First Timothy Lesson 34 cont.

All right, we are in lesson 34 of 1 Timothy. And the verses that we're going over in 34 are 1 Timothy 6, 11, and 12. Excuse me. And I'll read those first. So 1 Timothy 6, 11, and 12. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, and love, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."

So we've gotten down to question three. We just started question three, which is, what are the items of true riches? And to answer Mike's question, since he wasn't here last week, We're to flee from these things verse 11 these things which were all those negative things that were going on that Paul was warning Timothy about in the previous verses 3 3 through 10 or 3 through 9 there are 10 yeah And he warns us they say you flee from those but so if you're fleeing from something He also says pursues somethings, and these are the six items Mike pursue righteousness godliness faith love perseverance and gentle gentleness so Those are the things we're to pursue. We started looking at one of the first things, which was righteousness.

We went over that last week, about kind of referring to moral integrity, disposition or conduct in common life. Basically, the righteousness that we receive from God, the manifestation of that. So, we're now into godliness. So what does godliness mean? We're to pursue godliness. So what is that?

Everybody should know it because we're supposed to be pursuing it. Are we running in the dark? A lot of flat foreheads hitting the wall here. We don't know what we're looking for. Godliness. Don't all speak at once. Okay. Godliness. So, the Greek word is eusebiaia. Sorry, Tim, you probably know the pronunciation.

It's much better than I. It means devout or godly behavior. Zodiates has it defined as godliness or the whole or true of religion, so named because piety towards God is a foundation or principle part of it. So, this is a godly attitude, a godly, life it's it's Again The way he has it is godly behavior or devout behavior, so we're to pursue that we're supposed to pursue a godly life Does that make sense yeah? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So that's the antithesis of... Yeah, and so from that verse and from this verse and others it almost sounds like God demands that we be like Him. Yeah.

What is the ultimate goal of our life here? What is it to do? Conformity to Christ. So, if you're being conformed to Christ, will godliness be present? Yes. Godly behavior? Yes. As you know Christ more, and you know through the Word, you become to manifest Christ more, and that becomes a more godly life. It takes a while, though. Yeah, yeah, like a lifetime. All right, next one, faith. So we're to pursue faith. So what does that mean? What was that, trust? Did you say, Cheryl, trust? Okay. Faith, we're to pursue faith. Again, nobody knows what they're pursuing now. Ah, good. What kind of faith?

So, the Greek word for it is pistis, meaning faith, subjectively meaning firm persuasion, conviction, belief in the truth, veracity and reality or faithfulness, though rare, objectively meaning that which is believed doctrine, the received articles of faith.

So I think it's, what is belief? I think belief in the truth, veracity, and reality of God's word. So that's faith. It's the belief in what God said. Do you believe it? That's faith. And we're to pursue that. We're to pursue belief in God's word. Do you believe it?

And we're going to get into this in the next question and the next verse a little bit. And you can ask questions any time if you have questions. That one, let me look at it here. Let me go up one here. Faith is a noun. Okay, so it's a noun. I think we need to go back to Hebrews 11.

What is faith? Faith is the substance of things hopeful of the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the substance of God's godly things and the evidence of godly things. So it really is who He is. Well, and it's belief in the, because we've gone through this, the things. What are the things of God? It's all of what He told us in His Word. So faith is believing in all of those things.

And then, you know, it's believing, the truth is believing in who is Who said it? And the reason why you believe it is because who said it? That's why you believe it's true. God said it. So you believe in Him, and then you believe in what He said, because He's God.

It's interesting, though. I think a lot of times you look at that and think of... It's an abstraction. Just tell me what it is, and then I'll do it. When, in fact, what I think it is is substance. of things hoped for, the reality of things not seen, it goes to intimacy. Yeah. I mean, you know me, and I know you, and there's things that you could define about me, but other things that you know about me that are really not definable. Well, and I think also the progression. We said like the first two were generalities of faith or godliness and righteousness, characteristics of God. So if you know those, you're pursuing those. What is the next one? Faith. You believe it.

What he's done, who he is, all that. So it's even a logical progression in what these items of the six items of riches are. That's why I asked whether it's a noun or a verb because it is a noun. It's interesting. Pursue the things. Which is really the same thing as the first two. It boils down to that. Yeah, and I think the faith part of it is the believing of that. Believing of the first two. The righteousness and godliness. Who God is. I called it reality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah Next one love because I'm going to get into the next in the next verse on some of the faith Love we're to pursue love So that should be fairly easy or to pursue love are we supposed to Beat up everybody and show anger and malice and all this so is that what you're to pursue? As I said last time, does anybody convince anybody of Christ through an argument?

It's love. And so love here is agape, God's love as produced in the heart of the yielded believer by the Holy Spirit. So it's God's manifestation of His love through us. That's what we're to pursue. His love, in the circle, God is love. God first loved us all in the circle. But God is love. That's the beginning point. And then He gives us love. So love is manifested from Him through us. That's where love comes from. So we're to pursue that. We're to pursue the manifestation of God's love through us. So we're to pursue that. Again, pursuing it. We're supposed to go after that. Next one.

Patience. Patience. Everybody prays for patience, right? Probably not one of you pray because you know what that means. The trials are coming. I don't hear many people praying for patients because typically that means the trials are coming and you're going to be tested on patients.

Patience is hupomone, steadfastness, constancy, endurance. Thayer defines it in the New Testament, the characteristic of a man who is unswerved from his deliberate purpose or his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings. So again, patience is going through trials knowing that God's in control. My two things that I always beat up and the Lord is teaching me is sovereignty of God and eternal love of God.

If you know that God is in control of all things, if you know that, when a trial comes, was I surprised by Him? He said, oh man, how did I allow that? How did that happen? Is that how it works? No. So when you know He's sovereignly in control, when you go through a trial, you know it's from His hand, and then you link it to the Romans 8.30 section, where it says, God has an eternal love for you. You cannot be separated from it. In all the trials, it lists a whole bunch of stuff that can't separate us from the love of God.

Usually when I go through trials, it's, okay, what did I do wrong? You know, I must have done something wrong. So I beat myself up first. That's okay. You know, it's not always what you did wrong. God brings trials for, you know, just for growth, for you to be drawn to Christ. So it's not that, you know, I think that's what a lot of people think, is that in a trial God is angry at me. Is God angry at you? He's not angry at you. He has an eternal love for you. So beating yourself up over a sin, you know, what I did, and now He's bringing this trial to me, is wrong. He's allowing you to go through that to bring you back to Him, lovingly. And a lot of times, I think believers do that. They get so beat up that, you know, oh, I did the sin. Well, yeah. Was that sin paid for at the cross? Absolutely. And do you have to worry about the penalty of that sin? Now if you go out and shoot somebody, and there's obviously legal things, there's consequences to it. And there could be earthly consequences to it that can happen. But he's not mad at you. He's allowing it for his purposes.

Greater purposes than we know a lot of times. When I go through a trial, I'm asking a lot of times, what am I supposed to learn? Where are you taking me? There are depths in nature that we have never discovered about ourselves. There's nothing like a trial sent to us via the Lord to expose that weakness or that sinfulness that we never even considered sinful or weak. And without that trial, you'd never know that. Well, you know this progression too, we're going through faith, love, now patience. Faith came before patience.

So, he's testing your faith. You know, do you believe me? Do you believe me through this trial? Well, I can believe the positional truths, but do I really believe some of the revelations about myself that this trial has brought to me? Number one, it's of my old man. It's who I am in Adam. And then there comes the faith, do I believe that God is recreating me in Christ? He's taking care of that. I'm the one that's the ignorant one, not Him. He's trying to inform me as to where I've come from and where He's taken me to.

Yeah, you know, the other which I always think of is God works all things. What about all things? What does all mean? everything. He uses trials, he uses blessings, he uses people, he uses inanimate objects, you know, everything. He is in control of all those things. And he can use it all at his disposal to accomplish his will, which is ultimately to conform us to the image of Christ, to ultimately glorify Him. That's the purpose and the roadmap. And there are a lot of things we don't understand. The illumination of how really bad the flesh is. The Roman 7. How bad is the flesh? There is no good thing in this fleshly body.

And that will be exposed through trials. So all of this is, you know, the patience. The patience is, can I get through this, you know? And the patience is understanding that God loves me and he's taking me through this trial, or blessings. And do I understand that? Do I understand the patience, the time frame he's working in? Well, we don't know ourselves, so these things happen and we just get bewildered. Well, again, you know, I always go, again, the piece that surpasses all understanding is knowing when you, and that's why, like I said, the Lord's beating it in me, the sovereignty and the love.

You know, I just went through this whole email thing again, and I had a lot, I just had an incredible peace about it. Even though my mind was going 100 miles an hour trying to figure out how I can do this and Lord, where do you want me to go? But I had an ultimate peace about it.

After a year ago when I first started and I had another thing of it and for the first two weeks I was a wreck as both my personal and my business emails went down. I was like, oh. I said at that time, which is hilarious, I'm going to set up all these new domain names. I'll never have this happen again. Thank you, Lord. That ended a year later. But again, a piece about it.

When you go through the trial, if you have that peace, that's because you know He's in control. And that just gives you ultimate peace through any trial you're going through. Anything. If you trust Him, believe, faith, that He's in control. He's a sovereign God.

I have one other thing to add. I think trials sometimes are designed... We have all these... We have all, I call them air castles, little things that I just hang on to, that there's nothing really wrong with them. They're not bad, they're not sinful, but they're in the way. And he sometimes will bring a trial so that he can get that out of the way.

Okay, that's big a deal anymore. I can push it aside so that I can get closer to him. Like a flat tire on your way to the Bronco game. Or how about the Broncos themselves? And it's not sinful to watch the Broncos. It's not sinful to have a lot of money, but it's sinful to want to have a lot of money. I mean, we went through that, through this. The previous question was, was he condemning rich people? No, he's not condemning rich people. He's just the motive. If your whole motive is to desire wealth, that's the wrong thing. What about if your whole motive is to have the Broncos win?

I'll have to think about that one. We'll talk about that in about three weeks. Meekness. Next one, meekness. Is this the final thing of the six items? We're to pursue meekness. So, in general, mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit, meekness, quiet strength, trench in defining the Greek word for meekness. Priotos says, it is the tempter of spirit in which we accept God's dealing with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. This meekness, however, being first of all a meekness before God, is also such in the face of men, even of evil men, out of a sense that these, with the insults and injuries which they may inflict, are permitted and employed by Him for the chastening and purifying of His elect." This is what we talked about.

In meekness, you understand through challenges, insults. I think it was even this morning's Hungry Heart was talking about trials by even Christians. It was cutting of a stone. God, we're a diamond, and he uses diamonds to cut diamonds. And he was saying, people, even Christians, can try you and attack you and do this. God allows it for his purposes. And so, again, this is in meekness. You understand in meekness, mildly understanding that this is God's will and what He's doing in your life.

So this is an attitude of kind of accepting the truth. Here we are dealing with a young leader who's, in that word, patience, persevere, steadfast, a hold up under, right? So, Paul is encouraging him to persevere and remain steadfast, and then he tells him how to do it in the next word, right? Meekness, gentleness, however, whichever translation you say, but that's the quality of perseverance, right?

It kind of flows in that order. Well, it's all amazing when you look at it. Like I said, the warnings of all these things, 3 to 10, and then it said, flee from these things. And now pursue this. And then now he's going to say, fight the good fight. That's what it looks like. So yeah, I mean, so stay away from this, pursue these, and do this. So yeah, it's very logical how Paul lays this out for us and for Timothy and his leadership at the Ephesians church. So yeah. Does it pull any validity?

It looks like that righteousness, godliness, faith seem to be God-word, and love, patience, and meekness seem to be man-word. Is there any? I don't know about man-word, but it's a manifestation of his life out of us, those characteristics. So when you say man-word, I mean man-word, it's more directed at us and our response or how we live. Yeah, I think that's true. Again, when I say man-ward, it's not towards us, it's talking about us. How about that? Towards others. Yeah, towards others or how we as Christians live and manifest Christ.

All right, now to the one that I really wanted to talk about. Describe the fight and the good fight of faith so fight the good fight of faith and take in verse 12 fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you were made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." So, in the exhortation to Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, we have a reference to basically Greek athletic terms or games. So it's fight. It's kind of funny that as a Christian it's said to fight, or to fight So, Paul is a first-hand acquaintance with Greek athletics in his writings, where he frequently uses them as illustrations of spiritual truth. For instance, if you look in 1 Corinthians 9, 24 through 27, that's the one where he says, run the race, and that boxing, as boxing into the air, uses athletic terms there.

Also in Philippians 3.12 and 14, it has, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upper call of God in Christ Jesus. So again, these are athletic terms that he's talking about.

So first thing is when we talk about fight the good fight, so what does it mean to fight? What does it mean to fight? And this is what will lead me into where... In other words, combat. Combat, yeah. So the word fight is, sorry Tim, agonizomaia, a cognate noun was used in pagan Greece to refer to the place of a contest, the list, race course, the assembly at the national games, a struggle, a battle. The verb means to contend in the athletic games for the prize, to fight. So these are again athletic terms about competing. Like an athlete competes in a race, a boxer boxes. These were an actual process to fight like an athlete does. So, I also add in Zodiatis, in this verse 12, figuratively, is the task of faith in persevering amid temptation and opposition. That was how Zodiatis put it, and I like that. Task of faith in persevering amid temptation and opposition. So that's our fight. That is the meaning of it. In faith, persevering in opposition and temptation.

So, interesting, the verb tense is imperative mode commanding a present tense and imperative mode commanding a continuous action. So we're not to stop this. This isn't just a one and done. We are continually, continually to be in faith, in persevering amid temptation and opposition. It's a continuous action. You don't get it done and you're done. This is a continuous action. We're continually trying to do this, this fight.

So, this is where I get into the issues that come up on this verse. And Mike had this in his notes. It showed Timothy the necessity for the continuous nature of Christians' warfare against evil and of his desperate effort to live a life pleasing to God. Is that what this verse says? Think about it. What does this verse say? To me, it's the same as the verse before.

Pursue those things. Fight the good, fight the faith, and then take hold of the eternal life. Just more of a continual action for all those things. Not necessarily fighting the bad way, but just just action required on our part, not sitting in a lounge chair just expecting to become spiritual, but living a real life, spending time in the Word, pursuing things of the Lord. Okay. Any other thoughts before I... There's a couple of thoughts of what it's not, as a continuous thing. It's not continuing to hustle.

Because if I use this first out of context, Do that to yourself as well. Am I fighting the good fight continually? Well, if I'm thinking about it as hustle or grit, pull up my bootstraps and get through it, that's one misunderstanding of it. Or even a slogan for personal victory. I fought the good fight. I did it.

I. I think you can't really understand this verse unless you know what grace is. because then you're left alone. Are you doing this? And what does it look like? Still missing what I think is the main point of this.

Go ahead. Well, fight or contend. I think in the real world, the real Christian world, there's always opposition. They never rest. And there's always a deception. There's always someone coming at you with Well, you know, a subjective opinion about what God's Word says.

And that's where the fight is. It's contending for the truth of God's Word. So, like, one of the reasons that we study God's Word, not only to know Him, but to know the truth, and so we can be in a position to defend it. I think as an elder you run into that more than other people do because if someone's going to take a shot at, like Holly Hills, they're going to do it through me or Roger or Miles to try to change the viewpoint and that's where the contending comes. And so, and it is a fight. Okay, so, now I'll get to it. We're on the periphery, and I think this verse gets abused a lot.

Is this what this verse states? Christians' warfare against evil? What does this verse say? Does it say we're to fight the good fight against evil? What? Are we supposed to fight evil? No. That's what most people think, and we've kind of touched on the periphery of this, that we have to go out and we have to fight against this and that.

That's not what this verse says. I agree with that. Not everybody, I should say. Many people misuse this, and they say, fight the good fight. I'm going to go out and I'm going to fight all the evil, and I'm going to go out and I'm going to go after these people. I'm going to go after evil. Is that what this verse says? It doesn't. It's completely wrong.

Fight the good fight of what? Faith. Not force. What? Not force. Or to fight the good fight of faith. So explain that. I will. Let me ask you the question. Are we called to go to war offensively against evil and Satan? Are we ever called to do that? No. So when you say fight the good fight, am I supposed to go after people, evil? Is that my charge?

It is not. And that's why I think a lot of people just leave off that last part. We're to fight the good fight. And they leave off the last part, which is of faith. That's our battle. Believe what God said. Believe all these things. That's our fight. God already fought that battle. It's not our battle to go after evil. But that's what a lot of people use this verse for, is fight the good fight.

I've seen it in camp. I'm on camp and we're going to go after evil. And evil is going to come after us at camp. And we're going to... Okay, wait a minute. Is that our charge? Are we to go after evil? So, in deference to that, I say many people justify this opinion by Ephesians 6, 12 through 17, and I'll read it. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, take up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. So you can also see in 1st Thessalonians 5, 8, breastplate of faith and love and as the helmet of hope and salvation.

So, does this mean we're armed to go after people? After evil? Is that what these verses are saying? It's all defensive. All defensive. And what did he say in the Ephesians? Did he say go after? What did he say? Hold the ground. Stand firm. We're to resist all this coming at you, the evil darts of the devil and all the attacks of the devil. We're to stand. And why? And what is it? Faith. Believe all these things. The Word. That's what we're to do.

We're to stand firm in God's Word. We're not to fight the good fight of going after evil. We're to remain here and stand firm in His Word. And so I think a lot of this gets misrepresented that, you know, like I said, here at camp, you know, we become warriors for Christ, and we're gonna go after evil. That's not what scripture says. We're to fight the good fight of faith. Believe what God said.

Are we victorious over sin and evil? We are. We're challenged by it with the fiery darts, you know, or against the forces of evil and all that. We have that coming at us. That's our fight, is to stand firm in His Word. Stand firm. Fight the good fight of faith. So again, this is one of those verses that I've just seen too many people abuse it. That now we're supposed to go out and attack evil. We're supposed to go after these things. We're not. Stand firm. Ephesians says stand firm. They're all defensive. They're not attacking.

So on Monday night we've been talking about reckoning. and the reckoning of faith and the reckoning and Miles picks out different verses. Reckon yourself dead unto sin but alive unto God. So reckoning is a proactive on the part of the believer. That doesn't mean he takes a step forward. What it means is he holds the ground. Holds the ground.

So what do you study the Word of God for to find out exactly where the victory is and how it was done, and is it done? Because the principalities and powers in higher places, the first thing they're going to try to do, like Satan did to Eve, is did God really say? He's going to try to get you to think, well, maybe I do need to fight. So what is the fight of? Faith. Hold the ground. It's faith. Do you believe it? When they're challenging you, do you believe it?

I may not have enough biblical knowledge to be much of a soldier, but the idea is Paul, what's that verse, Paul says, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him unto that day. Things that have been committed unto him, he learned them over time.

Again, it's the knowledge of him. And again, it's the fight of faith. That's my whole point here. Faith is trusting in what God said. That's what, you know, we're to pursue it. We're not only to pursue it, we're supposed to fight the good fight of faith. So faith is the key here.

Many people cut that last part off and they use it in the wrong way. I've seen it too many times. That now we have the ability to go after the devil. We have the ability to go after all the evil spirit. We have all that we can go after. No, we're not supposed to. We're supposed to hold our ground in Christ. Stand firm.

This is one of the ones I learned and I memorized. memorized to the back row. I actually memorized this. Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials, knowing that what? The testing of your faith I hadn't thought about that for years. I thought trials. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, that I'm going to buck it up.

That's what I'm supposed to do. No. It's the testing of your faith. And what does it do? It produces endurance. And let that endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete. So it's the testing of your faith. James is saying the exact same thing. It's the testing of your faith. It's the fight the good fight of faith. That's our battle. That's what we're supposed to do. Believe what God says in his word. Believe what God says about you. Believe what God says about life in Christ. Our life in Christ. Believe that. That's our defense. That's our life. That's what we're to fight for. Fight that fight of faith.

So, sorry I'm on my soapbox, but I've seen it too many times, and how it's abused. And we truncate that. And again, from my one memorized verse that I have, for many years it just went by me. It's consider it all joy. I'm going to buck it up. It's a trial. I'm going to buck it up. Consider it all joy. I'm going to consider it joy. No, that's the wrong attitude.

It's the testing of my faith. Do you believe what God said about you? Do you have peace? If you do, it leads to endurance. And then it trickles down. So again, it's one of the things, even I confess myself, that I bypass what the point of it is. It's faith. That's our battle. So, any other thoughts before I jump off my soapbox?

I would just say one thing about the fight of faith is you've got to know what you believe. So therefore, the pursuing, therefore that's why I think Paul has told Timothy to pursue, and really the pursuit is to find out. In God's word, what he says, it's very practical, and it's like a game plan in a football game. If you don't have a plan, you're not going to win. And what wins championships?

Defense, not offense. Yeah, that's a good point. From the one who just condemned Broncos. I didn't condemn them. I condemned you for loving them. that defenses win championships, yes. Yeah, I mean, that's our defense, is belief in what God said. That's how we stand firm. So again, that's just, so we're supposed to fight the good fight of faith, so.

Time. You know, oh, it's time? Oh, well, sorry about that. We'll continue a little bit more on this, and then I will go quickly through the last couple questions, but. You don't have to. Anyway, so any other thoughts on that after I've jumped on my soapbox and said everything anybody have any Contrary thoughts to that or experience the same thing that people use that verse inappropriately, huh?

I just I just like said it's one of those things when I see that and hear that it just kind of gets my hackles up because it's not what the verse says I It's fight the good fight of faith. That's our battle. Our battle is to believe. Believe what God said. That's our battle.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the fight. Have you won? Have you won already? You've already been placed in the victor. Yeah, the fight is that. The understanding. We won. We won. So if you're adherent to dispensational theology, you could settle down on the fact that I did win. If I'm a proponent of reformed theology, I never win. Yeah, so you're fighting. I've got to get to the end. You've got to fight. You've got to fight to the end.

And that's a good point. Maybe that's some of the reasons why. Yeah, keep the faith. That's another one we could go after. Well, thank you. Sorry for my soapbox better. That's just one of those things, these verses that I've just heard misused so many times, as well as I misused James for many years. I thought it's just, you know, buck it up during trials. It's not what it says. It's to test your faith. Do you believe it? All right, let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again for this time. We thank you again for, most importantly, who you are. Father, we just realize you're a sovereign God with an eternal love for us, and we just rest in that fact that you're in control of all things, the trials, the blessings, and they're meant to draw us to you and to just test our faith.

Do we believe what you said? what you said about Christ, what you said about us, what you said about us in Christ. All these things are what we need to believe. We need to trust in you and to trust what you said in your word. That's our battle, is to trust you, to believe in you, to have faith in you.

Father, we just again thank you that you haven't left us alone. You left us with your word. and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We just thank you for that, and we just pray for the next meeting. Again, just prepare hearts to receive it, and we thank you for this day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.