I think it's fitting and appropriate that Psalm 51 is our lectionary psalm for this week.
! Because I think the events of this past week should bring us to our knees.
! I think the assassination of Charlie Kirk should bring our nation to our knees.
You know, whatever you think about his politics, that's immaterial.
The fact that you have a man who is a man of faith, who was engaging in the free exchange of ideas on a university campus,
and that man is gunned down, presumably because of his beliefs.
I think that should bring us to our knees.
I think it asks very real questions about the state of our country,
where that kind of political violence is becoming more and more normal.
And of course, that wasn't the only shooting that day.
There was another shooting in Colorado at Evergreen High School.
A young man who had been radicalized online.
You know, a good friend of ours was a graduate of that high school.
That hit hard for her.
Not to mention there's anxiety in our city.
There's tremendous anxiety in our city right now.
Frequently, there's an ICE checkpoint two blocks from our house.
And we have people we know and love who are no longer leaving their homes
because they're afraid if they do, they will get detained.
There's a lot more I could say.
Secondly, my point is not to keep on the negativity here.
It's to say this, is that I believe that this is a time when we desperately need hope.
It is a time when we need reassurance.
It is a time when I believe we need to come together as a church.
It is a time for us to seek unity.
And it is a time for us to step up and to step into this moment.
And it's a time for us as a church to be reminded fundamentally of what is true.
Because it is so easy to get disoriented and lose perspective.
That's why as I was reflecting on the lectionary passages for this week,
the words that the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy in this passage in 1 Timothy,
to me these words were such a gift.
I hope they are similarly a gift to you.
Because this is a place where Timothy is facing all kinds of challenges,
the kinds of things that would make him probably prone to feel very discouraged,
very hopeless, and like maybe it's not even worth the effort.
And Paul is writing this letter to encourage him as he does the hard work of ministry in Ephesus,
where there is an enormous amount of confusion and hostility.
And Paul is essentially writing to tell him to keep going, to fight the good fight.
And he begins in the letter by reminding him and reminding us
that when everything else seems uncertain, there is one unshakable foundation,
and that is the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning,
specifically the depth, the breadth, and the ultimate purpose of the grace of Christ.
Let's pray.
Our Lord, we strongly desire to have the kind of encouragement that Paul offers here.
We desire to receive it, and we desire to know what this means for us, Lord.
How do we live in the face of these atrocities?
Lord, there's so many more things we could list,
so many more reasons that we might be coming here this morning feeling anxiety,
or maybe even feeling hopelessness.
Lord, please, based on your promises to us,
on the power of the Holy Spirit and the name of Jesus Christ,
make your word known to us this morning.
Nourish us.
Strengthen us.
It's in the name of your Son that we pray.
Amen.
So first of all, the depth of God's grace.
If you know Paul's story at all,
you know that he gained early notoriety
as a star pupil among the Pharisees.
He gained further notoriety and began to build his career as a zealous persecutor of Christians.
He describes his work doing this in Acts chapter 22.
This is Paul speaking.
He says,
He refers to himself as someone who persecuted Christians to the death.
If we look at verse 13, he says,
I was a blasphemer.
I was a persecutor.
I was an insolent opponent.
What's interesting about that is blasphemer, that's sins of speech.
He denied Jesus and said horrible things about Jesus.
Persecutor, those were the actions that Paul committed against other Christians.
But insolent opponent, that Greek word is very interesting.
And commentators say that really gets at the heart of it.
That's actually where Paul is saying to translate it into a more approachable language.
Not only did I do these things,
but deep down in me there was a part of myself that enjoyed doing these things.
I got something out of it, a certain amount of satisfaction from doing this to these Christians.
Now that's a very, very vulnerable thing for the Apostle Paul to admit.
I was a violent person is another way that's sometimes translated.
So we ask, what is Paul's point?
Well, in this passage, he famously refers to himself,
not only as a sinner, but as the foremost sinner.
Or as it's sometimes translated, the chief of sinners.
The worst of the worst.
So what is Paul's point in sharing this story?
Here it is in verse 16.
He says, I received mercy for this reason.
Here's why he's being so vulnerable.
That in me, as the foremost, foremost sinner,
Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience
as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
So what's he saying there?
He says these things happened as an example.
As an example for whom?
As an example for the people who would one day come to believe the gospel.
People including, by the way, us.
As an example for all people for all time.
And what's the example that he thinks is being said here?
If there's hope for someone like me,
then there's hope for someone like you.
That's his point.
You know, this reminds me of the testimony of the late Chuck Colson.
Many of you familiar with him.
He was a political operative under Nixon
who ended up doing time in federal prison after the Watergate scandal.
Just like Paul, he encountered the grace of Jesus
during that season of his life, and it radically changed his life.
And he ended up founding Prison Fellowship International.
Some of you, many of you are not only familiar,
but maybe you've worked for that organization
or ministries connected to it,
dedicated to sharing the gospel with prisoners
and supporting their families
and promoting restorative justice.
But listen to what he says here.
I love this from him.
He says, this is Colson talking about his own life.
The great paradox of my life
is that every time I walk into a prison
and see the faces of men and women
who have been transformed by the power of the living God,
I realize that the thing God has chosen to use in my life
is none of the successes, achievements, degrees, awards, honors,
or cases I won before the Supreme Court.
That's not what God's using in my life.
Listen to this.
What God is using in my life
to touch the lives of literally thousands of other people
is the fact that I was a convict
and went to prison.
That was my great defeat.
The only thing in my life I didn't succeed in.
I mean, just let that sit with you for just a minute.
Oh, room full of accomplished, amazing people.
Just let that marinate for a little while.
Right?
Think about that.
My goodness, we're an impressive bunch.
We have all of our accomplishments,
all of our talents,
all of our credentials,
all of our accolades.
And God is the kind of God
who loves to look past all of those things.
He sort of, you know,
moves the degree out of the way,
moves the promotion,
and moves the advancement,
and this credential and that credential.
And he gets all the way down,
and there's that low point.
There's that moment that we hope
nobody ever finds out about.
There's that thing that keeps us awake
at four o'clock in the morning
because we would give anything to go back
and do it over a different way.
That thing that we're ashamed of,
that thing that made us feel worse than worse.
And God's the kind of God
who shuffles all the stuff out of the way.
He points down to that thing,
and He goes,
I can use that.
That's what I'm going to use.
That's how I'm going to make my name known.
That's how I'm going to glorify myself.
That's how I'm going to change the lives
of the people around you.
It's through that thing,
the thing that right now
you're trying to hide.
Pretend it never happened.
That's the kind of God we worship, friends.
A God who delights in using the least likely people
to do the most amazing things.
A God who is able to use our weaknesses
and our failure to glorify Himself
and make His strength known.
The kind of God who can bring victory out of defeat.
The kind of God who can bring life out of death.
If we ever forget that,
we have only to look to the cross.
I'm nervous about the cross falling over.
I'm going to do this.
We're having stand issues.
If any carpenters are out there
who can build a stand for the cross,
we'd appreciate you.
But this is the kind of God we worship.
So, friends,
for those of us who feel right now weak,
hopeless, insecure, anxious,
if we're tempted to look around in our world
or our city
and feel like everything's falling apart
and wonder,
is God even there?
Does God care?
Is God doing anything?
This is the kind of God we worship.
This is His heart.
This is His character.
I actually think that this time of hardship
is going to be used
in the same way that God used Paul's weakness.
In the same way that God used
Chuck Colson's weakness.
So, to the extent that we are struggling
or to the extent that we feel weak right now,
what story might you one day tell
about this time of your life?
How might God use this
to work not only in you
but through you?
I believe, if nothing else,
God is going to use this
to soften our hearts,
to teach us about His grace,
and to glorify Himself.
That is the depth of God's grace.
Paul says,
if there's hope for me,
there's hope for anyone.
The breadth of God's grace
is equally striking.
In verse 15,
the saying is trustworthy
and deserving of full acceptance.
Paul has roughly five times
in his pastoral letters
where he refers to a trustworthy saying.
We can reasonably assume
that these were little summaries
of gospel truth
that were already in circulation
in the church at this time.
Part of the catechesis
or the education reformation
of believers
involved these little nuggets of truth,
distillations of gospel truth.
And so, he refers to one of those here.
He says,
this saying is trustworthy
and deserving of full acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners,
of whom I'm the foremost.
So, not only can God save
and restore anyone,
His grace, Paul says,
is available to everyone.
It is available to everyone.
And he says down in chapter 2, verse 4,
God desires all people to be saved.
And to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The key here,
if we are paying attention
to what it says is,
do we believe that we need grace?
That's the real key.
God's grace is available to everyone.
His desire is for everyone
to come to saving knowledge
of the truth.
But Jesus came to save
a certain kind of person.
Someone who knows they are a sinner.
Someone who knows they need grace.
It's available to people
who know they're sinners.
Now, admitting that you are a sinner
is not just about admitting,
yeah, here and there I mess up,
I make mistakes,
I do things I regret,
I do the bad things,
and I know I should do the good things.
But sometimes I do the bad things.
That's not really what it's about.
Objectively,
you might actually do a lot of good
in the world.
By most people's standards,
if we look at your life,
you might actually live a good life,
and you might actually do a lot of good
and make a difference in the world.
That's a misunderstanding
of the concept of sin.
Sin,
in the words of Alexander Schmemann,
is our lack of hunger
for God and God alone.
That's a much better way
of thinking about it.
It is our lack of hunger
for God
and God alone.
It is, in other words,
our ability to live
in the world that God made
as though God doesn't exist.
It is the fact
that that is
frighteningly easy to do.
In fact,
it is our default,
is to live in the world
that God made
as though God doesn't exist.
That is sin.
And for that reason,
it is often the good people,
it is often the people
who are,
the world would look at
and say,
that person has it all together,
it's often those people
who are the most
closed off to grace,
who are the most resistant
to the power of grace.
The people who do
a lot of good in the world,
the people who are successful,
the people who have
the things that they need,
the people who are well-liked
and respected
and have friends
and a network of support.
A person like that
can live their entire life
completely oblivious
to the fact that God
made them after
his own heart
and that their entire purpose,
the reason they are here
and actually the purpose
of creation itself
is to glorify God.
If you live a good,
happy,
self-sufficient life,
you can go your whole life
and never even ask
the questions
that might lead you
down that path.
To put it another way,
the greatest obstacle
to the work of God's grace
in our lives
is our self-sufficiency
and our,
at the end of the day,
our pride.
It is our pride.
The reason Paul
has such a tremendous grasp
of God's grace
is because his pride
has been stripped away.
It's because he has
a tremendous grasp
of his own sin.
That's what goes together,
right?
You may have heard
that if you,
it's interesting,
if you look at Paul's letters
as they were written
chronologically,
you can see how he refers
to himself over time
because the letters
in the New Testament
aren't necessarily
in chronological order.
So in one of the earlier letters,
1 Corinthians,
Paul refers to himself
as, quote,
least of the apostles.
I'm an apostle,
but I'm the least
of the apostles.
He was kind of added on
at the end, you know.
And he used to be, you know.
Then in Ephesians,
which is written
after 1 Corinthians,
he refers to himself
as less than the least
of the saints.
So he's not referring
even to his apostleship anymore.
He's referring to
just among all Christians.
Forget apostles.
I'm less of the least.
And then here in 1 Timothy,
which is one of his final letters,
we can assume that Paul
was probably an old man
at this point.
He refers to himself
as the foremost sinner.
His trajectory of growth,
the evidence in the sign
of maturity in Paul's life,
is that as he grew more mature,
his pride,
his self-sufficiency,
his sense of his own greatness,
diminished.
And his awareness of his sin
increased.
And as his awareness
of his own sin increased,
his experience of God's grace
increased.
This is what Christian maturity
looks like.
It is gradually over time
peeling back the onion layers
of our heart,
recognizing just how deep sin goes,
just how easy it is
for us to functionally deny
the Lord in the way we live,
to forget that we were created
to hunger for him and him alone,
and to realize more and more
how that,
in a sense,
infects every aspect of our lives.
And the more we realize that,
the bigger the cross gets,
the bigger grace becomes,
and the more we experience it.
So Christian growth
is in many ways
growth downward.
It's growth in humility.
If you want a litmus test
for your own heart
to know whether pride
and self-sufficiency
are issues for you,
and I spent some time thinking,
like,
what are some good indicators
in my life
that pride has taken hold
in a given situation?
Here's one test
that might work for you.
How quick are you
to take offense?
Are you someone
who is easily offended?
That's certainly
a giveaway in my life.
I want to be clear,
being offended
is not the same thing
as being hurt.
You know,
being hurt
is not something
we can always control.
If someone says
or does something
that's hurtful,
I can't,
I didn't,
that pain just happens.
It's a response
to the hurt.
But being offended
is a choice.
Being offended
is something
we choose to do.
And I think that often
when we choose
to become offended,
it's a self-protective mechanism.
we're responding
by putting up walls
because being hurt
makes us feel vulnerable,
it makes us feel weak
and powerless.
Those are bad feelings.
But being offended,
that makes me feel righteous.
That makes me feel impervious.
That makes me feel untouchable.
I'm offended.
You know,
so righteous anger
feels good
and powerful.
It feels good
to turn ourselves
into victims
and other people
into villains.
It feels good
to see the world
that clearly.
That's comforting.
It feels safe.
If we find ourselves
being easily offended,
that usually means
that we have
an inflated view
of ourselves.
You know,
we're sort of living
our lives
like overfilled balloons.
You know,
you fill a balloon up
too much
and it becomes
extremely fragile.
You know,
someone comes along
and just brushes up
against you
ever so slightly
with a comment,
something they did
or didn't do,
some little perceived slight,
right?
And that's all it takes,
just the slightest friction
and you blow up
because you're
an overfilled balloon.
It doesn't matter
if it's intentional
or unintentional,
you burst over it.
I would say by contrast,
I think that Christians
by and large
should be completely
unoffendable.
I think that we should
live our lives
and be completely
unoffendable.
Number one,
because we know
first and foremost
that every legitimate wrong
that is committed
against us,
even the legitimate ways
that people sin against us,
are also
and ultimately
committed against Jesus.
You know,
that's,
that's the curious thing
that Jesus says
to Paul
when he encounters him
on the Damascus Road.
Saul,
why are you
persecuting me?
Saul was persecuting
Christians,
not Jesus.
Jesus says,
when you did that
to them,
you did it to me.
The worst offense
that Paul ever committed
was the fact
that as he persecuted
Christians,
he was persecuting
Jesus himself.
Jesus says,
that's how closely
connected I am
to my followers.
So anytime
someone wrongs us
as Christians,
they sin against us,
they're actually
sinning against Jesus.
and Jesus doesn't
respond by getting
offended
and getting filled
with righteous indignation.
Doesn't respond
like a victim.
Doesn't respond
by hurling it back
in people's faces.
He responds
with mercy
and grace.
Right?
He has more
of a right
to be offended
than anyone.
So that's
the first reason
I think we should
be unoffendable.
The second reason
is if we think
of ourselves
the way Paul does,
if I really
think of myself
as not only
a sinner,
but on par
probably the foremost
or among the foremost,
if anybody really knew,
if I really
thought of myself
the way Paul does,
and if I'm seeking
to be mature
as a Christian,
that's the direction
I want to go.
If I really thought
that,
you know,
then if somebody
comes at you,
if you think that
and somebody
comes at you
and say they
directly accuse you
and hurl all kinds
of accusations
at you,
and you did this
and you did that,
and say they're just
coming at you
with everything
they've got.
Even if all
of those particular
accusations
are completely
off base and wrong,
even if they have
no idea what
they're talking about,
and it's all smoke,
and it's all hot air,
there's no substance
to it.
Because I'm
a foremost
of sinners,
I know how easily
it is for me
to be self-deceived,
I know how easy
it is for there
to be blind spots
in my life,
I know how many
times I thought
an area of my life
was free from sin
only to realize
there's sin
all over it,
I've had enough
experiences of being
humbled and have
to confess things
that I didn't see
until somebody
pointed it out,
that even if I think
that person is
completely off base,
even if I think
there's nothing here,
we should always
pause and ask
ourselves,
is there some
little kernel
of truth
here,
something in my
heart that I do
need to pay
attention to?
And maybe this
person is coming
with the worst
possible motives
and intentions,
it's not really
about them.
Is this an
opportunity for me
to do a little
deeper self-reflection?
Is there some
nugget or kernel
that I need to be
aware of and I
need to repent of?
So you say,
thank you,
I'll take that
into consideration.
I'm going to spend
some time reflecting
on that.
I'm going to pray
about that.
And I'm going to
ask what Psalm 51
says, that I want
God to renew me
from the inside out,
to make me aware
of the things that
I need to repent of,
to create a clean
heart inside me.
So pride, that was
a little excursus
into the world of
the offense culture
that we live in,
but it is directly
connected to pride.
And pride is the
great obstacle to
grace.
So growing in grace
means doing away
with pride and
growing in humility.
So when we are
wronged and slighted,
instead of choosing
offense, I think we
see those as
opportunities for
spiritual growth.
That's a great way
to get back at
somebody who comes
at you.
Thank you.
This is a great
opportunity for me
to grow in grace.
grace.
So if we looked at
the depth of grace,
we've looked at the
breadth of grace,
finally we need to
remember what is all
this for, the purpose
of grace.
As Paul reflects on
the grace in his own
life that he's
experienced, it moves
him to worship.
And it's almost as
though he's writing
this, he just sort
of spontaneously breaks
out into praise.
There's a good chance
maybe that actually
Luke was his
secretary and Luke's
writing this as Paul
is dictating,
which is commonly
the way letters like
this would be
written.
And I love to
imagine Paul sitting
there dictating Luke's
writing, and Paul
just spontaneously,
he's talking about
the grace of God in
his life, even though
he's the foremost
sinner, and then he
spontaneously breaks
into these words.
To the king of the
ages, immortal,
invisible, the only
God, be honor and
glory forever and
ever, amen.
And I can imagine him
doing that and Luke
kind of turning around
and being like, do
you want me to write
that down too, or are
you just having a
moment, you know?
And Paul says, no,
write it down.
Write it down.
There's this moment
where it all seems to
well up in Paul, and
then he breaks out
into spontaneous
praise.
And I think, you
know, for all of us
who feel like the
world is falling
apart, we desperately,
friends, need a new
perspective.
We need a God-centered
perspective, and that
can only be gained
through worship.
It can only be gained
through worship.
And look at what Paul
praises about God and
what it reminds us of
when we think of God.
If you look at verse
17 and what he says, he
says, first of all, that
God is the king of the
ages.
He is completely in
control.
He's in control of the
past.
He's in control of the
present.
He's in control of the
future.
It may not feel like it
or look like it, but God
is in control.
And nothing that is
happening now is not
outside of his grasp.
And then Paul says, God
is immortal.
He's not subject to
decay and entropy and
death.
And one day, in fact, he's
going to bring an end to
decay and death.
He says, God is
invisible.
He's not like the gods
that we make.
He's not like our idols
that we make out of wood
or stone or plastic or
metal or silicon.
He's the God who makes
himself known through the
mountains, through the
oceans, through the
forests.
Look around.
Everything you see, all of
the beauty of creation, that
is how God makes himself
known.
His fingerprints are
everywhere.
There's no possible way you
could make something out of
stone or wood or metal that
could encapsulate that,
unless by chance, unless you
were to look at your fellow
human being.
If you want to see an image
of the invisible God, it is
reflected and refracted
through human beings.
If you want to see it in its
ultimate expression, we see it
in the face of Jesus Christ.
And then he goes on, God is
the only God.
He has no rivals.
There are no competitors.
There is no epic battle of
good and evil, and I hope God
wins.
God has no rivals.
There is only one God.
Anyone or anything we build our
life on apart from him is
inferior and will crumble.
So when we focus on ourselves,
when we focus on our
circumstances, when we read the
latest headlines and the
atrocities that they contain,
anxiety and fear grow.
We should read the headlines.
We should be engaged and know
what's happening in the world.
We should be involved in doing
what we can to bring goodness
and truth into the world.
But when we focus only on those
things, anxiety and fear grow.
Worship is meant to reorient
us back to what is true, back
to the God who created all of
this.
So in worship, we are reminded
what is true.
Through worship, we're able to
see the world the way it really
is.
And the purpose of grace is to
bring us back to worship.
So often, friends, God will
allow us to experience hard
things, to bring us to our knees,
to remind us that we need to come
back to him and worship.
So we take the New York Times and we
take the Atlantic and we take all the
news articles that we're reading and we
take all of the things that are
happening.
We take all of that and we bring it to
the cross.
And we bring it before the Lord.
And we say, we can't make sense of this.
We don't know how to fix it.
But you do.
And you will.
We come back to God because only God can
make sense of and offer hope to a world
like ours.
So as I said at the beginning, things are
hard right now in our society.
There's a lot of anxiety.
I think there's a tremendous opportunity
here for the church.
A tremendous opportunity.
Especially the church in the West.
If you've been reading the articles and
headlines and looking at the statistics
and the numbers, in places like the
U.S., in places like the U.K., there
looks to be a kind of quiet revival
happening.
People by the hundreds, by the thousands
are coming back to faith and they are
coming back to the church.
People are saying, has secularism, the
march of secularism stopped?
Are things turning around?
And it seems to be that that is the
case.
I believe it's because the empty promises
of secularism are not delivering the
peace and security and meaning and hope
that people want and need.
Instead, we have more violence and
division and nihilism.
No way to make sense of it all.
So I think there's a tremendous opportunity
for the grace of Christ.
And I think that we're called to be people
of grace who live out that grace and put
that grace on display.
To remember, as we said, the depth of grace
means that God can use the most hopeless
situations, the people we least expect,
to do the most amazing things.
So what does it look like for us to make our
weakness available for God to use?
The breadth of grace extends to the whole world,
but we need to be humbled in order to receive it.
You know, may we be people who are marked by humility.
The world does not need more pundits.
The world needs more people pointing to Christ.
And then the purpose of grace is to remind us why we're here,
to worship and glorify the God who has made us.
Let's pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that all of this is true
regardless of how we feel in the moment.
That these are the bedrock truths upon which reality itself rests.
And these are things that will be true long after all of these
present realities are forgotten.
Lord, your word is eternal.
Your grace is eternal.
And Lord, because you have made us, we are eternal.
So we will be there in that place,
but all of the present struggles, to quote your apostle,
will be like a light momentary affliction
compared to the weight of that eternal glory.
Lord, we pray that you would give us the strength
and the courage to be people of grace here and now,
pointing to that time yet to come
until Christ comes again.
In his name, amen.