Tis not that I did choose thee,
Lord, O Lord, that had not been. Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now, here's our pastor, Todd Nibert. I've entitled this morning's
message, The Divine Pattern. Our text is found in First Timothy,
chapter one, verse 16. These were the words of Paul.
And he says in verse 16, how be it for this cause I obtain
mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth. all longsuffering for a pattern
to them which should believe on Him to life everlasting, to
them which should hereafter believe on Him, to life everlasting. Now, in this passage of Scripture,
Paul tells us that he is a pattern of all who believe. That means
if I truly believe, I believe what Paul believed, I'm saved
the same way Paul was saved, and I experience the same thing
Paul experienced. That's what he said. God saved
me to make me a pattern to them which should hereafter believe
on Him, to life everlasting. Now, we are all unique individuals. And we really don't follow a
particular pattern. We're different. We're unique. You look at the children that
you have. They come out of the same womb, have the same raising,
and look how different they are. Really, there's nobody like me.
I'm utterly unique. And there's nobody like you.
You are utterly unique. Our fingerprints Prove that no
fingerprints are alike. That's amazing when you think
of all the billions of people and there's not one fingerprint
that's alike and everyone can be identified as unique individuals
by their fingerprints. Now in God's purpose and providence
we're all possessed of a certain gene pool. We all have a certain
upbringing, experience, and environment that makes us what we are. We're all diverse. We're all
unique. When they made you, they threw
away the mold, so to speak. We're all different. We're all
our own people. Now, that doesn't mean there's
not things about us we wouldn't like to change. We would like
to change many things about ourselves. But still, that being said, we're
all utterly unique. Furthermore, I don't want to
be placed in some kind of mold or pattern that somebody forces
on me. I don't want to conform for conformity's
sake. If you expect me to conform in
a way that I don't want to, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do it.
That being said, there is a mold or a pattern which I must fit
into if I'm saved. Paul said, God saved me to make
me a pattern. And if I don't fit into this
pattern, I'm not saved. I'm not someone who believes,
so I desperately want to fit into this pattern. If I'm saved,
I'll be saved the same way Paul was. I'll believe the same thing
Paul believed. I'll experience the same thing
Paul experienced. And if my experience doesn't
line up with that of the Apostle Paul, you know what I want to
do? I want to get rid of my experience. It's no good. Wouldn't it be
tragic to trust a religious experience that kept you from trusting the
Lord Jesus Christ? That kept you from hearing the
Gospel? I don't want to have anything to do with that. I want
to fit into this mold. Now, in the context of this passage
of Scripture, Paul says, beginning in verse 12, in verse Timothy
chapter 1, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord. Now here's the
beginning of his experience, and I love the way he uses the
word I, not like religion uses it. You know, I hear all these
religious songs, people talk about I will praise you, I will
do this, I will do that. That's inappropriate. You don't
know what you'll do. If God takes His hand off of
you, if He takes His hand off me, we could prove to be monsters. Watch out when you talk about
what you will do. But I love what Paul says when
he uses the word I. He says, I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord. In Paul's experience, the Lord
Jesus Christ gets all the credit. He did it all. He is all in salvation and all
the glory goes to Him. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,
He said, who enabled me. He enabled me. Let me repeat that. He enabled
me. You see, Paul believed in the
absolute sinfulness and depravity of all human beings by nature.
He understood something about this thing of being dead in trespasses
and sins. And He knew, if I have faith,
He gave it to me. If I have faith, He enabled me
to believe. If I have repentance, He enabled
me to repent. If I have love to God, He enabled
me to love. It's all a work of His grace. He enabled Now, most of this
religious world believes in what is called free will. Now, in this belief, it's thought
that God wants to save everybody, offer salvation to everybody,
but it's up to an act of your will as to whether or not you'll
accept it or reject it. And your salvation is dependent
upon your free will. Now, if I believe something like
that, I do not believe that God is sovereign. I believe that
my will is sovereign over His. And if I believe something like
that, I don't believe men are totally depraved. I believe we
have the power to do good, the power to choose good. And the
Scripture denies that. You can't believe the gospel
and believe something like that. Paul said, He enabled me. And every believer, I won't have
to argue with him about that. That fits our experience, doesn't
it? If you're a believer, you know if you have faith, He gave
it to you. If you have life, He gave it
to you. He enabled me. And next it says, He counted
me faithful. putting me into the ministry. He enabled me to be faithful.
He counted me faithful. What grace that He would enable
me to be faithful, because I know I wouldn't be faithful unless
He enabled me and counted me to be faithful, enabled me to
believe, and enabled me to be somebody who could be believed,
because I'm faithful. He put me into the ministry. You know, there's a lot of so-called
preachers who put themselves in the ministry, but God never
put them there, and consequently, they're not in the ministry.
But God, Paul said, put me in the ministry to be a servant.
If He saved you, He's put you in the ministry to be a servant. Now, look what he says in verse
13 of this passage. He says, who was before, talking
about his own experience, who was before, a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious. That's what I was before. And
remember, he's talking about his former religion. Now, he
was very zealous. He was very sincere. He persecuted
believers because he thought it to be his moral obligation.
He thought he ought to be contrary to the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he was very zealous of the law. He thought him the
God of the Bible. And yet when he talks about his
before experience, look what he says about it. Who was before
a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. Most people don't
have a before. They've always been saved. They've
always been good people. They've always been Christians.
They look upon their former life and they don't look at it the
way Paul looked at his. a blasphemer, persecutor, and
injurious. And remember, Paul wasn't talking about evil things
that he did. I know some people when they
give their testimony, they like to almost brag about the sins
they used to commit. I can't stand testimonies like
that where people, oh, I used to be so evil and wicked, now
look at me. Now, no. But Paul's talking about his religion. His
religion. His sincere, he thought, service
of God. He said it was nothing but blasphemy,
persecution, and injurious. It troubles me when people look
at their religion before they believe the gospel of God's grace.
And they think, well, I was saved when I believed free will and
works and so on. No, you weren't. That was blasphemy,
persecution, and injurious. That's how Paul saw his religion,
who was before a blasphemer and persecutor and injurious. But,
he said, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief. God had mercy on me. Now that
doesn't mean that my guilt came out of ignorance. It wasn't willful. Therefore, God had mercy on me
because I didn't know any better. That's not what he's saying at
all. He's saying I was so ignorant. I was so overcome with unbelief,
incapable of raising myself from that state, that the only way
I could be saved is for God to show me sheer mercy. I obtained mercy because I did
it ignorantly in unbelief. Now, do you fit the pattern?
Remember, Paul is giving us the pattern. Let's go on reading.
Verse 14, And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding
abundant. It overflowed with faith and
love which is in Christ Jesus. Now this I know. My salvation,
just like Paul, is a salvation that's all of grace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
was exceeding abundant. Now when you speak of the grace
of God, you've got to talk about electing grace. God chose me
before time began. You talk about justifying grace. He justified me. He made it to
where I'm not guilty by His work on the cross. Redeeming grace. He made payment for my sins.
Calling, regenerating grace. He gave me life. Preserving grace. The reason I am kept right now
is because He keeps me. He'll glorify me. That's glorifying
grace. Oh, the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant. Every aspect of my salvation
is all of grace. I know that. By His grace, I
don't give my works any of the credit, or my free will, or anything
like that. That's foolishness. I know the
way I'm saved is by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
said, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor. that you through
His poverty might be rich. Oh, the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ was exceeding abundance. And that's where faith comes
from, grace. That's where love comes from, grace. Verse 15,
this is my favorite verse of Scripture. I love to read it.
I love to think about it. It rejoices my heart when I hear
it. Listen to it. Verse 15, Paul
says, remember he's the pattern, the next verse he's going to
say he's the pattern. Verse 15 he says, this is a faithful saying.
You can completely rely upon this saying and it's worthy of
all acceptation. Everybody ought to receive this
as the best thing they've ever heard. And here it is, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."
And here's this faithful saying that's worthy of everybody's
most hearty welcome and embrace, that Christ That means God's
anointed, God's prophet, God's priest, God's king. He's the
Word of God, God's prophet. He's God's priest. He's the representative
that God must accept. If He pleads for me, I must be
saved. I need His kingship to rule and
reign over me and to subdue my sins. Christ Jesus. Matthew 121
says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins. Christ Jesus came into the world. He invaded human history. He
became flesh. He came into the world for this
purpose, to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. What's a sinner? Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. What is a sinner? Are you a sinner? Am I a sinner? What does the
Bible mean by this term, a sinner? Well, a sinner is the one who
commits the sin. The sinner is the one who does
the sinning. Now, if I'm a sinner, that means
that all I do is sin. Because I did it. That's what
makes it bad. I don't care whether it's a supposed
good work or an evil work. If I did it, it's sin. That's all I do. Sin is my nature. Sin is my name. I am the sinner. As a matter of fact, Paul went
on to say that he was the chief of sinners. And every believer
believes themselves to be the worst sinner in the world. They really believe that about
themselves. A sinner is somebody who all he does is sin. Secondly,
a sinner is someone who cannot not sin. I cannot have one second
of pure thoughts in my mind. I can't be without sin because
I'm always here. Now, I have a new nature, a holy
nature, but even though I have that holy nature that was given
me in the new birth, I still have a sinful nature, and that
means I cannot not sin. A sinner is someone who can't
look down their nose in moral superiority at anybody. I know
that if the Lord left me to myself, I would be as bad as Satan himself
right now. A sinner can't look down their
nose at any son of Adam, and a sinner realizes that they have
no claim on God. If God saved everybody but me,
And if He let me drop into hell, I couldn't say, that's not fair.
You saved them. Why didn't you save me? I can't
say that because I have no claim on God. If God leaves me to myself,
if He refuses to save me, I can't say, well, that's not fair. No,
a sinner has no claim on God. Now, here's the good news. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save people like that. That's
the gospel. If you're a sinner, if you're
a sinner the way I've described just now, if you're one of those
people, Christ Jesus came to save you. And He did it. He saves His people from their
sins. That was His purpose in coming,
and that's what He did. When He came into this earth,
there's three things He did for His people. First, He justified
them. No condemnation. Second, He sanctified
them. They are saved from the power
of sin. Thirdly, He glorified them. I am saved from the very
presence of sin in the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to save His people
from their sins. Paul said, Of whom I am the chief. He finished salvation. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of whom I am the
chief. And then he says in verse 16,
Albeit, For this cause, I obtain mercy,
that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering."
Now, Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3.15 that the longsuffering of
the Lord is salvation. If the Lord is longsuffering
toward you, that means He's going to save you or He already has
saved you. Peter said in 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not to everybody, but to usward, those who believe,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Now Paul says, 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 believe
on Him to life everlasting." Now, what I would like to do
is close by looking at Paul's conversion experience. And if
you and I are converted, if we're saved by the grace of God, we'll
have the exact same experience Paul did. Remember, Paul's a
pattern. And he tells us about his salvation experience on the
road to Damascus. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm
actually going to be on a horse, and I'm going to see a light,
and I'm going to fall off that horse, and I'm going to be blinded.
But spiritually, all those things I experience. Now, let's read
Paul's testimony in Acts chapter 22. He said, Men, brethren, fathers,
hear ye my defense which I make unto you, And when they heard
that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept them more
silent. And he saith, I am barely a man which am a Jew, born in
Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the
feet of Gamaliel. He tells them where he went to
seminary and who he learned under, and taught according to the perfect
manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as
you all are. This day I was very religious,
very sincere. He says in verse 4, And I persecuted
this way, this way of grace, this way of Christ, this way
of the cross. I persecuted this way unto death,
binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. You remember
he was holding the coats of those who were stoning Stephen and
he was consenting unto his death. He hated Stephen. He hated Jesus
Christ and everybody who was associated with Jesus Christ.
And he thought he was doing it serving God. 5 As also the high
priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders,
from whom I also received letters unto the brethren, and went to
Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem,
for to be punished." Now, Paul was not seeking God. Somebody
once said he wasn't on his way to a prayer meeting. He was going
there to arrest and to bind and to kill Christians. That was
his purpose. He was not seeking God. Verse 6, And it came to pass
that as I made my journey, and you know, let me stop. I realized
that I wasn't seeking the Lord. He was seeking me. I wasn't seeking
Him, but thank God He sought me. And it came to pass that
as I made my journey, it was come nigh into Damascus about
noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about
me. Now in my experience, salvation
begins with light. Light concerning who God is.
He's not who I thought He was. He's altogether different than
I thought He was. Life concerning who He is and
all of His glorious attributes, His holiness, His justice. He's
unapproachable. Life concerning who I am. Nothing
but sin. A great life shown around about
me. And if you ever have life from
heaven, if I ever have life from heaven, we're going to do the
same thing Paul did. We're going to go to the ground. We're going
to go to the dirt. We're going to hit the dirt in
repentance, in shame and humiliation. The way up in the Kingdom of
Heaven is down always. I fell down to the ground and
I heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou
me? He found out that all his religion
was the persecution of the Lord Jesus Christ, the hatred of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He thought he was serving God
and he found out he wasn't. And I answered, Who art thou,
Lord? And he said unto me, I'm Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. When you find out who Christ
is, you find out you don't know who He is. That's what you find
out. When you finally find out who
He is, you find out you don't know Him. And that's when you
begin to know Him. I answered, Who art thou, Lord?
And he said unto me, I'm Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw
indeed the light. and were afraid, but they heard
not the voice of Him that spake to me. And I said, What shall
I do, Lord? There's submission. There's submission. What shall I do, Lord? What shall
I believe? Where shall I go? There's a submission
to Him. If I don't submit, He's never
done anything for me. What shall I do, Lord? And the
Lord said unto me, Rise, and go into Damascus, and there it
shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee
to do. And when I could not see for the glory of that light being
led by the hand of them that were with me, I came unto Damascus."
Now, the Lord sent Paul a preacher. He sent him a preacher by the
name of Ananias. Now, I love to think about this.
Paul is a big fish. He's the man God is going to
use to expound the gospel more than anybody else. And I would
have sent him Peter or John or one of those fellows. But the
Lord sends him Ananias, a nobody from nowhere that we never hear
of again. I think that's beautiful. The
Lord sent Paul a preacher and one Ananias. A devout man, according
to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there,
came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive
thy sight. And the same hour I looked upon
him, and he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee.
The first thing he heard was election. God chose you." And
you know, when the Lord saved me, this is the truth He used
to teach me that I was a sinner. When I found out that God chose
a people and there wasn't anything I could do to make myself one
of them, I was in His hand. He could do with me whatever
He was pleased to do. That's what let me know that I had no
love for God because I was angry with this. And the Lord showed
me from that that I was a sinner. The God of our fathers hath chosen
thee that thou shouldest know His will. He already knew His
will's command. This is not talking about knowing
His will of providence, but His will of redemption, that everybody
that Christ died for must be saved. And see that Just One. There's Just One, Just One, and
I can see how God can be just and justify me through the Just
One by what He did on the cross, putting away my sins and giving
me His righteousness. And you should hear the voice
of His mouth, for thou shalt be His witness, His martyr. is what that literally is, unto
all men of what you've seen and what you've heard. Now, why tarryest
thou? What are you waiting on? Are
you waiting to get better? It's not going to happen. Are
you waiting to understand more? Don't wait on anything. Why tarryest
thou? Arise and be baptized. Baptism
by immersion. washing away thy sins. It's not
the act of baptism that washes away your sins, but it's what
baptism represents. That when Christ lived, I lived.
When He died, I was in Him, and I died. My sins were put away,
washed away. When He was raised, I was raised. Arise, be baptized, and wash
away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord. And that's
what every believer does. I call on the name of the Lord.
Lord, save me. Save me by who you are. Do you see how every believer
has the same experience that Paul did? He is the pattern. And if you and I are saved, we
will follow this pattern. Now, I'd like to invite you to
services at Padre of Grace Church this morning. Our Bible study
begins at 9.45. The morning worship is 1030,
and this evening we'll begin at 6. We have a nursery. We'd
like you to come out and hear the gospel. We have this message
on cassette tape, DVD, and CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Knight. We pray
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's
our prayer. Amen. If you request a copy of the
sermon you have just heard, send your request in messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.