1 Timothy chapter 1. Let me get over there. Let's ask the Lord to bless His
Word as we get started. Our Father, thank You for this
hour, this opportunity to be able to gather together as Thy
family and be taught by our Father. And our Father, thank you. Thank
you for all the blessings you've given us down through this life,
especially the spiritual blessings that you've given to us in Christ,
even before the world was. We pray this morning that you
would enable us to worship you in spirit and truth. Lord, open
our understanding to the Scriptures. Be our teacher this morning.
Let Thy presence be known here this morning. Enable me to rightly
divide the word of truth, to communicate the gospel to Your
sheep. Our Father, we pray for Thy children
that are sick, the trials they are going through, not just here,
but throughout this world. You know every one of them. And
we pray for them, pray you'd bless, pray you'd comfort. In
Christ Jesus' name we pray, and amen. I titled this lesson, and we'll
start in verse 12, a debtor to the grace of God. Is that not what we are? Are
we not debtors to God's grace? Paul said over in Romans, we
are not debtors to the flesh to live. I don't owe this flesh
anything. It has caused me nothing but
trouble, and it causes me nothing but trouble day by day. But we
are debtors to the grace of God to live, to live to His grace,
To be thankful unto Him for saving our souls. You know all men and
women are not saved. There are some who will perish.
But if God's given you faith and me faith, we'll not perish. That's an astounding thought. We have eternal life. And that's
by the grace of God, isn't it? That's by His grace. Now Paul
says in verse 12, and Paul never got over God saving him. If you
can get over that, you never were saved. Paul never got over
God saving him. And he says, And I thank Christ
Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, strengthened me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry. Paul was
always giving thanks. to the Lord for saving his soul. As I said, he never got over
it. He never got over it. And we thank our Lord also for
saving our souls. We thank Him for everything.
For everything. Everything that we are, we are
by the grace of God. What we are, we are by God's
grace. Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God. I am a believer.
I love Christ. and that's by His grace. Everything we have is by His
grace. He's so graciously taken care
of us. Listen to Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3-6, and you are very
familiar with these verses. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Our election is of
grace, now listen, according as He hath chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children. Our adoption as God's children
is all of grace. It's all of grace. According
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein he hath made us accepted." Not just acceptable,
but accepted. We are accepted, received in
Jesus Christ. Accepted in the Beloved. Listen
to 1 Corinthians 1.30.31, But of him are you in Christ Jesus.
That's how you end up in Christ. That's how you are joined to
Him. God puts you in Him. God the Father put you in His
Son. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. God has given us everything we
need to stand in His presence, and He's given it to us in His
Son Jesus Christ. that according as it is written,
he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord." Now notice something
else here. Paul said, "...and I thank Christ
Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into ministry." God did not choose Paul and put him
into ministry because he foresaw that Paul would be faithful. That's not why he did that. What
our Lord saw was that by His grace, Paul would be faithful.
Grace makes us faithful. Grace enables us to continue.
Grace makes good stewards out of us, stewards of the grace
of God. Grace does that. And Paul said,
he put me in the ministry. I didn't take this office upon
myself. It's a calling. It's a calling. You know, most people have, and
I had before this, I had a machine shop and, you know, I've worked
as a machinist. That was my vocation. That's what I, my career, you
might say, but this is my calling. God's called me unto the ministry. God put me into the ministry. This is how ministers receive
their calling in their ministry, is God put them in it. Now Paul
rehearses here in verse 13, his past. And he does this, now listen,
Paul does this with real gratitude and thankfulness. He's reminding
Timothy what the Lord has saved him from, and he's so grateful
for it. There are some people who talk about their past as
there are some great sinners with a gleam in their eye. But
there are some who do talk about it with humility, that the Lord
actually brought them out of such a wretched life. There's
a real difference in the way you talk about it. And Paul says
here in verse 13, Who was before? A blasphemer. And a persecutor,
he persecuted the church. He made havoc of it. He cast
men and women into prison. He consented to their death,
like he did Stephen's. He held the coat of those who
were stoning Stephen, and he consented to the death of Stephen. He never forgot that. He never
forgot that. And he knew if God left him alone,
that he would have perished under the wrath of God. But he said,
this is what I was before. I was a blasphemer, a persecutor,
injurious. I injured people. I injured people. I injured God's people on purpose. He got real pleasure out of that. But he says, I obtained mercy
because I did it ignorantly and unbelief. This phrase here in
verse 13 describes the apostle's state before God saved him. He was a poor, blind, ignorant
bigot. That was Paul. That's what Paul
was. He was unbelieving and he was
hard. Hard man. Religion without Christ
will make you hard. There is nothing that I know
of that will make a person hard is religion without Christ. You'll
look down on them. It's like those Pharisees. They
took that woman, called her an adultery, and they brought her
up and tossed her down at his feet and said, now what? Now
what have you got to say? The law says stone her. Now what
do you say? They wanted to see a stony. You know, you take back
when they used to hang people, people got dressed up like in
their suit and tie to go watch a hanging. Isn't that sad? You see people that are to be
executed nowadays, people will be outside, you know, holding
signs up, kill him and kill him. He deserves to be killed, but
I don't take no pleasure in it. I don't, I don't take a pleasure
in anybody being put to death. That could be me. That could
be me. Rejoice not, the scripture says,
when your enemy falls, because that could be you. It could be
me. And Paul was a hard, hard man. He was hard. But you know what? He was an object of God's mercy.
He was an object of God's mercy. And God saved him. God saved
him and turned him around and made an apostle out of him, an
apostle to us Gentiles. And notice something here. Paul
says, because I did it ignorantly and unbelief. Paul is not using
his ignorance as an excuse for sin. You know, the law doesn't
excuse you for your ignorance, does it? I got a ticket here a few years
ago. I was going to Paul, Mayhans,
I was going there to preach, and I got a $150 ticket because
he said I was going 50, I think it was, through a 40-mile an
hour speed zone, and I was doing 50. And I said, sir, I didn't
see that. I didn't see that sign. Too bad. Too bad. You're just $150 short.
The law doesn't excuse ignorance, and the apostle Paul here is
not excusing his sin because of some things he was ignorant
of. He's saying, I was ignorant. Now you know what he's saying
he's ignorant of? And that's a tough word, isn't it? Let somebody
call you ignorant. There's probably no more offensive
word than someone to call you ignorant. It'll make you mad
real quick. It'll offend you real quick.
But Paul was ignorant, listen, of the grace of God. He was ignorant
of grace. As far as he was concerned, those
who were saved were saved by keeping the law. He was ignorant
of the extent of God's love, for God so loved the world. the
Gentiles as well as Jews. He was ignorant of that man Jesus
Christ when he first heard of Him, and I'm sure Paul saw Him.
He was ignorant of Him being God incarnate. Paul was truly
ignorant of the way God saves sinners. He honestly believed
that salvation was through the keeping of the law, and he was
ignorant of grace, of God's love. He was ignorant of God's character.
He was ignorant of the true righteous character of God. Because if
he weren't, he'd know that he couldn't keep the law. He'd know
that he could not come up with a righteousness that God would
accept. He would have known that. But
he was ignorant of it. He said, I was just plum ignorant.
And yet God had mercy on me. I was a candidate for mercy.
I was a candidate for mercy because I was ignorant. I was too, one
day. I was ignorant of my need of
Christ. I was ignorant of who God is. I was ignorant. And that doesn't offend me. It's
sad. But I tell you what, you can
say you were ignorant. I would say, you're right. You're right,
I was. I'm not now. I'm not now, but
I was. In verse 14, "...and the grace
of our Lord was exceeding abundant." He's just saying, His grace to
me was overflowing. It's like standing... Have you
ever been to Niagara Falls? I've been to Niagara Falls, and
I stood there that fall, And there's a, man, it is powerful. You're talking about, you can
feel the roar of it in you. You can feel just, Paul was saying
that the grace of God was always exceeding abundant to me. It
was like standing under Niagara Falls. I know he didn't know
Niagara Falls, but you know what I mean. It's like standing under
that fall. It was just down on me. That's God's grace to me and
you. It's exceeding abundant. You
can't measure the grace of God. It's unmeasurable. God's grace, He said, flowed
out to me abundantly, beyond measure, like in Romans 5.20. Moreover, the law entered. that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, it was abounding. Grace did much more abound. Grace
overabounded. Grace overflowed my sins. My sin, I don't have any sin
that was too great for God's grace to overcome. Where sin abounded in my heart,
in my life, God's grace is much more overbound in my heart and
in my life. When the grace of God is experienced,
here's the evidence of it, listen, and the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
When the grace of God is experienced, it is evidenced by faith and
love. That's the evidence of it, faith
and love. You love Christ, Do you love
the Lord? Do you love him? Many people
will say, I believe the gospel. I believe what this book says.
A man said that to me once. I believe every word in this
book. Yet he never claimed to be saved. I mean, he never, but
he told me that when I believe every word of it. Historically,
you probably do. But let me ask you this. Do you love the author of this
book? Do you genuinely love the author of this book more than
anything else in anyone else? That's the difference. That's
the difference. And this, he says in verse 15,
and this is a faithful saying, and it's worthy of all acceptation,
all acceptance by all people, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I'm chief." It's a true saying,
it's an honest, true, faithful saying, never to be doubted,
never to be doubted, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of
glory, the God of heaven and earth, the God of creation, came
into this world to save sinners. Not good people. Sinners. Sinners. Christ came to save
sinners. He's the only Savior there is.
He's the only one who can save sinners. He's the only one who
will. He's the only one who will. And
this gospel that is a faithful saying is faithful to God's law,
is faithful to God's justice, is faithful to the promises of
God, is faithful to the character of God. This gospel that Paul
is talking about. And it's worthy of all acceptance
by all persons. It's worthy of all acceptance
because it's the Word of God. It's the gospel of God. This
is not of men. This is the gospel of God. And
it's true. And it's the only gospel that
glorifies God. There is no other gospel that
glorifies God. Any other gospel will glorify
man. Paul said they'll come preaching another gospel. Who gets the
glory at the end of the message? You or Christ. And here's the faithful saying,
that Jesus Christ came into the world, the Son of God, who is
God manifested in the flesh, He came into the world, He came
into this world and He came to save sinners, He came on a mission.
He did not, Jesus Christ did not, He absolutely did not come
into this world and make salvation a possibility. He came into this
world to make it an absolute. He came to save sinners. Nowhere will you read in the
Word of God where He came to make salvation a possibility
or an offer. He came to save. And He is going to save sinners.
He is going to save sinners. And He says, "...of whom I am
chief, I am the worst of sinners." And He meant it too. He meant
it. How be it? For this cause, for this reason,
I obtained mercy, that in me, the chief of sinners, the worst
of sinners, Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering."
In other words, the Lord was longsuffering with me. Look what
I did to His church. Look how I treated His children. I consented to their death. I
put them in prison. I broke up homes. I took men
and women, put them in prison. I busted up homes. Children became
orphans because of me. And he's saying, but the Lord
was longsuffering to me. He was longsuffering as a pattern
to those who are just like me may have hope. Paul said, I'm the worst of sinners. You said, so am I. Well, Paul
says, well, I'm a pattern. I'm living proof that Jesus Christ
will save the worst of sinners. I'm living proof of it. And He's
given other sinners like him, like me and you, hope. Hope. You know, we all have our separate
lives we've lived, have lived, and we've done things in our
lives we're not gonna tell nobody about, unless you're so, well,
unless you're not gonna tell nobody about it. God knows about
it, Christ knows about it, and he's put it away. And no matter
what you have done, what a sinner has done, there's mercy with
the Lord, and there's cleansing in the blood. He can put all
my sins away. And Paul said, if He can put
mine away, He can put yours away. He can put yours away. And what
He's doing here, He's just giving hope to sinners like me and you.
If He has saved the worst of sinners, He's not going to have
any trouble with the rest of us, is He? I don't think so. And then after saying this, He
just burst into a doxology. Now unto the king. eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and
ever. Amen. The apostle breaks out
into this doxology of praise to the sovereign mercy of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he praises Him as the King,
as the King of creation, King of providence, and the King of
grace. And the throne of this King is
forever and ever. He'll never be dethroned. Jesus
Christ will never be dethroned. Everybody on this earth who has
ever lived on it, living on it, and ever will live on it, will
one day stand before that King. And every knee's gonna bow to
that King, and every tongue's gonna confess to that King. They're
gonna confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
He's gonna confess, everybody, every human being will confess
that. And he calls him here immortal because he's a living God. He's
a living God in human flesh, that's who he is. That's why
he could not fail. God can't fail. If anybody perishes
for whom he died, he failed, right? You know that's right.
God can't fail. If He sets out to do something,
He's going to do it. And then it says here, He's invisible,
because that is His divine nature. You know, God is Spirit. You
can't see God. But when God came in the flesh,
we could see Him. We could look at the Lord Jesus
Christ and He said, He that has seen Me has seen the Father.
Now we can see Him in Christ. He's the visible representation
of the invisible, is who he is. And this charge, verse 18, this
charge, I commit to thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecy
that went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good
warfare. Paul renews the charge here that
he gave to Timothy in the beginning there, I think in verse three.
This charge was to teach no other doctrine, to teach those others
to teach no other doctrine, and to preach the gospel himself
and no other doctrine. And Paul renews the charge here. He gets back to what he originally
wrote to him about. And he tells him to be a good
soldier of Jesus Christ. I wonder, Every time, of course
I'm here, we live in Fort Bragg, military base here. Everywhere
I go, when I go to buy something, they say, are you military? One
of these days I'm gonna say yes. I'm in the Lord's military. I'm
the Lord's soldier, does that count? They asked me one time, they
said, have you been in the military? I said, no, but I've been married
40 some years. I said, does that count? There's your one, Vicky. No, it didn't count. I didn't
get a discount. That's what Paul was telling
Timothy. He said, you're into warfare, now be a good soldier.
Be a good soldier. You know, this war that we are
in is with Satan. Satan's a very real person. He's
a very real person. We're in war with evil men. and false teachers. He said,
it's a warfare. Listen, this warfare will not
end until we die. And it's a warfare within, that
old nature we have. And then he says in verse 19,
holding faith, it's like, hold the line. Holding faith in a
good conscience. You know, I can say this. Now,
I don't, I have a good conscience. I have a good conscience that
when I preach, when I stand here, that I'm telling you the truth.
When I leave this pulpit, I have a good conscience that I have
preached the truth. I don't always feel like, most
time I don't feel like that I've scratched the surface or that
I, sometimes I feel like I'm pulling a wagon with square wheels.
that I didn't get along like I felt like I ought to get along. But what I have said to you is
the truth, no matter how I feel about how I did it, whether I
had liberty or not. But I've told you the truth.
I do know that. I have a good conscience about
that. And that's why he's talking about Timothy. You have a good
conscience that when you preach, you have preached the truth.
You've preached Christ, which some having put away They put
away the faith and they put away a good conscience. They've put
away concerning faith and they've made shipwreck. You know, here
Paul, when he says here the faith, he's talking in a general term
about sound doctrine, the doctrine of the gospel. And there are
two musts here for a preacher. or someone's going to teach,
if he's going to teach a class. They must hold to the pure truth
of the gospel, and that person must administer the gospel with
sincerity. Sincerity. I'm seriously preaching
to you this morning. This is serious business with
me this morning. I'm not just doing this because
it's what I'm supposed to do. I'm doing it out of sincerity. I want you to hear the gospel.
I want to rightly divide the word of truth. I want to do that. And he says here, some may shipwreck,
which that's a good way to put it, isn't it? That's a good way
to put it. If we want to arrive safely in
glory, we stay on the ship. I think the best way to say this
is over in Colossians chapter 1. Look over in Colossians, get
to the book of Colossians, and then I'll figure out where it's
at from there. In Colossians chapter 1, okay. Chapter 1, verse 23. Now you need to read the verses
before this to really get a hold of what he's saying, but he says
here, "...if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you
have heard, which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven, whereof I, Paul, have made a minister." If you continue
in the faith. In other words, quitters don't
make it. You know why? Because they never
had it. They were never on the ship.
They were never on the ship. They were never on the voyage.
That's why they quit. Paul said, if they had been of
us, they no doubt would have continued with us. And Paul is saying here that
some have made shipwreck, and he mentions two of them, of whom
is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I've delivered to Satan. He had
the apostolic power to deliver them to Satan. that they may
learn not to blaspheme. But Hymenaeus, I believe over
in 2 Timothy, Paul speaks of him saying that the resurrection
has passed, overthrowing the faith of some. He is saying the
resurrection is over with, it passed. And then Alexander, the
coppersmith, Paul said in one place, he had done me much evil.
And these two have made shipwreck. They have made shipwreck of the
faith. I pray God that He will enable
us to continue to the end. I pray God, and I've prayed this
for myself, and I've prayed it for others, that my faith, the
faith I have in Christ, is genuine. Lord, give me genuine faith. I want genuine faith. I don't
want to be duped. The heart is deceitful above
all things, desperately wicked. Who could know it? I don't want
to be deceived. I want to believe. I want to die in the faith of
God's elect. I want to die in it. So the title of this message,
Debtors to the Grace of God. That's what we are, isn't it?
We are debtors to God's grace. He has saved us by the Lord Jesus
Christ through grace. All right.