Deo Gloria
Sermon for June 7, 2026
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Theme: Could God Really Forgive Me?
(Thank God We Have a Patient and Merciful God!)
- He had mercy on a sinner like me.
- He uses someone like me in his service.
Could God really forgive me? Have you ever wrestled with that question? You made the terrible mistake of getting behind the wheel after drinking at party and tried driving home. Only you didn’t make it. You were involved in an accident and a person in the other car was seriously injured. Could God ever forgive me? You made the foolish mistake of sleeping with your boyfriend back when you were in high school and you became pregnant. You were confused. You were ashamed. You were desperate. You didn’t want others to know, especially your parents, so you did it. You got an abortion. You ended the life of the little baby in your womb. Could God ever forgive me? You got in an argument with your spouse, a heated argument, and you lost it. You said some awful things, terrible things, things that just tore your spouse to shreds. Now what? You can’t take it back. You can’t undo the terrible hurt you have inflicted. Could God really forgive me?
I met a lady once. I haven’t met many people like her in my ministry. I guess that’s why she stands out in my mind. She called the church one day and asked if she could talk to a pastor. I said sure, so we arranged to meet at church. She was the only person I have ever met who was convinced she was going to hell. Obviously, she had had a difficult life. She had committed her share of sins, sins she was embarrassed about, sins she felt terrible about. And she was pretty sure that God could never forgive her, that God would never let her into heaven.
I know another person who struggled with this question. His name was Paul. He was the greatest missionary in the history of the Christian church. He wrote more books in the Bible than anyone else. In fact, he is the one who wrote the words we have before us this morning. Yes, you heard me correctly. Paul—the apostle Paul—wrestled with this very question: Could God really forgive me? Did you notice what Paul says in these verses? He doesn’t talk about any of his accomplishments as a missionary. He doesn’t talk about how many mission trips he took or how many churches he started. He doesn’t talk about how many people came to faith through his preaching of the gospel. He doesn’t talk all the Bible classes he taught or all the people he comforted. No, he talks about a very different side of his life, a darker side, a side he wasn’t very proud of. He refers to himself as a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man.
Paul? Paul was a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent man? It’s true, isn’t it? If you remember the story of his life, Paul was not always a Christian. In fact, for many years he didn’t want anything to do with Jesus and his followers. He couldn’t stand them. He despised them. He hated them. But of course, mere hatred and scorn wasn’t enough for Paul. Oh no! His hatred for Jesus and his followers was so great that he had to get rid of them. Tolerance was out of the question. Peaceful coexistence was not an option. He had to get rid of them. So his terrible hatred led to terrible acts of violence.
Remember Stephen, the very first Christian martyr? Paul was there that day. No, he didn’t actually throw any of the stones, but he was there, nodding his head in approval as he guarded the clothes of those who were stoning him. And that was just the beginning. After that he went around from house to house in Jerusalem, arresting Christians, tearing fathers away from their families, tearing mothers away from their children. These people were not criminals. They had never done any wrong to Paul. It’s not like that they had egged his house and stolen one of chickens or overcharged him for a pair of sandals. They hadn’t done anything to Paul. They were innocent people; but it didn’t matter. They were heretics. They had abandoned the Jewish religion and had become followers of Jesus. And they had to be eliminated. So Paul had them arrested and put in prison. And if they didn’t renounce their faith in Jesus, then Paul would see to it that they were put to death. Paul was not satisfied until these Christians were dead.
And then one day as he was on his way to Damascus, where intended to do the same thing, where intended to go house to house and arrest more Christians and have them taken back to Jerusalem for trial and execution, Jesus appeared to him. Yes, the risen and ascended Jesus appeared to Paul in a vision and brought him to his knees. Suddenly Paul realized that Jesus wasn’t a fake and a fraud after all. He really was the Son of God and promised Savior. Suddenly Paul realized that his hatred of Jesus and his followers was totally misplaced, totally unfounded, totally wrong. And suddenly Paul realized the awful things he had been doing. Could God ever forgive him? Could God really forgive him for persecuting him and his people, for killing innocent people just because they were followers of Jesus?
So what about you? Could God really forgive you? What were you like before you became a Christian, what kind of sinner were you? Were you a blasphemer like Paul, someone who had no time for Jesus, someone who only used his name as an expletive, someone who enjoyed making fun of him and making fun of his people too? Were you a violent person like Paul, someone who had a really short fuse, someone who would get into a fight at the drop of a hat? Were you a wife-beater or a child-abuser? Were you a drunkard or a druggie or a pothead? Were you perhaps guilty of murder like Paul?
Or maybe instead of asking what kind of sinner you were before, maybe what I should be asking is what kind of sinner you are now. What sins are you still struggling with today? Do you still curse and swear and use Jesus’ name as an expletive? Do you still lose your temper at times and become rude and nasty and violent, or is that only when you’re drunk? Do you play around with drugs? Do you play around sexually with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Have you committed adultery in the heart or murder in the heart? Are you like the guy who said, “You know, I’ve never killed anybody, but I sure am glad to see the names of certain people in the obituaries”? We aren’t any better, are we? We aren’t any better than Paul. Paul did what he did in ignorance and unbelief. You and I know better and we still commit such sins. The worst of sinners, the chief of sinners—that’s Paul. And that’s you and me. Could God really forgive me?
The answer is yes, an unequivocal and resounding yes. That’s what Paul discovered, isn’t it? Remember when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and confronted him with his sins? One would think that would have been the end of the line for Paul, that Jesus would have condemned him right then and there, that he would have struck him dead with a bolt of lightning; but he didn’t. Instead he had mercy on him. He forgave his sins—yes, his sins of blasphemy and persecution and violence and murder—he forgave them all. He put faith in Paul’s heart, faith to believe in him as his Savior, the one who came to rescue him from his sins by his own suffering and death on the cross. He took away the pride and hatred and violence that had filled his heart before and filled it with love—love for him and love for his people. Paul talks about this in v. 14, where he says, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly.” Have you ever poured yourself a cup of coffee when you weren’t really paying attention? Maybe you were watching TV or talking on the phone. You kept pouring and pouring and pouring and pretty soon the coffee was running over the sides of your coffee mug and down on the counter and down on the floor. That’s the picture Paul uses here. Yes, his sins were great. His sins were terrible, but God’s grace was greater. It overflowed on him. God’s underserved love and mercy just overflowed, washing away his sins and making him one of his children. How thankful Paul was to God, that he had been so patient and so merciful to him, that he had poured out on him his overflowing grace!
How thankful you and I can be as well, because the same has happened with us! God has had mercy on us too. Just as he poured out his overflowing grace on Paul and forgave him, so God has poured out his overflowing grace on us and forgiven us too. In fact, Paul is our example. Did you catch that in these verses? In v. 16 Paul says, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” “…as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” That’s you, friends, and that’s me. Paul is God’s example for us, an example of his mercy, an example of his unlimited patience, an example of his overflowing grace. With the hymn writer we can sing,
Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me,
Died that I might live on high, lives that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine, I am his and he is mine! (CW 578:1)
Yes, the overflowing grace and mercy of God has been poured out on us too. It was poured out on us at the time of our baptism, when God washed away our sins and adopted us into his family as his very own children. And God’s grace and mercy is being poured out again today, as he comes to us in his Holy Supper and gives us his own body and blood to assure us again that we really are forgiven. “I gave my life for you. I shed my blood for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.” The fountain of God’s forgiveness has not stopped flowing. The spring of his grace and mercy has not run dry. It continues to overflow. It continues to be poured out into your life and mine day after day after day. Thank God we have such a patient and merciful God! He not only can forgive a sinner like Paul or a sinner like me; he has.
And if that weren’t enough, he uses someone like me in his service too. That’s the other point we see Paul emphasizing in these verses, the truth we see him rejoicing in and thanking God for. Let’s listen again to what he says: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service”(v. 12). Yes, Jesus had had mercy on Paul and forgave his sins, washed them all away in his overflowing grace and mercy; but that isn’t all he did. Jesus also called Paul into his service. He called Paul to serve as his ambassador, to proclaim the good news about him to people everywhere that they too might believe and be saved. Just think, Paul the blasphemer, the one who used to ridicule Jesus Christ and speak against him, now was speaking for him and urging others to believe in him. Paul the persecutor, the one who used to persecute and even kill Christians, now was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and urging people to become Christians. It was incredible. It was truly amazing. I mean, who would ever have thought that God would do something like that, that he would take someone like Paul and make him a messenger of the gospel and use him to bring more people into his kingdom? What a patient and loving and merciful God we have!
And do you know what’s just as amazing? He does the same with you and me. He uses us in his service too. You see, after he has forgiven us, after he has washed our sins away and brought us in his family, God doesn’t say, “OK, now just go over there and sit in the corner and try to stay out of trouble until I get back.” Maybe that’s what he ought to say, or at least what we think he ought to say, because that’s probably what we would do; but it isn’t what God does. No, he says, “Now go and serve me. Be my witnesses. Be my ambassadors to the world. Tell other people what I have done for you, how I had mercy on you, how I forgave your sins, how I washed you clean and made you a member of my family, how I rescued you from death and gave you life, eternal life in heaven.” Remember what Jesus said to his disciples after he had risen from the dead? “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”(John 20:21). Who would ever have thought? I mean, I can see him using someone like Martin Luther or President Gurgel from Martin Luther College. I can see him using someone like Johann Sebastian Bach or Michael W. Smith; but someone like me, a blasphemer like me, a hateful and violent person like me, a sinner like me? God would actually use me? Yes, that’s exactly what he does. He uses people like you and me to share his Word with the people we know, the people we live by, the people we work with, so they too might learn of his grace and mercy and forgiveness, so they too might believe in him and receive eternal life. Amazing, isn’t it? No wonder Paul closes this section the way he does, with those beautiful words of praise! “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen”(v. 17).
Could God really forgive me? Yes, absolutely yes! That’s the wonderful and comforting answer we find in these verses this morning. In fact, not only has God forgiven a sinner like me; he uses me in his service too. Thank God we have such a patient and merciful God! Amen.