Oh, it's good to be back. It's good to be back together in the house of the Lord and being able to worship together and study his word. Let me just begin here by giving you a story that was told about our seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. He had some boyhood friends who could never comprehend how Andy became a famous general, and then president. You see, they knew others who grew up with Andy who had much greater talent, yet never succeeded. One of Andrew Jackson's hometown friends said, why, Jim Brown, who lived right down the pike from Jackson, was not only smarter, but he could throw Andy three times out of four in a wrestling match. But look where Andy is now. Another friend, upon hearing this, responded, how did there happen to be a fourth time? Didn't they used to say three times and out? Sure, they were supposed to. Not Andy. He would never admit that he was beat. He just never stayed throwed. The moral of this story may be easy for us to see. The thing that counts is not how many times you are throwed. but whether you are willing to stay throws. You perhaps have seen the AT&T commercial where their spokeswoman, I think her name is Lily, she speaks to this big crowded street on this big screen and she talks about how it's been a very tough last year-ish, as she puts it. It has been, hasn't it? It's been really hard. There have been so many things that have been happening. Our church being closed down, not just once, but twice because of the COVID that has come about. We've had a lot of people in the hospital. There have been deaths. We've been praying here about that. It's just been a lot of hardship that we have gone through. driving here today, I was commenting to Patty, I said, you know, it just seems like ministry is working through molasses right now because of all the hardship and all the things that we are going through. Christian, you and I may face setbacks, but we need to have the courage to move forward in faith. even in light of them. The battle belongs to the Lord and there is no reason for us to stay throwed. Now let's fast forward 23 presidents later to Calvin Coolidge, America's 30th president. Listen to what he said. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Well, today's message is entitled Don't Stay Throwed. Paul's words to Timothy in our passage that we're gonna study today were wage the good warfare. It's even hard to say. Other translations say fight the good fight, and I gotta say, I like that better. I kinda wish the translators of the ESV would have left it, fight the good fight. Well, Timothy anyway was encouraged to continue engaging in battle for the sake of truth. And I think Paul sensed that Timothy was just about ready to go AWOL. Timothy was tremendously discouraged. He had been throwed too many times. Ministry had been brutal, and Paul didn't want him to stay throwed. Timothy had been ministering in Ephesus for an unknown length of time by the time Paul wrote to him. Someone, reporting to Paul, undoubtedly noticed the early signs of battle fatigue, perhaps on Timothy's face, in his disposition. Paul urged the younger minister to remain at his post despite the church's failure to respect Timothy's role as their spiritual leader. You know, all of us are in a fight for the sake of the gospel. We're in a war. Brothers and sisters in Christ, in our lives, in our marriages, in our families, And as we face what no doubt are the final seconds before the rapture, things are getting and will continue to get progressively worse. The fight's gonna get more fierce. In case you haven't seen this in a while, allow me to read to you from Matthew chapter 24, the Olivet Discourse. It describes the birth pains just before Jesus meets us in the air and takes us away with him. Matthew 24, verses six through 12 say this. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then, Many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will rise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. Boy, it's these last remarks from me that show us we are in those times right now. We're seeing many fall away from the church worldwide. We're seeing an angry culture that betrays, which accurately describes what we know here in America as cancel culture. an inflamed hatred, an explosive racial tension, and our once stable nation that the world looked to because of its foundation on law is now as unthinkably lawless as any corrupt third world government is. I simply can't watch television anymore, the news. and I used to be a news junkie. Matthew 24, verses 32 through 34 say this. From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branches become tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near. at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Now, in the meantime, what we studied, a verse back in 2 Thessalonians a few weeks ago, tell us what we are to be doing in light of this. 2 Thessalonians 3.13 says, as for you brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. Now, we're to keep at it. And as we keep at it, while the battle rages, as the fight goes on, we can't stay throwed. We're to be doing what Paul tells Timothy, in our opening verse today. Fight the good fight. The battle will look differently in each of our lives, but do not be caught off guard. You are in a war. So fight the good fight in these last days. Here's what our passage today will instruct us to do. Stand strong amid the challenges that come from outside. Tells us to do things, actually. That's the first one. The second one is stand strong amid all the challenges that come from inside the church. The battle rages fierce for anyone who answers God's call to be involved in ministry in the church. And every believer has been called When you answer that call, you might be able to identify how things at first seem exciting, but disillusionment very often sets in as the reality of evil begins to diminish your idealism. Now, it's not my intent to seem so pessimistic, but it's even less to be unrealistic. All the elements on earth, including the church, is a war zone. An invisible, all-out struggle of evil to destroy good. Satan hates God and everyone serving him. But despite God's people being here, facing the battle, God's people must take their place in the battle lines. Paul encouraged Timothy to stay in the battle despite the apparent gains won by the enemy. Jesus already has assured us ultimate victory over evil, and therefore, the only way for a person involved in church ministry to lose is to quit the fight. Every year at this time, the elders and I see traces of Timothy's battle fatigue. his discouragement with people in our church. We understand why people are reluctant to say yes when we ask if they would serve in a church office for the coming year. They know the hardship of what it is that we are asking. They've lived it, and they're not very interested in reengaging too quickly in spiritual warfare. Many deserve a well-earned rest. We get that. We know that. But my prayer is that you would go before the Lord and determine between you and him if he is calling you to continue to fight the good fight. Much prayer is called for. If you've ever been asked to come to the battlefront of ministry leadership. You need to know that you have been called by God. Anybody who answers that call has to know this. You see, one of the first things we see in Paul's encouragement to Timothy is a reminder that God called Timothy into this fight. So look at our first verse here of our study today. In 1 Timothy 1, verse 18, it says this. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you. that by them you may wage the good warfare." So life on the battlefield is not easy or fun. And Paul uses a few different images here to encourage Timothy. At the first term of endearment to do so, he calls Timothy, my child. Paul cares about him. and he's not just barking out orders. That personal affectionate word must have encouraged this young man's heart. Paul considers himself to be my father. He loves me as a son. He trusts me. He believes in me. This imagery of a son needing his father to believe in him struck me very forcibly these past couple of weeks as I was studying and preparing for this message. It resonated with me how important it is for a fatherly figure to believe in you. My own father was a good physical provider. A man who showed his love to me as his son by providing for my physical needs the whole time I was growing up in his household. And even the resources for four years of secular college. But he was very distant. I never once heard him tell me that he loved me or that he was proud of me. He never came to any of my athletic events when I was in high school or dramatic performances in school, high school, or college. He chose not to attend my high school graduation and decided to miss my college graduation, even though he was in town at the time. I said that he paid for my secular college education. You see, he made it very clear that he did not want his son to be a pastor and would not pay for any Christian college. Dad didn't know the Lord. But I always felt a very strong call to be a pastor. And so by the time Patty and I were married, like everybody else, we paid for seminary, which is for those who have a college degree. Those were tough years, but somehow we made it. And eventually I was looking for a church to be a pastor. Well, the placement office of the seminary posted a pastoral position for a church in the town where my father was raised. And I saw that the head of the pastoral search committee was a man whose name I had often heard when growing up. He introduced my father to my mother, and he was the best man in my parents' wedding. Over the years, his name was often mentioned. In those days, there were not very many pastoral openings, and I decided I was going to take a chance on this one. But I remembered my dad telling me when I was in college that he did not want his son to be a pastor. What a dynamic that would be if I became a pastor of his close friend. I called my dad and I told him what I was about to do. And his response was not at all what I had expected. He told me for the first and the only time I've ever heard it. Son, I'm proud of you. I know how hard seminary was for you. Your mother and I watched how you persisted through many hardships. So I'm gonna call Leland right now and I'm gonna tell him that they probably will not find a better candidate. I didn't get the job. I didn't even get an interview. They were looking for somebody that had at least five years of pastoral experience. But once God placed us in a ministry where he wanted us to be, it was a powerful motivation to know that my father believed in me. That has helped me to hang in there through difficult times of ministry. You may not be a spiritual father like Paul was to Timothy. But every church needs spiritual encouragers. What keeps you from encouraging someone who is in the trenches of ministry? You don't want to give them a big head? How sad it is that we have so many discouragers rather than encouragers. That's not a spiritual gift, discouraging. Don't hold back from letting others know you see what they're doing and that you appreciate it. My guess is that Timothy was greatly encouraged by Paul's word here in verse 18. Paul urges him onto the task of waging the good warfare by reminding Timothy that as his father, he believed in him and he had confidence in him. Now, not only that, Paul was not through. He doesn't even get to the next verse before he pours out more encouragement. You see, he reminds Timothy that there were certain prophetic utterances about Timothy ministry. I said there were a few things that Paul does in verse 18 to encourage Timothy, and there are. The first was to use this endearing term that told him, I believe in you, Timothy. And the second thing Paul does is that he reminds Timothy that God called him. Timothy had received a call from God by means of prophecy. This reminded Timothy that his calling to Christian leadership was from God, and he could rely on the same source to carry him through. Many pastors, young and old, have found encouragement in recounting their call to ministry. In 2011, when I earned my doctorate degree, I wrote a doctoral dissertation on this very issue. I studied the relationship between a pastor's sense of call and their endurance and joy through ministry hardship. And what surprised me the most about my research was the number of pastors who do not believe God calls a person to ministry. I couldn't believe it. About 10% of those I surveyed could not identify a distinct call to ministry. One of those pastors who could not identify a personal call and who told me that he does not even believe God issues a call to men is a personal friend of mine. He was an excellent preacher, but he's been out of ministry for nearly 10 years now. My research concluded that about 70% believed that they had been called and they linked their ministry endurance and joy to it. The other 30%, well, their sense of call was very fuzzy. 10% didn't even believe that there is a call. But what else could the prophetic utterances that Timothy received be? other than a call, it was an expression of his calling. By remembering and being assured by Paul that Timothy had not chosen himself, but that God had chosen him, Timothy could be helped to continue in effective Christian service. And believers, everybody who ministers in the church needs to know that God has called you. Elder, deacon, deaconess, Bible study leader, nursery worker, kids' church worker. Everybody needs to know God called you to it. In Christian leadership, it is essential to have objective criteria, such as the investigatory approval of the church, For me, it was ordination. There needs to be clear utterances of guidance from godly men and women or scripture, or circumstances of opportunity that the Lord has provided you with this, that he has called you to this. We need this to fall back on, to appeal to when opposition arises. to not stay throwed. Timothy was there by divine appointment. God had chosen him and sent him. It was this fact that could give him assurance in difficult days. Having a definite sense of calling is essential to fighting the good fight. And let me now point out some of the other essentials that Paul brings out in our passage today. So let's now turn our attention to how to fight well. Our fight is both internal as well as external. Verses 19 and 20. Holding faith and a good conscience, by rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. how to fight well. First, we gotta deal with the internal. Now these verses will not do us any good if we do not understand the importance of conscience, and exactly what conscience is. The Apostle Paul made such a big deal of conscience, while we tend to minimize its importance, don't we? Most believers think very little about the role that conscience has in our Christian life. This week I saw how opposite we are to the Apostle Paul, who really does make it a big deal. For to fight well, we must hold on to a good conscience. Now, three other times in Paul's pastoral letters, Paul referenced the importance of a healthy conscience. In 1 Timothy 1.5, we already studied that verse. He told Timothy that the purpose for commanding the elders to stop teaching false doctrine was to bring them back to love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. In 1 Timothy 3.9, which we will get to in a couple of weeks, we'll see Paul write that the church leaders must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. In 2 Timothy 1.3, he substantiated his own ministry, saying, I thank God whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience. You see how he's making such a big deal of this? But not only here, in his letters to Timothy. The rest of the New Testament testifies of Paul's empowerment through a good conscience. He courageously took his stand before the Sanhedrin. He looked them straight in the eye and he declared, my brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in good conscience to this day. Acts 23.1. Then standing before Governor Felix, he confidently declared, so I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. Acts 24.16. To the Romans, Paul voiced his amazing affirmation of love for his people as true because it was spoken with a clear conscience. I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit, Romans 9.1. So we see that for Paul, a good conscience is at the root of fighting a good fight. He made a much bigger deal about conscience than we tend to make it. I think that we need to make certain that we know what conscience is. You know, there's a great deal of misunderstanding even among believers. Many think, maybe you are one of them, that conscience teaches us right from wrong. Boy, that's so dangerous to think that. Conscience does not teach us right from wrong. Please eliminate such thinking. No, the conscience is given to us rather to help us resist any deviation from the truth. It doesn't teach us right and wrong. It helps us to select what is right and reject what is wrong. You see, the conscious works with an understanding of what we already know is right and wrong. If you think that conscience indicates what is right and wrong, then you are well down the wrong path of relying on feelings to determine what's right and wrong. If it feels right, it must be. How can something that feels so right be wrong? That's where that leads, if we continue to think that conscience teaches us what's right and wrong. Listen, conscience insists that we do right and avoid doing wrong. God's word informs us of what is right and wrong. It's not our conscience. It doesn't start with us. It starts with God's word and conscience steers us to select what is right. It informs us when we're beginning to fail or fall away from the right path. It informs us when we're beginning to fall away or we're ignoring God's warning system. And our conscience speaks. It shows us we're about to shipwreck our life. Here's why it's so important to know about your individual conscience. Here's why it's so important to you and to me. Some habit may be okay for others, but for you it's wrong because your conscience says it is. There may be an attitude or a thought pattern that no one else would feel guilty about, but you allow it. It'll be at the expense of your conscience if you allow it. It may be an attachment to something in your life that you sense is wrong, but the only voice telling you that is your conscience. If your inner voice calls out to you, don't ignore it. Do not sin against your conscience. Now, this is very hard. especially today when conscience is dismissed as a mere safety device. But what I've attempted to show you is the Apostle Paul puts it primary in our Christian life. God's word is clear. We must cultivate a good conscience. A good conscience shows a sound faith and is essential to a good fight. I can stand up to substantial pressure if my conscience is clear. But without a clear conscience, there is no power to stand, endure, and resist. How can we fight the good fight internally? Simply by holding on to faith and a good conscience. In order to fight the good fight internally, there's two areas for us to focus on. On the one hand, we must hold on to the objective deposit of the faith, meaning our biblical convictions, our doctrinal beliefs from scripture. On the other hand, we must hold tight to the subjective of a good conscience. So I will say a quick word about the objective faith on which we must have a solid grasp as it's put to us here. We need a solid grasp on the objective content of doctrinal belief, our faith. The deeper the knowledge of our infinite, loving, merciful, gracious, holy God, the deeper our love will become. The sad truth for many Christians is their love of God languishes because of their lack of knowledge of him. They simply don't know much about God. They may have a relationship with Him, but it is stunted by their ignorance of Him. They have little to no doctrinal conviction, which is the meaning of the faith that we're to hold on to. Evangelical ignorance is a fact. Most Christians cannot name the Ten Commandments, Many cannot even name five of them. Many do not even know where they're found. If we're to love God as we ought, we must know the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of salvation, just to name a few. Begin by learning one book, perhaps Romans. Know its theme, its divisions, its unity. What you know and believe about God is everything, because what you know and believe will determine how you live. Doctrine determines conduct. Right doctrine makes it possible to fight the good fight. How can we fight the good fight internally? Simply by holding on to the faith and a good conscience. Sometimes it becomes necessary to fight the good fight in an external sense as well. Having taught in Ephesus for three years, Paul knew the history of the congregation. He knew its individuals, he knew its families, So he's able to name two of those who did not hold on to the faith or a good conscience, Hymenaeus and Alexander, he names them here. Hymenaeus is mentioned again for denying the bodily resurrection in 2 Timothy 2.17. He didn't hold on to the faith. And Alexander may be the coppersmith who had done Paul so much harm that Paul writes about in 2 Timothy 4.14. Now, did Paul simply just write these two men off? Not at all. Rather, he handed them over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. The purpose was corrective, so they would learn not to blaspheme. Paul used the same language in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 5, where he said, hand this man over to Satan so the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. And here Paul fervently hoped that both Hymenaeus and Alexander would be restored. Paul cast Hymenaeus and Alexander out of the church, away from God's care and protection, and thus under the power of Satan. It was Paul's intention that they be buffeted by Satan and that their separation from God in this way would be made very real to them. You know what? I think you know with me. Many church members today will throw up their hands in horror that a sinner should be so exposed and named publicly like what Paul did there. But they're uninformed of the purpose of publicly exposing men like Alexander and Hymenaeus. The reason they are named is to protect the innocent. who, if not knowing who they are, can be beguiled by these two men. Evil needs to be exposed so others will not be hurt by evil. If a tornado is heading your way, no one is upset if a specific warning is given. But when it comes to sin, all manner of arguments are brought out to oppose exposing sin. And Satan loves this. He doesn't want it to be exposed. Church offenders like this need to be taught not to blaspheme. Otherwise, they'll destroy themselves and they'll pull down others with them. Now, from what we've just seen, these two short little verses, we can grasp easily three things here. Serious failures of a theological or moral kind need to be confronted by the leaders in the church. Number two, suspension of membership rights and even excommunication are appropriate penalties in severe cases. And number three, church discipline should aim ultimately for the good of the offender as well as the church. Anytime church discipline is done in a church. We see results like what we have seen in our church. But we've got to continue to fight the good fight, as Paul tells us to do. Message is clear. We, like Timothy, are called to fight the good fight. It's both internal and, you know, it's also external as well. We are to hang on to faith and to hang on to a good conscience. And second, we need to expose defiant evil for the good of the offender, as well as the church. We're in a war. We are in a war. So fight the good fight. Stand strong amid the challenges that come from the outside as well as the inside of the church. Have you been throwed? Don't stay throwed. Keep faith and a good conscience. Would you pray with me, please?