with you. We'll be looking at 1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 15 through 17. I say, do you hear the Word of God? 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. But I receive mercy for this reason that in me as foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to pay. I believe in Him for eternal life. To the King of Ages and mortal and visible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you, a Dutch, come tonight by your spirit, open the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, teach us the gospel. I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Christ's name, we pray these things. Amen. The first order of business, I'm wondering if we could dim these lights a little bit. I see smiling back there. You know, when I read this, every time I read this book, 1 Timothy, something comes to mind. It's one of the greatest debates of all time. Really, maybe one of the greatest debates in recorded history. And the debate, of course, is whether Batman really needed Robin. Did he need him or not? Did the lone ranger need Tonto? I'm thinking the lone ranger actually needed Tonto. He pulled him out of quite a few jams, but Robin's always questionable. The whole sidekick thing. And the more you begin to think about it, really, it makes no difference because at the end of the day, it is what it is. Robin's there. You have to live with him. And Batman takes him under his wing and he trains him and teaches him what it means to be a superhero, what it means to live out this high calling as a hero and a virtuous man. And when you read the book of 1 Timothy, really, in some sense, in a theological sense, what you're reading is Batman writing a letter to Robin. Timothy was to the apostle Paul as Robin was the Batman. In other words, he was Paul's sidekick. And it helps you to understand the much of what you find in this letter because Paul is the one who's more experienced, the one who's been through the ringer a few times, is writing Timothy to give him some advice. And I love the advice that he gives him. He gives him advice about a number of things, but the primary thing that he gives Timothy advice on is how to deal with false teachers, bogus teachers, teachers who divide the church. And the teachers that divide the church ironically are not from without, but from within. They always are. In other words, Paul is writing Timothy to say, tell certain men to stop teaching strange doctrine. Order them to stop doing this. And these aren't people who are coming from the outside and who are disturbing the church, but they're people within the church who actually think they know what the law means and thinks they should be able to tell the pastor what he should do and how the law should be applied to the life of his people. That's the background of this. In fact, listen to what Paul says about them. In verse 6 of chapter 1, he says, certain persons by swerving from these that's pure heart and good conscience have wandered into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. Paul's talking about people in the church who want to be teachers of the law. They want to have a say in things. They want to apply the law. They want to be good, frankly, they're well intentioned. And they might come to someone like Paul and hear them. When you read Paul, he sort of is having this dialogue with them. He's anticipating what they might say. And so Paul would say they want to be teachers of the law, but they don't even know what the law is about. And they might come back and say, Paul, you don't even care about the law. You denigrate the law. The law is meaningless to you. And Paul would reply to them, no, no, no, no, no. The law is good. In fact, he says it next. He says, now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. So they might come back and say, Paul, you don't care about the law. He says, no, the law is good, but you got to use it lawfully. And what's the lawful use of the law in the Apostle Paul's writings and even what comes next, we're not going to look at it. The lawful use of the law according to Paul is that the law is useful to diagnose illness, but not treat it. The law is useful to diagnose illness, but not heal it. In other words, the illness that all of us deal with and all of us are afflicted with is sin. And Paul says, this thing called the law is extremely good, and it has a place, but the place that it has is diagnosing your illness, not making you better, not treating you for it. In other words, it would be like going to your doctor and him taking your blood pressure and sort of like he's done with me before and go, ooh, so, you know, when's the last time you had an EKG? When's the last time you had an EKG? When's the last time? And you go and you do the stress test and you're on the treadmill and you're breathing hard and all this kind of stuff, and he looks at the test and he says, yep, there's a problem. And you say, what do I want to do? And he said, well, you just need to keep taking this test. Why? Because if you keep taking the test, you're going to get better. think about a doctor, did that to you? You think he's nuts? Because taking the test can't make you better. The diagnosis can't make you better. The diagnosis can only show you the problem. And Paul says the law has a perfectly good place in our lives. And that place is to show you the problem. And that is a glorious thing. Because if you didn't know the problem, then you can't seek the right treatment. Correct? I mean, I hear over and over again with those of you I've prayed with, it's on one hand, it is the most horrible thing in the world to hear that you have cancer or hear that you have some malady on one hand. On the other hand, is it not oftentimes a great relief? Because you knew something was wrong. And now the doctor has said, in fact, here is what's wrong. He's diagnosed you correctly and having diagnosed you. He now can give you the correct treatment. Paul says that's the purpose of the law. It's diagnosis. And they would say, well, Paul, of course, you would say that. Of course, you would say that because you're the worst of sinners. You said that. In fact, Paul, you are so rotten. We hear, we hear that you actually persecuted the church. We hear that you heard that you killed the Christians. So of course, you're going to try and make it sound like to be sinful. It's actually a good thing. And Paul said, you guys just don't get it. In fact, he might say, you guys are just starting to get it. And it's a, what do you mean? We said that you're trying to make it sound like being simple as a good thing. And Paul said, you're starting to get it not, being simple is not a good thing, but knowing that you're sinful is. And he said, Jesus didn't choose me because I'm the most righteous person on earth, far from it. I'm here speaking. I'm here preaching to you because God chose me to be an object of His mercy. Why you, Paul? Why? Why would God choose the worst of sinners? That just doesn't make sense to the self-righteous. Does it? Because when even, you know, when you're trying to think you sit around in a committee meeting and you think, you know, okay, we need someone really squared away to take care of, you know, the widget ministry. And you don't sit around going, who's the very worst person we can find? The system of rotten, sinful person who will probably screw the whole thing up. That's the person we need to take over the widget ministry. Have you ever done that? I know you've done it, but not intentionally. But the fact is, the fact is, Paul is saying that God has used a completely different criteria, that God has actually chosen the very worst possible person in the world to be His representative. And they said, Paul, that is just crazy. Why would God choose someone who is so rotten to be His representative? And at that point is where we enter our text and Paul would say, now you guys are asking the right question. Now we're starting to do a little dance. Now we can talk. He said because the reason God chose me is because of the mission of Jesus. He's just three things. If you're a note-taker, the mission of Jesus, the patience of Jesus and the glory of Jesus. That's why God chose me. What's the mission of Jesus? Notice what Paul says in verse 15. Paul says, 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. So why does Paul open up and say, the saying is, is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance? Paul says that five times in his letters to Timothy. Probably the reason he says it is because remember the accusation he made against the false teachers. They sit around having speculation about everything, about genealogies. They ask question after question after question, but they never have any answers. And Paul says, let me give you one answer. Let me give you one thing. There's trustworthy and full acceptance that you can believe. And you know, I've told you before I have a friend from Alabama and we're on an airplane one time. We're flying across the country to a church planner's conference and he would get so excited about stuff and he would say, you know, when I get back, I'm going to tell these elders, you know, this or that and he said, you can write that down. And at some point I'd stop and say, you know, keep telling me to write stuff down. What are you talking about? He said, now, that's how you say you're going to promise. I promise somebody to you, write that down. And Paul's saying, get what I'm getting ready to say, you can write this down. Because this is trustworthy. Everything they say is speculation. Everything they say is question with no answer. I'm going to give you an answer. And the answer is this, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And it's not just trustworthy, but it deserves full. That is universal acceptance. Everyone ought to accept this. Paul says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And that is the whole gospel. Right there. Christ Jesus came into the world, his incarnation, to save sinners, redemption. In other words, God, the Son became a man so that you and I might be redeemed from our sins. There are the gospel of John says that Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world, but through him that the world might be saved. Why is it that Jesus wouldn't come into the world to condemn it? You know, if it was you or me, right, we'd go around and we'd try and find all the good people who we thought we could build the ministry from. And Jesus instead seeks out the very worst. Why does he do that? Why does he seek to save and not to condemn? And the answer to that is so it's right in front of our face. He doesn't need to condemn because that's the state in which we're born. You live in condemnation. Why would he have to come and heat more on? You live there. That's your place of existence from your birth. Have you ever seen the movie Escape from New York? I asked that knowing that most of you haven't. It's not a recommendation either because I forget what it's rated. Basically, Escape from New York, the whole city of New York is set in the distant future. The whole city of New York has become a maximum security prison. And the president of the United States is flying over and is playing crashes and snakepliskin. Kirk Russell has to go in and rescue the president from New York. But the point is just this, in the prison, there's some criminals that are more notorious than others. But at the end of the day, if you're in the prison, you're in the prison. It doesn't matter how notorious you are. It doesn't matter how bad you were. At the end of the day, if you're still in New York, that still means you're still a condemned criminal. And the gospel of Jesus says this, that he came and he entered New York. He entered the prison. He came in to our cell. And broke down the bars. And he said, well, someone's got to pay for this. Someone's got to have justice. And Jesus says, I will stay here. You go free. I will go to death. You go to life. I will bear the crown of thorns. You bear the crown of glory. You take everything I have. Take it. It's yours. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's the gospel. And then Paul tax on something at the end. He says, of whom I am the foremost. King James says of whom I am the chief. And is Paul saying here that he is the worst possible sinner who's ever lived? Probably not. On the other hand, if it's just him and Jesus, he probably feels like the worst sinner who ever lives. A better reading of that might be among whom I am the most prominent. In other words, he's the Apostle Paul that Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the most prominent. He took someone who is a persecutor of the church. He says that earlier, I was a persecutor and a blasphemer. And God chose to show mercy upon me. And I'm the most prominent person. What is his point of saying that? And the point is just this, that if you believe, if you don't think God can save you, just look at me. If you're wondering, if the gospel's big enough to save someone like you, Paul says, look at me. And it's the same for every pastor. I mean, every time I think of prominent sinners, dumb broadwaters, the first person that comes in mind, it used to be Jeff, but now it's time. And when you enter the rabbit hole of the Apostle Paul's world, I just gave both of those men the greatest compliment that I could give them, that your tremendous rotten sinners. And yet Jesus came into the world to save people like you. If you're out here and yourself righteous, you know what Jesus says? He says, you don't even need a doctor. Go on with your life. If you see yourself as being a sinner and need of a savior, Jesus says, I'm the one for you. Why? Because if you can, if I can save Tommy Allen, I can save anybody. And that leads us to the next point, the patience of Jesus. Paul says, not only can he save someone like me, but let me tell you why he saved someone like me. Look at verse 16. Paul says, but I receive mercy for this reason that in me is the foremost or the most prominent Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example of those to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. I mean, that verse right there is the pastor's trump card because people get upset at the pastors because when they don't do this or they don't do that or they thought they should be more like this or they thought they should be more like that. In other words, the pastor, you should be an example of goodness. Don, you should be an example of all that is good and holy in the world. You should be an example of perfect quiet times and perfect devotion and perfect worship and perfect preaching, perfect small group, perfect administration, everything. You should be an example of
and that's not what Paul says, is it? Paul says, Jesus didn't choose me to be an example of what it means to be good in front of people. Jesus chose me so that I might be an example of his perfect patience toward a sinner. If you want to know if Jesus is patient, look at the apostle Paul. You want to know if Jesus is patient and Ron Benjelink looked at Tommy Allen, right? If you want to know that Jesus is patient, look to Don Broadway. If you want to know that Jesus is patient, check this out when you get home, look in the mirror, look in the mirror because if you've any doubt whether Jesus is patient and you are Christian, just look in the mirror because the fact is that you and I are desperately in need of someone else's goodness and righteousness to be put to our account. And Jesus says, I'm going to give it to you and not only that, but I'm going to be patient with you until I finish the job. Jesus is more patient with me than I am. And how does that end for the apostle Paul? Does it end with like you or man? So I'm so bad that Jesus has to be patient with me. These things in the mind of the apostle Paul end up issuing forth in great praise from him. Notice where he goes next, the mission of Jesus is to save people. The patience of Jesus is the reason and the ultimate purpose is his glory. Look at what Paul says in verse 17. He says to the king of ages in mortal and visible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. It's a thing of great glory for the apostle Paul. You see the law can diagnose your illness, your center. But what is great and glorious is that Jesus comes and gives his life for you. The king, eternal, all glorious has it gave up everything so that you and I might have his righteousness if we trusted in him. And then Paul asks for a response at the end, which makes me wonder if Paul really was Presbyterian. I think he was except for passages like this because Paul actually, in a sense, almost does an ancient Near Eastern alter a call here. You've heard me say this before I know, but in the ancient Near Eastern, the ancient church, amen, it was a call for a response. And almost every church except for Presbyterians, Episcopals and Catholics, I was trying to think today which churches didn't do this is when the pastor says, amen, what do people say back? Amen. And in the ancient church and in the synagogue, they would say, amen and amen. And when Paul ends this by saying, amen, he's doing two things. He's saying, this is true. But he's also asking for a response. Do you believe this? If you're not a Christian here tonight, do you believe it? Do you believe that Jesus has come to save you? And if so, would you embrace him? If you are a Christian, let me ask you this, do you believe that Jesus has come to save you? Same question. You see, you never get over your need for the gospel. You see the problem that Christians run into is we forget that the law can only diagnose. And we begin to fall into the trap of thinking, well, you know, the law diagnosed me so well, I bet if I take more of it, it'll make me better too. And it never will. The only thing that will make you better is Jesus. And he promises to be patient with you while he is making you better. Think about that. Let's pray. Father, I pray that as we continue with the Don's installation that you would just give them, he and Gloria, a great ministry and a gospel center and a gospel-driven ministry make our church gospel-driven and gospel-centered. In Christ's name, we pray these things. Amen. Amen.