Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a very competitive family.

No one likes to lose.

We fight with vigor to win no matter what we play.

It always seemed that what we were playing evolved as the competition increased.

Take for instance, the card game spoons.

We would begin with spoons and that would evolve to forks.

Mom and dad would play with the neighbors, where it would evolve to knives, yes you heard that correctly.

We just didn’t play the regular way of playing.

It was a serious game where people were tackled and tables were thrown through the air to make sure you got that spoon or fork.

We played even harder and competed to an even higher grade when fighting, wrestling, and playing football in the yard.

We did not lose at all cost.

We were going to content to the nth degree.

As we come to our text, Paul tells Timothy to fight and give it all he has for the faith.

Leave all on the field as my old peewee baseball coach would say.

My fear is that most are not leaving anything on the field if they trying to contend at all.

Focus Passage

Outline

A Different Life (v.11)

As Christians, we are called to live differently from those outside of the faith.

We are not able to live this life within our own power, but because we are new creation in Christ.

As Paul begins this doxology to his first letter, he brings a personal charge to Timothy.

He begins with a simple truth, he was no longer who he once was.

He was something different now.

1) Timothy was to live accordingly to the One who had called him - ‘O man of God’

2) Timothy was to live a life void of his old ways - ‘flee these things’

Paul instructs timothy to flee these things.

When Paul tells Timothy to flee, what he is stating in laymen terms is that he, Timothy, was to run away from, avoid, shunt, and escape from these things.

What are these things, that he his to run away from, avoid, shun, and escape?

Whatever these things are, must be horrific.

Paul has already addressed what these things are previously.

Timothy, contextually, and you and I, in the contemporary, are to avoid these same things.

We are called to avoid, run away from, shun, escape false teachings, pride, envy, lust, greed.

In essence, the ways of the old man.

May we understand that God never calls us to remove something from our life without telling us what we are to fill that void with.

As we find in his epistle directly to the Ephesians.

3) Timothy was to live a life that pursued after His new life in Christ - pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness

When Paul told Timothy, pursue, he stating that he was to chase after with great intent and fortitude.

He was to make his aim, his end game, to live a life that honored God God in all ways, purse righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

All these characteristics are fruits of the Spirit.

They are to be calling cards of the child of God.

As a Christ follower, as a child of God through Christ, Timothy (and every born again believer today) should chase after these characteristics in our day-to-day walk with the Lord.

As Paul describes them elsewhere, the Fruits of the Spirit...

It through these same fruits of the Spirit that we find our anticipation in the return of the Lord and our salvation being made complete in Him.

It is through these fruits of Spirit and not the flesh that we are able to contend in day-to-day spiritual warfare.

Contend for the faith (v.12)

Within our text, Paul brings to commands, without option, to Timothy.

These two commands are to be executed with precision in his life daily.

These two commands are a must to be executed daily with precision in each and every born again believer’s life.

We must realize that we at war every day of our lives.

The war we face is not with flesh and blood but takes place in a realm that you and I cannot see, the spiritual realm.

Understand that our fight is not physical, that is with flesh and blood, but is very much a spiritual battle, we must suit up for that battle.

Paul writes to the Ephesian church...

It is within this spiritual battle that Paul brings timothy these two commands that must be accepted and applied to his life (and any Christian’s life) with great accuracy and intent.

1) Timothy was to vigorously contend in this contest of faith - ‘Fight the good fight of faith’

There only three options that Paul could have in mind during this period of history…boxing, racing, or fighting (gladiator style).

All of these contest required great stamina, perseverance, and fire within to content with an aim for victory.

With that in mind, Paul tells Timothy, Fight.

He was telling Timothy give it all you have and then some.

Vigorously fight, campaign, and struggle to the end.

The tense of this verb in the Gk is present tense.

That is it is a struggle, a fight, that is before us daily not just a some point in the past or just for today, but is a daily fight in our relationship with God as we face a lost and dying world.

There is a reason why Jesus told his disciples that for one to follow Him they must pick up their cross daily.

There is a reason why Paul said I crucify myself daily.

This fight, this contest of faith, is a daily fight and a daily struggle.

The only way to be victorious is to be strengthened in the Lord, suited up in the Lord, and placing our full trust in the Lord and His armor, as written directly to the church Ephesus, as we just read.

2) Timothy was to seize his new life in Christ - ‘lay hold on eternal life’

This new life in Christ, which Timothy had, was not of his own choosing.

It was a life he was called to and given by God through Christ, to which you were also called.

The One that called Him unto Himself, was also the One that now dwelt in Him.

That One was greater than the one within the world.

May we take these same truths and apply them our lives.

We were invited to the throne of God by the blood of Christ.

It is this same blood that saves us today.

It is this same that God that drew us to Himself and lives within each and every Christian, that gives us the ability to fight the good fight of faith and be victorious in that fight.

For as John writes...

It was this same Jesus, who saved Him, that Timothy made a great confession in.

This new kind of life is what every believer is called to.

It is not reserved for the elite.

It is available to all who make the good confession—that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, delivered to death for our sins and raised from the dead to secure eternal life for all who trust him.

This new life that Timothy had and every new believer has, was one that he had already made a confession of having, and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

He did this as every other believer before him, through public profession of Christ as Lord and Savior through believer’s baptism.

For he and us to not content vigorously for a faith that we have made a public profession of, is to blaspheme the name of God and the testimony of Christ just as those who were teaching false doctrines within the church at Ephesus.

Paul reminds Timothy that we all have an example of faith and what it means to contend for the faith.

Our example: Christ at the cross (vv.13-14)

Paul tells Timothy that what he is calling him to do is non negotiable.

It is a must, I urge you.

He calls two witnesses to this call to fight.

1) Paul calls God, the author of life, to be a witness to this charge to fight - ‘I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things’

2) Paul calls Christ, the ultimate example of one who fights for the faith, as a witness to this charge to fight - ‘before Christ Jesus’

Jesus, when he was in Garden of Gethsemane went a little further.

When he had his mock trial, He stood confident in the Father and His will.

When He stood before Pilot, He testified to the truth knowing that the cross was His destiny and fight.

Fight to remain faithful through the strength of our Lord (vv.14-16)

1) Fight till the Lord returns - that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing

We have no time to stop.

We have no time to play.

We are called to contend for the Lord as if the Lord will today, which He will manifest in His own time.

The Lord is sovereign.

The Lord is in charge.