Photo by Daniel Joshua on Unsplash
John Newton wrote the hymn Amazing Grace as a testimony.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
I think Paul would be happy to sing these words beside Newton. As he reflects on his conversion in 1 Timothy Paul says “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man” who received the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ (1 Tim 1:13-14).
For Newton and Paul, their testimony was not about them and how they turned their lives around. Their stories were about God and his amazing grace.
Flowing from his reflection on the mercy and grace of Jesus, Paul tells Timothy, “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them” (1 Tim 1:15). Be fully assured, Christ came to save sinners, and I am the worst of them.
Jesus didn’t come to save the good kids from a bad crowd. He came to save the worst of sinners. Paul’s story is not a testament to the power of hard work to turn your life around. It is a testament to the love, mercy, grace and patience of God. “But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim 1:16). Followers of Jesus, who came after Paul, look back at Paul’s story and learn a lesson about Jesus.
No sinner is beyond the God of amazing grace.
Like Paul, we also confess that we are the worst of sinners. This confession ought to drive us to God. John Calvin in his commentary on 1 Timothy says this is the lesson we learn from Paul. “For when he, who had been a fierce and savage beast, was changed into a Pastor, Christ gave a remarkable display of his grace, from which all might be led to entertain a firm belief that no sinner, how heinous and aggravated soever might have been his transgressions, had the gate of salvation shut against him.”
Newton, Calvin, and Paul all give us a word of assurance: Jesus saves the worst of sinners. If we come to him in repentance and faith, he will not turn his back. Each of these men learned this from Jesus himself who said, “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).
Sin and despair, like the sea-waves cold,
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater- yes, grace untold-
Points to the Refuge, the mighty Cross.
I am the worst of sinners. Jesus is the greatest saviour.