Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 1, vv. 14-15

Let's pick it up at verse 12 where we last week we covered verses 12 and 13 but verses 12 and 13 going into the verses for today are rather important, so we'll go to first Timothy chapter 1 and we will start at verse 12 and it says and I thank

Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for that He counted me faithful putting me into the ministry who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious

But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our

Lord was exceeding abundant With faith and love which is in Christ Jesus This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom

I am chief So we'll pick it up at verse 14 now

But I want you guys to keep the backdrop of verses 12 through 13 in mind This is all kind of one thought in fact verses 13.

I'm sorry verses 12 through 17 are All one kind of cohesive section there, but picking up at verse 14.

I'll read it one more time He says and this is building on what he just said regarding Him obtaining the mercy of God even though he was a blasphemer even though he persecuted even though he did all of the

Terrible things that we'll be talking about more in just a little bit Though all that happened he obtained mercy and then verse 14 says and the grace of our

Lord was exceeding abundant With faith and love which is in Christ Jesus So as if Paul's gratitude in verse 12

Remember, he says I give thanks to the Lord. Jesus Christ is if his gratitude there wasn't already demonstrated beautifully followed by his kind of self -deprecation when he goes in in verse 13 into the

Just past of being a blasphemer persecutor being injurious being all these types of things an insolent man

In verse 13 there in order to kind of show how potent God's mercy really is

Despite all of that he chooses to emphasize it even more but in even stronger terms and so if any other person were writing this verses 12 and 13 just sums it up so well and Sums it up so beautifully gives pretty much the full picture in a very concise manner

He wants to take it a step further. And so We know that the grace of God is already infinite

The way that Paul structures his phrase here is so interesting Because we know his grace is infinite in essence.

It couldn't be more full Because you know logically speaking something is either

Totally full or it isn't and Theologically, we know that none of God's attributes are anything less than perfect or complete

Full or abundant is of the word that Paul uses here in verse 14

But as we see here, sometimes the human vocabulary Just doesn't quite do the trick with being able to articulate ineffable things

And to say that God's grace is abundant Doesn't sound like a good enough statement.

It doesn't sound like it properly quantifies something as Massive as the grace of God something to describe

Something that is in fact infinite and so Paul knows that the spirit that is moving

Paul knows that and So what Paul does here is he pulls out a word that is unique to this verse in the whole

New Testament it's not seen anywhere else and The word means literally to be exceedingly abundant or to be more

Abundant it means to possess something in excess And so when

Paul says of verse 14 the grace of our Lord was exceeding Abundant with faith and love that that little phrase they're exceeding abundance all one

Greek word And we don't see it anywhere else in the New Testament, but right here to possess something in excess

So in other words while God's grace is complete it is perfect again kind of in a theological sense

It's not quite right to describe it as full or even to describe it as abundant

Because it's even more than that in Paul's term here It's something that is literally overflowing kind of like a spring that never dries up or to use perhaps a more of a typological

Reality, it's kind of like the rocket whorehead when Moses struck it and it split down the middle

And it began to just overflow in abundance. It never stopped That is a mental picture of the way that God's grace operates

It is more than abundant but even still Paul doesn't leave it there

He goes on and for the rest of verse 14 the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant

With a couple of other things faith and love which is in Christ Jesus And so now we have a trifecta that Paul is putting in the spotlight here

He has grace. He has mentioned now love and faith as well and When you think about this would you think about what

Paul is? What he has in view again what he's trying to emphasize It's no wonder that even someone that self proclaims themselves to be the chief of sinners

Could boldly proclaim his assurance of salvation that seems like a almost like an oxymoron

He in one hand will call himself the chief of sinners on the other hand He has absolutely no doubt about his assurance in Christ about his position in Christ We received some of the greatest teachings we have on what we might call eternal security from Paul And so how does how does this all work here?

Well again, what is Paul emphasizing? grace faith love all of which is in Christ Jesus and so Paul Just like all of us at the point of our salvation and in continuing sanctification just like us

Paul was totally engulfed by Christ's saving work and by pointing out some of these attributes and of course, there's more than three but by Highlighting these particular three.

It's just one way of Kind of magnifying everything again illustrating the total immersion into Christ saving work.

It's overflowing. It is in excess It's more than abundant as Paul says in verse 14 there and as we've said before You know for any amount of sin that there is in any person and with Paul as we'll look at in just a moment

There was a lot for any amount of sin. There is there is that much more grace that there's that much more mercy

To cover it. There's there's not An amount of sin that is more powerful than the grace of God which again is exceeding abundant

It is more than abundant. It's in excess Now like I mentioned a moment ago

Just to kind of hone in a little bit more here Paul at times will use a word that's unique in the

New Testament He does this somewhat often relatively speaking He'll use a word that's not used anywhere else and any of the rest of New Testament writings

Sometimes it's hard to even find used in extra biblical writings of the same time and even after there are a couple of terms that Paul uses the

New Testament that Some scholars believe he possibly could have coined because there's no prior record of it being used

But there is record of it being used after Paul, you know, that's just kind of interesting But what we do have for sure is these unique uses throughout the

New Testament and what's funny about it is of those occasions a number of them are simply cases where Paul takes an

Existing and pretty common Greek word and then he adds the word who pair before it and that's where we get our word

Hyper from in fact, if you if you look at just the transliteration of the word it's spelled the same

H -y -p -e -r And so Paul will take who pair and he'll put it in front of another

Greek word Mash them together creates a new compound word and then there you go. It's it's a word that we don't find

Anywhere else and so in like half a dozen maybe even more occasions where we see that a unique term that Paul Uses it's him doing that He'll take who pair and he'll put it in front of another

Greek word and there you go And that that word who pair simply means beyond And of course, like I mentioned a second ago, it's where we get the

English word hyper from Now in this case what he does is he takes that word who pair means beyond it

You know the English equivalent of it would literally be saying super, you know, or hyper the way we would use it

He'll take that and then he adds it to the word and I can't really pronounce it

Play on not so I think is how you pronounce it, but it means to super abound Now what's funny about it is you take that word just by itself and it's already a really strong term and so What is

Paul saying here? Why is he creating this compound word? Why is he trying to emphasize this beyond what the more common

Greek word means? What is it that God's grace does and what

Paul is saying here is that it more than super abounds and so It's as strong as something could possibly get and then some more beyond that Again, the emphasis that Paul is trying to bring about here is as on -the -nose as it could be

He doesn't he doesn't want us missing this at all and So it more than super abounds

That's what that's what God's grace is like and remember Paul has himself in the crosshairs

He is the object of God's grace in this teaching He's using himself and his sins and his utter vileness as a person in and of himself as the example of what it what this super more than super abounding grace actually looks like in action and so Again, you have that but at the same time this grace isn't a standalone feature either

It's part of a trifecta like I mentioned a second ago that Paul mentions in this verse So one way that you could read verse 14

Literally is something like this It could be read and the grace of our Lord was

Super abundant in the company of faith and love which are also in Christ Jesus So the grace is super abundant in the company of these other attributes love and faith all of which

Are in Christ Jesus and so what's the point of that? What's what you know?

Why is Paul bringing all that into the picture as well? Why not just leave it at grace and move on?

Well, this is one of many examples we could look at that shows that saving grace always comes alongside faith

Which is why we can consistently say that justification is by faith alone Because it's not like faith is just this kind of virtuous thing.

That is Untethered to anything else and that's it could be just a standalone action on the part of a man or a woman

It's always alongside God's grace and so the faith is inseparable from the grace and of course vice versa the grace is inseparable from faith as well

He brings grace to cover our sins and then he likewise brings the faith so that we can believe

God for who he is And of course what follows that it's followed by the love of God So that we know how to love him and our neighbor

Appropriately he brings the grace to cover our sins he brings the faith so that we can believe God for who he is and have this very active role in our lives in our

Sanctification and things like that and then he brings the love of God into our lives as well So that for the first time ever we know what it is like to appropriately love him and to appropriately love others our neighbor as it's put in the

New Testament in a number of places and In Moses's writings as well. And so of course that goes back to the lengthy study

We did three or four weeks and not all that long ago on our Wednesday nights just defining what biblical love is

Well, how do you even how do you even know how to do that how to accomplish it? It comes to us by God alongside faith in this super abundant grace

Now there's a number of places we could go just to demonstrate this. Oh, yeah, go ahead dad

That's exactly right. And look at the last phrase of the verse verse 14. What does it say in Christ Jesus?

Which is in Christ Jesus all of it comes from him. And of course, this is just one more building block in the innumerable passages we could look at the demonstrate this

Right, right

Well, and what is one of you know, what is That's right and Again, Paul is extremely precise with the way he's laying all of this out

But what is what is the Apostle Apostle John's greatest? Proof of regeneration or at least the one that he focuses the most on love for the brethren and so that kind of is what you were talking about a second ago is

It's inseparable because it's It's it's basic. It's a symptom.

You could call it a symptom of salvation as we have before Along with a number of other symptoms rarely in any if you want it's kind of funny to do this

But if you want to use a sickness as a analogy Rarely, do you have standalone symptoms?

Usually there they accompany others as well And so John focuses a lot on love for the brethren being a symptom of salvation

Peter in second Peter focuses a lot on Virtue and Patience and what are some of the other things he?

Meekness is one of them he lists and so those are other symptoms of salvation as well If you go to the fruit of the

Spirit Galatians 522 Which we are in the middle of and our Wednesday night Bible studies will be picking that up again very soon

It starts with love and then it goes down from there and we talked at length at the time that I believe

Paul starts with love because It's just it makes a lot of sense it begins with the work of the

Spirit That's the initial cause it brings love and then love is the second cause of a number of other effects such as meekness and patience

And yeah, you know, how are you patient with a person if the love is it there first? Are you meek toward a person if the love is it there first now?

Let me show you guys just to piggyback off what dad was just talking about in Ephesians chapter 1 if you go to Ephesians That there are so many verses we could look at and I'll just park here for a couple of minutes to show one more example

Of this inseparable reality of faith and love together So in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15, it says wherefore

I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the

Saints so they're there two things that go together here the believers in the church at the

Church of Ephesus Have faith in the love actively right alongside love for the

Saints or love for the brethren to go back to one of the things that the Apostle John talked about At length in his first epistle and then if you flip over just a couple of chapters still in Ephesians Listen to these verses starting in verse 17

Paul says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love

Let me read that again Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith That you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all

Saints what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and that you might be filled with all the fullness of God and So here you are you have all of these things that once more are not standalone features are not standalone attributes

But rather are working in parallel in the lives of believers all the time on Full display by the

Apostle Paul just kind of as a parallel passage there So the faith of Christ and the love of Christ are also

Inseparable just like grace and faith are inseparable like we mentioned before So you have grace you have faith and you have love all together

It creates this three -strand cord that can't be broken now Again, we we see in pictures

So even in real life you strand three cords together and you have something that is Solomon says isn't easily broken

But we live in a fallen state when you intertwine Three strands of God's attributes in the life of a believer

That's something that can't be broken because that is what the type is picturing. It's the it's the

Undiluted version of the thing and so Paul gives us a three -strand cord here grace faith and love

And it can't be broken. But now we might ask what is the purpose of all of this again? Why is

Paul being so particular? Why is it being so precise in this particular context?

We know he has been in other places as well. But why here? Why is Paul putting so much weight to all of this and you guys will recall

I've even done it this morning I've alluded a number of times to Paul as the quote -unquote chief of sinners a number of times already and Now we'll see where that comes from look at verse 15 right after what he says

Talking about the super abundant super abounding grace in the company of faith and love in the

Lord Christ Jesus He says in verse 15. This is a faithful saying This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation

That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief now

Talking about unique words unique phrases a little bit a phrase that is unique to the pastoral epistles

So Titus first and second Timothy those three epistles of Paul We will see any form of a phrase like this is a faithful saying in other places

He may be saying you may say something like this thing is true. This is a trustworthy saying here He says this is a faithful saying they all mean the same thing but it's a it's kind of a word formula a phrase that Paul uses throughout the past orals and Nowhere else and Again, this isn't the first time we've seen it here.

This won't be the last time we see it in Timothy Let alone the rest of our study Through through all three epistles and why was it that we you know, see this pop up pop up as often as we do here

And one of the reasons if you keep in mind who is Paul writing to he's writing to Timothy's writing to Titus He's wanting to give them a stamp of his authority so that they could then take it into Their own ministries with Paul not there.

So Paul when he uses this phrase phrases like this is a faithful saying He's very concerned with the authority behind these doctrines that he is teaching

And this was kind of his his way of it was like his signature exclamation throughout the pastoral something to really

Is if you were reading it maybe just kind of breezing through it and he wanted you to stop and really think about what he just Said a second time that was the phrase he would use to grab your attention

This is a trustworthy saying it is deserving of full acceptance There there's no doubt about it.

There is no questioning it. There's no debating it This is to be accepted and it deserves full acceptance

Something that Paul wouldn't be so emphatic about unless two things were true Why would

Paul again want to be so emphatic with this and with any doctrine that he either proceeds or follows a

With this saying, you know, this is a trustworthy saying this is a faithful saying the first would be that the contrast that he is making between the grace that he is teaching about right now and What preceded it the teachings of the false teachers?

Those that were getting wrapped up in the genealogies and in the fables the myths All of these things that could be contrary to sound doctrine.

He's still in the middle of Contrasting all of that. So what is one reason why he is emphasizing it to the degree that he is

It's because the contrast he's making is an existential one He's saying it is either

Salvation by grace or there's no salvation at all and you have to understand this you can't and of course he he just Puts on the master class in the book of Galatians with regard to Justification cannot be by works of righteousness.

We see this again in Titus chapter 3. We're seeing it again right here in 1st, Timothy If salvation is by works, there is no salvation at all

And so he is creating this contrast in the most in fact emphatic way he possibly can

Because it's it's kind of an all -or -nothing deal here We need to understand this because without this understanding there can't be true.

Peace. So that's the first reason I believe why he's emphasizing it as much as he is.

It's an existential Argument that he is making and secondly that while it is a true statement while this is a true doctrine that he is teaching

It is still hard for the human mind to comprehend a plan like this so He's laying it out there

And he's saying this is a matter of fact, this is in you know, this is an indicative

This is something that can't be messed with And he follows it up by saying this is a faithful saying why because it's very hard For humans to wrap their mind around something such as Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

That's how the verse ends. Well almost there's one final phrase after that But Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners that is beyond the comprehension of Man in and of himself and so the

Apostle Paul Once more emphasizes the whole thing with this

Kind of exclamation that he gives throughout the pastoralist. This is a faithful saying and he puts it right here for good reason

Yes, go ahead Robert That's right

Because of the truth Or Like you're gonna see it

Well one one unique thing about this particular Phrase that again, we see a number of times four or five times.

This is a faithful saying it implies that it there is this doctrine in circulation

And so yes at the time Paul is writing the pastorals there Arguably that the final epistles he wrote but even the ones that were in circulation

You know, there was a lot of word -of -mouth still happening And so what did you have you had the

Apostles going in and then there? They're mercenaries if you will like Timothy and Titus going in before them or after them

Affirming what they were teaching and they were already talking about these doctrines to your point

And so the Apostle Paul again by implication is saying this doctrine, which you may have already heard is a true

Consistent with Scripture saying this is the teachings of our Lord himself and Therefore you need to believe it and therefore there's no debating it either

This isn't this isn't anything up for dispute. And so you're right You're right there

Robert, even if even if the gospel of John had not popped up just yet Of course, we know Paul had the gospel of Luke he was well aware of Jesus teachings, you know in the whole and so one of the reasons why

We probably see as much as we do from Paul regarding the doctrines that he teaches on including justification by faith and a

Number of things having to do with the end times as well is because to your point John had not yet come on To finish out the canon with Revelation.

And so it's really interesting the most that we have in the New Testament on in times related

Topics and things like that come from Paul and then John by virtue of just he wrote the last book which is just full of it

And so that that's fascinating. I want to read you guys a quote from John Calvin really quick from his commentary on first Timothy regarding this issue of Paul Talking about the reality that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and that this is a faithful saying

John Calvin says quote a faithful saying What was the reason why

Paul aroused attention by these words But because men are always disputing with themselves about their salvation

For although God the Father a thousand times offered us salvation and although Christ himself preach about his own office

Yeah, we do not on that account cease to tremble or at least to debate with ourselves if it actually be so Wherefore whenever any doubt shall arise in our mind about the forgiveness of sins

Let us learn to repel it courageously with this shield That is an undoubted truth and deserves to be received without controversy and that ends the quote there and but that's that's

John's count jets John Calvin's way of saying what Paul is saying in the same verse is he's saying look

This is a faithful saying Let this be a shield for your courage and for your assurance and for your confidence in your salvation

Because this isn't something that can be messed with Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

And of course disputes about this very subject salvation the topic of salvation

Has brought disputes about it. They've been incessant since the days of Jesus walking the earth until now so we have over two thousand years worth of disputes about the way salvation works and the mode of salvation and whether or not it's

Something that is eternal or something that can be lost whether it's conditional or unconditional the the disputes have certainly continued and while Paul's emphatic statement that we see in verse 15 here

Has not satiated all of mankind in their quest to know how to get to heaven.

It still stands concrete Despite all of that and it does so While simultaneously giving assurance to Christ's sheep, which is really the important thing to remember

Who is John Calvin writing to in that quote? He's writing to believers. Who is Paul writing to in this epistle? He's writing to believers.

And so yeah, you're gonna still have disputes The devil knows how to go in there and take extremely clear

Wording by Jesus and the Apostles and still have people debate over what it actually means But to Christ's sheep they hear the voice of the shepherd

And so when we read this verse when we read verse 15, we feel the assurance

We feel again the locked -in reality that that three cord that three -strand cord of grace in faith

And love isn't something that can fail. It's not something that can fail us And so that's what that's what

John Calvin's whole point was there. Let us learn to repel any thought of Doubt Courageously with this shield that it is an undoubted truth and deserves to be received without controversy and that's exactly

What Paul wanted us to take away from it as well now we have to deal with that final phrase of the verse for a little bit

Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief the

Apostle Paul talking in the first person there Now there's no doubt that what Paul says here is true

It's not like the Spirit allowed Paul to kind of get dramatic for a minute But not really mean what he was saying just to prove a point

The Apostle Paul was speaking in truth He wasn't trying to sound overly dramatic just to just to get our attention in that way by it by saying something that May not have been accurate, but he was speaking truthfully.

In fact, this isn't the first time even though this is the strongest This isn't the first time That the

Spirit has moved Paul to share a sentiment like this about himself

So in Ephesians 3 8 we were in Ephesians earlier, but in Ephesians 3 8 the Apostle Paul says this unto me

Who am less than the least of all the saints in? This grace given that I should preach among the

Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ So what did Paul how did Paul think of himself?

well number one the chief of sinners number two that he was Less than the least of all the

Saints and then in another passage We see why Paul may have genuinely believed this to be true

In first Corinthians 15 9. He says for I am the least of the Apostles. So not only is he the least of All Saints he says here for I am the least of all the

Apostles that I am NOT meet to be called an Apostle Why because I persecuted to the

Church of God So why is it that Paul would have felt this way about himself? And why is it that he would have been truthfully?

Why why could he have truthfully said these things about himself under inspiration? Well, I think part of the key is right there in that first Corinthians verse.

I persecuted the Church of God So Paul really believed that he was the chief of sinners.

He wasn't he wasn't being dramatic He really believed it and we have every reason to believe that it was a true

Self proclamation by Paul as well We don't have any record of anybody including

Paul's closest friends disputing these statements of Paul that are in more than one place and apparently

Not even God disputed it or again. It would not have been included in the inspired writings

This is Paul under inspiration writing these things about himself Saul of Tarsus was a mass murderer of Christ followers

He was a blasphemer of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ in his own words

And he did it for the sheer joy of watching people suffer. And of course he threatened

Them to blaspheme God as well. And we talked about that last week in X 22,

I believe He threatened Others to blaspheme God as he was persecuting them torturing them threatening them with death wanting these blasphemies to be spoken from the lips of those that Claimed to be followers of Jesus Paul was an absolute beast of a man in a bad sense.

He was he He was vile he was insolent as we see in verse 13 of our first Timothy passage and he was

Persecuting Christ's people without any restraint whatsoever. If y 'all want to turn to X 22 for a second

I can't remember if the passage we looked at last week was an X 22 as well as further down or not, but There's a passage at the beginning of X 22 with again

Paul speaking talking about his own life and I believe we get a little bit more of a hint into Why he was able to truthfully refer to himself as the chief of sinners at the beginning of verse excuse me chapter 22 and It's one of those chapters you kind of want to just read all the way all the way down at least through Verse 24 because it's a really interesting scene here.

He is talking with Hebrews in the temple and he actually begins speaking in Classical Hebrew just to get their attention more just to let them know

Okay We do need to listen at least what this guy has to say He says a number of very fascinating things and interestingly enough the thing that sets them off because they do get set off at the

Very end of it Isn't all of the all of those he gives his own testimony that didn't set them off.

He talks about being baptized by Ananias that didn't set them off.

He talks about all of these different things his vision of Jesus seeing him The thing that sets everybody off is that he came to preach to the

Gentiles. That's what got them really upset So it's a really really fascinating passage in full, but let's just focus on a few verses for the sake of time

Look at verse 4 acts 22 verse 4. He says and I persecuted this way unto the death

Binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. So he was killing Christians. He was bringing them into prisons

He was he was indiscriminate in His persecutions in his murderings in his tortures men women.

It didn't matter if they were Christians He wanted them. He wanted their blood. I persecuted this way unto the death binding and delivering into prisons both men and women as Also the high priest doth bear me witness in all the estate of the elders from whom also

I Received letters unto the brethren and went to Damascus to bring them which were there bound in Jerusalem For to be punished and it came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh into Damascus about noon

Suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me and I fell into the ground and heard a voice saying into me

Saul Saul why persecute is thou me and I answered who are you Lord?

And he said unto me I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecute est So what do we learn from this?

Well, we learned number one that these crimes were committed not even solely against the men and women that he was binding

But he was murdering that he was taken to prisons, but they were committed ultimately against Christ himself

When Jesus says I am the one you persecute that's what he's talking about Christ is the head

But his people down here are his body And so you can't mess with his body in the head not feel it in the head not know that it's happening in the head not see everything that's going on and that's what he is bringing to bear on the

Apostle well on Saul of Tarsus right here and Convicting him of his egregious sins

So we must remember That aside from God no one understands the vile nature of his or her his or her own sins better than themself

Paul had a true angst about his sin both past and present and he felt a genuine spirit led conviction that of all who had blasphemed the name of Christ of all who had

Persecuted Christ's people he was in fact the chief He was the greatest of all of them

And so this knowledge of himself kept him humble throughout his ministry And we see this pop up from time to time in his writings.

He was never unwilling to acknowledge his sins and In cases like verse 13 that we have here.

He expresses the vile nature of them When he says that I was a blasphemer that I was a persecutor that I was injurious or an insolent man

Toward these people he he was totally good with acknowledging the degree to which he sinned against God And this is why as uncomfortable as it may seem

Paul put this statement in the present tense He didn't say of whom

I was But rather of whom I am chief in the present tense as the

Apostle now We might think how could this be? How could Paul have? Simultaneously been the preeminent

Apostle giving us some of the clearest instructions on holy living and Assurance of salvation and all of Scripture and yet make an indicative statement like this of whom

I am chief How does this work? And I'll end with this. We're a little bit late at this point But for starters, we have to remember that there is a distinction a very important one between recognizing our sin and Our need for a

Savior all the time even as Christians because what is who is Christy Savior and sustainer?

He he is sustaining us in our walk preserving us Sanctifying us all the way through so even as Christians we have to remember we are in need of a

Savior It's not like we could we you know, we were justified once at one point in time and now we don't need Jesus anymore

We have to have a Savior. We have to have an advocate We have to have a high priest all the time.

And so there's a distinction in recognizing that reality We are sinners in need of a Savior all the time there needs to be a distinction between that and False guilt the former

Paul affirmed constantly in this passage may be the greatest example of it He had no problem with acknowledging the fact that he was the problem that Nothing that he could have done would have amounted to anything

Had it not been for Christ's work not his own so Paul had no problem with Recognizing the former in affirming constantly the reality that he was a sinner in need of a

Savior but as to the latter which You know coming into play where being like this sense of guilt is if the sins couldn't be forgiven

They were so bad Paul never experienced such a thing or at least that he conveyed in the writings that we have if he had

Any kind of personal internal struggle that we don't know about okay, but in his writings he never conveyed such a thing

Yes He battled greatly against his sin Romans chapter 7 is just an amazing demonstration of the battle

Between the flesh and the spirit that the Christian has in their corruptible bodies And yes

He pointed out on more than one occasion his unworthiness in and of himself To serve

God and what he tried to serve God with he considered done as he puts it in Philippians chapter 3

So all of that Paul talked about No hesitation But at no point did

Paul doubt the power of God's forgiveness the fact that though he was the chief of sinners

God was the author of eternal salvation as I believe Paul tells us in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 9 so None of its inconsistent.

None of it is to create this paradox this unnecessary paradox of You know struggling to understand how could this be?

so how could Paul think this way of himself in the present tense as the Apostle Paul and Even near the end of his life when he's writing these final epistles

It's because Paul Wanted us to remember and he certainly remembered himself That we are to look inwardly as a reminder of the power of grace that super abundant

Super abounding more than abounding in excess grace that has come and has saved us as well

Christ came into the world to save sinners. He doesn't want us to forget that. So what does he do? He's like look at me.

Look at me is no better example of what this looks like And so they're they're perfectly consistent.

He had no problem with assurance He had no problem with understanding the forgiveness of Christ. It's efficacy.

It's unfailing nature While also pointing out the reality that he was the problem after all he was the reason why grace needed to be

Demonstrated in the first place. And so there you go. We'll end there today. We're a little bit over at this point, but We will pause our study for the next few weeks

Dave will be taking back over next week for the next bit But when we when we get back, we'll pick it up right at verse 16

We have a couple of verses left kind of in this section of Paul contrasting the false teachers trying to show that You know works and teachings of the law and genie

Understanding your genealogies and myths and fables and all of these types of things He's still giving his contrast between that and what the true saving gospel looks like and so we'll look at those final two verses a number of weeks from now, but There you go.

So any anyone have any final thought before we dismiss in prayer? If not, we will go ahead you go ahead

Right I Think he's giving credit to Stephen's death to be like he prays for me

Right I It's interesting because in that same x22 again, we didn't go very far but he's talking about his persecutions and Him killing him binding him taken to prisons and then later on down He is where he says

I was consenting under the death of Stephen. I held the cloaks. So in the same context where Paul is

Demonstrating where he was and what he was saved from in trying to share the gospel with these stiff -necked

Jews in the synagogue He's just laying it all out there all Everything that he committed and he emphasized that event

Absolutely, and so it's it's really amazing that the life of Paul is is unparalleled in a number of ways in a number of ways

Well, let's go ahead and dismiss in prayer and then we'll move on to the next service Heavenly Father Thank you so much for this wonderful day for bringing us all together and giving us an opportunity to bundle in this warm room on a cold day and open up the pages of Scripture and abide in your word together as a church family and to grow and to increase

In that word to be sanctified by this word We ask that you bless the rest of our time together today the rest of our fellowship the rest of our services

And of course just to be with us all the time throughout the week to come and we ask all these things in your name