Strathalbyn Church of Christ

There are some old sayings which are memorable. Three that come to mind are:

‘make hay while the sunshines’,

‘a stitch in time saves nine’,

‘look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.’

In today’s reading from Paul’s letter to Timothy, we hear of another memorable saying, and in this case Paul says it “is sure and worthy of full acceptance”, or as another translation puts it, “a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance,” or as J.B. Phillip’s version has it, “This statement is completely reliable and should be universally accepted.”

Wow, this is some saying! What is it?

“That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

What a wonderful saying!

What a precious truth!

This morning let’s think about this saying, but first let’s notice the context.

Paul the apostle of Jesus wrote a letter to a young man called Timothy, and in his letter quotes this Christian saying.

Who was Timothy and why did Paul write to him?

The name ‘Timothy’ was made up of two words, ‘Tim’ - honour; and ‘theos’ - God. The name Timothy meant ‘one who honours God’.

Timothy was born in Lystra, a Roman out-post in Turkey. His Father was a Greek, and his mother Eunice was a Jew who had become a Christian believer. Timothy also had a Christian grandmother, Lois. From childhood Timothy had been taught the scriptures, and had become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and had probably been led to Christ by Paul who affectionately called him, “my true son in the faith”.

When he was a young man, probably in his mid- 30’s God gave Timothy pastoral oversight of some churches. Paul wrote a couple of letters to Timothy to give him encouragement and directions for his ministry.

In his first letter, Paul told Timothy not to let people look down on him because he was young, but to set the believers an example in his speech and conduct, in love, faith and purity; and to devote himself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching until Paul could come to him. He told Timothy, “to fight the good fight of the faith,” and to “guard what had been entrusted to him.”

And in this first letter Paul includes a bit of his own personal story, to encourage Timothy in his ministry of guarding the truth of the gospel. It is in this context Paul quotes the saying that is “sure and worthy of full acceptance,” namely “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. 1Tim 1:l5

Let’s now come back to the beginning of our reading. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope…”

We notice how Paul describes himself here to Timothy - “an apostle of Christ Jesus”, which means he was sent by Jesus - sent to teach the Faith and to start churches. And he was an apostle by God’s command and Jesus Christ’s command. So Paul had God-given authority, and that means he is to be trusted in what he teaches Timothy, and therefore ourselves, as we read what he wrote to Timothy.

“Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” writes Paul at the beginning of this letter. We notice Paul didn’t say, ‘Good luck Tim’, or even ‘best wishes and good health.’

“Grace” - the favour of God that gives us what we don’t deserve, that continually pours blessings upon us.

G.R.A.C.E. ‘God’s riches at Christ’s expense’ as someone once said.

“Mercy” - to be forgiven for the guilty things we have done.

“Peace” - the harmony you have inside you when God has forgiven you your sins and purified your conscience, and is pouring his grace into your life.

Grace, Mercy and peace, where do these come from?

They are “from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,” i.e. from the Father and the Son. And each day we can live our Christian lives with grace, mercy and peace.

And now we hear Paul briefly tell us about his own experience of grace and mercy. He remindsTimothy what he had been - “I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him” (i.e. Jesus).

Paul’s “blasphemy” was that he spoke evil of Jesus Christ, he spoke against Jesus, and he also tried to force Jesus’ disciples to blaspheme.

Paul’s “persecution” was of Christians, and he did this intensely, trying to stamp out and to destroy the church. In persecuting the church he was in reality persecuting Jesus, although at the time he didn’t realise it.

Paul’s “insulting”, or “violence” as another translation says, was his deep-seated hostility. In Acts 26:9-11 we also hear Paul tell us what he was like. I now read those verses -

“I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem; I not only shut up many of the saints in prison, by authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.” Phew!

Perhaps we too might reflect on any of our own attitudes or actions before we really knew God’s mercy and grace, for this can be part of our testimony or story too.

And then Paul says he received mercy or was shown mercy. He says this twice; literally “I was bemercied”. And to mercy he adds “grace” - “and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me.”

Have you ever seen a river overflow? When we lived at Strathalbyn, one year the river over-flowed its banks. Paul says the grace of the Lord Jesus overflowed. And what did this “river of grace” bring with it? Paul says two things - faith and love, Grace overflowed and faith and love grew up in Paul’s heart.

Grace flooded Paul’s unbelieving heart with faith,

and grace flooded Paul’s hating heart with love.

No wonder Paul quotes the saying, “that is sure and worthy of full acceptance”, namely, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” .

Perhaps we might reflect on what effect the Lord’s grace has had and is having in our own lives too?

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And that was, if you like Jesus’ mission statement - “to save sinners.” That’s why he was named “Jesus” - for “he will save his people from their sins.”

He is God to the rescue!

And so, he didn’t come only to show us how to live a good life;

he died to make us good!

He came to turn sinners into saints,

to forgive us,

make us friends of God,

and to fashion us into his own likeness.

Putting it another way, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

When I was in my late teens, I borrowed my dad’s car to go to the beach. However, I lost the car keys in the sand! That was a real worry! Fortunately for me the story or saga ended on a happy note - after due search, the lost was found!

Lost and found stories are sometimes about pets or people, as well as objects - the child that goes wandering off into the bush, and the search party goes looking for him and finds him. What joy! This happened back in June this year when a 14 yr old autistic boy, William Callaghan, was found after spending two nights alone on Mount Disappointment.

There’s another sort of lost and found - lost in sin, lost from God, but found and saved by Jesus! That’s the sort of lost and found Jesus is talking about in the two little stories we read from Luke today.

Why did Jesus tell these two parables? We read, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’ ” .

And so Jesus told them these two little stories of a lost and found sheep and a lost and found coin.

One of the great compliments that was paid to Jesus was to call him “the friend of sinners”. That was a sort of ‘label’ he got. He came to bring the lost back to God, and he told these two little stories to correct the wrong attitude of the grumbling Pharisees and scribes, and to tell them why he acted as he did.

Jesus reminded them of things they already knew, namely, that if a shepherd loses a sheep he goes out looking for it until he finds it; and if a lady loses a coin she searches diligently in her house until she finds it.

So too, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost - and one lost person is important to Jesus. That’s why he spent time with, and ate with, the tax collectors and sinners of his day.

He also reminded them of how when the lost sheep and coin was found, the joy was shared with others. And he said there is joy in heaven when a person repents.

The old nursery rhyme says ‘Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them’. But God didn’t leave us alone - instead he came looking for us in his Son to bring us safely home. And, each of us can be a person through whom Jesus seeks the lost today.

Now, coming back to Paul’s quote “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In a sense, we could say this is a summary of Christianity in one sentence - “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”.

The gospel is about Jesus Christ. Why did he come into the world? He came to save sinners. And Paul adds, “And I am the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” 1Tim 1: 15,16

And so, Paul was a prime example of Jesus Christ’s mercy and great patience - which should give the rest of us hope! We might reflect on how the Lord has been merciful to us and patient with us too. That can be part of our personal testimony - it may give someone else hope!

Paul seems to be saying to us ‘Don’t despair, Christ had mercy on me, the worst, so he can have mercy on you!’

No doubt Paul’s personal experience of Christ’s mercy, grace and patience underlay his enthusiasm to commend Jesus to others; and it can be the same for ourselves today, as it was also with John Newton who wrote the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’.

‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.’

Let’s end by thinking why it is that it is Jesus Christ who can save sinners?

To do that I turn to another verse in this same first letter of Paul to Timothy,

“God our Saviour desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” 1 Tim 2: 4,5.

Paul is here saying that there is not only one Saviour God, but also one mediator between him and us, and therefore only one way of salvation.

We here are told that Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and men. A mediator is an intermediary, the person in the middle, the go-between who effects a reconciliation between two parties. And between God and the human race, Jesus is the only go-between.

Now why is that? Because of who he is, and what he has done.

An intermediary or mediator must be able to represent both sides equally - God’s side, and man’s side. And only Jesus Christ can do that, for only Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is God from the beginning, deriving his divine being from his Father eternally, and he became human in the womb of his mother Mary, deriving his human being from her in time.

He is the unique God - man.

Secondly, his work is unique, in particular what he did when he died on the cross. We are told here that “he gave himself as a ransom for all”.

“he gave himself” means he sacrificed himself, offering himself deliberately as “a ransom for all.”

A ransom was the price paid for the release of slaves or captives. In our day hijackers might hold people to ransom. The word “ransom” implies that we were in bondage to sin and judgement, unable to save ourselves and that the price paid for our deliverance was the death of Christ in our place.

And so we can see why it is that it is Jesus Christ who saves sinners. In short, in no other person but Jesus of Nazareth has God first become man, and then given himself as a ransom, taking our sin and guilt upon himself.

“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”