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PROGRAM D-8119
If you were asked to name the greatest Christian in all of history, who would you name? Certainly the Apostle Paul would be high on most of our lists—maybe tops. What a great man of God who did so much to birth the early church. With his track record, he should have had very high self-esteem, don’t you think?
Listen to what he wrote about himself well into his years of ministry:
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15)
He didn’t say he was the worst sinner, but he said: “I am the worst sinner.” As Tim Keller points out in his booklet, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, this is incomprehensible to our modern western ears: “We are not used to someone who has incredible confidence volunteering the opinion that they are one of the worst people. We are not used to someone who is totally honest and totally aware of all sorts of moral flaws—yet has incredible poise and confidence.”
You see, Paul understood fully that he was a sinner, but he did not allow his sins to become his identity. Tim writes, “He does not see a sin and let it destroy his sense of identity.” In the same way, he does not connect his accomplishments with his identity.
Think of how differently we think. If I see myself as a bad person, then I assume that I can’t do anything worthwhile and I have no confidence. But not the Apostle Paul. As Tim writes, “Paul has reached the place where he is not thinking about himself anymore. When he does something wrong or something good, he does not connect it to himself anymore.”
This doesn’t mean he is no longer accountable, but it simply means that his identity is based on what Christ has done for him and what Christ has declared to be true—he is a new creation and counted righteous because he has been given the righteousness of Christ. The more you get that, the less you have to think about yourself. The less you think about yourself, the more you become like Christ. It is our self-absorption and our self-centeredness that drives us to despair and keeps us in bondage. Incredible freedom is ours as we, more and more, don’t think about ourselves.