The Noble Fight - [1 Timothy 6:11-16]

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You know, I wonder how many of us are familiar with our Protestant heritage, specifically in the last 125 years.
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We are familiar with names like J. Gresham Machen, B .B. Warfield, those kind of men.
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I want to talk to you for just a minute this morning about a man who was kind of hand -picked by Machen, but a little bit different.
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But it's interesting because he just died less than 10 years ago. We forget sometimes how really close the old days are.
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I'm speaking of Carl MacIntyre. And if you study the history of fundamentalism, by the way, how many of you have a positive view of fundamentalism?
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And I phrase it that way to, you know, for a point here.
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How many of you have a positive view of fundamentalism? I'm going to raise my hand because I do.
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You know, fundamentalism has taken a beating over the last decade or so. But Carl MacIntyre was an interesting guy.
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Because as I read and as I studied in the seminary class that I had, he was involved in just like denominational split after denominational split and just really, really interesting.
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He was involved in church trials. He and J. Gresham Machen were actually put on trial by a denomination.
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He was involved in civil lawsuits. And I would submit that he was a pretty good picture of the term fighting fundie.
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You know, we hear that. He engaged in political issues. I found this one interesting. He one time was so upset that New Jersey was trying to change its state constitution that on his radio show, he took a mother cat and her kittens and put them next to the microphone so all the noises they were making would go out over the air.
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And it was his way of mocking this whole change that was going on in New Jersey.
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He fought with the FCC over the Fairness Doctrine. And in 1970, when gay activists proposed a so -called
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Stonewall Nation in a county in Los Angeles, or a county in Central California, MacIntyre announced that he would counteract these gays moving into this area by having his followers move in there and they would outvote the gays.
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Well, neither one of them moved there, but this is the kind of guy he was. I mean, he was very involved in a lot of different issues.
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Now, when he died, this was in 2002, World Magazine, kind of a
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Christian worldview magazine, wrote of him, quote, a classic example of a brilliant and winsome man who chose his battles badly.
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Unyielding on petty issues, he divided where division was both unnecessary and costly to the very causes he championed.
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Too often, he seemed to love to fight more than the very valid issues over which the fights raged.
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Now, you know, was Carl MacIntyre a Christian? I think so. However, I would say that he did not always choose his battles wisely.
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There are times for us as Christians to take a stand, and there are ways to take those stands.
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And that's what we're going to talk about this morning. I would invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 6, 1
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Timothy chapter 6. We will be looking at verses 11 to 16 this morning, and it just kind of catches up where we are in the book.
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Paul wrote this letter, this epistle to Timothy, whom he really stationed, he assigned to be at the church at Ephesus.
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And Paul wanted to provide him guidance on how to lead a church, how to shepherd it, how to protect it from dangerous situations and dangerous people, especially from those who might outwardly seem like they were okay.
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They were well -suited possibly for ministry, but inwardly they were ravenous wolves.
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During the course of this epistle, Paul tackled many central issues, the gospel, the centrality of prayer and scripture in our public worship services, proper roles of men and women within the church, how to select godly leaders, and how to support them.
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And the last time I preached, here on a Sunday night a few weeks ago, we looked at really the dangers of arrogance and pride.
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Just to briefly summarize, and we'll get into it a little bit more, because we have to review in order to do this passage justice here this morning, but we looked at how conceit leads to spiritual blindness.
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Conceit also leads to stupidity and division. Conceit springs forth from greed.
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An antidote to conceit is contentment, being satisfied with what the Lord has provided. Now let's read our text this morning, verses 11 to 16.
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Paul writes, but as for you, O man of God, flee these things.
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Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.
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Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
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I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the
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King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.
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To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
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Now, this morning, as we walk through this text, I want to draw your attention to five motivations to fight.
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Five motivations to fight drawn from our text so that you will daily devote yourself to personal holiness and glorify the
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Lord with your life, how you think and how you act. Five lines in the sand, five reasons, you know, in the current vernacular, five reasons to throw down.
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Now, I'm not suggesting physical violence. But these are lines in the sand stands that you must take to both sanctify yourself and exalt the triune
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God who saved you. Our first motivation to fight. I guess
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I can call it fight against yourself, fight against personal sin, fight against personal sin.
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Two areas of this first to remember who you are. Look at verse 11. But as for you, oh, man of God, this is a contrast.
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Paul wants Timothy to understand that there's a contrast between what has gone before and how he is to live his life.
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In other words, he's done discussing these false teachers and he describes
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Timothy as. The man of God. Big contrast.
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Now, this phrase is fairly common in the Old Testament, men in leadership charged with responsibility,
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Moses and others would be called the man of God. And in this case. The difference
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Paul wants to illustrate or underline. Is the difference between the men of money, the men of greed, the men of corruption, the men of ill will, those who pursued wealth and played it, godliness contrast them with Timothy.
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They were fakes. They were frauds. They were charlatans. They had the wrong motivation. But Timothy wasn't like that.
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Timothy was Paul's beloved son in the faith entrusted with this great calling. That same term, and I don't want you to turn there, is used in Second Timothy 317.
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I'm going to read 16 and 17 familiar verses, but listen, and we're going to understand the scope of this idea of the man of God.
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All scripture is breathed out, inspired, breathed out. They announced us by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
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Now, do you think that phrase man of God applies only to Timothy? Of course not. It applies to every single
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Christian who's here this morning. You know, if you want, I'll change it to person of God.
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If that'll make you a little more comfortable. It applies to every
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Christian, and this principle is to flee wickedness, and it's every bit as applicable to anyone here as it was to Timothy.
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So first, you must remember who you are. Secondly, recognize temptation. Look again at verse 11.
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Flee these things. I don't want to just buzz by this, flee these things, just kind of rush by it.
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What are you supposed to flee? Again, this refers back to the previous section. First, you need to flee different doctrine and those who advocated heterodoxy as it's called.
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Look at verse three. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our
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Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he says when he says flee these things, he's talking about those kind of things.
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He's talking about fleeing false teaching, false doctrine. This is a practical matter.
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I would say to you that this would greatly undermine the notion of staying in a church or denomination to change it from the inside.
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Had a couple here a few weeks ago sent me an email and they said, you know, we want to stay where we are. How do we change the church?
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And I said, you know what? There's a reason the church is the way it is. It's because the leadership likes it and the people like it.
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You can stay there and try to change it. But as far as long as I've been a Christian, which 17 years,
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I don't know of anyone who has ever said, we're going to stay and we're going to change it. And then it's changed.
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So you need to flee false teaching, false teachers, and that would include, you know, your book collections, everything.
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You need to be Bereans. You need to be carefully discerning about doctrine. Secondly, you need to flee those who would fight over doctrinal fine points.
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Look at verse four. He talking about those who would do this sort of thing is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.
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He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words. You know, yesterday morning at the new members class, people were saying, well, you know, can we disagree with some of the stands the church has?
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And I said, yes, absolutely. You can do that. There are no penalties for that.
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What you cannot do is, you know, say, well, I disagree and then start recruiting people around you. That would be the wrong thing to do.
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But it is unhealthy. It is wrong to just kind of want to fight about the little finer points.
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You know, let's have a Wednesday morning men's meeting about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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Nobody cares. And it's not going to benefit anyone. We should also flee those who see the gospel as a means of profit.
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Look at verse five, the second half of it, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
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Christianity is not a profit centered organization. This is not what we do.
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These men in that time, they recognized what they had. They saw that they could make money if they could mislead people.
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And that's what they did. And today we have many people who do the same thing. Should also flee those who pursue wealth as an alternative to God.
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Look at verse 10 for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
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That's just obvious, those who are greedy, we need to flee those. We need to flee all these ideas. We need to run away from them.
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And obviously that's what it means to run away from something, but it also implies that you are to run from something for a very good reason, because it will do you harm.
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How often do we view sin in that way? How often in particular do we view bad doctrine in that way that this could be harmful to me?
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I pick up that bottle and it says poison, but I don't bother to read the label. And that's, that's the picture. It's harmful.
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Let me put it to you this way. If, if you knew, you know, if some mass murder were coming towards you, you would probably move away from him.
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It'd be my guess. You might even do so as I like to say with alacrity, you know, you might move with a little speed, with a little urgency.
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In fact, I would say that you would run as fast as you could in the opposite direction until you absolutely were a 100 % sure that you were safe.
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And that's the picture here. Flee isn't just like, oh yeah, okay. Take a couple of steps back.
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It is sprint. It is run the other way. John Owen and his book on the mortification of sin.
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I think that's the Monday morning men's meeting said this. Do you mortify? Do you put to death?
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Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it while you live. Cease not a day from this work, be killing sin, or it will be killing you.
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Need to flee it, run away from it. Not stand in his presence, not kind of say, well, you know,
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I'm going to entertain this for a while. Run. So our first reason to fight is to fight against personal sin.
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Our second is fight for personal holiness. It's not, this isn't just some kind of what he says, flee.
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It's not just some kind of mindless runaway with no other kind of idea in mind. In fact, the apostle has six attributes, attributes that you are to pursue six things that you are to run after.
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You run away from one thing that is sin and all these various sins that are listed here and you run towards something else.
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You pursue something else. In fact, that word pursue is kind of interesting because it can actually be used to harass someone.
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You know, we, we talk about these various laws these days where, you know, they have harassment laws and all these kinds of things.
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But how about this to harass someone, especially because of beliefs, persecute to follow in haste in order to find something that's more generic and nicer term that we're kind of having a picture in mind, but it gives you a sense of the urgency.
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Failing in any one of these six areas could cause Timothy to fail or at the very least leave him open to unfavorable comparisons with those false teachers.
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The ones who Paul told him to flee. So what are the six holiness attributes, if you were, or if you will, first righteousness, righteousness.
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One writer says this, he puts, he puts righteousness kind of in three categories, and I think this is helpful.
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First is it is an attribute of God. Now we can't obtain, we can't pursue
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God's perfection in terms of righteousness. So that's not what he has in mind.
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Secondly, the second kind of righteousness there is, there's a positional righteousness. We are in Christ.
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Those who are in Christ, we are positionally righteous. We're not perfect yet, but God looks at us and sees the righteousness of Christ.
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Well, we can't pursue that either. What he's talking about is practical righteousness. That is the pursuit of having a clear conscience of not being hypocritical in thought or deed.
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And as I considered that, I thought, you know, this is basically the same idea. Uh, when we discuss deacons and their qualifications in first Timothy, um, chapter three, verse nine, in describing deacons, listen to this.
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It says they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. That is not to say that deacons have to be perfect.
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Yeah, I think I just heard the deacons all exhale. It's not to say that they have to be perfect.
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What it means is that when they sin, they seek forgiveness from the
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Lord. They seek forgiveness from those that they've sinned against. It's keeping short accounts. Now consider the contrast again between the false teachers who loved money, who sought discord with this call to practice righteousness.
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They practice lawlessness. They practice licentiousness. They wanted to please themselves.
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Paul here is calling Timothy to pursue righteousness. You need to pursue righteousness.
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Second godliness, which means an awesome respect. According to God, devoutness, piety.
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You are to live every moment of every day in light of who God is. Instead of the brashness, the arrogance, the conceit, the people who consist, who insisted on having all the attention.
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Godliness is a reverential attitude. One that is focused on putting the Lord first in all things.
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Our third pursuits. Second was godliness. Third faith. This is an unshakable faith, not, not just belief because the presumption would be here that Timothy was a
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Christian. And if you're a Christian, you don't pursue faith in the sense that just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is the idea that no matter how bad the circumstances are, no matter what winds blow against you, you remain steadfast.
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You are not shaken by these things. Imagine the difficulties that Timothy faced by some at the church at Ephesus.
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He would have been seen as too young by others, probably too timid.
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By others, he was just too nice, especially when you compared him with all these flashy guys running around teaching false doctrine.
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He was going to be challenged by false teachers and by false teaching constantly. They were going to see what he was made of.
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Now, this is just like any ministry, and I would submit for any of you, there are going to be times of great joy in the
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Christian life. There are going to be times when you're going to see people come to faith in Christ, where you're going to see people's lives transformed.
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You're going to see them repent. And there are going to be times of great discouragement, despair.
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There are probably some of you here this morning that are discouraged, despairing. But listen to this from Hebrews 13, verses 5 and 6.
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Don't turn there. I'm just going to read it. I will never, this is the Lord speaking, he says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
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So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?
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That's the picture of faith here. That's the idea. It's that confidence, that certainty that the
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Lord will guard your heart in the most difficult of circumstances. You must work on that.
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Just reliance upon God in all circumstances. Fourth, fourth pursuit is love.
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These false teachers, they pursued money. And that was the natural expression. That was the natural outworking of what they believed.
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That was the natural outworking of their sinful urges. But the believer needs to pursue genuine love, selfless love for others.
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As believers, you are commanded to love God and to love others as yourself, especially those of the household of God.
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In fact, if I were to, we talk about having priorities. Christ must come first. Then what's second?
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We have to take care of those in your own household. And then it's the church.
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And sometimes you can be closer. And we know this. You can be closer to the people in the church than those in your own household because you have more in common with them.
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But there needs to be that love. And we need to be pursuing that. Fifthly, steadfastness can be defined as the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty, patience, endurance, fortitude, perseverance, similar to faith.
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But listen, imagine if Timothy was to kind of fly off the handle when difficulty came.
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Suppose he was a man who folded in the face of adversity.
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Much of this book, 1 Timothy, was written to encourage him in what was going to be a difficult situation.
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I would say this, if we could kind of get one of the sub themes here, it would be,
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Timothy, don't be a wimp. Christianity is not a religion for wimps.
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But it's not an arrogant faith either. This is just a call from Paul to put some titanium in your spine.
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Somewhere in your life, whether it's at school, at work, any number of places.
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In fact, for some of you, it may be in your homes. Your faith will be tested. Someone will push you just to see if you can take it.
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And your calling is to handle it with grace. That's the idea here. To let the attack pass over you.
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And you don't know. You don't know what the ultimate outcome of this is going to be. Sometimes somebody will attack you and the end result will be what?
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The Lord will use your response to turn the heart of your opponent. I think of my own life and the number of times that I attacked with great sarcasm and vitriol the man who would eventually preach the gospel to me and I would believe.
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You don't know what God will do with your reaction. I can promise you if you blow up, he's not going to bless that.
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If it's circumstances that are difficult and not people, the end is the same.
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The trials will come, but you are not to bend to them. That's what steadfastness is.
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Sixth. Sixth pursuit. Gentleness. Gentleness. Again, consider the contrast with the false teachers who, looking back at 1
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Timothy 6, verses 4 and 5, produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions.
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And constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.
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Don't be like that. Instead, pursue gentleness. It is restraint, but not a restraint born of weakness.
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In fact, it can be defined this way. Gentleness is power under control of your master.
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Think about that. I'm gentle. Why is that? Because God is my master.
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I'll do what he commands me to do. So let's turn all six of these into adjectives and see if you'd like these on your spiritual resume.
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Would you like on judgment day for God to say these things about you? That you were righteous, godly, faithful, loving, steadfast, and gentle?
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I would. First reason to fight against personal sin.
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Second, fight for personal holiness. And our third reason to fight. Fight for the truth.
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Fight for the truth. Look at verse 12. Fight the good fight of the faith.
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Literally, it's agonize the good agony of the faith. As the false teachers had in verse 10 wandered away from the faith, that is from the objective truth of the gospel from the word of God, you are to fight for the objective truth.
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This is a call for doctoral dogmatism, an unyielding nature when it comes to central truths of Christianity, non -negotiables, or dare
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I say, fundamentals. Fundamentals of the faith. Being a fundamentalist isn't a bad thing when you're talking about things like this.
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The deity of Christ. Someone says, well, I don't necessarily believe that he was God. Well, I don't necessarily believe you're a
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Christian because you're not. The virgin birth of Christ, that is a non -negotiable.
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We can't just somehow say, well, you know, it's not really that important. It's vital. Without it,
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Jesus would have us in nature. That is not a matter of debate or discussion. The Bible declares it.
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It is true. And it's not something that we can negotiate away. Inerrancy of scripture.
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In other words, there are no errors in scripture. Not one. That doesn't mean there can't be an error in translation, by the way.
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That means the original manuscripts are absolutely perfect without error. The full inspiration of scripture, that is, that it is breathed out by God.
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These are non -negotiables because once you start saying, well, you know what? I think men made this up.
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Or maybe, you know, men added this or took that away or what have you. What you wind up with is some kind of.
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Bart Ehrman, and you guys don't even know who he is, but you wind up with some bogus idea and you, you just run away from the faith like he has.
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Non -negotiable. Existence of everlasting punishment. Quite a debate these days. But if Jesus said it, that's all we need.
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There are, these are all areas that the church has to one extent or another over the last century compromised. And there are many, many more.
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We could sit around probably raising our hand for half an hour about all the compromises that the church has allowed to go on.
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And you say, well, isn't that just for pastors and theologians and my message to you this morning is no, that's for wannabe theologians too.
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So you can feel welcome. J .C. Ryle said this.
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He said, it is a fight of absolute necessity. Think not that in this war, you could remain neutral and sit still.
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Such a line of action may be possible in the strife of nations. In other words, in war. But it is utterly impossible in the conflict, which concerns the soul.
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The boasted policy of non -interference, the masterly inactivity, which pleases so many statesmen, the plans of keeping quiet and letting things alone.
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All of this will never do in the Christian warfare. Look, I'm all for compromise.
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Okay, I'm not. Well, we can compromise on the color of the curtains, the carpet.
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We can compromise on the bathroom fixtures. Although I would like nicer ones in the new building. But every believer here must earnestly contend for the once for all delivered faith.
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For just a moment, I'd like you to turn to Matthew chapter seven. And of course, this chapter starts with the unbeliever's favorite verse, judge not.
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We're going to zero in on verses 15 to 20, Matthew chapter seven. Jesus speaking, really preaching the
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Sermon on the Mount. He says this, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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Familiar words, you will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
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So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the disease tree bears bad fruit.
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A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruits, nor can a disease tree bear good fruits.
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Every tree that does not cut. I'm sorry, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. A lot of trees, a lot of fruits.
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What's he really talking about? The keys right in the beginning where the false prophets do.
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They are the trees that don't produce good fruits.
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Whereas a healthy tree, those who teach the truth cannot bear bad fruit.
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False teachers produce error and false converts.
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Biblical teaching, sound doctrine produces good fruits. True disciples striving after godliness.
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Doctrine doesn't matter. Well, I don't know. It mattered to Jesus. It mattered to him. He spent time talking about it.
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The truth matters. Truth transforms. I don't know how many more radio programs I can get into this thing.
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It matters. We need to take a stand for it. Go ahead and go back to first Timothy.
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Now, I can think of many occasions when, if the people in the pew of the people of the church had stood up for sound doctrine, if they had fought for the truth, if they had defended the pastor who was proclaiming the truth, the man of God, the
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Timothy of their church who faithfully proclaimed the truth would not have been run out of the church.
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Beloved, you are called to take a stand, to fight for the truth.
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Our fourth reason to fight. You must fight for your grip on eternal life. Look at verse 12 again.
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Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called. Now, is Paul inviting Timothy to be saved?
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You know, saying, I mean, it is kind of oddly phrased as he's saying, look, you were called way back when, you know, before eternity passed.
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And now it's time for you to finally act like a Christian, to finally take hold of it and believe.
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That verb, take hold of, can imply violence. It can also mean to make something one's own.
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And I think that's what he means is Paul is telling Timothy to take possession of it, to take ownership of it, to make it yours.
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Here, just Timothy and I urge you to live in the light or in the fullness of God's promise of eternal life.
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It is not as some fear that we're merely stuck living forever. You know, that's not eternal life.
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Eternal life is a great life. It is eternity without pain, suffering, flee from the power and presence of sin in the presence of our
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Lord Jesus Christ with him always. This is the longing of our hearts. This is a great thing, but it's easy in the midst of difficulty.
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And Timothy was going to have a lot of difficulty. It's easy to lose sight of that. It's easy to kind of let go of this idea of eternal life and just kind of let go of the hope that goes with it.
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We need to seize that. And that's what he's calling him to for you this morning.
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When the bills stack up, when the relationships sour, when children stray, when parents are ill, do you struggle to keep those things in perspective in light of your possession of eternal life?
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Friends, salvation isn't the end of your Christian life. It is the beginning. Look again at verse 12.
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Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
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Now we do the same thing here. Someone is baptized and that's the idea here.
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This isn't his entering the ministry. This isn't an ordination.
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This is his baptism. We do the same thing here. Someone is baptized and we invite them to give their testimony before the congregation.
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It's a good confession. Now look, it says that you were called. That's passive.
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And the language is reflective again of the sovereign call of God and salvation. He's saying, remember when you were baptized.
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Remember that calling. Remember how you made the good confession in front of it, seize that, hold onto that.
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That same joy, that same love. Now that good confession,
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I'm gonna skip ahead just a little bit. The good confession would be something along the same lines that Jesus made.
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And we would see this in verse 13 that Jesus made before Pontius Pilate. Don't turn there, but in John 18, 37,
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Jesus said this to Pilate. Or Pilate asked him, so you are a king?
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And then Jesus answered, you say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born. And for this purpose,
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I have come into this world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
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One man wrote this. He said, Jesus declared and defended the truth of God's redemptive purpose, even though he knew he would be delivered to be crucified.
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That's what he did. He said, you're right, I am a king and I'm here with a purpose.
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Timothy would have made a similar profession. Romans 10, nine says what? That if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, or if you profess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is
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Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's the idea, that he would have done that, made that kind of confession.
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He would have professed him as both savior and Lord, identifying himself with Christ publicly.
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That is the good confession. Even as I was thinking about that,
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I'm going, what is he really trying to say? It's like when David repents, I mean, it's the same thing. In the midst of difficulty, in the midst of trial, in the midst of sin, what is it you always want?
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I want to be restored to the joy of my salvation. That initial moment where I just thought,
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I can't believe that the God of the universe would save me, that he would forgive me of all my sins.
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That's an amazing concept. And it is that that gives us such great strength in the times of difficulty.
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So our first reason to fight against personal sin. Second, to fight for personal holiness.
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Third, to fight for the truth. Fourth, fight for your grip on eternal life. Take hold of it, seize it.
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Live it out, live in light of that hope. And our fifth reason to fight is to fight for your king.
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Paul now gives Timothy this, really the ultimate motivation for faithfulness in ministry.
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And your ultimate motivation for a faithful walk, faithful service in the local church. Look at verse 13.
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This is a solemn, solemn charge. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.
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This is courtroom language. It is a command. He says, I charge you, and he's giving him a definite duty.
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But look at what he's doing. He's saying, he's calling in witnesses, and the witnesses are no less than the first and second persons of the
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Trinity. And this is a lifelong charge. Look at verse 14.
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To keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, every Christian, every Christian should devote themselves to a life marked by perfect obedience.
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That is the nature of what Paul charges Timothy to do. To be unstained means to be without fault or defect, to be of the highest quality.
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To be free from reproach means strictly not to be laid hold of, to be untouchable as it were.
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That there's no reproach against you, that nothing can be, you know, that when things are thrown against the wall, they don't stick.
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So you're sitting there and you're going, well, I can't do that for a day. Perfect until the
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Lord returns? It's impossible. It was impossible for Timothy too.
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What would that cause him to do? What should it cause us to do if we think I have to be perfect? There are two responses.
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One would be to say, I can't be perfect and therefore I'm not going to try. The other one is to fight.
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And how do we engage in such a fight? We cry out to the Lord for sustaining grace.
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God, I can't do this. Help me. Saints don't give up.
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They look up. They rely on the God of their salvation. You have to fight for your sovereign king.
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Look at verse 15. He's sovereign over the second coming, which he will display at the proper time talking about the return, the appearing of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. We don't know the hour. No one knows. What we do know is that the
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Lord will return exactly when the sovereign king has determined he should return. You have to live in anticipation that he could return at any moment.
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And I'm always hoping that he will. I hope that he'd come this morning before I preached. I'm hoping that he comes tomorrow morning before we close.
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Anything, anything in comparison to the return of Christ is meaningless.
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It's nothing. He could return at any moment.
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And yet we have to prepare as if it won't happen in our lifetimes. What we don't do is we don't sell all we have, rent buses and drive through, you know, major metropolitan towns saying that the world is coming to an end.
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Instead, we live in a constant state of hope. God is also sovereign over all rulers.
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Look at verse 15. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and Lord of lords.
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Others mere mortals. We could think of Nebuchadnezzar and others have wanted this title for themselves.
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But ultimately there is only one deserving of the title. Listen to Revelation 17, 14.
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I could read other places, but listen to this. They will make war on the lamb and the lamb will conquer them for he is the
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Lord of lords and king of kings. And those with him are called and chosen and faithful.
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He wins, he always wins. He's the lamb, but he is the Lord of lords and king of kings.
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Who but God, who but God can always and ever do whatever he pleases, whenever he pleases.
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Men like to fancy themselves as being able to do this. They like to be able to act as if they're without restraint, as if there's no controlling power, but they take their next breath by the grace of God.
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It is God who sets up kings and takes them down. How can any mere man pretend to be the king of kings and the
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Lord of lords? You must fight for your immortal king. Look at verse 16.
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Who alone has immortality? He gives life to everyone. It said earlier in the passage, but look at that who alone has immortality.
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When you say you sit there and you go, wait a minute, I'm going to live forever. Well, we will live forever, but our life, our eternal life is dependent upon a source.
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God alone is immortal, eternal, without beginning or end by his nature.
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It's one of his attributes. The Greek word is the exact opposite.
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The Greek word for immortal is the exact opposite of something that would be subject to death.
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It's got an alpha privative in front of it. And basically it just means that he cannot be immortal. He's subject to death.
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What or who else is not subject to death? Nothing and no one.
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It is one of those incommunicable attributes of God that we cannot fully grasp. How could something always have existed and always exist and never change, never lose any of his power?
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This is God. You must also fight for your unapproachable king.
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Look at verse 16, second part of it. Who dwells in unapproachable light.
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Listen to what Stott says. He says, darkness in any shape or form, whether falsehood or evil cannot enter his presence, let alone overcome him.
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Think about it. It's just light. Everything around him is light, incomprehensible light.
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When we say that someone is unapproachable, you know, if it's in your annual evaluation or whatever at work, that's not a good thing, right?
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It means that he's unfriendly. It means that you're standoffish.
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People can't get to know you. But with God, it means that no one can approach him.
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No one can approach him whom he does not permit to approach him. The light, if we went outside and we tried to look at the sun today, you know, some of the more foolish of us could probably do it for a second or two, but eventually we would have to turn away.
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And if we understand God's brightness, his light is infinitely more bright than the sun itself.
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If we understand that, that we would understand in part how bright God is, how light he is.
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Psalm 104 says this, Oh my soul, oh Lord, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment.
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Kistenmacher says like a dwelling conceals its occupants and hides them so that we can't see them from the outside.
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And even more so if it's unapproachable, like say some kind of fortress or something like that. So God's very essence by virtue of what it is conceals him.
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In other words, he's surrounded by light and because he's light, he is completely inapproachable.
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You must fight for your invisible king. Verse 16 again, whom no one has seen or can see.
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God, the father of spirit, those who will worship or worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. We know that Moses could only see the shadow, the glory, the remainder of his glory.
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I mean, he didn't see God. It's impossible. He is invisible.
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You must fight for your glorious king. Verse 16 again. And finally, to him be honor and eternal dominion.
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Amen. This is pure praise. Paul's just got finished describing this great
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God, all of these attributes. And when he considers the greatness of God, he writes a doxology.
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Only God is worthy of this praise forever. And it is a familiar phrase in the New Testament. Revelation 5 .13
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says this. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.
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For all eternity, we, as part of this, every creature will sing his praises. Why here?
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Why is Paul writing this here? Why is Paul bursting forth in praise to God near the end of this letter to Timothy, where he's writing him on how to run a church?
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I think it's just a reminder of the greatest motivation for this man of God to be reminded of the greatness of God.
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When we, when you, when you think about how great he is, who he is, when you consider all that he is and you think this great
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God redeemed me, that's motivation. That's something to fight for. If you've been struggling with some sin or another, this is motivation for you to flee it.
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This is motivation for you to draw lines in the sand, to fight for the truth.
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Now, as Christians, we don't want to be known as fighters. I mean, when
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I die, I hope they don't write something like that about me in a world magazine that I picked my fight stupidly. However, there are lines that we must draw, retreats that we cannot make.
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There are struggles in which we must engage in your own hearts and minds as you struggle with temptation.
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As you live out daily, this war that's going on, you must fight against personal sin, fight for personal holiness.
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And then as you walk, as you live, as you work in this sin -filled world, among sinful people, you must fight for the truth.
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Fight for your grip on eternal life. Remember that you've been bought with a price and the joy of that.
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You must fight for your King. Let me just close with this from J .C. Ryle. He says, it is a fight of perpetual necessity.
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It admits of no breathing time, no armistice, no truce on weekdays as well as on Sundays, in private as well as in public, at home by the family fireside as well as abroad, in little things like the management of tongue and temper as well as in great ones like the government of kingdoms.
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The Christian's warfare must unceasingly go on. The foe we have to do, the foe we have to do with keeps no holidays.
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He never slumbers and never sleeps. So long as we have breath in our bodies, we must keep on our armor.
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And remember, we are on the enemy's ground. Even on the brink of Jordan, in other words, even on the edge of heaven, said a dying saint,
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I find Satan nibbling at my heels. We must fight this fight, the good fight, the noble fight until the date we die.
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Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, you are a great
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God indeed, even as we read this morning of all your attributes, of all your glorious natures.
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Father, we are but dust. We fail daily to flee sin as we should, to pursue righteousness as we should, to stand up for truth as we should, to remember the joy of our salvation as we should, and even to proclaim the truths about you that we know.
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Father, I pray that you would forgive us more than that, that you would encourage us, that you would enable us by your grace to daily take up our cross, to put
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Christ first, to think about how we might serve our great King today, today, tomorrow, every day until he returns.