Saved by Jesus Christ

Well, let me, invite you guys to turn in your Bibles to First Timothy chapter one. 1 Timothy Chapter one for our time of study in the word this morning. We're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy and as we continue in our study of this book, we, we come to verse 15 and my goal is to cover verses 15 through 17. Mike Barry did an awesome job last week in preaching through verses 12 to 14.

I had the opportunity to listen to the message. yesterday and was very blessed by how he handled this, this text. Mike told me this week that the real struggle for him in preaching through 12 to 14 was stopping there rather than going all the way through verse 17 because it's all one unit there in the text. And sure enough, as I studied verses 15 to 17, I found it very hard to start in verse 15 and to not go back to verse 12 and do 12 to 15 because it is all one unit.

In fact, because I am not as strong as Mike, I'm going to go back to verse 12 and give in to that temptation and And what we'll do is we'll look at 12 through 17, but we'll try to scoot through 12 to 14, but we're going to touch on those verses just to establish the basic paradigm for the whole of this, this unit of thought. And if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Saved by Christ Jesus, saved by Christ Jesus. and, and the gist of it is we're going to see Paul's response to the salvation that Christ accomplished in his life.

I was reading this week about the Battle of the Somme, a battle during World War II that took place in 1916.

Between the German forces and the Allied troops in northern France, it is known as one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the world. and Is there a problem? Yeah, what did I say? To?

All right, I'm sorry. World War I, correct that. But anyway, even in the British, the very first day of this battle, the British lost almost 20,000 soldiers just in a single day, and this battle lasted from July of 1916 all the way through the month of November, just a bloody battle, and after one particularly devastating day. many, many troops had been killed and injured, and there was a group of medics that were walking along behind German lines that were tending to the wounded German soldiers, and one of those medics was a man named Johann Jambor.

And as he tells the story, one of the wounded soldiers, they nicknamed the screamer because he was screaming the loudest and the most incessantly, screaming for help and very insistently doing so. And so Johann Jambor decided that he would tend to that screaming soldier, and when he got to the soldier, he found that his abdomen and his legs were covered. In blood and so he tended to that wounded soldier, and they performed some surgical procedures on him and ultimately ended up saving that soldier's life.

well, Johann Jambor, never forgot that particular soldier.

In fact, in the decades to follow, Johan would wake up during the night, having had nightmares about this particular soldier. And the fact that he had saved this soldier's life. The name of the soldier whose life was saved by Johann Jambor was Adolf Hitler, who went on to wreak unimaginable havoc across Europe and the world, costing the lives of millions and millions of people. And Johan Jamboor, who was simply doing his job, had to live with the fact that he had saved.

Adolf Hitler's life. When I read about that, I had this thought go through my mind. I wonder what Christ, my savior, thinks of having saved me. We know that Jesus has no regrets over those that he chooses to save.

Those are all determined in the eternal counsels of God. We know that Christ can be grieved by us. The Holy Spirit can be grieved by us who are God's people, and so I pondered, I want, wonder what Christ who has saved me, thinks. As he observes.

My life. What is Christ, my Savior's response as He looks upon the life that I lead from day to day? Is he pleased by what he sees? Is he pleased by the responses that I have to His saving work in my life?

Is he pleased as he witnesses the choices I make and how? I lead my life and how I seek to impact the world that I find myself in. Well, I don't really have to wonder what Jesus thought as he observed Paul, whose life he had saved. I have no doubt that the apostle Paul was very pleasing to Jesus, and all we need to do is read through the book of Acts and observe the way that Paul lived his life after Jesus had miraculously rescued.

saved him from the ravages, the guilt, and the condemnation of the sins that he had committed through his life up to that time. We read through the Book of Acts and all the epistles, and we can put Paul's life together after his conversion. But the text we're looking at today in 1 Timothy 1:12 to 17 provides just a very succinct and clear window into the heart and into the life of the apostle Paul, and what we find essentially are six responses of Paul to the saving work of Jesus Christ in his life.

6 things that we observe in the life of Paul post salvation.

That I know were very pleasing to Jesus, and I would commend these responses to you. These are the choices that we should make, the things that we should do in our lives after being saved by Jesus, and if we do so guaranteed, we will be pleasing to Him. by way of review, as we look back at verse 12 and following, the first thing we see Paul doing on the other side of Christ's saving work of him. is we see Paul thanking Christ Jesus for the privilege of serving him.

We find Paul serving Christ in ministry, and we find him thankful for the privilege of serving Christ in ministry. He says, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service or putting me into ministry. Paul is thankful. He's involved in ministry and thankful that Christ would empower him and choose to allow him to serve Jesus Christ.

Now the word thank up in verse 12 is an interesting word. It's actually the Greek word charis, the Greek word for grace. And if you're taking notes or you put notes in your Bible over the word thank in your translation, just put the word grace or charis. Because in the biblical perspective of thanksgiving, in fact, to give thanks in the New Testament, it's the Greek word euaristeo.

Which is the prefix you that means good. And then Charis, which is grace. Biblically, for a Christian to give thanks to God for something means that he looks at something God has given him, and he pronounces that good. And he pronounces it a grace.

In other words, this is, this is not only something that I do not deserve, but it's the opposite of what I do deserve. And so Paul is saying more than just I thank Christ for the ministry that he's given to me. What he's saying is this ministry that's been given to me is the opposite of what I deserve. It's a grace.

Now, it's, it's striking to me that Paul would consider his ministry a grace. When you consider what his ministry entailed. Paul's ministry that Christ had given him was not an easy one. It involved, according to 2 Corinthians 11, imprisonments.

Paul says, I've been beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 5 times I've received from the Jews 39 lashes. 3 times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned. 3 times I was shipwrecked.

A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. And apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.

Who would want a ministry like that? Paul says, I don't deserve this. I, I am, I am happy to suffer for this one who has saved me. I am happy to serve him, and I'll take whatever suffering goes along with this.

I will happily suffer for the one who has suffered and laid down his life for me. And if you don't understand Paul's desire, not only his gratitude for a ministry that involved this level of suffering, then that means you don't understand the scope of the salvation that has been given to you. But Paul looked at his ministry, the privilege of serving Jesus, and he's like, Lord, thank you. Not only thank you, but I don't deserve this.

And not only do I not deserve this, but this is the opposite of what I deserve. This is a grace. And so we can look at any ministry that Christ has given to us on the other side of salvation, whether it's parenting our children or teaching a Sunday school class, or evangelizing, sharing Christ with the lost. Any ministry, no matter how mundane that ministry is, we can look at that and be thankful and say it is a grace.

Lord, thank you for the privilege of serving you, my savior. There's a second response of the apostle Paul to To Christ, the second thing that we see Paul choosing to do on the other side of Christ, rescuing or saving of Him. And that is that we see Paul remembering his past sins which rendered him unworthy of salvation and service. We don't have a lot of time to linger here, but we do find Paul in this passage 30 years after he was saved.

Get this guy, 30 years after Paul was saved from his sins and has been walking in God's grace, Paul. Still vividly remembers and speaks about his past sins that rendered him unworthy of the grace of salvation and the grace of service. He says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into ministry even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy.

In other words, I elicited from God the pity that was necessary. God responded in mercy to me because he saw me acting in willful ignorance and in unbelief. Paul remembered and spoke about his past sins. You think that's biblical for Christians to do?

To remember the sins that we have committed. Throughout our lives. Well, it is biblical and it is healthy as long as we're only remembering them so as to enrich our appreciation of the mercy of God. Don't ever remember your past sins for the sake of remembering your past sins.

Remember your past sins in order to appreciate the grace that has been given to you in Jesus. In fact, in Deuteronomy chapter 9, we have The Lord speaking to the children of Israel right before they go into the Land of Promise. And he says to them, do not say when you get into the Land of Promise. He says, do not say it is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me to this land.

Verse 5, it is not for your righteousness that you are going to possess their land. Verse 6, know then that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord is giving you this good land. To possess. You see, he's just pounding this home when you get into the promised land, do not think it is because you are more righteous than any other nation.

Verse 7, remember, do not forget how you provoke the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day you left Egypt until you arrived at this place. What he's saying is when you come into the land, don't think you're coming into the land because you're righteous. In fact, when you come into the land, I want you to make sure that you remember and never forget your past sins. Now, why would God tell the children of Israel that?

So that they can mope around in the promised land, and someone offers them a big cluster of juicy grapes and says, here, enjoy this. And for the children of Israel to say, oh no, I'm not worthy. I can't eat that. You should have seen how I've sinned in my past.

Is that why God wants them to remember? No, he wants them to come into the land of promise and to fully enjoy it, but he wants them to remember their past sins so that they know as they enjoy the promised land that it is all an undeserved grace. From God It's an undeserved grace from God. Paul would tell all of us that listen, if you're going to walk with the Lord and be a Christian, you need to get very accustomed to taking things from God that you don't deserve, because you don't deserve any of what God gives to you in the gospel, even on your best day.

But your thinking should be, I don't deserve this, but God is giving it to me freely in Christ, so I will take it by the grace of God, I am what I am. And I will not let one ounce of God's grace prove vain in me. Well, there's a third response of Paul that we see just in his thinking process after Christ saved him, and that is he viewed and spoke of God's grace as greater than his sins. He viewed and he spoke of God's grace as greater than his sins.

Verse 14, and the grace of our Lord. He talks about his past sins, and he makes much of those sins. But then he says, and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. You see, it's, it's a good thing to make a big deal out of our sins, but we need to make sure that we make a bigger deal out of the grace of God, which is greater than Our sins.

Paul says, my sins were great, verse 13, but the grace of our Lord Jesus was not only there, but he says it was abundant and not only abundant, but it was more than abundant. Yes, my sins are mountainous and many, but God's grace is greater than all my sins. All of us in this room, we. We have the memories of sins that we have committed in our past, maybe even this past week or from years ago.

Perhaps those past sins assail your conscience and haunt you and And as you remember them, the devil uses those memories to bring a spirit of condemnation upon you. The apostle Paul would say, what, let those memories come in. Let yourself remember those sins. Let yourself see them as especially grave before a holy God, but immediately go to the cross and see that God's grace is greater.

More than abundantly greater than all of the sins that you have committed throughout your life. In fact, I think we can say, we see the Greek word for grace twice. We see it in verse 14, the grace of our Lord, but we also see it in the Greek text of verse 12 when he says, I thank or I grace Christ Jesus our Lord. The mark of a true believer is a mindfulness that his salvation is an ill-deserved grace from God, and that this grace is greater than the heap of his own.

Sin Well, there is a 4th response of the apostle Paul, a 4th thing we observe him doing in this text on the other side of his salvation, and that is we see him embracing and asserting without apology that his or his salvation in Christ. We see Paul very boldly embracing and asserting without apology his salvation in Christ. Verse 15, he says, it is a trustworthy statement. In other words, what I'm about to say is absolutely reliable.

You can believe every word of it, and it deserves full acceptance. And that word full either means universal, meaning everyone needs to believe this. But it could also mean those who believe it should accept it entirely in full. What I'm about to say, Paul says, is something that you need to open up your heart to and let in and receive this and make this your own and believe it and accept it and receive it and take possession of it in its absolute entirety.

When it comes to the gospel, Paul would say, don't just receive 70% of the gospel, and then fail to believe 30% of it. Let the full good news of the gospel come in and accept it as yours in its absolute entirety, as difficult as it may be to believe. I remember talking to a man that I had the privilege of actually leading to the Lord. a number of years ago, and 9 years later, I was asking this man how he was doing in his walk with the Lord, and I said, are you, are you walking with Jesus?

Are you walking in intimacy, enjoying intimacy with Jesus? And his response was this. He said, Oh, Milton, you have no idea the things I did before I was saved. And that was his answer.

And in saying that, what he was saying is, what, I think I'm saved. I'm on my way to heaven. My sins are forgiven, but I don't deserve to be able to get close to Jesus in light of the things that I've done in my past. That someone who believed a part of the gospel but wasn't letting all of it be fully accepted in his heart.

And Paul says it is a trustworthy statement deserving full, absolute, universal, complete acceptance, and here it is, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save. Sinners. Save sinners, we have heard this passage so many times that we're not startled by it. But we need to understand that in the Jewish mindset of the first century, all of them would have said, Yes, I am waiting for a Messiah.

Yes, we need a Messiah. Yes, we need a deliverer, and yes, we need to be saved from sins. But what they meant by that is we need someone to come and to save us from sinners. Do you understand the difference there?

We need someone to come and save us from those Roman sinners who are oppressing us. They did not view their own sins as serious enough that they needed to be delivered from their own. own sins. They were not the sinners that needed the deliverance.

They were the good people who needed to be delivered from the bad people. But Jesus says, no, I came into the world to save the sinners that you think you need to be delivered from. And for a person to truly experience salvation, he must see himself as a sinner, and he must see himself as a sinner who requires, that's unable to save himself to where Jesus, the Messiah would have to come out of heaven into this broken and fallen world in order to bring him salvation. Look at what Paul says as he continues because this is a personal testimonial.

He says it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost of all. Now normally when we see that statement, among whom I am foremost of all, we just take Paul to be saying I am the chief of sinners. I am the foremost sinner of all. And yes, he is saying that, but this isn't just a negative admission on the part of Paul.

What he's saying is Christ came to save sinners among whom I am the foremost of all. In other words, I am the chief of sinners who has been saved by Jesus. That's the message of this passage. That's what he's confessing.

He's doing more than saying I am the chief of sinners. What he's saying is I am the chief of saved sinners, the chief of sinners that have been saved by Jesus. And Paul is announcing this without apology. Paul would say, what, I have no qualms about admitting that I am the worst sinner probably that's ever lived.

The worst sinner that's ever been saved by Jesus. In fact, when Paul begins in verse 15 by saying it's a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance, that's coming from a guy who, if you read the book of Acts when Paul first got saved, people didn't believe him, right? And so no doubt Paul was used to saying, hey, no, what I'm, what I'm telling you is trustworthy and, and it should be accepted by you that yes, I'm the chief of sinners, but I have been saved by Jesus. He's used to speaking this way to people that were suspicious.

Of his testimony. Paul says without apology, I have been saved by Jesus. In fact, look at this guy before he was saved. In Acts 26:11, in 1 Timothy 1, he describes himself as a blasphemer.

The Book of Acts confirms that Paul was forcing professing Christians to blaspheme Jesus along with him. First Timothy 1, he says he's a persecutor. In Acts 8:3, we learned that Paul was ravaging the Jerusalem church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women. Paul is depicted here as a wild beast like a lion prowling the streets and going into homes and dragging off men and women.

In First Timothy 1, he describes himself as a violent aggressor. In Acts 9:1, we learned that Paul was breathing out threats of murder. Acts 22:4, he says, I persecuted this way to the death. Acts 26:11, he says, I was furiously enraged against believers.

Acts 9:21, the people of Damascus describe him as one who destroyed those who called on the name of Jesus Christ. Paul had good reason to say, I am the worst sinner. That has ever lived, and he would make that statement because of the kinds of sins that he committed before he was saved. And Paul never forgot these sins.

It made him amazed at the grace of God. But even though Paul is the worst sinner in his own mind that ever lived, Paul says it's a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost of all. Paul was not the person to slink around and say, I, I'm the worst sinner that ever lived and I barely deserve this salvation and I'll just be quiet about it, and not let everyone know about my past. No, Paul boasted in a sense about his past so as to point to the grace of God, which had been shown to him.

That leads us to the 6th or 5th response of Paul to the saving work of Christ in his life. And that is that Paul believed that Christ saved him in particular for a reason. He believed that Christ saved him in particular. For a reason No doubt Paul spent a lot of time thinking about this, like, why Jesus would you save me?

After all that I did, after all the sins that I have committed, why would you save me? And Paul in verse 16 says, I've figured this out. Verse 16, for this reason I found mercy. So that in me as the foremost sinner, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience.

Literally the whole of his patience, the whole scope of his patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Paul is saying, here, here's what I've come to understand that Christ saved me, the foremost sinner of all, in order to manifest something about himself, in order to demonstrate something about Christ himself. He saved me in order to shine the light on a particular attribute of himself, and that is his patience. And the word, the idea of patience speaks of the withholding of anger from the one to whom it is due and instead lavishing grace.

Christ saved me the worst of sinners. In order to highlight his gracious patience. Look what he says as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Paul would say, I could talk to any, any sinner.

I don't care how badly they've sinned and messed up. And I could say to them, I know that Christ can save you if you will believe in Him for eternal life, and I know this because I'm the worst sinner that's ever lived, and if He can save me, He can save you. In fact, Paul would say He saved me in order to send a message to you that He is able to save you no matter what sins you have committed. I would encourage you all to think this way.

Don't, don't read this passage and say, OK, I guess Paul's the worst sinner that ever lived, and I'm glad I now know who the worst sinner is that ever lived, and I now know why Christ saved him. No, your thinking needs to be That Paul is setting an example actually for the way I should view myself and God's grace in my life, that I need to, knowing myself better than I know anyone else's heart, I need to see myself as the worst sinner that's ever lived. And I need to realize that Christ saved me, the foremost sinner of all, in order to show forth His grace and his patience.

And he saved me to send a message to other people that if he can save me, the chief of sinners, then he could save them no matter what they have done.

In fact, this actually delivers me, it, it frees me up in my personal walk with the Lord to aggressively lay hold of gospel blessings that are mine in Christ. In fact, there are times where my conscience can be so beaten down by the guilt of my sins that, that I'll, I'll begin to feel utterly unworthy of God's grace to such a degree to where I'm beginning to doubt that the gospel really applies to me. And in those times I like to have an imaginary conversation with the Lord where I go into His presence and I say to God, I say, Lord, why would you choose to save one as sinful as I am?

And then I imagine God responding by saying, Milton, I chose to save you because you make my grace look really good.

And every time I imagine the Lord saying that to me, I always laugh and I respond to the Lord by saying, I get that. I get it. That makes perfect sense to me. And so therefore, if you saved me and brought me into these blessings in order to make your grace look good, well then, by enjoying what you have given to me in Christ as fully as I can, all of which I don't deserve, I will therefore magnify your grace.

And show forth the glory of your grace. And that was actually Paul's thinking process here. He says, this is the reason Jesus saved me and showed me his mercy. And that is so that he could demonstrate his gracious patience, and that he could send a message to those who have not yet believed that he can and will save them if they believe in Him.

And they are not beyond the reach of His grace because He's already saved the worst sinner that's ever lived. There's a 6th response of Paul, a final response that we observe in this text that is found in verse 17, and that is Paul longed to see Christ honored and glorified. Paul longed to see Jesus Christ and God the Father honored and glorified. He says now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen. And when we get into verse 17, it's like, oh, we have a doxology here, and we get all formal in the way we look at this. Paul is not being formal here. This is an explosion of passion from the heart of a saved man who's blown away by the amazing grace of God.

And one of his responses amongst the other that we have seen is, oh, I want this God who has saved me to be glorified and to be honored in this life, and also in the age to come. Look at verse 17, he says, now, having been saved, here's what I want more than anything. The king, to the King. And it raises the question, who is the king that Paul is speaking about?

Is it God the Father or is it Jesus Christ, the Son? You can make an argument either way. But what's interesting is that in verse 12, Paul refers to Jesus as Christ. In verse 15, he refers to Jesus as Christ.

The Greek word is Christos, which is the equivalent of the Hebrew word meshiach, or Messiah, which means anointed one. Anointed King, the anointed Savior King. So just by using the label Christ in verse 15 and verse 14 and verse 12, he's already referred to Jesus as the anointed King. So he could be speaking of Jesus here in verse 17, or he could be speaking of God the Father.

Either way, he's speaking of the God from whom his salvation has come. And he says, Here's my heart's desire to this King, eternal and immortal. Now why does Paul go from talking about the gospel and his own salvation to speaking of the king as eternal and immortal? Why is that precious to him?

The reason it's precious to him, guys, is because our salvation will last as long as our Savior last. OK? And if our Savior King lives forever, then our salvation will last that long. I've been reading to my kids over the last few weeks from 1st and 2 Samuel.

And we've seen how the Jews wanted a king, and so, Saul was anointed as king over Israel, and, and once he was anointed by Samuel, he was the king, to be, and then he eventually assumed that, that throne. And therefore, all of the family and the children he had and relatives and so forth, they all knew as long as Saul is alive, we will know life as we know it right now. But if Saul dies, Everything is going to change. In fact, as the story unfolds, when Saul did die, the entire house of Saul became extremely frightened and figured that David would do what all the other kings of that age did, and that is that when a new king came to power, if he was from a different family than the family of the king before him, he would slaughter every member of the former king's household.

And so the house of Saul became very fearful of this, but essentially in these societies, everyone knew that That life is the way we know it now, as long as our King is alive. And Paul is saying, I am the recipient of a great mercy and a great salvation that is mine today, and it's gonna be mine tomorrow, and I know it will be mine forever because my salvation will last as long as my Savior King endures and my King is eternal and immortal. Isn't that great? Isn't it great that we don't have this great salvation, but we're just, we see our Savior King aging day by day, and he's getting older and getting grayer, and it's like, man, hopefully he can hang on, and we know that our destinies are dependent upon this mortals Savior King, who eventually will age and die.

I'm just glad that our salvation is dependent upon this King who endures forever. He ever lives, the writer of Hebrews says, to save to the uttermost. He is described here as invisible, meaning that he is not visible to us. Walking this earth at this time.

He describes him as the only God. I love this. See, God could possibly be eternal, but not be able to hold on to our salvation eternally if there were other gods more powerful than he. Or maybe other lesser deities who were less powerful than him, but if they teamed up together, they could overturn something that he had accomplished.

So not only do we have a savior king, who is eternal, But he's the only God, and there is no other authority. There is no other power that could ever overturn his verdict on us, could ever undo the salvation that he has accomplished in us. There are no lesser deities. Can combine together and end up working together to undo what He has done in saving us.

Our Savior King is eternal. He is immortal. He is invisible, and he also happens to be the only deity. And Paul says to this swan, the honor.

And glory forever and ever, and in saying amen, he's like, so be it. This is what I want my life to be all about. Again, Paul is not just uttering a formal doxology. This is an explosion of passion from his gospel-laden heart as he is celebrating these gospel realities.

We find Paul doing the same thing in the book of Ephesians. We find him doing the same thing. In the book of Romans that when Paul starts immersing himself in gospel salvation truths, inevitably he explodes in a doxology of praise. And not only is he praising God in this moment, but he's revealing his heart.

I want God. I want my Savior King to be glorified forever and ever. Amen. Someone who truly has this heart is someone who gets up in the morning and their heart's desire is for their Savior King to be glorified today.

I want my Savior King to be glorified today by the choices I make, by the things I choose to look at. By the thoughts that I allow to go through my mind, by the things I choose to, to read, by the words that I choose to speak, by the deeds that I choose to do, by the things that I choose not to involve myself in, the words I choose not to speak, by all of the choices I make and the ministries that I engage in, my heart's desire is that my King would be honored and glorified in all things.

You might look at verse 17 and say, man, I'm not there. I'm more consumed with my own glory than I am, the glory of my Savior King.

So maybe this morning I need to just resolve that I'll be consumed with the glory of my Savior King. Well, you can do that and maybe you should, but I would actually encourage you to spend more time in the preceding verses and spend more time contemplating your past sin, the gravity of those sins, even your present sin and the gravity of those sins, and then start contemplating the, the fact that God's grace is far More abundant than even the massiveness of your sins, and that he came into the world to save sinners just like you.

If you spend time celebrating the grace of God and the salvation that He has given to you in Jesus, you will catch yourself speaking like Paul speaks in verse 17. You will find yourself, you will catch yourself wanting this savior King to be glorified in all things.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. We're going to be taking up an offering in just a moment, so. An opportunity will be given to you to give as the Lord leads you to give, to support the work of the gospel that we've been talking about this morning, both in this community and around the world. There's comment cards that are in your bulletins and we would encourage you to, Fill those out if you would like to do so, if you have prayer request.

Our comments, we would Let me encourage you to fill those out, put those comments down, and then you can put that comment card in the offering bag as it goes by this morning. If you've never known the grace of Jesus, if you've never had your sins forgiven, before you move an inch, I would encourage you to just in the quietness of your heart to call out to the Lord for salvation. He is willing and ready to save. In fact, he has you in this room.

Here in his sovereignty by divine appointment. He wants to be the Savior and Lord of all who believe in Him. And I would call upon you to put your trust in Him. For salvation.

For those of us that are believers, May we see our sin as it really is. May we never lose sight of the gravity of our sins. May we never be afraid to gaze upon and contemplate the heaviness of those sins, but may we always beat a path quickly to the cross and see the grace of God as infinitely greater than the whole heap of our sins. And may we be amazed at such grace.

And with thankful hearts may we see all of salvation and the opportunities for ministry as an undeserved grace from God, and may we daily seek to honor and glorify Him. Our Heavenly Father, You have been good to us. We ask that you would help us to honor and glorify you by our amazement at your grace. That we would not just say we're saved and then move on to focus on a million other things, but that we would As Paul did, remember this grace to contemplate this grace, to speak about this grace, Paul was always in his epistles talking about how little he deserved your grace, but how you gave it to him anyway and how thrilled he was and amazed he was by it.

And we do the same. And may we make the choices after our salvation that you would look upon. And be pleased with. As our Savior.

We also ask that you would accept the offering, not only of our lives, but even of the money that we give to you at this time and use what is given, Lord, to further the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ here and around the world. We pray these things and we give to you in Jesus' name.