Our text is taken again from 1 Timothy 1. If you would take your Bibles and open with me to 1 Timothy 1. We are continuing our series in this epistle of Paul written to Timothy, and we are picking up where we left off in this section, verses 12 through 17. Last week, we studied and examined verses 12 through 14, and we will finish this section and look at verses 15 through 17. But again, for the context of this passage, let's read verses 12 through 17. And I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. 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 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. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. We are now, as I mentioned, at the close of this, coming near to the close of this first chapter of 1 Timothy, and up to this point, Paul has already filled us in on many of the background details related to this epistle. He has informed us of who the author is in verse one, himself, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God, our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, He has told us who the recipient is of this letter in verse 2. Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith. He gives us a sense of the reason behind writing this epistle. False doctrine and unfaithful teachers in the church had arisen and were causing many to misunderstand and they were misusing the law of God. We see this in verses 4 through 7. So what Paul does is provide a corrective on the use of the law, reminding Timothy that its original intent was and is to reveal God's moral standard, to expose the sin of men. And that the law is able to bring judgment and justice upon sin. This is the true use of the law, Paul tells us. And it reveals to men and women, both in the first century and to each one of us here today in the 21st century, that what we need is not justice, but mercy and pardon from God. We should never complain about justice and receiving justice from God, for if we did receive justice from God, we would all be damned to hell. The law, he tells us, leads us to the gospel. The bad news gives way to the good news, and good news of mercy and grace that may be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the very embodiment of God's moral standard. His righteousness is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in reminding Timothy of the law, of setting this portrait of a sinner before him in verses 8 through 11, reminding Timothy of the correlation of the law and how it condemns man, and the gospel of grace. Paul is reminded of his own case regarding the law. And in verse 12, he begins to bear personal testimony to how he received the mercy from God that sinners need in the glorious gospel, which has been entrusted to him, as he says in verse 11. Paul, in this passage just read in your hearing, gives a personal account. We can see this by the use of the word, I. and my and me throughout these verses. He bears personal testimony to how he received this mercy from God. And he gives a personal account of how the mercy and grace of God in the gospel reached him, how it found him, and what he has in mind specifically, although he does not mention it here, what he has in mind is that time where he met the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, when he was set and bent towards murdering Christians. That is what is filling his mind and his heart. And what we have is such a beautiful depiction, the insight into the heart and soul of the Apostle Paul is what we find here in essence in these words. Last week, we outlined this passage from verses 12 through 17, and we went through the first three points, but I want to remind you of them once again. We began with, the gratitude for God's grace that Paul mentions in verse 12. He says, and I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord. Here we see that gratitude and grace go together. Paul shows us this by thanking Christ for the grace that he received. In verse 13, we saw the dependence on God's grace. Paul implies here in telling us in verse 13, that not only was he a vile sinner, he details how and what such a sinner he was, but that he obtained mercy. Without God's mercy, he was unable to be saved. And in verse 14, he moves on to the abundance of God's grace. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant, he says, with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. Not only was he enabled and given new spiritual life and shown the grace of God, but what came with the grace of God was a life of faith, a life of love towards God and towards others. Now in verse 15, Paul will speak of the gospel of God's grace. In verse 16, the pattern of God's grace. And finally, in verse 17, the praise for God's grace. Now the importance of understanding this passage, specifically in verses 15 through 17, is that what Paul is saying in how Christ dealt with him personally in his conversion is not unique. While your experience and mine as a believer may not be the same in degree to the apostle Paul, it is the same in kind. Paul's conversion, Paul's testimony of saving grace is a model of the kind of testimony that you and I should bear as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we as sinners were met with the mercy and grace of God in salvation in our lives and also gives the pattern and hope for all those that are lost so that they may see the hope that they have in the Lord Jesus Christ, even as a guilty sinner. Let us begin by looking at verse 15. the gospel of God's grace. Here in verse 15, Paul inserts what appears to be a condensed gospel saying, the gospel in a nutshell, or the gospel in miniature, as Martin Luther said of other verses like John 3.16. There are, in fact, five of these faithful sayings in the New Testament, and they are only found in the pastoral epistles of Paul. Paul writes, there is, 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. And there are three things to notice or consider in this saying. First, it's reliability. Paul says this is a faithful saying. Pistas halagas, he says in the Greek. literally faithful or trustworthy, the saying, it is emphatic. This saying that he mentions here refers to a particular doctrine, a teaching or an assertion of truth, of gospel truth that was familiar and many were acquainted with during the first century. Paul says this saying is trustworthy. It means assuredly true. We can compare what Paul says here to the words of our Lord. When he would speak words of important truth during his earthly ministry, he would begin by saying what? Verily, verily, I say unto you. This is essentially what Paul is doing here. It is more than merely true, he says, this summation of gospel truth can be depended on. It is a fully reliable saying. He goes on to say that it is worthy of all acceptation, literally from the original and full of acceptance. It is worthy, worthy in every positive sense, worthy to every positive degree. And this is to be compared with the false teachers. Look back at verse seven. Paul, referring to the false teachers, writes, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. These false teachers, these wannabe teachers of the law, thought they knew what they were talking about and even affirmed it as truth, but they spoke in ignorance. But what Paul is saying here in regards to the law and its correlation to the gospel and our understanding of God's mercy and grace, this is the truth. This can be fully trusted. This is to be received with all joy and believed with all the faculties of the soul, mind, and heart, with all joy and gladness. And it is worthy to be accepted by all men, Jew and Greek, anyone born in Adam, anyone under the law, all guilty sinners can rely and trust this gospel truth. So what is this gospel truth then that Paul affirms here in verse 15? In the second place, we see that it is, we see its theme, its reliability, and now its theme, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. It's how it reads in our English versions, but in the original, it is more emphatic. that Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners, emphatically, to save. Paul again refers to Christ Jesus. The promised Messiah, the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the Savior that he once blasphemed and said, no, Jesus is not this Messiah. He says now that Christ is the promised Messiah and that promised Messiah is Jesus. The one who was God manifested in human flesh. And what did he do? Paul said he came into the world. We need to pause and think about what Paul just said there. The very God who created this universe. The eternally existent one, the second person of the triune Godhead entered into time and history. Notice that it does not say he did not come into being. Many would read into that here in this verse. We know that Christ Jesus is eternally existent. But that he came into the world, being sent by his Father according to that eternal plan of redemption. And he entered into a world, what? A world full of sin. And how was he welcomed into this world? He was welcomed with contempt and hatred. Why did he voluntarily enter into this world marked by sin and hatred toward God? Paul tells us in three words in the English and two emphatic words in the Greek. Sinners to save. Christ Jesus came that he might be the savior of lost sinners. Notice that he does not say that Christ Jesus came merely to help sinners save themselves, but that he would accomplish the goal of saving sinners. He came to save, sozo, the word that we get, soteria, salvation of, or soter, of savior in our English. Christ came to rescue men from sin and to restore men to a state of spiritual health, giving them forgiveness and fellowship with God. So Paul says that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners of all sorts, even notorious sinners, of whom Paul emphatically says in the next clause, of whom I am chief. So we see its reliability. We see its theme. And we see its personal application here as Paul applies this gospel truth to himself. He says, I, first and foremost, not in time, but first in quality, I, he says, am the greatest and worst of sinners, not only of those that are saved, but of all men, Jews or Gentiles alike. He says he exceeded all others in his way of sinning, in blaspheming the name of God. Christ and persecuting his saints and being the very ringleader in them, delighting, taking pleasure in seeing Christians tortured and put to death. And the remembrance of these sins stayed with the Apostle Paul is clear here in these verses. We are not to think that it stayed with him to plague him and to haunt him. Paul understood. that those who are justified by faith have peace with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul understood that there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. He knew that his sins were lost and forgotten in the sea of God's forgetfulness, but he nonetheless, probably even looking at his hands and remembering when they were stained with blood, knowing of his own guilt, the same way that we recount our past lives before Christ and our minds are still scarred by those thoughts from before, are they not? Our hearts are still plagued by them because we still have that principle of indwelling sin and remaining corruption within us. We should not dwell on them so to the point that they bring us down and we are so in despair over them. But when those thoughts and we are reminded of our past life in Christ, we should pause for a moment and remember what Paul says here. Remember the gospel of grace. Paul says, That understanding of his sin kept him humble all of his days. He says, here, I am the worst or greatest of sinners. In 1 Corinthians 15, 9, he would say, I am the least of all the apostles. In Ephesians, he would say that I am least of all the saints. This humility marked who Paul was because he remembered where he came from. He was always ready to acknowledge his past life of sin, his guilt, and expresses vileness and unworthiness on account of them. Notice he writes, not of whom I was chief, did you see that? But of whom I am, present indicative. He is thinking at that very moment, writing this epistle to Timothy, that I am, the greatest of all sinners. There is this regret and remorse and humility that fill the very soul of this great man of God. And I want to make an observation here in verse 15, and it is this, that the truth for such sinners, all sorts of sinners that Paul says here, referring to himself, Christ came to save. This is the gospel message. This is the proclamation of good news. The message that is proclaimed is that God sent his son into the world to redeem sinful men from what? From themselves. from that inherited sinful nature that all men have as sons of Adam. He also came to save us of our sins, the ones that we are responsible for, proving that we are sinners from birth. Christ came to save us from the law, its curse and condemnation, from the bondage of Satan, from the bondage and enslavement to our sin, from the evil of this world, and from the wrath that is to come for all sinners. In his life, the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirement of God's holy law. And in his sufferings and death, bearing the penalty and wrath of God for sins, and mark this, for sins that he did not commit, for he was holy and righteous, and freely offered himself as a sacrifice for sinners. And in his resurrection and in his ascension, Christ Jesus has become the only mediator between God and man, granting full pardon and full fellowship with God for unworthy, undeserving, vile, rebellious, wretched sinners who would forsake their sin and trust in him alone for salvation. This is the message of the gospel. How do we sing it? Guilty, vile, and helpless, we, spotless lamb of God, was, he, full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah. What a savior. Can you say that this morning? Can you say, guilty, vile, and helpless? Me. The world would tell us otherwise, would they not? they would tell us you need to build yourself up, you need self-esteem, you need to understand how good and great you are, and how oppressed you are by all the things in this world, and seek to build you up and make you essentially your own savior and your own God, but that is not the message of the gospel. We must understand that we are guilty. and vile and wretched and helpless before God if we are ever to know God's saving grace. And only then will we cry out, hallelujah, what a savior. This is the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace of the gospel that we sing of. But Paul does not stop here. He goes on to tell us the purpose of God's marvelous grace. And he begins by telling us the immediate purpose, and it's stated in verse 16, and then the ultimate purpose in verse 17. What is the immediate purpose of God's saving grace in His conversion? Look at verse 16 and see the pattern of God's grace. Paul writes here in verse 16. And I'll translate it from the original for us. But here is why I was shown mercy, is what Paul is saying here. Here is why God treated me mercifully. That, he says, so that for this reason, that in me first, that in my case, Paul says, in me as the worst or the greatest of sinners, look at the words in verse 16, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering. Christ Jesus, Paul says, in saving me as the foremost of sinners, and the foremost of a recipient of his mercy could supremely display his mercy, his abundant grace, his infinite love, and longsuffering to the worst of sinners. There is a contemporary hymn that I've been referring to recently. I referred to it last Sunday, and it was interesting enough, if you were there on Friday evening, that Pastor Jason Williams sang alongside his daughter this very hymn. It seems to be following me around ever since I heard it, and it's been impressed upon my mind and heart and has been following me in my study and in my thoughts. Here is this thought from it that is captured, which is essentially what we have here in this passage, where Paul is thinking of his past life and how he was living in sin, blaspheming, persecuting, violent towards Christ and his people. All this, Paul says, was that Christ would show the world that he is long-suffering, that he is patient towards sinners, that God will stay his judgment towards us so that we might believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And the words go like this from the hymn. What patience would wait as we constantly roam. What father so tender is calling us home. He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Praise the Lord. His mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, new every morn. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. Do you see this here in this verse? Paul says that my life is a pattern. The word that is used here in the Greek for pattern is the idea of children who may like to draw, right? Draw a picture. And then you draw a sketch, an outline of something that you like to draw, whether it be a dog or a building or a person. You draw that outline of it first, and then you begin to color it in and make those details. Paul is saying here that I am that rough sketch of what conversion looks like for every lost sinner. I am a model, an example, a test case, And it settles this question forever, that the greatest sinners might be pardoned. If the worst of sinners might be saved, the rest of sinners might be saved, is the promise to us this morning. Paul, who was the chief of sinners, was to be an example for the encouragement of who? Look again at v. 16. "...to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." Christ's demonstration of divine patience, in Paul's case, became the prototype of the work of free grace bestowed on all those who by its power would come to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as a result of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says they will have eternal life, abundant life, in fellowship with God and in Christ, this love and joy and peace that comes from salvation. And I want to make another observation here in verse 16. And it is this, no one should say that he is so great a sinner that he cannot be forgiven. Oftentimes, that's what hinders sinners from coming to Christ for salvation, because they are only looking at themselves. They are remembering their own sin, and feeling their own burden and guilt of sin. Do you remember, children especially, Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress? The very beginning, he has what upon his back? That burden upon his back. And he found out about that burden upon his back by doing what? By reading the Bible. Found out about his sin. The law condemned him, and it caused him pain, inner turmoil, and he didn't know what to do. Just like sinners who are made aware of their sin, that's not enough. We must ask, what can I do to get rid of this burden? So who came along to tell him of how his burden can be removed? Evangelists. What did evangelists tell him? To flee from the wrath to come, and pointed him to the narrow gate, which pointed him to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, your burden and guilt of sin can only be removed by the Lord Jesus Christ. the one who regarded himself as the chief of sinners was pardoned and pardoned for the very purpose of illustrating this truth that sinners of the worst rank might be saved. We don't know where our path in life will take us and who we will meet. We may meet somebody in our lives that may share with us what they have done in their life. Maybe you have family members like that, who have committed heinous, explicit sins. And when we hear that, we are to think of this passage of Scripture. The greater the sin, the greater the Savior, pointing them to Christ. God puts that person in our path, in our life. We have the words of eternal life from Christ himself, and we are to point them to God's mercy and grace. Your sins may be many, but his mercy is more. Let me show you to the Savior. That is evangelism. That is what you and I are called to do. Do you see the importance of that? How simple God makes it for us. If we are recipients of mercy and grace and have understood it, how dare we put our hands over our mouths? How dare we be filled with a spirit of fear to say, I can't tell them, I just have to let them go. What would they think of me if I told them that they're a sinner and that there is a savior for their sin? It is the most unloving thing for us to do, to be confronted with a sinner, to say, see them on their way. God has put them in your life for this purpose, to give them this simple truth, this gospel in a nutshell. Well, you may not know what to say, but I know your sins may be many, but his mercy is more. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see the simplicity? We make it more complicated. How am I gonna explain sovereignty and God's grace and justification by grace? Remember that thief on the cross, right? Did Christ ask him those questions? Have you been baptized? Have you been justified? Do you know about God's free and sovereign grace? He said, look to me and live. That's all that it took. and we are to share those same truths to those in our lives. This pattern and model for the worst of sinners is fulfilled throughout church history. What about the story, and listen closely, especially you children again, what about the story of that young English boy who was deprived of the godly influence of his mother who taught him the Bible and who prayed for him, who lost his mother, whose mother died when he was near seven years old, who as a young man became a sailor, and at 11 years old was forced into naval service, whose poor behavior got him into trouble and he was captured and beaten for desertion, who was sent to a slave ship on the coast of West Africa, where his defiant actions led to severe punishment, being chained on deck as a captive, who eventually became a slave of a slave on the West African coast before being delivered by a friend of his father's, who in the darkest moments of his life gave up hope almost to the point of suicide, who eventually became the captain of a British slave trading ship during the African slave trade. and afterwards grew to be a hardened sinner, who seemed to have turned his back upon God and was beyond all hope, but was shown mercy, who by divine providence found himself in the midst of a tremendous storm at sea that he feared for his very life, who cast himself on the grace of God that his mother taught him about as a young child who remembered the prayers of his mother and cried out for God to help him, even surprising himself. How could I say this when all his words were filled with every expletive known to man, and now he is calling out to God? It shocked his very system. who cast himself on the very grace of God, which he found in abundance, who later testified with these words, how wonderful is the love of God in giving his son to die for such wretches. Who penned the words in the hymn that we are all familiar with, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. who towards the end of his life was still marveling that he, like Paul, was not only called to preach the gospel of grace, but was in the first place a recipient of mercy and grace to begin with, who uttered these words when his mind and health were all but gone, although my memory is fading. I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. That saved sinner was none other than who? Was John Newton. The author of amazing grace and the fact that great sinners like Paul and John Newton and so many countless others have been pardoned is a proof that others of the same description may also be saved and are being saved. This leads us to this final point here in Paul's praise of God's grace. Now, up to this point, beginning in verse 12, Paul's gratitude for grace has been building, as he has recounted his own testimony of saving grace. He began his ascent of gratitude for grace in verse 12, and now in verse 17, he has reached the pinnacle. For any of you who have gone on any sort of hike in the past, and you have to make an ascent up into the peak of wherever you are at, and the rigors of that, and the joy even in it, and you finally reach the pinnacle, you reach the peak, and you stand atop of that mountain here, we can call it Mount Saving Grace. Paul stands atop of that mountain and he is awestruck and he reacts with an outburst of pure joy which swelled his heart and which would not be denied expression. When Paul recalled his former life, his vileness and his wretchedness, as he recalls the mercy and grace that met him on the Damascus road, He considers the grace of God which not only saved him, but called him into the ministry to be the apostle to the Gentiles. As he thinks about all of this, his heart is filled with joy to the point of overflowing. And it is a fitting conclusion to this beautifully simple articulation of the gospel, of which his own history is a living sample or pattern. So what Paul does in verse 17 is conclude with doxology. Doxology is an inscription of praise and thankfulness to God. And this teaches us a very important lesson about theology. about doctrine. The insightful theologian J.I. Packer once wrote, theology is for doxology. He was still alive and was teaching in seminaries and Bible colleges. He would teach his course on theology. J.R. Packer, the author of Knowing God, wrote a book called Concise Theology and many other very helpful books for Christians. He would begin his seminars, he would begin his lectures by telling all of his students to stand up and let us sing the doxology because he said, after all, theology is for doxology. The purpose or goal of theology is worship and praise to God. Paul's description of praise is rooted here in the glorious gospel of grace and is offered in view to God of his mercy and grace which he had shown so great a sinner. That is why what we have here inscribed on this pulpit is what is inscribed on this pulpit, to the praise of the glory of his grace. Paul would not want anybody to think that in drawing attention to himself, and this is important for us to understand when we share our testimony, for we should also bear witness and bear our testimony to lost sinners or even believers to encourage them. If we are drawing attention to ourselves, it should only be to the point to where we magnify and amplify the grace and mercy of our God. It should never lead to the point where we just are talking about ourselves. We have lost sight of the forest for the trees, and we have lost the idea of what we are doing to begin with if we just talk about our past life of sin. And trust me, over my Christian life, last decade or so, I've talked with people. I've asked them about, tell me how you were saved, and, well, I did this, and I did that, and I came forward, and I'm continuing to do this, and I'm continuing to do that, and I hear them as passionate and as eager and enthusiastic they are about their Christian life, they do not even hear themselves I and I and I and I. And where is Christ in all of this? And Paul wants to make this very clear here. In verse 17, which is the inspiration for the hymn that we also sing, reads this. Now, he says, After all of this, after my testimony of God's saving grace, now after all of this, he says, and it's this outburst from his very soul, now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. He gives praise to the eternal God, the king of the ages, the eternal king. Exodus 15 verse 18 reads, the Lord shall reign forever and ever. Psalm 45 verse 6 says, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. Psalm 145 verse 13 reads, thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. Paul knows to give praise not to himself, but he knows who is the king not only and Lord over his life, but the Lord over all creation and the Lord over all salvation, and he gives him his due praise. And this eternal king, he says, is immortal, is imperishable, whose existence is everlasting, whose strength never wanes, and it is this description that Paul only applies to God. He is not only eternal, he is immortal, he is invisible, he is not obvious to our senses, but Christ Jesus has made known to us the invisible God, and who that God is in his very person and character, and he says, my praise is to the only wise God, and we should read that, the only God. who alone is God. There is no other God. And remember, Paul is writing to Timothy in Ephesus, where they had the cherished and prized temple to Artemis, the great God of the Ephesians, there, and says, no, Paul's saying that the great God over salvation, the great God of this universe, is this God, the only God. And he says unto him, be honor and glory forever and ever. and ends with that word, amen. So be it. All of what I said, he said, not only in this ascription of praise to God, but in what I have bore witness in my testimony of God's saving grace is true. And it is the solemn agreement of our hearts to what has been communicated. So I'm closing now. Just two thoughts. If you are a believer today, Can you look back and see who you were before Christ? Can you see like we read this morning in Psalm 40? Just like David said, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit. Do you remember the horrible pit of unbelief, of sin, of wickedness, of rebellion that you were once living in, in all delight? Do you remember the miry clay, that mud, that filth that you were living in? Then do you remember when you were rescued from that condition and placed upon a rock, and God established your goings, and he hath put a new song in my mouth." Hear the song of the Apostle Paul? Did you hear the song of John Newton? He has put this new song in my lips. He has taken those words and that mouth and that language that was once used to blaspheme and to show my sin against God, and he has now changed it and filled my mouth with praises to God. Do you see the transformation? Do you see the abundance of God's grace? Many that shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. If you are a believer today, you may not have been aware at the beginning that God was the one seeking you, that God was the one patiently enduring your sin. You may not have been aware at that time just as Paul was not aware, and he was sinning in unbelief and in ignorance. But now as a converted person with an enlightened and illuminated mind, you can look back and see how God was seeking you, The entire time. How His providence cared for you. Even in those times, like some of us know, I shouldn't even be alive today for some of the things that I did. But who was it? Was it me? No, I was cast going down, head first, down that cliff. but God the whole time was preserving our lives for that moment where we would be met by his grace. All those experiences that you went through, those hardships, those sorrows, those darkest moments, just like that prodigal son sitting there in the filth and the mire with those pigs came to himself just like you and I. and brought us to himself. That is the story of God's abundant grace that we are to sing about, not only in our own lives, but also to proclaim to every person. Go, therefore, as you are going into all the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them all that I have commanded you. This is the great privilege of the Christian. that God says, me, just like Paul says, me, the worst of sinners, to be the apostle to the Gentiles, you, dear brother and sister, called to serve the heavenly king of this universe, to go and open your mouth and speak words of life to dead sinners, and then watch them come to life by not your words and your wisdom, but by God's grace and his power, but using you as a vessel. We often look at it the other way, do we not? Oh, I should be witnessing more to my family members. Oh, I've got to do it, but I just can't do it. You know what? It's so inconvenient. It's so difficult. What are they going to think? We build up this whole case to why we don't do it, and then we don't do it. We have to see it as this privilege and blessing that we get to do it. Not that we have to do it, we get to do it. Many of you know my father. My father's life, watching him as a young boy, anywhere, anywhere he went, running the most mundane Aaron would see that person who seemed down and out. And the smile would go from ear to ear. And I'd watch my father. And in my mind, as a little boy, I said, he's going to do it again. I'm going to be so embarrassed. How can he go up to that person who is there begging for money, who is there not even looking for help, but is there off to the side, that outcast of society, those invisible people? And he would go on a beeline straight towards them, and I would be mortified and think, oh, dad, you can't just go up to anybody and talk to them. And yet he would, every time, go up and talk to them and proclaim the glories of God's grace, share his own testimony, and point them to the Savior with joy and gladness wherever he went. So much so that at his reception, if you were there for his memorial service, it was held at my parents' home. And in the backyard, we had this open microphone. And somebody came up from the neighborhood there and said, if it wasn't for Ted Lewis knocking on my door, I wouldn't be here today. But I am here. And God used him to save me. Is that the legacy that you and I desire to leave in our lives? Is that what we want to be remembered for in it all? And for those of you who do not know this mercy and grace in Christ, then your response must be like those lame and those blind and those sick in Christ's earthly ministry who cry out, Son of David, have mercy upon me. Your question this morning must be, is there mercy for me? If you see your sin and ask the question, is there mercy and grace for me? The answer that all believers here today say what? Yes, there is. There is mercy for you today. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ. He has commanded you to come to him because he is the only way, he is the only truth, he is the only life, he is the only mediator between God and man. Salvation is only found in him. And you will find that mercy and grace. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we feel our hearts and souls swell within us. As Paul recounts his own personal testimony, we find ourselves looking at our own and be reminded of your mercy and grace towards us. Lord, may we not quench that in our hearts right now and just simply go on about our day. May even as the piano plays in just a moment, may we stop and reflect. Help us to pause. Help us to think deeply upon your grace towards us, not only in the past, but now especially in the present and in the future. You have given us grace. You have shown us your grace. You have saved us by your grace. You have created us in Christ Jesus unto good works. May we walk in such a life, seeking to please you and bringing glory to your name, King that is immortal, invisible, God only wise, and our King and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, help us to magnify him in all of our days. We pray these things through his name, amen.