The Charge to the Man of God

In this week’s message from 1 Timothy 6, we hear Paul charge Timothy to flee worldliness, pursue godliness, fight the good fight of faith and keep God’s Word without compromise. Christ, who made the good confession before Pilate, gives us courage. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, who dwells in unapproachable light, alone can satisfy our souls.

Well, as we come back again to 1 Timothy chapter 6, we’re going to be again looking in verse 11. And so, for those of you, and that’s just about all of you, who’ve been with us over the last several weeks, we looked last week at verses 3 to 10. Paul’s been unmasking the false teachers who was troubling the church at Ephesus.

And so what was at the heart? What was their motivation? What was at the heart of these people? What was it that they were really after? Well, Paul explained, we looked at it last week in verse 5, they are talking godliness in order to pursue worldliness. That’s what it’s about.

They are hypocrites. They come across as great Christians. They’ve learned the language. For them, religion was a means of gain to get the things that they wanted. So they were in it for money. They were in it for recognition. They were in it for power over people that they wanted to exploit.

In the next book, as Paul writes 2 Timothy, he continues in that book the portrait of these people. He talks about them being

Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, although they denied its power.

2 Timothy 3:4-5

And then it says, right after that, it says,

For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses.

2 Timothy 3:6

So Paul warned against these people. He exposed them. This is their heart. And we looked at it last week. He warns all of us, because within the nature of all of us, there’s a tendency to desire worldly things, the things of this world. It’s easy to get caught up in it.

So he warns that those who desire the things that money buys in this world in particular, he singles that out as one example, those who get caught up in that end up with a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which brings about ruin and destruction. And so that’s, we looked at that last week.

Today we come to verse 11. And here the Apostle Paul exhorts Timothy, who’s a true man of God, to make sure that his life before God is the complete contrast to these wicked, false Christians. I use the word Christians with a lower case there. They’re false Christians. They pretend to be Christians. They’re Christians in name, but they’re not true.

So let’s read verses 11 through 16. And we are nearing the end of this book. This is God’s holy and inerrant word.

The Text1 Timothy 6:11–16

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of 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 the Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in an unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Let’s ask God to bless His holy word today.

Father, we are so grateful, Father, for giving us this powerful truth to guide our lives, and, Father, for giving us this vision of our Lord, of You, in all Your majesty. We thank You, Father, for this text. It’s more than a text. It’s Your very word. It’s the revelation of who You are and what You want from us. Guide us as we study this this morning.

I pray, Father, for the power of Your Holy Spirit to speak to each of our hearts as we apply this truth to our life and as we look with renewed awe at the person that You are. Thank You for Your kindness in giving us this. We pray, Father, Your blessing to Your glory, to the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Well, as we begin to look at this passage, let me call your attention to these four first verbs that drive the first couple of verses, because each of these are commandments. The first one is to flee, and the second one is to pursue, and then fight, and then take hold.

And after he gives these verbs of command, he shifts our attention to the sovereign God in one of the most beautiful doxologies in all of Scripture, one of the most beautiful passages that describes the nature of God and who He is. So let’s look at this as we begin in verse 11.

A true servant of Christ doesn’t drift through life with worldly motivations. We’ve just read about people who are in a church, but yet with all their Christian talk and Christian posturing, their motivations are worldly.

Well, a true servant of Christ flees worldly entanglements. He pursues godly virtues. He contends for the truth as he anticipates the return of our sovereign King. That’s this passage in a sentence, a summary. That’s what we’re going to be looking at today. That’s the idea of this sermon.

The character of God’s servant is such that he turns away from worldliness and he pursues godly virtues.

But You

First of all, in verse 11, let me point out that “but.” In the original text, it literally says, “But you.” It begins with “but you.” You know, he’s just talked about these false teachers, hypocrites in the church, and he’s just described the way they live, their motivations, and the results, what happens, the fruit of their material desires and heart and the effect that that has on them and on the church.

And then he says, “But you.” And what he’s doing is he’s drawing a line in the sand between the false and the true. He’s pointing out that Timothy is to live a life that completely contrasts, so that nobody is going to mistake him with one of these false teachers. He’s to live exactly the opposite way, the way that these men are living.

These men are living in motivation and goal, just like everybody else in the world lives. Just about everybody in this world lives in order to pursue their desires, to pursue power of some kind. They live to pursue money. They believe that money is going to solve most of their problems. And so whether they have money or not, they covet money and pursue it in all kinds of ways. These people, these false teachers in the church, were doing exactly the same thing.

But Paul tells Timothy, and he tells us, if you were a man of God, if you were a woman of God, then this is not to be your motivation or your character. The character of God’s servant is someone who turns away from this kind of worldliness and pursues godly things. Timothy is to pursue true godliness that brings blessing to himself and to others.

Flee From These Things

And he does that, first of all, by fleeing, by running away. That’s the first thing that we see here.

Flee from these things, you man of God.

1 Timothy 6:11

Run away from these things. You know, the reason that he tells them to run away is because that everybody who lives in this world is tempted by these things. Even a Christian. Christians who come to faith in Jesus Christ, who’s had their heart changed, live in a world that is constantly consumed with these things. And it’s so easy to get caught up in this kind of thinking.

And so the first thing you do is run away from it. When you feel the temptation, when your mind shifts to dwell on any of these things, whether it is the greed that is easy to motivate us. If I only had a million dollars, Lord, look at what I would solve all my problems. It’s not going to solve all my problems. We think that way so easily.

We’re to flee from those kinds of thoughts. We’re to run away from those kinds of thoughts. And not just those thoughts, all those thoughts that characterize these ungodly people. The lust that drives them. The desire to control other people, to have power over them. Not just the financial greed, but all of it. All of it together, their love of money, power over others, the financial greed and their lust pursuits. We’re to run away from those things when those things tempt us.

Worldliness Is Attractive and Deadly

Because worldliness is attractive, and worldliness is deadly. I mean, whenever any of these kinds of temptations comes to us, there’s something that is so tempting about it, greed in particular. You know, we think, if I only had this, and start to pursue those things as if this is the most important thing. It’s not the most important thing. We think, wow, if I had, look at the blessing this is going to be for me.

Haddon Robinson had an illustration for this kind of temptation. He described it like a flypaper and a fly, because, you know, I don’t know exactly how a fly thinks, but that flypaper is designed to be really attractive to the fly, the way it smells and its texture. And the fly gets close to it and it smells it and it touches it and it’s just a little bit sticky. And it thinks to itself, as Haddon Robinson says, “My flypaper.” And then the flypaper says, “My fly.” Because it’s death to the fly.

That’s what this does. This results in sorrow, because nothing here can actually satisfy. Some time ago, when we were talking about this very thought of wanting more and more of the things of this world, I pointed out that the Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes had that quote. He says,

Nothing that has an end can be your chief end.

Richard Sibbes

What does he mean by that? He means that the human soul is made by God to be immortal. It’s boundless in its capacity. Your soul is eternal. It lasts forever, and it has a boundless capacity. And worldly material things all has an expiration date. Everything in this life comes to an end.

And so, because the soul is so much larger than any of these material things, none of these things can ever, ever satisfy it. You set your heart on something, a new car. I’ve been wanting this car for 15 years, and now you buy it. And it’s a delight. You love that thing for a while, and then it’s just a car. It doesn’t really satisfy you. And eventually, it’s an old car.

You can’t satisfy your soul with any of these things. Trying to power your soul with any of these things of this world is kind of like trying to run a big industrial engine on a AAA battery. It just sucks it up and it’s gone and nothing much happens with it. It’s not satisfying. It’s not going to do it. It’s not going to control it.

Pursue Godly Virtues

So what we have here is we are to turn away, but we are to turn to. We are to pursue. “Flee from these things, men of God, and pursue.” You see, that’s kind of like the idea of repentance. It’s very close. In fact, I think this might be what Luther meant when he talked about your whole life is a life of repentance, because we’re continually turning away from something, turning to something that is far better.

That’s what a Christian does. He turns away from something to something that is far better. We’re to flee these things, but we are to pursue these things. We’re to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

So, because of that, I mean, that word pursue, by the way, really means to hunt down, to aggressively chase. It’s like a hunter hunting. So we are to make sure these qualities, qualities that can only come to us because we have life in God, because we have the nature of God within us, we’re to make sure these things are evident, practiced in our life. What are they?

Righteousness and Godliness

Well, first, you have this sort of the relationships that are horizontal and vertical. Righteousness is particularly talking about our relationships with other people. We’re to make sure that in our relationships with other people, we deal with them rightly, with fairly. We don’t cheat them. We pursue right, whatever the situation is, whatever it calls for. We pursue what is right, upright and fair conduct toward men.

Then the next word is eusebeia. It’s godliness, the idea of devotion towards God and reverence towards God. We understand who God is and we devote our heart and soul to God. We are awed by God and we enjoy being in His presence.

Faith and Love

And then there’s the inward, the idea of faith and love. Faith has to do with fidelity. We are to be trustworthy. We’re to be trustworthy toward God. And we’re to be trustworthy in all our relationships with people. It should mark us. When people commit something to us, we know that they will deliver. They will do what they say they’re going to do. We should be that kind of person. We must be that kind of person. Someone who is faithful.

And we’re to be loving. We’re to be self-sacrificing. You see, loving means that you give from yourself to bless someone else. You’re self-sacrificing. That’s what Jesus did for us. That’s what love is. It’s sacrificial love. That’s what agape love is, self-sacrificing love.

You see how that’s exactly the opposite? It can’t be more opposite than what these false teachers are. They want power over people so that they can exploit those people to satisfy themselves. But Christians are to be loving. They’re to sacrifice the things they want in order to love someone else, to bless God, to bless other people, to sacrifice for them.

Perseverance and Gentleness

The next two are perseverance and gentleness is the word that I have. Both of those words are related to patience. The first one, perseverance, means that you continue when the way gets difficult. The load gets heavy, but you don’t stop. Trials come into your life, and you press on in obedience to God despite the trial. You push forward. That’s what perseverance is. It’s continuing under the heavy load. It’s carrying it out, even though it’s difficult.

The next word is patience towards difficult people. God gives difficult people for us to love and show patience to. God gave me as a special gift to my wife, Vicki. And I’m sure it’s a challenge to be patient with me. I can be pretty obnoxious sometimes.

But anyway, God brings difficult people into all our lives. What do you do? How do you treat them? We’re to be patient with them. A person of God, a man of God, a woman of God is patient with people and perseveres and continues.

Hunting for the Opportunity

The word is to pursue it, to hunt it. It’s a hunting word. So, you know, I’m not going to mention Jackie when I talk about hunting this time. But, you know, if he comes to mind, I can understand that.

But if you are a hunter and you go out and you’re hunting, you’re there for a purpose. And so, you know, you have your gun loaded. You put your finger on the safety. You walk through the woods quietly and with full attention, because you know that when the game shows up, it’s only going to be there for a second or two. You might not get a very lengthy chance.

That’s the way all these things are in life. These things come up. You have to be looking for them, pursuing them, hunting them. And when you see the opportunity, you think, here’s a way for me to demonstrate my true faith in Jesus Christ and God. Here’s a way for the life of God to be lived out in me in this moment. And we chase that. We pursue it.

And the man of God, the woman of God, the servant of God, is a person who is at war. Timothy is at war in Ephesus.

Fight the Good Fight of Faith

The next phrase in verse 12 is,

Fight the good fight of faith.

1 Timothy 6:12

The word for fight here is the word that we get agony from. It is fighting, real, true fighting, and warfare is agony. It’s awful. So we strain, the idea of straining everything in order to pursue the goal, to achieve it. So we’re to agonize.

We are to make sure that when it comes to standing up for Jesus Christ, we are courageous. We don’t compromise. We don’t back up or run away. We run away from temptations and worldly, fleshly desires. But when it comes to the truth of the Word of God, we must stand for it and fight for the truth.

When it comes to temptation and greed, we are to run, it says. But we must never compromise when it comes to defending the truth of the gospel against those who would subvert it. You have to stand. Timothy is there in Ephesus to stand against these false teachers, and he is to not compromise.

The temptation is always to compromise. When the conflict comes, it’s easy to try to please the people, because you don’t want those people in your church to not come anymore. You want to keep them. But if you compromise the truth, you don’t have the same church anymore. You can’t compromise the truth of God’s Word.

Take Hold of Eternal Life

We’re to do that and take hold of eternal life. You know, Timothy was a believer. He was saved. It tells us that in 1 Timothy 1:16. You can go back and look at that. And yet Paul tells him here to take hold, to grab hold of eternal life. So why does he say that? Why does he say take hold?

See, eternal life isn’t just living forever in heaven. Eternal life has present reality. When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you receive eternal life. You have the life of God in your soul, the life of God in the soul of a man. And the life of God in us is the reality of the power of God in you to operate in us.

There’s no way that Paul can command Timothy to do any of these things and he be able to do it in his own physical human self. It is because within him is eternal life. Within him is the Holy Spirit, a power. Within him is God’s life. And he’s to hold on to that. He’s to draw on the power of the Spirit of God within him.

And in doing that, he can hold on to things that are far greater than anything in this world. The temptations are temptations to some pleasure that’s going to go away. But eternal life, the life of God in you, is something that outlasts the grave and everything else. It’s eternal. It’s valuable. We hold on to that.

The third idea here is that God gives him a mandate. There’s a command to him. Look at,

Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

1 Timothy 6:12

So he testified to his life in God. And then look at what comes next in 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 until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 6:13-14

Keep the Commandment

He says, keep the commandment. He’s talking about the word of God. You keep these things that’s been entrusted to you, Timothy. The word of God, the revelation of God, is precious. You don’t compromise it.

And when he says to confess it here, you are to keep this confession. He says, keep this. You keep the commandment without stain. You’re to continue in it, pursue it. You’re not to compromise it.

It’s easy to compromise it. When you’re with other people, people that you value, who are not Christians, but people that you’re looking to, and you feel like you need them to affirm you in some way, or you need them in your life in some way. It’s so easy to compromise. The world tempts us with all kinds of things. And one of those things is to please people instead of God.

The Confession Under Test

When it talks about this confession here, it’s not just talking about the confession you made when you were baptized, the confession you made before church to say that you came to faith in Jesus Christ. This is talking about the confession that you make before people under the test. When you’re being tested, do you confess then? Or are you ashamed to admit you’re a Christian in those circumstances?

You’re in a group of people that you value. You know, a kid in school, happens a lot. People in the workplace. You’re sitting at the lunch table with the people you’ve been working with all day. And they’re sitting around and they’re telling dirty jokes, or maybe they’re bragging about their exploits. And then they turn to you and say, “What story do you have?”

And you like these people, and you want their approval. See, there’s the temptation. What happens? Do you compromise your witness to Jesus Christ in that moment? Do you compromise then? Do you confess then?

Two Witnesses

There’s two witnesses Paul reminds us of. You see, it’s not just those people who are witnessing what you say. First of all, it is the God who gives life. God who gives life is witnessing what you say right then in that moment.

The God who gives physical life, who gives you your next breath. The God who gives spiritual life to your soul. The God who gives life to your dead body in the resurrection. That God is paying attention to what you say in that moment.

And not just Him, but the Lord Jesus Christ, who testified the good confession when He was under test, when He was being tested in a way that was far greater than most of the things that we experience under tests like that.

Christ’s Perfect Confession

Think about Christ’s perfect confession. Think about the moment when Jesus is standing before Pontius Pilate. On one side you have Pilate. He represents the military and the legal right of Rome, a mighty power on earth at the time. And Pilate looks at Jesus, who’s bruised and bound, and he says in John 19:10,

Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?

John 19:10

And Pilate, when he said that, knew Jesus was innocent. He had already said,

I find no guilt in Him.

John 18:38

I find no fault in Him. He knew what was right. So why did he capitulate? Why did Pilate give in? Pilate gave in because the crowd outside was shouting,

If you release this Man, you’re no friend of Caesar.

John 19:12

And Pilate thought very much of what Caesar thought of him. Pilate liked his job. He liked his political position and his power. And he loved that more in that moment than he loved the truth. And right in front of him was Jesus Christ, whose life was on the line.

And when Pilate asked Him, “So, You’re a king?” Jesus looked at Pilate and He confessed,

You say correctly that I am a king. For this I’ve been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.

John 18:37

Pilate compromised to save his career, but he lost his soul forever. Jesus confessed the truth, and He sealed His testimony with His own blood on the cross.

The Reformer, talking about this verse, said,

Whenever our hearts waver, let us remember immediately to look at the death of Christ for strength. What cowardice it would be to desert such a leader who goes before us to show us the way.

John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

How true that is. That’s what Paul is doing here. Do you need courage in the moment? Look at Christ’s courage and what He sacrificed for you. Find courage in the example of our Savior.

And then the next, he says,

You keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 6:14

And when he says the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, he immediately goes into this rapture on the nature of God, this beautiful, beautiful, glorious portrait of our eternal and transcendent God.

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality, dwells in unapproachable light.

1 Timothy 6:15-16

Unapproachable Light

The unapproachable light of God. You can’t see Him because He’s hidden in too much glory to see. We sang a few moments ago about the Sun of heaven, the incredible bright light of all heaven. I didn’t clip it, but I know, well, there’s a lot, you know, when we think about the light of heaven, there are many.

There’s an example that I’m not going to give you because I wouldn’t be able to remember all the details. But the gist of it is that people want to see God, especially a skeptic. “Show me who God is. Show me your God.” And the right response is, you can’t see God, because we’re sinful people, and He’s just too bright for us to see.

One response was, come out here and look up at the sun. Can you look with any length of time at the sun? The sun is just one little creation of God. One little thing that He created, a nothing thing compared to God Himself. God is infinitely glorious. He’s majestically glorious.

Who Alone Possesses Immortality

When we look at Him, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality, by the way, you might, if you question that, don’t we have immortality? Aren’t we going to live forever? Well, yes, we are. It’s not like God’s immortality. Why not?

Because we’ll live forever because we find life coming from God to empower us. The only reason we’ll live forever is because God will continually sustain us. But God’s immortality is within Himself. All of His life and power comes from Himself. Everything flows from Him. All goodness and all life and all glory, everything comes from God. We’re just recipients. That’s the difference.

And He’s completely blessed. He’s happy in Himself, and He’s all-sufficient. In a world that’s restless and anxious and empty, God is an overflowing, uncreated ocean of peace and joy. That’s God.

The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords

And He is the only Sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Spurgeon, he wrote, I’ve got the quote,

We see on the shores of time the wrecks of the Caesars, the relics of the Moguls, the last remnants of the Ottomans. Charlemagne, Maximilian, Napoleon, how they flit like shadows before us. They were and are not. Jesus forever is.

Charles Spurgeon

He’s eternal. He continues. He’s the one and only Sovereign. Stephen Charnock pointed out that great kings who think that they have so much power have such a tiny kingdom when you look at it, you know, bounded by this geographical area. But God is the sovereign King who owns everything, everything. He’s sovereign over everything.

Now, if God is transcendent, and you can’t see Him because He’s in unapproachable light, how could any of us come to know Him? How can we come to know Him? Well, that’s the wonder and the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Back in chapter 3, verse 16, Paul told us the great mystery of godliness is

God was revealed in the flesh.

1 Timothy 3:16

In John 1:18, it says,

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who’s in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

John 1:18

The God who we could never approach in the raw blaze of His holiness came down from heaven and came to us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. And He is the glory of God, veiled in human flesh.

Jesus went to the wilderness and was tempted by Satan and never sinned. He lived His perfect life in perfect righteousness, a spotless obedience to His Father. He stood before Pontius Pilate. He testified the truth of His sovereignty. Then He walked up Calvary’s hill to the cross.

Where we fall and fail and get stuck in the flypaper of sin, Jesus Christ was always true and perfect. And He goes to the cross to pay for our sins, and He rises from the dead because that debt is paid for. And He offers us His righteousness in the gospel, so that we, made right in His righteousness, can come into Their presence and live forever and ever.

You know, for anyone who’s chasing the temporary pleasures of this world to satisfy their soul, you’ll never do that. You need to stop running and come to Christ, because only in Him do we find satisfaction that can actually satisfy our soul. And you’re to confess Him as your Savior and your King, and you’re to receive His gift of eternal life.

But for those who belong to Him, all of us who belong to Him, every man of God, every woman of God, we’re to listen to this charge of our Commander, of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. And as we step through the doors of this church and go back into our everyday life, we’re to be obedient. We’re to be good hunters, perseverance and righteousness and godliness and love and gentleness.

These things should characterize us. We should be different than the world around us, because we have eternal life within us that we hold on to.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You for Your mercy to us and Your blessing. We pray, Father, for Your help as we seek to live this passage out in our life. We ask, Father, that You show us abundant grace to give us the strength we need. We thank You, Father, that You alone, the great God that You alone, that’s the only thing.

Father, thank You for this revelation that You alone can satisfy our soul. We ask, Father, that You help us to remember every day to look to You for the satisfaction and away from the foolish things of this life. Guide us in this. Teach us, we pray. In Jesus’ name, Amen.