Timothy? So what is it that you are looking for? How would you answer that question? What are you looking for? What do you want? Want a better status in life? Want money? What is it that you're looking for? Three weeks ago we looked at 1st Timothy 6, 1 through 10. Some of the pastors at Ephesus were teaching a health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. Follow Jesus and you'll be rich, you'll be successful. Their teaching encouraged servants to be discontent with their calling and to rebel against their masters. These teachers believed and taught that godliness was a means of worldly gain. Sadly, there are still a lot of preachers like that today. Their doctrine is very dangerous because it's so enticing. It appeals to our flesh. Our sinful flesh wants to think always that we deserve better than what we have presently. Paul had seen the lives of many of the people at Ephesus destroyed by hungering after worldly gain. Look at what he says in verse 10. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their godliness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Paul is showing that some at Ephesus had abandoned the faith they once possessed because of the love of money. Paul had probably even discipled some of the ones, some of these various teachers that had now turned away. He was probably there when some of them were ordained to the ministry during the time that he spent at Ephesus planting the churches there. They had started out well, but like Demas, they had forsaken Christ because of love for the present world. Such persons show that they were never truly saved. You remember what I said to you about the difference between one who is born again and the one who is not when the warnings of God come? When they come to us about these things? The one who is born again responds to the warning. He heeds it. He corrects his way because he knows God and he fears God. The one who is not born again, not converted, does not hear the warning. He goes on and hardens himself further in his sin. He turns away from God's way because of the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches that promise everything, but ultimately give nothing. That's the difference between a true child of God and the one who only professes. Child of God hears God's call. He responds to it. He follows it. He may struggle along, and he may have times of faltering, but eventually the Word always comes through. He always responds to the Word at last. And so I urge you today to listen to the call of God, to hear what the Lord says, And Paul's words here are addressed to Timothy, but these words apply to us today just as much as they did to Timothy. They're from the Holy Spirit, and they're meant to benefit the people that originally received them as well as people who live today. Paul's charge to Timothy in this passage applies to each one of you. If you hear it, and heed it, you will be blessed by God. If you refuse, then you will be cursed by him. So listen now to our reading. First Timothy six, beginning in verse 11. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life to which you are also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. May the Lord add his blessing to his holy and infallible word. you see that Timothy, and as I say, you also are urged here to flee these things. You, O man of God, flee these things. Now you say flee what things? Flee from the things that Paul has been speaking about in verses one through 10. Flee from the mindset that thinks that godliness is a means of great gain in the world. Flee from your discontentment. Discontentment with your worldly status, or your condition in life, or your gifts, or whatever it is, discontentment is a monster that will totally swallow up all of your affection for God. because all of your attention is directed to whatever you're coveting and away from God. Greediness is poison to the soul. It will turn you into a barren desert spiritually because you'll dry up, you're looking in the wrong direction. What you need is the water of God's spirit and instead you're looking at the deserts of this world. Did Jesus not teach that the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word so that it becomes unfruitful? So the admonition here is to flee. Turn up your heel and run for your life. Run the opposite direction of covetous desires. Timothy is addressed here as a man of God. That was a term that was used especially for someone who had been called to minister God's word to other people. How inappropriate it is for such a one commissioned to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to have a heart that goes away from Christ in pursuit of the riches of this world, like Demas did. How could such a man minister to others when he himself does not know the excellence of the gospel? He is supposed to be a man of God, not a man of the world. But there is a very real sense which this is true of every Christian. The Christian, you belong to God. In His covenant, what did He say? I will be your God and you will be my people. You do not belong to this world, but to the kingdom that is not of this world. It is just as foolish and just as dangerous for you to set your affections on the things of this world as it was for Timothy to do so. Look around you. Do you not see the danger? Have you not seen those who once professed Christ turn away? And some of them because of the love of the things of the world. So why would you pursue what brings destruction? Can you take fire into your bosom and not be burned? The only right response is to flee. Flee from the constant concern about what you have and what you don't have, about what you will eat and what you will wear and what you will drink. Flee from the anxiety about what other people think of you, about your status in the world. Flee these things. But of course, the goal is not just to run away from covetousness. As a Christian, you are more than a person who is trying to avoid something, more than someone who is trying to escape from a burning house. a person who has only one agenda to get out alive. That's not your goal. You have something to go after. The reason that you run from covetousness and greed is because it gets in the way of the more excellent treasures that you're called to pursue, that you're to run after. So you're like a running back on a football team. You flee from the defense as they try to tackle you. But what if that was the only goal of the running back? He would run the opposite direction when he got the ball. He's just trying to get away from those guys that are going to tackle him. And they probably let him run all he wanted to if he did that. But he has to go toward the goal, doesn't he? He's not just running away. He's running to something, avoiding things that get in the way so that he can get where he needs to go. You have, as a Christian, a definite goal to pursue. So Paul doesn't merely tell Timothy to flee. He tells them also to pursue. Verse 11, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. These are things to go after in your life. Don't think that righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness are things that just happen when you remain passive. What happens, use the running back illustration again, he gets the ball and he just stands there. He's going to be destroyed. It's true that these are all fruits of the Spirit. So you say, well, doesn't fruit just grow? These are all things that grow out of our life in Christ by grace, by the grace of God. They are the things that God's Spirit produces in us and that we can't produce apart from the living Holy Spirit. But some Christians wrongly suppose that they just come automatically as they sit around and meditate or that we go to the right meeting. that we listen to right sermon, that we pray the right prayer, and that suddenly we're zapped with the fruits of the Spirit, just like that. But it's this very passage teaches against that notion. Why does it teach against it? What does it say? It says to run after these things, to pursue these things. It teaches that sanctification is an ongoing uphill battle. You need to understand how God's Spirit works. The Spirit of God does not just take over your life. You don't just sit around passively and say, okay Spirit, you do it. This is not biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit rather transforms your life. In other words, the Spirit enables you to do what God has called you to do. But it is you who must do what you're called. The Spirit does not do it for you. Instead of loving or believing for you, what does the Spirit do? He makes you able to love and believe. You do the loving and the believing, not the Spirit. Sometimes people talk about loving, I want God to love people through me. But that's not really an accurate way to speak. You want God to enable you to love other people. You do the loving. That's what needs to happen. So this means that if you have God's Spirit, you ought to be encouraged to pursue the things, to run after the things that God calls you to pursue, because you know that God's Spirit is at work in you. That's your encouragement, that you can make progress because the Spirit is there, not that you can sit and do nothing. Remember Philippians 4, 12-13, it says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. What's the encouragement? Because it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure, to desire the right thing and to do the right thing. The Spirit works in both of those ways. The Spirit is so powerful that He doesn't have to do it for you. He's able to give you life so that you can do it. Fleeing and pursuing are not passive. They require strenuous effort. The words themselves suggest that. Are you straining then and struggling to flee? Are you running from the things you need to run from and to pursue? Or have you fallen into the country club Christianity? The kind of attitude that treats your walk with Christ as if it were a pastime that you take up on the side. You know, oh yeah, I go to church sometimes, or I need to, you know, whatever. Are you just coasting along like one who is going along for a ride? Well, that's not going to get you anywhere. Christian, you are at war. The Holy Spirit calls you to battle. Again, think about the running back. He's just gonna kind of casually saunter along on the field, like, give him the ball, and he's like, oh, I'm gonna go over there. You know, just kind of walk around. You can't do that. You can't do that in the Christian life. The Holy Spirit calls you to battle, not to a spa. Hear his words in verse 12. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life. The word fight is an interesting one. It's agonism. I what do you hear in that word? I don't have to tell you what word we have that's related to that to agonize. You are to agonize after Christ. This is war talk is where you have to keep going when you're tired and you feel like giving up going to war. You won't get anywhere without that. You're seeking to tear away from all of the destructive patterns in your life and to replace them with the fruits of the Spirit. Running from this to this. This is something that requires you to stretch every nerve, to engage all the powers of your being. Don't you see we were sunk deep in the pit of sin? We must put to death the deeds of the members of our body in order to serve Christ, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, which war against the soul. They don't remain passive. You better not be passive either. We must be crucified with Christ every day. We must say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit of God. And not only is this war talk, it's also the talk of the Olympics. Agonismi was used to refer to the strain of the runner. and of the wrestler to win the prize. You must run so as to attain and fight, not as one beating the air, but as one who desires to win. You have to strike effective blows against the enemy. You have to outrun those worldly desires that are trying to catch up to you. And you have to stay at it. It's a never ending struggle in this life. The tense of the verb is present. That means continuous action. Keep on agonizing. Pursue. As long as you're in this world, you have to have you have to agonize because as long as you're in this world, you still have sin to deal with and you still have fruit to grow. Even Paul, with all the progress that he had made in his life, he declared in Philippians 3.12, not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. You are told in our text that it is a good fight that you're to fight. It is, so this fighting, this agonizing, it's a good thing because it's worthwhile. A bad fight is a fight that has no real purpose that matters, a fight that really should not have happened. No fight is pleasant. But some fights are good, and this one is a good fight. You see, many of the wars that we get engaged in today, they don't really have any kind of purpose to them. This one does. And not only is it a good fight, it's a good fight of faith. It's a fight of faith because you're fighting for the kingdom that God has promised, which is a kingdom that is not seen. Like Abraham, you're looking for the city whose builder and maker is God, eternal in the heavens, where righteousness dwells. You're looking for a place where everyone does God's will and no one rebels against Him. But you know as well as I do that that all sounds like a crazy dream. A kingdom of perfect righteousness? Like, where are you going to see anything like that? A place where God is perfectly obeyed and honored? How could that be? Just look at our world and just look at your own heart. And you would say, that's an unreasonable expectation. But you see, that's where faith comes in. That's why it's a fight of faith. because it's in God's promise. God has promised us eternal life in his Son. We look at ourselves and our world, we see death, rightly so, but God has promised us life, and so we believe and press on to lay hold of that life. He has called us to do this and to keep on doing it. So that's what Paul tells us to do, lay hold on eternal life. Do you understand what he's saying? Eternal life. What is that? Eternal life is life with God, life in order with God, life in communion with God, life in fellowship with God, in perfect harmony, perfect relationship with God. Life where we act like creatures instead of like we're God. Perfectly submitting to His will and where He blesses us with a view of His beauty and glory and with all the goodness that divine power can bestow. Eternal life is presented here as that which we obtain at the end of our course. It's often presented that way in the Bible. Happens later, it's future to us. Romans 6, 22, but now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. There's a sense in which we receive eternal life now, that once we have trust in Christ, we will live forever. There's also a sense that we haven't even begun to really experience eternal life in its fullness and completeness. Titus 1, 1, and 2, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Why is it something we hope for, if we already have it? It's something that we're pursuing. Peter speaks of us in the opening chapter of his first letter as those who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. Do we have salvation now? Yes, we have salvation. We have the forgiveness of sins and those things. But do we have complete deliverance from all of our corruption and sin and complete harmony with God? No, we don't. It's a salvation ready to be revealed. Perhaps you would say, you know, but I thought we obtained eternal life when we believe. I mean, it's true that we do. John 3, 36, he who believes in the Son has everlasting life. Jesus said, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise him up at the last day. You see, that's all true, but we don't yet have the fullness that we're going to have. we can begin to bring forth fruits of that new life now. And that's what we're being called to do here, what we will have perfectly in the future. And you know, I'm glad that it's that way because I would hate to think that this was it, this was eternal life and I'm stuck with whatever I have now. That would not be a good prospect. There's got to be more to come. Eternal life is yours now only to the extent that you live a godly life. You're called to lay hold on that life as much as you possibly can now. Verse 12 says that God has called you to do this. Look what it says, lay hold on eternal life. You want to get it now, to lay hold of it, to which also you were called. So this is the whole essence of your calling as a Christian. It's a call to eternal life. God brings us into eternal communion and fellowship with himself. He brings us as human beings into a right relationship with himself, where there is no more enmity between us, and where there is no more rebellion or disconnection of any kind between us and our maker. This is eternal life, and this is what we're called to in Christ, and what we're to lay hold of. The question is, how do you lay hold of this eternal life? Well, Paul is writing to Timothy. He was someone who already professed to have found life in Jesus Christ. So Paul reminds him about his profession at the end of verse 12. And have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. At some point along the way, Timothy had publicly confessed his faith in God's promise of eternal life. He had made the good confession. See, that's talking about a public confession, isn't it? That everyone who trusts in Jesus is called to make. We're to confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus. This is only mentioned here, but it's important for you to understand what is involved in this confession. The good confession is the confession that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. It is the confession that I personally am a sinner, guilty before God and worthy of everlasting punishment. And not only that, but a sinner who still rebels against God, and so does not live before Him as I ought. In this aspect is the confession that I am far from eternal life in my own ability, in my own way, and unable to attain it. But it is also the confession that acknowledges that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. I confess that though I am guilty and deserve to be punished forever, that Jesus has come according to God's promise, and that He has died for the forgiveness of sins, and that by trusting in Him and His work on the cross, I am forgiven. And that Jesus also gives us the Holy Spirit with the promise that He will transform us little by little in this life, into all that God wants us to be and will perfect this transformation when Jesus Christ returns at the end of the age in his kingdom of glory. Timothy had confessed that through Jesus Christ and through him alone, he had obtained life eternal and was growing daily in that life. That is the good confession. That this was no secret confession, but a confession with his mouth before witnesses. God calls you not only to believe in your heart, but also to confess with your mouth. The Lord Jesus, if you're ashamed of him, he will be ashamed of you. So it sounds like Timothy had already laid hold of eternal life, doesn't it? So why did Paul tell him if he had done all that good confession, everything? Why did he tell him to do that now? Lay hold of eternal life. Well, we've already seen that, haven't we? Timothy had this life is a thing promised and certain, but not fully attained. Eternal life is really the thing that Timothy and you as a Christian. are called to pursue. After you have trusted in Christ and been given His Spirit, it is then that you are enabled by the grace of the Spirit working in you to flee from covetousness and to pursue a life of communion with God. A life in which you do His will and delight to do His will. This eternal life is what we're supposed to be pursuing agonizing, fighting to obtain. It is the fruits of this life that are spelled out for you in verse 11, the fruits of a living relationship with God that you are called to seek instead of covetousness. The first of these fruits is righteousness. Righteousness is simply right conduct with God toward God and others. It means that you learn to put into practice God's law in everyday life. For example, think of the third commandment. The covetous person will curse God because he doesn't get what he wants from the world. He has more respect for the world than he does for God. Or the fourth commandment, the covetous person can't stand to take a day off from his worldly employments to worship God because his heart is wed to the world. And how covetousness gets in the way of righteousness toward your neighbor. The covetousness in you causes you to always focus on what you can get out of your neighbor rather than how you might benefit your neighbor. If you're a merchant or a tradesman, you need to strive to give the customer what they pay for. The righteous person is more concerned about paying bills than he is about getting what he wants. He will do without rather than making others have to do without. Children, for you, righteousness means honoring your parents, obeying them even when they aren't watching you. It means doing your chores and dealing honestly with your parents. And it's just the same for you as if you work for someone else. You treat your parents in the same way. But righteousness does not necessarily mean that you don't require and sometimes even punish others when they don't treat you the way that they're supposed to. Parents, for example, deal righteously with their children by correcting them if they are disrespectful. But they do not do this with an eye toward themselves and their own rights, but with an eye toward God and the sin that has been committed against God. Making things, settling things, making them right with God. Likewise, a judge does right when he sentences an offender to a just punishment for his crime. An employer, when he requires those working for him to give their best, he is pursuing righteousness, not to oppress them, but to. direct them toward giving the customer what is to be given. He's pursuing righteousness. This righteousness should not be confused with the righteousness that justifies us. Christ's righteousness is the only righteousness that justifies us in God's sight, because our righteousness is riddled with sin. The righteousness in view here is a fruit of justified life, not the basis of justification. It is the righteousness that you grow into rather than something you receive all at once. Here it is in Romans 6, 19, just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. And after righteousness, you're told to pursue godliness. We have seen this word a lot in Timothy, haven't we? Godliness. It speaks of a God-oriented life. We might call it a life that is lived around God, a life that is lived in dependence on Him, with delight in Him, with a desire to please Him. We naturally live our lives around the things of this world. Seeking our own blessing and happiness in the world, rather than seeking God. We are worldly, instead of being godly. We may even pray to God and seek to use Him to gain the world, like the false teachers in verse 1, or in 1 Timothy 6, 5, who suppose that godliness was a means of gain. We may even pray to God and seek to use Him to gain the world in that way. And because godliness does not come naturally to us, we must flee from covetousness and pursue godliness. Meditating on the thing we want to purchase comes naturally. But prayer is something that we have to discipline ourselves to do, to want the things that God has promised us and to pray for them. Do you only pray for the things that you want in this world from God, or do you pray for the things that God has promised that are greater than this world? I mean, we have them in this world, but things like godliness, delighting in the inheritance that your rich uncle left you is easy and natural. But it's not so easy to delight in the holiness of in holiness before God or in the love of God or injustice. That's why you have to pursue godliness. You have to fight, agonize and strain to attain. Don't think this is there's something wrong with you because there's a struggle. That's the way it is for all of us. It's no wonder that you struggle. God calls you to walk by faith, and your faith is not strong. As long as we're in this fallen world, we see God through the eyes of faith. That means that when it comes to our relationship with him, we behold him primarily through his word. Certainly we see His mighty works of creation and His bountiful care for us, putting food on our table, but we know Him in His saving grace by faith as it is revealed in the Word. The only way you know that He has forgiven your sin is because He promised to do so as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. to those who trust in Jesus. The only way you know that those who are in Christ will be raised from the dead and live in heaven forever is because he has promised that in the word of God. It's easier to live for the things that you can see for the things that you can't see. In second Corinthians 418, Paul says, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, because the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. So faith is the thing that another thing that you're to pursue exercising diligence to understand God's word. and all of His promises, and then living in light of those promises, depending on God. I mean, do you actually look to God for the things that He has promised you, or is it something that just goes past you? Faith keeps you looking to the Word for guidance, rather than relying on human wisdom to lead you. If you have faith, you'll be willing to lose everything for Christ and His kingdom, because you know that you have a far better kingdom that cannot be shaken. Hebrews 11 commends Moses for this for his faith. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches and the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured is seeing him who is invisible. You flee covetousness and you pursue faith. Next on the list, the thing to pursue is love. Biblical love has to do with giving. We're told that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That Jesus loved us and gave himself for us. That husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. We saw before that righteousness has to do with doing what is just and right to our neighbor. Love goes beyond justice and gives beyond what is required. It does not just say, what must I do? What am I obliged to do? But rather, what can I do? I mentioned this in our afternoon service in Halifax, that when you really love someone, you find ways to love them. If you don't love people, then you say, oh, I don't know how to love them. I don't have any gifts. I can't do anything. Nothing I can do. But if you love them, you find ways. Our text goes on to show you that you also need to pursue patience. You have patience when you're able to keep on serving God, to keep on going and being godly and full of faith and love when everything is going wrong. That's what patience is. That's when it gets really hard to continue. That's when you get tested. If there is ever a time for the covetousness in us to emerge, it's an affliction, isn't it? We suffer loss of the things of this world. Our wealth, our health, our friends, our reputation. You know how it was with Job. He was a blameless and upright man who was growing in righteousness, godliness, faith, and love. And Satan said, no wonder. Look at all of his prosperity he has in this world. Take that away, and then he'll curse you." And God said to Satan, go ahead, take it away. And so Job's children were all killed. He went from a man of great wealth to a man of poverty, from a man of health to a man with a wasting disease, from an honored man to a man who is accused of sin and all kinds of problems because of his condition. Satan did this to destroy Job. But God did it to prove Job. God did it to teach Job patience. The battle was raging for Job, but he fought the good fight of faith. He continued to serve God. He said, though he slay me, yet will I praise him. That was patience. When affliction comes, you feel like giving up, but that's when God is especially calling you to keep going. That's when you are especially called to fight the good fight. You don't learn to keep going except when it's hard to keep going. It's then that you have to fight to keep going. It's then that you learn to lean heavily upon your God. It's in those times that you grow in Him. It's in those times that you learn to take up your cross and die to yourself and to the world that you might live for God. It is in those times that you learn about the sufferings of Christ and that you and that you learn that living for God in this world is about cross bearing, not about glory. Glory comes at the resurrection. This is especially the case when your service to God is itself the cause of your afflictions. In other words, when because you're serving God, you're afflicted. When people are laughing at you and abusing you and rejecting you and impoverishing you and even killing you, because of your life with God. It's then that you're especially tested because you have to choose between Christ and the world. You can't serve two masters, only one. The time comes when one will be rejected for the sake of the other. Pursue patience. Then the last attribute in our text is gentleness or humility. This is the opposite of self assertiveness and self interest. You are gentle when you stop making demands to God about. About the way that you think things ought to be done. You see, instead of being meek and submitting to him, this was the failing of Jonah when he was bummed out with God for calling him to go to Nineveh. bummed out that God would want such wicked persons to be called to repentance. Jonah didn't like that. It was the failing of Peter when Jesus told him that he was going to die on the cross, and Peter rebuked him and said, God forbid. He wasn't being gentle. He wasn't being humble. He was being proud and arrogant. It was the failing of you whenever you think that God's counsel is bad or that he has dealt with something in the wrong way. Why did God do it like this? You know those times. When you are confronted with His Word that you ought to find practical ways to show kindness to love your enemy, for example. You've got an enemy. And what does the Bible tell you? That you overcome evil with good. And you say, well, I don't think that's good counsel. I need to do something else. I've got another plan. Or when you know that you ought to stand up for Christ in a place where it will be embarrassing or intimidating to do so. Remember when Moses had to go to Pharaoh and say, hey, Pharaoh, Lord says, let my people go. Pharaoh says, who's the Lord? And he starts mocking him. Or when you have to go and confront a brother about his sin and you have a thousand reasons to present to God why it's not a good idea to go to that brother. You don't want, what are you doing? You're not being gentle. You're not being humble. You've decided you're the one that is in control. There's no meekness there. Or when God calls you to do anything that is distasteful to you. The bottom line is that it's not about what you want. It's about what God wants. To whatever extent you are covetous, you are on your high horse. You're not gentle, but you're proud and assertive. But Christian, you're called to deny yourself and to follow Christ. He is your master now. So you need to pursue these things. Pride is hard to put down. You have to go into fierce opposition against it in order to be meek and lowly and gentle. So you see what you need to be pursuing as a Christian. There is life with this world. And there is life with God eternal life. You need to let go of this world covetousness and lay hold of eternal life. Flee from covetousness, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience and humility. But remember, it takes agonizing diligence to do this. God calls you to flee. He calls you to pursue. These are not words that are passive. You can't just let your Christian life happen. You're called to stretch every nerve to be all that God wants you to be. But of course, all the fleeing and all the straining will do you no good apart from the grace of God. You don't do all this to earn eternal life, but you do this because God has given you eternal life and His promise is good. You do it because you want what God has promised. You do it because you hope that He will deliver you according to what He has delivered to you, what He has promised. Please stand and let's ask Him to do that. Lord God, we know how sluggish we are. These words that are used here are very strong when they tell us to flee from covetousness and to pursue all of these ways of godliness, righteousness and godliness, patience, gentleness, faith, to pursue all of these things. Father, we pray that we would learn to fight the good fight, to agonize, that we would realize that we cannot just coast along if we want to follow Christ and be his disciples. We thank you that your word is very plain. Lord, we realize that we do need your grace in order to keep going forward, and we pray that you would please bestow it on us. Father, Please forgive us, Lord, because we confess that we have too readily become sluggish in our service to You, in our pursuit of the things that You have told us to pursue. Have mercy on us, Lord. Forgive us, Lord. Strengthen us. Enable us. Father, help us to see the value of these things. We are so caught up with the things that we want, and we don't understand the things that you have called us to. Father, because we don't traffic in them, we don't set them before us. We don't set eternal life before us. We don't set godliness before us. We don't set you before us in all of your beauty and your majesty. Father, come to our aid. Come to our rescue. Help us, Lord. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.