Fight the Good Fight of Faith (1 Timothy 6:11-21)

1 Timothy 6:11-21

Fight the Good Fight of Faith

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Intro

King Arthur, a King worth fighting for, worth dying for! Same with King Jesus!

Closing 1 Timothy Out (Recap)

Main Point

Our victory has already been won by Jesus laying down his life on the cross, and it is this that is to drive us in our ongoing fight for faith.

Points

A charge to keep the faith

A charge to fight rooted in the gospel

A charge to the rich

Point #1: A charge to keep the faith

Our fight for faith isn’t over once we place our faith in Jesus. In some ways, it has just begun. And the whole of this letter to Timothy is knowing the battle for faith that awaits him, especially as a minister of the gospel who is confronting false teaching. Therefore, as opposition roars, as enemies of Christ arise, and as many begin to fall away from the faith they had once professed, Timothy is given a sober charge to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the call is not for Timothy to be perfect and without any sin when it says for him to keep the commandment unstained. It is a call to hold the faith, to pay careful attention to himself and his teaching, to wage the good warfare, to hold a good conscience. To command and instruct the church in the ways of godliness. To care well for the church. These are the commands that Paul has given Timothy throughout the letter. And it is these things that Timothy is to keep. He is to stay above reproach in all that he does for the sake of himself, for the name of Christ, and for the sake of those he is ministering to. Timothy is to guard the deposit entrusted to him. He is not to squander it by turning away from truth, from the gospel. He is to hold on.

And truly, like Timothy, we all as Christians are called to keep the commands, to hold fast to the faith we have in Christ until the end. And we do that, as Timothy is instructed to do here at the end of the letter. We are given 4 steps to help us to keep the commandment unstained, to hold onto our confession of faith in Jesus. We are to flee, pursue, fight, and take hold.

First, we must flee

Young Timothy is acknowledged as the Man of God here in verse 11. This title was given to the great leaders of Israel. Moses is called the man of God (Deuteronomy 33:1), David is called the man of God (Nehemiah 12:24), and the Prophet Samuel it is written in 1 Kings 17:24, “Now I know you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth”. So Timothy is being called to be the same, one in which God speaks through and builds up his people. Therefore, with such a title, there comes great responsibility. But again Christian, it is no different for us, for have we not been called Sons of God? Therefore we are to imitate our Father in how we live. And that starts from fleeing from sin and the many great evils of the world.

When Timothy is charged to flee these things, within the context it is calling him to flee:

The conceit of the false teachers (in opposing King Jesus’ teaching)

Love of controversy and quarrels

Greediness (Desire to be rich; love of money)

Wandering away from the faith

Timothy, as the Man of God is to flee the marks of the false teachers. He is literally to run from them. Paul is telling him, run Forrest, run, so that he can escape the snares of the devil. For when it comes to sin, we are not to dabble in it, to remain near it. We are called to flee for our lives from it.

Sin is the missing of God’s mark and standards that are revealed in God’s law and the teaching of Jesus Christ. And the reality is, we have all sinned, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. Yet, as we come to faith in Christ, as we are made clean through the blood of Jesus, we are to flee from the old ways and walk new in Jesus. We are to flee from our old desires and love of sin. Yet, how many of us continue to dwell on certain sins, still clinging to them? We love being in the know crowd, so we cling to the gossip sessions about what is going on in everyone’s lives. While we have been forgiven as enemies of God, we continue to harbor hate and malice towards those who have previously wronged us, causing us to be guilty of murder in our hearts. We claim to trust God, but only if our bank accounts are full and cushioned.

This is because we dabble in the things of the world and the evil within it. We think that comfort is a measure of our faithfulness. And yet, that is far from the case. As stated last week, we will either love money or God. We will either love our standing in the world or our standing before God, we cannot love both. Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is okay if we don’t know every little detail. Yet, the venom of gossip and slander is deadly. So flee from it.

In the name of love, we dabble around thinking false teaching isn’t as bad as others make it out to be, so we listen, get caught up in all the lies of the false teaching and its false claims. We soon forget the truth of the Bible and what Jesus told his disciples, that we are called to take up our cross and follow him. And as we lose the truth, we are swept away with others, eventually denying who Jesus really was. It is no wonder the world is so confused about who Jesus is, for we fail to clearly portray who he is within the church. Therefore we must flee false teaching that is not rooted in the sound words of the Scripture and who Jesus is! The deadly arrows will soon seep deep within us, causing us to also fall away.

Likewise, brothers and sisters, we must flee from the sin in which we hold dearly too. If you are marked by any of these: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these (Galatians 5:19-21), then you must flee from them. For these are all the works of the flesh and are evil. Run, Forest, run from these. Run, run as fast as you can little gingerbread man, for those sins are looking to devour you! The Man of God, the Sons of God, the people of God fight for faith by fleeing from sin!

Secondly, we pursue

As we flee sin, our fleeing is pointless if we fail to also pursue faith and the qualities produced from it. So Paul instructs Timothy to pursue:

Righteousness

Godliness

Faith

Love

Steadfastness

Gentleness

For each of these 6 stand in contrast to that of the False Teachers. For in pursuing righteousness, Timothy will conduct himself in accordance to God’s will and do that which is pleasing to him instead of that which is contrary to him. In pursuing godliness, Timothy will pursue that which is of great value in the here and now and eternity future. In pursuing faith, Timothy will rest in the given assurances of God in his word rather than dwelling on speculations, myths, and endless genealogies. His faith is grounded not in what is not given, but in what is revealed! In pursuing love, there is growing love for both God and one another. And it is this love of both God and for our neighbor that the entirety of the law is built. In pursuing steadfastness, it is the pursuit to endure, to remain, to keep the faith regardless of obstacles and challenges. For the pursuit of steadfastness counts the cost and knows it is worth it. And finally, the pursuit of gentleness is seeking to be gentle with all people, even that of his opponents in a desire to win them to Christ and to show the gentleness in which Christ has with us.

These 6 marks are to be pursued after by Timothy, and they are to be pursued by each of us if we are a Christian. Now, when it says we are to pursue them, we must understand this is a call to chase, to run after them. It is not a call to passivity and sitting in our easy chair thinking they will just come to us. For as in the call to train for godliness, it will take energy, toil, focus, and a willingness to chase after them.

There are far too many who would assume they come and pray, asking Jesus into their hearts and that is the end of their Christian commitment. But that is far from the Biblical example we are given. The call to follow Christ will be costly, it will take effort. But it is in seeing that effort is gloriously worth it in light of who Jesus is! And because of who Jesus is, we should gladly pursue these characteristics, these traits and be marked by them. Let us pursue after them with intentional effort with all we have!

Thirdly, we must fight the good fight of faith

Much as Timothy is to pursue steadfastness to keep the faith, he will have to fight for the faith. And a fight it will be. Christian, in our discipleship journey we are going to have to go to war and fight if we are to keep the faith until the end. We are going to have to fight to hold to the truth. We are going to have to fight for faith when trials and sufferings come, reminding ourselves of God’s goodness in the midst of it. We are going to have to fight for faith as we look death in the face and see it approaching. We are going to have to fight for faith when marriage turmoil hits. We are going to have to fight for faith when we see a loved one suffering. We are going to have to fight for faith when the wicked seem to escape justice. We are going to have to fight for faith constantly.

But fight we must if we are to reach the end of the fight. Even when we are tired and weary, we must keep fighting the good fight of faith by continuing to fight to believe and hold onto the truth of the gospel. Christian, no matter how weary you are, no matter how many difficulties you have already endured through, do not give up, do not stop fighting. For we have a lasting hope in Christ.

For lastly, we must take hold of the eternal life to which we have been called

Our fleeing, our pursuit, our fighting is all so that we can take hold of the eternal life to which we have been called and made the good confession that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Confessing he is our only hope in life and death. If we have made that good confession, then we are to take hold of eternal life. That is, we are to stove to finish the race, salvation begins at our confession, but eternal life is when our salvation becomes complete as we are glorified and united to Christ for all eternity in a restored relationship with God the Father. In our confession, we have the already part of our salvation, but until we take hold of eternal life by finishing the race, salvation is not yet completed.

Christian, we must continue to fight the good fight of faith until our faith is turned to sight, until we reach the prize of our call to enter into the presence of our God for all eternity. Until then, we should not become complacent, we should not slow down. We must finish the race! John Calvin wrote, “if earthly soldiers do not hesitate to fight, when the result is doubtful, and when there is a risk of being killed,123 how much more bravely ought we to do battle under the guidance and banner of Christ, when we are certain of victory? More especially, since a reward awaits us, not such as other generals are wont to give to their soldiers, but a glorious immortality and heavenly blessedness; it would certainly be disgraceful that we, who have such a hope held out to us, should grow weary or give way.” Let us not dare give up now. The victory is ours already in Christ, therefore let us continue fighting for our charge is rooted in the gospel, which is where we turn our attention to in our second point this morning.

Point #2: A charge rooted in the gospel

The charge we have been given to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach is a high calling. But let us return our attention to those whose presence this charge was made in. It was given in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. But, more importantly, note what is said of both of these.

God gives life to all things

As we are called to flee, to pursue, to fight, and to take hold of in the midst of the warfare our eyes are to turn to the giver of life. The one who created all things and the one who raises the dead, restoring life. In Matthew 10:28 we read, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. The enemies of the cross can lash out against us, they can kill our mortal bodies. But brothers and sisters in Christ, we have already died in Christ! Colossians 3:3-4 says, For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory.

God has given us new life in Christ. Our new lives are hidden in Christ, therefore let us hold to our confession regardless of the sufferings and regardless of the opposition. Let us fix our eyes on God alone, for he is our only hope in life and death! And it is he who gives life to all things.

Likewise, Jesus made the good confession, enduring the cross for our sake

Jesus has set the example for us, he has paid the cost to purchase us from sin and death, giving us the very hope of eternal life. We are not the first to enter the fight, our glorious King has gone before us, he endured the suffering, he endured the condemnation, he endured nails being driven through his hands and feet ahead of us. All so that we might be united to him. We fight for the good confession of faith not to earn our salvation, but because of the love that has already been shown to us in Christ and declaring this is a faith worth fighting for!

If Jesus had not made the good confession ahead of us, we would be foolish to endure such suffering and opposition. Yet, he did indeed make the good confession of faith, he came to lay his life down for us, so that we could live in him. As we read in John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. What a friend we have in Jesus! We fight for the faith, we wage the good warfare because of our love for the King!

GOSPEL INVITATION!!!

King Jesus is the only Sovereign and the King of kings and Lord of lords

In the midst of Paul giving Timothy this charge, these final instructions, as he points Timothy to Christ, he breaks out into praise. For as he tells Timothy of his coming return at the proper time, he is caught dwelling on Jesus being the only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords!

Because Jesus is the only Sovereign, the work will be completed in us if we continue to rest in Him alone for Salvation (We have certainty)

Because Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords, there is no greater king that can ever or will ever overcome the rule of King Jesus. He will be the one and only victorious King in the end. (Again, certainty)

We have such high assurance that by holding to our faith in Jesus, that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. Nothing will defeat us if we are in Christ. For Christ has already guaranteed to bring those who are his to the end!

Now, some of you might be asking, which is it, do we do this or does Christ? And it is both. Those of true faith in Christ will work out their own faith will fear and trembling as they are continually made knew through the Spirit. For the Spirit will work alongside and within us to accomplish these things. This is a both and, not an either or. Therefore, we flee, pursue, fight, and take hold of because we know that Christ is at work in us and conforming us more to himself.

Let us therefore wage the good warfare brothers and sisters as we set our eyes more on Jesus and fight with greater zeal and love for our King!

Point #3: A charge to the rich

Following this doxology, there is one last group to be given a charge, and that is any who are rich. And that is where we turn in our third point this morning, a charge to the rich.

A charge to not be haughty

You are saved by grace, not your riches

Your riches are a gift from God, not your own doing

A charge to set their hopes on God, not the uncertainty of riches

Riches will fade

God will not, hope in him alone

A charge to do good by being rich in good works

Let the measure of your riches be measured in your good works

This will be your treasure

Be generous

Be ready to share (with others)

Point #4: A final charge (Conclusion)

Guard the deposit entrusted to you

Avoid irreverent babble and contradictions

Grace be with y’all in this