September 16, 2007 Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Sermon Title: “Jesus’
Series: None
Text: 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Dr. Steve Jackson
Delivered on September 16, 2007
“Christ Jesus came
into the world so save sinners.”
1 Timothy 1:15
Jesus’
I don’t know how many of you know that Donna and I are big walkers. By that I don’t mean we’re “big people” who walk, I mean we do a lot of walking. Every afternoon around 4:30 or so we join hands and walk the streets of our neighborhood, which is about 3 miles (we don’t really hold hands when we walk). We do this because we believe walking is good exercise and that it keeps us from becoming “big people.” But recently something happened to me that has brought my walking to a screeching halt. About three weeks ago I started getting a twinge in my left knee that just wouldn’t go away. Realizing that I’m very sensitive to leg pain since I’ve had both my hips replaced, at first I just shrugged it off and pressed on. But then the twinge turned into a stabbing pain and so I had to stop walking and go to my orthopedic friend, Dr. Henry. To make a long story short, he examined me, called for an MRI, and last week diagnosed a torn cartridge in my left knee. Of course, being me, my torn meniscus is “special.” It’s not what they call a “simple meniscal tear,” I’ve got what’s called a “complex meniscal tear.” Whoop-tee do!
Where I’m going with this is to say that as I wound my way last week through the maze of doctors, diagnoses, technical medical jargon, MRI scans, insurance companies, and then received my diagnosis as “complex” on top of that, it occurred to me just how complex our world has gotten. It seems as though nothing is simple anymore, doesn’t it?
And then this week, like a breath of fresh air, I read the epistle lection from First Timothy, and there, verse 15 just jumped out at me—the simple, unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s even on the cover of our bulletin this week with that pretty picture. It says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That, my friends, is Jesus’ simple, but extremely important, mission statement. It tells us why he came into the world. Of course this is Paul stating Jesus’ mission, but when Jesus said it himself it was very close. Over in Luke’s gospel, the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) concludes with Jesus announcing, “… the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
So this passage gives us Jesus’ mission – to seek and save sinners which is important enough in and of itself. But the more I read over the passage, the more I realized it also gives us our mission as a church. As you know, we’ve been working on a revised mission statement here at NewSong most of the summer. We felt as though our old mission statement was good: “To lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.” But we felt as though it wasn’t really action oriented. And so we’ve developed a new mission statement that is more fluid and tied to a simple process. But does our mission revealed in today’s text jive with the one the Elders prayerfully came up with? Does Jesus mission of saving lost sinners shape our mission? Well, we’re going to talk about that in just a moment, but first, since it’s been a long time since I preached from First Timothy, let me give you a little background to the letter.
Timothy was a close companion of Paul, and a member of his missionary team. Paul called Timothy his “son in the faith.” They were close. Paul frequently sent Timothy out to revisit and to teach in the churches Paul had planted across the Mediterranean basin. In this first letter to Timothy, Paul shares principles about how to live together in the household of faith. He offers encouragement and guidelines for conduct which are intended to shape the congregations’ life together.
Today’s passage comes at the end of the first chapter of the letter. Paul has just stated the purpose of the letter, and in the verse just before the one we started at, verse 11, Paul mentions the “glorious gospel of the blessed God,” and, as he often does in his letters, that sets him off on a thanksgiving focusing on his own conversion and call. The gist of his statement is that Paul himself was the worst sinner of all, and yet God’s grace reached down to touch him and change his life. Since he was such a great sinner that makes him the prime example of the effectiveness and sufficiency of the Gospel to save.
We all know of these kinds of examples. I think of some of the laundry detergent commercials on television where they take a white shirt and they put the worst kind of stains on it—blood stains, grass stains, paint, etc… and then they wash the garment in Tide (or whatever) and it gets the stains out. Or they’ll have a vacuum cleaner sucking up nails and coins. And then there are those GEICO commercials where changing your insurance is so simple even a cave man can do it. Bottom line—if the product works in these extreme cases, it will work for you and me.
Let me share with you a few lessons to notice in the passage that lead up to how Jesus’ mission shapes our mission.
Be A Sinner
The first lesson about how it shapes our mission concerns how you and I join in on Jesus’ mission, and that is to be a sinner. I chuckled when I wrote this down as a point in my sermon. I pictured some of you thinking to yourselves, “Well hallelujah, finally, after 7 years, Pastor Steve is preaching something I can follow. I can be a sinner! I got that one down! Ha ha
Seriously, there’s a very small but important word in this passage I want you to circle or underline. It’s the end of verse 15 where Paul is describing himself as the foremost of sinners. Do you see the word “am” there? Isn’t that peculiar? Here’s Paul and he’s writing a letter now as one of the most important figures in Christianity and he doesn’t say what we’d expect him to say here, “I was the foremost of sinners.” No, instead he says he IS the foremost of sinners. You see the Bible says we’re all sinners and that we fall short of the glory of God. We’re all on equal footing when it comes to qualifying to participate in God’s mission on earth. All it takes to be eligible for God’s team is to be a sinner. You don’t have to wait to that time when you “were” a sinner—you come as you are now, a sinner in continual need of God’s amazing grace.
No Matter How Bad
A second piece of good news related to Jesus’ mission and how it shapes ours is a qualifier. We’ve said this before but you can never hear it enough, but no matter how sinful and broken you are—Jesus loves you, wants you, and is able to transform your life. It doesn’t matter if you are a little “white lie” kind of sinner, or someone who regularly breaks the Ten Commandments, or even if you’ve rejected God at some point in your life. Jesus came to save you and he can forgive your sins and heal your wounds and change the whole direction of your life. The “good people” (including some Christians) who tell you (subtly or directly) that you’re a lost cause are absolutely wrong! Paul was the worst, and God saved and used him, so your sins and faults aren’t out of God’s healing reach either.
I’m really glad about this, because I was a lukewarm Christian well on my way to a sad, empty life when Jesus called me to follow him. 17 years later it still amazes me how he went out of his way to reach out to an “arrogant, selfish, materialistic, people-using” kind of person like me. I think about that almost every day, and thank him for saving my life from the misery, corruption, and condemnation I would have experienced.
Ask to Receive
The next lesson from this passage is that the only thing you need to do to experience Jesus’ life-transforming forgiveness and love is to ask him. You have to admit to him that you need it. That’s what happened with Paul. Verse 13 says, “I received mercy…” Not I earned it. That’s how it happens. It happened that way with Peter; he admitted he didn’t deserve to be with Jesus—and yet Jesus invited him to come. Matthew the tax-collector knew that he was lost—and Jesus found him and called him. In fact, in the Bible, the only people you find who weren’t called or healed were those who wouldn’t admit they needed it. We’ve got to get over the attitude that insists that you’re good enough, religious enough, together enough, resourceful enough, whatever…, to fix yourself. That’s what the Bible calls pride, and pride is deadly. Not even Jesus can heal you if you won’t admit you’re sick.
Be an Example
And that leads to the last lesson about how Jesus’ mission shapes our mission from this passage, and that is that once Jesus has sought you and saved you from your sins, then it’s time to be an example to others of his mercy, love, and grace. That’s the kernel of Paul’s argument here. Paul says in effect, “I was the worst sinner of all, and so God saved me (he can save you too), and he saved me so he could use me as an example to those who would come to believe in Jesus for eternal life (v. 16).
That’s how God’s mission shapes our mission. God’s mission is to save sinners. Our mission is to be examples of what saved sinners look like so others will see and they’ll also turn to Jesus. The moment you meet Jesus, he immediately gives you the privilege to do the most important thing anyone can do—tell others about his love. He may send you to people who are like you, or he may send you to people very different from you. You may lead many people to Christ, or you may just lead one or two. Those issues are Jesus’ business—he’s the one doing the saving. Ours business is to embrace this privilege of being an example of his love, and trophies of his grace.
I remember when I was in high school we had a huge, lighted trophy case in the lobby of the gymnasium. My junior year the coaches brought our entire team in from practice one day and gathered us around that trophy case. Coach didn’t say much, he didn’t need to. He just had us stand there and gaze at those trophies: Region championships, State championships, MVP trophies, they were all there as wonderful examples to us of what could be in our season to come. After having us stand there for what seemed like a long time coach said, “Men, you can have it if you pay the price. We’ve got room right there for your trophy.”
The good news of the gospel is we don’t have to pay the price. Jesus already paid that price for us. All we have to do is ask, and believe, and we’ll become trophies of God’s grace to be examples for others to gaze upon and desire Him as much as I wanted a State Championship back in 1973.
Our mission as a church is to be examples. We do that by loving God, by growing to be like Jesus, and by sharing with the world. That’s what an example does.
This morning as I close let me ask you, are you a trophy of His grace? Do you love Him? Is it your heart’s desire to grow to be like Jesus? Are you sharing with the world through your church your time, talent, treasure and your testimony? Are you an example?
I’ve just listed about four or five starting points or next steps, one of which fits everyone in this room, including me. This morning, hear again the words of Paul, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That includes you and me and so that shapes our mission into one of being an example. What kind of example are you? Let’s Pray.