Would you turn back to First
Timothy? Let's read verse 16 again. Paul says, 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 hereafter
believe on him, that's me and you, to life everlasting. I've entitled this message, The
Divine Pattern. The Divine Pattern. Now, I would love for every believer
to gain full assurance from hearing this message. And I would like everybody in
here does not know the Lord, to know that they do not know
the Lord, so that they'll cry for mercy. The divine pattern. Now, we are all unique individuals. different, diverse, and that's
good. Do you know there's nobody like
me? And there is absolutely nobody
like you. We really are unique individuals. I think it's really glorious
how the thumbprint, the fingerprints, they're all different. That lets
us know that we are all different. In God's purpose and providence,
we're all possessed of a certain gene pool, and we all have upbringing,
experience, and environment that makes us what we are, the good
things and the bad things. We're all diverse and unique,
and that is good. Now there are things about ourselves
that we'd like to change, no doubt about it, but still we
are what we are. The mold has been thrown away
with every single one of us. Unique individuals. Furthermore, I do not want to
be placed in some kind of mold that you force me into. And you
don't want to be placed in some kind of mold that I force you
into. I don't want to be put in a man-made
mold. 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 not going to do it. I'm just
not going to do it. Now, that being said, that we
are unique individuals. There is a pattern. There is a form which I must
fit into or I am not saved. Paul tells us that he is a pattern. He is a form. He's a mold. And if you and I are saved, that
means we're saved the same way Paul was. We believe the same
thing Paul believed, and we experience the same thing Paul experienced. He doesn't say anything less
when he says, God saved me, God gave me mercy for this purpose
that he might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern,
a pattern for them which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting. Paul is the pattern. Now, I want to see if I fit into
this pattern. Because if I do not. Lord hadn't
done anything for me. Now, may God give us honesty
as we consider this to see if we follow Now, like I said, this
is a pattern I must be in. Now, beginning in verse 12 of
this same passage of Scripture, he says, And I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord. Now, here is the one place where
it's appropriate to begin with an I. I thank Christ Jesus our
Lord. Now, if I'm saved the way Paul
was saved, I, from the very depths of my heart, give Christ all
the credit for my salvation. I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord. What he says next, Who hath enabled
me? For that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry. Now, I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who enabled me, who empowered me, who caused me to do whatever
it is I do or believe whatever it is I believe or be whatever
I am. He enabled me. Now, I was completely unable. I was unable to believe. I was
unable to repent. I was unable to love completely
and totally depraved, unable to do one good things. He enabled me. You know, Paul didn't believe
in free will, did he? He did not believe in free will. Now,
what do I mean by free will? Free will is that notion that
if I want to, I can choose to believe. And I can choose to
be good. And I can choose to be saved.
Now, we do what we want to do. I'm not going to deny that. We
do exactly what we want to do. But my will is controlled by
a sinful, evil nature. And the only way I can believe
is if I am enabled. Now, Paul said, I thank Christ
Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me. I know that if I believe,
it's because He enabled me. If I'm saved, it's because He
saved me. Now, that's the pattern. He enabled
me. Look what it says next in verse
12. He counted me faithful, putting
me into the ministry. He enabled me to be faithful.
He counted me as such. And what a grace that He would
enable me to be faithful. That means to believe. It means
to be faithful to His Word. I know this. If He doesn't enable
me to be faithful, I will not be faithful. I'm sure of that.
But if I'm faithful, it's because He enabled me to be faithful,
putting me into the ministry, putting me into the service.
Now, if God has saved me, He's enabled me to be faithful, to
believe the Gospel, to be faithful to Him, And he's put me into
the ministry. This is not just talking about
preachers. This is talking about every believer. Every believer
has been put into the ministry. And let's go and read in verse
13. Who was before. A blasphemer. And a persecutor. And injurious. But I obtained mercy because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Now notice this phrase, who was
before. You know, most folks, most religious
folks don't have a before. Now, what do I mean by that?
Paul looked upon his religious life And this is what he's talking
about, who was before when he was supposedly serving God, when
he was supposedly seeking to serve him. He says, I'm looking
at what I was before. And I was a blasphemer. I was
a persecutor. And I was injurious, my religion
was evil. Now, do you have a before? You
have a before where you can see before God brought you to a knowledge
of the gospel, you were a blasphemer. You were a persecutor. You were
injurious. You were thoroughly evil. Your
religion was thoroughly evil. It wasn't good. Now, most folks
don't seem to have a before. They've been saved so long they
can't remember when they weren't. They were believers even before
they'd heard the gospel, so they think. That's not following the
pattern. Paul said, who was before a blasphemer
and a persecutor and injurious. But, he says in verse 13, but,
however, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Now this verse used to bother
me a lot. It almost sounds with that language
that Paul is saying, My sin was done in ignorance. It wasn't
willful. It was done in ignorance. And that's why God had mercy
on me. If my sin would have had more of a willful character,
I wouldn't have had this mercy. Now, if that's the case, I'm
in bad shedding. And you are too. But what Paul
is saying is, is I was so given over to ignorance. I was so completely
ignorant of God. I was so given over to unbelief. that the only way I could be
saved was by the sheer mercy of God. Mercy. That's why I obtained
mercy. The only way I could be saved, I was so ignorant, so
unbelieving, that the only way I could be saved is simply to
obtain mercy. Let's go on reading. Verse 14. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
We just heard about that in that song we heard. I stand amazed
in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He could
love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean, He took my sins and
my sorrows. He made them His very own. He
bore the burden of the Calvary and suffered and died alone. I'm amazed. The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding abundant. Now, I love the grace
of our Lord. I love what Paul said there in
2 Corinthians 8 and 9 when he said, you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, the riches of Christ. He owned
everything. It's all His. He made everything. He controls everything. Oh, how
rich He is in possessions. How rich He is or was in praise. He had the praises of angels.
The love of His Father. Oh, how rich He was. Yet, For your sakes, he became
poor. He became poor in purse. He didn't
own anything. But most especially, when he
was made sin, he no longer had the favor of his father while
he was on the cross. When he was made sin, he had the awful
frown and wrath of his father upon him. 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. Turn to Romans chapter 5 for
a moment. Hold your finger there in verse 10 and we'll come back
there. Romans chapter 5. Verse 20. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
was exceeding abundant. Now here's what exceeding abundant
grace is. Verse 20. Romans chapter 5. Moreover, the law entered. God's holy law. The ten commandments that the
offense might abound, overflow. That's all God's law does is
it exposes sin. If you ever see what the meaning
of the law is, you'll see that all you do is sin. All you are
is sin. And you've never done anything
but sin. If you ever see what God's law is, that's going to
be true concerning you. You're going to know it so. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded. I love this because that's me.
That's me. Where sin abounded and overflowed,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, was the grace of our Lord
exceeding abundant in your salvation? My soul, if the Lord's done something
for you, you're saved just the same way Paul was, by grace.
By grace. And that grace is what produced
the faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Verse 15. He says,
this is a faithful saying. Utterly reliable. 1 Timothy chapter
1, verse 15. By the way, this is my favorite
verse of Scripture. Right here. This is a faithful
saying, and it's worthy of all acceptation. Everybody in this
room ought to make, say, this is the best scripture in the
Bible. Everybody in this room ought to agree with this. This
is a faithful saying. It's worthy of all acceptation. Everybody
ought to embrace this. That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." Christ. God's anointed prophet, the Word
of God. God's anointed priest. The only
way a man can come into God's presence is by Christ representing
him. You don't come on your own. Christ,
God's anointed king, the Christ. Jesus, the Savior. Thou shalt
call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."
Christ Jesus came into the world. God was manifest in the flesh.
He came into the world for this purpose. To save. To save. That's why He came. To save sinners
of whom Paul says, I am the chief. Now, what is a sinner? Someone
says, preacher, isn't everybody a sinner? Ask them. What is a sinner? What's the
Bible mean by this word, sinner? A sinner is the one who commits
the sin. It's the one who does it. A sinner
is somebody who all they do is sin. That's it. They cannot refrain from sin. They can't make themselves stop
sinning because everything they do sin because they're the one
that does it. You see, this is what makes it sin. I did it.
I did it. And if I did it, that makes it
sin. A sinner is someone who can't look in moral superiority
at anybody. Like Paul, they believe themselves
to be the very chief of sinners. Everybody that God saves believes
themselves to be the worst person in the world. They really believe
that about themselves. And they have no claim on God's
mercy, no entitlement. They're totally dependent upon
God to show them mercy. Now, here is the gospel. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. If he came into the world to
save sinners, here's the question. Did he do it? Did he do what he came
to do? What were his last words? You
know. It is what? Finished. Completed. When he said it is
finished, every sinner he came to save was saved. salvation completely outside
of my subjective experience. It is finished. Would you turn with me for a
moment to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse
14. I know, Ecclesiastes 3.14, right
after the book of Proverbs. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. The wise man says, I know that
whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put or added to
it, nor anything taken from it, and God doeth it that men should
fear before him. That which hath been is now,
and that which is to be hath already been. And God requires
that which is past. That's what it is finished means.
Nothing could be added to it. Nothing could be taken from it.
He came to save sinners and he did it. He did it. And Paul says of whom I am chief,
how be it verse 16, how be it for this cause? I obtain mercy,
that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering. Remember, according to 2 Peter
3.15, the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. If he's longsuffering
toward you, that means he's saved you. He's not longsuffering to
that one in hell. No, his wrath is upon that person.
But, oh, how longsuffering he is toward all who believe. Now, Paul said in the first,
Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern,
a pattern, a mold. Now, if I'm saved, I'm saved
the same way Paul was saved. I experience the same thing Paul
experienced. I believe the same thing Paul
believed. Now, let me give you and myself some real good advice.
If my experience is contrary to Paul's experience, I better
give up my experience. I better trash it. I better consider
it no good. Now, that's a hard thing to do,
isn't it? Everybody wants to hold on to their experience.
But if my personal experience isn't the same experience as
the Apostle Paul, I better trash my experience. May God give us
grace to do that. Now, what I want us to do is
consider Paul's conversion experience. That's what we're going to spend
the rest of our time doing. Would you turn to Acts chapter 7? Remember,
Paul said he's a pattern to those which should hereafter believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ unto life everlasting. Now, here's
Paul. Here's Paul. Beginning in verse 58, this is
when they were stoning Stephen. And here's Paul's experience.
Verse 57, then they cried out with a loud voice and stopped
their ears and ran upon him with one accord, talking about their
putting Stephen to death. And they cast him out of the
city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul. This is
Paul the Apostle. His name was Saul. And he said,
let me hold you for your fellow's coats while you stone him. He
was totally against Stephen. Look in chapter 8, verse 1. And
Saul was consenting, giving full agreement to the death of Stephen. And at that time, there was a
great persecution against the church, which was in Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,
except the apostles and devout men carried Stephen to his barrel
and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc
of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and
women, committing them to prison. Look in chapter nine. And Saul,
yet breathing out, look at the language, Saul, yet breathing
out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the
Lord, went unto the high priest and desired of him letters to
Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this
way, this way of Christ, this way of grace, this way of faith
in Christ, if he found any of this way, whether they were men
or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. Now at this time, Paul was not
seeking God. Isn't that clear? Somebody once said he wasn't
on his way to a prayer meeting. He was an enemy of Jesus Christ. That's his before. That's his
before. Now Acts chapter 9, Luke gives
us the account of the Lord stopping him on the road to Damascus.
But what I want to do right now is turn to Acts chapter 22, where
he gives his own personal account of what took place. Acts chapter
22. Now, Paul has been arrested and
he's giving his defense as to why he's a disciple of Christ.
Look in verse 40 of chapter 21. And when he had given him license,
Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with a hand unto the
people. They'd been trying to kill him. And now he's going
to talk to the same people who had been trying to kill him and
pull him apart. And when there was made a great silence,
he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying, here's Paul's
experience. Men, brethren, and 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 verily a man which am a Jew, born in
Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, and brought up in this city at the
feet of Gamaliel. He tells them where he went to
seminary and where he learned and taught according to the perfect
manner of the law of the fathers and was zealous toward God as
you are this day. Now, he said, I was very religious.
And I was very zealous. Verse 4, And I persecuted this
way, this way of Christ, this way of grace. I persecuted this
way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both
men and women, as also the high priest doth bear me witness,
and all the estate of the elders, from whom also I received letters
unto the brethren, went to Damascus to bring them which were there
bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished. And it came to pass
that as I made my journey, he wasn't seeking God, he didn't,
he didn't, he had no love for Jesus Christ. That's evident,
isn't it? It came to pass that as I made my journey and was
come nigh in Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven
a great light round about me. Now, I have no doubt that this
light is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, because in the Acts
26, when he's giving this account again, he says it shined above
the greatness of the sun. It's Christ who appeared to him. But here is the point. Now, I
haven't seen the light the way Paul did, but this is how every
believer's salvation experience begins. It begins with light. What is light? Well, if you don't
have any light, what happens? You can't see. But when there's
great light, you see, he saw who God is in his holiness. He saw himself in his own sinfulness. And what did he do? He fell to
the ground. Now, if you and I ever have light,
it's going to put us down. The way up in the kingdom of
heaven is down. Now here he was on the road to
Damascus, light came to him, and he fell to the ground. Verse 7, And I heard a voice
saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou,
Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecuted. Now, when I find out who Christ
is, I find out I don't know him. That's what I find out. I don't
know him. Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus
of Nazareth. The same one who was crucified
and raised from the dead. The same one whom Stephen preached
while you held their clothes while they stoned him. I'm the
same one whom you murdered people for believing on his name and
had him cast. I'm Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou
persecutest. Verse 9, 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. You see, when you hear from God,
you hear the voice of God. It's not just light. You see,
this is God's voice. This is the voice of Christ.
Verse 10. And I said. What shall I do, Lord? And what
this is, is submission. Submission. When you hear from
him, you're going to say, what shall I do? What do you want
me to do? What do you want me to believe?
Where do you want me to go? It's submission. Submission to
His voice. Now, in faith, there is submission
to Him. What came to my mind was named
the leper, the great man. But he's got leprosy. Thinks he's great at any rate.
He's got leprosy. He hears there's a prophet in
Israel. He goes and he expects that prophet to do some kind
of miraculous thing. And I love the way Elisha wouldn't
even come out of his house to go greet him. He sent his servant
and said, you go dip in the Jordan seven times and you'll be clean. And he got mad. He got mad. He said, the rivers where I'm
from are a lot better than this filthy, dirty river. Couldn't
I go to them? He left in a rage, the scripture
says. And his servant said, now, if
the prophet would have bid you do something great, you would
have done it. But how much more wash and be clean? So he went
back to the Jordan in obedience to the prophet. He submitted
to what he said, and he dipped seven times into that river. And he came up, the scripture
says, his flesh was as clean as a baby's. Now, I want to ask you a question.
Did dipping in the river Jordan cleanse his flesh? No! God did it! Would he have been cleansed if
he refused? No. No. Their submission. What will
you have me do, Lord? Verse 10, And the Lord said unto
me, Arise, and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee
of all things. which are appointed for thee
to do. Now, remember, God is going to
use this man to expound the gospel more than any other man. Now. If I were the Lord, good thing
I'm not, you know that, but if I were the Lord. I would have
seen Peter or John or somebody like that to it. Somebody had
some experience, somebody that that had some kind of reputation
or something, you know, I would I would one of the chief of... I would have sent somebody other
than Ananias. I mean, who's Ananias? He's a
nobody from nowhere that nobody's ever heard of, and you never
hear of him after this either. But he was a disciple of the
Lord. The Lord had appeared to him and said, you go to a street
called Strait, inquire of a man named Saul of Tarsus, for behold,
he prayeth. And I'm sure after he was struck
blind, seeing that light, he was praying, Lord have mercy
on him. He didn't know what to do, but God sent him a preacher. And if you're saved, if I'm saved,
God's going to send us a preacher, a preacher of the gospel, maybe
nobody to the world. Ananias wasn't nobody, but he
sent him a preacher. He's going to humble him. Let's
go on reading. He said, go into Damascus and
there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed
for thee to do. I love that language. This is what God has appointed.
Verse 11, when I could not see for the glory of that light being
led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus
and won 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, This is what grace does. Brother
Saul. He'd been an enemy, but now he's
a brother. Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked upon
him, and he said, now here's his sermon. Here's his sermon. The God of our fathers. had chosen
me." First thing he heard was election. First thing he heard. The God
of our fathers had chosen thee. And you know what? In my own
experience, what God used to teach me that I was an unbeliever
was election. The fact that God chose who would
be saved He didn't choose everybody. He chose who would be saved.
And there wasn't anything I could do to make myself one of them.
I couldn't make myself one. I was totally in God's hands. He could save me or he could
pass me by. And my heart rose up in fury
at that. How could that be fair? How could
that be fair? And what that taught me was that
I was, in fact, an enemy of Jesus Christ, that I was sitting in
judgment on Him, that I was opposed to His way of saving. I found
out that I hated Him. And that's what scared me to
death when I found out that I was an enemy, that in my heart I
couldn't keep that down. I was an enemy of Jesus Christ.
That is when I cried for mercy. Only then, the God of our fathers,
hath chosen thee." What's he say next? That thou shouldest
know His will. Now that's not talking about
His will of command. Paul already had that down pat.
He knew the Ten Commandments backwards and forwards. It's
not talking about His will of providence. Somebody says, well,
I think it's the Lord's will for me to do this, or it's the Lord's will
for me to do that. You don't know. You really don't. And I
don't either. I hate it when people say, it's
God's will for me to do this. Don't blame it on God. You don't
know what his will is. I mean, you don't know till after
the fact when it comes right down to it. Isn't that so? After the
fact, you know. But before the fact, you hope
it is. You hope it is. You ask the Lord to guide you.
But as far as his will of providence, I don't know what he's doing.
I don't know what he's doing right now. He does. And that's enough,
isn't it? He does. But this is talking
about his will of redemption. This is the will of him that
sent me. that of all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day." You understand that it's the will of God that everybody
that Christ died for must be saved. You know His will. Go on reading verse 14, and see
that just one. There's just one, just one. And
you see that He is the only way that God can be just and justify
you. He's the way. You understand
that. You understand that He is your righteousness before
God. You see the just one. There's only just one, just one. He's the just one that makes
me just by what He did. You see that just one. And next it says that thou should
hear the voice of His mouth. That means when you hear the
gospel, you know it's His gospel. You know it's His word. It's
not your word. It's not man's word. It's His word. Now, every believer shares that
in common. Now, let's go on verse 15. For
thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what you've seen and
heard. Now, here's two things I want to say about that. What
is our message? what we've seen and what we've
heard. God's truth. God's objective
truth. And we're his witness. Now, you
know what that word means? We're his martyr, is what the
word means. What that means is more than
just telling people the truth. It means that I am willing by
the grace of God to die for this. Is the gospel you believe a gospel
worth dying for? Is it worth your blood? Every believer is a martyr. Every believer is willing, by
the grace of God, to die for the gospel. He said, Thou shalt
be his martyr to all men of what you've seen and what you've heard.
Verse 16, Now why tarryest thou? What are you waiting on? That's
a good question. Are you waiting to get better?
It ain't going to happen. Are you waiting to understand
more? There's nothing to wait on. What are you waiting on?
What do you say? Why tear us down? Arise and be
baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the
Lord. Now, I want us to see how important
this issue of baptism is. What do you say? What are you
waiting on? Arise and be baptized. Baptism by immersion is my confession
of Christ. It's believer's baptism. If I
believe the gospel, I'm called upon to be baptized, to confess
Christ in believer's baptism. Now, when he says, now arise
and be baptized, washing away thy sins, does that mean that
the act of baptism washes away sins? Now, remember, you always
got to look at scripture in the light of other scripture. Obviously,
it doesn't mean that going in the water and coming back up
does not wash away sin. It doesn't do it. But I do confess
this. What baptism signifies is how
my sin is washed away. When Christ lived, there's my
righteousness. When he died, my sin was placed
upon him. He went into that tomb with my
sin. And when he walked out of that
tomb, there's something he walked out with, out, my sin. All washed away. Arise and be baptized, washing
away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord. Now, this is
what every believer does. We call, Lord, save me. We call on his name. That's his
attributes. That's who he is. Lord, save
me. Now, there is the divine pattern. Paul said, 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. This is the divine pattern right
here. May we all be enabled to follow
it exactly. Now, remember, I said, yes, we're
all unique individuals. And that's a good thing. That's
a good thing. But this is a pattern I must
fit into. May God give us all grace to
do so. Let's pray together.