The Truth Is Worth Fighting For
Our daily Bible readings are right in the book. I am currently preaching through First Timothy. Sometimes when you go verse by verse through a book, you lose the big picture. There's the old saying about missing the forest for the trees, and one downside of expository preaching is that you can get very focused on every tree.
The big picture of First Timothy is: The truth is worth fighting for. It's worthwhile to make sure you have the right people as elders and deacons. It's worthwhile to stop false teaching, even if that means a fight. It's worthwhile to guard your own heart and thoughts. The fight in and around you is worth it because Jesus is worth it.
John Stott's commentary on First Timothy is called "Guard the Trust." This is a line taken from 1 Timothy 6:20, where Paul tells Timothy to "guard the trust that has been entrusted to you."
As Christians, we fight different than the world fights. Spend 10 minutes on Twitter or watching cable news and you'll become very familiar with how most people fight. They scream and shout. They have “hot takes” and share worst-case scenarios of their opponents. It seems that the goal is to make the other person look stupid instead of arguing for your own point of view.
That's not how Paul tells Timothy to fight. Instead, Timothy is to lift high the truth of the Gospel and to call other people into line with it. We don't need to create strawman arguments or cool talking points. We simply have the truth, and we need to help people stop telling lies about God.
Charles Spurgeon once said: “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”. This is so true. In our fights to defend the truth, our main weapon is to unveil the truth.
When Paul wrote to Ephesus, the church where Timothy is pastoring, he talks about the armor of God. There are many defensive layers, but only two offensive weapons: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and prayer.
As you deal with the lies that you might be carrying in your own head or lies that you see in the world around you, the goal is not to get fired up and angry. We don't need to find hot and witty rejoinders. We simply need to tell the truth.
Shockingly, the truth is in very limited supply. So let's be generous with it!
The truth is like a light in the darkness. It guides us and protects us. When we share the truth with others, we are helping them to find their way and to be safe. So let's be generous with the truth! We can share it with our words, our actions, and our lives. We can shine the light of truth into every corner of the world.
With You;
Pastor Tim
