"Instructions for the Local Church: How to Win the Battle" - 1 Timothy 6:11-16, 20-21

And verses 20 and 21, beginning in verse 11.

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.

To him be honor and eternal dominion.

Amen.

And in verse 20 and 21.

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith.

Grace be with you.

Please be seated.

Pastor Brian, would you come.

Sometimes it's just so thrilling to just sit there and hear the word of God read as we stand.

What a joy.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer once again as we dive into his word.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth.

We thank you that we do not need to conjure up or come up with our own truth or our own things or the worldly things, Father, but we have your word.

We have the truth of your word.

We have your Son Jesus Christ.

We have your spirit indwelling within us if we're yours.

And so you've given us everything we need.

And so as we dive into these passages, may we just be thrilled and encouraged and hopeful as we see the grace of Christ.

And we pray this all in his name.

Amen.

Well, as you saw in the scripture reading, and uh as you remember from last week, uh we broke it up, or I broke it up a little bit differently than normal, a little unorthodox, but um as we go through it, I think it'll make sense.

So I want to say this: if you've ever studied the Apostle Paul at any length, one of the things you soon come to realize is that he loves to use military language, metaphors, illustrations.

The question is, why?

Why does he do that?

Was he just some absolutely staunch military historian?

Maybe?

Or was it that the military language just seemed to kind of fit for him when thinking through the day-to-day average life for the Christian?

I mean, think about it.

Paul was a man that saw Christ as his supreme leader, if you will, the commander-in-chief.

No questions asked.

He was a man who followed the word of this commander-in-chief without fail, without wavering.

He was a man that was imprisoned for his faith multiple times.

It's as if he was a prisoner of war, as he fought hard at seeking to save the lost.

Therefore, he was fighting against the forces, the evil forces of this world and the world's leader, the devil.

He's a man who saw that every Christian is a person who is involved in a fight for his or her life.

He got it.

He gets it.

As a Christian, one of the things we gotta understand is you are either in the battle or you've already surrendered to the enemy.

In the second letter to Timothy, Paul tells him to suffer hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

The Christian soldier is someone who doesn't get entangled into the affairs of this world, but seeks to please the one who has enlisted him, who is the great God, of course.

And as any soldier can tell you, I am not one physically other than for Christ, but any soldier that I've spoken with can tell you, especially those that have seen combat, it is truly to suffer hardship to be faced with enemy fire.

Paul never wants us to see this Christian life as just a stroll in the park.

Can there be times of ease and ceasefire?

Sure.

But our lives as Christians will be as though we are in a battle more than the stroll through the park.

Because we are in a battle.

We're in a fight for life, a struggle for truth, a skirmish that entails suffering.

But it is a fight that we can win.

Because we're not alone in this fight.

Because God has given us his spirit and everything we need, the right equipment, the right ammunition, the right defenses, the right motive to fight for.

And so today in our passage, we're going to see that there's four pieces of that equipment, if you will, that we have been given to fight this battle.

Four things that we are to work hard at with his strength in us, and they will lead us to win the battle.

Why?

Because Christ has already won the battle.

First weapon that we have is the ability to pursue holiness.

And we're going to parse these out as we go through.

So that's our first weapon to pursue holiness.

Second, we're going to see that we're able to fight the good fight of faith, so we're going to have a fighting faith by his grace.

That's the second weapon.

Not just faith, but a fighting faith.

Third, we're going to see that we are to take hold of what we're called to.

So the third weapon is to take hold of eternal life.

And fourth, we're called guardians.

We're to guard what has been entrusted to us, and that is that we are to guard the gospel.

Now, when we think of the weapons that we as Christians use in battle, they may not be the weapons that excite us at first glance, especially if you're a young man.

I mean, who doesn't want to try out a bazooka or a tank cannon, right?

The weapons that I just mentioned, that are the Christians' weapons, don't exactly cause us to feel that excitement right away.

But I hope that as we study and go through each of these, you're going to be excited at the weapons that the Lord has given and commands us to use, because they're wonderful and they're eternal weapons that when used, they will absolutely crush our enemy.

So look again with me at verse 11.

Paul first tells Timothy to flee from some things.

Now when he says this, he's not saying, again, back to military language, he's not saying surrender to them.

Okay?

Not that kind of, not that kind of running and cowardice.

But it's really a call to throw them, to chuck them out of your life.

Not a passive retreat, but an aggressive fighting that just gets rid of everything in your life that looks like those things.

Paul is saying, get rid of that junk, cast it aside, don't let it ever become a part of your life.

And if it does, work hard to obliterate it.

So what's he talking about here?

Well, do you remember what we looked at last time?

Verse 10.

This is on the heels of that, right?

Verse 11.

It's the love of money.

Flee from the love of things like money, which will only lead you to sorrow.

Flee from the devastating effects of money love.

It's going to become an idol, the enemy will gain a foothold, but he will get all of you to surrender to his will if you do love money.

You'll be under the will of Satan.

But as we know, we as Christians, we can't simply flee from something if we're not fleeing to something, right?

And so Paul tells him, flee from the love of money and all these things, and instead pursue, and he gives us six things, which we're going to look at.

So flee from the love of money, flee from that worldly stuff, and pursue these things.

So flee from, go to.

And the world that the word that Paul uses here that is translated pursue is not just to kind of dawdle, okay?

It's not a shamble pursuit, but it's in haste.

That's the thrust behind that.

To pursue aggressively in haste.

So let's look at these things.

First, he calls them to pursue righteousness and godliness.

Now that's a weapon right there.

Righteousness and godliness.

What Paul is saying by using those words of Timothy is to live rightly and godly according to the word and the grace of Christ, both the inward character and outward works.

Your actions will be seen as godly or righteous if godliness comes from a reverence and fear for the one who is righteous.

To be righteous is to show forth the outworking of the motive that you have for godliness.

It's a pursuit of killing sin in your own life and being an example to the flock of good works, bearing fruit, being a fruit-bearing Christian, if you will, because of this pronouncement of righteousness before God.

Your motive is now to please Christ and to pursue Christ's likeness in your life.

You are aggressively, therefore, pursuing righteousness, godliness.

You're aggressively pursuing Christ.

Peter says, be holy.

Why?

Well, it's spoken of in the Old Testament, but really the answer is because He's holy.

Be holy because He's holy.

And let me just tell you, if you haven't figured it out already on your walk of faith, to pursue righteousness and godliness, not really an easy task.

It's not just something you wake up and go, oh, I guess I'll do that today.

It's a daily and lifelong battle.

But never forget the Lord's grace in this.

You have the Holy Spirit and you have the ability.

So righteousness, godliness.

Pursue those things.

Next he says, love and faith.

Again, not the things we think of in battle right off the bat.

But the Christian will pursue love and faith.

The Christian is a person who actively pursues godly faithfulness.

And that's what Paul's getting at when he says faith here.

Faithfulness is the goal and aim.

This kind of faith is a faith that just trusts God in all things.

He trusts that God will follow through in all his promises that are laid out in the Word.

He has a faith that Jesus is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.

And so, really, this kind of faith is battlement, if you will.

It is a sin-crushing, enemy-destroying trust in the Lord.

Aggressively pursuing faithfulness in the midst of the battle.

Now, we could rail all day long with our mouths and or even our physical bodies and try to battle in that way.

But to really crush sin, to destroy the enemy, now that's to be faithful.

This person who has this kind of faith will always, without fail, be a person who truly and genuinely loves.

As a Christian pursues righteousness, godliness, as he does this with his unwavering trust in God, he's going to be a person that is free to then love like Christ.

It's awesome.

This kind of love mentioned here is a love that is a choice.

Not like the love that our world touts today, where as long as it's my choice, then it's love.

Not that.

No, this is a choice to love according to the truth of God and the holiness that he calls us to.

And so what Paul is pointing us to here is that as we are, we as Christians are to be seen as people who love, who love God with everything we are, and then and only then can we truly love our neighbor based on who he is and his word in us.

And so the Christian that pursues these things is a Christian that trusts God by faith, pursues righteousness, godliness, faithful, therefore loving.

You see how those things flow together.

He speaks truth, honors others because of Christ.

The world, back to verse 10, will tell you that the love of money is really the sweet spot in life.

That the love of stuff, that's where you want to be.

Maybe not outwardly, but that's what ends up happening.

That's what really is portrayed.

And Paul is saying here, no, no, no, no.

The sweet spot in life is to pursue those hard things.

To be brave.

Any coward can pursue money and stuff.

Only the brave pursue godly living.

And as we pursue these things, we can be assured that we will persevere.

That's what he says.

We're not going to fall victim to the enticing wiles of the enemy.

We will persevere.

We will not be caught up in the things of this world, because we are caught up in the things of the Lord, things that are eternal.

We're going to be gentle folk, not the passive and weak kind of gentleness that the world will have you believe that we are, but warriors that fight hard for the things of the Lord.

We'll be a people that pursue with rigorous fervor the actions that are pleasing to God that come from a motivation of gratefulness and willing obedience, all while being gentle in love and perseverance.

You see, when he says pursue these things, this is not some, this whole passage really is not some political or militaristic call to action.

We are to use them to pursue honorable things.

Flee from the enemy and what he has to offer.

Go into battle, pursue hard things.

Righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, gentleness.

Fruits of the Spirit, right?

And so, really, our first weapon in this battle is the pursuit of a holy life.

That's how you defeat the enemy.

Second point.

Paul tells us to fight the good fight of faith.

Again, continuing in the same theme we're talking about, but in a different context in verse 12.

I just got to remind you, again, I've already said it multiple times, but we are in a fight, brothers and sisters.

We see almost the same phrase used early on in the book of 1 Timothy in verse 18, chapter 1.

Paul tells Timothy to fight the good fight as he commands him to hold fast to the truth.

Never let your faith end up being shipwrecked by forgetting the gospel and therefore fleeing from the truth, as Hymenaeus and Alexander did.

Fight, brothers and sisters, fight hard.

We are in a battle against the prince of this world and the powers of darkness.

We're in a war for the faith.

But it's a good fight.

This isn't some obscure war that nobody should be fighting.

It's a good faith.

A good fight.

A good war to be in.

Paul tells us elsewhere that we're in a fight for our lives on three fronts.

If you want to use military language here, we're in a fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Three-front war.

When America finally entered into the Second World War, it automatically propelled us into a three-front war.

We went to the war on the Pacific against the Japanese, we went to war in the Mediterranean against Italians and Germans, and we went to war on the European front against them as well.

Now, this, of course, could never have been possible if all the industrial and political might in America wasn't on board in this fight.

And the sailors and soldiers went overseas to be on the front lines, the welders, manufacturers worked all day and night to keep up with the demands of this war machine.

Victory gardens at home to ease the shortage of food that would come.

Kids were taught in school.

Think about this, children.

Kids were taught in school if you lived near the coast to identify enemy airplanes and ships.

And which how big they were and what size they were.

Plants in America made cars.

They no longer made cars.

They made tanks, they made planes.

Nobody bought a car or truck during that time, virtually.

It took almost everyone to make victory a possibility in that three-front war.

For us who were in Christ, as important as the Second World War was, our three-front fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil is of far more importance.

Day by day.

It's a fight for survival.

And make no mistake, it's a good fight.

We are fighting for good.

Jesus tells us also how important this fight is.

This isn't just something on the sidelines.

He says that if necessary, cut off your hands, pluck out your eyes.

In the book of Mark.

He says, if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.

It's better for you to enter life crippled than having your two hands to go into hell into the unquenchable fire.

Battle against your flesh.

Of course, Jesus didn't mean that physically, just to don't go from here and do that.

But he's telling us the importance of fighting in the faith.

This good fight includes defending the truth to the world, fighting side by side with your brothers and sisters in the faith, admonishing one another in this fight.

And as we see in Mark 9, fighting in the unrelenting war to kill your own sin.

We must never let up.

Not a day, not an hour.

There's never going to be a ceasefire from the enemy until the Lord returns.

But the Lord will be with us the whole way through.

Strengthening us, encouraging us, shaping and molding us as loving and faithful.

So be on the battle.

Be on the field.

Fight against your own sin.

Third point.

Again in verse 12, Paul tells us to take hold.

This is so good.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.

Don't just sit back in the recliner and wait.

Take hold of it.

Seize it.

Now this doesn't mean that he's saying you've got to earn your eternal position through your works.

No, instead he's pointing us to just have a clearer knowledge of what is to come.

What he is saying is that as you fight the good fight of faith, as you pursue those godly things that are from above, you will be taking hold of the eternal life to come.

Isn't that good news?

You will know it more intimately.

You will love the return of the Lord more thoroughly.

You will claim it as your own in a more personal way, not just something that's far off or just this kind of this hope thing.

You'll be a person who reads Paul's words in Philippians 1, as we did in Sunday school this morning, where he says that to live is Christ, but to die is gain.

And you will not just pay verbal homage to the truth of that statement, but you will say yes and amen with a countenance of joy, smiling exuberance.

To die is gain.

You're taking hold of the eternal life to come.

In this, you will be a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Knowing that by his will of decree, his sovereign plan is not blindsided by the war that you're in, but that it's all in his plan for your good and for his glory.

And so the point is, as we have this fight in our life, this good fight, we need to keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak.

I love Pilgrim's Progress, like little Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, fighting his way to the celestial city so that he can see it glowing up ahead, knowing that this good king that's there has a place reserved for him, so he fights and he struggles, and the closer he gets, what happens?

The city is more and more magnified and grander and grander on the way.

We fight the good fight and we see from a distance that in the end the God.

The crown, the prize that's coming to us is eternal life in Christ.

Take hold of this each day.

Remember it.

Cling to it.

Grab hold of it when the battle is fierce.

When your sin feels like it's just going to overtake you completely.

Why do I keep doing this?

When the ravages of disease are prevailing.

When you're fearful and nervous about what is coming.

Maybe from your own family members to you because of your faith.

Take hold of that eternal life.

Glance up.

Remember that there is a crown, a garland that will be placed upon you as you fight the good fight.

And this is the greatest prize that there is.

The prize is Christ and the eternal life He offers.

Not just mere existence, but a heavenly existence for the eternal worship of your eternal King.

Take hold of this in the battle.

There's a prize for the fighting that you endure.

Fourth point.

Guard what has been entrusted to you as you take hold of it.

You know, this theme of being a guardian is very popular in our pop culture today.

Movies, comic books, selling out like hotcakes.

And the theme is usually that somebody is guarding something very important.

Why is that so popular?

Well, for one, because we like to feel like we have an important job and roll in life, right?

Back to military language in illustration.

In Vietnam, what would happen if night guards weren't placed around the camp as the soldiers are touring through the jungle?

The enemy would easily be able to attack and kill them in their sleep.

We as Christians have been given the responsibility and privilege to guard the most important truth that could ever be told.

You ever seen what happens when important documents need to be transferred from one place to another?

What would happen if we took the original Constitution of the U.S.

and it were to be transferred to a new place?

What happens?

You know there's secret service all over the place.

It's probably handcuffed to a man with a bulletproof, fireproof, tamper-proof container.

The truth that we guard in us?

The gospel of Jesus Christ?

That's a far surpassing value to that mere man-made document that will one day be useless.

As we saw last week in verses 17 and 19, Paul teaches Timothy on how they are to handle treasure.

Well, here, fast forwarding on to verse 20, Paul tells Timothy what real treasure is.

That which is entrusted to you, the word of God, the good news of Christ.

What is it that we are guarding specifically?

Our good confession.

Our good confession.

It is the confession that Jesus proclaimed to Pilate.

In short, it is that Jesus is the Messiah.

He's God in the flesh.

He came to seek and save that which is lost.

He's king of the Jews.

In verse 12, Paul reminds Timothy, the good confession he made, that he confessed that Jesus is God.

He confessed that Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all things, that Jesus came to this earth as God in the flesh, lived the sinless life on behalf of his people, suffered and died on the cross, rose again on the third day, thereby just solidifying that salvation and the defeat of sin and death for us.

That Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of God, interceding for his people, that then Jesus sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and that he has convicted Timothy's heart of sin, and therefore Timothy now confesses the same thing that Jesus confessed before Pilate.

That he is Savior, that he is king, that he is God.

Guard that.

Guard it.

Don't let the edges of that truth be softened, especially when thinking of sin.

This is a good confession.

This is the soldiers' rally cry.

This is why you're on the field.

And it then leads us to see the importance for keeping the commandment and guarding what has been entrusted.

Both of these statements call to our minds to think of the word of God revealed to us.

They call us to never neglect to live out and protect the truth with everything that we are, even if the battleground gets hot and dangerous.

We are to guard with our very lives the truth that we confess.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is God and He came.

It doesn't matter what is taught in the colleges and universities.

Jesus is the only way to eternal life.

Doesn't matter what the rabbi or the Dalai Lama has to say or the monk, I don't care.

Jesus has forgiven my sins and loves me with a deep passion.

I don't care what Darwin or Dawkins has to say by their own authority.

None of those things matter.

Not because I'm blindly just keeping to a fairy tale, but because I'm clinging to the heavenly authority called the Word of God, and I am never going to flee the one who has transformed my very heart and soul unto eternal life.

I'm going to take hold of it and guard what has been entrusted to me.

Are you?

Day by day by day.

Get on the field.

The Christian who loves and who lives and thinks like this is a person who's going to just avoid worldly, empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge.

What are those things?

They're what Paul has already addressed in this book.

These are those myths, those endless genealogies, those worldly fables, those speculative and strange doctrines, the doctrines of demons.

What if God was like this?

What if God didn't really mean that he meant eternal damnation?

What if it's not?

What if God is not real?

What if we evolved along the way?

What if there are aliens?

What if the government?

What if, what if, what if?

Who cares?

It's useless and false.

It's not knowledge.

That's a waste of time.

It leads us away from guarding what's most important.

I mean, we have billions of pieces of information floating out there on what we call the World Wide Web, the internet.

But I can tell you right now, if you use Wikipedia or especially AI to tell you what is true and eternal knowledge, you're gonna miss the boat.

We have information out there in absolute abundance.

But we do not have wisdom and knowledge wrapped up in servers and fake intelligence.

True knowledge is to pursue Christ and the things above.

To be on the battlefield is to have true knowledge of a good confession of Christ.

True knowledge is to pass on a message that can save, not a message that brings with it only death.

As I said, we have an absolute overload of information in our day and age.

We have new and old information at our fingertips everywhere we look.

But that doesn't mean we have godly knowledge or real wisdom.

Knowing Him and living for Him, that's real knowledge and wisdom.

The fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom, the Proverbs teach us.

This means that as you confess Christ, you are just then beginning to tap into something that is actually eternally meaningful both for your brain and your heart.

Beyond the battlefield.

Paul ends this book by saying something he usually does end with, and that's grace be with you.

What he's saying is that what he just wrote to them is grace to their ears.

Grace be with you.

I've written the truth of the gospel, I have defended the faith, and I have pointed you back to Christ in every area of life.

If you follow my words, which are the very words of God Himself, then grace will be with you.

That's why he tells Timothy, guard it.

You have no idea the importance, Timothy, guard it! Guard the good confession on the battleground.

The only news of salvation from the wrath that is coming.

And it is coming.

In closing this morning, I want to ask the why question, or answer the why question.

We always have that, don't we?

Why, God?

Why?

Why does it have to be a battle?

We've touched on it already this morning, but I want to focus in on this answer so that as we finished, we finish up this book and this sermon, we don't get discouraged in the battle.

And so we remember the words of 1 Timothy.

Why is this life a battle?

The answer is twofold, I would say.

At a minimum.

One, the world hates truth.

And two, the world hates holiness.

Both of these things find their root and their perfect embodiment in God alone.

The world, on the other hand, cannot decide what truth is.

And so when someone claims to know absolute truth that is always in contradiction to their way of thinking, it is that's not informed by the Word of God, the response is what?

Lash out.

Maybe violence.

Here's an example of what I mean when I say that the world cannot define what truth is.

Listen to this.

This is from World Wide Web, philosophenews.com.

This ought to be good.

Ready?

Quote: Truth, like knowledge, is surprisingly difficult to define.

We seem to rely on it almost every moment of every day, and it's very close to us.

Yet it's difficult to define because as soon as you think you have it pinned down, some case or counterexample immediately shows deficiencies.

Ironically, every definition of truth that philosophers have developed falls prey to the question, is it true?

And then he concludes simply, we can define truth as a statement about the way the world actually is.

What a sad, depressing, and difficult way to live.

Where truth is always changing based on the culture's whims and the wisdom of mankind.

This is why the world hates Christianity, and they hate Christianity because we say there is something such as eternal and unchanging objective truth.

Paul here in 1 Timothy 6 begins to speak of the good confession, the truth, and he cannot help himself, as he speaks of the truth, to just break out into a doxological statement about God, King of kings, Lord of lords.

Look at verses 15 and 16 again.

This is truth.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see.

To him be honor and eternal dominion, amen.

He alone is king, brothers and sisters.

I don't care what the president says.

He alone is king.

He alone is lord.

He alone is God.

It almost gives you goosebumps to think about this and to see Paul's countenance as he dictates or writes this.

He's just talking about the Lord and he can't help it.

He just says, to him be honor and eternal dominion.

It's all about him.

He is the great and mighty King who has revealed himself to us in this in his word.

The world doesn't like that.

Because it means that if this is truth, if the Bible is true, then they are in desperate need, aren't they, of salvation.

This means that they aren't as grand as they think.

Or as I thought before Christ.

This means that it is by the Bible's standard of truth that they are judged, not by their own or even their own current cultural society.

God is truth and he has given us that truth.

This leads us to the other reason as to why there is and will always be a battle on this earth for the Christian until the Lord appears.

Look at verse 14.

This is because the world despises holiness.

Nothing on this earth or in creation itself is intrinsically holy.

Only God is holy.

He dwells in unapproachable light, his glory is that magnificent.

Our God is not visible to our human eyes alone, as this passage says, and yet God has chosen to reveal himself to us in his word and through his son Jesus Christ.

He does this in a supernatural way that protects us from just dropping dead.

As he guards us from the full measure of his own glory.

And if you don't believe me, listen to just a few passages that speak of the magnificence of our holy God and why you don't physically see Christ.

Genesis 32, 30.

So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, I have seen God face to face, and then a shocking statement comes to his own mouth.

Yet my life has been preserved.

He's shocked.

Exodus 33, verses 18 and 20.

Exodus 33:18

Then Moses said, I pray you, show me your glory.

You know this passage, and he said, I myself, God himself, will make all my goodness pass before you.

But he said, God said, You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live.

Isaiah 6, 1 and 5, in just a mere revelation through not in reality, through a dream or a vision.

Isaiah gets this in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne lofty and exalted with the train of his robe filling the temple.

Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings.

Picture that.

With two he covered his face, two covered his feet, and with two he flew, and one called out to one another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, whose the whole earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple is filling with smoke.

And then it goes on to tell us man's response to this gloriously holy God.

Isaiah says, Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined.

Because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

Again, that's just a vision.

And yet he's overwhelmed and undone.

Hebrews tells us that our God is a consuming fire.

Isaiah recognized who he was in light of who his God is.

The person who responds in humility and desperation for grace is the person who responds like Isaiah.

The person who is of the world responds to the holiness and absolute magnificence of God with just contempt and unbelief because pride has sunk its teeth down deep in their heart.

Our God is holy, and his holiness forces us as humans to then see who we are.

He's the sovereign and blessed King of kings and Lord of lords.

Our natural desires and wants do not stem from a position of truth, and they do not lead to holiness.

That's why the news and the happenings going on around us in our world look like just chaotic immorality to Christianity.

Only with a new heart and life and motivation can we agree with God and therefore what is right.

This is why this life will always be a battle for us.

And it's okay.

It's okay.

Even though we're gonna have to fight our own desires and all the evil, we have to remember as we take hold of eternal life that we serve a great and mighty general.

Our general is truth and holiness.

He's taken our place as we have been defeated already in our sin from conception.

We've already lost the battle in and of ourselves.

So he takes that sin and death upon himself, and he's already won that battle for us.

He's conquered the evil one.

The battle's already won in the eternal sense of things.

But since that's true, he's already won the battle eternally.

We have to remember that we must fight hard.

Because we're on the victor's side.

He will always see us through to ultimate and complete victory.

And we gotta fight side by side or behind him.

And one last thing to note in this battle is what is said in verse 14.

We can't miss this.

Timothy, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, and love.

Persevere in fighting the good fight of faith, guard the truth, guard the gospel in this battle, take hold of the eternal life that you have been called to.

Why?

How can we ever endure?

Look again at the end of verse 14 with me.

This is awesome.

He says, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, he's coming again.

Keep the commandment without stain or reproach until what?

The break at halftime?

Until you get kind of tired?

Until you have immense wealth.

No.

Until our Lord appears, fight the battle.

Because he's coming again, dear brothers and sisters.

He will appear to us one day and it will be absolutely glorious.

He will return the same way he left.

The clouds will serve his vessels for the return of the king.

The trumpets will blast, the angels will resound, his people will rejoice, the mountains will roll up like a scroll, every eye will see, every tongue will confess.

What?

Jesus Christ is Lord, my king, my general.

I will never leave the battlefield.

Is that you?

The time for soft men is over.

The time to fight is upon us.

To fight with the weapons of Ephesians chapter 6, to battle, to go to war against our own flesh, our own blood.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It's time for godliness.

It's time for courage, righteousness, integrity.

They must win this day as we look forward to that day.

And if we're going to be prepared for the return of Christ, we must grow up.

We must grow up and grow out of our comforting stupors of easy living.

It's time to go to war.

A war for the name and fame of Christ, a war against our own flesh and our own lust, and a war against the evil forces in this world with our spiritual weapons.

And yes, dear Christian, the battle is worth the fight.

Why?

Because he's worth it.

May the knowledge of this grace be with us always, as Paul finishes the letter with grace be with you.

There's grace in the battle.

Why?

Because Jesus is with us.

And he is coming for those who love his appearance and who are fighting the battle on his behalf with his strength in them.

Let's pray.

Father, may we truly be those guardians who seek to kill sin day by day by the power of your spirit in us, who avoid the worldly things, who profess Christ, who seek godliness, truth, integrity, who courageously defend the honor of our King's name.

Father, may we stand up as men of valor, as women of integrity, and fight for what is right.

First beginning in our own heart, in our own lives.

Give us strength, give us boldness, give us the power that it takes to accomplish this task by your grace and your will.

And we pray this all in the name.

of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.