Christ. It's not I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

And that is what we must do. We must see ourselves the way that God the Father sees us, in his Son, Christ Jesus. We have been part of all our sins and accepted as righteous in his sight, only for what he has done and what he is as our Savior and our Redeemer. And in believing in him, our sins are nailed at the cross and his righteousness is given to us by faith. And God sees us not outside of Christ, but he doesn't see Christ outside of the church, his bride, his people that are grafted into him with this future hope of a wedding feast where we will be united to Christ for all eternity. And the church will be brought in as a beautiful bride, washed of all sin and washed of any sort of record, of any sort of wrongdoing. We are having full communion with Christ for an eternity. So let us not be crippled by the past, let's not be crippled by guilt or shame, but let us be accepted as we are in Christ.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Finally, we have a closing of a benediction. God is the King of all ages who sovereignly governs every age. We see that God reigns in creation and after creation, before creation, the final age, on into eternity. We see that Christ is immortal. Without decay or destruction, he will always be.

He is imperishable and incorruptible. We see that he is invisible, that we have his word, but 1 Timothy 6 tells us that he lives in unapproachable light. For no one has seen or can see, but we see that he is the only God. He is the true triune God of Scripture.

Isaiah 45 verse 18 says, I am the Lord and there is no other. And so to this God, the one true God, we say with Paul, to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever. So let us look with boldness to Christ who is our King reigning in heaven because the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that we would see ourselves as you see us, united to Christ, that you would see us with your Son and what he has done on behalf of guilty, repentant sinners. As you've shown us our sin, let the seed of faith be sown in good soil, removing any obstructions of pride or self-righteousness. Let us humble ourselves before you. Let us love you. Let us look to your Son and in doing so we are united to him. We look forward to that day where we will be united to you for an eternity. Continue to remind us of these things every day. In your Son's name we pray. Amen.