What are We Fighting For?
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Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It continues to be a great privilege to steward the pulpit of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church for the glory of God and the edification of His people.
One of my favorite Christmas movies is the classic “White Christmas.” Cassidy and I watch it together every year. Truth be told, this year we started it too late and I think I fell asleep. Nonetheless I’ve seen it enough times to remember most of it. One of the highlights in the movie is when the group surprises their old army general with a bit of a Christmas, homecoming party. Captain Bob Wallace goes on the Ed Harrison variety show to invite the entire 151st division to join Bob in Pine Tree, Vermont as a special gift for General Waverly. On Christmas Eve, the soldiers surprise General Waverly at the show with another rousing chorus of "The Old Man", bringing him to tears.
The song goes as follows,
“Because we love him, we love him
Especially when he keeps us on the ball
And we'll tell the kiddies we answered duty's call
With the grandest son of a soldier of them all”
It’s a very endearing scene as you watch the stiff Old General tear up at the sight of the men he once led. Now I know this is a fictional movie, but it illustrates the bond that is created when people fight together on the same side. General Waverly may have been the leader, but his men loved him and that bond was forged on the field of battle.
I can almost imagine the recipient of the letter we have been looking at for the last two weeks, Timothy, expressing a similar sentiment towards Paul, the author of this letter. Through the recordings in Acts and the letter to Timothy, we see that these two had a fond, mentor like relationship. We have already seen in 1 Timothy that Paul calls Timothy his “true child in the faith.” Later in life, Paul will refer to Timothy as his “fellow worker” Throughout the years of service for the Kingdom of God a friendship was forged.
What I want us to see as we begin out study of God’s Word this morning, is that when we fight together, we grow together. We recognize that in examples like that of Captain Wallace and General Waverly. There are men in this room this morning who know better than I could describe the bond that comes from serving together in the military. Once more, I thank you for your service and sacrifice for our country and securing the very freedom we enjoy to gather together this morning.
I don’t want to diminish the experience of our veterans, but I do want to open all of our eyes to the fact that we are all actively participants in spiritual warfare. Militaristic language is used all throughout the New Testament because the reality is, we are soldiers at war.
When we survey the bond between Paul and Timothy, we see that fighting together for the glory of God brought them together.
You may have heard of putting on the armor of God before.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Paul then foes on to describe the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, gospel boots, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
The armor of God is an important topic that warrants proper exposition at a later date, but I wanted to draw our attention to something that we may have looked over in this section in the past. The entire section is written in the PLURAL. Meaning Paul isn’t just telling one of the Ephesians to do it, he’s tell all of the Ephesians to do. This text isn’t just for ME, its for US! Why does this matter? Well, what does it mean if a group of people are putting on the same uniform to fight against the same enemy? It means that we are fighting together! Paul says put on the whole armor of God so that YALL may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Look to your right and your left. If that person beside you knows Christ as Lord then they are your brother in arms, your fellow worker. And if perhaps they do not yet know Christ as Lord, then dear Christian perhaps God has placed you beside them to lead their recruitment!
As we begin to look at our text today, we do so with the shared understanding the church is the barracks in which we find our respite from battle and are equipped to serve TOGETHER.
If you have not already, open your bibles to the book of 1 Timothy. Today as we have walk through the final three verses of chapter 1, we see one of the primary spiritual battles we fight in this world, how we are equipped to fight it, and what happens when people we thought were our fellow soldiers fail to fight.
Let’s begin in verse 18.
This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,
Let’s look at this first in the specific situation for Timothy and then apply it us today.
In this verse see Paul, like a general, giving a charge or command to his Captain Timothy. The specific command has already been explained for us in verse 3 of this chapter. Paul is commanding Timothy to clean up and disallow false teaching in the church at Ephesus.
Then we see this odd phrase, “in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them (those prophecies) you may wage the good warfare,”
We have to pause to consider what these prophecies are. W. E. Vines explains, “Prophetic utterances were among the gifts ministered by the Holy Spirit in the churches in apostolic times until the Scriptures were completed. What was uttered in those times came by immediate revelation from God.” And if you make a note to reference 1 Timothy 4:14, you will see that Paul is referring to a special occurence meant to confirm Timothy’s fitness for ministry and commission to serve the early church. Paul is reminding Timothy, God has called you for this purpose and so in accordance with God’s calling, wage the good warfare! We aren’t given all of the details that surround Timothy’s ordination for ministry, but it is abundantly clear that Timothy was called, prepared, and equipped for the task of preaching the gospel and dispelling false doctrinal influences from the church.
From understanding Paul’s specific message to Timothy, we can gather 3 practical implications for ourselves today:
Doctrine matters. In the beginning of this verse, Paul reminds Timothy that Timothy has been entrusted with the charge to not allow false teachers to continue to influence the church. Why? Why did they have to stop this? Why couldn’t they just keep the peace? Why did Timothy have to rock the boat? Because as on commenter put it, “These men were mingling strange and incongruous elements with their teaching of the Gospel. Because of their irrelevance and variance from the Gospel these elements might easily become hostile to it. By mingling with it elements that were foreign to its essential nature they were in reality changing the whole character of the Christian teaching. Doctrine inconsistent with the nature of the Gospel becomes false doctrine.” In short, by changing the gospel, they were no longer preaching the gospel, and nothing other than the gospel is of value, because nothing other than the gospel can save! Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried and raised on third day. All in Christ by grace through faith therein shall be made alive. That is salvation and salvation is accomplished by Christ alone. As a church, we must stand against anyone and any teaching that suggests any addition, subtraction, or substitution from the gospel of Jesus Christ. This plays out by understanding we are in the covenant of grace, not works. We let people know that we cannot earn our way to heaven. We let people know that baptism as an act cannot save you. We let people know that Jesus didn’t promise health and wealth today but glory for eternity. If any of that mess starts creeping up into this pulpit, our classrooms, or community groups, we all have the duty to address it and correct it! Doctrine matters.
This brings us to the second application from this verse. You might be thinking, pastor Brad, who am I to address such things? I’m not Timothy. I’m not ordained nor was there any sort of prophecy given about me at my non existent ordination. True. I grant you that. However, while we likely don’t have a specific prophetic moment like at Timothy’s ordination, we do have a prophecy of sorts. Ephesians 2:10 reads “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” All those saved by the grace of God through Faith in Christ have been saved to accomplish good works set before them. It is good to cling to pure teaching and reject the bad. Each of us will give an account for our lives, for how we have stewarded this life the Lord has given us, and so we must understand that we are all have the responsibility to reject false teaching.
Which brings us to the third application from this verse. we are fighting for sound doctrine. Paul tells Timothy that he may wage the good warfare. That is fight the good fight. As we have said in the introduction this morning, dear Christian, you are in a fight. You are soldiers in a war. We are fighting in a fight that worthy to be fought. We are to, like Timothy, wage war, but we do so from the position of the victor. It’s a mind-boggling and amazing place to be in, we are both fighting and victorious simultaneously. The assurance of our victory should not cause us to relax in efforts but to press on even more!
There is a hymn we sing sometimes that encapsulates this idea. Listen to the first and last verse of this song:
Stand up, stand up for Jesus
ye soldiers of the cross;
lift high his royal banner,
it must not suffer loss.
From vict'ry unto vict'ry
his army he shall lead
till ev'ry foe is vanquished
and Christ is Lord indeed.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
the strife will not be long;
this day the noise of battle,
the next, the victor's song.
To him that overcometh
a crown of life shall be;
he with the King of glory
shall reign eternally.
It is not that Christ needs us as if we are His missing piece to finally win the war, but rather Christ has invited us to join Him in singing the Victor’s Song out of His grace. So dear Christian, put on the armor of God and prepare for battle, you are not alone, we are in this together. How then are we equipped for this fight? Look with me to our next verse
holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,
the playbook for waging the good warfare is twofold: holding faith and a good conscience.
“The only way in which Timothy will stay ready for the fight is by persevering in faith and a good conscience—which means that he must trust in Christ (“faith”) and obey his word (“good conscience”).”
We should see here that waging the good warfare is done by right “belief” and right “practice.”
Faith is the complete gospel, the pure doctrine and knowledge of Jesus Christ and God. In dealing with false teachers, Timothy must be certain of truth and hold on to it and not be pulled into error. Scripture makes it clear that here and now there are somethings that we will not fully understand. There are a lot of theologians much smarter than myself with varied opinions on the end times. There are different views on the process of church membership. But there are somethings that are so absolutely clear in Scripture that we must not even tolerate any debate. That is to say if someone denies one of these, they should not call themselves Christians, at least not in any biblical meaning of the Word.
Allow me to give you 7 non-negotiable:
The Bible is God’s Word, written by men and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is infallible and without error.
There is one true God and Creator of all things, eternally existing in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and are of one divine essence known as the Trinity.
Jesus Christ is God, the only begotten Son, the living Word become flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin. Therefore, He is fully God and fully man.
Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to provide the way of salvation by living a sinless life.
Jesus atoned for the sins of all those who believe in Him by dying on the cross as their substitute.
The resurrection of Jesus on the third day assures believers of their own eternal life.
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It is completely and totally a work of God’s free grace and mercy and in no way involves human works, goodness, or religious ceremony.
I wouldn’t say that that this list is exhaustive of what the Bible teaches, I pulled these statements as a small collection from our church’s own statement of basic belief, but I would say that these 7 truths are non-negotiable for keeping the faith regardless of denomination or particular preference. These are also the foundational truths upon which the rest of our doctrine is built and flows from.
Remember Paul told Timothy wage good warfare by holding the faith. That is in essence believing in and not deviating from the Truth of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our reading of Scripture informs our view of the Trinity. Our view of the trinity informs our view of Jesus’ Divinity. Our view of Jesus’ divinity informs our view of His sinless nature. Our view of His sinless nature informs our view of His atonement. Our view the atonement informs our view that we are saved by grace through faith with nothing to add of our own accord which informs our view of resurrection and the assurance of eternity with Christ in glory. We can have debates over the best way to baptize, which is immersion by the way, but we can’t debate any of that and call ourselves Christian, at least not Christians that are holding the faith.
To be holding faith is to be entrusting Christ as your salvation. So then let us explore what it means to hold a “good conscience.” This is exactly what it sounds like. It refers to a person’s internal witness to their own behavior, the guilt over wrongdoing and the satisfaction of choosing right over wrong. We shouldn’t be getting our worldview from Children’s stories, but I can’t help but think of ole Jiminy Crickets from Pinocchio. If you haven’t seen it, Pinocchio is a puppet and because he is not a real boy, he relies on a talking Cricket to be his conscience, to guide him in right and wrong. However, we aren’t puppets. We’re humans and thus we all have an internal conscience. We know when we’ve done right and wrong—for the most part.
We have to be careful here when talking about the conscience. I don’t want to be misconstrued this morning. I am not saying that if something feels “good” that it is good. In our flesh, our hearts are deceitful above all things. If you survey the book of Hebrews, you’ll see in chapters 9 and 10, that before knowing Christ our conscience is unclean and evil.
So then, how are we to have a “good” conscience? If we can’t trust our hearts then how should we know what should sit well with us and what we should seek forgiveness for? It goes back to the same answer we had for the Children’s Question this morning. The Bible tells me so. We are to prove our conscience by the Word of God. We can look to God Word and see the things that should sit well with us and the actions we must reject. I know I say this often, but if you really want a simple guide for how to live a godly life, memorize and internalize Colossians 3. In that chapter you’ll see what your focus should be on, what fleshly desires need to be put to death, what virtues you should be praying for and cultivating, what the unity in the church should look like, what a christian family looks like, and how you should act at work. That’s a whole lot of good instruction to use as a life guide in just 25 verses.
As we grow in our affection for God’s Word, He will work through His Word and direct our conscience.
Waging the good warfare, holding faith and good conscience is done by right “belief” and right “practice.” Both are found in and directed by the Word of God.
But what happens when someone goes off of God’s Word? What happens when our conscience is not good or someone’s faith is in something other than the Christ made known in the Word of God? Read with me verses 19 and 20.
holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Here is what happens when those we believe to be our fellow soldiers fail to fight. When they reject holding firmly to the faith or living with a good conscience approved by God’s Word, they make a shipwreck of their faith.
Once more, let’s peal back the specifics before making application. Paul gives the example of Hymenaeus and Alexander. Those names may not stick out to us in this moment, but Timothy would have been well aware of them. Hymenaeus’ error is shown in 2 Timothy chapter 2:17-18. His failure was doctrinal. He drifted into a heresy that the final resurrection had already happened. This was understandably upsetting for many with the right hope for resurrection to come. Hymenaeus’ “creative” ideas caused dissension in the church. Alexander may have been infected by the same delusion, but it’s uncertain what exactly was the offense. But what is clear is that either their conduct or theology, and most likely a combination of the two had caused them to be such an offense to the church that they were to be excommunicated. They were put under church discipline. To be handed over to Satan is a phrase that is also used in 1 Cor 5 and it refers to someone who’s behavior has so grossly impacted the church that they are removed from membership and to be separated from the grace that is the local church until they renew their repentance.
Allow me to share some considerations on church discipline. First of all, we see from this example in 1 Timothy, the example of 1 Corinthians 5, and the instruction of Christ in Matthew 18, that church discipline has a place in the church. It may make us uncomfortable to think about, it may not sit well with us. In fact, it is good that we do not delight in discipline. No good father takes joy in correcting their children and handing out appropriate punishment, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary. So we first need to understand that discipline does have a place in the church. But then we need to understand that discipline is ultimately restorative! The intention is not to denigrate the offender. The intention is to renew their repentance. Look at the end of verse 20. Paul “handed [them] over to Satan, THAT THEY MAY LEARN NOT TO BLASPHEME.” Paul’s desire is for Hymenaeus and Alexander to come to repentance! He doesn’t want to see folks going off the deep end. He wants them to come back into the fold! Discipline is designed to be restorative, should someone that we have sorrowfully had to remove from membership, walk back through the doors seeking to make amends and worship together, we wouldn’t give them the side eye! We’d run to embrace! Discipline is restorative. One final consideration for discipline. Discipline is not to be used frivolously. When you survey the New Testament you will find many examples of admonishment. You will see that the church is a place where we are called to correct one another in love. This should not be a place where we are comfortable living in unrepentant sin. At the same time, unless my count is wrong, there are only two specific instances of excommunication. One here in 1 Timothy and the other in 1 Corinthians. At the same time, throughout the epistles the apostles give many corrective instructions to the churches. What does this mean? It means that discipline is only in response to obvious and ongoing sin from which a person refuses to repent despite multiple exhortations.
Discipline isn’t a tool for a church to abuse to get rid of someone they don’t like. We are told in Colossians to bear with one another, that is to put up with one another. Discipline is also not something we do in response to simple disagreement on secondary or tertiary issues. We see in Scripture that Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways after a disagreement about Mark’s fitness for ministry. Neither was kicked out of the ministry all together. Just because someone has a disagreement on issue, unless its a non-negotiable, that doesn’t mean we should react with vitriolic discipline.
Here is our church’s constitutional statement on discipline:
It shall be the practice of this church to emphasize to its members that every reasonable measure will be taken to assist any troubled member. The pastor, other members of the church staff, and deacons are available for counsel and guidance. The attitude of members toward one another shall be guided by a concern for redemption rather than punishment. If it is determined that a member has become an offense to the church and its good name because of immoral or un-Christlike conduct, or persistently disregards his or her covenant vows, the pastor and the deacons will take every reasonable measure to resolve the problem in accordance with Matthew 18.
Now, I’ve just spent a good bit of time talking about the church’s position and application of discipline. But in all honesty, discipline is not necessary if we are all holding faith and a good conscience. So while it is good and profitable to consider our position on discipline, we will be best served by each of us holding faith and good conscience to begin with. Please understand that while no one can pluck us from the Father’s hand, that does not mean that everyone claiming Christ has truly received him. Let me give you an example first shared in Moody monthly June 1988:
"Our heart, reason, history, and the work of Christ convince us that without Him we cannot achieve our goal, that without Him we are doomed by God, and only Christ can save us." These were deep and sensitive thoughts for a 17-year-old, revealing spiritual wisdom that few attain. He had been baptized into the Lutheran church in 1824, at age six, and was confirmed at 16. Now, to graduate from high school, he had been required to write an essay on a religious subject. He chose to explore "The union of believers with Christ, according to St. John's Gospel (John 15), an exposition on its basic essence, its absolute necessity and its consequences." The fruit of our union with Christ, he continued, is our willingness "to sacrifice ourselves for our fellow man." And the "joy which the Epicureans in their superficial philosophy sought in vain... is a joy known only to the innocent heart united with Christ, and through Christ to God." So wrote Karl Marx, but by 1844, nine years later, he had abandoned any Christian devotion he may have once felt. In fact, his militant atheism and philosophical ideas of man's struggle for a classless utopia free from the numbing effects of religion, established him as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
I wanted to share this with you this morning, because it shows that being able to articulate the truth of Scripture is not a substitute for knowing and serving the God of Scripture. My intention this morning is not to make any of us doubt our salvation, but rather to work it out with fear and trembling.
God wants us to have assurance of our salvation. We should not live our Christian lives wondering and worrying each day whether we are truly saved. That is why the Bible makes the plan of salvation so clear. Believe in Jesus Christ (John 3:16; Acts 16:31). Do you believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins and rose again from the dead (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21)? Do you trust Him alone for salvation? If your answer to these questions is “yes,” you are saved! Assurance means freedom from doubt. By taking God’s Word to heart, you can have no doubt about the reality of your eternal salvation.
Jesus Himself assures those who believe in Him:
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.
Eternal life is just that—eternal. There is no one, not even yourself, who can take Christ’s God-given gift of salvation away from you.
Take joy in what God’s Word is saying to you: instead of doubting, we can live with confidence. Fight the good fight. Wage the good warfare. Hold the faith with a good conscience.
If you do believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins and rose from the dead, trusting Him alone for salvation, make that known! Share your faith publically. If you have never done that before, we’d like to give you the opportunity to do so during this hymn of response. Come forward after this prayer.
Let’s pray.
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