The Gospel According to Jesus' Enemies

The night's person, I didn't wanna give the game away too early. He's not actually an enemy. He's actually 1 of the staunchest allies of Christ. Probably 1 of the staunchest ones you can find in the entire bible or throughout the whole of history.

He was an enemy He was, but he isn't any longer. He's been used almost, maybe 1 of the most mightily used people for the lord's purposes. And he's also 1 of the most read authors of all time. I think you're probably starting to guess who I'm talking about. It's none other than the apostle Paul.

And so we're gonna we're gonna see what turned this one's fearsome enemy, into a friend. And look, if you guys don't know Paul's history, this is doubly exciting for you. So, strap yourselves in because it's, it's a roller coaster ride. And really, what we're what we're dealing with is how do enemies become friends? How the enemies become friends?

How are wounds healed? How is evil turned into into good? These are some of the things that we're that that we're gonna cover. So let me pray, and then we'll read the passage. Father do help us now as we come to your word.

Help us as we as we hear your word preached proclaimed, by your holy spirit, help these help these words to be said, help these words to be felt and heard and taken to heart, help us to change. Please challenge us tonight by by what you have to say through your scriptures. We pray all of these things for your glory, our, ma'am. Okay. So the readings from 1 Timothy chapter 1, starting at, verse 12 to 17.

That's gonna come up on the screen, behind me as well. In 1 Timothy chapter 1, Paul Paul says this to Timothy. I thank Christ Jesus our lord who has given me strength that he considered me trustworthy 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 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 immense patience as an example to those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the king eternal immortal, invisible, the only god be honor and glory forever and ever amen. As we start, I want you to imagine.

Imagine this building's not here and none are all there's no buildings around us. It's just level the playing field. And I want you to imagine that there is a gap I'm talking about an almighty 1 side of the gap is all the way over there in a distance and the other side is all the way over there. If you squint you think you might just about be able to see it. It's like, you know, when you're down on the beach and you know that there's some land just over the horizon.

And you if you squint, you might just see it, but you're not sure. It could just be a bit of haze. It's it's a huge, huge wide gap. And not only is it wide, it's incredibly deep so deep you can't see the bottom. It's just inky blackness, like like a huge gorge.

It's a totally utterly uncrossable gap. Now you you you could an abseil, for example, down 1 side and walk across to the other and climb back up. You could try, but it's too deep. You couldn't make a rope long enough. You could you could try and do it, but I don't think you'd be able to And even if you did get to the bottom, it's too far to walk.

You you don't have enough years in your life to live to cross the distance. You could take as many supplies as you like. You could take you could parachute vehicles off the edge, whole convoys of them. With all the supplies you like, and you would barely even make any impact on the distance that you've got to cross to get to the other side. And even if you do, how are you gonna climb back up?

Good luck with that. And in fact, what happens with this gap is really depressing. Because with every effort that you make to cross it, the gap widens and deepens, and you feel like you're walking in treacle. This is because the gap itself is made up of your efforts. So every effort you make, the gap gets bigger.

You want to cross it, but it gets bigger with in line with how much you're trying to cross, doubling sometimes. So you might say, well, why is there? Why bother trying to cross it at all? I just won't bother. I'm gonna stay over on this bank with everybody else.

And some do just just that ignoring the gap even exists. Why bother trying to cross something that's totally uncrossable. I'm quite happy over here anyway? But therein lies the biggest problem of all because all the way over there on the other side is paradise. Absolute paradise, a place of perfection, of rest, of total fulfillment, satisfaction.

Never again, will you be feeling in pain or suffering or frustration anxiety. They have no place at all over there. And where you are on this side has all of those things in spades. It's a place where you long to be with every fiber of your being. It's what we all want.

We all wanna be at it's home. That's our real home, and we wanna be there. But between you and it is this impossible dark chasm of despair that you just can't cross. And to make matters worse, time is running out. Time is running out with each moment that passes The land on your side of the gap is shrinking.

It's getting smaller and smaller until eventually you're gonna be pushed over the edge into the abyss. You must find a way of crossing the gap. It's paramount. There has to be a way. There someone must have an idea Someone must know some ingenious solution to the problem, and yet you look and you look and no 1 can be found.

Can't be done. There's a myth. There's a rumor that the only way of crossing it is by a bridge. But there's no bridge that anybody seems to have found so far, and no 1 seems to have the skills to be able to build a bridge of that magnitude. But that seems to be the abiding myth about crossing the gap can only be done by bridge.

And so with nothing else left to do, And although everyone seems to be rather unsure, and ludicrous giving how big the gap is, you figure that you haven't got anything to lose by trying anyway So surely, let's just, let's just go for it. And so that's what you do. You devote your time and energy to building the bridge by which you will cross into this perfect place. You become a bridge builder, or at least you try But like I said earlier, with each piece of bridge that you put in place, the cap just just always feels like it's widening and deepening over and over. So there you go.

That's my opening illustration. That gives you a weird insight into my dreams. And, they're often like that, actually, which is kind of odd, but the truth be told, that's the reality for humanity. For us, for you, for me, for everybody that's ever lived. That is the lived reality of humanity.

We exist with this enormous gap between ourselves and god, caused on the 1 hand by our sin, and on the other hand by god's holiness God of whom Paul says in verse 17, now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only god, be honor and glory for ever and ever are men. That's who god is. He is pure and good and just and righteous and mind blowingly tacularly awesome. And over here is us, whom Paul says a blasphemous, persecuting insolent arrogant faithless people. You see the gulf.

And like 2 strong magnets, the more you try and force the 2 together, The stronger the resistance gets until you just give up from exhaustion. Here's the weird thing. It's good that this gap exists. In a weird way, it's good that this gap exists. It's good that there's separation between god and humanity.

Because if god were to cross the gap and come near in his full power and holiness, he would incinerate us in our sinful state. Woe to me cried Isaiah. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I have seen the living god He thought he was gonna be burnt up because he was in god's presence. Remember the sons of Aaron who approached god's holy of holies without performing the proper purification rituals and were burnt up on the spot. God is pure and sinless, and so sin and impurity cannot be in his presence.

It cannot they cannot abide together. It's not possible. It's incompatible, but it can't stay that way. At some point, there has to be reconciliation. At some point, there has to be redemption.

God will not allow this to go on forever. He's gonna wrap it up at some point. And so the questions are, how can we be made ready for god? How can we go from being enemies to friends? How do we cross from 1 side of the gap all the way over to the to the other?

That's That's what I'm gonna use to frame what Paul is addressing, in this part of his letter to to Timothy. Now There's only really 2 ways of doing this, and so I've only got 2 points, which is often 1 of the most dangerous things a preacher can say. The most dangerous is when they say they've only got 1 point, then you better buckle yourselves in because you're not going anywhere for a while. But I'll I'll give you a 50 percent reduction. I've got 2 points that that we're gonna use to to to hammer these things in.

And you're gonna have to humor me until I get to the second point because that explains what I'm about to say in the first point. The first point is the Pontifex minimus. The Pontifex minimus, and some of you have tweaked already. Now the Romans had a word, for bridge builder, which was Pontifex. If you were a Pontifex, you were a bridge builder.

Yeah. That's what you were. And minimus means the least, the minimal. Or another another meaning that it has is the worst, actually, So it could be used to describe the worst of something. So if you're a Pont effects minimus, you are the worst bridge builder.

A rubbish bridge builder. Your bridges collapse. Their foundations get washed away. They crumble and need need too many reparations. And this is what Paul's come to realize about himself, that he is, in fact, a pontifex minimum He's not a very good bridge builder.

In verses 15 and 16, Paul calls himself the worst of sinners to twice to hammer the point in twice. Now what is Paul saying here that he is the worst sinner that ever lived, is that literally what he means? Well, I don't think so because I think if we if we took a quick glance at the old testament, we could probably find a hundred characters that I think we would all agree pretty quickly in in in sin ranking terms. We're probably playing our dealer than Paul. There's people alive today doing horrendous things on huge scales that we would say probably worse sinners than Paul.

And the issue that that that we've got with this is that actually the NIVs are pretty poor translation on this passage. For once, it's actually not a not a great translation at all, on these particular verses because the Greek word that Paul uses here is, is protos, which literally means the first or foremost. So Paul's saying of which I am the foremost, the foremost of sinners, the first of sinners. Okay. So is he saying that he's the first ever sinner?

Well, again, that can't make any sense. There were many before Paul starting with Adam and Eve, and then every single human that's ever lived. So what is his meaning? On what scale is Paul judging his firstness or foremostness as a sinner. That's what we've got to that's what we've got to try and figure out because that's then gonna give us the clues that unlock the rest of the passage.

And, hopefully, he's given us 3 metrics to work with, as you go through. So firstly, he's a blasphemer. Now a blasphemer, a blasphemy has to do with words. It has to do with what you say. When you blaspheme, you are speaking against.

And blasphemy is only ever used. It's the term for speaking against god. I can't blaspheme against any of you because you're not god, and you can't blaspheme against me, but we can all blaspheme against god and speak against him. So what Paul's saying here that I I was a blasphemer is that I spoke against god. Or more accurately, I spoke directly against Jesus.

I used my words to try and tear Jesus down oppose him at every turn. He spread lies about him, dragged his name through the mud. This is the kind of thing that Paul is owning up to here. I was a blasphemer of the lord Jesus Christ. In acts 23, Paul, Paul states that he was a pharisee, and we all know who pharisees were.

Right? They were the biggest opponents of Jesus, but wasn't just any pharisee. He was a pharisee of pharisees. He came from a lion of pharisees. His dad was a pharisee.

His grandfather was a pharisee, probably his great great, great, great, great, great grandfathers were all pharisees. Essentially, he's, he he's a blue blood. Essentially, that's what he's saying. I was an extreme pharisee. And we know that the pharisees opposed Jesus at every turn possible through the gospels.

Here's just a couple of examples that are whipped through. Then the pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. But the pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. The pharisees, who love money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. Some pharisees came to him to test him.

They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? The pharisees and the sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. They said to him, John's disciples often fast and pray and so do the disciples of the pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. And then Jesus says about them, be careful. Be on your guard against the yeast of the pharisees and the sadducees because they're seat and trickery and lies just work their way through the whole batch.

And that's what they're about. Trickery lies to see and murder even. And if Paul was indeed a pharisee from a line of pharisees, then it's actually quite hard to see how he wasn't in some way involved in this in this hounding of Jesus. Now, the very shaky ground historically here because it doesn't say 1 way or the other, but Paul says this about himself in Galatians chapter 1 13 and 14. I don't know.

I think I've have I got that? Yeah. Here we go. You have heard of my former life in Judaism. How I persecuted the church of god violently and tried to destroy it.

And I was advancing in due days and beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father's. He was basically an up and coming, a poster boy for the pharisees at the time. It's like He's, you know, Paul's the next prodigy. He's he's gonna be his potential chief priest material here.

He's going right to the top this guy, and he's zealous. You know, he's after it. He's on it. 24 7. He knows his scriptures.

He knows what he's talking about. And so The point I'm trying to make is that I think it's I feel it's entirely reasonable for that Paul who was at that time called saw knew who Jesus was, maybe even personally, maybe even face to face in some of these encounters. Because he was 1 of the pharisees out to get him. A young hot blooded, zealous pharisee. Do you really think they're gonna pass up the opportunity to go toe to toe with Jesus?

To have a crack at him, to see if they can be the 1 who catches him out. Now most source is when you when you when you do a bit of research on this, say that Jesus and Paul were of a similar age. Maybe even as close as 2 or 3 years part, maybe even exactly the same age. We we don't quite know the exact details around either of their births. But you you can just imagine, you know, they're of the same generation that means, their peers, and you can imagine what someone like call whether he met Jesus face to face or not, thought of an upstart like Jesus.

A blue blooded pharisee from a line of pharisees who knows the scriptures, who knows the traditions of the fathers and how the synagogues work and how the Jewish system works. And you've got this upstart Jesus just going around speaking with authority to the to the crowds, to the masses. It's got to have got under the skin, hasn't it? It's got to have irked him. He probably felt that should have been him doing that sort of stuff.

And yet this guy out of nowhere is a son of a carpenter. What are you talking about? It really does feel with with saul, who Paul was called, personal, doesn't it? It really feels personal when you read about it in acts. And I I I believe this might be the reason why.

John Piper, talks about that and agrees with it, and he ends up putting Paul's blasphemous behavior way. For the seriousness of the sin rises with the glory and the dignity of the person you're demeaning. So Paul considered his slanderous language about Jesus is the first thing to be mentioned in his unworthiness. You know, why he is he is a sinner, the first and foremost among sinners. And that's the first thing.

See how the the gap is already widening for Paul. The second metric he gives us is that he was a persecutor, So not only was he a man of evil words, he was willing to back them up with evil actions at the same time. He actively pursued and sought out god's people and had them imprisoned and murdered. He was a nasty piece of work. Luke tells the story like this in acts 9, verses 1 and 2, saw still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus.

So that if he found any belonging to the way, that's Christianity, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And in acts 7, we, we actually have evidence of Paul's involvement in the murder of 1 of the earliest Christians. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, They were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. That is Steven. But Steven, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven, and saw the glory of god, and Jesus standing at the right hand of god.

Look, he said. I see heaven open. And the son of man standing at the right hand of god. At this, they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him. Dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. To to go and lay your coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. Means that he was probably 1 of the instigators, a ringleader in doing this, and I'll look after your cloaks while you go and finish him off. Paul was basically an extremist terrorist. That's the closest thing we have in in today's, today's culture of describing who he was, an extremist terrorist Don't know if you ever knew that about Paul.

Maybe maybe this is the first time you're hearing this. Paul, the church network planter, The great evangelist, the writer of most of the books of the new testament, was in his former life, a chief terrorist. You just couldn't make it up, could you? And so when Paul connects his zeal for Judaism, advancing beyond most of his peers, with his aims of destroying the followers of Jesus. I think I think what he's saying is that he was the foremost amongst the persecutors of Jesus.

No 1 went after him like I did. I I was literally unsurpassed in my efforts to go after Jesus and his followers. Even after he was crucified, I continued to press the advantage against them to eradicate them root and stem the vermin that they are. That's who Paul was, I was foremost chief worst of sinners against the lord Jesus Christ, and the gap just got bigger again. Thirdly is Paul's insolence.

Now again, the NIV has a poor translation here. It's read as violent, However, the Greek word that Paul uses is on a bachelor pronunciation, Hybristan, from which we get the English word hubris. So that's the connection between them and hubris relates to arrogance and haughtiness and pride. And perhaps this is really kind of the key to understanding Paul's statement that he is the foremost of sinners against against Christ. Because blasphemy can be seen or or rather can be measured as it's spoken and heard.

Persecution can be seen and measured as it's physically performed. You can record those 2 deeds. But arrogance, haughtiness and pride, they're matters of the heart. And so the only people that know about those are god and the person that they belong do in in their fullness. And perhaps this is the 1 that Paul felt more keenly because he knows it better.

He knows it more intimately. Than his other sinful behaviors. So that when Jesus confronts Paul on the road to Damascus, the words he used were these. Saw, saw, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, lord?

And Jesus said, I am Jesus. Whom you are persecuting. Now that Paul is confronted with the risen lord Jesus, a person who speaks to him with a gentleness that he doesn't deserve. His pride and high opinion of himself must have been so painfully exposed. Would he have afforded his enemies this same this same opportunity, the same treatment, or would he have covered his ears and rushed at them screaming to murder them?

This is the moment that stopped Paul or saul in his tracks and he becomes Paul. And forces him to reconcile with Jesus. Jesus forces him to reconcile, to speak, to treat with him. And I think that the more that Paul dwells on it thereafter in the years that go by, the scale of his arrogance is what causes him to label himself the foremost amongst sinners. First, he has to face up to the truth that he's been wrong about his entire belief system, his entire life, and how he fit into everything and what his role was.

He had to reconcile with the fact that he had been sinning against his destiny to be an apostle of the lord Jesus Christ this entire time, the very person he was persecuting. Secondly, he had more of an understanding of scripture than the most other people of his time. He's a Hebrew of Hebrews as he says in Philippians, but he could not put any of his knowledge to use when it mattered. Only to misuse. What a privilege he wasted in his insolent pride and arrogance.

And thirdly, he was sinning against the person of Jesus who was literally right in front of him. He failed to connect everything that he was seeing and hearing the miracles, the authoritative teaching of Jesus. He was seeing god at work And all he wanted to do was kill him. Because I guess of jealousy of pride, feeling that it should have been the pharisees doing this great work, that that if it was the messiah, surely the messiah should come out of the pharisees or or at least the sadducees, but not a nobody from a backwater son of a carpenter, an illegitimate bastard is what Jesus would have been seen as. No 1 even knows who the dad is.

It's in the front everything Paul was about. And I would say that it's probably entirely possible that Paul was there at the trial and execution of Jesus himself. Who's gonna miss out on that opportunity? We know he was in Jerusalem because his teacher was gamaliel. He says that himself.

And now here is Jesus whom he saw die or knows died at the very least. Confronting him face to face, all the shame that you would feel when you realize who you have been persecuting, how big the gap is for Paul. And he just feels it a worst of sinners, foremost first of sinners. And the real irony in all of it, sadly, is that the entire time Paul has spent persecuting Jesus He actually thought he was doing the right thing. He he believed that he was building a bridge to heaven.

He believed that what he was doing god was pleased with and yet he discovers that far from bridging the gap between himself and god, he's just been widening it with every single word, action, and thought. He is the worst bridge builder, the Pontifex minimus. Well, isn't it good then? But Paul was able to write these words as well. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. The greatest gap requires the greatest bridge builder to cross it, and that's the second point. It's the Pont effects, maximus. Now if the Pontifex minimus was the worst, then the maximus is the greatest is what it means. Now it's interest thing because this is a Roman term.

This is where I I made up the other 1. It wasn't actually a thing, and Pontafax minimalist is not really a thing. Why why would anyone wanna be called that? But the Pont effect's maximus was a thing. It it was, it was the position held by the chief priest of the Roman Pagan religion.

They were called the Pontifex Maximus, the greatest bridge builder, and they would perform all of the big sacrifices on behalf of the Roman people and his office was in the Temple of Jupiter in the forum, Romanum in the center of Rome. And the idea was that the Pontafix Maximus was the connection between the people and the gods. That was his role. He built the bridge. He was the bridge.

He was the connection. Now what's interesting about that just as a quicker side, is that the Romans understood that they needed a special person to bridge the gap between them and the gods. So somewhere in their ancient history, or in a culture that they've come into contact with, this concept has been passed down. And considering that the Bible tells us that all people come from the same place. It seems reasonable that this is some sort of twisted concept of the Messiah that was passed down through oral tradition over the years with the details largely forgotten and the rest of it twisted out of all recognition, and then they apply it to their false gods and their false priests.

And it's not the only place you've you still have it today. You know, it still exists today in in other examples in the world. For example, the pope, the pope was pretty much a like for like swap out with the contafax Maximus when the Romans rebranded from paganism to Christianity as their state religion, switch out the gods with the saints, switch out maximus with the pope. And now you've got another chief priest and bridge builder between the people and the gods, and priests under him who can give absolution and forgiveness to people. They're abominations, You have it in, with Buddha and Buddhism, Allah, and Islam.

It's all over the place. They're charlatans. Anyone claiming to be any kind of priest or connection between the people and god or offer you forgiveness in any way or do anything on your behalf is a disgrace. They are anti Christ figures. They are usurpers.

Only 1 person has ever lived that can fulfill that role. Only once has there lived a good man with a spirit that won't bend or break who's worthy to sit at his father's right hand only once has there been someone on this side, on our side of the gap who can stand in god's presence without fear. Because he's the sinless 1. He won't be burnt up in god's presence. He can stand there unashamed and unafraid.

The spotless lamb of god. And to get to our side of the gap, He's come from god's side. He's come all the way over to us, leaving behind everything So that he can bridge the gap back to god for us. Do you see what see what he's doing so that we can be consult. We who aren't worthy can be reconciled.

That is who Jesus is. That is who Jesus is. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. So what are his bridge building tools?

Let's just spend a bit of time at the end looking at those. What does the greatest bridge builder use to build the greatest bridge over the greatest gap that's ever existed. Well, to begin with mercy. Mercy is what he uses. Paul says I was shown mercy.

I was shown mercy. Mercy is withholding of a deserved punishment. Like in the movies when a truly vile bad guy, it's finally cornered and begs for mercy and you're going, yeah, you should probably just pop him in the head because he's gonna do something nasty in a minute. Mercy That's what they would deserve, but mercy is letting them live, not giving them that punishment that they do deserve. And just think how Paul must have felt when Jesus confronted him on that road.

He would have been right to assume that he was about to be seriously punished, maybe even killed. It's happened to people before in the old testament for crimes that probably weren't as bad as what Paul did. He would have known about these stories of blasphemers persecutors and insolent people from Israel's history. And yet and yet he does not get punished with anything near what he deserved. As it was, Jesus did render him blind for 3 days, which is which you know, so it's almost a petty thing to do when you sort of think, well, why have you bothered doing that?

But it's so that he might be healed and see with new eyes. I was shown mercy, Paul says. That is the first tool that builds a bridge to save sinners. That's the first thing that starts to turn enemies into friends. You can't start with anything other than mercy.

The next 1 is grace. Paul says the grace of our lord was poured out on me abundantly Grace is, like, grace is what complete completes mercy, really. You can't really well, you can have 1 without the other, but it's an incomplete kind of picture. The 2 need to go hand in hand or it feels unfinished. Grace is being rewarded for things that you have no right to be rewarded for.

And so couple that with mercy, not getting the punishment that you deserve way beyond not getting the punishment that you deserve, you actually get rewarded. That's what grace is. That's why people hate grace because they think it's out of order. It's not fair. It's outrageous.

How should sinners? How should bad people be shown grace? Mercy. Maybe I can get on board with mercy, but Grace. Grace is a harder 1 to swallow.

And in Paul's case, worst of sinners, it was poured out abundantly abundantly After after he was blinded on the road, Luke records what happened next to Paul in the book of acts. And he he says this. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias. The lord called to him in an vision, Ananias. Yes, lord, he answered.

The lord told him, go to the House of Judith on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul for he is praying. In a vision, he has seen a man named named Annanias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Lord, Annanias answered. I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.

But the lord said to Ananias Go. This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. So you see, a bitter enemy has been turned into the greatest of allies. Paul is gonna have the honor of being the lord's chosen instruments to reach the non Jewish world with the message of Jesus, primarily the non Jewish world anyway.

So not only is he forgiven, now he's exalted. That's mercy and grace working together. But it does come with a cost. It does come with a cost. Paul will now suffer for the name of Jesus.

As he once spent his life as the foremost persecutor of Jesus, he will spend it, the rest of it as the foremost promoter of Jesus. As he persecuted those who followed Jesus, he will now be persecuted himself for following Jesus. Now this isn't some kind of karma or tit for tat. God, god isn't getting revenge on Paul. Here.

That's not what's going on. It's actually quite the opposite. He is giving to Paul the greatest of honors which is to bear his name to an unreached world for which he will have to sacrifice everything in the end, even his life. And in doing so, following the footsteps of his lord and savior Jesus Christ, could there be any greater honor to bestow on someone than that. That I will allow you to emulate my son, Jesus Christ, whom you persecuted.

This is redemption at work. So those are the 2 main bridge building tools that Paul, that that Jesus employs. The next one's a strengthening tools kind of. There's a few strengthening, you know. So so now we're, we're we're we're we're getting to the suspension cables and the strengthening beams and bars and arches and so on and so forth.

And the first of these is faith. Jesus gives Paul none other than his own faith. Paul says, the unshakable conviction that Jesus is the son of god, that he is the only way to the forgiveness of the father that through him, all sins are permanently dealt with. Ended finished. This is a strengthening gift of Jesus to his followers through the Holy Spirit.

But you might think, well, what happens if I waiver? What happens if I've been given faith? I've been given Christ's faith by the Holy Spirit, And then I waiver. Well, no 1 said that you wouldn't get blown about a bit whilst crossing over the bridge. The storms will come, and the storms will go.

But the faith given to you by Jesus, it's a bit like the safety harness that won't let you fall. It will keep you anchored and rooted in what's true. It will keep your belief where it needs to be. The next strengthener is love. Love is ultimately about sacrifice.

And Paul was given the love of Christ, he says. You can sum it up, love as a definition as giving yourself for the good of others. That's that's a quick working definition of love. John puts it like this. For god, so loved the world that he gave his 1 and only son.

So god loved, so he gave He sacrificed that was which most dear to him for the benefit of others. And so Paul who was once consumed by hate for his enemies is now to be consumed by love. For his enemies. And this love for them drives himself to, drives him to pour himself out for them daily. As he strives to tell them the good news about a god who became a man who lived a perfect life, who died to save those who didn't live perfect lives, and who hated him.

And then he beat death and he rose again. Paul can now love because he has been and is loved himself. He can now give his life, to benefit others because the best life that's ever been lived was given up for his good. And the final bridge building tool that Paul mentions is Jesus's immense patience with him. Patience in the face of blasphemous words, just endless streams of blasphemous words throughout his whole ministry.

Patience in the face of the persecution of his people, the murder of his followers, his disciples, patience in the face of an insolent people, and that 1 can, you know, that can the the israelites called insulin in the desert when they were called out of Egypt. There's a long history of all of these things. Jesus patience is immense. And if Jesus was not immensely patient, then no 1 would ever have the time to be saved. If Jesus was not patient, then the next sinful deed you commit would be the last sinful deed you commit and would be met by Swift just this, and it would be right.

But as it is, he is immensely patient with those who are committing sin after sin day after day widening the gap with every moment that passes Well, that's okay. That's actually okay because as the gap widens, the bridge required across it becomes grander, and the bridge builder becomes more awesome. That's not to say, by the way, that we should just sin more frequently because it actually helps Jesus out in some weird way. That would be that would be a real perversion. Not at all.

It's just that when we do when we do, he's got it covered. He is a better bridge builder than we are gap makers. He can build faster than we can dig. He is a better forgiver than we are sinners. He's forgiven since we haven't even committed yet.

He's way ahead of us, and he is a better lover than we are haters. You cannot out hate him because he'll just out love you a bit more. And so He is patient with us whilst his glory keeps on being revealed over and over and over and over. And so those are the tools and the place where Jesus puts these tools to use, the place where he builds his bridge. Is on the cross.

That's the culmination of all of this. Because on the cross, Mercy is poured out on us as judgment is poured out on him. Grace is given to us as everything is taken from him. Our faith is strengthened as his is tested. And as he rises so does our belief.

Our love is secured as we witness the most amazing act of love that's ever occurred God allowing his son to be nailed to a cross to secure the forgiveness of his enemies. Paul, you, me. And his immense patience as he is arrested, wrongfully accused, beaten, tortured, shamed, ridiculed, and killed, all for our benefit. And so as the nails are driven through his hands and his feet and as he breathes his last with the words, it is finished. The bridge is complete.

As the cross is laid down on the ground after the deed is done, the bridge is complete. The final section slots into place. And there is no way for us to get to god unless we walk over his bloodied bruised body to get there. If the bridge you are walking on is not made of the wood of the cross and of the blood of Jesus, then it is no bridge at all, and it's just gonna crumble beneath you. That's what's going on at the cross.

And I just wonder so much if Paul wasn't standing there watching all these things take place and after his conversion is just hit with the enormity of his misdeeds. I am the foremost and first of sinners the worst of sinners. So as we close, what is the point of all of this? It's all very well, but what's the point of all of this for for us. Well, I think at its most basic level, Paul is saying very, very simply that if I can be saved, you can be saved.

If I can be saved after what I did towards Christ, look, you can definitely be saved. No 1 has directly hated and persecuted Jesus more than me whilst he was on this earth. No one's done that. So if he can find it in him to forgive me, which is unthinkable, then anyone can know his forgiveness. So this is great news for anyone out there who thinks that they are too far gone to be forgiven, who thinks they've got something that they've done that's too bad, or they keep on doing something over and over Paul is saying, trust me.

You're not. Think of it this way, perhaps. Maybe this is a better way of thinking of it. If you forgive, if you've committed a sin Jesus cannot forgive, then that sin is more powerful than Jesus because he can't forgive it, which means it's something he can't do. Which means he's not god at all.

But as we've seen, the greater the sin, the greater the forgiveness, the greater the glory. This is great news for anyone struggling with assurance. You were bought at a high price and the bridge Jesus has set you on is so well built that you cannot fall off. His faith given to you will hold you fast. His forgiveness on offer secured at the cross at a high price.

There's nothing you can do that's bigger than that. If he's given it to you, if you've accepted him, you can't get off that bridge. Is too well built. It's too important, and this is great news for people We know who seem hostile or anti the thought of talking about anything to do with Christianity. I'm sure we all can think of someone in lives or people in our lives at our workplaces, family members, friends, and they just don't wanna know They don't wanna talk about anything to do with the bible or Jesus.

Sometimes they might even be, they might even joke around about it. They might try and the mic out of you about it. I'm sure we've all had situations like that in our Christian lives. Well, if Paul can be turned from an enemy to a friend, then it's totally possible for the people we know, isn't it? In fact, we should believe it all the more and share with them even more boldly in the knowledge that Christ died for sinners.

And finally, this should spur us on. We were not saved for nothing. Like Paul, we were saved to be appointed to his service as Paul puts it in the passage. So think on the cost to build the bridge on which you now stand. And think of the people who are still all the way over there on that side of the gap.

There's a bridge. There is a bridge. All you have to do is walk across it. It's freely available to you, and you cannot stay where you are That's destruction for sure, and it's become our job. We who were enemies to now tell them about it.

Because we've been loved, we've been saved. It's incumbent. It's our duty to do so. And if you are here tonight and you are laboring away in vain, trying to build a bridge across the umbridgeable on your own, then look, I invite you to do just that right now. Step onto that bridge.

You can accept Jesus' offer of forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption. It's free and available all the time. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Let me pray.

Father, we, we thank you for these truths, these deep truths, these simple truths, from your words, these trust worthy sayings that Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners. That is his job. That is his mission. And he accomplished all of it. Father, we thank and praise you that you give us examples like Paul, that you you show us this saving work.

We see it unfold over the ages. We see it unfold throughout history. We see it unfold today. We know it in our own lives. We see it happening in the lives of of people around us.

We love more than anything to see conversion to see enemies, become friends. There is nothing that brings you more glory than to forgive a sinner and turn them into an ally, a family member, an heir with Christ. And so we do thank and praise you for for those great truths. Help us never to to to fall away from those or to to to turn off of those paths. And and throw ourselves off the side of the bridge.

You know, we know that you'll catch us. We know that you love us. You know, we know you hold us fast, and yet we just wonder sometimes and can't seem to help ourselves from doing so help us not to help us with our faith Give us more faith. Give us more belief. Give us more unshakable conviction in these truths.

We pray.