This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. How be it for this cause
I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth
all longsuffering for a pattern to them Which should hereafter
believe on him to life everlasting Now unto the king eternal Immortal
invisible the only wise God Be honor and glory forever and ever
amen Paul here calls himself a pattern
to all believers who should believe Hereafter unto life everlasting. And so this is surely something
worth looking at often. This is an outline. That word
pattern means outline. And whenever there's an outline,
I'm just liable to preach it if the Lord is in it. And this
is a clear outline, isn't it? This is who God saves, who He
is who saves, He saves them and how he saves them in an outline
form the life of the Apostle Paul the experience of his conversion
The details of our experiences of salvation may be very different The exact circumstances of The
specific means that God uses, which, you know, who's preaching,
who's involved in your parentage and things like that. Those things
may vary and certainly will. You could give me a sermon outline
to preach. Sometimes at conferences, pastors
will say, I'd like for you to please preach on this. and never
gives two people the same. But if you gave me a specific
sermon outline to preach and gave another preacher the exact
same outline, and both preachers were gospel preachers, the messages
would be very different, wouldn't they? But they'd be the same.
The same. Let's see Paul's conversion here
his experience and when he met the Lord Jesus Christ and see
if we have experienced what he did First of all who did God
save when he saved Saul of Tarsus who was eventually known as the
Apostle Paul Paul himself said in our in the context if you
look at verse 13 there in in that chapter that What did Paul
say about himself? He said, when God saved me, he
saved the chief of sinners, the worst sinner there is, of whom
I am chief. That's verse 15, I'm sorry, I
said verse 13, it's verse 15. He saved the chief, and that's
important. God saves the worst of the worst. And if anybody takes offense
at that, then I guess you're not one of the worst. What else
could we conclude from that? If you're one of the worst sinners
that walks this earth, you're not gonna be offended when somebody
calls you that. And there's just no question
about that. He saved the chief of sinners, and that's important.
Let me ask you the question this way. What was your part in salvation? What was your part? When you
say that you've been saved like Paul, what was your part in that? Many of course say that, you
know, it was God the Father who loved everybody, you know, who
purposed to save and loved everybody. Christ's part was dying on the
cross. And our part is believing on Him that, you know, Really,
the crux of the matter is left up to us. God's done all he can
do. You've all heard that saying. God's done all he can do, and
now it's up to you. That's not good news. You may
not realize, I'm sure everybody here realizes that. That's not
good news. For a sinner, it's not. The thing about our part
being believing is that faith is not of ourselves. And the
Bible clearly declares that. The Bible teaches that faith
is God's part in salvation, just like His electing love, just
like the redeeming sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, that faith
is God's part too. Faith is the gift of God, not
of works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.
Faith is the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5. Christ is the author and finisher
of faith. You'd be hard-pressed to preach
that that God saved Paul because he believed You just be hard
priest to say that if you read Paul's experience of salvation
God found Paul on the road to hell running as fast to hell
as he could run and Cursing God all the way there And God saved Paul in spite of
Paul's That's a pretty good definition of grace, in spite of. And here's
the question though, was that your experience? Did you have
a part in your salvation, whether it was walking an aisle, repeating
a prayer, making a decision of some kind, or was Jonah telling
the truth when he said salvation is of the Lord? I'll tell you this, our generation's
religion, of course, says that God saves believing sinners. He saves repentant sinners. He saves, what they say in the
theology books, sensible sinners. Sinners that know they're sinners,
in other words. I'll tell you, the only adjective Paul used
was this, the worst one. He wasn't a sensible sinner.
He wasn't a repentant sinner. He just said, I'm a bad one.
That's what I am. I'm a bad one. And that's who
God saved when he saved me. Now, how does that stack up with
your experience? If you truly believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, then your experience is the same. The outline holds
true. Who God saves is sinners, and
he saves the worst of them. That the excellency of the power
It might be of him and not you. In our text, it says that God
showed Paul all longsuffering in saving him. Does that stack
up with your experience? Now, this tells us something
about God, doesn't it? We'll talk about that, Lord willing,
in a minute, who it is that saved him. But it also tells us something
about Paul. Longsuffering. Paul says, God
had a million reasons not to save me, to put me in hell before
I ever knew him. And the truth is, he doesn't
have any less reasons after we know him to put us in hell if
he was wanting to do that. But God is long-suffering. He's
long-suffering. Paul wrote that if he saved us
knowing what sinners we are, how shall we not be saved ultimately? I wonder if Satan ever thinks
of me. Do you ever wonder that? Does Satan ever think he's mine
now? I got him now. You see, Satan doesn't understand
about eternal, infinite, electing love and grace. Or he'd give
up. He'd give up on me if he understood
that. If Satan knew all about that, he wouldn't have wasted
much time on Job, would he have? He was after Job, wasn't he?
But to no avail, because God's a little suffering. Job said
a lot of stupid things. And then when he got done saying
stupid things, he said, I'm going to shut up now. And he was no
less saved because salvation is by the grace of God. And it
doesn't depend on you. If it ever did, you're a goner.
If it did before, if it did now, if it ever does, you're a goner.
If anything is ever up to you, that's why I get so infuriated.
And I don't want to sound self-righteous about that. Look, it's the grace
of God that it makes me mad. But it is infuriating for religion
to keep saying, it's up to you, it's up to you. If anything ever
had been or ever will be up to you, you're a goner. But do you think Satan never
looks at me and thinks, boy, he deserves hell so richly that
there's no way, surely God's gonna abandon him now. There's
no way. Well, when God saved Saul, Saul was actively employed
in murdering Christ's sheep. And Christ said to him, why persecutest
thou me? Now think about that. Who is he really murdering then?
He's murdering God. That's what we do. That's what
we do. You say, well, we didn't murder
God in the garden. We just disobeyed him. The cross is the, what happened at the
cross is the same sin that happened in the garden. Exactly the same
sin. No God for me. No use for God. I'll decide for myself. That's
what's being preached at most churches. How hopeless is that
when your gospel is it's up to me? What a horrible place to
be He was murdering the sheep of
God and the Lord took it personally didn't he you're murdering me
every time you murder somebody He was overseeing the deaths
of God's preachers and persecuting those he didn't kill. We know
that he was there at the stoning of Stephen, authorizing that.
And people, when the Lord saved him, he was persecuting others,
other people. And then the Lord said, Saul,
Saul, why are you doing what you're doing to me? That's important
now. Because all sin is against God. I may do you wrong, but I'm sinning
against God. I can't sin against you. I can
do you wrong, terribly wrong. But all sin is against God. Why
are you doing what you're doing to me, Saul? Why are you doing
that? But bless God, his love is such that in spite of Saul's
wretchedness, And you'd be hard pressed to find somebody that
deserved hell more than Saul unless God has given you eyes
to see yourself and me. He can't let Saul go though,
can he? He can't let him go. He stopped him on his road to
hell and said, why are you doing this to me? Why would you do
that? He said the same thing to me
for the same reason. He couldn't let me go. My heavenly
Hosea loved me yet. Read the book of Hosea and look
very carefully at that word yet. God told Hosea, go and love a
woman, a woman of adulteries. And he did. The Lord wasn't just
instructing him. The Lord caused him to fall in
love with her. And you know why? You remember why he said he was
doing that? He said, I'm going to show you something of my love
for you. And so he fell in love with Hosea,
with Gomer. And of course, she was an adulteress.
She was a harlot. And when Hosea fell in love with
her, she didn't stop being that. She treated him every which way,
but good. Treated him like trash in every
imaginable way. And you know what the Lord said
then? Go yet and love her. Now, you might just learn something
about God's love for his sheep. Go yet and love that horrible,
wretched, hell-deserving woman. That says a lot about who God
saves, doesn't it? But it also says a lot about
God. Who is it that saved Paul? Well,
in Paul's character, we see a lot of who it is that saved him,
don't we? It's somebody that saves people like that. That's
who it is. My goodness. Who in the world would save somebody
like that? Who indeed? God commendeth his
love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, he yet loved
us. Christ died for us. Who would
save a wretch like me? That's the question, you see.
Paul's just the outline. Who would save a wretch like
me? Well, we have that in our text, don't we? Look at the glorious
language of this. It almost sounds like Paul loves
talking about it, doesn't he? When you read this passage, he
just loves talking about it. Look at the word mercy in verse
13. Mercy. Mercy. That's who it is. It's the God
who delights to show mercy. In verse 14, he said, the grace
of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which was
in Christ Jesus. Boy. The grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith. In other words, by grace, God
gave Paul faith and love for Christ, both of which are in
Christ Jesus. The apostle Peter called him
this in 1 Peter 5.10, but the God of all grace. who hath called us unto his eternal
glory by Jesus Christ, after that you have suffered a little
while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. To him
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Is that who saved you? The one
who gets all the glory? The one who gets every ounce
of it and you're perfectly fine with that. No glory. No boasting. Boasting is excluded. It's all
Him. The God of all grace. The only
one who could save somebody like Paul and me. Saved us. The God of all grace. He saves
sinners just because He wants to. Grace. I will love them freely. You know what that word freely
means? For no reason. You think God saved you for no
reason? No reason in you. No reason in you. He saved you
for a reason. Why in the world? Well, why did
he save you? Because he wanted to. Why did
he want to? That's a good question, isn't
it? Hmm he saved sinners didn't Paul
say in Ephesians 1 that he who does all things after the counsel
of his own will saved us He wanted to and so he did it and nobody
can stop him And why does he want to though
That's the question we're getting to. That's the answer we're getting
to. Paul said in our text in verse 15, Christ Jesus came into
the world to save me. And here I am saved. In other
words, he's saying whatever he came, what he came to do, he
did it. He did it. He had mercy on me. He came for
that. He came into this world to save sinners and he saved
sinners. It's the sovereign Savior who
saved Paul. It's the one who saves who he
wants to. And he didn't wait for Paul to do anything. That's
the thing, you see. That's what we mean when we say
he's sovereign. He's not waiting on you. He don't
need you. He's not waiting on you. He's
not meeting you halfway. He just wants to save you, so
he does. It doesn't matter much about
you, except that he loves you. When you read of Paul's conversion,
does it sound to you like the Lord Jesus was waiting on him
to do something in order to get saved? Turn to Acts chapter 9
with me, and let's read an account of it here in Acts chapter
9, verse 1. Acts 9, 1, and Saul, yet breathing
out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the
Lord, went unto the high priest and desired of him letters to
Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this
way, any, in other words, who followed Christ, whether they were men or women,
he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed,
he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him
a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? And he said, who are you, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Is it
hard for thee to kick against the pricks? That word is goads. If you want to look it up and
check on me, it's goads. Something you jab an animal with.
that's unruly and proud and doesn't wanna do what you want
it to do. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will
thou have me do? That's what a goat is for. What
do you want that animal to do, that beast to do? That dumb thing,
that dumb rebellious thing, what do you want it to do? There's
gonna have to be a goat, isn't there? And the Lord said unto him, Arise
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou
must do. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And
Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he
saw no man, but they led him by the hand and brought him into
Damascus. And he was three days without
sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain
disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I'm here,
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the street
which is called straight and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth and hath
seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting
his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias
answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much
evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. The Lord said,
he did it to me. And here he hath authority from
the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the
Lord said unto him, go that way, for he is a chosen vessel unto
me. Ananias said, he's a monster.
The Lord said, he's my chosen one. He's one of my loved ones. To bear my name before the Gentiles
and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how
great things he must suffer for my namesake, and in an ass went
his way and entered into the house and putting his hands on
him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto
thee in the way as thou camest has sent me that thou mightest
receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Immediately
there fell from his eyes as it had been scales and he received
sight forthwith and arose and was baptized And when he had
received meat he was strengthened in salt within was saw certain
days with the disciples Which were at Damascus and straightway.
He preached Christ in the synagogue that he's the Son of God You
see who saved Paul the Son of God Said in our text that he
came into this world to save He said I'm the chief of sinners.
He came to save sinners. So what he's saying in effect.
He came to save me Having chosen me from the beginning And when
he got good and ready, he saved me when it pleased God he revealed
his son in me No wonder Paul said in our text in verse 17
now unto the king eternal Under the king this who saved
me he said the king of salvation and glory be to him If you ever
see and know the king of salvation you'll glorify How did God save Paul Let's see
if the outline holds true is that who saved you And is that
who you were when he saved you? How did God save Paul? Well,
we see a lot about this in the text in Acts 9 there where we
just read. The first thing is he shined
a light on him and spoke to him. You say, well, boy, that wasn't
my experience. God never shined a bright light. Paul said in
another place, brighter than the noonday sun. That never happened
to me. Well, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Maybe
you're thinking that. You may not have heard an audible
voice directly from heaven. But I'll tell you this, you did
hear an audible voice if God saved you. Because it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching. To save them that believe, faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And does God shine his light
on you? When he saves the sinner, does he shine his light on them?
You may not see it with the natural eye, but God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts. And
that's a light a whole lot brighter than the noonday sun. That's
how he saves us now, just like Saul. He wasn't waiting on Saul
to do something. He just shined his light on him,
stopped him in his tracks, put him in the dust, and spoke to
him in grace. And look at what he said to Saul.
Why persecutest thou me? This is the same question he
asked a lot of different sinners, didn't he? He asked the Pharisees,
why do you hate me without a cause? Why do you hate me? That's what
he's asking Saul. Why do you hate me? Indeed. Adam, where are you? Look at
you. You're hiding from me behind
a bush. Where are you? There's something
wrong with you, Saul. There's something wrong with
you. You hate me. You're persecuting me, the one
who's perfect and good and right and gracious, the Holy Son of
God. You're doing that which is unthinkable.
Who would do that? Why are you doing that? Come,
let us reason together and say it to the Lord about your sin And what I did
about it. And then Saul had something to
say. Who are you, Lord? Who are you? Well, he was probably one of
the most religious people. He was high up in the so-called
church. A religious leader. Highly respected
and looked up to. But he didn't know Jesus Christ. Had no idea who he was. But he
wanted to now. Christ knew who he was and now
Paul wants to know who he is too. He kind of answered his
own question, didn't he? Who are you, Lord? That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart
that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Hmm. And then notice these two
verses carefully now in Acts 9 still, verses five and six.
Notice this. We're talking about how, how
did God save Saul? He said, Saul said, who are you,
Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus
whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against
the goads. And he trembling and astonished
said, Lord, what will you have me do? And the Lord said unto
him, arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what
thou must do. Why do you go to an animal again?
To get it to do what you want it to do. You're the master,
right? You're the master, and he's not. He's gonna do what
you want him to do. What good is an animal that won't
do what you want it to do? If the purpose of that animal
is to plow or carry burdens or do whatever. What good is it?
I tell you what you'd do to an animal like that, you'd get rid
of it, wouldn't you? You'd get rid of it unless you loved it. My dog is kind of worthless.
He's kind of worthless. Boy, I love him. I love him. I'd never get rid of him. I can't
even imagine not having him. He doesn't do anything that you
want him to do. He does a lot of things you don't
want him to do. But boy, I love him. I love him.
The more stupid things he does, the more I love him, because
he's so cute doing stupid things. He looks good doing it. But you see how that worked?
Goads. Is it hard for you to kick against the goads? What
do you want me to do, Lord? What do you want me to do? Is it all right with you that
the Lord treats us like that? He doesn't goad us in anger or
hatred. He does it in love. We need to
do what he wants us to do. We're not going to, are we? We're
just not going to, unless he causes it. Beautiful, precious goads. If he's gonna save you now, he's
gonna have to break you. You know that, don't you? He's
got to break you. He does so graciously, but it's
not gonna be pleasant to your flesh. It's not gonna be. And this happens in all aspects
of our lives, doesn't it? He still has to goad me, and
I'm still glad that he does by his grace. It's gonna be all
right, and it's all right. The goads are fine. And then
we see further on in Acts 9 that Paul set to praying, seeking
God, that he'd been such a terrible wretch to before. And Ananias
didn't want much to do with him, did he? He didn't want anything. He said, I've heard of him. I
know about him. I don't wanna, I don't know about this. Lord
said, I've chosen him. And that was it. What's the next
word? Brother Saul. Brother Saul. And
we see these things in the outline that take place in time. in the
time of our experience of God's grace, but we come to know also
that God saved us before the foundation of the world. Paul,
he may not have been thinking a whole lot about that on that
day, but listen to this, in 2 Thessalonians 2.13, we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you. And he told Saul, I've chosen
you, I've chosen you. You're gonna preach for me. And so Saul learned this, didn't
he? Paul knows this now as he's writing this passage. He hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel. to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have obtained already in a
sense, and one day, sure enough, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His glory is already ours, but sure enough, one day we'll experience,
and I can say that because God chose me from the beginning.
That's the only reason I can say that. Thank God that the
purpose according to election might stand. He said, Chris,
have I loved? And that's the answer to our
last question, isn't it? Of course, why did God save Paul?
Well, because he wanted to. Yeah, but why did he want to? You might give many reasons from
the scriptures to answer that question, mightn't you? But it
all has to be traced back to the love of God. infinite eternal
unfathomable love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord God saved Paul because he was
one of the elect of course he did absolutely But why did God choose him? God saved Paul because Christ
redeemed Paul with his precious blood. Absolutely. But why in
the world would the Lord Jesus do that? God saved Paul because of the
everlasting covenant of grace. Yeah, but why would God make
with me an everlasting covenant? Order in all things, ensure.
and it's all my salvation and all my desire. Why would God
do that? You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in
the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh And
of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath even as
others But God who is rich in mercy
Paul said I obtained mercy For his great love wherewith he loved
us and Even when we were dead in sins, it quickened us together
with Christ. By grace, you're saved. And hath
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Why did God choose me? Because
he loved me. Why did Christ redeem my soul
with his own blood? Because he loved me. Why did
he include me in that glorious eternal covenant of grace, all
of the fulfillment, all of the accomplishment of it, accomplished
by my Savior, so that he might bestow his grace upon me freely? Why would he do that? Because
he loved me. Why did he love me? I can't answer that one, can
you? It stops right there, doesn't it? It stops right there, and
I'm okay with that. Maybe one day he'll tell us why.
It doesn't much matter as long as he does. But I know this, his love is
in Christ Jesus, the Lord. If you know not the Savior, flee
to Christ with all of your heart. Bow to him and ask him for mercy. And may he have mercy on all
of our souls. Amen.