“Fight the Good Fight”
1 Timothy 6:12

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost—September 29, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

In next year’s presidential campaign, a big issue will no doubt be the best strategy for the long war in which our nation has been engaged in various Middle Eastern countries—how best to end it, and especially where and against whom we should fight.

In today’s Epistle Reading, Paul describes for us the two most prevailing and universally experienced SPIRITUAL battlefields that we humans endure, and he exhorts Timothy, and you, and me, to: “Fight the good fight of the faith!”

It seems that the very notion of FIGHTING the good fight of the faith, fighting the devil, fighting the world, fighting our sinful flesh, is passé, old-fashioned, obsolete.  Instead of fighting temptation, our attitude is: “Don’t fight it.  If it feels good, DO IT!”  Don’t worry about the consequences, DO IT!  Don’t think about the hurt to yourself or others, DO IT!  Don’t consider whether it’s right or wrong, DO IT!  Don’t be bothered by God’s commands, DO IT!  Instead of fighting temptation, we WELCOME the devil, we SURRENDER to the world, we SUCCUMB to the sinful flesh.  Instead of fighting the good fight of the faith, we WALLOW in wickedness.

Paul warns in Romans, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of men.”  That is what we deserve on account of our wickedness, the wrath of God.  We deserve, like the wicked man in the parable in today’s Gospel Reading, to be tormented in hell.

But, in mercy and love, God does not mete out upon us the punishment our sins deserve.  Instead, our punishment was meted out upon his own Son, as Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.”

Paul says in Romans, “He was put to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification.”  Jesus’ resurrection is God the Father announcement to the world that he has accepted his Son’s perfect life and sacrificial death as payment in full for the sins of the whole world.  The book of Acts says, “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins in his name. . .  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”  Trust Jesus, he is your Savior; he forgives all your sins; he has prepared a place for you in heaven, and he will take you to be with him there.

However, as long as you remain here on earth, Peter warns, “Your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith.”  As long as you remain here on earth, you must, every day: “Fight the good fight of the faith!”

In today’s Epistle Reading, Paul describes for us the two most prevailing and universally experienced spiritual battlefields on which this good fight for the faith is contested, two spiritual battlefields that it seems we face today more than ever.  Paul says we must fight the good fight against FALSE DOCTRINE, and we must fight the good fight against MATERIALISM.

“These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.  If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing.”

The first and foremost spiritual battlefield on which the good fight for the faith is contested is always the fight against FALSE DOCTRINE.  It started in the Garden of Eden, when Satan questioned and distorted and contradicted God’s word: “‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” . . .  You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman.”

In police terms they call that an “M.O.,” a criminal’s “modus operandi” or “method of operation.”  Satan still has the same “M.O.” today, questioning and distorting and contradicting God’s Word: “Did God really say . . . ?”  For, if Satan can drag a church body, drag a congregation, drag a preacher, drag you into false doctrine against God’s Word, then he has won the battle, and we have lost the good fight for the faith.

That’s what some false teachers were trying to do in Ephesus, where Timothy was pastor.  Paul began his letter to Pastor Timothy, “Stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer . . .  Some have wandered away . . . and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.”

There are many outrageous examples today of even entire denominations being led astray by false teachers from the truths of God’s Word.  The most glaring is a survey of clergy in one of the largest, well-known Protestant denominations, which asked, “Do you believe the Bible to be the Word of God?”  Only 18% said “Yes”; 82% said “No,” they do NOT believe the Bible to be the Word of God.

Paul predicted this in his second letter to Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

The book of Acts says of the Christians at Berea, “They received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  Like those early Christian at Berea, you must fight the good fight against false doctrine by testing and examining all teaching and preaching and doctrine against the standard of God’s Word.  That is always spiritual battlefield #1 in the fight for the faith: Fight the good fight against FALSE DOCTRINE.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.  But you, man of God, flee from all this.”

The second most prevailing and universally experienced spiritual battlefield on which the good fight for the faith is contested is the fight against MATERIALISM.  This battlefield also goes back to the Garden of Eden: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”

It is interesting that in Webster’s Thesaurus the only synonym for “materialism” is “atheism.”  That’s because materialism means putting the material things of this world, acquiring and possessing and enjoying the things of this world, #1 in your life, even ahead of God himself and his will.  As the Thesaurus indicates, materialism really is a form of atheism, or at least idolatry.  Because, materialism denies God his proper role in your life, which is atheism; or it gives that #1 role to something else, which is idolatry.  Jesus put it this way in the Parable of the Sower: “[They] hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

So, that is the other most prevailing and universally experienced spiritual battlefield in the fight for the faith: Fight the good fight against MATERIALISM.  As Jesus warned: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his own soul?”  “But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

In next year’s presidential campaign, a big issue will no doubt be the best strategy for the long war in which our nation has been engaged in various Middle Eastern countries—how best to end it, and especially where and against whom we should fight.

In today’s Epistle Reading, Paul describes for us the two most prevailing and universally experienced spiritual battlefields on which this spiritual war, the good fight for the faith, is contested, the spiritual battlefields of FALSE DOCTRINE and MATERIALISM.  But, each of us also has his or her OWN particular spiritual battlefields, as Peter says, “I urge you . . . to abstain from the sinful desires that war against your soul.  As Paul says in Galatians, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are at war with each other.”

Whatever your particular spiritual battlefields may be, Paul tells us in Ephesians the weapons and strategy with which to “Fight the good fight of the faith”: “Be strong in the Lord and in his might power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. . .  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take 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.”

Empowered and equipped with God’s Word and Spirit, “Fight the good fight of the faith.”

Amen.