Take your Bibles with me and turn First Timothy chapter one. We're going to read the whole chapter tonight but we're going to focus on the last three verses.

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;
2 Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,
4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
6 From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling;
7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
1 Timothy 1 (KJV)

It seems like it's been a couple weeks but we've been studying the book of First Timothy. We're just getting into it.

And if you remember, what happened was Paul left Timothy, who is sort of his protege, in the city of Ephesus to deal with a particular problem there. All the way back in Acts chapter 19 it tells us the story of this church. It was truly a God-blessed church and it became sort of the headquarters for all of the churches in that region of Asia Minor. And it was so successful that the heat was on for the Apostle Paul and he had to leave.

In Acts chapter 20 he gets back together with the elders of the church and he gives them some parting instructions. He says that there are going to come people from among that group that are going to start teaching false doctrines. Well in 1st Timothy apparently that's already happened and Paul is sending Timothy to kind of deal with this problem and get rid of these guys and to take over this church.

Now that is a difficult pastoral assignment for anybody. It is probably particularly difficult for Timothy, who seems to be kind of a timid guy and it was also pretty young. So this whole book is a book for Timothy of instructions on how he's supposed to lead this church and at the end of this chapter he gives some kind of final introductory instructions. Let's look at verses 18 to 20 again.

18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
1 Timothy 1:18-20 (KJV)

Ministry is difficult. Any ministry is difficult. The Bible compares it to spiritual warfare. If you think about our soldiers, they don't live in the lap of luxury. They have to get used to sleeping in tents and walking long distances and carrying heavy packs and eating disgusting food that can be packed up and taken with them. They ride on airplanes, on wooden benches, or sleep on the ground in them and all of this pales with the fact that there are people actively shooting at them.

And that is the analogy that God's word uses for being in the ministry. So in the final paragraph of this chapter Paul gives Timothy six things to think about to help him get through the ministry.

All we're going to do tonight is walk through these six things. The first thing I think Paul is telling Timothy in these verses is

1. You need to remember your orders.

That's what the word "charge" there means in verse 18. It's orders. It's a military word. Timothy has been given orders, marching orders. He's been given a duty to fulfill and he needs to fulfill that duty.

Those orders include the orders of all pastors which come from the Great Commission:

• Reach the lost
• Preach the gospel
• Disciple people
• Baptize people
  There are also other orders that are given to pastors that are found in this book, including "preach the word". Take care of people.

The focus of a soldier has to be fulfilling his orders. Just doing what his superiors have commanded him to do. And if we're going to be successful as a church, if I'm going to be successful as a pastor, then my focus needs to be on the orders that God has given me.

I don't know what the orders God has given you are. I don't know what your calling is but I know what my calling is and I need to be faithful to do it.

So number one remember your orders.

The second thing Paul tells Timothy to be thinking about if he's going to be successful in the ministry is that he needs to

2. Remember his prophecy

Look at verse 18 again:

18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;

What does this deal about “according to the prophecies which went before on thee”? Well it seems that Paul and maybe some other people prophesied over Timothy and prophesied about Timothy. Maybe they said something like, "I perceive that Timothy is going to be greatly used of God. That he is going to be faithful in the ministry that God has given him to do. I perceive that he's going to stick with this. And that he's going to be a great encouragement to the Apostle Paul." Something like that.

And Paul wanted him to remember those prophecies. Remember what people under the Holy Spirit had said was going to be true about Timothy's ministry.

I don't want to get weird here. I don't think all of us should go out and seek to prophesy over people but I do still think that this happens.

Never really talked about this to anybody. I don't even know if I've ever told my wife this but one of the last things that Pastor Scallions, my mentor and pastor, said to me before I left Fairview and came here is: "I foresee that you are going to be a leader in your generation and that God is going to use your tech knowledge to help churches."

I remember thinking at the time that is a really weird thing to say. It's not like we talked this way often but I've thought about that a lot over the last 15 years. I think the Holy Spirit was inspiring Brother Scallions to prophesy over me. Not saying that's infallible. Not saying that's on the level with scripture. Not saying that he had some kind of special gift of prophecy but it was an encouraging word that has helped me through some challenging times.

And so Paul was just saying to Timothy, "Remember that."

The third thing Timothy needed to get through this mission was…

3. Remember the nature of ministry

Paul said at the end of verse 18 “that you mayest war a good warfare.”

Whatever God's called you to do is a war. It's a battle. It's a fight. There's gonna be difficulties.

Think through all of the stories in the Scripture, literally all of them, like any Bible story. There were always difficulties for people that were trying to walk with the Lord. There were challenges. There were enemies. There were times where faith was tested. And it will be no different for you.

You want to be a good parent? That's going to be warfare. That's going to be a fight.
You want to have a godly marriage? There's going to be a fight. There's going to be a warfare.
You wanna be the best teacher or deacon or whatever that you can be? There's going to be some spiritual warfare involved there.

We cannot think that we can march forward and take ground for God and the enemy not fight back. That's not how this works. There is a real devil. He's really in charge of this world. He has real demonic forces that answer to him, the princes of the powers of the air. All of that is real and if we're going to move forward for God, there's going to be opposition.

You're gonna have to fight for every inch, fight for every yard, fight for every mile as you seek to take ground for the Lord.

I think sometimes about that old hymn: "Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, when others fought to win their prize and sailed through bloody seas?"

That's the nature of the charge that's been given to us. That's the nature of the orders that have been given to us. God has given us a fight to fight for him.

That fight might be just a fight against your own nature, a fight against your tendency to do things that you shouldn't do. Maybe it's a fight against the world and the pressures of the world to not conform to Christ. Maybe it's a fight against the powers that be and the evil around us but we have been called to fight.

Oh church, arise and put your armor on
Hear the call of Christ our captain
…
Our call to war, to love the captive soul
But to rage against the captor
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole
We will fight with faith and valor

That's the nature of this thing so we need to remember our orders. We need to remember prophecy on us. We need to remember the nature of this thing.

Number four. The fourth thing we need to do if we are to be successful in what God has given us to do is

4. Hold on to the faith.

Verse 19 says:

19 Holding faith, and a good conscience;…
1 Timothy 1:19 (KJV)

We need to hold the faith. I think faith here is talking about two things. Faith as a verb and faith as an object.

Faith the verb (a weapon to use)

In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the shield of faith. The things we believe about God and His word are able to “quench all of the fiery darts of the wicked.”

What you believe about God is your biggest defense against Satan’s attacks. We have to believe even when things around us are falling apart. We have to believe when life is filled with difficulty and when God’s word is hard to believe.

God is Good - even when life is tough.
God’s word is true - even when the world is full of lies.
God is winning - even when it seems like the whole world is arrayed against Him.

Faith is something we need to hold onto, like a shield. We can’t put it down for any reason.

There is also…

Faith the object (something to keep)

The things that are true about God that have been handed to us. We need to guard those things, to defend those things.

Again military language. Those things are going to be under attack. Those truths are going to be under attack and we need to hold them like a garrison holds a fort against encroaching combatants.

It seems that in every generation there have been attacks against the faith. Different attacks. One generation, the push might be against the truth that God created the world. In another generation the truth might be against the nature of God's love and offer of salvation. Or maybe it's about the nature of truth itself.

The devil's crafty and he's coming up with different attacks against the truth, against the faith all the time. Our job is to stand in the gap and hold it, to defend it. Often this can feel like an ugly battle. A thankless job.

But we have to hold the faith.

The fifth thing that Timothy needed to remember if he was going to be successful in his ministry as he needed to

5. Keep a good conscience

Timothy had to keep a good conscience. He had to know that he was acting right and doing right as much as he possibly could.

He was in a warfare, which means people were going to attack him and if he was not living right, he would be opening up areas for the enemy's attack.

Paul talked about how he strived always to keep a clear conscience before God and before man. He just tried to live right. Now I don't think that means he was perfect. I don't think it means that Timothy was perfect but I think it means that they kept short accounts with God. When things were wrong, when they knew they'd done wrong, they went and apologized and made it right, both with the person that he'd hurt and with the Lord.

The final thing Paul tells Timothy in these verses is to

6. Remember the consequences

The end of verse 19 says:

19 …which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
1 Timothy 1:19-20 (KJV)

Two people who had not held the faith were these men Hymenaeus and Alexander. I think they were probably the elders in Ephesus who had started teaching false doctrine.

They're both mentioned elsewhere. Hymenaeus taught the resurrection had already happened and Alexander is somebody who, second Timothy says, had done Paul great harm.

Paul said they had made a shipwreck of their faith. Essentially by failing to protect the faith, the thing that was given to them, their walk with God was a wreck.

Now shipwrecks aren't final. Paul was in like three shipwrecks and he was able to keep serving the Lord but they are incredibly destructive.

Listen folks, if you start messing with doctrine, with the faith once delivered to the saints, you are 100% going to be in the wrong. You are going to make a shipwreck of your walk with the Lord and maybe, hopefully, at some point you'll realize what happened and you'll be able to pick up the pieces but there's going to be a lot of wreckage.

And because of that wreckage, Paul took action.

So Paul says, "I've delivered them to Satan" and most people think that means they were put out of the church. They were church disciplined. Notice this is not a final thing. It was done so they would learn. Paul held out hope that these guys would one day come back to the truth. But the church wasn't going to pretend and Paul wasn't going to pretend like what they were doing was right. There were consequences.

Conclusion

Here's a draft in your voice. Adjust as needed:

So Paul gives Timothy six things to hold onto as he heads into one of the hardest assignments of his ministry. Remember your orders — you have a job to do and God gave it to you. Remember what God has said about you — let that word spur you on when things get hard. Remember that this is a war — don't be surprised when it feels like one. Hold the faith as a weapon and as something worth defending. Keep your conscience clean — don't give the enemy a foothold. And remember there are consequences — for you, for others, for the church — when we stop doing these things.

Now here's the thing. Paul didn't write this just for Timothy. He wrote it for every person who has ever been given a charge by God. And if you're in this room tonight, God has given you a charge. Maybe it's in your home. Maybe it's in this church. Maybe it's on your job or in your neighborhood. But you have orders. You have a fight to fight.

The question is, are you fighting it? Are you holding on? Or have you set something down that you were meant to keep?

Don't be Hymenaeus. Don't be Alexander. Be Timothy. Take your orders seriously, hold the faith, keep your conscience clear, and fight.