With New Year’s Eve coming up on Monday, it’s a good time to ask ourselves the more probing questions about our lives. I want to encourage you on Monday night to ask yourself one question: "Am I living the good life?" Are you living the life God intended for you to live?
Of course, the question assumes that we know what the good life is. That’s a question people have pondered for centuries. The Greek philosophers said that the good life was the examined life. Aristotle wrote that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living.
Other philosophers came to different conclusions. The ancient Epicureans concluded that the good life was a live that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pleasure. The existentialists concluded that the good life was the self-made, individually chosen life.
Beer commercials today have their own version of the good life they try to market to us. Miller Brewing company tells us that the good life is "the high life," which we learn is a life of attractive women, guzzling miller genuine draft, and watching sports on TV. Corona beer tells us the good life is sitting on a beach, enjoying the sunset and ignoring our cell phone.
What is the good life? Is it having lots of money? Is it having a powerful job that influences lots of people? Is it sleeping with everyone you can without getting a disease? Is it being happy?
On this last weekend of the year 2001 I want to talk about the good life. I want to help us think through a Christian definition of the good life, a definition that doesn’t take its cues from beer commercials or even ancient philosophers. By defining the good life from a Christian perspective, we’ll be in a better position on Monday night to evaluate whether we’re living the good life or not. We’ll know better what kind of changes and adjustments we need to make for 2002 to better enjoy the good life, the kind of life God intended us to live.
We’ve been in a series through Paul’s two letters to his young protégé Timothy found in the New Testament. We’ve titled this series Deepening Your Life With God. Today as we finish looking at Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we’re going to find four insights into the good life from a Christian perspective, and how we can embrace the good life a little bit more this next year.
1. FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT (1 Tim 6:11-12a)
We begin by talking about fighting the good fight. Look at v. 11 and the first half of v. 12. Here Paul is directly addressing Timothy as a protégé, and challenging him to live the good life, a life that really counts. In the previous ten verses Paul warned Timothy about the seductive danger of greed. He warned that a passion to get rich plunges people into ruin. Truly the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, as Paul reminded Timothy of in v. 10. So Paul encourages Timothy to run for his life away from a greedy life that’s obsessed with getting more. Run like you’d run if you stumbled upon a six foot rattler while hiking. Run don’t walk, because greed can easily hook us with its empty promises and ruin our spiritual lives.
Run from greed, but pursue the good life. The word for "pursue" in v. 11 is a strong Greek verb that means to chase after something with intense effort. When I studied this word I thought about the movie The Terminator. I thought about the terminator’s relentlessness, that no matter how hard you tried to stop him, he kept getting up and coming for more.
This pursuit is a life of seeking after the virtues of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Righteousness is simply a life of integrity. Godliness is a God centered life, a life where God is the center focus. Faith is a lifestyle of trust in God. Love is a life of caring for people, especially people outside our circle of friends and family. Endurance is bearing up under difficult and painful circumstances. Finally gentleness is a life that lacks harshness, that’s gentle and caring in its treatment of other people. The implication is that none of these character traits just show up in our lives without effort, but like the Terminator, we must pursue them with intensity.
Then Paul tells Timothy to fight the good fight of faith. Paul’s phrase "fight the good fight" has become part of our language and culture, and today it means to hang in there in whatever you’re doing. But to Paul it was directly connected to Timothy’s faith. The word translated "fight" is the same word where we get our word "agonize" from, to agonize the struggle of faith.
Here we find our first insight into the good life. We live the good life FOCUSING OUR ENERGY ON OUR SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
We only have so much energy each day. We pour that energy into our jobs, our kids, working out, answering email, investing our money, fixing up our houses, going to school, and so forth. At the end of the day, if you’re like most of us, you’re tired, drained from all the energy you’ve poured out each day.
Yet how much energy are you investing in your faith? We’re fighting the fight of success, fighting the fight of upward mobility, fighting the fight of raising our kids, but are we fighting the good fight of our faith? That’s the truly good fight, the good life we were intended to live. Not that we’re supposed to neglect our jobs or our kids, but when we put our energy into our spiritual progress it’s amazing how that energizes us to take care of the rest of what we need to take care of.
Its like having a big bucket and several rocks and a pile of gravel. You want to put both the rocks and the gravel into the bucket. If you put the gravel in first, you don’t have any room left for the rocks. But if you start with the rocks, then you can pour the gravel in and there’s room for it. The rocks are the big things, the important things in our lives, while the gravel are the less important things. Start with the rocks each day, and you’ll find that you’ll have room for the gravel.
I want to challenge you to focus on your spiritual progress in one very specific area this next year. I want to challenge you to read through the entire Bible in 2002. That’s just three chapters a day. Go buy a One Year Bible or download a through the Bible in a year schedule off the internet. You can even subscribe to an email reminder that tells you what to read each day. That’s a commitment I’m making before the Lord, and I want to encourage each of you to make the same commitment as well. Focus your energy on your spiritual progress this next year by reading the Bible from cover to cover. That will help you live the good life of fighting the good fight.
2. GIVING THE GOOD CONFESSION (1 Tim 6:12b-16)
That brings us to our second description of the good life: Giving the good confession. Look at vv. 12b through 16. Although Timothy already has the gift of eternal life because of his faith in Jesus, Paul encourages Timothy to grab hold what he already has, to utilize eternal life because it already belongs to him.
Paul traces this back to Timothy’s "good confession." Most Bible scholars agree that Timothy’s "good confession" took place at his baptism, when he publicly confessed his faith in Jesus Christ before witnesses and was immersed in water as a symbol of his identification with Jesus. The New Testament church challenged every single person who came to faith in Jesus Christ to publicly affirm their faith in public baptism. The New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce claims that the idea of an unbaptized Christian was not something any of the writers of the New Testament could have pictured. Not that baptism saves us or is anything more than a symbol, but the writers of the New Testament assume that a genuine follower of Jesus will be eager to give a good confession in baptism.
Now remember that back when Paul wrote these words, confessing your faith in baptism was a potentially dangerous thing to do. The very act of baptism was considered politically subversive by the Roman government, and by being baptized you were aligning yourself with a group that was considered to be fanatical and dangerous by the government. So a good confession carried risk of losing everything, even being murdered for your faith. In fact, this is exactly what would eventually happen to Paul a few years after he wrote this letter.
So to encourage Timothy to keep his good confession Paul appeals to some reasons to give a good confession. Paul directs us to the example of Jesus, who gave a good confession before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the hostile Roman ruler who interrogated Jesus by asking him, "Are you the king of the Jews." Jesus didn’t hedge or waver, he didn’t say, "It depends how you define the word king," but according to Matthew 27:11 he said, "Yes, I am." Jesus’ confession cost him his life, yet he was true to the confession God had given him to make. When we give a good confession at our baptism, we follow the example of Jesus.
Paul also reminds us of the second coming of Jesus in v. 14. The appearing of Jesus Christ will bring reward to those who have made and kept a good confession. Those who have lived their faith in Jesus publicly will not shrink back in shame or embarrassment when Christ comes again. And although we don’t know exactly when he will come again, we can be assured that he will come.
Finally Paul directs our attention to the character of God. God alone is the only true ruler, so when we stand before important people who ridicule or question our good confession, we remember we’re serving the true king of kings and lord of lords. God alone is immortal, free from death and decay. So when a Christian stands before a political ruler who threatens him with death for his confession of faith in Jesus, the Christian remembers that God is immortal and possess the path of immortality for us. We’re eventually going to die anyways, so if it must happen, what better reason than for our good confession. Now it’s unlikely that any of us will face those kinds of circumstances, but the reality is that Christians in other places of the world face this danger frequently.
God alone lives in unapproachable light that no one can see. No creature can stand before God’s incredible holiness and spender without being shielded by Christ. The awesomeness of God is yet another reason to keep our good confession.
The good confession gives us a second insight into the good life. We live the good life by SWEARING OUR ALLEGIANCE TO JESUS NO MATTER WHAT THE COST.
This begins at our baptism, when we personally confess our faith in Jesus Christ publicly before witnesses. Then this good confession continues throughout the rest of our Christian life, as we seek to live by that public vow we made at our baptism.
As we look to the year 2002, if you’re a Christian and you’ve never confessed your own faith in baptism, I want to encourage you to do this. Many Christians who were baptized as infants are reluctant to take this step. But if you were baptized as a baby, remember that was a public expression of your parents’ faith, not your faith. Have you expressed your own faith publicly? Have you made your own good confession?
Other Christians are held back by fear, because they don’t like being in front of people. If that’s you, I want to encourage you to think about your Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who face death when they take this step, yet they still take it. Think about Jesus himself standing before his executioner Pontius Pilate, giving his good confession. Think about Christ returning again at the end of the age, and finding you with a real faith in him, but a hidden faith. And think about the awesome character of God, the only true ruler. If that’s not enough to help you face your fear of being baptized publicly, nothing is.
If you have expressed your faith in baptism, consider how you can continue to keep that baptismal vow. Is your allegiance still to Jesus alone, or is it split? The good life consists of giving and keeping a good confession.
3. LAYING A GOOD FOUNDATION (1 Tim 6:17-19)
That brings us to laying a good foundation. Look at vv. 17-19. In the previous ten verses of this chapter Paul addressed his attention to those who want to get rich, but here he addresses his attention to those who are already wealthy.
Now I believe this section applies to all of us, because from a global perspective, all of us are wealthy. We are the world’s elite, even if you’re on welfare in our culture today. The phrase "rich in this present world" suggests that in heaven there’s a different standard of wealth, and that those who are wealthy today will not necessarily be the wealthy in heaven.
People who are well off financially are commanded to engage in three actions here. First we’re told not to be arrogant. Presumably this means not looking down on those who are less well off than we are. We can tend to think we deserve more because we have more, that we must be smarter, or better, or wiser than people who are less well off. Some people believe that wealth is a sign of God’s favor and poverty a sign of God’s curse, so they think God likes them better than he likes people with less. But the Bible tells us to be humble instead of arrogant.
Second we’re told to not find our sense of security in our possessions. Wealth can be here today and gone tomorrow, as anyone who plays the stock market can tell you. A fire can burn down a nice house, a thief can steal a new car, an economic collapse can sink a business venture. Instead of finding our security in what we have, we’re told to remember that God is the one who gave us what we have. He gave it to us for our enjoyment, but it still belongs to him.
Finally, we’re told to share what we have with others. The command in v. 18 to "do good" is pretty vague, so Paul explains it with the command to be generous and to share. In other words, doing good in this context is using our money and our possessions to bring blessing to other people. It’s investing our money in what God is doing.
The result of this will be laying up treasure for ourselves. This echoes the words of Jesus Christ in his sermon on the mount, when he told his followers to lay up treasures in heaven by giving away what we have to bless others. This will lay a good foundation for us in heaven, because it translates what has earthly value today into something that has value for eternity. Laying this kind of good foundation helps us live the good life, the life that is truly life.
So here we find the third insight into the good life. We live the good life BY INVESTING OUR RESOURCES GENEROUSLY IN GOD’S WORK.
On January 1, 2002, this coming Tuesday, twelve European countries will officially switch their currency over to the euro. This change over to the euro has been going on for several years--since 1998--but the change will finish in 2002. No longer will these countries use the lira, the franc, the mark, and so forth, but all twelve nations will conduct all their business with the euro. After a grace period of several weeks, all the old currency of those twelve nations will become worthless. The German government is going to use shredding machines to destroy its old banknotes. The Austrians plan to turn their schillings into 560 pounds of compost. People who don’t exchange the current currency into the Euro before the grace period is up will be totally broke because today’s currency will be totally worthless.
Well another currency is going to switch one day. One day, when we’re face to face with God in heaven, our currency will switch from our earthly currency to heavenly currency. And heavenly currency isn’t the euro or the dollar, but it’s what we’ve invested in God’s work. Those who are rich in this world who don’t begin exchanging currency now will find themselves poor in heaven. This is not to say our giving earns us our salvation, but it is to say that God calls us to live a life of giving here on earth, especially if we’re well off.
Now apparently most American Christians don’t really believe this part of the Bible. We say we do, but our actions betray us. Let me share with you some giving statistics among Christians from the year 2000 from the Barna Research Group (www.barna.com). In 2000 the average church member donated a total of $649 to his or her church, down from $806 the year before. That amount is significantly less than the average American spends on pet food each year, it’s less than we spend on going to the movies each year. One out of four Christians didn’t give any money to ministry in 2000. Only 6% of Christians tithe their income, that is give one tenth of their gross income to ministry. So although we say we believe this, few Christians seem to really believe it enough to live it.
Now I’m not talking about this because we have some special need or we’re not meeting our church budget. In fact, we’re having a good year financially, and though there’s always room for growth (especially with our building fund) we’re blessed financially. I’m sharing this because its in the text and because a life of giving is a key to living the good life God intends.
As you celebrate the new year Tuesday night, I want to encourage you to evaluate your giving this last year. Ask God to help you take a new step of faith, to engage in the good life a little bit more than you lived it this last year. If we believe this is true, we need to begin switching currency now. The good life is a life of generous giving, laying a good foundation.
4. GUARDING THE GOOD DEPOSIT(1 Tim 6:20-21)
Finally we come to guarding the good deposit. Look at vv. 20-21. The word "guard" here means to hold something that doesn’t belong to you in close custody, to keep it close so you can keep an eye on it. The thing entrusted here refers to the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ that’s been entrusted to every follower of Jesus. The gospel is the message about Jesus, the good news that God sent his only son for us, the great news that he died for our sins, the wonderful news that he rose from the grave to conquer death. God has entrusted this message to us, to share with others, to keep close to our hearts.
Paul contrasts Timothy with those who have wandered away from the truth of the gospel. They’ve become enamored with godless chatter, which is controversy and speculation. They’ve embraced ideas opposed to the gospel that are falsely called "special knowledge" that’s new and just for special people. And as a result they’ve wandered away from the gospel.
Here we find the final insight to the good life. We live the good life by paying close attention to what we believe.
Churches can very subtly lose the gospel that’s been entrusted to them. We can get bored with the same story, even though it’s the story that brought us our salvation. We can get enticed by new and faddish ideas about things that subtly contradict the truth and centrality of the gospel.
Sometimes I’m asked what kind of church our congregation is. Are we a charismatic or non-charismatic church? Are we traditional or contemporary? Life Bible Fellowship Church is first and foremost an evangelical church. You see, the Greek word "gospel" in the Bible is the word euangelion, so when we say we’re an evangelical church we’re saying that we’re a gospel focused, gospel centered, gospel believing church. We live and breath by the good news of Jesus Christ. We celebrate it in communion, we share it with our community, we remind ourselves of it again and again. May God help us remain an evangelical church in 2002.
Conclusion
Are you living the good life? Are you fighting the good fight, giving the good confession, laying a good foundation, and guarding the good deposit? Are you focusing your energy on your spiritual progress, swearing your allegiance to Jesus Christ, investing your resources generously in God’s work, and paying close attention to what you believe?
Friends, this is the good life, the life we were intended to live. May 2002 be another step toward living this kind of life together.
