DON’T SHIPWRECK YOUR FAITH
1 Timothy 1:18-20; Dorn Ridge May 05, 2013
Audio Link to sermon: http://chirb.it/fvHc15
INTRODUCTION:
1.) I have titled this morning’s message: “Don’t Ship-wreck your faith.”
2.) Paul was writing to a young minister some advice for ministering to the Church at Ephesus.
3.) The task would not be an easy one.
A.) Timothy would require a faith in Christ strong enough to float his life and ministry.
B.) If he did not have that kind of faith, he would himself be in danger of becoming a spiritual ship-wreck.
4.) Today, we have those same two directions that our life can go in.
A.) either our faith will float us, or we will become spiritual ship-wrecks.
I. PAUL GIVES WISDOM TO KEEP OUR FAITH AFLOAT.
1.) There had been prophecies made about Timothy.
1Tim. 1:18a.
A.) The early church had prophets within it.
aa.) Certainly this is a gift that was present in the early church, yet one which is no longer present in the church today.
ab.) The Apostle Paul predicted that the gift of prophecy as well as the other spiritual gifts during the infancy of the church would come to an end.
aba.) 1 Cor. 13:8-10
B.) The prophecy included a spiritual gift.
ba.) The gift was received when the body of elders laid their hands on Timothy.
bb.) Today, we do not know what Timothy had received as a spiritual gift.
bba.) Scripture does not reveal that to us.
bbb.) Whatever it was, it was to be a gift to help him in his ministry for Jesus Christ.
bc.) Whatever the prophecy about Timothy, it was something that he had the choice to follow, but in following would help him in his spiritual walk with Jesus Christ.
bd.) Paul encourages him in this as it was something that if he exercised it would help him to keep his faith in Christ afloat.
2.) Fight the good fight.
-- 1 Tim. 1:18b.
A.) Paul uses this term twice in his epistles to Timothy. aa.) One of the things with Paul was that he loved sports.
ab.) I think right now as the playoffs in Hockey are going on that if Paul was here, he would have his own team picked out, and would be cheering for which team was going to win that game, and also the
playoffs.
ac.) Paul often uses the imagery of a sporting event to speak of our relationship with Christ.
aca.) Here as Paul is challenging Timothy to keep his faith in Christ afloat, he encourages him to have a good fight.
acb.) I picture the scene of a wrestling or boxing match, and the coaching before the actual match.
acb-1.) At that time, the referee, or some game official announces the moves that are legal, and those which you are not allowed to be used.
acb-2.) This is what Paul was doing. He was telling Timothy to keep the fight clean. To live his life in such a way as to honour Jesus Christ.
ad.) Paul had told Timothy to fight the good fight.
B.) We compare it to a fight in sports, but really it was far more intense than just that.
ba.) There was an actual fight and spiritual warfare going on, and Timothy had to be prepared for a fight with the forces of darkness – the forces of Satan.
bb.) False teachers such as those Paul had mentioned to Timothy had already come into the Church.
C.) Another challenge for Timothy and the early church was Nero.
ca.) Nero was the emperor of Rome, and and some would even argue that he was a bit on the crazy side.
cb.) To understand some of the background of this text, this epistle was written sometime around AD 63-65.
cc.) On July 18, A.D.64 the City of Rome caught fire.
cd.)According to the ancient historian Tacitus, over the next few days the fire burned and reduced to ashes over 70% of the city of Rome.
ce.) When the fire was out, only 4 of 14 districts in Rome were untouched by the fire, and over half of the population were left on the streets without a home.
D.) In the days and weeks after the fire, there were many questions as to why the fire had happened, and how it had started.
E.) Some had even said that Nero himself was the originator of the fire, though this could not be substantiated.
ea.) One of the things that made people think that Nero had set the fires, was that after the fires had burnt out, he had claimed some of the burnt land for his own purposes.
eb.) So to take the eyes, and blame off of himself, Nero begin accusing the Christians of setting the fires in the city of Rome.
eba.) Nero would refer to the Church’s teachings on the fire of hell that would one day destroy this world, as evidence to blame the Christians for the fires.
ec.) To further his point, Nero began a very ruthless and intense persecution of the church.
eca.) Christians were regularly tied to a pole, and dipped in hot pitch and set on fire as human torches to light the games.
ecb.) Other Christians would be thrown in mass into the amphitheatre to be ravaged and eaten by lions that had intentionally been starved for days at a time.
F.) With this as a backdrop, the Apostle Paul says to Timothy to “Fight the Good fight, Hold onto the faith, and to keep a good conscience.”
G.) The instructions that Paul was giving to Timothy and to you and I was to keep our faith and commitment to Jesus Christ floating above whatever pressures could attack us.
H.) Do you think these Christians knew anything about faith, and giving your all to Jesus Christ?
ha.) You want to believe that many of them had a very strong faith to float them through all of this.
II. PAUL GIVES WARNINGS THAT OUR FAITH CAN BECOME SHIPWRECKED.
1.) Paul expresses the truth that one’s faith can become ship- wrecked.
A.) The imagery of a shipwreck is not a beautiful scene. aa.) To picture being on a ship and to have that ship battered and broken on a ledge is not a beautiful sight.
ab.) Rather a shipwreck would happen by human or mechanical failure, either way, it was a devastating event.
B.) In April of 1992 I began working for Offshore Fish of Deer Island.
C.) One of the vessels owned by Offshore Fish was the “Ventura”
ca,) Three or four months before I had started working with Offshore fish, the Ventura was being used to drop mooring blocks into the sea for the establishment of a salmon site.
caa.) These mooring blocks were chunks of cement that had been poured in the shape of blocks about 4’X4’X6’, or apx. 7-10 tons each.
cb.) As one of the mooring blocks was being prepared to lower into the sea, something happened, and the load shifted.
cc.) When the load shifted a portion of the Ventura was hauled into the water, and within seconds the ship had completely filled with water and was lying on the bottom of St. Andrew’s Bay under 120 feet of water.
cd.) More than once, I have wondered how terrifying that would have been in the middle of winter to see your only safety and refuge disappear beneath your feet into the sea with you a mile and a half from the shore.
ce.) There was no loss of life. The men on that boat were rescued.
cf.) Though it is not likely that any of us have experienced such a scene, our minds can visualize the feeling it would have brought to us.
cg.) That is the picture Paul gives to Timothy of a danger that can happen to our faith.
2.) Faith can become ship-wrecked by not fighting the good fight.
A.) The Christian walk is one that is a continual fight with the forces of evil.
aa.)There is never a time that we can afford to give up the fight.
3.) Faith can be ship-wrecked by not holding onto faith.
A.) I do not want to be trivial and say that it is an easy thing to not ship-wreck our own faith.
B.) At any time in the history of Christianity, faith has never necessarily been an easy thing to have, or to keep.
ba.) It has always been that a faith that will hold us up is accomplished only through the combined efforts of our faith, and God’s watch care.
C.) Those of faith have always in every age tended to be smaller in numbers than those who live for the world.
D.) Certainly the first century in the Roman Empire was one of the hardest times to live your life as a Christian.
E.) I am sure that for many it would have been an easy thing to lose faith.
4.) Faith can also be ship-wrecked by not keeping a good conscience.
A.) Sometimes it is just by consistently not living up to the faith we already have that we prepare to ship-wreck our faith.
B.) It is only possible to compromise our faith and belief system so much before we deaden ourselves to the Word and Spirit of God within us.
5.) Paul shows us examples of two or three men who had in fact ship-wrecked their faith.
-- 1 Tim. 1 19b.-20
A.) Hymenaeus and Alexander
aa.) We really do not know much of these men.
B.) These were men who were handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
ba.) Apparently, Paul and the Ephesian church had done everything they could with these men.
bb.) When everything else had failed and these men were still not repentant, the Church had to exercise church discipline and put these men out of the fellowship.
bba.) This was not a vindictive act, but one whose goal was to restore them to a saving relationship in Jesus Christ, and to protect the church at large from the evil within.
C.) We find more of Hymenaeus in 2 Timothy.
ca.) 2 Timothy 2:16-18
cb.) By this time about 2 years have lapsed since Paul had written 1 Timothy.
D.) This time we see listed Hymenaeus and Philetus.
da.) This time there is no mention of the man Alexander.
db.) It is possible that Alexander and Philetus are the same person. Certainly there are others in Scripture who at one time are called by one name, and at other times by another name.
dc.) It is also possible that Alexander has repented of his sin and wickedness, and turned back to a saving relationship in Jesus Christ.
dd.) A third possibility of this man Alexander is that over the previous two years that this man could have passed away.
dda.) If Alexander had passed away, there is no way of us knowing today if he had repented of his sin and wickedness to go into paradise, or if he had remained in a state of wickedness, thereby entering into the place of torment.
E.) Either way, Hymenaeus and Philitus are described in their wickedness. (2 Tim. 2:18)
ea.) They have wandered away from the truth.
eaa.) I want you to notice here in this verse one word: “wandered”.
eab.) That describes how most people ship-wreck their faith.
eb.) You will not find that people just get up out of bed one morning and just decide to no longer follow Jesus Christ.
ec.) Rather, the way people ship-wreck their faith is by just casually wandering off.
eca.) It is as the parable that Jesus gives of the man with 100 sheep and loses one of them.
ed.) How did that sheep get lost? Most likely it was by keeping his head down in the grass, and wandering.
eda.) Then after so long, he looks up and finds he is all alone, and lost.
eda.) That is also how many Christians will ship-wreck their faith.
F.) These men said that the resurrection had already taken place.
fa.) This false teaching that had crept into the Church here at Ephesus, had also been a problem that the Apostle Paul had to deal with at Thessalonica.
fb.) The implications of this false teaching were very powerful.
fba.) As Christians, our hope like the hope of the churches in both Ephesus, and Thessalonica is in the resurrection, firstly that it has already occurred with Christ, and secondly that it will one day occur in both us and in our loved ones who have gone to the grave.
fbb.) We also believe that this hope will be fulfilled at the time of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
fbc.) Such false teachings that the resurrection has occurred and Christ has returned, led some of the church to conclude that they and their deceased loved ones have in fact missed the boat.
fc.) When our entire hope is in the return of Christ, and our own resurrection from the dead, you can see how such a false teaching if believed could devastate the faith of many Christians.
CONCLUSION:
1.) As we close this message, Paul has shown Timothy the two ways we can choose to go.
2.) At any and every stage of our faith we have two choices:
A.) We can allow our faith to float us through the challenges of life, victorious in Christ.
B.) The second option is that we can ship-wreck our faith on the ledges of hopeless despair, apart from Jesus Christ.
3.) What will you choose today?
