“The Personal Gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-17)

Sunday, September 1, 2019

            Allen Langham saw a flock of birds take off from the sill outside the window of his prison cell.  In that moment, he knew God was real.  How did this convict become a follower of Jesus?

            Growing up, he was abandoned by his father and, though his mother truly loved him, her discipline was severe.  He saw her abused, and he himself was abused by neighborhood bullies.  It filled the young man with anger. 

            He started skipping school.  He excelled in sports, especially the violent sport of rugby.  But, he constantly got in fights.  He ended up becoming a very tough scrapper who sold drugs and fought for money.  Landing in prison at 17, he became a hardened criminal.  Then came a series of incidents where he’d determine to turn his life around only to fall back into violent crime once he was out of jail.

            His safe place was the prison chapel worship service.  Church had been his refuge growing up and the prison chapel provided the same support.  So, when he landed back in custody again, he felt it was truly rock-bottom.  Through tears he cried out to God, “If you’re real … put a white dove outside my window.”  The next thing, he looked out and the birds took off and he gave his life to Christ. 

            His journey into salvation and the disciple life had some setbacks, but the three steps forward outnumbered the two back and today he has reconciled with his family.  He is now an author, a chaplain for several sports teams, and someone ready at a moment’s notice to tell you about Jesus.  

Allen went from violent brawler to passionate Jesus follower.  This journey from lost to saved is the heart of the message in 1 Timothy 1:8-17.  Paul writes that the law – the Law of Moses found in the Old Testament, Exodus – Deuteronomy, is good.  The law convicts us of sin.  Then Paul lists types of sins including idolatry, disobedience, sexual sin, kidnapping and slave trading, and dishonesty.  It’s a representative list, not an exhaustive one.  With this list, Paul makes two very clear points. 

First, we don’t tell God our lives are not sinful.  We look at where our own lives fail to conform to God’s standard and we confess.  When it comes to sin, we do not justify it.  We do not try to reframe our sins or say they aren’t sins.  We just confess them, ask for forgiveness, and turn away from the sin.

The second point established by Paul’s enumeration of sins is that when we talk about salvation, we have to talk about our sins. We have to take sin seriously.  Paul did.  In verse 13, he says, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.”  He’s referring to the days when he denied that Jesus is Lord.  He tried to have followers of Jesus arrested.  And when one of the original deacons, Stephen, was stoned to death by angry mob, Paul cheered and held the coats of the stone-throwers (Acts 7:58; 8:1).  For this reason, in 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners.  In his own mind, he truly believed he was the very worst.

Allen Langham, the rugby player and brawler from London I talked about to open the message would have said the same about himself.  He was not into justifying his sins.  He tearfully confessed them.  I read his story in the June 2019 issue of Christianity Today magazine.  The monthly has a back page feature that shares the story of how individuals become followers of Jesus.  Paul went from Pharisee and Christian-persecutor to tent-maker and apostle.  Allen went from criminal tough guy to sports team chaplain and Christian author.  What are some other stories of conversion?

Rosalind Picard is a scientist and professor at MIT.  She has always been academically gifted.  In high school, she loved science and actively opposed religion or the idea that there might be a God.  So, she was shocked when the family for whom she was a baby-sitter invited her to church.  She really respected this couple because of their intellect.  The dad was a doctor.  How could smart people go to church? 

She resisted going to church, so they tried convincing her to at least read the Bible.  She started with Proverbs.  She was amazed by the wisdom she found in the Bible.  It surprised her and forced her to think. She did not have a vision or any supernatural experience.  She just felt that as she read scripture, someone was speaking to her. 

She resisted God.  She resisted faith.  But when she got to college and reconnected with a high school friend, he invited her to church.  And he was so smart she actually needed his help with her physics homework.  So she went to church and resumed her exploration of faith until, many weeks later, something in the sermon brought her to a point of decision.  The pastor challenged the congregation to stop trying to be masters of their own lives and instead let the Lord be master.  She decided to accept the challenge and gave her life to Jesus.

She writes, “my world changed dramatically, as if a flat, black-and-white existence suddenly turned full color and three-dimensional” (Christianity Today, April 2019).  Becoming a disciple of Jesus actually made her a more curious scientist.  She says, “I once thought I was too smart to believe in God.  Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos – the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know.”

Make note of these different salvation stories.  Allen’s story is of rough and tough guy whom God gave a sign – birds on the prison window sill.  The Apostle Paul’s conversion came in the context of religion.  He went from persecuting what he thought was a false messiah cult to realizing that Jesus truly was Israel’s Messiah and the Lord of all creation.  Allen left behind his life as a brawler and became a chaplain.  Paul left behind his life as an up-and-coming Pharisee and legal scholar to make tents and himself receive threats and beatings as he traveled about preaching that salvation is found in Jesus. 

Rosalind Picard did not leave anything behind except her skepticism.  Before she turned to Jesus, she was a brilliant scientist.  After she gave her life to Christ, she was still a brilliant scientist.  The point is every story of conversion to Christ is unique.  You story doesn’t have to be more or less dramatic than someone else’s.  It’s you story.  What every story does need is that moment when we make faith in Jesus our own – not our parents’ or best friends’.  We don’t become Christians to please a spouse or make a pastor or Sunday school teacher happy.  We turn to faith because we realize we are sinners and are lost without Jesus leading our lives.  His death on the cross and his resurrection are what each one of us needs no matter what life we live.

Casey Diaz was a high level gang-member in Los Angeles.  Within the gang’s system, he had the authority to order hits on people, and he did.  Then Jesus met him in a vision in his prison cell: a vision.  He turned his life from crime, drugs, and violence to faith.  Now, he is a part-time pastor and owns a sign-making company in LA. 

Kim Cash Tate is lawyer from DC who landed a really good job with a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin.  Though she didn’t grow up in church, her mother instilled in her Christian values that stayed with her even as she strayed from those values in her young adult life.  She also attended Christian schools growing up, so she had some context for Christianity when she arrived in Wisconsin.

She hated living there.  An African American, she felt very disconnected from black culture.  All she saw around her was white people and white people are OK, but she felt isolated and just wanted to get back to DC.  She also felt something inside her was looking for something more and though she couldn’t clearly articulate it, that something more that she needed was God. 

She and her boyfriend decided living together outside of marriage was wrong.  So they got married.  It was the first time in her life she made a decision based on what she thought God wanted her to do.  Later, her husband found a new church while she was out of town and when she returned, she went with him.  She writes, “For the first time, I heard the true gospel preached and it rocked me.  Finally, I saw myself as God saw me – a sinner in need of redemption.  I asked God to forgive me, and I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  For all my prayers that God would save me from Madison, WI, his plan all along had been to save me in Madison” (Christianity Today, July/August, 2019).

A brawler, a Pharisee, a scientist, a gang member, and a black lawyer living in a town of mostly white people; each story is of someone coming to faith and new life in Jesus.  Some instances involve supernatural interventions, others invitations to church, and others recollections of morality instilled from childhood.  Each is a story of salvation.

What concerns me most this morning is the story of your salvation.  How would you write the “from this” to “that” as your think of your own faith journey?  I was an 11-year-old kid when I realized I could no longer live the faith of my parents.  I needed to take what they had taught me and claim it for my own.  I needed to give my life to Jesus.  I did that in the summer of 1981 and have never looked back.  An outsider might not be aware of the change that started in me, but I know from that moment, I lived in a God-awareness that has stayed with me.

Your conversion might be like this: From “church attendee” to “born-again follower of Jesus.”  As 1980’s Christian singer, Keith Green put it, “going to church makes one a Christian about as much as stepping into a McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.”  You’re not a Christian because you show up in church on Sundays.  Paul writes that “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are sure in Christ Jesus; … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1:14, 16). 

We realize that grace, mercy, and love as we confess our sins, turn from them, and turn to Christ.  It’s a conscious step we must take.  We are among the saved when we actively turn to Jesus and receive the forgiveness and salvation he offers.  Until we take that step, we are not among the saved.

I invite you, if you know the Gospel but have never turned to Jesus and asked Him into your heart, to do so today.  This can be that moment when you receive new life in Christ.  If you have never made the decision to follow Him, I pray you will today.

If you have, tell your story as Paul did, as I have, and these writers in Christianity Today magazine have.  They aren’t famous, and we need not be.  Just tell your story.  The first act is coming for baptism.  Next, in our lives, we share with others who we are in Christ.  The Gospel is Jesus is Lord.  The personal Gospel is your own account of how Jesus is your Lord and Savior.  Share your personal Gospel with someone today.

AMEN