Fight The Good Fight - 1 Timothy 1:18-20

1 Timothy 1:18-20
Higgins Lake Baptist Church
Kevin Pierpont, Pastor-Teacher
8/17/2003

A few weeks ago we began a study of 1 Timothy and as we approach
our passage for study today we will discover, I believe, the
unifying theme of this letter to Timothy from Paul. As you study a
passage it is usually a good idea to look for the big idea. I think
we’ll discover this big idea as we study the remainder of the first
chapter of 1 Timothy beginning with verse 18…

18  This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to
the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may
wage the good warfare,

19  having faith and a good conscience, which some having
rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck,

20  of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered
to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

I think the big idea from this letter to Timothy is found in the
end of verse 18 and the beginning of verse 19 were it says,

“wage the good warfare, having faith and a good
conscience” (NIV – “fight the good fight, holding
on to faith and a good conscience.”)

Later in 1 Timothy 6:12 we find Paul tells Timothy again
to “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to
which you were also called and have confessed the good confession
in the presence of many witnesses.“

I want you to keep this big idea in mind as we continue our
study of 1 Timothy. I think it will be helpful to understanding
what Paul was telling Timothy and us.

Go back with me now to 1 Timothy 1:18.

18  This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to
the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may
wage the good warfare,

The aged apostle Paul gives his son in the faith a solemn charge
“according to the prophecies previously made concerning
you“–perhaps at the time of Timothy’s ordination or of his
induction into missionary work. The phrase “previously made
concerning you” has sometimes been translated, “according to
the prophecies leading me toward you,” or “predictions
leading up to you.” Apparently some of the prophets had been
led by the Holy Spirit to select Timothy for service. They seem to
have been prophetic utterances that pointed Timothy’s way into the
ministry. We see in Acts 13:1-3 an example of this procedure.

13:1  Now in the church that was at Antioch there were
certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called
Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod
the tetrarch, and Saul.

2  As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy
Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to
which I have called them.”

3  Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them,
they sent them away.

So we see these men set apart for the Lord’s service and sent to
serve. Probably in some similar way Timothy had been set apart to
minister in the church at Ephasus.

Paul says “This charge I commit to you“.

“Charge” is the same word that is translated
“commandment” in verse 5. This is the equivalent of an
urgent command handed down from a superior officer. We need to
understand that it was not easy to serve the Lord in a pagan
society like Ephasus, but Timothy was a soldier under orders. The
soldier has the responsibility of “pleasing him who has chosen
him to be a soldier” (2 Tim. 2:4 NIV) not the task of pleasing
himself. Timothy was there by divine appointment. God had chosen
and sent him. It was this fact that could give him assurance in
difficult days. These assurances enabled Timothy to fight the good
fight. If we are God’s servants called by his Spirit, obeying his
will, then we can “stay with it” and finish the work.

Timothy had a responsibility, to fight the good fight. And so do
we. Paul didn’t say to Timothy, “fight the good fight, but be
prepared for retreat when things get tough”. The day you and I
entered the Christian life, through faith in Jesus Christ, we
entered a lifelong battle. The day we give our lives to Christ we
also gain three enemies. Those enemies are the world, the flesh and
the devil. Our enemies aren’t other people. We’d like to
think they are. We’d like to believe that our society is troubled
because men have removed the Ten Commandments from public property.
Or it’s because our politicians don’t tell the truth. Or, “my
boss is a tyrant”. Or, “my spouse doesn’t treat me right”. Or, “my
parents hate me”. “Everyone is out to ruin my life.”

No our problem isn’t other people. Paul tells us in Ephesians
6:12 …

.… we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places.

Our fight is not with others but with the real enemies behind those
people. People are all victims of the world, the flesh and the
devil. Let’s try to understand these three enemies a little better. The world is our society and their godless philosophies. The
world is convinced that if it feels good, do it. Always look out
for number one. Finders keepers, losers weepers. You snooze, you
loose. The guy who dies with the most toys wins.

Bart Starr, former quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, was
describing to a group of businessmen how his coach, Vince Lombardi,
held absolute power. He stated that, as you entered Vince’s
office, you noticed a huge mahogany desk with an impressive
organization chart behind it on the wall. The chart had a small
block at the top in which was printed: “Vince Lombardi, Head
Coach and General Manager.” A line came down from it to a
very large block in which was printed: “Everybody
Else!”

That’s the world, isn’t it? I’m number one.

There is also the flesh. If you’ve trusted Christ as
Savior the old nature is what used to belong to you before you gave
your life to Christ. But now the old nature is not
“us.” But it still wars within you. The old nature is
dedicated to selfishness. The old nature is looking out for our own
best interests, our own comfort. The enemy is self-centeredness
within us. Self-centeredness is one of the most difficult sins to
overcome. It reminds me of the story about the mom who was preparing
pancakes for her sons, little guys a 5 year old and a 3 year old.
The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their
mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson and said; “If
Jesus were sitting here, He would say, ‘Let my brother have
the first pancake; I can wait.” The 5 year old turned to his
younger brother and said, “You be Jesus!” (Source
unknown)

That’s how it is with self-centeredness isn’t it? We
can know what we ought to do and still struggle with the follow
through.

There is also the devil. Scripture speaks of the devil and the
many fallen angels. These deceivers are waiting for just the right
opportunity to make us feel useless and ineffective in our faith.
They know what it takes too. This is what Ephesians 6:11 calls the
“devil’s schemes“.

So we are to fight the good fight against the things that oppose
us and we are to remain strong in the fight never thinking of
retreat.

Note though that the thing Paul encouraged Timothy with was a
fatherly reminder. He was Paul’s spiritual son and Paul says “son
Timothy”. This was probably a great encouragement to Timothy. We
know that a father’s words can be used to hurt or to heal. These
were healing words. Paul reminds Timothy of how he was commissioned
to do the work at Ephesus and in so doing is reminding him that he
can live up to his calling. Paul gave Timothy fatherly
encouragement reminding him there were those who saw his potential.
We could each use encouragement from those around us from time to
time. And we should certainly be encouraging one another all we
can. But we need to remember there is a way to fight the good fight
and that is with faith and a good conscience. We
can’t do it with the encouragement of others alone.

19  having faith and a good conscience…

Paul spelled out in detail to the Ephesian church in Eph.
6:10-17 the Christian equipment for spiritual warfare. But here he
listed only two. Faith and a good conscience. And these two always
seem to be found together. We see it 1 Tim. 1:5…

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart,
from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.

And then in 1 Tim. 3:9

holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

Understand that diligence in one is always combined with diligence in the other.
Failure in one is also related to failure in the other. Some who
have rejected the need for a good conscience have also found their
faith destroyed. Theological error is often found rooted in moral
failure. 1 Tim. 4:1 reminds us…

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will
depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and
doctrines of demons,

And 1 Tim. 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which
some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows.

Ray Stedman describes a sincere faith this way…

Faith is accepting the radical truth, which Jesus and his
apostles have given to us, understanding that this is a description
of life as it really is.

Faith is believing truth about God, about his power, about his
control of history and all humanity, of his love for us as a lost
race which he does not choose to abandon, but takes steps to redeem
and bring to himself.

Faith is learning about the nature of sin and the reason why
life is often filled with misery, not because of others, but
because of us. We are the problem. We have something within us that
is constantly destroying our plans, wrecking our happiness and
destroying our relationships. This needs to be dealt with, and the
only thing that can handle it is the word of the cross; learning
what Jesus did in the mystery of the darkness of the cross, how
some transference was made in a most remarkable way in which our
sin was placed on him and his righteousness was given to us.

Faith is learning about his resurrection and the impartation of
his life so that he himself comes to live within us — “Christ in
us, the hope of glory,” {cf, Col 1:27b).

Faith is learning that he himself will grant to us in every
situation the wisdom and the power that it takes to live righteous,
godly, Christ-like lives.

Faith involves taking all this personally, to ourselves,
believing that God has done this for us.

Paul says hold to faith. Stay the course. Keep your faith. But
with faith there must also be a good conscience.

Many misunderstand the conscience. I’ve heard people say “listen
to your conscience”. As if their conscience would help them know
the difference between right and wrong. That is not the
conscience.

Someone said; “The trouble with the advice, ‘Follow your
conscience’ is that most people follow it like someone
following a wheelbarrow—they direct it wherever they want it
to go, and then follow behind.”

The conscience is to help keep us from turning from the truth.
God’s Word is what tells us of the truth. We learn right from wrong
through God’s Word. Our conscience is here to help us know when we
are deviating from the truth. The interesting thing about the
conscience is that it can be taught a lie. It can be trained to
make us feel like we are doing the right thing.

Some have rejected conscience. It has been said that conscience
is like the red warning light on the dashboard of the car that
warns of a serious problem. You can either stop and deal with the
trouble, or break out the light.

Breaking the light so it no longer warns us is foolishness
isn’t it?

Many have broken out the light of conscience and in so doing
have blown the engine of their spiritual lives.

We see it in verse 19 … some having rejected,
concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck.

The greek word we derive “rejected” from indicates a
strong, deliberate thrusting away. In fact these people who have rejected
faith and good conscience, know the truth but choose to do the
opposite.

H.C. Trumbull said “Conscience tells us that we ought to do
right, but it does not tell us what right is—that we
are taught by God’s word.”

Many have blown it with their spiritual lives because
they have failed to keep a good conscience. When we chose not to do
something we know is right we introduce confusion into our system
of warning signals known as the conscience. And the faulty warning
signals allow us to be mislead in our faith.

Paul shares with Timothy an example in Hymenaeus and Alexander,
verse 20;

whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to
blaspheme.

Hymenaeus is mentioned again as a heretical teacher in 2 Timothy
2:17-18.

17  And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus
and Philetus are of this sort,  18  who have strayed
concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past;
and they overthrow the faith of some.

The apostle had handed these two troublemakers over “to Satan
that they may learn not to blaspheme.” The language here is
similar to that found in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, where it seems to
show excommunication from the church. Or abandonment to the realms
of Satan like those spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4:4 whose eyes are
blinded from the truth by Satan. The purpose was to jolt the
offender into repentance, induced by the fearful thought of being
turned over to Satan’s control. This is really a
disciplinary action and not merely punishment.

Wiersbe says this “delivering to satan”…

“implies an apostolic discipline (1 Cor. 5:5) and disassociation
from the local church. When a Christian refuses to repent, the
local fellowship should exercise discipline, excluding him from the
protective fellowship of the saints, making him vulnerable to the
attacks of satan. The fellowship of the local church, in obedience
to the will of God, gives a believer spiritual protection. Satan
has to ask God for permission to attack a believer.”

We find examples of God’s protection from Satan and satan
seeking God’s permission to attack believers in Job 1-2 and Luke
22:31-34.

This handing over to Satan is not something done in the heat of
the moment or out of frustration. Ray Steadman says “this is the
result…

…of a long course of spiritual deterioration which ends
in the fourth step suggested by our Lord in Matthew 18. There in
Matthew 18, the Lord says that step one is, if your brother has
done something wrong, committed a sin, turned aside, go to him and
tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, that
is the end of the matter; you have gained your brother. But if he
does not, then take two or three with you and go again. That is
step two. If he hears them, fine; say no more to anybody else. But
if he does not, there has to come the time when you tell it to the
church. That is the third step. The whole church is to be engaged
in trying to reach an erring brother or sister, someone who has
turned aside from the faith. If he does not hear them, then the
fourth step comes, which Paul calls, “delivering [him] unto Satan.”
Jesus said, “Let him be unto you as a publican and a sinner” {cf,
Matt 18:17}, i.e., as not even being a Christian. By this Paul
means, put him back into the world; regard him as having denied by
his actions the testimony of his words. This does not mean to have
no contact with him. This is not an act of excommunication that
affects his spiritual life. It is clear from this very passage that
Paul intends this to be remedial — so that these men may learn
that testifying of truth but not acting on it is blasphemy. This is
destroying the image of God in the eyes of others, making God look
ridiculous because they are not consistent in the walk. So Paul
says, “I have turned them over. Let Satan have his way with them.
He will damage them, he will hurt them, he will destroy much of
their lives, but in the process they will learn that the One who
loves them, who can heal them, who can forgive them, is God alone.”
So this action is to be taken with the hope that they will
eventually return to the Lord.

May this never be necessary in our lives.

What are we doing to “fight the good fight”? We are called by
Christ, as Timothy was, to live in a pagan society for Christ. This
is something we cannot take lightly. We are soldiers in the battle
for the Lord. We could be the only way many people will see God.
How does God look, according to your life, to people who know you?
Do others see a powerful God, a loving God? Do they see your
provider, your comforter? Do others see Christ through your faith
and good conscience that’s strengthened through your faithful
fellowship with the Father? Do others see the real Christ through
you?

| August 17th, 2003
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