Well it's wonderful to praise the Lord in song, it's wonderful to worship him in the study of his word too. So please would you turn with me to the book of 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy in chapter 1 where we're looking this morning at verses 12 through to 17. 1 Timothy chapter 1. And this is Paul's letter to Timothy, who was a young understudy of Paul's, who was to be the next generation of Christian leaders after the apostles. And he was the pastor of a church in Ephesus. Paul said this to him he said in verse 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has given me strength that he considered me faithful appointing me to his service even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man I was shown mercy because I acted ignorant in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Please keep your Bibles open there. Many years ago I used to have some friends in Reading area who were a family that were very kind to me and we spent a lot of time together and the father of the house was an architect of bridges. Now, I want to say this, it wasn't a subject that interested me at all until I started seeing all these pictures of bridges all over the house. Whereas I guess most people would have pictures of scenery and things like this and family photos, their house was full of pictures. You went to the bathroom, there was another bridge. And there were bridges from all over the world, bridges from all eras. I never really thought about how impressive bridges were until I started going to their home. And bridges do catch my eye. Here's the most amazing bridge that you might have heard of. It's called the Danyang Kunshan Grand Bridge. and it is now the longest bridge in the world at over 100 miles. It's 102 miles of suspended concrete and steel that stretches across China. It's an absolutely huge bridge. Now, you might say, well, John, with your interest in bridges and with that being there on the Earth, would you like to go to it? The answer is no. No, because although I think bridges are very impressive, I do worry sometimes about the safety of our bridges. There's been a number of terrible disasters lately with bridges collapsing. That's this bridge, this famous bridge I've just told you about there, just a portion of it. But some of you will remember in 2007, the Mississippi River Bridge that collapsed. I think three people died in that. Or the Ancona, Italy disaster where the bridge collapsed on cars that were going along. That was in 2017. Or the Miami bridge that I think I'm right in saying killed 10 people when this bridge collapsed. in 2018. I remember seeing that on the news and you probably remember this one even more as well, Genoa, Italy and I can't remember if that was 2018 or 19 but 39 people died in Italy when that bridge collapsed because of faulty concrete that had been used in its construction. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, that's all right. I mean, that's all overseas. Well, do you know what? The RAC in 2017 said this, that according to the newspaper, thousands of UK road bridges are not fit for purpose. Experts have warned some 3,203 cannot bear the weight of the heaviest lorries an RAC study found. an increase of 35% in just two years. So isn't that an encouraging message in this way when you're driving home today? But you look at these bridges and you think, with all these things, they are great, but can I trust it? Can I trust it? And if you're going home today feeling a bit worried, when you get home, just cheer yourself up. Just watch Laurel and Hardy, the film Swiss Miss, where they try to push a piano across a rope bridge up in the Alps, and that will really cheer you up. But you look at a bridge and think, you know, can I trust it? Can I trust it? Is it really going to be able to take my weight? Is it going to take the weight of the car? And so on. And that's not just so in the physical world. That's also true spiritually, isn't it? We think about trusting ourselves to the great bridge of the gospel message. In our hallway at home, we have a picture on the wall that someone gave us, and we're very thankful. It's given us many witnessing opportunities of the cross as a bridge across from Earth, which is pouring its way down into the lake of fire across to heaven. And it's a simple message that everybody gets when they see it, that you've got a choice, but you can go to heaven instead of going to hell. by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ and putting your trust in what he did on the cross for you. It's like a bridge to get you to eternity. And that's what Christianity is offering, this way of escape from the judgment of God, which is to come for our sins, to go to heaven through what the Lord Jesus did when he died as a substitute for sinners at Calvary. But the question is, can we trust it? Can we trust it? I mean, it's easy to say things like this. Anybody can stand and say it. But is it trustworthy? Well, I'm pleased to tell you this morning, it is 100% trustworthy. And I want to show you four things in this Bible passage this morning that Paul wrote to Timothy that show the trustworthiness of Christianity. Because in this passage, we have a trustworthy servant. We have a trustworthy saying. We have a trustworthy savior. and we have a trustworthy sovereign. Those four things are trustworthy as we see them here in the Word of God. And I want to take you through them with me in the scriptures this morning. So first of all, in Christianity, we have a trustworthy servant in the Apostle Paul. And he says in verse 12, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has given me strength that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. I wonder if you've ever heard the story of Pepe Rodriguez. Pepe Rodriguez was one of the most notorious bank robbers in the early west of America. He lived just across the border of America in Mexico. And he was a Mexican, and he used to regularly creep up into Texas and rob the banks. The Texas Rangers were trying to catch him for many years. In the end, they came to a conclusion that one man alone wasn't enough to catch this guy. He was so capable that they had to go down to Mexico to catch him unawares on his own soil. Really, it was an illegal thing they were doing, but they went down to Mexico to try and catch him. They went to a bar that they had found out he used to frequent regularly. They found him there. The bartender and he were the only ones in there. All these rangers with their guns, their rifles, they come in, they surround him. He's obviously cornered. And there's just one problem. Pepe couldn't speak English, and the Texas Rangers, they couldn't speak Mexican. So they asked the bartender to translate for them what was being said. And the Texas Rangers said to him, tell him if he doesn't tell us where that money is, then he's going to die in the next few seconds." And they all had their guns pointing at him. The man was very, very frightened, and Pepe Rodriguez said, listen, he said, I hid it in a well in such and such a place, and if you count 17 stones down from the handle, then you can pull the stone out, and all the money I've stolen is hidden in there. And he said this to the bartender. The bartender then turned to the rangers and said in English, he said, Pepe is a very brave man. He says that you are a bunch of stinking pigs and he is not afraid to die. Now, you know why? He's got the clue about where the money is, right? So the problem there was an unfaithful link, an unfaithful link. Now, when we come to Christianity, you know, what we've got here in our New Testament is letters that have been written by the Apostle Paul. How do we know he's trustworthy? How do we know he's trustworthy? I mean, think about it. Look at his track record in verse 13. He says that he had this track record. He said, even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. He admits that he had a terrible track record. He was once a blasphemer, meaning that he blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, if you're looking for a proof text to show that Jesus is divine, that he's God. If you're looking for a verse to show your Jehovah's Witness friends, that's a good one, because he didn't blaspheme God. He wouldn't be alive if he had done. The Jews would have stoned him, but he blasphemed Christ. So he says, I was a blasphemer and a persecutor. We know from the Book of Acts how he used to hunt down the Christians, and he was there at the stoning of Stephen. He was a violent man, as he says there. So how do we know we can trust him? He readily admits all this. Well he says in these verses 12 to 14, he says that the Lord has made him a faithful servant and it's all been because of what God's grace has done in him. He says the grace of our Lord Jesus, of our Lord, was poured out on me abundantly. Isn't that a beautiful phrase? And he's saying that God's grace, his undeserved mercy, undeserved kindness was poured out on me abundantly. along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. God poured out his grace, he poured out faith and love in Paul, so that Paul became a new man. And now he can say what he says in verse 12, that the Lord has considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. So because of what grace has done in Paul, we can know that he is a trustworthy servant. His life had been changed by what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And this is something that we find that is again and again marked out in the history of Christianity, is that Christianity, by the message of the gospel, changes the people who are often the worst enemies of it, and then they become the greatest preachers of it. And they are then equally as zealous for the Lord as they once were persecutors. I remember listening to an interview with a man who had a very, very exciting missionary work into the Muslim world. And he was really like a secret agent, but he was going into these closed Muslim countries, leading people to Christ as an evangelist. Very exciting work. And he said, I love it. He said, because when you find somebody who's a passionate Muslim, he said, you know when they get converted, they will be a passionate Christian. And that's what it was with Paul. All the passion he had against Christianity for Judaism's sake, was then turned around for his service to the Lord. And it was a tremendous thing. And the Lord can change the hearts of men to make them his faithful servants. I wonder if you've ever heard this story. Paul says, by the way, I give a judgment as one who, by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. 1 Corinthians 7.25, another reference to his trustworthiness. But I wonder if you've ever heard this story. The story of a man by the name of Clyde Thompson. I came across this story just recently, and I was amazed. Clyde Thompson was a teenage lad growing up, and he was one of those boys growing up in a family, good family, but this boy, parents could not do anything with. Nothing. He was wild, rebellious, reckless. He was going to hell 100 miles an hour, 60 seconds every minute. And one day, he went out hunting, and he got his gun and got mad. And with his gun, he killed two men in cold blood. And they arrested him for it, and they threw him into prison in a place called Huntsville in Texas. And while he was in prison, he killed, I think he killed another four men in the prison while he was in prison. And even the prison authorities said, what can we do with this man? He's just too dangerous and out of control. And what they did was they had a mortuary at the prison. They took everything out of it, absolutely everything. And all it had was a little window in the door, no windows on the side, nothing. And the only light that ever came into the mortuary, because it had to be kept cool, of course, was through the little flap on the door. And they stuck him in there. And he was in there and the only light he had was through the six hours a day that there was light coming through this little letterbox-sized window at the top. Well, one day the guard who was outside said to him, Clyde, he said, I feel kind of sorry for you because you have nothing in there, nothing to read. He said, if I give you a Bible, will you promise me that you won't tear it up? And Clyde said, give me something, I'm bored stiff. So he gave Clyde Thompson a Bible. And you know, Clyde Thompson would sit near that little window for the six hours of light he had a day, and he would read the scriptures from beginning to end. And he would recite back all the things that he had learned, making sure that he had learned it properly. As this went on day in and day out, All of a sudden, the prison authorities began to notice a change in his attitude. He used to say things like, yes, sir, and no, sir. And he even started asking about other people's welfare and so on. And they felt that there had been such a significant change in him that they could bring him out of this cell and put him back into the regular prison. And they said, well, let's try it. They said, let's give him a warning. He said, if he messes up again, he's going back in there and he's not coming out. Well, he came out and he was really a force, even among the men, for good. And after a while, he said he would like to go and hear the chaplain speak. And they said, yes, you can go to the chapel. And he was allowed to go out of his cell to go to the chapel. He hadn't been allowed out of his cell up to that point. And he was allowed to go to the chapel to hear the chaplain speak. And he would go every week, every time there was an opportunity to go and hear the Bible taught by the chaplain. And after a while, the change was so great in him, they gave him more liberties and they said, is there anything else that the chaplain can do for you? And he said, yes. He said, I want to learn to become a chaplain. He'd been so converted that he actually became the chaplain in Huntsville, Texas, and he led many, many people to Christ. It's an amazing story. But that's just an illustration, isn't it, of what God did in Paul. The grace of God changed Paul and made him a trustworthy servant. So we can trust Paul because we see he's not talking about something he hasn't experienced, he's talking about something he has. He is first-hand testimony and the Lord has made him faithful and given him strength for ministry and made him a faithful servant to the Lord. And what an encouragement that is to us when we think about this, the relevance and the importance of the gospel, that we have a trustworthy servant to listen to. And by the way, that speaks to me as well, as I expect it speaks to you. The Lord calls us to be trustworthy as servants of the Word of God as well. It says in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 2, and the deacons and I were talking about this on Monday, now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. We've been given a trust and a responsibility with the word of God. We must be faithful with it as well. And the Lord Jesus said, and this was my reading when I woke up this morning, in Matthew 24, the sermon of the Olivet Discourse, he said, who then is the faithful and wise servant? And he goes on to talk about how he will handle the responsibilities given him by God trustworthily. Well, we want to be that servant, don't we? You know, up in York, there's a girl's school, a girl's boarding school. York, I think, I can't remember what it's called. I think it's called the Mount. That's it, it's called the Mount Boarding School. And their motto is Fidelis in Parvo, faithfulness in little things. And that should be our motto too, shouldn't it? For the sake of Christ. Let's be faithful and trustworthy as Paul was. Then secondly, we see in Christianity, we have not only a trustworthy servant, we have a trustworthy saying. In verse 15, it says, here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And Paul adds on the end of that, of whom I am the worst, or I am the chief. We'll come back to that bit on the next point. But I heard about a new minister who arrived at a new church in a particular town, and the newspaper, the local rag, wanted to speak to the minister and get to know him so he could publish an article on it. And the minister and the journalist had a wonderful time together, and the pastor shared all his great anecdotes and things like this. And the journalist was loving it and soaking it all up. He said, he said, great. He said, you've given me so much now for my article. And the minister said, oh no, you mustn't print all those stories. He said, I need those stories for when I'm preaching. So the journalist went away and he wrote the article, and to his horror, the pastor read about himself in the paper and it said, the minister told some good stories which cannot be repeated. What do people think when they read that? Well, in Christianity, we don't have any sayings that can't be repeated. We have a saying that should be repeated. a trustworthy saying. And this is actually something that comes up again and again in the letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus, these trustworthy sayings. For instance, if you look over the page in chapter 3, And so chapter three, verse one, Paul says, here is a trustworthy saying. If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. If you go to chapter four, verse nine, he says another one. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. And he goes on and gives an ever gospel phrase. And we could go on into chapter, into 2 Timothy as well and point out a couple there and in Titus. And these trustworthy sayings are found in the book of Timothy and there's three of them actually in the book of Revelation as well. And what we think they were were like little summary statements because remember they didn't have a New Testament Bible like we do. They had the Old Testament scriptures but they didn't have New Testament scriptures. They were these like little statements that were like formed a part of their creed to help them grasp little nuggets of the gospel for sharing and Christian truth. And Paul says in verse 15 that we have a trustworthy saying which summarizes the gospel. And the saying is this, he says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He said, that is the trustworthy saying. Now he says, when he talks about sinners, he says, I'm the worst one. And we could talk about that in a minute, as I said. But he said, that is the trustworthy saying. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now, I want you to just think about that. What does that verse teach us, that little phrase? It's a saying, which is a reliable saying that sums up what Christianity has to offer. It tells us about the Messiah, because it starts off Christ Jesus. Notice it doesn't start off Jesus Christ. Why does it start off Christ Jesus? Well, the word Christ is the word Messiah. And there's a lot of emphasis in the letter of Timothy on issues to do with kosher eating and the law of Moses and that. And it's evident that there were false teachers Ephesus, where Timothy was, who were bringing in a form of Judaism, and there was quite an interest in this. Well, Paul says, you know, let's get to the real truth here. And he says, who is the Messiah? It's Jesus. So Christ Jesus, the Messiah Jesus, that's who we're talking about. And that's the first part of the Creed that Paul gives. And he always says this, actually, and it says it in the book of Revelation as well, that Christ was of the seed of David. And Paul says, this is my gospel. That's why the New Testament begins with the Gospel of Matthew and that long family tree at the beginning of chapter one of Matthew, because it's about Christ Jesus, the Messiah. And it says, he came into the world. What's that? That's the incarnation. That's Christmas, to put it another way. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, You know, after World War II, when the Germans were licking their wounds, and remember, not all the Germans were Nazis, a lot of them were trying to put their world back together again. And there was a very brave pastor by the name of Helmut Tholeke, who used to stand and preach in broken-down churches to try and turn the people back to the Lord. And in Hamburg, he preached a sermon in which it was written, he said this, this incursion, talking about Christ, this incursion of eternity, which fulfills all hope and longing is concentrated at a single point, namely where the child lies in its crib, where the love of God is so big that it gives itself in what is smallest. where the eternity of God is so mighty that it enters a feeble and despised body." I found that when I was doing my Christmas preparation. I thought, that's beautiful. He summarized the incarnation. Christ Jesus came into the world. And that's what the message of the gospel is, isn't it? That Christ Jesus, Jesus isn't just someone who was born. He came into the world. He existed before because he was the second person of the Godhead, of the Trinity. And he came into the world for our salvation. And that's the third part of the saying, to save sinners, our redemption. So Messiah and incarnation and redemption His identity, you have Christmas and then Easter here. You have the purpose for which he came, to save sinners. And this is the gospel message which Paul says is a trustworthy saying. He came to save sinners. And that means he came to save you and me. I read an interesting thing recently. I wonder if you've ever heard of Joseph Steinberg. He's one of the leaders of CWI, Christian Ministry to the Jews, or whatever the name is now, International Mission to the Jews, that we support as a church. He's the director of it. I've been reading a book by his, which he wrote with a guy called Pete Meadow. And he went to a school once to do an assembly, and he was talking to the kids about parents. And he said, tell me, he said, what would you like your parents to be like? I mean, this is where kids will spout off everything to you, you know, what you dream about your parents. And a lot of the kids say, well, I'd like my parents to be rich. They said, I'd like my parents to be generous. But the one that really struck him most was when he said, what about disciplining? And they said, oh no, oh no. He said, you don't want your parents to discipline you when you do anything wrong. And they all said, no, no, no, no, no discipline at all. And he said, so what about then when your brother or your sister does something wrong against you? Do you want them to be disciplined? And he said, the whole room went quiet. Because you see, they all realized they wanted discipline on others They just didn't want discipline on themselves. And actually, isn't that true for all of us? We all believe in justice, and we all get angry when we read about, you know, the people like Jimmy Savile, and Mohammed Fayyad, and Adolf Hitler, and people like that. We want justice, but I don't want justice. But I've got news for you. God is just, and God is a judge, and he's gonna judge all sinners. And that's why Christ Jesus had to come into the world and die on the cross to save us. And I love the fact it says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, because it tells us what he did, who he is, what he did, and who he came to save. Can you say I'm a sinner? Let me tell you something, Christianity is a sinner's religion. If you can't say I'm a sinner, you can't be a Christian. It's a sinner's religion. And Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And we need saving. And I love the fact as well that he doesn't say sinners that are of a particular type. He doesn't say Jesus came to save the best type of sinners, not the really bad ones. No, he just says sinners, all types of sinners. And that means you and I qualify, whatever our crimes are, whatever we've done. And this is something which is the trustworthiness of the gospel. You won't find this in any other religion. This is nothing man would devise or could devise. Man always invents religions that you've got to do this and do that. And look at every other religion in the world and you'll find it's a religion of works, whether it's having to keep the different principles of Buddhism or whether keeping the different laws of Islam or whatever, then hopefully you'll get through to the Nevada or whatever it is in the next stage. But in Christianity, it's not what you do, it's what God has done through his son for you. This is God's way of salvation. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And it holds good, not only for the time when we become Christians, but for the whole of our Christian life as well. And I love this verse. This is the verse I'm going to be holding onto when I come. to the end of my life. There's a story about Martin Luther. And I told you about Martin Luther, who was an instrument of the Reformation. And he seemed to have many occultic encounters with the devil. The devil seemed to trouble him. And on one occasion, the devil manifested himself to Martin Luther in his study. And the devil came to him and said, Martin Luther, you are a great sinner, and you will be damned. And Luther said, stop, stop. He said one thing at a time. He said, I am a great sinner. It is true, though you have no right to tell me of it. I confess it. He said, what next? The devil reportedly replied, therefore, you will be damned. And Luther said back to him, that is not good reasoning. It is true that I am a great sinner, but it is written, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Therefore, I shall be saved. Now go your way. And Luther said, so I cut the devil off with his own sword, and he went away mourning, because he could not cast me down by calling me a sinner. That's a word I want to share, because I help with those assurance battles. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And Paul says, of whom I am the worst, not whom I was the worst in the past. He says, I am. He's still a sinner. He still knows it. And he's still grateful for the mercy of God in the gospel. So this is what you can trust your soul to when you come to the end of your life. If you're trusting in those other religions, you've got to hope that you've done enough. You've believed enough. You've obeyed enough. But this is all resting on Christ and you can go to your grave and be in peace. So the third thing we see here is we have in Christianity a trustworthy saint and then a trustworthy saviour. And this is what comes out in verse 16 where Paul says, but for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now, I love this verse because in this verse, Paul is saying about how his conversion is an example that God can save anybody. If he can save the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners, as he says, as it's put here in the NIV, then he can save anybody, he can save you. Now, lots of people think Paul was exaggerating, you know, just being overly humble. Let me tell you, that's not true. Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Paul was the chief of sinners. And he said, this is the whole point of what he's saying. He's saying, if the Lord can save me, he can save anybody. He can save you. And we have such a trustworthy savior that he is able to do this for us, and he is able to keep us as well. And I love how he goes on. He says, because he says, for this very reason I was shown mercy. so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. He said, how the Lord Jesus is with me is he shows his unlimited patience and it shows he's a trustworthy savior. I wonder if you know the story Another thing I forgot. Know the story of David Brainerd, the missionary. An amazing story. Well, David Brainerd was a young man who was a student at Yale University back in the 1700s. He was a Christian and he was a part of that with other Christians in that school. By the way, Yale, Princeton and all that, those colleges now don't have a good moral reputation in Christian terms. But they were all theological colleges when they were started. That's a sad truth about how things have declined there. But he was at this college and he was in the, they had like an assembly where one of the lecturers was taking the assembly and this lecturer by the name of Mr. Whittlesley gave a very cold formal prayer and a very cold address and afterwards David was in his room in the digs on the campus and he was talking to his friend and he said this comment, he said, Mr. Whittlesey has no more grace than this chair. Now, as he said that comment, somebody went past the room and heard it. Someone with big flapping ears and a big wagging tongue. And that person spoke to other people in the town about what David Brainerd has said about Mr. Whittlesley. And he told it to a lady who was, I think, his maid. And the maid told Mr. Whittlesley. And it all got brought up before the Board of Governors. And they said, Brainerd has to go. And because he said this little comment, as a young man, they eventually had him thrown out of the college. That's a bit harsh, isn't it? And they said to him, you can come back if you make a formal public apology. But he didn't feel that that was fair. He thought they were over punishing for what he did. Later on, he says he regretted what he said and what he did. But they threw him out for a little thing like that. Well, the point I want to make from that story is this. If you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you might think, alright, you know, the Lord will save me but, you know, I have a habit, I keep messing up. You know what Paul says here? The Lord Jesus has shown his unlimited patience in how he's looked after me as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. He's showing that he doesn't throw away those he saves. He's patient, has unlimited patience with them. Isn't that wonderful? And it's just the fulfillment of what the Lord himself said in John 6 verse 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will in no way cast out. He won't turn around and say, oh well, now look what you've done, I'm finished with you. Not at all. He'll save you and he will preserve you and he will get you safely to heaven if you trust in him. Now that's not an excuse to sin, of course, but it's a comfort to know that we have a patient, gracious savior who's long-suffering and knows how to keep us under the power of his blood. Remember, when Jesus died on the cross, how many of your sins were in the future? All of them, right? all of them and he with his omniscient mind knew all of them And when Christ died, he paid for them all. So we have a trustworthy savior and we can come to him and rest in his patience. The hymn writer said, I must not trust myself or I shall surely fall, but trust to him who died for me and let him do it all. From beginning to end, we can rest and do rest in him and in his work. And the final thing we have in Christianity is a trustworthy sovereign. This is verse 17, the benediction at the close of Paul's little statement there. And it's amazing how whenever Paul comes to one of these testimony passages, he ends up praising God for what he's done. And he breaks out into praise in verse 17, and he says, now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever, amen. And he pours out praise to God as king. And by the way, that's a very Jewish thing to call God king. Blessed are you, oh, king of the universe is one of the popular Jewish prayers that they use at mealtimes and Sabbaths and things like that. And Paul does the same. He calls the Lord, as he's called in the Psalms, the king. And he pours out his attributes in praise. He's the eternal king, meaning he's always been king and always will be. He's eternal in his character, in his nature, and has always existed. He's immortal. Now, you say, well, what's the difference between immortal and eternal? Well, perhaps a better word would be incorruptible. It means that he's not going to decay. It's not like he grows old and declines over time. So, he's eternal, immortal, he's invisible. You know, I was struck recently by a phrase in a commentary. It talked about Israel's invisible king. I never thought of it like that. You know, the tabernacle in the midst of the camp of Israel with the Ark of the Covenant as his throne and all his people gathered around him. The Lord was their invisible king. This is what Samuel said. You don't need a king. The Lord's your king. But he was the invisible king. And this is one of God's amazing attributes. He's invisible. He can't be seen, but he's truly there. He's the invisible God. And he is the only God. He's not one among many. He's the only God, as it says there. And Paul's probably remembering there as well, the Jewish creed, the Shema, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And he says here at the end to this king, be honor and glory forever and ever. Honor is reverence and glory is worship. And these are to be given to the Lord. And I love the fact that Timothy's name means honor. And so Timothy would have latched on his own name meaning in there. And this is the trustworthy sovereign that we have. We have a king who's over us, who's trustworthy. This great king, and yet a king who came to save us. Nick Barnett was 70 years old. He was a judge, Judge Barnett. And he was hiking in Snowdonia in North Wales. And he collapsed with chest pains. And his companions called for an emergency helicopter to come out and rescue him. And a Sea King helicopter came flying out and rescued him and took him off to the hospital. And who was flying the helicopter? Oh, what a time for this to let me down. Who was flying that? Oh, come on. Send a message. Prince William was flying the helicopter after all that. And he was rescued by the future king of England. Now, that's a lovely story to illustrate what we're talking about here as well. We have a trustworthy sovereign who has come to our rescue as well, one who has all these great attributes who we can put our trust in. So the question is this morning, as we look at the bridge to heaven, is it trustworthy? Yes, yes it is. Look at all these four things. We have a trustworthy servant who's communicated the word to us. His own life has been changed by the gospel. A trustworthy saying that we can all remember and grasp the truth of it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. A trustworthy savior, the Lord Jesus, who will be patient with us. had unlimited patience towards Paul and a trustworthy sovereign who is reigning over us. Yes. Now, how do you become a Christian? Well, Paul actually told you in this passage. He said back in verse 16, the last bit, for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. You know, in the Old Testament, the Jewish people used to bring their sacrifices to the temple. And when they did, they would bring them, and they would lay their hands on the sacrifice, and they would confess their sin over the sacrifice, and that sacrifice would then be slaughtered in their place as their substitute. And this is what the Bible says, in effect, we do with the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't say we just believe in him. Oh yeah, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus. It says we believe on him. We lay hold on eternal life, we lay hold on Christ and we say, I want the Lord Jesus to be my saviour. His death on the cross to pay for me and I receive eternal life in faith from him. That's how you become a Christian. So if you've yet to do that, I urge you to do so. Believe on him and receive from him eternal life. Christianity is 100% trustworthy to the glory of God. Let's sing.