 And our sermon title this morning, again, is Fight the Good, Fight of Faith, and we are in part three of this sermon series now working through these passages in 1 Timothy 6. And we come today to the final chapter, the final passage, the closing, if you will, of this letter. Has it been a helpful journey? Amen. Walking verse by verse by verse, which is our custom, through the Scripture, hearing the whole counsel of God from the pages of this particular letter from Paul to Timothy in Ephesus. It's been a glorious blessing, a tremendous blessing to me in study. I pray it's been a blessing to you as we study this together. There's so much here, such a profound letter, such profound instruction. And we are looking forward to, of course, all the Bible has to say. And as we work through Scripture verse by verse, we're all over the Bible, right? These truths are evident throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. So each week we have the privilege, the honor, the blessing of being able to plumb to the depths of God's Word, draw out from God's Word, not from my own imagination or your own imagination, to draw out from God's Word, God's instruction for the Christian life. And we need to do that. We need to be anchored in that. We need to be anchored in that kind of instruction, anchored in God's Word, so that we, as the psalmist says, might not sin against him. We take heed according to his word. And so it gives me great joy this morning to work with you again through this passage, this last passage in 1 Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. And we've spent just about, just over, I think, a year in this letter. And just being able to take our time through that, it's just a glorious blessing. And listen, we will study Scripture together. We'll study God's Word, God's teaching, God's instruction for all eternity in heaven. If you've come here this morning and you just have no interest in the Word of God, you're just sort of bored with it, well, guess what? Eternity is going to be filled with God's Word. God's Word will stand forever and it gives the Christian great joy to be able to walk through these passages. And so, let us begin. We're in 1 Timothy chapter 6, and we're beginning in verse 17. And let me ask you a question. Do you think of yourself as rich? You think of yourself as wealthy. Now some have less income, less possessions, less of this world's goods, and others have more. But do you think of yourself specifically as rich? The world would say that you are. According to world statistics, you are in the top two or three percent of all of the wage earners, all of the possession owners in all of the world. Think of all that you have. Think of all that you've been given. Think of all the luxuries, all of the pleasures, the technology, everything that we enjoy today. I think of growing up as a kid, and the one toy I remember being as a young kid was a chair that we had in our living room that had a swivel on it that was broken, and our house was so dilapidated it sat on an angle, and you could sit in that chair, and because of the weight of the chair, your weight on the chair, it would just spin. It was like an amusement park in my living room, and that was the toys we grew up with. We had a TV that you had to walk across the room to change the channel on. You couldn't sit on your couch and do that, right? And it got like two or three channels, not two or three hundred or two or three thousand. If you wanted them to come in clearly, you had to climb up on the roof, right? I mean, think about all the luxuries that we have today, and think about all the luxuries, all the pleasures, listen, all the distractions, right? That your kids have today, those constant, those strongest thumbs in all of history. Because of the luxuries that we have today, the pleasures that we have today, listen, we are, we're wealthy. In comparison to the first century, wealthy, wealthy beyond imagination, wealthy, all right? So this passage, lest you think somehow, this passage may not apply to you, or that the truths here are not something that we need to take to consideration for ourselves, listen, it is for every one of us. It's for you and I, every one of us must take heed to what is being taught here. As Paul closes out this letter to Timothy, he goes again back to instruction to the rich, back to instruction, not here now for those who desire to be rich as we've just seen, but to those now who are rich. This is important instruction for all of us to heed. Now I thought about an analogy with respect to this, sort of an argument, if you will, for us to help us see this a little more clearly. And there was an act, a Civil War act, called the Act of Conscription. It was passed by the United States Congress in 1863. And in that act of conscription, there was basically a military draft for the Civil War, all right? In that military draft, there were two provisions. Those two provisions were for every male who was aged 20 to 45, so every male aged 20 to 45 was involved in the draft, and there were two provisions of the draft. One provision of the draft was called commutation. The other provision of the draft was called substitution. Now these two provisions caused an uproar, caused unrest. There were riots over these two provisions of this act. The first act, if you will, or provision of the act, was commutation. That meant that a person could buy their way out of the draft. It was a provision that allowed for someone to pay $300 now, put $300 in the context of Civil War time. $300 was a tremendous amount of money, huge amount of money. So this very hefty fine was only a fine that the rich could afford to pay. The average person could never have afforded to pay that, and so it would have been forced to enter the draft and go into war. The other provision of the act that caused such an uproar was a provision called substitution, whereas if you could afford it, you could pay to have a substitute go into the war for you and fight for you in your place. Again, can you imagine the expense? How much are you going to charge to go into war for someone else to face those battles for someone else? It's a hefty price, right? You're going to charge a lot. So these two provisions were basically the net effect that they had was protecting the rich. If you were rich, if you were a wealthy landowner, you could afford to escape the battle. You didn't have to go into the battle. You didn't have to fight. You could pay your way out, either through commutation, paying the fine, or through substitution. That caused riots, and it caused riots because this war came to be known as the rich man's war and the poor man's fight. Rich were waging war by using the poor to fight their way, right? Caused a great deal of turmoil. By contrast, by contrast on the pages of Holy Scripture, on the pages of the Bible, this Christian life is an all-out battle for the rich. And you cannot pay your way out of it. You cannot think to yourself that it doesn't matter. You cannot think of yourself as better than someone else because they're poor. And you cannot escape the war that is raging in the Christian life for you because you're wealthy. It is a battle you cannot escape. James 5.1 begins this way, listen to the words of James as a warning against riches. He says, come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you. And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. Jesus Christ was very concerned about those in Luke 12 who were not rich toward God. Here there's not a condemnation against having possessions. There's not a condemnation against being rich. It's the fact that when people are, they tend to trust in their riches. And there's a great, great danger. Now listen, we have in our materialistic age, in an age where we have all the possessions that we have, we have a tendency to be comfortable. A tendency to forget the Lord our God in our comfort. The Lord is warned. He looked at several passages in the past here recently that warn of that very thing. Trusting in riches, trusting in our comfort, being too comfortable, trusting in the pleasures of this world, and forgetting the Lord our God. And then, as Deuteronomy says, following into the trap that we think is somehow that it's the strength of our arm, that it's the wisdom of our minds, that it's the diligence of our efforts that have provided us this wealth. And we forget the Lord our God. We are by the world standards very wealthy. We need to take heed to the words of Paul. Don't allow this to just simply wash over you in one ear out the other. Consider this for yourself. Listen, consider this for your kids. With wealth comes distraction. With wealth comes pleasure. With wealth comes leisure. With pleasure and leisure and distraction comes apathy. Comes indifference. Comes forgetting the Lord our God. By the way, let's think about that act. The act of conscription. Thinking about commutation and substitution. Isn't it a glorious thought for the Christian that we now fight the battle that by another's substitution has already been won? Amen? That we fight in a Christian battle now in this life when someone has already paid the penalty that we couldn't pay. Someone's already fought the battle that we couldn't fight. Because of his conquering, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Amen? It is a glorious thought, a glorious blessing. The war has been won. It's simply up to the Christian to be faithful. For you here today who are not Christians, listen, this is nothing to laugh about. This is nothing to take lightly. Your disrespect for the Word of God, your leisure, your pleasure, your distractions in your life will lead you to hell unless you heed the instruction of God, turn from your sin, turn from trusting in worldly riches and trust Christ alone to save you. In this last glimpse, this last glimpse of the Christian fight, the Christian warfare, the Christian battle from 1 Timothy, we're going to see two necessities here. One is the necessity to fight for right living, fight for right living. The second is the necessity to fight for right doctrine. And again, even in those two points, the Christian warfare, the Christian fight, fighting the good fight of faith involves a fight in your own Christian life for holy living and involves a fight in your life for right doctrine. Again, the inseparability of life and doctrine. Allow the doctrine which accords with godliness to adorn your life and allow your life, your holy living, to adorn the doctrine of God in all things. First, let's take a look at fight for right living from verses 17 to 19. In verses 17 to 19, we see principles for right living in the instruction given to Timothy regarding those who are rich. We are commanded here at the beginning of verse 17 once again to step off of the shifting sands of this world's pursuits and place our feet firmly on the granite foundation of God, who is our rock, our hope, our refuge. Secondly, we're going to look at the fight for right doctrine in verses 20 and 21. If we are to lay hold on eternal life, we must guard, we must keep, we must protect, we must fight for that which has been entrusted to us, the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. As Paul said, in doing that, in fighting for that truth, that we may save both ourselves and those who hear us. However, in fighting for that which is true, that fight also involves taking flight from that which is false. And so we'll see that as well, avoiding those worldly dangers that seek to make shipwreck of our soul. So first point, fight for right living, we're to fight for right living. The Christian life is a battle, would you agree? It is a battle. If you're not warring, it means either you're not in the army at all or somehow you're asleep on the watch and you need to get in the fight. The Christian life is a battle. The Christian life is a fight. If you're a genuine Christian, it is the longing, the desire, the cry of your new heart to live a holy life for Christ. You hunger and you thirst for righteousness. And there is a war that rages. Paul knew this all too well. And if you're familiar with Romans 7, listen to what Paul says in Romans 7. Paul says, I do not understand my own actions for what I do not do, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. He goes on, I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, within my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Can you relate to Paul? If you're in the Christian life, you just want to live for Christ, but that thing that I don't want to do, I keep doing. It is the cry even of a mature Christian. This Christian life is a battle. And listen, even for the mature Christian who might live in Christ for 40, 50, 60 years before the Lord takes him home, that battle rages from start to finish. There's always going to be something to battle against. Listen to what Paul goes on to say. He says, he delights in the law of God in his inner being, and that's a mark of a Christian. You delight in the law of God. It is your delight. He delights in the law of God in his inner being, but there is another law in his members waging war. Well that enemy, that other law, that other principle in your members is waging war. Well you better be fighting or you're being overcome by it. The Christian life is a battle. And of course Paul and the ultimate author, the Holy Spirit, are writing this. We have no ability in and of ourselves to carry out that which is right in God's eyes. We just can't do it on our own. Listen, God will receive all of the glory for your Christian life. When the Lord, when you stand before the Lord and you stand before him in righteousness in the white robes that Christ has given you, the Lord doesn't look at you and say, oh, look at all the good work that you've done. Look at all the good things that you've done. The Lord looks at you and he sees the righteousness of his son. He sees the good that you do as a fruit of his spirit dwelling within you and not of your own. And that's what gets you through judgment. That's what gets you accepted. Nothing that you've done, none of the works that you've done. In this Christian life we are to fight the good fight of faith. We're to wage as Paul said to Timothy, wage the good warfare. This Christian life, being a good fight of faith, is to be waged in faith. We can't do it in our own effort. We can't do it in our own strength. We can't do it in our own wisdom. We can't do it in our own efforts. We must fight by faith in Christ. And that, in that, Christ has the victory. As Christians, as Paul says in Galatians, the life we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us in what gave himself for us. Christ gave himself for us. In order to keep us grounded, to keep us in the fight and fighting well, we must first be instructed. We have to have instruction. We have to have the Lord's direction. We need to be charged. We need to be challenged by the Word of God in these things. We have to be constantly reminded. As we've been working through 1 Timothy, I find often that I'm thinking to myself as we're working through the passages that we just talked about this, like last week or week before, a month before, and the Word of God is like that. Which in repetition, a worldly philosopher once said that repetition is the mother of all learning, the father of all action, and the architect of all accomplishment. That's not his wisdom, that's the wisdom of God. We need repetitive repetition. Peter says, I stir you up by way of reminder. We need constant reminding, and we need that reminding. We need that instruction from the Word of God. If we're going to live this Christian life, our Christian life first hinges on instruction. That's what the first word there in verse 17 means. Paul commands Timothy, command those. If you have an ESV or an NASV, it may say instruct, it may say charge, it may say direct. This is instruction, and it is instruction from the Word of God. The first thing here that it's going to instruct us is not to be haughty. Not to be haughty. And we're going to look first in this fight for right living, first we need to have a right self-assessment, a right self-assessment where to be directed, instructed, or charged from the Word of God. He uses the same word that we saw in verse 13 where he says, I charge you before God who will judge the living and the dead. I charge you in the presence of God. We need a healthy self-assessment regarding a godly life, and that must begin with biblical instruction. Think about it in your own life. Think about you, if you're a Christian. If you're lost today, you are in the grip. You are in total slavery to your own selfish whims, your own selfish desires. You are enslaved to your sin. If you're a Christian today, think about the grip in your flesh of your own self-will. Think about the grip of your own pride. Think about the grip this world continues to have on your heart and mind. Think about the grip of your own rebellion. The grip of your own fleshly desires. The grip of our own faithlessness. The grip of covetousness. The grip of sin for the Christian is still strong, amen. And we have to fight, we have to contend. It takes significant and ongoing instruction from the Word of God to progressively break the grip of sin in the Christian life. If you were saved and at that moment all of your sin departed forever, amen, that'd be one thing that's not the truth for the Christian life. You are saved and you must battle against sin for the extent of your life as God sanctifies you and conforms you into the image of Christ. And it is a progressive and gradual day by day, sometimes it feels like minute by minute breaking of the grip of sin. You must fight to get through that. Let me give you an example. I've heard that there is a problem with monkeys in India. That there's a lot of them and they're all over the place. And that whenever a local wants to catch one of them, they're going to try to get rid of the monkey problem. So they want to catch a monkey. What do they do? They take a bottle and they anchor a bottle to the ground or anchor it to a tree. Now at the top of the bottle, the opening to the bottle is just wide enough for a monkey to get his hand in. So they take this bottle, anchor it to the ground, anchor it to a tree and they drop a small banana into the bottle. The monkey comes along, sticks his hand into the bottle to grab the banana, but now the monkey wants that banana. I mean, he is dying for the banana. He's not going to let go of the banana once he's got it in his grasp. So he hangs on to that banana for dear life and as the person has been sitting by waiting for this whole scene to play out, now comes forward the burlap sack. So as the person comes forward, the screeching begins, the chattering begins. The monkey is in a turmoil. Can't let go of the banana and can't flee the guy coming with a bag. So what happens? The monkey is bagged. And in the darkness, what does the monkey do? He drops the banana and now he's trapped, okay? Now he's trapped. Many of you today are gripping something that you will not let go of. You've stuck your hand in the bottle. You've gripped on to whatever that is and you're holding onto it. Whether that's bitterness, whether that's unforgiveness, that may be anger, maybe discontentment, maybe discouragement, it may be despairing against God, it may be rebellion. Think about that thing right now in which you are being self-willed. Think about that thing right now in which you are being deceived by your own desire, being deceived by your own lust. Think about your trust in your finances. Think about the way that you view the possessions that you have. Think about that unresolved conflict with a brother, with a sister. Think about whatever it is. Think about that lust. Think about that temptation that you have your grip around and you are unwilling to let it go. One day will come when you'll release your grip in darkness. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. You will let go of whatever that is and you will bow the knee to an omnipotent God who created you for his own glory. Will you release it now? In order to break our grip, listen, we in the flesh have the propensity to have an iron-clad grip on the things in our lives that we're being self-willed about. If you're a Christian here today, you can struggle with this as anyone can. You will grip onto something so tightly because you want to be right. Grip onto something so tightly because you want whatever that thing is. You need to release your grip. The only way that we can break the grip that we have on our own self-will, the only way that we can break the grip that sin has on our hearts and minds is submitting ourselves to the instruction that we have from God's Word. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed, God, sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth. If you are not wholeheartedly submitting yourself, learning, cherishing, delighting in the Word of God, you're on a very slippery slope. You've got your hand in the bottle and the bag is coming. Doesn't mean you lose your salvation. It may mean that you were never saved to begin with. You need to release your grip. The only way to break the death grip, the way that God has ordained in His Word, that we are to break the death grip of sin in our lives, is the Spirit of God through the Word of God sanctifying the believer. And so what does that say about your devotion to the Word of God? Are you meditating on the Word of God? Are you submitting yourself under the teaching of the Word of God, or does it just go in one ear and out the other? And the Word of God says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Are you self-willed in your rebellion saying, I will not go to group? I will not come to church. I've got other things to do today. Other things that I prefer over the teaching of the Word of God. What decisions do you make that keep you away? Listen, when all the rest of evangelicalism are reducing the times that they teach the Word of God basically down to one, which is Sunday morning, we are here trying to increase them so that we can submit ourselves under the Word of God, be sanctified, be safe, and preserve until the end and be saved. You need to submit yourself to the Word of God. Don't decrease your teaching time. Increase it. Are you submitting yourself to the Word of God daily in your devotions? You need to memorize the Word of God. You need to meditate on the Word of God. You need to be pondering the Word of God. When you're driving your car, you need to be thinking of all that scripture you memorized. I mean, to submit ourselves is the only way that the grip of sin in our lives, the grip that we have on sin, will be broken. Begins with instruction, and it begins there with instruction in verse 17. Command those who are rich. That's you. That's me. Command those who are rich in this present age. Instruct them. Direct them. Charge them. First, not to be haughty. He begins this instruction first with a healthy self-assessment of who we are. Not to think too highly of ourselves. Literally, haughty comes from a compound word, meaning high thinking. We're not to think of ourselves more highly than we should. Romans 12, verse 3, Paul says of everyone, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. And we can't be fooled by this. Pride and wealth go together. So do pride in many things. Pride and knowledge go together. You come to some knowledge when you think to yourself, well, I know more about that than most of the other people around here, and it leads to pride. You come to some knowledge, and you react by the Lord giving you grace in showing you that knowledge from Scripture, and then you become prideful with it. And pride leads to discord, disruption, and division. You become prideful with your knowledge. You become prideful with skill. You become prideful with giftedness. Pride and appearance go together. Pride and accomplishment go together. Pride goes with many, many sins. In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7 says, what do you have that you did not receive? And you act as if you acquired it by your own hand. Where's room for pride when everything you have has been provided for you by God? Why would you be prideful with it? It doesn't belong to you in that sense. God gave it to you. You didn't get to that by your own effort, by your own wisdom, by your own strength. God gave it to you. So why do you act as if you acquired it for yourself? Secondly, from verse 17, we're not to be haughty, number one. Secondly, we're not to fix our hope on the uncertainty of riches. The deceits and pleasures of this world are shifting sands. They're deceitful. They're shifting. They're uncertain, unstable. The word there, uncertainty, means unseen. It's a word that carries a sense of not being made manifest. In other words, riches, this world's goods, this world's possessions, this world's riches, there's something behind the curtain, unseen that makes it unstable. That makes it deceptive, that deceives. It's unseen. It's hidden. It's unstable. You may think that worldly riches, that money provides stability, but they are unstable. In reality, behind the curtain, there's no stability. There's no security in this world's riches. You need to make yourself rich toward God. So we have a right self-assessment. Don't be haughty. Don't put your trust in riches. Secondly, we need a right foundation. If we don't want to put our hope, put our trust in the shifting sands of this world's riches, we need to put our trust in the living God, who is the bedrock, the foundation of our hope. Verse 17, the second half says, but trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. And we're to fix our hope on God. And God is the granite and bedrock of our hope. Psalm 18, too. Listen to this. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I encourage you to meditate on that for a while. That's a good passage of Scripture. We're to place our trust in God. God is a rock. God is a fortress. God is our deliverer. He's our strength. We're to trust in Him. Notice at the end of verse 17 here, in 1 Timothy chapter 6, that it's God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. And I want you just as a hermeneutical principle, if you will, or as an inductive Bible study skill, break that down. Listen to it. God does not simply give to all of us generally. God gives to us personally. God gives to us personally. That's directed to Timothy and Paul together. God does not give us these things to enjoy in a limited way, but gives to all of us. It's not limited to a few, but to all who are in Christ. God gives us these things richly, all things to enjoy. God does not give in a meager way, but God gives what? Richly. God gives richly. God does not give us only for us to pass along, like we have to impoverish ourselves after God has given us these gifts. He gives us these gifts for us to enjoy. You don't have to give it all away and be poor. This is not asceticism. This is not that monkry that we've seen in history, where you have to go around poor. The Lord gives us these things to enjoy. Now, wealth, possessions are not condemned in Scripture. The Bible doesn't condemn you for being rich. The Bible doesn't condemn you for having possessions. What the Bible condemns is those who place their trust in those things. We're to trust and fix our trust, fix our hope in God. We're not to trust in riches. So in that sense, now think about it, you've got to trust the giver, not the gift. Trust the giver, not the gift. Trust the giver when giving, rather than trusting in the gift. Our hope is not in shifting sand. Our hope is fixed in God. Third, furthermore the rich, you and I, are instructed to take action, take right action. This is fighting for Godly living, fighting for right living. Third, it requires right action. Verse 18 says, let them do good, that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share. Now we see three sections here. One, they're to do good. Secondly, they're to be rich in good works. Third, and lastly, they are to be ready to give, willing to share, okay? To do good. You weren't given what you have simply to enjoy. You were given it to enjoy it, but not simply to enjoy it. You were given it as a sacred trust, an entrustment from God, a sacred trust by God. The gift of wealth is a gift like many other gifts. If you think of yourself as gifts in Scripture, right? Someone has a beautiful voice, what do they do? They edify the brothers and sisters by singing. Someone has a gift of administration, what do they do? They help administer things around the church. Whoever knows the church needs that. If you've got a gift of mercy, what do you do? You walk around being merciful. If you have a gift of teaching, what do you do? You use your teaching gift to edify the body, to edify brothers and sisters. If you've been given a gift of wealth, a gift of possessions, you've been given that to enjoy, but you've also been given that as a stewardship, as a trust that you are to edify your brothers and sisters, edify the body, edify the church by using or managing well your gift. Just like the other gifts they're given to edify. But now secondly, not just let them do good, secondly, they're to be rich in good works. Notice the word play here. I love this word play. If you look at verse 17, this is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is just absolutely genius with writing the Bible. Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good. They be rich in good works, ready to give, right? Just the word play on the word rich there, the Holy Spirit uses to drive home his point. Notice here that in rich in good works that the word works is plural. The Christian is to be rich in them. Once there is a number of them, more than one, rich in them means plenty, lots of them and it is substantive. These are to be substantive works, rich in good works and these works, lastly, are good and they're good because they're grounded in faith. They're good because they're done in faith, good because they're done in Christ. They're good and the fact that they are grounded in Christ and in his word. Now this teaching again that we're to be, we're to do good works, we're to be rich in good works does not mean that we merit favor with God and those that would accuse a Biblical Christian for teaching salvation by works often completely misinterprets or blows by these passages of Scripture which command good works for the Christian. Titus 3.5 says this, it is not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Now listen to 3 verses later Titus chapter 3 verse 8. This is a faithful saying Paul says and these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain what? Good works. Good works. Listen, good works don't save us. Christ has finished that work, it is done. Remember good works being rich in good works are the evidence of genuine saving faith in your life. Evidence of a work of grace of God in your heart. They are evidence that you're genuinely saved. You cannot properly call yourself a Christian unless you are rich in good works. The Bible says, he who says I know him does not keep his commandments as a liar. You're to be rich in good works. So if you are not rich toward God, you're not going to be rich toward good works. Done in faith, done in Christ and in that you can alleviate yourself of some difficulty, some confusion and according to God's word attest that you're not a Christian. You need to turn to Christ by faith. When you turn to Christ by faith, the Lord, he says in Ezekiel 36, he will change your heart. Take out the heart of stone out of your flesh. He will give you a heart of flesh. He'll write his word on your heart. He will indwell you with his spirit and he will cause you to walk in his statutes. He'll cause you to produce fruit for his glory. It is evidence that we are genuinely saved. Same thing in James chapter two. When the Bible speaks of Abraham's good works, they affirm Abraham's faith. Like Christians today, no difference in the way that people are saved. Old Testament and New Testament. But when Abraham was saved by faith, it was Abraham's works that gave affirmation that his faith was genuine, that his faith was real and it does the same for us today. Thirdly now, lastly, these here are to be ready to give. These rich that Paul and Timothy are instructing, they're to be ready to give willing to share. In other words, they are to be generous, literally well-giving in the Greek, generous. And willing to share is a word related to the word for fellowship, koinonia. It's related to fellowship. And so basically now you put these two things together, these concepts together. They are to share both their hearts as well as their money. Share both their lives as well as their possessions. You're to employ your God-given possessions to enhance and edify your relationships with your brothers and sisters to edify the body. In Scripture, there's an excellent example of this. And that was the Macedonians. The Macedonians we find in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. We don't have time to go there, but listen to this passage. He says here, moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. That in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. In other words, in their poverty, they gave greatly. They gave in joy and they gave a lot. It was richly giving, right? Verse 3, it says, for I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, so they freely willing to give their possessions. Then listen to what it says in verse 4. Employing us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. They were encouraged by the fellowship. And it says in verse 5, and not only as we had hoped, but they first gave of themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God. Our greatest example, of course, is Christ, who for your sakes became poor. That through his poverty, you might become rich, amen? We have the same charge here in verse 18 that we are to be ready to give and willing to share even our own lives also for the benefit of the body, the benefit of the lost. And lastly, point 4 we're to have from verse 19, a right objective, a right objective. After laying a right foundation, after making a right self-assessment, taking the right action, here in doing all of that, we are storing up for ourselves a good foundation. And that is for the purpose that we lay hold on eternal life. The word storing up there means amassing a great treasure. Think of it this way, as you do good works, as you are rich in good works here, your earthly currency, so to speak, is being exchanged. And it's being exchanged in heaven for a great amassing treasure. Verse 13 says, we went through that, you can't take anything with you. You can't take anything with you when you leave this place. But what you're doing when you serve the Lord here is you are amassing a great treasure in heaven. There's an old pseudo-wacky science called alchemy. Have you ever heard of alchemy before? Alchemy is taking base or common metals and turning them into gold. That's what they thought they could do. But now think about it for a moment. Use that little analogy for the Christian life. As you take the base or common metals of this world, the common metals of your Christian service here, done in faith, done in Christ, done to the best of your ability in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, you are taking that base common metal and you are turning it into gold in heaven. We are amassing a great treasure in how we live our lives here. And you've got to have that right objective, that right purpose, that right understanding, that right perspective. And it should compel you to be rich in good works here, amen? Think, if you have that eternal perspective, if you believe, if you believe the promises of God to you, if you believe the promises of God, then as you do good work here, you know that treasure is being laid up for you in heaven. And that is a great exchange rate, amen? The Christian doesn't look for a return on his investment here. Listen, I'm gonna give you this to help you out, but what am I gonna get in return? It's not a Christian's attitude. A Christian gives here and gives and gives and gives, does good work, good work, good work, knowing that his treasure is being laid up in heaven. It is an act of faith. We are to delay personal gratification now for future blessing. It's an act of faith. It leads to a good foundation for the future. This is not shifting sands. These are not the shifting sands, the uncertainty of worldly riches. These are the reliable, steady, safe, secure, firm promises of God to those who are rich toward God in Christ now in this life. Remember the words of Christ in Matthews chapter six. Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And all of that, all of that verse 19 is for the purpose that, so that you lay hold of eternal life. You make it your own. It's in the middle voice. It means that you are responsible. You do that for yourself. We know that comes by the grace of God in the power of the spirit, but you are responsible. You make it your own. You lay hold of eternal life. This should be great confidence to the Christian. If you are rich in good works, it should be great confidence to the Christian, not because those works merit eternal life. They don't gain you favor with God in that sense, but because they evidence the present reality of eternal life in your life now. Good works evidence that you have laid hold of eternal life. They give credence to or they give testimony of the life that now is and that life which is to come. So you have to fight for right living. Lastly, point two, you have to fight for right doctrine. First, you have to fight for that which is true. Oh, Timothy, guard that which was committed to your trust. Paul gathers up the entire teaching of First Timothy and summarizes it in this one sentence. Guard that which was committed to your trust. Guard means to keep it unharmed. It reflects a commanded action that must take place at once to bring about an intended accomplishment. That's the sense of the word that's being used there. There's an urgency and an importance to this. And you can almost see Timothy, right? He takes this letter. He's gotten this scroll that's come from Paul. He unrolls the scroll. He sits down at his desk and he begins to read. Chapter one, verse one. He's reading through this letter, listening to all of the instruction that we have spent a year of our time going through. And as he hears that instruction, the charge is weighing on him. And you can almost sense the importance of this, the charge of this, the work that Timothy has laid out before him to do. And as he comes to this point, verse 20 and then verse 21, Timothy rolls up the scroll, stands up, rolls up his sleeves, and then gets to work. This is an immediacy to this, an urgency to this. Listen, there's an immediacy and an urgency to this for you and I. We have to take this instruction. We can't just go week by week by week, not heeding the commands of God, being listeners, being hearers only, and not doers of the word. We have to now, as we complete this letter, roll up the scroll, tuck it under our arm, roll up our sleeves, and get to work. Apply these truths. I'd encourage you to spend time in first Timothy after we've completed this letter. Go back often, read and reread and remind yourself of the truths contained here. We need to guard that which was committed to our trust. Here it requires work, it requires a fight. We are both a steward in this and a guardian. It's been entrusted to us as a deposit and as a deposit, we are now under obligation to manage the deposit, to be good stewards of the deposit that's been given to us and to protect it, to guard it. We're under obligation. We have a responsibility in that, but listen to what Paul says to Timothy in second Timothy, chapter one, verse 12. Paul says, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. We're given a responsibility to guard, but we can't do it in our own power. God is the one who will guard and entrust. It's our dependence on God. It's the means of our efforts that the Lord uses, as Lord will have the victory. God's sovereignty, man's responsibility. You're under obligation to guard and to manage. Point two, in addition to fighting for that which is true, you must also take flight from that which is false. Verse 20, second half of that verse says, we're to avoid the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Avoid, that word means evasive maneuvers, getting around something. It carries the sense again that Timothy must take responsibility to do this himself. And we know that God accomplished this through us. He protects us and preserves us. But the word here conveys that Timothy is completely responsible. You and I are completely responsible. Two things to avoid, profane and idle babblings means just worldly and empty. Irreligious vain jangling, we got that from the King James. Vile talk with no content and no point. Means godless conversations which are useless, profane and idle. Also, we're to avoid contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. Literally means they're contradictions, antithesis. Takes two words against and to place and puts them together to place against. These are things that are in opposition. Things are in objection to the truth. And the opponents in Ephesus knew exactly what they were doing. They set themselves up as authorities on a subject in the Lord's church and drew people to believe their theology. Drew disciples to themselves. They set themselves up as authorities and they'll let away followers. The idea is similar to the Gnostics that would follow a couple of centuries later, a century later. And Paul, they would say, the apostles, they're all fine. Listen, the Bible, that's fine. But if you want better knowledge, if you want more advanced knowledge, if you wanna know this secret knowledge that we've got, come and follow us. It's far better. And they undermine the teaching of the church. The reason here to take flight and to avoid these idle babblings is the same concern that Paul's had throughout this letter. Because there are people going astray. It's the same concern throughout the letter. He concludes this with grace be with you, amen. Beginning in similar fashion. Closes in the same way it began, right? Grace, not just a cultural greeting, not just a customary greeting. Paul has far more weight to this word than that. This means the grace which comes from God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. The you there, it's very interesting, it's plural. Letter written to Timothy, but the you there is plural. That means it's through Timothy to the church. Through the church in Ephesus, down through the ages, to all churches, to you and I. This is the you. This great letter concludes. In the midst of the battle that rages in Ephesus, we see in the midst of the battle that rages even around us right now. The church stands. The gospel stands though its enemies rage. The church stands though its enemies rage. The church stands though enemies within its own walls rage. At the center of this raging battle is a solitary individual called of God to guard and to keep and to fight for that which has been entrusted to him and to protect and teach God's people. That was Timothy. But through Timothy to us, we are to be doing the same business about the same work. Through this letter, you think about all the time that we spent studying this letter. How Paul has encouraged, how Paul has exhorted, how Paul has strengthened, how he's comforted, how he's charged. Be faithful, brothers and sisters. Guard that in your own life. Guard that in yourself. That which has been entrusted to you. Submit yourself to the will of God. Fight the good fight of faith. Wage the good warfare. Manage well that which God has given you. Be faithful. John Kitchen said this. He said in all those today who find themselves in the midst of this same battle will find in the words of this ancient but ever living letter the same grace for this epic struggle of truth and error. This epic struggle of life and death. Heaven and hell. All God's people said. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven. God, thank you for this blessed letter. God, this instruction from your word just so encouraged. It's so exhorted, so comforted where we've been so strengthened and so assured. God, thank you for charging us up by your spirit through the pen of Paul down through the ages to us even here today to fight the good fight of faith, to wage the good warfare, to simply submit ourselves to your word, to obey you, Lord. And that it's safe and right that we should do so. And thank you, Lord, for changing us, transforming us through this time. Thank you, Lord, for the work of your spirit among us that we have seen and there's clear evidence of that. Thank you, Lord, for many more than have not simply been hearers of the word, but transformed that into doing God for your glory. So be with us now, Lord, as we go on as we continue to study other letters, other books of the Bible. God, I pray that your instruction would continue by your spirit to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ and to build us up in this holy faith that we ascribe to God and you have saved us to and that we might be living testimonies of you, God, of your greatness, of your glory, of your grace and mercy, as trophies of your grace. And thank you for our time together. I pray that you continue to bless my brothers and sisters here. God, continue to protect, preserve this church, continue, Lord, to bless this church, to give us fruit. You've blessed us so much already. God, just so grateful for this church. We pray that that would continue, God, again for your glory, for your name. We are zealous for your fame among the Gentiles and zealous for your work, for your kingdom here. And so, God, please continue to work among us for your glory. And I pray that, as always, your word by your spirit would find fertile soil in our hearts, by which we may glorify you in living out these truths which we profess. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.