Transcript

Jacob Koshy grew up in Singapore with one driving ambition: to be a success in life, and to gain all the money and possessions he could. That led him into the world of drugs and gambling, and eventually he became the lord of an international smuggling network.

In 1980, he was arrested and placed in a government drug rehabilitation prison in Singapore. He was frustrated beyond endurance.

All his goals, purposes, dreams, and ambitions were locked up with him in a tiny cell, and his heart was full of a cold emptiness.

He was a smoker, and cigarettes weren’t allowed in the center. So he smuggled in tobacco and rolled it in the pages of a Gideon Bible that were available in the prison.

One day he fell asleep while smoking. He awoke to find that the cigarette had burned out, and all that remained was a scrap of charred paper.

He unrolled it and read what was written from Acts 9: “Saul, Saul, Why persecutest thou me?” Jacob asked for another Bible and read the entire story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. He suddenly realized that if God could save someone like Saul, God could save him too. There in his cell he knelt and prayed, and trusted Christ as his personal Savior.

And He asked Christ to change him. After this, he began crying and couldn’t stop. Recollecting this, he said they were tears of a wasted life. He started sharing his story with the other prisoners, and some of them accepted Christ as well.

As soon as he was released from prison he became involved in a Bible church. He met a Christian woman, married, and is now a preacher and a missionary in the Far East where he passionately shares the gospel and his testimony, and tells people far and wide, “Who would have believed that I could find the truth by smoking the Word of God?”

It’s amazing how God works, having those Gideon Bibles in that prison, convicting by His Word, using just 1 verse. Stories of the power of the grace of God to save and transform a life are fascinating to all of us. And we see the same in the life of Paul. Paul’s conversion tells us that God is able to save and use anybody.

Paul is the pattern for salvation today under the dispensation of grace. Like Paul, any person who is saved today is saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ alone, all because of the longsuffering, mercy, and love of God.

1 Timothy 1:11,12: “According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, Who hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.”

The mention of “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” in v. 11 moves Paul to share his own personal testimony, to give a testimony to that saving gospel.

Paul’s knowledge of grace surpassed that of others because he once stood in the greatest need of it. He was uniquely qualified to proclaim the wonders of grace, not because he studied harder or spoke more eloquently, but because he had benefited so greatly from it.

And as such he was God’s perfect spokesman for the grace that God is revealing and offering to all within the dispensation of grace.

Paul is thankful, he says, to “Christ Jesus our Lord.” He directs his thanks there, because Christ Jesus our Lord is the source of grace, the grace that saves & enables us in ministry.

The proper response to God’s grace is gratitude. And Paul puts this in the sense in the original Greek that he is continually grateful, constantly thankful to Christ.

Paul was constantly grateful and could never get over the wonder that the Lord not only saved him but enabled him, counted him faithful, and put him into the ministry.

Through God’s enablement is how Paul ministered and lived his whole life after he got saved. Paul knew that to serve the Lord we need this. Throughout his epistles you see Paul referring to his and the believer’s need to rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,” Phil. 4:13 says. In Eph. 3:16 Paul prays for believers to “…be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.”

After we are saved by grace, then we are to live in grace. And it is the grace of God that infuses the strength of God to enable us to live the Christian life and to serve the Lord.

God’s grace goes way beyond just the saving act. In 2 Cor. 12:9 Christ said, “My grace is sufficient for you,” and His grace is sufficient for everything in the believer’s life.

An artist once submitted a painting of Niagara Falls to an exhibition but didn’t give it a title. So the gallery titled it: “More to Follow.” Niagara Falls has been spilling over billions of gallons of water per year for thousands of years.

And there’s always more to follow. That’s a good description for God’s grace too. There is always “More to Follow.” There is always grace to meet our every need and to constantly give us the strength and power to enable us to live for Him and His glory. It comes from the infinite and living God, and thus His grace is in infinite supply.

The grace of God amazed Paul in Christ enabling him, and that He counted him to be faithful or trustworthy. In v. 11, Paul had spoken of the gospel that had been committed to his trust. God had appointed him to keep a very sacred trust.

He is thankful that the Lord counted him trustworthy to reveal and deposit to him to receive that sacred trust of the gospel of the grace of God for today as the Apostle of the Gentiles, for Paul to safeguard it, make it known, and be faithful to it.

And he was faithful to the end to keep that gospel that had been committed to him, he was faithful to make it known to others with a burden for souls.

Paul was also thankful that the Lord put him “into the ministry.” The Lord saved Paul and put him to work in His service. He wants to do the same with us, and for us to follow Paul’s pattern in this also, that after we get saved, to allow God to use us.

Christ gave Paul his ministry. In Colossians 1:25,26, Paul speaks of his ministry to the Church, the Body of Christ, and says, “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints.”

Paul was put into the ministry as God’s one apostle to the one Church for today, the Body of Christ, for this dispensation of grace, and Christ revealed to him the mystery, the message of grace for today to minister according to and make known to all.

1 Timothy 1:13-14: “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”

To be enabled, to be entrusted, to be appointed to minister for Christ as an Apostle is one thing, to have that done to someone who used to be a blasphemer, persecutor and injurious is quite something else. This demonstrated God’s grace.

Paul doesn’t sugarcoat his past. He painted the canvas of his life realistically and truthfully for all to ponder. Paul always saw himself against the background of his Christ-hating, Christian-persecuting past. He knew it was an undeserved honor to be in the ministry.

In a small cemetery of a parish churchyard in Olney, England, stands a granite tombstone with this inscription:

“John Newton, clerk [or pastor], once an infidel and Libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith he had long labored to destroy.”

The writer of the hymn Amazing Grace, never forgot the sinful past he had been saved from by God’s grace, in once being an infidel and a slave trader and how he had once tried to destroy the faith other people had in the Lord.

He was keenly aware that it was only by God’s grace and mercy that he could be saved and used in the ministry and preach the faith. Paul never forgot his past either. The grace of God was vivid in his mind because of what he used to be.

Paul reveals here his incredible lack of qualifications to be called into and used of the Lord in the ministry, and that the only reason he was in the ministry, was by God’s grace.

Many use the excuse to not get involved in the Lord’s work by saying they’re not qualified to be in the ministry. Neither was Paul!

The only way any of us is used in the ministry is by the grace of God. As Henry Blackaby said, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called” for ministry.

Paul says he’d been “a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious.” He himself had blasphemed and vehemently denied the name of Christ, denying who He was as Messiah and God’s Son, rejecting His resurrection. His blasphemy was directly against Christ. Blasphemy is something done against God. Blaspheming Christ, is blaspheming God.

He was not only a blasphemer himself but wanted everybody else to blaspheme Christ. In Acts 26:11 Paul says he “compelled” people to blaspheme.

He compelled them through torture and beatings to deny that Christ had risen and that He was the Messiah and God’s Son.

Paul had been a brutal “persecutor.” Paul “haled” or literally drug people from their homes, bound men and women, arrested them for their faith in Christ, threw them in prison, had them tried and he gave his “voice” or his vote against them. He cast the vote that led to their execution and martyrdom because they refused to deny Christ.

His persecution was a relentless, aggressive pursuit to do harm to believers. The word “persecutor” speaks of “putting someone to flight and pursuing.” Out of their fear, people scattered, and out of his hatred and madness Paul pursued them.

Paul pursued and “persecuted them even unto strange cities” Acts 26:11 says. In all the places they ran to, Paul traveled to distant places to find them. This is why he was on the road to the distant city of Damascus.

Then speaking of the attitude he did it all with he says he was “injurious.” This speaks of Paul being a proud, violent aggressive person whose contempt caused him to mistreat and hurt others simply for the sake of the hurt with no thought for human kindness.

You see the word “injure” in it, and it speaks of one who cruelly injures others and finds pleasure in it.

As we ponder Paul’s past, it demonstrates the miracle of grace, the power of the Cross, that can turn a person around 180 degrees and transform a life.

For Paul it was helpful to remember the pit from which he was dug. It helped him keep perspective, and maintain humility and a heart of gratitude as he looked back. A great sinner has to be given great grace. Paul knew he’d been shown great grace.

Paul says here that he “obtained mercy, because he did it ignorantly in unbelief.” The basic causes of his behavior were “ignorance” and “unbelief.”

Paul thought he was doing what was right, thought he was doing God’s will. Paul wasn’t an apostate who knew exactly what he was doing and willfully did it anyway. He was no rejecter of full light. He ignorantly didn’t know the truth.

He was spiritually blind and ignorant, and didn’t know what he was doing. He was ignorant but still guilty. This didn’t excuse him from what he did.

But Paul’s testimony shows the extent to which a person can go, how far down the wrong road a person can go, in passionately following their own ignorant, wrong thinking in their unbelief.

Paul says he “obtained mercy” from God. He needed it. If God gave Him what he did deserve, He would have wiped him off the earth, and cast him into hell. It was mercy that Christ even spoke to him on the road to Damascus. “Saul, Saul” were words of mercy.

The truth is we all need God’s mercy. When it comes to mercy, God’s mercy is the greatest; His mercy defines what true mercy really is. God demonstrated it in the life of Paul.

Not only did Paul escape the punishment he deserved by God’s mercy, but he also received abundant kindness and the salvation of his soul which he did not deserve by God’s grace.

It took “exceedingly abundant” grace to save Paul. Paul’s exceedingly abundant sins were washed away by exceedingly abundant grace.

In people’s minds they think grace must have limits with God, but God’s grace has no limits. It is limitless. It is exceeding and it is abundant and it is available to all.

God saves us by His “exceeding abundant” grace. And by that grace we’re ready for heaven and have eternal life as a gift the moment we just believe and trust Christ as our Savior.

The grace that Paul was shown and that saved him, transformed his life. It changes everything. It resulted in faith and love in Christ Jesus. He once had been in “unbelief” regarding Christ, now he had “faith…in Christ Jesus.”

He once had been driven by hatred and was a blasphemer, persecutor and injurious, now he had “love…in Christ Jesus” in which he loved the Lord and was driven by selfless and sacrificial tender care in his ministry in showing Christ’s love to others.

As God’s grace transformed the life of Paul, so too it can and will change our lives also, as we allow that grace to touch our hearts and we yield our lives to Him.

1 Timothy 1:15-16: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”

Paul says that his statement in verse 15 is a “faithful saying,” meaning that it is a trustworthy statement, one that can be wholly relied upon as absolute truth. It was a faithful, trustworthy saying because it is the Word of God, which is faithful, trustworthy.

Paul says this faithful saying is worthy of all acceptance, it is one on which to stake your soul and your eternal destiny.

This is a statement of truth which should be believed with implicit trust, fully accepted by all, because it applies to all and tells what God has done for all.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Every word is chosen carefully. It’s a statement worthy of belief, a statement trustworthy beyond question.

Christ Jesus came into the world. It does not say He came into existence, that He came into being, that He was created. It speaks of His incarnation in taking on flesh as a man in coming to the world, but also of His preexistence and being eternal God.

He came into the world. He was somewhere else and He came into the world. God the Son, left heaven’s glory, and came into the world.

The “world” has to do with our sphere of existence, the Earth, but more than that. It speaks of not just the Earth as a geographical entity but the world of mankind, the world of humanity, the human race, spiritually blind, lost and condemned, hostile to God, engulfed in spiritual darkness, i.e., the world of sinners.

He came to this world of sinners on a specific errand: to deliver, to rescue, to redeem, to save sinners. He came to deliver sinners out of darkness into light, to rescue them from death into life, to save them from hell and give them a home in heaven.

Since Christ came into the world to save sinners, we see that the necessary qualification for getting saved by Christ is not to be a good person, or clean up our act, but to be a sinner. No problem. We all got that one down. Each of us meets that qualification.

“All have sinned…” Rom. 3:23 says. Saying He came to the world to save sinners tells us He came for everyone, that all might be saved, just by faith in Him.

The gospel tells man that he is a sinner, that we cannot save ourselves and we need to be rescued.

It tells us that the only way we can get to heaven is by grace through Christ who came to “save” by His perfect, substitutionary work on the cross for us and our sins.

The gospel tells us that man does nothing but the sinning, and that the Lord Jesus Christ does all the saving. All the glory for salvation goes to Christ alone. We just trust what He did for me personally, and I’m saved, I’m rescued from my sins and hell by grace.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and Paul was the great demonstration of this fact, because he, the “chief” of sinners, or the ring-leader, the one leading the world in rebellion in its enmity against Christ, was saved from his sins.

The Son of God entered the world to save sinners, and Paul was the best example of a sinner needing salvation by grace. He was too big a sinner to ignore.

Paul says he obtained mercy for this cause: that in him first Christ might show forth all longsuffering. Paul’s salvation was a demonstration, living proof of Christ’s long-suffering and the “exceeding abundant” grace of God. It shows the power of God’s grace.

If the Lord was so patient and showed such longsuffering with a blaspheming, persecuting, Christ-hating lost sinner, and then by His grace saved the chief of sinners when he believed, then made that person an Apostle and had him write 13 books of His Word, then who can’t God save and use by His grace?

Paul’s conversion proves that this is indeed “a faithful [trustworthy] saying,” and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ does save sinners, because the chief of sinners was saved and is now in heaven with Christ. Paul’s salvation shows that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace, anyone can be saved, Christ saves anyone who believes in Him.

Many reject the gospel saying, “God can’t save me, I’m too far gone. I’ve done too many bad things.” That’s not true. It’s not possible.

If Christ could save Paul, the chief of sinners, then He can save anybody by His grace! Nobody is beyond His grace. Everyone is savable.

And Paul’s conversion was a “pattern” to them which hereafter in this dispensation of grace should believe on [Christ] “to life everlasting.”

“Pattern” speaks of a prototype, a model, a pattern you trace, a pattern to recreate something, a design to duplicate. In the printing trade, which I’m more familiar with here at Berean Bible Society, a pattern would speak of a proof.

We receive proofs to review before a print job goes to press. That proof signifies and is a sample of what will follow and be produced after.

In using the word “pattern” Paul isn’t referring, to the circumstances surrounding his conversion in being saved on the Damascus Road.

When we are saved, we don’t see a bright light, fall to the ground, and hear Christ speak to us from heaven when we are saved.

Paul’s pattern refers to how each conversion that has followed after his under grace has also been by Christ saving sinners by His “exceeding abundant” grace.

Every person who is saved under grace is saved by God’s “mercy,” it demonstrates Christ’s “longsuffering” with sinners, and we also just “believe on Him to life everlasting.”

And so our salvation and everyone who is saved in this dispensation of grace follows the example and pattern of Paul’s and demonstrates the same: That though none of us deserve it, yet when we trust Christ alone, out of Christ’s exceeding abundant grace, out of His rich mercy and His longsuffering we are saved and heaven-bound.

And like Paul also, God then wants to use us our lives for Him.

When the Lord saves transforms a life so dramatically by His grace, one can only respond with praise and thanksgiving. And as Paul thinks of God’s dealings with him, his response to that grace is to break out in worship.

Showing that Paul was a blasphemer no more, now in verse 17, He praised the God who saved him completely by His grace: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”