1 Timothy 1:12-16 “I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry. I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.” This episode is about how God is calling all of us, no matter our past. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God Wants You, Yes You!
1 Timothy 1:12-16 “I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry. I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.”
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is something that the pharisees and sadducees could not understand. Actually many people couldn’t understand this. Jesus was the savior, the Jewish people thought He was coming to save them from the Roman Army. They did not understand that He was coming to save them from something much more important. He was coming so that we would have eternal salvation. He came to walk among us so He could save us from ourselves. God had a perfect plan and Adam and Eve, being human and not perfect, messed up that plan. God sent His son to us so that He could set things right again.
The beginning of this verse talks about “him who strengthened me.” This sounds an awful lot like Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It is true that we get our strength through Jesus Christ. Paul is thankful in this verse because Jesus considered him trustworthy in appointing him to the ministry. He talks about how he was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man. If you were designing this world, if you got to choose who was going to lead God’s people, is this the type of man you would choose? Does Paul sound like the ideal candidate? He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. He is not who I would pick. And yet He is exactly who God picked.
Why do you think He does this? Why do you think God chooses to use less than perfect people for his ministry? I think He does it because of exactly what He says to us in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows if he only uses perfect people, we won’t listen to them. It is really hard to connect with someone that you can’t relate to. Also, we tend to believe what we see more than what we hear.
It is one thing to have someone who has never struggled with an addiction come and tell you that Jesus can heal your addictions. It is quite another to see someone that you know had an addiction problem and now is cured of it. Which would you rather, someone to tell you that Jesus can forgive your sins, or to see Jesus sitting with those that have sinned? We as people don’t like listening as much as we like seeing. Jesus took a man that was not a very good person, someone who didn’t even believe that Jesus was who He said He was, and used him to do extraordinary things. This is because of God’s mercy. I bet that every time Paul told the story of his conversion he won over more people than the leaders in the church preaching about God’s mercy without ever having experienced it.
It even says in the last sentence of this verse why Jesus chose Paul. He said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.” Paul was chosen, not in spite of his past sins, but because of them. He was chosen to be an example of Jesus’ patience to all those who would come to believe. Don’t you find it easier to believe that God will forgive your sins when you know that He forgave Paul’s sins? What about Saint Peter? Peter loved the Lord, he followed Him for three years and yet when Jesus needed him the most, he abandoned Jesus. He not only abandoned Him, he denied even knowing Jesus. And yet, knowing all of this, Jesus chose Peter to be the rock that His church would be built upon.
If the Lord can use Peter, who denied Him three times in His time of need, and He can use Paul, who was a blasphemer, a persecutor and an arrogant man, don’t you think He can use you? Sometimes we count ourselves out and we don’t listen when God calls us because we don’t think we are good enough to serve the Lord. He is almighty and powerful and we are little and useless. He is perfect and we are full of sin. How could He possibly use us when their are others out there that are so much better than us at everything? God doesn’t want better, God wants you. If you are willing, God wants to use you. He is calling every single one of us to serve Him. Are we worthy of serving Him? Nope and yet He still calls us to serve Him. He does not call us in spite of our past sins, He calls us because of our past sins. He calls us because His ways are higher than our ways. He knows that there is someone out there that needs to hear our witness about how God saved us. He knows that we are good examples of His love and mercy. Others need to hear about all the graces that we have received even though we didn’t deserve to receive anything.
So many people think miracles only happen for those who are really faithful. God only forgives sins for other people, but not for them. They find it easy to believe God forgives small sins, but surely He won’t forgive their sins, they are too great. This is why God needs us. God wants us to be living examples of all He can do with those who are willing. If you need further examples of when God has used people that you would never have chosen, all you have to do is look in the Bible. There are so many examples. I will point you to a few in case you aren’t quite convinced. What about Moses? Moses was a murderer and yet God chose him to lead the people out of Exodus. Jacob stole his brother’s birth rite and then stole his blessings and God chose him to be the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. There are many other stories like this in the Bible. God doesn’t use perfect people to carry out his mission. He came to save the sinners and He uses us sinners to do that. I want to leave you with a word of prophecy that was received at my prayer group because it shows that the Lord understands that we question our calling and our usefulness and like a good Father, he reassures us of His love.
“My children you are an integral part of my plan. Yes, you, You may see yourself as little and that is good you are little but my grace is strong and powerful within you. I have placed you where are you are, in the times that you are, in the circumstances that you are. And I am with you. I am with you to use you to spread the joy of knowing me. To spread my word, to spread knowledge of my goodness. I love you. You are an essential part of my plan. Please work with me for I am working with you. “
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to answer your call. Help us to see that you know we are not worthy, you know of all of our sins, and yet you call us anyway. Remind us often that your ways are higher than our ways and we don’t have to understand why you do the things you do. They don’t have to make sense to us because our thoughts are not your thoughts. Help us to trust you. Help us to see in us what you see in us. Help us to take that step forward even if we don’t know why we are doing it. Lord, we say yes to serving you, yes to all you want us to do, we just need your help, your grace, your strength. We love you Lord, you are so amazing and we are so grateful that you accept us exactly as we are, that you love us exactly as we are. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!