Fighting People Who Fight You

1 Timothy  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  28:46
0 ratings
· 353 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
View more →
1 Timothy 4:11–16 ESV
11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Fighting people who fight you

This morning I want to speak about fighting people who fight you.
Paul is sending Timothy to help the church at Ephesus. He has told them that there are problem people in the church. These problem people were deceived and would lie and lacked a conscience.
These people held influence in the church at Ephesus. Timothy would battle this group of people. He would be fighting people who fought him. Their actual battle would not be with Timothy, their actual battle would be with the Word of God and with the Lord.
Paul gives Timothy three keys to ministering to difficult people.
Take responsibility for what you do.
Don’t add fuel to the fire.
Keep your eye on the goal.
What can Timothy do in the face of such opposition?
Timothy could focus on what he was doing, not on what others were doing.
Paul is pretty clear here.
1 Timothy 4:11–16 ESV
11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Timothy needed to take responsibility for what he could do. So many of us look at others. We want them to do what is godly and right. If they don’t, we won’t. I have had people tell me that “no one else is doing it, why should I?” The reason is that if it’s right to do before God then that is reason enough. No one is going to hold our hand when we stand before God. Excuses won’t cut it. Our rationalizations will dissolve.
We need to take responsibility for doing what is right even if there are other influential people who are not.
That is what Paul is telling Timothy. “You are going to a difficult church. Do what God has called you to do.”
In your work, your home, your church you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Live for Jesus first and others second.

Don’t add fuel to the fire.

1 Timothy 4:12a ESV
12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
Paul tells him to let no one despise you for your youth…
How can we stop anyone from despising us? In truth, we cannot. People choose not to like us, to put us down, to throw us under the bus and there is little we can do to stop them

Don’t add fuel to the fire

What we can do is make sure we don’t add fuel to the fire. Fires have a greater chance of dying out of no one adds wood.
Some of these lying, deceitful people were apt to pick on Timothy’s youth. In that society as it is to some extent in ours, age and experience were preferred over youth. Young people, everyone may be telling you right now that you are great and exceptional. When you reach the adult world, you will find that you will need to prove yourself. People are not going to listen to you because you speak.
You may find people who are going to look at you and the first impression will be negative. Why? Because you are young…or, you are old.
How do you deal with this?
First, do what you can do and second, don’t add fuel to the fire.
What do you mean by adding fuel to the fire?
If people accuse you of being lazy because you are young, show up on time and do the job. That will keep them quiet. If you show up late and don’t do the work, it adds fuel to the fire that, “you are a young person and all young people are lazy.” That statement is not true, but you reinforce that perception when you make their statement true.
If someone says to you, “I can’t trust you. You will gossip.” The worst thing you can do is to share with anyone else that they said you would gossip. When it gets back to them it throws fuel on the fire.
What was Timothy to do to combat the youth problem? He couldn’t help his age. He couldn’t stop people from talking. But he could make sure he didn’t add fuel to the fire.
Paul said,
1 Timothy 4:12 ESV
12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
One person pipes up and says, “Timothy is too young, I’m not going to listen to him…”. Another person says, “He speak the truth. He lives what he speaks. He cares about people and is strong in faith. You may forbid marriage, but Timothy is the pure kind of man I want my daughters to marry.”
We are often ineffective because we are unable to live above the fray and show by example the godliness we want to see in others. God wants us to take responsibility and not add fuel to the fire.
Paul says this in:
Romans 12:18 ESV
18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
We can’t live peaceable with all. We can model what we want the relationship to be in a godly way. We can make sure that we are not as evil as the people who are evil to us.
People like to live in balance. If they have wronged you, the want things to be in balance. There are two ways to achieve this goal. The first way is to put pressure on you to do something bad. This balances the scale. The second way is to ask forgiveness. If forgiveness is given, that balances the scale.
When they choose to put pressure on us to do something bad and we respond to the curse with blessing, when we do good to them after they have wronged us, things are even more out of balance. They may redouble their efforts to make you sin so that they can say, “See, you have done wrong as well…”. The problem is that most people don’t say, “You are right,” they turn and say or do something bad to the other person. Many marriages are in this state of throwing blame and avoiding responsibility for one’s own actions.
If Timothy was going to have any chance to make an impact and bring about change, he not only needed to do what God called him to do, he needed to make sure he didn’t throw more wood on the fire . He needed to model a godly man.
Romans 2:1 is an important verse for this. This verse encourages us to look at ourselves before we look at others.
Romans 2:1 ESV
1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
Paul is telling Timothy, “Don’t fall into that trap. You want to make a difference? Model godly living. Don’t do what they do, do what you tell them God wants you to do.”
What would that be?
1 Timothy 4:12b ESV
12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Keep the goal in mind.

Why was Timothy going to Ephesus? He was going to set in order the things that were lacking. He was going to do battle against sin and the false teaching that would ruin the Christians and destroy the church. Ultimately, he was going to help Christians who were in crisis.
In order to help those in crisis, he needed to focus on two goals.
First, he needed to check himself.
Second, he needed to focus on saving people from the crisis of faith they faced.
Paul said to him,
1 Timothy 4:16 ESV
16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Take care of yourself spiritually. If you do this, you will save yourself from burn out, from discouragement, from being sucked into the teachings and practices of these false teacher.
Not only would he save himself, but as he faithfully taught and lived out his faith, he would also save his hearers.
Notice he didn’t say that he would save the church. The church is not an organization. The church is organized, but it is not an organization. Paul wants Timothy to keep his eye on the goal. The problem was that Christians will be influenced by false teaching. Timothy needs to teach and live in such a way that when people see Timothy, they will see his Christian life. His light will shine and overcome the darkness. The salvation of people from the deceptive teachings was a major goal he needed to have in front of him.
If you want other people to shine their light, then make yours shine in the darkness. When we persist in this we save both ourselves and our hearers.
Conclusion:

Questions

We need to ask ourselves some questions at this point. Who is the biggest influence in our life today? Is it our spouse, our children, our friend, our boss at work?
What is your spiritual goal in the battles you have with those people? Do you want to live godly and encourage them to do the same?
If we are going to live a godly life and be effective, Jesus needs to be number one. Sometimes we will need to walk by faith and not by sight. It might feel and seem wrong to do things Jesus’ way. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness… all these things will be added unto you.
If you want to protect yourself from harm, these will not work. The people who don’t agree with the Word and are pushing their own agenda will push back.
If you want to protect yourself from stress, these will not work. The people who oppose you are not necessarily going to see the light.
If you want to fight personal burnout, take responsibility for your own actions, don’t add fuel to the fire and focus on the goal of serving the Lord.
If you want to help save others from wrong doctrine, bad teaching, and horrible acts and decisions, then speak the truth, don’t let the critics have anything on you and put up with the negative in order to save some from the snare of those who are fighting against God.
In the end, we do not fight people, we fight a spiritual battle in the heavenly realm. Its spiritual warfare. Where the enemy may seek to hurt us and to discredit us, we focus on helping people reclaim godliness in their lives. We want them to believe right so they can live right. Jesus is the answer for the world today.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more