There is a bit of a problem going on in the world around us today. And you may think, when I talk about it, that this is not a great problem. But it is. The problem is this. People are thinking about Christmas way too early. I mean, I know it's October, but people were already talking about Christmas in September. Now, I know, I'm not against Christmas totally, all right? I've been called Grinch, Scrooge, Bah Humbug, all of that stuff. I know that I'm coming from a little bit of a bias, but come on. I mean, if the Christmas music is already playing, and if the Christmas tree's already up, that's a problem, all right? In fact, I've figured out what to call this, I'm thinking about, I don't know, putting a trademark on it or something to that effect. And I think you would agree with me, and it's called seasonal awareness disorder. Seasonal awareness disorder. There are seasons, right? We're just barely getting into fall. It's not Christmas season yet. And I know how much you know I love acronyms, but let's just face it, that's just sad. Okay, seasonal awareness disorder is just sad. There have been times that I've tried to, as a youth pastor and a pastor, talked about in counseling about something probably a little bit more serious than this, I would call it situational awareness disorder. Knowing where you're at, knowing the context, You know, there are certain times you shouldn't be telling jokes. If it's a funeral, don't tell the jokes necessarily, or at least know when to tell the jokes. To know the people that you are around, to know the situation, know what's going on. Know what's taking place around you in a close context, in a mid-context, in a far context. And while we can laugh at that, and sometimes we can say, yeah, I know someone, they have no situational awareness. They just always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. And they do something that maybe would be okay at another time, but at this time, it probably wouldn't be appropriate to do that. And that takes wisdom. But today, as we look at 1 Timothy, Paul is going to walk Timothy through his testimony, at least his view of his testimony. And as we see this, I think we're going to be reminded, and this happens in the life of someone who is giving their testimony or as we hear a testimony, that God walks each of us through different seasons of our lives, different situations that we find ourselves in. And while God is unchanging and God is faithful, we all are in different places and different chapters in our lives. And Paul's going to kind of remind Timothy a little bit about these different times and places that he is at, that he has been at in his life and where he even is at currently. But as we get into this, I think there's some questions that are going to kind of pop up a little bit as we think about Paul's testimony and Paul's life. And we even think about our lives and God's work in there. And that is, are we able to ask ourselves the question, each one of us, can we ask ourselves the questions, where am I at? What stage in life am I at? How did I get here? It's old age. That's a time thing. But how did I get to this stage and place that I am here in my life? And what now? See, the seasons and chapters of life, if those get a little bit mixed up as well, there's also a problem with that. We tend to see in the world around us entire generations of young people who are still acting like children at the ages of 40 plus. where life is still just a game. Life is just about fun. Life is just about acquisition and just getting the most out of life you possibly can get. No responsibilities, no investment, no thinking in the long terms of their own life, and even generationally and even eternally. I think on the other side, we have a generation of young people who think that they're adults. They think they can make all their decisions in life. They think that they understand all the context in life. They think that their convictions are the right convictions. And they also want to act like adults, whether it is in terms of how they handle their relationships or how they handle their own lives. Don't parent me. Don't tell me what to do. I know what I'm doing, even though usually in those situations, those young people time and time again show the world and the people around them they actually don't know what they're doing. There is a time in life that God has us to be under our parents or those who are in authority. There is a time in life where we are supposed to grow up and move forward. One of Paul's contentions in another time is you are still in the basic place of your life. You're still in the basic aspects of your spiritual walk and you can't handle the meat of the word. In other words, you can't handle the tough stuff of life and you can't handle the tough stuff of the word because you have not moved forward in your life. You're not in the right season in terms of your life. When it comes to the spiritual walk, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to living for Christ, the story in our lives actually is the same. We are sinners in need of salvation. And God provided his son to be the Savior to provide that for us. And once we have received that gift of eternal life, we are to be in submission to him until we reach eternity sometime in the future. The stories are the same, but every single one of us are in different chapters of the story of God's work in our life. But a thing that remains constant in our stories is that through Christ, God can change anybody. And he does so because God can use anybody to his glory. It's because of Jesus Christ. So what's your story? How'd you get here? Where are you at in your spiritual walk? What are the things that God is teaching you right now? Where have you been? Where are you at? And where should you be? And what should you be doing now? Today we're going to get a great autobiographical look at Paul's story. It's a good one. But it's a story that is similar all throughout time. God saved, changed, and used Paul. But because God had done that in the life of Paul, I believe what Paul is trying to point out is, listen Timothy, if God can use me, God can use you. And if God can use Paul, and God can use Timothy, and if God can use the believers at Ephesus, that means God can use you. That means God can use me. Look with me, 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 12, it says, Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me, because he cannot be faithful, putting me into the ministry. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you are a God who saves. Lord, we thank you for the opportunities to see the testimony of Paul as an encouragement to Timothy and to all of us, that you are a God who changes us, saves us, and wants to use us to your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Paul in this little testimony here is going to really blend together a number of things that are important at this stage in the letter to Timothy. He's going to really be blending together authority, confidence and the gospel. In fact, in a sense, these are where all these things come together. The power of a testimony. The way Paul gives his testimony is he is powerfully giving this reminder of God and who he is, of Paul and who he was and who he is, and what the gospel actually does. It all comes together here. This is not just a sidebar. This is not just an illustration. It's not just an encouragement. It is an important part of the building blocks that Paul is putting into Timothy's life. Paul is reminding Timothy here, as we are going to see, that persecutors can change. Christ is the one who changes persecutors. It's a supernatural change. The persecution part is normal. All that's going to come, as Paul has already said, hey, there are people that you need to be dealing with. There are people who are going to be teaching something that is false. They are not teaching the sound word of God. They are not teaching what is right. They are, in a sense, persecutors are doing damage to the word and to the gospel and to people. Paul brings in this reminder, hey, I just want to remind you, I was one of those kind of guys. I was one of those guys that was being used by the enemy and was actively against God. Whenever we deal with persecution, we do need to be reminded that there is a normality to persecution in the life of a follower of Christ. We don't fit in and the world is going to have a problem with it. And today, Paul is going to remind us of one of the great truths about salvation, of many of the great truths about salvation and God's work in Paul's and Timothy's and any believer's life. And that is this, salvation is a gift. It is something that is given. Salvation is not an achievement. That is one of the main differences between law and grace. It's the difference between earned and given. It's the difference between acquired and received. When salvation is a gift that is grace, that is given, and that is received, God gets the glory. And that is what salvation is about here. And we're going to see this true salvation that results in a transformation that happens totally as a result of God's work. Remember, Paul is writing to Timothy, who is pastoring and ministering at Ephesus. We don't have to look very far into Ephesus to see that's right where Paul starts about salvation is all of God. Salvation is something that God is doing. He's the one that puts this all in place. And so here comes then this God getting the glory. That's important in a testimony. But there's also an encouragement. The gospel is going to serve as an encouragement to Timothy. The same gospel truth and transforming work that was in Paul was at work through him. And also, the other thing it does, which we have to remember that Paul's talking about, is false teaching is refuted within this testimony. It provides a report reminder that the truth of the gospel works. He says, look at me. Look at what the gospel does. Paul is not just off on the side. There is a connection between Paul's encouragement to Timothy to deal with those who are teaching things contrary, contrary to sound doctrine, the glorious gospel, the blessed God. And that is what fruit does. Fruit gives glory to God. Fruit is an encouragement to the believer and fruit brings a stability to the faith. And so we're gonna see here Paul re-walking through some of these chapters or seasons in his life, the life of Paul, but also there is a connection to the life of Timothy and in a very real sense in each of us. The first thing we see here is what I would call a sinner's story. A sinner's story. Paul does what he often does. He reminds Timothy of the story of Paul's transformed life. We can be sure that Timothy would have heard this before, right? There is some point along the travel, some point along the testimony, some point along Paul's life, or even just Timothy being present when Paul was preaching or proclaiming or teaching the word of God, that Paul's testimony would have been heard by Timothy, probably over and over and over again. There's power in a testimony. There's power in the testimony of a life that is totally on fire for God. This last week I got a chance to hear a testimony. It was a testimony of a gentleman who works for the Gideons and he was talking about how God took him from a life that he just wanted to kill himself at age 12. He was basically a victim of his mom was a prostitution, drugs, all those type of things and how He was constantly beaten, constantly abused in a place where the only escape that there was was death. And he talked about this lady who gave him a Bible and taught him to read the Bible and took him to the places of the Bible where the people in the Bible, throughout the Bible, the ones who were abused and abandoned and hurt and cast aside were the ones God used. And here's this man who is now this preacher of the word of God. And man, I'll tell you what, you know what that did for me, for my heart? It's the same thing a testimony like that does. I was like, that is right. That is right. God saved me from sin and God wants to use me and God can use anybody. Read a testimony this week within Voice of the Martyrs talking about it and you can't even hardly read through these different publications of Voice of the Martyrs. When you hear about this young woman who got saved in a Muslim country, And her family tried to physically beat her and abuse her into deconverting. And then brought in a priest to rape her into reconverting. And she escaped from there and got out of there and never walked away from that and stayed committed to Christ and found herself in another country. And now she is interacting with these believers and she is living this life out for Christ. And that testimony of standing firm for the testimony of God and to see some of the quotes from her words about Jesus Christ who died on the cross and saved me. These testimonies remind us that God works in lives and in hearts. He's been doing it all throughout history. He did it in the life of Paul. He did it in the life of Timothy. He's done it in my life. He's done it in your life, I pray. And he's able to do it in the life of anybody. And this testimony is this sinner's story that we hear about over and over again all throughout history. And Paul provides himself as an example to encourage Timothy in his ministry. I believe Paul is following up from what had been committed to Paul's trust and how that happened and why it was ordained by God. Later on, by the time we get to verse 18 next time, we'll see, he'll get back to dealing with the false teaching. But he says, well, what has been committed to my trust? It's like verses 12 to 17 is, this is what was committed to my trust. And this is how it happened. The good news of Jesus Christ and the good works that take place as a result of that. How has God put you in the place that you are at? And why did he do that? What has God called you out of? And this is where the story starts. Where am I? Or where was I in the case of Paul? He enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Paul starts here in his testimony. He says, this is where I stand. This is the place that God has called me to. And we see different aspects of what God had done to get him to that place. enabled me. That is the word for internal strength. He is the one who has strengthened me and given me everything inside to do the things that he has called me to do. In this case, coming off of, he has put these things into my trust. He enabled me because he counted me faithful. I have to be careful here. Does that mean that he saw that I was going to be faithful? The word counted is to be considered or judged, possibly even to be led. Paul here is one that knows that God has called him to be this. In Acts chapter 9, when we get the revelation of Paul's calling, when Ananias is being told, you need to go down and see this guy because I have called him to something, this is what the description that God gives to Ananias about Paul. He says this, and it says, Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has the authority of chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, and this is God's testimony of Paul, go. For he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake." Paul recognized that as an apostle, as a preacher, a teacher, and communicator of the Word of God, that God had placed him there. To Paul, he believed that his faithfulness was validated because Christ had appointed him to do this. God considered him to be trustworthy. God strengthened him to be this way. The thrust of this is that we can't say that Paul was saying, well, I was going to be faithful because God chose me, because it's very clear all throughout this that he's talking about what God was doing. It's a result of God's mercy and God's grace. One commentator says this, God does not choose anyone who is worthy, but in choosing them, renders them. Another said this word faithful here is more about emphasizing something that God has entrusted to Paul, and that Paul is amazed that he would even be considered worthy of this trust. He cannot be faithful putting me into the ministry. It's the word for literally laying down, placing. It's an appointment type of word. God put me here. This is where I am, Timothy. He has enabled me. He's allowed me to be faithful. in the ministry. All these things are what God has done. This is where he has placed me. And again, this story is, this is where he's put me. And this has been the story throughout history for those that God has called to do his work. He puts us somewhere. He enabled us to be able to do these things. He is the one who wants to build us up and the one who wants to trust the word of God to us. And also he places us into the ministry. It's easy to just think, well, this is just the pastor and apostle talking to a pastor and apostle. But the word of God is very clear that each one of us in submission to our savior is called to share the gospel and to proclaim the word of God. The story is the same. But everybody is in a different chapter, and through Christ, God would be able to change anybody, save anybody, and use anybody. So Paul then walks backward in time in verse 13, and we can see Paul saying, can you believe this happened? I thank God who did this, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent or brutal man. Paul talks about this crisis. Paul says, I was a sinner. My sin was great. It wasn't just I was a bad person. He feels that he was the worst, as we are gonna see here. He actually, it's kinda like he's mentioning three things that I wonder if these three things just were a burden on Paul every time he thought about these things. To be a blasphemer, blasphemy is against God, would be a term we could use to describe this little aspect of what Paul is talking about. To blaspheme is to defame God's name. It was an act and an attitude that was punishable by death in the Old Testament. The seriousness is very clear even. You could probably look down there later on in the chapter, verse 20, he talks about, "...who I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." To blaspheme is totally against God. Paul considered himself this blasphemer. He did things contrary to the name of Jesus, is how Paul used to describe that. Paul, in his own testimony in Acts 26 says, "'Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus. This I did in Jerusalem. Many of the saints I shut up in prison have received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them, and I punished them very often in the synagogue.'" Listen to this, compelling them to blaspheme. being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities." Paul was totally against God. Saul was totally against God. Everything was against God and he tried to make everyone else against God. In a sense, this is kind of the first half of the Ten Commandments, the relationship to God. But Paul was also violating the other part of the Ten Commandments, the rest of the Ten Commandments, and in his violation to others in terms of persecution and violence. While the blasphemy would have been against God, the persecution would have been against believers. One description of this is Paul was, or Saul was, a religious predator. He went out. His intent was murder. His intent was to get them to blaspheme. His intent was to prey upon those who belong to, he uses the term in Acts chapter nine, verse two, the way. That is a term that was used for the believers. The followers of Christ who followed the way, the truth, and the life, his goal was nothing short of the extermination of the way. The extermination of believers. Luke literally describes him as breathing out and breathing in threats of murder. Threatening and slaughter was the air that Paul breathed. He was against believers, totally against believers. It was what got him up in the morning and gave him the energy all throughout the day, killing and persecuting believers. Many of us, it's hard to even fathom that, isn't it? There's times when I read about those who are persecuted in my mind, I say to myself, how could a person do that? How could a person possibly do that to someone? That is sin. That is Satan. Satan is the one who wants to destroy, deceive, and just totally ruin anything and any life of any believer. It also says, he says, I was an insolent man. The word is brutal. I almost feel like he's saying I was against God. I was against believers. I was against everybody. I was just an angry, violent, predatory, brutal. That word is a base. I was an abuser. I was all of these things. I was the worst of the worst. However, I obtained mercy. Paul after saying, I was against God, I was against believers, I was against everything. I was the worst. This is kind of like an almost a salvation origin story. We're saying, you need to remember Timothy where I came from. And I am reminded where I came from, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. We need to be merciful to sinners. I feel like we as believers, I hate ever to say more than ever, so I won't say more than ever. But I really feel like we as believers are mad at a lot of sinners right now. I mean angry. And I'm guilty of it as well. We're just angry. Fill in the blank. Whatever it is and whoever it is you're angry at. We're mad. How dare they do this? How could they possibly do this? How could this be so bad? And I think sometimes to be reminded, do you know what sinners do? They sin. Do you know what sinners need? They don't need to be put in their place. They don't need to be yelled at, shouted out. They need mercy. They need grace. Side note, the same is true for your fellow believers that you may be having some disagreements with right now. Not that there's anything in the world we disagree with about each other, right? We're not in any disagreement with things that are going on politically, things that are going on medically, things that are going on locally, the state, national level. It's time, it's always time for mercy and grace and love. Both Paul and Timothy and each and every other believer that has ever lived, we are all obtainers of mercy. It is what we have received. The stories may feel different and that the way that it goes about may feel different, but it is the same story, sinners saved by grace. I even wonder if maybe Paul had been hoping that as Timothy was considering how bad he was, that Timothy would have some hope about the confrontations that were ahead for him. Where you say, man, there's some bad dudes that I got to confront, but none of them were as bad as Paul. None of them were as bad as Paul. So that is where Paul wants him to go. Where were you when Christ saved you? He saves, he rescues. So Paul then gets a little doctrinal. Well, how did I get here? How did this happen? He says, the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is the how and why it happened. This is actually the verse from which John Bunyan titled his book, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. This terminology that Paul used after Paul says, this is where I am, this is where I was, so how did I get here? I got here by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which was Super-duper, exceedingly, most, you're not allowed to say mostest, right? It is mostest, double, whatever you want to say. It's unbelievably over the top, more than you could ever think of, abundant. This is where grace really joins up with the mercy. You had, I obtained mercy and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was with me. To go back a little bit, the law and the myths and the genealogies and the doing the works to get closer to God don't transform. Only the grace of God transforms. Only the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, which is what Paul uses over and over at the Church of Ephesus. Who are you in Christ? Mercy, grace, faith, love. In fact, it even brings us back a little bit to Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, right? For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of yourselves, this is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. There's always more grace. Martin Luther wrote this great thing about grace. He said, just as the sun is not darkened by our whole earth enjoying its light, And the sun could indeed light up hundreds of thousands of worlds. And just as a learned man is able to make a thousand others learn, and the more he gives, the more he has, so Christ, as an infinite source of all grace, so that the whole world and the whole universe could draw enough grace from him to take over the whole world, he would never lose a drop of grace. The fountain always runs over full of grace. We never run out of grace. There is never a limit to the grace of God that brings salvation and the grace of God that we are able to have within our lives. This is not an exaggeration. Paul says in Romans chapter five, where sin increased, grace increased all the more. There is no limit to his grace. There is no conceivable amount of accumulated sin that grace does not overflow and wash away. I don't know where you're at as a believer. I don't know if you're in a place where I've just done too much and God is done with me. God's grace never ends. It is exceedingly abundant to the worst of sinners. I don't know where you are. If maybe you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you may say, Pastor Dave, I don't need, you don't want to hear my past. You don't know about my past. You don't know what I've done. You don't know why I'm doing it. I want to let you know something. There is no amount of sin and no level of sin that grace is not exceedingly abundantly above, over the top of. And Christ has provided that for you and for me. There is no sin too great. There is no sinner that has done too much sinning that is beyond the reach of the grace of Jesus Christ. None. Grace abounds. And when grace abounds, there's faith and love. Faith almost contrasts with the ignorance or the unbelief that he talks about. The ignorance of unbelief from verse 13. This faith, this truth, this belief that takes place The belief and this love, and Paul has over and over talked about the love that takes place and the love that takes place before believers. The story is the same for each of us, but we are each in a different chapter. And through Christ, God can save and change anybody, and God can use anybody. Grace with faith and love in Jesus Christ. So Paul says, well, what have I learned? What do I learn from this? And this is where he gives this statement. This is a faithful saying. And it says, verse 14, tells us what we have in Christ. And as he ends with that, he says, and love which are in Christ Jesus. And he says, now this is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus. So he's gonna explain what happened with Christ. And this is almost a lesson, a lesson in salvation, a lesson in conversion, a lesson in what the gospel is. Christ came into the world to save sinners. This formula that Paul uses, this saying is trustworthy. He repeats it in 1 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 2, Titus chapter 3. Two of the three, he says this saying is trustworthy and worthy of all acceptance. There's many that believe that what he was doing is he was either quoting or developing an early almost liturgy. This is something that needs to be said. This is something that needs to be repeated. And by the way, it is something that needs to be repeated. In fact, if your person says, I really struggle to know how to share the gospel, I would say one way to say it is, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's the gospel. Are you a sinner? Christ Jesus came in the world to save you. Am I a sinner? Christ Jesus came in the world to save me. By the way, there is a little bit of pre-existence there. Do you kind of see that? Christ came. Came into this world. So it leans, at least leans to that. To save sinners. This is the emphatic word. Christ came to save. I mentioned Romans chapter five. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. The description Paul gives elsewhere for those who were sinners is powerless, ungodly, enemies. He had already given his words, blasphemer, persecutor, insolent. Paul then goes beyond. He not only counts himself among the group, he puts himself at the, it's not the highest place, although it feels like that, it's the lowest place, of whom I am chief. What does this mean? Well, Christ, as he came, he says, it's almost like he's saying, even me, Paul felt that he was the worst of sinners. The word that he used there is a rank word, it's a word that you get, actually you get the word prototype a little bit from it. It is literally, I am the ultimate sinner. There's American Ninja Warrior, there's all these things, who's first, who's best, competition. Paul's almost saying, I think in terms of competition, I believe there's nobody that sinned more than I did. And we could get into an argument whether or not Paul sinned more than any other person. But literally he is saying here, I am the worst of sinners. Usually that's about the right place for us to be, right? When we recognize, I don't know if I'm the worst, but I'm the worst. What does that mean? In light of God and his holiness, I am a sinner. This is me. This is all me. No one is beyond His grace. In this story, Christ came to save sinners, sinners like you, sinners like me, and even sinners who murdered, even sinners who killed and destroyed other believers, even those who lived a life that were totally against God, even those who lived a life that was totally against everyone and anyone that did anything about God and about Jesus Christ. God can change anybody, and he does it because Christ came here to save. So he's talked about his story, but as Paul talks about his story, he does what so many times happens in the Psalms and so many times happens throughout Scripture. As he walks through what God has done, he gets to the point where he's saying, to God be the glory. In verses 16, he says, however, for this reason, I obtained mercy. And I feel a little bit here, it's almost like, well, why you, Paul? Or Paul is saying, why me? Why did this happen? I don't understand how this could possibly happen to me. I feel like Paul's trying to figure out why would God use me? Because I was bad. I was awful. It feels like he's kind of working this out. If I was such a bad person, maybe this is the reason that I obtained mercy. Again, he's talked about obtaining mercy back in verse 13. This is the reason I obtained mercy. And I feel like Paul is trying to work out what God is doing. And I think there is a real sense of, sometimes we need to think, okay, what is God doing here? Why would God save me? It's not because I'm so great. It's not because God needs to do something. Why would God save me? And he says, I believe that the reason that God did this is that in me first, by the way, this is the same word from the word chief of sinners. He says that in me first, that Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering. That word show is something that talks about, it is something that has to be displayed. Paul said, I believe that God was using me to display is long-suffering. He was patient with me." As a pattern, again, there's kind of this word of a type. It's the word for example that is used in other places. There's an example that takes place in terms of that. This example or type, it literally means this is something that God was going to use as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. So now Paul's talking about the future, right? Paul has recognized, all right, I think God decided to save me so that others, when they see what he has done here, they will also come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I am the prototype again. A prototype is something that is almost a demonstration. It is a first run, and God is showing that he is long-suffering, and he's showing this pattern for what is ahead. Well, what is ahead? Dirty, rotten, heathen sinners getting saved. That's what God is in the business of doing, is saving sinners. And this story is the same. He says, God has done this here, and he has done this because as he has done this, and as he has done this to me, he's going to do it in others. I don't know if I should do this. Yeah, I should do this. Who's the worst sinner you know? I hope somebody said me. Well, you know yourself pretty well, but let's just do a little exercise. Let's go outside of the faith. Who's the person, the unbelieving person, that you are the most angry at right now? Now, this may turn political. We can't do that. Whoever is the worst of the worst is a sinner that can be saved by grace. Because that's what God does. That's who God saves. That is how he works. Paul here says, listen, I didn't deserve it. I didn't earn it. Somehow I obtained it. And the only thing I could figure out is God, maybe God did this so that others could be saved. Have you ever thought this way? I think this changes how we live our lives. If the thought in my life is God saved me so that others through me may hear the gospel and get saved, doesn't that change the purpose of my life? Wouldn't that change how you think? God didn't just save you so he could have really good neighbors in heaven. God didn't just save you because you were so great. Paul has walked this all the way back and says, the more I think about this and the more I believe and I reason this out is God only saved me so that others might be saved and for one other reason, for the glory of God. There's only two reasons that Paul gives for being saved, so that others may be saved and that God may get the glory. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise." Because otherwise you might say God was kind of unwise of picking this guy. To a God who alone is wise, we honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This is the only response. He's gone from gratitude, I thank Christ Jesus of verse 12, to praise. To this wonderful, it's almost doxological where he is giving this glorified turn. He is talking about who God is. He says, I think I'm saved. And I think God did this so that others can be saved, that's it. But the only other reason that we are saved, other than for God to use us for the salvation of others, is so that he may get the glory. Not for your glory, not for my glory, not for a church's glory, not for anything like that, for God's glory. We should never be able to reflect on our own lives without being aware of our own calling, than getting lost in praising God. When we reflect on what God has done in our lives, this is what Paul is doing, is he is reflecting this and pointing this out to Timothy, saying, where I am at, where I came from, and how God get about doing the reason he did that is all for his glory. And that is the reason that Timothy, he's gonna say, you should do the things you do, and I do the things that I do, that God is sovereign. That's really this all, he is the king, eternal. Those words are together. God is the king of all ages. He sovereignly rules over all. He is immortal, no decay, no corruption. He is one that is imperishable, incorruptible, therefore immortal. He is all these things. He is invisible. He is one that we are not able to see, but we also know the Word of God makes it very clear that He is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. By the way, if he is invisible, it is important to note that there's only one way we can find out about him and that is if he reveals himself. And he has revealed himself to us. To him, to God, who alone is wise. In light of God, no one else knows anything. No one else could put this all together. He is the one. the only one who is alone and wise be honor and glory forever. That is, honor is to, given the right value and approximation. So they say, what is the value of this item? Then give it the honor that is due to it. What is the value of God? What is God, in a sense, the worth that is due and the glory is to properly give him what is due to him forever and ever, past, present, future. Think about your chapters. Think about your seasons. Maybe it's not a Christmas thing. Maybe you are suffering from seasonal awareness disorder. You've forgotten where you're at and what you're supposed to be doing. You've forgotten where you came from. You've forgotten what it is that God did and why he did that and why it's supposed to be all about the glory of God. What chapter are you in? Are you in the sinner chapter, in need of salvation? Are you in the saved chapter, the enabled, placed, thankful, humble, used, giving glory chapter? We need to be reminded that through Christ, God can save anybody, God can change anybody, and God does that because God wants to use anybody in the story. The story is the same. But we're each in different chapters. Through Christ, God can change anybody. He can change you. He can change me. He can change that person you think is unchangeable. And he does so because God can use anybody. That's what he wants to do in my life and in yours. What is God going to do? Hymn that came to my mind as I was walking through this. Very familiar one. Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Love these words. Heir of salvation. Purchase of God. Born of a spirit and washed in his blood. This is my story. This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that this story that we have been reminded of, this testimony, this biography from Paul here is a story that has rang through all throughout history. that the only reason we're anywhere, the only reason we're able to be in Christ, the only reason that we can even be considered saved is because of your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray today you would help us to reflect on where we are at, where we've been, how we got here, and Lord, even what you want us to do as a result of that, and Lord, I would pray that You would help me, you would help each one here, Lord, to be reminded that you want to use us so that others may be saved, so that eternity may be effected, and so that you may be the one who receives the glory. Lord, I thank you so much that you are the one who places us. You are the one who saves and rescues us. You are the one who blesses us. You are the one who uses us. And Lord, that you are the one who reigns. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.