How to Handle Disappointments (2 Timothy 4:16-18)
[ UNEDITED SERMON TRANSCRIPT ]
Today, and we're learning lots about what it means to be committed to the truth of God's Word, to the truth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and to recognize that we need to have our head on the swivel because there's many, many, many different false teachers that were bombarding the church at Ephesus, and Timothy needed to be ready as Paul was in the Mamertine prison.
And he was writing this last letter to be sent to the church of Ephesians, to the Ephesian church and to Timothy himself. But this morning, we're down at the back. We're almost at the end of the finish line. Next week, we're going to finish the book, and then we're going to spend the time talking a little bit about the great triumphal entry of Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday, and then, of course, the Resurrection Sunday. And then we're going to go into a new series on the seven churches of Asia Minor after Revelation 2 and 3.
But if your Bibles are open, I want to read this text for you. It's a very, very short, brief text about that I want you to see that we learn from Paul's experience as he's signing off the letter. And we learn something very rich.
Notice in verse 16, at my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
And it's not even done yet. But I think in these three verses we find something that's very, very relevant to every generation and to our lives because life cannot be lived without disappointments.
In fact, I'm sure many of you, if not all of you, had whether small or big disappointments this last week. It could be with a circumstance that you were just frustrated over, and you were deeply disappointed on how it turned out at work or at school or at home. And then, of course, there's people that we get disappointed with because they didn't measure up to what we thought they should have done, or maybe their character was different than we thought, and we're disappointed at family or friends, at school or in the neighborhood.
But here's the news that maybe you've never really thought of. You cannot stop disappointments in your life. You know why? Because the Bible says we do not control our circumstances and we do not control people. But the Bible also tells us that the Lord himself, the sovereign Lord of the universe, he's in control of all of the circumstances and he providentially uses him for our eternal good and his great glory.
And this is exactly what I think Paul's doing in this text. He's sharing a personal story that he knows Timothy's going to learn by. It's going to embolden him. It's going to help him to say in the midst of the difficulty of life and difficulty of ministry, you can always look up and see what the Lord's doing. And he's orchestrating work in your life, whether you recognize it or not.
This is a great text. As I was rereading the book this week for several reasons, I'm going to share with you a little bit later on, I saw three primary truths that Paul seemed to have as overarching truths that he wanted Timothy and us to understand about ministry.
And number one is this, is ministry is difficult. It's not easy. It's not easy in the church and it's not easy outside the church. There's always going to be enemies against the church. The devil himself, our fleshly lusts, the world system of evil. Those are the three enemies that are always active. And then you've got false teachers and you've got a number of other things that can happen inside the church. So ministry is difficult.
But the second overarching truth that I see is that ministry is demanding. And we see that as Paul instructs Timothy and us how to live out the faith. It requires using every means and every warning and every promise and every instruction that God gives.
So he talks about his giftedness, the love, the discipline, the courage, the suffering, the reliance upon God's ability to guard his stewardship in our lives. He told Timothy to retain the sound words of faith, to guard the gospel treasure in us, to find refreshment in the godly ministry friends like Onesiphorus. He said to let God's grace keep you strengthened and disciple other faithful, disciple makers. Suffer like a good soldier. Compete like a rule-following athlete. Be like a hard-working farmer. Remember the risen Christ Jesus. Remember the word of God is never in prison. Remain faithful and enduring. Do not deny and be faithless. Be an unashamed workman who handles accurately the word of truth. Stay away from useless, worldly, empty, foolish, ignorant words and chatter and speculations that lead to ungodliness and quarrels which ruin hearers and upset people's faith and they spread like cancer.
Abstain from wickedness. Be a vessel of honor. Be sanctified and useful to the master. Flee youthful lusts and pursue godly character. Be a non-quarreling, kind, gentle, patient slave when you need to correct those who are ensnared by the devil and in opposition to you and avoid the folly of men of depraved mind. Reject it in regard to the faith and follow Paul's godly teaching and character, knowing the Lord will rescue you.
Persevere in what you've learned to be the truth about God's word. Preach God's word in season and out of season. Be sober-minded, endure hardship, proclaim the gospel, fulfill your ministry, work towards a faithful finish, and use your ministry team and be aware of the deserters who might come your way like Demas and those who bring you much harm like Alexander and stay on guard against every false teacher.
Now that's just four chapters chock full of the fact that ministry is demanding as we live out the faith that God wants us to live in the ministry.
But the third thing I want you to see really connects with what we're going to be talking about today. How do we handle disappointments in our life? And Paul gives us a model here.
But all throughout the letter, this is amazing to me, all throughout the letter, I'm going to share this at the end of the message, Paul goes from the human difficulty and demands and challenges of the ministry and people, and he keeps peeking up to God himself and saying, listen, God's at work. You've got to keep your focus on the Lord. So ministry is divine. God is always at work.
And we see these divine gems that keep us motivated in the face of the difficult and demanding nature of ministry that can tempt us to give up and to throw in the towel.
You know, one of the things that I hated growing up, I mean, my parents were very strict. My dad was really strict. I grew up in a Christian home all my life and a pastor's home. And so we really had to follow the rules and the guidelines. And if we didn't, then my dad would take his belt off, snap it twice, and he would just hit us on the back end of the shiny hiney, right? And we would get the pain of the board education, what they used to say on the seat of learning, right?
But I could handle that, even though that was difficult. But the worst thing, the thing I couldn't handle is when my dad walked into my room and said, son, I'm really disappointed in you. Man, when he said that word disappointed, it just totally, my life crashed and burned at that moment because I did not want to hear those words. That emotion was overwhelming to me to know that I could disappoint my parents in such a way.
And we understand the emotion of disappointment and how it makes us feel. Someone has defined disappointment as the feeling of sadness and frustration or dissatisfaction that arises when expectations or hopes are not met or when something is not as good as anticipated. It's the gap between expectations and reality. That feeling can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and
So there's disappointments in relationships. There's disappointments in circumstances.
On the human level, disappointment via short-term emotions like fear or anger will always give you bad advice, always. Instead of maybe taking some time to be patient and reflect and refocus your life on the realities of the relationship and the circumstance that you're in, that God oversees.
On the supernatural level, this is where Paul takes us. Disappointment can be diminished and repurposed when you focus on what God tells us about himself, what he tells us about ourselves, and what he tells us about other people. That's the truth.
This is where we can really live, and this is where we can really flourish, and this is where we can handle our disappointments so we avoid them becoming bitterness and we turn against those that we're called to love and minister to.
So Paul gives us two key truths this morning in the text we just read that I want to share with you on how to handle disappointments through his experience that he shares with Timothy and us.
And number one is this, is redeem your disappointments, listen to this, with some mercy. With some mercy.
I want you to notice this again. Look at verse 16. At my first defense, no one supported me. No one. No one. All, all deserted me. I mean, you're blown away by that. I mean, that's an extreme disappointment in his ministry. Paul was a people person. He loved people. He lived for people. He lived to share the gospel with people. He lived with brothers and sisters and tried to help them. He wrote all these 13 letters in the New Testament to help correct the wrongs and to help people live the glorious Christian life.
But man, here he is, and no one's supporting him. All have deserted him. We know Demas deserted him. He told us that a couple of verses earlier. But everyone? Like we knew Luke was with him. Did Luke go somewhere where he couldn't come, or did he just not show up? What about Tychicus, who he was going to send to go back to Ephesus? Ephesus. What about Onesiphorus who he said always refreshed me in my ministry here in Rome? Where was he?
We don't know. All we know is what Paul said. In the preliminary hearing, that first defense... No one showed up to stand with Paul, listen to this, except what we learned last week, Alexander the coppersmith who defected from Paul and did him much harm. He showed up and he gave statement against Paul that he was guilty. Disappointment.
But what is mind-blowing about this disappointment is to see how he handled it at the end of verse 16. May it not be counted against them. What an incredible, gracious word and prayer of mercy.
Now think about that right now in your life. We all have various disappointments with varying degrees in our life, even every week, with people, things. Is your first impulse... to maybe be like Paul, to say, may it not be counted against them like a prayer?
I think there's a difference between what he said about Alexander the coppersmith when he said, hey, he's going to repay according to his deeds. He's going to be face to face as an apostate before the Lord. He will give an account. It's different when he was talking about brothers and sisters. Where were they? Lord, don't hold it against them. Grant them mercy.
Is there anybody who needs mercy in your life right now that you're disappointed with? Rather than maybe stir up the storm, it doesn't mean we avoid talking to them about sinful issues that they need to overcome and they need to address. But may it not be counted against them as an act of mercy.
You know what James says in James 2? Mercy triumphs over judgment. We all need mercy. By the way, most all of us in this room are here as a result of God not counting it against us. We should have been on that cross. We weren't because he didn't count it against us. He took our sin on himself at the cross. So now we extend that mercy to others when God gives us that opportunity.
But it's not easy. There's a lot of emotion when you're disappointed, right? There's a lot of emotion when you're disappointed in those that are nearest and dearest to you, and you feel that disappointment. But boy, that stunning response is amazing.
Paul said this to the messy Corinthians, I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you the more, am I to be loved the less? If you know, like we went through the study of the first Corinthians, how messed up that church was, it's amazing that Paul could say what he said and still love them.
Well, as we think about what Paul says here, it's amazing to understand that while he was at this first defense, which some think maybe this was his first imprisonment, you know, early in the book of Acts where he was going to be imprisoned in Rome. We're talking about here his second imprisonment. This is the one, the first imprisonment he was set free. The second imprisonment, no, he's going to be beheaded in Rome. That's what tradition tells us by Nero himself. That's why he said what he said in verse 6, 7, and 8. He goes, the time of my departure is near. It probably happened in the next eight or nine months.
But he's referring to a time where he felt the disappointment of no one supporting him. Will you turn in your Bibles back to chapter 1 and look with me at something else Paul said to Timothy in chapter 1? Look at verse 15. He says, Wow. It seems like Paul knew what it was like to walk through disappointments in relationships with people in the ministry.
And he had learned as the apostle of Jesus Christ who had to grow in Christ. He had to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ like anybody. He was an apostle. Yes, he was a great leader. God used him in amazing ways. But we understand he walked through, like he said in Romans 7, the things I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't do, I should do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of death? We understand he understood the struggle with the flesh.
And here he is reminiscing about a moment that really hurt him in disappointment, but listen, he redeemed his disappointments with mercy.
People need mercy. People need compassion. Yes, wrongs need to be righted. We talked about that last week. There's opportunity for us to do that even with guidelines and conflict resolution that God has given us in the Word.
But here I think we have a great reminder of what it means to be redeemed in our relationships. Paul never denied the harsh reality of the difficulties of the ministry, whether it be slander or being tried or sentenced for a crime that he never committed.
It reminds you of David in the Old Testament where he said his most trusted friend and counselor was Ahithophel, and he turned against him. He was a traitor. Can you imagine what David felt? Listen to Psalm 41, verse 9. Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me. And what would have made it even worse is that he went and sided with his son who rebelled against David, Absalom, to try to usurp the throne.
Obviously, we know Jesus was betrayed by a trusted friend, Judas, and sided with the enemy to plot Jesus' death.
But no matter how disappointing those in your circle of relationships may be, Paul is teaching us how to handle even some of the most extreme disappointments with the gift of mercy.
What did Jesus do for us in the cry of one of the seven cries from the cross? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Stephen, after he shared his brilliant defense before the council who had put Stephen on trial, so to speak, by false witnesses, he testified by telling the story of Israel from Genesis 15 all the way up to the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ. And at the end of that story in Acts chapter 7, here's what he did. He said, and you guys are the ones who put him on the cross.
Well, they were furious. They were so furious that it says they gnashed their teeth, they dragged Stephen out of the city, they stoned him, and when he fell to his knees, he cried out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And it says this, he said with a loud voice right before he breathed his last, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
Can you imagine saying that? So we see that some had not showed up to support him. And he dealt with the disappointment of redeeming that with the gift of mercy.
The second thing I want you to see here in verse 17 and 18 is to recognize that your deliverances will come with some divinity.
You ever heard that word in a long time? You say, that kind of sounds like an odd word. Why would you use that word? Well, how many of you probably thought, divinity, I love it at Christmas time. I love that sweet white whatever it is, you know, that tastes so good. It's not that.
No, using the word divinity is to talk about how Paul thought. He was a divinity-driven man. Did you see what he said? Verse 20, or excuse me, going back to 2 Timothy, you could say verse 16 was just unbelievable. No one supported me. Everybody deserted me.
Verse 17, but the Lord. Don't you love it when the Bible says, but the Lord, or but God showed up. Those are some of the greatest redeeming, encouraging verses in the Bible.
Acts 2, 23 and 24, the first sermon ever preached in the first day of the church on the day of Pentecost. This man, Peter said, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. And then he said this, but God raised him from the dead, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power.
How about Romans chapter 5, verse 7 and 8? For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrated his own love toward us, and yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Don't you like the but gods? It's like it seems on the other side of but God, there's all this misery, and there's this pain, and there's this sorrow, and there's this confusion, and then all of a sudden God shows up.
Listen, this is what Paul's trying to do. He's trying to infuse in Timothy's young leadership to say, listen, Timothy, you're in a difficult church. Keep preaching the word. Keep standing against the false teaching. Keep holding up and fighting the good fight of faith. And that trickles down to us as the church. That's what we're called to do. But it takes while we're down here in the fight and feeling the weight of the ministry, making sure we're looking to God.
But God, God is at work. You see, the ministry is difficult. The ministry is demanding. But the ministry is divine. If we keep our minds on the fact that God is at work, whether we see it or not, at the moment, God is at work. And he said he's working for our good. It's a great reminder.
Notice, so you see this, look at verse 17 at the beginning. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. Look at verse 18. The Lord will rescue me. Look at the end of verse 18. To him be the glory. You see, Paul, he's just divinity driven. I'm going to look to what God's doing and what God is up to because it's going to help me understand and deal with the disappointments of life.
He doesn't deny the reality of pain. He doesn't deny the reality of sorrow and difficulty and trouble, but he has conditioned his heart and his mind to do what he's advising Timothy and the church of Jesus Christ to do, to live with a mindset of the divine.
Here's what he wrote to the Colossians. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of this earth.
Here's what he said to the Romans. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
Here's what he said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7. We are afflicted on every side, conflicts without and fears within, but God who comforts the depressed comforted us by the coming of Titus.
Well, let me share with you in verse 17 and 18 two divine deliverances that Paul recognized and shared with Timothy and shares with us that reminds us that God is a delivering God. But they're contrasted by the conjunction but there in verse 17 with the human desertions that happen in verse 16.
One deliverance is the past in verse 17. One is the future in verse 18. One in verse 17 has already been experienced and the other in verse 18 is to be experienced. And deliverance number one in verse 17 is he recognizes the incredible presence and the power and the provision of God in his life, in what he's been experiencing in his life.
Listen, God showed up. Yeah, no one supported me. All deserted me. Let me tell you what God was doing. God was there with me. God was displaying his power in me and through me, and God made a great provision for me. I think it's worth looking at these three things very carefully.
Notice the first one. Paul's highlighted God's presence. The Lord stood with me. Paul had been abandoned by his friends, but now not by Jesus. He loved the truth. He loved the truth that he's never alone, and neither are we.
Have you ever thought about that when you're going through some trials? You know what? Everybody seems to be against me, but not the Lord. He's for me. He's with me. He's standing with me in this battle. I love what the scripture says, that he will be with us till the end of the age. Hebrews chapter 13, 5 says, he will never leave us, and he will never forsake us. Do you believe that promise? You see, that's the Lord's presence.
I got to tell you a story that's amazing. That happened to Paul five years before he wrote this letter. We find ourselves in the book of Acts. Paul is so excited about the opportunity to go and to present the gospel in Jerusalem. And he's encouraging the disciples. And he had these high hopes that his preaching was going to receive a positive response. But all of a sudden some Jews came in and they stirred up a hornet's nest at the temple. And they dragged him out of the temple yelling, we're going to kill him. And you know why they said that? Because listen.
Here's what he said. You see, that day they saw Trophimus with Paul, who was a Greek. But he never went into the temple, but they assumed he did, and they came in to stir it up and said, Paul, we got to get rid of him and let's kill him. He's defiling the temple of God. What Paul was going to be a great day of gospel sharing was turning into a great disappointment.
But let's follow the story. Listen to this. Everything fell apart for Paul that day. They seized Paul. It says they dragged him out of the temple. They started beating him. They were wanting to kill him. And the whole town of Jerusalem was in confusion. And Paul said, hey, can I speak? Can I say something? And they let him say something. And he shared his testimony of the gospel power of God in his life until the crowds called for his death.
And they stretched him out to be flogged. And Paul said, hey, just so everybody knows, I am a Roman citizen and you can't do that to me. And everything stopped. The council came in. They took him away out of the crowd. He was going crazy. I mean, this is a mob. And he was going to have to go on trial. And he was going to go on trial.
Here's what it says. In Acts 23, for the hope and the resurrection of the dead. And while he was out with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, that stirred up a hornet's nest of debate between them because the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, the Sadducees didn't. And so you've got that split, and they were arguing with each other. And then here's Paul, who's the middle of the battle. They take him by force because the crowd wants to come in and to try to haul him off, and they have to force Paul into the barracks to save his skin.
Now listen to this. Now you say, why are you telling us this story? This is amazing. Listen to this. In Acts chapter 23 and in verse 11, listen to what God did. But on the night immediately following in the barracks, the Lord stood at his side. Did you hear that? The Lord Jesus stood at the side of Paul. And you know what he said? Here's what he said. Take courage, for as you have solemnly witnessed to my cause at Jerusalem, so you must at Rome also.
Paul knew he was going to live another day. In fact, he knew he was going to be going to Rome, which is what always his hope was, to be able to share the gospel. And here, who shows up to rescue the day? He's feeling at the bottom of the barrel of his life with disappointment. I came in thinking I was going to be able to share the gospel, and now they've dragged me out of the temple, and they've beaten me, and they want to kill me, and the Lord shows up.
What did he say in 2 Timothy chapter 4? But the Lord stood by me. Could he be pointing back to this time? You know, as I was tracing this word around take courage, it's interesting. It's just one word in the Greek language. It just says courage. That's what the Lord. And I found out that there's five uses of the word courage, that particular word, and Jesus is the only one who used it in his ministry.
Now listen to this. To the bedridden paralytic, Jesus said, Courage, my son, your sins are forgiven. To the woman with a 12-year hemorrhage, he said, Courage, daughter, your faith has made you well. To the frightened disciples, as he came to them across the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee, he said, Courage, it is I, do not be afraid. In the upper room on the night of his crucifixion, he said to his disciples, Courage, I have overcome the world.
This is Christ's unique word for all who are trying to serve him, however feebly. Knowing that no matter what difficult circumstances, we have a Lord who's with us, who's telling us, Courage, I'm with you. I'm with you.
To the executive church, amid the cyber waste of the corporate culture, you can say courage. To the young mother who may be surrounded with hard and women cynical about Christianity, you can hear the word courage. To the missionary deep into the heart of suffocating pagan darkness, you can hear God whisper courage. You see, Christ's presence with him and his Savior's singular charge, courage, became the buzzword of Paul's incredible life, and it can be of ours.
So first of all, in that first deliverance, he recognized the great presence of the Lord. Secondly, he recognized the great power of God because he says this in verse 17, and he strengthened me.
Now, what's interesting about this word strengthen me is it kind of comes from a different angle. It literally means to pour power into someone. It's like God showed up and he was with me and he poured his power into me. He lifted me up. He gave me the strength. He gave me the enabling. He gave me the capability to do what I needed to do. That's the God we serve.
And what did he say? The Lord enabled him to fulfill his calling to be a chosen vessel for to bear his name to the Gentiles, and that's exactly what he did, and to kings, and that's what he's done, and to the sons of Israel, and that's what he's done. And the risen Lord told him he would be kept safe until he preached the gospel in Rome. That's what we just read.
And though he was going to have to suffer greatly, he now had the strength of God, and he's standing at the end of his life recognizing that God's faithfulness got him to the place where he completed his ministry. It was fully accomplished in the capital of the world, in the highest earthly tribunal you could imagine, and maybe before Nero himself.
Listen, God's faithful. The Bible says we're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. We've been empowered by the Holy Spirit. We have the fullness of the Holy Spirit to do what the Lord has called us to do. We have his presence. We have his power.
Notice this. Thirdly, we have his provision. And I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. Now, there's a big discussion with commentators, scholars about the lion's mouth. Well, that's Satan because 1 Peter 5 says, you know, the devil is like a roaring lion who's seeking to destroy your life. So it could be. Others say, no, no, no. This is talking about Nero himself. He took the judgment seat, and he was going to stand as the lion of Rome against Paul. Could be. Some say, no, it was another judge who heard the case. But it seems most likely that this is a reference to death that was delayed, and that was the lion's mouth there.
You say, well, how can you say that? Well, because when you go back to Psalm 22, it seems like Paul may be meditating on Psalm 22. It's a famous messianic psalm. But the parallels are unbelievable.
In Titus 4, he says, no one supported me. In Psalm 22, it says there's none to help.
In Titus chapter 4, 2 Timothy chapter 4, excuse me, all deserted me. Psalm 22 says, why have you forsaken me?
In 2 Timothy 4, he said, I was rescued out of the lion's mouth or from the lion's mouth. In Psalm 22, it says, he saved me from the mouth of the lion.
In 2 Timothy 4, he says, and all the Gentiles might hear. In Psalm 22, it says, all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.
And in 2 Timothy 4, it says, and we will bring thee safely into the heavenly kingdom. And Psalm 22 says, the kingship of God belongs to the Lord.
What a deliverance the Lord gave him. But that second deliverance is really where he had his hope. Look at verse 18, his future, his ultimate deliverance, having reflected on the past three events, maybe the evil done by Alexander in verse 14 and 15, the coppersmith, or maybe the desertions that he was bearing in verse 16, or maybe he was talking about the rescue from the lion's mouth.
Paul looks to his ultimate rescue that he's going to have, and that's the one we're looking to. If your Bibles are still open, look what he says there in verse 18. He says, Listen, Paul wasn't expecting deliverance from death. No, he was expecting to die. He says, No, he was expecting that no evil attack that he would receive would undermine his faith or his courage or cause him to lapse into disastrous sin.
In fact, it almost appears that Paul is praying the sixth petition in the Lord's Prayer, when he says, but deliver me from the evil one. Why? Because Jesus will transfer him out of the earthly realm of sin in Rome and into the heavenly kingdom of God. And Paul is absolutely confident that God is able to keep what Paul has entrusted to him.
And so he reflected on God in the midst of disappointment. And what did it do? It caused Paul, listen to this, to burst into a doxology. And he's not even done yet. He says, to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Oh, I've got a few more things to say.
But if you follow Paul's letters, that's what he tended to do. When he got excited about what the Lord was doing, he had to stop and say, oh man, let's give God the glory. Let's give God the glory.
Listen, ministry is difficult. It's not easy. Ministry is demanding and require all the tools and the means and the attitudes and commands and promises that God gives us to fulfill our mission. But what we've been talking about today is that ministry is divine because God is at work.
And all throughout the letter, Paul has been dropping out these divine gems, these treasures of the gospel that God is doing behind the scenes and out in the open and reminding Timothy, Timothy, you have a hard ministry, you have a demanding ministry like we do today, but the Lord is divine and he shows up and he's at work.
Now, before I end this message, I want you to listen. I went back, reread the book this week, and I wrote down every time Paul referred to God being at work. Now, listen to this.
Chapter 1, verse 1, God's will is working.
God's presence is sobering.
God's foundational seal is reassuring.
God's cleansing is fruit bearing.
God's sovereignty is granting repentance
and God's leaders are modeling
and God's word is informing and saving and transforming
and God's crowns are awarding
and he saves the last three for our text.
God's support is strengthening me.
God's rescues are delivering me and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.
And the last one is the most important. God's glory is all deserving. To him be the glory forever and ever.
You know why it's the most important? Because one of the verses that probably everybody in this room knows is this, Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the what? It's all about the glory of God, isn't it? The reason you're a sinner and I'm a sinner and everybody out in the world is sinners is because they fell short of the glory of God. They didn't worship him. They didn't view him as God. They did their own thing. They saw themselves as their gods.
And so we fall short and we're sinners. And the only way we can get to the place where Paul did and to say, I want to give glory to God by my life and by my attitudes and by my living and my ministry is when I put my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he forgives all my sin and gives me the wonderful gift of eternal life.
Do you have that in your life? Listen, you're going to have disappointments today and tomorrow. But we can redeem those disappointments with mercy. And we can recognize that disappointments have divine gems awaiting us to see if we're willing to look at God and what he's doing.
1 Timothy 1:15
Acts 2:23-24
Romans 5:7-8
Colossians 3:2
Romans 12:2
1 Corinthians 7:5-6 (likely a misquote, should be 2 Corinthians 7:5-6)
Romans 10:9
Matthew 28:20 (alluded to)
Hebrews 13:5
Acts 23:11
Matthew 9:2 (alluded to)
Matthew 9:22 (alluded to)
Matthew 14:27 (alluded to)
John 16:33 (alluded to)
Psalm 22 (multiple allusions)
Matthew 6:13 (alluded to)
Romans 3:23
Psalm 66:1-2
Galatians 3:13
Isaiah 53:10
Isaiah 53:5
2 Corinthians 5:21
Matthew 27:59-60
Matthew 28:6
Mark 16:19
Ephesians 2:1, 4-5
Colossians 2:14
Romans 8:1
Psalm 41:9
Luke 23:34 (alluded to)
Acts 7:59-60
Ephesians 2:8-9
Ephesians 2:10