1 Timothy in a Nutshell

Go and grab your Bible and turn it to the book of 1 Timothy. This sermon is a little unusual in terms of what we normally do. Normally, what we do is we pick a book of the Bible and we go verse by verse, and we walk through the entire book until we're done preaching through the book. Last Sunday, we finished walking through 1 Timothy.

So what we're going to do today is we're going to try to sum up the entire book of 1 Timothy in a nutshell. In other words, I am going to preach a sermon on the entire book of 1 Timothy. Now, it doesn't mean I'm going to read the entire book of 1 Timothy, but it does mean that I'm going to try to synthesize some of the ideas that we've been learning and hearing from God's Word for the last couple months as we look at this book as a whole. So if the last several months was kind of us walking through and surveying what 1 Timothy has to say, this sermon is the bird's eye view. This is 1 Timothy in a nutshell.

But to begin, I want to read from 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 11 through 16. If you're visiting us, we're glad that you're here. If you don't have a Bible, feel free to use a pew Bible in front of you. We're going to be looking at the book of 1 Timothy. Four is the big number; 11 is the little number that we're looking at. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to just keep that book. Feel free to take it home with you. We would love for you to have a copy of God's Word that you can keep and read. So again, we'll be looking at 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 11 through 16.

Command and teach these things. Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. 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. Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers. — 1 Timothy 4:11-16 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, I want to obey this passage. We want to obey this passage. Help us, Lord, as we look towards Your Word, to not get distracted, to not be led astray by idle speculations or false myths. Help us to focus on the truth of Your Word and to be able to obey it. Even this morning, we can only do this by the strength of Your Spirit. So we ask that You would speak to us in Your Word now, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Timothy is a discouraged pastor. Timothy is having to face opposition. This letter is fraught with all sorts of issues going on in the church in Ephesus. There are false teachers. They are teaching false doctrine. They are deceiving others. They are tricking people into thinking that they are holier for avoiding things in this world, like avoiding marriage or avoiding unclean foods. At the same time, they seem to be teaching that if you do that kind of stuff, if you live an extra-holy life, that it will result in financial blessings in this world; they will make you rich.

On top of all of that, it seems like the opponents that Timothy is dealing with are dismissing him on the basis of his age, looking at the peach fuzz on his cheeks and saying that he's not mature enough to lead this church. After all, what would a young man have to contribute compared to these older, more holy-looking, financially rich false teachers? And that's just the people that are talking smack about him. He's also challenged just by the labor of having to do ministry week after week and the challenge of staying in the same place.

I was just talking to a friend yesterday. I lived most of my early twenties moving around from place to place, right? So in a three-year span, I moved six times, going to place to place, receiving training at various different churches. What happens is you stay at the same place, and your body almost has a clock. After eight months go by, you kind of start feeling the itch like something's off; I'm still here. Some move on, or are I supposed to do other things?

Just think about Timothy's life, traveling the world with Paul, seeing exciting ministry opportunities, seeing churches planted, enduring persecution, proclaiming the gospel, being with your spiritual father in the faith. Then one day, while you're ministering in Ephesus and trying to help the church get a flow, Paul looks at you and says, "I need you to stay." And after a couple of years go by, it feels like that exciting ministry fades away. You're back to the normal grind of week after week after week. The hype cycle stops. And after a while, you start to feel stuck. Timothy goes from traveling under the watchful eye of his father, and now he's completely alone, stuck with people who seem like they don't want to be stuck with him. This church is a complete mess. Timothy is a mess.

So likely, he writes Paul telling him all this stuff that's going on, different issues going on in his heart, that storms his soul and his church, and he asks him for counsel. And Paul knows what it's like to feel inadequate. He introduces himself in chapter one, verses 12 through 17, as the worst of sinners. And he writes this letter as a pastoral, fatherly pep talk, a reminder of what truly matters.

You see, this letter isn't just for Timothy; it's for you and I. It's easy for us to get stuck in the rhythms of week-to-week life. It's easy for us to feel discouraged about various things that are happening in our life or even in the church. And in God's Word, Paul, the spiritual father in the faith, tells Timothy directly, "You, man of God, I urge you, I command you, I write these things to you, you point out these things." And as he gives Timothy this direct encouragement, this direct line of exhortation after exhortation, a reminder after a reminder, he encourages all of us to focus on what truly matters, to wake us up, to focus on what's ultimately most important.

So the main idea of the book of 1 Timothy is quite simple: it's to fight the good fight of the faith. You can see that in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 18 through 19. Let me read it for us.

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. — 1 Timothy 1:18-19 (CSB)

He picks up that same idea later in the book: to fight the good fight of the faith. What's the difference between those who have shipwrecked their faith and Timothy? Whether they have faith and a good conscience, whether or not they have this faith, this belief. And if you want to believe, you need to fight. You need to fight the good fight. You need to work. And specifically, Paul looks at Timothy and exhorts him, commands him to do four things. Throughout the whole book, he's really telling Timothy to do these four things to fight the good fight of the faith. First, to pray. Second, to preach. Third, to practice. And fourth, to persevere.

The Primacy of Prayer

Let's start with point number one: to pray. The way that we begin our fight of faith is on our knees. Look at chapter 2, verses 1 through 7.

First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time. For this I was appointed a herald, an apostle (I am telling the truth; I am not lying), and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. — 1 Timothy 2:1-7 (CSB)

The first thing, the primary thing that Paul wants Timothy to do is to pray. To pray for everyone, as well as those who are in authority. Prayer is the first thing that you and I do as a Christian. It's not just the first thing in terms of order; it's the first thing in terms of priority. In the order of importance, it is the most important work that we do as Christians. There are a lot of tasks that you and I need to do in the Christian life. There's a lot of stuff to be done in your own life, even in the church. And if you don't think that there's a lot of work to be done in the church, just talk to Alan after the service; he will put you to work. There's work to be done. There are people to be cared for. There are sermons to be preached. There are Bibles to be read. There's evangelism to be shared. And yet, the very first thing that you and I do as Christians, the very first thing that you do in your faith, in your belief in God, is not your actions.

The first thing you do is you ask God. The very center of our faith, the very foundation of our faith, is a recognition that God has to do a favor for us and not the other way around. There's nothing in our hands that we bring before the Lord. There's nothing that you and I can do to try to kiss up to Him or gain a better standing. There are no bribes, there are no actions. You don't tidy up the home before you let God into your heart. The very beginning of the faith is a God is kind to you.

Often, we think that the way that we approach the Christian life is that I do a favor for God, and then in exchange, God is going to do a favor for me. And that seems to be exactly what the false teachers in the church in Ephesus are doing. They are going above and beyond what the Bible teaches us to do and expecting some kind of financial blessing in return. So they stay away from marriage or what they deem to be unclean foods, and they're stacking up spiritual IOUs, brownie points, so they can cash out later in the form of material riches.

And the gospel is the complete opposite of that. See, the gospel starts with the recognition that you and I are completely sinful, that we are utterly sinful before a holy God. It doesn't matter whether or not the good and the bad that we do balance out on some kind of scale. We are criminals, guilty of punishment. And no matter what good we do, it doesn't cancel out a guilty sentence. We have to serve time. There is a punishment that you and I owe. And the good news of the gospel isn't that you have an opportunity to pay that debt, but that Jesus himself came down to the earth, fully man, fully God. He lived the perfect life that you and I could never live. And on the cross, he paid the penalty for sin in full. God poured out the wrath, the sentence that you and I deserved, on him. And Jesus paid it all when he died for our sins. And he showed that complete payment as he rose victorious over the dead.

The way that Christians get saved is not by what we do. We get saved by what Christ has done for us. See, the gospel is less like an investment bank and more like a food bank. The gospel is not for people to put their money in and expect some kind of return. The gospel is for the needy. Jesus himself says in Revelation 2, and purchased without cost, that Jesus provides enough grace for you and I to receive everything that we need before the Father.

And every time that you and I pray, we get to reflect that reality. Every single prayer that you and I give is an admission of guilt and helplessness. There's a reason why people, even people that don't profess Christ, when they get really desperate, they find themselves falling on their knees. Because prayer is a recognition that there's nowhere else to turn. But for Christians, it's not just about our physical circumstances that drives us to our knees; it's our daily recognition of our spiritual circumstances. We pray because we recognize that there's nowhere else to turn but to Christ, because Christ is the one who gave himself to us. We pray because there's nothing that you and I bring to our salvation. But Christ gives himself to us. We pray because we recognize that anything that we do is worthwhile, if anything we do lasts, it's because God delights in answering our prayers and making something out of our nothing. The best thing that you and I can do is pray.

I talk to older members sometimes that will tell me things like, "I wish I could do more." They remember when their backs didn't give out, or when they weren't battling cancer, or times where their mind felt fresher, they were more able to dust off cobwebs in the church and so on and so forth. I just want you to know that the most important productive thing that you do for our church is what you do when you pray for our church. I think that some of the most productive members of our church are the older members of our church, with the model that they show in their prayers and their care and their trust in the Lord. I think all of us, regardless of our physical capability, needs to drop our bucket list and pick up our prayer list. Go before the Lord and trust Him to act in our lives. We do that. That's part of the reason why I encourage us to pray through our membership directory. That's not just because it's good to pray for different people in our church, but because I believe that one of the main things that I do as a pastor to care for all of you is my prayers for you. And just imagine what the Lord does as we pray for each other, as we ask God, as we lift up precious saints in the Lord, and we ask the Lord to care for one another.

That's the reason why we do Sunday evenings every single week. That's the reason why we don't cancel our Sunday evening services in the summers. Because prayer doesn't go on vacation. It's actually something that we consistently do. We want to constantly be going before the Lord and recognizing. It's not about our productivity. It's not about our schedule or what we need to get to in the afternoon. It's about what we bring before God. That's part of the reason why in our Sunday services, we want to make sure that we pray long prayers where people start to feel uncomfortable about how long we're praying. Because we actually believe that God listens to our prayers every time that we go before the Lord. Every time that we speak to Him, we believe in an Almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent God who bends his ear to hear and to answer our prayers.

See, Timothy can easily get swept up in all the stuff that he needs to do. There is an infinite to-do list for any pastor in the church that desires to honor the Lord by actually being faithful in their duties. And it's important for Paul to tell Timothy, slow down, sit down, and go before the Lord first. But our dependence on God goes beyond what we just tell Him. It also affects what He tells us in His Word, which brings us to point number two.

Preach the Word of Truth

Preach the Word. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? You and I both know that's not true. Words are effective. Words spawn revolutions. Words can build up or tear down. God built the entire world using His words. And in the church, words can wreak havoc. That's exactly the problem that's going on here in the church in Ephesus. It is false teachers that have crept in and distracted people by using their words: empty speculations, foolish myths, words that sound good to the ear, but if you keep thinking about it, don't make sense in the mind.

And the thing is, the big enemy for Paul isn't just necessarily the false teaching that's deceiving the people. It's the fact that their words are distracting the people. It's not just that the words are false; it's that they're empty, they're void. They don't have any substance to them. You see, Satan doesn't need you and I to believe everything he says. It's not like Satan comes in with his thesis statement against God's thesis statement, and they have a debate with one another to figure out what's true. Satan is not interested in figuring out what's true or proving himself right. He just needs to get you to not care about what is right, to not care about what God says. Because if we hold onto the faith, which is something that Paul goes out of his way to repeat over and over again throughout the book, he never says "a faith," he says "the faith." If you hold onto the faith, then that means that anything that isn't the faith is a departure from the faith. It doesn't matter if it's Islam or the prosperity gospel. It doesn't matter whether or not it's atheism or a poverty gospel, whether it's legalism or lawlessness. Anything that is a departure from the faith is not the faith.

It's no wonder that Paul keeps describing these false teachers as those who have departed, those who left. "Some have departed from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion" (1 Timothy 1:6). "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding irreverent and empty speech and contradictions from what is falsely called knowledge. By professing it, some have departed from the faith" (1 Timothy 6:20-21). And then, "Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the hypocrisy of liars" (1 Timothy 4:1). They listen, they get distracted, and then they depart.

So what's the solution? Well, to start, Paul tells Timothy to shut off false teaching. In 1 Timothy 1:3, he instructs Timothy to instruct people to stop teaching false doctrine, or to pay attention to myths and empty genealogies. In 1 Timothy 4:7, "have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths." In 1 Timothy 6:20, "guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding irreverent and empty speech and contradictions." What do you do in the face of false doctrine? One thing that you do, the first thing that you do, is you shut it off. You turn the TV off, you avoid it. You can't hear the voice of God if the white noise of the world keeps drowning Him out.

And with avoiding what's false, then replace it with what's true. Paul tells Timothy to teach what's true, to preach the faith. In fact, the command that comes up most often throughout this entire book is around instruction: "Remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct" (1 Timothy 1:3). "Proclaim things consistent with sound teaching" (1 Timothy 2:1). "Point these things out to the brothers and sisters" (1 Timothy 4:6). "Command and teach" (1 Timothy 4:11). "Command this also" (1 Timothy 5:7). "Teach and encourage these things" (1 Timothy 6:2). "Instruct those who are rich" (1 Timothy 6:17).

For Paul, right next to the expectation of praying to the true God is teaching the people about who the true God is. That in the sea of confusion and false teaching, Timothy is called to combat false truths about God with a genuine understanding about who God is. And he tells them, "Instruct the faith. Tell them what's true. Don't make them trust in yourself." Don't view it as Timothy versus the false teachers. It is the true faith versus these false teachers. We have a responsibility to believe what's true. This is not a share session. This is not a circle, Kumbaya, where we're all sharing our various perspectives. We care about what God says. We don't care about what Pastor John personally thinks. We don't care about what any church member individually may think or speculate about. We care about what's true. So long as the Lord allows, we want to be faithful to His Word, to the faith, by the instruction that we see in this book. Anything less than what we have in God's Word is just a distraction from what really matters. That's why we don't let news headlines dictate what we teach behind the pulpit. It's part of the reason why we don't measure success based on how many people sit in these pews or on our giving numbers. Because faithfulness is determined by our faithfulness to the faith.

If you look online, if you look on the news, you listen to podcasts, even go to some churches, and you'll find that the sermon titles or the topics are all about whatever people are already interested in. It's not difficult to think about all the things that people are interested in. We could turn every sermon into another podcast about a subject that people might take interest in, and all of them would be a complete waste of time. We care about what God cares about. In other words, it's not us asking primarily the question, like when I preach a sermon behind the pulpit on Sundays, I'm not primarily oriented around what do people care about, and what does God have to say about what people care about? The primary question that should run our preaching and our teaching and our diet in this church is what does God care about, and why does that matter to our lives, because it does. And one way that we do that is by teaching through books of the Bible. I don't set the agenda behind what we preach on Sundays, in the sense that I wonder about topics that might be interesting for our people. I let 1 Timothy decide what we talk about, whether we're talking about prayer, or about qualifications for elders, or about support for widows, because what God wrote in this book is what God cares for us to know. Faithfulness is determined by our faithfulness to the faith.

Every time we open this book, every time we listen to a sermon that's faithful to God's Word, every time you read the Bible with fellow church members, it is a tune-up. It is a heart alignment. It realigns us to God's way, to His path, and that realignment calibrates us not just to what we know, but what we do, which brings us to point number three.

Practicing Godliness and Corporate Faithfulness

To fight the good fight of faith, you need to practice. The purpose of our teaching is not just for the sake of knowing stuff. We're not preparing for some eternal trivia night. We learn about truths about the Bible. That's exactly what the false teachers are doing, actually. They sit around, and they talk, and they talk, and they talk. They speculate endlessly, and they end up wasting everyone's time. Timothy is told, though, in 1 Timothy 1:5, that the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. What we know affects how we love, and what we love affects what we do in two ways, specifically. Paul wants us to practice in two ways.

First, in personal holiness, in your own life. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:7, "Train yourself in godliness." He continues:

For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. — 1 Timothy 4:7-8 (CSB)

In 1 Timothy 4:12, he says, "Don't let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." The evidence of a heart that believes the true faith is a faithful life, in a godly life. In a world where distractions can reign, it's easy to get drawn away by sinful desires, because if everything's confusing, it's not that confusing to want more money, to want other things, or to have other priorities. In 1 Timothy 6, Paul addresses those who have fallen in love with the world and fallen prey to greed, and his solution in 1 Timothy 6:6 is "godliness with contentment," to flee from the things of this world, and to "pursue righteousness" (1 Timothy 6:11), to keep this command in the same way that Jesus did in standing before Pontius Pilate, "without fault or failure until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ."

I mean, imagine that example that Paul is setting before Timothy there. Imagine Jesus betrayed by one of his closest disciples, abandoned by the rest of them, hearing false accusation after false accusation from the Sanhedrin, getting spat on, beaten. Every single second that he endures that suffering, he is exercising self-control. Holding on to what is true, modeling what godliness and endurance looks like. And Paul is looking at Timothy in the midst of his false accusations, in the midst of his difficulties, and he's telling Timothy, "You be that faithful, that degree of faithful." Imagine if you were to be unfaithful in doing that, to stand before Pontius Pilate. He asks you, "Are you the Messiah?" And you were to say, "You know what? Let me think about it." Or even worse, to make a shipwreck of your faith, to fall away with sin, to be exposed as a hypocrite, to be found unfaithful, to demonstrate with your life that even though with your lips you might have said that Jesus is worth it, your hands say otherwise. What would that communicate about the value of Christ? You see, what you and I do with our lives, not just on Sunday, but throughout every day of the week, everything that we do in our lives is connected to the gospel that we preach. Our godliness is connected to our gospel. No one should listen to a hypocrite, which is why you and I need to be faithful. We need to practice these things. We need to pursue godliness. We need to flee from worldly desires and pursue righteousness.

How can you and I be that faithful? Only if we believe that Jesus is worth it. If you believe what Jesus did in Hebrews 12:2, that "to keep our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set beforehand, he endured the cross despising the shame and sat down at the right hand of God." Jesus endures through his trials because he believes on the other end there is true happiness for him, that through the difficulty, through the endurance, the deliberate effort, that there would be a reward for his suffering. And the same goes for you and I, that's what enables us to choose faithfulness in our lives, the promise of joy. What enables you and I to say no to the allure of sin and say yes to faithfulness? Only if you believe that Jesus is better. Only if you believe that Jesus is better. And if you feel like that is hard, if you feel like choosing Jesus over your sin is difficult, good. That is how it's designed. You need to practice it. That's why Paul tells Timothy, "Train yourself in godliness," because that kind of holy living requires deliberate effort. No one defaults passively ends up as a holy person. You need to build it brick by brick, choice by choice. Day after day, you need to train yourself in godliness. So let me ask you, what are ways that you and I are inconveniencing ourselves to follow Jesus? If you can't conceive of anything, then that means that something needs to change. That might be something that would be a good conversation to have with a friend or with a church member here. What does it look like for you to put in deliberate effort to follow Jesus?

But Paul's not just concerned about the faithfulness that you and I may have individually. He also cares about that faithfulness that you and I have together with each other as the corporate body of the church. This means it's the second thing that we need to practice: corporate faithfulness. If our individual lives are a reflection of what Christ has done for us, that is even more than the case in the church. And that's the reason why Paul cares so much about church functions. You know just how much of this letter is focused about stuff that you and I do together as a church? It's almost half of the letter. He talks about the role of men and women in the church, about the qualifications of pastors and deacons, about supporting widows and about pastoral pay and about slaves and masters. He is precise in building out a structure for how the church is supposed to operate. He's saying, "This is what the leadership should look like. This is what you need to do when you look after each other. This is what functioning together as a church looks like." And he's urging Timothy to bring order into the church, that this isn't a free-for-all, that this isn't some kind of loosey-goosey gathering where people are free to do whatever they'd like. That the church needs to have order.

Why does this matter? Why does the structure of the church matter? It matters because the church matters. See, the local church, gospel-believing Christians that covenant together to disciple one another, to worship God, and to share the gospel with the world—this church, according to Ephesians chapter 3 (a letter that Paul wrote to this exact same church), is a "display of the manifold wisdom of God to the princes and principalities of this world." What does that mean? That means that you and I, when we gather here on Sunday, when we are together, we are displaying the infinite majesty of the glory of God to the demons and evil forces of this world. That's what you and I do every Sunday. It's not just us singing some hymns and listening to a sermon. We are fighting an eternal battle every single time you and I gather. Every single time that we care for one another as the body of Christ, we are reflecting the glory of Christ. And if the church is in disarray, if we're disorganized, if we're in shambles, then we show a Jesus that's in disarray. And when we're a church that is biblically ordered, when we're structured rightly around what God's Word says, then that means that we also reflect this church that God intended for us to operate faithfully.

In other words, these systems, these leadership structures, these decisions that you make, these systems that we create, they're not arbitrary, they're important. Because when you and I follow our own heart or whatever you and I think is right, then we end up devolving into chaos. We care about church order because we care about the gospel. That's the reason why we care. We care about faithfulness in the church because we care about the gospel. It's exactly what Paul is trying to defend whenever he tells any of the churches in his letters to do something. Why does he command the church in Corinth to kick out the man who's sleeping with his dad's wife? Because that man is saying you can follow Jesus and sleep with your dad's wife at the same time. And Paul is saying that can't work. Paul is telling Timothy, if you have false teachers in your church, they're standing up in your church and teaching false things about Jesus, and they actually deceive the people in the church about Jesus, that affects the gospel ministry of your church. You need to stop that. When you have leaders in your church that don't exemplify the character and godliness of Christ, that affects the reputation of Christ, which affects the gospel. So you need to care about that. When you have widows in your church or people that are in need at your church, and they aren't being fed while you're standing up and claiming that Jesus cares about the least of these, that affects your gospel. Everything that you and I do together as a church applies to the gospel.

We care about biblical qualifications of the church for church leaders because we care about the gospel. We care about faithfulness in the church because we care about the gospel. We care about the well-being of others in the church because we care about the gospel. That also means that when you meet up with another church member for pancakes and to pray together and see how you're doing, that is more than just a hangout. You are protecting the infinitely valuable body of Christ. When you have a conversation with someone after the service, and you ask them how their week is and you manage to get past the small talk, you're actually talking about how your week is actually going, being honest about different trials or difficulties and you're asking for prayer or you're choosing to be vulnerable, you are displaying the glory of Christ. You are protecting this gospel. See, the church-focused efforts that we do, whether it's cleaning our membership role or calling a member throughout the week and seeing how they're doing, these are not minor things. It's one of the main things that you and I do as Christians: caring for the body of Christ, making sure that our church reflects the godliness of Jesus.

See, these are not menial things. Our faithfulness in the church is the engine by which God brings Himself glory. It's not the programs that we do. It's not the cool events that we host. The way that we display the glory of Christ is by the love that we have for each other. Now in our perfection, if we were perfect, if we had to be perfect, this church would be empty. Our faithfulness, seeking to follow Jesus as we fight our sin. And this action is more than just a one-time commitment; it's a lifelong commitment, which brings us to the last point here.

The Call to Persevere

To persevere. None of the things in this letter are rocket science. This does not require calculus or some kind of crazy equation. In fact, Timothy probably already knows most, if not everything, that Paul is saying here. The point isn't that Timothy needs to learn this for the first time. The point isn't that you and I need to have some crazy revelation about what faithfulness to Jesus looks like. The point is that Timothy needs to hold on to what is true every time. He needs to remain faithful. See, faithfulness isn't about how you start. And faithfulness also isn't just about how you finish. It's the whole race. It's consistently holding on to what is true, even when accusations are levied against you, when people dismiss you, when life gets exhausting, when you feel the pressures and exhaustions of this world pile up to a point where you feel overwhelmed. Paul is saying, "Welcome to the Christian life. Welcome to every day while you walk on this earth." The faith isn't something that you learn and move on from. There's no college diploma that you receive in the faith where you get to graduate to other things. Paul calls Timothy to "guard the faith." "Pay close attention to your life and your teaching. Persevere in these things. For in doing this, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:6).

That's the fight. The fight to believe what is true and to keep believing it day after day, to watch our life and our doctrine. And the good news is that if you and I do this, if we persevere, according to 1 Timothy 6:12, we are "taking hold of eternal life." You see, this persevering endurance is not a permanent endurance. You will not have to endure forever. There is a day when those troubles are going to come to an end where that exhaustion finally gives way to exaltation. And that eternal life that you get hold of is everlasting. It will never fade away. The promise is that the unseen labor that you and I constantly do, this day-to-day push against the current, to stay faithful, to keep following Christ, results in you and I getting to see the eternal exalted Christ, seated in the heavens. We get to see Him with our own faces. We get to behold His eternal majesty, and we get to have Him as our eternal possession. Jesus is the reason why we do everything that we do. He is the "mystery of godliness" revealed in 1 Timothy 3:16.

And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great:He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. — 1 Timothy 3:16 (CSB)

He's the one manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached in the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Why can you and I pray to God? Because Christ provides us access to the Father. Why can we preach this good news? Because Christ provides this good news for sinners like you and I. Why can we practice godliness? Because Christ empowers us by the Spirit for good works. Why can we persevere? Because Christ perseveres first and emerged victorious from the grave in eternal glory. Friends, Jesus is absolutely always worth it. Every day, every week, every second, Jesus is worth it. He is worth your faithfulness. He is worth your effort. So fight the good fight, pray, preach, practice, persevere until you see Him face to face. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that You would help us to embody this faithfulness, the good news of this gospel that we hold on to. Help us with that hopefulness to be able to walk forward in faithfulness. Empower us by the Spirit to do that we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.