Don’t Shipwreck Your Faith, 1 Timothy 1:18-20

Don’t Shipwreck your Faith

1 Timothy 1:18-20

1 Timothy 1:18–20 (ESV)

18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, 20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

The charge entrusted to Timothy is to fulfill the falling that God has for his life… the call that has been affirmed by those around him as he took up the mantle of shepherding the church in Ephesus.

Paul charges Timothy to "wage the good warfare” or as Paul writes in other places- one of which is found in chapter 6 where he tells Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith”

Like the charge Paul gives to Timothy, God has called each one of us to “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called…” (1 Timothy 6:12) Taking hold of eternal life, holding fast to our faith, fighting the good fight, waging the good warfare, and walking in the light are various ways God encourages us to view the day to Christian life.

And, in the same way that Paul encourages Timothy, he reminds him of the way that two other men, Hymenaeus and Alexander have gone with their lives… Paul says that they have shipwrecked their faith.

This means they have expressed faith, but their manner of life, or their actions are contrary to the faith they profess, which means they are living contrary to the one they have said they believe in and follow.

Simply put: Shipwrecking your faith is when your life has veered so far off the course God has for you that it no longer resembles Biblical Christianity

Those who have shipwrecked their faith are living in a way that is detrimental to their faith… the main reason is because their way of life is in contrast to their faith… a shipwrecked faith is absent of the peace and comfort afforded to us in the Gospel. Where there should be peace, there is conflict… where there should be love, there is disdain… etc.

Shipwrecking your faith begins with a rejection… and Paul calls it the rejection of good conscience. In light of the trends of many who grow up around the gospel to question it and live against it… combined with the sinful reality of the world and it’s offerings an demotions, I’d like to take a moment and talk about How to Shipwreck Your Faith.

How to Shipwreck Your Faith: Consistently reject your conscience in favor of sin.

Your conscience is your moral center, and for Christian’s it’s shaped and fashioned by the truth of the Word/Gospel. To go against your conscience is to go against the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Blaspheme the name of God by calling what He declares as evil, good; and what He declares as good, evil.

Blasphemy is profaning the name of the Lord… but it’s not simply to say the Lord’s name as a bad word as some would call it… and it’s not just to reject the gospel when it’s preached.

Jesus said the Pharisees were blaspheming when the accused him of doing his miracles through power given to him by the devil… So, blasphemy is profaning the name of God by crediting evil with good and good with evil.

This happens today when pastors, churches, denominations, individuals, etc bless what the Bible says is sin as good, and declare the biblical condemnation of sin as wrong.

It’s a rejection of the truth, and when it comes to the shipwrecking of your faith… Blasphemy occurs privately in your heart before it is done publicly with your life.

Abuse grace by excusing your sin because God will forgive you when it’s over.

Romans 6:1–2 (ESV) says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Jesus died for our forgiveness, not for our continued sinfulness.

Rejecting your conscience happens when you declare sin as good, and rejecting your conscience happens when you assume God’s grace as the justification for your sinful actions.

It’s hard to admit… but it happens. And there are those who abuse God’s grace and feel convicted by it… and there are those who abuse God’s grace and don’t. One seeks to repent and follow in faith, the other continues in an ever increasing spiral of sin that overwhelms your heart and destroys your walk with the Lord.

There is a place where we can rightly assume God’s grace… it’s always wrong to abuse the grace of God, but it is also right to assume it for those who are repentant.

The Bible assumes grace and restoration for all who repent of their rejection of conscience.

Look with me at verse 20 where Paul says he has handed these guys over to Satan. What does that mean? Well, it’s the same as what he writes about 1 Corinthians 5:1–5 (ESV),

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 5:4-5 portrays the congregation assembling to let one go from their fellowship. This is what it means to hand one over to Satan.

The Fellowship of the body of Christ provides protection from the attacks of the enemy… and by excommunicating, or removing from fellowship, a member of the church you place them outside the church and available to the enemy.

One reason so many shipwreck their faith is because they remove themselves from the ongoing fellowship of the body.

Remove themselves from the ongoing fellowship of the body.

God is clear in hebrews that we should quit gathering with other believers… and one of the reasons is. so that we can spur one another on to love and good works… and one of the elements to spurring one another on is to hold each other accountable to believing, doing, and saying what is right and true.

When Paul says that he has handed Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan, he means they have been removed from the fellowship of the body, they are not treated as believers… no one knows the heart, but we do know the actions… and when a person refuses to repent and continues to blaspheme God with their way of life the church is to remove them…

The goal of removal is the repentance of the sinner.

This may seem counterproductive… you might think that we want to keep them around so they can one day turn things over to the Lord.

But, membership in the church is equal to affirmation and confidence in our faith. So, if someone who has shipwrecked their faith by living a blasphemous lifestyle is treated the same as someone who is holding fast to their faith and a good conscience, then the church is now participating in the continued sin and blasphemy of the member.

And, if the church never takes one another’s holiness serious, then how can we expect to be used by the Lord to accomplish His mission?

We have to keep in mind the church is made up all who are in Christ. And if someone is in Christ, they are a new creation and called to pursue growth and maturity in their faith in God. And, if someone isn’t living according to the new life they have in Christ, we must care enough for their soul to have a hard conversation about their sin.

This isn’t a call to be moral police with each other… but it is a call to love one another enough, and to love God enough to do what is right and best, even if it means the loss of social standing in or outside the church.

To avoid shipwrecking his faith, and to avoid encouraging or to help others avoid a shipwreck Paul gives Timothy instructions on

How to Guard and Strengthen Your Faith: Practice your faith by walking in the light in fellowship with others.

1 Timothy 1:18-19

18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience.

Fight the good fight!

The language of a soldier in battle is helpful for us… we can envision a soldier carrying out his orders and his training in battle. It wouldn’t make sense for a soldier to train and prepare for the war, only to run away from it and pretend not to be a soldier when the time comes.

Fighting the good fight means to live according to the Ways of God. Simply fighting the fight helps to strengthen and preserve your faith.

Psalm 25:21 (ESV)says, 21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.

The pursuit of faithfulness preserves and spurs further faithfulness. And, this is what the Lord is aiming us toward when he tells us to gather together in His name and make sure that we spur one another on in love and good works.

Hebrews 10:24–25 (ESV)

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Which leads me to the next point…

Walk in the light with the Lord and in fellowship with others.

The encouragement to gather and be together is rooted in God’s design and plan for us… because it’s God’s plan that we will have fellowship with Him, and that our fellowship with Him will serve as the basis for our fellowship with one another.

1 John 1:5–10 (ESV)

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If you ignore and deny your sin, you are literally blaspheming… it wasn’t ok in the eyes of Paul, nor was it acceptable in the eyes of John… It wasn’t acceptable because it’s not acceptable according to Jesus.

You have to tell yourself the truth

You must be truthful with others

You have to be willing to receive the truth, and give the truth… but always with grace.

The Bible says that Jesus came in both grace and truth… and that means that even in our truth telling we must be gracious. To ourselves and to one another.

We cannot lie and say we are not sinners… that would mean we don’t actually know the Lord. We cannot lie and say that our sin is ok, again that would resemble the life of an unbeliever…

But, as it says in 1 John 1:5-10, we must practice the truth by being honest about our sin, and confess our sins to the Lord, and if necessary to one another so that we have people in it with us.

And, for those who will not walk in the light… it means that they are also not walking in fellowship with one another. And again, it comes back to the command to hand them over or to disfellowship those who are unrepentant and walking in the darkness.

So, for those who want hold fast to their faith and good conscience they must walk in the light in their relationship with God… and in turn walk in the light with others who are also seeking to practice the truth, or practice their faith genuinely and honestly out of a love for God.

In the same way that the goal of removal is repentance, the goal of our fellowship is faithfulness to Christ.

Jesus has lived the righteousness we need, and died the death that we deserve… and we are called to live according to Jesus. To live according to Jesus we need to proclaim and protect the family of God by guarding the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Fighting the good fight requires:

Taking our walk with Jesus seriously and practicing our faith.

Keep your conscience clear

Taking the truth of the gospel serious and preaching the whole truth, to the whole of life.

Taking the spiritual lives of one another seriously