LIVE Join our service streaming live right now! Click here to watch.
We too often forget that the source is joyful and accept the far more mundane or depressing secondhand source.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The preacher argues that Christians often fail the good fight not through outright defeat but through gradual compromise of conscience. Can you think of an area in your own life—at work, online, or in relationships—where you’ve felt tempted to bend your convictions “just a little” for a good reason? What made that compromise feel justified at the time?
Paul calls Timothy to remember the prophecies and prayers spoken over him during his commissioning so he won’t forget his calling when persecution comes. What role do the prayers, affirmations, and reminders of God’s past faithfulness from your church community play in steadying your faith when you face opposition for your convictions?
The Dieselgate illustration reveals how a company compromised standards in one context while claiming to meet them elsewhere. Where do you see Christians doing something similar—appearing faithful in one setting (church, Christian community) while operating by different standards elsewhere (social media, workplace, politics)? How does that double standard undermine the very cause we’re trying to advance?
Paul “hands over” Hymenaeus and Alexander to Satan through church discipline, but the preacher frames this as an act of mercy meant to restore rather than punish. How does that differ from how church discipline is often practiced or perceived today? What would correction motivated by genuine restoration actually look like in your community?
The preacher insists that fighting the good fight means fighting honorably—not just winning by any means necessary. How do Christians today rationalize using worldly tactics like anger, manipulation, or political maneuvering in service of gospel causes? What would it practically cost to refuse those shortcuts, and what would be gained?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
It’s hard to weigh the value of a life, isn’t it? As it should be, because life is incredibly valuable. It’s a gift from God. That makes it all the more striking and mind-boggling when we hear people wrestle with the loss of a loved one in the midst of a war. I was thinking I’d heard an interview with the president from a couple weeks ago as he talked about meeting with the families of soldiers who have died over the last few weeks in the war with Iran. And he said something I’ve heard presidents and military leaders over the decades say about the families of fallen soldiers. They always say to the person commanding, please finish the job. Don’t let my son, my daughter’s life be in vain.
There are a lot of different ways we could react if something happens to a loved one. We could rage against what had happened. We could say, why did you do this insane thing? But when they believe that there’s a just and important cause, like taking down a terrorist regime that has killed thousands of Americans and countless thousands more people all around the world and may continue to do so, and they see that value, it’s not that they’d say, I really want to trade my son or my daughter for this cause. But as they see that price has been paid, they want to see the job finished because they realize that their family member, their loved one was serving in something that was a good charge, an important thing. And now they want to see it finished.
We’re coming to the end of First Timothy chapter one tonight. And in First Timothy, we’ve been looking at Paul giving his charge over to the next generation, giving it to Timothy. And as he is, he’s trying to instill in Timothy, this is a good charge. This is something where the job needs to be finished. And when we think about worldly affairs, it makes sense to finish certain jobs, right? A just war fought honorably is something that you want to see the job finished. Even though it boggles our minds that loved ones, they look at that price paid, can see the value, they say, no, my son, my daughter believed in this cause, fought for this cause, fought honorably, I want to see it through.
How much more so then? As Paul’s handing over this charge to Timothy, he says, I’ve faced certain death multiple times. And by God’s grace, I’m still alive to tell you this. But we need to finish this job. And in the time thereafter, some apostles and some of their successive generations after them, their children in the faith, were able to live to old age, and some of them had their lives cut off in a very abbreviated form. But in each case, because they saw the value in it, they saw this is an important cause, it is in fact the important cause. They wanted to finish the job.
Paul here wants Timothy to be equipped with the certainty of that, so that Timothy then can see through the job and see it through to the next generation, and the next, and the next, and the next, comes all the way down to us. And it’s also why it’s so important that we hear the same thing that Paul was saying to Timothy, because you know what? We need to have the certainty that the job needs to be finished, too. Maybe it will someday come to our actual lives. What would we do if we were threatened with death for fighting for the cause of the gospel? Not a cause of this world, but a cause against the forces outside of this world. What would we do then?
It’s a challenging thing to think about, and we often don’t know exactly how we’d land, where we’d compromise, how by God’s grace maybe we would be prevented from compromising. There’s all the more reason to go and to think about it. Just like a good soldier thinks about, am I willing to pay this price? Because as difficult as it is to think about, if there is a battle, and there’s absolutely a spiritual battle, we need to be ready for it. Let’s pray tonight that God would equip us in this next season to be ready for it. A battle not fought with guns, and tanks, and planes, but one fought in the spiritual realm, standing up for the gospel, seeing more people come to know Jesus, and knowing that God is there for us.
Knowing that everything that opposes him wants to oppose everyone who proclaims the gospel, and yet the cause is good, and the job will be finished by God’s grace. Would you pray with me, please? Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for this opportunity, again, to study your word. And Lord, we need your equipping. Sometimes it does feel like we face challenges well beyond our capacity, and we wonder, can I somehow get out of this? Do I have to go through this? We wonder still more, what happens if I face even more opposition? What if I had to give my life for the gospel? What would I do?
And Lord, we pray that you would have us be so filled with your confidence. Confidence both in the mission, in what you’re calling us to, and also in the assurance of your love, that even on pain of death, we would cling to your gospel in an uncompromising fashion, because we know it’s true, and the message of your love is good and needed. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Our fight is worth holding on to, and that’s what Paul says here. We go to verse 18. He says, I put this charge before you, Timothy, my child, in keeping with the prophecies once spoken about you, in order that with such encouragement you may fight the good fight. The good fight, fighting that good fight, that’s our charge. That’s what we’re being sent to do.
If you think about it, our soldiers that are fighting for this country right now, what are they doing? They’re fighting both for the safety of those of us living here in the United States, and also, as a virtuous side effect of that, they’re also fighting for the freedom of 90 million people in Iran that are currently oppressed, including many brothers and sisters in Christ, and many more who would love to hear the gospel, who desperately want that hope, some hope, even if they don’t know what that hope is yet. And so we see that kind of fight, and we say, okay, we can understand that.
But as Paul speaks to Timothy, he’s talking about a fight here. He’s using fight language, war language. Why? Because, well, if you’ve been a Christian for some time, you know that there’s a battle, a spiritual battle. If you become a Christian, you might think, well, this is going to get easier, right? I have Jesus on my side now. And yet, oftentimes, it feels heavier. Why? Because the forces of this world, the forces of evil, they oppose God’s kingdom. And make no mistake, God is going to be triumphant. There’s no doubt about that.
It’s not like an earthly war where we think, well, will we eventually just give up? Will we have to retreat? We’ve seen the most powerful militaries in the world, at times, have to retreat. God’s mission will not be defeated like that. But all the same, in the moment, it’s hard. Paul says to Timothy, remember the prophecy spoken over you. Remember that commission that you were given, how it was spoken into your life that you had a mission, so that when you face these things, when it gets really tough, when the bombs of spiritual war are falling around you, and you wonder if it’d be easier to just call it a day and give up, or compromise so that you don’t get caught in the crossfire.
Boy, it’s tempting. But you can’t do that, and you won’t do that if you hold on to what was spoken of you in the past. What’s he referring to there, those prophecies? Well, it seems like what’s in view here is that when Timothy was ordained, when he had the laying on of hands and was commissioned to go and do the work, very much like we do today with pastors, right? We lay hands upon a man who’s going to be ordained as a pastor and pray over him and commission him to go and do the work of the gospel, that Timothy had received that, and that the Lord had actually allowed prophecy to be spoken.
We don’t see that today, typically, but nonetheless, we can just look at God’s word and the call that’s true of every Christian. Speak that over someone today. If you serve, whether in an ordained ministry or you’re serving in any ministry, there have probably been times where people have prayed for you. We ought to, and certainly at Little Hills, we try to pray for everybody that’s serving in any way, anybody that’s part of the church family. We need to be praying for each other. And Paul’s saying here, remember the promises God said, the support of God’s people, remember those things, because you’re going to face all kinds of things.
And Paul realizes he’s not going to always be there to encourage Timothy. So Timothy needs to hold on to what Paul’s conveyed to him, what the others have conveyed to him, so that when it’s difficult, he realizes he’s not doing this alone. He has the endorsement of the community of the church family, and crucially, the endorsement of God. He’s going and doing the work of the Lord. He has the Lord behind him. These are amazing things to think about when you really think about it.
But in the heat of the moment, in the battle, when the bombs are blasting, it’s really easy to forget that. When you make a stand for your faith and people start getting angry, even if you’re doing it in the most loving, commendable way, and people are just angry because it’s intolerant to think there’s actually truth, or to think that God calls us to moral standards, and people get mad. And we are graceful and caring in the way that we do it, and yet it still makes people mad. It’s really tempting to think, well, maybe I could compromise instead, because I don’t like having people mad at me. I don’t like how that gets in the way of relating to the people in my community.
At work, it might get in the way of promotion. Suddenly, someone’s complaining about me. Oh, he’s one of those intolerant Christians. She’s one of those troublemaking Christians. And it’s tempting. What Paul’s saying here, to be clear, as we talk about regularly, he’s not telling Timothy, go and be obnoxious because you’re this cult. No, he’s saying, go and fight the good fight, right? Very much like the soldier.
When those parents of a fallen soldier say to the commanding officer or to the leader, please go finish the job, they’re not saying, go and fight dishonorably. No, part of that entails, go and fight honorably, because our loved one fought honorably, and we want to see that honorable mission finished. And that’s what Paul’s saying here. Go and fight the spiritual fight honorably. The good fight, as he says.
A lot of times, we get part of that, right? We want peace, so we compromise. We say, well, that’s good. Peace is good. But no, we need to hold to our charge and hold to the good fight. And on the other hand, sometimes we get that fight part. Oh, I’m going to make it clear what I believe. I’m going to make sure people know that and how foolish maybe they are for not believing it. And we forget, no, it’s supposed to be the good fight. We need to do it honorably by God’s standards.
We talked about that last night about how people were compromising in Israel. And it’s the same problem that happens in the New Testament as well. And it’s the same problem that happens today.
What Paul’s saying here is Timothy is a fight worth fighting, and it’s a fight worth fighting by God’s standards. Some of us are going to fall to the war, not in a morally compromised way, but rather we’re going to die, right? Paul knew that this isn’t just a metaphor in this time. It really is a war. Someone might kill any of us or all of us. And what are we doing all the way up to that? Are we ready for that? And are we aiming that whether our time is long or short, that what we can say completely assuredly is that by God’s grace we’re doing it the way that he wants us to, in a way that’s pleasing to him?
Paul’s saying, go and hold on to this truth that was said of you so you don’t just seem to succeed, but you really do succeed. Everything Paul’s been talking about this chapter is leading up to that. He’s talking about his own experience that grounded him, how the Lord worked in his life so he was grounded. And then he’s pouring that into Timothy and saying, take that along with what you’ve experienced personally and hold it all together, because you’re going to need that strength. You need that foundation. You need to know that this is the God whom we serve.
The amazing things he’s done, the praise we talked about last week where Paul just breaks out into praise. You need to have that behind you, because if you don’t have that, you’re not going to make it. Sometimes, very much physically, literally, right? Certain parts of the world right now, Christians have to decide, am I willing to put my life at stake for the gospel?
So there’s that, but also the metaphorical, right? Are we willing to pay the cost? All the different costs that come with actually standing for something. And not standing for and not standing for the popular camps of the world, but rather standing for God’s camp, which is always alien. We find Christians who say, well, here is a group of people in the world, and they’re not talking about the church, they’re talking about some movement in the world that represents God’s movement, right? Let’s just say, up front, they’re wrong.
There are some movements that might be more or less aligned, but every worldly movement will compromise. And what Paul’s saying is, are you ready to live as an alien to your world? To always be outside, always be a fish out of water, because that’s the call of the gospel. We’re not going to fit. And if we find a group where we fit outside of God’s people, being God’s people, not just that there’s a lot of God’s people there, but obviously we should fit in the church, right? It might be difficult, but we should fit there because it’s God’s people, and we’re being the agents of the kingdom.
But outside of that, if we find a place where we fit, we probably need to say, God, help me to see the places where I’m compromising, and so I’m comfortable because I’m compromising. Because I want to fight the good fight. Because we only hold on to part of it, and when we only hold on to part of it, we’re not really holding on to any of it.
Many of you know, I have a little VW bug that I’ve had for 20 years now. I love my little bug. And I remember when I was looking for it back in 2006, I looked at a whole bunch of different ones, went to all the different Volkswagen dealers in the area, and some of them had the diesel beetle. And I liked the diesel beetle for a number of reasons. I’m kind of quirky about things like that. I enjoyed the fact that it was just different. I also enjoyed the fact that it was a little bit different.
I also enjoyed, when I test drove it, pulling up to someone, and they’re in their bigger car, and they look at this little bitty bug, but it has that roar of a diesel engine in it. It was just amusing. And it also got great fuel economy. Those engines run forever. There were so many appealing things. But gas prices were really high in 2006, as they do at times, and go at times. And while they would negotiate on the sticker price of a gasoline bug, they actually were asking over sticker for a diesel bug. So I didn’t get one.
But for a few years, they were incredibly popular, and not just in the bugs, but in any Volkswagen that had them. People wanted these diesel Volkswagens because it was an opportunity to get a car that got greater fuel mileage. And at the time, diesel was the same or cheaper than regular gasoline, so it had an appeal to it. But then something happened. You can’t find a diesel Volkswagen today. It’s hard to find a diesel of any sort in the United States today. Why? Well, it’s because of something that got named Dieselgate.
You see, as our different environmental standards increased, the EPA and other agencies in the United States that regulate pollution wanted cleaner diesels, and so Volkswagen embarked on making a cleaner diesel. But they wanted still to have the power that you expected, and to have it get the fuel economy we want, all these different things. And so they realized that to meet the standards, they could compromise on the performance, or they could compromise on the standards, but government doesn’t really like when you ignore what they tell you to do.
So they came up with what seemed like a good solution. They put a little chip inside the systems of the car that turned on stricter emissions controls when the car was tested, and turned them off when it wasn’t being tested, so that it could seemingly run really well, but still pass the government’s requirements. Only it didn’t really pass them, right? Because the government doesn’t say, it needs to be this good when we’re testing it. No, they wanted to be that good all the time.
When this diesel defeat device became known, it did untold damage to Volkswagen. It’s taken them years to recover from that. I think they finally maybe have. And it pretty much did in the whole re-emerging diesel market in the United States for cars, because people heard about this, and even though it wasn’t really that bad, it made the existing diesels less valuable, and made people hesitant to buy one.
I thought about it. Well, did they achieve their purpose? Did they achieve the purpose of a car that performed well, that still actually did pretty well on the fuel economy and environmental issues? Yeah, they did. But they compromised in a way that completely undermined what they were really trying to do, to promote this cause, to get people to want these cars, right? No one wants them now. And so it was all lost because they compromised.
And that’s what we do when we compromise as Christians. When we pick up the ways of the world, we’re argumentative, we’re angry, we’re playing by the political rules. When we do these sorts of things, it’s sort of like putting that defeat device. And we come and we turn on the good emissions when we’re in church, and we’re running really well, but we feel like we’re hindered because God’s requirements are hard on us.
And then you get to going out in the world, and that chip turns off, and we start running at full speed, but we’re leaving all kinds of sin pollution that keep people from actually seeing what’s good and true. We need to remember the things said of us, and use those things that have been said as Christians, that commission what God says of us, and what the church family says of us, not only to make us go on a mission, right? Volkswagen went on a mission to sell these cars, but to do it the right way. We need both of those.
So Paul goes on in verse 19, he says, you need to hold to the good faith so that you can do the good fight, because the good faith is the fuel of the good fight. Take a look at verse 19. He says, to do this, you must hold firmly to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected, and so have suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith. Among those are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan.
Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan, to be taught not to blaspheme. That sounds kind of harsh, doesn’t it? We’ve been talking about spiritual warfare, now Paul is handing people over to Satan? What’s going on here?
Well, the first thing we should say is that Paul is clearly saying the stakes are high, right? We’re not talking about, do you get an A plus as a Christian or a B as a Christian? We’re talking about, are we actually succeeding in fighting the good fight or not? Is that important? And what’s that important? Well, holding on to the truth and holding on to it in good conscience. We’re actually doing it as God intended us to do it.
Good conscience doesn’t just mean, I can sleep at night, I’m not bothered by it. I don’t mind if I do this. But rather, we’re actually preserving a conscience that’s the way God wants it. We’re saying, Holy Spirit, keep my conscience tuned to your will. When I’m okay with something, but you’re not, make me not okay with it. I don’t want to sleep well at night while I do things that are displeasing to you. I want to be focused on you.
Our society, again, says, compromise so you can win. And a lot of Christians fall into this trap. We believe this trap is an abomination to our God. That’s what Paul’s saying here. There were people who had bought into it then. This is not something new. It’s something that’s been throughout the ages. And every time we have a good reason, we think it makes sense. We think the battle is crucial. We think our need for advancement is crucial. We think there’s some reason we can do this. And God says, no. Hold on to integrity.
Integrity. Don’t commit spiritual war crimes. Do what is right. And these two men that Paul singles out and live in infamy over the millennia since, because they were clearly not doing that. What did they do? Well, I think they really just rejected that principle of good conscience. They were willing to cut corners, were not told necessarily all the details of what they were doing, but they weren’t fighting the good fight any longer. And it may very well be they didn’t even realize it. They just compromised so much that they were now blinded to it.
Paul says, Timothy, don’t let that happen to you. Hold on to what is true. Don’t lose a sense of your charge, because your charge isn’t just accomplish this mission for God, but accomplish this mission holding on to what he values. Do it in the good and honorable way. Remember the source of your strength. It isn’t your ingenuity. It isn’t the worldly ways of power. It is through our God and our God alone.
Exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 6:10, Armor of God. Finally be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, having done everything to stand.
Stand firm therefore by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, by fitting your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace, and in all of this by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Notice nothing Paul mentions there are the ways of the world. They’re analogous, right? We have these images of instruments of warfare, but they’re all tied to what our God provides. And our heads, what is it protected by? By salvation itself, right? No one can take that away. That’s how we should remember. That’s what we need to remember in the moment that we can hold on to what God has called us to, because he’s the one providing the armor anyway. He knows what we need to do.
And even when it feels like we’re failing from a worldly standpoint, he is the one who ultimately determines success, and he will bring about real true success. The church and her people do not succeed when we’re not operating by God’s standards, period. It’s that simple.
And so what does Paul do here? Well, he says he hands these people over to Satan. That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But what Paul’s referring to here is that he’s essentially putting these two men under church discipline. That’s a word that sometimes can make us uncomfortable because it’s used poorly so often. In fact, oftentimes church discipline becomes a technique of the world, right? A way to achieve unequal power so that those who are wielding it can use it against people they don’t like, that kind of thing.
But when it’s properly done, the point of it is to actually stand for God’s principles, and when people fall away from God’s principles, to write a shock to their system that returns them to God’s principles, to wake someone up when he or she is driving off the cliff, as it were. That’s what these two men are doing, right? Their consciences are so dulled by their compromise, they can’t see anymore the fact they’re not even fighting the good fight. And so by being disciplined, by being set outside the church for a time, Paul is aiming for them to do what? To be restored.
That’s what he says here at the end of the chapter. I’ve handed them over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. That learning part is crucial. We don’t want to miss that. We get shocked by that Satan part, and we miss the second part, which is this is happening so that they learn something. It’s one of the reasons why church discipline so often looks ugly, because it’s not done to help people learn. It’s done to get revenge.
Paul’s not getting revenge here. God doesn’t want us to get revenge. But he does want us to call each other back to faithfulness when we stray. And that’s what’s happening here. It’s a motive of mercy, because these people are just driving themselves further and further away from God. And Paul says, well, you need to understand where you really are. You’re running towards Satan. So experience that for a moment, so you don’t drag a bunch of people to experience that forever.
We need that. We need that correction. Because a lot of times we start out wanting to fight the good fight, and we become misdirected, and we forget our charge and where God wants us. I see that so often. I’m sure many of you do. If you’re on social media, which you are, here you are.
How many pastors do we see, Bible teachers, who maybe went online and started teaching for the sake of fighting the good fight? And many of them maybe even intended to. But in this algorithmic world that pressures us to be controversial, and to gain followings, and to say what those followers want us to say, how many of them have compromised dramatically, even from what they themselves would have said was good a year or two or ten years ago? Because to fight the good fight, they thought they needed to bend.
The rabbit hole of Acts is a great example of that. And there are so many people who have led churches for years who say horrible things on there. Terrible things. And it’s just shocking. It’s sort of like, how can they be saying this? But it gets likes, gets shares, gets followers.
And if you believe you’re fighting the good fight, well, I need more people, right? You want a bigger army. You want more people, if they’re keeping on to the mission in general, we want more people to be in the kingdom. And so if they follow me and I’m talking about the gospel, that’s great. And at some point, they really aren’t even talking about the gospel anymore, but they don’t even realize it, because they become blinded to it. May we not do that? So easy.
That’s what Paul’s dealing with here. People, they were on the Jerusalem equivalent of Acts, right? They went into the town square and said things, or they went into the church and said things that were inappropriate. We don’t know what all they were doing, but we know they were doing things that were no longer holding to good conscience. And Paul says, they need to be corrected. And Timothy, you need to remember them, so you don’t do what they are doing.
You need to hold to the good faith, good conscience. How do we do that? Because if people who are smarter than us can fall, how do we avoid it? Well, because it’s not really about us and our smarts. It’s about God and his mercy and his love and seeking him. And we should hold to right doctrine. That’s an important part of it.
Certainly, when we say, I don’t care what I believe, or I want to believe what suits me better, that’s a giant opening to the forces of evil to say, hey, come in and take advantage of this person, because he or she isn’t being discerning, isn’t really focused on God’s word. That is a huge thing. But there are plenty of people we can point to who are holding on to, on paper, the right doctrine, but have lost the way that we should operate.
They know the battle plan. They know what the accomplishment is, the fall of the tyrannical regime of sin. But they’re committing spiritual war crimes all the way through because they’ve forgotten their commission. They’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to do and who they’re representing.
So how do we do better than that? Remember that it’s all about God’s love. That’s why it’s not about how smart we are. It’s just simply staying focused on God’s love. That’s why Paul has been able to fight the good fight. Because what? Because we saw last week, he breaks down to praise because he’s so amazed by how God works. He’s telling Timothy, don’t forget that. Remember what God’s been doing in your life all throughout your life. Don’t forget that.
Because when you are amazed by how God works and you’re focused on him, you’re going to act differently. You’re going to stay true to what he’s called you to do. Remember that good fight and do it in good conscience, according to the true faith. You’re going to do those things.
A good way to ask ourselves if we’re doing that is to say, do I look like Jesus in how I’m doing things? Old, what would Jesus do is a definite cliché, but you know, it’s not a bad thing to ask. And sometimes we say, well, it’s kind of hard to figure out exactly what Jesus would do in this situation.
But what we could say certainly is what would Jesus have me do? He says to love our neighbor and to love God. Are the things I’m doing, loving my neighbor and loving God? Are they making me feel important? Are they getting attention for me? Are they getting attention for the Lord? Those are the sorts of things we need to ask constantly.
We need to come to our God in humble prayer and say, help me. If I am prideful and blind in a spot, help me to see it as painful as that is. If someone else in the church has fallen into that, help me not to seek to humiliate them, not to seek to punish them, but help them to learn. Help me to learn. Help me to help others to learn. That’s what Paul is talking about here.
Why? Because there’s something worth fighting for. There’s a job worth finishing. And when we look at Christians throughout the ages who have died for the faith or have suffered for the faith, who are suffering today for the faith, they’re looking at us and saying, finish the job. God’s worked through us. Now he’s working through you. Don’t forget. That’s what Paul’s saying here. Finish the job, Timothy.
He’s saying to you and to me, finish the job. We’re remembering that. Come back to our charge over and over again. And in this world, we’re going to see a lot of things trying to pull us away from that charge. But we’re charged with something beautiful. We’re charged with God’s love and spreading it.
It’s a charge that is endlessly worthwhile and of such great value. There is no charge that could be given that’s more beautiful and more meaningful. There’s a charge that’s conveying the very gift that God has given us, given to me, given to you. And so all we need to do is say, God, help me to carry on what you’ve already given to me.
God, help me to carry on what you’ve already given to me and help more people to experience. When we do, we’re fighting the good fight. Would you pray with me, please? Father, would you help us to be those of integrity, those who fight the good fight? We don’t compromise in your ways. When we do, we realize that you are a God of forgiveness. And the thing to do is to come to you and to repent, and to be corrected, and to be redirected.
And Lord, would you help us to be eager for your correction? That’s a hard thing to pray. We don’t want that. I don’t want that. But we know that’s what we need, Lord, because we are prone to wander, and we lose that commission, the sense of it.
A lot of times what are actually spiritual war crimes are appealing in the moment because they seem like they’ll help us, or they seem like they’ll actually get to the end goal. But Lord, that’s not what you want. And you didn’t want it back 2,000 years ago, and you don’t want it today. You didn’t want it even further back in Isaiah’s time and rewind another almost millennia. You’ve never wanted it. You always want us to do what is right and good because we can have confidence that you are the one fighting the battle.
It’s not really ultimately us, and so we don’t need to compromise because you are strong, and good, and victorious. And as we start to near Holy Week, Lord, would you help us to be a people holding on to you all the more, ready to fight the good fight in good conscience? We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
I hope that this has been an encouragement to you today. And as I always say, would you give us a like or a share? People need to hear about what it is that we are really about as Christians. One of the things that we need to say very clearly is we’re about actually functioning with integrity. We don’t want to be like often even the church is. We want to be like Jesus is.
So if this is something that has been a blessing to you, would you share it so maybe someone else could be blessed by it as well? It makes a difference. Genuinely, it makes a difference. If you have any prayer requests, any questions, I always love hearing from you. You can text us at 833-356-4032 or the comment box below. Leave a comment, either way, whichever you’d prefer.
It’s great to hear from you. Great to get to pray with you. And then I hope you’ll join me next week. We’re nearing Holy Week. Palm Sunday is this Sunday. I hope you join us at 5:30 p.m. And then we pick up a brand new Steadfast series to bring us into Holy Monday and to help us to continue to focus as we look towards Maundy Thursday and Easter.
And that’s a new series called The One Who Does. I sure hope that you’ll join me for that. You’ll notice there we’ve had our series on Sunday nights. We all know how we can be dumber than oxen. And you’ll notice we’re in the same field, but it’s thawing, right? It’s thawing and things are starting to sprout. Why? Because God is the one who does, and he will take every frost and melt away the cold, melt away the death, and bring new life.
And that’s what we’re going to be celebrating over the next couple of weeks. So I do hope that you’ll join me for that series. We’re going to be going into Psalm 12 over the subsequent three weeks. We’ll start it off during Holy Week, reflect further on Easter Monday, and then wrap it up a week after that, and just think about how God is the God who does.
That’s certainly what we can proclaim as Christians over this coming season, and it’s still true today. So I hope you’ll join me 7 p.m. Central Time next Monday. In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week, and I’ll see you again very soon.
Start the Conversation