1 Timothy 1:18-20 | Fight the Good Fight

Introduction: The Good Fight

Bible, go and grab it and turn it to the book of 1 Timothy. We’re continuing our way through the book. If you don’t have a Bible, you could use the pew Bible in front of you. And if you don’t own a Bible, that’s our gift to you. We would love for you to just keep it, take it with you, take it home. If you don’t have a Bible, we would love for you to have a copy of God’s Word. 1 Timothy is kind of like four fists into the Bible, so it’s towards the back. The big numbers are chapter numbers and little numbers are the verse numbers. So, we’ll be looking at 1 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. Again, it’s 1 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 18 through 20. It says this:

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. — 1 Timothy 1:18-20 (CSB)

Let’s pray. Lord, we want to value true faith and a good conscience this morning. So, we pray, Lord, that we would not be deceived by Satan or be led astray and shipwrecked our faith, but you would help us guide our compasses so that we can follow after you faithfully as we listen to your word this morning. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Unchanging Truth in Changing Times

I have a confession to share with you: I didn’t know who Fred Astaire was. Some of your older folks are laughing. I didn’t know who he was. Honestly, amongst these young people right now, I doubt they know who Fred Astaire is. I had no idea who this tap dancing man was until an older man in his sixties found out that I didn’t know who Fred Astaire was, was shocked. He sat me down, Googled YouTube, and then pulled up clips and made me watch his videos. And honestly, if it wasn’t for that faithful man’s intervention, I would have gone my entire life without knowing about Fred Astaire.

Despite his fame, despite even being a household name, by the time I arrived, his name had already faded into oblivion. It doesn’t take long for a household name to become a complete unknown. The Walk of Fame is filled with the stars of people that I don’t recognize. They all had to face the music. And it goes for other things, too. Sixty years ago, most people knew how to drive manual cars. Today, everyone drives automatic. Tomorrow, most of us won’t even know how to drive. We won’t need to, because of self-driving technology. It doesn’t take long for a universal skill to become an unnecessary one. No matter how prevalent things were in the past, they tend to stay there. The times, they are changing.

But while culture may change, while technology may change, truth does not. Our God is a God of truth, and what He teaches in His Word is permanent. It’s everlasting. It’s completely unchanging. It’s what we sang earlier: that God’s Word is a firm foundation that’s everlasting. The problem is that while truth never changes, we do. Our hearts lose interest in our first love. Our minds drift off into distractions. And before we know it, we end up forgetting things that we assume that we knew. We may even assume that we know these things until someone asks us a single question related to the stuff that we thought that we knew, and we don’t know how to defend it.

It doesn’t take long for central truths that we believe as Christians, even the good news that Christ Jesus was crucified for sinners, to become completely forgotten. One preacher said that the gospel is lost in three generations: the first knows the gospel, the second assumes it, and the third forgets it. But the gospel is so much more important than Fred Astaire. And Paul reminds Timothy to remember the truth, to stay faithful to the truth, because there are those who have come and will continue to come and try to distract the church away from the truth. And Timothy’s job is to remember the truth and hold fast to it. And by holding on and remembering the truth, fight the good fight of faith. That’s the same thing that God calls all of us to do this morning: to fight the good fight.

Three Ways to Fight the Good Fight

There’s three ways that Paul tells us this morning to fight the good fight. First, recall God’s words. Second, believe and behave. And lastly, witness the wreck.

1. Recall God's Words

Let’s start with point number one, recall God’s words. Look again at verse 18 there: “Timothy, my son, I’m giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by recalling them, you may fight the good fight.” In the last two Sundays, we’ve seen Paul remind Timothy about the original commission that he gave him to stay in Ephesus, and he reminds Timothy of the truth of the gospel. And now, Paul turns to give Timothy a main charge of his letter. This really is kind of the main idea that he wants Timothy to get. This is the reason why he wrote this entire book down. His aim is for Timothy to fight the good fight, to continue to go on in the ministry.

And this idea of fighting the good fight is more than just a pep talk. Paul isn’t giving Timothy an emotional pick-me-up here. He’s reminding Timothy that he is caught up in a spiritual battle, and Timothy is called to arms. This is a real fight, a real war that every Christian is waging right now. Last week, we talked about how our love for a thing will fuel our zeal for that thing, that we fight for the things that we love, whether it’s our family or our passions. In the same way, because Timothy loves the Lord, he is being called to fight on His behalf.

It would be a nice thing if being faithful to the Lord meant that we wouldn’t have any problems. If following Jesus meant that churches never had conflict, but I’m sure many of us know by experience that the church is filled with conflict all the time. There’s drama, there’s debates, there’s deception. It’s not anything new. It’s something found in the very earliest of churches. Even when you go back to the New Testament itself, you see conflict and division and deception all over the place. And the reason is because following Jesus means war.

So long as Jesus is saving sinners and Satan is trying to deceive them, you will have spiritual battles in the church. And Satan is seeking to destroy our church. And the only way to stay faithful in a war that’s waging around us is to push against the natural tide against unbelief, to actually stand up and proactively work, put in effort in order to oppose error and stand for the truth. Because if you drift down the current of wherever your heart defaults to, you will fall to your own destruction. Christians are engaged in a fight, a war, and it is a worthy war because Paul describes it as a good fight.

This is a fight that matters. Because what could possibly matter more than the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ? We have the most important news of all time: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If you’re not a Christian and you’re here this morning, that’s the good news that we want you to know. We’re all created to love and serve God. But rather than obeying Him out of our sinful wickedness, we rebelled against Him and disobeyed the King of the universe. And ever since, we have been in a cosmic battle against Him.

And because of our mutiny, we deserve to be judged. We deserve to be condemned for our sins. But God in His kindness has sent His Son, Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life that you and I could never live. He was perfectly loyal to His Father. And on the cross, God punished Him for the sin that you and I committed. And He died in our place and rose three days later from the dead, paying the penalty in full. And the good news of the gospel is that because of Christ’s work in your place, because He died in your place, God, our King, offers you a full pardon, full forgiveness this morning.

If you turn from your sin and trust in Him, in His finished work for you, if you turn to Christ alone, if you look towards His cross and you see His finished work on your behalf, then you can turn and trust in Him today. That is the good news of the gospel. That is the good news that we believe, and that is the good news that motivates us to fight the good fight. It’s exactly what Paul is telling Timothy to remember. Paul tells his son Timothy, remember the instruction that’s been entrusted to him. He is commissioned with this good news to continue to teach it day after day after day.

And that instruction is in keeping with the prophecies made about Timothy. Now, what are those prophecies? Some will read texts like this and think that some sort of saints happened where they manifested truths for Timothy regarding his future, and that Paul is reminding him of his eternal destiny, what he must do as laid out by the prophets. That is likely not quite the main exhortation here for Paul. That’s probably not exactly what he’s getting at. The focus in this particular verse isn’t so much about Timothy’s destiny, but about Timothy’s responsibility. It’s not about what Timothy must be in the future, it’s about who Timothy is called to be right now.

It’s a real prophecy that he received. It’s about his call to the ministry. In fact, that’s exactly what Paul points to later in this book. So if you just turn the page in your Bible and go to chapter 4, and look at verse 13 through 14. This is Paul reminding Timothy of the same thing that he does in verse 18 of chapter 1.

Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching. Don’t neglect the gift that is in you; it was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. — 1 Timothy 4:13-14 (CSB)

So Timothy is called here in verse 13 to the public reading, to the exhortation, and to teaching. In other words, Paul is called to be a preacher, a pastor of a church. He’s called to lead these people. And that gift was given to him through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. Timothy receives a gift given through prophecy from the laying on of hands by the council of elders. And that gift is being used related to Timothy’s ministry as pastoral work.

See, the laying on of hands is linked with ministry. It’s exactly how Paul and Barnabas are set apart by the church in Antioch for their missionary work. Acts 13 says this:

As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off. — Acts 13:2-3 (CSB)

See, the church in Antioch is worshiping the Lord and then the Spirit speaks. And the church fasts, prays, and lays hands on Paul and Barnabas as a commission for them to the work of the ministry. Paul and Barnabas are entrusted with bringing the gospel to the Gentiles to do their missionary work. But in both Paul and Timothy’s case, you see a lot of parallels: the Spirit speaks, the church lays hands, and a man is called to the ministry.

The same way that Paul is entrusted with apostolic ministry, Timothy is entrusted with pastoral ministry. He’s supposed to be dedicated to the pastoral ministry that he’s been called to. That this responsibility that Timothy has isn’t just about not letting Paul down, it’s about not letting God down. It’s about doing what God Himself had called Timothy to do. Now, a lot of people talk about calls to ministry as though the Spirit may directly speak to you and commission you. It’s a joy to be your pastor. I had no dove descend from the sky. I had no inner voice speak to me conclusively, “This is something that I need to do.” And to be honest, I’m not sure if Timothy had that either.

When we talk about pastoral calling, notice here that Paul is speaking to Timothy in hindsight, not foresight. He’s not talking about something that Timothy is doing in the future. It’s calling Timothy to remember something that happened in the past. There are some that think that they’ve been called by God to pastor churches. They’ve been personally told by the Holy Spirit that they’re called to be a leader or a pastor, and yet they’re not qualified to be ministers. Or they will use their unique spiritual calling as an expectation for a church to hire them or to recognize them. Let’s say blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. That’s not the way that prophecy is working here in verse 8.

The calling of God isn’t being used to coerce a church into recognizing a wrong guy or force a man to enter into the ministry who doesn’t want to. 1 Peter 5 actually says that a pastor must not serve out of compulsion. If you don’t want to be a pastor, that means you’re not called to be one. It’s that simple. But the calling of God through prophecy is being used in hindsight, looking back in order to encourage Timothy. See, Timothy is in a state of discouragement. He’s been toiling in Ephesus as a young man for years. And opposition keeps coming. And now Hymenaeus and Alexander are standing up against him. And he’s swimming upstream for years and he’s getting exhausted. And Paul, as a loving father, is telling him, “Look back and remember the instruction I gave you. Remember the holy calling you’ve received by God the pastor.” In other words, remember what you were called to do.

It would be like if Mark Dever sent me a text message saying, “Remember John, what I told you when you were installed. Remember God’s Word in 1 Timothy 4. Remember the pastors that laid hands on you so that by recalling them, you will continue to preach, pray, love, and stay.” Paul is telling Timothy here to remember, to recall. Sometimes it feels like the present is all the time misery, exhaustion, conflict, like a broken record of discouragement. Dark clouds of doubt storm your soul as you replay confrontations, disagreements, tension. And what you need to do in those moments when those clouds come and cover your vision, fog your brain, you need to lift your head and remember why you’re in that battle in the first place. “Why am I here?”

In times of discouragement, you can remember what God says to you in His Word: that it is a firm foundation and one worth placing your faith and confidence in. In times of discouragement, you can remember that Christ will hold you fast no matter how weak or weary you may feel right now. In times of discouragement, you can remember that your strength isn’t found in your own hands, but in Christ’s cross. You see, our past and the confidence and the encouragement that we receive then helps ground us in the present to be able to propel us towards the future. It’s a grace from God given to us. Do you remember God’s words? Do you believe them?

This is part of the reason why I believe that expository preaching is so important. What we mean by that word — that’s like a Christian SAT word, expository preaching — all I mean by that is that the words and the point of the passage are the words and the point of the sermon. That I’m not coming up behind this pulpit to say what I think is really interesting and cool, but I’m trying to tell you what God’s Word itself is actually saying. The reason why we think that’s important is because this instruction has been the same instruction for the last 2,000 years. It’s the thing that’s kept Christians faithful, anchored to Christ for millennia. I don’t think I have anything particularly to add to that. Something new to give or some other cool way to add on top of the instruction has been unchanging since the day of Christ. It’s the Holy Spirit who’s been speaking through this book since the day of Christ. Jesus continues to talk to us through His Word. God continues to speak to us through His Word. And every time we open this book, we’re able to look back and remember why we’re here in the first place.

But God does more than just give us a Bible. He also gives us our own past, encouragement, and experiences. Can you remember faithful Christians in your life that encouraged you, that entrusted you with this good gospel, that poured into your heart and your life and shaped and informed you? When discouragement rails against you, look back and see the deposit of the gospel that was given to you. Whether it was your parents, a mentor or a pastor, remember the Word of God that they gave to you. Remember the Word of God. Remember the good news of the gospel. Remember their faces as they encouraged you, as they spoke to you, as they prayed for you. Remember the high calling that we have to guard that same message and then entrust it to the people after us: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Let that bolster you to be able to keep going. And that strength of fight, lifting up our hearts, also strengthens us to remain faithful as well.

2. Believe and Behave

So point number one is to remember. Point number two, believe and behave. Let’s look at verse 19 there: “Fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked the faith.” Fighting the good fight isn’t just about what you do, but what you have. In fact, without these two things, the fight cannot be fought. You will die. If you want to fight the good fight, you must have two things: you must have faith, and you must have a good conscience. Faith because you must believe the truth. A good conscience because you must live the truth.

We already talked a little bit about the importance of doctrine and remembering. But what about the conscience? What does Paul mean when he says, “a good conscience?” Andy Naselli and J.D. Crowley wrote a really great book that I happily recommend called *Conscience*, where they define your conscience as your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong. It’s a God-given compass inside you that helps you evaluate whether something is right or wrong. And while your conscience can be a helpful tool in navigating through right and wrong, it itself can also be right or wrong. It’s an imperfect guide.

And our conscience can be so sensitive, for example, that things that aren’t sin can feel sinful to us. Our conscience might be overly sensitive. We just assume that everything is bad or dangerous. That’s why some Christians in the early church struggled with thinking that it’s wrong to eat food that was offered to idols, even though Paul taught that it was totally fine to do so. Other times, our conscience can be hardened, where we think that certain things are okay even though they actually are sinful. And that’s exactly what Paul is writing against here: a conscience that’s so deceived, so darkened, so misaligned that it convinces itself that it’s okay to sin, that you can follow Christ and follow your sin at the same time.

And Paul wants Timothy to make sure that Timothy pushes up against bad consciences as he’s correcting those compasses, explaining why they’re wrong, that he himself has a good conscience. Timothy, if you call out other people for their sin, make sure you’re fighting your sin too. It’s not enough to call out the errors of others. Timothy himself has to be holy in order to keep a good conscience. He needs to act in integrity. See, our obedience doesn’t give us our faith. We all believe that. We don’t earn our salvation through what we do. But what we do validates what we believe. If you love Christ, you love Him. You don’t love your sin, you kill it.

And that clear conscience, that good compass that helps us evaluate what is right and wrong to do, affects our actions. And we need to care about that. Christians care about grace, and because we care about grace, we care about holiness. Why are so many Christians today scared to talk about sin? To talk about obedience, sanctification? There are many reasons that we can point to outside of this building. We can point to Hollywood. We can point to culture. We can point to the government. We can point to all sorts of things. But you don’t have to look outside. The main reason why I think we’re scared to talk about sin is because of what’s in our hearts. It’s a tainted conscience, secret sins, things in our heart that we know run against what the Lord wants for us, that we still want to keep around anyway.

Pray for your leaders. Pray for me. Pray that we’d all be able to walk in the holiness that we teach. I had a friend send me a quote just last week as he was praying for me where John Owen said that anyone who builds a tree on a faulty, hypocritical foundation will do more damage when it falls than anything that he built. Pray for yourself too. As one Christian wrote, “a bad conscience is the mother of all heresies.” See, a lot of people think that false teaching begins with what we do in our heads or the ways that we think wrongly. I think false teaching usually begins with our hearts. We want to sin. We want to figure out a way to justify it. And because of that, our hearts lead our heads astray.

Proactively kill sin in your life. Calibrate your conscience. Have zeal. Fight the good fight. Be able to look at others and hate their sin because you love them and extend that same courtesy to yourself. As John tells us, walk in the light as He is in the light. That might look like having a conversation with a church member that you trust after service today. That might look like going before the Lord and repenting, not just because of the things that you’ve done, but also because of the things that you loved, what you thought, what was going on in your heart. Recalibrate your conscience. Fight the good fight by believing and behaving in line with the gospel. Because some, according to Paul, have departed from the faith and a good conscience and it’s led to their destruction.

3. Witness the Wreck

This brings me to the last point this morning: witness the wreck. Look again at verse 19: “Having faith in a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.” The rejection of God’s word, the rejection of the gospel, the rejection of holiness is a massive deal. At first, it might not seem like it’s that much of a big deal. You’re exploring out in the sea of life. Your compass might not be perfect, but you’re able to look out and see what’s out there. It might still feel fine and the calm tricks you into thinking that your life is okay until a storm comes, until Satan attacks with temptations and trials and the tempest swells, it will capsize you.

Sin shipwrecks us. It doesn’t just happen outside the church. It happens inside the church as well. Basil the Great in the early church, in like the first 300 or 400 years of the church’s history, wrote this: “What storm at sea was ever so fierce and wild as this tempest within the churches? If our enemy is not the first to strike us, we are wounded by the comrade at our side. We see as it were, whole churches crushed and all dashed and shattered upon the sunken reefs of deceitful teaching. While other enemies of the spirit of salvation have seized the helm and made shipwreck of the faith.” It’s exactly what Timothy is dealing with: people inside the church claiming to know what’s right, and their talk and their walk are leading people to their destruction.

So what do you do when some inside the church reject and shipwreck the faith? You do two things: you identify them and you indict them. Paul says people’s names and calls them out specifically. Hymenaeus and Alexander are etched into history forever for being false teachers. Why is it necessary to publicly identify these Christians, to call them by their name? Because their sin is public. They are openly teaching in opposition to the true gospel. And not only are they opposing the truth of the gospel, they are also leading others into that same false doctrine.

This isn’t the same thing as putting a sinner on blast the moment they commit any sin. What Hymenaeus and Alexander are doing are meeting three qualities of a sin worthy of public discipline. Lest you think this means that you need to pull out the bazooka whenever you see someone doing anything wrong, these are three qualifications for something that’s worthy of public discipline. First, this sin is outward. It’s tangible. There’s actual evidence. People have heard Alexander and Hymenaeus teach about these things. It’s public knowledge. They’re leading people astray. Second, it’s serious. This isn’t someone stubbing a toe and letting loose a word. This is serious sin. It’s about the faith, which literally determines life and death. And lastly, it’s unrepentant.

In our passage last week, we see that Hymenaeus and Alexander are presenting themselves as though they’re teachers of the law, as though they are the true teachers, that they’re the reliable pastors in contrast to Paul and Timothy. And when a sin is tangible, serious, and unrepentant, it needs to be addressed publicly. It requires public discipline. The first thing you do is identify. The second thing that you do is you indict them. You charge them. Paul says that he has delivered them to Satan. What does that mean to deliver someone to Satan? Is it the same thing as the Pope excommunicating, casting someone from the kingdom of heaven into the kingdom of darkness and hell? I don’t think so. Not quite. There are other passages in the New Testament that also use this language of taking someone and delivering them to Satan.

Now, to help us understand what Paul’s talking about here, the clearest being in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. If you have a Bible, you just turn back a couple of pages to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. You should be right after Romans. Paul writes to the Corinthian church about a similar situation. Paul’s teaching, in terms of unrepentant sins, sin that meets these three categories of being tangible, serious, and unrepentant. And he tells the Corinthian church what they’re supposed to do in light of that.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles—a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. — 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 (CSB)

I just want to skip down there to verse 12. This is Paul’s reasoning for why they need to do all this.

For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you. — 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (CSB)

Just notice all the words that Paul is using in this passage: judgment, assembling, the power of Christ. And as you pronounce judgment, as you assemble together as a church, with the power of Christ Jesus, what you do is you hand that person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. And later in verse 13, Paul tells them, citing the Old Testament when Israel would cast down an evil person from their camp, to remove the evil person from among you. So, what does it mean to hand someone over to Satan based on 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Timothy 1? It means to officially, congregationally as a church, remove someone from the church and declare their unrepentant behavior to be sinful and not Christ-like. That their actions are aligned with Satan, not with Jesus. That makes sense.

So you have a guy who’s claiming to be a Christian saying, “I can follow Jesus and sleep with my dad’s wife at the same time.” And the church is officially saying, “No, you can’t.” And they’re publicly saying to the world, “That is not a true gospel. You cannot follow Jesus and love your sin at the same time.” And the purpose of handing someone over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh is “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” That’s exactly what Paul is hoping for in 1 Timothy 1:20. He tells Hymenaeus and Alexander to “learn not to blaspheme.” So you hand them over to Satan, you deliver them to Satan so that they learn not to blaspheme, so that they get taught about what’s correct. In other words, church discipline or excommunication draws a clear line. It knows what true faith and true Christian living looks like and forces it within the Christian community. Not that Christians don’t ever sin or can’t ever sin, but that Christians can’t be okay with sin, because it communicates something untrue about Jesus.

Notice what Paul accuses Hymenaeus and Alexander of? He accuses them of blasphemy. And it’s more than just what they teach, it’s how they live. When you live in unrepentant sin and you claim to follow Jesus, if you say, “I can follow Jesus and live with my boyfriend at the same time,” if you say, “I can follow Jesus and steal money from my company,” “I can follow Jesus and hide my pornography addiction,” when you follow Jesus and your sin at the same time, you are telling the world something false about Jesus. You are saying something incorrect about the gospel. And because of that, you are presenting a false Jesus, presenting a false God, and you’re leading other people in worship of Him, and that is blasphemy.

And when you hand someone over to Satan, when you remove them from the church, you are clearly communicating to a watching world that Jesus saves sinners, but He doesn’t enable sinners. The sexual abusers that continue in unrepentant behavior have no place in the church of Christ. The people who are serial adulterers have no place in the church of Christ. That blasphemers, adulterers, liars, sinners that are unabashedly following Jesus and their sin are not following Jesus at all. See, Jesus saves sinners, He doesn’t enable them. He doesn’t let them continue to walk in unrighteousness.

Are we willing to do that as a church? Are you willing to do that hard thing and kick someone out because you love them? Even fire a pastor because you love him if they’re walking in unrighteousness? Baptist theologian, John Lead-Leidag (not me, John Lead-Leidag), said that when church discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it. Are you willing to do the uncomfortable thing and fight the good fight? To stand up for what’s true even if it costs you, even if it’s inconvenient, even if it exposes someone’s sin?

If we want to be able to do that, if we want to be able to do those difficult things as a church, we need to have a true faith and a good conscience. We need to make sure that we’re killing our own sin as well as calling out the sin in others. And the way that we know that our faith and conscience is in line with Christ is by remembering God’s instructions in God’s law. We look at the book. If we don’t do this, we don’t fight the good fight. If we give in to all the pressures surrounding us, we will get wrecked.

Calling out sin is inconvenient, messy, overwhelming. We can justify compromise in the name of peace, and while our conscience gets more and more comfortable with sin, we start to justify it more. Our vision starts to get blurry. God’s Word starts to become more and more inconvenient because it keeps exposing our truth, so we neglect it until the point where it becomes completely irrelevant. And as we slip into spiritual unconsciousness, all it takes is one storm before this church gets completely shipwrecked.

But if we stay alert, if we watch out for one another, if we love God so much that we have a zeal for His holiness in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters in this church, we hold one another accountable. We keep fighting the good fight that’s been entrusted to us by saints before us and by our Savior Jesus Christ. The promise from God’s Word is that you and I will make it to the end. That we will stand safely on the shores of a celestial city through whatever storms, whatever tempest this world brings. And one tool in reminding us, giving, helping us be able to do this is by looking at the shipwreck of others.

Look at the Titanic of Hymenaeus and Alexander. Look at the wreck that happened with their life. That can happen to you. That can also happen to me. And the way that we fight is by believing, by trusting in Christ, behaving in line with what we believe. And we can recall the good word entrusted to us. We can fight the good fight. We can go to war every Sunday that we listen to the word preached and say, “I believe that.” We can fight the good fight as we cry, as we hug, as we encourage and laugh with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ and point out sin and point each other towards holiness. We can fight the good fight even this Sunday after this service, when we go into our members’ meeting and we make sure that we’re caring for everyone that’s in this fold by this standard, whether we’re walking in obedience to Christ and membership of His church.

And Jesus in heaven will know that every single effort that we made to keep going was in honor of Him. And we will please our good Father in heaven. Our Father delights to see us walk with Him and He will continue to help us to walk in line with Him. Our God has helped Christians from ages past and He will continue to help us even today. Let’s pray. We pray this morning we need your help to be able to walk in obedience with you. We need your help in order to be able to walk faithfully, to trust you. So we ask, Lord, that you strengthen us by your Spirit. Give us enough confidence in the foundation of your word to do difficult things, to be radical in our obedience and following after you. And we ask that you strengthen us to that end in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.