The Word of God stands, complete.  We don’t quite know what to do with it, though.  We know the Old Testament is part of the Bible.  We don’t quite know what to do with it, though.  We know there is Law as well as Gospel; we don’t quite know what to do with Law.  If the Law doesn’t make us righteous, cannot make us righteous, what good is it?  Why would God give and expect it of His people?  Paul tells us the law is intended for whatever is contrary to sound teaching (1:10): a standard, a norm, a corrective.  Paul is writing to Timothy to encourage him in the ongoing battle against bad teaching.  It would be a beautiful, happy thing if that battle were long gone.  It isn’t.  Each generation must battle anew.  In his first letter to his protégé, Paul is calling the next generation to man the defenses, to prosecute the counteroffensive.

In different places, Paul has written about the purpose and value of the Law, all while being quite clear that neither salvation nor righteousness come through obeying the law.  Being a law-abiding citizen earns us nothing in the kingdom.  In Christ, reward is not our motivation to live up to the expectations of the Law—the moral law.  We aren’t looking to be honored at some celestial award ceremony.  Rather, we in Christ strive to live up to the expectations of the moral law because we know this is God’s expectation and we want to live to please the Lord, even knowing we’re not that good at it, yet rejoicing gratefully in the knowledge that God loves us and will help us, and forgive us.  Those in Christ strive to love God and neighbor—this is the Law—because this is what Christ did perfectly.  Christ alive in us is doing the same in us.  Faith lives by acts of love.  Keeping the moral law is an act of love.  What, then, is living contrary to the moral law?

So, the “lawful” use of the Law, as Paul writes about it (1:8), is not to earn our way into God’s good favor, nor is it to rank ourselves as compared to each other or those outside the church.  We use the law lawfully, in the right way for the right reasons, when, by means of the law, we remember that we are fallen people in need of the redemption that God has given us in Jesus Christ, when we remember that we are easily tempted people who very much need the grace that God continually gives us in the Holy Spirit.  Paul writes: “law is not made for a righteous person but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and worldly, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, homosexuals, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching” (1:9-10).  That’s quite a list!  You and I might not recognize ourselves in with that lot.  We might even be adamant about it—that’s not me!  I’m not in with that lot at all!  But God found us there among the “lawless and rebellious,” took us from there, and is wiping away the grime and the goo through Spirit and sound teaching.  We’re washed, certainly, and we haven’t kept ourselves perfectly clean.

As we contemplate that rogue’s gallery, meditate upon it, pray about it, God helps us, by His abundant mercy and grace, to see ourselves.  Now, that’s hard, but condemnation is harder.  If God causes us to discover ourselves in that roster of wretchedness, it’s to help us remember and value as priceless what He has done for us in Christ Jesus, done for us without any deserving on our part, what He is doing for us through the Holy Spirit: I once was lost, but now am found!  Was blind, but now I see!  As far as east is from west, so far has he removed our sins, removed them by blood, his holy blood, in Jesus Christ.  That cross, and this table, are reminders.

We wonder sometimes, what about all those who don’t know about Jesus, those who will never hear about Jesus.  The only response I can offer is that God in His wisdom knows what He will do.  What He will do will be perfectly right, perfectly just, and perfectly good.  I know that can be hard to take in.  If we must speculate (and we can only speculate), we might say that the Law will be for them.  If they do not, or will not know Jesus Christ, let them come before God on the basis of the Law and argue their case before Him: Lord, I deserve eternal life from You because look at how I followed the law, see what a good person I was, and just look at all the good things I did during my life on earth.  Would you want to try that argument?  You and I don’t have to.  We can share Christ, though.

Let us constantly embrace “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (1:11).  That’s what Paul did.  In what I read to you today, Paul recounts for Timothy just where and when God reached Paul, who Paul was when God reached him.  Paul doesn’t do this to beat himself up but to exult, not in himself, obviously, but in God.  God reveals just who He truly is, who He is at heart, in what God has freely, graciously done for Paul, and for me, and for you and for all of us.  God is still and always willing to do the same for all those out there still pursuing their lost way with eagerness, lust, greed, and ignorance, desperately trying to find that happiness, that fulfillment the world keeps talking about.  They’ve tried it all, to no avail—it always ends up empty, and so do they.

We read in Acts about Paul—Saul—prior to his conversion.  He was a devout Pharisee, so we might think that zeal for the Lord and the Law were big motivators for him as he went from place to place, arresting Christians, persecuting the church to the best of his abundant ability.  There was zeal, I suppose, but Paul tells Timothy something more: Saul also delighted in what he was doing, took deep pleasure in hurting Christians; it was sort of a source of deep satisfaction and fulfilment for him, venting all his cruelty, anger, and hatred upon such people.  Faithfulness to God was a cover for exercising his inner demons on others.  Let us beware of using God as a cover for indulging sin, whatever sin.

Paul writes that he “was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man” (1:13).  That word, violent, has a very dark cast in Paul’s Greek.  William Barclay, who spent much time in the careful study of these words, tells us the Greek word, hubristēs, means “a man of insolent and brutal violence [. . . .] it indicates a kind of arrogant sadism [. . .] the man who is out to inflict pain for the sheer joy of inflicting it.”[1]  John Stott adds that the term refers to one who “finds satisfaction in insulting and humiliating other people.”[2]  Paul was like the Don Rickles or Andrew Dice Clay of his times, but he was the only one laughing.  Yet the essence of comedy, especially the divine comedy, is redemption.  The message of comedy is that, even though things can get to feeling way out of hand, terribly, horribly out of control, it will work out in the end.  All will be well.  All’s well that ends well.  Comedy, you see, is about faith.

As he looks back on who he had been, Paul can laugh with relief, joy, and gratitude, laugh until the tears come: “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” (1:12-14).  The one who was all in to destroy Christians and revile Christ, Jesus found him trustworthy.  Astonishing!  Truly, God is a God of second chances, and third, and fourth, and seventy-seventh!  How could we ever allow ourselves to disappoint this God?!

I don’t know all your stories; some of you may not have been so very far from God when He claimed you—though, in this matter, the difference between two feet past the cliff and two hundred doesn’t make much difference.  Some of you have a keen sense of just how far you were, and the only thing that balances out the grief of who you were, where you were, is the miracle of grace, the miracle of love that God did for you by claiming you in Christ.  In him are faith and love: our ample, ever-flowing supply.  Christ is the well from which we drink faith; he washes us in holy love.

The only explanation we can offer for our earlier life is like Paul’s: we were acting in ignorance and unbelief.  God can overcome both.  Jesus teaches.  The Spirit causes faith.  What about that violence, though?  Any violent men here, this morning?  Men, we’ve got to govern that impulse, restrain it, and not just in our own hearts.  Jesus claims us, just like he claimed Paul; Jesus changes us, just like he changed Paul; Jesus sends us, just like he sends Paul.  We’ve got a message to share and work to do.  We might not be able to make the world safe for democracy, but we can make it a safer place for women, for children, for the vulnerable, for those who have no advocate, no one who cares enough to help, no friend.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1:15).  Back in the ‘70s, my mother had something like a sticker on the mirror in their bathroom: “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”  If I were to put a little encouraging, affirming note up on my bathroom mirror, it would probably be those words of Paul I just read to you: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”  Doesn’t that just thrill your heart with affirmation and encouragement?  Look—if Jesus can do something with me (and he certainly is, hallelujah!), just think how much he can do with you!  If I’m not beyond hope, then no one is beyond hope, love, faith.  If they only understood.  But who can help them?

Now, if Paul’s words up to where I left off don’t quite thrill your heart with affirmation and encouragement, you could add the next verse: “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 for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life” (1:15-16).  Look, if God is willing—wants to!—save even a total waste of material like me . . .!  Then there is certain hope for you, and for us all.  What is contrary to the sound teaching of the glorious Gospel?  We are.  The world.  Those who are under the world rather than the Word, like Paul, before his conversion to Christ.  So there is hope because there is love.  Because there is hope and love, there is also faith: God’s gifts, his priceless gifts for you, for me.  Like that cross behind me, this table is here to remind us of these gifts; this table is here for the giving and receiving of these gifts.  Christ offers himself for you, to you, abundantly, from this table.  Bread and drink sustain the body; Christ sustains our life.

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay.  Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  45.

               [2] John Stott.  Guard the Truth: The Message of 1 Timothy and Titus.  Downer’s Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity P, 1996.  51.