First Timothy chapter one. Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior
and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope. Unto Timothy, my
own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our
Father and 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." They were getting
carried away by bloodlines, weren't they? It didn't do any good,
it just ministered questions rather than godly edifying. Well,
what is edifying? Well, he already told us, it's
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's the true doctrine. Now the end of
the command is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience
and of faith unfeigned from which some having swerved have turned
aside into vain jangling. Desiring to be teachers of the
law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know the law, that the
law is good if a man use it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is
not made for a righteous man, but 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, according to the glorious gospel
of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. And I
thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. He counted
Paul faithful. I found that very, that struck
me interesting. What was faithful about Paul?
Nothing. Christ in you, the hope of glory. That was the faithfulness
that the Lord saw, and I hope that's the faithfulness the Lord
sees in us. Let us pray. Lord, we come before you, begging that you would send your
spirit Begging that you would tune our hearts and minds to
sing your praise. Forgive us, Lord, of our sin.
Forgive us, Lord, of our wrong and just the way we are and everything
that we do. We're so contrary to you and
in everything. Well, we pray that you would
be our rest tonight. You'd be our peace. That your
glory would shine forth according to your will. Have mercy upon
us according to the love loving. Kindness that you have. Wrought
and bestowed upon your people have mercy upon us, we pray.
Be with those who will be standing Sunday to declare your word.
Father, give Alan Steve words. But only you can cause your people
to hear. Allow your gospel to go forth
in free course. Lord, be with those who would
be standing elsewhere. Give grace to the hearers, grace
to the speakers. Lord, you get all the glory in
this. Be with those who are sick, battling cancer and different
afflictions. Lord, we have, uh, Those who are in the hospital
Lord, you know them by name. We pray for them now and ask
that your hand of healing be upon them according to your will.
And according to your mercy. Thank you for your grace. And
thank you for your mercy. In Christ name we ask all these
things, Amen. Let's turn to number 485 and
stand together once again. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Alleluia, Thine the glory! Alleluia, Amen! Alleluia, Thine the glory! Revive us again! We praise Thee, O God, for Thy
Spirit of light Who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night Hallelujah, Thine the glory, Hallelujah, Amen Hallelujah,
Thine the glory, revive us again All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, Who hath borne all our sins and hath cleansed
every stain. Alleluia, Thine the glory! Alleluia, Amen! Alleluia, Thine the glory! Revive us again! Revive us again. Fill each heart with Thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Hallelujah, Amen. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive us again. Please be seated. Come back with me, if you will,
to First Timothy chapter one. I have drawn from this text before,
but I didn't see this the first time that we looked at it, and
it's amazing how the word of God is inexhaustible. And it's
ever, ever renewed. It's ever renewed. The Lord makes
it also unattainable and past finding out. We need, I was talking
to someone recently and they said, I opened up the scripture
and saw something. I've never saw that before. That's
been there the whole entire time and I didn't see it. It's because
the Lord reveals it at that moment. And that's how he's designed
it. And next time you open it, our
hope is that he would reveal something else that we've never
seen. This is why we need to be praying right now, Lord, let
us see this, something that we've never seen before. And it's always
the same. It's always just a different
perspective of our Lord and Savior, a different, you know, Ezekiel's
vision was the four, all four sides of the Lord. It was just
different perspective of him, but it was all about his finished
work and every perspective, isn't it? And that's what we hope to
see tonight. This is Paul's first letter to Timothy and calls him
his son in the faith. Now look in chapter one, verse
one and verse two. Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God, our savior and Lord Jesus
Christ, which is our hope unto Timothy, my own son in the faith,
grace, mercy, and peace from God, our father and Jesus Christ,
our Lord. He loves Timothy, and it's obvious
by the fact that he is writing a letter to Timothy. He wrote
many letters to many churches and a few people, a few men,
but he writes two to Timothy. This is an expression of his
love, and we know because he loves him, he's going to instruct
him in this love. If somebody loves you, they're
gonna teach you in love. They're gonna communicate in
love. It's gonna come out. It's gonna
come out in one way, shape, or form that they love you, If they
love you, they will tell you the truth. They won't lie to
you. If I'm out for myself, however, I'll say whatever is necessary
for peace, or I'll say whatever is necessary for the praise of
men, or I'll look for affirmation from somebody other than the
Lord if I'm out for myself. And this is evident all throughout
religion, and it's also evident in our flesh. Our flesh looks
for the praise of men. Our flesh looks for affirmation
from our peers and from those around us, and it's Everything
about the gospel is contrary to the flesh. He gets all the
glory in it. May the Lord give us grace to
look for affirmation from him. May we be, may we be looking
to Christ. May we be found looking to Christ
alone. We desire to speak the truth
in love, don't we? We desire to hear the truth in
love. This is what honors the Lord. We're not interested in
watering down the gospel or, you know, they talked about in
the last days, Men shall heap to themselves teachers having
itching ears. Well, those are men that are
ear ticklers, and I've used this terminology before, but it's
Dr. Sounding Brass and Reverend Tinkling
Cymbal. They don't have any charity.
They have no love in their preaching. It's all about themselves, and
it's all about saying whatever. They're men-pleasers is what
they are. I don't want to be a man-pleaser. We don't want
that. We want to preach Christ. We want to preach the truth of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and his finished work. And we
want to preach it in love. We want to preach God's gospel
in love. This is what Paul is beginning to instruct Timothy
on, is preach the word. He tells him that, preach the
word, Timothy. But here in our text, I wanna read 1 Timothy
1, verse 15 through 17. That's where I wanna draw our
attention to tonight. The Lord be merciful. 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. How be it for this
cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show
forth all longsuffering for a pattern of them which should hereafter
believe on him to life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and
ever, amen. Our subject that I hope to consider
tonight, of course it would be, I hate even putting it that way
as it being a subject, but the title of the message is The Pattern
of Hearing, as he talks about in verse 16. How be it for this
cause I obtain mercy that in me first Christ Jesus might show
forth with all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on him to everlasting, to life everlasting. I hope tonight
that we can simply see how the Lord saves sinners and why the
Lord saves sinners. He always calls them one way,
one way. And there's no exceptions to
that. It's the same way, it's the same
pattern of believing. If you're a believer, and if
I'm a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's the same exact pattern
as what Paul is setting forth here. The same exact thing that
happened to Paul is exactly what happens to you now. What happened
to Paul? Well, Paul was the Pharisee of Pharisees. He was delivering
letters for the execution of the church, the believers, the
Christians. And on his way to Damascus, he
got kicked off of his horse by the blinding light of the Lord.
The Lord threw him off the high horse that he was upon, off of
his self-righteous plateau, off of thinking he was serving God
and showed him who God really was, gave him repentance. You
know that's true because Paul acknowledges who it is. He calls
him Lord. He calls him master. He calls
him, in that reflection of Lord, that's complete submission to
his authority is what Paul did. And the Lord said, why do you,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Saul couldn't answer,
how are you going to reply against the Lord? But the Lord does,
he says, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks. He remembered
the gospel that he heard when he held the coat of Stephen.
Paul literally held the coat of the preacher Stephen while
they were stoning him to death. And during that time, Stephen
declares the gospel to these people. Paul heard that day.
Paul heard that day, but this is the day when the Lord knocks
him off of his horse that the Lord's gonna make it completely
effectual I'll say it this way, there is
never a blinding light that shines from heaven whenever that happens.
It's not going to happen. Paul was an apostle. Paul was
the last to see. He said, last Christ was seen
of me. Qualification of an apostle is to see the Lord in person. And that's the last one that
saw him was Paul. So there's no such thing as apostles
today. If somebody says they're an apostle, they don't know the
definition of it. But there'll be no blinding light that shines
forth from heaven that you can physically see. Eventually, the
Lord will shine forth a blinding light into the new heart that
he gives his people, and it reveals the Lord Jesus Christ alone by
faith. That's how he does it for his
people. He gives repentance, and he gives faith. This is the
pattern that Paul is describing. This is the pattern set forth.
If somebody says, I'm a believer, and yet the Lord has not given
them repentance or faith, they're not believers. If I don't have
repentance, if I've never seen myself as a sinner and seen him
as sovereign and holy and the successful redeemer of his people,
I've never become a believer. I'm not a believer. If I don't
look at the Lord Jesus Christ, or if you don't look at the Lord
Jesus Christ as all your hope and salvation, we're not believers.
But if he's given repentance and we've seen him as sovereign,
he's given faith to say, Lord, Christ is all, Christ is all,
we're believers. If we believe that Jesus Christ
is God, we're believers. This is the pattern, without
exception, this is the same pattern of believing. Interestingly enough, Paul immediately
reveals the qualification of salvation. What's the qualification? This is a faithful saying, verse
15, worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. There's the qualification.
You see yourself as a sinner, needing a savior? You're qualified. The Lord said, I didn't come
to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners, but sinners. Redemption in Christ's work for
salvation is by his choice. It was a cause. He actually gives
us a cause for this cause. Verse 16, how be it for this
cause I obtain mercy. What's the cause? It's Christ's
work of salvation. Christ Jesus came into the world.
He chose to do that. The Lord did something. Here
we are, dead in trespasses and in sin, fallen in our father,
Adam. We're unable to attain to a righteousness
of the law. The law pronounces us as guilty
before God. And so the Lord becomes a man. The Lord comes to this earth
to save sinners. He did something. This is how
he redeemed his people. But understand that he didn't
come just to save sinners. There's another word Paul uses
to describe himself here and it's chief sinners. If I believe
that I'm a sinner and yet I look at someone else and say, well,
I'm thankful I'm not as bad as that guy. I've never been made
the chief sinner. See, the chief's number one,
and I don't mean in a good way. We're talking about the worst
of the worst of the worst. If I can look around and see
somebody else's outward doings, if I can see somebody else's
outward display of lifestyle and say, I am not as bad as they
are, there's some bit of righteousness, isn't there, in that. There's
some bit of self-righteousness in that. No, in the Lord's eye,
he doesn't have a scale that says, well, that sin wasn't near
as bad as that sin was. That's not true. No, we are completely
and utterly, every one of us is 100% sin. There's nothing
left. No good in us whatsoever, 100%.
I would say 110, but that doesn't make sense. I'm just gonna stop
at 100. We understand what I'm talking about. There's none good. No,
not one. We can't prop ourself up on a
plateau and think, well, I've got 5% good in me. Everybody's
got a little bit of good. No, they don't. Everybody is
wicked. Everybody is evil, pure evil.
We need to substitute. The only way that we can see
that is if we're given repentance. If we're given this same pattern,
knocked off of our high horse, whatever that horse is, and maybe
we're not elevated extremely high above our peers. Maybe there's
just one thing that just sets us a little bit higher. Maybe
the Lord notices me because of this or because of that, and
it's not true. We have to be knocked all the
way down, don't we? We have to be given true repentance, which
reveals us as the chief sinner. We're not just calculate, we
didn't take out a calculator and add and subtract all of our
good and bad to determine whether we were a sinner or not, did
we? This isn't a calculated conclusion. This is a revelation by grace.
Chief sinner, chief sinner. That's your confession, isn't
it? If you're a believer, it's your confession. I am not just
a sinner, I am the sinner, the sinner, the chief sinner. Only chief sinners need the Savior. And only God has the power to
reveal that we're chief sinners. We can't discover that by computing
information. We can't discover that by addition
and subtraction. As I've already said, this is
something that must be revealed. It must be revealed. And when
it's revealed, only chief sinners see themselves as undone, unworthy
of God. You don't have any righteousness
in yourself, do you? I don't have any righteousness
in me. How, why, why do I, how did we come to that conclusion?
The Lord revealed that. Have no righteousness of the
law, have no righteousness in the decisions I've made, no hope
in the prayers that I pray. My prayers are sinful. No, my
hope is not found in me whatsoever. Your hope's not found in you,
is it? It's because the gift of repentance
by grace has been given. This is not a discovery made.
This is a work of grace. This is the work of grace by
God's spirit, by his gospel. It's not something we do or discover. It's something that's revealed,
but he's the revelator of it. He's the one that reveals it,
isn't he? This is the pattern of believing. It's very simple.
It's very simple. The young man, the Lord healed
on the Sabbath day. Well, he made the Pharisees angry
on many occasions. And I loved it whenever he replied
to him and said, you've done this on the Sabbath day. And
he says, I'm Lord of the Sabbath. What he was saying was, I am
the Sabbath. You missed it entirely. That was him. That is the Sabbath
that the father rested on. But they were angry at him, and
they said, It's not lawful for him to heal on the Sabbath. They
asked this man, is this man a sinner that healed you on the Sabbath?
They were trying to get the young man to confess that Christ Jesus
was a sinner because he didn't obey their law. It wasn't even
their law. It was God's law that was given
to him. And the Lord Jesus Christ did exactly perfect according
to that law, didn't he? And healed that young man in
the process. But They said, give God the glory. That's what they told the young
man. Give God the glory. Is this man a sinner that healed
you? What did the young man say? They
asked the parents to begin with and the parent says, he's of
age, ask him. So they asked him and put him on the spot. You
imagine all these people looking at you and you're, I don't know
what age of maturity it would have been. He's a young man,
I don't know exactly how old, but that would have been very
intimidating to be with the religious rulers of that time looking at
you and they're saying, this is what you better be saying
right now. You better give God the glory. This man's a sinner,
we want to hear it from your mouth. And he said, whether he's
a sinner or not, I know not, but this one thing I know. And
this is your confession, isn't it? This one thing. I don't know
much, but I know one thing. Whereas I was blind, now I see. I was blind and that's repentance.
That's faith. That's what the Lord gives his
people as a pattern. We don't, we don't say, well, we know this
and we know this and we've got all the theology down pat and
we know all the doctrine. We know that we know a person,
don't we? We know a person. Whereas I was blind and now I
see him and he is my only hope. It's not in what I do and what
I don't do. He is my only hope. He is my
only hope. That's what repentance reveals. That's what faith reveals is
he's our only hope. Repentance reveals who God is. He reveals the sovereignty that
he's supreme and in authority. He's the one who created all
things. Repentance, I love the. The thought that even seeing
ourself when the Lord reveals himself, we don't even see ourself
as significant as an ant anymore. I mean, that's your experience
too, isn't it? I don't look at myself and say, well, I'm a.
I'm an ant, and that's how big he is compared to me. No, it's
like we become non-existent. There's nothing good about us
whatsoever. Even the term maggot's not even
good enough to describe what we see ourself. That's my experience. That's what repentance does.
It just abases us completely, whereas we don't look to ourself
anymore. We see him as seated. We see him as sovereign and holy.
And we're this completely the opposite of everything he is.
We're opposite of his, of his goodness. We're opposite of everything
about him. We're the opposite of Being made a sinner doesn't mean
we see sin. It means we see God, and that
reveals that we're the chief sinner. In seeing God, we see
ourselves as the chief. We didn't start looking and say,
OK, well, I see that I'm sinning a little bit more, and I'm starting
to really kind of understand I'm a sinner. No, he reveals
Christ. In two ways, he reveals his sovereignty, and he reveals
his mercy. He reveals his wrath, and he
reveals his grace. That's repentance, and that's
faith at the same time, isn't it? I see I'm unworthy, I see
that I'm damned, I'm doomed, I have no hope, and there's hope,
the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work, and that's what
faith flees to. We realize that it's not what
we do. We know that everything we touch
is corrupted just by touching it. I've polluted this pulpit
just because I put my hand on it. But we realize it's what
we are. That's what we are. It's not
what we do. This isn't a moral issue where
we need to straighten up our lives to live better. This isn't
a humanitarian issue where I need to give more to society. This
isn't a issue of something I need to do better and correct. This isn't something that can
be corrected by me. This is something that's been
revealed. I need a substitute. I need a
substitute. I can't stand before God the
way that I am. If I do, hell will be my eternal
home. That's what repentance reveals.
It's amazing that he dangles our feet over the pits of hell
for just a brief moment and points us to Christ immediately. And
we run to him. This is what you deserve, but
this is what you're getting. This is what you should be getting,
but here's mercy. Here's grace. And then we're
given Christ. We're given the finished work
of Christ as our only hope. Now to make sure I'm clear on
this particular subject, I want to say this, acknowledging, acknowledging
that you're a sinner, that's not repentance. Acknowledging
that you're a sinner, if I acknowledge that I'm a sinner, that's not
repentance. I remember when my children were
younger, one of them, and I got to be careful not to put them
on the spot, I don't want to embarrass them, but Well, I said to one
of them, I said, why did you do this? And she looked at me
and she said, because I'm a sinner. And I thought, man, that's a
fantastic answer, but I still got to spank your bottom. I didn't
have to teach her that. Would you have to teach our children
to lie or to steal? No, I didn't have to learn that.
I had to learn it was wrong. The law had to be given forth. But acknowledging your sinner
is not repentance. Asking God to save you is not repentance.
Asking, men say, ask the Lord, all you have to do is ask him
and it obligates him. No, that's not repentance. That's
not repentance. Admitting that you've done some
bad things is not repentance. Repentance reveals that we've
never done one thing good before God, that we're not capable of
doing something good. Repentance reveals him as seated,
him as sovereign. It puts him where he is and puts
us where we are in the dirt. It shows us that we are nothing
but the dust of the earth and no good can come out of us whatsoever.
That's what repentance does. Repentance doesn't look to self
and say, okay, I see that I'm a sinner now. Repentance creates
the need for one thing, a substitute. I've got to have a substitute.
It is a confession that I, in myself, there is no good thing,
nothing, nothing. No capacity for good, no ability
for good. See, we're dead. That's how we
see ourself, isn't it? Lord, I can't do anything. Anything physical doesn't understand
that spiritual and physical, it's two different planes completely.
Nothing done physical can affect the spiritual. It's going to
take the Lord to become a man in the flesh to do something
for us, to make us alive or we have no hope. And he did, didn't
he? He did. God's repentance causes his people
to acknowledge the truth. We have a death sentence on our
head. It's not just that we're sinners, but we're born in sin.
The moment we're born, we're sinners. The moment life is given,
we're shapen in iniquity. Repentance reveals that we're
guilty before God and his law. Scripture's so clear, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Repentance
simply is the fact, seeing that you're a sinner and you can't
fix it. You can't fix it. That's about as simple as I can
put it. Nothing we can do can fix it. That's what repentance
reveals. I can't fix it. I can't do one
thing to fix it. Don't you love the glorious news
of the gospel through the faith that the Lord bestows upon us?
Through the eyes of faith, we realize I can't mess it up. Not
what he did. I can't fix my sinful self. But
if he did, I can't mess it up. Ain't that glorious? I can't
fix what I am. I can't fix what I do. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. But if he put away
my sin, I can't mess that up. I can't mess that up. If God
shows us his glory, we'll see just like Isaiah, I am undone.
I thought it was the people I was around that had unclean lips.
I'm the one with the unclean lips. The angel of the Lord had
to take a coal off of the altar, didn't he, and touch his lips.
That's a picture of repentance given. That's a picture of faith
given. Look to Christ. That's what was revealed. He
saw him high and lifted up. He saw him seated and his train
filled the temple. The glory of God filled the temple.
No room for anything else. Train filled the temple. That's
how we see him, isn't it? Isaiah said, I'm undone. Have
you seen yourself as undone? Have I seen myself as undone
truly? by hat and we pray that it happens
right now. Lord, cause me to see myself
as undone. Don't let us have any hope in this flesh whatsoever.
David had committed the sin with Bathsheba. I use this analogy
a lot, but it's, it's relevant for tonight. And he went about
his business going to the temple and would have sacrificed often
and continued going through the process of everything. And it
was not known to anyone what had happened. God knew, God knew
what had happened. And after the fullness of time
had came, about the time the baby came around, so you can
say nine to 12 months, because that's nine months gestation,
we know that. Nathan came to him and told him
the story of the man that had many flocks and herds and the
man that had one ewe lamb. And the man with the ewe lamb
raised the ewe lamb as his own daughter, the scripture says,
eating from his table and loving it. And the man that had many
flocks and herds, when he had a feast, when it came time for
travelers to visit and he had a feast, he took that ewe lamb
and he killed it, he dressed it, and they ate that rather
than one of his. David was a shepherd, and David would have really been
upset about this. It would have been something,
my wife's a dog person, so it would have been a puppy. I mean,
it would have been whatever hits closest to home for the individual. That's what the Lord does is
he puts his finger on the button. That's what he does. That's what
the gospel does. Whatever the button is that you have, Lord's
gonna put his finger right on that. That's what the gospel
does. It reveals that problem, that one problem. David said,
off with his head, kill him. He's going to be put to death.
And Nathan said, David, you're the man. You're the one that
did that. Can you imagine what David felt
at that moment, the guilt? Well, we can, can't we? Because
the Lord, if he's given us repentance, he's came to us and said, you're
the man. You're the woman. You're the problem. And we said,
what do we say? We say with David, I've sinned
against the Lord. I've sinned against, there's
repentance. I've sinned against the Lord. I've done this wrong
against him. And he tells us in Psalm 51 of
his repentant prayer, of his prayer unto the Lord of mercy,
he says, against thee and thee only have I sinned. He's telling
us, I've got no hope unless the Lord does something for me. Unless the Lord does something
for us, I have no hope. And what did Nathan say? The
Lord hath put away your sin. There's mercy. There's grace.
He said, you shall not die. Is that your hope? The Lord hath
put away. Here's the, he's going to push
the button and then he's going to point you to Christ. That's
exactly what happened. He's going to show us that we're
the sinner and he's going to show us the savior. That is the
pattern, the pattern of believing that every single believer has. Understand that David became
the chief center that day, didn't he? He became the chief center.
Chief means foremost. The foremost worse one. No one else compares to how bad
I am. We can no longer look. To others and justify ourself.
We can no longer look to ourself what we do or we don't do or
what others do or don't do and have some sort of false peace
or false hope. Repentance shows us that there
is no hope outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith believes
that. Faith believes Christ. Faith
looks to Christ. Repentance shows us that we need
a Savior, a Savior. Remember the two thieves on the
cross? That's a good example of one
that received repentance and faith and one that didn't. They're
in the same exact situation, both by their own doing. You
know, as well as I know, that every time we find ourself in
a mess that the Lord more, he comes to us and tells us, well,
you're the man, you're the reason that you're in this mess to begin
with. And we say, truth, Lord, I am a dog, but can I have a
crumb from your table? Can I have one more morsel of
your manna? One more, one more drop of grace. I need, I need Christ again.
But this thief, these two thieves, one on the right and one on the
left, We see that one was railing on the Lord and the other one
shushed him and said, we're here justly, but this man's done nothing.
He's done nothing amidst that he should be in this position.
And what does he say to the Lord? Remember me. Remember me when
you come into thy kingdom. Now we're talking about three
men being executed by a cross. They're bloody. The Lord was
beaten beyond recognition. He would have been beaten probably
far worse than these men would have been just because of the
scourge that was upon him, the hate that they had for him. But
he saw through that and was given repentance and faith. He says, he's not guilty, I'm
guilty. My only hope is that he's bearing
my sin, the man that's right beside of him, that he's bearing
me. If he's not bearing my sin, I have no hope. Lord, remember
me. I don't have the proper prayer to pray. I don't have the right
words. I can't look to my heart to see
if it's contrite enough. I can't look inside to see if
my spirit's broken enough for me to even say this to you. I
know this one thing, Lord, if you don't remember me, I have
no hope. I have no hope of salvation.
If you don't pray for me, I have no hope because I can't intercede
for myself. If you haven't put away all of
my sin by your own blood, I've got no hope to stand before God
and be counted as worthy or righteous. That's what repentance does and
that's what faith does. We're made to need a substitute, made to beg for mercy because
of what we are. This man was made to know he
was the chief of sinner and he needed a savior. That man didn't
need an opportunity, did he? Not a thief on the cross didn't
say, Lord, I'm going to let you into my heart. That's not what
happened, was it? Lord, I'm choosing to make you
Lord. That's just silly, isn't it? No, he had a need. And he
knew that God is the only one that could meet that need. Lord,
I'm dead. And I'm dying. I'm literally
going to die. And it wasn't just a... We know that what he said
was not just based upon the emotional experience that he would have
been having right then, because the Lord said, today, you'll
be with me in paradise. No, that was genuine faith, genuine
repentance. If there's anybody in the scripture
that we are positive that's in the presence of God right now,
it's that man. Today, you'll be with me in paradise. That's
what the Lord said. Man didn't need an opportunity. I don't
need an invitation. I don't need it. I need to be made alive,
made to come to Christ. Lord, I can't run this marathon.
I have no legs. Lord, I can't build the house.
I was thinking about, and I mentioned this before, but if you build
a house and you have the tools to build the house, that's part
of it. What if you don't have the knowledge
to use the tools? I'll take it a step farther.
What if you don't have any arms to build the house? That's what
we're talking about. Complete impotency, the inability to do
anything in his sight that would please him. We're dead. Lord,
you're gonna have to build the house. Lord, you're gonna have
to do all the work. Aren't you glad he did? Aren't
you glad he did all of it? Every bit. How do we know? Cause
he said it is finished. Everything he purposed, everything
he purposed to accomplish. He said, it is not going to be
not might be not will be soon is I love that definitive article. It is finished. The Lord's Revealed we're chief sinners,
hasn't he? He's revealed it. Men use the
term sinner flippantly. But if you think about how the
Lord views a sinner, that's the most derogatory term that you
could call somebody. Somebody says you're a sinner,
that's the worst thing that you could ever be called as far as
how the Lord views sinners. Not to people, you know, people,
they write music and call themselves sinners and they'll say, well,
I'm just a sinner, you know, I just do this and that. That's the
most derogatory thing that you could call somebody according
to the scripture. It's condescending. It's not
a compliment or positive in any way. Being a sinner is not our
hope. The Lord Jesus Christ is our hope. That's what faith looks
to. Repentance reveals God and reveals that we're a sinner.
Faith looks to Christ. We go around and we say Christ
is all. Christ is my hope. If I don't
have him, I have no hope. Me being a sinner isn't gonna
help me any unless he's the savior of sinners and I'm the sinner
that he came to die for. We see what I'm saying? We have
to have him. Unless he reveals by repentance that we have no
hope in self at all, we have no hope. Unless he reveals that
we have no hope in self, we have no hope. When he reveals that
we have no hope in self, he shows us we have hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our hope is in the Lord. And I'm thankful that he did
that, which you and I could never have done. First of all, I love
the doctrine of election because it surpasses time before we were
even And we can't enter into that, I know that, but that's
why it's amazing, is because it predates before he said, let
there be light. And then everything after, before
he even said let there be light, everything after that was for
the salvation of his people. I love that. Nothing could have
stopped it. But what is the pattern in all
that? He gives repentance and faith to his people in time.
It's all the same. He doesn't change. He's not got
new tactics. I heard somebody on, I don't
remember what station I was listening to or something like that. But
he said, if you want to speak to your congregation, you need
to use this tactic. And I thought, Lord, don't use
tactics. He uses the gospel. That's not
a tactic. That predates time, too, doesn't
it? The word of God was with him
before time ever began. I'm not trying to preach tactic. You understand what I'm saying.
That's silly. We got to preach him. We got to preach him high
and us low. I'm not, uh, our only hope is
in Christ the Lord. Only, only in Christ. Look with
the text here again, first Timothy one 15. This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save centers of whom I am chief. How be it for this
cause? I obtained 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. What's the cause he's talking
about? It's not just that Paul was a sinner. It's that Christ
came to save sinners. There's the cause. The effect
is life everlasting. That's the effect of what Christ
did for sinners. The cause is not what we do.
The cause is Christ. The effect is not what we have
earned. It's what Christ has earned.
What is that life eternal? It's what he has done. This is
why we obtain mercy. The only reason because Christ
came to save sinners. Our hope is not in seeing how
sinful we are. Our hope is seeing Christ who
took away our sin at Calvary. becoming the unclean thing that
we are, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
Now, I do have good news. I've spent quite a bit of time
talking more about repentance than faith, but I've spent time
talking about faith also. But you can't be given faith
without repentance. They go hand in hand. They're instantaneous.
If you have repentance, you've been given faith as well. That's
good news. The Lord doesn't just show us
that we're sinners and dangle us over the pits of hell and
say, this is what you deserve and this is what you're gonna
get. Now, He would be just in doing so, if we're not in Christ,
but he doesn't do that. He doesn't do that to his people.
He reveals what we deserve. He reveals what we are. He reveals
who he is. And he drives us to Christ through
the eyes of faith. He gives us everything we need
for salvation. And the name of that salvation
is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the name of our salvation.
He is the salvation of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
only hope of obtaining grace and mercy. He is the cause of
obtaining mercy because of what he did, because he came to save
sinners. He's the cause of our obtaining
mercy. He's the cause of us obtaining
grace. The wording that he uses here
is chief sinners. And when the Lord says Christ
came into the world to save sinners, we could ask the question, which
ones? We can answer that with all of them. all of them that
were elected unto eternal life. See, either a man sees himself
as a sinner by repentance or he never really sees himself
as a sinner. Either a woman sees themselves as a sinner by repentance
or they never really truly see themselves as the chief sinner. So in that light, the Lord only
saves sinners and all his sinners. You ever heard that? I think
I've said this before. You've probably heard me say
this, but the movie that came out. And I found out Todd Nybert
actually titled a message on this, All Dogs Go to Heaven.
All dogs, that's the truth. But why? Because the Lord's made
them a dog. The Lord makes us a dog and then he reveals Christ
and makes us his lambs, makes us his sheep. And he does it
all. We see ourself as dead dog sinners.
He sees us as the righteousness of Christ. We see ourself as
a dog returning to his own vomit over and over again. He just
sees us seated at his right hand, perfectly righteous. That's how
he sees it. That's how it really is. How is that to be viewed? How can we see that? Only one
way, through the eyes of faith, through the eyes of faith. That's
the only way that Christ is revealed, that his righteousness is revealed.
Faith looks to Christ as the only remedy to what repentance
reveals, the sin that we are, the self-righteousness that we
are. Faith looks to Christ. It's not
Christ plus or minus anything. If there's one thing in us that
we're looking to, Don't do it. Look to Christ alone. Faith rests
in, looks to, and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
That, brethren, is the pattern of believing. Repentance and
faith. Now in closing, I want to answer this question briefly. How do I know if I have believed? How do I know? Somebody told
me one time, if I believe what you believe, I would have no
assurance of salvation. And in my mind, I thought, you
know, we're the only ones that really have assurance of salvation.
Salvation was wrought at Calvary. Is that not true? It's not dependent
upon me at all. It's not dependent upon you at
all. I have complete confidence salvation was wrought. Now, do
I have confidence that I'm His? I have confidence that if I am,
he put away all my sin on the cross of Calvary. See, we don't
look to ourself and examine ourself to see whether we're his. The
moment that we do, the moment that we say, how do I know if
I believe, we're looking to ourself. Faith looks to Christ. Don't examine yourself and say,
how do I know that I believed? How do I know that I believe?
Believe. Don't ask. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Don't examine ourself to see
whether we believed and look for fruit. There will be none.
Faith looks to Christ. Examine yourself and see if there'll
be anything that we're looking to other than Him. Definitely
do that. See if there'd be one thing that
we're looking to in ourself for our righteousness because if
there is, we have not believed. But if we're looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ and nothing else is our only hope for salvation,
our only, only, only hope, you're a believer. You're a believer
on the authority of God's word. If we're looking to Christ as
all in salvation, you're a believer. We're not believing this because
it makes sense. That's not faith. The Lord never said, think about
this and calculate the probability. That's not, not what we read.
No, it's the pattern, the pattern of believing. on him to everlasting
life. We have no confidence in the
flesh anymore. That's the pattern. It's all of grace. We don't examine
ourself anymore. It's all of grace. Faith looks
to Christ. Someone said, but I don't see
any fruit in my life. Well, that's not looking to Christ.
Faith looks to Christ alone. Faith believes Christ. Faith
receives Christ. Faith reveals Christ. Faith See,
salvation is of the Lord, and it's all by the faith that he's
bestowed. It just looks to him. Repentance reveals our utter
impotence, and faith reveals his all-powerful ability. Repentance
shows us that we're incapable and faith reveals that it is
finished. It is finished. Faith never examines
this flesh for anything because faith is in the spiritual realm.
It looks to Christ. Faith shows that nothing done
in the flesh can accomplish anything spiritual. Can you say beyond a shadow of
a doubt that it is his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection,
his blood alone, that that is your only hope for righteousness
before God? That that is your only hope for
justification before God? That it's your only hope for
redemption? If you can say that, the Lord's give you repentance
and faith, that's the only way we would believe that. Otherwise,
we're going to look to ourself in some way, shape, or form.
Otherwise, we're going to examine ourself and try to find something
good. But if you can say it's His life, His death, burial,
resurrection, it's by His blood alone, His sacrifice that the
Father was pleased with, that's all your hope before the Lord. He gives repentance and faith
to believe that. We're no longer examining ourself
for any part of salvation, are we? Not one part. Our flesh wants to. The Lord
keeps us from that, doesn't he? He shuts us back up to him, over. Repentance is not a one-time
thing. I was talking to somebody on the phone today, and I told
him, I said, Lord, give me repentance, but he does it all the time.
Every time my flesh starts rearing its head up, the Lord will just
chop it back down. Is that your experience? And sometimes it's
really painful. Sometimes it's very painful. Lord, continually draw us back
to him. That's our prayer, isn't it?
Do you believe that he redeemed his people and that nothing can
ever, ever, ever change that? Yes. Yes. Faith believes that,
doesn't it? And you're a believer. If you
believe that, you're a believer. That's according to the pattern
that Paul talks about here. According to the pattern. The
pattern of believing. Let's pray.