Keep the faith (2 Tim. 4:6–8,16–18)
Today, we conclude our stretch of readings from the pastoral epistles. In what seem to be his last days, Paul is giving Timothy some final words of encouragement by reflecting on his own dependence on Christ. As a great preacher, leader, and keeper of the law, Paul has every reason to boast in his own good work (Ph. 3:6). However, as he does so often, he gives all credit to Christ. It’s important to hear his words in that light today.
As his ministry and life on earth inevitably comes to an end, Paul reflects on his life with three statements which we can take as encouragement today:
Fight the good fight
Finish the race
Keep the faith
Fight the good fight.
This isn’t the first time Paul has urged Timothy to fight for his faith. In his first letter, he charged Timothy to silence those who were teaching false and harmful things in Ephesus. He will have to stand his ground in the face of opposition.
We don’t seem to really need to fight for our faith all that often. We live in a peaceful corner of the world where it’s fairly common for people to go to church somewhere.
For some, much of your social life exists within this church community anyway. Or, most of your immediate family might be here. Saying “no” to church would be more of a fight than going with it.
For others, coming to worship might be more of a private thing. You know your fellow Christians enough to catch up when you come, but your friends outside the church either don’t know you do it or don’t seem to really care. Coming to worship is something you do yourself and there’s no problem with it.
What does it mean, then, to “fight the good fight”? If we generally don’t have much of a need to defend our faith or deal with persecution, what need is there to fight?
It might seem like we live in peace, but there is a real battle going on all around us. This is the battle between good and evil, and it plays out in very normal ways.
Take the Andrew Thorburn episode as an example. An experienced business person, Mr Thorburn is selected as the CEO of the Essendon Football Club after an interview process. Hours later, his involvement with City on a Hill Church is discovered. A sermon that expresses thoroughly biblical perspectives on homosexuality is dug up from 2013, and he is immediately sacked.
It’s illegal to ask someone about their religious views in a job interview. If, by some terrible mistake, you’ve accidentally hired a Christian, it’s perfectly acceptable to fire them on that basis.
Mr Thorburn did release a statement expressing his disappointment, but he hasn’t taken legal action or anything like that. He is not fighting in that way. However, he has not bowed under the pressure and admitted fault either. His faith (or at least his connection to a church) cost him his job, but his response was one of strength without aggression. To me, that was a great witness.
Fighting for our faith is not about proving others wrong even when we know they are. The Word informs everything we say and do as a church and as Christian people—Pastor Stephen Schultz reminded us of that last week. It’s our duty as Christian people, therefore, to know what Scripture says and be prepared to speak up when needed in an informed and Christ-like way.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that we only need to defend our faith from non-Christians. Even within the church, we get things wrong all the time. We don’t love our neighbour when we should. We’re not generous when we should be. Saying we’re Christian does not automatically mean we act consistently with it.
God does not need protecting or guarding. He’s big enough to look after himself. But we fight the good fight of faith in a way that shows people the truth. We stand up against the un- biblical and un-Christ-like in order to give people the Gospel in its fullness. We say “no” so that we can be absolutely confident in our “yes.”
Finish the race.
When we think about a race, our minds tend to go towards winning and losing. After all, isn’t that the point of a race? You have to be in it to win it. You have to want to win it to be in it.
Paul does not say, “I have won the race.” Getting to the end of it is an achievement in itself.
Our lives can be like a marathon at times. We run along, weary and sore, trusting that the finish line is somewhere down the road. We can’t see the end and it’s hard to know how far we have to go.
Our lives can also be like a rally stage through a European forest. The dirt track has a rock face on one side and a steep drop on the other. One wrong move could result in a serious crash and a long repair job. Staying on the track is hard enough, let alone getting to the finish. There are people that go before you, and others that come after you, but you can’t get too fixated on their results. You have to focus on your own drive.
To carry that metaphor along a bit, rally drivers have a co-driver. They study the map beforehand and inform the driver when a turn is coming up, which direction it is, and how severe it is. Right, 3. Left, 5. Right, hairpin. There is no time for further explanation. You can’t pull over and study the map again. The driver has to trust in his co-driver’s direction.
The Christian life is a lot like that.
Take our current church context as an example. Again, at our final Sacramental Ministry session, Pastor Stephen Schultz reminded us of the strange position our church is in. There is a grand total of seven men studying for the ordained ministry right now, while a far larger number are retiring in the next few years.
We can view that situation as a problem where, if we keep our current structure and understanding of the church’s ministry, the numbers do not match the demand.
We can also view our situation as an opportunity. Pastor Steve suggested that maybe, just maybe, God has dried up the supply of pastors for a reason. Maybe he is actually in control of his church. Maybe it’s not all about poor decisions that have been made or our leadership misleading us.
We don’t really know what it means just yet, but there is a growing sense that we need to listen to what God might be saying to us. He is in the co-driver’s seat giving us directions with very little detail and we don’t know where the finish line us, but there is a rock face on one side and a steep drop on the other.
We fight the good fight against our own perceptions and our own doubts. Instead, we focus on what Christ says to us and what he is doing with us. If we listen to him, we will finish the course that is set before us.
Keep the faith.
Fighting the good fight and finishing the race are metaphors for this last point: keep the faith.
Having faith in something implies that there will be moments of doubt and questioning. These are good things. We heard only last week that this is a normal part of being a person of the Gospel:
As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2 Tim. 4:5
That suffering presents itself in all kinds of ways, of course, but moments of doubt and questioning are certainly one aspect of it. Paul says elsewhere, in Romans:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Rom. 5:1–5
Faith, peace, grace, hope. That is the order of events. But, in the first place, faith is not something we produce from within ourselves. It is given and grown by the Holy Spirit at our baptism, re-affirmed at our confirmation, and every time we take part in the Lord’s Supper. The Spirit’s sole purpose is to bring us to Christ. It is that Christ, the righteous judge, who will greet us on the last day and place on our heads the crown of righteousness: eternal life. That crown has already been won for we who love him and follow him.
Let’s pray that he will strengthen our faith.
