All right, we are in 1 Timothy chapter 1. Looking at verses 12 through 16 this evening. 1 Timothy 1, 12 through 16. Most men who are called to ministry have a sense of their own unworthiness for the task. I don't know if you can say that you're called to ministry if you somehow think you deserve to be there. We know our own sin. We know our present sin. We know the sin of our past. And we cannot fathom how a holy God could call such sinful men as ourselves to such an important work and such a holy work. It's overwhelming at times. And I can't remember who it was I quoted, I think, in the first sermon I preached on 1 Timothy. But he said there had to be times when Paul was even writing this. that he kind of stopped in the middle of writing it and just cried out to God for mercy, for strength. And also, there are times when he's writing it, and you'll see it in the text, where he stops and he just worships. And he's going to do that here. Really, I think that's what he's doing here in verses 12 through 16. That's the verses we're looking at tonight. He's going to do it especially in verse 17, which we're going to look at next time that I preach. He's really just worshiping Christ, and just in awe of the gospel, as he's in the midst of this. Keep in mind the context, in verses eight through 10, he was going through the law of God, and the purposes of the law of God, and he lists out all the lawbreakers there, especially in verses nine and 10. And so, in that context, that's why he's just overwhelmed. Because, I don't know if you remember, but when I preached this on that Sunday morning, What happened was it got quiet in here, right? They got real quiet because we were all thinking through how we violated the law of God and all those things. Well, Paul was doing the same thing. But then as he gets to, as he stops there, he goes forward into the gospel. He doesn't stop there at the law. He goes forward into the gospel and says, man, praise God for what he's done in my life. He can't help but do that. And we all ought to do that. So the thing that's interesting here, though, that really jumped off the page at me this week with this, is that we should never lose the attitude at the same time that we are sinners. And that we're sinners that have received incredible mercy and grace from our Savior. So in the text we learn that the call to ministry is an act of mercy. The call to ministry is an act of mercy. It's an act of grace. We received mercy twice in the text. It points this out, that we received, Paul points this out, that he received mercy. And he did, and he never got over it. He never, ever, ever got over it. And I don't think, you know, men of God, pastors, should ever get over it. In my years in pastoral ministry, other kinds of ministry, it's always bothered me. Whenever I go to like a pastoral, get together of any kind. Very rarely, lately they haven't been so bad, but like at certain points in my ministry it was painful to go to them. And one reason it was painful is because the attitude was just so terrible. you know, like everybody's like trying to one-up each other, you know, it was like an Amway convention or something. We were talking about how many people we got and all this nonsense. It was sort of a pastoral pride, I began to think of it that way. It was like a pastoral pride, a pastoral smugness, pastoral attitude that's just like, sometimes a fake humility, sometimes just, it just dripped sometimes off of the situations and I never, I just hated going to that stuff. I don't care about that. And I don't think Paul would either. Honestly, after studying this week, I kind of thought for a while, maybe I'm the only one that sees this. I'm pretty sure Paul saw it. But he didn't do it in himself. He had nothing to do with that. He had nothing to do with that. And we shouldn't either. There are two evidences in the text that the call to ministry is an act of mercy. And the first evidence is in verses 12 to 14. Ministry is empowered by Jesus Christ. It's not empowered by us. It's surprising how little we have to do with it, honestly. And then the second evidence is Jesus saves sinners. The second evidence that's called the mercy, Jesus saves sinners. So those two things should keep us humble. It's empowered by Jesus Christ. The ministry is empowered by Jesus Christ in verses 12 through 14. And we're going to look at a series of three reactions to that fact, that because it's empowered by Jesus, we should react three ways. Let's just read verses 12 through 14, and we'll go back and break it down. I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. So ministry is empowered by Jesus Christ. And really what Paul's doing here, especially in verse 12, is he's overviewing his conversion. And the Bible scholar R.C.H. Lenski in his commentary kind of summarizes what Paul's doing here in verse 12. And this is what he says. Paul himself was the most astounding example of what the right use of the law is able to accomplish when it is applied in accord with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. Jesus had so applied the law to him in Acts chapter 9 in verses 3 through 5 and had sent him where he could find the gospel in Acts chapter 9 verse 6. And it was thus that he'd been entrusted with the apostolic office, the office rightly to apply the law so that the gospel may do its work. Stopping these silly law workers through Timothy is a part of Paul's great office and work. Remember when we were looking earlier in like 3 through 7 about how they were looking at myths and these fables and endless genealogies. They were going to the law and they were abusing it. And what in 8 through 11, you've got Paul saying, wait a minute, there is a right use of the law. Here's what it is. But what he's doing here, he's trying to say to Timothy, look, you need to stop them. But the way that he does it now is by demonstrating, OK, here's how the law worked in my life. The Lord showed him that he was persecuting the church, right? It was, what's that? But the, which commandment is it? Sixth commandment, right? Don't murder, thou shalt not kill. And he brings the law to bear on him. And he says, here's where you need to go to hear the gospel. And he sends him there, right? And so this is the overview. So the first reaction to ministry being empowered by Jesus Christ, obviously in verse 12, we ought to be thankful. We ought to be thankful. I thank Him who has given me strength. King James translates it enabled. He's enabled me. He's given me strength. The concordant version translates invigorates men. He invigorates us to do the work of the ministry. Jesus gets the credit for anything that we do in ministry. Anything. Keith Daniel used to say you better not even take a sideways glance, a peripheral glance at the glory of God when he shows up and does something. Don't even dare to look at the thing and then think for a second that you had something to do with that glory. He says, don't even let it take a peripheral glance at it out here somewhere. And boy, that's the temptation. That's the temptation to think, man, I was good today. You were never good. You were never good. It was always God's work because he enables, he strengthens, he empowers it to happen. So he gets the credit. Now this, you know, everybody takes Philippians 4.13 out of context over all kinds of things. But this one, it's not out of context today to quote it. You know, it's not out of context to say that. Philippians 4.13 just went right out of my mind. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And say, I needed the Lord to do that. Couldn't even quote it without that. I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's the same Greek term. That's the same Greek term in the text. And then look over at Hebrews chapter 11, verse 34. We have another example of the term strengthen, enable, invigorate. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 34. Well, we go back to 32. What more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David, and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness. There it is, that's the term. Made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Praise God, He makes strong out of weakness. Because if He doesn't, there's no hope. That's all we've got is weakness. So we ought to be thankful for that. He gets the credit for anything we do in ministry, including Our faithfulness. Our faithfulness flows out of His faithfulness. Even our faithfulness isn't something that we cook up, that we just sort of stir up within ourselves. Faithfulness can be translated reliable. The simplified New Testament translates it that way. It just means being trustworthy. And it is rare. It's precious. Psalm chapter 12, verse 1. Look at what it says there about faithfulness. Psalm chapter 12, verse one. It honestly shouldn't be this rare, but the scriptures comment on it and say that it is. Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone, for the faithful have vanished from among the children of men. Proverbs 20, verse six. Each man proclaims his own goodness, but a faithful man, who can find? It's just rare to find somebody that's that way, and it really shouldn't be that rare because of the fact that in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, like the book of Psalms that we just quoted, the righteous were described as those who trust, sometimes they're called the faithful or the elect. As far as God is concerned, the wisdom literature especially, saying there that someone who is a child of God at all is faithful. If they're a Christian, that's what you should expect. In fact, when you get to the New Testament, 10 times the word is translated as believer in the New Testament. The word faithful, the same Greek term, is also translated believer. So a believer really ought to be faithful, right? Six of those 10 times appears in one book, 1 Timothy. So if you look over at 1 Timothy chapter four, verse three, We'll look at some of these examples that we see here in 1st Timothy, since that's the book we're looking at. 1st Timothy chapter 4, verse 3, you'll see that same Greek term translated believer. It says, who forbid marriage and required abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. That word believe is the same Greek term for faithful. You go over to verse 10 in the same chapter. For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hopes set on a living God who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Again, there's that term. Verse 12, let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech. So the word believers there, in conduct and love and faith and purity. And then chapter five, verse 16, If any believing woman, same term, has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened. And I think the church there, it might be the same Greek term, so it's there twice. I'm not sure about that. Let the church not be burdened so that they care for those who are truly widows. And then in chapter six, verse two, those who have believing masters, same term, must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are... That's where it's twice. That's where it's twice. Those who have believing masters, they're at the beginning and at the end, all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. So there it is. There's six of the 10 are right there in 1 Timothy. So you think that maybe he's trying to get something across with his concept that faithfulness really ought to be more regular, especially considering Galatians 5. 22 and 23, it's part of the fruit of the spirit that we are faithful. People of faith, people that are trustworthy. And so, why, where does that come from? It's not from ourselves. That's all part of that enabling that we've already read about here. And we know that it must come from God because He is faithful. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse nine. Deuteronomy seven, verse nine. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. He is the faithful God. If you're faithful, it's because God is faithful. And because it's the work of the Spirit of God in your life to bring about faithfulness. J.H. Thornwell, in his sermon on faithfulness, said, faithfulness is found not in making, but keeping of covenants. It is not the saying, but the doing of what we have said. It's not just making covenants, it's keeping them. It's not just saying you're going to do something, it's doing it. And that's faithfulness. So that's the first reaction to the fact that ministry is empowered by Christ. We should be thankful. And the second reaction ought to be, we need to remember what we were. Don't ever forget what the Lord saved you from. Don't ever forget. No matter how long you've been saved, don't just get into a way of thinking like, You know, these other people that do all these terrible things, they're somehow less than me. Like we talked, like Pastor Randall was talking about today. We were guilty of the same or worse sins. Right? And Paul is facing this in verse 13. So we come back to 1 Timothy 1 verse, pick up where we left off here. Because he judged me faithful, he appointed me to his service. He says, the Lord has done that. He's appointed me, he set me apart for this purpose. And he says, even though, formally, I was a blasphemer. Let's look at some of these cross-references to see where he was a blasphemer. Acts 26, verse 11. Acts chapter 26, verse 11. This is his testimony. I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme. And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. He was a blasphemer because he was trying to get these Christians to turn their backs on Christ and get them to blaspheme. So he doesn't say, I made them blaspheme. He doesn't just kind of push it off on them. He said, no, I was the blasphemer. He was also a persecutor. Acts chapter 22, verse 4. He said, I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women. And then in verse seven, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And of course, in Acts chapter nine, verse one, you've got that familiar verse, it says, but Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went up to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus So that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. He was a blasphemer. He was a persecutor. The Taliban over there in Afghanistan that's going around and shooting, shooting up homes where people are Christians. It's like the Apostle Paul. God could save these Taliban. They're no different. There's really no difference. Just a little smaller stones being fired out of a barrel. Still stoning people to death really quickly, right? Still the same thing. Those guys could repent and believe the gospel. We should pray for them, for their salvation, for their salvation. Of course, we should pray for the church that they be delivered from this, but we should also pray that God would bring some Saul, some Pauls out of there, right? Out of the Taliban. So you come back to first Timothy one. He says he was a blasphemer. He says he was a persecutor and he says he was an insolent opponent, an insolent opponent. The King James translates it injurious and it just means that he was outraged and he was insulted by the very presence of Christians. Just knowing that they're around caused rage in him. That's why he's acting this way. And it actually insulted him. He felt personally insulted by their very existence. So that's what he was. He's saying, this is what I was. And he also says here in verse 13, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. Simple English Bible translates it, I didn't know what I was doing. I really didn't know what I was doing. Kittel says that it was an erroneous ignorance. He was an error. He thought he was doing God a service. He thought he was serving God by what he was doing. But he says instead well you know he's saying look I was an error. Now just because he was an error doesn't mean he wasn't accountable. Second Peter chapter 2. Sometimes people do that, don't they? We do that all the time. Well, I didn't know. You start doing it when you're about three, four years old. I didn't know. I didn't know. Well, Second Peter chapter 2 verse 10 says that, that's not going to cut it. Verse 9, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. And especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. Whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, Creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed. They're destruction. What's he saying there in verse 12? They're acting like irrational animals, and they're acting like they're just creatures of instinct, but they're still held accountable. They're still held accountable in spite of that. And so ignorance isn't going to cut it. Ignorance is not bliss in this case. And he said, that's what I was. And he wouldn't argue. He's like, I don't deserve, I don't deserve this. I deserve judgment. I deserve death. I deserve what the law calls for. But look what God did because it says there in verse 13, but I received mercy. Now, I was reading this commentator, RCH Lenski. He says this is the heiress passive. And he's saying, he translates it, I was mercied. That's what I'm calling the sermon, by the way, it's the title. I was mercied. Praise God that we were mercied. that in my life I can look at it myself and see all the laws of God that I have broken. And I was worse because I was a hypocrite. So I can identify with Paul as he's talking about this, not because I persecuted the church, but because I tried to fake out the church and deceive the church, right? And so in that deception, I don't know how many people I led astray over the course of my ministry until in 2003, I was saved. But I received mercy. I was mercy. God did not give me what I deserve at that moment. He could have crushed me like a bug and sent me to hell right where I stood. And He didn't do that. He didn't give me what I deserve. You know what else I deserve? I deserve my wife to walk out on me. She never did that. What was that? Mercy. My kids could have just gone crazy. But they could have gone crazier. And did all kinds of stuff. But they still follow Christ. I've had people ask me, like, how do you get your kids to grow up that way? I'm like, grace? I got nothing for you, man. They want some book or something. I got one word, grace, mercy. That's what I've got. We were mercied. We need to remember that, how we were saved. We were saved. And that's the third reaction here of being, you know, being empowered by the Lord to do ministry. We always need to remember how we were saved. And it is that we were mercied. And not only were we mercied, but in verse 14, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. It's abundant grace. It's translated abundantly. I received it abundantly in the King James. It overflowed. That's a good translation. We received unmeasurable, overflowing, boundless grace. There's no way that you can measure it. That's the whole purpose of that term in the Greek. It's just super abundant. It's overflowing. You can't measure it. So when you're thinking about everybody out there that you're mad at, Right now it's a lot of people. Right? Think about, you know, whoever, Biden, Fauci, whoever, right? You're mad at those people. They need grace. They need salvation. You know, whoever, you know, whoever, whoever you look at that you're mad at, that's outside of Christ, just remember that they need to be mercy and they need that abundant overflowing grace because you got it. And what would have happened to you if you didn't get it? So we need to remember how we're saved. Now what's really, I like this part here in verse 14 as it finishes. The source of our conversion is faith and love that comes from Jesus. Look at verse 14. The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. You got faith from Him. You didn't get faith by just working it up yourself or just exercising it yourself. You received it from Him. And love in Him. You received it from Him. We love because He first loved us. Scripture says that. And Ephesians 2.8 even says that faith is a gift from God. It's grace that motivates it. But that faith is a gift. It's a gift from God. And you didn't do it because you were smarter than the average bear. You didn't do it because you're smart and everybody else is a dummy. We got to watch out for that attitude when we're sharing the gospel after we've been saved for a while. And we think, what's wrong with these people? And we can even laugh about how dumb some of the stuff sounds. They did it ignorantly in unbelief. Right? Where do we get the faith from? The Lord. How can we be prideful about that? We get caught up in the moment and just sort of react. to what you're seeing around you, but just keep in mind that such were some of you, right? As the Apostle Paul says there in 1 Corinthians 6.11, such were some of you. So the second thing that we have here in verses 15 and 16, the second thing to be thankful for in this conversion, I want to make sure I get this right because I'm terrible with transitional statements, but the fact of the matter is The second thing that we are, the two evidences that the call to ministry is an act of mercy, the second evidence is that Jesus saves sinners. He saves sinners. In verse 15, it's a beautiful verse. I've read it, I've known it for years. I've read it, I've never really thought about it the way that I've thought about it this week because of just studying the text. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. The King James translates it, this is a faithful saying. It's a faithful saying, but this ESV translation I think is better because it gets to the meaning of it. It's trustworthy and it's deserving of full acceptance. When he's saying, he says sinners, and what he's saying here in verse 15, what Paul is saying is a trustworthy fact that should be accepted for the good of your own soul. This is a trustworthy fact that should be accepted for the good of your soul. The phrase trustworthy factor and the King James, this is a faithful, this is faithful saying, right? Faithful of a statement is what would be the translation literally Lenski says. It only occurs in the pastoral epistles. This is really interesting. And the fact that that only occurs in the pastoral epistles tells me something. And it tells me that it's good for pastors, people who are in ministry, it's good for their own souls to remember the statement. Look how he words this statement. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now if you stop there, it's not too hard to accept. Oh yeah, because they're all, everybody else is a sinner. No. He says as he finishes it, of whom I am the foremost. Or in the King James, I am chief. I am the foremost. He doesn't say, I was the foremost. He says present tense, I am the foremost. Right now, I am. I always am. I am sinful. Did I just say that in church? Yes, I'm sinful, right? Because the text says it. We are sinful. And we are always in need of the gospel. You've heard it time and time again, but it bears repeating yet again. You never get past this. You should never get past it. You should come to this and it should cause you to cover your mouth for a second and go, yes, this is true. You add your amen to it, right? And you say, this is true of me now. I need Christ every day. There's never a time I get past it. I always need to be flabbergasted by the gospel. Shook, rocked, whatever word you want to use. It should be like that. The moment that we start to lose that, I think that's when we start to lose our love. When we start to lose that flabbergasted feeling and just unworthiness, and the fact that we are mercy, right? All of that. When we start to lose that, that's when we lose our love for other people. We start losing our love for the laws. Because we're not just floored by it. If we really were floored by it, you know, we would be much more, you know, loving towards the lost and trying to reach them with the gospel. So, some people look at this and say, well, you know, Paul is just sort of overstating it a little bit. Who be he's the chief, you know, that's kind of extreme, Paul. You know, that you would say that You're the foremost sinner. Is this saying that he's the foremost sinner of all time? Of course not. It's not saying that. But he was very aware of his sinfulness. If you don't believe that, go back and look at Romans 7. Romans 7, verse 18. Big debate about whether this is past tense or present tense. I've gone, in the history of my ministry, I've gone both ways on it. I go with it being present tense. I think Paul was talking about what he experienced. Romans 7 verse 18. He says, I know that nothing good dwells in me that is my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. You felt like that? So did the Apostle Paul. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. Boy, don't you know that? Have you experienced that? You want to do right, but the evil's right there, and man, it's a war. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. You know you love to hear the word of God preached and taught, but yet when sin comes up we battle with it. Why is that? I delight in the law of God, my inner being, but I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Uh-oh, too bad. Sorry Paul, there's nothing to do. No, verse 25 is there, right? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. He says there is deliverance, but it only comes through a moment by moment walk with Christ. That's the only way. And if you don't grasp that, you will continue to walk with that sin, unrepentant in your life. But if you realize it's moment by moment, you must walk with Christ. There is a responsibility with your sanctification. So that goes on with him. Now there's another text that's extremely interesting. Do you think that was extreme with Romans 7? Maybe it was extreme with 1 Timothy 1 verse 15? Well it gets worse. He gets way extreme here. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 8. He's talking there about the gospel. He gets to verse six and he says, then he appeared to me more than 500. Yeah, then he appeared to me more than, I keep saying me, why did I say that? Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. The term one untimely born, it's talking about an abortion. He's not just talking about, well, OK, I was later than those guys. That's usually how you read it. He's saying, he appeared to me. Who am I? I'm an abortion. What do you do with an abortion? Well, you try to take that and try to hide it as soon as you can. I mean, if you don't believe that, go to the abortion clinic. They put it in a freezer in the abortion clinic. Then they hire Stericycle to come. Stericycle comes and they cart it away. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to even know about it. If you don't believe that, take a picture of one and show it in the abortion clinic. They really don't like to see that, right? Paul's saying, what am I? That's what I am. That's what I am. And even though that's what I am, He appeared to me. Isn't that something? He appeared also to me. He was mercy. He received abundant grace, overflowing grace. Because that's how he saw himself. In light of the law of God. In light of the holiness of God. What are we? If you've got any ounce of that, like pride going on, you know, I'm a pretty good person sort of thing. You got any self-righteousness going on, get rid of that. Because what you are in the sight of God, our righteousness is as filthy rags. Used menstrual cloth is the term in the Hebrew. Only time it appears in the Old Testament. Used menstrual cloth. People are like, wow, that doesn't, I don't feel very good about that. You know, where's my self esteem? You know, what happened to my self esteem? Look, when you come to Christ, really, you need to abandon self, completely. And if these terminologies don't impress that upon you, I don't know what will, right? Abortion, use menstrual cloths, it really repulses God when we try to come to Him with our good works. And this is how we ought to see ourselves. When we see Christ and we see the beauty of the gospel, our response is humility. We get low before God and say, oh, I need that because I am nothing. I am less than nothing. If you say, man, I feel like I'm nothing, praise God. You say, I got self-esteem problems. You should, because you've rebelled against God. Cry out to God for mercy. Find in Him everything that you have, that you can ever have in Him. Stop looking to yourself for anything. Zero. You've got nothing. You have less than nothing. That's good. That means you're on the way to finding deliverance. You will never find it. Look into yourself. You can get all the narcotics, not narcotics. You can get all the psychotropic drugs. You can get everything that they prescribe. And I promise you, all you'll get is dull to what's going on around you. What you need is Christ. He can deliver you, I promise you. He can deliver you because you'll find out In Christ you'll find out what life is all about. What life is truly about. Living for the glory of God. If you live for the glory of self, it's no wonder you're depressed. It's no wonder you're depressed. You say, I can't get what I want. It's not about you. Nothing in this world is about you. It's all about Him and His glory. So Paul's example in verse 16, what he's saying in verse 16 is quite remarkable as well. He's saying, my example gives hope to all sinners. All sinners should get hope from my examples, what he's saying. But I received mercy, again, he's mercied, for this reason, that in me, As the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. He's saying, if God can save me, he can save anyone. And everyone who hears about my conversion, as they read the word of God, from this point forward, he's saying, can have hope. If God can save me, He can save anyone. So Paul was mercied in the first part of the verse as an example of longsuffering. I love how the ESV translates it. That in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience. King James translates it longsuffering. Why is God so longsuffering? Why does he put up with so much from Paul? Why does he put up with so much from us? Well, a lot of people like to take this verse out of context. It does give the answer. In 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9, and then verse 10, to give the context, they always quote verse 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Now what they do is they stop there at the end of verse 9. And they say, see that God wants everyone to be saved. So therefore, this limited atonement thing is a bunch of bunk. Because, you know, in 2 Peter 3, 9. But they don't read verse 10. Verse 10 says, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. What's he saying in context? What he's saying is, look, the end's not going to come until all that are meant to repent are going to. It's addressed in 2 Peter to the believers. 2 Peter, the whole book is addressed to believers, right? And so the Lord's not fulfilled the slowest promise to who? The elect, the believers. He's patient towards all of the elect, not wishing that any of the elect should perish, but that all of the elect should reach repentance, but the day of the Lord will come. So when all of the elect repent, that's when the end comes. It's not gonna come before that. Not gonna come one moment before that. It's there. So Paul was mercied as an example of long suffering and patience. And he was a mold, a pattern for those who would come after. Because going back to first Timothy chapter 1 verse 16, an example, an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. It could be translated mold or you know, you know what a mold is, right? You pour the, my mom used to do ceramics and so she had these molds. They pour the material in, heat it up, whatever, open the mold up and you've got the vase or whatever it was that they make in ceramics. It was a mold. He's saying, that's what has happened here, is God has saved me so that I could be a pattern for others. So that others could see that they too could be saved. Calvin says this, and I'm going to quote Calvin here, you know, regarding about saving other people. Calvin's a Calvinist, obviously, he's Calvin. Why would he say something like this? But here's what he says, Paul shows that it was profitable to the church that he had been such a person as he actually was before he was called to the apostleship, because Christ, by giving him as a pledge, invited all sinners to the sure hope of obtaining pardon. Calvin said that? He did, because he understood the text. He just taught the text as it stands. And what he says here is like, look, Let the example of Paul prove to anyone who thinks that they have sinned so grossly against God that they cannot be forgiven, that indeed they can. If they will come to faith in Christ, they will repent and believe the gospel. All believers have been mercied. We've all been mercied. All of us have received grace. We have received love and faith from Jesus, and he deserves all of the glory for our salvation. We get zero. We get none. And now life is no longer about us. But it's all about the one that saved us. So no sacrifice is too big. No risk is too great. No pain is too much to suffer for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So he gets to verse 17 and we're not going to do verse 17 tonight because there's so much in verse 17. That's one sermon. But listen to what he says. He breaks out in praise. It's the only right response to this beautiful gospel that Paul's received. To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. There's coming a day when we're going to stand in glory We're going to see him face to face, the one that laid down his life for us. And forever and ever we're going to give him glory and honor and praise because he deserves it. And I promise you it won't be boring. I promise you it'll be the most fulfilling thing that you've ever experienced ever. And I think it's going to be so real that any memory that we have of this life is going to probably be something like a dream that you had one time and you forgot all about the details. Yeah, I seem to remember something about all that. Boy, what a pain in the neck that was. Who cares? Because right now we have Christ. All I have is Christ. And the more that we realize that now, the more closely we get to heaven on earth and just being consumed with who he is. Let's pray. Lord, your gospel is amazing. It's grace. It's mercy. We deserve help. We deserve eternal separation, they say, eternal awareness of your holiness and our sin and consuming us in hell. That's what we deserve. And if you gave us what we deserve right now, that's where we'd all be. But instead of doing that, you gave us what we didn't deserve. You sent your son, Jesus, to die, to die for the sins that we committed. We should have died. But in grace and in mercy, Lord Jesus, you died so that if we repent and believe the gospel, we can be saved. Not only did you die, you rose from the dead and you conquered death. We don't even have to fear it. Forgive us for being wrapped up, oh Lord, in this culture that's telling us to be afraid of everything. and help us instead to see ourselves very plainly and clearly in the gospel and help us to love you with a pure heart and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and to prove that by sharing with them the message, the only message that can save. Lord, we pray that they would be mercy. We pray that they would receive this abundant grace. Help us to be faithful to proclaim it with the joy and the excitement and the passion that it is worthy of. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.