Sept. 24, 2017 PM Service The Fight is a Good One by Pastor Josh Sheldon

The Faith to Be Fought For

Well this afternoon we will look at just a very few number of words, actually seven words from 1 Timothy chapter 6 and the first part of verse 12, which is simply this, Fight the good fight of the faith.

Fight the good fight of the faith. And even though it seems so short, such an easy to recite and perhaps even quickly memorized portion of scripture, there's a lot here for us to consider. There's a lot here as we go through this book of 1 Timothy.

There's much in just these few words and we would find, first of all, the first thing I would point out to you that the word faith is rightly preceded by the word the. Fight the good fight of the faith and it makes it clear that the faith in view is that faith brought by Jesus Christ.

It's the Christian faith that is to be fought for. This may seem obvious, I mean what else would Paul be arguing for or against, but it is a reminder to us that the Christian faith, this faith that we have, is one that is to be fought for and we might say must be fought for.

It's a struggle. The new heart embodied in each Christian as we read in Titus, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

That new heart includes this quality, this faith. It's something new. It's a treasure to be cherished. It's a quality to be cultivated. The faith is, I think, an all-encompassing term. It gathers under its wings the whole content of the Christian faith.

All our doctrine, all our theology, all that we understand from the scripture, what Jesus Christ has done for sinners, by the will of God the Father when he went to the cross, and all that that implies, the faith, the Christian faith.

This is to be struggled for, agonized over, fought for. It's an all-encompassing term. And with this new heart comes also the confidence that our obedience to him, to Jesus Christ, while not often easy to maintain, is a good fight.

It's a good fight. It's a contest worth engaging. There's a reward that waits, that's worth having. One that will make all the efforts seem like a pittance compared to the glory that will be revealed in us.

It's a good fight. It's a good fight because it is a good faith that we've been given. It's a good faith we've been given. The word used both times is where we get the word agony for fighting. So it means really, if we take it in just a very literal way, agonize over the agony of the faith.

You're to agonize constantly over the good agony, which is that content of the faith. The word Paul uses for fight is not from the battlefield. It's a word that relates actually to athletes. When an athlete prepares for a contest, he or she agonizes over every detail.

Today we're able to be more precise than they were then. Athletes can count calories in exact accordance with the metabolic need of this specific training, and they work especially towards speed or strength or flexibility, whatever the case is for whatever they need in the techniques with equipment tailor-made to a specific goal they wish to achieve.

They agonize over it. And the word to Timothy here is in the form of a continuous command. One that's never to be set aside. We take no breaks from this. It's not a pedal to the metal drag race. It's a constant effort.

Endurance is really what is needed here. It's our Christian duty. Note that the command is a personal one. It means that the struggle is mine. It's not yours. My struggle with my faith is for me, yours for you.

And the target of all this effort is too large to be preached into a single message. So I'm going to distill it down to just a couple of things. What are we fighting for? What are we agonizing over? What's this constant effort focused on?

Conformity to the Image of Christ

Well, the first is obvious, isn't it? The image of Christ. To see Christ formed in us. This is the goal of God our father for everyone who is in his son. Romans 8 28. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

In order that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers. Conformity to that image is a present and active and continual effort for which all hazards are to be put at risk. You know, how do we find the image of Christ?

Say, okay preacher, I'm sold. I have to do this every day and constantly. Seek after him, after Jesus. Well, the gospels are the most accessible place to find this. Matthew 11 29. He called himself gentle and lowly in heart.

You want to be in Christ's image? You. Me. Be gentle. Be lowly in heart. Matthew chapter 9 verse 36. He had compassion on the crowds. So you. Saint. Me. Saint. Have compassion. Look to others needs. In Philippians 2, we find Christ's humility towards sinners presented as a model for our own behavior.

Not that we can save anyone. The point is Jesus' humility and how that brought him into glad compliance with his father's will. Peter tells us that his behavior during his passion is an example for our own.

He didn't revile when he was reviled. He didn't return cursing for cursing. He said, rather father forgive them. They know not what they do. That's the image of Christ. Very accessible. Very convicting.

Easy to grab onto. Easy to understand. Easy to take one at a time and say, I'll fight the good fight of being like Christ in this way. It doesn't even have to be something you think is deficient. Though compared to Christ, we're all deficient, are we not?

Just be something you want to do because you want to be more like Jesus in that way. You know, small wonder that the agonizing is this continual command because the second target of the fight is related to this.

We're in a never-ending struggle against something. What's our own sin? Our own desire to have our own way. For things to be easy. For things to fit our agenda. For my goals to be met. For my doctrines to take hold.

We're in this never-ending struggle against our own self. The ego. The pride that so easily jumps up, bites us, drags us back down. And there's much to guide us here and encourage us, really. Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians, he tells us to walk worthy of the gospel calling by which you were called.

Which is another claim the faith of Christ makes against your entire being. Were you called by Jesus Christ? Is your faith in him? Do you know that you were redeemed by his blood shed at the cross and that you believe this because God gave you faith to believe that?

Pardon me, and to repent. If so, Paul says the answer is simple. Walk worthy. Live your life worthy, consistent, in accord with those glorious truths. We don't have to take a blunderbuss approach where I tell you everything we do is wrong.

You got 14 things you need to do tomorrow. When you get those done by Wednesday, you better get the next 17 going. No. Just walk worthy of the gospel calling by which you were called. The image of Christ.

Find something in the gospel that Jesus did that just really impresses you. Not that everything shouldn't impress you, but just one thing that catches your fancy, catches your imagination. If it's in the gospel about Jesus, it's God's word to say, I'm going to be like that because I want Christ formed into me.

That's fighting the good fight. It is a good fight. Romans chapter 12 verse 2 has Paul insisting on something that is ever close to us. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.

What is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Conformity to the world is so much easier than conformity to Christ, just to get along. So he's speaking here of renewal of the very way we think.

I mean, how can this be? It isn't automatic. It's hard work. That's why Paul uses this continual command form of agonize, fight over it, struggle for it. It's written, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

We have the mind of Christ. Christ's spirit in every believer with the new heart he gave you. We have Christ's word in the scriptures that we all have in our hands and his Holy Spirit dwelling within us to open our eyes continually to this word.

With our eyes, with our bibles open, with our knees bent, with an attitude that with the psalmist meditates on the word day and night, one who agrees and says, great are the works of the Lord studied by all who delight in them.

This kind of work, it's hard work. It takes effort. It's hard work, but it's delightful work. And it's work which God has regard for because by that work, by prayer, by supplication, by study of his word, by determination to be more and more like Jesus, even in the simple ways that I've just suggested, there's a wonderful end to it.

Knowing by faith that God by that effort because of his spirit works good in us. Good in us for us in this while we sojourn on this world in these tents. Good for us because simply we know that God is pleased by it as we're more and more like his son.

It's a work. It's an effort. It's an agony that is worth the price. Remember we've just been reminded of just a little bit previous to this in the same book of 1st Timothy. Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

Contentment is far from the world's ways. I mean commercials are always showing us what toys and what luxuries we're missing. Malcontents spread the idea that if we haven't enough material goods, it's because we've been wrongly stripped of them by someone else.

We've been denied opportunities to gain them. Here's something to agonize towards. Here's a good fight. It's just what Timothy said or Paul said to Timothy in that very context. But if we have food and clothing with these we shall be content.

How so? With so little. The good fight of the faith looks and says because I serve a good God by faith and a wonderful savior, I know I am in his will and what I have is what he has ordained for me and that is enough.

But having that attitude, doing what Paul says here, being content in this way is a fight. It's a struggle. A constant never-ending agony. Paul calls it the good fight. If ever a fight was a good one, it's this.

It's the fight of the faith. J .C. Ryle has a whole list of reasons why it's a good fight. And I'll paraphrase these but I want to give credit to him because he's the basis for the next next few things I want to tell you about why it's a good fight.

Why the Good Fight Is Worth the Struggle

It is good because we serve the best of leaders. Ryle calls Jesus the best general. But as we said, fight is more from the athletic arena. So we could say we serve the best of trainers. He whose knowledge is perfect in everything.

As John wrote, he knows what is in a man. Our training regimen if we will but follow it is as it were custom made for each of us by the Lord himself. We serve the best of leaders. He would not lead us on a useless fight, but it's a good fight.

It's a good fight because our helper in it is none other than the Holy Spirit of God. Our helper is none other than the Spirit of God. And how well he knows us, it being he who implanted in us that new heart.

He teaches, he guides, he sheds glory on Christ. He leads us in his ways. He's grieved when we sin and he lets us know it like a like a good but not good like a perfect coach. He gives us what we can bear and each time we exit temptation with victory he gives Jesus the glory and our spirits the strength gained by the exercise.

Do you understand that? Each time we resist a temptation. It's the Holy Spirit who made us able to resist. It's the Holy Spirit then gives all the credit to Jesus Christ. And it's the Holy Spirit who then gives us the strength that we earned or gained I should say, not earned but gained from the exercise.

The fight is good because the promises we strive for are good promises. It's impossible that God should lie. And so it's impossible that his promises will ever be broken. And what kind of promises do we have?

I will never leave you or forsake you says our Lord Jesus. I will not leave you orphans but I will come to you. And did he not come to them who he spoke those words to and to us to whom he promised them?

Romans 8 29 I already mentioned we're promised that conformity to Christ's image is our destiny. It's God's will for us. It's a good fight because our leader will not lose a single one of us. No matter how intense our struggle, no matter how many times we fail in the struggle and have a harder time getting back into the fray, regardless of all that we have the victory and it's ours through Jesus Christ.

And he's the one who strengthens us because he's the one who gave us his spirit. He's the one who defeated sin and death at the cross. He's the one who gained the victory. And he will not lose any of us when we prevail.

He is the one by the working of the spirit who has won. It's what John Jesus said John chapter 10 beginning of verse 28. I give them meaning believers I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one. It's a good fight because Jesus won't let go of you. Between God the father and God the son there's no difference in their deity.

Their existence is one and the same as persons they are distinct and the will of the father and the will of the son are one. I spoke this morning in the psalm about God whose breath created everything that is from nothing that ever was.

That God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are one. That God says I will not leave you. I will not forsake you. You will not be orphans. Jesus said I will spend I'll send the helper to you the paraclete the come alongside one who pulls us along the way.

God the father gives those he has chosen to his son. Jesus his only begotten son takes us from his hand and redeems us by the cross and I want to dwell there for just a moment. Hebrews chapter 10 at verse 5 says consequently when Christ came into the world he said sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you meaning the father you have prepared for me meaning the son a body you have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said behold, I've come to do your will O God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. You see God who gives life to all things has decreed salvation for us and he has decreed it this way by the cross.

This is what Ephesians opens with. Ephesians 1 beginning at verse 2. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace by which he has blessed us in the beloved. That's the father's part.

Determining by name who he who will be brought before him holy and blameless. Those last two words moral purity describe moral purity and it answers the psalmist question. Oh Lord who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. And we can say well, who is that? It's everyone for whom Christ effectuated the father's will.

It's everyone for whom Christ died who took from the father's hand and redeemed and brought the father predestining us in love. Blessing us in the beloved. That's the father's part. And the Paul goes on in Ephesians to say in Christ Jesus we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of God the father's grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth.

It's by faith. Gave us faith not in the blood itself, but what God has said will be its effect. Atonement. And this is when we when we plead when we pray the blood of Jesus Christ. This is what it ultimately is.

The atonement that that blood won for us. Well, it's a good fight. It's an enduring fight. God willing it's one that we've all entered. We've we've gotten our bruises. We've gotten knocked around. Lord willing we've gotten up a few times prayed.

Ask God for strength to re-enter. There will be wounds as we fight this good fight. But the wounds are those of Christ Jesus our friend. He might bruise us. He might hurt us as we agonize over our sin as we confess as we repent.

And then bask again in the restoration that God gives when his children pray for forgiveness for their sin. Ask for strength to mortify it. The fight is a good one because it aligns us with the will of God the father who chose us.

The son who redeemed us. The spirit who regenerated our soul. It's a triune fight. It's a triune agony. It's a triune effort. As we follow the will of God the father's election. God the son's redemption.

And God the spirit's regeneration. It's a good struggle. We engage because our success is assured. First John chapter 5. Begin at verse 4. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world.

Our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God. Faith that he is God's only and eternal son who before time entered into covenant with the father to win those he desired.

Faith that in time he did at the cross where his where his suffering for our sins was powerful was effective to assuage the father's wrath to cleanse us and to purify us as his own special people. And finally this.

It's a good fight simply because God the Holy Spirit commands it. And the judge of all the earth will only and always do what is right and good for his people. We must ask ourselves how much or even if we fight the good fight.

Remember, it's a personal struggle. It's not meant as a call to arms or activism against the world. It's a call to arms and activism against ourselves. Timothy as a minister in Ephesus needed to remember all this as he dealt with the false teachers who had infected the church as well as the licentious society outside those walls.

And pastors like myself we have unique vulnerabilities not to sin. We're all vulnerable and stumble at many points. We're all the same in that way, but by the position of responsibility and public exposure.

We must keep that extra guard on our spirits for any number of reasons. All of us must. And the command is ultimately for us all. We take a position of spiritual oversight for me over the church, for some of you men over your families, for you mothers, over your children, for you singles in your daily communion with your brothers and sisters here.

Our first duty is to our own souls. To be sure that the holiness we would encourage in others has been first tried upon our own souls, our own selves. That we are indeed engaged in fighting that good fight.

Which gives us some ground, some footing to say I've seen God deliver. I've seen God pick me up off the floor and put me back into the struggle. And I've seen the good result of it. I can encourage you.

I can pray with you. I can guide you along too because I have been there. But as for you, oh man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith and may that be true for us all.

Amen. Please turn to hymn number 100. Prepare yourselves for the table. There is a fountain filled with blood. There's a mountain filled with blood drawn from a man well's veins. And sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all Their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stain. Lose all their guilty stain. And sinners plunge beneath that flood Their guilty stains. As he washed all my sins away. Washed all my sins away. Washed all my sins away. And there have I as vile as he washed all my sins away.

E 'er since by faith, I saw the stream thy flowing Wounds apply. Redeeming love has been my thing and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my thing.

And shall be till I die. Dear dying lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. Be saved to sin no more. Be saved to sin no more. Till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

Amen, please be seated. We'll come now to the Lord's table, the Lord's supper, the communion. There are three things we ask of those who would participate here. One is that you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That your trust is in the gospel that you have heard, preached, and lived out in this place. That your trust, your faith, your hope are in Jesus Christ. That's first. Second, we ask that you have been baptized upon profession of faith.

That you declared your faith to the church, your declaration, your testimony was heard And accepted and upon that You were baptized. And third, that you remember in good standing of a gospel church. A church that preaches the gospel, that administers the ordinances, that practices discipline.

So is your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you been baptized upon profession of faith? And are you remember good standing of a church and visiting here with us? If those be true of you We would invite you to partake with us.

So I will pray if the men would come up and help with the serving. Heavenly father. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this time that we've had together and now for this table before us. We pray father that you would Help us to partake in a manner worthy of the sacrifice that we hear remember.

The broken bread reminding us of the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the torture he endured on behalf of sinners. The fruit of the vine we have grape juice and wine before us father to remind us of the blood Spilled out the life that was poured out on behalf of the same sinners for whom his body was broken Lord as we meditate and Try to comprehend What he endured to redeem sinners like ourselves lord.

Equally incomprehensible to us is the love that sent him to the cross the love that planted it there before the foundation of the world. So may lord may we consider these things rightly? May we partake worthily?

May we rightly remember the Lord Jesus Christ and give you all the praise and glory and thanks for it as we partake. In Jesus name Amen.