1 Timothy 1:12-20
Glory to God for His Grace (Acts 8:1–3; 9:1–19)
12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, 13 although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. 14 And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. 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. 16 However, for this reason I obtained 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. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Fight the Good Fight
18 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, 19 having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, 20 of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
There is mercy for sinners such as I if there was mercy shown to Saul who persecuted the church and had many put to death for their faith. God enabled Paul who was the chief of sinners, the top of the pile of those offending God and breaking all His Law, to be counted as faithful and used to minister the gospel of truth in words of redeeming life to those he once sought only harm. But God changed him on the road to destruction (which also was the road to Damascus) and transformed this insolent and blaspheming persecutor into the ambassador of forgiving grace which none of us deserve as fellow sinners (1 Corinthians 15:9-10). This is a gift of God, not only the faith to believe (Ephesians 2:8-9, John 1:12) in the Deliverer who is Christ, but also to become unworthy ambassadors of grace ourselves. We also acted with ignorance in our unbelief of God’s work before He opened our blind eyes and deaf ears to see Him and His work on the cross and out of the grave to bring us from death to life in Jesus Christ. Just as abundant grace was showered upon Paul née Saul, so has he done with each of us no matter our lives of sin and unbelieving fighting against the goad of truth before our own conversions. The faith we have is due to the love of God in Christ to call us out of the darkness of blind opposition into the light (Acts 26:18, 1 Peter 2:9-10) of the glorious grace seen in His face (2 Corinthians 3:18). We are completely accepted in the Beloved! Our sins against the Almighty have been washed away (Ephesians 5:26, Titus 3:4-6) in the righteousness of Christ according to His word of this gospel in which we stand blameless in Him. Yes, we can look back at our sins of opposition to this gospel from our youth and echo Paul’s words, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” The apostle was the epitome of those opposing God yet was saved from destruction and called to be the messenger who wrote much of our New Testament, that is, God’s authoritative word, and to be a pattern for us to follow after Christ to, everlasting life by repentance and faith of awe-inspiring grace. We also respond in kind to exalt our Savior who is the Sovereign King, eternal and unseen yet more real than everything we have ever seen with our own eyes! God alone is wise to know and show us these truths in His word which we could never understand on our own, this mystery of Christ come to be in us (Colossians 1:27) as the hope of glory to God that we now know. Because we also now know these truths of the words of this life (Acts 5:20), should we not join Timothy in fighting the good fight for the souls of fellow sinners still unredeemed even in the midst of false teachings and opposition to the truth and their salvation? Those who know Him and stray into these things we should also rescue from their faith’s shipwreck by letting them see for themselves the errors of their ways as they hear the calling that saves and return to port to yet sail again in truth to glorify God in Christ’s words and work of deliverance from God’s wrath on our rebellion against Him which is sin. This is the result of the working of awe-inspiring grace and mercy for sinners such as I in our calling and commission of the gospel.
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