Original: July 16, 2007
11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12
At this stage in our study of the word “fight” I hope you can begin to see my point of view. I am not the kind of guy who has the bumper sticker on his lifted truck saying, “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.” Rarely did I get into fights as a kid opting instead for the diplomatic way out of conflict. Fighting for the sake of fighting is archaic unless in defense of the weak. Two (or more) people in conflict should always seek the peaceful, mature and civilized way.
Someone once wisely said, “If you argue with an idiot people cannot tell the difference!”
War however, is a historic and necessary evil.
Pacifists only exist in countries with peace. Countries such as ours have the privilege of living in peace within our borders, but have done so at a great price. That great price is war and death. Though I do not cheer war on and run around looking for a fight, I do however passionately support any leadership that will fight to protect the weak and guard peace. The bottom line for me is that war is not good as an end, but in times of self defense and protecting the weak, it too, is a necessary evil as a means to the end of peace.
Ultimately however, the only good and worthy fight is the fight for a man’s faith. Not only is it a “good fight” (1Timothy 1:18) but a man should be the aggressor of such a fight in his life. No godly man should rely solely upon another, such as a pastor, for his spiritual food (1 Corinthians 3:1). He must learn to fight for his faith.
So, what does this fight look like? How does a man go about fighting for his faith? A closer look at verse 12 reveals the answer.
To “fight the good fight of faith” is simply to “take hold of the eternal life”. We also can note that this “eternal life” comes into our life the moment we make the “good confession” of faith (Romans 10:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17). Like so many men, those early days of a new found faith in Christ were days we burned white hot with the grace of God. Like so many of us, this paper fire of newborn faith burns down quick and a man must fight daily to fan the flame (2 Timothy 1:16) of faith. Like the church of Ephesus, however, so many have “left our first love” (Revelation 2:4) for a lesser compromise. A man must “take hold” of eternal things and shun the temporal (2 Corinthians 4:18), worthless (Jeremiah 15:14-20), and sinful things that t so easily entangle (Hebrews 12:1).
To take hold of eternity is to fix our eyes on things eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18), things of precious and infinite worth (Jeremiah 15:19-20) and to have laser-like focus on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). The fight for a man’s faith is a constant battle between passivity and being assertive as he reaches out to take hold of that which took hold of him (Philippians 3:12-14).
