I invite your attention to 1
Timothy chapter 1. My text will be found in verse
number 15. My message is titled, This Church
is for Sinners. I have not kept a complete record
of all the messages that I have preached over the last 50 years. But I am sure that this text,
1 Timothy 1.15, is probably the one text from which I have preached
most. Not always the same message,
not always the same points, not always the same outline. There
is so much in this text. It can be broken down in so many
different ways. There are so many truths to be
found in it that I have preached from it quite a few times. I
love this text. And today we're going to look
at the subject of this Church is for Sinners. First Timothy
chapter 1. Begin in verse 1. Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior, not his permission,
but by his commandment, and Lord Jesus Christ, which
is our hope, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace,
mercy, and peace from God the Father, unto Jesus Christ our
Lord. As I besought thee to abide still
at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some
that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and
endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying
which is in faith, so do. The end of the commandment is
charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and
of faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned
aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law." Listen,
folks, beware of that sort. I believe a good number of you
in your past know of what I speak." People wanting to put you under
the law and tell you, you know, the law says this, the law of
Moses, and teachers of the law. Now notice, I want you to listen
very carefully to what Paul says. Desiring to be teachers of the
law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good
if A man use it lawfully, and I'll give you two ways to use
it lawfully. First, the law shows you what
a sinner you are, and you're in need of a Savior. And second,
the law shows you what a sufficient Savior Jesus Christ is, and He
filled it. Like a man told me one time, the gospel sends us to Christ
for salvation and Christ sends us to the law for sanctification. That is one of the dumbest statements
I ever heard. as though Christ is not sanctification
enough. He is our sanctification. He
sends us back to the law. The law sends us to Christ, a
schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ, and then he sends us
back to it. No, he does not. He does not.
He does not. Verse 9, knowing this, that the
law is not made for a righteous man. So if you're a believer
in Jesus Christ, The law is not for you. Who's it made for? for the lawless and disobedient,
for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers,
for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine, the law is for you. It's kind
of bad. He's blunt, folks. He's very
blunt. According to the gracious gospel
of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. That's
how I know that, Paul was saying. And I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who hath enabled me. Not that I enabled myself. He enabled me for that he counted
me or made me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was
before a blasphemer. and a persecutor, and injurious
or insolent, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in
unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I I am chief. Paul does not say, I was chief. He says, I am chief. That's the way God's people look
at themselves. Folks, saved by the grace of God and I believe
we sing a hymn about it. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. A sinner saved by grace. But
verse 15 is my text. 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. Redeemer Baptist Church in Louisville,
Kentucky was first gathered in the 1950s under the ministry of N. Burnett
Magruder. In Louisville also at that time
was another faithful gospel preacher, A.D. Mews. These two men pastored
churches, two different churches in Louisville, Kentucky. And
both men were preachers. in the early Sovereign Grace
Conferences in the 1950s conducted by 13th Street Baptist Church
in Ashland, Kentucky, pastored by the young man Henry Mahan. Iain Burnett Magruder was at
Redeemer Baptist Church, gathered under his ministry in the 1950s,
and in the early 1990s, he is now an aged man,
and he's leading the church in seeking a pastor to succeed him. My dear friend Todd Norbert,
pastor in Lexington, Kentucky, recommended me to the church,
and so I received an invitation to come to preach for them in
Louisville, Kentucky. I arrived there on a spring morning,
1993, after having just concluded a ministry of about 15 years
in the West Indies. Walked into the church building,
I was one of the first people in the church building, and I
immediately looked for the tractor rack. Because I have observed,
and you will too, that if you want to find out a whole lot
about a church, look at the literature they distribute. You'll learn
a lot about a church by the literature they distribute. So I looked
at the tract rack by the door of the church building and the
first item to hit my eye was a tract titled, This Church is
for Sinners. Okay, I've got to read that one. This Church is for Sinners. I
liked it. I had somewhat the same reaction that Mitch had
this morning when he picked up the tract, you know, This Church
is for Sinners, and I could see, yeah, he was quite favorably
impressed. This Church is for Sinners. And
I read the tract and come to realize they meant it. They meant
it. This church is for sinners. They're
speaking of themselves. And that church, full of sinners,
called this chief of sinners to be their pastor. And this
sinner and those sinners, for the next 15 years, fellowshiped
in the gospel of God's grace for sinners. rejoiced in Christ,
the friend of sinners, and continued handing out a tract to people
in the community, this church is for sinners. We let them know
it. This church is for sinners. Now
churches of Christ must not be like the scribes and Pharisees
in Jesus' day. you'll find scribes and Pharisees
usually linked together. Scribes, and the word comes from
writing, scribes made copies of the Law of Moses on the day
before there were printing presses. If you want a copy of the Scriptures,
you had to go to a scribe and he would painfully and with much
time and labor make a copy Each copy of the Scriptures, whatever
you wanted, had to be perfect. They would count every character
because they had to be diligent to add nothing to or take anything
from God's Word. Since they wrote the Scriptures
and studied the Scriptures, they became experts on the Law. And so that's what the scribes
were. They were experts on the Law of Moses. Pharisees, many
of them were scribes, but they were the strictest and most rigid
sect in their day in Judaism. They lived by the letter of the
law, or said they did, very diligently. They would even tithe. the leaves they grew on their
herb bushes in their gardens. They were very diligent. They
were law keepers above all others and very rigid and strict in
enforcing the law of Moses. And the scribes and Pharisees
in Jesus' day were very legalistic. They trusted in themselves that
they were righteous and despised others, Luke 18, 9. They would
say to sinners, keep to yourself, do not come near me for I am
holier than thou. They castigated Jesus because
he was a friend of sinners and ministered to Jesus. Scribes
and Pharisees might have a tract on their tract table that would
read, our church is not for sinners. It's for people like us who are
not sinners. We must never be of that sort. We imitate Jesus Christ. We treat sinners the same way
He did. This church is for sinners. We
seek the salvation of sinners and not their condemnation lest
we condemn ourselves as well. We desire the salvation of sinners. We want sinners to know that
this church is for sinners. And if you're a sinner, we've
got a pew for you and a place to sit and a welcome awaits you. This church is for sinners. A sinner just may be about the
rarest breed of person there is. It's hard to find a sinner. Well, you'll find them In this
room, I think you'll agree with me that everybody here is going
to admit we're just a bunch of sinners. We're a rare breed,
but oh, if we could find another sinner outside these walls, we'd
let them know this church is for sinners. Come and see. Here are some reasons why this
church is for sinners. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Second, Jesus Christ calls to
salvation none but sinners. Third, Jesus Christ receives
sinners and eats with them. Fourth, Jesus Christ is a friend
of sinners. Fifth, God justifies all mercy-seeking
sinners and none but they. None but they. First point. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. 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. Now, what is a sinner? A sinner is anyone that has violated
God's law. The law of Moses probably had
600 and some commandments and the scribes could tell you how
many were positive and how many were negative. They had already
broken it down. Jesus summed the entire law of
God under two commandments, which he called the first great commandment
and the second great commandment. The first great commandment is
this, you shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart
and soul and mind and strength, which means with every fiber
of your being, you must love Him. Second great commandment
is, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, this means
that if you have ever failed to love Jehovah, with every fiber
of your being, even for a second. You're a sinner. You're a sinner. And you know how much you love
yourself. If you have ever failed to love another like you love
yourself, you have sinned. I mean, if it was just even for
a second, you have sinned. I think you will agree that sinners
include me, And you and everyone else, these are sinners. However, not everyone agrees
that they are sinners. But we are. For there is not
a just man on earth who does good and does not sin, Ecclesiastes
7.20. For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, Romans 3.23. And Jesus Christ came into
the world to save sinners, not to harm them. I'll give you two
proofs. One is from God the Father. For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved. And Jesus said
that the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to
save them. So I'm going to say to you that
there is no sinner anywhere beyond the saving grace and the saving
power of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I know that
because Paul says he has already saved the chief of sinners. Well,
if Jesus Christ has already saved the chief of sinners, then he
can save me, and he can save you. If he's already saved the
chief of sinners, he can save any lesser sinner. And if there's
anyone who thinks that he's the chief of sinners, and I'm inclined
to believe that I am, but if anyone believes that he's the
chief of sinners, Jesus Christ saves that sort also. In fact,
the more a sinner you see yourself to be, the closer you are to realizing
the sort of people Jesus Christ came to save. Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners. This church is comprised of people,
sinners, who have been saved by Jesus. And this church is
for sinners. We are for those who need a Savior. We're letting you know this church
is for sinners. Second, Jesus Christ calls to
salvation none but sinners. Three of the synoptic Gospels
declare this fact. Now what happened is Jesus sat
at the table in Levi's house, later known as Matthew, that,
behold, many tax collectors, or publicans, and sinners came,
and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees
saw it, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with
tax collectors, publicans, and sinners? When Jesus heard that,
he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician,
but those who are sick I did not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. The righteous here are not the
truly righteous. We read of those who are truly
righteous, such as Noah, whom the Lord declared to be righteous. This morning you read of Job,
and the Lord called him an upright man. That means righteous. They were truly righteous. Noah
was righteous in his generation because he found grace, or grace
found him. And if grace ever finds you,
you will be made righteous. But Jesus is not talking about
the truly righteous. He here is talking about the
self-righteous. They trust in themselves that
they are righteous through keeping God's law. They will not come
to Jesus for salvation simply because they who are well have
no need of a physician. Who goes to the physician except
a sick man? In fact, I'm inclined to believe
I do not need to go to the hospital unless I require an ambulance
to take me. There's a certain place I don't
want to go. Go to a doctor? Why? I'm not sick. They that are well have no need
of a physician. Who needs a physician? Someone
who is not merely sick, but very sick. I'm so sick I need a doctor. Well, you never heard a Pharisee
speak of that with regard to his spiritual condition. They
that are well have no need of possession. So Jesus says, I
didn't call them. I'm not calling them. They will
not come to my medical practice. Therefore, I will not call them
to it. So who are these ones who come
to Jesus Christ? These are people who know themselves
to be sinners. We are sin sick and sick with sin. Sin has stricken us with spiritual
leprosy. We have become incapacitated
We cannot walk or lay. We are sick with deafness. We
cannot hear spiritual truths. Our hearts have turned to stone. Our mouths are mute and cannot
speak. Our eyes are blind. That's how
sick we are. That's the sort of people Jesus
Christ came to save. When he walked around through
Galilee and other places, what was he looking for? There's a
blind man, I've got something for him. There's a deaf man,
I've got something for him. There's a woman, she's had an
issue of blood for years, I've got something for her. They that
need a position come to Jesus. They who know themselves to be
sin sick sinners, come to Jesus. He came to call only sinners
to himself, and then when they come to him, he fellowships with
them. He says, I did not come to call
the righteous but sinners to repentance. If you see people
coming to Jesus Christ, be assured of this, they are sinners. and they are sin sick and sick
of their sin. They're coming to Jesus because
he's calling them. That's the sort of people Jesus
calls. Point number three, Jesus Christ
received sinners and each with them. Luke 15, 2. This was a
contemptuous complaint of the self-righteous against Jesus
when all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him
to hear Him. They drew near to Him to hear
Him. Not only did Jesus receive sinners,
so did His disciples. They received sinners. Jesus
is walking along a caravan route one day. There's a man, a publican, tax collector, collecting
customs and tolls along the route. Jesus walked up to him and said,
Levi, and you can imagine Levi, you know me? Yeah. I've known you from eternity,
but Levi, you come follow me. Levi put his quill down. put
the tax books down, walked off, quit his job, followed Jesus
and was so blessed by what Jesus had done in calling him that
Levi, later known as Matthew the Apostle, Levi through what
the scriptures call a great feast, invited Every sinner he knew,
which would of course have been the tax collectors, publicans,
and perhaps a few other sorts, the kind of people that those
men associate with, invited them to his house. And the Pharisees
and scribes saw it, and they want to know, why do his disciples
receive sinners and eat with them? It is not Jesus who does
it, but even his disciples do it. Well, there's a good reason
for it. We invite sinners to come hear
Jesus. When they come to the feast that
we prepare for them, Jesus sits at the table with them, sinners,
answers their questions, explains the gospel to them and tells
the good news of salvation to them. Jesus receives sinners
and then sits at the table and eats with them. He's walking
through Jericho one day and there's another tax collector, a little
short man, unable to see Jesus because of the crowd. climbed
into a sycamore tree, had a good vantage point. And when Jesus
walked by that sycamore tree, he said, Zacchaeus, you come
down because I'm going to your house today and have a meal with
you. And evidently, Zacchaeus prepared
a feast for Jesus. Jesus ate with him. The people
said, look at that. He went to eat with the sinner.
Well, of course he did. And then the sinner came to eat
with Jesus. Probably partook of the Lord's
table. Later on, undoubtedly, at the
marriage supper of the Lamb, he'll be there. Jesus says, you
had me eat with you, and now, sinner, You're going to come
meet with me." That's what Jesus does. He receives sinners and
meets with them. He's not ashamed to be seen with
them. He's not ashamed to tell his
gospel to them, to explain the truth of salvation to them, and
neither are his people. We invite sinners. Some churches may invite people
who got money, influence, maybe can help the church. We invite
sinners so that Jesus and the church can help them. Number
four, Jesus Christ is a friend of sinners. This also was a contemptuous
complaint of the self-righteous against him. He's a friend of
sinners. Someone wrote a song about, I've
got friends in low places. Well, that's where Jesus goes
looking for his friends, in low places. He's a friend of sinners. He finds his friends in the lowest
places you can imagine. Where were you when he found
you? Jesus told the self-righteous,
The publicans and harlots will enter my kingdom before you do."
Well, where'd he find those harlots? Jesus finds his friends in low
places. Sinners. He finds his friends
in sinful places. He finds his friends where sinners
congregate, which is Another good reason for all of us here
to be in prayer for that man right here, our Mitch. People in low places, needing
a friend, and he's got the grand opportunity to tell them about
a man, Christ Jesus, who was a friend of sinners. A friend
of sinners. Sinners who come to Jesus find
in him A friend who loves at all times. Proverbs 17, 17. A friend who loves at all times. I have a friend who has a social media friend. You know what I'm talking about,
do you not? Maybe it's a social media friend
because this social media friend sometimes unfriends and then
refriends, unfriends and refriends. And it changes, you know, so
quickly. Jesus is a friend who never unfriends
his friends. He's a friend who loves at all
times. You mean, even when I sin? Oh, He loves you especially then.
You need it. His grace comes with His love. He loves at all times. When David,
the champion of Israel, slew Goliath on the battlefield, God
loved him. When David, under cover of darkness,
seduced Bathsheba and had her husband killed, God still loved
him. I don't understand it. I don't
know that any of us could love that way, but he does. He does. He's a friend who loves at all
times. His love never wavers. It never changes. It never increases
because it cannot be any greater. And it never decreases. He's a friend who loves at all
times. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. A friend who sticks closer than
a brother. I have two brothers. We have been the dearest of friends. all our lives. We were separated
in age by only four years, us three boys. And growing up, constant companions. Then we grew older, married,
went our separate ways. one to the West Indies, one to
Alaska, one to Kentucky, and we're separated about as far
from each other as we can be. In Jesus Christ, we have a friend
who sticks closer than a brother. He is always geographically at
our side, in our house. A friend who sticks closer than
a brother. My two brothers would do anything
they could for me. I would do anything for either
of them that I could. But we have our limitations.
He does not. A friend who sticks closer than
a brother. He is the one who epitomizes
the truth that greater love has no one than this than to lay
down one's life for his friends. That's what Jesus did. Jesus
laid down his life for his friends and all his friends are sinners,
are sinners. And this church is comprised
of people, sinners, whom Jesus befriended and then
gave his life for them. And now we let people know this
church is for sinners who need a friend. We've got the best
friend you can find. This church is for sinners in
need of a friend. Then number five, last point,
God justifies mercy-seeking sinners, all of them but none of them.
Luke 18, and Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and despised other scribes and
Pharisees. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican or tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself. Watch carefully. He prayed with
himself and called himself, God, I thank you. He's talking to
himself. God, I thank you that I am not
like other men. extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even, yeah, that tax collector, that publican over yonder, I'm
not like him. I fast twice a week. Well, where'd
the law tell you to do that? Well, I made up some for myself.
I give tithes of all that I possess, and the tax collector standing
afar off. By the way, by the way, this
Pharisee who prayed, to the best of my knowledge, He is the only
man in Scripture who prayed a prayer in which he did not ask God for
anything and was not disappointed that God gave him nothing. I
think he's the only one, the only one. But this tax collector,
standing afar off where nobody could see him, would not so much
as raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying, God be
merciful to me. The sinner. Our King James Version
says he spoke of himself as a sinner. If you look at the Greek text,
he used a definite article. I am the sinner. The sinner. What is a sinner? It's me. It's
me. This one who's afraid to look
into heaven because God may be looking at me and I have to make
eye contact with him. Jesus said, I tell you, this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who rumbles himself will
be exalted. He went down to his house justified. What is it to be justified? Quite simply, to be declared
righteous by God. That's what the word justified
means. It means to be declared righteous
by God. Now, God will not justify they
who justify themselves. God would reject all who exalt
themselves before him, or boast to him of their good works, or
think they are better than others, or trust in themselves that they
are righteous. Jesus said that man did not go
to his house justified, he walked into the temple condemned, he
walked out of the temple condemned. Rather, God justifies people
with these three marks. They confess themselves to be
sinners. They acknowledge that they have
no righteousness in themselves. And they pray to God, be merciful
to me. I'm the sinner. Be merciful to
me. Well, correct me if I err. But this
church is comprised of self-humbling, mercy-seeking, and divinely justified
sinners. I believe that every one of us
will admit that, who are members of this church. And this church
is for that sort of people, people who will humble themselves
before God. acknowledge themselves to be
sinners, pray that God be merciful to them. That's the message we
preach and we do so because this church is for sinners and we
have good news for them. In the words of Joseph Hart,
come ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and mangled by the fall. For if you tarry till you're
better, you will never come at all. For Jesus ready stands to
save you, full of pity joined with power. He is able. He is willing. Doubt no more. Come, you sinners. Come. This church is for sinners. This
church is comprised of sinners. This church imitates Jesus Christ
and his treatment of sinners. And, O God, our Father, be pleased,
we pray, to bless this word to your glory. In Jesus' name, we
pray. Amen.