I Timothy 1:12-17
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying “Every saint
has a past; every sinner has a future”.
It’s not in the Bible, but it’s a good summary of the passage we heard
from I Timothy this morning. I looked it
up and found out it’s a quote from a play by Oscar Wilde, who definitely had a
past. Then again, so did Paul when he
wrote, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a
persecutor, and a man of violence.” [I Timothy 1: 13] In fact, when Paul first came to faith, the
Christians in Damascus didn’t entirely trust his conversion. He had been headed there to smoke them out
and have them arrested and some of them thought it might be a trick.
This passage isn’t the only one where Paul recounts his
experience both before and after his conversion. Toward the beginning of his letter to the
Galatians he tells about how he spent years both learning faith and proving
himself faithful before he approached Peter and James back in Jerusalem about
starting the missionary work that people identify him with.
“You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism.
I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many
among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions
of my ancestors. But when God,
who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was
pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the
Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those
who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and
afterwards I returned to Damascus.
Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas
and stayed with him for fifteen days; but
I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. In what I am writing to you, before
God, I do not lie! Then I went
into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and
I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, ‘The one who
formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to
destroy.’ And they glorified God
because of me.” [Galatians 1:13-24]
We sing, “Just As I Am” and it is one of those hymns that
when you hear it at the right time and it sinks into your memory, you know it
tells the truth.
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid’st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come. I come.”
Do we really get that,
though? God can and does call everyone
as they are, not waiting for them to become someone else – although the call
itself can and does change a person. In
fact, the ugly stuff that we carry may be exactly what God needs us to use to
show that he can do wonders with anyone.
Remember Moses, out there in the desert, with God calling
him from the burning bush? The reason he
was out there was that he had killed an Egyptian soldier and became a
fugitive. And yet, he was exactly the
person God could use to speak to Pharaoh because he had grown up in the Pharaoh’s
palace, not as one of the enslaved and struggling Hebrews that God would make
him lead into freedom.
Matthew and Zacchaeus were both tax collectors working
for the Romans who would put Jesus to death.
Augustine, one of the greatest Christian theologians,
spent over a decade as a Manichaean – sort of the Scientologists of the fifth
century. His mother, Monica, whose
prayers and faith he credited with his ultimate conversion to Christianity, had
had a severe drinking problem as a teenager and had to quit cold turkey around
the age of thirteen.
C.S. Lewis, one of the most intelligent Christian writers
of the twentieth century, whose essays and novels for both adults and children
make the faith understandable on many levels, spent years as an agnostic, in
part as a reaction to the horrors that he had seen as a soldier in the trenches
in World War I. Six centuries earlier, Francis
of Assisi had gone through a similar struggle after being involved in some gory
battles. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded
the Jesuits, had also been a soldier but didn’t have the same regrets. He did, however, have a leg that was smashed
by a cannon ball and went into severe depression about being unable to continue
in his military career.
If you had met any of these people at an early point in
their lives, chances are that you would not have said, “Would you mind posing
for a picture so that we can get the stained-glass image right?” It’s possible that the most effective
evangelist of the next fifty years is somebody who is more interested in a
Sunday morning garage sale or in finding the next dose of heroin than in being
in church.
But if they are to hear about Jesus, and what he can do
to transform lives, the most convincing argument that will ever be made is the
one that you and I speak from our hearts when we tell them our own experience,
whether it’s as dramatic as the ones I’ve mentioned, or as simple as saying, “You
know what? I may not have messed up in
any spectacular way, but I have messed up in all the usual ones. If God can forgive me for the constant – and I
do mean constant – sins that are part of my life, then he can and will forgive
yours.” Whether you owe someone $1.00
fifty times or $50.00 one time, it’s all the same. Either way, Jesus is ready to pay the bill.
“The saying is sure and worthy of full
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” [I Timothy 1:15]
Every saint has a past
and every sinner has a future.
“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible,
the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” [I
Timothy 1:17]
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