1 Timothy 6:11-16 Take Hold
1 Timothy 6:11-16 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
11But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who made a good confession as a witness before Pontius Pilate, 14that you keep this command without spot and without fault, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which he will make known at the proper time—the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone has immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see. To him be honor and power forever! Amen.
Take Hold
I.
There’s a phrase that’s been around for a long time: “Preaching to the choir.” It means trying to convince someone of something they already agree with. Taking it a bit further, preaching to the choir means working to convince those who don’t need any convincing. In other words, preaching to the choir is a lot of wasted effort spent on people who don’t need persuading.
Perhaps that could be said of pastors at nearly every worship service. There is always the chance that someone unfamiliar with Christianity will be in the service on any given day; in fact, we pray that the people who come to worship each week will invite friends and family who know little or nothing about Jesus to come to worship. But the reality is, many—if not most—of those sitting in the pews at any given worship service have already heard and believed the message that Jesus came for sinners—that Jesus died for you.
I pray that describes you: you believe in Jesus; you know that he came for the sins of the whole world, but also to pay for your sins, specifically. You are among the choir of believers. You love Jesus.
But Jesus said in today’s Gospel: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34, EHV). It isn’t that Jesus loves conflict, but there is competition for your love. There are competing loves out there. Security, success, comfort, even your political beliefs and persuasion, even family.
Paul also spoke about competing loves in the verses before today’s reading. “The love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains” (1 Timothy 6:10, EHV). Money and things and the experiences money can buy are not necessarily bad things; they are just part of life. But materialism is a problem. Loving money and things and experiences quickly begins to compete with a believer’s love of Jesus. Paul says it can even turn a person’s head so far away from God that a believer can leave faith in Jesus behind entirely.
Paul also said: “If anyone teaches different doctrines and does not devote himself to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing” (1 Timothy 6:3-4, EHV). False teachings are deceptive loves, too. Focusing on a theology of social injustice rather than on sin and grace also turns a person aside from the truth and toward myths, even while thinking they are following what God wants.
II.
Living the Christian life apparently requires more struggle than a believer might first think. “But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:11-12, EHV). Paul uses battlefield words. Competing loves are destructive. Flee those false loves. Pursue. Fight. Take hold.
What is Timothy—and every member of the choir of believers—to pursue? Righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. It is necessary to pull these things out as important to pursue because they are constantly threatened.
If you don’t think so, consider today’s First Reading. Moses had gone up Mt. Sinai to speak to the Lord. Aaron was left down below to preach to the choir of the Children of Israel while Moses was gone. It should have been easy. The people had seen God’s goodness and might on their behalf time after time. God had just brought them out of Egypt. They had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and witnessed Pharaoh’s pursuing army swept away as the walls of water collapsed after God’s people were safely through. They had been provided water in the desert and manna and quail to eat when there was no reliable food or water supply.
But “When the people saw that it took so long for Moses to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Get up, make a god for us, who will go before us, because this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has become of him’” (Exodus 32:1, EHV). The choir of the People of Israel wasn’t satisfied with the truth of what God had done. Their itching ears wanted something different, something they could see. Aaron tried to pass it off as the people’s doing, not his own, but he was a willing co-conspirator.
Jesus said: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37, EHV). Even your family can become an idol just like the golden calf if you love them more than you love Jesus.
The real battle, even for members of the choir of believers, is within us. The struggle is with the heart.
III.
Preaching to the choir, Paul says: “I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who made a good confession as a witness before Pontius Pilate...” (1 Timothy 6:13, EHV).
“Flee, pursue, fight, take hold” are not really possible without pointing to Jesus. But why mention Pontius Pilate? Because Jesus fought the real battle neither Timothy nor any of us could ever successfully fight.
As Jesus stood before him in his courtroom, Pilate asked “What is truth?” Jesus knew that the truth would not save him from suffering or crucifixion. He knew that the truth would be rejected by Pilate, by the Jewish religious leaders, by the very people themselves who called for his execution.
Jesus did not flee from the truth. Jesus did not retreat. Where the people of Israel looked for other gods, Jesus stood firm. Where Timothy might stumble, Christ remained faithful. Where we have compromised, or been afraid, or chosen competing loves, Jesus loved us beyond all measure, and took all our failures to the cross.
“Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12, EHV). Paul reminds the choir of believers that we were called to this faith and eternal life. The Christian life of faith isn’t “fight harder,” it is “look at Jesus, who fought this fight for you.”
Jesus won salvation for us. His victory is now ours. “Take hold of eternal life” isn’t about making a grab for something that is uncertain, it is about holding on to something Jesus already won for you.
IV.
“I charge you... 14that you keep this command without spot and without fault, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ...” (1 Timothy 6:13-14, EHV). Preaching to the choir of believers is not wasted effort spent on people who don’t need persuading. There will always be things that compete with the believer’s love for Jesus. None of us can relax in our faith.
Keep fleeing the competing loves. Keep pursuing righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Keep fighting the good fight of faith. Keep taking hold of eternal life.
“...until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which he will make known at the proper time—the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone has immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see. To him be honor and power forever! Amen” (1 Timothy 6:14-16, EHV).
If you focus on the opposition or the competing loves or what you think of as sacrifices or losses, the fight seems impossible. Focus on Christ. He will appear at the proper time.
So “Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life.” Keep your eyes on the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Take hold of eternal life. Not because the battle is easy; not because you are strong. But because the King who stood before Pilate in your place will soon be appearing in glory for you.
What Paul encouraged for Timothy he said about himself in his Second Letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. 8From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8, EHV).
One day that will be you. One day it will be me. Until the end, God grant that every member of the choir of believers might continue to fight the good fight of faith. God bless you as you continually take hold of the eternal life Jesus already won for you. Amen.
