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Sunday, September 25, 2005
Rev. Dr. Harold E Kidd
SAVED FOR A
PURPOSE
"I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing
me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a
violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and
unbelief." 1
Timothy 1: 13
May the Lord bless our
understanding of these words. One of the qualities
about the apostle Paul was that he was comfortable in sharing with others where
the Lord had brought him from. Paul had a whole lot of skeletons in his closet,
but he did not allow the guilt of former mistakes prevent him from enjoying the
joy of his salvation founded in the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Out of his own freedom from
the guilt of sin, Paul could encourage other believers as he did in Romans 8,
taking a page from his own personal testimony, "There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, which walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit."
And let me suggest to you
this morning that condemnation comes in three forms. The noun “condemnation”
has its counterpart verb "condemned". Found guilty. Because of God's judgement upon sin we have been condemned, for the wages of
sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Secondly, we have been condemned by our own guilt. The guilt
of sin. Declared David in that 51st Psalm,
“My sin is ever before me." And thirdly, we are always under the
condemnation of the Devil. The fiery darts of the Devil, if
you will, who will never let us forget our mistakes in order to steal from us
the joy of our salvation. Somebody knows what I'm talking about.
Without Jesus, every man and
woman sits on death row -- Dead Man
Walking, that's what they call it -- waiting for their time of execution,
having no hope in a stay of execution or a Governor's pardon. Without Jesus we
would have no hope at all. But Jesus has
become our chief Advocate, and God sits in the Governor's Chair of Heaven.
Jesus as our Chief Advocate has interceded for our sin every time the judgement of God upon sin would be upon us, every time the
guilt of sin and the condemnation of the Devil would seek to condemn us, Jesus
pleads our innocence, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they
do." That's what
Though children of God, some
are still haunted by past memories, past families’ experiences, past
relationships, poor judgement in making choices. In some cases, others won't
allow us to forget our mistakes, and in other cases we won't allow ourselves to
forget what we've done or did not do, when we had the opportunity. It’s what
the Bible refers to as a guilt-ridden conscience. Now guilt is a good thing if
it will cause us to turn to Jesus. But it is a hard taskmaster without the
grace of God.
I once heard a preacher make
the comment that the Church is the only institution that shoots its own
wounded. Wounded meaning those who have been wounded by sin.
Meaning that, because the expectations of living a holy and blameless life are
so high, because the standard of being a Christian are above those of worldly
living, many times in the church, it’s difficult to find forgiveness, and, in
some cases, depending upon the nature of the sin, we do not allow persons the
grace to begin a fresh start with the record wiped clean.
Is it no wonder that Jesus
spoke to the church of his day and the disciples of his day, saying,
"Judge not that you be not judged, for with the manner of your judgement upon ourselves, so will you be judged." I
once pastored a woman who out of her own pain and
disappointments in life was possessed with a harsh spirit of judgementalism. She was quick to talk about what the
preacher wasn't doing, what the elders weren't doing, what the deacons weren't
doing, what the church wasn't doing, what life wasn't doing … (joke) when she
herself did very little.
And the irony of this whole story
was that very few members were close to her. Those who had a spirit of judgementalism like her and those who could put up with it
hung out with her, but most of the members didn't spend a lot of time around
her because they knew that one day she would also be talking about them, what
they weren't doing right.
But the Bible says in
Galatians 6:1, "Brothers and sisters,
if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him and her gently. Yes, the church is to humbly
and gently reach out to those who need help. And Paul could say this because he
was always having to defend himself as a servant of
Jesus Christ. Wherever he went, someone would pop up to remind Paul of his
past.
But Paul had made peace with
his past in Christ Jesus. And because of the fact that the forgiveness and
grace of God had given him a clean conscience about his past, Paul would be the
first one to talk about his past and admit his mistakes. That's what grace and
the Lord's forgiveness does for us, it enables us to defeat the demons of our
own past, those memories and deeds that are always trying to catch up with us
to condemn us.
In verse 16 of this text,
Paul says, my life has become an example of God's longsuffering, that it might
be an example to others who should come to believe on Him to life everlasting.
In other words, God will allow our mistakes, weaknesses, failures to be exposed
to others in order that they might see how His grace and longsuffering have
lifted us up, that they too would come to the rock of their salvation in times
of need.
When grace meets sin, grace
is able to transform mistakes of the past into testimonies of what the Lord can
do, if we give our mistakes to him. And listen to what Paul says in 1 Timothy about his old life, of the Lord's grace to him,
"I thank
Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that He considered me
faithful, appointing me to His service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and
a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance
and unbelief."
But it gets even better when
you skip to verse 15:
"Here is
a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown
mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ
Jesus might display his unlimited
patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal
life."
In other words when some
might be trying to make us regret our past, God in Jesus has a way of making
our past a bright testimony of how the Lord can pick us up, turn us around, and
set our feet on solid ground. Paul was not bragging about his past, but he was
not ashamed of what God had forgiven. Sorrowful yes, but
guilt ridden, no. In fact, God used all of the mistakes in Paul’s past
life to call him into service.
In Jesus, God is still
working out our sanctification. You and I may not be all that we want to be, we
may not be all that someone else thinks we should be in the Lord this morning,
but thank God we're not what we once used to be. God is still working it out.
Our past can become in the
purposes of God a motivating factor in our saved life. It’s great to be saved.
Heaven is assured. We now have peace with God. We possess a Savior who has
promised never to leave us nor forsake us. We are promised to receive a
spiritual inheritance, which God has laid up in store for all believers, which
eye has not seen nor ears heard, nor has it entered into our imaginations what
the Lord has prepared for them that loved Him.
"Saved by His power
divine, Saved unto new life sublime! Life is now sweet and my joy is complete, For I'm
saved, saved, saved!"
But being saved is not God's
end for our purposes here on planet Earth. God wants to show the world what
redemption looks like. Not just redemption from an old rugged Cross, but
redemption from a life that used to be … but now is fit for the master's use.
Even if our life has not
contained all the drama in experiences as did Paul's, when we think about where
the Lord has brought us from, when we think about all the goodness of the Lord,
when we consider the mercies of the Lord, of how many times He didn't have to
do it but He did, when we consider the fact that if it had not been for the Lord
on our side, who wouldn't willingly lay their all on the altar for God.
Paul never forgot where the
Lord had brought him from. He was indebted to God for saving his life, and he
spent the rest of his life trying show his
thankfulness to God through service. Every time Paul thought about where the
Lord had brought him from … it inspired him, it motivated him, it encouraged him to give his all to the Master. What he
writes to the Roman church in ch. 12:1 comes out of
his own testimony: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy in your life, to offer your bodies as
living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God."
"Brother Paul was just glad to
be in his service one more time."
As a student in seminary I came
across a statement written by Richard Baxter: "I preached as a dying man
to dying men, I preached as sure to never preach again." Well that was
almost 30 years ago; I made a vow to the Lord that every time I step into the
pulpit, I'm going to preach as though it were my last time, God being my help.
No warmed-over messages. No second-best preparations. But Lord, give me a fresh
word for the preaching of your Gospel every time I step into a pulpit.
How about you this morning?
No warmed-over worship to the Lord. No second-best service to the Lord. No
casual participation in the life of the church for the Lord. "But Lord …
let my service to you be new and fresh every morning." Are you resolved
this morning because of what He's already done for you? Lord, I'll do what You want me to do. I'll go where You
want me to go. I'll say what You want me to say! I'm
glad to be in Your service, Lord! Just one more time.
I remember a man in my home
church who’s long since gone on to be with the Lord,
his name was Samuel Robinson. He was an ex-navy man who had lived a seaman's
life. He was not shy in giving his testimony that the Lord had saved him. Of
how the Lord had delivered him from alcoholism, how the Lord had taken a mean
and selfish man and transformed him into a tenderhearted, giving
individual. And Samuel couldn't do
enough for the Lord.
When others said, I don’t
have the time, when others said I don't have the money, when others said I
can't come to a board meeting or choir rehearsal or Bible study or prayer
meeting or usher’s meeting or I can’t support the church’s programs with my
participation, or what is the church gonna do for me
-- Samuel, almost like that child in a second grade classroom anxiously raising
her or his hand to give the answer, was always saying
Here I am Lord, use me!
Here I am Lord use me!
Here I am Lord, use me!