Guide: Truth + Relationship + Spirit Be a Guide 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Titus 2:1-8 Dr. Matt Cassidy --- January 28, 2018 When I was a freshman in high school, I was accidentally put into a senior debate class. Now I tried to get out of it, but they couldn t arrange the schedule. So, in other words, I was forced to be there the entire year. And I don t know if you know about the debate team people, but they re different than me, and they re different than freshmen. And they use big words and they talk real fast and I didn t know what to do in there. The most they would let me do is carry their notecards to these state tournaments, and only the cards that didn t have any notes on them. So, I was just carrying blank sheets of paper around. That was all I could be trusted with. And if that weren t bad enough, okay, to be in this class where I was way over my head because of the scheduling, it forced me to go to senior lunch as a freshman. Now this is true. There were 3,627 people in my high school. I was the single smallest male of all of them. That s a true story. I was the smallest person there. And so, for me to live in this cellblock with all of these people --- they were all big people --- and for me to go to lunch every day, I felt like I was a little puppy thrown into a cage full of hungry lions. It was a frightful thing and you could see that I was scared. It was obvious to everyone because I was crying all the time. But in that senior debate class there was a girl and her name was Cindy Cunningham. And she was a senior and she was one of the dance team officers and she was attractive and she was different. And on the second day of class she said, Hey, why don t you come over here and sit with me? And so, I did. And she said, I m going to give you a nickname. I m going to call you Kid because you re just like a little kid. Can I call you Kid? And I said, Uh-huh. And the first month of school there were a few times --- I m not sure how many --- there were seven times --- she asked me to come join her at her table at lunch with nothing but senior girls that apparently were like beauty pageant contestants. And I was a happy puppy at that table. Cindy Cunningham, before she graduated her senior year, she wanted to make sure that I d be in Guide.1.cassidy 1
a good place and so she insisted that her special little club --- she was in a social club --- and she put her hand around me on interview day and she said, This is Kid and I want him to be part of this group. Cindy walked me through my freshman year. Cindy Cunningham changed my life. And here s how she did it. That first week of school when everybody else is looking around trying to connect with old friends they haven t seen all summer, Cindy Cunningham was doing that. But she was also looking around for scared freshmen, and she found one. And she changed him. Did you know right now there are freshmen all around you and they re looking for someone to guide them through the next season of life? God has placed them before the beginning of time to be in your life and they re hoping and they re looking for some guide to help them live the Christian life right now, on your street, in your office, on the row of this church that you re attending. Don t look for the senior look for the freshman, and change a life. Here at Grace what do we say all the time? I m just a pastor, but you re the yeah, you re the ministers. You re the guides. You re the one that makes disciples. You re the one that is supposed to become like Christ in all of life, and while you do that you bring someone with you. Why? Because you were designed by God to do that. You were predestined to enjoy the good works of Jesus Christ that He arranged ahead of time. You were ordered by Jesus. All authority has been given on heaven and earth to me. Go and make disciples. Be a guide. And so those are some reasons why, so why not? Why don t people do this? Why aren t we all involved in searching out freshmen and guiding them? Here s why, I think. A lot of people have problems. They say, Do you know me? The only thing I m effective at is making mistakes. I m not good for very much. I m not qualified and I m inadequate. Some of you might kind of relate to this poster. Guide.1.cassidy 2
You probably believe you make mistakes. It could be that your purpose in life is only to serve as a warning to others. That s all I m good for. You want me to guide? Now if that s true, if you can relate to that, let me tell you, today, you should see the passage we re going to look at. Because Paul would say to you, Yeah, I understand what it s like to feel that way. Paul is an apostle and he s going to write two men that he guided, Timothy and Titus, and these are his two most intimate letters. He calls them son, he loves these men, and he wants them to know that they can be guides too. And in the context of this feeling of being sinful and vile and inadequate, Paul, the apostle, in one of the last books that he writes, he says this. He says, I am the worst of all sinners. I am the vilest of all people. And if you feel that too, you could actually be on the right path. But you might be stuck on that right path. The path, if you can envision this for our time together, the path is not like a sidewalk; it s like cobblestones. And you ve got to jump, and there s three of them. The problem with a lot of people, the reason why they re not involved in guiding and discipling and caring for other people, is they re stuck on this first one. And in the context of this letter that Paul s writing --he's writing his friends at the end of his career when he s most like Christ in all of life --- he says, I am the greatest of all sinners. And here s why he comes to that conclusion. Because if you become like Christ in all of life, the closer you become to His image, the greater you re going to feel the weight of your Guide.1.cassidy 3
sinfulness, the greater you ll feel the depth of your rebellion against God. It happens. Saints have the most tender consciences. So, Paul s saying, Yeah, maybe you re on the right path, but there are three steps to this path. The first one is I m the worst. The second step is I m the best. And the third step is Praise God. You ve got to do all three. Step One: I m the Worst The first one is I m the worst. Look at this passage. 1 Timothy 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. He says this in 1 Timothy 1:15: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Everybody knows this, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. First let s look at the verb tense: I am. Not I was --- I am. I am the foremost sinner. Other translations say I am the worst of all sinners. One says, I am first among sinners. Someone says, I am chief among sinners. And here s why. Because as you become more like Christ in all of life, you re going to feel the weight of your sin, the distance between where you are and where you need to go. We talked in previous weeks that to become a disciple, to become like Christ in all of life, you need three things. You need Truth and Relationship and Spirit. And two out of three of those things are bringing this. The Spirit of God is bringing this truth, that you are the worst of all sinners, that you re going to feel the weight as you become more like Christ, that you re going to feel like the worst of all sinners. Let me give you some examples of that. It s a common experience among those that are becoming like Christ. John Bunyan, the man who wrote Pilgrim s Progress --- besides the Bible, it s the bestselling spiritual Christian book ever written. When John Bunyan wrote his autobiography he Guide.1.cassidy 4
entitled it this: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. John Bunyan says, I know a lot of people and I know a lot of sinners; I m first. I m the chief of all sinners. And the reason John Bunyan came to this conclusion is simple. Because as he was becoming more like Christ in all of life, God s Spirit was revealing to him this truth, that the gap was father than he originally thought. And the weight of sin was heavier than he had imagined. What happens as you become more like Christ --- it s not so much what you do, it s who you are that you start realizing is the problem. The depth of this thing is not conduct, it s heart attitude. Let me give you another example of how this happens. St. Augustine --- your lawn is named after this man --- St. Augustine [AW-gus-teen] --- if you weren t in the south, you d call him St. Augustine [aw-gus-tin], a fourth-century theologian, he kind of poured the foundation for a lot of our theology. He wrote an autobiography. Guess what he called it? He called it Confessions. And in this autobiography, which was believed to be one of the best autobiographies written, he says this about growing up. He s a mature believer now, he s becoming like Christ in all of life. He reflects back on one of his earliest guilt glitches and pains when he and a couple of his buddies jumped the fence and went into someone else s apple orchard, climbed some trees, stole the apples. And now in retrospect --- he didn t think it was that big a deal, back in the day --- but now he s thinking back as he s become more like Christ, and he realizes it wasn t what he did that showed his evil; it was why he did it. And here s what he says: When I willed to commit the theft of the apples, I did so not because I was driven to it by any need. I stole a thing of which I had plenty of my own, and of much better quality. Oh, I ve got apples at home that are better and there are more of them. So why did he steal them? He says this: No. I did it because it was forbidden. I did it because I loved the sin itself. He realized that he, Augustine, was the worst of all sinners, not because of what he did but because of who he was. He realized that he couldn t care less about those apples until his mother said, Don t go in that orchard. And then his soul cried out in its vileness, No one tells me what I can and cannot do. I want what I want when I want it. I want to be God, I want to be sovereign of my life, let s go get some apples. You know what he did with the apples? He gave them to some pigs on the way home. It wasn t about the apples. It was about him saying, I ll do what I want. Guide.1.cassidy 5
It s not the actions. When you become more like Christ in all of life, you re going to be exposed because the Spirit of God is going to bring this truth to you that it s not what you do, it s who you are. It s not the actions, it s the soulless condition. And that s why, I think, that s one of the reasons Chesterton said, Christianity hasn t been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and therefore not tried. This is the dark part of the gospel, that you are worse than you ever imagined if you understand it, if you re listening to God s Spirit, He s going to be communicating this to you. You re the worst of all sinners. So, if you find yourself at the point of feeling the weight of all that, maybe that s a good thing. Maybe you re actually on the right path. You re on the first stone. You re joining --- it s a pretty crowded stone --- John Bunyan s there and St. Augustine s there and St. Paul is there, the apostle Paul is there. So, what s interesting about his journey here is that it doesn t end there; it begins there. Step Two: I m the Best And the next cobblestone is not that I m the worst, but that I m the best. Look what he does. I ll review in verse 15 and then we ll jump to verse 16. 1 Timothy 1:15-16 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. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. 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, the chief. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost of all sinners, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example, or a pattern, for those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. Guide.1.cassidy 6
Paul s saying, Look, I m the worst of all sinners so that I can be the best of all examples. And the word there is example or pattern or prototype. Paul is saying, I could be the prototype for everyone for people to look at my life, I m the worst. But he doesn t say that. He doesn t say pattern. He doesn t say prototype. He adds a prefix to that. The word is hypo- --- or actually we would say hyper- --- and so when the prefix hyper- is added to something, it changes. People have said this about me, that I m a very active person. Other people have said to me that I m a hyperactive person. A doctor has said that, several teachers have said that, two principals have said that and one policeman. All of them have said, You re not active, Matt --- you re hyperactive. That s a different word altogether when you add hyper- to that. So, Paul is saying, Oh, no, no, no --- I m not just an example, I m a hyper-example. I m the super-prototype. God saved me, the worst, to show the world that if I can do it, if I can be in, then anyone can. Paul s saying, Look, God took the ultimate sinner to become the ultimate saint. He took the greatest enemy to become the most faithful soldier. Paul s saying, Look, if you look at my life and have doubts about whether or not you could be a guide, you should understand that between my worst and my best, because of what Christ has done in my life, everyone else can fit in there somewhere. That s what he s saying: I m a hyper-, I m a great, I m the best example out there. That s what he s saying. That s the gospel truth right there, that you are a lot worse off --- this is Martin Luther --- you are a lot worse off than you could ever imagine until you pursue Christ more. He s going to expose this to you, but you re a lot better off than you could have ever hoped for. That s what he s saying here. Now how does this happen? How does a person come to the place of realization --- that s the Spirit of God and His truth --- that I am the worst of all sinners. I am the chief amongst the vile. And then I find myself on the next step saying, I m the best of all examples. What happened? 1 Timothy 1:14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guide.1.cassidy 7
Verse 14 happened. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Grace transforms --- there it is again. Grace transforms. It s only mercy that can change the soul, the essence of the soul. And so what Paul is saying here is that Grace was poured on me. Oh, wait, no, he does not say that grace was poured on him --- it says hyper-poured. That s why it says abundantly. They have to figure out a way how to make sense out of that. He puts the prefix hyper- on there again, drawing our attention to this idea that He hyper-poured, over-poured, grace. And also, in that, faith, and also, in that, love. That s how you become a hyper-example. You get hyper-poured upon. Other translations say, more than abundant --- I love this one. This was a scholar. This guy was a smart person and he said the word means superabundance. That s making up words. You get a certain degree of intelligence and say, I m going to make up a word --- superabundance. That s all he could say --- superabundance. That s what happened to Paul. And so, if you find yourself on this first cobblestone wringing your hands and wondering, Is there anything that I m excellent at outside of sinning itself? Is there anything that I can do besides break stuff? Then you have to jump to this next cobblestone. And how do you do that? It s this vision --- see it. It s this vision of over-pouring, excessively, abundantly pouring. I ve got some props over here. [Walks to a table with empty pitchers and glasses and proceeds to mimic pouring water to overflowing in the glasses throughout the next paragraph.] I don t do props. But I m doing props today. Because I want you to see how do you live with the guilt glitches in your life. When you re driving down and not thinking that you were the greatest sinner, but you are the greatest sinner. Let s picture, this, shall we? This is your soul. Look at all the sin that it can contain --- eat cake for breakfast --- that represents you, right? That can hold a lot. I m going to not put this up here. I m going to use this, because it exaggerates the point. This is all you can contain. This is all you can hold. And what does the passage say? That here we are in our vile, chief-of-all-sinners and God s Spirit says, I m going to put a little grace on there no, I don t want it to spill. Is that what the passage said? It doesn t, does it? It says superabundant overflow. And so, it s like this. Can you see it without I don t want to spill water up here so I it doesn t say just grace, does it? It says faith. Still overflowing. Do I need to be covered in water for you to picture this in your mind? Please, I don t want to do that, okay? Guide.1.cassidy 8
And then it says is that all you have? No, I ve got some love. Love, too. Superabundant overflow. You might be the worst sinner ever. There are three pitchers of superabundant overflow that get you to this next place where you are a hyper-example. How does Paul live with his guilt glitches? How does Paul live with the things, not that he s just done in his memory, but this fullness of understanding of who he is. Because as you become more like Christ in all of life, it gets deeper and darker; it s the nature of sainthood. How do you live with that? He reads the Bible, friends, and he believes it. He wrote the words and now he s re-reading them. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are now at peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He s envisioning this overflow of grace and love and faith. That s how it happens. So, if you believe and you find yourself feeling as though you are a wicked person, a horrible person, this idea that you are the worst of all sinners, and you hold your head down and you re sheepish about your faith and you say to yourself, What can I do or bring to this cause or this conversation? Then you don t know the gospel. That s not the gospel. You might be on the right path but you re on the wrong rock. You ve got to move to the next one to understand. You ve got to understand that, yes, you re the worst of all sinners, but you received hyper-grace and hyper-love and hyper-faith so that you could be a hyper-example to all those around. That s the power of the gospel. It s not dwelling on you, it s dwelling on what Christ has done for you. That s how you qualify to be a guide. Step Three: Praise God! Three steps, not two --- we re not done yet. Paul says, You ve got to understand that you re the worst, and then you ll figure out you re the best, and then praise God. After verse 16 do you know what comes next? Anyone want to guess? Yeah, verse 17. Now before we read verse 17, and I m just going to cue it up a little bit here because it s very strange. It comes out of the cold blue. You don t know what s going on here. Is he going to help with his argument at all? No, he s not. Is he going to add storyline to the narrative? No. Is he going to help us better understand what he s communicated in step one and step two, remember, rock one and rock two? Nope. Absolutely not. What s happening here is he s having Guide.1.cassidy 9
this explosive outburst of praising God. Because he s realized he is the worst of all sinners and he s been made the best of all examples, and so he can t shut up about praising God. 1 Timothy 1:16-17 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those were to believe in Him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Look at verse 17. I ll read verse 16 first so I can set it up. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, the foremost of all sinners, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example, as a super-example, for those who believe in Him and have eternal life. Verse 17, boom! To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. And everybody said, Amen. It s three steps because you can t stop from doing the third step. You can sit and wallow all you want on this first cobblestone, but when you get to this second one you re going to jump to the third and praise God. Our marriage mentors here at our church are all lay people --- they re ministers, not pastors --- and many of them, they have this three-step process. They had the worst marriage you ever heard of, I m telling you, it s so bad. And they ll tell you that story. And then they submitted to the will of God, they responded to His Spirit bringing truth, and they received hyper-grace and then hyper-faith and then hyper-love so that they could become a hyperexample of what God can do in a life. And so, when people sit down, whether it s in ReEngage or premarital counseling or whatever it might be, they say, We had the worst of all marriages. We are the best of examples. And every marriage that s in between there, praise Jesus. They just keep going on about the glory of God. They find themselves saying, Oh, to the King of ages! Immortal, invisible, to the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. They say that. God is ready to use any one of us. It s not about your sinfulness, it s what He s done in your life. Guide.1.cassidy 10
We ve been going to camp for over thirty years here at Grace Covenant Church, taking the youth to camp. And we re going to do it again this year. We spend more money on that ministry event than any other. We spend more time, thousands of hours, getting ready for that one week of camp. It s worth it. That s why we do it year after year. At camp for the last thirty years there s this one time where the youth pastor will sit down with students separately by age, not as the big group. And it s sometimes the most impactful hour of the entire week. And I think it s because the message can be sharper. It s targeted to a specific person or age group at a specific time in life. And here s what the juniors and seniors have heard for almost thirty years. Hey, remember when you were a freshman and you came to school and you were kind of scared and you saw a junior or a senior walk down the hall and you said, Look at them they re big and they re confident and they re awesome and they have a driver s license and they get to eat lunch off campus junior and seniors just look at them. The hallways part --- here they come. Remember that feeling? Yeah. Here s what we tell the juniors and seniors: You re that junior and senior now. I know, you haven t had a single class of being a senior. I m telling you now in July that when the classes start in August, you ll walk on that campus like you re a senior. Because the freshmen and sophomores look at you that way. You have power. You have this status. And so many of you guys are going to waste it if you wait to feel that, and you won t feel it until September, and you ll miss these critical months. You are the junior and senior. Know this truth and use that truth to be a guide. Guide lead serve the underclassmen. Be a super, hyper-example of what God can do in a person s life if they turn it over to Him. You are designed to do this, you are predestined to do good works in Jesus Christ, as a junior and senior. The message to the juniors and seniors every summer for that one hour is this: open your eyes. There are freshmen everywhere. Hey, Grace you re the seniors. Open your eyes. There are people longing for someone your age with your life experience, your world, to come into their world and guide them. And you know what it s like to feel as though, to know as though you are the worst of all sinners. Come on, upperclassmen --- don t leave them there. Tell them about the next stepping stone. Tell them about the hyper-overflow of grace and faith and love and watch them explode with praise towards God. All the ministries at Grace --- our whole church is built around a model of mentoring. I want you to stop thinking about being mentored for a second. I want you to think about being the Guide.1.cassidy 11
junior and senior. They are in this church, they are on your street, they re at your office. Open your eyes. There are freshmen everywhere. Be the guide. [Prayer] Lord, we lift up this command that You gave us, that all authority was given to You on heaven and on earth, and You said, Go make disciples. You also said that we were your workmanship, we were created in Christ Jesus for good works that You prepared way before the beginning of time, that we could walk in them and show other people the way. Lord, I d ask that You would open our eyes to the possibility and the potential of being an upperclassman in the life of someone that You ve given us to guide. Would You do that maybe now, this week, so that we might learn together how we could be better at the things that You desire us to be. That we might be this super hyper-example, and people would see that and give glory to You. We pray this in great expectation. In Jesus name. Amen. Guide.1.cassidy 12