Waging the Good Warfare

0:58The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 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, holding faith in a good conscience, by rejecting the some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Himeneus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. This is God's word. You may be seated.

2:02Last summer, my wife and I went to Long Beach, California, which is the home of one of the greatest ocean liners ever built. It was constructed in the 1930s and reached 300 yards in length. The ship boasted five dining areas and lounges, two cocktail bars and swimming pools, a ballroom, a squash court, and even a small hospital. The ship was named the Queen Mary. But that wasn't the original plan. In fact, the ship's builders planned to name it the Queen Victoria, who is King George's grandmother.

2:42And so the story goes: when they went to King George to ask his blessing to name it the Queen Victoria, they said to him, King, we've decided to name our new ship after England's greatest queen. To which he replied, My wife will be delighted that you are naming the ship after her. And so it was named the Queen Mary rather than the Queen Victoria. Well, for three years, the Queen Mary transported celebrities, dignitaries, wealthy families all across the world. But when World War II started, the ship was converted into a troop ship.

3:18All of the luxuries were taken off and out of the ship. It was repainted a gray camouflage color, which led it to be nicknamed the Gray Ghost. And it served all throughout the war as a troop ship. Now, the question is: why would the ship owners agree to have their luxury liner by which they were profiting largely off of? Why would they agree to have that converted into a troop ship? Well, the answer is simple. The world was at war, and sacrifices were necessary.

3:52Friends, according to Scripture, you and I find ourselves in the middle of a war. Satan is at war against God and against all of his creation, including especially people made in his image and likeness. Now, when we look at certain things, we look at the natural disaster of Hurricane Harvey, we think about the shooting that took place last week in Clovis, New Mexico, we look at Charlottesville and the racism that still exists in our world. When we look at certain things, there is evidence that we are in a war, a spiritual war.

4:30We look at many other things in our lives, we see relative peace and prosperity. It becomes hard to believe that we're in the middle of a war, but we are. And this war is not a battle for lands or for natural resources or for national superiority. The war that we find ourselves in is a battle for souls, the souls of men, women, and children. Paul knew this. And as he reflected on the amazing grace of God that he had received, it led him to want other people, all other people, to know the grace of God that he had experienced. But for them to know that, he was going to have to wage war. All Christians were going to have to wage war. And so that's what he charges Timothy with, is to wage the good warfare.

5:21So, friends, as we look at the second half of chapter 1, what we're going to learn is that as recipients of God's amazing grace, we must hold faith in a good conscience as we battle for souls. Let's look at the text now together, beginning in verse 12. You notice that Paul begins this section by thanking God for appointing him to serve as an apostle. And his appointment to an apostleship was truly remarkable. As he notes in this section, he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent.

5:59Paul believed Blaspheme the name of the Lord, and he tried to get other Christians to do it as well, as we learn in Acts chapter 26. He was a persecutor. He wasn't content with just trying to stamp out Christianity, he wanted to stamp out Christians. So everywhere he went, he tried to have them thrown into prison, he tried to have them executed. He was an insolent opponent. He was arrogant in his opposition to Christianity. Paul was a violent man whose intense hatred for Christians led him to blaspheme and to persecute.

6:32But according to verse 13, Paul did all of these things ignorantly in unbelief. He says, in fact, that that's why God had mercy on him, because he did all of this ignorantly in unbelief. Now, he's not saying that because he blasphemed and persecuted Jesus and his followers out of ignorance and unbelief, that he deserved mercy from God. Mercy that is deserved is not mercy, that's justice. So, Paul is not saying that his ignorance and unbelief exempted him from punishment or that he deserved mercy and grace from God. But what Paul is doing here is that he's contrasting his past conduct with the present conduct of the false teachers that we talked about last week, the beginning of chapter one.

7:22He's saying that in his past, he was ignorant, unbelieving. But these false teachers at present, They claim to know and follow Jesus. They claim to be teachers of the truth. And yet their teaching and their lifestyle contradicts the message that they say that they believe. That's what Paul is doing here. He's contrasting the present behavior of these false teachers with his past behavior. See, these false teachers apparently were unchanged by the grace of God. Paul was dramatically changed by the grace of God. He went from being a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent to Christianity's greatest champion, the greatest champion of Jesus and his gospel.

8:10And so Paul is saying that God had mercy on him for that reason. But even with that said, even understanding that God had mercy on Paul because he acted ignorantly in unbelief, it would still seem that he was about the worst candidate on earth to become an apostle of Jesus Christ. Why would God appoint him? Look at what he says in verse 12. Because he judged me faithful. See, this Greek word here, faithful, is the adjective, not the noun.

8:44It's not referring to Paul's faith, but to his faithfulness. Paul was trustworthy. He was dependent. He was reliable. Paul would say in the book of Romans, as he reflected on the Jews, his fellow countrymen, that they had. Zeal, but their zeal was without knowledge. That described Paul to a T. There was no more zealous man for God's law, a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church. Paul had zeal, but his zeal was without knowledge. But God created Paul, just like he created you and me, with certain gifts and a certain disposition and a certain personality, and God would use all of that to mold him into a faithful man, into one who is worthy of trust, who is reliable and dependent. Again, Paul is not saying that God saved him because he was faithful.

9:43He'll make that abundantly clear in the verses to come, but rather he was appointed as an apostle because he was faithful. See, faithfulness doesn't qualify anyone for salvation. None of us can be faithful enough. But faithfulness does qualify us for service. Look on the screen at Luke chapter 16. Jesus says, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

10:19See, in the church, we're commanded to appoint faithful men to serve as elders and deacons in the church. We're supposed to test them first. Why do we test them? Because we need to. Be sure that their life and their doctrine are faithful. We don't just appoint people to serve in the church because they've been here for a long time or because they're leaders in the community in different ways. No, they must prove themselves faithful first. Because faithfulness doesn't qualify us for salvation, but it does qualify us for service. And Paul is saying that God appointed him because he was faithful. He was trustworthy, dependent, and reliable. And so, friends, if you want greater opportunities to serve the Lord, then let me encourage you to become more and more faithful in the little things. I've met so many young men through the years that have hopes of preaching to hundreds or thousands of people one day, but they won't volunteer in the nursery.

11:19It's a lot easier to write a sermon than to change a diaper. And so, if we want to be faithful in much, we have to start off by being faithful in little. This is what Jesus taught, and Paul backs that up as well. And so, Paul begins by thanking God for appointing him to serve, but don't miss what he says right at the beginning. Look at the beginning of this verse: I thank him who has given me strength.

11:43You see, not only did God appoint Paul to serve, but God gave him the strength that he needed to serve, to travel, to endure all manner of hardship, to teach when he was tired, to preach when he was weary, to establish churches. And to confront false teachers, Paul needed strength, and God gave him the strength to accompany his appointment. In fact, this is what John Stott says: the appointment would have been inconceivable without the equipment. You see, when God calls us to serve, he also equips us to serve.

12:22If God calls you to the nations, if God calls you to be a mom or a dad one day, if God calls you to a certain vocation or to take a certain job, whatever the calling of God is on your life, God promises to equip us for service. We will never lack what we need to be faithful to do what God has called us to do. And so Paul begins by reflecting on all of these wonderful truths: that even though formerly Paul was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, God appointed him to serve as an apostle. And God gave him the strength that he needed to serve as one entrusted to preserve and proclaim the gospel. And all of this led Paul to reflect on the salvation that God had accomplished on his behalf. And he picks that up in verse 15. Look at verse 15 now.

13:23The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came. Into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I receive mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. In verse 15, here we find the first of five trustworthy sayings in the pastoral epistles. Each of these sayings is almost proverbial in nature. They're concise, memorable statements about the gospel or about the implications of the gospel for Christians. And so verse 15 says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Doesn't that sound like Jesus? Doesn't that sound like something that he said? Look on the screen at Luke chapter 5. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.

14:47Healthy people don't need a doctor. Sick people do. And righteous people don't need a Savior. Unrighteous people do. So Jesus says, I came for the sick and the unrighteous. Not the healthy and those who consider themselves righteous. So, just in case there was any confusion remaining about whether Paul thought that he deserved God's grace and mercy, this should clear that up very quickly. Paul believed that Jesus came for sinners and he believed himself to be the foremost of sinners, the foremost or the chief.

15:24And notice, as evil as Paul was before God saved him, the text does not say, of whom I was the foremost. The Greek is in the present tense. He says, of whom I am the foremost. How can Paul say that? How can Paul say that? Now, objectively speaking, he's not saying he is the worst sinner in the world. There's no way that he could know that. And at any rate, it's unlikely that he was objectively a worse sinner than Herod or Pontius Pilate or Caesar.

16:05But what Paul is saying here is that the more he came to understand the holiness of God, the more he came to see his sinfulness in light of God's holiness, which led him to consider himself the chief or the foremost of sinners. See, all believers go through this progression with respect to our understanding with God's Holiness. Before we come to faith in Christ, we don't see any need for God's grace. Now, don't get me wrong, most unbelievers, myself included, before I came to faith in Christ, we wouldn't have said that we were perfect. We would have acknowledged that we made mistakes. We may have even called them sin.

16:49But before we come to faith in Christ, we also believe that our mistakes are so small, our sins are so insignificant, that God can overlook them. It's not a big deal that we've made these mistakes, these errors in judgment, committed these sins. God can surely overlook those things, we think. But then, when we come to faith in Christ, we see God's holiness for what it really is. We see Him in His unapproachable light, in all of His perfection. And we see ourselves in that light, not meeting up to God's perfect and holy standards. We see ourselves as sinners in need of a Savior. We see ourselves as lawbreakers who need to be rescued from judgment. And then what happens is, after we come to faith in Christ, our understanding and knowledge of God's holiness grows more and more, so that we appear to ourselves to be more and more sinful.

17:54This has been my experience in the Christian life. It may have been yours as well. That the longer you've been a Christian, The more you see your sin clearly. I think, objectively speaking, I'm a holier person today than when I came to faith in Christ 17 years ago. But when I reflect on myself, I'm just more aware of my own sinfulness in light of God's holiness. And so I can think of no greater summary of the gospel message than what Paul lays out here in verse 15. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. I am the foremost.

18:36Friends, Paul was a great sinner, but God did not waste his past or his present. Look again at verse 16. But I received mercy for this reason: that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. How many times have you thought to yourself, or have you heard someone vocalize, God would never accept me. I've just done too many wicked things.

19:16Paul says here in verse 16: Look, if anybody required patience, if anybody required mercy and grace, it was me. Paul was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and friends. He did all of that in the name of God. He says, the reason God had mercy on me is so that nobody could say, God could never save me. I've done too many awful things. God will never forgive me. He says, that's the reason. Paul was a trophy of God's grace. He was a walking display of the perfect patience of God.

19:59He was there as an example to anyone who would hesitate to come to Jesus because they think they're too evil. They've done too many awful things. Friends, maybe that's you. Maybe you've hesitated to come to Jesus because you thought to yourself, I'm too awful. Remember, Jesus did not come for the healthy but the sick, not for the righteous but the unrighteous. If you've ever said to yourself, I will come to Jesus when I have my act together more, when I've cleaned up my life more, understand that, number one, you don't have to do that. And number two, you can't do that. There is no way for you to clean your life up enough for you to make yourself acceptable to God. That's the point of the gospel, is that Christ Jesus came to save sinners. You are in the right place if you recognize yourself to be a sinner, to be in need of the grace and mercy of God. So, don't hesitate any longer. Come to Christ today. Turn from sin and receive him and his life, death, and resurrection by faith.

21:12Paul reflects on this amazing, abundant grace that he received from God. He says earlier in this passage that it overflowed toward him. And as he reflects on this, he cannot help but break out into praise. Look at verse 17. He says, To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Friends, if you find yourself growing cold in your worship, if you find yourself growing stagnant in your devotion to the Lord, I can think of no greater cure than to reflect on the grace and mercy that you have received from God.

22:09Begin by reflecting on your sinfulness. Begin by reflecting on your great need for a Savior because you have not met God's standards. But don't despair, don't wallow in guilt. Instead, look to Christ, the perfect Savior that you need. Not just when you came to faith in Christ, but that you still need today. Look to Christ. Reflect on the wonder and the glory that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us.

22:47I can think of no better way to stoke the dying embers in our hearts than to reflect on the glorious gospel and on what God has done for us in it. Friends, we are recipients of amazing grace. Everyone who has received Christ by faith is a recipient of amazing grace. But as recipients of amazing grace, we are in the middle of a war. And we've got to wage war according to the Scripture. So let's transition now to verse 18 and look at Paul's instructions.

23:26He says, 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, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Himenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. This section forms a bookend with verses 3 through 7. If you were here last week, or if you listened to the message online, Them, you know, this is where Paul started with a charge to Timothy. And that charge was to teach certain persons not to teach any other doctrine, but to teach the truth. And so Paul comes back to this here at the end of this first chapter. Just as God had entrusted Paul with the gospel, Paul was entrusting Timothy with this charge. And Paul knew that Timothy would be faithful as a son would be to a father and as Paul was to God the Father.

24:34To strengthen and encourage him, he reminds Timothy of the prophecies that were made about him. And he's going to allude to these things later in the letter in chapter 4. Look on the screen at chapter 4, verse 14. He says, Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. See, Paul is reminding Timothy, you have what it takes. You have everything you need. God has called you and gifted you and strengthened you for this work. What a critical message for a son to hear from his father. What a critical message for a young leader in the church who is about to face opposition, who's about to go into battle. And so Paul's message is: like a good soldier, Timothy, you have been equipped, you've been trained, you have everything that you need. To wage the good warfare. And the way that you're going to do that, Timothy, is by holding faith and a good conscience. So, first, he tells him to hold on to faith. Now, you notice faith does not have the definite article here, it doesn't say the faith. But earlier in verse 14, Paul was talking about the faith. And so, there's really two aspects to faith when we think about it and when Paul writes about it. First is the faith, it's the historic Christian gospel that was passed down from Jesus to the apostles to the church. We have to hold on to the faith. Timothy has to hold on to the faith, or he's no different than the false teachers.

26:14But beyond that, Timothy has to hold on to faith. His hope for his life and his ministry has to be in God. It cannot be in his own gifts, it can't be in his training, it cannot be in his words. But the temptation for all of us, especially leaders, is to trust our training, our experience, our words, rather than trusting in God, rather than keeping our faith in him. And so, Paul, through the course of this whole section, is reminding Timothy: hold on to the faith and hold on to your faith. Don't let either one of those things go.

26:56But holding on to faith is necessary. But not sufficient for waging the good war. Timothy also needs to hold on to a good conscience. Now, what does Paul mean by that? This Greek word that's translated conscience appears about 30 times in the New Testament. There are some parallels in the Old Testament, but fewer of them. Conscience is a subject that comes up a lot in the Bible. And a few weeks ago, I recommended one of the books at our bookstall called Conscience. I highly recommend it to you. Here's how those authors define conscience. They say, Your conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong.

27:42So your conscience is your awareness of what you believe is right and wrong. So according to that definition, everybody has a conscience. That's something that God has gifted to us. And in fact, that's one of Paul's arguments in Romans 2: is that none of us is exempt before God's judgment because every one of us has a conscience. That word in the English language, con science, with knowledge. We do everything that we do with the knowledge that it's either right or wrong. Now, all of our consciences vary slightly. But for Christians, the critical issue is that we have to calibrate our consciences to Scripture.

28:22So we have to affirm as right or wrong every single thing that the Bible clearly teaches is right or wrong. We don't have freedom to have different consciences on matters of God's commands. But then, beyond that, as we learn from Scripture, there is freedom in other areas. Where the Bible does not specifically say this is sin or this is righteous, there's freedom. And that freedom is going to be determined by our individual consciences. Every one of us is responsible before God to obey his or her conscience. So, just because something is okay for somebody else doesn't mean that it's okay for you. That's how the conscience works. Here's how Paul talks about it in Romans 14. Look on the screen: the faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

29:33That's how we deal with areas of freedom in the Christian life. If you can, based on the freedom that you have in Christ, participate in certain things, that's great. But your own conscience is going to condemn you if you shouldn't be doing that. That's what Paul is making the argument here. So the problem is that these false teachers had failed to hold on to faith in a good conscience. They had violated their consciences. In fact, when he says, by rejecting this, it's referring back to a good conscience. These false teachers, Himeneus and Alexander, had rejected a good conscience. And as a result, they had shipwrecked their faith.

30:19Now, time and again in Scripture, these two principles are tied together: what we believe and how we live. And you've probably noticed that there's a connection between sinful choices and bad theology. In fact, John Calvin wrote, A bad conscience is the mother of all heresies. So, what happens in these instances, you know, in my experience, people don't normally reject the Word of God on historical or intellectual or theological grounds. People normally reject the Word of God on moral grounds. They don't like what it says about their life. That was true for me until I came to faith in Christ. I didn't reject the Bible because I had real solid intellectual arguments. I didn't reject the Bible because I knew it historically to be inaccurate. I didn't reject the Bible on theological grounds. I didn't like the Bible said that many of the things that I did were sinful. I didn't like that. So I rejected it.

31:21And so my theology followed my lifestyle rather than my lifestyle being conformed to my theology. You see this a lot, sadly, even among professing Christians. I know young men and women who absolutely know what the Bible teaches with regard to sexual purity, for example. And they will affirm those things up and down. They can quote the verses. But then what happens is they get into a relationship and they put themselves in tempting situations and then they fall into sin. And before long, they're justifying their behavior, saying, It's okay because we love each other. It's okay because nobody's getting hurt. It's okay because we're married in God's eyes. That's the weirdest one of all. It's like, no, you're not.

32:15But you see, theology follows the sinful choices instead of allowing our theology to shape our lifestyles. So this is what happened with Himeneus and Alexander. They made shipwreck of their faith because they fell into sin and then they adjusted their theology to accommodate their lifestyles. And so I want you to listen to John Stott's sober warning about this because I think it's so applicable. He says, So, if we disregard the voice of conscience, allowing sin to remain unconfessed and unforsaken, our faith will not long survive. Anybody whose conscience has been so manipulated as to be rendered insane. Sensitive is in a very dangerous condition, wide open to the deceptions of the devil.

33:07So, the question, friends, is that what do we do? What do we do with people like Hemenaeus and Alexander? What do we do with people that are our friends and roommates and co-workers who profess to be followers of Jesus and yet are living in unrepentant sin? They refuse to turn away from certain sins, they refuse to stop teaching false doctrine. What do we do? I mean, didn't Jesus say that we should never under any circumstances judge anybody ever for any reason?

33:38No, actually, he didn't, even though that's what many people believe. Look on the screen at Matthew 18. These are the words of Jesus: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

34:14Many years later, in the city of Corinth, where Paul had established a church, there was a man who was committing sexual immorality. And so Paul wrote this in 1 Corinthians 5: When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my Spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

34:41Now, what do you notice about Jesus' teaching and Paul's teaching on this issue? At least two things. First, neither Jesus nor Paul said that we should ignore unrepentant sin in the lives of professing Christians. Instead, we should confront them in love and call them to repent. Friends, if the Bible is true, then the wages of sin is death. And the most unloving thing we can do to anybody is to let them go on thinking that their sin is going to be life-giving rather than death-bringing.

35:20So it's unloving for us not to confront our professing brothers and sisters in Christ when they are living in unrepentant sin. But then, secondly, you notice from both Jesus and Paul, what is the purpose of all of this? The purpose of confronting is restoration. Look again on the screen at 1 Corinthians 5. Paul says, confront him. Deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Why? So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

35:52That's the purpose. It's not punishment, it's not to make somebody feel bad. It's certainly not to make ourselves look more righteous than others, especially not if we view ourselves as the foremost of sinners. The purpose is love. The purpose is restoration. And so Paul calls Timothy to this charge. He needed to remember that he'd been called and strengthened and equipped for this purpose. And friends, we need to remember that charge as well. It is so easy for us to be lulled to sleep because it's so hard for us to believe that we really are in the middle of a spiritual war. We look around and see peace and prosperity, relatively speaking.

36:44And it's hard to believe that there is a war going on. Remember what Peter said in 1 Peter 5. Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. This is the reality. Just as in the middle of the jungle, you don't realize when a prowling lion is about to pounce on you, we don't realize that Satan is prowling around in the same way, looking to devour us. And not just us, but everyone else as well. Every single day, there is a war going on around us. Satan wants to steal, kill, and destroy both Christians and non-Christians. And so we have to wage this good warfare. We don't want to end up in the same place as Himenaeus and Alexander, who made shipwreck of their faith because they let go of a good conscience. And we don't want anybody that's in our lives to be able to say on the day of judgment, I just didn't know the gospel of Jesus Christ. No one ever shared it with me.

37:58And so, friends, as recipients of amazing grace, we must hold faith in a good conscience as we battle for souls. Let's pray.