1 Timothy 1:15 • This Is Big
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Growing up as a young man in the South, there are various rites of passage that you have to go through in some measure to establish that you really are a man.
And one of those rites of passage that I went through in my adolescent years was going catfish grabbin'.
Now that's been glamorized in these days by TV shows about what, hillbilly handfishing or noodlin'. But for us it was just grabbin'. And for those of you who don't know what grabbin' is about, I mean you go in the South to one of the big reservoirs, right?
And you go to the dam that forms the reservoir and you get about waist-deep in the water. And then where all the rock is, you know, the rick-rack that's supporting the dam, you begin to feel with your toes and your fingers.
And what you're feeling for is you are feeling for the slime on a hole where a mama catfish is preparing her nest.
Now what you do, of course, is you're not just going to feel for the slime, you're going to feel for the fish eventually.
And you're going to reach in there, now you think of the irony of this, "Well I have my injured hand," you know, right? By a fish, you know.
You reach in there and you're hoping that mama catfish will actually come after you so you can grab her.
And that's called grabbin'.
Now listen, those of us who were doing that to establish our manhood didn't know it, but we were also establishing our knucklehead status.
But it's all worth it for one moment, and the moment, by the way, is not under the water, the moment that you're really living for is not even as you bring that catfish out of the water.
The moment that you're living for is about 30 minutes after you've pulled that catfish out of the water and it's sitting in the bed of your pickup truck.
So you're going to the nearest gas station. You don't even need gas, right? But you're going to the nearest gas station because you want to step out of your truck and you want to do this with your head. I mean, it doesn't matter if it's the attendant or some stranger, you don't even know who's pumping gas. You're going to do this, you're going to go...
You want to see something big?
Of course, what you're hoping is back there is something that's what, 30, 40 or 50 pounds, right? That's what you're going for. And you're going to say, "This is the definition of big, this catfish that's back here." And that's the moment that you're living for, is just being able to show something that's that very, very big.
Now let me tell you something. Having told you that story, I have a confession to make. Here's the confession.
I really have gone catfish grabbing, and I really have caught catfish that way.
But I never caught a 50 pounder.
I mean, I never caught the ones like on the TV shows, you know, with mouths as big as toasters and tails as big as shovels, I never caught one like that. And I feel like I have to tell you that. You know why I want to tell you that? Because I still like fishing. And I want some of you to invite me fishing.
And if I tell you somehow that I am the master of catfish grabbing, you know, then you're either going to think I'm a knucklehead you don't want to get close to, right? Or you're going to think I'm such an expert that you don't want to do competition with me, you're not going to invite me along. I want to get in the boat with you. So I'm just a regular old fisherman, right? Sometimes I catch, sometimes I don't catch.
And my feeling is if you know that, you may let me get in the boat with you.
You know what's true of something silly like catfish sport is true spiritually too.
That if what we begin to portray to our community, to our friends, to our family is that we just got this Christian thing down.
I mean, we just got it. I mean, we're living the life of the big, got it all put together Christian. If that's what we're saying, what we may think is that we're standing up as something that would attract people in our community. In fact, they are just going to keep us at hand's length, man.
You're the grand master of this Christian thing. Either you're a knucklehead or you're somebody I can never measure up to.
I think about what I so love about Grace Church. I mean, I look at the history of this church and it is amazingly inspiring what the Lord has done here through the decades. And I look at what's happening now when so many of you go to help at the teen camp, when so many of you help with vacation Bibles. I think there are wonderful evidences of the spirit here. But if what we begin to do is we begin to say, "Look, we got it all together here."
What people will actually do is they will begin to back away. We learned from somebody like an apostle the power of humility.
When we're actually able to look at other people and say, "I don't have it all together." In fact, I need the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as much as you do.
I'm just here to tell you, some days the days go well, some days they don't go well.
And Jesus is with me in both of those kind of days.
If you want to see how it's being expressed, you have only to look at this wonderful verse in 1 Timothy.
The saying is trustworthy, deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. Now, the opening words are kind of strange to us, that the apostle would begin by saying, "This saying that I'm going to give you is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance." Well, Paul, I thought everything you said was trustworthy and deserving of full… I mean, that's why I read. I thought you were inspired.
Well, of course he is.
But when the apostle Paul pauses to say, "This, this in particular I want you to perceive as trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance," it's almost as though you get the apostolic highlighter out and say, "Wow, this is big.
This is going to be big."
And every word is big in its implications for us. Think of it.
Christ Jesus came into the world. The word Christ is statement first of a very big plan. We don't think of it that way because in our Christianized culture we use the word Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus just as though it is the name of Jesus. But actually the word Christ is not a name, it is a title.
It means anointed one.
Somebody who has been given a task, a position, an honor that's very specific and that task, that honor was described not just when Jesus came upon the earth, it was described from the very beginning of human history. Do you remember?
Adam and Eve, our first parents, the representatives of us in the days of creation, those first parents sinned and God spoke to the one who had tempted them and said to that one, "I am going to put enmity, hatred, between your seed and the seed of the woman.
You ultimately are going to strike the heel of the one who comes, but he is going to crush, what? Your head."
And from that moment on, at that very beginning of the dawn of human history, the battle is on. As Satan, the prince of this world, is seeking to undo the plan of God to bring a savior of the world who would come from the woman. And not only from the woman, but as humanity progressed. Remember there was a promise made to Abraham. As God said, "In you Abraham will come a nation in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed." That's a big plan. But it doesn't just end with the notion of what would happen to the nations of the earth. Because from Abraham would ultimately come a man named David, who would become king over Israel. And as he became king, God said to him, not because of his faithfulness, but because of the grace of the God who made promises, "I am going to bring from your line, David, an eternal kingdom.
And one will come who will rule over it in behalf of my people. I will save them through the line of David." And this plan is not just for the nations of the earth.
It's for all people and all eternity. This is a big, big plan that God is unfolding. If you want to see how big is the plan, I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles, if you've still got them open. Look at the book of Revelation, and you'll get some sense of how big this plan is by not only looking at where it started in Genesis, but by seeing how God says this plan is so big that it will actually find its full unfolding at the end of time. Revelation chapter 13 and verse 8. Revelation chapter 13 and verse 8.
Revelation 13 is describing the great beast of evil at the end of the ages.
And we are told that that beast will be so powerful and so evil that virtually everyone will be affected by it, but not all.
Revelation 13, 8 says this, "All who dwell on the earth will worship it," that is the great beast.
"The one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." Did you hear that?
The ones who will not be led astray, the ones who will not ultimately be affected by the great evil are those whose names were written in the Lamb's book of life when?
Before the foundation of the world.
Now, you can just read that as an abstract truth, but I want you to hear what is being said.
Your name, not some abstract big plan that just generically talks about people.
Your name.
Everyone that God intends to be seated in this church or ever will be. Your name personally, John, Mary, Sam, Muhammad, whatever is the name that would be seated here according to the plan of God, that name God wrote in his book before the foundation of the world was laid.
Now think of that. We ultimately will gather at a great wedding feast of the Lamb, and every invitee has their name in the Lamb's book of life, and it was written before the foundations of the world were laid. Listen, some of you have been planning your wedding by the time you were eight, right? Since you were eight years old, you've been planning your wedding, and you know, I don't know what, six months, eight months before a wedding, you know, you begin forming the invitation list, right? And all the dads are measuring, "How much is that dinner going to cost?"
And counting all the names, right?
But what God is saying to you and to me is that we were actually in the mind and the heart of God before the foundations of the world and all millennia, and all the marches of armies and kings and crusades, the nations that have formed and unformed, the kingdoms that have come and fallen, all of it was part of one vast plan for God to bring to the final table the wedding feast those whose names are on the list.
It is an amazingly big plan, and it is being accomplished by the Christ, the anointed one whose very task it is to bring about this plan and purpose of God.
Now, Paul doesn't just talk about a very big plan. He actually talks about a very big job that has to be done as well in that plan because he identifies the one who's going to do it as Christ. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now, Jesus really is the name. That is a name, but do you recognize it's the same name as Joshua in the Old Testament? Did you know that? Now, Joshua in the Old Testament, what did he do? Joshua fit the battle of Jericho. Now that meant that Joshua was to be the deliverer of the people of Israel by defeating their enemies. That was his job. Moses still back on the other side of the Jordan. Joshua was to be the great conqueror of the enemies of the people, and he was to do it by defeating the physical enemies. And when we get now to the New Testament, we find a different language is being spoken, but at the same time, the one who comes to deliver his people is again given the name Joshua, but in the language of the New Testament, Jesus. How do I know that's true? I'm going to ask you to look in your Bibles again. Look at Matthew, the very first chapter, where Jesus is actually given his name as the angel speaks to Joseph and tells him what he is to do.
Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21.
The angel appears to Joseph and tells him not to fear to take Mary as his wife. Why? Verse 21.
"She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
His name will be deliverer."
Why will his name be deliverer?
Not because he is going to save his people from an enemy that is in front of them.
He is going to save his people from an enemy that is within them.
He will save his people from their sins.
This great work of God, this big job in the big plan is the beauty of the gospel, that Jesus Christ came to save. How does he do that?
You know, a very old parable talks about how the plan unfolded. As it describes a king who one day was walking along the top of his palace, and as he walked along the top of his palace walls, he looked out across his fields, and in a distant field, he saw one of his children picking flowers.
And as the bouquet was being formed, the king saw that the ribbon around the bouquet was of a royal color, and he recognized that the bouquet that was being formed was being a gift for himself.
And yet as the king kept watching the child, he recognized that while the child did put some wonderful flowers in the bouquet, he was just a child.
And so some thistle got in there, and some weeds, and some ivy.
And seeing that gift that was being prepared for himself, the king called to his oldest son, and he said to his oldest son, "As this sibling of yours comes to the palace, I want you to take flowers from my garden, and where you see the weeds and the thistle and the ivy, I want you to take that out of the bouquet and put into the bouquet the flowers from my garden."
The eldest son did exactly that.
And so ultimately as the eldest son had taken the beautiful flowers from the king's garden and put it into the bouquet of the younger child, the younger child entered the throne room of the king and presented the beautiful bouquet to the king and said to the king, "Here, my father, is the great gift that I have prepared for you."
Because the king knew all along who had really prepared the gift.
He had done it by sending his oldest son to put in the flowers that were right.
In the parable, who does the king represent?
God the father.
Who does the oldest son represent?
Jesus Christ.
The bouquet of flowers that has in it the ivy and the weeds and the thistle, what does that bouquet represent?
Your works and mine, all that we think is going to make us presentable and right to God.
But what about the flowers from the garden of the king? What do they represent?
The righteousness of Jesus Christ that is put in our place.
First Jesus came to save and he did it by putting his righteousness, his goodness, his work in the place of ours so that we come before the king, we stand before the king not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of what he has done for us through Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus did what? He came into the world. Not only is there a big plan and a big job, but we understand there was an amazingly big step that had to be taken in order for Jesus to perform this job. Christ Jesus, he was the king's son. He ruled in heaven. He had divinity. He had the glory of heaven. But he came into the world.
He who made the world entered it.
He who was eternal entered the temporal plane. He who was divine entered the land of dirt.
He who was God became man. Everything that was his privilege, everything that was his glory, he willingly put aside in our behalf so that he would come and be Emmanuel, which means what? God with us.
It was an amazing step. Why did he do that? Why did he willingly give up heavenly glory, considered it nothing, and made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant? He came in human likeness and made himself obedient to death, even death upon a cross. Why did he do that?
Because Christ Jesus came into the world to save.
It's a message not just of a big plan, not even of a big job, not even ultimately is it just a big evidence of what God would have in his heart for us? It is the evidence of this big, big rescue. He came from heaven to earth to save.
If Kathy were here, she would tell you that one of her most memorable events from her childhood is the time that she and a little girlfriend, they were out playing in the woods behind her family's home and they got into a nest of ground bees that was in the woods.
Now, you know what happens, right?
In the eyes, in the hair, on the dress, and the girls in absolute terror and pain begin to scream.
And as much as that is fixed in her brain, she says the picture that is actually fixed is fixed in her brain is her father bursting through the back door and as she describes it leaping over logs and running to the girls and picking them up and getting them out of danger.
I want you to think of what Paul has just said. Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came into the world to save. He made the universe and there he is leaping over galaxies, pushing aside stars, coming for whom?
For us, the ones that he knows by name, that it's millennia that have gone forward. It is a plan that is unfolded across eternity and yet God, because he loves us, came to save. Is it because we're just so good and dear and we've been so nice and sweet all of our lives that we're like the sweet little girls playing out? Is that why God came to save? No. Christ Jesus came into the world to save whom?
Sinners!
It's not just a big rescue. It's the message of an amazingly big heart.
I know this is going to sound strange, but we need it to settle somewhere if we're really going to be able to share the gospel with friends and family and community. Jesus did not come to save the good people.
Do you hear me? Jesus did not come to save the good people, the ones who are confident of their own righteousness, goodness, the people who are presenting their bouquet of their works without awareness of what Christ must do in their behalf or even humility to confess they need Christ to do it in their behalf.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
What do they look like?
The ones whose kids are a mess and the ones whose marriages are a mess and the one that sin of compulsion and addiction grips every night and the ones who've lost faith because their circumstances are so hard.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
Our hearts begin to react and say, "No, listen.
That can't be. You don't understand what I have done against the commands of..." No, listen.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
But my marriage is a mess and I did it to her. No, Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But my kids are all torn up now and I recognize in my adulthood and maturity now I was the cause of it. But Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But the immorality is so much a part of my past that it's still part of my present. No, Jesus came into the world to save sinners. No, it can't be me. I have not got the faith anymore to believe that he would reach out for someone. But Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
We want to count ourselves out and sometimes we even begin to argue with the Apostle Paul and we want to say, "I know he came into the world to save sinners, but I really messed up this time. This time I recognize as I look back over faith and family and life. It is too big. It can't be me." And the Apostle says, "Listen.
I understand.
For all of us who are willing to say, "No, no, you do not understand. This does not apply to me." Paul says, "Yes, it does apply to you because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am what?
The foremost."
Now, you might not know that there's a mystery here. How can an apostle, the one who's writing inspired scripture that we're supposed to be paying attention to?
How can an apostle say that he is a sinner and the chief among them?
I must tell you, there are various answers that people have given over time to how the Apostle Paul could actually say that he is the chief of sinners for Bill and I — that's King James' language, by the way — that he is a sinner, the foremost of them. How can he do that?
Well, some people would say, "Well, you know, it was just a more naive age.
It was just an innocent age." And so when Paul identifies himself as the foremost of sinners, he just really hasn't faced serious sin.
That's why he's saying that.
Well, you have only to let your eye back up a little bit in the same chapter, and you'll recognize that can't possibly be. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 9. 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 9.
So we've been talking about the 15th verse, where Paul identifies himself as foremost among sinners, but you'll see very quickly he understands what he's talking about.
In verse 9, he is talking about the law and what it reveals. And in verse 9 of 1 Timothy 1, he says, "You need to be understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers for murderers,
the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." Do you think sin was serious in Paul's time?
He knew.
And when he says he is foremost among sinners, he knows sin, real sin, and still is willing to say he's foremost. Well, why is he willing to say he's foremost? Is it simply because he's not only willing to identify serious sin now, but when he identifies himself as foremost among sinners, he's only thinking about his past history?
I mean, that could be a reason, right? I am foremost among sinners. Why? Well, I held the cloaks of Stephen when he was stoned.
I plotted, planned, and carried out the murder of Christians.
And the reason that I am foremost chief of sinners is because I have this history that makes me worse than all that I could name.
Now, surely when Paul identifies himself as chief of sinners, there is some measure in which he is thinking about his past history, but it can't just be past.
How do you know that?
If you look at the language of verse 15, it's very important. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost."
Not was, am.
Now, he could be talking about his present status as a consequence of his past sin, but those of you who are good Bible students, I mean, you recognize something else is going on here.
Here in 1 Timothy, Paul is at the end of his life. He's at his most mature years, and he's in his most mature writing to the church.
And he's still saying, "I am the foremost of sinners."
You know, when Paul began writing to the churches, his early words were these, "I am the least of the apostles."
Well, he was the last one. He had persecuted others. So he just compared himself to the other apostles and said, "I'm the least of the apostles."
But you get to about midway in his ministry, and Paul says, "I'm not just least of the apostles." He said, "I'm least of whom?"
"I'm least of the saints."
I mean, he doesn't just look at the apostles. He looks at people in the church. He says, "I'm least of the saints."
And now we're at the end of his ministry, and he says, "I'm not just least of the saints.
I am chief among sinners."
How can he say that?
You know, this may not be the perfect analogy, but I think of it from my own life experience. You know, when I was a child, you know, I liked what everybody else does, you know, kind of get fascinated with large, earth-moving equipment, right? You think how Bob the Builder is so popular today, right? You know, how kids just get fascinated with machinery and, you know, big tractors and big earth movers, you know, just fascinating. Well, I must tell you, I got fascinated, but I didn't really understand all that was involved there. I got a bit more understanding of what was involved in earth-moving equipment when in my college years I worked for a road construction company and actually, you know, was an operator for a while. I actually operated a D9.
It was an open field. Nobody got killed.
It wasn't a long job.
But you know what?
While I had an understanding of a dozer at that point, what I understand even more now, I understand as a consequence of being among you.
You know, I went to camp to visit with the kids. Great experience. Wonderful to see the Lord working among them and their hearts on fire for the Lord.
But as I went, I went to a plant space that I haven't been in Peoria yet.
Caterpillar country.
Offices that go on, it seems like for miles.
You know, the production plants that just seem to go on and on and on and on.
On Friday night, that was Thursday, on Friday night I went to a pastors conference over in another part of the state, had to pass another town where there was more caterpillar offices and construction and production areas. And I began to recognize, this is just Peoria.
They're all over the world. There are people with amazing intellect and ability who are giving themselves to the production of things so complex and so powerful that the more I get to know, the more I appreciate the wonder of it.
You know what I think was happening in the life of the Apostle Paul?
And he began to understand what the cross was about. That God had provided in Christ a way for his sin, even of murder and persecution of Christians. Be put away. Paul is wonderfully moved by that and says, "The cross is big because my sin is big."
But as the Apostle begins to mature and he begins to see the gospel of Jesus Christ move out across the world, across pagan cultures, across people with different philosophical opinions, as he sees the cross of Jesus Christ in victory over the world, he says, "This is bigger than I ever thought."
And finally, by the time he's at the end of his life and he recognizes that God has used him, a former persecutor of Christians, now to take the gospel into mission that is spreading across the world, he says, "The cross is bigger, more fantastic, more complicated, more sophisticated, more important, more powerful than I ever dreamed. But if the cross is really that big, what does that say about my sin that it had to cover?
It's got to be that big too.
It's bigger than I ever imagined. Jesus did far more than I ever understood. If that's how big and important the cross is, my sin is bigger. It's what all of us understand as we grow in the Christian life. It's not that we say my sin is the worst sin of any I possibly know, but I begin to understand deeply and profoundly in my own heart as I know myself, I am the greatest sinner I know.
And if we can't say that, if we can't really believe it, that I don't just point other words that my sin is a betrayal of the Savior, that in my privilege, in my position, I am the one who is failing him, we're in different places of maturity to understand that. There are those of us who say, "I had wealth and I just used it for me.
I had family and I only used it for my own honor. I had opportunity and I kept pointing it toward me. I did not in any way or at least fully take into a comprehension what God could have done with my life and my world. I am the chief of sinners. I am the worst of sinners I know." And you recognize if we cannot say that, if humility does not grip us, the world has no reason to pay attention to us.
The English pastor in the 19th century, Alexander McLaren, simply said it this way, "The more Christ-like we become, the less Christ-like we know ourselves to be.
The more Christ-like we become, the less Christ-like we know ourselves to be. But as a consequence," you know what begins to happen? We begin to grow in our understanding and love and appreciation for the cross. Here is how great is his love. Here is how wondrous it is. This is what God has done for me.
And when that begins to happen, we have something to say to people who are saying, "God couldn't love me. God couldn't hear what I have done, know the failures in my family, know the failures in my life, and still care for me." And we say, "No, listen.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost." And when that type of humility begins to seize the church of God, there is a contagion of the gospel that humility begins to fuel.
Jonathan Edwards, who was preaching one of the great revival meetings of the early Americas,
wrote later of a time at which people had gathered by the thousands in the mountain wilderness and they were coming from small churches and small towns and farms and they were gathering together and somehow the Spirit was working among them in amazing ways.
And as they gathered in that generation that day, men and women gathered in separate camps.
And a letter came from a woman in the women's camp to where Jonathan Edwards was going to be preaching to the men one evening.
And the letter from the woman said this, "Dr. Edwards, would you please pray for my husband?
You will be preaching to him tonight."
But his heart has grown so large in spiritual pride for what he knows and what he does, that he has put impossible expectations upon our family of what we should be and what we should do. He has grown cold and hard and put us into pain because of his pursuit of his reputation
Who in spiritual pride has grown cold and hard and put impossible expectations upon his family. Would that man in this moment be so humble as to raise his hand so that we could pray for him?
And 300 men raised their hands.
Humility is contagious.
I need the Savior. I know what we say is, "I can't say too much.
I'm not asking you to say it publicly. I am asking you to say in your heart, would you know to be true? How much do you need the Savior? Is it big? Is it a big need?" Could you, if an apostle could say, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost," could you actually not just say the words but believe deep in your heart, "I need the Savior that much too."
We fear doing it.
We fear that if we acknowledge too much, the grace of God will not be big enough.
And that is why we have been shown such a big plan.
And that is why being shown such a big rescue by a God of such a big heart so that we knowing when we bring the worst of ourselves before him and ultimately are humbled by it, that we are still okay.
And we have something we can actually say to friends and family because we have found the joy that humility gives to those who know the grace of God covers them.
Listen, one of the hardest things I ever did when I was in a seminary administration setting was dealing with the discipline of a young man who while he was in seminary got caught in a web of immorality and deception.
And as the things began to come to light, you know, we had to discipline him, we had to suspend him and ask him to leave the seminary for a time. And I must tell you, initially he was so mad.
How dare you?
But then the Spirit began to work in him and he confessed to sin and humility came back. And he graduated and he became a pastor and wonderfully ministered to people.
Until a few years later, he fell back into the same sin.
He was discovered.
He was removed from the ministry.
And one day, an afternoon while I was at the seminary, out of the blue telephone call,
"Dr. Chappell, you know how mad I was at you." I know.
But it helped me for a while that I faced my sin.
You know it came back. I said, "I know it came back."
He said, "I'm out of the ministry now and I no longer seek reputation.
No longer do I seek the prestige that comes from a big pulpit and people paying attention to me. That's all gone now."
But he said, "You know what?
I'm okay because I've learned something as much shame and pain as this has brought to me and to my family.
There's a song that says what I have discovered.
And this shall all my glory be that Jesus is not ashamed of me."
Do you know that?
Has it all come apart?
Is the mess too big even to face for you?
There's a big plan because a Savior did a big job with a big rescue from the heart of God that has grace big enough for you.
And regardless of what the world says and other people think, the reason you have hope
is this shall all your glory be that Jesus is not ashamed of me.
This is a trustworthy saying and deserving of full acceptance.
Trust it and accept Him.
And this shall all your glory be that Jesus is not ashamed of me.