00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
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.
100% Trustworthy- 1Tim1v12-17
Series Encouragement from God's Word
| Sermon ID | 2102592325866 |
| Duration | 46:21 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Timothy 1:12-17 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.
