First Timothy lesson 6 cont.
1 Timothy · JD McCulley · Jun 2, 2024
1 Timothy, No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261935245187

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, let's jump into question number three. Are we ready? Alright, well, question number three. Do you agree with the following assessment of Paul by God? I think this is kind of interesting, right? Because here you've got Paul that has a history. You got a history? You got some stuff? Yeah. So did Paul. So do you agree with this assessment?

So, and I'm reading from Mike's notes here a little bit, but God saw that the fiery, zealous, intense Pharisee, we're talking about Paul, would be just as fiery, zealous, and intense in the proclamation of the gospel as he was in his persecution. We're talking about a complete 180 here.

When saving grace was operating in his being, God demonstrated his confidence in Paul by putting him into the ministry. The participle is aorist, it's classification is circumstantial. We could maybe ask Mike a little bit about that. God considered Paul trustworthy, having put him into the ministry. So, the question is, do you agree with that, first of all? I got a nod. You do agree. So here's my follow-up question.

Why would God consider Paul trustworthy? And why would he have confidence in Paul, given his history? Do we make decisions like that? It's a great point because it deals with, is Paul such a great guy and God saw that he would be a really good minister and that's why he chose him?

Or did God just choose him because he decided, I'm going to choose this man to do what I want him to do. It's the same thing as the election. Did God choose some because He knew that they would respond to the gospel and didn't choose others because He didn't think they would respond, or did He just choose, period, and made it so that He knew you would respond? That's some good color to the question I have for you, is did he just choose? Yeah. Did he choose based on Paul's potential, Mike's potential, Courtney's potential, Miles' potential, any one of us? Did he choose based on the potential that he saw in you, or did he just choose? What do you think? And I think, yeah. One clarifying statement I want to make real quick is we're talking about choose to place in ministry. We're not talking about salvation. We're talking about ministry. So did God just choose Mike for ministry?

Just chose you? Well, I think, I think what's right. Sorry. Go ahead, Cheryl. Well, he, He knew eternity past the potential. I mean, right? I feel like I missed something there. What did you say again, Cheryl? Cheryl, if you knew my eternity past, I wouldn't have been picked. There were no qualifications.

Oh, I know. I'm just, I said that wrong, but anyway. I have a thought. I don't know that it's right, but I want to talk to you about it. That word, diokoneia, it's service ministering. So it's not just, I'm putting you in service, or I'm putting you in ministry. I'm putting you in service ministering.

He had already been doing that. He was pretty zealous. Like we said, he was very intense. He was just intense about the wrong thing. So do you think that the Lord saw an intensity and a zealousness and said, you know what? We can turn this thing, we can flip this around, 180, and I'll set you loose?

I think he knows that. I think back of Job. And he knew Job, and he knew he would test him where his heart was. I think the same is with Paul. His zealousness, and he put him in that position. He uses all things. And I think that zealousness of his attack on the believers, I think God would use that as a very powerful statement when he came to know the Lord. that he knew that everybody, you know, when they said at the beginning, he was fearful of them because he'd obviously been throwing everybody in jail and hauling them off and, you know, stoning a Stephen, you know, cheering him on, holding the coats. But, I mean, think of the witness of that to somebody who came from that position to a believer, what a statement that is versus a generic guy, so to speak. I think that God uses him and put him in that position to be turned around to make him a very powerful witness to the early church.

I agree with that, Courtney. I was going to say, I think often God likes to take the greatest failures and use them to be the ministers because it's because it's so much more clear to those people that they cannot depend on their own strength because they've seen what they can do in their own strength and it's pretty awful, right? I think Paul had that pretty clearly branded in his heart that, you know, in and of myself, I'm quite a mess. And you notice in 112 there that the Lord who has strengthened me.

And that's just, Paul depended on that. so much because he knew it in his own strength what he had done before, you know. But I think it's interesting too, the Lord had to take Paul offline, so to speak, for quite a while. He spent, you know, three years in the desert and then he spent, was it like, I don't know, 15 years back in Tarsus before Barnabas went and got him? Like it was a long time. And I think the Lord just kind of had to let him sit and kind of cool his jets before he was ready to be used as a servant maybe.

Well, and when you think about servant, or you think about placing him into ministry, what does that even mean, placing into ministry? When we think of ministry today, you look for a name on the door, Pastor Mike Doyle, right? I mean, if you don't have the name on the door, and you didn't quite get through seminary, or maybe you did a little bit of time, what qualifies that role the way that we think of it in today's North American concept of ministry? I think we look at contemporary ministry as, did a guy go to seminary? Does he have the right education? Does he have enough letters after his name? Can he speak pretty well? How do you determine what the heart of the servant is?

I want to make a funny joke real quick. I want Courtney to pronounce all Greek words moving forward. That will qualify you. Not a chance. You know I'm poking, I'm poking. Go ahead, Mike. I'm sorry. I mean, I try. I try to pronounce them, but I don't even know what this is. It's where we get the word taken from. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. It is. How have you been prepared?

I've got a cousin, second cousin, who just completed the entire educational process to become a leader in the Methodist Church. But it was a huge celebration. We're celebrating Addie for graduating from homeschool today. But when it comes to ministry, we're very much celebratory around the accomplishment of your education.

Is that what God was doing with Paul here? I have to say no. He didn't choose him based on that premise. Did he place him? Yeah. Yeah. I think going back to the failures too, I think, you know, he uses the, again, he put Paul in such an aggressive position. Again, that's such a powerful statement to see him now converted. I think, I think also Peter. What happened to Peter? Before he did anything, he denied the Lord three times. And then what happened? He completely changed after that and was a mighty voice for the early church.

And I think God uses people in a very special way. I mean, I go back to Job. Job was a wealthy man, just a guy. And he said, go and sift him. So an ordinary guy, he turned into an amazing witness for God. And I think God uses all of these things to make clear distinctions, I think, and use mighty changes. I don't know how to say it. It's kind of like, by seeing what Paul is, For me as a sinner, I can see that and how much it changed Paul from a complete person who is tearing apart the church to somebody who is so moved that he changed completely to be the greatest minister to the early church and to the church now by his epistles. And I think, you know, he works amazingly in people. And he uses great changes to exemplify what God can do in people.

And, you know, it's just, I don't know. And when you put him in service, answering the putting him in service, I think, you know, for an elder, you know, putting in service is, we have the qualifications for it. you know, those qualifications for elders and deacons. So, I mean, there is kind of, how do you get into service? It's not the PhD behind your name or, you know, where you went to school or anything like that. The qualifications for service within the church are fairly clearly outlined.

I want to go to the, I love what you're saying because It's not wrong to educate yourself. It's not wrong to go to seminary. It's not wrong to get a theological degree. It's just that that's not what God is after in the utmost, right? What is he looking for? And I think the word trustworthy, God found him trustworthy of these things. It wasn't that, yes, Paul had an education. I mean, he had to understand what he had to communicate in the epistles. So by all means, the Lord had work to do there, but he found Paul trustworthy.

So if you compare what we're saying here with Titus 1, where he gives the qualifications for He says that you know one I think it's five six Namely if any man is above is above reproach the husband of one wife having children who believe Not accused of disposition dispensation dispense can't say that word dissipation or rebelling rebellion when the overseer must be above the approaches God steward not self-willed not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving, what is good, sensible, on and on it goes. There's no natural man from Adam that qualifies there, not a single one. So I think that God picks his servants and he trains them and gets them ready, changes their hearts so that they are men like this, women like that.

So if I put this on my LinkedIn profile, I'll get hired for sure. Oh sure you will. Yeah. Yeah. These are my qualifications. I get to be the janitor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, question four kind of goes into this. Let's read verse 13. So 1 Timothy 1, verse 13.

Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, the opposite of what you just read, for sure, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. So the question is, does God need one to have a righteous resume? And when I think about that, I say, show me your best LinkedIn. If you have a really great set of qualifications, does God place you in the ministry?

Well, look at Acts 8 or 9. The apostles were to pick seven men, and the qualifications are given to serve a table and different things. And one of those guys is Stephen. I mean, it sounds like this guy was stellar. And my question is, how'd he get to be stellar? He eventually finds his way in front of the Sanhedrin, and he rants on them strong enough that they have stoned him to death.

Their instructions to the apostles, the apostles' instructions to the congregation was, you pick seven men, and then he gives the qualifications. So that says to me that what God does, if the spirit of God is the controller in a body of believers, then he raises up who he wants and the rest of the body recognizes that and says, oh, there's one of those guys and we ought to make him a table waiter, you know, or whatever, you know, a servant of some kind. Because the primary thing that you learn first is how to be a servant. And that's a hard lesson to learn. I mean, Paul was literally an enemy to the Lord Jesus. An enemy. I mean, you can see it in the book of Acts. So, isn't it just like the Lord to show kindness in an environment where it was never deserved?

And even more than deserve, we feel like we deserve a lot of things as Americans and Canadians. Yeah, there's things we deserve. We deserve to be protected. We deserve here. The Lord Jesus was showing Paul a kindness that had no relationship to deserving. It had no relationship to merit. And Paul had merit. He had done a lot. He had been through enough to know how to be a persecutor of the Christians and run at the toppest levels of the Jewish tribe, so to speak. He had qualifications. But they had nothing to do with what the Lord had in mind for him. The very first thing that Paul had to learn was what Ananias was going to tell him. I'll tell him what things he's going to have to suffer for my namesake.

So that's what goes on LinkedIn. Yeah, no, but that's how contradictory to the way that we think about everything else in our lives and our jobs and our careers and our placement in the workforce, so to speak. This is a radical shift in every way that we think about the rest of our life. Do you think, JD, do you think that every member of every body of believers are called to serve in some capacity?

Yes. Yeah, I do too. I think so too. I really do. And you're not going to feel qualified. Maybe you're not going to feel like, I should have... If you have this overwhelming, you know, motivation that I deserve to be doing these things that the Lord is doing, Yeah. It's not the way God works. And I'm not saying that, again, education, preparation, time spent in the Word, I'm not talking about that. But sheer privilege based on your own resume? No. That's just not how God works.

Well, and it's clear that God gifts every believer with a spiritual gift, and those gifts are service gifts. In some manner, the Spirit of God gives us to serve the body of Christ in some capacity. That may be more than one, but some capacity. Well, I guess I would ask that back to you, to the class. What capacity of ministry is the Lord, or service, and remember, He places into service ministering, so it's a combo word, maybe that is never seen by the rest of the body in some cases, like you're in a home, right? And you're talking to folks like Cheryl's been telling us about over the years and the Bible studies that she's been involved with, that capacity doesn't I mean, Cheryl's not leading our Bible studies at Holly Hills, but she is ministering exactly where she's been placed. So, when you ask the question, do each of us have a being placed into service ministering? The answer is yes, and that's personal to you. Sure.

Anybody that knows anything about where you are in a company you work for, the family that you're involved in, you're a servant to them. They're not subject to you. I know that the prevailing attitude is that all these plebs work for me, but that's not really the way it is. As a dad, you serve your family.

Well, I feel like I'm supposed to indoctrinate everybody. You know what? That's not what the Lord called me to do. It doesn't mean that we don't share the truth, but you're not indoctrinating people. You're not gathering folks up that agree with you. You're serving them. And that is so different. So question five, what does a blasphemer do? And just for the word, blaspheme, to speak reproachfully of, rail at. I mean, just rail. Reviled, famed. I mean, and that's what Paul was guilty of, but what does a blasphemer do?

You got any of those folks in your life? A couple. Oh, okay. Why do you look at me? I don't know if you looked at Courtney or at Don. Either way. I hope he was looking at the coffee cup. Right? Blame the coffee cup. Yeah, I think you find these blasphemers are people that Not only disagree with sound doctrine, but they're going to try to persuade you to disagree along with them. It's kind of like sinning. I always want somebody in there helping me sin. We'll do this together. I've never heard that before. That's interesting.

Yeah, I mean, was Paul guilty in every respect? every respect this guy was guilty. And we just saw Trump get accused of, I don't know how many accounts of whatever. Was he guilty? We don't know. But in this case, we know a hundred percent Paul was guilty and Paul even admitted the fact. I was a blasphemer.

I spoke vehemently against the Lord Jesus. And like Myles was saying, the Lord took him under his care and showed him what grace was. And mercy too, the flip side of the coin, right? It wasn't just grace, it was grace and mercy. And Paul had to learn that.

How long does it take to... So you're a blasphemer. You're Paul. How long does it take? Well, it took him a long time, but the question is really more around maybe yourself and also those that you are ministering to. How long does it take for grace and the flip side of that coin, mercy, getting what I don't deserve and not getting what I do deserve, How long does that take to settle in so that you can minister to others? I don't know if you ever will stop learning that lesson. I don't think so either. You know, I was also thinking about how big a statement that is.

Thinking about Paul, I think where Paul was before, he was the ultimate keeper of the law and thinking he was, you know, the hierarchy of the Jewish community. system to now say he was a blasphemer. Think of how hard that is to admit that. That's what I'm saying. When he said that, I thought, he just admitted he was a blasphemer to somebody who was going around thinking so much of the law and what he was doing was so right because of the law and what he thought and his interpretation of it. that he could go and kill, imprison, do everything, to then say, I was a blasphemer. That's a huge statement by him. When he said that, that's an incredible statement. It's like one of the high priests suddenly saying, I'm a blasphemer. That's an incredible statement he just made. It is.

For me, I don't use that word. We would say, I was a hater. I just hated. And I spoke against anything and everything that represented what the church was about and what God was doing in the book of Acts to establish the church. I hated it. I was a hater. He owned that. I'm sitting here thinking about what contemporarily would line up with Paul.

I think all these demonstrations that are going on right now against Israel, why are they so adamant about it? Most of them don't really know why they're doing what they're doing. We're talking about riots. Riots, sit-ins, demonstrations, and destruction, and a mindset that's really hateful.

Right. Paul answered it. Because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. That's what they're doing. I mean, it's funny when you listen to it. They don't even know what they're doing, why they're there. They don't know. They don't know. That's right. Ignorant.

So it shows that the basic family education in the home today is not based on Christian principles. And so it's okay for a 15-year-old to be a hater or a 20-year-old to be a hater. And to not even know why you hate it. There's that ignorance piece to it, right? Like, I don't even know. I'm just, I'm acting according to the same nature because that's what I know. Yeah. Um, that's how I feel. That's how I feel. That's right.

I'm kind of going back to what you were saying that Courtney, um, for him to admit that he was a blasphemer, like what, what had to change? Because, I mean, that's the point of these verses is, you know, Paul, he treats believers one way before his conversion, and he persecuted them. And now, how does he treat believers? Question six. Did Paul treat believers before his conversion with respect? I mean, you want to get chased down? Stoned? Persecuted? Killed?

We don't even know, I hope that none of us in this class know what that's like to do, but Paul did. Yeah, it's interesting that Paul is, before he meets Christ on the road to Damascus, he has been persuaded his whole life through family associations, Judaism, Gamaliel teaching him, and so he's under a law system.

And the law system is, the Word of God says the law is not for the righteous man, but for the unrighteous man. And so Paul is wrapped up in legalism, in which there isn't any grace. And I think what happens is that he began to, went from the day that he met the Lord on the road to Damascus, he began to observe and see there's this new thing called grace from God that showed that the obedience to the law was not what God was after. because it made him, it made Paul what he was, you know, really, really zealous. And, you know, with no sympathy for anybody who wasn't marching to the tune of the Mosaic Law, which actually at that time was kind of not consistent with what the Lord gave Moses on Sinai. But then he learns, wait a minute, there's another There's another mode of operation that God operates out of, and he calls it mercy and grace. He didn't know what that was before. Well, and he says, I obtained mercy. Yeah. Obtained. Didn't earn it, just got it. Yeah. And it shifted everything about him. Yeah.

Violent aggressor, too. to the man that we know him here in the epistles. So to answer question number six, and Mike, thank you for that comment. That was really, I think, helpful in the way I'm thinking about this. But this transition from violent aggressor to one that obtains mercy. Question 7, when Paul was shown mercy, did it include exemption from punishment for what he did? That's a good question. You know, just thinking about it is, and I have to think of verses of any punishment, but I think it did include exemption.

And it's just like the same for us. Once we believe our history is now in Christ, and are we paying for all the sins that we did before we were a believer? Contrary to what Mike has in his answers, I don't know, but I'm thinking if I was held accountable for everything I did before I was a believer, you know, I mean, there's, you know, civil things if I shot somebody or, you know, had a ticket or something, yes, I have to do that. But am I held accountable for my actions before I'm a believer? And I think, no, because once I'm a believer, all that is Adam and all in the punishment and the sins are paid for and taken care of. And now I'm in Christ. Yeah, in terms of his standing before God, none of that is on his account anymore.

And like Paul says, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. So the greater the sin, You may go to jail, but in the courtroom of heaven, where the Lord determines, yes, being granted mercy, it's His decision. It's His choice. He's the judge. I was going to say, we have some wonderful brothers in prison, you know. Yeah, we do. For real crimes, right? I mean, some of them are most wonderful brethren or inmates. And I think that that's what the Lord did with Paul. He did end up in prison quite a bit, but it was Should he have gone to prison before he became a believer? Yeah. He killed people. He was a violent aggressor. And he didn't get what he deserved. And then he got what he didn't deserve. And then he ended up in prison for it. Isn't that funny? I mean, it's funny, not funny, right? That's the way the Lord worked in Paul's life to show him what mercy really was. And he had to do that. He had to go through that in order to understand what the Lord's intent was.

You know, I think also it's, I think one of the most freeing things of the identification truths is the co-crucifixion. We did pay for all those. I mean, we didn't pay for it, but God condemned us in Adam, and the co-crucifixion was for past, present, future. That was all taken at the cross. And so there was a penalty, so to speak, in that the only thing that God could do with our flesh and our Adamic man was to condemn him. And so now we get mercy, we get grace. By now having a new life being baptized, placed into Christ, you know, after the crucifixion, we have new life in him. And so I think, yeah, we kind of paid the price because God position that looks at us as crucified.

The old man. Do you think Paul? Do you think he was giving Timothy and us as the readers of these verses, do you think he was trying to offer an excuse to us? Like, hey, I was ignorant. I didn't know what I was doing. No. No? Why? Well, the reason for the question, I found at least he's the one that said obtaining mercy does not cause, or does not, in this case, mean pardon, that implies merely exemption from punishment. And that struck me.

And then the next sentence, it says, no self-respecting man would value such a relationship with God. Yet that's the way we go at God. You know, I'm sorry, so don't punish me. The honest man before the Lord who gets converted will say, I'm guilty and I'm deserving. And if I'm in a position where I have to suffer the consequences of my actions, okay. And Paul says, with that in place, God found me. Sorry. God found me, put me in service to himself rather than punish me for the things I'd done up until that point.

So it's interesting because it's one thing, I mean, as a kid standing before your father knowing you're gonna be punished and you get let off, that's one thing. Another thing is, As a kid standing before your father, you find out in the process that your dad loves you. And that makes a difference.

That grace and mercy mean that the one who has the authority loves the one who doesn't. That means a lot to have that place before the Lord where sin abounded and yet grace abounded more. Well, let's close. We're at time. This has been a really great lesson. Let's close.

Father, how we thank you for the truths that we find here about Paul. He was a real man and he had a lot of problems. He was acting in unbelief and he was a violent aggressor towards you and those that belonged to you. Yet in your grace and in your mercy you exceeded his sin and he learned about it and he grew from it.

And we just thank you that in our own lives we grow in the exact same way. We grow as a result of your love as expressed in grace and mercy. And so I just pray that as we go into this week, that our motivation would be of grace, not pleasing you or attempting to do the things, but simply resting and knowing that you are active and you need to be held by us. And so I pray that we would behold you and that your conforming process is experienced in each of our lives as we trust you this week. And it's your name we pray. Amen.