A Solemn Call to Spiritual Duty

1 Timothy 6:13-16

     Let's open our Bibles this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 6.  If I were to entitle the portion of Scripture we're looking at, 1 Timothy 6:13 through 16, I would call it "A solemn call to spiritual duty...a solemn call to spiritual duty."  It comes at the conclusion of this epistle which in general is a call to Timothy to discharge his ministry.  He has been given a commission by God.  That commission has been made very clear to him not only from the desire of his heart but from the Word of God prophetically out of heaven, from the laying on of the hands of the Apostle and the other elders, very clear to him because Paul has mandated certain things that he is to do.  The whole epistle of 1 Timothy lays out Timothy's responsibility to fulfill his commission to set things right in the church at Ephesus. 

     He was called by God.  He was gifted by God.  He was sent by the church.  He was ordained by the Apostles and elders.  And he is there with a great responsibility to fulfill his calling.  His calling was publicly confirmed both by his baptism and by that ordination of which I momentarily mentioned...ago mentioned.  And he is really just the victim, in a sense, of sovereign circumstances which have placed him in a crucial point in time and space to fulfill the work of God designed for him.  The whole epistle then is really delineating his duty to the church at Ephesus to set things right.

     But when you come to verses 11 and following Paul really sums up the call.  And he says, "O man of God, do this," and do you remember that he said a man of God is known by what he flees from, what he follows after, what he fights for and what he is faithful to?  And that was our last message.  We're going to pick the text up from there.

     Now the man of God not only needs to know what he's to do, not only does he need to know how he is to do it but he needs to know why he's to do it.  He needs to be impelled, compelled, constrained or motivated.  And the passage we're looking at is a passage about motivation.  Let's look at it, verse 13.  "I command you in the sight of God who makes all things alive and before Christ Jesus who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good testimony that you keep the commission, or the mandate, or the commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the shining forth of our Lord Jesus Christ which in His times He shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see to whom be honor and power everlasting amen."

     Now the passage ends with one of the greatest doxologies in all of holy Scripture.  It is reminiscent of the doxology in chapter 1 verse 17 which says, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever amen."  So in a sense the epistle begins and ends with a doxology, a song of praise to the nature of God.

     Now what I want you to grasp in your mind is this.  Timothy has been reminded of his commission.  He has been called to fulfill his commission.  He has been reminded of his salvation.  He has been reminded of his giftedness.  He has been reminded of his public ordination.  He has been told specifically what his instructions are.  He has been told that as a man of God he has to flee some things, follow some things, fight for some things and be faithful to some things.  And now he is given the motive and the motive is because of the character of the God he serves.  Now I want you to grab that thought.  It is a surpassing thought.  Motivation in ministry, motivation to spiritual duty, the solemnity of our task is related to the nature of our God. 

     When the Apostle Paul said to King Agrippa in Acts 26:19, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision," he set the standard for all spiritual duty.  None of us is to be disobedient when God lays out our duty.  We are to show instant, eager, willing commitment to follow the commission God gives is, that is what God has designed for us.  And much of our commitment is predicated on how we understand God or who we believe God to be. 

     J.B. Phillips decrying the problem of ineffective Christians said, "Your God is too small."  In other words, your life reflects a weak God.  On the other hand, you show me a devoted life, an impactful life, a superior spiritual life, a life of great strength, great and effective ministry and I'll show you a life that's representative of a God that is very large.  It is our theology proper, which is the technical category for the doctrine of God, which dictates the impact of our ministry.  And so, Timothy is called to fulfill his duty based upon who God is.

     Now you might ask the question, well, given the fact that Timothy was called by God, that he heard prophetically out of heaven that this call was valid, in other words, he wasn't just going along on some whimsical feeling, he was confirmed by prophecy to have been called by God, given that he was gifted, given that he was trained by Lois and Eunice, his mother and grandmother who were godly, given that he was the disciple and protege of the Apostle Paul, given that he had a strong desire for ministry, given that he was now maturing, given that the elders had confirmed this calling and sent him out, why did he need any further motivation?  Wasn't that enough?  Wasn't all of that surrounding his life, ministry and calling enough to compel him to do what God had given him to do?

     Well perhaps initially it was.  But as is the case, inevitably, in someone who has an impactful ministry, there will be opposition.  Timothy had already begun to face that.  He was alone in this church as the one Paul had assigned to get it straightened out.  It was a very difficult and a very lonely responsibility that Timothy had.  And then he was to right the ship in terms of purity and every time he confronted sin he would get opposition from the sinner, and every time he confronted false doctrine he would get opposition from the believer and the purveyor of that false doctrine.  He was left there all alone.  He was young.  And they were despising his youth for that.  He was young and therefore he wasn't as gentle and meek and peacemaking as he ought to have been, intended to argue too much as 2 Timothy 2 indicates.  He was young and battled youthful lusts which tends really to drain your self‑confidence away.  He was young and therefore didn't have a well‑defined polemic and articulated apologetic for every error that was floating around and found it difficult perhaps to be able to answer every argument on a philosophical theological level and the task was very difficult.  He was making enemies without making friends, and that's very difficult when you're all alone and perhaps was tempted to compromise.

     Some indications are that he may well have been thinking about just backing off from ministry all together.  And in 2 Timothy Paul says, "Stir up the gift of God."  Paul says, "Don't be ashamed of Christ."  Paul says, "Hold on to sound doctrine."  Paul says, "Don't crumble under persecution," 2 Timothy 3.  So the idea here is that Paul was having....Timothy rather was having a tremendous amount of opposition and he was alone as the special legate, or representative of the Apostle Paul who had gone on west for other duties.  It was a tough place.  And Timothy, frankly, needed encouragement and he needed courage.  He needed courage.  He needed fortitude.  He needed strength of character to hang on and do his spiritual duty.

     I think it's that way for anyone who does their spiritual duty, there's going to be a degree of opposition.  It's curious to me, I don't know why so much so lately but it seems as though there's an awful lot of criticism and opposition and even in a verbal sense persecution coming against me in these recent days.  I had occasion over the last couple of weeks to listen to three tapes that were given on the heresy of MacArthurism.  And they...the people giving them were ranting and raving and so loud at sometimes that it distorted the tape recorder and screaming about all of the error and so forth and so on, and of course, none of them had ever spoken to me and everything they were saying was a misrepresentation of what I believe.  And then I found out that this morning at a church here in the San Fernando Valley there is the beginning of a three‑part series, one this morning, one this afternoon, and one tonight, on the heresy of MacArthurism.  And they have flown in a speaker from the east coast who is an expert on my heresy and will be speaking all day there.  That's really not an uncommon thing.  I have been accused of all kinds of things and believing all kinds of things which I do not believe. 

     And sometimes it gets a little distressing.  I came home the other day after listening to those three tapes and I know Patricia thought I had been shot in the leg or something because I came dragging into the house.  But when you spend your life trying so hard to be a right representative of Jesus Christ and someone tears your reputation to shreds over something that is a lie and not a truth, it's a little discouraging and you get a little bit distressed and you're sort of looking around for somebody who is on your team.  I kind of understand that.  I read 120‑page book on me which was quite interesting...it was self‑ published and probably that was the only copy in existence, I don't know.  But you know, you read articles and letters about yourself and people accusing you of all kinds of unimaginable things, discrediting your ministry, calling you a heretic, accusing you of all things.  In fact, the thing I think that overwhelmed me more than anything was I was told recently about a group of men in a certain place who met together for prayer, this man was there and said, "The major prayer request they were seeking the Lord for was a way to discredit the ministry of John MacArthur."  And they spent an afternoon in prayer on that behalf. 

     That kind of opposition you might expect from the world, you don't always expect that from those who say they name the name of Jesus Christ.  But when you take a firm stand on some biblical issues, some people take great issue with that.  And they seek to discredit.  And I think Timothy was in that situation, but I'm not speaking to you just out of the experience of Timothy here, I confess that I'm speaking to you out of my own experience, an experience which is going on even today.  When you take a firm stand and when you say this is what God says in His Word, it's sometimes tough to stand up under the pressure that comes at you.  And there's something in you that says I think I'll just clam up and be a nice guy so everybody will like me.  But for me that passes rather rapidly, I am much more concerned with truth than popularity.

     You ask yourself the question, how do you stand up under that?  How does one deal with that?  Timothy's in that situation.  He's got to confront the sinners and the people propagating false teaching.  How is he going to stick to his spiritual duty when everybody turns against him?  How is he going to hold the courage of his conviction when he's under attack facing opposition?  And even when he gets persecuted?  And I can identify with that.  I have people who are greatly concerned about my welfare, who are always worried about me.  There have been threats on my life here, there and everywhere.  And there's this continual encouragement that I would take greater precautions and greater securities and so forth and so on because certain people...  It's hard for me to understand that.  But nonetheless that's the case.  And you approach life and you say I have this ministry to do and I want to do it with all my heart but sometimes it gets a little overwhelming and you wonder if maybe you just adjusted your theology a little bit it wouldn't be quite as reaction...quite as great a reaction out there. 

     But where do you get your strength?  Where do you get the strength to stand?  And the answer comes in one word and that is God.  And I don't want to be trite with that so listen to how Paul unfolds that.  The answer comes in the name of God.  In other words, what compels me and what compelled Paul and what had to drive Timothy was confidence in who his God was.  That's the substance of it.  It isn't enough to be impelled by a sense of duty, some vigory.  It isn't impelled...enough to be impelled by a sense of obligation to the needs of people.  There has to be something more sovereign than that that compels you when you face opposition, criticism, attack, persecution.  And the answer comes in a word...God. 

     If I understand the nature of the God whose mandate I follow, if I understand who my God is whom I serve, if I genuinely trust the true God who is my God then I will not compromise and then I will feel encouraged and I'll feel courageous.  It all depends on my view of God.  And I'll tell you something, people, the way you live your life is a direct reflection of how you conceive God to be.  These people that we're reading about who can get on television every day and talk about Jesus and talk about God and talk about all this holiness and all this piosity and then live in a swamp of gross sin have some kind of God of their own invention who allows hypocrisy.  But that is not the God of the Word of God.  But their life is a reflection of their theology.  I said to somebody the other day, as this whole thing crumbles, I hope the theology crumbles with it because it's at the core of it.  You are a living reflection of your theology, so am I.  What I really believe to be true about God controls the way I live, the way I talk, the way I think.

     Paul helps Timothy to understand this by giving him one of the most magnificent presentations of the nature of God anywhere in Scripture.  It is the supreme reason to do your spiritual duty because of who God is.  It is a solemn doxology that acts as a motivator to spiritual duty because it describes the God who called Timothy, the God who gifted Timothy, the God who ordained Timothy, the God who sent Timothy and the God who promised to empower Timothy.  And if he knows who his God is, then he can go ahead and do his duty.  But if he's waffling around not sure about his God or what his God will provide for him, or whether or not his God is in control of everything, then he's going to have a very difficult time doing what he ought to do. 

     Now the doxology doesn't come until verses 15 and 16, but what is said about God in verses 13 and 14 are so important that we want to pick those up, even though we looked at them briefly in our last study.  Listen carefully.  The source of courage for the one doing spiritual duty, the source of courage to be uncompromising and faithful to the task is found in these following attributes of God.  Number one, the preservation power of God...the preservation power of God.  Go to verse 13.  "I command you, Paul says to Timothy," and he's commanding him in verse 14 to do his duty, to keep his commission without spot and unrebukable.  "I'm commanding you to fulfill your ministry, do your spiritual duty, use your spiritual gift, do what God wants you to do, obey the service God's called you to whether that specific service to which Timothy was called or extended to any of us here today, the idea is the same for all of us, we are commanded to do what God has called us to do."  And then to help us be motivated, it says you're doing it in the sight of God who makes all things alive.  And there is the first characteristic of God mentioned in the text.  What God do we serve?  The God who makes all things alive.  Anything that lives, lives because God gave it life.  God is life.  God is the source of life.

     In fact, we could sum it up in four statements.  When it says "God who makes all things alive," it refers to God as creator of all things.  Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God...what?...created the heavens and the earth." God is creator.  In fact, He is called the creator.  In Romans 1:25 it says, "Men worship the creature more than the creator."  God is the creator of all life.  He makes all things live.

     Secondly, He is the sustainer of all life.  Whatever He makes to live, He keeps alive.  He sustains all things.  It says in Acts 17, "In Him we live and move and have our existence."  God has generated life and God progenerates life and God gives continuity to life, all life is the reflection of God's power.  In Psalm 36 and verse 6 we have the Old Testament simply saying this, and it's as direct as it can be, "O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast."  God sustains life.

     Thirdly, the implication of the phrase "who makes all things alive" is that God is also the protector of His own.  In a unique sense He preserves the life of those who are His own.  In Psalm 37, I think it's verse 28, it says, "For the Lord loves justice and forsakes not His saints, they are preserved forever."  God gives life to all.  God sustains life for all.  And God uniquely preserves His own forever.  In fact, in that wonderful passage in Matthew 10 verses 29 to 31, the Lord says to the disciples, "If God takes care of the sparrows that hop and numbers the hairs of your head, don't you know you're of much more value than they are?"  In other words, God is intimately concerned with His own.

     And because of these concepts we can approach ministry without a fear of danger.  In other words, translating it into the spiritual dimension, God gave you life, Timothy, God will sustain your life, Timothy and God will preserve your life unto the fulfillment of His plan.  And that's the only way to live and do your spiritual duty.  If you're concerned with self‑ preservation and reputation and comfort and all of that and those are your preoccupying factors, then you're going to give yourself away to those things. But if you realize your life is expendable and if you're saying to yourself, "I'm not going to fear what men can do unto me, God gave me life, God sustains my life, He promises to preserve my life, what do I have to fear?"  Timothy, go at it. 

     But there's a fourth principle and I believe it is really the salient primary interpretive key to this phrase.  "God who makes all things alive" primarily refers not to God as creator, God as sustainer or God as preserver of His own, but God as raiser of the dead.  The primary point here is that it is God who raises the dead.  And so what Paul is saying to Timothy, in eff