Dennis Tuuri

We root of the we read of these truths of God’s transcendence in a beautiful doxology or praise to God that Paul launches into considering the confession of the Lord Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate fixing him in time. Please turn in your scriptures to 1 Timothy chapter 6. The sermon text is found in verses 11-16. 1 Timothy chapter 6 beginning at verse 11. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

God’s word is always a command word. It is always a law word as well as a grace word to us. But particularly this particular text is filled with injunctions or commands from God which he graciously allows us to perform in the power of the Spirit. 1 Timothy chapter 6 beginning at verse 11.

But flee from these things, you men of God and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called. And you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ which he will bring about at the proper time.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Let us pray. Father, we pray that you would minister to us this day. We pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would take this text and write it upon our hearts now in terms of our understanding of it and throughout the rest of this week and throughout the rest of our lives as he takes these truths and teaches and trains us to rejoice in them and to obey them and to speak of them to others as well.

Lord God, we pray that you would illumine this text that our minds would understand it and comprehend it to the end that we might obey it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

I’m going to have to explain my tie. Got a lot of comments on it already this morning. It is a gift from two people, Gordon Jones and my wife, and it is a Rush Limbaugh “No Boundaries” tie and I had not planned on mentioning any of this but I’ve gotten so many comments I thought to myself well I ought to say something about it and really it works in pretty appropriately as the providence of God with this message from 1 Timothy chapter 6.

Elder Maher called me last night wanted to know the title for sure. I always give him these working titles they never turn out to be the titles on the label of the tapes, which is my fault. If you ever see that happen, not his. You know, the preparation of sermons for me involves at the end of the study process a lot of meditation on a text. It involves taking a particular text. This one for instance, there’s a lot of stuff here. I could spend, you know, a year on various topics in the context of this.

You take it down and you try to think through what would the Spirit do with us today from this particular text and that is not usually apparent to me. Maybe it’s my lack of sensitivity to the Spirit at the beginning of the week. Sometimes it’s not apparent to me until I get here. Hate to make you fearful or anything, but that’s the way it works with me. That’s the way God has used in his providence. I start preparation usually actually several weeks ahead and the actual study’s done a lot earlier than that or by the end of the week. But there’s a process of meditation on how this is to be presented.

Now the title on the tape and the title probably in the announcements—I haven’t looked at them today—is “Put Off, Put On: Flee From, Flee To” which is really taken from the first verse here. And you know “put off, put on” is the way that Paul addresses the Ephesians. You put off certain things of the old man. You put on certain attributes. And here in this text Timothy is told to run like the dickens away from things and run just as hard, pursue with all your zeal and might other things.

Okay. And so that’s the title on the tape. I would maybe say that the context for that though in terms of the entire section, what I think we need to hear, what I need to hear, what I hope maybe you need to hear in terms of the providence of God, what I know some of you need to hear is that God in this text gives us strength for the contest. Strength for the contest.

And we just sang, you know, we sang this psalm. We sang, “God is our refuge and our strength, our everpresent aid. Therefore, though earth should be removed, we shall not be afraid. Though hills amidst the seas be cast, though foaming waters roar again, though the mighty billows shake the mountains on the shore, we won’t be shaken. We’re firm. Even if the world dissolves, as we’re in church today, we’ll look out the windows and see earthquakes and fires and stuff and we won’t be afraid.

And we sing these songs, don’t we? Because we try to correct our minds. Well, when the flames come, when the flames come, you know, flame on, when people flame at us, and when God in his providence flames at us, when he causes problems to happen, maybe not related to people, maybe related to events, maybe related to geopolitical events, maybe there’s war going on if you’re living over in the middle of Europe someplace, other things can be—when the flames come.

These words are easy to sing, much tougher to live. And so, I know that some of us have trials and tribulations. Some of you have trials and tribulations of health. I’ve got a good friend right now is going through a trial and tribulation relative to business up in Seattle. I know people here are going through trials and tribulations relative to relationships. Maybe you’re going through trials and tribulations relative to attacks of people upon your character.

There’s all kinds of trials and flames that we go through. This text gives us, I think, strength for the contest. Timothy had trials and tribulations. Timothy had difficulties. He was in the context of a church. And we think, well, yeah, the New Testament church. Paul’s the apostle. Timothy is this man. Everything’s cool. Everything’s great. It was not great. Any cursory reading of the epistles shows that things were not great in the early church. There were problems.

Paul, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all his knowledge and ability and training, refined and made humble and meek under the harness of the Lord Jesus Christ, had to defend his apostleship from people. He named names. John, same thing. These guys don’t want me to go to you and let me in the church. John tells them later on in his epistles. Problems. Big problems. Timothy’s got big problems. Got big problems with these false teachers in the church who are creating difficulties for him.

Well, in the context of all of that, Paul calls him to the contest. Now, the contest here is in verse 12: “Fight the good fight of faith” and it may look like a military analogy. It is not. It’s the agony. Again, I talked about this earlier in the book of Timothy. The root, the Greek word, that is the same root as our word “agony” was the participation in the games and that contest or agony had a whole series of nouns and verbs and participles and stuff based upon that agony. You know, the contest garments, the contest observers, and the contest rules and the agon this and the agon that.

And so this is an agony. It’s a struggle. It’s a contest. It’s a race. It’s a sprint or marathon, if you will, or it’s wrestling if you would. And in the context of Hellenistic wrestling, the opponent would gouge your eyes out. So you had a lot of incentive to win the match. Okay? Wasn’t like today with a gold medal. It was like this tells us that the end of this fight is grabbing a hold of eternal life. Important effort here. Much effort is required of Timothy.

Now, this has specific application to Timothy because Timothy is the man of God that’s being addressed here. Yes, you man of God flee after these things, flee to these things. But it has application to you. And very particularly, verses 11 and 12 have that application to you. Now, verse 13 and following—some people see that more as specifically related to Timothy because he was going through difficulties in terms of his office or calling.

And so, he’s told in verse 13 to keep this confession in place, to guard the ministry that you have. But even there it’s applicable to you as well because really it refers to the whole life. So what I want to talk about based on this text then is strength for the contest.

I was in my yard yesterday, the day before—maybe it was yesterday morning, I think—and there was a breeze and I remember talking to Jeff about how there was a nice breeze out at his place the other day. Okay, middle of all that heat, and you know it’s—I was outside talking to my daughter and I thought about this intense heat. It’s like these tribulations or trials God brings into our lives. But with them, sometimes on hot days he brings a nice cooling breeze. He brings his Spirit along to remind you, to refresh you so you can get through the day.

And I hope that this sermon and this text does that for you. I hope that it’s a little bit of breeze that the Spirit of God uses from the text alone, if not for my failing, stumbling, awkward words. I hope that God uses the text alone to bring you a little bit of refreshing for whatever trial or tribulation you may be going through. And if you’re not going through it now, put the breeze in a bottle and uncap it the next time you go through a trial or tribulation.

There is comfort and strength that is given to us here.

**Number one is this: Put off, put on in the context of this particular verse.** We are told at the very beginning that we’re supposed to put certain things off and we’re supposed to put certain things on. But before we actually get to that though, the text says, “But thou, oh man of God, oh man of God.” And that was a term used for the prophets in the Old Testament.

But it is used in the context now of Timothy as a prophet or apostle or rather a pastor of the church. But it also applies to you, doesn’t it? Because we’re told in 2 Timothy 3:17 that all Scripture equips the man of God for his work and that means you as well. We’re all prophets, priests, and kings. We’re all men of God. So, this talks to you.

And that text from 2 Timothy 3:17 tells us a very important thing: that at the beginning of considering this agony that we’re to engage ourselves in, we do it with a dedication to the Word of God. Because we know that as surely as we’re called men of God, that God says that it is Scripture, the Word of God that is inspired by him, God-breathed. It’s that breath of refreshment and profitable for teaching, reprove, correction, training in righteousness so that you Christian and me Christian, the man of God, might be adequately equipped for every good work.

So right away we’re told to go to the Scriptures to get the strength for this battle or this contest.

Another thing I might say here is that remember the context of this is to flee away from avarice or greed. You’re a man of God. You’re not to be a man of mammon. And no, you know, nobody can serve two masters. You either serve one or the other. You got to serve somebody. And so he’s telling you here, you are not called like those guys. You’re not a man of mammon. You’re a man of God. Okay?

So he’s supposed to, this man of God is supposed to flee certain things. You remember from a couple of weeks or last week rather what those things were. They were an incorrect system of valuation, an incorrect motivation producing a rotten standard. The motivation was the love of silver that men had. That he talked about the false teachers earlier in chapter six. That’s their motivation. They don’t love God and man, they love silver. Their system of evaluation was “gain is godliness.”

The yardstick is gain. And we can take whatever situation in life and put it up against the yardstick and measure if that was godly or not because it did it produce wealth or not for me is what they’ll say. And this is a tremendous temptation. At least it was at this time. I’m sure it is today too for ministers. That’s who it’s directed to in the first place are ministers, men who are tempted to go off relative to money.

That’s not the only temptation. If you look through the list of the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3, all those things are temptations, you know. But in any event, this is one particular temptation and it’s a temptation that we all can fall into. And I want to broaden it out just a little bit.

It’s interesting how in the text, the verses we read last week, how remember Paul says contentment with godliness is great gain. Okay. Now I don’t mean to imply by this that money is irrelevant. You know, we don’t want to—it’s Calvin again. We can preach over here and I can tell you don’t be a—don’t have avarice or greed or covetousness, don’t say that gain is godliness and you’re going to say well in that case I shouldn’t pay attention to money and I’m going to just be you know the only thing that’s important is spirit and material wealth.

No, that’s not true. God is—it’s a land-based faith, as I said last week. And if you think that you can become so involved in seeking the kingdom that your finances can go awry, that’s wrong. You’re not seeking correctly. If God brings you into a position of extended debt, for instance. See, it’s not one or the other. You seek the kingdom by putting wealth and external valuations in its proper place under the ultimate evaluation, which is love for God and the law of the Lord.

Okay, so I would say that, but he does say that the contentment of us is great gain because it’s sure that we brought nothing into this world and it’s sure we’re going to take nothing with us when we leave. What’s that a reference to? It’s the reference to the book of Job where Job says, “Naked I came into the world and naked I’ll go out of the world.”

Now, what did Job’s comforters do with Job? They measured him by the yardstick of “gain is godliness,” did they not? Now, maybe it was monetary gain. But I’m saying across the board, it isn’t just monetary gain that’s improper for evaluation. When we want to flee away from something that’s real dangerous to us, it isn’t just gold and silver. It is an evaluator of external valuations.

We all want something real. We want a ruler. God, give us a ruler. We have these difficult situations and we can’t figure out who’s right or what’s the best thing to do. Give us the ruler. And we want that ruler to be things of sight. It doesn’t take any wisdom to take a 12-inch ruler and measure off a foot. That’s easy. And we want the same thing.

So, Job’s comforters have come along and he’s got no health. His children have been killed. His crops have been burned. He’s lost it all. And even his wife is harping at him to curse God and die. I may say, “Well, you know, there’s obviously something wrong with this guy.” Well, we hold this ruler up there. He’s got no money. God took away all his money. He must be cursed. He can’t be godly. Oh, we measure up the yardstick of children. He got no kids. He must be under the curse here. You know, doesn’t meet the external evaluation we want to place upon him.

Well, he’s got a bad wife. His wife isn’t submissive. It must be his fault. He must not be a godly man. See, his health is terrible. Must be cursed that guy. External evaluations like that when they become the method, the yardstick of judging someone’s godliness are wrong. He just can’t do it. God says, and God frustrates us every time we try. He gives us great people that don’t meet the external test.

I, you know, oh, I guess I won’t mention names, but you know, if I know godly people, godly people measured by the standard of these other things we’re supposed to flee, too. Yeah. Righteousness and love, love and faith and godliness. I know people who are great in terms of those things, got no kids, want kids. Don’t God won’t give them kids. See, that’s what I’m trying to say is if we’re going to have strength for the contest, the first thing we want to do is clothe ourselves with the right garments.

Have components for the race that are correct. Okay. Measure your stride when you’re running. You try to develop a rhythm. You try to throw off encumbrances. The book of Hebrews tells you put things off. You don’t have bulky garments on. You put them off. And you put on the right garments. You shouldn’t be naked. You want to have a little running shorts on or brief top if you’re a woman. But put right clothes. You put on the right garments for the particular race you’re going to engage yourself in. And you have the right components for your race.

And I’m telling you that in terms of trials and tribulations, the thing that one thing that will contribute to strength for you is knowing how we run, what kind of clothes, what components to our gait. And if it’s external valuations, if it’s money, if it’s health, it’s those sort of things as the ultimate determiner of value for us, no strength. We’re going to get off the course. We’re going to have on another race course entirely than the one God wants us on.

So, one of the things that brings us strength for the contest we’re in is a correct system of valuation, a running away from those things and a running to the right garments to run the race with, so to speak. And what are those things? Well, those things are righteousness and godliness. First of all, you can see these as pairs. Righteousness and godliness, love and faith, and perseverance and meekness.

And obviously righteousness and godliness go together. Righteousness means justice. Be nice if there was a translation where every time it said righteousness said justice because that’s what it means. It means conformance to a standard. It brings into the very beginning of the valuation system God’s law, God’s revelation of who he is. And I don’t just mean that the parts of God’s law word that are the actual commandments. I mean the whole thing. That’s the valuation is God’s word. Okay?

And righteousness is conformity to the standard of God’s law. That’s where you got to start. I don’t care how wealthy. I don’t care how many kids. I don’t care about what great health a person has. If they’re in violation of God’s laws, they’re not blessed in that. Okay? God’s law, justice. And he’s talking here about when you seek after, when you run fast as you can towards something, it doesn’t mean the imputed righteousness of Christ here.

Now, that’s certainly the beginning place, but it means a striving after justice in your life. Are you just relative to people? Okay. And then are you godly relative to God? Do you—justice is kind of measured externally, right? Whether or not if you steal from somebody, if you’re going to repay twofold, if you break something of somebody else’s inadvertently, are you going to fix it? Are you going to treat people the way that God’s word says you should treat them? External ways of looking at that.

Godliness is a little different. It is viewed externally, but it’s an internal characteristic. It’s talking about true piety, reverence for God. We’ve talked about this before, but this particular word is used ten times in the pastoral epistles. Eusebeia—it’s not used very little other use, the Greek word, and it means a reverence and a piety toward God. And so instead of judging yourself by money in the bank, number of kids, how good the barns are filled, how good your health is, you’re supposed to say mostly fleeing after these systems of valuation.

God’s standard is his word and justice, and then secondly, true piety or godliness. And then the next couple are faith and love. Faith again here is seen in the subjective understanding of God’s word. In other words, again, it’s knowing God’s word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And faith is evaluating things, believing what God says. It’s if the mountains start crumbling out there, saying God’s word says that my heart is fixed in the context of the worship of him. It’s faith.

And faith is something we need encouragement to continue to perform because we want to go by sight and not by faith in God’s word. Okay? So faith and love is love for God, love for our fellow men. And you can say there’s a relationship between righteousness and faith because they’re both in terms of God’s work—conforming to the standard and the belief that standard is true. And you can say that there’s a correlation between godliness and love because godliness, true piety to God is love for God. And then it’s also love for his image-bearers in the context of the world. See?

And then the next statement is patience. Now here we could say patience and meekness go together. Patience is staying under something. That’s what the word means. Comprised of a couple words to stay under a trial or tribulation. When the flames come, don’t jump out of the furnace is what it means. Okay? It means stay in there. God’s cooking you. He’s making—for those in our revelation class, terracotta, out of you dust or out of your clay—or he’s making gold and silver out of your terracotta. He’s moving you along and transforming you through the trials and tribulations of life, the difficulties.

And what we always want to do is get out. When my house gets too hot, my beard itches, I start feeling I want to get away. I want to get someplace cool. But sometimes, you know, I can’t do that. I got to stay in the house for whatever reason or I got to stay outside. Whatever it is, God says, don’t try to cut short of trial.

It tells us in the book of James, patience is staying under a trial. It’s not seeking a way out of the trial that isn’t godly or isn’t righteous, just that isn’t based on faith in God’s word or love for God. And patience is not just staying under a trial, you know, with grumbling and disputing. Patience means really staying on the trial with a correct relationship to what God tells us.

And meekness, usually the word meek means to be broken to harness. It doesn’t mean weak. That’s the problem with the Greek of the English translation here. It doesn’t mean weak. It means meek. It means you are submissive to the harness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is a meekness as I said that’s exemplified in your speech, your thankfulness to God in spite of difficult circumstances. But you become a stronger vessel from God.

A meek person is a strong powerful person because he’s a horse broken to harness. He gets things done now because he’s staying under the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this particular word translated meek is the word meek combined with pathos and so it means meek in the context of difficulties, particularly not just as a general characteristic of life but in the context of trials.

So here we have some garments for the race. We’re to put off these garments of external valuations, money, kids, whatever it is and we’re to put on the correct garments. We’re to run out after and our running is supposed to be in the context of our gait is supposed to be one of justice and godliness and faith and love working together which produces patience and then meekness.

And let me just say one more thing before we leave those six characteristics. Faith, love, patience and a couple of other of Paul’s epistles is faith, hope and love or faith, love and hope and here the three words placed together are faith, love, patience. You see the correlation? We can stay under, we can be patient because we have hope. There’s a direct correlation between hope and patience. Patience is not simply a discipline based upon self-will. It is a discipline based upon a reward or assurance of reward that the end will come to this trial.

It will end when God wants it to end, but it will end and there’ll be blessing at the end of that. That’s your hope. And without that hope, you have not the ability to have true biblical patience. You can have stoic patience, but not biblical patience. Okay?

So, when we’re struggling real hard, the difficult things we have to do in life to maintain, we want to run in the right course, in the right way. We want to know where we’re running unto, what is the end of this race. What is the goal of the whole thing? Well, he tells Timothy, “Flee from these things, you man of God. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. That’s the agony I’m talking about here. That’s the contest to fight the fight. Then take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

So in terms of strength for the contest, we want to know where we’re running to. The end result of this: to take hold of eternal life. And that’s the hope. And it doesn’t mean it’s a wish. It means it’s an established reality that’s what Christ has purchased for us. He goes on to—it’s interesting, you know, the designation. You could say, well, he’s talking about works righteousness, but it isn’t that, of course, because he goes on to say that to which you were called, the eternal life that you grab a hold of is that which you were called to and which you made a good confession of in the presence of many witnesses.

So, it achieves—it’s seen as going—it’s part of the tension of Scripture to tell us that we have now possession of eternal life. These things are written the Gospel of John says so that you might know that you have eternal life in Christ. You might know these things. Assurance of faith is one of the evidences God gives us of our regeneration. But he also—the other tension of this is Paul says in another epistle, “I don’t say yet that I’ve gotten a hold of the thing. I only could say I got a hold of him at the end of the race.” Okay?

And one of the reasons is he’s just warned about these guys that use a different state, standard method of evaluation, different motivation, produce chaos instead of peace in the church. And those guys, it says, have fallen away from the faith. They’re not going to end up with that eternal life. Thought they would originally, now they’re not going to. At least that’s what we’re to understand.

So, we have to know where we’re running to. It’s eternal life. And we got to know who is watching this contest. He goes on to say, he gives him the encouragement, by the way. He says, “Fight the good fight of faith, taking hold of eternal life.” He gives him the encouragement that he’s been called to this very thing. And he gives him encouragement based upon his past confession.

“You made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Now, there’s differences of commentators what this refers to. Some think Timothy’s ordination and most think his baptism. And usually the confession of profession of faith is linked to baptism. And children who were baptized as infants, there still is a profession of faith of the parents and a view that is evident in the baptism. But in any event, he reminds Timothy here of his past as an inducement for strength for today.

Strength for the contest you’re in right now to keep fighting that fight of faith is based upon an understanding that God has called you to this and you’ve experienced that call in your confession, in your agreement, in the same words that Jesus is Lord. Okay.

**Verse 13. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach.**

So who are the observers of this fight, of this contest, of this effort, this agony that we endure in the context of flames or trials or tribulations. Well, there’s three really. It seems like there’s two, but there’s three. Paul obviously is an observer representing the church of Jesus Christ. And we run out the race in the presence of the church. But preeminently here, what Paul wants us to think of is that the two witnesses to this, to this charge, to the observance of Paul’s charge is God and Jesus. Christ Jesus, the Father and the Son.

And notice here that even in the context of a very strong charge—remember he’s done this to Timothy before, right? Remember earlier in the book, he charged him in the presence of the angels and of God. “The angels are watching” was my subtitle for that message. Well, here it’s a very serious charge. “I charge you in the presence of God and of the Lord and of Christ Jesus to keep the commandment.”

He’s hammering him here. He’s stiffening him up. He’s putting a rod in his back. He’s saying, “Timothy, don’t, you know, wig out on me here. You keep it up. You do the right thing.” But even in the context of that kind of admonition or exhortation, whatever you want to call it, in the middle of those stern words, listen to the comfort of these witnesses.

The witness is God, but it is the God who gives life to all things. Okay? Who is the source of life and who gives life to all things that are living. So Timothy is urged on in this charge to be agonizingly complete in his race for Christ. He’s urged on with the presence that God is watching as a witness to the charge. But this God is the very one who strengthens us and gives us the life to run the race. You see what a statement of comfort and encouragement that is to Timothy.

And Christ Jesus—the encouragement there is that Christ Jesus testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate. So these witnesses who are present to give us strength for the battle, they give us strength one because they watch and observe and will cause to account if we fail. But they give us strength as well because they give us life. The Father gives us life. He energizes us in all things. And Christ Jesus has run this race before. And in point of fact, the only reason you’re running is because Christ put you on that track.

It’s his attestation of the confession of the truth of these things before Pontius Pilates. It’s held up historically before Timothy is the basis for his encouragement in the race. Now, you know, we understand why he says he brings up Christ testifying the good confession before Pontius Pilate and ultimately—in two weeks when we’re going to return to the doxology at the end of this text. I will not have time to deal with it today. When we return to the doxology at the end of this text, we’re going to sing the Nicene Creed at the beginning of that service.

And of course the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed—”under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried”—it fixes the encouragement for Timothy of Christ confession to a particular point in time. Okay. That’s the purpose. Why is Pontius Pilate in these creeds and confessions? What’s the deal? Why does he get to be named? He wasn’t a good guy. He gets to be named because it fixes the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in history. It’s not some sort of mystical or metaphorical death, resurrection and death, burial and resurrection. It was a historical event and the inscription of Pontius Pilate’s name among other things fixes us as historical reality.

And so when we go through the trials, the way to get encouragement is to leave the external valuations. Don’t strive after money or position or don’t measure yourself with other men. Tim Pearson mentioned last week—I couldn’t find the text he was referring to, but he said that, you know, really it’s we’re not to be those who compare ourselves with other men. And that is absolutely correct. It’s right on target with what I was saying earlier about the book of Job and about this money thing.

Those are valuations relative to men. It’s comparing ourselves. How many kids we have relative to these people, money relative to these people. It’s all horizontal. But God wants us to focus on the vertical plane. You see, he wants us to love our fellow man. But in terms of the system of the standard valuation, it’s God’s standard vertically.

And so Jesus Christ witnesses to these things in the historical context. The encouragement to Timothy here is a savior who witnessed a good confession. Now I also believe that it doesn’t refer just to his words before Pontius Pilate. Now it does refer to those because remember Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world, not of this earth. It’s not related to these external systems of valuation that Pontius Pilate was using. Who was this guy? No money, no status, no nothing. My kingdom isn’t like that. Jesus was saying.

It refers to his confession, his attestation of the truth of his kingship. He was king, he said to Pontius Pilate, before Pilate, but it refers to the entire event. It isn’t just Christ’s words before Pilate. It’s Christ’s deeds in terms of submission to the cross that is held out there. You’ve got a witness watching you, Christian. You go through struggles and trials this week. You want to give up. You want to fade away. You want to start doing something you know you shouldn’t do according to the scriptures.

And God says remember that God the Father is watching. Jesus Christ is watching. God gives you life and strength. And Jesus Christ professed the good, made the good confession with his death at the cross. And that is encouragement. And that is the basis for your energy and your work.

And then finally, we have strength for the contest knowing how long we’re supposed to do this for. How long? No. He goes on to say that you keep the commandment without spot or wrinkle until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, the epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time. Not up to you to know when the trial is going to end. Don’t start bugging God about getting it done before he wants to get it done. It’s going to get done when he wants to get it done.

Ultimately, this refers until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of all history. But, you know, in terms of symbolically and in terms of application Christ appears at different points in time. This word is the word for our word “epiphany.” The Greek word is epiphaneia and this particular Greek word was used of the epiphany or advent of any number of different rulers including Caesar. He would make an epiphany or advent at a particular place and know feel this breath of wind from the Spirit that when you’re in the middle of the fire there will be an end to it. It will be in God’s good time after the fire has had its purifying, refining effects on your life if you do what you’re supposed to do in terms of running the race correctly.

And the end result of that is an appearance or epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the context of Timothy, yes, it means at the end of time, but it also means that there will be an epiphany of Christ in demonstrating the falseness of those false teachers. Could be a long time. Might not be in this life, but typically it will be in this life. It’ll be a lot further away than what we want it to be. Timothy will know that Christ will appear, that he’ll make this appearance, and he will evaluate and he will establish his church and those who are in his church.

Now, this appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ causes Paul to break out into this wonderful concluding doxology. Considering the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, he then says, “Who is the blessed and only sovereign or potentate, the King of those who are kinging—is the way the Greek word reads—and the Lord of those who are lording. It’s different than Revelation, you know, the book of Revelation: “King of Kings, Lord of Lords.” This is “the King of those who are kinging,” “the Lord of those who are lording”—all who say they exercise authority over the affairs of men. Jesus is king of all those men.

He is the blessed and only potentate. Why is that important to throw in over and over? This is at least the third time that I’ve seen in the book of Timothy Paul contrast the Lord Jesus Christ with all other wouldbe assumers of the throne of sovereign, whether they were Caesar or whether they were these false teachers.

The epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ is the epiphany of the one who is the blessed and only sovereign. There are other kings but they receive their kingship from the Lord Jesus Christ and they’re to rule for him.

**He who alone possesses immortality.** Are you immortal? Yeah, you’re immortal if you’re a Christian. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your sins. Trust that his work has sufficed for your soul. You’re a believer and you have immortality. But what this means is he is the only one with whom immortality is insisted in his being. He’s the fountain of immortality. And yes, he’s given you a drink. He’s brought you into relationship with him. But he is the only one who possesses immortality in and of himself.

And he dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen nor can see. We’ll talk more about that next week.

But as we contemplate strength for the battle, strength for the contest that we’re in, God tells us we’re to run in a particular way with particular kind of garments doing particular things. And those things are not the acquisition of wealth. Those things are not ultimately the acquisition of external indicators. They are things of the heart. They’re things of character. Character is the only thing that matters, God says.

And the character that you’re to have, Christian, to endure these trials, to have strength for that particular trial is the character of justice and the character of godliness or piety to God and the character of being patient in afflictions based upon the fact that you have faith in God and his word and you love God and that’s the motivation for your life and you have the hope of knowing that God is in control of all things, patience, and as a result of that you become meek and humble. Those are the character. It’s the character that God builds into you.

And you are on the basis of that character to seek after, to lay hold of the prize of eternal life in the presence of the witnesses of God the Father and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God who gives you the life to sustain you in the context of difficulty and Jesus Christ who went through the trial that you will never have to endure and gave you the ability to endure any trial on this life and come out of it a purified person, the dross driven out of your soul, after that period of testing and tribulation that causes you to want to stay aided in the battle.

Timothy, some commentators think—I don’t know, I don’t understand. It seems like this, it’s hard to believe, but Timothy seemed to have been kind of a timid fella. And God, through Paul, is bolstering him up, not to fade away, not to quit, not to continue not to fail, to continue to do the job that God has called him to do. And that job involves difficulty. It involves the hard work of dealing with obstreperous men in the context of the visible church. It’s a difficult work, but it’s a work that Timothy is being encouraged over and over and over to do in the context of this epistle.

Let me read you a quote from John Calvin based on these verses. He says, “It is impossible to overemphasize the necessity at that time, the time of the writing of the epistle, for all godly men to have their minds fixed entirely upon the day of Christ. Since innumerable offenses were taking place all over the world, they were being attacked on every side. Everyone hated them and cursed them. They were exposed to general mockery and every day they were opposed by fresh afflictions and meanwhile no fruit of all that many toils and troubles could be seen. Hard to see any fruit coming from all the difficulties they were going through.

What remained except in thought to fly away to that blessed day of our redemption, the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the same reasons hold equally today,” Calvin wrote in the 1500s, late 1500s, early 1600s, of his own day, the day of the Reformation. “The same reasons hold equally today with us. Satan shows us so many things that apart from this hope would a thousand times draw us away from the right course. I say nothing of fire and sword and exiles and all the furious attacks of our enemies. I say nothing of slanders and other such vexations.

How many things there are within that are far worse than these that are without. Ambitious men openly attack us. Epicureans and Lucianists mock at us. Impudent men insult us. Hypocrites rage against us. Those who are wise after the flesh do us harm indirectly. Wise after the flesh, harming us indirectly. And we are harassed in many different ways on every side. It is in short a great miracle that weighed down by the burden of such a heavy and dangerous office, any one of us should persevere.

The only remedy for all the difficulties is to look forward to Christ’s appearing and always to put our trust in it.”

By way of application to your life, let me ask you—and I know I don’t have to ask this of you. I know that you all, many of you do this without my asking. But you know Timothy was a focal point for attack in the context of the church and God’s officers frequently become focal points for attack. And I don’t mean, you know, from other men necessarily, but from all kinds of difficulties.

Pray for me. Pray for Elder Maher. Pray for the deacons. Pray for Chris W., prayer group leader. Now, pray for us. These are difficult things that we’re called to endure. And yet, they’re tremendous when seen from the context of the one who is only immortal in its purest sense, who is invisible, who men cannot draw near to, who dwells in light accessible and yet accessible through Jesus our Savior.

It’s difficult and I say to you that there are trials and tribulations and we need strength and from this text we can receive strength for the contest that we’re in. And I pledge to you that these men also will pray for you and for your families. I know that there are some of you who are going through trials this last week, the last couple of weeks.

Kit’s Millers for a year—very little relief in the context of that battle. Why do these things happen? Why is it that God gives us the worst or one of the three worst case workers in the state to handle this case? They ask themselves. And I ask God that, too. God says, “Well, I don’t—I’m not going to tell you that. What I am going to tell you is that this is for your good and that I’m with you. It’s a hot day out there, Christian, but I’m going to blow with my Spirit. I’ll sustain you enough to get by.

Don’t ask that the trial be taken away. Because then you’re not going to shine as brightly as you will shine after I’m done with you. Don’t ask for it to be taken away. Endure. Find strength for the battle.”

Some of you are having problems with health. Some of you have problems with your kids. Some of you have problems with in-laws. I’ve heard a lot of that the last month—in-law problems, extended relatives that may or may not be Christians. Some of you are having economic problems. Had them for a long time. Maybe you’re tired of it. Want to just give up. You want to say, “Well, I’ll just, you know, quit and be like everybody else. Forget this Christian thing.” Or maybe just be a Christian who isn’t quite so worldviewish.

Boy, it’s hard homeschooling. I can’t look forward to another year of that—can be tough, you might be telling yourself. Take strength. But that breeze from God’s Spirit blowing it through this text. Fight the fight, contend, wrestle, race, whatever metaphor you want to use from this word agony. But to know that it is an agony. Know that the agony is observed by the Lord Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who ran this course and a far worse course long before you did.

Know that for the most of us, we’ve not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. Know that these trials and tribulations that come upon us are for our well-being. And know that God means to drive, to drive away the droves of external indicators of value, whether it’s lust for money, lust for women, lust for power, lust for even children, whatever it might be—anything we place prior to the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is an idol.

And in his grace, he removes those idols from us. And then we can be restored to money and wife and property and everything else in a correct way when it’s seen under the Lord Jesus Christ. So take strength for the battle today. May the Spirit of God bless. If nothing else, the text of holy Scripture here, reminding us of the good confession our Savior made before Pontius Pilate and to his death for us.

May we also pledge ourselves anew to have a