Let’s turn in our Bibles to 1 Timothy 6:11-16. And as you are doing that, let me paint a picture for you of the church in Ephesus that young Timothy was pastoring. We get the impression from chapter 1 that this church is infected with false doctrines and false teachers who are leading people astray. We get the impression from chapters 3 and 5 that the elders of the church weren’t cutting mustard with their character and may even need to be publicly rebuked before the church body. From chapter 2 we can infer that many of the men are prayer-less, cowardly, and quarrelsome in their conduct. From chapters 2 and 5 we can infer that many of the women are idle, worldly, negligent of their families, and in some cases immodest with their dress. That’s the impression of the Ephesian church that one gets from the details in Paul’s letter. 

And after all this, Paul tells Timothy in chapter 6 of his letter to lead the church in Ephesus away from some of the stubborn sins that have infected the church. Some of those sins include insubordination, dissention, discontentment, and money-lust. These stubborn sins were stealthily infiltrating and destabilizing the church in Ephesus. 

So let me just summarize this situation for you. The church in Ephesus was dysfunctional. It was a mess! There were some serious problems in this church. And Timothy who was young, timid, and even a little sickly—remember Paul’s exhortation to drink a little wine for your stomach and your frequent ailments (5:23)—has to go into Ephesus and fix this mess. I don’t know about you, but if I were Timothy, I’d be tempted to pull a Jonah and board a ship headed for Tarshish. 

But that’s not what Timothy did. He stuck it out. He labored to bring this church back to a place of health. From what we can gather from 2 Timothy at the end of Paul’s life, Timothy was still laboring away in Ephesus and doing his best to build up the church of Jesus Christ. Maybe Paul’s words at the end of 1 Timothy kept him motivated during the difficult times of life and ministry. Paul said this, look at verse 12 with me, “Fight the good fight of the faith.” In other words, “Don’t give up, Timothy! Don’t stop fighting. Don’t stop laboring. Quitting is not an option! Christianity isn’t for wimps.”

And what God calls Timothy to is not something unique to Timothy in the course of Christianity. But history and experience has shown me that that’s not the case. Christianity is a fight. Christianity is not for the faint of heart. Anyone who comes to Christ with faulty notions of a life of leisure and tranquility is in for a rude awakening. It’s not that there isn’t peace. There’s peace, yes, but it’s peace in the midst of a storm.  

Our message today is entitled “A Call to Arms.” The reality is that Christianity isn’t a call to leisure. It’s a call to arms. And we are going to see in the text today an exhortation for us to struggle and bite and claw and pursue Christ all the way to the end of our lives. 

And as we fight, Paul is going to relay to us four weapons of warfare that will help us fight well. I’m calling these four strategies for spiritual warfare in the Christian life. 

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And the first one of these might surprise you. Here’s the first strategy for spiritual warfare. You flee.  

1. Flee (6:11a)

Paul says in verse 11, 

11 But as for you, O man of God

Notice the designation that Paul uses of Timothy. He doesn’t say “young man” or “timid Timothy.” He calls Timothy a “man of God.” This is the only time this expression is used in the NT. And it’s quite a 

compliment. This is both a commendation and a call to arms. “Man up, Timothy. You are a man of God!”

By the way, this designation, “man of God,” was used a lot in the OT for prophets and priests who had exemplary character. Moses is often referred to as “the man of God” (Deut 33:1; Josh 14:6; 1 Chr 23:14). It is a huge compliment to Timothy that Paul would use this term of him. But he’s using it to motivate him for the difficult job that he has to do in Ephesus.  

11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. 

Flee what things? What are the “things” that Timothy must flee from? Well look at where we left off last week. Look at verses 4-5. We’ve got conceit, ignorance, unhealthy craving for controversy, quarrels about words, envy, dissention, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction. 

Not only that but look at verses 9-10. We’ve got an unhealthy desire to get rich (i.e. greed) and the love of money (φιλαργυρία). Paul is saying here, “Leave that stuff behind, Timothy! This is what false teachers chase. You don’t chase that; instead you run from that.” Paul tells Timothy later, in 2 Timothy 2:22, “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.” So this isn’t an isolated strategy in 1 Timothy. Paul tells Timothy to flee twice!

And that might surprise you here that Paul tells Timothy to run before he tells him to fight. There’s a defensive strategy built into this statement. Sometimes, as a Christian, you’ve got to know when to stand and fight. And sometimes you need to run. That’s true on the battlefield; that’s true in the Christian life.

Let me say it this way. “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em... know when to fold ‘em… know when to walk away… and know when to run.” That’s so good, someone should write a song about it. By the way, that was Sam Houston’s strategy with Santa Anna. He just ran from one fight after another, until he finally had the fight he wanted at San Jacinto. Fleeing is a perfectly legitimate strategy for spiritual warfare.

Think about Joseph in the OT when he was tempted by Potipher’s wife (Gen 39:1-23). He didn’t just stand there and try to fight the temptation while she was luring him into bed. He didn’t try to reason her out of her sinful desires. He did the right thing. He got out of there as fast as he could. 

As a Christian, you’ve got to know when to flee. You’ve got to know when to put some distance between you and that temptation that so easily entangles you. Sometimes that means fleeing to your spouse. Sometimes that means fleeing to a trusted friend and confessing your struggle. Sometimes that means fleeing straight home after work instead of dickering around with temptations that could destroy you. I know Paul’s speaking in metaphor with this first command: “flee these things.” But sometimes we need to apply that counsel literally. 

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Go ahead and write this down as #2. Here’s a second strategy.  

2. Follow (6:11a)

You flee sin, and you follow “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.” Look at the back half of verse 11, 

Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 

The word “pursue” is the Greek word διώκω. It means “pursue” or “follow in haste.” It means to strive to do something with an intense effort towards a goal. This is typical of Paul to create this two-fold strategy of spiritual warfare. He tells us to put on and put off in Ephesians (4:22-24; see also Col 3:9-10). Put off your old self and put on the new self. He tells us in Galatians to put to death the deeds of the flesh, while simultaneously cultivating the fruit of the Spirit (5:16-26). The two-fold strategy here in 1 Timothy is both flee and follow. You flee sin, and you follow God. You bolt from sin, and you bolster “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” in your life.

Now just a nota bene here. Paul gives us six characteristics in verse 6. And these are examples of what theologians call communicable attributes of God. Some of God’s attributes are incommunicable, meaning we will never manifest them as human beings (e.g. omnipotence, omniscience, sovereignty). But other attributes of God are communicable, meaning we can manifest them in our own lives albeit imperfectly. They are like communicable diseases that you can catch, except that they are good things. You want to catch these things! 

So, for example, righteousness is a reflection of God’s character that we can exhibit. The Greek word is δικαιοσύνη. It means that which is right and good and just in this world. Also love is a communicable attribute. God is love, and love is a reflection of God’s character that we can exhibit. Righteousness, godliness, love, steadfastness, and gentleness—all of these are reflections of God’s character that we can exhibit. Paul says pursue these things while at the same time you are fleeing from sin.

I think this is really helpful for us. Because it means that we don’t just stand around trying to wrestle the devil to the ground. Neither do we just sit around idly waiting for Jesus to return. No, we are active. We are actively pursuing God and pursuing the characteristics of God. Paul says in Galatians 5 that we walk by the Spirit, we are led by the Spirit, and we live by the Spirit keeping in step with the Spirit. John says it this way, “We walk in the light as he is in the light.” Paul says here we run from sin, and we run towards Christian character. 

You know what the great enemy of the Christian life is? It’s not regression. It’s not going backwards. It’s stasis. It’s telling the Lord, “I’m good. I’m as good as I want to be as a Christian. I’m just going to stay here for a while.” The Christian who is not moving forward… the Christian who is not learning and growing and maturing as a disciple is the one who is in great danger. We can’t stop. We can’t stop pursuing Christ. We can’t stop pursuing these Christian virtues: “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

 How do we pursue these things? How do we manifest these godly characteristics in our own life? Well, if you want to imitate God… if you want to catch his communicable attributes, you need to spend some time with him. You need to find out what he’s like. You need to spend time with him in prayer. You need to spend time with him in his Word.  

I heard a pastor say once that he knows a lot of people who love theology and the study of God, but they don’t really like God. They don’t like spending time with him. They like knowing about God more than knowing God. Would that be true of you, Christian? Ultimately the pursuit of righteousness, godliness, faith, etc. which Paul is talking about here, that is the pursuit of God! Without God there is no godliness. Without God there is no righteousness. Without God, there is no such thing as virtue or the fruit of the Spirit or communicable attributes. 

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So we flee. We follow. Write this down as #3. Here’s a third strategy for spiritual warfare.  

3. Fight (6:12)

Look at verse 12. Every Christian in this room should have this verse on the tip of your tongue. 

12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

Paul says, “Fight the good fight of the faith.” Show some determination, Timothy. Show some grit. You might say “Fight what? What are we fighting against?” We’re fighting against sin, the flesh, and the Devil. Take your pick. Billy Sunday said once, “Listen, I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist, I’ve butt it as long as I’ve got a head, and I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old, fistless, footless, and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition.” That’s the mentality that Christians should have.

The Greek verb here for “fight” is ἀγωνίζομαι. And the Greek noun is ἀγών. So Paul is telling Timothy here to ἀγωνίζομαι the good ἀγών. Struggle the good struggle. Conflict in the good conflict, the good fight. Not the “bad fight,” but the “good fight.”

And there is a bad fight too. We saw that earlier with the “different doctrine teacher” (ἑτεροδιδασκαλέω). “He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth” (6:4-5). That’s not “the good fight.” That’s the bad fight. That’s the wrong fight. 

By the way, the “fight” metaphor here has the idea of an athlete more than a soldier. I know this is Military City USA, and I’ve called this sermon “A Call to Arms.” But don’t think military here; think athletics. Think two bare-knuckled boxers in a ring duking it out! That’s the picture that Paul is painting here. That’s the metaphor that Paul uses to describe the Christian life. 

But Paul did use a military metaphor earlier in 1 Timothy. In 1 Timothy 1:18-19, Paul said, “wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.” Literally, in that passage, Paul says something like, “battle the good battle.” Later Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:4, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits.” In other words, stay focused on the spiritual battlefield. Paul uses both military and athletic imagery liberally to analogize the Christian life. And the idea here is that Christianity is a great struggle, and God has called us into that great struggle. 

I get the sense that a lot of people don’t come to Christ with that mentality. I think that a lot of Christians are sold a false bill of goods, like if you come to Christ life will be safe and easy and comfortable. If you come to Christ, all your wildest dreams will come true. That’s not what the Bible teaches. 

Some people come to Christ, and it’s as if their mentality is, “Jesus exists to accommodate me and provide me with a life of leisure and comfort.” Like Jesus is some cosmic butler in the sky. But that’s not the way Christianity is presented in the NT. In reality, Christ doesn’t call us to leisure. He calls us to the battlefield. 

I realize that some of you may have come to Christ under false pretenses. Some of you may have been told that if you come to Christ all of your wildest dreams will come true. Certainly eternal bliss awaits us in the afterlife as we live in the presence of God for eternity. But that’s our future. That’s not our present. In the here and now, we’re called to an athletic contest of struggle and agony and perseverance.

There’s a word that perfectly captures this idea. It’s an underutilized word in Christian circles. It’s the word “grit.” Christianity isn’t for wimps. It requires grit. It requires fighters not cowards. 

And I need to be careful here because this is not a strength that is produced in your flesh. Paul said, “in my weakness, I am strong.” Paul said, “But [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor 12:9). This is not a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps kind of strength. This is a supernatural strength that God supplies and that produces in the Christian a divine determination. This is the fight of faith. It’s a supernatural fight. It’s a fight that God has to supply us for, and also that God gets the victory for!

And as part of that, Paul says in verse 12,

12b Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

In other words, cling to the promise of eternal life that God has given you. Use that as motivation for faithfulness and godliness in the present life. God never promised that this life would be easy. But he did promise you eternal life and that makes all of the difficulties that we experience in this world pale in comparison.  

By the way, part of this fight involves forthrightness. Notice what Paul told Timothy. 

12b Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession

Christianity is a confessing religion. Confession is the Greek ὁμολογία. It means profession, confession, or acknowledgment. Not only did Timothy do this, but he made the good confession “in the presence of many witnesses.” In other words he was vocal and forthright about his faith. He didn’t hide it under a bushel.

“Yeah, I don’t do that, Pastor Tony. I don’t talk about my faith out loud. I’m one of those ‘secret Christians.’” No, you’re not. Jesus doesn’t have secret, silent followers. Paul said, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). Jesus said, “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven…” (Matt 10:32).

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Finally, write this down as #4. Four strategies for spiritual warfare. Flee, Follow, Fight, and fourthly…

4. Focus (6:13-16)

Paul says in verse 13,

13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 

There’s that confession word again—ὁμολογία. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus answered him, “You have said so” (Matt 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3). That’s the good confession that Paul alludes to here.

It’s interesting to me that Christ made “the good confession” before Pontius Pilate. And in verse 12 Timothy made “the good confession” before many witnesses. Jesus made his confession before the most powerful man in Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor who ruled over Judea from AD 26-36. Jesus bravely and unapologetically made the good confession before him, even as Pilate had the authority to condemn him. And he asks us to follow suit with courage and conviction. 

It’s also interesting to me how Pontius Pilate has become, in human history, the great persecutor of Christ. So much so, that he is actually immortalized for centuries in the Apostles’ Creed. There are only three humans mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed. There’s Jesus, Jesus’s mother Mary, and Pontius Pilate. “[Jesus] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” Talk about eternal infamy. 

Paul says, “I charge you, Timothy, before God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, who testified before the infamous Pontius Pilate…”

14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach 

What’s the commandment? I think Paul is speaking here of the command from verse 12, which is “fight the good fight of the faith.” And also “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” More generally Paul might be referencing the commandment to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. The true convert will persevere in faith. The false convert will shrivel up like the seed in Jesus’s parable that was scorched by the sun.

Now stay with me here because Paul is about to go doxological on all of us. Verses 13-16 are one large sentence, and it’s easy to get lost in everything that Paul is communicating here. But what he’s essentially doing is telling us how awesome God is and how we need to get our eyes on him. 

So here we go. Look at verse 13 with me. 

13 I charge you in the presence of God… 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—

“When’s Jesus coming back, Pastor Tony?” I don’t know. No one knows the hour or the day (Matt 24:36). But I know that his timing will be perfect. He will appear at the proper time! 

There are two things that Paul is encouraging Timothy to focus on in verses 13-16. These are the two great motivators in the Christian life. The first thing is the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t stay faithful as a Christian because you think it will bring you a life of leisure and luxury. Stay faithful as a Christian because Christ is coming soon. Don’t flee from the sins of the flesh and pursue righteousness, godliness, and all the rest because it’ll make life easy in this present age. Do it because this present age is coming to an end soon. Christ’s glorious appearing is imminent. Whether by death or by rapture, the end is near.

Paul exhibits here what many people refer to as his “eschatological view of reality,” meaning Paul was always focused on the end. He was always cognizant that Jesus could return at any moment. And we should be too. The last thing that we want is for Christ to find us indulging our flesh when he returns. Likewise we don’t want Christ to find us twiddling our thumbs and dilly-dallying when he returns. We need to stay focused. We need to stay diligent and vigilant.

I don’t know about you, but when I was in little league, we always had that kid on our baseball team who had no idea what he was doing. His parents probably made him play and he didn’t want to. And he was the epitome of obliviousness not vigilance. And our coach would inevitably send those kids out to right field, and they would chase bugs in the outfield during the game. And I would just pray that the batter wouldn’t hit anything in his direction.

There are a lot of people, Christians even, who live their lives like that. They are oblivious to the spiritual realities around them. They are woefully ill-prepared for the coming of Christ. Don’t let that be you. Paul tells Timothy to stay focused because Christ’s return could happen at any moment. 

But he gives him another reason in verses 15-16. Here’s the second great motivator in the Christian life. And let me put that reason as simply as I can—God is awesome! Paul is saying here, “Stay focused Timothy, because God is awe-inspiringly stupendous!”

And to reinforce that, Paul just breaks out in spontaneous doxology in the middle of his argument. It’s as if he can’t contain the praise for God that registers deep inside of his soul.

He says in verse 14, 

14 … keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Translation, God alone existed in eternity past, and immortality in eternity future is bound up with him! Remember this is Ephesus where Timothy is located. This is that city where they shouted “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” for two hours (see Acts 19:28, 34). That was their opinion, and it was foolish. This is Paul’s opinion. And it’s this—there’s no God like our God. There’s no God, but our God.

This passage is packed with content, so let’s go through it bit by bit. And let’s spend some time meditating on the God of the Universe who created us and saved us. 

Paul says first that he is “the blessed and only Sovereign.” Obviously this is a reference to both God the Father and the Son. They are both rightfully identified as sovereign over the world. The word “sovereign” here is a reference to God’s identity as ruler over the universe. 

Paul also calls God the King of kings and Lord of lords. That is so basic, it’s almost an understatement. Even the great Nebuchadnezzar of the OT, one of the great and powerful kings of the ancient world, called Daniel’s God, Yahweh, the God of gods and the lord of kings (see Dan 2:47). And this is not a designation that we can limit to God the Father. This is true also of God the Son. Because when Jesus appears in Revelation 19:16, Jesus has “King of kings and Lord of lords” emblazoned on his robe and tattooed on his thigh (see also Rev 17:14).

Also Paul says that God alone has immortality. That doesn’t mean that human beings aren’t immortal. They are. They will live forever. But only God lived in eternity past. God exists in eternity past and in eternity future. Humans exist only in eternity future. 

And by the way, while we’re on this subject, all human beings will live forever somewhere. Either they will live in the presence of God forever, or they will be separated from God forever. There is eternal life for the believer and eternal death for the unbeliever. Our immortality is actually derived from God’s immortality. We are made in the image of God, and part of that means that we are forever creatures. The question isn’t “will I live forever?” Trust me, you will! The question is this: “Where will you spend your forever?”

But God alone has immortality in both the past and the future. And it is him who dwells in unapproachable light. Paul goes Old Testament here with his description of God. No one can see God and live. God told Moses in Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Even in eternity we will never see God the Father in all of his glory. We will see the God-man, Jesus Christ, and embrace him. That’s what makes the revelation of Jesus Christ and the incarnation so amazing. We get to see the unseeable. We get to behold the unbeholdable. But no one has ever seen or can ever see God the Father. He dwells in unapproachable light.

And here’s the climax of this doxology. Paul says, “To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” We don’t fight for our own glory. We don’t look inward in order to fight outward. We look upward to fight outward. The power to fight spiritual battles isn’t the power of positive thinking or the indominable human spirit. The power comes from God. The victory goes to God. The honor goes to God. And eternal dominion belongs to God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. 

There are two things here that Paul tells Timothy to focus on. Here’s what we need to fix our minds on as we are engaged in spiritual warfare: 1) Christ’s imminent return. Look again at that in verse 14.

14 … keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—

And secondly, we fix our minds on 2) the absolute awesomeness of God Almighty. 

he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light… To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Paul is implicitly saying here, “Focus on those things, young Timothy. Keep your mind overawed with God’s magnificence and God’s grandeur. And see if that doesn’t catalyze spiritual strength within you.” John Piper calls this, “A God entranced vision of all things.” John the Baptist said it this way: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). That’s the secret of spiritual warfare. We need a bigger view of God, and we need a smaller view of ourselves. 

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Four strategies for spiritual warfare:

Flee (6:11a)

Follow (6:11b)

Fight (6:12)

Focus (6:13-16) 

I’ll close with this. You know there are two places in the NT where the language of “fight the good fight” is invoked. And it’s the same sequence of Greek words. ἀγωνίζομαι… ἀγών. The first occurrence is in reference to young Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:12. Paul says, “Fight the good fight of faith.”

The second occurrence is in 2 Timothy 4:7. It’s in probably the last section of text that Paul ever writes. Paul is days from death, maybe even hours from death, and he says in that moment, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  

Notice the past tense language: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” And notice too Paul doesn’t say I have won the fight. And neither does he say I have won the race. He just says, “I fought” and “I finished.” And I finished in faith. That’s the goal. The goal is not winning; the goal is finishing. 

Now let me make an observation. Those of us in this room right now, we are somewhere between Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 and Paul in 2 Timothy 4. Some of you in this room are closer to Timothy in 1 Timothy. And some of you are closer to Paul in 2 Timothy. We are all somewhere between young and almost dead. We are somewhere between “fight the good fight of faith” and “I have fought the good fight.” 

And for me, here’s my desire. I want to keep following and serving Christ … and fighting the good fight of faith … so that when my time comes, and my race is over, and my body is about to expire, I can say, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 

May God help us to do that! Pray with me towards that end.