1 Timothy 6:11-16 - Flee and Pursue

So uh this is such a weird thing, and I wish I did not have to announce.

Um there is something happening in local churches in Havasu and in town here.

Um they are they're scammers that are getting hold of the senior pastor's name and then sending out uh like texts to the congregation asking to like, hey, we've got somebody that needs some help.

Can you give us some gift cards?

You know, this is then this is so if anybody texts you, Pastor Jared says, you know, or that kind of thing, it's not me.

Don't do it.

It yeah, just say, no, thanks.

I'll pray for you or whatever.

Like um, but yeah, don't don't do that.

I will never text you asking you for gift cards.

All right.

So, and if that happens from any of the local pastors, think it through, don't do it.

So, yeah, it's happened at Calvary Chapel a couple times.

John Walton down in Havasu just got hit with something, so don't believe it.

I hate that I have to even say that.

So, um this week, I was really struck by this particular passage um in Ephesians.

And uh it's Ephesians chapter one.

Paul is writing, and as Paul does often in his greetings, he has this long intro that's really intense, and he says this uh in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15 through 17.

Ephesians 1:15–17

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith, the Lord in the Lord Jesus, and your love for all the God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.

And I want to take time before we start to pray that exact prayer for all of us.

That through his word, this miracle can happen where his spirit will be on each of us to where we understand him in a deeper way.

So if you would just join with me in prayer, Lord, we we need your spirit always, but we ask for a special moment in this time as we study your word, Lord.

Uh please give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation for the purpose of knowing you better, Lord.

And let us be changed because of that.

For those that are watching online, for those that are at home that couldn't make it tonight, please let your spirit fall on them so they may know you deeper and come to be changed because of who you are, Lord.

Take this message and do your thing, God.

It's your son's name we pray.

Amen.

All right.

We are in the last chapter of 1 Timothy, and uh we're in chapter 6, and we're gonna pick it up at verse 11.

It says this But you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

Fight the good fight of faith.

Take hold of the eternal life which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, while testifying before Pontius Pilate, made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until appearing the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time.

God, the blessed and only ruler, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal, and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.

To him be honor and might forever.

Amen.

Just a beautiful section.

I love that.

And as he closes out his letter to Paul, or Paul closes out this letter to Timothy, he strikes him with this bit of instruction.

And first, I love that in this he says, But you, man of God.

Now, right before that, he lists to Timothy, there's all these people that you're gonna have to watch out for.

He describes this type of person that he says, there can be these false teachers that get in, they have an unhealthy interest in controversies, they quarrel about words and about little minute things.

And that causes envy and strife and suspicion.

And then he talks about, and the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

This is all these things, and then he gives them this instruction, but as he gives it to him, because he sets up this, there's gonna be these giant problems.

There's gonna be these false teachers, these great big things that you're gonna come against.

And he says to him, Man of God, but you, man of God.

Of all the ways that Paul could encourage Timothy, I'm blown away by this one.

Very, this is a huge precedent.

I mean, everywhere in Scripture, the people that are referred to as men of God, the one that's referred to most is Moses, who saw God face to face and delivered on God's behalf God's word to the people.

I mean, that's an amazing thing.

And then it's also used as called, it refuses, I'm sorry, people use it to refer to David.

You know, he was a man after God's heart, is one of the things, but it also calls him the man of God.

Or Elijah and Elijah, um, both of them are referred to as the man of God.

Of all the ways that Timothy could have been encouraged, Paul could have said it, to me, this one blows me away.

I think Timothy, if I, you know, if I was in his shoes and they walking, getting ready for that one church meeting that's gonna be really difficult, and getting up in the morning and just remembering, okay, that guy, my mentor, who saw Jesus face to face, said, Man of God, I can do this, right?

And just this breath that he had to take.

And then as he calls him this and sets him at this level, then he gives him this instruction.

And the first thing he says is flee, right?

Flee from all this stuff, all these things before, the love of money, the arguing, the disunity, all these different things, from those things he says, flee.

Now, the biggest person, or the biggest, like Mace, probably the most famous person for fleeing or running in the scriptures is I would say probably Joseph.

I mean, Jonah is up there, but he wasn't fleeing for the right reason, right?

But Joseph, now if you don't know the story, Joseph is a story, read it sometime.

It's a fascinating.

It is the like daytime television show of the Old Testament, right?

There is so much drama and so much like, ha, should I be reading this?

My ears, you know, you know, it's like, what is going on?

It's this, because Joseph is born into this really messed-up family that God uses in amazing ways.

And uh the story, I mean, it takes over so many chapters in Genesis and is this story, and you probably have to start somewhere back, like, I don't know, 30 or something to get the full story.

And you go through, and eventually, Joseph, if you're not familiar with the story, it's you know, Joseph of the mini-colored dream coat fame, right?

And this guy, he is given, he's the favorite child of twelve sons, and um, he's the favorite child, and he is kind of a jerk about it, if I'm gonna be honest, right?

He he holds it up over his his brother's head, and he's kind of like, Yeah, you know how much dad loves me.

Oh, maybe you don't.

Let me tell you, you know, it's a lot.

And he and he does other stuff, and his brothers get sick of him, and his brothers actually end up uh plotting to murder him, and then they kind of take it down a notch instead.

They just sell him into slavery, right?

And that's all.

And so they sell him into slavery.

He ends up in Egypt, and he goes uh gets sold into slavery.

He's in Egypt, he actually becomes a slave of this guy's house named Potiphar.

Potiphar purchases him and starts to see that God blesses everything Joseph does.

Anything Joseph touches is just like turns to gold.

Like it is great.

He's everything he handles, just God blesses it and just elevates and he keeps going in everything he does.

And to the point where Potiphar recognizes this, if I put Joseph in charge of something, it gets done and it gets grows.

I grow financially, and so he just keeps putting him in charge of stuff, right?

And eventually he's in charge of the entire household.

It said Potiphar didn't have to think about anything except what he was going to eat.

And then it goes on, and Joseph's uh I'm sorry, Joseph working for Potiphar, and Potiphar's wife notices Joseph.

And actually, it's kind of funny, in chapter 39, uh, verse 2, it says, The Lord was with Joseph, so all that he prospered and lived in the house of the Egyptian master.

When the master saw the Lord was with him, the Lord gave him success in everything he did.

Joseph found favor in the eyes of his master and became his attendant.

Potiphar put him in charge of the household and trusted care of everything he owned.

And then, in skip down a few verses of verse 6, it says, Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care, and uh he didn't have to concern himself with anything except the food that he ate.

And then it says, now Joseph was a well-built and handsome man.

Right?

Yeah, and we all know what that means, right?

Or maybe we don't, but let's, you know.

Anyway, he's a good-looking guy.

Apparently he's well-built, whatever that means to Egyptian standard, right?

And that the master's wife eyeballs this guy, you know, and she guys, okay, and she so she says, you know, come to bed with me, come sleep with me.

And Joseph flat out refuses.

He's like, No, no, no, everything.

I've been given everything in the house except you.

Why would I do that?

And he lives this way, he just continues, no, I'm not gonna do that.

But she is a super big creeper and uh keeps following him around, right?

No, I mean it's uh it's finally she keeps asking him.

And it actually says Joseph refuses not only to lie with her, to to be with her, like he refuses to be in the same room.

But in verse 11, it actually says, one day he went to the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.

She caught him by his cloak.

She's been watching him, right?

This is where you cue sting, right?

Every move I make, I'll be watching you, right?

This is creepy.

And so she comes and she gets next to him and she caught him by his cloak.

Now she's grabbing hold of this guy.

She says, Come to bed with me.

And this is what Joseph does.

He flees, right?

But he left his cloak in her hand and he ran out of the house.

So he basically just takes, like, just no, gets away.

I love that Joseph absolutely flees.

He gets out of there.

He's like, This is bad news.

No good can come from this.

So he flees the situation.

Now, did you notice though that there's something missing?

If you keep reading, she takes the coat, the cloak, and she then keeps it with her, and she screams and she tells everybody he tried to rape me, right?

And then it goes on farther.

She waits till her husband gets home and she's like, You this Hebrew slave that you had, he tried to rape me, and I've got his cloak.

When I screamed, he ran away and he left this behind.

And everybody believes him, right?

Now, what's interesting is that what's missing from that story.

See, we don't know where Joseph ran to.

He just went full flock of seagulls, right?

I mean, I ran.

And uh, so he just ran, and sorry, my 80s music reference tonight.

I don't know what's going on.

All right.

So, anyway, he runs away and he just flees.

But we have no idea.

He could have ran a lot of different places.

He could have ran to Potiphar and stuff, but he didn't do that.

He just fled.

Now, have you ever seen, and this is the problem with fleeing, is there's no real destination.

Right?

When you run, he just runs away.

Joseph just runs away.

He gets out of there, which is a great way.

He doesn't, you know, he doesn't become defiled, he doesn't mess around, he is still living righteous, but he simply runs away.

Now, Paul adds something.

He doesn't want Timothy to just flee.

Look what he says.

But you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

So flee, get out of there, but then pursue these things.

So what's the difference between fleeing and pursuing something?

You ever watch like the scary movies?

Maybe I should reference an 80s movie just to deal with the theme tonight.

But you ever watch those scary movies where there's like a the axe murder, right?

And there's of course it's like teenagers go to this camp uh you know for the weekend alone, and the axe murderer pops up, and what do they do?

They run, right?

And they run, and so they get away and they're like, ha! And they they run and all this kind of stuff and and stuff.

But and the killer, of course, pursues them, and it's like that little, you know, he just slowly, but somehow he can always catch them.

I don't know how that works.

Anyway, they run.

Now, how far do they run?

They run as far as they think they're safe.

Right?

They're looking back over their shoulder, shoulder the whole time, and like, okay, he's gone.

We're safe.

And they stop.

And of course, what happens?

Woo! There he is, right?

He pops up and takes him out.

But here's the thing is when they flee, they run until they feel like they're safe.

And that's when they stop.

And then that's when he gets them, right?

Now, think of a different movie.

Have you guys ever seen Chariots of Fire?

Or you maybe you're familiar with the movie because it's like 45 years old, right?

You know that you know the movie, right?

Where the guys are running on the beach, that famous scene.

Now, Chariots of Fire is about a couple guys who love to run, and one of them is Eric Lydell.

It's based on a true story.

Eric Lydell is born in China to his Scottish missionary parents.

Um, but he's in Scotland, and Lydell sees running as a way, a form of worshiping and glorifying God.

And so he pursues running and he loves running so much, and actually, I love one of the quotes is like, when I run, I feel God's pleasure.

And so he runs, and you see, this whole movie is just about these guys and their love of running.

How far does Eric Lydell run?

He keeps running because he loves it, and he runs until he crosses the finish line.

See, the monster movie guys, they're running to get away.

They're fleeing.

So they're gonna run to the point where they think they're safe.

Lydell in Chariots of Fire is pursuing a goal.

He's gonna run till he gets that goal.

Also, one of the things that happens too is when you flee, where are you looking?

You're looking back over your shoulder, your eyes are on that thing you're scared of.

When you're pursuing, your eyes are on the goal.

Your eyes are on the finish line, on the thing you're trying to achieve.

Now, what if we take this and we apply these things like Paul does to spiritual life?

Paul says in 1 Corinthians, right?

In 1 Corinthians chapter um 10.

No, I'm sorry, uh chapter 6, he says, flee sexual immorality.

Flee sexual immorality.

So let's take that example.

Let's say you're struggling with lust, right?

And you're on the computer.

Let's be just real here.

You're struggling with lust, you're on the computer, and you're like, okay, wait, I gotta flee.

Great.

That's a good first step.

You flee that.

So you shut off your phone, you shut off the computer, you put the phone down, and you're like, okay, I'm just gonna watch something.

And all of a sudden, what happens?

An ad for Game of Thrones pops up, or Bridgerton, or something that is gonna take you back down.

So you're like, oh man, okay, I gotta stop thinking about that, gotta leave that alone.

And so you decide, okay, I'm just gonna go out, get a guy, get out of the house, and you try and flee that.

And then all of a sudden, you go to the grocery store and the magazine racks are right there, and all those pictures that they have, and so you flee.

But what happens when you're fleeing is you keep looking back on the thing because your mind is like, gotta get away from this, gotta get away with lust, gotta get away from women, gotta get away from men, whatever it is, you gotta get away, gotta get away.

And so your mind kind of keeps thinking about that.

You keep going back.

But Paul doesn't tell Timothy to just flee.

He tells him, flee this evil and pursue righteousness, pursue godliness, pursue love, because Paul understands your eye shouldn't be on what you're trying to get away from, but on that thing you're trying to pursue.

And he does this throughout Scripture, over and over in Philippians, right?

Philippians is a very famous passage.

In Philippians chapter 3, Paul actually says this in verse 12.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Not that I have already obtained this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on.

I take hold of that which Christ took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to take hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind me, right?

Not thinking about what he's fleeing from, and straining toward what is ahead.

I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

So again, it's not about just running, but it's about pursuing what's ahead of you.

And the writer of Hebrews, same thing, chapter 12.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud, such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

So again, don't keep looking back towards that evil, flee.

And again, in 1 Corinthians, when he's talking to the people there, he says in chapter 9, actually says 9, verse 24, he says, Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize?

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the game goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly.

I do not fight like a boxer beating there.

No, I strike my blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I've preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Paul had a heck of a past that he had to flee from, but his eyes didn't focus on what was behind him.

He kept his eyes and he told Timothy, flee those things, but pursue righteousness, pursue godliness, pursue faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

So, what does it mean to pursue these things?

How do we do that?

How do we pursue, because we can flee, that's pretty instinctive, right?

Get out of there.

Flee, but how do we pursue?

And one of the biggest ways is to find examples and try and imitate those examples.

Find examples in Scripture.

Jesus could have easily came, paid for our sins, and then was gone.

But he spent years on earth teaching us how to live the right kind of way.

And so we have a great example within scriptures of the pro best possible way to live.

Also, look to people around you.

See somebody that you want to be like spiritually, and they don't have to be perfect, because they might be great in one area, but not in another.

And so you go, okay, I want to be like that person in that way.

And so you maybe ask them, maybe talk to them, look at them.

How can you pursue, how can you follow up and do that?

Find an example and go after it.

All right, the other thing that he tells him in 1 Timothy is he says, Take hold of eternal life to which you were called.

Take hold of eternal life to which you were called.

And actually, if we read it, he says, This fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

And so he says, I love this.

I love the firmness, the action of this command.

And I think I love it so much because it's different than what I grew up hearing.

And I'm not saying I might have just misheard.

I don't want to ever blame the guys that were huge examples of faith in my life.

But it seemed like in the bigger Christian world, especially in the 90s, the message was just about hoping and waiting.

Like, okay, you accepted Jesus.

Now we're just gonna sit here and we're gonna wait for him to come back.

And that's so passive and it's like overcooked asparagus.

It's like ugh, like, you know, it's just kind of mushy.

It's it's this where Paul talks about grab hold of the firm, like this is it.

And I love this too, because the word here, he says, grab hold, fight the good fight, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.

Now, you guys all know the Greek word for life.

You've learned it in school, right?

Ology is the study of, and when you study life, what do you study?

Biology, right?

So bio.

That is the Greek word for life.

That's not the Greek word that's used here.

The Greek word that's used here is a different one.

It's zoe, right?

Where we get like our name, girl's name Zoe.

It means basically not just being alive, because that's bio, right?

That's something has life, but zoe or zoe is of like vitality.

It's growing, it's expanding life, it's maturing life.

This is what he says.

And actually, Jesus, one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite passage is John chapter 10, verse 10.

John 10:10

It says this.

Jesus is teaching his disciples, and he says this the thief, or Satan, comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

But I have come that they may have Zoe, may have life, and have it to the full.

See, God's intention was never for us just to sit around and hope and wait.

We're supposed to take hold of that life and be active.

Now it's not about, and true, it's not just about the life that's to come, but the life that starts now.

And so we're supposed to thrive and be part of this expanding vitality that God has put in front of us to have the greatest possible life.

And so that is what God and what Paul is calling us to.

Now, how do we do that?

Simple.

By fleeing evil things and pursuing righteousness.

And the beauty of that is when we do those things, then we have that life to the full.

And that's how we give God honor.

That's the greatest thing, too, is like the byproduct of living this life is we get the life, right?

We get this vital life, but it also gives God honor.

Because here's one thing I think we overthink too much.

How do I show God that I love him?

Right?

You always, like, there's that quote, like, what do you buy the man that has everything?

Right?

Like that's always like a goofy thing around Christmas, and then they sell you something that no guy needs, right?

But this is even more, like if God has everything, how do you show God, you've got it all, God?

How do I show you I love you?

And sometimes we overthink that too much.

Because Jesus plainly states how we show God love.

In John 14, 15, he simply says this if you love me, you'll obey my commands.

It's that simple, right?

So when we live this way, when we flee evil and we pursue righteousness, we pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness, when we pursue these things, not only it gives us, Zoe, the best possible life, life to the full, it's also the best way we can honor God.

So as we go this week, as we leave here, flee that evil, flee those things in your life, and pursue godliness, righteousness, faithfulness, gentleness, endurance.

Because that gives you the best life and honors God.

Let's pray.

Lord, you are so good to us.

We thank you so much for your beautiful life that you've given us and that you lived on this earth.

Lord, help us to pursue you with all that we have.

Help us to flee, to have the strength to turn away and to flee sin and to pursue you, Lord.

We pray these things in your son's name.

Amen.