Alright, our text this morning is 1 Timothy 6. We are in the midst of a study here in Paul's letter to Timothy, his young apprentice. The title of that series we've given it is House Rules. There's a lot of household terminology. Paul in the opening verses addresses Timothy has his child in the faith and uses that imagery of parent-child. We're children of God adopted into his family. He talks to Timothy about the stewardship that has been given to him. Literally, the household responsibilities that have been entrusted to him. As a member of any family, right? There are certain responsibilities that come with being a part of a family. He talks about how they are to conduct themselves. He wants them to know how they should conduct themselves in the household of God. So, house rules. I get a chance to just think again about what we're supposed to be doing as God's children, as His family. And today brings us to 1 Timothy 6. where Paul is going to give some specific instructions to Timothy. He's already warned Timothy about false teachers. And now he wants to create a contrast. He says, in light of what's going on with the false teachers and their lifestyle and what they're saying and teaching, this is how I want you to live, Timothy. So we're going to look at that contrast today. I did just return, my wife and I just returned from Togo, West Africa just a couple of weeks ago and had an opportunity to sit down with Alan Niles, the director of the hospital there at the Hospital of Hope. Amazing place and hopefully he was here for memorial services this last weekend And hopefully you had a chance to get to know Alan Niles a little bit But we talked about you know the the first year at the hospital what? What were observations? What what did you what did you learn and and one of the things that he talked about? early on was snake bites and This was a big thing. They had a run of snakebite victims that came to the hospital. And almost without exception, they died. They could not get a handle on how to treat these victims. They had some anti-venom that they had used in the past in the Southern Hospital. It was coming in from India, but it was clear it was not working. They finally had a man come into the hospital who was a snake handler of some sort, and he carried his own anti-venom. So he's kind of well-versed in this, and they really picked this guy's brain and came to find out that it was the West African Sand Viper. that was really causing the damage and had a very unique venom, extremely poisonous and not treated by the other anti-venoms. And so Allen Niles set out for where he could get the anti-venom and ended up in the nearby African country of Benin. It was the closest place he could find and went to a backwoods little clinic and was able to secure this particular remedy. By the way, I thought I would show you the picture, and then I realized that probably wouldn't be a good idea, of the African sand viper. Some of you are a little squeamish just talking about it. If I showed you a picture of this African sand viper, you could hardly see it in the sand. You would never look at sand The same way again. Lake Michigan sand, African sand, it wouldn't matter. But anyway, so this West African sand viper and the anti-venom. A couple things that struck me about this. One, obviously, the obvious is you have to use the right anti-venom, right? You have to use the right cure, the right medicine to treat the particular malady or poison that you're dealing with. Okay, so that's the one that jumps off the top. But what struck me, particularly as I was reading 1 Timothy 6, is that there's actually a more foundational step that has to come first, and that is that you have to seek treatment. you have to recognize that you've been bitten. Now with the West African Sandviper, you'd know it if you were bitten, right? It wouldn't take you long, right? But when we think of other ailments, sometimes you don't always know that you're in trouble. Take Alzheimer's disease, right? Where something's happening in the mind I'm in trouble, and I might not fully realize it, right? When I camped, counseled at a camp right out of college, and I happened to be the oldest. I was the only college graduate among the counselors. So I was given a couple kind of unique kids over the course of the summer. One of the kids that I was assigned was a young boy that had Prader-Willi syndrome. which is a genetic disorder impacting the 15th chromosome. Number of factors and symptoms of this particular disorder in terms of physical development and emotional development, cognitive impairment, but one of the sort of notable aspects of Prader-Willi syndrome is that the sensation that you get from being full in terms of hunger, that sensation doesn't work. So these kids have an extremely low metabolism to start with. They would be inclined towards really gross obesity. And if allowed, they would literally eat themselves to death. So this kid would sell every possession he had to get a dollar to go to the trading post to get something more to eat. He was never full. And here's a kid who, again, had a problem that could be really very dangerous for him, and he didn't really know it. He wasn't totally cognizant of it, right? And certainly that's true in the spiritual realm. We could point to all sorts of different sins that, while they don't seem to be a big problem, are incredibly destructive and will ultimately destroy our soul, okay? So Paul's talking about this. He's going to describe something that's very serious in terms of what's going on with the false teachers, and then he's going to prescribe to Timothy the antivenom, okay? And urge him to take these particular steps to avoid danger. So that's what we're going to look at here today. Our text is going to be 1 Timothy 6, verses 11 and 12. But to provide us a little context, and because we haven't been in this text for a couple of weeks, I want us to go ahead and begin back up in verse 3. So 1 Timothy 6, verse 3. Hear the word of the Lord. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth. imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness, Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word. So what do we know about the false teachers? I want to just trace through that briefly. They had moved away from the simple truth of the Gospel Notice what Paul says there in verse 3, "...if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ..." So we know from other places in Paul's letter a little bit about these false teachers. We know that they were adding things to the Gospel. The Gospel was not just about the work of Jesus, but they had begun to add additional requirements. They forbid marriage, believing that asceticism, a harsh life, depriving ourselves of marriage was needed for one to really be spiritually advanced. They forbid people from eating certain kinds of foods. Again, calling for a life of harshness. So in addition to the gospel, they had put a bunch of other additional requirements on people. So they had shifted away or moved away from the simple truth of the gospel. They lived for themselves. Verse 3 tells us that not only did they move away from the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, but they moved away from teaching that accords with godliness. Godliness is living in light of God, living in light of His sovereignty, being oriented towards God, recognizing that He is the Creator and I am a creature. He is King and I am His subject. That is godliness. It might be rendered as piety. Recognition and acknowledgement and orientation towards God. And these individuals had abandoned that. They were living for themselves. They were living as if God did not exist. That's a good definition of godlessness. So they rejected the simplicity or moved away from the simple truth of the Gospel. They lived for themselves. They were driven by pride and selfish gain. We have reference there in verse 4 that they were puffed up with conceit. Later on, we read about the love of money that characterized these false teachers. So these individuals were proud, they were self-focused, they were self-promoting, they were looking to profit, to do what was best for them. These were their motivations and their drives and their desires. And then this is what I want you to know is that they experienced destruction. See there in v. 9, those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare or a trap, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. And then there in v. 10, it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves, impaled themselves, inflicted mortal wound. So we talk about the West African sand viper and the danger involved with that and the need for an anti-venom. And here we have something that I'm going to suggest to you is even more dangerous. It's the power not only to destroy the body, but to destroy the soul. It's this issue of greed and pride and self-focus and godlessness, living as if God doesn't exist. And so Paul has some really strong words for Timothy here to talk with him about how he can avoid the danger that marked the false teachers. So let's look at those commands, at the anti-venom, at the antidote, the cure that Paul prescribes By the way, I think this is a very real danger in our own day as well. We live in an age that is marked by radical individualism. We do what works best for us. We're not given to enduring a lot of hardship. Don't make a lot of commitments that are going to require a great deal from us. In many ways, we can be prone to embracing self-oriented religion. We are not necessarily oriented around God, but oftentimes are driven by our own selfish desires. So this is a very real thing certainly for us as it was in the first century. So what does Paul say to Timothy? What is his command? Number one, recognize the danger and respond with a sense of urgency. Recognize the danger and respond with a sense of urgency. Literally flee these things. Run. We get our word fugitive from this particular term. Flee from these things. Don't mess around with them. Don't sort of tolerate them on the fringes of your life. Don't get close to them. But flee these things. Flee any teaching that would seek to add to the gospel, the simple, health-giving, life-giving words of Jesus. flee from any form of teaching that would encourage godlessness, or any sort of moral license, or encourage you to embrace a godless lifestyle. We need to recognize these things for the danger that they are. Recognize the danger of greed, and how insidious it is, and how it gets around our heart, and the love of money, and the love of possessions. We need to recognize the danger and flee from those things. There's an account that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 10. He's talking about this very issue. And he brings up the children of Israel. They've been delivered out of Egypt, the Exodus. They've been brought across the Red Sea and went to Mount Sinai and received God's commands as to how they were to live. And then they got entangled by the Moabites. and particularly the Moabite women. And the men of Israel committed sexual immorality with the Moabite women. And we're told there in Numbers 25 that they also started to worship the Baals, the gods of the Moabites. And by the way, all the ancient gods were gods of prosperity. Baal was pictured with a thunderbolt in his hand. He was the one who brought the rain. He was the one who caused your crops to grow. He's the one that caused you to prosper. And so they not only committed sexual immorality with the people of Moab, but they began to pursue this selfish orientation. They began to be marked by greed. And the text there in 1 Corinthians 10, as Paul reflects on this, He wants to bring it into the present. He says, now these things happened to them as an example. 23,000 people died. They came under God's judgment there in the wilderness. They never entered the promised land. And Paul fasts forward. to his own context. And he says, now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. This is a great cautionary tale that we realize the danger of moving away from the worship of the one true God and obedience and fidelity to His commands. And we move into a mode of pragmatism Doing what works. Doing what makes us happy. Doing what will cause us the least amount of discomfort or inconvenience. Paul wants to realize that this is a very real danger for the follower of Christ as well. We need to recognize the danger and respond with a sense of urgency. Take these things seriously. Number two, be intentional about following Jesus and His commands. Be intentional about following Jesus and His commands. He says here in verse 11, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. By the way, you usually see this contrast. You're fleeing one thing and you're pursuing something else. It's usually a good idea if you've got a bad habit, if you've got a destructive habit in your life, that you not only try to stop doing that with God's help, but you fill that void with something else. So that's the pattern here that Paul introduces. Flee these things and pursue other things. It speaks of intentionality. It speaks of purpose. of having a clear goal and an object that you are working towards. And he highlights six things, actually three pairs that are listed here. First, righteousness and godliness. Righteousness being obedience to Christ, outward obedience to the commands of Jesus. And then he also references godliness, which is again, this orientation towards God. So Paul says to Timothy, not only do I want you to do the right things, commit yourself to obeying God, but I want you to have an attitude, an orientation in which you are living consciously under the reign of God. This is in contrast again to the false teachers made excuses for their unrighteousness, and lived as if God didn't exist. He then calls Timothy to faith and love. Again, a very common pairing of faith being an orientation of trust. A person who is marked by faith is not driven by their desires, not driven by their circumstances, not driven by discouragements or disappointments. A person that lives by faith, lives with a confident trust that God's way is best. So faith and love. Love being the expression of concern acting in the best interest of another person. These individuals lived for themselves. They had a love of money, of things, Timothy was to stand in contrast to that. He was to foster a love for God and a love for people. Not just doing what would be best for him, but doing what would be best for others. And then steadfastness and gentleness. Steadfastness has to do with being resolute in the face of trials. Difficult circumstances. There's another word that speaks of of enduring people. People problems, right? That's patience. But this is steadfastness. Even when you face trials that you endure, you stick with it. And gentleness. Here again, a word for meekness. These false teachers were promoting themselves. Timothy was to be marked by a spirit of gentleness, meekness, humility. So it encourages him to make intentional effort in pursuing these things. Number three, give every effort to the great cause of the Gospel. Give every effort to the great cause of the Gospel. Fight the good fight of the faith, verse 12. Or we might say, agonize the good agony. It's the word here. It's an effort word. It speaks of exhausting yourself. Now, we don't have to exhaust ourselves to secure our salvation, do we? We've just celebrated. It's the work of Christ. It's a gift freely given. It is by grace alone, through no human effort. But progress in the Christian life, and when I take seriously the Gospel and my responsibility to bring the Gospel to the world, That takes effort. And that's what Paul is talking about here. Fight the good fight of the faith. The faith. This is code terminology for the gospel. The faith that has been entrusted to us. So again, Timothy wasn't having to work really hard to earn the Gospel, to attain the Gospel, but he had been entrusted with the Gospel. He was to take the Gospel to the world. He was to contend for the Gospel, making sure that no one attacked it, no one distorted it, no one twisted it, that the message of God's grace would be preserved. And that was going to take a lot of work. It was going to be exhausting effort. Shared with you our vacation last summer. I think I related to you our attempts to make our way out in canoes from our particular cottage out to Lake Michigan. This is up in the Traverse City area and there's a little internal lake, Platte Lake. We were staying on Platte Lake. And if you got across Platte Lake, then you'd come to a little river, the Platte River, and eventually the Platte River would lead you out to Lake Michigan. So we kind of set out this big family adventure. We had two canoes, and there was a lot of us in each canoe. Once you get to the river, there's a bit of a current, and it's pretty easy going from there. You can drift a little bit. But the problem is getting to the mouth of the river, getting across Platte Lake. Because as you know, in that part of the state, there is a prevailing westerly wind. That's what builds those sand dunes right there at the Sleeping Bear Dunes. So you set out in our canoes, and we start west towards the river mouth. And it is brutal, just brutal. The wind is just so strong and so persistent. And if you weren't careful, any slight... it's so hard to keep the nose of the canoe into the wind. It would want to push you one way or the other. And so just very difficult. Struggling, struggling, struggling to get across, and you didn't dare stop or take a break, or you were pushed back the 20 feet that you had just gained, right? So we all arrived at that riverbed and just collapsed. We were just exhausted. We had completely expended ourselves in getting to that point. And you know, we could have just given up. Maybe we should have. wouldn't really have been that much at stake, would there? But when we talk about the Gospel, there's a lot at stake. And it requires effort. We need to expend ourselves in stewarding the Gospel, in defending the Gospel, in communicating the Gospel in a hostile culture. We are to give every effort to the great cause of the Gospel. And finally, we are to maintain an eternal perspective. Maintain an eternal perspective. Close of verse 12, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. This is the word here for seizing or gripping something. Laying hold of it. Grasping it. It's the word that would be used if you were arrested and you were seized. and you were bound. This is the word that is used to describe Jesus as Peter is coming out on the water to Jesus, and he takes his eyes off Jesus, and he begins to sink, and Jesus reaches out and grasps his arm and pulls him back up out of the water. This is that kind of a notion. Timothy's not having to, again, secure eternal life. He's already been called to eternal life. He's already been granted eternal life. But Paul wants him to lay hold of it. To seize it. To grasp it. To live in light of eternity. It reminds him that he made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Seemingly a reference to his baptism. We had a group of folks last week that stood before the congregation and committed themselves to following Christ, to renouncing Satan and his agenda, to embracing Jesus as both Savior and Lord. And they gave that confession in the presence of many witnesses. And Timothy did too. And it was maybe some time ago that Paul is bringing this back into the forefront of Timothy's mind and having him step back out of the situation and the particular temptations that he might experience and maintain a big perspective of where he started and what he committed himself to and really laying hold of eternity and living in light of eternity. We've been in the market for some furniture and we've been saving up for over a year now. We've been saving money. We did some looking on Friday and realized, OK, we're not quite there yet. And the guy's assuring me. They've got these great financing plans. It's OK if you don't have all the money, right? Here, we can do this amount of financing, and we'll get it all set up for you. And he was kind of astounded when I said, we just don't have the money. We're not going to buy it if we don't have the money. And so we'll just have to keep saving and trying to figure out how much we could allocate. But you know, we know this, we don't mortgage the future for a temporary quick fix, right? You don't go liquidate your retirement account so you can go buy that piece of furniture, right? You might have that gut instinct to do it, certainly our kids do, and even as adults we can be impulsive at times, but we know we shouldn't do that. We should wait until we have money in hand and really maintain a long-term perspective so I don't find myself in financial straits. And I think Paul is saying something very similar here to Timothy. Don't give way to the immediate temptations that are going to come along, but lay hold of, seize, grasp, have a firm grip on the eternal life that you've been called to. Sometimes that takes some creative means. I think a great way to maintain that kind of perspective is to read missionary biographies. I finished reading David Livingston's, The Daring Heart of David Livingston. Somewhat controversial figure. Came to me no more as an explorer than a missionary. But boy, to stop and think in terms of eternity and think about the investment of time and energies and the causes that are worth investing in, there's really something that's really helpful. We use various means, and certainly Scripture helps us in this, to maintain a perspective on eternity. So the West African Sand Viper. I would suggest you don't want to encounter the West African Sand Viper. And if you were bitten by the West African Sand Viper, you would no doubt take very quick, radical action to try to counteract that venom. I would suggest to you that this whole arena of greed is far more dangerous. It's insidious. It's often not detected. We don't think consciously about it. I don't think and set out to live for myself. To somehow have a view of God that God is there to make me happy and to give me what I want. And if He doesn't give me what I want, then I'm angry at God. It kind of reveals what I really think about God, isn't it? We don't think consciously about that. We don't set out to just be self-focused and self-promoting and proud. But this is a very great danger for us and one that we need to respond very actively against. And Paul gives us the specific anti-venom that will help us ward off materialism