WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.140 Okay, for a little while this morning we're going to look back at the passage that Anne 00:00:06.140 --> 00:00:10.859 read for us from 1 Timothy chapter 1. 00:00:10.859 --> 00:00:18.620 So this is a letter to a young church leader in Ephesus called Timothy, and it's from 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:22.100 the apostle Paul. 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:28.699 And that's the context of how that letter became part of inspired Scripture. 00:00:28.699 --> 00:00:35.179 It was given by God, not just to that church, but to all churches, to us as well today as 00:00:35.179 --> 00:00:39.379 it's the living Word of the living God. 00:00:39.379 --> 00:00:46.899 And last week I think Corrie was looking at truth and doctrine and truth and how truth 00:00:46.899 --> 00:00:51.239 was linked very powerfully to love. 00:00:51.239 --> 00:00:55.840 So he was saying that truth is defined in the first section really, the truth. 00:00:55.840 --> 00:01:05.420 God's truth is defined by love, and it's love that's defined by God because God is love. 00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:10.380 So God is the author of love, God is love. 00:01:10.380 --> 00:01:15.180 And that was a really important, that's a really important thing as a foundation for 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:22.300 us this morning as we are thinking about this next passage here. 00:01:22.299 --> 00:01:29.659 Because if your understanding of what truth is, is purely factual. 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:37.340 If it's kind of simply objective reality, and if it doesn't impact on your heart and 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:42.739 doesn't change your heart, then can I say it's hopeless truth. 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:50.859 It's not God's truth, and God's truth is truth revealed. 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:58.700 If your determination of what truth is, and if mine is such that it allows us to remain 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:04.099 unchanged at the core of our being, in our heart, in our very... 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:05.459 What makes me me? 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:07.060 What makes you you? 00:02:07.060 --> 00:02:16.500 If truth doesn't change us, if it allows us to remain self-righteous or constantly complaining 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:23.379 about life or suffering, or other people complaining about other people, if it justifies a deep 00:02:23.379 --> 00:02:30.259 hatred towards people who are not like me, those who are different from me, those who 00:02:30.259 --> 00:02:36.780 disagree with me, those who don't look like me, or those who I might regard as my enemies, 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:38.939 then it's scandalous truth. 00:02:38.939 --> 00:02:40.539 It's not genuine truth. 00:02:40.539 --> 00:02:41.539 It's false. 00:02:41.539 --> 00:02:42.539 It's destructive. 00:02:42.539 --> 00:02:44.020 It's a lie. 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:47.820 It is not God's truth. 00:02:47.820 --> 00:02:53.379 If you as a Christian, if I as a Christian have been a Christian or a believer for 20 00:02:53.379 --> 00:03:00.219 years, and we... or more, and we kind of... 00:03:00.219 --> 00:03:05.379 We're proud in that we say we haven't changed over these 20 years. 00:03:05.379 --> 00:03:10.620 If our knowledge of Jesus Christ hasn't changed us over 20 years, or over 10 years, or over 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:18.780 five years, or over five months, then there's something that we're not grasping about the 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:20.819 reality of Christ's truth. 00:03:20.819 --> 00:03:28.819 If Christ for you is distant and makes no impact on your life or your character, then 00:03:28.819 --> 00:03:33.420 there's a door closed that should be opened. 00:03:33.420 --> 00:03:35.939 And it's important to think again. 00:03:35.939 --> 00:03:40.900 To think again what truth is and who truth is and what difference Jesus makes in your 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:47.300 life, because as we saw last week, above everything, God's truth is incarnate. 00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:53.219 God's truth is revealed most powerfully and most strongly in a person, in the person of 00:03:53.219 --> 00:03:54.659 Jesus Christ. 00:03:54.659 --> 00:03:58.939 He makes that remarkable claim in John 14, an unbelievable claim. 00:03:58.939 --> 00:04:02.259 I am the way, the truth, and the life. 00:04:02.259 --> 00:04:04.819 Nobody comes to the Father except through me. 00:04:04.819 --> 00:04:07.859 That's a statement that changes everything. 00:04:07.859 --> 00:04:15.099 It's an outstanding and remarkable statement that eyeballs us and makes us think about 00:04:15.099 --> 00:04:16.099 what truth is. 00:04:16.099 --> 00:04:17.899 That's his claim. 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:21.019 That is what Jesus says. 00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:31.980 And the outworking of Jesus as truth, I think we find in verse 15, which we read, this saying 00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:38.220 is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:42.060 sinners, policies of whom I am the worst. 00:04:42.060 --> 00:04:46.460 That is the outworking of truth. 00:04:46.460 --> 00:04:48.939 That is why Jesus Christ came. 00:04:48.939 --> 00:04:52.780 And it's a trustworthy saying. 00:04:52.780 --> 00:05:01.740 There are five trustworthy sayings in the epistles here, in the pastoral epistles that Paul uses. 00:05:01.740 --> 00:05:03.139 We can look them up differently. 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:07.819 This is, it says, this is a trustworthy saying, probably a doctrine that had become known in 00:05:07.819 --> 00:05:09.340 the church. 00:05:09.340 --> 00:05:17.340 And this is what he says here, that if Jesus is truth and if truth is love, the love looks 00:05:17.340 --> 00:05:22.540 like Jesus coming in to the world to save sinners. 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:24.939 And that's the goal of his truth. 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:31.540 And so we see an outworking of love in that, you know, Jesus' own description of love. 00:05:31.540 --> 00:05:34.340 Love is love while it starts with loving God, doesn't it? 00:05:34.340 --> 00:05:36.500 And that means a change of heart. 00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:41.460 Matthew 22, love the Lord your God with all your heart, so strengthen mind. 00:05:41.460 --> 00:05:46.820 And then it involves loving your fellow believers, your neighbors yourself, change of heart. 00:05:46.820 --> 00:05:51.180 And also Matthew 5 in the Sermon in the Mountains says it means loving your enemies, change of 00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:52.180 heart. 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:55.580 It's a, it's a, it's a defined love. 00:05:55.579 --> 00:06:01.699 It's a love that he expresses and shows us and is a love that we need to receive from 00:06:01.699 --> 00:06:04.259 him because it doesn't come naturally to us. 00:06:04.259 --> 00:06:15.060 And we see that in no one more clearly than Paul himself, who goes on to explain the truth 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:22.579 explosion in his life, how his life was changed so dramatically when he met with, what did 00:06:22.579 --> 00:06:24.459 he meet with? 00:06:24.459 --> 00:06:26.339 Did he meet with a philosophy? 00:06:26.339 --> 00:06:31.139 Did he meet with a passage of Scripture? 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:34.899 No, he met with Jesus Christ, the risen Savior. 00:06:34.899 --> 00:06:41.060 He met with truth incarnate on the road, that famous road to Damascus experience. 00:06:41.060 --> 00:06:47.219 And he is a great example of the revolution that truth brings into our lives and into 00:06:47.219 --> 00:06:48.219 our hearts. 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:54.820 He's a tense example of the power of God's love and the power of grasping what truth does 00:06:54.820 --> 00:06:57.660 for us and what truth changes in us. 00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:03.180 He's a kind of organic template of the gospel of what it means to be a Christian. 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:07.020 I want to look at what he says just for a few minutes this morning. 00:07:07.020 --> 00:07:12.260 And he argues that there was no one worse than him, that he was the worst person you 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:14.460 could ever imagine in this world. 00:07:14.459 --> 00:07:23.620 Verse 15 he says, you know, of whom the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ overwhelmed for me 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:25.180 in faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:28.819 The saying is trustworthy and deserves full exception that Jesus Christ came into the 00:07:28.819 --> 00:07:31.299 world to save sinners of whom I am foremost. 00:07:31.299 --> 00:07:40.139 They'll formally go back to, I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent. 00:07:40.139 --> 00:07:45.939 The worst of sinners, Paul recognizes himself before God. 00:07:45.939 --> 00:07:52.740 You probably don't get more evil than Paul or as he was called Saul before he met with 00:07:52.740 --> 00:07:54.579 Jesus. 00:07:54.579 --> 00:07:56.579 He himself was blinded. 00:07:56.579 --> 00:08:02.099 But he was blinded by the truth, at least as he saw it. 00:08:02.099 --> 00:08:04.019 He thought he was doing God's will. 00:08:04.019 --> 00:08:10.539 He thought he was being obedient to God because he wasn't listening and he was blinded to 00:08:10.539 --> 00:08:13.419 the gospel and to the love of God. 00:08:13.419 --> 00:08:16.699 He was immaculately self-righteous. 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:19.339 He would have been first in church every single week. 00:08:19.339 --> 00:08:22.539 He would have been right in the front row and he would have a Bible open and he would 00:08:22.539 --> 00:08:24.819 be lapping up the truth. 00:08:24.819 --> 00:08:29.659 He kept all the religious rules that needed to be kept. 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:35.860 He sought to be good before God, certainly outwardly anyway, but what becomes clear is 00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:38.580 that inside he was very bitter. 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:42.899 He was a fanatical zealot out to destroy Christianity. 00:08:42.899 --> 00:08:48.100 So maybe he was the worst sinner who ever lived because if he succeeded none of us would have 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:49.860 been sitting here today. 00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:53.620 He was out to crush that sect as he sought. 00:08:53.620 --> 00:08:58.100 He was out to destroy and to deny the reality and the importance of Jesus Christ. 00:08:58.100 --> 00:09:02.300 He was a bigoted persecutor, a murderer. 00:09:02.300 --> 00:09:09.620 He had an angry, hateful heart and he was bent on annihilation, genocide of a religious 00:09:09.620 --> 00:09:12.340 minority. 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:15.540 He raged and he hounded the church. 00:09:15.540 --> 00:09:22.700 He wanted to strangle this and suffocate this fledgling family of God who were bringing 00:09:22.700 --> 00:09:28.820 the good news to the lost who are sharing God's love and God's truth. 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:32.580 Maybe there was no one ever quite so blind as Paul. 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:33.940 Was he the worst sinner of all time? 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:35.100 Who knows? 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:38.300 But certainly subjectively he felt that. 00:09:38.300 --> 00:09:42.860 He felt that there couldn't be anyone worse even if maybe objectively, well that's up 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:46.980 to God to reveal. 00:09:46.980 --> 00:09:55.980 But God's light blinded him on that road to Damascus, physically if not spiritually because 00:09:55.980 --> 00:10:00.300 for the first time he could see, he could see the truth of what he was doing. 00:10:00.300 --> 00:10:06.659 He recognized there must have been something remarkable even in the voice of Jesus, even 00:10:06.659 --> 00:10:14.659 in his meeting with Jesus that radiated not judgment but love and forgiveness. 00:10:14.659 --> 00:10:22.699 It must have been utterly powerful for him because we don't have a great deal of information 00:10:22.699 --> 00:10:28.579 but to see that he was not going to be damned by his meeting with Jesus but he was going 00:10:28.579 --> 00:10:32.699 to be redeemed and saved and forgiven. 00:10:32.699 --> 00:10:38.059 And what he did see was the motives of his own heart so that he can't imagine that there 00:10:38.059 --> 00:10:40.539 would have been anyone worse than him. 00:10:40.539 --> 00:10:45.740 So we see that he thinks in his life there's no one worse as he comes face to face with 00:10:45.740 --> 00:10:46.740 the truth. 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:50.059 He meets the truth in Jesus. 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:55.579 And the remarkable thing is that Christ came to him. 00:10:55.579 --> 00:11:00.860 The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with a faith in love in Jesus Christ. 00:11:00.860 --> 00:11:07.539 And Christ came into his life and into his experience. 00:11:07.539 --> 00:11:15.019 Christ met with him so that Christ exposed him that he was persecuting Christ, not Christians. 00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:18.299 He was crushing truth, not defending it. 00:11:18.299 --> 00:11:22.939 He was living his own version of that truth because he was number one. 00:11:22.939 --> 00:11:26.860 And in effect he was doing the devil's work for him. 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:29.059 Hate was blinding him. 00:11:29.059 --> 00:11:33.339 There was no love in his heart for God. 00:11:33.339 --> 00:11:36.459 And he heard Christ question him. 00:11:36.460 --> 00:11:38.940 That divine voice is really important. 00:11:38.940 --> 00:11:43.820 So also, maybe we should have read that testimony back in Acts. 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:46.700 So also, why do you persecute me? 00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:54.180 Now that's really important, that testimony, because it's recorded in Acts as an event, 00:11:54.180 --> 00:11:59.379 but twice later on in Acts, it's also repeated by Paul himself. 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:05.379 It was a hugely significant reality for him, his meeting with Jesus Christ, because he 00:12:05.379 --> 00:12:12.259 repeats it in front of various authorities when he's being on trial. 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:17.980 He tells them about Jesus Christ that he met with light and love and truth, that he was 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:22.980 found out, he was exposed, the light of Christ touched his heart, but he was forgiven. 00:12:22.980 --> 00:12:24.740 It was truth like no other. 00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:27.139 And he put his faith and his trust in Jesus. 00:12:27.139 --> 00:12:29.659 It all clicked for him. 00:12:29.659 --> 00:12:36.379 This became his saviour, his defender, not his detractor, and there was an unbelievable 00:12:36.379 --> 00:12:42.059 change in his life, a tremendous change from that moment on. 00:12:42.059 --> 00:12:43.740 Truth changed him. 00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:49.899 He became thankful, we're told in verse 3, in verse 12, I thank him who has given me 00:12:49.899 --> 00:12:53.419 strength, Christ Jesus our Lord. 00:12:53.419 --> 00:12:55.819 And he has this great sense of thankful. 00:12:55.819 --> 00:12:57.659 He was a strong guy. 00:12:57.659 --> 00:12:58.659 He was a tough guy. 00:12:58.659 --> 00:13:04.299 He was a leader, leading men to persecute and murder others. 00:13:04.299 --> 00:13:11.899 But he thanked God for God's strength to him because he realised that though he was tough 00:13:11.899 --> 00:13:17.459 and macho, he was weak and empty spiritually. 00:13:17.459 --> 00:13:21.259 And he was humbled by this living God as he received mercy. 00:13:21.259 --> 00:13:23.539 You know, you've got to be humbled to receive mercy. 00:13:23.539 --> 00:13:25.539 We all have to be humbled to receive it. 00:13:25.539 --> 00:13:27.980 And he had been a proud man. 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:34.220 He confesses his ignorance that he did what he did in ignorance and unbelief, though he 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:41.139 at that time thought he was really intelligent and well read and understanding of the truth. 00:13:41.139 --> 00:13:47.740 And so grace overflows to him because he senses that he's undeserving as he sees a blasphemer, 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.139 a persecutor, a violent man. 00:13:50.139 --> 00:13:56.220 And that's replaced by faith and love and by joy in the living God. 00:13:56.220 --> 00:14:04.460 And he moves from being stubbornly opposed to being a worshipper in the living God. 00:14:04.460 --> 00:14:08.620 And he sees Christ's victory. 00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:13.460 Christ displays his perfect patience and an example of those who are to believe in him 00:14:13.460 --> 00:14:17.300 for eternal life in verse 16. 00:14:17.300 --> 00:14:21.100 God takes this worst of all sinners. 00:14:21.100 --> 00:14:25.740 The truth transforms him and gives him the greatest task. 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:26.740 Can you imagine? 00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:34.259 The one who went to destroy the church becomes the apostle to the Gentiles to grow the church, 00:14:34.259 --> 00:14:37.019 to change the world. 00:14:37.019 --> 00:14:43.419 And he recognizes that God is incredibly patient in doing that. 00:14:43.419 --> 00:14:45.180 God displayed his patience. 00:14:45.180 --> 00:14:48.740 Now, there's difficulty there, isn't there? 00:14:48.740 --> 00:14:58.899 Because there were martyrs, there were people that were stoned and killed before Saul met 00:14:58.899 --> 00:15:01.220 with Jesus. 00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:06.220 Suffering was there, injustice was there, sadness was there. 00:15:06.220 --> 00:15:08.460 And in God's timing, it was allowed to happen. 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:13.940 Now, there's great mystery in all of these things and I don't pretend to have any answers. 00:15:13.940 --> 00:15:20.660 But he does say that it allowed Christ to display his perfect patience as an example 00:15:20.660 --> 00:15:27.300 to those who are to believe that the reason Christ doesn't return today in the midst of 00:15:27.300 --> 00:15:34.340 all the confusion and darkness we face is because he wants more people to come, to know 00:15:34.340 --> 00:15:38.060 and love him and be redeemed by his grace. 00:15:38.060 --> 00:15:41.420 Christ's victory and Christ's glory. 00:15:41.419 --> 00:15:47.659 He speaks there about the Christ that he was destroying in the most remarkable terms, doesn't 00:15:47.659 --> 00:15:52.979 he, when he speaks of them and he speaks of Christ as the King. 00:15:52.979 --> 00:15:54.419 The King, what does he say? 00:15:54.419 --> 00:16:04.539 The King of all ages, immortal, invisible, the only God to God be glory and honor forever 00:16:04.539 --> 00:16:05.539 and ever. 00:16:05.539 --> 00:16:12.659 And it reminds us of what he says in Colossians 1, where he says that Christ is the image 00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:18.419 of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the one through whom the world was 00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:21.339 created and the one who came to redeem the world. 00:16:21.339 --> 00:16:23.019 He's incompatible. 00:16:23.019 --> 00:16:29.620 So for Paul, Jesus isn't a martyred religious leader and he mustn't be for you and I as 00:16:29.620 --> 00:16:30.699 believers. 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:35.900 He's not some great character from the past that we can have moral lessons from and we 00:16:35.900 --> 00:16:41.300 can learn to be good and nice and holy, this is the living God, the eternal, immortal, invisible 00:16:41.300 --> 00:16:50.860 God made flesh who reveals his truth and who's nailed to a cross willingly and voluntarily. 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:52.820 Death doesn't take him. 00:16:52.820 --> 00:16:58.259 He gives himself to death because he's paid the price for our sins and is raised on the 00:16:58.259 --> 00:17:03.620 third day to life so that we can live and we can know that victory ourselves. 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:10.259 It's remarkable that the truth is in essence hugely personal. 00:17:10.259 --> 00:17:11.779 It is God. 00:17:11.779 --> 00:17:15.980 And as we meet with God, our lives will be changed. 00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:20.140 As we meet with God in Christ, as we give ourselves to Him, our lives will be changed. 00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:26.660 So there's this passage where Paul is kind of unpacking what it is to believe and what 00:17:26.660 --> 00:17:30.740 it means to believe in Jesus and the difference truth makes. 00:17:30.740 --> 00:17:33.140 But what on earth does it mean for us? 00:17:33.140 --> 00:17:39.500 What does it mean in our lives to take this message and apply it into our own circumstances? 00:17:39.500 --> 00:17:43.740 One or two things just as we draw towards a conclusion. 00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:50.620 God's truth, the truth of God in His Word will always convict us in our hearts. 00:17:50.620 --> 00:17:55.740 It will convict us always. 00:17:55.740 --> 00:18:02.339 He talks about in verse 19, holding faith and a good conscience because God's truth 00:18:02.339 --> 00:18:09.859 will deal with us at that level, a conscience level, not conscious, but a conscience level. 00:18:09.859 --> 00:18:12.420 And His truth will expose to us that we are sinners. 00:18:12.420 --> 00:18:19.700 And that's humbling for us when we meet with Jesus Christ, God through Jesus Christ. 00:18:19.700 --> 00:18:26.539 And our testimony will, at different times, surely will sometimes think the same as Paul. 00:18:26.539 --> 00:18:29.500 I'm the worst of sinners. 00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:30.860 There's no one quite like me. 00:18:30.860 --> 00:18:34.220 I'm glad people can't see my life on the screen. 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:36.299 I'm glad they can't see my heart. 00:18:36.299 --> 00:18:37.940 Glad they can't see my motives. 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:43.500 I'm glad they can't see how I trip up and fall and fail and all the wrong motives that 00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:46.940 are in my soul. 00:18:46.940 --> 00:18:51.779 We may see ourselves sometimes like Paul is the worst of sinners, but that's not a bad 00:18:51.779 --> 00:18:55.580 thing because the gospel is about getting into our heart. 00:18:55.580 --> 00:19:02.140 It's letting his light shine in there and God's presence will slam our conscience. 00:19:02.140 --> 00:19:07.779 It will slam our conscience because of who He is and because of His holiness. 00:19:07.779 --> 00:19:13.700 And it will place our heart in tatters before Him. 00:19:13.700 --> 00:19:18.740 His truth is truth and it's not cheap. 00:19:18.740 --> 00:19:24.460 And God will not allow us to just park the bus at the foot of the cross and leave it 00:19:24.460 --> 00:19:25.460 there. 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:29.100 And He'll not let us just make our own definitions. 00:19:29.100 --> 00:19:35.620 Well, I can cut that out and we can leave this because He is truth and He's truth incarnate. 00:19:35.620 --> 00:19:42.180 He doesn't allow us to wallow in our pride or our divisive spirit or our angry heart 00:19:42.180 --> 00:19:49.019 or our careless lack of consideration for Him or for other people. 00:19:49.019 --> 00:19:56.460 He doesn't allow us to remain self-righteous or disdainful of our friends or even our enemies. 00:19:56.460 --> 00:19:59.779 But listen, thank God for that. 00:19:59.779 --> 00:20:04.460 Thank God that He loves us enough to give us a conscience that exposes our heart. 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:06.700 It doesn't necessarily expose it to everyone. 00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:08.140 Thank God for that. 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:14.700 But as we deal with Him eyeball to eyeball, His love and His grace will expose where we 00:20:14.700 --> 00:20:22.540 need to see the change that only His power and glory and grace can change us and forgive 00:20:22.540 --> 00:20:25.620 us and renew us. 00:20:25.620 --> 00:20:29.180 So maybe you're not a Christian here this morning, but you're searching for the truth. 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:30.980 You're looking for truth. 00:20:30.980 --> 00:20:42.620 Can I encourage you not simply to focus on something philosophical or merely objective, 00:20:42.620 --> 00:20:51.860 existential and not just be content with something that you think is solid but safe, you know, 00:20:51.860 --> 00:20:58.860 that leaves you untroubled, that leaves you without a pricked conscience, without being 00:20:58.859 --> 00:21:04.500 exposed because God's truth strips us naked. 00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:05.500 That's His truth. 00:21:05.500 --> 00:21:08.139 That's what it will do. 00:21:08.139 --> 00:21:10.059 Why? 00:21:10.059 --> 00:21:14.339 Because grace is amazing. 00:21:14.339 --> 00:21:19.299 Because grace is absolutely amazing. 00:21:19.299 --> 00:21:26.699 In verse 14, He says, It was the grace of our Lord that overflowed for me when with the 00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:30.180 faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 00:21:30.180 --> 00:21:32.059 Grace is amazing. 00:21:32.059 --> 00:21:40.900 Grace transformed immediately Paul as he accepted and saw that despite who he was, Christ Jesus 00:21:40.900 --> 00:21:48.220 was the one who had paid the price for all of that and who had in his justice provided 00:21:48.220 --> 00:21:53.019 a way forward that met also his great love. 00:21:53.019 --> 00:21:59.819 Because if we never see that, if we never see in our hearts who he is and his holiness, 00:21:59.819 --> 00:22:05.819 we're never really going to, we're never going to enjoy and receive nor find grace amazing. 00:22:05.819 --> 00:22:13.460 It'll be plain dull ornary grace, grace that we can toss aside, grace that's not that important, 00:22:13.460 --> 00:22:18.259 grace that may sound nice and may appeal at some levels. 00:22:18.259 --> 00:22:25.940 But our journey to wholeness requires that deep-seated relationship with Jesus where 00:22:25.940 --> 00:22:31.579 He pours out His forgiveness as He exposes our need and our hearts. 00:22:31.579 --> 00:22:34.460 And He does so because He's never miserly. 00:22:34.460 --> 00:22:39.379 It's not just pipettefuls of grace that He tips onto us. 00:22:39.379 --> 00:22:44.940 He lavishly overflows His grace into our hearts and into our lives. 00:22:44.940 --> 00:22:50.940 And it therefore changes our understanding of His holiness and also of His character 00:22:50.940 --> 00:22:52.820 and our priorities towards Him. 00:22:52.820 --> 00:22:56.640 He welcomes us into His divine family, into His company. 00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:04.100 He shows us step by step, day by day, what we were, who we were created to be, the purpose, 00:23:04.100 --> 00:23:06.460 the love, the hope, the trust, the goodness. 00:23:06.460 --> 00:23:10.940 He deals with our inner scrooge. 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:15.220 He helps us to see that giving is better than getting. 00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:19.539 And He helps us through the impossibilities of suffering, which we don't have answers 00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:27.539 to but which by faith and trust we believe He will take us through because He knows. 00:23:27.539 --> 00:23:31.259 And we have an incomparable future in Him. 00:23:31.259 --> 00:23:33.779 And He comes for you. 00:23:33.779 --> 00:23:38.299 And in Christ, if you're a Christian for a long time or maybe not a long time, you can 00:23:38.299 --> 00:23:40.340 be assured that He has come for you. 00:23:40.339 --> 00:23:41.819 This is He came for Paul. 00:23:41.819 --> 00:23:45.980 He's come for you to reveal and to show His grace. 00:23:45.980 --> 00:23:49.500 So God's truth convicts us, but His grace is amazing. 00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:54.939 And we are called to hold on to that truth. 00:23:54.939 --> 00:24:00.059 Verse 18 and 19, particularly, He speaks to Timothy and He says, holding faith in a good 00:24:00.059 --> 00:24:03.220 conscience. 00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:11.180 Where the truth in this warfare that you're in, and He exposes the shipwreck of others 00:24:11.180 --> 00:24:17.700 in the leadership or who want to be leaders, Himinias and Alexander, who have rejected 00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:20.380 and turned away from that truth. 00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:25.980 And there's a really, I think there's a really important picture there for us all is that 00:24:25.980 --> 00:24:28.299 picture of shipwreck. 00:24:28.299 --> 00:24:34.779 You know, if you reject Christ as your Savior, I know there's short term, we think there's 00:24:34.779 --> 00:24:39.579 short term gain of doing that sometimes because it's tough, you know, self-denial and following 00:24:39.579 --> 00:24:40.579 Jesus. 00:24:40.579 --> 00:24:45.819 And, you know, we remain Lord over our own lives and that can give us a sense of significance 00:24:45.819 --> 00:24:46.819 and importance. 00:24:46.819 --> 00:24:53.180 But if we drift from the gospel of Jesus or reject Him, or as Christians, if we're tempted 00:24:53.180 --> 00:25:00.860 to drift from the obedience of love and following Jesus, then basically Paul's saying it's a 00:25:00.860 --> 00:25:04.259 car crash in modern Barons. 00:25:04.259 --> 00:25:05.259 Shipwreck. 00:25:05.259 --> 00:25:09.740 Your life will be a shipwreck because of that spiritually. 00:25:09.740 --> 00:25:12.620 And that was what was going to happen to Himinias and Alexander. 00:25:12.620 --> 00:25:14.700 They rejected the core truth. 00:25:14.700 --> 00:25:22.539 His second epistle speaks about Himinias who rejected the resurrection, or at least He 00:25:22.539 --> 00:25:28.059 thought that the resurrection had already taken place and there was spiritual truths 00:25:28.059 --> 00:25:32.139 and myths that people had to know about. 00:25:32.139 --> 00:25:38.500 He seemed, these both of them seemed to be keeping Jesus out of their hearts. 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:40.899 They seemed to have ignored the need for a good conscience. 00:25:40.899 --> 00:25:42.339 A good conscience didn't matter. 00:25:42.339 --> 00:25:43.659 Well, it doesn't really matter. 00:25:43.659 --> 00:25:45.619 You can believe what you believe. 00:25:45.619 --> 00:25:50.539 And we kept Him out of our hearts and of our conscience. 00:25:50.539 --> 00:25:57.819 And they were handed over, as it were, to a place of without protection, a place where 00:25:57.819 --> 00:26:05.539 Jesus Christ's love wasn't in order to expose that and to bring them back, we would call 00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:11.339 that excommunication probably today, in the hope that they would see that turning away 00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:15.859 from Christ is to shipwreck your faith. 00:26:15.859 --> 00:26:24.219 Timothy had this significant and important apostolic authority to remind that early church 00:26:24.219 --> 00:26:32.059 of the danger of just rejecting Jesus or just throwing Him out as if it didn't really matter. 00:26:32.059 --> 00:26:39.379 And so we are called today, Jesus calls us to hold on, just as Paul encouraged Timothy 00:26:39.379 --> 00:26:45.779 to hold on to a good conscience and to hold on to the faith, to the truth, to the doctrine, 00:26:45.779 --> 00:26:49.460 to the teaching of Jesus Christ. 00:26:49.460 --> 00:26:56.019 Now we need to hold on to that in our own conscience, because sometimes it's tough, isn't it? 00:26:56.019 --> 00:27:02.859 It's very difficult to see yourself in the mirror, especially in the mirror of Scripture. 00:27:02.859 --> 00:27:09.460 But we never stop there, because we look into the face of Jesus and see forgiveness and 00:27:09.460 --> 00:27:11.180 wholeness. 00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:16.539 And we must see that for ourselves and also for us as a church, we need to fight for the 00:27:16.539 --> 00:27:19.100 truth. 00:27:19.100 --> 00:27:25.299 And walking away, maybe today, you think that walking away will be easier and it may seem 00:27:25.299 --> 00:27:28.660 easier. 00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:33.620 And in many ways it is easier, at least in the short term, sometimes. 00:27:33.619 --> 00:27:41.459 But you're walking away from the person of Jesus, walking away from His beauty, from His 00:27:41.459 --> 00:27:48.739 forgiveness, from His protection, from His love, your grieving, quenching, resisting 00:27:48.739 --> 00:27:50.619 His Spirit. 00:27:50.619 --> 00:27:54.059 And I would encourage you if you're tempted that way today, and who of us haven't been, 00:27:54.059 --> 00:27:59.539 and who of us aren't at different times in our lives, just go back to Jesus. 00:27:59.539 --> 00:28:03.859 Go back to that place where you first believed. 00:28:03.859 --> 00:28:06.859 Go back to the simplicity of meeting with Jesus. 00:28:06.859 --> 00:28:08.819 Deal with all the complications and difficulties. 00:28:08.819 --> 00:28:10.619 Put them aside for a while. 00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:12.859 I'm not saying, love me, love me, I'm thick. 00:28:12.859 --> 00:28:16.180 I'm just going back to sort of not thinking. 00:28:16.180 --> 00:28:22.139 We take our deepest thoughts and we bring them to the person of Jesus and we wrestle through 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:32.259 Him, wrestle with Him through these challenges that we face because God is love. 00:28:32.259 --> 00:28:38.259 And that's the doctrine that we need to stick with, that we love Him, that we love one another 00:28:38.259 --> 00:28:40.860 and that we love our enemies. 00:28:40.860 --> 00:28:45.540 There's not another truth in the world that sees that because there is no other truth 00:28:45.540 --> 00:28:48.180 than God. 00:28:48.180 --> 00:28:58.980 This God who is the King of all ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be glory. 00:28:58.980 --> 00:29:00.100 That is the truth that we have. 00:29:00.100 --> 00:29:02.299 That's the truth that will change our lives. 00:29:02.299 --> 00:29:10.140 Paul is a fantastic example that no one is too bad to come to Jesus Christ for rescue 00:29:10.140 --> 00:29:11.660 and redemption in eternal life. 00:29:11.660 --> 00:29:12.660 Isn't it sad? 00:29:12.660 --> 00:29:16.980 There's lots of, maybe our friends and colleagues and people around us who say, oh, if I went 00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:20.339 to church, the ceiling would come down, I'm just a bad guy. 00:29:20.339 --> 00:29:25.099 Yeah, you know, Jesus will not accept me because if we somehow have got everything turned upside 00:29:25.099 --> 00:29:32.620 down, that's exactly what we are all like, every single one of us. 00:29:32.620 --> 00:29:37.779 And there wouldn't be a church roof in the world if that were any different. 00:29:37.779 --> 00:29:43.980 So Paul's a fantastic example and reminder to us of what truth does for us in our hearts. 00:29:43.980 --> 00:29:48.860 And I guess, I'm an Aesop and Alexander are also a great example that you can never think 00:29:48.860 --> 00:29:56.779 you're good enough not to need Jesus and can drift from Jesus without a cost and without 00:29:56.779 --> 00:29:59.779 experiencing unimaginable loss. 00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:05.860 So Jesus is presented in His Word and it's Jesus we focus on in your struggles, in your 00:30:05.860 --> 00:30:13.500 battles, in the difficulties, in the questions, in the fears, in the things we don't understand. 00:30:13.500 --> 00:30:16.380 We come to Jesus and we meet with Jesus. 00:30:16.380 --> 00:30:22.940 We have our Damascus road experience every day as we come to His feet in faith and trust. 00:30:22.940 --> 00:30:23.940 Let's pray. 00:30:23.940 --> 00:30:29.819 Father God, we ask and pray you would help us to see more clearly who you are that we 00:30:29.819 --> 00:30:36.500 would focus more clearly on who you are and that the length of time between your life 00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:43.859 on earth, your death and resurrection would not change anything because you yourself are 00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:51.420 out with the scheme of time and you are ever present and we come before you today and we 00:30:51.420 --> 00:30:56.539 seek forgiveness, we seek honesty, integrity. 00:30:56.539 --> 00:31:02.019 We ask that we would live in the light of what Jesus has done and allow you to wrestle 00:31:02.019 --> 00:31:03.740 with our hearts. 00:31:03.740 --> 00:31:09.380 We know there's so many things that we keep, we have no go areas, we have no entry signs. 00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:12.099 Lord help us to deal with them. 00:31:12.099 --> 00:31:18.779 However difficult, however challenging to us, to me, to every individual here, may we be 00:31:18.779 --> 00:31:25.779 those people who recognize that God knows our hearts and He, it's not that we confess 00:31:25.779 --> 00:31:32.420 because we tell Him what He doesn't know, but we confess because He wants us to recognize 00:31:32.420 --> 00:31:36.180 a self-honesty and a need for Him. 00:31:36.180 --> 00:31:41.340 And may we know amazing grace, may it be reflected in the way we act as a church, the way we 00:31:41.340 --> 00:31:46.060 speak to each other, the way we share coffee and tea together, the way we speak to visitors, 00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:52.860 the way that we respond when things go wrong and when our fellow Christians let us down, 00:31:52.860 --> 00:32:00.300 may we love our neighbors and may we love our enemies in a world which hates its enemies 00:32:00.299 --> 00:32:06.819 and in a world which makes that friendship circle smaller and smaller and smaller. 00:32:06.819 --> 00:32:11.339 Lord help us to love those who don't look like us, think like us, act like us, believe 00:32:11.339 --> 00:32:15.859 like us and to do it with self-sacrificial commitment. 00:32:15.859 --> 00:32:17.859 We ask in Jesus' name. 00:32:17.859 --> 00:32:30.859 Amen.