What makes you erupt in praise?

If you had to finish this sentence: “I find myself erupting into praise when…” I wonder what you’d say. Possible answers might include: “I see a glorious sunset”, “I hold a newborn baby”, “I read an inspirational passage of Scripture” or, in my case, “Reading FC finally gain promotion back to the Championship”. Yes, I know, I’m shallow.

However, it’s less probable that you’d respond: “When I realise the enormity and extent of my miserable sinful state and sordid past”, but that’s what catapults Paul into his outburst of worship in the opening chapter of his first letter to his spiritual son, Timothy. Paul provides a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of his past failings in verse 13, cataloguing blasphemy, violence and the persecuting of others among his transgressions, leading him to conclude that he viewed himself as the “worst of sinners”.

Yet it’s the gravity of his historic sin that provides the conditions in which the light of the gospel shines at its brightest. Paul’s unlikely conversion becomes the prism that disperses the white light of salvation into glorious technicolour. The apostle takes no pleasure in the polluted nature of his past, yet finds himself led to a place of praise as he reflects (v.14) on the “grace of the Lord poured out abundantly” on him. He even recognises how, in His sovereignty, God has chosen to providentially use his own (Paul’s) bygone sinful actions to showcase His redemptive power, claiming that it was “for that very reason I was shown mercy so that … Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life”(v.16) Paul as Exhibit A of what it looks like for the lost to be found.