“In Love with Jesus” – Part 2 – 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Life is all about balance. When we are growing children, we learn to walk by finding balance. Too far forward or too far back and we fall down. As we get a little older, we are given some freedom to make our own choices and we hopefully learn quickly that too much of doing what we want gets us in trouble, but counting on somebody else to make all your decisions isn’t healthy either.

When we mature and start a profession or a family, it’s easy to work too much and neglect our family and ourselves but it’s no good to be lazy and not work at all. Life is all about balance. It’s easy to eat or drink too much. It’s easy to get out of the habit of church, prayer and scripture. It’s easy to take some things for granted while concentrating too much on other things. It’s easy to think too much about somethings and not think enough about others.

My favorite scripture is Isaiah 43:18-19. Part of which says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” But I know I can’t nor should I forget completely everything that has ever happened to me. In fact, God says just a couple of chapters later in Isaiah 46:9, “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other.”

 

It’s about balance. We are constantly told by doctors and health experts to drink more water but did you know that you can drink too much water? It’s called “hyponatremia” and you can actually die from it. It’s rare but it’s possible if you drink too much too fast. Balance. Not too much. Not too little.

 

Our salvation stories are no different. We have all heard the guy stand up and tell all the bad things he has done, with graphic and gory details, going on and on how bad a person he was. He spends twenty minutes telling how bad he was and then tack on to the end, “But then I found Jesus…”

 

I love hearing Billy’s testimony. I love it because…well, Billy. But my favorite part is how he describes his past. His actual words are, “blah, blah, blah. I got in trouble. Now, let me tell you about Jesus who saved me and changed me.” I love that and I know God does too. Yes, Billy has a past. So do you. So do I. We haven’t completely forgotten that we have made mistakes. It’s just that we choose to forget and we choose to make God look good for what He has brought us out of. We don’t focus on what He brought us out of. We focus on Him. And when we do that, it reminds us of who He is and who we are and just how much we love Him.

 

Now, I don’t care how big and bad and mean and evil you used to be. I don’t care that you were the president of the Hell’s Angels. I don’t care how long you were in prison or how much drugs you did or how you punched puppies just for fun. Your testimony “ain’t got nothing” on the Apostle Paul’s. Paul started out Saul and he was a bully. I don’t mean he pulled little girls’ hair on the playground. I mean he had people either killed or imprisoned for believing differently than he did. He was in the business of persecuting Christians and busines was good…until Jesus came into Paul’s life.

 

Let’s read a short version of Paul’s testimony in 1 Timothy 1, verses 12-17. The two Timothys are between the Thessalonians and Titus, in the “T” section of the New Testament. First and Second Timothy were written by Paul to, you guessed it, Timothy who was Paul’s young preacher boy to give encouragement and instruction on how to live as a Christian and as a pastor or minister.

 

This was written towards the end of Paul’s life and ministry and is a personal letter to a dear friend. He wants what is best for Timothy and for his ministry and gives him some words of wisdom but here we see Paul sort of recapping his life with a focus on why he loved Jesus so much. But notice that while he recounts some of his past, he doesn’t dwell on it or spend too much time there. It’s all about how he loves Jesus because of what God brought him out of. Let’s read it in 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

 

I thank Christ Jesus our LORD, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14The grace of our LORD was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

A man had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. He could receive little company and was not to be excited. While in the hospital a rich uncle died and left him a million dollars. His family wondered how to break the news to him with the least amount of excitement. It was decided to ask the preacher if he would go and break the news quietly to the man. The preacher went, and gradually led up to the question. The preacher asked the patient what he would do if he inherited a million dollars. He said, "I think I would give half of it to the church." The preacher dropped dead right there.

Do you know what I would rather have than a million dollars? I would rather have the gifts that Paul says God had given to him in this passage. I’m serious. How much is strength, mercy, grace, faith, love, salvation, patience and eternal life worth? Those are the gifts that God gave Paul and He gives us the same gifts.

Look at verse 12. I thank Christ Jesus our LORD, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. When God appoints you to His service – and He does appoint all of us – He will give you the strength to endure and succeed in it. He will give you the strength to continue when everybody around you tells you to just stop. He will give you the strength to overcome whatever obstacles the enemy and even well-meaning people put in your way. Paul said as much in 2 Corinthians 4:1 where he said, “Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.”

Somebody tell me how God has given you strength to do what He has told you to do.

Look at verse 13 again. “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy…” What is mercy? Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Think of mercy as what a judge gives you even though you are found guilty. Paul admits that he was a bad guy. He admits that he used to be a bully but he was shown mercy. He deserved to be thumped of the planet and right into hell but God didn’t give him what he deserved.

I was going to ask how God had shown you mercy but I think most of us would only think of God not thumping us off the planet as well but remember, Paul said, “since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.” So, I want you to think about your ministry. And we are all called to the ministry when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Part of Ben’s ministry is music. Part of Morris’ ministry is audio / visual. Part of Troy’s ministry is cutting the grass. Part of Linda’s ministry is the library. Those are just some of the people that minister around here.

Now, tell me. Who do you think you are? Troy, what makes you think you deserve to cut the grass around here? Linda, just because you are soft-spoken doesn’t make you worthy to work in the library. Ben, who said you deserve to lead music? The same could be asked of me and you. Why do we deserve to be in God’s ministry at all? We don’t! We have been shown mercy and because we have been shown mercy we do our ministries the best we can with the gifts that God has given us to show how much we love Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy!

Now, let’s move on to verse 14 where Paul talks about grace. “The grace of our LORD was poured out on me abundantly…” Grace. What is grace and how does it differ from mercy? Mercy is not getting what we deserve and grace is getting what we don’t deserve. If we get mercy from a judge, think of grace as what you get from a cop.

Let’s say your inspection sticker is out. A cop pulls you over and he sees that it is expired but it’s only been out a few days so maybe, hopefully he shows you grace and lets you go with a warning. It’s expired. You deserve a ticket. He has the legal authority but he chooses to let you go. That is grace. And Paul says it was poured out on him abundantly.

G.W. Knight wrote, “When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day's pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award--yet receives such a gift anyway--that is a good picture of God's unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God.”

In Ephesians 1:8, Paul says that God “lavished His grace on us.” That word “lavish” means to be in abundance, to be excessive, superfluous, superior and advantageous. I was talking with my sister the other day about somebody that had been blessed and I called it “stupid grace.” I felt kind of bad but I wasn’t calling God stupid. It’s just that I sure wouldn’t have blessed that person like God did. This was crazy excessive grace that none of us deserve but we have all received. In Romans 5:20, Paul said, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Thank you, Lord, for your grace.

Paul continues in verse 14 to say that not only was grace poured out abundantly but faith and love were as well. Jesus is the source of faith and love. That sounds real pretty but what does it mean? It means that Jesus gave you the faith that it took to believe in Him. Without His gift of faith, you would never feel the need to believe in Him, much less actually do it. But once you started on your journey of faith by taking that first step, He gave you a little more faith to believe that He will protect you and provide for you.

Your faith then grew to where you knew that even in the hard times and the dark times that He could be trusted. He made that faith grow by allowing you to be put in positions of difficulty so that you would prove your faith to yourself and others as you made wise choices. Pretty soon, you could say, like Paul, who learned all this the hard way like you have, that God was pouring out His faith and His love onto you and into you and out of you until it was spilling over and into the people around you abundantly and excessively. Thank you, Lord, for your faith and love!

Look at this next gift that Paul talks about in verse 16. Patience. In verse 15, he says he is the worst of all sinners but according to verse 16, it was “for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience.”

I love having the Gideons come here and speak to us every year. I love it because they give out free Bibles to so many people in so many places but I also love it because of their illustrations. I always tell them I’m probably going to steal at least one of your illustrations and so that’s what I’m doing today.

The man that spoke to us one day said he was handing out Bibles to the inmates in prison one time and a guy came up and asked for one but also said, “I gotta be honest. I only want that Bible because I want to use the paper inside to roll cigarettes.” The Gideon thought about it for a second and said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you this Bible if, before you smoke the page, you read it first.” And the inmate agreed so he gave him the Bible.

He said he went back a year or two later to give out more Bibles and a man walked up and reminded him who he was and why he had asked for the Bible back then and said, “I want you to know, I read and smoked all of Matthew, Mark , Luke and half of John before I finally came to realize that Jesus died for me and now I am a Christian because of that Bible you gave me!” I love that story.

But I’ll tell you if I’m God, I don’t have that kind of patience. You aren’t smoking up my word! I’ve given you enough faith to believe in me. I created the universe which is obvious and you are without excuse as it says in Romans 1:20. If that’s not enough, then too bad. See ya!

Aren’t you glad I’m not God? Aren’t you glad that God shows such patience with us? He lavishes His patience on us. Paul says it is “immense.” Somebody tell me how God was immensely patient with you. (If you are reading this as an inmate or on our website, I’d love to hear from you as well.)

One last gift Paul talks about here in 1 Timothy. He talks about the gift of eternal life. See that at the end of verse 16? Now, let’s be clear about something. I don’t care who you are or what you believe, you will have eternal life. Now, before you throw chairs at me and call me Todd Osteen, let me explain. Scripture is clear that there is a real Heaven and there is a real Hell. Jesus said in Matthew 25, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Jesus believed in eternal Hell. So should you. But when Paul says eternal life, he obviously means eternal life in Heaven. And that’s kind of a big deal!

Eternal life in Heaven is a gift from God that shows off all the other gifts. We have eternal life because of God’s strength, mercy, grace, faith, love and patience. We can’t do anything to deserve it. We can’t be good enough. We can’t work hard enough. We can’t be pretty enough. (Sorry Troy. I know you’re trying.) We can’t be smart enough or tough enough. All we can do is throw ourselves at the mercy and grace of God and allow Him to pick us up and place us there.

In the meantime, we can have faith that He will protect and provide. We can have peace and joy in the difficult times because we know God is in control and He loves us. We can love other people and show them grace and mercy because we have been shown grace and mercy. We don’t have to worry about what tomorrow brings. We don’t even have to understand God. We just have to accept His gifts and then live like it.

Why do you think God shows so much grace, mercy, love and patience with humans? What’s in it for Him? I think Paul explains it in the last verse we read this morning, verse 17. Look at it one more time. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Why does God do anything? He does it for His glory just like Paul says here. When we see who we are and what we have done and what we deserve, doesn’t God look even more beautiful? When you realize who He is and what He has done, don’t you want to just give Him glory and honor? You should. You should want to make Him known to everybody you know. You should want to share the Good News, the Gospel, with all your friends. You don’t have to know everything. You just have to learn from Jesus and then tell others what you have learned. Boom! Discipleship. Boom! Obedience. Boom! Blessings and gifts from God just like what Paul is saying here.

Let’s bow our heads and just spend a few minutes praising God for His lavish gifts. Thank Him for His strength, mercy, grace, faith, love, patience and mostly for His promise of eternal life in Him and with Him.

If you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus, then just know that you can. Paul was a seriously bad guy and God changed him and used him and God can do the same with you. Believe in Him today and allow Him to come into your life, forgive your sins and heal your brokenness and take away your guilt and shame. You have enough faith to do it (thanks to Him). Now, quit making excuses and turn your whole life over to God right now. We aren’t guaranteed another breath.