A Strategy for a Successful Year

First Timothy chapter one. For our time of study in the word this morning, we were doing a verse by verse series to the book of First Timothy and we pulled away from that for the month of December to focus on the subject of investing for eternity, and it was a rich month indeed. All that we learned in the area of finances, but today, we come back to our study of First Timothy, and we're going to arrive at chapter 1 verse 18. And my goal this morning is to cover verses 18 through 19.

but let me read verse 18 through 20 to you as we begin this morning. This command, I, by the way, Paul has just presented the gospel by way of personal testimony in the preceding verses. And having done that, he then says, this command, I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight. Keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.

Among these are Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. I want to speak to you guys from verses 18 and 19 on the subject of a strategy for a successful year, a strategy for a successful year. Let me ask for a raise of hands and just be honest with me, OK? How many of you want to make a shipwreck of your lives in 2009?

Just Just every head bowed, every eye closed, anybody, I see one hand. none of us want to experience the shipwreck that we learn about at the end of verse 19. None of us want to experience the fate that Hymeneus and Alexander experienced. None, none of us want that.

And yet, will there be some perhaps even in our church body who experience shipwreck in 2009? I think it's likely that some will. I'm sure at the beginning of 2008 there was no one who made this resolution, and that is that I resolved to shipwreck my life in the coming year. No one ever utters that resolution, and yet were there shipwrecks spiritually speaking in 2008?

Yes. And they're very likely will be in 2009. And the reason is, is this, you don't have to resolve to shipwreck your life in order to shipwreck your life. All you need to do is to fail to have a strategy, to have something else happen to you.

And if you fail to have any other strategy, then guaranteed that's ultimately where your life will lead. And so what we want as we look ahead in 2009 is to to have a year in which we thrive spiritually, a year in which we avoid the fate of Hymeneus and Alexander, a year in which we reach the end one year from now and look back and say wow, was God good, and what a year this has been of fruitfulness and of blessing. of spiritual growth. If that is your desire, then what we're going to be doing this morning will be helpful for you.

We're going to look at a fivefold strategy for experiencing a successful year. And we're going to pull all of the 5 elements of the strategy from our text verses 18 and 19, this morning, before we actually get to these elements of Of the strategy, let me make you aware of a couple of things by way of overview. I would encourage you to read through First Timothy from the beginning to the end and see if you don't observe an undercurrent of profound concern in the heart of the apostle Paul, concern not only for Timothy but a concern even for those that Timothy is ministering to.

You can go through the book of First Timothy and actually make quite a list of dangers that are out there in the world of Paul's day.

And in the world of our day, and I'll tell you something, guys, you want to have a successful year, don't be naive. You need to be aware as you get up every day that there are dangers, there are snares that are out there that can chew you up and spit you out before you even know what happened to you. And some of these dangers that we find in First Timothy, and I've even trimmed this list. Just to streamline the message is he speaks of strange doctrines, doctrines of demons, worldly fables, worldly empty chatter.

He speaks of deceitful spirits, the danger of conceit. That can cause individuals to fall into condemnation. The sensual desires that some allow themselves to be led astray by that Paul speaks about in 1 Timothy 5. There is the love of money that causes many people to fall into many.

Hurtful and foolish lust. And there are also individuals. There are people that are enemies of the faith. He speaks of certain men who are like this, liars who are seared in their own conscience.

And then he goes on to describe the teaching ministry of such individuals. He speaks of those in chapter 6, verse 3 who advocate a different doctrine than gospel doctrine. So we just need to be aware of the fact that there are ideas, there are people, there are entities, there are beings, spiritual beings that, that are dangerous that we need to be aware of rather than just walking naively into this new year and into each new day. You also see something of Paul's concern.

when you observe, a theme of verbs, throughout the letter, look at this in chapter 1, verse 6, he speaks of men who have strayed from these things, and the things that they strayed from is pure love and a good conscience, sincere faith. And so forth. And chapter 1, verse 19 in our passage today, speaks of those who have rejected faith and a good conscience, suffered shipwreck. Chapter 3, verse 6, Paul is concerned about individuals falling into condemnation.

Chapter 3, verse 7, he's concerned about individuals falling into reproach. Chapter 4, verse 1, he speaks of those who fall away from the faith. Chapter 5, verse 12, he speaks of those who have set aside their previous pledge to their own hurt. Chapter 5, verse 15, he speaks of those who have turned aside to follow Satan.

Chapter 6, verse 9, he speaks of those who fall into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lust. In chapter 6, verse 10, he speaks of those who wandered away from the faith. And if you want to know how profound this concern is of Paul, go in your Bibles to the very last verse of First Timothy. This is really stunning, the negative note that Paul ends this letter to Timothy on, but it, but it shows what Paul's concern is throughout this letter.

At the end of the letter, we have the benediction, Grace be with you. All right, Paul puts that thing on the end of every letter. Let's remove that for a second in terms of the body of the letter. look at how Paul ends in verse 21.

He speaks in verse 20 of opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge. Verse 21, the last verse, the last words of the body of this letter, which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith, period. The body of the letter is over, and those are the last words out of his mouth. So we have straying from rejected, fall into, fall into, fall away from the faith, setting aside, turned aside, fall into, wandered away, gone astray.

We see this theme. Paul is very concerned as he writes this letter for Timothy. He's concerned for those that Timothy ministers to that these fates do not befall them. The fate of those who do go astray in the way that Paul speaks about in this letter is that they end up with a seared conscience.

They end up experiencing destruction. They end up being pierced with many griefs, and they suffer shipwreck. And such is the fate of Hymeneus and Alexander. And so this is a letter from Paul where Paul is, Paul sees these dangers.

that are in the world of our day. And he speaks to Timothy, he speaks to us, and gives us counsel on how we must live, if we're going to survive spiritually, yeah, even thrive spiritually, both in our personal sanctification, and also in our ministry to other people. And so with that having been said, I want to share with you a fivefold strategy for experiencing spiritual success in 2009. And the first element of this strategy is fight.

Fight. If you want to be successful, spiritually, you have to resolve to fight. No one's going to reach the end of this year and look back and say, man, this is a surprising thing. I've been holy all year.

I, I have grown. I've not even tried. It's not even been a struggle. That'll never happen.

If there is to be growth and advancement. In your life, it will be the result of fighting daily gutting it out and slugging it out in a fight, day by day throughout the year. Look at what Paul says in verse 18. He says, this command, I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them, you fight.

And let's stop right there for a minute, Timothy. This is the command you must fight. Now what does it mean to fight? We all know what it means to fight because we all fight enough, don't we?

It means to strive to overcome by blows or weapons, and those blows could be physical blows. or they could be verbal blows, but the, the basic element of fighting is that of hostility. All right? And Paul is commanding us to fight.

If we're going to have a successful year, then this year is going to be full of fighting. We have to get hostile against certain things and ideas and then fight against them. Implied in this command to fight is that there must be something to fight, right? And so it implies the existence of hostile forces that are contrary to both holiness, sanctification, and gospel ministry to, to other people, and what are those hostile forces?

Well, there's fleshly lust inside all of us that wage war against our soul. We learned that in First Peter. So we've got some dangers. We've got hostile forces inside of us.

Then there is the world around us, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life, and all those who imbibe the spirit. of the world, then there is the devil, his demons, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places that are opposed to the gospel and to the advancement of the gospel in our own lives, and in our ministries. And so Paul is saying, you've got some danger. Out there and you've also got hostile forces and entities that are at work against you and the gospel prevailing in your life.

If you're going to advance and be successful in what God has called you to be and do, you must fight against these hostile forces. This command to fight does not just imply the existence of hostile forces, but it also implies the intransigence of those forces. What by intransigence is the stubborn hostility of those forces. It means that these forces can never be negotiated with.

You can never reach a compromise with them. There will never be a truce where you no longer have to fight. To where they end up saying, OK, we'll leave you alone, and you can be everything God wants you to be. They are stubborn, and to your dying day, they will do everything they can to hinder you in your pursuit of sanctification.

And gospel ministry to other people. and again, no negotiating, no compromise, they absolutely will never budge. We're the ones who often budge and enter into compromise with the forces of evil, but they will never compromise with us. imagine you come to know the Lord and a year into your walk with the Lord, you're just noticing all of this hostile action against you and trying to be holy, and there's all of this stuff working against you.

And you're like, what, I'm fed up with this. I got to fight every day. I know what I'll do. I'll call a meeting of all these hostile forces.

So you, you call all of your fleshly lust to a meeting. You call all of that represents the world to this meeting. You call the devil and his demons and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places into this meeting. You contact every Hollywood executive and you call them to this meeting, because of the stuff that they're producing that just seems to discourage you from being holy.

You get them all in a room together, and then you speak to them and you say, listen, Maybe you guys don't know this, but I really want to be holy, and you guys are making it hard for me. what do you think they would do? Do you think they would say, well, we didn't know you wanted to be holy. Now that we know this, of course, we'll back off and, and you can just go on your way and we'll leave you alone.

Would they do that? No, they would dig their heels and even more and do everything they can to hinder you from being what God wants you to be. There will never be a compromise on their part with you. They will never want to allow you to be what God wants you to be.

So if you're going to advance spiritually, you have to fight. You have to fight. That's the first command that we find. In verse 18, and it's the first thing you must do if you want to experience a successful year in 2009.

But, all right, you got to do more than just fight, you have to number two, fight the good fight. All right. You have to choose the right fight to be involved in. It's not enough to fight.

I know that already all of us are going to fight a lot this year. All right, the question is, will we be fighting the good fight? That's the question. we're very good at fighting bad fights.

What is a bad fight? A bad fight is any fight that we engage in in order to achieve a selfish, self-centered agenda. Somebody gets in the way of us being able to do what we want to do, be what we want to be, and they cut in on our action. We fight against them in order to achieve a selfish agenda.

And there's millions of bad fights that are available for us to choose from every day, a husband and wife fighting and arguing verbally, trying to prove that they're right and their spouse is wrong. That's a bad fight. That's a selfish fight. To be engaged in children.

I've heard this and seen this with my own eyes. Children fighting over a particular seat in the car. Who gets to sit in the front? That's a bad fight.

That's not the fight that we're called to fight. A married couple fighting over which way the toilet paper should come off the roll from above or from below. That is a bad fight. That is a selfish fight to engage in, and the list could go on.

Paul is essentially telling us to walk away from those fights, to not even waste our energy on those fights, and to choose the good fight. There's only one fight that's worth fighting, and that is the good fight. What is the good fight? It's the gospel fight.

In fact, later in First Timothy, Paul says to Timothy, In chapter 6, verse 12, he says, fight the good fight of the faith. All right, he tells Timothy what the fight is. It's the fight of the faith. Speaking of the gospel, whenever you see the faith in the New Testament, it almost always is a synonym for the gospel that we put our faith in.

So it is the fight, the good fight of the gospel. It is the gospel fight that we are to be engaged in. What that means is we fight. In order to see to it that God's gospel agenda is accomplished in our lives, and that his agenda is accomplished.

His gospel agenda is accomplished in the lives of our spouse, and our children, and our brothers and sisters in the Lord, our coworkers, anyone that we Have influence upon. That is the only fight that Paul is instructing Timothy to fight. It is the only fight that we should be engaged in. So walk away from the other fights and choose this year to fight the good fight.

So if you want to experience a successful year, first of all, you must fight. Secondly, you must fight the good fight. Thirdly, you must fight the good fight well. It's not enough to just be fighting all the time.

You must be fighting the right fight, and it's not enough to even fight the right fight all the time. You must fight the right fight. Well, did that make sense? OK, I lost myself there.

You must fight well. There's a number of people, and I think all of us find ourselves in this place who actually are fighting the good fight, but we're not fighting it well. In fact, we're not even fighting it with the right weapons. There are people who are trying to change our culture, and they depend solely upon, and their agenda is right.

It's the right fight to be involved in, but they're depending solely upon political machinery. to make that happen. And not only that, but they're depending upon political tactics that are very much like the tactics of those that they're fighting against. And in the end, though their moral agenda may be right, They end up looking very much like the people that they are fighting against.

You have a parent, for example, that wants his or her children to be holy and to be righteous and to make right choices, and the child is making wrong choices, and so the parent explodes at the child and And, and shows anger to the child and is just screaming at the child. And the reason that they're screaming may be that they want their child to do right rather than wrong. And they're fighting the right fight, but they're not fighting it well. They're fighting with the weapon of anger, forgetting the fact that in James chapter one, The James says that the wrath of man, the anger of men will never produce a righteousness that is got approved in yourself or in other people.

It will never work. So that's a case of someone fighting the right fight, but not fighting it well. So we must fight, we must fight the good fight, and we must fight it well. How do we fight it well?

Well, there's some things that we can actually infer from this passage. First of all, if you want to fight the good fight well, fight using the word of God, fight using divine revelation. Look at where we get this. Look at verse 18 again.

This command, I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you. Now let's stop right there for a minute. What are the prophecies that he's talking about? Well, there are some who say it's speaking of the body of doctrine throughout the Old Testament Revelation.

There are others who say no, it's speaking of the body of apostolic prophetic revelation, as it's recorded essentially in our New Testament. There are others who would say that no, what Paul is speaking about is the fact that at Timothy's ordination, at his installation service, as it were, into the ministry, hands were laid on him. We actually are going to learn this in 1 Timothy chapter 4. Hands were laid upon him.

A spiritual gift was bestowed upon him. So that he might be able to engage in ministry and prophetic utterances were made on that occasion. All right. it's actually tough to, to make a sharp distinction between all three of these.

I think we can just safely back away and just say this whether it's prophecy recorded in the Old Testament or the New Testament or the prophecies uttered at Timothy's ordination service, as it were, can we all agree that prophecy is by way of definition, the speaking forth of divine revelation? The speaking forth of the words of God, either freshly given, or maybe repeating words that are already given by God for our purposes today. Let's just take that definition of prophecy that it is the speaking forth of divine revelation.

And with that definition, by way of application, look at what Paul says, I entrust this command to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you.

Look at this. Look at this prepositional phrase that by them. What is that referring to? These prophecies you fight the good fight.

In other words, by means of these prophecies, by using these prophecies, make use of these words of divine revelation. Use them as you fight the good fight. That's literally the idea. And as we look at our situation today, we know for a fact that the Old Testament is is God's prophetic word that's taught in 2 Peter chapter 1.

The New Testament is God's prophetic word made even more sure. So our Bibles from beginning to end is the prophetic Word of God. And for our purposes today, I think Paul would say, listen, when you fight the good fight, use divine revelation. Don't use your own ideas that you concoct on your own.

Don't use the ideas of the world as you fight the good fight. They're going to be many people coming to you with great ideas from the world that are not from God. No, you use divine revelation. You use the Word of God as you fight the good fight.

God's word is powerful, it's active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, it can pierce even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. It can discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart, it will never return to God void. As you fight the good fight, use the Word of God, not only in your own life, but in the lives of those that you minister to. That's why when I get up here to preach, when Mike and Carlos come up here to preach in our Sunday school classes, where teaching occurs, all we're doing is just giving God's word.

That's our weapon of choice. That's what we teach with because that's where the power of God is. If you want to fight the good fight, well, use God's word. Also, another way to fight well is to fight in community with other people.

Don't fight alone. Don't fight by yourself, you will be overcome. If all you do is ever fight by yourself. Maybe you're fighting the right fight, but you're all alone in that fight, when the encouragement from Scripture is that you join with other people and let them fight alongside of you and you fight together with them, rather than in your own isolated battles.

I think we can infer this from the example of Paul. Paul obviously is fighting the good fight, right? In 2 Timothy, he even says near the end, I have fought the fight right before his death. I have fought the good fight.

So he's fighting the fight, but he's obviously not content to fight that fight alone. So he's talking to Timothy. He tells Timothy to fight the good fight also. So now he's got a companion, Timothy, in fighting that fight.

And then also notice the wording here. He says this command I entrust to you, Timothy. I'm giving you an instruction. I want you to hear it from me.

I'm entrusting this to you, and what I'm entrusting to you is this responsibility to fight the good fight. What is Timothy supposed to do with that trust? That command to fight. Well, obviously he's supposed to obey it and fight.

But if you look in 2 Timothy chapter 2, Paul tells Timothy something else to do with anything that Paul has entrusted to him. Look in 2 Timothy 2:2 on the screen. Paul says, the things which you have heard from me, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Paul doesn't want to fight alone.

He commands Timothy to fight along with him. He entrusts that command to Timothy. Paul then wants Timothy to take everything that he's entrusted to Timothy, including that command to fight and entrust that to other faithful men so that they can entrust it to even other men. And we have a growing army of people.

Among the things Timothy is to entrust to others is this command from Paul to fight the good fight. We are not to fight alone. We are to fight in community with others. In fact, just after the context, just after in 2 Timothy 2:2, when Paul commands Timothy to entrust these things to faithful men, the very next words out of Paul's mouth in verse 3 is suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ.

And then the next verse, he talks more about the way a soldier ought to live his life as a soldier of Christ. So we should fight in community with one another. I wish I could stand up here and say that every time this ever has happened, I've always made this right decision, but I can't say that. But I can say that at times I have done this and experienced victory and power in doing so.

But there have been times where I have felt overwhelmed with temptation to the point of spiritual exhaustion. And I know this temptation is just sticking around and it's overwhelming me, and I know it's probably not going to be leaving me soon, and if it doesn't leave me soon, I for sure am going to be stumbling. And I'm going to fail miserably here. And there have been times when I have been at that place, and I have gone to my wife, or I've called my wife from work.

Or I've called a brother in the Lord, and I have confessed to them my struggle. And I have said, I just want you to know what's going through my head right now, and the temptation that I am struggling with, and I'm asking you to pray over me right now. And whenever in those cases, what I'm doing is I'm confessing my sins before I commit them. All right.

And whenever I have done that, and my wife or someone else has prayed over me, I have never ceased. To experience victory on the other end of that, it has the power to just dissipate. The potency of that temptation that was assailing me. And I learned in those moments, the value of fighting in community with brothers, and with sisters.

If you want to fight well, fight using God's word, fight in community with others. I would also, if you want, would say, if you want to fight well, fight aggressively. Isn't that the nature of fighting? when you fight someone, you're not just just softly touching them saying, stop that.

can you move out of my way? I, no, no, fighting is by its very nature aggressive warfare, by, by its very nature, is aggressive. And so we need to get hostile against ideas and, and against the forces that are at work against us and get aggressive against them. The problem with me in my life is that I tend to fight only barely as much as I need to in order to get my head above water.

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with something and I'll fight and I'll be quoting scripture and meditating on scripture and reading and journaling, and I'll fight, tooth and nail to get to a place of victory. But once I'm barely at that place, and I feel like I'm out of the woods, as it were, I just, I relax. And I don't maintain the fight to maintain that ground, and it's so easy to fall right back into what you just fought your way out of, but we need to be aggressive. There's a conflict going on in the Middle East right now in the Gaza Strip area between Israel and Hamas, and we need to be praying actually for that situation as it escalates and even for the believers and nonbelievers in that area whose lives are being, just destroyed by the havoc that's going on there.

But say what you want to say about Israel. One of the philosophies that the nation of Israel has is that if you mess with us, we will respond with overwhelming, brutal force in a way that will make you regret that you messed with us. And speaking of this present conflict that's going on and why Israel is approaching this in the overwhelming way that they're approaching it, one retired Israeli general in an interview yesterday said this If you decide to take a military step, it should be a crushing one with massive force.

I think we can use that mindset in our warfare spiritually speaking.

We need to get up each day and be ready to fight and to respond overwhelmingly to temptations and the forces that are at work against us. And one last way to fight well is fight continuously. The command here is present tense. So you got to continuously fight.

I'm sorry guys, but every single day of this year, you're going to have to fight if you're going to have a successful year. You're not going to be able to fight. January, and then take the next 11 months off, because of the victories that you won in January, you're going to have to fight every single day to gain ground spiritually, not only in your life, but in the lives of other people. And then once that ground is gained, you got to maintain the fight in order to maintain and hold that ground that has been gained.

You want to have a successful year fight. Fight the good fight, and fight the good fight. Well, there's a 4th thing that you need to do. And that is to keep a grip on the gospel, to keep a grip on The gospel.

He says in verse 19, keeping Faith, keeping faith, that verb keeping means it speaks of continuous action, but it means to possess something to hold something, to keep a grip on something. So as you fight the good fight, you are to be continuously gripping something. And that is faith and a good conscience. Now what is the faith that he's talking about here?

is he speaking about our subjective faith that we have in Christ? And he's saying, hey, don't lose faith, keep the faith that's inside of you. Or is he focusing on the object that our faith is in, which is Jesus Christ, and The gospel. I like the way MacArthur handles this word faith at the beginning of verse 19.

He says the faith that Paul is speaking of here is a reference to the Christian faith, the gospel, the word of God. When Paul says continuously keeping faith, what he's saying is continuously holding and possessing. Having a grip upon the faith, or the gospel or the word of God. The gospel is so powerful, guys.

if you, if you want to have a successful and a powerful year, then always be holding on to the gospel, never loosen your grip upon the gospel, the reality of the person and the work of Jesus that we gathered our thoughts around when celebrated the Lord's table. Keep that ever before you and maintain a grip. When you do things, when you make decisions throughout the day and the week in the year, make decisions to do things that will broaden your grip and understanding of the gospel and tighten your grasp of the gospel.

I was reading to one of my kids, a few weeks ago from 2 Samuel, I think it's 2 Samuel 23:9 about one of David's mighty men, Eliezer, who other people were retreating from the Philistines, and this guy rose up and went after them.

And with a sword in his hand, he smote the Philistines. He brought them down to the point of exhaustion, but it says that when the battle was over, his hand, the muscles of his hand and forearm, had cramped around the sword. He, he, he could not let go of the sword. When the battle was over, he couldn't, he couldn't open his hand from around the sword that he had used in battle.

And I'm thinking, man, that's, that's the way we need to be with the gospel, just gripping the faith, gripping gospel doctrine, and holding tightly to it where at the end of the day, we're about to fall asleep. And we, we still have that tight grip. Around it Our priority should be, and I want to challenge you guys with this. especially young people, when you're thinking about music to listen to, movies, to watch, books, to read.

Even friends to hang out with. let me just ask you, over this past week, have you made any decision? Any decision this week to do anything, to listen to anything, to read anything, to watch anything that was specifically designed to broaden your grasp of the gospel, and to tighten your grip around it? Even adults, I ask you the same question.

What is the controlling thought in the movies that you watch? The music that you listen to. Some people, the only standard for the music they listen to is what is everyone else listening to? What's number 1234, and 5 on the charts?

That's what I want to listen to. They don't even think about the lyrical content and what this does to my faith. And does this expand my understanding of the gospel and tighten my grip around the gospel? Come on, think guys.

If you want to be spiritually successful, You must make this a priority. I want to have a grip on the gospel. I want to make decisions to read and listen and watch things and hang out with people that will increase my understanding of the gospel and tighten my grasp of gospel truth. Those are the people that spiritually thrive.

If you want to have a successful year, you must keep a grip on the gospel and not let it go. View it as one of your highest values. And the last thing that you need to do if you want to experience a successful year in 2009, is keep a good conscience, hold to a good conscience as tightly as you would hold to the gospel. Keep a good conscience.

He says in verse 19, keeping faith. And a good conscience. I would ask you this morning, do you have A good conscience. Or are you making decisions that violate your conscience?

Your conscience is telling you, don't do this. And you violate your conscience and you do what is wrong. Do you cheat on your income tax returns? Do you cheat your employer?

Are you stealing anything in violation? Of your conscience? Are you involved in a relationship right now that is wrong? Maybe the relationship itself is not in and of itself wrong, but you're making decisions in the context of that relationship to do things that are in violation.

Of your conscience. Young people, you who are in school, whether it's high school or below or college, are you cheating? Are you cheating? The, the statistics of the percentage of people who cheat, even in Christian schools, is staggeringly high.

Do you cheat on an exam? You look at someone else's work. Do you bring answers with you when that that is wrong? You cheat on homework assignments?

Do you lie? If you're doing these things without repentance and without forsaking them, you have a bad conscience. And you need to do something. About that.

You're also indicating that you don't value your integrity and your good name, and you don't value your conscience at all. Maybe you think I'd get a C if I didn't cheat on this exam, so I will cheat and I'll get a B. What you're saying is that here's your conscience, and here's one letter grade. One letter grade higher is worth more to you than your conscience, than a good conscience.

That's a bad deal right there. I'll never forget Kumi. Telling me a story where he was with one of his ballplayers and Comey wanted to get a newspaper, so he put a quarter in the newspaper machine at this restaurant and he lifted it open and he pulled out one newspaper because that's what he paid for. And this ballplayer said, Hey, grab 2 of those, grab one for me.

And Kumi's response was basically, you mean sell my integrity for 25%. Because you might think, well, that's no big deal. It's just a newspaper, but Comey turned that around and said, You're right, it's no big deal. You would sell your integrity for 25 cents.

Do you have a good conscience? There's a danger that comes when we allow ourselves to violate our conscience. To where the result is that we have a bad conscience. Look at what John Stott says.

He says, if we disregard the voice of conscience, allowing sin to remain unconfessed and unforsaken, our faith will not long survive. Anybody whose conscience has been so manipulated as to be rendered insensitive is in a very dangerous condition, wide open to the deception of the devil. In fact, John Calvin says it well when he says a bad conscience is the mother of all heresies. You trace every doctrinal deviation, every heresy back to a bad conscience.

That's what comes first. And then bad heretical doctrine and belief systems come next. This is exactly what verse 19 teaches. Look what he says in verse 19.

He says keeping faith and a good conscience. And then in the numeric standard, it says which, and by the way, that's in the singular. He's not talking about those who reject both faith and a good conscience. He's talking about the good conscience.

So he's saying keeping faith and a good conscience. And speaking of the conscience, or a good conscience, some have rejected a good conscience, and they suffer shipwreck in regard to the faith. They reject the conscience first. A good conscience first, and then they suffer shipwreck in regard to their faith.

A bad conscience and faith in the gospel will not long survive. Together You guys know of Woody Harrelson. The Hollywood actor. You may not know this, but Woody Harrelson was raised in the latter part of his childhood in a Christian home and a Presbyterian home.

In an interview in 1996, he said to the interviewer, I was a fervent churchgoer as a kid, and we had weekly Bible study over at our house. I even gave a couple of sermons. He goes on to talk about how during that time he had a number of sexual experiences, no doubt in violation of his conscience. And for a time he was doing that and holding to his belief system in Christianity for a while.

In fact, listen to what he says in the same interview. He says, even though a good percentage of my early sexual experiences resulted from Larry Flynt's indirect help, Larry Flynt is a pornographer. I was still this Christian boy with the same views that everyone else in the community had, so for a while, a bad conscience. And some version of faith coexisted together, but eventually his faith fell by the wayside, and in the same interview, he goes on to say this when your faith unravels, though, it just unravels, I don't think I'll ever be affiliated with any organized religion again.

I believe there are a lot of paths to the truth. Shipwreck. Shipwreck. With regard to the faith, I pray not irreparably so.

We should pray for him. That God will bring him back to the truth, but he has suffered shipwreck in regard to his faith, and it started with a bad conscience. My challenge to you guys is this that, heed your conscience, let your conscience be informed by God's word. Heed the Word of God, heed your conscience.

And if you violate your conscience, and we all have, then you need to confess that to the Lord. You need to forsake that sin. And in some cases, you need to go to individuals that you may have wronged, and confess your sin to them, and seek their forgiveness, as well. And once you have taken those steps, a good conscience is a conscience that accepts the verdict of the cross.

The verdict of the cross is that we are forgiven for our sins and released from the wrath of God, and a good conscience accepts that verdict and ceases to condemn. But I just challenge you, especially young people. I'm telling you, years from now, you'll look back and know what I'm saying right now is absolutely true, that what the most precious commodity that you can have is the gospel, and also a good conscience. Don't sell your good name.

Don't sell your integrity for a letter grade. Don't sell your integrity for 10 bucks. View a good conscience as one of your prize possessions and guard it, guard it. Because if you don't, You will ultimately suffer shipwreck in regard to your faith.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. I know all of you want to have just an awesome year as you look ahead to 2009. I want that for myself. I want that for you.

And yet I know that this world that we live in is full of danger. And snares And no one ever chooses to shipwreck their lives. They just make earlier decisions that create a chain of events. that lead to an unwanted shipwreck.

And Paul is giving just very simple counsel. You're going to have to fight. You're going to have to fight the good fight. You're going to have to fight it well.

You're going to have to increase and maintain your grip on the gospel. And you're also going to have to prize a good conscience and preserve that good conscience. I know for me I've had to confess many sins to the Lord over the years, and there are times where some of those sins I've had to go confess to somebody else that I've stolen from or that I cheated. And man, that walking away from those encounters, the, the, the power, the spiritual power of a good conscience is just, it's unbelievable.

And I'm walking away thinking, why didn't I do this sooner? Please prize a good conscience. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, the beauty of it, the clarity of it. Sometimes you say things that We may not want to hear, but But you speak to us in these ways because you love us.

You want what's best for us and a passage like today, it's so obvious, you wanted the very best for Timothy, you wanted the very best for those that he ministered to. And I know, Lord, you want the very best for me and for all of us in this room and for all of those that we impact and influence. So help us. To heed these words of scripture that we have heard today, and experience the year, the life that you so want us to experience The life you purchased for us through Jesus.

And his shed blood. At this time we're going to be taping up an offering. And We'd encourage you guys to give as the Lord leads you to give and Do you have any prayer requests, you can put those on the comment cards. Just give as God leads you to give.

Lord, accept the offerings that we give to you this morning. May you be glorified by what we give, and may you use what we give to further glorify your name. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.