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Colin Smith: Now aren't you thankful, by the way, that the gospel is good news and not good advice? Thank God that the Lord Jesus Christ did not come to give us instructions on how to be saved. He came to save sinners. He came to save us. That is good news indeed.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I love the fact that we're going to spend another day looking at what the gospel actually is and how it's actually God who does the saving. It's not like he said, "Okay, here are the things that you need to do to save yourself." It's God saying, "No, here's what my salvation for you looks like."

Colin Smith: There’s all the difference in the world, Steve, between good news and good advice. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to have a marvelous illustration of this. He said if an enemy in ancient times came against a walled city, the king of that city would go out with his army to meet the enemy and defend the city.

If the king won, then messengers would come back and say, "Good news! There really is good news. Your king has won a victory and you can live in the good of that victory. There's peace for the city." But if the king lost, military advisers would come back and they'd say, "You'd better man the walls of the city. You're going to have to fight for your life because your king’s been defeated, and this enemy is going to come and he's going to attack. It's all down to you."

We don't want a message of good advice that basically says it's all down to us to work our own salvation, and that's not what we've got in the New Testament. We've got a message of good news that Jesus Christ our King has won the most marvelous triumph, and therefore it's possible for us to enter into all the good of what he has accomplished. We're going to look at that today and how that works out in our own lives. It is so good that the gospel is good news and not simply good advice.

Guest (Male): Well, let's look at that together from the book of 1 Timothy. We're in chapter one, looking at verses 12 to 20 today. Grab a Bible, join us there as we begin a message called Gospel Salvation. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Remember the aim of our series is to discern what matters to God in a local church so that we may pursue what matters to him with all the passion and all the strength of our hearts. We've been learning together some of the distinguishing marks of a church that really is centered in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We began by looking at gospel faith, which means that we would be rooted in truth and growing in love. How important it is that truth and love are bonded together in the gospel and therefore they are inseparable in a gospel-centered church. We want to be a people who are deeply rooted in the word of God, and for that very reason, bearing the fruit of love in abundance in our lives. That's a distinguishing mark of a gospel-centered church.

Then from verses 8 to 11, we identified a second mark, that we want to be pursuing gospel freedom. In other words, that we are people who seek to be drawn by grace, not driven by law. We saw last week that human lives are not changed by a bunch of rules. You don't make a bad man good by giving him a code of morality.

What really changes a human heart is an infusion of love. Lives are changed by the love of Christ poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We saw that love will always take you further than law, that grace will take you where rules will never go. We want, therefore, to be a church that makes much of grace, that the dynamic of our life will be the power of the Holy Spirit, and that the love of Christ will take us beyond any law.

Today we come to a third distinguishing mark of a gospel-centered church, and that is gospel salvation, which we've described this way: that we are sinners who are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We're in for a feast today, as we've been sharing a feast already, because we're looking at one of the New Testament’s great statements of the good news of Jesus Christ that you'll find in verse 15.

Paul takes a run at it with some framing at the beginning. He says, "Here is a trustworthy saying." He's double-underlining the importance of what is to come. He says here is something absolutely clear, solidly reliable, you can stake your life on this. Then he says something else. "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance."

Now he's speaking to the church. He's saying to the congregation where Timothy is the pastor and, by the Holy Spirit, saying to us: I want that every person in this congregation will own this without reservation, without hesitation, and without qualification. I want everyone of us to buy into this absolutely fully and completely.

Here is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Folks, that is the gospel. Paul says to Timothy, "I want you to keep it front and center of the life of the church. I want every member of the congregation to own this so that if you were to cut a member of the Orchard Evangelical Free Church, we would bleed gospel." That it's our very life.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We are about Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners. Notice what is packed into Paul's marvelous statement. "He came." That is the incarnation. God entered this world as a man in Jesus Christ. "And he came to save sinners." That's the atonement.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world to tell us how to live. He did not come into the world to change society. He came to give his life as an atoning sacrifice on the cross for sinners, and it is through the cross that human lives are redeemed, and never without the cross. We want that to be absolutely clear. We want that to be front and center. We would want that every member of this gospel-centered church would have grasped it absolutely clearly. We are about Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners. That's the gospel.

Now, aren't you thankful, by the way, that the gospel is good news and not good advice? When you're in a pickle, the last thing you want is 10 people lining up giving you advice, "This is how I did it." You say, "I want to know is there someone who can help." Thank God that the Lord Jesus Christ did not come to give us instructions on how to be saved. He came to save sinners. He came to save us. That is good news indeed.

Paul wraps around this marvelous statement of the gospel his own personal testimony, his own experience of God's grace, his story, if you like, of how this salvation that Jesus Christ brought into the world worked out in his own life. Notice that Paul tells us about his sins. He tells us about his experience of God's grace.

When he gets to the end of his own story, which is in verse 17, what you find is that he erupts in praise and joy. He is just overwhelmed by the marvel of what God has done for him in Jesus Christ. He says, "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen."

There's this explosion of joy and praise that wells up from within him when he thinks about the salvation of Jesus Christ in his own life. Has that happened to you? Are you familiar with that? Do you know what that's like? I want to suggest that the very passage that we have opened before us today, Paul is showing us how to get there. He's beating out the path to God-exalting joy, and I want us to go down that path with him.

Before we do, please remember that every Christian has a unique story of God's grace. Your life may not have been particularly dramatic or even spectacularly interesting. But think about this: however ordinary your own life may have been, if God has saved you from hell and made you a son or daughter of the sovereign creator of the universe, and if he actually dwells in you by his Holy Spirit, you have an amazing story by any standards.

That is extraordinary. It is of eternal significance, and if you are in Jesus Christ, this is the reality of what has happened in you. That is no small thing. You have, therefore, an amazing story to tell that will be glorifying to God, can be helpful to others, and will be fruitful in your own life in the very telling of it because if you are discerning your own life correctly, then to look at God's grace to you in Christ will bring you where it brought Paul—to that place of joy in Jesus Christ.

All of this is in the passage here today. I want us therefore to be learning, amongst other things, how to give a testimony. How can you give a testimony in a way that will be glorifying to God and helpful to others and upbuilding in your own spiritual life? How can you do that? I want to encourage you to do it this week. You may like to follow the example of Paul here and to write your testimony to God's grace. Write it out this week.

Please don't write 10 pages because if you do, what will happen is you'll get lost in the details. I counted the words in the English here. Paul writes his testimony in 152 words. So shoot for 150, and I want to encourage you seriously this week to write out a 150-word statement of what God has done for you in Christ. It will do your own soul good, be glorifying to him, and it may be helpful to others.

If you're in a life group, bring your 150-word statement to your life group. Share it with others. It will be a means of encouraging them and it will be glorifying to God. This is one of the ways in which we encourage each other, folks. That's why Paul's giving his testimony here to strengthen Timothy, and your story of God's grace will be a means by which you can minister into the lives of others.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. We have to pause the message right here, but when we come back, we're going to look at a threefold pattern for doing this, so I hope you'll stay with us. Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. It's your generosity that keeps Pastor Colin's teaching on the station. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of John Stott's book, The Incomparable Christ. Colin, who is John Stott?

Colin Smith: John Stott was one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century, a faithful preacher, a wise pastor, a brilliant scholar who served the church faithfully for over 60 years. He really is one of my heroes of the faith. I have valued the advice I was given years ago, "Choose a book by its author."

This is a really good author, but it's a really good author on a really great subject. This is John Stott on the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus? Jesus was the central focus of all of John Stott's work and life, as he should be the central focus of all of our lives. This wonderful book just opens up the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as we find him in the New Testament, as he's inspired people throughout history, and as one day we're going to see him when he comes again in power and glory. For anyone who loves Jesus, to read a great book about Jesus Christ is a good thing to do, and I think this is one of the best books you could read about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Well, we want to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for financially supporting Open the Bible this month. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That’s 1-877-673-6365, or again, the website is openthebible.org. Back to the message. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Now there is a threefold pattern here and it is, I think, of great significance. Number one, when you are writing your testimony and indeed when you're thinking more broadly about what God has done for you in Christ, remember your sins redemptively. Help me by completing the statement here, please: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

So if I do not see my own sinfulness, if I don't get that, then I will never feel connected to Jesus Christ and his coming into the world. It’ll always seem out there to me, unless and until I see my own sins, because he came into the world for sinners. When I see that that's me, then I have a connection to him and to his great work.

From time to time, I have the opportunity of speaking to someone who will be really honest and they'll say this, "Pastor, I've got to tell you, I'm bored with my faith. Bored. It isn't doing anything for me. It's not exciting to me. It's flat, it's dull, it's lifeless." I'm always grateful when someone who is in that position is really honest. Here is what I've found.

I've found that if I then ask that person, "Can you tell me some sins in your life that Jesus Christ has forgiven?" that person is immediately in difficulty and can't easily think of one. Remember what Jesus said: "He who has been forgiven much loves much."

If you have no awareness, if you have difficulty thinking of a single sin that has actually been forgiven in your life, you can't write it down on a piece of paper, you've got no sense of your being a sinner in any meaningful way, then don't be surprised that you don't love Jesus much. Don't be surprised that your faith seems flat and dull and boring and lifeless. Don't be surprised that you don't feel a need of the cross. Have you thought about this? Will you think about it now? What sins would be on your list?

Remembering your sins is important because if you do not know that you are a sinner, you will always feel that Jesus Christ and his saving work is out there, removed from you, and your faith, whatever its content is going to be, will be flat, dull, and boring. It will never take you into the Christ-exalting joy that the apostle Paul evidences for us here.

By the way, a little sidebar. Since we're talking about sharing testimonies, let me give you this counsel with regards to sharing past sins with others. Some folks may be helped by knowing what you did and what you've been forgiven for in the past. Others would be better helped by not knowing what you did and what you were forgiven for in the past.

You may choose to share some things with some people when it will be helpful. You will not share all things with all people. What you will do is you will consider the degree of trust in the relationship, the depth of that relationship, and the maturity of the person in discerning what is best with regards to what you share.

But of course, Paul's sins were public. Everyone knew what he had done. It was infamous. Paul uses what was known here for the glory of God. You will see that he identifies three specific sins. Number one, he says, "I was once a blasphemer." That's verse 13.

We get a little more of that in Acts chapter 26. In verse 9 of Acts 26, he says, "I was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Folks, that's blasphemy—to oppose Jesus of Nazareth. That's what it means. Paul says for a long time in my life, I opposed Jesus Christ, I resisted Jesus Christ.

I spoke against Jesus Christ. He says in Acts chapter 26 verse 11, "I even tried to get other people to speak against Jesus Christ. I encouraged others into the same blasphemy. I brought others to be resistant to Jesus as I was." There may be many of us here who would say, "You know, that has to be a sin that was long in my life." For how many years did you resist Jesus Christ and his claims upon your life? You thwarted the spirit, you turned a deaf ear towards the word of God, you pushed him away. That's blasphemy—to resist Jesus Christ, the son of God.

Then Paul says, "I was once a persecutor." There are some things whenever we think of them in our lives that will always bring us pain. Here's one for Paul. It was like there was a stab in his heart every time it came to his mind, "I persecuted the church." Do you remember he says in 1 Corinthians 15:9, "I am the least of the apostles. I do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God." I persecuted the church of God.

So not only did Paul resist Christ, he resented the church. He harmed the church. He injured the people of God. He said, "I did that." By the way, have you noticed that some people want to say that they love Jesus, but they carry a massive resentment towards the church? How is that possible?

The church is the bride of Christ. Sometimes an unattractive bride, sometimes an unfaithful bride, but the church, Ephesians five, is the bride of Christ. You love Christ, you love the bride. One writer, I thought, put this very helpfully. I was just reading the other week. He said, "If I say to you, 'I'm your friend,' but then I say, 'I hate your wife,' am I really your friend?"

You see what he's saying? You say I'm a friend of Jesus Christ, but I'm carrying a load of resentment towards God's people? In what sense really is one a friend of Christ if one does not love the bride of Christ? Paul's confessing this sin. He's saying not only did I resist Christ, but I was filled with resentment towards Christian people, the very brothers and sisters who I am called to love.

And then he says, "I was once a violent man." Verse 13. Some of us will want to confess and own this also. Behind this resistance to Jesus Christ in his life and behind this resentment towards Christian people, there was an anger in Paul. It was churning. There was a conflict that was going on inside him. His conscience was troubling him, and what happened was it spilled out in bringing injury into the lives of people God had placed around him. He says, "I've wounded other people. I own it."

Isn't this a marvelous thing? Here is a man who is not afraid to face his past sins. That's what the gospel does. It produces honesty. It gets us out of denial. It gets us out of hiding from the past. It enables a man or a woman to face the truth and to stop making excuses.

Folks, when you remember your sins, here's the really big thing: please remember them redemptively. Triple underline as many times as you want the word redemptively. Because here's what will happen: we need to remember our sins, we need to remember that we are sinners, otherwise we will never have any joy in Christ and faith will always be a vague kind of thing that will be dull and boring to us.

But as soon as you do remember your sins, Satan will be at your elbow and he'll say, "Yes indeed," and he will try to bring you into defeat. Actually, that may well happen for some of us when we're in church. Do you find sometimes that your own sins come to your mind in church more than other times? That your own failures live in your memory perhaps when you're lying on your bed at night and you can't sleep?

We need to remember our sins redemptively. Listen: the Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world and hang on a cross to remove the condemnation of God from you simply so that you could live under a new condemnation that you impose on yourself. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Guest (Male): What a powerful and encouraging truth for us to think about as we wrap up this time together. You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Gospel Salvation, part of our series, Ten Distinctives of a Gospel-Centered Church. If you ever miss a broadcast in the series, come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org.

Colin, it’s Friday and the weekend's coming.

Colin Smith: Yeah, and I want to encourage you to get to church on Sunday. Find a church where the Bible is opened and where Jesus is the center of attention. If you live in the Chicago area and you don't have a church home, I'd love for you to join us at the Orchard. There are six locations in the northwest suburbs. For more information, go to theorchard.church. That's theorchard.church.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Colin, and thanks for listening. I'm Steve Hiller and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: This is Pastor Colin, and I love the story of the thief on the cross because it's the best story we have to help people understand grace. Many people have the idea that if a person was to get into heaven, they'd get there by living a good enough life. Well, the thief on the cross hadn't lived a good life and he wasn't in a position to start living a good life either, but Jesus said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

If the thief could get into heaven, so can everyone you know and will ever meet. Heaven, How I Got Here is a compelling 60-minute film in which Stephen Baldwin portrays the thief on the cross in a one-person play. We've seen God use this film to help many trust in Jesus as the thief did. So who is there in your life who needs to understand grace? For more information or to watch this film for free, visit openthebible.org/heaven. That’s openthebible.org/heaven.