Be Careful How You Fight!

Good morning! It is good to be with all of you again on this beautiful day with God’s beautiful people. ! I’d like to begin by simply reading our passages for today . And then share with you something God has beening dealing with me in my own life since we were last togther. Turn with me to Second Timothy chapter two, I'd like for us to read starting with verse 22 and read on down through verse 26 at the end of the chapter, Second Timothy two, 22 through 26.

The New International Version Chapter 2

22 Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Please pray with me.

Holy Father, we stand before you right now and before your word as sinners. And Father, every one of us in this room, we have broken your law. We deserve in and of ourselves to hear nothing from you, but depart from me you workers of iniquity. And yet Father, we stand here spattered with blood. We stand here hidden in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And so Father, we hear from you these are my beloved children in whom I am well pleased. Father, we pray and ask that we would receive your word with gratitude. We pray, Father, that you would knock out of the way in our hearts whatever needs to be removed and that you would call forward and cultivate whatever in our lives needs to be grown in order to conform us into the image of Christ. And we ask this to his glory and in his name, in Jesus name, amen.

So I’d like to begin by asking you a question. How many of you are troubled or struggling with the way we are having conversations in our current culture?

Over the last 12 months I have had the privilege and opportunity to be involved in a college ministry on our local campus here at East Central. As someone who graduated from that university. I has been both an enlightening and challenging process attempting to share the love of Christ with the next generation. Combining our social media driven culture with an increasingly hostile environment for Christianity, I am convinced of two things. The mission of Christ and the message of His Word has not changed. But how we convey that mission and message must change! The way I see Christians operating within today’s society is often spreading more heat than light.

Many of you sitting hear today feel the frustration by the post you see on social media from some of your so called “friends” on Facebook and other platform. Some of them sending requests, inviting you to play Vegas casino slots. And you just sit there and say, do you know me? And then also proceed to post all of these really creepy, paranoid, manipulative things on Facebook. Things like a picture of a heart, and it says, if you love children repost this. And I know that over 50% of you won't do that, but I know that those of you with a heart will. And I sit there and say, are you kidding me? And I want to just sit there and say, what is wrong with you and yell at the screen.

But as I think about it, I realize that these Facebook posts are really just our contemporary version of something that's been going on for a long, long time. And that's bumper stickers. And there was a study several years ago, Colorado State University, and they were looking at road rage, people who act violently behind the wheel and they're going through to say, how can we decide who is more prone to road rage so that we can predict this? And they found out there is no predictor when it comes to social class. There is no predictor when it comes to ethnicity. There is no predictor when it comes to age. There was only one predictor that they could find as to who is more prone to act with road rage behind the wheel. And that is bumper stickers. And the interesting thing about it is that in this study, it doesn't matter what the bumper stickers say, it doesn't matter if the bumper sticker says Jesus saves or legalize pot. Doesn't matter if the bumper sticker says, show random acts of kindness or my kid can beat up your honors student. Doesn't matter at all.

The issue isn't the content of the bumper sticker. The issue is the presence of the bumper sticker. And what they found is the more bumper stickers that are on a vehicle, the more likely that person is to engage in road rage. And as they're thinking this through and trying to find out why. They said, we think the reason for this is because a bumper sticker or a Facebook post really isn't meant to persuade. It's not a method of dialogue. There are very few people who have changed their minds about the gospel of Jesus Christ or gun control or marijuana legalization or any number of other things because they've seen a bumper sticker and said, you know what, what was I thinking? That's not what happens. Instead, the bumper sticker serves a purpose of self identity. It's my way to tell you who I am.

And it portrays the sort of personality that has a need to consistently say, “listen to me, this is who I am”, and is also the sort of personality that can easily tip over into outrage.

Now, it is really easy for those of us who follow Christ, and it is especially easy for those of us who follow Christ in a culture that is increasingly secularizing and in many ways increasingly hostile to Christianity, to fall into this sort of venting or outrage, that really doesn't seek to win or to plead or to persuade, but simply seeks to express this is who we are.

But is this what we should be broadcasting to those around us? I don’t think so! What the rest of the world hears when we do this, is a cowardly scared people who've lost the will to fight.

That's exactly what Timothy's problem was. If you'll notice as you move through these letters of the apostle to Timothy, Timothy had a problem with timidity.

Paul , in the previous part of his letter to Timothy, is consistently encouraging him and strengthening him, stirring up that flame that is within him, talking about treating this stomach that was all out of kilter, possibly even due to anxiety, saying to him, don't let anybody discourage you because of your youth, telling him, be a good soldier, be a good athlete, be a good farmer of the gospel. And he is constantly saying to Timothy, fight, fight the good fight of faith. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.

And then at this part in the letter we just read, Paul says something that seems in many ways contradictory to that. He says, Timothy, flee. He says, Timothy run away from impurity and ungodliness and unrighteousness and the passions of youth in your own life. And then he says, act and speak with kindness. Now, this word kindness is something that Paul, elsewhere in the book of Galatians speaks of as a fruit of the spirit.

Those who belong to Christ will exhibit kindness. And one of the problems that we tend to have when we see this word is that we think of this word as weakness or passivity. That is not what kindness is, or we tend to think that kindness is the thing that we display only to those who are with us, only to those who share with us a common identity or a common mindset. But of course, that's not distinctively Christian at all. That's Darwinian. Even in a Darwinist understanding of the world, we show kindness and affection to those with whom we have a natural bond. No, The scripture says, be kind to every one, show honor to everyone. Paul says, show this kindness and gentleness to your opponents. Why? Because for the scriptures, for the apostles, for the believing community, kindness is not a break from fighting. Kindness is how you fight.

Paul says, "I want you to flee from unrighteousness in your own life." And he says, "I want you to be careful how you fight." He says, "You must not become involved in ignorant, foolish controversies." What's Paul saying? He says, you have been given a mission and a message that Jesus has handed off to you. Do not become distracted from that mission by engaging in foolish, ignorant controversies that have nothing to do with the mission of Christ. He says, "you know that what happens is that these things breed quarrelsomeness and the man of God must not be quarrelsome."

Russell Moore, who is the Editor of Christianity Today. Tells the story of how several years ago he was serving in a church and had a group of kids who started to come to that church on Wednesday nights who were completely unchurched. Most of them did not have fathers at all. They had never been in a church, they'd never been around Christians at all. They'd been moving around in military families all over the country and had no contact with Christianity whatsoever, so much so that they didn't even know how to act among the people of God at all.

Some of them would come in, in a cloud of marijuana smoke. And they would ask all sorts of questions about the gospel. "So you really believe that this dead guy came back to life and he's going to show up in the sky on a horse for real?" Just seemed absolutely incredible to them. And he kept trying to move those kids from the Wednesday night service on into the worship service with the rest of the people. And finally one night it happened, a group of them came in for a Sunday night service and he saw one of those kids sitting in the back with a senior adult, godly senior adult man in an intense conversation with him, and he was so glad and he said, you know what? Here we go. We've planted the seed, we've watered the seed, and this godly man is coming and he's reaping the harvest, he's pressing the gospel into this kid's life.

And he walked up and heard the man continuing and finishing his conversation as he says, "And that's why you shouldn't wear a ball cap in Church." He was devastated! He pulled the guy to the side and said, "This kid is heading toward the lake fire. We've got time to deal with whether or not he ought to wear a ball cap. The issue in his life is that he is heading toward judgment, without a gospel, without Christ. Why would our word do him right now be hat etiquette?

This was exactly what Paul's talking about here. He says, all of us have the tendency to move over into all of these spats and disputes and fights over foolish things that divert us from the main task. But not only that, he says that this sort of activity, these fights and these quarrels are self-diminishing. He says, these quarrels turn you into a person who is quarrelsome. Verse 24, "But the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome."

Now notice what Paul says here. Fight, fight, fight. The one who does not fight the good fight of faith is someone who is unfaithful to the Lord, someone who is a coward. But he says there is a difference between someone who will fight the good fight of faith and someone who is looking for a fight. There is a certain personality in our flesh that would want to be fighting anyway, and the gospel serves for us, as a sort of stand-in, to fight in such a way that we can be more spiritually minded about it. When we would be fighting anyway. He says, the Lord's servant must fight, but the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. Why? Because the task and the mission that you and I have been given is not a matter of protecting our identity or even ourselves from personal offense.

How many of us find ourselves angry and ready to quarrel when we sit down with those lost relatives at a family Christmas, or a family Thanksgiving? And they start to make comments that make our blood pressure rise, not because we are grieved that these people are lost and going to hell, but because we believe they are saying that we are stupid. We take personal offense. How many of us when we see those bumper stickers born right the first time, or the fish that's supposed to look like the Jesus fish with the legs sprouting out that says Darwin? Our outrage is not toward the power of the devil who blinds and holds in captivity, our outrage is because we are being insulted, so insulted that we'll come up with our own bumper stickers of the Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish. We'll out Darwin you.

No. He says, the Lord's servant is the Lord's servant doing what the Lord tells him or her to do, which means this person must be kind to everyone, able to teach and patiently enduring evil. He says, I am not protecting my own sense of honor. I am not protecting my own self-esteem. I stand before the Lord. I am protecting the gospel. I am protecting the integrity of the gospel. I am fighting the good fight of faith, but I am not protecting my own sense of who I am. That cannot be taken away from me. He says, you patiently endure evil, you diminish yourself in the sight of God. And then notice also what he says. He says, you come at this with a broader vision. He says, "the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome." So what does that mean? Does that mean that the Lord's servant doesn't speak, the Lord's servant has this sense of politeness where the Lord's servant simply lets everything go and doesn't say anything except to say in your mind, I'll pray for you when I get home?

Absolutely not! He says, you must be able to teach correcting opponents. You speak, but how do you do it? He says, you do it with kindness and gentleness. And why do you do that? Because you know what is going on, that God may perhaps grant repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, because what is their problem? They are in the trap of the devil having been captured by him to do his will. The people that we are talking with, including the people, maybe even in your own families or maybe even in your own communities who think you're crazy, or who think you're bigoted, or who think you're evil, these people are not your enemies. These people are your opponents perhaps, but they are not your ultimate enemies because the scripture says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, we wrestle against principalities and powers in the heavenly places, and we speak to them with truth, with conviction, but we speak, Paul says, with gentleness and kindness. Why? Because our ultimate objective is not to win an argument.

If all we wanted to do is to prove that we are smarter than the people who disagree with us, then we could find that killer argument, say it, spike the football and turn around and walk away. But that's not the mission we've been given. He says so that God may grant them repentance and come to the knowledge of truth. How do people come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth? How did we come to repentance and to knowledge of the truth? The people we're talking with are the only ones who've been held captive by the devil to do his will. All of us were hiding from the voice of God. We hide behind different things. Some people hide behind satanism, and some people hide behind Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism, Darwinism, and some people hide behind self-righteous, but unregenerate, Christianity. We all hide somewhere.

What can actually change us?

There are probably very few of you in this room who came to Christ the first time you ever heard the gospel presentation. Some of you, but probably not most of us. Most us heard the gospel over and over and over and over and over again until suddenly one day something changed. And what was it? It wasn't a new argument. Most of us in this room didn't sit there and say, oh, so there's archeological evidence that there were Hittites. The word of God is true. What must I do to be saved? Most of us in this room heard the exact same gospel presentation, repent and be found in Christ Jesus crucified, buried, raised from the dead. But we heard in that message a personal calling, we heard our own name being addressed. That is how the gospel works.

Paul says, when you are speaking to lost people, you are not an intellect speaking to another intellect. You are not an argument speaking to another argument. You are not a bumper sticker speaking to another bumper sticker. You are an ambassador of Jesus Christ pleading, Second Corinthians five, as though Christ himself were pleading through you be reconciled to God, which means we say everything that Jesus told us to say, but we say it the way Jesus says it. The people we're talking to aren't simply to hear the content, they are to hear that northern Galilean accent that says, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and also says, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He says, when you speak with conviction and when you speak with kindness, with gentleness, with a strategy that says woman, where is your husband? He doesn't leave the immorality alone, but he doesn't pick up the rocks either. He speaks with a word of conviction, but with a word that says, I know where there is living water that you do not know of.

Paul says, we speak with that sort of conviction. We correct opponents.

Yes Jesus got angry. But who was he angry with? It was with those people who claimed to speak for God to the rest of the world. Never to those in need of rescue.

We correct opponents, but there is a difference between those who are on the inside and those who are on the outside, and we speak to those who are on the outside with a sense of love and of kindness and also with hopefulness. Why is Paul able to be kind and gentle even as he is convictional? It's because he goes on through here in chapter three and he talks about all of the false teachers within the church. And Paul does as he consistently does, which is exactly the opposite of what we so often do in the contemporary church. He speaks with a gentleness toward lost people who aren't identified as Christians, and with a harshness towards those who are using the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to kill and to destroy, even as Jesus himself does.

But even as he does that, in the last days, there will be false teachers, in the last days, there will be those greedy for gain, in the last days, there will be those who are taking people captive by immorality. He says in chapter three in verse nine, but these people will not get very far. The reason that we do not snarl at the Walmart clerk who says, Happy holidays. The reason we do not ring our hands and fret when we see whatever the newest atrocity is on television is not because we do not care. It is because we have the confident tranquility that when Jesus says Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, that Jesus knows what he's talking about.

Jesus is willing to go as he is being arrested, he is not willing for Peter to take up the sword and fight. Not because Jesus is not a fighter. It is because Jesus says, Peter, your sword play is pitiful. I could call 12 legions of angels right now, but I am engaged in the kind of war and the kind of fight that is paid for with blood. We have the joyful confidence of people who are not on the wrong side of history, where people who are marching forward and we are speaking to the people around us with calmness and confidence recognizing that the church is not some beleaguered little interest group threatened with extinction. The church is surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, is as mighty as an army with banners, and Jesus himself is bending all of history toward him.

The one who ought to be outraged, the one who ought to be scared, is the one the scripture says, who knows that his time is short. Our time is not short. We will have trillions and trillions of years as the kings and queens of the universe. That is our true identity. And our place right now is not isolation. Yes, we correct opponents, but our test right now is to remember, as Paul says, what you have learned? And from whom you have heard it? You speak the truth and you speak the truth with the gentleness and respect. That is your a steam roller! The gospel of Jesus Christ. You handle the arguments, but you don't stop with the arguments. A new Jerusalem made up of those from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language redeemed with blood. That's the commission that we have been given. So we speak and we fight and we stand, but we do that with a Christ-like manner that recognizes that kindness isn't surrender, gentleness isn't passivity, kindness, gentleness, conviction, that's war. That's our fight!

Would you pray with me.

Father, I pray right now for those that we can imagine in our minds, perhaps family members, perhaps neighbors, perhaps someone out there in cyberspace, Father, that we're tempted to see as just an argument to be vaporized. Father, I pray that those faces that are on our minds right now, pray, Father, that you would give us broken hearts, that we would weep, that we would pray, and that we would speak with the kindness and gentleness and conviction that seeks to end the conversation, not with a humiliated opponent, but with a new brother or sister in Christ. Would you give us the power to be fighters but not quarrelsome, to be kind, but not weak, to be Christlike? And we ask this in his name. In Jesus' name, amen.