A persecutors commission

I Timothy 1:12-14 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. The grace of our Lord was poured
out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
In all genuine Christianity there is a sense of wonder. That sinning creatures
like ourselves should know the Maker of this universe, that we may have a
personal relationship with him, and that he does love us with a love that will
never let us go no true Christian can ever get to the stage where he becomes
blase about such breathtaking realities. But those people who have lightly
professed to have become Christians can just as easily give up their faith. What
has cost nothing is worth nothing. How different those who have learned their
unworthiness, and have groaned with the deepest conviction, God be merciful
to me the sinner. They will never forget that arms of mercy embraced them.
John Newton sings, Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a
wretch like me. He had lived a shameful life, but God had delivered him and
made his life the happiest of anyone who lived in the village of Olney. Amazing
grace! He deserved nothing but judgment; he received nothing but mercy.
Many hymns have that note of wonder: And can it be that I should gain an
interest in the Saviours blood? I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers
me. O how the grace of God amazes me. Tis mercy all immense and free,
and O my God it found out me. In wonder lost, with trembling joy we take
the pardon of our God.
It is a thing most wonderful,
Almost too wonderful to be,
That Gods own Son should come from heaven
And die to save a child like me.
In much religion today those notes of wonder are absent. Check how many new
hymns contain any wonder at the writers salvation.
Many churchgoing people are being taught that naturally they deserve to be
loved. God owes them something. He is always there to accept them. If they
have been exposed to just this one theme the mercy of God scarcely ever
hearing about their unworthiness and the divine holiness, then the sovereign
pity of God has been trivialised for them. Their spiritual lives have been stunted
by cut-price grace. The sermons theyve heard omit telling the world that it is
in rebellion against God, under his wrath, and that the exercise of mercy is
optional with him. I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion (Roms. 9:15). After years of an
unalleviated diet of the love of God men and women think, I know Im
accepted. Of course. Big deal! Grace has become boring. Self-pity is the mark
of those who hear of the divine grace alone without Gods requirements that
we repent. Sinners feel that they have been good to God and they deserve all
they have, and when they dont get what they want they feel sorry for
themselves.

Pluck up courage and ask one such person if he is a Christian. Of course I am,
he replies. In other words, how dare you question his faith when you can see
for yourself how he lives. But you ask a Christian who has been exercised about
his unworthiness and he will say to you, Its an amazing fact almost too
wonderful to be but the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. He
took my sins to himself as he hung on the cross and so took away all my blame
and shame. It is the most remarkable thing in the universe and I cant get over
it. It is all because of his grace that I am a Christian today, and nothing in me
merits it.
Paul has been writing about the glorious gospel of the blessed God (v.11).
This gospel is certainly glorious, and it is glorious because it is Gods own good
news to men. It originated in him, was accomplished by him, revealed by him
and applied to the world all by the power and divine initiative of God. The
gospel is a matter of vertical sovereign grace from beginning to end. But here
Paul is emphasising that the content of this good news is the glory of God. We
have the tendency to think of the glory of God as one reality the sheer
effulgence of splendour and magnificent holiness which makes the angels
cover their eyes and then there is the other reality of the gospel message. We
have made them two different entities. But Paul is saying here that it is the
gospel which epitomises the divine glory. Nowhere else in anything God has
done, nowhere else in the entire Bible is Gods glory seen so fully as in this
gospel. Nowhere do the divine perfections combine and show themselves as
they are manifest in the good news about the Lord Jesus. The glory of the
blessed God is operative and resplendent in the gospel.
That God should love an evil defiant world, that he should determine to save
that world though some would be lost that he spared not his beloved only
Son to secure this salvation, the humbling of this Son in incarnation, the giving
of himself to the anathema of his horrific death, all this is the zenith of the
glory of God. The Word of God who was with God and was God became the
Lamb of God to atone for our sins and to propitiate the divine wrath. Now a full
forgiveness is being offered to the whole world if men but turn and entrust
themselves to the Lord Christ. Nothing else is necessary. Nothing else matters.
Hide beneath the covering love of the name of Jesus. Eternal, ever-blessed life
will be yours. It is in that good news that the glory of God is seen as nowhere
else. The apostle John cries, We beheld his glory, and it was his grace and
truth. It was the glory of grace that men saw. When the angel appeared to the
shepherds and told them that this day a Saviour was born for them, then,
suddenly, a multitude of the heavenly host appeared and cried Glory to God in
the highest. The message was of the glorious gospel.
It is to declare the same message that the apostle Paul was summoned: the
glorious gospel of the blessed God was entrusted to me, he says (v.11). The
message itself is an amazing one, but what was more incredible was that God
should have commissioned someone like Saul of Tarsus to preach it, saying in
effect, Not by angels and seraphim but by your speaking shall the world hear
of the glory of God. It was that personal divine commission that the apostle
found so amazing. Years earlier God had given to Paul this sacred stewardship
and now Paul is writing this letter. It is towards the end of his earthly ministry,
but he still retains this sense of wonder. This amazement has survived all his
sins and failures, his cowardice and bouts of dryness, his fears and

discouragements. He has often been a poor servant of God, yet God had called
him to preach this message, and Paul is still overwhelmed at that thought and
the measure of obedience that he had been enabled to give. There are a
number of reasons for this wonder:
1. AMAZING BECAUSE OF WHAT PAUL HAD BEEN. (v.13)
We often think of the contrast in the life of certain men. One was raised in the
most humble of circumstances, but he becomes one of the most powerful men
in the world. From Log Cabin to White House is the title of a biography of
Abraham Lincoln. Men have risen above many natural disadvantages to
positions of extraordinary power. But not one has had the influence over the
world for almost 2000 years which this man Paul has had, and it all began so
unpromisingly: I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I
was shown mercy, he says. He confesses those three crimes:I was once a blasphemer, he acknowledges. You might not think it matters to
take the name of Jesus Christ or the name of God and spice your jokes and the
pathetic incidents that have happened in your life with the divine eternal name
to make you seem a funnier person. Its not funny. For every idle word God will
hold us accountable. Foul language hurts us deeply. I sometimes think that the
worst thing about TV is the way it brings wretched blasphemies suddenly into
our homes. We never get used to it. Paul once cursed the name of Jesus. He did
it in front of Christians. He even tried to make them repeat what he was saying.
He tells us in Acts 26:11, I tried to force them to blaspheme . Its been the
way with torturers across the centuries.
I was once a persecutor, says Paul. He says in Acts 26:10ff I put many of the
saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.
Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished.
Stephen was not the only one in whose death Paul had been involved. You
remember how he guarded the coats of the men who were stoning Stephen
and looked on approvingly. He had done that many times, maybe even himself
hurling rocks into the soft human flesh of young and old. And then on the
sabbath as people were sitting in a synagogue hearing the Word of God the
doors would crash open and Paul and a number of others would march in and
would display their credentials as men with the authority of the chief priests,
and they would ask, Who professes to follow Jesus here? How easy to find our
who were serious about Christ. Then they would bind them and lead them out
to torture and death.
I was once a violent man, says Paul. The word violent is the word which in
the original form we get our word hubris. Here it means arrogantly sadistic. It
means inflicting pain for the sheer pleasure of it. It is referring to satisfaction
derived from openly shaming men and women. Paul went beyond what Jewish
law required. He injected into their arrest and interrogation a degree of cruelty
the details of which he spares us. There was a hideous brutality about this
inquisitor. This, in his own words, is the chief of sinners.
He says that he did this in ignorance and unbelief. He was being consistent
with his own religion: I was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible
to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 26:9). He was being zealous
and sincere in his Jewishness. He talks of his fellow countrymen and he

acknowledges, they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on
knowledge (Roms.10:2), it was based on ignorance. So it had been with him,
his persecution flowed from ignorance and unbelief. That is still the judgment
of the Christian church upon Judaisms fanatics today. The roughing up of
Baruch Maozs congregation at a recent baptismal service by the Sea of Galilee
was because of this same ignorance and unbelief. It is not that the Orthodox
Jews are walking one of the many different roads which all lead to God. They
are acting through ignorance and unbelief. Paul is the pre-eminent example of
natural religion. The greater the intensity of its religious fervour, the greater
the opposition to God
When Paul says that he did what he did in ignorance and unbelief he is not
excusing himself. He is facing up to the vileness, the sheer godlessness of his
sin and the enormity of his guilt. Paul is not thinking that the tortures were not
that heinous because they were done in unbelief. Ignorance does not excuse
stoning a man to death. Paul was kicking against the goads doing such things.
What Paul is saying is this, that his conduct was so reprehensible, so cruel, that
if he had done those things knowingly he would have put himself beyond the
pale of salvation. His behaviour is so terrible in his own eyes that they brought
him to the very edge of damnation. But the one thing that kept him from that
place across whose entrance the words are written, Abandon Hope All Ye That
Enter Here, was simply the fact that he did these things in unbelief. There is
one sin that cannot be forgiven, and that is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
Pauls blasphemies were almost that, but the one thing that restrained him was
he didnt know that those he helped to kill were filling up the sufferings of
Christ. He did not know that when he persecuted the body he was persecuting
the Head too.
Paul was not ignorant that sadistic cruelty was wrong. When he says, I acted
in ignorance and unbelief that fact is not the grounds of his obtaining mercy
but the grounds of the forgivableness of his sin. It was dreadful behaviour yet it
was not blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. When on the Damascus Road he
was confronted with the risen Christ he bowed before him and asked him what
this Lord wanted him to do. He did not blaspheme the Holy Spirit by rejecting
this Christ. Judas did, though seeing his glory. Paul is not pleading his unbelief
to get a lighter sentence but to magnify the grace that saved him from cruelty,
blind zeal, plus ignorance and unbelief. All a mans actions will be weighed by
God, and when we stand before him there will be some sins we must answer
for which we did unintentionally as well as there being sins which we did
intentionally (Numbers 15), and God will know the difference. But we must
answer for them all. Palliatives dont exculpate culprits, neither will they
sheathe the sword of justice. The only sheath for that righteous blade is the
wounded side of Christ. To those alone who are hidden there will mercy be
given.
Now if there were ever a man you would think would be the least likely to be
saved it would be Saul of Tarsus. If there were a man who deserved to justly
condemned that man was Saul. Yet this is the man who is shown mercy even
though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man. Let no
one think that they have passed through those portals where the mercy of God
may not reach them. Is not this a day of grace? If the fulness of long-suffering
and mercy reached this man who dare claim that they beyond the grip of

grace? Dont allow a sense of your sin and the gravity of your guilt keep you
from serving Christ.
So often the minister is weighed down with a crushing sense of his own
unworthiness and sinfulness. He will ask, How can I continue my duties when I
have behaved in this way? But such feelings are indispensable for a blessed
ministry John Murray says, It is always well for us to be keenly aware of our
sinfulness. Much evangelical preaching, to say nothing of unevangelical
preaching, suffers from the absence in the preacher himself of the note of
contrition and humility, and of contrition and humility a deep sense of personal
unworthiness is an indispensable ingredient. Unless our ministrations are
performed in the spirit of sincere personal contrition there will be something
metallic and even forbidding about our delivery of the message of the gospel.
That metallic clanging the broken in heart and contrite in spirit will soon detect
to their pain and sorrowPaul never forgot what he had been, he had not
forgotten the rock whence he was hewn and the hole of the pit whence he was
dug. Though he gloried in the divine forgiveness he never excused or forgave
himself (John Murray, Collected Writings, Volume 3, Paul an Example, pp.247
255, Banner of Truth).
How did the remembrance of what he had been benefit the apostle Paul?
i] It saved him from pride. There were those many privileges Paul had had, the
visit to the third heaven, the multitudes converted, the letters written, the
churches planted, the experience of the Spirit of God upon him filling him in
preaching, the people who loved him who would give their right eyes to him. All
these factors could encourage spiritual pride, the sin of glorying in his own
knowledge, in his blessings and outstanding success. So the livid memories of
what he had done as an unregenerate man were kept alive as a counterpoise,
to enforce a sense of dependence and an acknowledgement of weakness. To
silence the clamorous, You ought to be proud of yourself, there had to be
another voice, equally insistent You ought to be ashamed of yourself. The
memories actually purified and mortified. They poured contempt on all his
pride.
John Newton had the opportunity as the captain of a slave ship to be involved
in the most depraved of activities. When he was converted to Jesus Christ, and
appointed a preacher of the gospel, he wrote a text in great letters, and
fastened it above the mantelpiece of his study where he could not fail to see it:
Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt and the
Lord thy God redeemed thee. He even composed his own epitaph and it ran,
John Newton, Clerk, once and Infidel and Libertine, a Servant of Slaves in
Africa, was by the Mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Preserved,
Restored, Pardoned and Appointed to Preach the Faith he had so long Laboured
to Destroy. The greater our sense of insufficiency and impotence the more
equipped we will be to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
ii] The memory of our sins will keep our gratitude fresh. You can divide the
whole of Christianity under the headings of Guilt, Grace and Gratitude. God had
shown his grace to the guilty Paul. All my life Ill be grateful, he vowed. He
could have been a bigoted nonentity, another of those religious despots whose
contribution to humanity has been pain mens religions are amongst their

worst crimes. Instead Paul was loved and delivered from cruel bigotry. For the
rest of his days he was grateful.
Thomas Goodwin one wrote a letter to his son in which he said, When I was
threatening to become cold in the ministry, and when I felt Sabbath morning
coming and my heart was not filled with amazement at the grace of God, or
when I was making ready to dispense the Lords Supper, do you know what I
used to do? I used to take a turn up and down among the sins of my past life,
and I always came down again with a broken and contrite heart, ready to
preach, as it was preached in the beginning, the forgiveness of sinsI do not
think I ever went up the pulpit stair that I did not stop for a moment at the foot
of it and take a turn up and down among the sins of my past years, I do not
think that I ever planned a sermon that I did not take a turn around my study
table and look back at the sins of my youth and of all my life down to the
present; and many a Sabbath morning, when my soul had been cold and dry,
for the lack of prayer during the week, a turn up and down in my past life
before I went into the pulpit always broke my hard heart and made me close
with the gospel for my own soul before I began to preach. Gratitude to God for
what he has delivered us from makes us better servants.
iii] The memory of our sins urges us on to greater effort. Let me show you,
Lord, how much Im grateful for your mercy. The true Christian cant do too
much for God. Paul put many into prison. Now he is inside many a prison
himself. Spurgeon had a friend who lived four or five miles away from his place
of worship, and he used to say, You old legs, it is no use your being tired for
youve got to carry me. You used to take me to the public house when I served
the devil and you shall carry me now to the house of God that I may serve
him. And when arthritis set in and he found it hard to sit for an hour in a pew
he would say, Its no use grumbling, old bones, you will have to sit here, or
you will have to stand. Years ago you put up with all kinds of inconveniences
when you went to the match, or in some other place, when I served Satan. You
must be content to do the same now for a better Master and a nobler service.
We have to say, Come covetousness. You were generous when you used to
serve sin. Are you going to be stingy in serving God? Come cold heart. You
were hot enough when the price of your stocks went up or your team was
winning. While Jesus reigns wont you be lifted up to praise God?
iv] The knowledge of deliverance from our sins will be a constant
encouragement to others. Here is a man, Saul of Tarsus, whose sins were
greater than your husbands and viler than your prodigal childs. Yet the mercy
of God reached him. The early church might have judged that this apostle
would have been the last man in the world to have become a Christian yet it
was the old blasphemer and persecutor who was saved. Paul says in verse 16,
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. Here is the great example we are to set before
ourselves: this is Exhibit A. If someone like Paul could be saved then of whom
may we say that such a person could never receive eternal life? We sometimes
go through great wintry seasons, or fall into the same sin repeatedly and we
begin to despair. But Christ Jesus showed unlimited patience to Paul. Will he not
show that same patience to you too?

Lets not forget the sins from which we have been delivered. In Pilgrims
Progress (Part II) Greatheart turn to Christians boys and says to them, You
must know that Forgetful Green is the most dangerous place in all these parts.
So Pauls sense of amazement was so powerful because he didnt forget what
he had once been.
2. AMAZING BECAUSE OF PAULS NEW CALLING (v.12)
This section is so very personal, and it faithfully reflects the original emphases.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered
me faithful, appointing me to his service (v.12). Paul seizes on the full imperial
title of his Saviour Christ Jesus our Lord. All the gospel is in those three
capitalised words. All of divinity and all a sinners hope. One: Christ, the
Messiah, Gods anointed prophet, priest and king; two: Jesus, the great Saviour;
three: our Lord, the incarnate Jehovah. Christ Jesus our Lord. He believed
none of that before his conversion. The Lord Jesus meant nothing to him, and
worst than nothing, a charlatan, a liar and a blasphemer. But this Jesus had
caused an intellectual revolution to take place in him, and had shown him
mercy, and entrusted to him the glorious gospel. What had Christ Jesus our
Lord done?
i] He considered Paul faithful. Of all people he made Paul a trusted man. He had
once attacked Christian women as well as men. His lips had used foul
blasphemies. He was merciless and violent. Now he was chosen by the Prince
of Peace to be his ambassador. He became the trustee. The one who helped
the Lord. The one who had the keys. Feed my sheep, the Lord said to Paul.
Feed my lambs. He made the sheep-killer a shepherd. This man of such fiery
impatience is forgiven and made useful in the Lords service. He trusted him.
It is a great challenge to us, to trust men whose pasts have been shameful and
violent but whose hopes now are in Jesus Christ. Too much of the spirit of the
older brother is in us, and we cannot rejoice when the prodigal comes back
from the distant city. We cannot believe he is sincere. We have to mortify our
suspicions so that we trust such people with baptism and sit with them around
his Table, and they lead us in the Prayer Meeting. If they have fallen with
regards to children in their pasts we would be foolish to put temptation in their
way and ask them to help with the Sunday School or in the Young Peoples work
today. If they have fallen with money in the past we would be unwise in giving
them any financial responsibility in the congregation. But we will trust them as
our brothers and sisters in Christ with fitting duties.
A person considered trustworthy by God will trust others and once again trust
in themselves. A new convert may talk, behave and act in a certain way
peculiar to her group or age, but she doesnt worry about that and neither do
we. People now trust her. She doesnt depend on those superficial things to get
into our group. God has accepted her and so does the whole church. When God
finds a person faithful we accept them as faithful too.
One of the most famous Spanish writers was Miguel de Cervantes who wrote
the story of Don Quixote. My wife and I saw an adaptation of it this past
summer. Don Quixote is a sad awkward brave foolish knight. In one episode he
comes to a village inn where he meets a pathetic woman, the inns serving
maid andwhore. There can be little doubt about that. Everyone in the village

treats her coarsely and meanly. When people look at her with scorn she reads
prostitute in their eyes. Then into the inn comes Don Quixote and when he
sets his eyes upon her he doesnt see a harlot, he sees a beautiful sensitive
woman. He surveys a noble lady. He kneels before her and devotes himself to
her service and to honouring her name. He treats her as if she were royalty.
And most important, when he looks at her she does not see in his eyes lust and
ribaldry but respect for an important lady. His treatment of her exalts her, and
she starts behaving with some self-respect, modesty and dignity.
In John Rendle-Shorts book Green Eye of the Storm he writes about his father
Arthur, a notable Christian surgeon from Bristol, and the result of reading about
him is that one finds a warm affection growing for this man who died in the
middle of the century. On one occasion a specialist had taken a woman off the
streets to see his father for a consultation. He was recalling the incident to John
shortly after the death of his father telling him what a remarkable man Arthur
was. This specialist described the woman to John as an old hag, filthy, smelly
and disgusting. And yet, he ended as he turned away, Short treated her like a
princess.' (p.140) Now that is the way Paul had been treated by God, like a son
of God, a joint heir with Christ. He considered Paul trustworthy. When the Lord
looked at Paul the apostle never read the words blasphemer, persecutor,
violent man, in his eyes, but the words son, ambassador, fellow-worker,
beloved child.
ii] He appointed me to his service. It was very personal calling. Christ Jesus the
Lord appointed Paul to serve him. He writes about this in an earlier letter to the
Corinthians, For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for
necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel (I
Cor. 9:16). If it were not for the fact that his ministry was by divine appointment
there is no way Paul could have done it, year after year. He was called to an
impossible task. It was not like trading or politics or teaching at a university at
all of those Paul could have excelled. Paul was called to represent the Lord
before men. If anyone speaks, Peter says, he should do it as one speaking
the very words of God (I Pet. 4:11). Paul himself can say, We are therefore
Christs ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us (2
Cor.5:20). As though God were beseeching you! What an awesome
responsibility. Who would dare take on this work unless they had some sense of
assurance that the Lord had appointed them to this work. Let everyone else
stay out of the pulpit. Even the apostle, confident of his calling spoke in
weakness and in fear and in much trembling (I Cor. 2:3).
The great Methodist preacher, William Bramwell, once confided, I die a death
every time I preach: I wonder I have lived as long as I have. He had great gifts
as a minister and preached the word with power. There was a great American
Puritan preacher called Thomas Shepherd who acknowledged that every
sermon he preached cost him sweat and tears. No man takes such a work upon
himself. He must be appointed by God. No man should preach unless he can
possibly dodge it. No man should go into the Christian ministry if can avoid
doing it. It is not a career one takes up like one goes into the army or into
banking. All the biblical preachers were men like Paul conscious that they had
been appointed to the ministry, and sent by God. They may have been initially
appointed to other work; Amos was a herdsman, Peter was a master-fisherman,
Matthew was in a tax-office and then this divine compulsion came upon them

God is appointing me to the ministry and it never went away. Peter speaks
on behalf of all the apostles when he declared, we cannot help speaking about
what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:20). The apostolic preacher is under a
divine compulsion to preach the gospel. There are occasional preachers who
have kept buildings from closing down and done valiantly for God, but there is
also this full-time calling of men expressly appointed by God who say with Paul,
I am simply discharging the trust committed to me (I Cor.9:17).
This appointment gives a man a divine energy of the soul. He cultivates this in
his study, in all the conversations and contacts he has each day in visiting, in
letters and phone-calls. Everyone knows that the ministry is not a sideline in his
life nor is it one interest among many. This is his divine appointment. It has
priority over everything else. He dare not become preoccupied with any other
matters. If God has appointed a man to this office then let him go for it. Let him
say, This one thing I do. Pray for him. Call down Gods blessing upon the
preaching week after week, and on himself as he fulfils this divine
appointment.
A short time ago a man was invited to become the minister in a Church of
Scotland, and so before accepting the call he requested meeting with all the
elders to explain to them his vision of the work of the ministry. He talked to
them about the Word of God, that it was the sword of the Spirit, that by it the
joyful news of salvation was heard and through it Christians were sanctified. I
shall give myself to studying the Word, he told them, that I might bring it to
you full and fresh every week. And I want you to pray for me and for the Bible
that it affect every area of the churchs life, and ask that the Holy Spirit will
come down upon the Word and bring life and salvation to this church. Now, he
asked, are there any questions? These elders looked down and shuffled their
feet. There was a long silence, and finally one man raised his hand. Yes? the
minister said to him. Do you play indoor bowls? the man asked. The minister
thought, What has happened to the Church of Scotland? I can only plead with
the pew that they never lose sight of the gift of a man appointed by God to the
ministry.
iii] The Lord Christ gave Paul strength. He considered him trustworthy, and
appointed him to the ministry, and he gave him strength. It would have all
been useless without that divine energy. The Lord was so committed to Paul
that he gave him everything that he needed for his entire life and ministry. He
so regulated Pauls life that every single need that incurred from serving God
was met by the Lord himself. And so it was when Paul began as a Christian he
discovered new resources and energy. He found when he waited upon him he
renewed his strength. He mounted up with wings as an eagle. He ran and didnt
grow weary and he walked and did not faint. Paul found he could cast many a
burden upon him and the Lord took them all up. He never failed him. He
delivered Paul from the Jews, the false prophets within the church, from Caesar,
from lions, from shipwrecks and thorns in the flesh.
All Paul needed to hallow Gods name, and build Christs church and maintain
the congregation as the fellowship of the Spirit God gave to him. Wherever he
took Paul he provided for him, and everything the apostle needed to become
more Christ-like God gave him. He empowered him with patience, and love,
and trust, and forgiveness, and contentment, and self-control, and purity, and

vitality, and joy, and wisdom, and inspiration. Paul could never say, My
resources were inadequate. He provided Paul with fathers, mothers, sisters
and brothers, friends, houses, means of transport, sufficient health and food for
every day. He energised Paul so that his heart did not break, his mind did not
snap, nor his spirit sag in despair. He kept Paul sane, and strong enough for all
God wanted him to do. Whenever there was a time of need Christs power
supplied Pauls need. Just then. Not before, and not when it was no longer
needed. In times of stress, and bereavement, and pain, and rejection, betrayal,
loneliness and pressure at all those times strength from the Lord was given.
When the churches seemed to be collapsing, and all those in Asia turned away
from Paul, when one year in prison was followed by another, and preachers of
another gospel were busy everywhere then strength was given to Paul. When
he was tempted by lust and tempted to depression, and tempted to worry, and
tempted to become bitter, and tempted simply to faint then again strength was
given to him from the Lord. When his flesh had no rest, and there were
fightings without and fears within, and he despaired even of life, the Lord gave
him strength. When the good he would he did not, and the evil that he would
not that he did so that he cried, Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? then the Lord delivered him. There was never a time when the Lord did
not stand by him. When he asked the Lord, Keep me patient; keep me content;
keep me courageous; keep me unselfish; keep me dutiful; keep me mindful that
my chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever, then the Lord heard and
answered his requests. When trials came and surrounded him on every side
when he asked God there was a way of escape provided and he was able to
bear them. When Satan seemed to walk tall through the land and had
increasing access to the souls of men, when ungodly and unrighteous lifestyles
seemed tremendously attractive so that Paul quaked with fear he asked God for
strength and then again strength was given to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul never served Christ at his own expense or by his own energy. The Lord
supplied every necessary gift, all the equipment needed, and he did that
habitually day after day. This letter is one of the last Paul wrote. These are not
the experiences of the young convert but the man who has long served God in
many different contexts, and for every single day of this long and incredibly
influential life he found a divine empowerment. It was the most unbelievable
story. Paul was tapping the source of power that created the universe. He saw
communities transformed and the most hideous lives healed and elevated, and
he saw this thousands of times amongst the Jews and Greeks.
I wish we could tell the world this truth, how wonderful it is to be loved by God,
how marvellously he blesses, what great moments and days we have known
over and over again. He has supplied strength for our lives in the most
indescribably grand ways. He did this for this former blasphemer and
persecutor and violent man. It was amazing to Paul that one he had treated so
ill should treat him in such an extraordinary way.
3. AMAZING BECAUSE OF THE BLESSINGS PAUL RECEIVED v. 14
The grace of our God was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith
and love that are in Christ Jesus. I was once a terrible man, but I received
abundant grace. At the moment of his conversion God did so much for him.
Before he had spoken a word for God, before any of the sufferings, or any of

the mighty letters had been written, at that moment when he bowed before
Christ as Lord so much was conferred upon him. God freely pardoned all Pauls
sins. Paul became whiter than the snow. All his sins were taken from him as far
as the east is from the west. They were all plunged into the depths of the
deepest sea where the water pressure is so immense nothing at all can live and
where there is impenetrable darkness. He sets Pauls sins there where they can
never be discovered again, and he puts up the notice, Forbidden to Fish in
These Waters. He clothed him in the righteousness of Christ. He adopted him
into his family and made him his son and a joint heir with Christ. He was given
the right to talk to God as Father and to bring his problems to him and be
taught by him and kept by him. He united him to the Lord Jesus, like a branch is
joined to the vine, so that the life of Christs joy and peace and patience was
his. God terminated the reign of sin over him and gave him a new loving
Master, even the Lord Jesus. He gave to Paul the knowledge and additional
assurance that these things were indeed true so that he was persuaded that
God would keep that which he had committed unto him against that day. There
was that sense of assurance which he enjoyed every day, and then there were
even better days, when he knew joy unspeakable and fullness of glory, when
there was a melody on his lips of praise to God. There were days when God
restored his soul, and Paul walked high and saw the promised land with the
clearest vision.
These are not mercy drops like the last drip of the water-bottle falling on the
parched lips of a lost man in a desert. This is a waterfall of grace that threatens
to sweep us away, flowing like a mighty ocean in its fulness over me. The
banks are bursting and the fields are flooded and there is irrigation and growth
and fruitfulness. That is what Paul is talking about when he says, The grace of
our Lord was poured out on me abundantly. He could not confine it or contain
it. It was immeasurably vast and free. It is the grace of our Lord. It is the grace
of Jesus, the one who spoke and the winds and waves obeyed him. It is the
grace of the one who raised Lazarus from the grave. It is the grace of enfleshed
omnipotence now enthroned at the right hand of God and yet touched by the
feeling of our infirmities. His grace is poured out on us. Then what have we to
fear? It is inexhaustible.
Think of a little mouse standing on top of a mountain holding its breath until it
is almost bursting. What are you doing that for little mouse? I am afraid that
my breathing will use up all the oxygen in the atmosphere. Breathe on little
mouse there is a super-abundance of air for your lungs and a million million
million like you. Think of a fish in the Atlantic holding its gills tight shut and
turning purple with the effort. What are you doing little fish? I am holding
my gills shut lest I use up all the oxygen in the Atlantic. Open them wide little
fish. There is plenty of you and billions upon billions like you I this mighty
ocean.
So too with the grace of our Lord, it is enough for a company of people more
than any man can number like the sands on the sea-shore. It is enough to
make and sustain a new heavens and a new earth. God will never put you in
any circumstance where his grace cannot keep you. It is an insult to God to
refuse any office in the church because of feelings of your own limitations. Our
sufficiency is of God. The measuring rod for our ability is not our intelligence,
our environment, our studies, our hard work, our qualifications, our experiences

or our gifts. The bench-mark for our service is the grace of God poured out on
us abundantly.
John Bunyan read these words and the words of the next verse and he put
them together and he made them the title of his autobiography, Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. What is the explanation of this man,
demobbed from the army in his early twenties and becoming a saucepan
repairer, knocking on doors, going from house to house and asking if they had
any kettles to fix. He was the first in the lineage of Bunyans to have become
literate, and yet he goes on to write one of the most helpful books that has
been written, Pilgrims Progress, and scores of other books which are still in
print three hundred years later. The grace of our Lord was poured out on him
abundantly. So it is with you too. The same grace from the same Lord is on you,
and it is abundant grace.
And with it there is the faith that trusts God during the worst times, that
enables us to sing when the trial has been unjust, the flogging excruciatingly
painful, the dungeon stinking and black as night, and the stocks an additional
agony. Even those times we find our faith in Christ Jesus alive and focused. He
has never let us down, we say. He told us that through many tribulations we
must enter the kingdom of heaven and so it has proved to be. But he said that
he would work all these things for our good, and we trust him now. That is the
voice of faith that is in Christ Jesus which is always a mark of abundant grace.
There is love too that enables to go on in the Christian life forgiving, bearing
burdens, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things and never
failing. It is a love that stops us holding grudges, and overcomes resentments,
and enables us not to retaliate, but to turn the other cheek. It is a love that
enables us to experience the most warm affection for one another so that we
would lay down our lives for one another. That love which is joined to Christ
Jesus and given to us is the inseparable companion of the abundant grace of
our Lord. This is the equipment which God provides for every single one of his
people, and it is so amazing that we scarcely can believe that these are our
privileges. Yet this is the Christian life.
It is for all this grace that Paul responds by crying, I thank Christ Jesus our
Lord. He says it with a catch of the breath, a stab of joy, a beat of the heart
and a lifting of the soul in worship. At times it made him weep, that the brave
Son of God had so triumphed over this mean and evil man. Then he humbly
thanked God whispering Im so grateful, so very grateful. All heaven rejoices
with him, the angels breaking loose, the stars leaping in their courses singing
together and all the sons of God shouting for joy.
Things are not as they seem. Men without God are living in a fantasy world and
the real world is this one in which Jesus Christ rose from the dead and lives,
and we by his grace live with him and he in us.
September 26 1999 GEOFF THOMAS