The Worst

So I started reading through 1 Timothy this week and came across a passage of scripture that really stuck out to me. It is chapter 1 verses15-16. It says…

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 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.”

Most people know the story of Paul, and his life before Christ and his life after he found Christ. It is incredible to see how God worked through him. Paul use to be a man that would verbally and physically abuse Christians, yet when Paul came to know Christ, God used him in so many ways. He even used him to write many books of the Bible!

Yesterday our pastor spoke about counterfeit repentance and then real repentance at our evening service.

With counterfeit repentance you will stop at being “sorry”. We come to God and we cry and we say, “Oh I am sorry for what I have done”, yet we go out the next day and do the same thing. Counterfeit repentance is about self preservation. We feel guilty for what we have done, but have no intention of quitting the particular sin. It is all about us, and not about God. It is selective. With counterfeit repentance you may feel bad about saying a cuss word, so you decide not to cuss anymore, but you don’t feel bad about messing around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Or you may not feel bad about getting drunk once a week. It is full of excuses. You may say things like, “I know I was wrong, but….

If you look at 1 Samuel you can see this with the story of Saul. God told him to go to the Amalekites and destroy every living thing. People, animals…everything. Yet Saul and his army did not do this. They kept the best of the livestock and even brought the king back with them. When Samuel confronts Saul for not doing exactly what God said he begins with his counterfeit repentance. In chapter 15 verse 13, Samuel blames the soldiers for the disobedient part but is boastful about his part. In verse 24, Saul says, “I have sinned”, yet right after that he says he did what he did because he was scared of the people. In verse 30, Saul again says, “I have sinned” yet he still wants to be honored and wants Samuel to come back with him so that he will not be embarrassed by his sin. He wanted to hide it.

If you are like me, you can see yourself in this story. After Bryan preached this sermon, I took a deep long look at myself, and realized that a lot of the time this is me. I will make excuses for my sins, I will blame others. But this is not how we should be.

Real repentance is not just taking one big sin out of our lives and leaving the rest, it is an ongoing process of realizing we need God to change the foundation of our being. Repenting is realizing that ALL sin in our life is disgusting and foul and evil, and we should not want to have anything to do with any of it. Repenting is waking up everyday and starting a new day of evolving and changing our soul to become more like Christ’s. This is what Paul meant when we wrote Philippians 2:12 and said, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. When we accept Christ we are saved, but it is an ongoing process everyday of repenting and changing and becoming more in tune with the person God wants us to be.

If we repent in the way Christ has taught us, we can be open to do mighty works for Him the way that Paul was. When we repent we cannot be prideful or secretive about it. We must have a healthy fear of God and be disgusted with all sin in our lives. That way we can have a desire to seek after God’s righteous and become holy. We can allow Christ Jesus to display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.


Be an example.