1 Timothy 1, and let's read verses
1 and 2. 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, and Jesus Christ, our
Lord. We're going to observe our Lord's
table tonight, and I felt led to bring a message for it from
this text because of three words in verse two. Grace, mercy, and
peace. Grace, mercy, peace. That's what we see in the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ultimate display of grace,
mercy, and peace. He is the cause of those three
things. He is the securer of those three
things. And he is the object of those
three things. And the apostle Paul makes that
very clear in these first two verses. He mentioned our Lord,
and I love this, he mentioned our Lord four times in the first
verse. Verse one says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ. He said, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the one who made me to be an apostle. I'm an apostle of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to be an apostle, you
had to be a witness of the resurrection of Christ. You had to physically
see him risen after he died and was buried. And you had to be
taught the gospel directly from his mouth. And even though our Lord had
already ascended by the time Paul was called to a knowledge
of Him, Christ physically revealed Himself to Paul and taught him
the gospel by carrying him up to the third heaven. Paul said,
I heard things, and don't we all say that when God opens the
heart and opens the soul? Oh, I heard things too wonderful
for me. But he caught him up to the third
heaven and revealed himself to Paul and taught him what he would
come back down to this earth and preach. And you think about
the amazing truth of that. Paul was caught up and the Lord
sent him back to this earth to preach and teach the gospel.
Can you imagine the boldness that that gave Paul? To clearly
preach the truth in spite of the fact that his life was in
danger over it constantly. Once the Lord removed his fear
of departing from this world and being forever with him. In
every single one of us there's a slight bit of fear in that.
We're excited and we want to go. But there's a slight bit
of fear in it. And our Lord on purpose brought
him up to the third heaven to show him this is life eternal. This is what you have waiting
on you. This is what's coming. The glory of what he was preaching. We can't enter into the glory
of what we're preaching, but Paul could. the reward of true
life in him. True life, what real life is,
we've yet to know it. And Paul was constantly saying,
I'm ready. Oh, I'm ready. Slay me for preaching
the glory of Christ if you want to. None of these things move
me. Neither do I count my life on
this earth to be dear. If I depart and be with Christ,
it's far better. So he said, Jesus Christ is the
one who made me to be an apostle. And as an apostle, I only witness
him. I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. That's the first time he mentioned
his name in verse one. Verse one says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior. Who is that? Who is our Savior? Jesus Christ. Somebody will say, yeah, but
it says God our Savior. Yeah, that's right. Now we're
starting to understand a little bit more of who it is that saved
us. who it is that came down to redeem
us from our sin. Our savior is God. God did not send someone else
on an errand to save his people. God emptied heaven and came down
himself and a ransom was found. The very God, the absolute highest
God of all eternity and creation and everything is our Savior. He's the one. Do you think it
was a sufficient salvation? Jesus Christ our Lord. Look with
me at Isaiah 41. All through the Old Testament,
the Lord, Jehovah, is constantly speaking. Capital L, capital
O, capital R, capital D. God Almighty. Well, who is God
Almighty? Who is the capital L, capital
O, capital R, capital D? Look at Isaiah 41, verse 10. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee, Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee,
yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be
as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou
shalt seek them and shalt not find them, even them that contended
with thee. They that war against thee shall
be as nothing and as a thing of naught. For I, the Lord thy
God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I
will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob, and
you men of Israel. I will help thee, saith the Lord,
and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." That's Christ. That's Christ. Christ, our Redeemer, died on
the cross. Look with me at Isaiah 44. Verse 24 says, thus saith the
Lord thy Redeemer, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital
D, thy Redeemer. And he that formed thee from
the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth
forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by
myself. Who made all things? The Lord
Jesus Christ did. All things were made by Him and
without Him was not anything made that was made. Look with
me at Isaiah 49. Verse 26. And I will feed them that oppress
thee with their own flesh, and they shall be drunken with their
own blood, as with sweet wine. And all flesh shall know that
I, the Lord, am thy Savior, and thy Redeemer, the mighty one
of Jacob. That's crystal clear, isn't it?
That is crystal clear. All of the Old Testament is about
Jesus Christ. He is the one speaking. One more. Look with me at Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54 verse 5 says, For thy
maker is thine husband, who is The bride's husband? The Lord
of hosts is his name and thy redeemer, the holy one of Israel. That's Christ. Verse five goes
on to say, the God of the whole earth shall he be called. So when the apostle Paul declared
God our savior, he was declaring the Lord Jesus Christ. Go with
me back to first Timothy one. Verse 1 says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior, and he clarifies
who he's talking about by saying, and Lord Jesus Christ. God our
Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, they are one in the same. And
then he mentions Christ one more time by saying, which is our
hope. What are we talking about when
we talk about hope, our hope? We're talking about a person.
We're talking about Jesus Christ, God, our Savior and Lord. He is our hope. Verse two says,
unto Timothy, my own son in the faith. Paul loved Timothy so
much. I think that their relationship
is beautiful. It's a precious relationship. He dearly loved him. He loved
him as a brother, but he loved him as a son. And this is Paul's
greatest wish for this one that he dearly loves. And this is
God's message of good news to all of his people. Verse two,
he said to Timothy, this is what I wish to you, grace, mercy,
and peace. From God, our Father, and Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Let's just enter into those three
words for just a moment, and then we'll enter into those three
words in partaking of the Lord's table. This is what we have in
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have God's grace. We have God's grace. Everyone
talks about grace and sings about grace. And if we want to know
what grace truly is, we see it in the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace means good will. It means kindness. It means favor. Grace is a loving, kind, generous
gift. That's what it is. We don't know anything about
giving. We try to enter into these things
and associate with these things. We don't know anything about
giving. Sacrificial giving it truly sacrificial
generosity in the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We see what grace truly is. We believe in, in. We all will
know this to be. So we believe 10% is sacrificial
giving. Oh, and that's sacrificial giving.
Well, God the Father gave His only begotten Son. We talk about
letting go of something, giving something over, giving it away.
He gave His only begotten Son. We may give the shirt off of
our back. We may do that. We may give the
shoes off of our feet. But Christ gave the blood out
of His body. He gave the life that he had
with God, God the Father and God the Spirit. Think about that.
We try to compare or enter into what it means that he gave his
life by comparing it to this dead sinful, wicked, wretched, worthless
life that we have on this earth. We have this life of death and
this life of bondage and this life of misery and when it dies
we try to compare that to God the Son giving His life. He gave
His life with the Father in the Spirit. He gave the life of glory. He willingly gave this eternal
life that was holy and prized. God the Father gave to the prized
possession of heaven, the prize of heaven, pressed toward the
mark that I might gain the prize. God gave the prize. And he gave him to be the propitiation. That means the bloody victim,
the horror of what sin did to him. like an innocent lamb to the
vicious slaughter. He gave him to be that bloody
victim for our decayed black sin. In this sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ, we can see what grace truly is. We can enter
into something of what God's grace, amazing grace, truly is. The next thing that we see in
the sacrifice of Christ is mercy. If we want to see mercy, we see
it in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mercy means compassion. We say that mercy means not getting
what we deserve. And that's true. That is so true.
Mercy is not getting what we deserve, but that's the effect
of mercy. That is the evidence of mercy. That's the end result of mercy,
the origin and the cause of mercy. originally brought mercy to sinners
was the love and the compassion and the pity of God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Spirit. Look with me at Psalm 103. Psalm 103 verse 8 says, the Lord
is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. And I love how it says it twice.
The Lord is merciful and he has a lot of it. He will not always
chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to
our iniquities." We all make that statement. How you doing?
Well, better than I deserve. He hath not dealt with us after
our sins. nor rewarded us according to
our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, you think about space, how far it goes, how far does
it go? Have you seen the end of space? As the heaven is high above the
earth, so great is his mercy. Where's the end of it? Toward
them that fear him. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he
remembereth that we are dust. That's what brought mercy to
sinners. The pity of the Father on His
children. Look with me at Mark chapter
1. Mark chapter 1 verse 40. And there came a leper to him,
beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto
him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved
with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him, and saith
unto him, I will be thou clean. That's what brought mercy to
sinners. The compassion of the shepherd
on his sheep. The pity of the father on his
children. The compassion of the shepherd
on his sheep. And turn with me to Romans 8. Romans 8, 14 says, for as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For
you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but
you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry,
Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so
be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. And down in verse 26, it says,
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, For we know
not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. That's what brings
mercy to sinners. The leading, the calling, the
comforting, the interceding of the Holy Spirit on behalf of
all of God's loved ones. In the fact that Christ died
for the ungodly, in that fact, We see what the love of mercy
truly is. Mercy, the ungodly, we see what
it truly is. Go back to 1 Timothy 1. Paul said in verse 2, grace,
mercy, and peace. Peace, true peace. True peace. That's what we see
in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. True peace. Because He suffered the agony,
He suffered the torture, He suffered the violence. Because He did
that, we can rest in peace. This is what we want. Peace. That's what we want. Peace. We want peace. Sin brought absolute
violence. That's what it brought, absolute
violence. It brought war, it brought fighting,
it brought gnashing. Before sin entered the world,
think about the fact that God created all of these animals,
Adam, Eve, all of those animals came to Adam and he named them.
and they all lived together in perfect peace. They were in absolute,
total peace. But the moment sin entered the
world, it brought a food chain. There was no food chain before
sin. But the Lord gave us a sign of
the peace that he would restore when he called two of every kind
of animal into the ark with Noah. All of those animals were inside
that ark. The entire time that they were
inside that ark, as long as they were in the ark, there was perfect
peace. Perfect peace. Nothing died. Perfect peace. That ark is Christ. The prince of peace. Absolute peace. I love how it
says in Isaiah 65, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
and I believe they will. The lion shall eat straw like
the bullock. and dust shall be the serpent's
meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. That represents the
eternal peace that Christ made for his people by the sacrifice
of himself. Absolute peace, total peace. Peace with God, peace with each
other, peace with everything. That's glorious, isn't it? Peace
with everything. God demanded peace, and He got
it by the sacrifice of Himself. Look how it's worded. I'm done. Look how it's worded in Isaiah
11. Go with me over there. Isaiah 11, verse 6, it says,
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the
sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned
child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt
nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Oh,
what he did to make peace. Verse 10 says, and in that day,
there shall be a root of Jesse. That's Christ. which shall stand
for a sign of the people. To it shall the Gentiles seek,
and His rest shall be glorious." It's gonna be so glorious. In
the death of our Lord and Savior, we see the eternal state of absolute
peace and rest that we're going to enjoy forever with Him. One more time, our text says
back in 1 Timothy 1, verse 1, 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 and Jesus Christ our Lord. Now with this bread and with
this wine, let's remember our God and Savior. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, which is our hope for his grace, his mercy, and his
peace that he brought to us by sacrificing himself for our sins. All right, Brother Jared, you
come up and read scripture for us.