Turn with me if you would now
to First Timothy chapter one. First Timothy chapter one. I have so much enjoyed looking
at the first. Verse and a half of this book
so far. And tonight we're going to look
at the other half of verse 2. 1 Timothy 1 verse 1
says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ,
which is our hope. Unto Timothy, my own son in the
faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from
God, our Father, in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Grace, mercy, and peace
from God, our Father, in Jesus Christ, our Lord. When we have
a moment to enter into that, is that not amazing? Is that
not amazingly wonderful? Grace, mercy, and peace. I think about the fact that often
as I study this, I have time to just ponder. I have blocks
of time that we don't have right here. Pray the Lord will give
you blocks of time after this and recall it to your mind because
it is truly glorious to hear that announcement from God. I've titled this message, Three
of the Sweetest Words Ever Spoken. And I wanna make sure I clarify
that these are three of the sweetest words ever spoken. If I had to
pick the three sweetest words ever spoken, I would have to
say they were Lord, Jesus, Christ. Here are three more along those
lines. Father, Son, and Spirit. We won't count the and. We just sang Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
sweetest name I know. That's the sweetest name I know.
How many words do we have from the mouth of God that collectively
make up the sweetest words ever spoken? Here are three of them, grace,
mercy, and peace. Paul said, Timothy, that's what
I desire for you. And that's what I desire for
us. That's what I desire for you. And that's what I desire for
me. Knowing something of what the Lord has revealed to us about
eternity. This is the life that we currently
live in. And in His appointed time, on
His appointed day, in His appointed way, we're gonna leave this place
and we're gonna cross into eternity. Eternity is coming. And knowing
the judgment that awaits, knowing the strictness that awaits, knowing that we don't have time
to play games, It is amazing to hear these precious,
precious words from our Lord. Grace, mercy, and peace. That's what I want for us. I
don't want one soul here to miss God's grace, God's mercy, and
God's peace. I don't want one soul here. A
congregation of people gathers around the word together. I want
every soul here to enter into the word together. I do not want
you children to grow up and leave the word of God and miss Christ. Don't miss Christ. I deeply desire this for us.
I cannot speak more sincerely than I am right now. I want this
for us. This is what Paul said he wanted
for Timothy because he loved that man so much. And I love
you and I love me. And I want that for us. I do.
I deeply desire that. Now, here is the reason why these
words are among the sweetest of all words. And this is the
reason why I desire. We may or may not realize this,
but by nature, we don't deserve any of those words. People take
those words for granted. We say they roll off the tongue
and sometimes they just roll into the ear and everybody assumes,
oh yeah, grace, mercy, and peace. By nature, this sinner and we
sinners do not deserve any of these words. None of them. By nature, because of what we
have done and because of what we are, All that we deserve and
all that we are owed is justice, wrath, and judgment. And that's the truth. Vengeance,
punishment, that's the truth. Outside of Christ, that's all
that a sinner is gonna have coming to him or her. Justice, wrath,
and judgment. A demand will be made, a strict
condition of justice will be set forth for each person. And
when that condition is not met by the sinner, and I'll go ahead
and tell us all, we cannot meet the demands of God. God has given
his demands. We don't meet them. We do not
hold up. This is the strict demands of
justice. And when we do not meet these
demands, when we cannot meet what God has demanded of us, the wrath of God will be kindled.
It will be. And the judgment of God will
come down. This is what God will pour out.
He will pour out his judgment. That's what will happen to every
soul outside of Christ, because that's what every soul on this
earth has earned. And deserves from God. Justice,
wrath and judgment for all of our sin. I'm a sinner. I have sinned. I do sin. I will sin. The wages of sin is justice,
wrath, judgment, death. What if that's what that verse
said? God wrote this book. And what
if that's what, we just read it, it's in everybody's Bible,
we're all holding the same book and it all says the same thing.
What if that's what that verse said? What if verse two said,
unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, justice, wrath, and judgment
from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank God it doesn't say that. Thank God, in Christ, that is
not what's coming to a soul. And the reason is because Christ,
for His people, He came to this world to take and to fulfill
all of that justice, wrath, and judgment of God. He took it all. He took it all for the sin of
His people on Himself. We have all sinned. And for every
soul the Father gave to Christ and said, you save them. I trust
you. I trust you to do it. The one
who first trusted in Christ. For every soul Christ came and
did this for, He bore everybody. He stood in their place. He stood
in their sin. And He bore. every bit of that
justice, wrath, and judgment. He suffered it. He endured all
of it for His people. So in Christ, with all that being
satisfied, this is all that's left for God to pour out on His
people. Because He poured out all that
judgment on Christ, all of it to the last drop. All that's
left for Him to pour out on His people is grace, mercy, and peace. That's all that's left. Can we
not say, thank God for Christ? Those are four sweet words. Thank
God for Christ. That's what heaven will be crying
for all eternity. Thank God for Christ. Here are
three more sweet words. I wrote down some sweet words
here. Substitution, satisfaction, Redemption. God's people sinned, and Christ
came to be their substitute. Christ didn't come to show them
the way. Christ didn't come to plead and beg with them to follow
Him. He came to be their substitute.
And as their substitute, He satisfied God and redeemed a place for
all of His people. Here are three more sweet words.
Come plead in Him. Here are three more sweet words.
Paid in full. It's all paid in full. Here are
three more. Free at last. Free at last. Sin came and condemnation came
and bondage came. Free at last. Oh, what Christ
accomplished for us. The glory of what Christ accomplished
for us. Grace. mercy and peace. Now, what is grace? When we mentioned
that word, what are we talking about? People hear the word grace
and sounds good and it sounds religious and it sounds nice.
What is it? What are we talking about when
we say grace? The definition of that word is benefit. You ever had a job that had benefits? It means favor. It means gift. It is a benefit. It is a favor. It's a gift. It is a kindness
shown. That's what it is. A kindness
shown. Let me see if I can illustrate
that in this way. When you receive a bill for something
that you owe, okay, you get a bill. There will be a due date set,
stamped on it for when payment is due. All right? It'll tell you how much you owe
and the day that you owe it. All right? That's the strict justice right
there. Sometimes, though, the creditor
will freely give you 10 days or so. Generally it's 10 days,
where if you cannot make your payment, no penalty will come
to you. No wrath will come to you. No
punishment will come to you. And you know what those 10 days
are called? is called a grace period. A grace period. It's a free gift
of extra days, extra time. That's what it is. Now, does
the company who gives a grace period, does that company owe
that extended time to you? No. And God does not owe anybody
anything. You know that God does not owe
anybody anything. Man, you know, expects God to
do things for him and to save him and to prepare a place for
him as though God owed him something. God doesn't owe man anything.
And to come back to our illustration here, this creditor does not
owe us 10 extra days. He doesn't owe us that time. Concerning that amount of time,
do you have to do anything to earn it? Is it say on the bill
that you have to do something to earn those 10 days? No. Does that extra time end up costing
you? Will they add anything to your
bill for that extra time? Here's the answer. It's no if
it's a true grace period. Not if it's a true grace period.
Of their own will and their own kindness and their own benefit,
their own favor, they just freely give it to you. That's what grace
is. That's what grace is. The gift
of those days, the gift of that time, that gift is grace. The free favor, that free kindness,
okay, that's grace. to keep going, that removal of
judgment, that removal of penalty, the removal of punishment. They
said, this is how much you owe. This is the day you owe it. Removal of all penalty for not
being able to make the payment on that day. That's mercy. That's grace. And that's mercy. Grace is getting what we don't
deserve, that time, those days. Mercy is not getting what we
do deserve, which is punishment and penalty and wrath and judgment
for not being able to pay what we owe. We have incurred a debt
to God and we can't pay it. We cannot pay Him what we owe.
Now, in the case of this illustration, the argument could be made, well,
it's only for 10 days. That's all it is, it's just for
10 days. What if you still don't have the ability to pay it? After
those 10 days, you're in the same boat you were when you started. Well, what if someone had the
ability to make it so that you never had to leave the grace
period? What if somebody had that ability? What if someone put you in the
grace period and then had the ability to extend
the grace period for all of eternity? What if someone had the ability
to make it so that no penalty and no punishment and no judgment
could come to you for a payment that you could not pay? What
if someone had the ability to make it so that no penalty could
come to you for all of eternity? What if someone had the ability
to make it so that you never had to leave that time of mercy
and grace for all of eternity? What would that mean to you? What would that create in you?
If you knew you never had to step out of that time, what would
that create? Peace. Peace. Absolute peace. That's what Jesus
Christ did for His people. He put them in the grace period. He put them in the mercy period. The peace period. And He secured
it for them so that they would never have to leave. That's what we have in Christ.
We have grace, mercy, and peace. Forever. Forever. Not just now,
but forever. That's what the scripture keeps
saying. Now and forever. An eternal grace period. Eternal
mercy. Peace forever. Forever. Turn
with me over to Psalm 23. Psalm 23, verse six, it says, surely goodness, grace, kindness,
favor, that free gift, surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever, all the days of my life,
forever. Look with me at Psalm 136. Psalm 136 verse 1 says, Oh, give
thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth forever. Isn't that great news? Forever. It doesn't run out. It doesn't run out. I was so thankful the other day
for my health and the thought went through
my mind, I better be thankful for it right now while I can
be because it's going to run out. I can be thankful for this
life on earth and I better enjoy it while I can because it's going
to run out. That car I'm driving is going
to run out. And we could go on and on and on with everything
that we know in life. Not mercy, not grace. There will be no end to it. There
is no cutoff point. It'll never run out. Verse two
says, oh, give thanks unto the God of gods for his mercy endureth
forever. Verse three says, oh, give thanks
to the Lord of lords. Why? For his mercy endureth forever. This is a wonderful Psalm. Look
at the end of verse four, his mercy endureth forever. The end
of verse five, his mercy endureth forever. Verse six, his mercy
endureth forever. Verse seven, eight, nine, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, every one of them, his mercy endureth
forever. That's why his mercy endures
forever, forever. His grace endures forever. His
mercy endures forever. Therefore the result of His grace
and His mercy endures forever. Turn with me over to Isaiah chapter
nine. Isaiah 9, verse 6, it says, For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government
shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. Who is that talking about? Jesus
Christ. That's who Jesus Christ is. He
is the Wonderful Counselor. He is the mighty God. He is the
everlasting father. He is the prince of peace. Now
watch verse seven. I love this. It says, and of
the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. I love
how it doesn't just say of His government and peace there shall
be no end, but it says of the increase. He's just going to
increase and increase and increase. He's just going to keep increasing.
The peace is going to increase and increase. It's just going
to be so much peace. There's going to be no end. It
will not ever have an end. That is glorious. That's just
glorious. How can we be assured of this? How can we know this is so? We'll look back at our text,
1 Timothy 1. The end of verse two says, It's because this grace, mercy,
and peace is from God, our Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our Lord. You know what that
means? That means this is sovereign grace. Not just grace. This is coming from God the Father,
God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord. What does Lord mean?
It means highest God in control, ruler of all, doing whatever
He wants with whoever He wants. If He says it, it's done. This
is sovereign grace. What does sovereign grace mean?
That means it comes from God to whom God wants to give it
to. And if he wants to give it to
them, they're going to get it. That's what it means. This is
sovereign grace. This is sovereign mercy. This
is sovereign peace from God with God. Outside of Christ, we're
at enmity against God. That's what the scripture says.
That means we're the enemies of God. We don't even know it. And Christ made peace with God
for us before we ever even knew it. We're just notified. It's from God, it's with God,
it's in God. The gracious and merciful God.
Let me just show you a couple more verses here. Go with me
to 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5 verse 10. It says, But the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that you have suffered a while, he'll make you perfect, and he'll
establish you, and strengthen you, and settle you. To Him be
glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. To know the Lord
God is to know all grace. To have the Lord our God is to
have all grace. It is to receive the gift of
His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, with Christ Jesus, in Christ
Jesus. All grace is in Him. All of it. If we're gonna be in God's grace
period, we're gonna have to be in Christ. Lord, put us in Christ. Please
put us in Christ. He is the only place grace is
found. He is the grace. He is the gift. He is the God of all grace. All right, now turn with me to
2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1 verse 1 says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, unto the church
of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in Achaia,
grace be to you and peace. Grace and peace from God, our
Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Watch verse three. Blessed
be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Grace and peace be to
you because of the Father of mercies. What is mercy? Christ is mercy. The Father of
Christ is the Father of mercy. He is the source of all mercy,
all relief from penalty and punishment. Every bit of that relief is found
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. To know Him is to know
mercy. To have Him is to have mercy. If we're going to be in the the
period of time of God's mercy. I think about that story where
he said, thy time was a time of love. We're gonna be in that
time of his grace, his mercy, his peace, his love. We're gonna
have to be in Christ. He is the God of mercy. And verse
three goes on to say, he is the God of all comfort. That's peace. Turn to one more, go to Hebrews
13. Hebrews 13 verse 20, it says, Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work, to do His will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. The God of peace
through the blood of Christ. Christ is the one who made peace
through everything that he suffered, everything that he bore, all
of the judgment and punishment and penalty that he bore for
his people. To know him is to know peace. To have Him is to have peace. If we're gonna be in God's never-ending
haven of peace, we're gonna have to be in Christ. He is the God
of peace, grace, mercy, and peace. Paul said, Timothy, I pray that
for you. I pray that for you. I pray that
for us. I pray God might cause us to
know the grace the mercy and the peace of his glorious salvation
that is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, truly. May
he truly reveal that to us. All right, let's all stand together.