From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, he'll remind us to be patient and fight to the finish.

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Now, when it comes to the Christian life, it's a fight to the finish and you might be doing really well. And you see the finish line up ahead and you think, well, I'm just going to coast into the finish line. You can't do that. Your adversary, the devil, he's going to keep coming after you.

And the moment that you start thinking everything is in the bag, I don't have to worry about anything anymore, he will devour you. So we want to fight all the way to the finish.

Hey, here's the question for today. Are you fighting the good fight? Every scarlet.

Speaker 1

The Christian life is not a sprint; it's a marathon. In reality, it's a fight to the finish. From the time you get saved, you're in the Lord's army, and you're placed into an invisible spiritual battle against Satan.

So how can you fight the good fight with unwavering faith? We'll find out today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve as he shares three ways we can learn to go the distance and win in the fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The message is entitled "A Fight to the Finish," and it's part one of the last message in this new series, "This is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil." This resource is our thank you gift for supporting From His Heart this month. More details when you go to fromhisheart.org.

If you can, now open your Bible to the book of First Timothy and listen as Pastor Jeff begins to describe what it really takes to fight to the finish.

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First Timothy, beginning in verse 18 of chapter one. This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may 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 Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.

Hey, here's the question for today. Are you fighting the good fight? Paul goes on to say to Timothy in chapter 6, verse 12, "Fight the good fight of faith." Paul says of himself in the last chapter he ever penned, Second Timothy, Chapter 4, "I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. I have fought the good fight. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have loved his appearing." You can never quit in the fight.

So I want to share with you three keys to winning in the fight. Because Paul said in First Corinthians 9, when he used another sports illustration, he used the illustration of running. He says, "Hey, everybody runs in the race, but you run in such a way to win." So how do you win the race? How do you win in this fight that we have with the world, the flesh, and the devil? Three keys.

**Key number one.** The good fight is a lifelong battle. "Fight the good fight," he tells him, and the good fight lasts for the rest of your life. It lasts until you take your last breath. Paul wrote this letter in 63 AD and Timothy was in Ephesus. He wrote him again in 67 AD when Paul was just a short time from his death. He was going to get his head cut off for his faith in Christ. But here in 63 A.D., Paul still has about four years of life left, and he is telling Timothy, "Hey, you need to fight the good fight."

How long does it last? It lasts until you die, until you take your very last breath, until the clock reads zero. Now, when he uses the word "fight" in verse 18, that by them you fight the good fight, the word for fight that's used there is the word from which we get our English word "strategy." It's not talking about some kind of a skirmish, a little battle. Here he's talking about waging war and having a strategy to fight from the moment you get saved until the Lord calls you home. A long fight.

You know, the Christian life is not a sprint; it's a marathon. And it's not just a marathon, 26.2; it's an ultra marathon. We think, you know, I think that's one of the reasons why the Christian life is so difficult, because it's so long. You can go off emotion for a few months, maybe a few years. You're just so excited about the Lord. But emotion doesn't carry you for 50 years, for 60 years, for 80 years. You can't live like that.

Aren't you glad we don't live in the Old Testament times where you'd live to be 800? Good night. That's a long time. How long you been farming? 800 years. That's a long time to be a farmer. So I praise God we live this side of the cross, but it is a lifelong battle.

Now notice some things about this lifelong battle. The command to fight is urgent and non-negotiable. When Paul says, "This command I entrust to you, Timothy," or as some versions say, "This charge I give to you," Warren Wiersbe defines that word as an urgent command handed down from a superior officer. This is not a negotiable thing. You know, when you're in the military service, when you get a command from your superior officer, it's not take it or leave it. It's not, "Do it if you want. If you have a better idea, do that one." It's like, no, you carry orders.

If you watch the movie *A Few Good Men*, when Tom Cruise had Jack Nicholson on the witness stand, he said, "We follow orders. We follow orders or people die." That's the way it is in the military. Well, this is a military term that's used here. And you've been given orders, Timothy.

Now remember, Timothy, what was said about you? Paul led Timothy to faith, and obviously there were some prophets there that prophesied over Timothy, because that's what he says in verse 18 about what his life was going to be like and how the Lord was going to use him. It's very similar to what happened to Paul. Before he was Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord. He was going from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest Christians.

On the road to Damascus, he had that experience with the Lord. He saw the Lord and he heard the Lord say, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The Lord replied, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." He went blind and was led to Damascus. Then the Lord came to Ananias and said, "Ananias, I want you to go talk to Saul of Tarsus and pray for him. He's blind and he's seen a vision where you're going to come and pray for him, and he's going to regain his sight."

Ananias said, "Lord, Saul of Tarsus, I've heard about him. He's done much harm to the saints. Anyone who comes in your name, I don't want to go see him." The Lord said to Ananias, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine because he's going to bear my name before Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, for I'm going to show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake." So those were the prophecies that no doubt Ananias shared with Paul. This is what the Lord said concerning you.

And so Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul, the great apostle, had that in his heart. This is what is said of me. Timothy had that too. Now, we're not told what those prophecies were, but we're told that he had those. And Timothy, because of the things said about you, you need to fight the good fight. Fight. This is not a negotiable thing, and this is urgent.

See, from the time that you get saved, you're in the Lord's army. You become a child of God, a son or a daughter of God. Yes, and your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. Yes, and you pass out of death into life. Yes, but you're also placed into a battle, an invisible battle. You're a soldier in the Lord's army. And so as a soldier, going AWOL (absent without leave) is really not an option. You need to fight the good fight of faith. So it's an urgent command. It's a non-negotiable command.

And listen, as you fight the good fight of faith, just know the arena is tough, the arena that we find ourselves in to fight this fight. If you think about it in terms of a fighter going into the octagon, let's say I'm going to go into this area and that's where I'm doing battle with the world, with the flesh, with the devil. The arena is difficult. Timothy was in Ephesus. Ephesus was a key strategic city.

I've had the privilege of going to Ephesus to see the ruins of Ephesus. Lots of times you go to these places to see the ruins, and it's like that place is definitely ruined. It's a good name for it because that place is ruined. There's not a lot there. When you go to Ephesus and you see the temple of Diana, it's like there was the temple of Diana. So it's got like one pillar there. It's like, I don't think it looked like that back in the day. It's called one of the seven wonders of the world. Surely it had more than one little column, but it's just been cannibalized over the years.

So you go to Ephesus, the city, and I was expecting to just see everything broken down. No, Ephesus is some kind of place. You can walk down the streets of Ephesus and see what was there. You can go into the amphitheater in Ephesus. It seated 25,000 people. They estimate based on how many could be seated in their amphitheater that it was typically built for 10% of the population. So if it seated 25,000, historians tell us it probably had a population of 250,000 people.

It was cosmopolitan because you had ships coming in and out. Well, Paul was there. He built a church there. He spent two and a half years there. And then after Paul left, Timothy became the pastor there. Well, Timothy is not like Paul in his natural personality. Paul is a hard charger. He's stronger than an acre of garlic. Timothy has a tendency to be timid. That's why he tells Timothy, "God has not given you a spirit of fear, of timidity, but of power and love and discipline." You need to remind yourself of that, Timothy.

He's a young guy and he's a young pastor, and it's a difficult church. You know, in Ephesus, they worshiped Artemis, Artemis of the Ephesians. The Latinized version is Diana. This is the temple of Artemis. This is what it looked like back in the day. Now, when I went there, it didn't look like that. I think you had half a column. That was it. But that's what it looked like. It was one of the seven wonders of the world, and it was just given over to paganism.

That produced a lot of industry in Ephesus because you had the silversmiths, the craftsmen that would make little idols and sell them because people trusted in Artemis of the Ephesians. If you read in Acts, chapter 19, you know that because people started coming to Christ and great signs and wonders and miracles were being done through the Apostle Paul, they started getting upset because people were turning away from worshiping Diana.

They were saying, "Hey, this is all bunk, all this worship of this woman, this goddess Diana. We're worshiping Jesus Christ." So they're like, "Hey, we're in trouble here because our business is going to be cut into with all this Christianity stuff." They got everybody fired up and filled up the amphitheater, 25,000 people. For two hours, they shouted, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians." Can you imagine doing that for two hours? Good grief. That's what they did.

The Apostle Paul wanted to go in there and address the crowd. They wouldn't let him do it. They said, "That's like going into the lion's den. Those people are rabid dogs. Don't do it." And they wouldn't let him go in. That's where he is pastoring. There's false teachers that have infiltrated the church. There are difficulties everywhere. That's the place you have to fight. You have to fight the good fight, and it's in that arena.

Now think about your arena. Where are you fighting the good fight between the world, the flesh, and the devil? Maybe you're having to face difficulties of getting older. Young people don't understand. And I didn't understand when I was a young guy, still a very young guy. But when I was a younger guy, I still remember my uncle told me one time, I said something to him. I was a teenager, probably 16 or 17 years old. He said, "Oh, the arrogance of youth." And he's right because youthful people can tend to be arrogant. Why? Because everything still works.

They can get down on the ground and get back up. They can still do burpees. And, you know, I mean, it's like, "Oh, I gotta get down there. I gotta think about it." You know, when we pray and I get down on my knees to pray and ask you to get down on your knees, just know it's hard for me, just like it's hard for you. And so life can get very difficult as you get older.

My mom is 96 years old, and she's still got a great sense of humor. She said, "Well, I can't hear and I can't see and I can't walk, but other than that, I'm doing great." We're having a big celebration at her house after Christmas. I said, "Debbie and I are coming in after Christmas, and we want to have a dinner at your house, and I'll provide all the food." She said, "That's wonderful. I hope I'm still alive. But if not, you can still use the house." She's just got a great sense of humor.

Hey, it's hard when you get old. What about if you're in a situation where you lost your job? You're in a tough season of life. You know, when the arena gets hard, the devil will move in. He'll whisper those words that he whispered to Job's wife, and that she spoke to him: "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. Just give up. Just quit." Job said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we accept good from God and not accept adversity?"

You're going through a time of adversity. Don't get mad at God. Don't get bitter at God. Trust God. Just as we sang, "Lord, we trust you. Jesus, we trust you. We don't know what's going on. Your ways are higher than our ways. But we trust you."

Hey, maybe you're dealing, as some are, with a family member who is dealing with dementia or some other kind of ailment that's causing them to go down, down, down. It's hard. It's heartbreaking. God knows the arena can be tough, but fight the good fight all the way until the clock reads 000, because listen, the cost is worth it to fight the good fight. Paul said it's worth it. "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I finished the course. I've run the race. I've done it, and it is worth it."

First Peter 5:10 says, "As we do battle with the devil, and after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." Souls are at stake in this fight. We always use the two words on the radio program and in our church: "shine and share." What's the job of a Christian? To shine and share. Shine for Christ and share what great things the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you.

Shine is how you live. Share is what comes out of your mouth. And people are watching. People aren't going to tell you they're watching you, but you just know. You name the name of Jesus; they're watching you. If you don't fight the good fight, they notice. If you bail out on the fight, they notice. They say, "All this Christianity stuff, I guess it's nothing to it. I guess it's not really real. I guess it doesn't really hold you and change you. Because that person who claimed to be a Christian, they walked away from it."

Hey, it pays to serve Jesus. It pays every day. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:58, "Finally, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."

So the good fight is a lifelong battle.

**Second key.** The good fight requires your effort and attention. So what does he say? "This command I entrust to you, Timothy, verse 18, 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."

Keeping faith and a good conscience. How do we fight this good fight? We do it by keeping faith and a good conscience. We do it by applying ourselves. Now, the Apostle Paul, who in First Timothy chapter one said that he was the chief of sinners, he said, "I'm a trophy of God's grace. Because I shouldn't even be an apostle. God should have written me off. I tried to destroy the church of God. I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. But I found mercy in the Lord."

He said, "This is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am." If Jesus can save me, the worst of sinners, he can save anybody. That was Paul's testimony.

Now, Paul, when he gets saved, he goes to work. He starts to really dig in. He starts to study the Scripture. He applies himself completely. That's why he, in my estimation, is the greatest Christian who ever lived. And this is what he says in First Corinthians, chapter 15: "For I am the least of the apostles who am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain. But I labored even more than all of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God with me."

He labored. That word "labored" is where we get our English word "copious." You know, if somebody's in school and they're taking copious notes, that means they're toiling, they're laboring over those notes. They're trying to get everything down. Well, Paul said, "I labored more than the rest. I studied, I applied myself, I prayed, I did those things."

God will not do what you can do, and you cannot do what he can do. You can't put your Bible under your pillow at night and all of a sudden learn a lot of things because of osmosis; the words come into your mind. That doesn't work that way. How are you going to memorize Scripture? You have to take the time to do it. How are you going to learn things? You have to take the time to learn. And the Scripture commands us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So he says in verse 19 that when you fight this good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, so keeping faith means you have faith and you hold to the faith. You cling to the faith, you grow in the faith, you grow as a believer. And that's the command. The last thing Peter ever wrote was Second Peter, chapter three, verse 18, where he says, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

So how am I going to do that? How am I going to be a person of faith? You know, we hear a lot about kids, especially deconstructing their faith. Well, that's a formula for disaster, to deconstruct your faith. And don't ever get the idea, you know, when you come to Jesus, some people used to say this:

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Pastor Jeff Shreve's hero in the faith was Dr. Adrian Rogers, who used to always say, "We don't understand all the answers. But if you'll open the word of God and read about a chapter a day and then be sure to obey the part that you do understand, then you'll begin to understand the part you don't understand. Do you understand?" Of course, his meaning was that we should trust God's word. We need to learn the deeper truths of God to do that. And these deeper truths are innumerable, incalculable on this side of heaven.

You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today in the message part one of the lesson, "A Fight to the Finish." We'll have part two next time. Speaking of fighting, every day, people around the world are battling powerful enemies they can't even see: temptation, fear, shame, confusion, addiction, and many more. Families are under pressure. Kids and teens are bombarded with lies. Marriages are strained, and the faith of many is weakening. It is a spiritual war.

That's why this month on From His Heart, we're airing Pastor Jeff's new six-lesson series, "This is War: Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil." You can get your copy in the format of your choice when you call or go online to make your gift of any amount. If you need to be assured of God's faithfulness and trustworthiness in His promises, this series will help you a lot.

To get your copy, make that gift of any amount when you call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhishheart.org. You can ask for it on either a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 digital download. God bless you for standing with us.

I'm Larry Nobles inviting you to be right back here on Monday for part two of the last lesson in the "This Is War" series, when again we'll open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.

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From his heart.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more about that when you go to fromisheart.org.