I'll read beginning in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope. To Timothy, a true son in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine. nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.
Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me, because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. Now to the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, to God who alone is wise, Be honor and glory forever and ever.
Amen. This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some, having rejected, concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Amen.
Introduction to 1 Timothy
Well, this is one of the letters that the Apostle wrote after he was released from his first Roman imprisonment, A.D. 60 to 62, where the Book of Acts leaves off. Paul then went on and engaged in more gospel ministry. We see here specifically the purpose of 1 Timothy. He stationed Timothy, who was his companion, one he describes elsewhere as being like-minded, one who had affections similar to the Apostle Paul's, one that was a support and a benefit and a great help to the Apostle.
Well, he stationed Timothy in Ephesus, and we see the charge specifically in verse 3. Remain in Ephesus that you may charge them that they teach no other doctrine. So, in accordance with Paul's words in Acts 20, for from among you savage wolves will rise up. That took place.
And so, Paul takes Timothy, stations him there in Ephesus, and charges him to combat the heresy, to combat the false teaching that was going on. He then shows or demonstrates how these men desired to be teachers of the law. Verse 7, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. He highlights there is a lawful use of the law.
He says we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. The law was not given as a means of justification. The law is a condemning thing with reference to showing our sin and our need for the Lord Jesus Christ. And I believe that's the specific application he's referring to here.
And then he mentions that these things are contrary or what is contrary to sound doctrine. And then he says in verse 11, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. And then in verses 12 to 17, he uses his own conversion as an example of the truth of the gospel. One man by the name of James Stocker said that Paul's conversion or Paul's salvation or his doctrine was nothing but the explanation of his own conversion.
In other words, what Paul engaged in, seeking God as a Pharisee, seeking God according to the law, coming up short, being convicted of his sin, being justified freely by the grace of God, those things that happened in the life and experience of the Apostle, then became paradigmatic or an example or a pattern for all of his gospel teaching. And so verses 12 to 17 highlight that reality of Paul's conversion. And it is, again, to be an encouragement to Timothy to gird him up with the truth of the gospel. And I thought it would be a good thing for us to consider tonight as we looked at the need to be faithful witnesses.
When we relate to people outside the church, when we relate to unbelievers, the thing that we most must be equipped with is the gospel. We must understand the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. There's a lot of differing opinions and a lot of different doctrines in the church. But on this one, we cannot mistake.
On this one, we cannot be wrong. We have to understand justification. We have to understand the atonement. We have to understand the truth. of Christ and his cross work, if we will be effective witnesses.
Because we can actually do more harm than good. If we have a distorted, fuzzy view of what the gospel is, we go out and witness, we're going to be witnessing a fuzzy and a distorted gospel, which is no gospel at all. So I thought it would be good for us to consider the Apostle Paul this evening with reference to this first faithful saying.
Two Broad Observations
There's two broad observations I want to make on our text. The first is that this faithful saying is a saying to instruct. It instructs us. It teaches us.
It gives us understanding and knowledge specifically about Paul and about Christ. Now, it's not just about Paul so that we can sort of be, you know, worshippers of Paul. Paul as a man. Paul as a sinful man.
Paul like us. So it is important for us to understand what this saying instructs us concerning Paul. And then secondly, a broad observation is that it's a saying to incite. And I mean by insight.
To move to action, to stir up, to spur on, or to urge on. This is precisely what we find in verse 17. After recounting God's grace and the power of Jesus Christ in saving him, Paul then launches into a doxology. Verse 17.
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God, who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen. So it is a saying that instructs us. It is a saying that incites us to worship and to praise our great God.
A Saying to Instruct
Now notice, first of all, with reference to it being a saying to instruct us. We'll take up Paul first.
Paul's Former State
He tells us a lot about his former state. He tells us a lot about his time before he was a Christian. And I believe in doing so, he magnifies the grace of God. He shows or demonstrates the glory of the Christian gospel.
I think we see a similar convention used in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 2 and 3, the sins of Israel are highlighted and punctuated and described in great detail. You might get to think, why would He continue to parade all this garbage in front of us? I mean, there's idolatry.
There's the forgetting of the true God. There's an exchange of the true and living God for idols of men. But what is another theme replete in that section is God saying, yet return to me says the Lord. I think the yet return to me says the Lord appears that much more beautiful and that much more glorious and gracious set with the context of their sin and depravity.
And it's the same thing here. Paul makes a general reference to his sinful state before God saved him. He says that in verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
Now, you may think that you're the worst sinner that's ever been. And that's okay. You should think that from time to time. But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, claimed that title.
You may be second in line, you may be third, but you are not chief. Paul the apostle has that title to himself. That doesn't mean we're good, or we're somehow decent people, but we're just not the chief of sinners in this particular regard. And he doesn't leave us to wonder because he describes it in some detail.
Notice that he was a blasphemer. Paul misspoke about God. Paul blasphemed the living and the true God. Paul blasphemed men, and by blaspheming men, the idea involved is abusive in speech or a slanderer.
In fact, in the book of Acts, in one place, he says that he compiled the believers to blaspheme God. He did this so that he could get the conviction so that these men and women would be put to death for their devotion to the Lord of Glory. Paul was not some righteous, holy, upright dude that God one day just said, hey, I'm going to save him because he's worthy. No, he was a blasphemer.
He goes on to say that he was a persecutor of the church. The idea involved here is one who pursues as a hunter. So, Paul got his 338 and he went out and instead of looking for moose or for deer or for elk, he looked for Christians. He was a persecutor of the church.
He describes himself that way in Philippians 3.6. As to zeal, I persecuted the church. Look at Galatians chapter 1 for just a moment. Again, I think it's important for us to understand what Paul was and what he became by God's grace in his life.
Galatians 1 at verse 13. For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. Don't let anyone ever say they're too sinful for Jesus to save. Right?
This is why Paul was cheap. He tried to destroy the church. It was Saul that was standing there guarding the clothes and garments of those men who were engaged in stoning Stephen to death. It was Saul who got paperwork, who got extradition papers in order to go to Damascus and arrest Christians and bring them back and put them in jail.
It says in one place, where he's recounting his experience, he said that I bound men and women. So we would walk into people's houses, people that were Christians. I mean, we read about that kind of stuff now going on in Muslim lands or the Hindus or the Buddhists who march into Christians' homes and they put their hands on them and they take them out of the sanctity of their home and they march them into prison. Well, that's the man we're looking at tonight.
That's the man who said this is a faithful saying. He knows of what he speaks. He was a blasphemer. He was a persecutor of the church.
And he was an insolent man. And this means a sadist, a violent person. One who really got into this sort of activity. Turn back to Acts 9 for just a moment.
Acts chapter 9, verses 1 and 2. Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. I mean, I don't think it's an accident that he mentions or he has Luke mentioned specifically women. I mean, that's pretty low that a man would grab a woman to bind her and take her away for being a Christian, for being a believer on the Lord Jesus, for being one who followed the Nazarene.
I mean, when you study this and when you see this and when you read through 1 Timothy 1, stop for a moment and just ponder what it is he is recounting. I mean, there's people out there, I've seen it, we've gone out witnessing, and you go to an old man and he says, oh, I'm too bad for the Lord to save me, or I'm too sinful for the Lord to save me. It's like saying, I'm too hungry to eat a sandwich. I'm too thirsty to drink water.
The fact that you're hungry or the fact that you're thirsty is the very reason you flee to the sandwich or to the water. The fact that you're a wretch, you're a sinner. The fact that you're a blasphemer, a persecutor, or an insolent man is all the reason why you should throw yourself upon the mercy of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice in Acts 22.
Acts 22, verses 4 and 5. Paul is recounting his conversion. Pick up reading in verse 1 of chapter 22. Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now.
And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Just by way of an aside, this is what he's talking about in Colossians 4. This wisdom. This redeeming the time.
This knowing how to answer. Paul heard that they spoke Hebrew, so he accommodates himself to that audience and he speaks Hebrew. He buys up this opportunity to present the truth of the Christian gospel. He says in verse two, then he said, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our father's law and was zealous toward God, as you all are today.
I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains, even those who were there, to Jerusalem to be punished." And then in Acts chapter 26, verses 10 and 11. I already alluded to this, but you should see it. Acts 10, verse 9. Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
This I also did in Jerusalem. And many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. I wonder if as he's testifying, he's got tears streaming down his face.
These are his brethren now. These are people he loves. These are people he's giving his life for. And he is recounting what had happened in his previous state, when he was unregenerate, when he was unredeemed, when he was unsaved.
He is telling this audience that he delivered people up and that he himself cast votes to see judicially innocent people put to death. And then he goes on and says in verse 11, and I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Some man with an axe to grind, says a man who is militantly opposed to the Nazarene, says a man who is undone in his own sin and depravity. So when in 1st Timothy 1, he says, this is a faithful saying, and he tells us that he is the chief of sinners.
He is not kidding with us. He is not joking. He's not trying to give a bit of rhetorical effect. He's not sort of, you know, padding his testimony.
He's not being paid high dollar to go to big stadiums so that he can weave a tale of just how bad he was so that everybody will who and all about what a what a great monster he had been and what a great guy he had become. He wasn't on the testimony circuit here. He is magnifying the grace of our God most high in the gospel of Jesus Christ the Lord. So he mentions his former state, then
Paul's Changed State
he goes on to tell us of his changed state. How did this happen? First, he was the recipient of God's grace. It was nothing he did, it was nothing he performed, it was nothing that he satisfied in terms of God's requirements.
Notice the language of enablement in verse 12. I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me. And then in verse 14. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
That's what Paul lived to do, was to magnify grace. That's what we should do is to live to magnify grace. That's why when Paul tells us that we are to speak or let our speech always be with grace, it shouldn't be cutting. It shouldn't be vicious.
It shouldn't be vile and caustic and rude. We are the recipients of God's grace. Let us reflect that grace in the way that we speak to others. in the household of God and outside of the church of Christ. Let us tame the tongue so that we truly reflect the gracious character of our God's mercy toward us.
Now, sometimes people stumble a bit on what he says here in verse 13. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelieving. Sometimes people say, well, somebody's ignorant and they just don't know any better. Well, he's not trying to get himself off the hook.
John Gill mentions this well. He said, this is not as an extenuation of his sin or as an excuse for himself. But this was not the apostles method, since in the next verse he calls himself the chief of sinners. Besides, ignorance is not an excuse, but an aggravation of sin.
It's not an excuse, but an aggravation of sin. He goes on to say, especially when there are means of knowledge and these are not attended to, and when persons are not open to conviction and reject the fullest evidence, which was the case here. Nor can unbelief be pleaded in such a man's favor who heard what Stephen had to say, and though he could not resist his wisdom, received not the truth spoken by him, but consented to his death. Moreover, all sins spring from ignorance and are aggravated by unbelief.
But this phrase describes the Apostle's state and condition. He was a poor, blind, ignorant bigot, an unbelieving and hardened creature, and so an object of mercy, pity and compassion. And he who has compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way had compassion on him. So he doesn't tuck that in there to show that God somehow owed him.
No, it's just the opposite. It is to demonstrate and highlight God's grace toward an ignorant, unbelieving, hardened, wretched sinner. He was the recipient of God's mercy. Chapter 1, verse 16.
We need grace, unmerited favor. We need mercy. God's pity toward His wretched creatures. However, for this reason, I obtained mercy.
God gives this. God is merciful. God is kind. And then thirdly, he was a living example of the long-suffering of Christ.
Notice in chapter 1, verse 16. However, for this reason I obtain mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all long-suffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. So, it's not whacked out or not illegitimate to take this passage and to set it up as a pattern or example, because Paul says that that's what it's about. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus demonstrates the great and glorious grace of God Most High.
That's why he gives us this snapshot of what he was before and what he had become, and that by the grace of Christ.
What This Saying Teaches About Christ
So, this saying instructs us about Paul, but it instructs us as well about Christ. Notice, Christ's grace is exceedingly abundant. I mean, isn't an abundance a lot? If I said to you, I have an abundance of oats and a great big container of oatmeal, I buy those $12 bags and I fill that up and I got oats for days.
If I said I have an abundance of oats, you're thinking of a lot of oats. If I say I have an exceedingly abundant amount of oats, what's that? I can't even begin to picture it. That's what Paul says.
There's times where it's as if the words themselves need more because of how good God is. He does this in Ephesians chapter 2 as well. In Ephesians chapter 2, when he says, but God, after highlighting the depravity of man, he says, but God who is rich in mercy. He's not just merciful.
This is why when we preach Christ, when we witness to sinners, we don't say He's a miser. He just has a little bit. He's just going to save a few. He's just going to dole out just enough.
No, He's rich in mercy. This is our God. This is who He is. This is what He's about.
But it's not just richness of mercy. Verse four, because of His great love with which He loved us. I mean, if you say to your son, I love you, that's great. But if you say, I greatly love you, you're heaping it on.
You're pouring it on. You're showing just how much affection you have for that. That's what Paul does with God. You see, as Christian witnesses, we don't go out and say, well, God just kind of saved me.
God is rich in mercy. Here's what I was. Here's how I rolled. Here's what I did.
And God saved me. He is great in these good gifts. He is rich in mercy. This is what Paul is doing in 1 Timothy 1.
Jesus' grace is exceedingly abundant. William Bounce's commentary is beautiful. He says the triad, that means the three. The triad of blasphemer, persecutor and insolent man was obliterated by the triad of mercy, faith and love that Paul now possesses through his relationship with Christ.
They're beautiful on the roads of Damascus. Jesus comes to deal with this blaspheming, persecuting, and insolent man. He doesn't come to do it by beating him up, by throwing him into hell, by casting him off forever. But He does it by pouring out His love, His grace, and His mercy upon him.
That's what Paul is doing here. And in the context, imagine for a moment, these guys in Ephesus that are desiring to be teachers of the law. They don't have a clue. They're misusing the holy law of God.
They're applying it in situations where it's not to be applied. They're not using it lawfully. They are contrary to sound doctrine. The gospel is about liberty.
It's about blessing. It's about mercy and grace. This is what Paul is communicating to his young partner, Timothy. So, his grace is exceedingly abundant, but
The Definite Purpose of Christ's Coming
he goes on to say his coming had a definite purpose. You cannot read verse 15 of 1 Timothy 1 and believe for a moment that our triune God is frustrated. To believe for a moment that our God does not get his man. When I was in America, the only thing I knew about Canadians or Canada was the Mounties.
You know, we call them Mounties here, the RCMP. In America, we all refer to them as the Mounties, the Mounted Police. They were Mounties. They rode on horses, they wore red jackets, and they always got their man.
Boy, that was wrong. We're so naive here in America, right? Now, if you said Revenue Canada or the Internal Revenue Service of America always get their man, I'll agree with you. God always gets his man.
He's not frustrated, he's not there, you know, sort of doing this with his hands open and praying that sinners will come to him and accept Jesus. This is a faithful saying, Paul says, it is worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He didn't come into the world to start a new religion. He didn't come into the world to be a moral example.
He didn't come into the world just to set a pattern that we should all just follow Jesus. He came into the world, and it's literally, in the Greek, sinners to say. That's what Jesus is all about. There is definite purpose in the mission of Christ.
There is a redemptive focus here that is obvious. He came into the world of sinful man. He came not, again, to do those things, but to die and to rise again. Because the scripture is clear.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. No forgiveness. Sin is not dealt with. unless one dies. And Christ fulfilled that.
Christ satisfied the law's demands. Christ, in His active obedience, that means He fulfilled the law. And in His passive obedience, that means He gave Himself as a sacrifice. In those two elements, those two aspects of His obedient life, death and resurrection, He has secured the salvation of His people.
He doesn't come to help men save themselves. He doesn't come to coach us into heaven. He comes with purpose in mind. He comes with focus.
He comes with specificity. It is to save His people from their sins. or the word order rather, highlights the amazing character of his mission. He came sinners to save. Not the righteous, not the noble, not the polished, not the well conducted ones, not the beautiful ones.
He came sinners to save. That's what Paul is highlighting. He was a sinner. He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent man.
And Christ came into the world to save him. There's a quote from a man that said this, with reference to what we call Calvinism, which is simply, as Spurgeon said, a nickname for the gospel. So one man wrote this. He said, for to Calvinism, well, I'm talking about five points of Calvinism, contra the five points of Arminianism.
This goes back to the Synod of Dort, the whole historical study and all that. But suffice it to say, he says this, for to Calvinism, there's really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology. That's the doctrine of salvation. Soteriology, something you ought to get in your head and mind and heart, it is the doctrine of salvation.
He says there is only one point to be made in the field of soteriology, the point that God saves sinners. That's what those five points all testify to, is that one point that God saves sinners. He goes on to say, God, the triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit, three persons working together in sovereign wisdom and power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people. The Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father's will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing, saves. does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death and sin to life and glory.
He plans, achieves and communicates redemption. He calls and keeps. He justifies. He sanctifies.
He glorifies. Sinners, men as God finds them. Guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God's will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners, and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man, and making the decisive part man's own, or by soft-peddling the sinner's inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Savior.
This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology, which the five points are concerned to establish, and Arminianism in all its forms to deny. Namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen. is a great summary of the biblical doctrine of soteriology. God saves sinners.
That's what Paul says. He says this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This was announced at his birth.
You will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. Jesus prays in his high priestly prayer in John 17. He does not lose any whom the Father has given to him. He secures our salvation.
On the cross, the last statement before he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, was that blessed declaration, it is finished. He finished the work of redemption. We might read that and go, wow, okay, he's just kind of happy that it's all over now. That was a cry of victory from the cross.
It is finished was a cry of victory. He didn't say, I am finished. He didn't say, I failed. He said, it, the work the Father had given him to do was finished, was full, it was complete, it was fulfilled.
So Christ saves his people from their sins. So in this passage, it is a saying to instruct us about Paul. It is a saying to instruct us about Christ.
A Saying to Incite Worship
And then notice, it is a saying to incite us to worship and praise. After he rehearses these truths, after he celebrates this mercy, after he talks about the salvation plan of God affected by Jesus Christ, Paul can only praise. He can only worship. That's why when I've met people, it's, oh, you know, Sunday's kind of boring, church is boring, worship is boring, boring, boring.
Well, you're saved! Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone is wise. I knew a guy several years ago, he went to a promise keepers convention. And he came and I said, how was that promise keepers convention?
And not to get into all of the promise keepers and all that, you may not have even heard of that. But he said, oh, it was great when we sang, it was beautiful, it was wonderful, it was great to be with all these men singing praises. And he said, you know, I've always thought heaven was probably going to be a little boring if all we're going to do is worship there. My mouth dropped out.
What do you mean heaven is going to be boring? How could you utter such a thing? How could it be boring standing in the presence of the One who saved us? When you turn to Revelation 5 and 7, you don't see bored saints.
They are praising. And you know what the focus of their praise is? Salvation is of the Lord! This is the stuff that's going to fuel you to praise and worship and sing throughout all eternity.
John Newton wasn't kidding when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. We have been the recipients or we have been the recipients of grace, unmerited favor. We boast in justification that God has pardoned all of our iniquities, that he accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, received by faith alone.
How could we not respond with this kind of praise now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible to God, who alone is wise, the honor and glory forever and ever? Notice what he says here. Amen. You know what he's doing?
He's calling on you. He's calling on me to join him in praising God. This amen serves a very specific purpose. Let's read a couple of commentators.
Calvin says by his example, he reminds us all that we ought never to think of the grace manifested in God's calling without being carried to a lofty admiration. You don't listen to things like this, or read things like this, or come away from a systematic theology dealing with trafficking and soteriology unchanged. Donald MacLeod says, God's not just a curious object for us just to sort of cast our gaze upon. Wow, that's interesting.
Remember when Moses saw that burning bush? Initially, it was interesting, wasn't it? Well, I don't ever see that. I mean, face it, on his behalf, you don't see bushes that burn that aren't consumed.
That is a curious and interesting observation. What happens upon his approach? God says, remove your sandals. The ground upon which you stand is holy ground.
The cloud says that theology has lost its way. If we can study these things and not be exhilarated, and not be led to praise, and not remove our sandals, and not confess the fact that we're standing on holy ground, theology has lost its way. If it doesn't thrill, if it doesn't excite, if it doesn't incite, if we can read something like that and we can come away unaffected, or unmoved, or just hoping that this will end so that we can go home. Mount says Paul concludes the doxology with a man inviting congregational ascent with the meaning.
So be it a man means. So be it a man there to join in and praise God. George Knight says it expresses the writer's stated confirmation of what he expressed in the doxology and most likely also seeks to invoke the response from the readers. I don't want you to just stand and go, wow, that's great, Paul, that's beautiful.
No, I want you to stop and think. You may not have been a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man, but you may have been a fornicator, an adulterer, a thief, or a liar, or a cheat. And Christ came into this world, sinners, to save. So how do you respond now to the King Eternal?
Immortal, invisible. To God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Another man said, the liturgical amen, or so be it, is an emphatic invitation to every believer to set his own seal to the truth, thus affirmed. So that is the biblical response to the grace of our God in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are to praise. We are to glorify. We are to honor him. And as Gordon Clark said, God doesn't want unthinking praise. unthinking praise.
I just got this kind of undefined concept of a higher power. No. You have a God who is eternal. You have a God who is immortal.
You have a God who is invisible. You have a God who is sovereign and omnipotent. You have a God who is gracious and merciful. You think about those things and then you return praise to this God.
Eastern mysticism says empty your mind and just sort of meditate. Scriptural meditation is fill your mind with Bible truth so that you can respond biblically to the Lord God. and praise Him and honor Him.
Application: Lessons from This Text
Well, from this study we learn at least a few lessons. The first, the depravity of man. If you miss that, you've missed Paul's description of his life before Jesus Christ. He was not a worthy man.
He was not a righteous man. He did not deserve this position. He did not deserve any benefit from God Most High. He was totally depraved.
He was totally unable to merit God's favor. He writes in Romans 8, 7, and 8 that the carnal mind has enmity against God. It cannot please God. He writes of himself that when he was a non-Christian, he heaped up a lot of religious accomplishments.
Philippians chapter 3 said, if people think they have cause to boast, I the more. And then he tells us all these things that he did. But he said these things weren't anything. When I met Jesus Christ, everything that was gained, I count lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
Paul did not stand based on his works or his accomplishments. He stood on the grace of God. The depravity of man brings into sharp focus the glory of the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we see, as this man says, that God saves sinners, We give the glory, we give the praise, and we give the honor to Him.
And then the last thing.
A Saying to Invite
Not only does this saying, I'm not going to open up a brand new whole point here, but not only does this saying instruct, not only does it incite, but it also invites. This is a saying to invite.
The Invitation to Sinners
If you don't know this God through Jesus Christ, come. If you don't know this God through Jesus Christ, believe. Don't play games. Don't stiff arm him.
Don't say no. You have in this description the very purpose and work and mission and focus of our Lord Jesus. If you're a sinner, come. If you're a sinner, believe.
If you're a sinner, lay hold of Christ by grace through faith in him. Don't say no to this, don't reject this, don't harden your heart, but rather come under the influence of this blessed statement that is worthy, not of some acceptance, but of all acceptance. Every sinner here ought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they shall be saved. It instructs, it incites, it invites. to the Lord of glory, and he will save you from your sins.
Closing Prayer
to live the way that he lived, to live in a manner consistent with your holy gospel. And we pray, God, that you would grant us the grace to be excited, to be exhilarated and thrilled with good theology, with what the Bible teaches concerning so great a salvation. May we indeed praise our great and living God, and may we seek to bring glory to your name. And for any and all who do not know you, God, we pray the power of your Spirit would come upon them and cause them to see the beauty of Christ, to believe the gospel, and to be saved.
And we ask in Jesus' most precious name. Amen.