Daylan Woodall said when Paul reflected on his life in 1 Timothy 1:12–17, he saw a history of religious achievement that didn’t please God.
But then Paul wrote that one big thing changed — “I received mercy.”
In mentioning that, “Paul highlights the central most crucial component of his life,” Woodall, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Decatur, told those present at the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference on Nov. 11 at First Baptist Church Fairhope.
“We cannot experience justification and experience it properly without seeing it as a merciful act from a merciful God,” he said. “We are not who we are because of our attainments. We are not who we are because of our own achievements. God our Creator, Christ our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit our Comfort and Guide, empowers us to do what God has called us to do.”
Woodall asked pastors if they felt that the most important and impactful thing they had received was God’s mercy.
“Can we honestly say, can we earnestly say, that receiving God’s mercy means more to us than receiving cultural popularity and political power and being highly thought of by the people we revere and respect in the world?
Paul says the centralizing experience of my life is ‘but I have received mercy,’” Woodall said. “Justification is an act of mercy.”
A proper understanding of grace, mercy and justification enables believers to “determine what the purpose of our present is,” he said. “Paul says that my life has purpose and significance, that my present has purpose and significance because it reflects the reality and the work of a merciful God.”
That is the life’s work of a pastor, Woodall said — to reflect “the miracle of God’s mercy” to a broken world.
Share with others: