The Centrality of the Gospel in the Local Church - Part 2

The central message of 1 Timothy in a nutshell, is Christ-centered godliness for the sake of the gospel. Personal godliness (Christ-infused godliness) is not only indispensable to perseverance in faithfulness, but absolutely essential to the proclamation of the gospel to the lost world. The true faith in the true gospel always leads to practical, visible change in believers’ lives in contrast to the fruit of false teaching.

Far too many believers have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door that they walk thorough to become a Christian. Consequently, they see the gospel as being only for unbelievers.

But the gospel is not just good news for sinners, it is likewise equally and eternally good news for sons of God. In fact it is such good news that believers need to go on announcing it, first to themselves then to unbelievers. Then they will discover that Christian joy, peace, purpose. growth and maturity is not stepping out from the gospel, but rather stepping out with, in, and by the gospel.

Paul commanded Timothy at the close of his first letter, in 1 Timothy 6:20, to “guard the deposit entrusted to you.” As we guard the gospel deposited to us as the people of God, keeping it central in our belief and behavior, we should also celebrate the gospel. The fact that the ministry of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim 1:11) was committed to Paul’s trust leads him to immediately burst out in praise to God, especially in view of his former hostility to Christ and His saints.

II. We Must Celebrate the Gospel - 1 Timothy 1:12-17

In verses 12-17, Paul erupted into his personal testimony, which leads to triumphant praise. In the midst of all this, he gives us one of the most concise, clear, and compelling descriptions of the gospel in all of Scripture. It's a powerful, pregnant sentence that encapsulates the gospel in just nine English words: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). Here we learn about the gospel, the grace of God, and the glory of God.

C.J. Mahaney stresses the importance of grasping the magnitude and comprehensiveness of the gospel as he declares: "The gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian - the gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in! Rightly approached, all the topics you'll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you 'within the walls' of the glorious gospel. Never be content with your current grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than a diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust."

1. The Gratitude for Grace that the Gospel Produces – 1 Timothy 1:12

“I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,” 

No sooner has Paul finished wrestling again with the essence of "the glorious gospel" than he literally explodes into a joyous celebration of his own personal relationship with Christ. Though many years had passed, Paul never got too far away from his conversion experience. And the message that comes through his story is the assurance that if Christ could indeed change him, He can change anyone else.

Turning away from the false teachers and their misuse of the law, Paul now writes about himself and the gospel which has been entrusted to him. He makes an extremely personal statement. He retells the story of his conversion and commissioning, sandwiching it between two expressions of praise. ‘I thank Christ Jesus,’ he begins (1:12), and ends: ‘Now to the King eternal . . . be honor and glory’ (1:17).

Paul’s whole life is permeated with thanksgiving, not only for his salvation but also for the privilege of having been made an apostle. In particular Paul mentions three related blessings:

a. For empoowering with inner strength - “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength” (12a). Take note of how he refers to the inner strength Christ has given him, even before he specifies the ministry for which he needed to be strengthened. The appointment would have been unthinkable without the equipment.

b. For considering him trustworthy – “I thank Christ . . . that he considered me trustworthy” (12b). This cannot mean that Christ trusted him because he considered him to be inherently trustworthy; his fitness or faithfulness was due rather to the inner strength he had been promised. Christ foreordered and foresaw that Paul would be faithful to the trust committed to him. Paul’s thanking God for this shows that the merit of his faithfulness was due solely to God’s empowering grace, not to his own natural strength.

C. For appointing him to serve Christ - “I thank Christ . . . [for] appointing me to his service” (12c). Paul is clearly referring to his commissioning as apostle to the Gentiles. He now gives further substance to his thanksgiving by reminding Timothy what he had been, how he received mercy, and why God had had mercy on him.

2. The Magnitude of the Gospel’s Power – 1 Timothy 1:13, 15-16

John Piper shares a message of the story of Paul’s conversion from a very special angle - namely, that this conversion was for you and me personally. That is, God’s design in converting Paul is to give you hope for yourself and for the people you want to see converted.

Look again at 1 Timothy 1:15b-16, where Paul says, “I am the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” In other words, God had you in view when he saved Paul. That is an awesome thought. But that is what it says. God saved Paul for your sake. So that you would see “overflowing grace” (1 Timothy 1:14) and divine “mercy” and “perfect patience” and take courage and hope for your own salvation and for the salvation of others.

a. We see the magnitude of the gospel’s power in the conversion of an utterly committed opponent of Christianity!

Luke really stresses this. In Acts 8:3 he says, “But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

Then in Acts 9:1–2 Luke says that Paul was not just threatening the Christians, he was “breathing threats.” It is as though persecution was the air he breathed. This was not a minor or peripheral thing in Paul’s life. It went right to the core of who he was as a Pharisee. Christianity with its message of salvation by faith apart from meritorious works would turn Paul’s religious achievement in a pile of rubbish (Philippians 3:7–8) and be the end of all his boasting.

So Paul was breathing threats and murder against Christians. He was even taking his persecution 150 miles north to Damascus and planning to bring Christians back to Jerusalem for punishment.

This is the kind of person that no one expects to be converted. His opposition is too deep and too articulate. So much of his life would be threatened if Christianity were true! And he has taken such a public stand that it would be utterly humiliating to change his mind and support what he had fought. It would be like the Muslim prince of Saudia Arabia getting converted and becoming a Christian missionary to Muslims all over the world.

Here’s one of the points Paul is making in sharing his testimony: “We should not be despairing for those who show no signs of being prepared for conversion.” God wants us to see in this conversion that the most unlikely people can be converted and are converted. God’s mercy and power are not limited to people who have been set up for Christianity by a good family or a church association or a clean moral track record. The chief of sinners was converted. And that means hope in evangelism and in your own faltering walk with the Lord.

b. We see that the conversion of Paul was sudden and unexpected! We read in Acts 9:3: “Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him.” The whole thing came out of the blue, as we say.

Pastor Kent Hughes said, “Paul, an untamable tiger, met the Lion of the tribe of Judah at the Damascus off-ramp!”

Sometimes people try to show that Paul was tormented a long time by a guilty conscience because he had stood by at Stephen’s stoning (Acts 7:58; 8:1). But that is not what Paul tells us about his own experience. When he tells his own story in Galatians 1:13–14, he simply says that he was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers and that he was advancing in Judaism beyond all his contemporaries. And when he tells his testimony in Acts 23, he says that he had lived in good conscience up to that day.

Paul never links his conversion to any preparatory work of God in his life at all. He did not see his conversion as the climax of a long process of God’s convicting him of sin or of frustrating him with his life or of scaring him with death or hell. All those things may have happened in an instant. But there was no long process. The conversion was sudden and utterly unexpected.

John Piper writes, “This means that we should not be despairing for those who show no signs of being prepared for conversion. It is a mistake to think that prayers for others are only effective if they have an immediate effect in some kind of openness or interest or spiritual sensitivity. Paul was not open and not interested and not spiritually sensitive. He was utterly closed and utterly convinced that Christianity was untrue and spiritually dead in trespasses and sins as he says in Ephesians 2:3.

“He was not “ripe for the picking” as we like to say. He was way beyond picking. He was hard and dry and shriveled up. What happened to Paul was sudden and utterly unexpected, and that means the same can happen for others. We should keep praying and keep speaking the truth in love.”

A man was asked "How did you get saved?" His answer was, "God did His part, and I did my part." "What was God's part, and what was your part?" He said, "God's part was the saving, and my part was the sinning. I ran from Him as fast as my sinful heart and rebellious legs could take me. He took out after me till He ran me down."

Paul’s conversion was a work of divine sovereign grace. Jesus totally took over on the Damascus road. He was not responding to anything Paul had done to win God’s grace. It was utterly sovereign - that means it was utterly free and unmerited and that it came with overwhelming authority and power. Whatever resistance Paul might have been able to put up against this sovereign grace gave way before the triumphant love of God.

If you believe on Jesus for eternal life, Paul’s conversion is for your sake. It is to make Christ’s immense “longsuffering” vivid for you. Paul’s pre-conversion life was a long, long trial to Jesus. “Why do you persecute me?” Jesus asked. “Your life of unbelief and rebellion is a persecution of me!” Paul had been set apart for God since before he was born. So all his life was one long abuse of God, and one long rejection and mockery of Jesus who loved him.

That is why Paul says his conversion is a brilliant demonstration of Jesus’s longsuffering. It was for our sake that Jesus did it the way he did it. To show “the whole of his longsuffering” to us. Lest we lose heart, or think he could not really save us. Lest we think he is prone to anger, or we have gone too far away. Lest we think our dearest one cannot be converted - suddenly, unexpectedly, by the sovereign, overflowing grace of Jesus, they can be captured and changed forever!

Focus once more on 1 Timothy 1:13, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy.” The great glory of the story of the apostle Paul is knowing what he had been before seeing what he became. The greatest enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ in the first century became His greatest servant, most trusted apostle, and a faithful friend. The same hand that wrote out indictments of heresy against the early church was the hand that wrote the letters upon which the early church was based and ultimately spread. The heart that rejoiced when Stephen was stoned to death became a heart that rejoiced at the privilege of suffering for Christ’s sake. The noble statements of theology in Romans, the sweet lyrics of Christian love in 1 Corinthians 13, and the desire to reach the regions beyond with the gospel all came from the former persecutor of Christ and His church.

c. We see an awesome short summary of the gospel! – 1 Tim. 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

Paul tells us that Christ Jesus came into the world. So much truth is packed into this one word "came." We learn that the gospel of God is incarnational and undeniable.

Christ Jesus, the Son of God, didn't first come into being in Bethlehem. He already existed as the Second Person of the Trinity, the preexistent, eternal Son of God who was there with the Father and the Spirit before the foundation of the world (John 1:1-3). He committed the ultimate act of condescending grace, coming into the world as a baby born in Bethlehem. The One who was with the Father in glory put on a robe of human flesh and came to us. This is the incarnation.

But why did Jesus come? Jesus Christ came to live the life we could not live, to die the death we deserved to die, and to rise in victory over the enemies we could not conquer – sin, Satan, and death. There is no greater wonder in all of history, and yet Paul tells us it's true. This is not like the myths and speculations of the false teachers (v. 4); this is "trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance" (1 Tim 1:15). This is reality. It's undeniable.

The gospel of God is also universal and personal. Now that we've established that Jesus came to save sinners, the next question is, Which sinners? Answer: All sinners who would embrace this gospel fully. And Paul said in verse 16 that he was at the top of the list of sinners. That's why we're saying the gospel is both universal and personal. It caused Paul to celebrate the grace of God, which he said "overflowed" for him (v. 14).

d. We see the worshipful response the gospel should bring - 1Tim. 1:17, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”  

Paul could not think of how bad he was, and how great the salvation of God was, and how great the love of God was, without simply breaking into spontaneous worship and praise. And if you and I will preach this gospel to ourselves daily, we too will be moved to worship the King all glorious above and gratefully sing his power and his love: our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

III. We Must Fight for the Gospel – 1 Timothy 1:18-20

Considering who God is and His gracious purposes and then celebrating the riches and resources of the gospel of God and our becoming special objects of his saving grace, should convince us that the gospel must not be allowed to be diluted or distorted. 

Paul gave Timothy one final exhortation in this first chapter and reminded him of it in the closing chapter – “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tim. 6:12). In 1Tim 1:18, we read, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,” Fight for the gospel. Timothy must "engage in battle" for the sake of the truth. To make his point Paul used Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom we know were among the false teachers at Ephesus and men who had wandered away from the gospel. Many commentators believe these men were elders in the church. This is a great reminder that no one is immune to the temptation to wander from the gospel. No elder, no deacon, no teacher, no small-group leader, and no member of the church is exempt from this warning. That's why Paul said we must fight for the gospel.

Pastor David Platt reveals that the fight for the gospel is carried out in at least two ways:

1. We fight for the gospel in our lives. We're in a war, brothers and sisters in Christ, in our lives, in our marriages, and in our families. Whether you're a teenager at school or a businessperson at work, a battle is raging all around you. Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms are active, and they are warring against your soul (Eph 6:12). The Devil and all the minions of hell will entice you with deceptions and incite you with divisions because they do not want the gospel to resound in and through your life, your marriage, your family, or any other area. This battle will look differently in each of our lives, but do not be caught off guard - you are in a war. So fight the good fight. Stand strong amid all the challenges that come from outside and inside the church. Keep "faith and a good conscience" (v. 19).

2. We fight for the gospel in our churches. Paul talked about Hymenaeus and Alexander being handed over to Satan in verse 20. This is almost certainly referring to excommunication from the church, which we read more about in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 and Matthew 18:15-20. These two men were cast out of the church to show that they were separated from Christ, with the hope and prayer that they would realize their error and return to Christ. Paul was essentially telling Timothy, "You and the church must take severe measures at certain times to fight for this gospel. Take them."

Whatever you do, hold on to the gospel. It is the only thing that unites the church, and it is the only thing that will sustain God's people in difficult days. Indeed, this is a gospel worth guarding and defending, and this is a gospel worth celebrating forever.