Fight to the End - 1 Timothy 6:11-16 - Gospel Church

A true faith is a fighting faith, all right? That's what we're going to be getting into this weekend, because Christian, your life is a fight, all right? That's what the Bible has called us to. It has called us to be spiritual warriors and spiritual soldiers. And there's a lot that we could say about that, but what we're going to get into this weekend is the idea that I think many of us believe when we become a Christian, like when we say the prayer, you know, and when we kind of step over that line, I think we think that maybe there's some kind of finish line in that. Y'all, it's not a finish line.

It is a starting line. When we pray that prayer, the gun just went off, and we're running as hard as we absolutely can. The rest of our life is going to be a fight, listen, to become in practice what God has already declared us to be in truth.

And it is going to be a wrestling match, and it's going to be a fight, and it's going to be warfare, and that's what we're going to get into this weekend. Here's the big idea from 1 Timothy chapter 6. Gospel churches fight for the faith. They fight for faith. They fight the good fight of faith, and they do that all the way to the end. They don't stop short.

They go all the way, and that's what we're going to see, I hope, in 1 Timothy chapter 6. Listen, we've been talking about this through this whole series. What have I been saying every single week? The proof is in the... Right.

I mean, we've been saying it every single week, right? Well, what does that mean? It means that the authenticity of something is found in the interaction with it.

You've got to actually taste and see. Well, I think what Paul is going to end with in 1 Timothy here, as he's ending his letter, is he's going to say to Timothy, hey, if you want the proof, if the proof is in the pudding, if something about the church is going to point to the divine origin and creator, then what you're going to find when you actually interact with the church and get involved, you're going to find a church that is willing to fight all the way to the end to lay hold of what God has already given them. God has given them something, but it's a fight for us throughout the course of our life. See, the Bible says things like this, to put on the new man. Alright? To persevere to the end.

To become and practice what he's declared us to be in truth or to lay hold of what he has already given us, eternal life. This is the fight of our lives, and that's what we're going to get into today. It's the fight of faith, okay?

Now, I don't know, listen, I'm a little, this is risky, okay? We said North Carolina, there's a bunch of teams, but the darling of North Carolina college football right now is App State. Do I have any App State fans?

I mean, I mean, it really is, and I don't mean that against anybody else because I don't have a dog in a fight, okay? I'm from Florida, so y'all are a bunch of ACC people. I'm an SEC person, okay?

So I don't have a dog in a fight. The reason I say the darling of North Carolina right now is just because of there's just magic with this program. I mean, it's crazy. 2007, September 1st, they walk into the big house and knock off number five, Michigan, and the greatest college upset that's ever happened, alright? Then they come and do it again at College Station this year, so much so that College Game Day goes to this little mountain town in North Carolina and goes there, and that day when College Game Day is there, what do they do? They win on a Hail Mary, okay? It's just crazy.

Now, here's why I bring that up. There's the magic with the program and all that. You know what I love about watching kind of stories like that, whether you're an App State fan or not, you know, just the underdog type of story. Every underdog story is this, that the team believes when nobody else believes. They think they can do it when nobody else thinks they can do it, and you know how you know that they think they can do it?

Because they don't quit. Because they fight all the way to the end, and I think that's a good lesson for us and what the Bible is going to get into today in 1st Timothy chapter 6, that there is a fight that doesn't end until Jesus Christ makes his appearance and comes back. And the way that the church is going to be found believing the things that this book tells us about us and about God is if we are willing to fight to put on the new man, if we were willing to fight to become in practice what God has declared us to be in truth, and that's what we're going to get into today. All right, here's what I want to show you. I want to show you three things about the fight of faith, the good fight of faith. I want to show you the nature of the fight, the duration of the fight, and then we're going to get into the goal of the fight and what it's all about, all right? So the nature of the duration and the goal, and that'll be our time together. Let's dive in. We're going to be in 1st Timothy chapter 6, starting in verse 11.

Let me talk to you first about the nature of the fight. We get into the end of the book, and this is what's cool. This happens a lot in the Bible. The end of the book goes all the way back to the beginning. What was Timothy told in the very beginning? Hey, engage in the good warfare.

That's what he was told, all right? And now we're told at the end to fight in the good fight, in the good spiritual warfare, in the good spiritual fight. Paul comes all the way back to the end, and here's what he tells Timothy. But as for you, O man of God, now that's a title in the Bible, okay? You want to talk about the Old Testament, the man of God?

I mean, there's a lot in that. But you, O man of God, flee these things, and we're going to get into what those things are. We talked about it last week, namely materialism and quarreling in the church and posturing with false teaching and all that, okay? Flee that and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith.

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Here's what he says in verse 11. Timothy, but as for you, what does that mean? It means that there's a contrast going on here.

We had, you know, it's a little bit of a part two from last week and a continuation from the whole book, okay? He's saying, but as for you, Timothy, as opposed to all the false teachers that I've been telling you to war against and fight the good fight and all that stuff, the ones that we've been standing up to, as for you, you are going to live in a different way. You're not going to be running after materialism and quarreling and posturing up because I know things that you don't know and all that kind of stuff. Instead, you are going to be fleeing those things and you're going to be pursuing these other things with righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, or endurance, and of course, gentleness. I think what he's trying to get Timothy to see here is, Timothy, there is a contrast between the false teaching and between you, between a God form kind of culture, a religious culture, and an actual gospel culture.

There's going to be a difference in these two things. Son, we're not like the world, I think is what he's trying to say. And then we do this. Listen, all he's trying to do is instill culture. We got a church that is filled with young families and we love that. So many kids at this church, you know what you guys are trying to do and I'm trying to do with young kids in the home, you are trying to instill a culture in the home.

And you know how you continually instill a culture? You say this really simple phrase, not that, but this. It's not that, but this. That's not us. This is us. That's not us.

And we do this in little ways and big ways. I was thinking about this with my sons. My two boys watched the, what do you call it? Little League World Series. And they're watching it. They got so into it and all that. And so next thing you know, they're asking me, dad, if I hit a home run, can I do the gritty all the way from third to home?

Some of y'all are like, what's the gritty? Okay. All right.

I'm not going to demonstrate it here for you. Okay. So, amen. All right. So it's this little dance there.

All the kids are doing okay. And I said, and this is just what I told them. All right. Now you might take issue with this, but I'm just being honest with you. I said, we're not doing the gritty.

And if you did the gritty from third to home, I would go tell the other coach to tell his pitcher to peg you the next time you come up. All right. Now that's old school. Okay. You're not allowed to do that anymore. All right. But I'm telling you, no, that's disrespectful. That's disrespecting the game. Okay.

And this is my point. This is what I told them. I'm like, hey, not that, but this. We don't do that.

Why? Well, because the scripture tells us the humility comes before honor. And so what I'm going to tell them is not that, but this. It's just trying to instill a culture. That's all that Paul is really trying to do here.

Not that, but this. Not materialism, quarreling and posturing over one another, because I know something that you don't know because of genealogies and all this stuff that we've talked about in this book, right? But instead, what he's saying is Timothy, you should be marked by the fight of good faith. This fight for the faith. And that's what he gets into here. We fight the good fight of faith because that's who we are.

Not that, but this. Christians, you are spiritual soldiers and spiritual warriors whose lives are characterized by fighting to lay hold of that which God has already given us. Something that we fight our entire life to do, to become in practice and live up to the name that has been bestowed on us. Not earning salvation, not earning a name, not earning a standing, but fighting to put on in practice what God has already given us in truth. And that's what this is all about.

That's the fight. You know, sometimes churches, and this is not the oldest, and this is not the only valid or true version of masculinity. It's just the one that churches seem to alienate sometimes, okay?

But if you're at one of our campuses today, if you're here today, and you're like, man, I'm one of these dudes, you hunt deer and have a hairy back and wear boots, okay? If that's you, that's not the only valid version of manhood, I know that. But for some of us, that is kind of the version that gets alienated a little bit in churches today. There's even books about this called Why Men Hate Going to Church.

This should be a sermon you should love. You know why? Because it's all about a fight. It's all about the Bible saying, no, no, no, there is much warfare imagery in the scripture that comes up when it starts talking about what our life is like in trying to continue to put on what God has given us, to lay hold of the things that he has already given us. This is what it is. It is a fight. The letter ends in the same way that it started, and that is in calling upon Christians to engage in spiritual battle.

And I want to make sure I say this right up front, okay? There is a lot that that means. When I read passages like this, let me just tick through a couple things here, okay? Ephesians 2, 1 says that we are held captive by ungodly desires. Being held captive is fighting language. That's war language.

I'm held captive by ungodly desires. 1 Peter 2, 11 talks about the war that happens in our souls. In 2 Timothy, it's actually one of my favorite verses. In 2 Timothy, Paul calls Timothy a soldier. Y'all, we are in a fight. If we weren't in a fight, what need would there be to put on spiritual armor?

From Ephesians chapter 6. Now, when I get into talking about this, the point is, Christian, we are in wartime, not peacetime, spiritually speaking. Okay, we got to remember that. We got to wake up in the morning and remember, no, no, we're not in peacetime. Peacetime comes, but it's not now.

Well, that's not where we are. We're in wartime, spiritually speaking. Now, that means, and here's what I want to say, that means a lot of things, okay? It means, man, fighting the good fight of faith, you know, that means making sure we're giving the gospel to the ends of the earth. It means making sure that we're on our knees and we are praying against the spiritual forces that are arrayed against our church. I've had multiple people talk to me even in the last couple of weeks about as we embark on some pretty big things as a church, how much spiritual warfare is happening even in this moment. Man, it means that, that we need to be praying against that.

There's a lot of things that it means. But what I want to focus on today is the individual Christian's fight to become and practice what God has declared them to be in truth. In the gospel, what God has declared you to be is a perfect son, perfect daughter. Couldn't be more loved than you are right now in Christ.

All right? Could not be more righteous than you are right now in Christ. And in the fight of our life is becoming daily as I walk, believing that about myself because God has declared it and putting walking shoes on that and beginning to walk in that every day. That's what I want to get into here this weekend, okay? Here's what it says in verse 11.

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. Now, this is already, I think, what the fight is, okay? You got to catch that. I think this is already getting at it. Now, that's a little bit ironic. The first thing about a fight is knowing when to run away a little bit, right? And that's what's funny here.

The great 20th century theologian, Kenny Rogers, he said it right, okay? You got to know when to fold them. You got to know when to hold them. You got to know when to walk away.

You got to know when to run. I think what he is saying first is, man, when you get around materialism, quarreling, posturing because I know something you don't know and all the other things that are in this book, the first thing you got to know is to what to flee away from. But here's the thing for a Christian, and some of you might have grown up in a very, what I would call religious background very much, hey, everything about our faith is drawing boundaries about where not to go and what not to do and all that kind of stuff. That might be where you came from.

I don't know. The beautiful thing about this passage is it doesn't just tell you what to run away from. It tells you where to run to. It's not just about what we're trying to get away from.

It's about what we're running to. Christianity is not only about where we run away from, but it is about what we are running to. Things like righteousness or uprightness. Things like godliness or god likeness. Faith. What is faith? A confident trust in whatever God is doing.

Love. Endurance or steadfastness, depending on your translation. What does endurance and steadfastness mean?

It means that you can stand up under the weight of something heavy for a long time. That you don't give out, even though it's heavy and it's on your back. And gentleness. This is what it's getting at. We run away from the things that are not us. Remember, not this, but that. That's not our culture.

This is our culture. We run away from those things, but we run towards these things that God has given us. I think there's a lot of crossover here with the fruit of the spirit from Galatians chapter five.

Not just an assessment, but things we have access to. It's not just a checklist of am I this, am I that. It's like, no, these are things the spirit Christian has given you that you can walk through the door and access. And this is what he's saying. The fight of our life is getting away from what is natural.

This is not news to anybody. You don't have to run away from something unless it comes really natural to you. The materialism, the quarreling, the posturing in this book, that's what he's getting at. It's like, hey, that's what you got to flee because that's what will naturally come to you in your flesh. And as we are arrayed in spiritual battle and the prince of the power of this air is baiting the hook with things, tempting us and trying to get, those are the things that will come natural to us. What we need is to flee those things and to run to these things that God has given us when we became believers and the spirit was given to us. Now all of a sudden we have access to godliness and righteousness and endurance and gentleness and love and faith. These things are already characterizing who we are as God sees us. Pastor Tanner had an awesome sermon last week.

When we are cloaked in Christ, we are cloaked in his righteousness, we are already seen this way by God. But the fight of our life is becoming that in our day-to-day life and in our day-to-day walk. You know, I think about this for us.

Listen, this list is so strong and rich. Maybe somebody in here, I'm not, you know, you don't have to raise your hand, but like, man, who in here today or who at one of our campuses, you just flat out need endurance for a battle that you're in right now. You just need it. How many of us need confident trust in what God is doing in a difficult situation? How many of us need gentleness? Gentleness is the fight of my life in leading a church and leading a family. And I come to this passage and I'm like, man, God, I need these things. I need a reminder to run away from what is natural and to run to what is supernatural, motivated by and excited by and believing, remember that app state analogy, nobody else believes they can, but they fight to the end because they believe, God, I believe that this is who I can become because it's who you already see me as. In the gospel, you already see me as gentle. You already see me as one who is, you know, righteous and godliness and faith and love. So now I can run after these things, not in my natural state. One author said it like this, in our natural state, man, our hearts are, remember, not this, but that our hearts are so that they're over here.

I mean, they're characterized by materialism and quarreling and posturing. One author said it like this, your heart before Christ was Surans, Mount Doom, the White Witch's Winter and Babylon's Stronghold. You may have known peace, but it was peace with the enemies of God. That is who we were. But in Christ, when we, when we have made that great exchange, we have seen what he has done for us on the cross, that he died for all of our sin. And in his resurrection, we can have the newness of life.

When we throw ourselves into that, all of a sudden, man, that's not who we are anymore. That's not how God sees us. And the fight of our life is now growing in to living up to who God has called us to be by his grace and by his spirit.

This is the fight. Look what it says in verse 12, fight the good fight of faith. Keep believing what the gospel says about you. Don't let it go. Keep fighting for it. Keep believing what the gospel says about you.

Keep believing this is who you can become. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. We have confessed that Jesus Christ is our Lord, that we were not saved by our own works.

We have made that confession. We are now fighting this fight of faith to believe that every single day of our life and to live into that. Faith is a battle all Christians are called to engage.

That's one of the things that we've got to realize. It's a fight. The nature of the fight is that when we got saved, the gun went off. We thought it was the finish line.

It was the starting line. The gun just went off and now we are fighting to grow. And man, you know, you think about, I got to say this one more time. You think about salvation. Some people get this backwards where they begin to think that the fight of faith is fighting to earn something from God. It's not.

It's like what Pastor Tanner said last week. You're not fighting to earn. You're fighting to learn. You're fighting to realize.

You're fighting to see and practice what God has called you to be in truth. Man, Jesus Christ came and paid the penalty for all of our sin. He lived a life that we didn't live. If we could have lived it with our works, he wouldn't have had to come and die. But he came and died for us. Man gives us all that was his, all of his reward.

That's the great exchange. When we put our faith in him and in his resurrection, we walk in the newness of life. And here's what it does, y'all. It reorients our life. It gives us a new, true north. The fight of faith then becomes to believe the gospel so much that it conforms our every behavior away from what is natural and into what is supernatural.

And when a church leans all the way into that, believe me, the proof will be in the pudding, that people from the outside will look in, and they will see a church that has believed something that has caused them to fight for that thing, to fight for their own spiritual formation, to believe God for it all of the days of their life. And it is, listen, it is a fight. We talked about this earlier in the book. That word for fight or struggle is agonizomai. You know what that means?

It means agony. Think about it. That's where we get, it's a struggle. Man, it's a fight to remember what God has said to us. It's a fight to lay hold of those things that he has given us to become in practice what he has called us to be in truth. It's hard sometimes to, you know, one pastor said it like this, one of the most shocking things and one of the hardest things about being a Christian is how long sanctification can take sometimes.

Can you let that settle in for just a minute? Of how long in our life, man, there are things about my life that I wanted to see changed yesterday. And I've got to wake up tomorrow and continue to fight and continue to see that God is good, that he sees me in this way, that I am this way before him in truth, and that I'm going to continue to take step after step after step to come to see that be true of my everyday reality. You know, the battle of salvation is certainly over in our life, but you got to think about this.

You are justified in a moment. You are sanctified over a lifetime lifetime. You are glorified over an eternity, okay? But that sanctification piece and the question for us today is going to be like, man, are you going to wake up tomorrow and pick up the fight? Some of us were thinking this today as I'm going through this.

Some of you might be thinking today and you're struggling with this and I understand the struggle. You're thinking, man, why do I continue to struggle in these areas of my life? Why is there a particular sin that is so hard? Why do I continue to gossip? Why do I know in the depths of my heart that I view myself as higher than my brothers and sisters in Christ and pride is off the charts?

Why do I continue to struggle with pornography? Why do I continue? And some of us are getting in despair over those things and here's what ends up happening.

Listen, this is good, okay? Listen, some of us start thinking, hey, I feel like maybe I'm not a Christian because I continue to struggle against these sins. Brothers and sisters, what you've got to see is that it is the struggle that evidences you are a Christian.

That's what it is. That means you're still in the fight. It means you're still in the game. I certainly want to see victories over different things in my life and I know that you want to see them as well, but it is that moment when we begin to wave the white flag and we begin to say, you know what, I'm just settling into this sin pattern. I'm settling into these behaviors. I'm stopping believing that God is worthy of my whole life. He can only have 80% of my life because this over here is mine and I'm not struggling with this anymore. I'm just going to settle into it.

That's when you need to be really worried. It's not the fight. The fight means you're still in the game. The fight itself evidences that we are believers, that we are sons and daughters of the King. There is a struggle in our life to become and practice what God has declared us to be in truth, but it is in that struggle, believers, that we must persevere. Matthew 24 says it like this, those who persevere to the end will be saved.

Hebrews 3, 14, hold till the end what you had at the start. One of the things that I want to do this weekend is just kind of grab our church at the end of this book and just say, are you still fighting? Are you fighting to become all that God has called you to be when he called your name and you came running out of that grave and he has bestowed upon you sonship and daughtership and you came into the family and he gave you a new last name and you were an orphan and an enemy and now you're a son and a friend.

How are you fighting to live up and live into that new identity? Let's don't be discouraged by the battle today. Let's pick up the intensity of the fight and realize what God is doing is not over.

The story is not finished. Man, it is not written and what we are called to do is to fight is to fight all the way to the end. Man, realize today that it is in the fighting and in the battle that we are laying hold of what God has already given to us.

Now let's talk about number two, okay? Nature of the battle. Number two, duration of the battle, duration of the fight. All right, now I don't want to discourage anybody in here, okay? But here's the duration of the fight. The duration of the fight is for your entire life until Jesus returns. Be encouraged, okay?

All right? That's the fight. That's what it is. Listen, this weekend maybe 10 people across different campuses, I'm not sure every campus, but maybe 10 people or so are getting baptized. Man, they're coming before the church. Can we just praise God for that, all of our locations?

Thank you. They're coming before the church. What are they doing when they get baptized? What they're saying is, man, I'm going public with what God has done spiritually in my life.

Man, what he's done on the inside, I'm showing on the outside. And that's what baptism is. It's not a magical thing.

There's not magic in the water, okay? It's just a public declaration of what God has done. And I think about 10 of us or something like that are going through that this weekend.

Incredible, okay? And some of you have been baptized here. Some of you will be in the future. When you're taking those steps like that, when you become a believer and you're taking those steps like that and evidencing, Jesus, you are the Lord of my life. I've given the keys over and you are the Lord of my life. You have stepped in to an absolute lifelong battle. You have stepped into a fight. And that's what I loved about that quote that I had earlier from that author that said, hey, you may have had peace before, but it was peace with the enemies of God. It's like, well, I came to Christ to have peace.

Well, there is a peace that you have with God, but that creates turmoil that you have with the kingdom of this world, that you have with your own flesh. There is a fight that you didn't have the day before the day that you will have every day after the day. And we've just got to kind of get that in our mind and make sure that we understand that. We certainly understand. Listen, anytime we make a change in our life, that's the way it is.

I don't know how many of you have ever said, man, I'm really going to, I'm going to jump in and I'm going to get healthy and I'm going to start doing this or I'm going to start doing that or whatever. The day before that day, there was no fight. But that day, when you made that decision, now it's a fight forever, right?

That's just kind of how it works. It's the same in a very similar way. It's the same thing when you, when you become a believer, the duration of the battle. Now here's what it says in verse 13, I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.

I don't have time to go into this. It was so funny, you know, for hundreds of years, everybody said Pontius Pilate was a made up character that had no root in reality until they found the inscription, until they found the inscription in 1960s with Pontius Pilate's name on it as he was dedicating a temple to the emperor Tiberius. So it's just funny how the Bible has things right like thousands of years before archeology does sometimes.

Okay. So keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. I charge you in the presence of God. And here's what he says at the end, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, let me just try to break this down. Okay, here's what Paul is saying, Timothy, I charge you to keep the commandment. I'm gonna talk about what the commandment is in just one second. But the point is, keep the commandment until when? Until the appearing of Christ. Now I know some of you and you might be, man, you're really into theology and end times and all that kind of stuff.

There's a lot of ways that people think about different things with Christ appearing and all that. But generally speaking, I think what Paul is saying here is this, in the end, when Jesus finally comes back and the curtain actually closes and the author comes out of the play, comes out onto the stage and it's over. Okay. And the whole human history is when Christ comes back and the end is there, that's when the fight is laid down.

Okay. That's when it's laid down for the church. But until that day, there will be a fight for the church that is in this world, for the church and the succession of believers that are here and living. There will be a fight to continue to become in practice what God has declared us to be in truth. And so here's what he says, I charge you to keep the commandment until that day when Christ comes.

The duration of the fight is for our entire life, certainly, but all the way through human history in terms of the successful generations of the church. But he says this, keep the commandment. Now what is the commandment? I think the commandment of verse 14 is the fight from verse 12.

That's all it is. The commandment from verse 14 is the fight from verse 12. The fight of the good fight of faith.

This is a simple way of saying if you want to try to get in your mind. I think all he's saying is, Timothy, you need to persevere till the end. You need to continue to fight to become in practice what God has declared you to be in truth. Continue to fight to believe the gospel truth about how God sees you and how you can live into that. You need to continue the fight to believe that and live into that all the way to the end. I already read a couple of verses that talk about that.

Let me read a couple more. Revelation 2 10, be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. James 1 12, when he was withstood the test, he will receive the crown of life. When he has withstood the test will receive the crown of life. Perseverance to the end is the name of the game.

Duration of the fight is for our entire life. Now people can get a little bit weird about this because what they start thinking is, wait, are you saying that if somebody doesn't persevere all the way to the end that they lost their salvation? No, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is they were never saved in the first place.

That's a hard truth. I think that's exactly what the Bible gets at in many places, including this one. The evidence of God's actual, what God did in the beginning is evidenced by the perseverance to the end. If you persevere to the end, it speaks about what God did in the beginning. There are a lot of people that get saved because of an emotional plea from a pastor or a bad circumstance in their life. But was it actually about yielding to what God is doing and the Spirit drawing them and laying their whole life down before him and calling Jesus the Lord of their life?

Was that what it was about or was it about something else? There are going to be many people on judgment day that are absolutely shocked. And I don't say that to try to scare anybody, but it is scary. And so you say, well, what do we do? Well, we live our daily lives knowing that perseverance to the end is what we are called to do. I've heard it said many times, once saved, always saved. I think you need to say it like this. If saved, always saved.

Okay. Once saved, always saved. I actually think that's true, but I think sometimes it maybe gets away from the point. If saved, always saved. If what God did in your life in the beginning is, I mean, if that was genuine, then there will be a perseverance. Listen, remember, I'm not talking about perfection. I'm not talking about every single thing in our life is going to all of a sudden be roses and we're not going to struggle with sin.

That's never going to happen. There's going to be a fight all the way to the end, but it is in the persevering and in the struggling for the believer. It's answering the bell over and over and over and over. This is why it is so important for us.

Y'all, I'm telling you, we talk about this all the time. Mercy Hill, gather groups, give, go. Why is that so important? Why is it so important that you're worshiping, that you're in community, man, that you're in the word and reading the scripture, that you're learning to give of your time, talent and treasure, that you are realizing there is a mission bigger than just what is in front of you and that God is calling you to something bigger. Why are those things so important?

They're important for a lot of reasons. One of them is, every single one of them is a foothold to keep climbing the mountain, to keep climbing, to lay hold of what has already been given. It's not about earning salvation. It is about persevering all the way to the end, to continue to climb, to continue to fight, to become in practice what God has declared us to be in truth. I don't care if you've been a believer for one year or you've been a believer for 50 years. We've got a bunch of generations just right here. I'm sure that's true at the campus as well. Man, are we picking up that fight and trying to grow in our faith tomorrow.

That's what I think it's about. There's a lot of people that don't do that. This is what the parable of the sower says in Matthew chapter 13.

You guys know this, that there are people that receive the word with gladness and joy and they spring up, but the second something hard comes or something more enticing in the world comes, they are just gone. They are absolutely gone. Does anybody, you know, this is, they just, I've got people in my mind that I'm thinking of right now, all the way from high school, that they were there and just one day they weren't there anymore. I don't know, have you guys seen this stuff about, does anybody here remember Richard Simmons? Does anybody know who that is? Have you guys seen this? The reason I say do you remember is because in 2014, one day he just disappeared.

And you know, 1988, sweating to the oldies, it was the greatest, it was the highest grossing exercise VHS film of all time, okay. And then all of a sudden 2014, being a little bit funny, but man, he just, and man, it was the, all of a sudden there's podcasts, what happened to him, and there was these wild theories about he got kidnapped by his housekeeper, and I mean just all this stuff, and he just kind of disappeared one day. No, I, you know, what's, man, I think about people in my life all the way from when I was in high school that just all of a sudden they were just not here anymore. And what I mean by that is they weren't around the church anymore. They were leaning in until something enticed them in the world and they were out. They were leaning in until things got really hard. And maybe nobody had the, I don't want to say courage, maybe nobody had the love to tell them on the front end that when you become a believer you pick up a fight for the rest of your whole life. And it's hard. And that's what the call is.

And maybe nobody told them that. And all of a sudden when the sun comes out, Matthew 13, man, they are scorched and they are gone. And I just want to say to us today, I think what Paul is telling Timothy is, and by extension the church, if the proof is going to be in the pudding, you're going to find a people who are willing to go not, go all the way, go the distance, go all 12 rounds, go all nine innings to say, man, that's the finish line. And I'm going to run all the way through it. And I'm going to keep fighting every single day of my life. I'm going to persevere to the end. This is why we talk about gather groups, give go so much guys, because what we want you to see is perseverance. And these are God's means of grace for us to persevere, that we get into worship with each other, that we're in community, that we're reading our Bible, that we're learning to give ourselves away, that we're learning there's a bigger mission than just ourselves. And when we're doing that, we are learning and we are exhibiting perseverance. It shows that the fight is in us and there is something the Spirit is doing. You know, anybody can start well. Anybody can start well. That's not the game.

The game is the duration. You know, we had, this is really cool. So there's a little bit of background here. Man, at Mercy Hill, we were one of the few churches, there was four or five churches about nine years ago that constituted something called the Summit Collaborative. You wouldn't know what that is, but what it is, is a group of churches who had came together and said, man, we really believe it's possible to plant a thousand churches by the year 2050. And I'm excited to say, man, we were one of the first churches to be able to sign in and constitute that. And this is what's cool. Man, over the last nine years, we've been able to see just dozens and dozens and dozens of churches planted as a group of churches, including, and this is what's most exciting for us, that we now have a family, okay?

And you guys know that. We have four churches, Waynesville, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Roanoke, and Tampa, you know, that came directly out of Mercy Hill. We have this Mercy Hill family. Well, us and that Mercy Hill family, we have a broader kind of network, this Summit Collaborative, that we are a part of.

And this is what's cool. About 30 of those churches from all up and down the East Coast converged on Mercy Hill this week. And man, we just had an incredible time of equipping and sharing and worship. Man, our worship team just crushed it.

They did awesome. We had a chance to hear from some different pastors. Pastor J.D. Greer preached. I had a chance to preach. And a guy named Pastor Brian Laritz preached, okay? Now, I normally don't attribute stuff as much as I'm doing right now to people unless I'm directly going to steal the whole thing, which I'm about to do, okay? So Brian gave this illustration. It was just one of the best illustrations I've ever heard.

And this is what he said. He said, hey, the Transcontinental Railroad of the 1860s, all right? 1861 to about 1869, it was this huge, I mean, the greatest engineering feat up until that point that we had ever seen. And man, there was this drive to connect the two oceans, you know?

And you guys may have seen this History Channel or whatever. And when they started the project, there was all this fanfare about like, man, let's start the project. Let's get the news camera, you know, well, not cameras, but let's get the news, you know, out there going and all that kind of stuff.

And man, get the telegrams going and get the news out. And so here's what they wanted to do. They wanted to have a massive ribbon cutting, okay? And the ribbon cutting, you know, proverbial ribbon cutting for a railroad, I guess, is you drive a golden spike into the railroad. And that's kind of like a kickoff and a ceremony and all that kind of stuff.

So they had all this stuff until this guy, Collis Huntington, he actually was one of the owners of one of the companies that was doing the railroad. And here's what he said, and I love this, okay? He said, if you guys want to jubilate over driving the first spike, then go ahead and do it. I don't.

Those mountains over there look too ugly. We may fail. And if we do, I want to have as few people know about it as possible. Here's what he says. Anybody can drive the first spike.

Anybody can drive the first spike, but there are months of labor and unrest between the first spike and the last spike. And here's what Pastor Brian said, starting well is easy. It's finishing that is the challenge. And I thought about that and I thought, man, that is so apt for our passage today because here's the deal. Some of you are weary. There's parts of my life right now that I feel weary. Some of us feel weary. We sang about some of that today.

Love that refrain, man. We depend on God. Some of us are weary in the fight and there are things that are going on. Maybe we have adult children that are walking in open sin. Maybe there's a struggle that keeps coming up.

Maybe there's a marriage that feels impossible. Maybe there is seeing the abundance of the wicked. David struggled with this in the book of Psalms. He sees the abundance of the wicked and he begins to doubt that maybe God is actually worth it. Maybe it's better to go live for the world. Maybe it's better to go chase things down in terms of material possession and all of that kind of stuff.

And you know what? I feel like the Lord is putting on my heart to say to us today is to not coddle our church in that and even my own heart, but to preach and to coach a little bit and kind of be that one that grabs the face mask a little bit. And just to say to all of us, including myself, nobody said that finishing was going to be easy.

Starting is easy. It's the finishing that is the challenge. And so maybe for some of us that are weary and maybe some of us that are in these midst of these struggles that are so real, maybe we need to realize is this not in some sense what we have signed up for? To continue to fight tomorrow and to say in this, even in this, God, I will fight tomorrow not to give myself over to worry. In these things, God, I will fight tomorrow to see that you are the prime treasure and there's nothing in this world that competes with you.

And I will fight to see that in my life and all the other things that I mentioned. How do we get there? How do we do that? Well, I think we pray and we ask God. I think we resolve ourselves to it. I think we put a little steel in the backbone, understanding that if you're a believer, the spirit of God is in you and you have access to all of these things and the fruit of the spirit. And we need to pray that God would make these things true of us. And I think the other thing we need to do is realize there is a divine plan for spiritual growth. Some of us are in weariness. We don't think we have the ability, listen, we're in weariness and we don't think we have the ability to preach to ourselves and to put steel in the backbone tomorrow. But the reality is maybe we aren't manifest, maybe we aren't kind of availing ourselves to the means that God has given us.

What does your quiet time look like? Man, well, are we in a group? Are there people who know the struggles that are in our life right now? Because it's really hard for us to say, God, I'm weary and I can't do this and I'm ready to give up the fight.

And God, I just need you to drop something into my life when we're not even making ourselves and availing ourselves to the things that God has put in place. Gather groups, give go. Acts chapter two.

Man, the church has been doing it for 2,000 years and I pray that we will as well. Third and finally, more of a conclusion than anything else. Y'all, the goal of the the goal of the fight. What is the goal of the fight? Simply put, the goal of the fight is the glory of God in our lives, is that we would glorify God in our lives.

Church, is that not the purpose for which we were created? Isaiah 43 seven tells us everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and whom I made. He who is, this is what it says in verse 15.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. As we take up the fight and we are evidencing what God has done in our lives by our willingness to continue, to put on a new man, to continue, to rekindle what God has done in us. Paul would tell Timothy in second Timothy, to continue the fight. As we do that, y'all, we do it with our eye on the fact that God is worth it. He is glorious. Listen, to him be all honor and to him be eternal dominion.

That's what it says. You know, if you're new to Mercy Hill, you're at a church right now, man, that's crazy about going to the nations. We want to get as many people there as we can. Why do we do that? Why do we have a goal of seeing 500 missionaries sent out from this church by 2032? It took us 10 years to send about 175 and we want to send 500 over, you know, to hit that number 500 by the next 10 years.

Why? Why are there so many cohorts and why is there so many people that are upstream, you know, upstream that we're getting ready to go? Why are there some families right now that we've been walking with for years that are getting ready to land in South Asia? Why do we get so excited about that? Because to God be all honor and to him is the eternal dominion. We've got to see the greatness of God is the goal of our life.

The glory of God is the goal of our life. I want you to see this quick video here. Why do we get so excited when our college students begin to go in this direction?

You guys watch this quickly. Hey everyone, I'm Zecora Ingram. I'm a senior at UNCG and over the past couple of years, I've been able to dive deeper into our college ministry at Mercy Hill by joining a family group by leading alongside the residents with the freshman Bible study and then partaking in city project this summer and learning what it means to leverage my life for the sake of the gospel. And this summer we had various teachings on different things in the Bible and one of my favorites was Christ and the cross-cultural mission. And at that time, my heart was already burdened for the nations, but just hearing John Turi talk about living overseas and the work that so needs to be done, my heart was burdened even more. And then I was also able to be sent out with one of the trek teams that went to South Asia this summer for 10 days and just being there and seeing the false idols, the false worship and the spiritual darkness, I told myself I had to come back there. And my time at Mercy Hill has taught me to dive deeper into what God is doing, not only in my life, but also in the church and in the people's lives that are out in the nations. So after college, I plan on serving long-term in the nations and taking part in God's mission. Praise God. Praise God. Y'all, why do we get so excited about stories just like that of young people that we've met on campus that, man, years later are going to give their life to the nations?

Why is that such a goal for us and why is that kind of the pinnacle for us? Well, I'll tell you like this. When we fight for our faith, all of a sudden we'll start fighting for other people's faith. When we become the people who are fighting to become in practice what God has declared us to be in truth, that will manifest itself.

The proof is in the pudding. A church that fights for their faith will fight for the faith of others. And you got to understand, there are thousands of entire people groups, families of this earth with their own culture, with their own language, that don't know the gospel, that don't even have people actively trying to get the gospel to them. And while that is a reality, we've got to go back to this text and we've got to realize like, man, man, we fight the good fight of faith. And that means in our life, I understand that, but it also means that we fight for the faith of others.

Why? Because God is worth it. Because he is the king of all kings. Because eternal glory and dominion are his forever.

Because to him be all the honor. So the last thing I'll say is this. Church, what step do you need to take today?

Is it about your faith? Man, do you need to be in a discovery group? Those are kicking off. All right. And that means if you're not in a group, you're not in a community group, hey, come check one out on campus.

Child care is provided. All right. You can come here, right here to the regional campus and just kind of get a taste of what that's like.

You need to be in a group. What is your scripture reading look like these days? Man, are you making it to worship week in and week out and week in and week out? Or is it a very hit or miss thing in your life? These are footholds for us to persevere.

But what else might it look like? What about fighting for the faith of others? Man, is there somebody that God is placing on your heart? Who's your one? Who's somebody that God has placed on your heart that you're praying for, that you need to share the gospel with?

Man, who is it? And here's the thing here today, or maybe at one of our campuses, is God putting it on your heart to be on one of these trips that we'll start unveiling for next year? I mean, our trip season's kind of wrapping up. We've had an incredible season, over a hundred people from Mercy Hill. We're on mission this summer somewhere in the world. Incredible.

I'd call that a post COVID rebound. Okay. Excited for that. What about next year? What about you, man? What about longterm?

Is God putting something on your heart? Man, you're to be one, like Zecoria, to go longterm. What's the step that you need to take? Man, we are in a fight. Let's take steps in that direction. Let's pray. Father, we come before you right now, Lord, and we know, God, that we have signed up for a fight and a perseverance that goes the entire course of our life. God, we pray that you will continue to remind us of the gospel, show us what is true about us because of what you have done in life. Lord, give us access to the fruit of the spirit.

God, allow those things to start popping out all over our life. God, allow us to see victories and growth. But Lord, I pray for resolve in this church that we would fight the good fight of faith. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

Amen. Well, hey, guys, at all of our campuses, you know this, man, we've been responding over this series in three ways. At the end of a service, we got one song left. Man, let's pour it all out to him. We're going to sing, we're going to bring, and we're going to pray. Okay, so you guys, go ahead and stand with me. Man, at all of our locations, we're going to sing one more song together. Of course, you can bring your tithes and offerings now, or this could be a good reminder to do that.

God has been first to us, so you can text that, you can give online, or you can give on the give box at all of our campuses on the way out. But hey, guys, come and pray. Man, come pray for the nations at all of our campuses.

I had a chance to be at High Point last week, and I saw people down front. Man, the altars are wide open this weekend. Bring your family down, bring your kids down. Man, let's say a prayer. Let's put our body in a posture of prayer before him. Let's have an incredible time worshiping here as we close our service.