Worshiping God for His Grace Part III

1 Timothy 1:12-17:

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, that in being the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Continuing on in our study, lets move along to verse 13, and our next point, where we see Paul as the Repentant Sinner.

“even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.”

Repentance is literally defined as a change of both mind and heart, and turning away from sin. Repentance is not a one time thing that takes place, but a continual action in the life of a Christian; where we recognize our sin, and we turn away from it. In Matthew 3:8 John the Baptist tells the Pharisee’s “therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

In our verse here Paul shows us two things, he acknowledges his sins, and he changes his ways.

• “Even though I was formerly” this is a strong statement emphasizing the change. He no longer acts the way he did, which is the final outcome of true repentance.
• “A blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor” Here it is important to acknowledge Paul’s full understanding and right view of his sin. He admits that he has broken the first four commandments, as a blasphemer, and he has broken the last 6 as a persecutor and a violent aggressor.
  

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was in Mark 12:28-31 He replied: “The foremost is, ‘Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ; You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

Notice how Paul’s confession freely admits that he transgressed in every way, he was a blasphemer, and therefore was acting out against a holy God, and he was a persecutor, and a violent aggressor, acting out against God’s beloved children. Paul’s repentance wasn’t superficial, it didn’t hide the truth, but he fully exposed his weakness before the Lord. Our repentance must be just that, completely open, completely honest, and in complete agreement with God’s righteous judgment against sin.

If we were to turn anywhere in Scripture to find an example of Biblical repentance it would be Psalm 51. Here we see David’s cry of anguish for his grievous sins of covetousness and adultery with Bathsheba, and his sins of lying and murder against Uriah, but listen to his words in Psalm 51:1-4:

“Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when you speak and blameless when You judge.”

Although his transgressions were clearly against others, it was God’s heart he had offended, and God alone who could purify him. But David doesn’t stop there, he continues in repentance, for his sin nature in verse 5:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Here David isn’t charging his mother with an illegitimate relationship, but instead is admitting what Scripture teaches over and over again. From birth we have a s sinful nature, and our hearts are inclined toward evil. In fact, right before God destroyed the earth with the flood He makes an observation that accurately describes the fallen nature of mankind, our sin nature passed down from Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 6:5 we see one of the most startling statements in the Bible:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Now this of course is before the flood, before God wiped out all those sinful people right? Certainly after Noah entered the ark and all those wretched sinners were drowned, then things would change, right? Wrong, listen to Gods words as Noah comes off of the ark in Genesis 8:18-21: S

o Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.

We find so many other passages that reflect this same truth, but I think none more profoundly speak about our inability to please God, or seek for Him on our own as Romans 3:10-12 does;

as it is written, " THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME WORTHLESS;
 THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."

We learn that this sinful nature corrupts us from the start, and this corruption penetrates into the deepest part of our being. We don’t have the moral ability to choose God and His righteousness, in fact, we are incapable of pleasing God in any way on our own.

We view ourselves in light of those around us, and can confidently say “I’m not so bad, look at this guy over here, he’s a terrible person!” we know that there is always someone worse then we are, so we can’t be that bad, right? WRONG!

Without God’s intervention we cannot see our sin for what it is, which is an abomination before a holy God. We remain as enemies of God, and unless He reveals to us our horrible helpless state of sinfulness, and without a proper view of our sinfulness, we cannot repent, and as Jesus said in Luke 13:3 “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

I just want to address one other point while covering verse 13. Paul finishes the verse by stating “Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;”

It is important to understand that Paul was neither a Jewish apostate nor a Pharisee who clearly understood Jesus’ teaching and still rejected Him, on the contrary, Paul was a zealous passionate Jew trying to earn his salvation through works and outward righteousness, thus, like all others in any false religious system of works righteousness, he was damned.

Here Paul isn’t making a plea for innocence due to ignorance, nor is he denying his responsibility and guilt. He is pointing out that until Christ confronted him with the truth about his sin, he thought he was doing God a favor by persecuting the Christians, and therefore was ignorant of the truth.

If everyone who was acting in ignorance received mercy solely on the basis of their ignorance, then every man woman and child would receive salvation simply based on the fact that we are all ignorant before God from start to finish.

This however would violate every teaching of Christ, from repentance, to self denial, to salvation by faith in His atoning work on the cross. We also know that “the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” This of course is contrasted to the narrow gate that only a few will ever find.