Today we finish Paul’s first letter to Timothy with a call to active faith. Paul tells Timothy to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness; to fight the good fight; and to take hold of eternal life. We are saved by grace through faith, but that doesn’t mean we are passive in our faith. Every day we have choices to make—to pray, read Scripture, serve our neighbors, show grace, forgive, love, and focus our hearts on the things that draw us toward Jesus. Following Christ isn’t about moral perfection or getting everything right. It’s about chasing after Jesus with all that we are and allowing his love to transform the way we live.
Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.
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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re doing well.
I hope you’ve had a great rest of your week. And be careful out there with the weather this weekend. I know there’s a hurricane coming through. It looks like we’re probably just going to get rain here in Starkville, but wherever you are—particularly if you’re on the coast—please be careful. It looks like it’s going to be pretty nasty.
We’re praying for safety for everyone as the storm comes this way, and hopefully, when it’s all said and done, we’ll just have a bunch of rain.
So be safe in the storms, wherever you are.
And if you’re in the Starkville area, we’d obviously love for you to worship with us Sunday at First United Methodist Church. It’s going to be a good day as we continue talking about the fire God is wanting to start in our lives. We’re talking about the burning bush this week, and it’s a great story.
So we’d love for you to come worship with us this Sunday if you’re in town or anywhere in the Golden Triangle area.
Today, we’re going to finish 1 Timothy. We’ll finish out chapter 6 and finish the book, and then Monday we’ll move into 2 Timothy.
So let’s look at 1 Timothy 6, beginning with verse 11.
Paul says:
“But as for you, man of God, shun all this. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called…”
And he goes on to encourage Timothy to keep the commandment without spot or blame and to place his hope in God rather than in riches.
He tells those who are wealthy not to be arrogant or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but instead to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.
And then he ends the letter by telling Timothy to guard what has been entrusted to him and to avoid profane chatter and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.
And it’s interesting to me that one of the things that kind of circles back at the very end of 1 Timothy is something we’ve seen throughout this entire letter:
Idle chatter.
Profane chatter.
Meaningless talk.
Endless controversy.
Paul is encouraging Timothy to keep himself grounded in what matters. To stay grounded in the hope of Christ. To stay grounded in the faith that has been handed down to him.
And to avoid all those things that distract us from what is actually important.
I think that’s such an interesting through line in this entire book.
I haven’t read through 1 Timothy like this in a long time, and one of the things that has struck me over and over again is Paul’s warning to Timothy to avoid idle talk, avoid endless speculation, avoid those things that draw us away from the true faith and substitute something else in its place.
A faith that isn’t really grounded in Jesus, but is grounded in myths, arguments, controversies, or simply the thoughts of the moment.
Instead, Paul says: Pursue what matters.
Righteousness.
Godliness.
Faith.
Love.
Endurance.
Gentleness.
And fight the good fight.
Take hold of eternal life.
Paul uses a lot of language in his writings about fighting the good fight, running the good race, training ourselves, and working out our salvation.
And we need to read Scripture in conversation with itself.
Because it can be very easy when we read Paul to focus on certain verses about grace through faith—about the fact that we are not saved by our works, that we cannot earn our salvation, that salvation is a gift of God.
And all of that is true.
But if we aren’t careful, we can misunderstand that to mean that we can simply be passive in our faith.
That all we have to do is believe certain things intellectually and we’ve done everything God asks of us.
And Paul, over and over again, says, “No.”
Fight the good fight.
Run the race.
Train yourself in godliness.
Take hold of eternal life.
Be faithful.
We are not passive in our salvation.
We are saved by grace through faith.
But that faith has to show itself in our lives.
If nothing else, we have to respond to the grace God offers us.
God gives grace freely, but we have to respond to it.
And I think that’s what Paul is saying to Timothy:
Take hold of this.
Fight the good fight.
Take hold of eternal life.
Keep the commandment.
Be faithful.
And then he warns those who have wealth not to put their hope in their possessions, but instead to be rich in good works—to be generous and ready to share.
So our richness doesn’t ultimately come from our possessions.
Our richness comes from faithfulness.
And I guess that’s what I want us to think about today:
Don’t be passive in your faith.
Don’t be passive.
You have a responsibility in your faith.
Paul says in Philippians that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work within us.
We are not bystanders in our faith.
We have a partnership, if you will.
God saves us.
But we respond to the salvation God offers.
And we make those choices every single day.
Every day you choose whether you’re going to read Scripture.
You choose whether you’re going to pray.
You choose whether you’re going to spend time listening for God.
You choose whether you’re going to serve your neighbor.
When you see your neighbor in need, will you help?
Will you just be nice to your coworker?
You’ve heard me say before that sometimes the most Christian thing we can do is be nice to the checkout girl at Walmart.
Will you choose to show grace to the people around you?
Will you choose, instead of going down the roads of division and conspiracy, to focus on what is good and noble and pure?
Will you choose to focus your heart on things that point you toward Jesus?
Or will you choose to focus on things that draw you away from Jesus?
We choose to love.
We choose to forgive.
We choose to be faithful.
Now, none of those things save us.
We’re saved by grace through faith.
But they put us in a position to have our faith strengthened, to have our hope increased, to receive grace, and to stand.
So many people call us to “stand” on our faith, right?
“Take a stand for Jesus.”
There’s an old hymn that says, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus.”
Well, today you have a chance to stand for Jesus.
What does that look like?
Paul tells us.
Pursue righteousness.
Pursue godliness.
Pursue faith.
Pursue love.
Pursue endurance.
Pursue gentleness.
Fight the good fight of the faith.
Take hold of eternal life.
It’s not about power or might or strength.
It’s not about getting everything right.
It’s not about moral perfection.
It’s about chasing after Jesus.
Chasing after Jesus with all that you are.
And letting the love of Jesus so infuse your life that you can’t help but love him and love others.
So don’t be passive in your faith today.
Be active.
Do your part.
Know that God has saved you.
And then respond—over and over and over again—to the grace God offers you.
So, thanks for being with me today.
I hope you have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Monday as we pick up with 2 Timothy, starting with chapter 1.
Have a great weekend.
See you then.