Fight to the End

We are wrapping up our series through 1 Timothy this morning!

I have to say, this has challenged me in more ways than I anticipated as we have gone through it.

Not only has the book dealt with controversial topics, it has also challenged me, both as a Christian and a pastor.

We have covered issues like slavery, the role of women in the church and home, alcohol use, and much more, so I would encourage you to go on our website or podcast and check out the previous messages in this series.

Throughout this series, our main idea has been fight the good fight, and that is going to be where we finish in the book this morning.

We have seen that we are fighting against those who distort the truth of the gospel, which is the good news that although we were separated from God by our sin, Jesus died in our place, rose from the dead, and now rules over all creation. He invites us into a relationship with him based off his work, not our own.

We saw that there have always been false teachers who twisted the truth to meet their needs. They made salvation all about what you did and took the focus off Jesus, and their motivation, as we saw last week was greed.

Instead, as we have said as a church and seen throughout this study, our goal is that we would have a love for God and others based off a heart made right by Christ, that maintains a right relationship with others, and that believes God can do the impossible.

We have seen that we are all sinners, desperately needing to be forgiven and graciously forgiven by God.

We are to join together with other believers to pray and encourage and challenge each other.

Some will be called to serve the church in unique ways as elders or deacons, and we saw what kind of men these should be.

We have been challenged to cultivate godliness and contentment, to keep the truth of the gospel central to who we are, and to serve the vulnerable.

We have been called to work hard, even if we found ourselves as slaves with cruel masters.

With all of that in mind, we are going to wrap up this book this morning by looking at a series of commands that summarize our fight.

If you leave here with nothing else this morning, I want you to see this: you and I are called to fight to the end.

Read with me this morning. We will cover the remainder of the chapter today, but let’s start here.

There are some heavy commands in this passage, so let’s look at at least five of them together.

First, we are commanded to...

1) Run.

Go back with me to verse 11.

First, do you notice the epic way he addresses this command? “But you, man of God...”

That term is typically used for prophets and great servants of God in the Old Testament. It is used in the New Testament only of Timothy.

There definitely is a part of this passage that is directed towards those in ministry in a unique way.

However, as we have seen throughout this book, it isn’t just for pastors.

All of us are called to live this same way.

How many of you in here are runners? You enjoy running?

I have had different seasons in my life where I have enjoyed running more than others.

However, here’s what I have found out about running: it is always hard.

Even great runners who love doing it still get winded and tired.

So, then, the first command we see as we wrap up this series is that we need to run.

What can we expect about it? It is going to be hard!

Now, the word “run” doesn’t show up in this verse, so where do we get that?

There are actually two commands here. We are to flee, and we are to pursue.

We are called to run away from “these things”. What are they?

Everything we have seen in this book, honestly: we are running from false teaching, from making Christianity about external obedience without an inward heart change.

Looking at the verses right next to it, we see that we are running from greed and materialism, following Jesus only for what we will get out of it.

We aren’t supposed to play around with these things, or try to see how close we can get to them without falling into sin; we are called to run away from them like you would run away from an animal trying to kill you!

Maybe this is part of what is lacking in our churches today. Perhaps we are buying into this world’s system a little too much, getting too comfortable, and not being willing to run away from it as much as we should.

Is there something in your life that you have tolerated that you should be fleeing?

If you don’t know, then spend more time in God’s word. Read through the books that end in “-ians” and see what we are to avoid and run from.

However, Christianity is more than just a religion that says, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.”

If you just learn Christianity from movies or the news, it seems that it is just about not smoking, drinking, cussing, sleeping around, etc.

However, we know that it is so much more.

We aren’t just fleeing away, we are pursuing those things that honor God.

We have used this example from JD Greear before, but if all Christianity was about was avoiding bad things, your dog would be the best Christian you know!

He never says a bad word, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t look at things on the internet he shouldn’t.

That isn’t what God calls us to, though. Although we should be wise with our words and the substances we allow in our bodies and what we see, we must also pursue all the things listed in this verse: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

We aren’t just trying to avoid sin, we are trying to do what God desires and created us to do, all out of a heart that he has transformed by his grace.

In fact, if you were only to focus on one or the other, I would suggest focusing on pursuing. If you are running after God, you will be running away from sin.

Look back at the verse. Is this a quick sprint and then you have it all figured out?

What characteristic jumps out at you? For me, it is the next to last: endurance.

We are cultivating endurance because this isn’t going to be a quick pursuit. It will last the rest of our lives.

“Endurance” is the ability “to remain under”, so endurance is the ability to keep honoring Christ when it gets hard.

The hard part about spiritual endurance is that the only way to develop it is to train it!

You must begin your pursuit today and continue it daily for the rest of your life. That isn’t to earn salvation or to keep it, because your salvation is secure in the finished work of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

You are daily pursuing because God is worthy of being honored!

That’s why we are given the second command we want to look at:

2) Fight.

Read verse 12-14.

Here we have our main idea: fight the good fight of the faith.

How many of you have ever been in a physical fight? Have you ever just wrestled with friends?

I have never in my life been able to get more tired more quickly than when I was wrestling with friends.

And yet, what are we called to do? Fight the good fight of the faith.

Fight against sin, and fight for the honor and glory of God.

Some days, it will be exhausting, but we are called to fight.

The life God is calling you to as a believer is anything but passive. It is exhausting, painful, challenging, and unbelievably more rewarding than you could ever imagine.

Remember, you aren’t fighting in your own strength:

Isaiah 40:29–31 CSB

He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

The God who calls you to fight is the God who gives you the strength to do it!

Look at the next phrase…we are called to “take hold of eternal life”.

Again, this isn’t saying that we are trying to earn salvation; this is saying that we are fighting to live out the salvation we have.

We are called to push back against materialism, limiting our existence to what our bank account looks like during the 80 years we have on earth.

We see that fleshed out in verses 17-19

We see that fleshed out in verses 17-19, so let’s look at them together.

Enjoy what you have, but realize that God has entrusted these resources for you to use for more than making yourself feel safe and comfortable in this life.

Do what is good: use the resources you have to help families adopt or support those who are financially in need. Give to help people taking the gospel to the world or fighting against disease, famine, and drought around the world.

Use your resources to give people a fighting chance to learn who Jesus is, not to make yourself comfortable and secure.

Look at the last phrase of verse 19… “take hold of what is truly life.”

This life is fading and fleeting, so, going back to verse 12, we are called to take hold of eternal life, not just this earthly life.

We are called to hold on to eternal life when nothing in our earthly life seems to make sense anymore.

We see that fleshed out in verses 17-19

When the doctors can’t do anymore or the relationship crumbles or everything seems to fall apart, we have the certain hope that there is more to my existence than what happens in this life.

This is so hard, because this world is so loud. The desires of our bodies scream for attention, and we can so easily forget that God wants so much more for us.

C.S. Lewis put it this way:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Do you

Can you point to 5 examples from this past week of how you lived like there was more to your existence than this life, or have you lived like the writer of Ecclesiastes, who lived life just focused on what happened here under the sun?

How have you used your time differently than someone who didn’t know Jesus? How have you reacted in a way that shows you are playing the long game, knowing that God has it under control?

Fight the good fight! Fight against apathy, fight against materialism, fight against anything that would pull you or others away from Jesus.

Let go of living life for what happens now, and embrace living life for what is coming!

That is going to result in you following the third command:

3) Keep.

Look back at verses 13-14. Now, jump down to verses 20-21...

The word “keep” in verse 13 and the word “guard” in verse 20 are two different words, but they have similar ideas.

Both have the idea of keeping watch, guarding over something.

In this instance, what is it that Timothy is to keep watch over? “This command”

Which one? Well, basically, all of them. He is to keep fighting the fight and holding on to eternal life, to watch over them, to protect the truth from error, and hold on tight.

For how long?

Until Jesus comes back.

Look at it

So how long are we supposed to keep fighting? Just until this sermon series is over?

We fight until either we die, or Jesus comes back.

Our role in the battle may shift throughout our lives, but we are not out of this fight until Jesus comes back to get us.

When is that going to happen? There are plenty of preachers who say that the return of Christ is just around the corner, and they may be right.

However, they could be wrong as well! We don’t know exactly when Jesus will come back. Look at God what God says in verse 15...

He will come back when he is ready to. Not a moment sooner, and not a moment later.

So, what do we do? We fight every moment to follow Christ and exalt him in every corner of creation, through our words, our attitudes, and our actions.

We keep the commandments, we guard the truth and the gifts that have been entrusted to us, and we do it all so that God gets the glory.

Look at how God is described here!

Start with me in verses 15-18.

He is the only Sovereign, meaning he is the one in charge.

He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which is a phrase we use in church that you may not have really thought about. That means that if you put every king or president in the world in this room, God is the king who is in charge of and better than every king in the world.

If he says that I should chase after what is to come in the next life instead of chasing after wealth, then I should listen, shouldn’t I?

He is the one calling the shots, so I need to pay attention to what he says!

Are you worried that maybe God is too short-sighted to have a full grasp on what is going on? He is the only truly immortal one!

Revelation 1:8 CSB

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

He fully exists now, he always has existed, and he will exist forever!

Who better to take orders from than the only being in all creation that has always existed?!

Not only that, but look at the next statement...

The idea of God dwelling in inapproachable light is the picture of his glory and his holiness.

He is so good, so pure, so righteous that we would die if we ever saw him without him restraining his glory.

We can’t handle it!

How does that help us in the fight? Because the holy, perfect, immortal, sovereign God of the universe cannot ever make a mistake!

He is the one who is enlisting you to fight. He is the one who is calling you to flee from unrighteousness and pursue godliness.

He is calling you to keep his commandments, both in your individual actions and your fight for the truth.

So, here is where we end our study of the book of 1 Timothy.

We will run from sin and run after God.

We will fight the good fight, taking hold of eternal life, and letting go of the way the rest of the world lives its life.

We will keep the commandments God has given us, guarding what has been entrusted to us.

May God give us the endurance to do this all day every day until the very day that Jesus returns.

He is the only Sovereign, the only king, the immortal God to whom we owe our everything.

Fight the good fight.