John Newton was born July 24, 1725 in London. 1725, so picture yourself now how long

ago that was to a godly mother and irreligious seafaring father.

She died when he was six, left mainly to himself.

He became a debauched sailor, a miserable outcast on the west coast of Africa for a couple of years,

a slave trading sea captain until an epileptic seizure ended his seagoing career,

a well-paid surveyor of Tides in Liverpool, a devoted and loved pastor of two congregations in

only in London for a total of 43 years, a devoted husband to

marry for 40 years until she died in 1790 and a personal friend to William Wilberforce, Charles

Simeon, Henry Martin, William Carey, John Wesley, George Whitfield, and others.

And last of all, the writer of the most famous hymn in the English language,

Amazing Grace, which you heard and sang exactly as he wrote it,

not with that wonderful last verse which we love

and he did not write. right. And he died in 1807 at 82. So why am I interested in this man? What's my agenda before you this morning? I'm interested

in him because of my great desire to see Christian pastors be as strong and durable as

redwood trees and as tender and fragrant as a field of clover. I want to see you become rugged in the

defense and confirmation of the truth and relentlessly

humble and patient and merciful in dealing with people.

Ever since I came to Bethlehem in 1980,

I've had this vision of what I want to be

and what I want to be the means of others becoming.

Because in the early 1980s I read Matthew and Mark

in my Greek Testament writing in the margin, T.E. and T.O. beside every tender thing Jesus

...