We Were Shown Mercy

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer once again and just ask Him to be with us to come and make His presence known here in this place this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for Your presence here. We thank You for the joy of a church family. We thank You for the gift, Lord, of Your Son, Jesus. "Jesus Christ, " Paul said in his letter to Timothy, "Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the worst, " Paul says. Lord, the most significant portion of that is that Jesus Christ has come to save sinners. Lord, let the focus of our hearts this morning be on the greatness and the magnitude of the sacrifice of Jesus for us. Lord, we give ourselves to You and surrender this morning in humility, Lord, which You come and meet with us, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, good morning, everybody. My name's Luke. I'm the other pastor here, and it's, you know, it's a great opportunity. We're in the book of 1 Timothy. Quick plug is that we do have a number of, still quite a few number of scripture journals or scripture notebooks that have the whole book of 1 Timothy, along with 2 Timothy and Titus in them.

And what they are is they're just copies of the scripture and then blank pages on the other side for notes. So if you want to pick one of those up, they're on the back shelves there for a small donation, if you'd like. And that's a great way to take notes as we kind of preach through this entire book. Last week, Eric did a great job, I thought, of bringing up and talking about the themes of the book. He really kind of introduced sort of what is like the key overarching things that are going to be reoccurring that we're going to talk about over and over again in different ways as we talk through the book of 1 Timothy. And those are that Paul was writing to kind of address false teachings. He was writing to address this sort of drifting from the gospel, drifting from good doctrine that the church that Timothy was overseeing was doing. And in true kind of like the most succinct way to kind of say what is the book of 1 Timothy, it's really a letter. I mean, that's what it was when it was first written, we call it a book now because it's inside of the bigger book of the Bible, but it's a letter.

It's a letter written from Paul, an older believer, to Timothy, a younger man. And Timothy is a young sort of pastor. He's overseeing and looking at the church in Ephesus. And honestly, if I had to guess, I would think that Timothy was maybe a little overwhelmed, maybe a little discouraged. He probably wished, Paul, could you come here and deal with the church that you started here and then left me with? And Paul, rather than sending himself, sends this letter. And so at the heart of what we're reading is it's meant to be an encouragement to a younger pastor. Now as we're reading through the book of 1 Timothy, it's going to have that kind of theme, it's going to have this sort of structure to it. And I have here just a brief outline of the structure of 1 Timothy. It kind of starts and ends in the same spot. This first chapter that we are going to be wrapping up today is a opening commission to Timothy. It's Paul reminding him, this is what you're supposed to be doing. This is what you ought to be focusing on.

And then at the end of the book, he's going to do that same thing. And he's going to remind Timothy, again, this is what you're called to do. This is what you ought to be focusing on. In between those two things and between those two sections sandwiched are instructions to Ephesus. Paul's going to name names, he's going to name situations, circumstances, false teaching. And he's going to say, this is what you shouldn't do and this is what you should do. Don't do this, rather do that. And he kind of has that. And each of these sections is kind of divided up by sort of a poem. Paul's just kind of talking theology, he's just kind of teaching. And he just kind of breaks out into this sort of ecstatic poem, this moment of just like praising the Lord. And it kind of almost acts as transitions for us. We'll see the first one today, kind of at the end of chapter one, right before we go into chapter two, at the end of chapter three, there's another one. And then at the very end, Paul ends the same way.

So that's just a brief outline of the book of Timothy. We can kind of use that for ourselves as we go through it over the next several weeks, kind of remind ourselves of where we're at. So today I want to listen in as we're, like I said, this, we're getting to read someone's mail. This was Timothy's mail that he got a good 2000 years ago. And we get to listen in to the encouragement that Paul was offering to Timothy because Timothy needed it. And I think today we could use some encouragement ourselves. Now here's a tension and a dynamic that I think I think I want to name and want to sort of hopefully, hopefully I'm not alone in experiencing this. But it's, this idea is the fact that I'll be honest, I hate not being perfect. I hate it. Right? Like I wish that I had it all together all the time. I always knew the right thing, always could figure it out, always just knew what I was doing, never made mistakes. Like I wish I had it all together all the time, right?

And I dislike the fact that I don't like if I could, if I could just snap my fingers. I'd, ah, Luke's got it all together. He knows what he's doing. He doesn't have any problems. And the thing is, is that I want to put up a wall. I want to put up a mask. I want to pretend I want to convince you. I want to convince the world. Luke has it all together. I don't, but I was reminded of just how much my heart wants to kind of do this last, the other week, two weeks ago now, I guess, when me and my wife were on vacation, we went to Cape Cod. It was really great to get a full week away, hadn't had that in a while. And so that was a great time. If you've ever been to New England or spent much time out there or been to the Cape, is that like, you know, that's like where the first, like, that's when like the settlers from Europe landed. And so that's like where everybody, like for a long time came into and through America.

And so it's like really densely populated, like you would be driving through Cape Cod and there would be these signs that says densely settled, drive slow. Like there's just a lot of people here, like everything's on top of each other. And it was like a good, like 10 hour drive to get out there with stops and everything. And you get there and you know, there's tourists, there's locals, there's everybody. And most of the roads, including the highways are like the more direct routes inside of the Cape are all too lane like like imagine like the best way I know how to describe this is like imagine Fairmount Avenue, like Fairmount, you know, here in Lakewood being at its busiest time of the day, just being two lanes, right? That's kind of what it was like driving in the Cape the entire week. And so a lot of not knowing where I'm going, just pulling out in front of people because I'd been waiting for 15 minutes, like all this kind of stuff and people be honking at me. I'd be hitting curbs and I'm just like, I'm just like, I start having conversations with people who cannot hear me.

Right. And I'm just like, what are you doing? Huh? What are you, what are you honking at me for? We'll talk about that person, right? Why? And I was just like, why am I having these conversations with these people that cannot hear me? Because I want to prove to them that I know what I'm doing, that I know I got it together. Back off. Your horn does not need to correct me, but I don't have it together. I didn't know what I was doing. Right. Understandably. And I don't think half the people there knew what they were doing either. We're just all mad because we couldn't get anywhere. And so I don't think I'm the only one in this room that's ever, hopefully I'm not the only one in this room that's had conversations like that with themselves. And I think it's coming from a place and I had to check myself. I was just like, ah, I am, I am wanting to defend myself. I'm wanting to say, oh, Luke never makes a mistake. Luke always knows what he's doing. Luke has it perfectly together.

And I think that same dynamic runs not just in my driving, but in throughout all of my life, my whole life. There's points and moments where I want to say, oh, I'm having a bad day or I'm in a bad mood because my dog woke me up early this morning, right? It's always someone else's fault that I don't have it all together, that I'm not perfectly in a good mood. I want to put it off. I don't want to ever own the blame for my own shortcomings. It's always somebody else or some other circumstance. And I think that's a human condition. We want to put on these masks. We want to pretend we've got it all together. And I think this kind of plays out even in how we end up presenting ourselves as a church, as a believers, as Christians, as people who say we follow Jesus Christ. I think we have the same temptation to say, well, we've got it all together because I go to church, but I've got a question for you. And I think the question is this, is the church full of sinners or is it full of saints?

I hear, yeah. And I think I know, I know that people, I know that you, if you've been here for a while, right? I know that the answer is that you would say, I think is sinners, right? Is that none of us here are perfect. We're here because we are imperfect. Church is not for the people who've got it all together. It's for those who know they don't. I know that is the culture and heartbeat of our church. And I love that. But I have to ask the question is like, well, what about those who aren't here today? What do they think churches are full of? Or maybe you've, maybe this your first, second, third time here, you've only been here a handful of times or you've never been to church before. Where does your instinctual answer to go to that? Do you're like, well, I think church is supposed to be full of saints. People who've got it all together. And the thing is, is that I think that unfortunately the church is known for its hypocrisy. I think that's an unfortunate thing.

Even though, in case you didn't hear what Cameron said up here in the front, when he answered the question, is the church full of sinners and saints? He simply said, yes. And I think the truth of the matter, the best way I know how to say this is that a saint is a sinner who keeps coming back to the cross. I think we are all imperfect. We are all sinners in need of grace. And the reason that we're here is not because we've got it all figured out and we're perfect, but because we have to keep coming back to the only place we can, and that is the foot of the cross. And I know that's our heartbeat. I know that we can even get that intellectually. We're like, yeah, that's the truth. That's the basis of the gospel. But then why is the church so often known for hypocrisy? There was a survey done in 2022. They interviewed, I think, about 2000 some people, both adults and teens, and they asked them and about 42% of the people they surveyed said that the hypocrisy of believers was causing them to doubt Christian beliefs.

There was almost half of the people they talked to were like, yeah, I see Christians and like they say they got it all together, but they sure, I know they live and like it. And their hypocrisy is keeping me from exploring faith, from trusting God, or makes me doubt my own convictions. That's a pretty significant number. I think the hypocrisy and hypocrisy is this fancy word. What it is. Volatility is this acting like I've got it all together, but everyone's seeing the chinks in the armor. Everyone's seeing that, well, it's obviously not together, right? And people see through the fakeness. And there's two responses to that. We could say, we could double down. We could try and cover up and fix it and make it look even better. And if we do that, does that actually fix it? No, because we're still just making a facade. The only solution to hypocrisy is vulnerability and honesty. And I know that we know this up here, but too often, I think we fall into a place where we end up highlighting our own self-righteousness. We come into a place of church and we're just like, I go to church and I serve and I give and I do the right things.

Or maybe we come to church and we're like, you know, we're part of the people who know what's going on. We're following Jesus. We're living the right life. Those people out there, they're just living in sin that just don't know that are sending the world to hell in a hand basket. They don't get it. And we just point and we just kind of think we're good here. We're safe here. Or maybe we just kind of just circle the wagons. We build a community. We make ourselves feel good, but then we don't actually have any lasting impact in the world. Because I think that the world, I think Jamestown should be a better place because this church is here. And if we're just here to make ourselves feel good, but not make our neighbors and our neighborhoods experience Jesus in any way, I think we're not living out what Jesus has called us here for. So how do we break into this? How does Paul speak to Timothy? Because I know. I know because like I've lived the life of Timothy, I'm getting close to almost saying that I kind of know what I'm doing here as a pastor.

I've been doing this, I've been doing full time ministry for six and a half-ish years. Right? But I'll tell you what, I did not know what I was in for. I didn't. And there's been so many times where I'm just like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to minister in that. And so I'm just, I just, I love the book of first Timothy and second Timothy because it has spoken to me so often because I've walked through that and I've so longed to hear the words of encouragement that Paul gives to Timothy. And I know that Timothy was like, I don't, I don't know what to do. I don't have this figured out. Everybody's here looking at me to lead this church in Ephesus and they're all doing crazy things and saying crazy things that I don't know what to do. And so what does Paul say? I think Paul's encouragement can be summed up in this main point for today. And that is this, our story of God's mercy is an invitation to others and it is fuel for our purpose.

Our story of God in our life is an invitation to other people and it's ultimately fuel for our purpose for the thing that God has called us to. That's what I think the main point of what we're going to talk about today is. I'm going to say it over and over again because I want you to hold it in your heart, in your head when you leave here today. Our story is God's mercy. Our story of God's mercy is an invitation to others and it is fuel for our purpose. Go ahead and open your Bibles to First Timothy chapter one. We're going to finish up the second half of that. We're going to start in chapter 12 or verse 12 because there's not chapters, there's not 12 chapters in Timothy. Chapter one of First Timothy verse 12. Going to read this for us and I think you'll begin to see where it's coming out of, where this is coming. So this is Paul writing to Timothy. He's introduced himself. He's encouraged him. He's told them. He's told Timothy to hold the faith, hold the gospel, not to let false idols and false worship come in.

In verse 12 he says, "I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. So I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted in ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the king of ages and mortal and visible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." There's the end of that poem we mentioned earlier. Verse 18, "This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. Holding faith and good conscience by rejecting this, some have made a shipwreck of their faith among whom are Hymenaeus, Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."

So first, first I just want to look at those first two verses 12 through 14 says, "I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though I formerly was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." What I think we need to hear right there, what Paul starts with, is this truth. God's mercy cannot be overcome by your sin. God's mercy is never going to be overpowered. It's never going to be exhausted. It will not be overcome by the surmounting amount of your sin. Paul there in those first two verses describes himself, Paul, the author of the majority of the New Testament, one of the most prolific missionaries in the New Testament. He's going around planting churches, preaching the gospel. Today we think of him as a, as kind of like a no-brainer, right? We're like, oh, of course, Paul, the guy who did all these things, who wrote all these books, who contributed the scripture.

But when Paul started doing ministry, he had a reputation, he had a reputation of killing Christians, not evangelizing them. He was, he had a reputation of, of, of being against the church, of persecuting Christians. Eric introduced this topic in the history and the backstory of Paul really well last week. And it's this idea that Paul was there at the very first martyr when Stephen was killed at the beginning of the church, Paul was there in approval. And then later elsewhere, it's described that Paul was rocking around, breathing threats towards the church, towards anyone who followed Jesus Christ. The very literal way of saying that is that he was breathing in and out murder. He was breathing in and out violence. It was the air that he breathed. He was just like, I will commit violence towards any of these Christians because they are not honoring God. And that's what he believed. And so he was about to drag them out of their houses and send them to jail when Jesus all of a sudden appears to him, the resurrected Jesus and tells him to stop.

And Paul experiences an amazing conversion. So Paul here, he's, he's trying to get his, here, he's saying like God had grace for me. Though I formerly was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent, I received mercy. I received mercy and grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul elsewhere in Romans five 20, he says that where sin increased, grace increased. One of the things that I have learned in my handful of years of pastoral ministry and just being as a Christian is that I think most of us sit with a secret fear. And that fear is that God can't handle my sin. That one day I'm just going to mess up too big, too much. I've sinned for too long. I've lived too much of a life not honoring him. I continue to be disobedient when I know I ought not to be, and I, I fear that God will just one day say, you know what, you had enough chances. I'm done with you. That's what I think the fear that we so often carry with us and I think creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of unhealth in our spiritual lives.

I found this quote from Martin Luther, the reformer who started the Protestant Reformation back at the end of the middle ages. He had this great description of God's mercy. He described, he said, if you have a torch and you take that one singular torch and you go around and you light another torch, does that first torch have any less fire than it did before? No. If it goes around and lights another torch, does that first torch have less fire? No. If you take that torch and you light a hundred thousand torches, does that first torch still have its fire? That's the mercy of God. God's mercy cannot be exhausted. He likened it to the sun, the sun, the earth for all of its warmth it receives from the sun is not going to extinguish the sun. It just continues on and on. God's mercy always, always overflows. This morning when I woke up, one of the first things that popped into my mind as I was thinking over this message was the lyrics to this song. The song goes like this. "Love could remember no wrongs we have done, omniscient all knowing.

He counts not there some, thrown into a sea without bottom or shore. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more. What patience would wait as we constantly roam. What father so tender is calling us home. He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more." I want you to get this gospel truth and I want you, because that's what Paul was here saying is that your sin cannot overcome God's mercy. God's mercy will always overflow into our lives. He always will have grace and forgiveness for us. He always invecons us back, whether we roam or we stray or we forget, the Lord is always welcoming the prodigal son home. Here's the thing is that when we display our weaknesses, others see hope for themselves. When we're vulnerable, when we decide, all right, I'm going to let this down, I'm going to show my weaknesses, what do other people see? Do other people see someone they judge? Maybe, but I think more people see hope for themselves because the thing is we're all in the same boat. I'm up here being honest that I'm not perfect and the reason I can do that is because I know that I'm not alone in this room.

When we display our weaknesses, others see hope for themselves. Look at what Paul says in verse 15 through 17, he says, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners of whom I am foremost, but I received mercy. I received mercy for what reason? Why did Paul receive mercy? That in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. He's like, I'm not going to pretend that I've got it all together, that I live the perfect life, that I've always known who Jesus was. Rather, I'm going to shout from the rooftops that I didn't, I'm going to write in these letters and tell people that I was a murderer. I was a blasphemer, I lived the life of sin, I was protesting and fighting against God. Why am I going to do that? Because that I know if I do that, that others, that other people might turn to God. They might see me and have hope for themselves.

I want to share with you a story. This is from the year 1918 in Tokyo. There's a man named Tokichi Ichi. He was a, essentially he was a serial killer. He was a murderer. He had been in and out of prison over 20 times. And he had finally been caught and he had recently killed, I believe, four different people. This is his story. It says before receiving his death sentence, he received a New Testament sent by two Christian missionaries, a Miss West and a Miss McDonald, resulting in the notorious criminals coming to know Jesus Christ. When Tokichi was sentenced to death, he said that was a fair and impartial judgment of God. During a visit, Miss West directed him to read 2 Corinthians 6, 18 through 10, which deals with suffering. There Mr. Ichi noted, among other things, the line, poor yet making many rich. And then this is what he wrote. He said, this certainly does not apply to my evil life that I led before I repented. But perhaps in the future, someone in the world may hear that the most desperate villain

Who ever lived repented of his sins and was saved by the power of Christ, and so may come to repent also. Then it may be that though I am poor myself, I shall be able to make many rich. Tokichi died on the scaffold with great humility and his last words were, "My soul purified. Today returns to the city of God." His only prayer and his only hope after a life of sin and committing horrible acts and deeds was that perhaps by being open and honest about his own sins, and that proclaiming that he finally found peace in Christ and trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior, that perhaps someone else will hear his story and say, "If that man can be saved, so too can I." If we hide our need for God's grace and mercy in our lives, we hide the gospel. When we pretend we've got it all together, when we put on the front, the pretense, we are hiding the gospel. It is in the vulnerability of saying, "I do not have it all together. I am not perfect. God is working on me by grace daily."

It is by that admission that other people say, "Well, maybe then God's mercy is enough for me too." We should be people who run around proclaiming with our lives and our lips amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. That is our soul cry, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. God's grace and mercy is always enough. Our story of God's mercy is an invitation to others and its fuel for our purpose. That is Paul's encouragement. He's trying to say, "Look, I'm gonna be honest about me, " Paul talking to his young mentee, someone who looked up to him, isn't putting on a facade. He's being open and honest about his life, his shortcomings in order to display the gospel. That is what we're invited to as well. So that is how God's mercy is an invitation to others, but then what is this that I'm saying about fuel for our purpose? Because Paul goes on and he encourages Timothy. He begins to use this language of fighting the good fight. Let's read verse 18 through first part of 19.

He says this, "This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, fight the good fight, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made a shipwreck of their faith." Here's the first thing that I want you to hear that maybe you've never heard before. And I believe it with full confidence whether you do or not, God has a purpose for you. You're not here by accident. You don't live where you live by accident. God has a purpose for you. You're not just here on this world roaming around, bouncing around by accident. You're not just people floating around on a space rock hurling through space. This world is not random. You are not random. Your existence was timed by the God Almighty. He knit you together in your mother's womb. You have a purpose. God has placed you in a specific place in time. Timothy here, Paul is saying, he's reminding, "I charge and entrust you, Timothy, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you so that you can fight this good fight, that you can fight the warfare that is in front of you.

Deal the good things." Now we don't know what the prophecy was that was said about Timothy. We don't know what exactly it was dealing. We don't know precisely where his exact purpose was. So we don't have things like that necessarily, but I do still think that we still have purpose, that God has a purpose for each of you, that God has called you and placed you in order to do something where you're at. And no matter what that thing is, whatever your purpose is, I think that we can learn something here. And you might be saying, "Okay, Luke, that's great that you say I have a purpose, but what is it?" Right? It's no good to know that I have a purpose if I still don't know what it is. This I think is a summarization of some biblical theology and some truth. And I think it's a purpose that all of us can sit with and we can start from there and find out the particulars. Our purpose is to display God's glory and goodness by holding onto the faith and living with integrity.

I think our life is meant to display not our good things, how great we are. Our life is meant to display God's glory. That's what Paul's doing. Paul's life, the reason he's been saved is to display God's glory and goodness. That is the purpose of all believers' lives, is that no matter what we're doing, where we work, what we serve, who we're married to, who we're in relationship with, who our family is, we are meant to display God's glory. We're meant to display his goodness. And we do those two things by holding firmly onto the faith and living with integrity. How do we do those two things? What does it mean? You're like, okay, Luke, if I'm supposed to display God's goodness, how do I do that? What does that mean to hold onto the faith and live with integrity? That's what Paul says, right? Right after he says fight the good fight or wage the good warfare. He says, verse 19, holding faith and a good conscience. So what does he mean by those two words? Holding faith and good conscience. Holding faith, he's saying, hold onto the faith, to the belief, to the teachings of the apostles, to the teachings of the church, to what is good doctrine.

He's saying, believe in Jesus Christ that he came into this world to save sinners. What he literally said a couple of verses before, don't abandon the gospel. That is what Paul is saying. And so he's saying, don't abandon that. That is so easy, is so tempting for us to want something fancier, something new, something that's not that, because we're just like, really like, you're like, Luke, you're talking a lot about the gospel today. I'm like, I will talk about the gospel every Sunday because that's the only thing there is to talk about. And it doesn't get old. I've said this before. We never get so mature as a Christian that we stop needing the gospel. It is the thing that empowers us and enlivens us every day for faithfulness to Christ. The gospel is the starting and ending place of the Christian faiths. And then what does he mean when he says, hold onto a good conscience for you or I don't know for you. But for me, first thing pops in my mind is Pinocchio and little Jiminy Cricket. That's your conscience be your guide, right?

Like that's what pops into my head, right? Little cricket sitting on his shoulder saying, now Pinocchio, is that the smart thing to do? You know, is that what this means? We kind of get it. We have an idea of what a conscience is, knowing what we ought to do. But what's a good conscience? A good conscience is one we listen to. The best way I know how to say this, and I think in words that make more sense in our modern context is what I'm saying when I say hold onto the faith and live with integrity. What I mean by internal integrity is we know what Jesus has called us to do. We know what obedience is, we know what is right, and then we live it out. And we make sure that there's integrity, that there's a congruence, that what we know is right and how we live stays in alignment. And when those get out of a line is when we are abandoning a good conscience. It is when we're no longer listening to the word, we're no longer being obedient to faith.

This is what it means to have a good conscience. It's what we're called to. And when we drift from the faith and when we drift from integrity, that is when we get shipwrecked. And nobody gets shipwrecked on purpose. No one's like, oh, I'm just going to abandon the foundation. I'm just going to take a step off and I'm just going to run over and plow myself into a rock. No one plans to do that. I think it's more often we drift very slowly by making choices that do not align with integrity. By choosing to abandon the faith that's been handed down to us, by conforming to the pressures of this world, we slowly drift and we've become shipwrecked. Paul here at the very end begins to bleed into and give some practical recommendations to Timothy and he names names. He talks about two people who are in the church that Timothy's overseeing and he says this, he says, by rejecting the faith and holding a good conscience, by rejecting this, some have made a shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Paul is here, he's making a contrast. He's saying, Timothy, if you want an example of what not to do, just look at these two dudes and don't do what they're doing. We never really learn exactly what it was that Hymenaeus and Alexander were doing. We do see Hymenaeus mentioned again in the second letter to Timothy, second Timothy, and it seems that Hymenaeus had some sort of strange idea that the resurrection had already happened, some sort of idea that maybe Jesus had already come back or something. He seems to be teaching something that was false, something that was untrue and he had gone astray. Now this kind of sounds, we're just like, wow, Luke, like that's a, that's really harsh of Paul right there, saying that he had handed them over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Now, this language is used elsewhere by Paul in 1 Corinthians, Paul is talking about someone in the church of Corinth that was sinning and was like sinning blatantly and they were celebrating it. They were like, oh, it's so great that he's doing this awful thing.

And Paul's like, stop that, and then he's like, rather remove him, discipline him so that his flesh might be killed and that his soul saved. And that's similar language that Paul is saying here. He's hoping that by disciplining Hymenaeus and Alexander, by saying, no, you're doing something wrong, you're not allowed to teach that, you're going to have to, you're not going to be part of the congregation, you're not under full fellowship until you repent of this. Paul's hope is that they return. Paul is hoping that they learn something. That's what he says when he says, I've handed them over to Satan that they may learn to blaspheme. His hope is that they would return. And I just simply want to say that God always, always makes a way back. God's mercy is always more. If we ever find ourselves in a place where we're like, I feel like I've drifted. I feel like I've run a ground on a rock that is not Jesus Christ in the gospel. God has a way back. There always, always is grace, always is mercy. There is always an opportunity to repent and to return.

It is never too late for us. So our story of God's mercy is an invitation to others and it is fuel for our purpose. That's what Paul is trying to get here to Timothy. He's like your story of God's mercy. My story of God's mercy is an invitation to other people. Hopefully it's an invitation to you and it is fuel for your purpose. That is the thing that helps you fight the good fight, wage the good warfare, continue to hold strong and fast to the faith, to live with integrity. My question is for you, is how can you display or can you answer this question? How can I display the character of Jesus as a wife, husband, child, student, employee, boss, friend, daughter, son? What are you uniquely positioned? Who are you? Where are you? Who are you in relationship with? And how can you display the character of Jesus as that? Maybe you've got a coworker who you are just constantly on edge with, you don't really get along. What would it be like to display the love of Christ to them? Maybe you're at conflict with someone in your family, large or small, and what would it be like to be like Jesus to them today?

What would it be like for you to try and display the character of Jesus where God has called you? I have a question for you, the second question I have for you is this, what would happen do you think if all of us in this room this week decided to find somebody, just one person who we could come up to and we could encourage like Paul encouraged Timothy? What if we found somebody and we said, you know, like things don't always, I know that it looks like I got it all together, but I don't. And say, hey, God's doing something in my heart and he's encouraging me and I just want to encourage you that I see you. I think you're doing great things. I love you and I think God loves you. What would it be like to risk some vulnerability in our relationships, to stop kind of putting up our defenses and saying, I've got it all together, but to say, no, I don't have it all together. I need God's mercy and I need your mercy. What would change in our community if we sought to encourage one another like Paul has encouraged Timothy like Paul is perhaps and hopefully and prayerfully encouraged you today.

Because perhaps for some of you, you needed to hear that. You needed to hear that you too can receive the abundance and unending amount of mercy that God has for you. I pray my prayer today and in all of this is that you would ultimately at least hear that, that God's mercy is more than enough for you, wherever it is that you find yourself. And that by being open about that, we display the gospel in our lives. We find our purpose. We find our calling. We become like Christ to the world when we are willing to live in Christ like vulnerability, when we're willing to encourage one another, when we're willing to fight the good fight, to not abandon our post, to say, I am here, I'm going to live with integrity. I'm going to obey Christ even when no one is looking. That's what Paul is calling Timothy to, and I think that's what the church is called to as well. Please join me in prayer as the worship team comes up.

Heavenly Father, this morning, I pray that the testimony of Paul, that the testimony of that man in Japan, that the testimony of us in this church, sinners saved by grace, would be an invitation to anyone in this room, would be the gracious invitation to know you, to lay down our sin, to lay down our shame, to lay down our guilt that is keeping us from you. Lord, those things are not of you, Lord, you are the good father who runs to meet us in the middle of the field while we are still some ways off. Lord, you pursue and chase us down. Lord, I know that there is people here today who need to hear that, that they're here on purpose so that they can hear your invitation of mercy and grace. Lord, I pray that you would raise us up to people who fight the good fight. People who will hold with integrity the faith. Lord, help us to not drift. Help us to be obedient. Help us to be a church that makes a difference in our community. That we would be people who make an impact wherever we go.

That we would know that our purpose is not to build our own kingdom but to display yours. Lord Jesus Christ, make this so in our hearts and our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Heavenly Father, we want you to be the first thought on our mind and the last thought on our mind. Lord as Paul did with Timothy just completely laying out his life in vulnerability and in humility, Lord, so that he might surrender ultimately, Lord, to your lordship. Not having anything good of his own but giving it all up, Lord, so that everything good in you can become what is good in him. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God. Be glory and honor forever and ever, amen. Conduit, you are loved. I hope you have a great day and a great week. Make sure you hit the produce out before you leave and we'll see you next time.