Waging the Good Warfare

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We will be continuing in verse 18. This will be our last passage in this chapter.

We will continue on in chapter 2. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do come to you in the name of your Son, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Lord. It is in Him that we have our faith and it is in Him that we have our good conscience. It is in Him that we have our boldness, that we have our assurance of our pardon, and the fact that you have washed us, that you have regenerated us, and you have loved us and adopted us, and we can call you a friend as well as our Redeemer. We are thankful for your calling on us to join, to join up, and to fight in your army. We pray that we would wage good warfare. We pray that we would be warned by these two, Alexander and Hymenaeus. We pray that we would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, fight the good fight of faith, and that we would be victorious alongside you in your effort to expand the Gospel throughout the world, that we would continue to work mightily for your honor, and that we would be good Christian soldiers. Your son's name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. As we continue in our series through 1 Timothy, last month I got to talk about God's unlimited grace and how Christ came into the world to save sinners. Now I'm talking about Paul handing two men over to the devil. And so the tone has changed somewhat, but we're reminded in the context here that Paul contrasts his testimony as a blasphemer and disobedient Pharisee so that God's grace would be shown to be greater and that his glory would shine through his work as he's a missionary to the Gentiles. And so the message throughout this chapter is starting with verse 3 where Paul tells Timothy to remain in Ephesus. He tells him to charge certain persons not teaching correct doctrine. They are teaching myths and endless genealogies.

They're promoting speculation rather than stewardship of the Word of God. So again the tone is back to a serious tone where we are to call out and confront and to lovingly correct false teaching. And Paul has been redeemed. He's been washed of his past sins.

He no longer stands condemned, but now he is serving and leading the Lord's army as a commander on earth here. Paul speaks to Timothy and he's speaking to him as his son in the faith and he wants to embolden him. He wants to strengthen him in the faith.

And in verse 18 we see that he cites, according with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. We don't know exactly what his spiritual gift is. The text doesn't tell us, but it has something to do with his ordination. 1 Timothy 4 verse 14 Do not neglect the gift you have which was given to you by prophecy when the counsel of elders laid their hands on you. We aren't sure what his... maybe it might be tongues, it might be preaching, it might be healing, but ultimately Paul is pointing him back to the apostolic authority that was given to him by Christ and now he is telling Timothy to have a boldness to his witness. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 6 For this reason, Paul wants to motivate him, he says, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. So there is a spark, there is an ember growing there, and Timothy is encouraged to stoke the flames, to grow and develop this skill that is within him. This ability and this by prophecy blessing that God has given Timothy.

And he wants him to work diligently for the honor and the glory of God. So by the authority vested in Paul, he comes to Timothy and he tells him to wage the good warfare. That is what we are looking at tonight and another way to put this would be to fight the fight of faith. Paul is describing the power of God through the gospel ministry and this is a spiritual war that is being fought.

The Greek word here is strateo, which is where we get the word strategy. This is a plan for warfare. It is not a quick battle that the battle is over and we could go home, but this is a long term military strategy or a long term war campaign that God has established. Timothy and Paul, they are just in the beginning of this warfare. You and I were nearly 2,000 years into this and we are still fighting the fight of faith.

So he wants Timothy to develop a strategy. 1 Timothy chapter 6, fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you are called and about which you have good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 2 Timothy chapter 2, share in the suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Emphasizing again his need to honor the Lord, not to be caught up with the things of this world, but to simply honor Christ and serve him as his commander. 2 Corinthians 10, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but we have divine power to destroy strongholds. Again, an emphasis on this is a spiritual war that we are fighting. So that we are not off track, we are told to avoid controversies. Elders in the church must not be quarrelsome. Anybody that is prone to or craves controversy, 1 Timothy 6-4 says, most likely might be a false teacher.

There are worthless debates that we can have within the church and it can take us off track so that we are not doing the mission that God has given to us. I heard about this story recently. A man named Craig Barnes, he was the pastor at National Presbyterian Church in D.C. A big cathedral, a big historic church, a lot of history, a lot of, sad to say, territorial rights among the members there. There was an usher there that worked for 25 years and they placed a coffee table in the narthex and he decided he was going to quit the church. A quarter of a century, he serves the church and someone had the audacity to place a coffee table in the wrong place within the narthex. It got to the point where they had to bring in the hospitality committee and they had to bring him in and they had to bring in the session. They established a task force and the three different parties had to come together and discuss for eight weeks over the placement of a coffee table in the narthex of the church. It's not a golden calf.

It is a coffee table. Still, there was all this dispute. They eventually got it settled but we have to ask ourselves in the midst of such a silly dispute, what are we doing? Is this the most important thing that's going on in the life of the church? Are we hindered in any way from serving the Lord and serving in His army as those who have been enlisted by the Lord Jesus Christ? What we have to center ourselves on is the clear understanding of God's word, understanding who God is and what He's done on our behalf. We must fight the fight of faith and the faith is centered around who God is and what He has done for us. In light of that truth, what are we to respond with? What does our obedience look like to the Lord? Will this coffee table matter in a year?

No, it won't. We have to honor the Lord by continuing to fight the fight of faith, to encourage one another as a platoon or battalion, as a unit within this army, to encourage one another, build one another up, and we are to know the doctrines that we hold to, that we hold fast. As we fight this good warfare, the struggle is for the truth, to testify to the truth of those that do not know it. We have these historic, long-standing truths of the Incarnation, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ.

We fight for the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of God the Son coming down into the world, that He might accomplish redemption on our behalf, and then God the Holy Spirit comes in and changes our hearts, gives us a new heart of flesh, and that we might be born again and serve the Lord in a good conscience. Moses, back in Exodus 32, he had a fight on his hands with the nation of Israel. He exposed them and their idolatry of a golden calf. Joshua, in Joshua 24, he addresses the judges and officers of Israel, Choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal. He was outnumbered 450 to 1. We see opposition in the New Testament where the Pharisees challenged Jesus, and He very clearly rebuked them and corrected them. We see Peter being corrected by Paul as he's trying to blend his works of the law with his justification by faith. And I wish it ended with the Bible, but no, there was continued disputes throughout the history of the church. Going back to the Council in Isaiah, there was a debate over the nature of Christ.

Is He equal to the Father? We had a man named Athanasius who stood up before the entire Council, and the phrase was Athanasius Contramundum. He stood up against the world. He had allies, but everyone was in opposition to him that he faced off the Arians. He faced off anyone that would minimize the place of the Lord Jesus Christ, equal to the Father. And finally, through the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages, out of that came the Reformation. Philip Reichen said that eventually this doctrinal error, it was necessary that the Holy Spirit might reform the church.

This is how it was done. Scripture had to be defended as the alone standard for faith and practice. Christ had to be defended as the alone mediator between God and man. Faith had to be defended as the alone instrument of justification. Grace had to be defended as the alone power of God for salvation. And all these doctrines had to be defended in order to promote the greater glory of God who alone is worthy to be praised.

And to take all that in, how do we sum this up? We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. This is the five solas of the Reformation. This is our heritage. This is our lineage. And it goes back to the beginning of the church. And this is a continuous line of faith that goes back to Peter and Paul and Jesus Christ himself. It goes back to the beginning of the church that we hold to a full reliance upon grace. That we do not contribute anything to our salvation, but the sin that required it.

And what we look to is a saving grace that is given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. And so Paul is giving orders and entrusting this mission to Timothy. And what we're doing, and I'm proclaiming this salvation by grace, we're handing this down. Paul hands it to Timothy.

I was given to it through faithful men in the church and now I look at our young people and we hand it down to you that you might believe in grace through faith in Christ alone. And just as we are called here to guard the deposit, to hold fast to this faith, we are training up those in the church that they too might be soldiers for the Lord Jesus Christ. If we take this charge, if we look at this and we look at this not only as a calling to Timothy and you look at Doug and Eugene and I and leaders in the church, you look at Will Ferris and I working in Myanmar, you think, oh that's them. They do that as leaders of the church.

Not the case. This is a calling for all of us to hold fast to the faith alongside a good conscience. And that's what Paul references here. We are to serve the Lord with a good conscience.

This is mentioned a couple of times. Verse 5 says this. That the elders are to stop the teaching of false doctrine which is to bring them back to love which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Chapter 3 verse 9 he teaches the church leaders he must hold to the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. And again Paul saying in 2 Timothy 1 I thank God whom I serve as my forefathers did with a clear conscience. Paul's faith is seen in his actions but his actions are bold because he has a clear conscience as he moves forward. He is empowered by the Lord to work mightily with a good conscience. He's not hindered in any way, anything that's happened before. He had a past. He had a time where he was murdering Christians. He has a lot to kind of limit him and think back.

Well I can't do that. I have too many sins on my record. As though he might feel the pressure from those around him. What can you do considering your persecution of the church? But Paul stood before Felix the governor with a boldness. He says I always strive to keep my conscience clear before both God and man.

I have fulfilled the duty of God in all my days. We see this as the grounds of a boldness in his ministry. It's not something we think of oftentimes but not only are we to believe in the Lord Jesus, we're called to have a boldness because we have been redeemed, because we have been saved. But he was not caught up.

He was not hindered in any way. This is best seen in Romans chapter 5. Since we've been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access by faith into the grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. We have a new heart and a new life and a new record in Christ and that ought to embolden us to have a clear testimony to the world and an encouragement to one another. Secondly we see this fighting for those who are falling away. First was fighting the fight of faith and now we're looking in verse 19b fighting for those falling away. We see the apostasy of Hymenaeus and Alexander. By rejecting this some have made shipwreck of their faith among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I'm handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. The church of Ephesus was actually on a seaport. So his language here of shipwreck would be something that any Ephesian would understand. If you were to have the shipwreck you're losing everything.

Everything on board is going down except for what you can quickly grab. So this imagery of a shipwreck if we parallel this to the Christian faith this is a spiritual loss of everything. To keep with the boat analogy you could say that their faith was on the rocks. They shipwrecked the faith but even here Scripture tells us that they were misguiding others. We were warned about this in 1 Timothy 4. Now the Spirit expressly says that in the later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons throughout the insincerity of the liars whose consciences are seared. It's like a wound that's been carterized.

The nerve endings have been burned off. They've been seared off and so they have no feeling of conviction. Nor do they hear the words of Paul as he comes to them and tries to correct them for their error. What he says about these two men is that he hands them over to Satan. Hymenaeus is mentioned in 2 Timothy 2 as one who has swerved from the truth. They are upsetting the faith of some.

Not only have they left the faith but they're encouraging those around them to also leave the faith. Alexander, we're not exactly sure which one this is but we're pretty sure it is Alexander the Jewish coppersmith mentioned in 2 Timothy 4. Paul says to Timothy that, Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

Beware of him yourself for he strongly opposed our message. It's interesting because there would have been a time that they would have been part of Paul's ministry. For him to hand them off to Satan he had to have them at first and then to give them over. But this phrase handed over to Satan is used also in the Corinthian church. 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is talking about those who are guilty of immorality within the church. He says, Let him who has done these things be removed from you. You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. All these three, Hymenaeus, Alexander and those in 1 Corinthians 5, they are handed over to Satan. Which seems to be kind of a harsh phrase. I don't know about you when I read that.

It seems to be a bit much. I think is he reverting back to some Phariseeism, some self-righteousness? What does he mean by handed over to Satan?

I've been to a lot of session meetings. I don't think we've ever used the phrase, You know what we ought to do? Let's hand them over to Satan. Let's give them to the devil. What he's saying is, Let them go. Let them go into their immorality. God does this in Romans 1 where he simply removes the restraints.

He gives them over. There's no restraining grace that will keep them. When you're in the church, when you're under the means of grace, where you hear the preached word, where you have fellow believers to encourage you, there is a restraining grace where we say, Watch out for that. Be careful not to slip into sin.

Give a climate that sin might grow. We have encouragement among believers to be careful. Read this passage with me. Let's go into the Scriptures to figure out what is the will of God. Here Paul is saying that the means of grace, that is the preaching and teaching and prayer and time together and encouragement as fellow believers exists here in the church. To hand them off to Satan simply means to give them over.

This is what I meant by it might be a little gloomy tonight. Last week was the greatest story of grace and mercy and now these two men are being excommunicated. If you're not familiar with the word excommunication is when someone is removed. They are expelled from the local church. We have this category in our book of church order where someone has either committed a gross crime, that would be like wrong conduct, some major moral failing, adultery, something like that, but then also heresy, false teaching. If someone were to commit themselves to a teaching that is contrary to God's word and if they were to not repent of their error, they would be excommunicated from the church.

I'm going still. Why would you kick them out? The means of grace are here. This is where they need to be. They need to be part of God's church. Isn't it kind of unloving to push them out?

Don't we want to keep them here? But that's Paul's point here that he does this. He hands them off to Satan so that they might learn not to blaspheme. The goal is that if they were to be removed from the congregation they cannot corrupt those around them. As it was already stated that these two men have already started to persuade others of their error, to push them out is to remove them from the means of grace that they think to themselves that they contemplate over their error that they might return to fellowship with a repentant heart.

The goal of the church here is not to shame them but to simply reclaim them, to bring them back into the fold and number them among God's people. And the way that Paul might do this, there was a time where Paul would come to them and embrace them and say, let's talk. Let's sit down and look at Scripture. We follow the model of Matthew 18.

We still do this. Matthew 18 verse 15, we confront one another one to one. If they won't listen, if they won't repent, then we bring in a second person, verse 16. If they still won't listen, verse 17, you tell the church, which is to say you tell church leadership. If they are still unwilling to hear, then they are ultimately given over and they are asked to leave the church. That's the model that we have within our own denomination.

This language of handing them over, it's a phrase that is used to give them over to this further rebellion. If they are not going to listen to God's word, if they are going to resist the Lord and resist the correction of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, if they won't repent of their sin, we have to simply give them over to their rebellion. We are sinners but we are redeemed sinners.

We do not commit ourselves to resistance against the Lord. Ephesians 4 tells us to put off your old self, which belongs to you, the former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Be renewed in the spirit of your minds.

Put on a new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Part of loving your neighbor is telling them the truth. Part of loving fellow believers in the church is to say the truth despite how painful it might be. It is telling the truth in love and in correction that we might restore them, that we might bring them to a clarity of God's word in Scripture's teaching.

It's not a topic I want to talk about. It's not the most edifying but it's in the text and as you go through 1 Timothy it's the next verse and that's what we must deal with and that we go through these proper channels. And so ultimately this is the route in which we must take and as we go through, Paul is not doing this out of any sort of personal anger toward Alexander and Hymenaeus. Though he might be somewhat irritated with their opposition, what we realize is that he is doing this purely out of a love for Christ. If anybody were to teach false doctrine, he would do it. He would go to them and tell them, hey, you are wrong.

He would confront anybody, even his best friends. He might go to them and say, this is false teaching. All the love in my heart, I must tell you, this is wrong. I think about if I was to, even among us, even among the leadership here, if I was to teach false doctrine, humor me for a moment just to give you an example. If I was to say to anybody here that God the Father died for our sins, the littlest of Christians in here would probably tell me, Jesus died for our sins. No, that's not true. And if I was to be adamant and I go to the leadership and I say that God the Father died for our sins, they'd say just the same thing.

Let's go to the text. Let's point you to Christ. Christ bore our sin. Christ is the one that took our sin upon himself, became sin on our behalf, Steve. You're wrong. And if I was to be adamant and, you know what, I'm still not listening, all the way up to Presbyterian General Assembly, they would tell me in love, all the way, you are preaching false doctrine.

This is not personal. It is simply wrong teaching. And we know that's not true.

We know that God the Father didn't die for our sins, but the Lord Jesus Christ did. And I allow my silly illustration to make the point that where we see error, it is simply out of love that we go to one another. Most false teaching is more subtle. Where we see false teaching in Jehovah's Witnesses, where they claim Jesus, but he's like substance, they just repackage a fourth century heresy. Mormons, just the same way, they bring in a different Jesus, but they claim to be Christian. There's a subtlety to false doctrine.

They don't come in with glaring faults. But what we must do is in love go to them and clearly teach their error. And as we go one to one and Christian talks to Christian, two on one, more people are gathered in, and finally by the time it gets to the leadership, we want to see the heart of the person. Are they personally repentant?

Or are they like Hymenaeus and Alexander, openly and publicly disobedient and in opposition to Paul's ministry? We have to look at the heart of the matter. Often times we're dealing with broken situations, broken people, sinful people that have sinned grievously, major moral failings. But what we have to do is not look at the sin, but look at their attitude after the sin.

David sinned, sending Uriah to the front lines and sleeping with Bathsheba. But what do we see in Psalm 51? We see a broken man.

We see a contrite heart. And the goal is that if one is contrite, if one is actually broken over their sin, the goal is maintaining the glory of God and the purity of the church and keeping and reclaiming disobedient sinners. I was in a church a couple years ago, and we had a case of church discipline, and it got somewhat public. There was a couple, we didn't know that they were sleeping together, and they didn't show up to church for probably about three or four months. And she showed up three or four months pregnant. And it was a very public sin in the body of the church. There was no gossip here.

She just shows up very obviously, visibly pregnant. And due to the public nature of the sin, they decided to address it in a congregational meeting. And I don't think we would handle it this way. I don't think most churches handle it this way. But they decided in the church, in a congregational meeting, to address the sin. And so the pastor stood in the pulpit, saw them in the pew, asked them to stand up. The pastor charged them with breaking the seventh commandment, sexual immorality in the form of fornication. Asked if they were repentant, which I think they had a meeting prior to say, yes we are. He made a statement to the church and said, I've dishonored the Lord with my fornication. We're sorry.

We plan to get married. Please forgive us. And it was out in the open. It was very uncomfortable. We thought, this is way too much.

But you know what? It was actually handled really well. And to our surprise, the pastor was able to say, due to their repentance and the fact that they're willing to admit where they've been wrong, we have the great privilege of welcoming them back into the church as full-fledged members. They're able to receive the sacraments. And I want you to go by after service and shake their hand and welcome them back into the church. And it was a great occasion. I got to give them a big hug and welcome them back. I'm so glad you're restored into church fellowship.

And it was a great occasion, really. But it was just one of those things where I think we'd still handle it more privately as Grace Church. The point is that it was a great opportunity to see restoration of disobedient sinners. So in conclusion, I want to encourage us to encourage one another.

Lord willing, we won't ever get to that point. I hope that we are redeemed sinners, that are repented over sin, that we confess our sin and not be bold and resist the correction and admonishment that God's Word gives us. But my hope is that at Grace Church we would be humble, that we would love one another, that we would go to the Scriptures together.

And our goal is to strengthen one another, to fight alongside each other in the Lord's army, that we would fight the fight of faith, that we would hold a faith in good conscience and not only serve the Lord, but to serve Him boldly, and that we would wage a good warfare and fight the fight of faith. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for your Word. Even the difficult passages of those that have rebelled against you and been excommunicated from the church, we pray that you would convict our hearts, that you would point us to the repentance that's necessary, partnered with faith as an evidence of our true saving faith, that we would love you, that we would honor you, that we would not trample underfoot the grace of God, but cherish it, prize it, remind ourselves daily that we would live of Christian faith with good conscience. We pray that you would give us guidance from your Word. We thank you for your grace and mercy. Let me pray. Amen.