About this sermon
Paul greets Timothy with “grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,” a greeting unlike the ordinary greetings of that time. Grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense; mercy meets his people in their misery; peace is the presence of the Prince of Peace who stilled the storm. Believers are elect and cannot be lost, yet the way to heaven is full of hazards, and they need these gifts every day, as Job’s sufferings show.
Sermon transcript
Before we read God’s word, I’ll ask you a question. Do you like to get mail? I know you don’t like junk mail, but you ever get a letter that comes in the mail and immediately, if you’re like me, you look at the return address, right? And you young people understand this. If it’s the right return address, you kind of brighten up and go, oh, he’s writing to me, or she’s writing, or if it’s a friend. And what do you do? You tear that envelope open, and you read eagerly that letter from that dear and precious friend.
Well, this morning, we have that, what to preach, And it won’t be a lot, but obviously I’ve been asked to come back several times, so I’m not gonna guess anymore. I’m gonna get as far through 1 Timothy as I possibly can. So we may only get two verses done, but we get that this morning. And I wanna read 1 Timothy. It’s very interesting. Just as an aside, before we read the passage, think about the epistles, Paul’s epistles and the other New Testament epistles.
Uh, the greeting is unusual for that time. Most of us don’t know that unless we would study those letters, but scholars tell us that the greetings are unique. There’s greetings at the beginning of these letters, uh, but they’re not like any other greetings that were typical of that time. And what’s Paul’s standard greeting, whether it’s to Timothy or to Titus or to a particular church, what is it? Grace to you. Okay. and peace from God the Father, our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s the standard opening to these letters. And you get that in Romans. You get it in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, Philemon. It’s the most common. But there’s variations on those themes. Just to pique your interest, maybe go read the epistles this afternoon, and just read those openings, okay? Galatians, a great variation.
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of God, our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. Again, individualized because of the content and what he’s going to be talking about. Colossians, the beginning of Colossians.
Listen, grace to you and peace from God our Father. Doesn’t mention Jesus Christ, but Jesus is involved as well as the Holy Spirit. First Thessalonians, to the church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace, kind of reversing it. Titus? Grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior, because he’s emphasizing that in that epistle. And here in 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, it’s this full one. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father. and Jesus Christ our Lord.
I won’t mention the others. You can look through them. First Peter, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Second Peter, well, I’m gonna go back on my word and mention it. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. And then second John, grace, mercy, peace will be with us from God the Father, from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son in truth and love. Jude, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. And finally, Revelation.
May grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Well, you can study those. I’m not here to do a systematic theology of the apostolic blessings, but I want to say this as we come to First Timothy. Beloved, you need to understand this greeting, and you need to experience it.
You know, the old American Express advertisement, American Express card, what? Don’t leave. Yeah, you’ve heard it. Don’t leave home without it. Apostolic blessing. Don’t leave home without it. In fact, I can put it this way, don’t leave life without it. you need this blessing.
So let’s read the first two verses of 1 Timothy. We’ll pray and look at this briefly. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by commandment of God, our Savior, and Christ Jesus, our hope. To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Let’s pray. Father, I am so aware of my being a sinful man and father and husband and pastor.
Lord, I can’t preach apart from the Holy Spirit. And these, your dear people, cannot receive what you want them to have this morning unless you stir up our hearts. Some might need a new heart. The rest of us, Lord, need to be recleansed and filled so that we can receive this blessing without which we cannot live. Oh, God, be merciful to us in Christ’s name. Amen. Beloved, I want you to understand, but most of all, I want you to receive this conscience-cleansing, life-giving, heart-strengthening blessing from God. Well, let’s look at these terms real quickly. They’re probably familiar, but just as a review. Grace. You go through the whole Old Testament. What is grace?
That term is there in the Old Testament. It means favor. showing favor or being kind towards someone. So when Paul says, grace to you, he’s talking about that Hebrew concept that gets translated in the Septuagint and then to the New Testament as charis. We’ve heard people named charis or give.
What is grace? Well, you know the acrostic, it’s probably well known. Somebody could fill it in, what? Grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense.” See, some of you are whispering it. You’ve heard that. And that’s not too bad. It’s fuller than that. But what’s grace? Undeserved favor. God’s riches at Christ’s expense.
Do you understand that? The Heavenly Father who spoke this world into existence that saves His people, He gives grace to you. His riches, you, dear, Dear friends, if you’re God’s child, you can walk into his presence at any time of the day or night in any circumstances, whether you’re David in the cave being pursued by Saul, or whether you’re on a bed suffering a stroke, going through cancer surgery, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. So he wants that to be your experience. And as an apostle, he can give that to you by God’s Holy Spirit, grace to you. And then what does he add? The second term, mercy. What do you think about mercy? Well, mercy in the Old Testament, chesed, is, you know, most of you know that. It’s the term for covenant fidelity.
God not only gives you riches and grace that you don’t deserve through Christ, he gives you himself. He covenants, he promises, I’ll never leave you, I’ll never forsake you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And that comes in to the New Testament.
And let me give you an acrostic, it may be helpful or not to you. Mercy, M-E-R-C-Y. May the eternal riches of Christ be yours. Thinking of mercy, the eternal covenant. God says, I am your God, you are my people, and nothing, nothing, no one can stop that. Not Satan, not the worldly people around you, not even your own sin can stop you. May the eternal riches in Christ be yours. That leads us to the third term, peace. You’ve heard that shalom in the Hebrew that comes into the New Testament, ereine, peace. What is peace in the Old Testament? It’s not the absence of trouble, it’s what?
It’s calm, it’s the presence of God, it’s what I’ve seen many a saint die with on his or her lips. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. How many people have I seen die with that on their lips?
Peace. I’ll make the acrostic for you. It’s a little tougher. I’m stretching it, but may the powerful presence of the Prince of Peace, ease and erase all crushing experiences. When Jesus is with you in the hospital or in the hymn to be near me when I’m dying, oh, show thy cross to me. That’s peace. The peace of Jesus Christ who says to the storm, peace be still.
Who are you men of little faith? What’s wrong with you? I created, I control the storms. Why are you worried about what you’ll eat or what you’ll put on or what you’ll drink? The pagans worry about that. You got bigger fish to fry. You’re kingdom kids. You’re in the kingdom of God, and yes, yes, you look like Target, you know, because you’ve got a target written on you. Now that you’re identified with Christ, you will have crushing experiences, but that Prince of Peace will ease and erase all crushing experience.
Why? Second Corinthians, Paul says, I was sure I was gonna die. We had the sentence of death written in our bodies, but God did that so we would what? You can fill it in for me, right? So we would trust in him who what? Raises the dead and not upon ourself so that we could comfort others with the comfort wherewith we’ve been comforted.
I don’t like that, do you? I’ll confess my sin. I don’t want to get crushed. I don’t want to be at the point where I’m almost dead and I have to really rely on God. But beloved, let’s be honest. How much of our lives is lived under the supernatural? I’m not talking about miracles. I’m talking about how many of us can go through the valley of the shadow of death and go, Jesus is with me. And we can do that.
Again, not to pick on one or praise one, but I think Pastor Dan did that as he’s gone through the stroke. People saw in the family the grace of God evidenced where others might be cursing and hacking and angry. And did it hurt? Yeah, there’s after effects now, and it still hurts, doesn’t it? But God has been glorified in the midst of those crushing experiences.
So when someone gets up and says to you, grace, God’s riches at Christ’s expense, and mercy, may the eternal riches of Christ be yours. And he says, peace, may the prince of peace, his presence ease and erase all crushing experiences. You know what you should do? God, give me more grace. Give me as much mercy as you can give me and pour out that peace until I can’t take it anymore.
I heard someone say the other day, and this is a keeper, write this one down. It’s not original with me. If I was blessed anymore, I’d have to be twins. Now, that’s a good one. I really like that, okay? And the person wasn’t just saying it to say a phrase. Have you ever been like that? I’ve been so blessed that probably I need to be two people to take in all those blessings.
See, that’s what Paul is saying to Timothy. And remember Timothy, we’ll go into that a little bit tonight. Timid Timothy, right? He didn’t get to go to the Timothy conference and find out what was supposed to be a young pastor. And he’s out there at Ephesus with a bunch of heretical nuts, and he’s supposed to be cracking them and dealing with them. And he’s getting stomach, his bowels are doing flip-flops. And Paul’s got to say, look, Timothy, grace, mercy, and peace be with you.
And I won’t do this because you’re well-taught, but just from who gives that to you? It’s God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father who said, I want this one to be saved. And Jesus Christ says, OK, I volunteer for the job. I’ll be incarnate, I’ll live a perfect life, I’ll die a death, I’ll be resurrected, and I’ll come back to your right hand and ever live to pray for them. So grace, mercy, and peace come from the triune God.
Now, let’s get personal. Is this your experience? Now, again, I say this in love. I’m not trying to crush you. I’m including this. We’re orthodox Presbyterians, aren’t we? We know our theology, and that is good. And I don’t denigrate that one single bit. And I may have said it from this pulp, but I probably have. I say the same things over and over again. So forgive me. I’m 65, and I forget where I’ve said them.
But I am convinced that the devil could pass one of our Presbyterian exams. I am thoroughly convinced that Satan is a Trinitarian, Calvinistic, Reformed theologian. His theology is impeccable. His heart is implacable. He hates God. He knows it. He admits it. In fact, he’s been in God’s presence. You know that, right?
Have you seen Job? Where have you been, Satan? I’ve been walking around. Oh, have you seen Job? What do you think of him? Well, I think he’s like everybody else in the world, okay? Take away all the goodies you’ve given him, and he’ll curse you to your face. Satan, you’re provoking me. It’s unnecessary, but go ahead. Don’t touch him. Round one goes to who? Our covenant God and Job, okay? Comes back, round two. And he says, where you been, Satan? Like Job.
Well, you can take anything from anybody, but make him hurt. Make him hurt and he’ll curse you to your face. You know, he doesn’t deserve this, but go ahead, you can’t kill him. And then literally all hell breaks loose and, you know, we see what happens to Joe. Not only has he lost his whole family, you know, and the only one he gets to keep is his wife. Not real helpful. All right, curse God. He’ll kill you, and then you’ll be out of this. You see, you talk like the foolish pagan women, okay? So everything else, and now he’s hurting. I mean, he’s really hurting. I mean, he’s got a broken pot, and he’s scraping. Whatever the affliction was, I mean, it’s that bad. He’s raw to begin with, you know?
And he still doesn’t curse God. You know why? Because in the smallest form before the fullness that we receive in Christ, he received what? Grace, mercy, and peace. And what’s the answer? We get to the New Testament, but his is what? Remember at the end? It’s kind of interesting. I don’t think Job ever knew what was going on in his life. Maybe he didn’t get to read the book. He lived it, but he didn’t get to read the book, okay? What happens with Job?
I believe, beloved, this is the bottom line, that without grace, mercy, and peace, we won’t be able to love God for who he is. We will love him for what he does. My favorite illustration is most of us as Christians, certainly non-Christians, treat God like a vending machine.
Oh, I want M. There’s the candy bar I want. So I put in my money. I press the button. What happens? The little thing goes, it doesn’t do anything. I still remember one out at Westminster, California. And it wouldn’t work. And so the four students would pick up this thing and shake the machine until the thing would come out. That’s what we do with God, right? We get on the name and claim of people. God, I asked you for converted kids. I asked you for help.
Well, Roger Wagner, out of Chula Vista OP, he says, look, Bayview OPC in Chula Vista says it’s the spare tire concept. People treat God like a spare tire. You ever think about your spare tire? You ever praise God for your spare tire? No, you don’t even think you’re a spare tire.
What happens? Get a flat, you open up the trunk, take out your spare, you know, put it on. It’s usually one of these little donut things now, you know, not half a tire, you know. And then you limp over to the station, you know, get the tire fixed, you know, throw it back on, and what do you do with the spare? Throw it back in your trunk and you never think about it again, right?
That’s how we treat God. No, not Job. And at the end, after he really struggles and he does get close to sinning and sinning, you know what the answer is? God. Where were you, Job? You know, when you can do some of these little light things that I do, like, you know, beat up on the crocodile or hippopot, whatever that animal is, you know, I mean, you know, and when you can, when you can do justice to the world and everything else, then I’ll admit you’re God. Oops. That’s really an effect what Job’s doing.
So I’m going to put my hand over my mouth. I’m not going to say anything anymore. You know, I repent in sackcloth and ashes. And what does God do? He takes them up in his arms, restores a family, then he says to the three buddies, you better get Job to pray for you because I’m angry at you. And off he goes.
Friends, I trust that that’s yours. Well, let me wrap this up. Have you experienced the grace mercy, and peace of God. You desperately need them. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be honest. I crawl into church most weeks. Just crawl into church, you know, hoping to make it to the end.
I will never forget. I work with them now. It was my intern years ago in the OP Church out in New Jersey, Jack Kinnear, Dr. Kinnear. I will never forget when we first prayed together. He said something that has stuck with me all these years. Dear God, thank you that I still believe this week. You are kept by the grace, mercy, and peace of God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need this, don’t we? We need it in our families. We need it in our congregations. We certainly need it congregation to congregation. If you’ve ever seen how presbytery works, we need the grace of God. You know, someone always should start our services, our presbyteries with grace, mercy, and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. See, it’s free, isn’t it?
You didn’t ask for Christ to be incarnate, to live and die in your place. You didn’t ask to be born. You didn’t ask to be saved until God changed your heart. It’s all of God’s grace. But, beloved, yes, we are elect. We cannot be lost. But I’m telling you, there’s a lot of landmines between here and heaven. And Dan and Brett’s job and the elder’s job is to try to get you to heaven without you getting a leg or arm blown off in combat. And we need God’s riches at Christ’s expense and the eternal riches of Christ. And we need the powerful presence of the Prince of Peace to ease and erase all crushing experiences. God has not promised us a new heavens and new earth in complete form until we die and go to heaven, and then the new heavens and new earth.
Until then, You need this grace. Please, don’t try to live your life without this apostolic greeting. And I wonder, too, in a smaller sense, if we ought not to be talking about that with each other when we greet each other. So that hopefully, for Grace Church, every one of you would be like a living letter, a living greeting. And you see each other, hey. May the grace of God be with you, not the force, you know, not some luck thing, you know, but may the eternal riches of Christ be yours. And may the powerful presence of the Prince of Peace ease and erase all crushing experiences. And then when we get to heaven, we will be rejoicing in the grace, mercy. Timothy needed it.
I need it. I trust that you do. I hope every week you come in here. I’ve sort of done this. Maybe it’s a superstition. I don’t know. But every time now a pastor raises his hands to give me the apostolic benediction or the greeting, this is what I do. I go, give me all I can take. I want more of you and more of your grace. Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, we cannot live or leave life without the grace, mercy, and peace of God. And Lord, we know that we have the greatest apostle that ever was, the Lord Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, and who for the joy before him endured the cross so that we could have the grace, mercy, and peace that comes from you. From the Father, who was and is and will come, from Jesus Christ, our Savior, the faithful witness who laid his life down, and from the seven spirits, the Holy Spirit before you as we hear in Revelation. Lord, this is a wonderful, wonderful greeting. Lord, may we live and die with it ringing in our ears, and more importantly, imprinted on our hearts, that like Job, we might love you for who you are and what you have done, and not just for what we get out of you. Lord, may your grace, mercy, and peace be with us in Christ’s name, amen. Tonight, Lord willing, we will come back and we’ll talk about Timothy in terms of who he was and God’s grace and how God’s grace, mercy, and peace were given to Timothy in his life. Let’s take our hymnals and stand and sing wondrous king all glorious 132 and remain standing for the benediction and receiving that blessing again and our closing hymn. 132 let’s stand.
Wondrous thing, all glorious, suffering or victorious, ever receiving. Though we in our wildness stray from the hour. And our country singing, in our nation singing. And spread the story of our great victory, ♪ With our faith extending ♪ ♪ High to all the earth ♪ ♪ As our song o’erween ♪ ♪ Blue and scarlet ♪ ♪ Glaciers of our heart ♪ ♪ In the glorious behavior ♪ ♪ The master and savior ♪ Sing our praises for thee. Sing with hymns of praise all your year. All who hear our plea, shout our voices free. ♪ Sing we the hymns of freedom ♪ ♪ Sing we the hymns of freedom ♪ Beloved of the Lord, receive his blessing and grace. Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Father, the mercy, and the peace of God, the triune God, be with you now and forevermore. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.