I invite you to turn back with
me now to 1 Timothy chapter 1. While you're turning, let me
say a few things to you as your pastor and as a preacher of the
gospel. It's my desire to say something
to you from God. Something that will have an impact
upon your life and upon your soul forever. Not just words that we hear and
debate and argue and go over and go over but things that lodge,
things that find a seat in your heart and you think on and you
remember and they have an impact. I've got you in my head and in
my heart as I prepare to come here and it is my prayer to God and
my earnest hope that he'll speak through me to you such things
as will have a lasting impact. I care nothing for the exercise
of speaking. The world's full of people who
like to hear themselves. They'll get up and preach and
go home and listen to a tape where they recorded their own
message. They love to hear themselves. I think Sometimes that's what
Paul was talking about when he said they love to have the preeminence. They love to be up there by themselves
and everybody looking and everybody talking and they go to the, like,
Henry's funeral and everybody runs over to you, you know, and
they love that. They love to have the preeminence. But I don't care a thing for
the exercise of speaking except that the Lord has called
me to do this and I understand the necessity of it both for
you and for me. I hope that I'm not deceived
as to be one of them that I just described. My desire is to speak to you
as Paul said he and Timothy did to the Philippians as servants
of the Lord Jesus Christ as his servant, as his bond slave, at
his request, at his command, if you will, to speak and to
do it in such a manner as to speak from my heart to yours. I don't have any formal education. Anybody who's listened to me
for any amount of time knows that. I have no formal education. I have no real command over the
English language, but what I do have is a divine calling. God called me. Isn't that what
Paul said? He didn't brag on his schooling.
He had schooling to brag on. I don't even have that. But he
never bragged on it. He just said, God called me.
He separated me under the gospel. That's good enough, isn't it? I have, by the grace of God,
a sound understanding of the doctrine of Christ. And then I have, secondly, the
recommendation of a godly man, a godly pastor, a man I sit under,
and from several others, faithful preachers of the gospel, preachers
who knew me for many years. God's providence opened the effectual
door for me to be here. This is God's providence. It's
his providence that I'm here. It's his providence that you're
here. How shall they preach except
they be sent? And he put a willingness in the
heart of my pastor to ask me to come here. and a willingness
in your hearts to have me here and a willingness in my heart
to accept the call. And then lastly, he gave me to
your hearts and he gave my heart to you. Somebody asked me the
other day, he said, you're not shopping for another church,
are you? No. No, I've already bought my
grave plot and the stones printed out with my name on it. to be standing over in Rock Springs
before very long. I don't plan on going anywhere. I fully expect to die here. And I want to say this to you. I don't view the ministry God
has given me as some kind of source of retirement. My boss,
when I gave him my notice, he said, I guess if I was your age,
that's what I'd do. Well, that's not why I did it.
I had a good retirement. I didn't have to come here. I don't view the ministry that
God's given me as a source of retirement, but as a needful
and necessary office in the kingdom of God. And I want to speak to you that
way. I want my love to shine. I want it to shine in the words
that I speak. I want to see you hungry, hungry to hear. And I hope that the Lord will
give me the bread of God to sit before you every time. I want to study and prepare and
think on you and your children and ask the Lord if he'll give
me what fallen sinners need to hear. And what chosen sinners are ordained
to hear and what enlightened sinners love to hear. That's
what I want. And though the Apostle Paul held
an office far above Milo's station, yet I believe this is the gist
of the first part of his epistle to Timothy. He's writing to this
young man. He's just beginning his ministry
and he's been following Paul along and Paul had him say some
things and lead him in prayer and he's talking to this young
man and he's preaching to these places out, these new congregations
and he's got Timothy there listening and watching and hearing. I'm not an experientialist in
the sense of always going back to some isolated period or time
in my life. And I used to hear that on Wednesday
night testimonials. That's where folks get up and
brag on what they've done for the Lord, near as I can tell.
But they love to go back to that old Brush Harbor meeting or that
old time on the hill or that time in the closet or wherever
it was. And you could tell that that's
where they begin to build. They begin to build on that.
Always going back to some isolated period in time when they felt
the Lord's presence in their lives. But neither am I a man
who looks entirely on the gospel from an intellectual standpoint.
The grace of God is experienced in heart. When God does business
with a man, he works in his heart. It'll go through the head. It
has to go through the head. There has to be an understanding. But I'm telling you, it don't
stop there. It goes to the heart. The grace of God to call sinners
out of darkness is a grace. experienced in the heart. And
if you look with me here at verse 13 of 1 Timothy 1, Paul talks
about what he was before. There was a time before Paul
become a preacher. This young man was raised in
a religious home, very strict religious home. This man was
raised at the feet of Gamaliel, the greatest teacher of the Jews
by their own confession of all time. And he was raised that way, but
here's how he describes that life before. He said, I was a
blasphemer. His religious speech, his religious talk was blasphemy. Blasphemy. And then he said,
I was a persecutor. I persecuted the church of God,
is what he tells the Galatians. And I wasn't kind and gentle,
I was injurious. That is, he caused injury, he
caused hurt. If you'll recall when they stoned
Stephen to death, It was Paul that was holding their coats,
giving consent to the death of God's beloved. And it is exactly
that experience of grace in the heart that enables preachers
to identify with those that they preach to. I can identify with
sinners, can't you? Now I'm gonna tell you something. When
Henry Mayhem was converted, he was converted out of fundamentalism. That's what he was. He was a
Southern Baptist. He was a fundamentalist. But I'm telling you, there ain't
nobody on earth could take apart fundamentalism like Henry May.
He knew it inside out. I told somebody one evening at
church service, I'd been listening to him, but I was still going
to that OR man in church. And I told one of my friends
down there, I said, you know, I think he sets you outside because
he's quoting us word for word. He knows nobody could take apart
fundamentalism like Henry May. And nobody could take apart legalism
like the Apostle Paul. That's what God saved him out
of. And that's what he's telling
Timothy. It wasn't a... I don't build on that old religious
experience. I see it for what it is. I was
a blasphemer. I was a persecutor. I did injury. And I'll tell you this, you haul
your kids down there to those Armenian churches and they'll
do injury to them. They're not going to get a little
good out of it. If there's any good in there at all, they're
going to get injuries is what they're going to get. It's that experience of grace
in the heart that enables preachers to identify with their hearers
and have sympathy, sympathy, upon those that he ministers
to. And then he goes on in verse 14 to say, and the grace of our
Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus. Now I don't know about you, but
when I think about me, I marvel. I absolutely marvel at the grace
of God in my life. It's grace. Ain't nothing I did. I was like Paul. I was kicking
against the pricks. I was going the other way. I
wasn't seeking the Lord. I wasn't seeking mercy. I wasn't
seeking anything. And He just arrested me. And
it was all by His grace. And that's what Paul's doing
here. He's reminiscing as he's talking to his young boy. And
he said, oh, the abundant, the abundant grace that God showed
to me, my soul. I'm telling you the abundant
grace of God expended upon this poor sinner from first to last
and everything in between. The old hymn writer said this.
He said, this is my story. To God be the glory. I'm only
a sinner saved by grace. Boy, I hope I never get past
that. Don't you? This was Paul's story. It's my story. It was Henry's
story. I heard so many tell it last
weekend. As far as I can tell, it's the
story of every sinner saved by grace. Somebody said that's what history
is, his story. That's what it is. And that's
my message this morning, the story of a sinner. Now Paul says in verse 15, this
is a faithful saying. You can say this without any
fear of contradiction. This is a faithful saying. And
it's worthy of all acceptation. All sinners everywhere should
hear this. All preachers and pastors ought
to bow to this. It's a faithful saying and worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. sinners, and watch this, of whom
I'm chief. I'm chief. You feel that way? Howbeit, he says in verse 16, howbeit for this cause I obtain
mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering
for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. Well, has the Lord truly saved
this man who stands before you today? Has the free, sovereign, effectual
grace of God in Christ made me an example of his salvation,
a trophy of his grace? Well, that's what Paul said to
the Thessalonians. He said, I know your election
of God. My gospel came not in word only,
but it came in power and in the Holy Ghost. You become followers
of us and the Lord. And listen, and you were examples
to all that believe. You're an example of the grace
of God. You're an example. You're a sinner
saved by grace. Every sinner saved by grace is
an example of the saving grace of God. It's his story. It's
his testimony. It's his hope. It's what he rejoices
in. Well, Paul, what brought about
such a drastic change in your life? What caused you to change
your theology? That's not what you always believe. We know who you were. We know
you were a Pharisee. We know what you believe. We
know what you preach. What caused you to change your theology? What caused you to evacuate your
old religious upbringing? Boy, I tell you that's strong
in the hearts of children when they're raised in false religion.
And they love their parents. They love their mothers and fathers
and sisters and brothers. And they're all ingrained in
that. And there's a strong tie to that. What caused you to evacuate your
old religion? He was circumcised the eighth
day. This boy had been in religion
from the time he was born. What caused you to evacuate your
old religious upbringing? What caused you to build your
hope on a different foundation? What arrested you? What stopped
your downward spiral into hell? What happened, Paul? Here it
is. Now be careful. People tell me all the time,
this is deep doctrine. Well, here's the deep doctrine.
He said, I obtained mercy. Huh? Isn't that it? That's not so deep, is it? I
obtained mercy. That's what I needed all along,
but I didn't know it. That's what I was lacking all
along, but I didn't know it. And I worked and struggled and
fought and wrestled in religion trying to get what I could never
get. And then I obtained mercy. I obtained mercy. This is the story. It's the story
of a sinner. Paul had nothing else of his
past of any significance to ever tell. 1 Corinthians 6, 11, he tells those
folks there, he said, and such were some of you. Oh, you need
to go back and read those verses beforehand, all them things he
talks about there. Homosexuality, I don't know what
all he talks about in those verses. Drunkenness and all this. And
such, he said, were some of you. That's where God found you. But
you're washed. washed in regeneration, washed
in truth and in the Word of God. You're washed, washed in the
blood, but you're sanctified and you're justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. That old Pharisee, came into
that temple that day, he was as sure of his salvation as a
man could get. He was absolutely confident. He was saved. Are you saved,
mister? You better believe I'm saved. I go down here and I don't
miss a service, and I pay my tithes, and I hold the office
as a deacon down there at that church. I've been teaching Sunday
school for 50 years. That old Pharisee was assured
he was saved, so satisfied with his life and his sacrifices. And as soon as he saw that old
publican come in, and his head was looking down at the floor,
and the tears rolling down his dirty cheeks, and he looked over
there, and then he looked right up into heaven. And he said,
oh, I thank God I'm not like him. And that old publican with his
head bowed and tears in his eyes cried, Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner. If time will permit this morning,
let me give you five things I know about this mercy that Paul said
he obtained. First thing I know about this
mercy And I know it by experience. It comes from God. All my life, in that Nazarene
church, we had a bench that run full length across here. Little old bench. Worn. They wanted you to think that
bench was just wore out, you know, so they wouldn't ever paint
it or varnish it. And it had the paint peeling
on it. It was old. And I was told that, come up
here, come up here, kneel down here at this bench. But there
ain't no mercy in the bench. I learned that. There ain't no
mercy in that bench. There ain't no mercy at the front
of the church. Mercy's not on the shelf. God put it up there
on the shelf and he said, now if you ever need it, right there's
mercy. No, that's not where mercy's at. You won't find it in the
bench, and you won't find it at the front, and you won't find
it in the pledge card, and you won't find it in your decision
to accept Jesus as your personal Savior. It's not in any of those things.
Mercy is in the hands of God. Huh? That's where it's at. No mercy in your catechism. No mercy in the presbytery. There's no mercy in the wine
and the bread. Mercy is of God, the sovereign
God. You can't take it from him, you
have to give it. The unchangeable God, he's not
gonna change his mind. The just God, the holy God, mercy
is of God. Romans 9, 16 says, it's not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. Moses said, show me your glory.
He said, I'll be merciful to whom I will. That's my glory. Huh? That's what I know about
mercy. It's in God's hands to give or
withhold. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will have mercy and whom I will I'll harden. And I'm gonna tell you something
else. Because it's in his hands, it shall be dispensed according
to his purpose and will. He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. Well, I just don't see why a
man can't be saved in his closet. Well, I'll tell you why. Because
it pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to save him from
the believers. And mercy is in his hands. Why
don't we want to go somewhere else? Why don't we do what he
says to do? It's in his hands, and he can
dispense it as he will, and he does. Oh, my soul, we need to
read the word of God and see what he says, and then run there
and do what he tells us to do. Well, I'm just going to think
it over. There's nothing to understand
if what you're going to think about. Oh. And I'll tell you this about
this mercy, because it's in His hands, it shall be given in strict
accordance with His glorious character. If He's merciful,
He'll be merciful justly. Huh? Justly. Righteously. And He'll be merciful
Particularly, Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Only God can dispense mercy,
it belongs to him, it's his to give her with hope. And then
secondly, I know this about mercy. This mercy that Paul spoke of
here to Timothy. It's obtainable. It's obtainable. As plain as
words can be spoken and fully inspired by the Holy Ghost, Paul
says, I have obtained mercy. Now wait a minute, preacher. You said mercy was in God's hands
and only he could dispense it. That's right. That's right. But the scripture said he delights
to show mercy. And that's why Paul obtained
it. He derives no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, but he delights to show mercy. He told those
Pharisees, he said, the well hath no need of the physician
but the sick. Now he said, you go learn what
this means. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. You go learn that
and then you come back and we'll talk some more. All right, so how did this old
rebel, this old religious rebel, this old Antichrist rebel, How
did this rebel against God and his people come to obtain mercy? Well, it began in eternity. God chose him by an election
of grace, and he did it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen
to this. That election had something that
predated it. Having, isn't that what it says
in that next verse, verse 6 of Ephesians 1? Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. That's why He elected us because
He predestinated us unto the adoption of children. So that's
where mercy began. It began in eternity past. And then secondly, he was able
to obtain mercy because of the accomplished redemption of Christ
in whom he was chosen. That Christ came and accomplished
his redemption, paid what he owed, provided for
him what he didn't have and could never get. And then thirdly, he obtained
mercy through the preaching of the gospel and the powerful working
of the Holy Spirit. If you read 1 Corinthians 15,
I think that'll back me up in what I just said. He said, I'm
preaching to you what I also received. It came through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, he wrote to the Thessalonians.
were unto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And all those who think they're
saved like Paul did before and have never obtained mercy are
defined in 1 Corinthians 2.14. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. Because mercy is in the hands
of a merciful God, it is obtainable. And it's not by our will, it's
not by our works, but according to his own mercy and grace. And then thirdly, I know this
about mercy. Paul declares it right here in
our text. It's for sinners. It's for sinners. Oh my soul, how many years was
I told If you seek the Lord, you better
quit doing this and quit doing that and start doing this and
start doing that. Is that how it works? Bartimaeus, oh, not Bartimaeus,
Barabbas, sitting down in that old dungeon. He wasn't trying,
he wasn't doing anything. He wasn't sitting down there
saying, boy, I'm going to reform my life. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that. He wasn't down there praying,
trying to negotiate deals with God. He was a sinner. He's a
rebel. He's sitting down there waiting
to die. That's the situation. That's the picture of the sinner.
So what happened? God sent him a messenger down
there. And here's what he told him. You're free to go. What? It's some kind of trick. You're
going to wait till I get outside and then shoot me in the back.
No, you're free to go. Why? Another's been chosen to
die in your stead. Huh? Isn't that how it works? Mercy's for sinners. It's for
sinners. It's for the guilty. The law
strips the sinner of all his false hopes and leaves him guilty
before God. And all a guilty sinner can do
is throw himself on the mercy of the judge. That's all he can
do. Paul said this is a faithful
saying. It's worthy of all acceptation
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Once in the end of the world
hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. This mercy, this grace is for
sinners. The salvation of sinners glorifies
the character of God in Christ. And then fourthly, I know this
about that mercy. When mercy is shown to the sinner,
it's seen through the preaching of the gospel. That's how it
comes. That's how it comes. Paul said,
if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. Them that
are lost. In whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. For we
preach not ourselves, but we preach Christ Jesus the Lord.
And ourselves your servants, for Christ's sake. We're just
servants. We're just bond slaves. We're just carrying the word
to you. We're taking to you what was given to us. We don't preach ourselves. We
preach Christ. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And we've got a treasure, a treasure
beyond description. I could preach another hundred
years. I couldn't even touch the value of this treasure. It's the treasure of heaven.
It's Christ and it's God himself coming into the flesh to show
mercy. It's the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ and we got this treasure in a flower pot. Huh? You know why? that the excellency of the power
might be of God and not of us. Mercy's in his hands. If he wants
to throw it in a flower pot, that's how he do it. That's how
he do it. Oh, listen, this is what Scripture
says. It's what the Scripture says.
And what Scripture says is what God says, isn't it? How shall you hear without a
preacher? Huh? How are you going to call on
him? How are you going to believe
on him? How are you going to hear without
a preacher? God didn't need a staff to split
the Red Sea, did he? Huh? He created the world out
of nothing. He didn't need a staff to split
the sea, but he chose to use one. He sure did, he chose to
use one. Christ didn't need to spit on
some clay and make a little bit of mud and rub it on the blind
man's eyes to give him sight. Blind Bartimaeus, he didn't put
no clay on his eyes. He didn't need to do that, but
he chose to do that. God didn't need the help of trumpets
to tear down the walls of Jericho, but he chose to use them. And
he don't need an old ignorant man to preach his gospel. But
it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them to
believe. I'm telling you, if you're blind
and he wants to put mud on your eyes, you won't care. You ain't
interested in the mud, you're interested in the outcome. If he tells some old stupid preacher
who can't speak plain English to preach to you the grace of
God, you ain't going to cry about it if you're a sinner. You'll
say, oh, how beautiful are the feet of them. The excellency of the power will
all be of him. God sends his man, you'll hear
him. Or you're dying your sins. You're dying your sins. Let me tell you something, beloved.
God did send you a preacher. And he's telling you the truth. He's telling you the truth. Oh, might he be gracious and
allow you to hear it. Here. And then fifthly, and lastly,
I know this about the mercy Paul obtained. It was exampled first in him. In him. Listen to this, verse
16, 1 Timothy chapter one. Howbeit for this cause I obtain
mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long
suffering. For a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. I'm going to tell you something
about Paul and something about me. When God saved me, He went
all the way down to the bottom of the barrel. And he squirted me right off
the bottom. Right off the bottom. And he did it for a pattern. Somebody told old John Newton,
said, you remember old So-and-So, evidently this guy was just a
renowned setter. He was a rebel, to beat all rebels. And he said, you remember old
so-and-so down there in County Bath? He said, you remember that
guy? He said, the Lord saved him. He said, I'll never despair
again, John, since the Lord saved him. And old John Newton looked
up at him and he said, well, mister, he said, I've never thought anything else since the
Lord saved me. I'm telling you, if he saved
me, he'd save you. He'd save you. May he be pleased to do just
that very thing. Thank you.