Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program. I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
1 Timothy, Paul's first epistle to this young man named Timothy,
chapter one. And I'm going to begin in verse
12 of this chapter. The title of the message is A
Great and Faithful Saying. And I took the title here from
verse 15. of 1 Timothy 1. Let's just read that and then
we'll go back. It says, this is a faithful saying. This is
truth. That's what that means. And worthy
of all acceptation. It's worthy to be believed by
everybody. There's no debate here. That's
what he's saying. There's no opinions. There's no fluctuation. This is a faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation. And here's what he says. And
this ought to be salvation to our ears. that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners. And Paul says, of whom I am chief.
Paul says, of whom I am chief. Well, that's a beautiful saying.
That's a great and faithful saying. It's a gospel saying. It's a
word of salvation. What kind of people did Jesus
Christ come into the world to save? Well, he came to save helpless,
wicked, totally depraved, spiritually dead sinners who fall short of
the glory of God, under the law, they are condemned by their works. But He came to save a people
before the foundation of the world. The Lord God of creation,
before creation, He chose a people to save. That's what the Bible
teaches. They're called the elect of God.
They're called the church. They're called sheep of Christ. They're called His brethren.
They're called His church. Other names for them. His bride,
His wife, His friend. They're called His friend. But
God chose them in and by the glorious person and finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was set forth from the beginning
in what is called the everlasting covenant, the covenant of grace,
that Christ would be the surety of these people. Their sins were
charged to his account. And he willingly took those sins
upon himself. He wasn't forced. In the covenant
of grace, it's represented that the Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity, willingly took on this task for the people whom
God had given him, the elect, the sheep. And that's why he
says, all whom the father giveth me shall come to me. And those
who come to me, I will in no wise cast out. And in that covenant
of grace, Christ agreed because of his love for the father and
his love for the people whom the father gave to him to come
in time and take their place under the law. We talked about
this last week, using the law lawfully to show us our sin and
drive us to Christ, who under the law as our substitute, kept
that law perfectly and died on the cross of Calvary to satisfy
God's justice and pay for our sins, the sins of His people. Not everybody without exception. I know the Bible says that taketh
away the sins of the whole world. That's not talking about every
individual without exception. That's talking about God's sheep,
God's elect, out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation all
over this world. Jew and Gentile. That's why Paul
said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And how do we
believe? Not by our own wills, our own
works, our own power, our own goodness. We believe because
it's God-given faith. To all who believe, the Jew first,
the Greek also, the Gentile, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. From faith to faith, that is
from knowledge revealed to knowledge received in the power of God,
as it is written, the just, the justified shall live by faith. And so Christ came to save sinners
and He saved them. He redeemed them by His blood. He was buried. He arose again
the third day because He justified. He brought in righteousness by
which God has justified all of His people over all time. And He ascended unto the Father
where He is now seated in glory at the right hand of the Father
ever living to make intercession for His people. And He's coming
again to take them unto Himself where they'll live forever in
the new heavens and the new earth. And so that's this whole plan
of salvation of which Christ Jesus is the foundation, the
heart, the head, the central issue, His glorious person and
His finished work. Well, Paul recognized this. And
in verse 12, he makes this statement. He says, I thank Christ Jesus,
our Lord, who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry, into the service. Paul saw it
as such a privilege to serve Christ in the ministry of the
gospel. He knew that this was a, that
salvation itself is an awesome gift. blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's a marvelous
thing. That's an astounding thing. That's
amazing grace, as the song says. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. I was blind, but now I see. But he says, I thank Christ the
Lord who has enabled me. God's enabling His ministers,
it's not because of their natural abilities. Because listen, any
natural ability that a true minister of Christ has, whether it's in
thinking, in his intelligence, or in his ability to deliver
the message, those are gifts from God. Not everybody has the
same gifts. And how does God dispense those
gifts to his people in the church? Sovereignly. And there's not
one gift that any person has been given that he can take credit
for. It's all of God. God made us
what we are. And he put Paul in the ministry.
And then verse 13, he says, now here's the astounding thing about
it. What qualified Paul to be a minister
of God's grace? Nothing. Nothing in himself. He says he counted me faithful,
but that faith is the gift of God. But look at verse 13. He
put me into the ministry who was before a blasphemer and a
persecutor and injurious, mean, and wanted to hurt the people
of God. Now listen to what he says. But
I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelieving.
Now, Paul is not saying in that verse that ignorance of the truth
automatically brings mercy. The because here, and you know,
when you get into translations of the Bible, sometimes it's
so difficult. But you have to look at every
blessing of salvation through the eyes of grace that reigns
in righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
If ignorance was an automatic obtaining of mercy, then everybody
would obtain this mercy. Because by nature, we're all
ignorant of God. We don't know God by nature.
We have ideas and thoughts, but they're wrong ideas and thoughts.
In order for us to know God, God has to reveal Himself to
us in His Word through the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see in Christ,
He's a God of all grace. He came into the world to save
sinners, not people who deserve or earn mercy. Listen, mercy
cannot be earned. Mercy cannot be deserved. If
the blessing that you're talking about is earned or deserved,
it's not mercy, it's debt. The Apostle Paul made that clear
in Romans chapter four concerning Abraham. If it's of works, it's
of debt, not of grace. So when Paul says I obtained
mercy, he's saying here that mercy was sovereignly given to
him, granted unto him by God Almighty according to the election
of grace. Romans 9 says that where God
said I will have mercy on whom I will, I'll be gracious to whom
I will. But Paul added that because I
did it ignorantly in unbelief, he wanted people to know that
what he was doing in his former religion, even as a blasphemer,
a persecutor, and an injurious person, he did it ignorantly. And that's the case of unregenerate
people, not born again, not brought to faith in Christ. If you're
going to a church, I'll put it to you this way, and I don't
want to offend you for the world, but I know the truth sometimes
is offensive, but if you're going to a religious organization where
the gospel is not preached, you're doing it ignorantly. You don't
know any better. You're doing what you think is
right. But that's what Paul was doing when he was a blasphemer,
when he was a persecutor, when he was injurious, when he was
persecuting Christians, when he held the coats of those who
stoned Stephen, and when he was persecuting Christians, going
his way, trying to wipe the name of Jesus of Nazareth off the
face of the earth, he thought based upon the knowledge he had,
which was false knowledge, he thought that he was doing the
work of God. In fact, he even says that in
Philippians chapter three. He said, when it comes to zeal,
he persecuted the church, the true church. And that zeal was
zeal born out of ignorance. So understand that. That's why
salvation is of the Lord and it comes by revelation. It's
not our natural way of thinking. Salvation by grace is not our
natural way of thinking. And you can see that in all kinds
of people who claim to believe grace, when their grace, their
idea of grace is really a cleverly disguised system of works. For
example, you'll hear things like people say, well, God helps those
who help themselves. Now, my friend, I don't know
what realm you're talking about when you say that, but in salvation,
that is a lie. A lot of people think grace is
God making salvation available to anybody who wants it. That's
a lie too. Why is that a lie? Because nobody
by nature wants it. That's right. Paul didn't want salvation. When
he was on the road to Damascus, he wasn't going to a prayer meeting.
He wasn't looking for Jesus. He wasn't walking an aisle and
giving his heart to Jesus. He was going to arrest Christians
and bring them back to Rome and try them and put them to death.
Bring him back to Jerusalem rather and try him and put him to death
and God stopped him Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus and
revealed himself to Paul And that's what happens when God
reveals himself to any of his people under the preaching of
the gospel Paul said in Philippians chapter three, when I saw the
glory of God in Christ, the righteousness that Christ established, which
I didn't have, he said, I counted all but loss, and counted dumb
that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law. That's when he found
out that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Verse 14, he says, and the grace
of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is
in Christ Jesus. The abundance of grace, we read
that last week in Romans 5 20, where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. The idea there, it's kind of
a mental picture in that Romans 520, is like drowning in a sea
of sin, and we cannot keep our heads above water, where sin
abounded, where sin overtook me, even at my best. And that's what people need to
understand in the Bible. There's none righteous, no, not
one. That doesn't say there's none religious. It doesn't even
say there's none moral as men measure morality. There's none
righteous. There's none who have attained
the perfection of righteousness that the law requires that can
only be found in Christ. And that's so. It even goes on
to say there's none that seek after God. Now it doesn't say,
that's Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12. There's none that seeketh
after God. It doesn't say there's none that
seeketh after a God. Men and women by nature are religious. They seek religion, they seek
a God, but it's a God of their imaginations, not the God of
this book. If you deny the attributes of
the God of this book, you're not worshiping the true and living
God. You're coming to a false God. And most men and women,
when they seek a God, they reason from the ground up. They make
God likened to themselves. And in essence, they end up worshiping
themselves. So there's none that seeketh
after a God, or after God, the true God, but they seek a God.
And he says, there's none that doeth good, no not one. Now that's
good, not as man measures goodness, but that's good as God measures
goodness. And how does God measure goodness?
The perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ.
And that's why this faithful, this great and faithful saying
is so glorious. He says, this is a faithful saying,
verse 15. worthy of all acceptation, no
exception. You ought to believe this. By
nature, you won't believe it. By nature, I wouldn't believe
it. But as I see it and I look at it, I've got to ask myself
this question, has God given me a heart for this? That I really
believe what he says here, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief, Paul says? How could Paul
say to himself that he's the chief of sinners? Well, if we
know the reality of our sinfulness, can't we all say that? We might
look at other people and say, oh, there's a great sinner. But,
oh, that person over there is not as much of a sinner. Well,
my friend, if you ever see the truth of what you, by nature,
by works, or by will, deserve and have earned, and I'm including
myself there, we'd see that all we deserve and all that we've
earned is eternal damnation and death. You might look at the
thief on the cross and you might say, well, now that thief, he's
really a bad sinner and he deserves what he's getting. You know,
if you said that you're right, Even the thief on the right hand
said that. He said, he told the thief on the left who was blaspheming,
and of course the thief on the right started out blaspheming
him, Christ, the man on the middle cross. But God changed him right
there on the cross. That's a marvelous, miraculous
work of grace and mercy. And when he changed, and I believe
it was by the preaching of the gospel that he'd heard beforehand,
God applied it to his heart because of what he said about Christ.
But when he changed, he looked at the thief on the left and
he said, why are you blaspheming? He said, this man talking about
Christ, he doesn't deserve what he's getting. And he didn't by
his own reckoning. In other words, Christ, he knew
no sin. He did no sin. Now he was there
lawfully and legally and justly based on our sins imputed to
him. But in himself, he did nothing but good. And that thief said
so. He didn't deserve what he's getting.
He said, but we do. The thief said, we deserve what
we're getting. So you might look at that thief
and you might say, well, he deserves what he got. Well, here's what
I would say to you and to myself. If God were ever to give you
or me what we have deserved or earned, or even what we naturally
desire, what would it be? It would be eternal damnation
and death. Now you might say, well, preacher,
I don't desire eternal damnation and death. You do, but you're
ignorant of it. You don't know it because if
you're seeking salvation, in any way but that grace that reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,
that's exactly what you're seeking, eternal damnation. You're on
the road, the broad road that leads to destruction. And everybody
who's on that road is ignorant of it. And that's what Paul was
talking about when he said, I did it ignorantly and unbelief. Well,
Paul says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
of whom I am chief. Think about how the Apostle Paul
might think. Think about as he looked back
at his past and standing there, holding the coats of the men
and women who stoned that evangelist named Stephen. Think about how
that must have played on his mind. Oh, how regretful that
was. Think about how he arrested Christians
and put them in jail on his way on the road to Damascus. And
he truly saw himself as the chief of sinners. This is not just
poetic language. This is the expression of his
heart as inspired by the Holy Spirit. But let's read on. Now
in verse 16, Paul writes, how be it for this cause I obtained
mercy. That is for the cause of salvation
and the ministry of the word, that in me first, Jesus Christ
might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on him to life eternal. Think about how greatly
Paul was used in the New Testament, in the formation of the New Testament
church, in the preaching of the gospel. Paul was used probably
more than any other apostle. especially in the preaching to
the Gentiles. And he says here that the reason
that the Lord did this is for his glory and to show me as a
pattern. This is the way God saves sinners. Somebody said, well, if you'll
seek the Lord, he'll save you. Well, now that's true, but here's
the problem. You won't by nature and by practice
and of your own free will seek the Lord. You'll seek a Lord,
a God. Do you know what Christ does?
He seeks his sheep, he finds them and he brings them to seek
him. Those who truly seek the Lord. I can tell you this without
fail. Somebody said, well, you believe
election. You don't believe this, listen to me. All who truly seek
the Lord God of glory, according to His word, not according to
their thoughts, their ideas, their opinions, their discussions,
all who seek the Lord of glory, according to His word, shall
find Him, shall have salvation. God will never and has never
turned any sinner away who truly sought Him according to His Word,
and to seek Him according to His Word is to seek Him in Christ.
Now, you seek God under false gospels, in your own depraved
heart? No, seek Him according to His
Word. What does His Word say? Get to
the scriptures and what the scriptures say. And so Paul says, I'm a
pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. And you can read about that pattern
in several passages. I would direct you to Philippians
chapter three to show how the Lord brought Paul to a saving
knowledge of Christ. And how Paul said, the things
that I used to think recommended me unto God, now I count them
but loss. And I see in light of God's glory
and the righteousness of Christ, It's all of grace. And in verse
17 of 1 Timothy 1, he says, he gives a benediction. He says,
now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,
be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. All glory goes to
God. Now let me say something about
that. Many people, think that giving glory to God is just giving
him credit for something. But that's not necessarily the
case. Now I'm going to tell you something. God gets the credit
for my whole salvation. Not part of it. It's not that
God did his part and I did mine or God did his part and enabled
me to do mine. It's all of God. It's all of
grace, it's all through Christ, it's all of mercy based upon
His righteousness imputed to me, and even my new birth and
being brought to faith in Christ, that's the gift of God. For by
grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, for
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
not because of. but unto good works which God
hath before ordained that we should walk in them." But many
people give credit to God for things that God does not want
credit for. And I'll give you a prime example
that's in Luke 18. It's the Pharisee and the publican.
And the first three words, you remember the Pharisee who stood
outside the temple and prayed to God and talked about how he
was not like that publican, he was not such a bad sinner, he
gave tithes, more than tithes, all of that. He fast twice in
the week. The first three words that came
out of that Pharisee's mouth was this, I thank God. I thank God that I'm not like
other men. Have you ever made the statement,
but for the grace of God, there go I? I understand what you mean
by that. But that Pharisee gave credit
to God for all that he was claiming as his righteousness before God.
And what was that? The fact that he was not like
other men, the fact that he was not an adulterer, the fact that
he gave of his time. You see, that's not a sinner's
righteousness before God. The only righteousness we have
before God is Christ's righteousness. It's not my work, it's not my
preaching, it's not my do-gooding, it's not even my sincerity, it's
not even my faith in the act of believing, it's Christ. And
that's how we give glory to God. And if we give glory to God through
Christ, we don't fall short then. We're still sinners, but sinners
saved by grace. And Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-1. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.