Sermon Transcript
Don’t be like everybody else. Don’t be like them. You ever said that to somebody or heard somebody say that to you? If you’re a parent, you have said that. You said that to your own children, most likely.
If you’ve ever been a child, and I think all of us have at one point or another, we’ve heard that probably from other people, maybe a teacher, maybe a parent. Don’t be like other people. You be you. You be yourself. Be different.
Swim against the tide. Live against the grain. I’ve had people in my life who said things like that to me. I think of youth pastors and youth leaders and people who’ve invested in my life. One guy in particular, the first one that comes to mind, is a guy named Mike who was one of our high school leaders in our youth group when I was growing up.
And he pulled me aside on a beach retreat after 9th grade and said, Steve, You need to not be like the people that you’re hanging out with right now. They’re going in a different direction. You need to go this direction. And I didn’t realize all that the group I was hanging with was involved in. I was sort of naive to some of that, but there were some things behind the scenes that this particular leader knew about, and he was calling me to live differently, and I’m grateful for that.
Some of that stuff came to light later on, and I’m grateful for that. I had a grandmother that I think of whenever I think of a phrase like live differently. Her name, we called her Grandma Daisy. Every time I talked to her on the phone or in person, she said, be proud that you’re a Durand, Steve. She said, Durands are different.
You need to live differently. Maybe you have someone like that in your own life. Well, Jesus said something like that, more or less, to his followers, didn’t he? They’re looking at the leaders of their day and the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the people who knew the law backwards and forwards. And Jesus said, hey, don’t be like them.
Their hearts are far from God. Yes, they know the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law is not within them, and their hearts are far from God. Don’t be like them. The Apostle Paul said something like this, right, in Romans chapter 12, when he says, don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world. The world wants to squeeze you into its mold.
If you’re a child of God, if you’re following after him, Don’t be like everybody else. God wants you to be distinct and different. Most of us, it’s easier to just sort of blend in. We don’t want to stand out, but God wants us to stand out. He says you’re salt, you’re light if you’re a child of God.
And that’s a reminder that the fact that if you’re a Christ follower, we’re in a battle. You’re in a struggle. You may be in a battle right now. And you feel it very, very tangibly. At other times, we don’t see it or feel it as much, but maybe right now you’re feeling something, or recently you felt something where it’s just a reminder that faith is hard.
It’s a spiritual battle. Maybe, maybe right now you’re fighting for a marriage, or within your marriage, or maybe it’s between a parent and a child, and you’re on the parent end, or you’re on the child or student end, or maybe, maybe you’re fighting with someone right now, or warring against an individual that you work with.
Maybe you’re struggling with something more internal that other people wouldn’t know about— your thought life, the things you think about. Maybe you’re struggling with worry right now. Maybe you’re battling purity. You’re struggling with keeping your eyes pure. You’re looking at the wrong things.
You are following after the wrong things. Maybe you’re struggling in your area of finances right now. Maybe you’re struggling with faith. Do I really trust God? Whatever it is that you’re struggling with, it’s a reminder that God calls us to live differently, and that’s really, really hard, and that’s part of the battle.
And Timothy was in a situation like that in 1 Timothy chapter 6. We’ve been in it now for a few weeks. We’re going to be in it again today and a couple more weeks. And Timothy, in this particular immediate context, this young pastor The church of Ephesus was dealing with false teaching and materialism and things like that that just— he was surrounded by reminders that he was in a battle. And so Paul is calling him to live differently, and he gives us 5 words in chapter 6, verse 11.
And you have it in your notes there. If you have the bulletin, you’ll see sermon notes, and there’s a bullet— there’s a Bible in front of you, or maybe you brought your own Bible. I always encourage you to follow the Scripture if you can, rather than merely just hearing what we’re saying here from the pulpit, so that you can see what it is that God is wanting to say through us. But in verse 11, we see 5 words there where he says, but you, man of God.
Paul’s talking to Timothy here, and at the end of this letter, after all the warnings and admonitions and the exhortations he’s given him, he says, but you, man of God. What’s he saying here? He’s contrasting Timothy with these false teachers and these people who were dividing the church. And he’s saying, Timothy, God’s called you to live differently. Normally Paul referred to Timothy as my child in the faith, my son in the faith, and now he’s saying, you’re a man of God.
What must that have felt like to Timothy? That title, man of God, wasn’t something that just got thrown around to anybody. In the Old Testament, only a handful of people were called a person of God, a man or woman of God. We know Moses and Elijah and Elisha and David and people like that, prophets who served God faithfully, declared God’s Word to people. In the New Testament, we only see it twice, and it’s both said about— and both times it’s said about Timothy.
Here, and then in the next letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy, we’re going to look at later on this semester. Saying, Timothy, you’re a man of God. You’re a young man, but you’re a man of God. And that title should be something that we should all, if you’re a Christ follower, eagerly desire. We all want to say certain things about us.
You’re a great parent. You’re a hard worker. You’re brilliant. You’re the best in your field. We all want to hear that, but that really doesn’t matter much if it’s also not been able to be said about us, you’re a man or a woman of God.
God created you and me to be men and women of God, or a young man or a young woman of God. And that’s what Paul’s calling Timothy to. Don’t live like everybody else. And so in order to get there, Paul’s going to give some words and some metaphors that I think will be able to help us to say, if I’m a man of God, if I’m a woman of God, if I’m to live against the grain from the rest of this world, if I’m not to follow the pattern of this world, I need to embrace these concepts that Paul’s going to share with us. Verse 11 in chapter 6 of 1 Timothy says, but you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness.
Faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. 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 and in the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession. I charge you, Timothy, to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. We just sang about that.
Which God will bring about in His own time. God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever. Amen. What does a man or woman of God look like?
What does a man or a woman of God do? He gives us some metaphors here that I want to pull out here. In verse 11, see that a man or woman of God— if you’re a man or woman of God or desire to be a man or woman of God, you got to be a runner. That’s the first thing we see. You’re a runner.
He says you’re to run from certain things and you’re to run towards certain things. Running from certain things, this idea of fleeing something, makes us think of being a coward. When I was in high school, my friends and I from my youth group went on a youth trip, and we went to some countryside situation over the course of a weekend, as youth groups often do, and we had a retreat, and during that time we played football. And it seemed like a good idea to us at the time that we should play tackle football without pads, without helmets. There was no concussion protocol like there is now in the NFL.
Nobody was smart enough to be thinking about that. But I remember being on defense and tackling one of our youth leaders. His name was Mark, and Mark’s a big guy. And I don’t know how it happened. I probably— I’m sure I had some help in bringing Mark down.
Mark didn’t like me tackling him. He didn’t like how I tackled him. I might have even gloated a little bit. Mark didn’t like that. The very next play, they called the play for Mark, and I’m still on defense, and they toss the ball to Mark, and he’s coming at me, and he is 3 times as big as I am, and the rest of the defense is over here, and I’m in the middle of the field.
He has the whole field to work with, but he comes right for me, full speed. Fire coming out of his ears and out of his nose, and it’s frightening. And so I did what any wise person would do. I ran the other direction. Sometimes running away is a sign of fear, but often it’s a sign of wisdom.
Sometimes fleeing is the smartest thing you can do. We see that in the Old Testament when Joseph is serving in the court of Potiphar, his boss, who has a wife who sexually entices Joseph to try to get him to sleep with her. What does Timothy do? He doesn’t just stick around and reason with her. He runs.
You read in the book of 1 Samuel about the current king of Israel, Saul, and the soon-to-be king David. Saul was jealous of David and he tried to kill David. And so David did what any wise person would do. He got the heck out of there. He fled.
Fleeing is a reasonable and wise decision when it comes to dangerous things or things that are harmful. To flee means to have nothing to do with. Paul doesn’t say, hey Timothy, go for a nice jog. Go get a brisk piece of exercise, work up a sweat. No, he’s saying, I want you to run.
The word there is actually the word from which we get our English word fugitive. You’re a fugitive. I want you to run. And what are we to run from? Well, he says, from all this.
What is all this? Well, it’s reasonable to say in this immediate context it’s the things that we just talked about the last couple weeks. All this would be, Timothy, flee from the false teaching. Timothy, flee from the materialism. Flee from this erroneous thinking that money is a means to spiritual growth.
Timothy, flee from the love of money. We talked about that last week. Timothy, flee from the envy and the strife and the malicious talk that’s existing. Timothy, flee from all that. In other words, flee from anything, man or woman of God, that— from anything that keeps you away from God.
Flee from anything that keeps you from God, that pulls you away from God. I want you to flee from all this. I want you to flee from anything that pulls you away from God. I want you to flee from temptation. We see that in Scripture about fleeing from temptation instead of dabbling with temptation.
Sometimes temptation starts with just a glance or just a purchase or just a kiss or something small and simple. It’s a little thing that then grows into a big thing. Timothy, I want you to run from all this. I want you to run from temptation. I want you to run also from unbelief.
You and I, as a man or woman of God, are to run from unbelief, from a lack of faith. Why do we give in to materialism? Why does anybody love money? Because of wrong belief that says, if I have those things, then I will be satisfied. I need those things more than I need God.
That’s wrong thinking. We’re to flee from that. We’re to flee from any temptation that says, I need this more than I need what God has for me, or who God is. Flee from all of that. And in addition to running from stuff as a man or woman of God, he says, Timothy, you as a man of God, I want you to run towards certain things.
See that word pursue? You might want to underline that or circle it. To pursue. What is he to pursue? He lists 6 things here that are different, but they’re somewhat related, and I’ll go through them quickly.
The first 3 tend to have more to do with our relationship with God. And the second set of 3 have more to do with our relationship with other people. He says, as a man or woman of God, you should be pursuing righteousness. Righteousness is right living. Righteousness is living life according to God’s standard, not according to the standard of the world and what the world says is okay.
It’s to live differently. It’s to live according to what the standard of the Word of God says. It’s to live a life that’s pleasing to Him. That’s what it means to pursue righteousness. I’m going to do right.
I’m going to have moral integrity. I’m going to live before God in this way. I want you, man or woman of God, to pursue godliness. Godliness is devotion in action. We would use the word, I guess, years ago— we don’t really hear this word a whole lot now— piety.
To live with piety. Piety is devotion in action. It’s demonstrating that in your life, not to be showy. In fact, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, listen, when you give, don’t give in order to be seen by other people and get pats on the back. When you pray, don’t pray so that others will notice you.
When you fast, don’t do so to get attention from other people. When you do your acts of righteousness before other people, make sure that your heart’s in the right place, because God looks at the heart. And if your heart’s in the right place, he will reward you. That’s your reward. That’s the reward you should be seeking.
So righteousness and godliness go together, pursuing right living and pleasing— a life that is pleasing to God. It says to pursue faith. We’ll talk more about this here in a moment, but to me, to pursue faith says, I’m going to live based on what God says rather than what I see around me. I’m going to live based on what God says rather than what makes sense to me. Because to walk by faith and not by sight is to live against the grain.
And without faith, the Bible says, it’s impossible to please God. So I need to pursue faith, living by faith. And then he lists some other things here. He says, I want you to pursue love. That’s the word agape.
Agape, the Greek word agape, unconditional love. Putting that into action, preferring others above yourself. Whatever is going to enable me as a man or woman of God to show love in action, that’s what I need to be pursuing. I need to pursue acts of love. I need to pursue endurance, to be able to endure trials.
As a person who— I try to exercise every now and then and go out running, and I’ve learned that in order to build my endurance, I have to keep running. How do you build up endurance? You got to keep going. You don’t stop. And over time you build up endurance.
And the Bible tells us when you go through trials and difficult times, God wants us to build up endurance so that we can become more mature and complete and not lack in anything as we go through these trials that he has for us. To develop endurance, pursue that, Timothy, or man or woman of God. And then to pursue gentleness. To pursue warmth and kindness and humility and compassion.
And Philippians tells us to let your gentleness be evident to all, and that can only come about from the work of God. It’s a part of the fruit of the Spirit. God’s work in you to produce gentleness, and that doesn’t mean wimpiness, because in the same passage he says to fight. Jesus was a fighter, but he was also gentle. It’s possible to be a gentle fighter.
But we’re to run towards these things. Run away from these things, run towards these things. One of the best signs or indicators of your spiritual maturity or of my spiritual maturity and how we’re growing in our faith is, what are you running from right now? What are you running towards?
Some of you may be running from God like Jonah. God wants you to go here and you’re going there. Some of you are running from something and It doesn’t say to flee in fear, but as a sign of wisdom, we’re to flee certain things.
Sometimes we run towards things that God doesn’t want us to run towards. That’s a sign of spiritual maturity, is to say, am I running from the right things? Are you running from the right things right now? And are you running towards the right things?
A man or woman of God is a runner. On top of that, we see there in verse 12 that a man or woman of God is also A wrestler. You see the word fight. It says fight the good fight. I could have said a fighter, but I think he’s getting after something even more than that.
The word fight has to do with struggling and agonizing and straining, but then he says to take hold of, which means to grasp or to seize. So as you would in wrestling. I don’t know a whole lot about wrestling other than when my kids were little I would wrestle with them. I’ve taken my kids to WrestleMania events and We’ve played with wrestling figures. We enjoy watching wrestling from time to time.
But my first introduction to actual something close to wrestling was early on in my ministry when I was a youth pastor, and I took my youth group to a camp, and they had us doing recreation with other youth groups, and they had a game for us. They said, we’re going to teach you all a game, and I should have— this should have been a warning sign to me. They said, it’s called the Beast.
Hello? Okay, tell me more about the beast. Well, what the beast is, is we’re going to put one youth group on the ground and they’re all going to cling to one another, and then you, your youth group is going to come and you’re going to try to peel them off, and you have to keep going until you separate everybody from one another. It’s a lot of wrestling and straining and fighting, and at this particular time in my ministry, I had a bunch of scrawny middle schoolers. I’m sorry if you’re in middle school, but that’s what I had.
To deal with, and I had Shannon. We loved that game, The Beast. Our kids did not. They were crying, and they didn’t like any of that. It’s like, where are the— like, I want some high schoolers here, and we’re having to peel these kids off.
That was, that was hard. That was really, really hard. And Paul here is saying, this is hard. Faith is hard. Fight the good fight of faith.
Take hold, Timothy. You’re a man or woman of God. There’s going to be a struggle. In all of this. And it’s a reminder that we have an enemy who is not going to leave you alone.
He wants to steal and kill and destroy. He wants to harm you. He wants to pull you away from God.
And not only is the devil our enemy, but the world is our enemy. Friendship with the world, the Bible says, is hatred toward God. We should want nothing to do with the world. And its values. We’re to live differently from the world.
Our old sin nature called the flesh is our enemy. We’re to war against that. We’re in a fight, we’re in a battle, we’re wrestling. And our wrestling is not, the Bible says, with flesh and blood. It’s with unseen principalities and spiritual powers and things that we can’t see.
And so sometimes we forget that they’re there. But they’re very much there. And at some time, and it may be now for you, you’re going to go through something where you’re gonna need faith, great faith.
You’re gonna be going through something, and again, maybe even right now, where you can’t fix what’s going wrong, where you can’t change a person’s perspective or heart. You can’t do anything about your situation, and neither can anybody else, and you need faith to carry you through. And it’s a reminder that this world is not our home and that God fights with us and for us. But a man or woman of God stays in the battle and they fight and they wrestle. In addition to fleeing and pursuing the right things, we’re to fight.
We’re to hang in there. And what are we to fight for? What are we wrestling for? It says, for the eternal life to which you were called. God calls each and every person here in this room to eternal life.
What is eternal life? Well, that’s easy, right? It’s just life without end. That sounds really, really good. I’d be interested in that.
But what we see in John chapter 17, when Jesus is praying to his Heavenly Father, he says, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Eternal life is Unending years of life, that after your physical life here, you can experience eternity with God. But eternal life, this verse tells us, is knowing and enjoying God. That’s eternal life. And this is the purpose for which God created you.
There’s 2 categories of people, and you’re in one of them: those who have eternal life and those who don’t.
And eternal life we see in Scripture either comes down to you either accept it or you reject it. John 3 says this, whoever has or believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. 1 John 5:12, whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. You either have the Son and therefore you have eternal life, or you don’t have the Son and you don’t have life.
You either believe in the Son and that what Jesus did for you is enough and therefore you have eternal life, or you reject it.
And if you’re not sure what category you’re in, I’d love to talk to you afterwards if you would be so bold to come and to say, I really want to nail this down. I want to be in the eternal life category, not just eternal life here, but an abundant life for the rest of my life, knowing and experiencing God. I want that. That’s what God called me to. I’d love to help you to know, because you can know.
And eternal life is available to anyone. And that’s what we’re fighting, we’re wrestling for, is to experience eternal life, life without end, an abundant quality of life.
And he says here, I want you to take hold of it. Now, this is interesting. Why is he telling Timothy, who already was in the eternal life category, to take hold of something that he already had taken hold of? Why was he telling Timothy to fight for something, to possess something that he already possessed? Because Timothy was already a Christ follower.
He already had eternal life. As I think about that, if eternal life is truly knowing God, I think what Paul is saying there is, Timothy, as a man or woman of God, I want you to strain after knowing and loving God. Keep pursuing him. Keep seeking to know him. Keep seeking to love him.
Keep wrestling.
Keep straining and agonizing, and don’t give up when the battle comes your way and tries to keep you from the eternal life to which you were called, Timothy, when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. And in fact, that’s really what a person does whenever they become a Christian, right? You’re really making a confession. Timothy must have made a confession. Paul maybe is referring to that.
Maybe it was a confession whenever Timothy decided to become a Christ follower. He was raised by his mother and by his grandmother, who were both godly women. We know from the Scriptures, and we know that Timothy was raised in the faith, and at some point, evidently, he made a profession of faith. That’s making the good confession. It must have been made in front of other people.
Or maybe Paul’s referring to whenever Timothy was baptized. It was in the presence of many people. He’s making a confession. That’s what it means to be a Christian, right? I’m confessing that Jesus is my Savior.
I’m confessing that he’s my King. I’m confessing that I follow him. I confess it with my mouth. We’re to confess it with our life. We’re to confess it in front of other people.
We’re not to hold that in. We’re to make it public. And Timothy had made that confession. And all those who have eternal life have made that confession. But all of this is just a reminder of how hard things are.
But you notice that Paul doesn’t say that this is an easy fight. The fight of faith is not easy. Taking hold of eternal life is not easy. Easy, but it’s the good fight. Do you see that?
It’s a good fight. Why is this a good fight? In what sense is a fight good? In this particular case, as I think about it, I think that this fight is good because first of all, it’s not us doing as much of the fighting as God is doing the fighting through us. He fights with us.
But even more than that, I think our— the reason why this is a good fight is because it brings pleasure and credit to God. Because most of the time whenever we’re fighting— any fights that I got into growing up with people, physical fights, I’d get into physical fights with people— it was always to try to show that I was stronger than they were or better than they are. When you go through a spiritual fight though, you’re not trying to show that you’re better, you’re trying to show that you’re weaker so that God’s strength can be made perfect in your weakness. And so When you depend upon God, that’s a good fight. It’s showing how strong and sufficient and able He is.
This is a good fight. And so as a man or woman of God, what are you fighting? Are you fighting the fight of faith? Are you seeking to grab hold of eternal life and then to experience that in your life? And then on top of that, he says, in the sight of God, Verse 13, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.
I charge you, Timothy, verse 14, to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s keep the sports metaphors going here. A man or woman of God is a goalkeeper, for lack of a better term. Let me explain. The word here for keep is to protect, to guard, To watch over and to keep doing so.
The little bit of soccer that I played growing up— I was more of a baseball, basketball player, I enjoyed those things more— but the times I played soccer, I never wanted to play goalie. Sometimes my friends and I would also play floor hockey in the gym because I’m from Texas and we didn’t have ice to play ice hockey. I’m sorry, I’m from Texas, that’s what we do, we play floor hockey. I never wanted to play goalie, I always wanted to run around. But I know that if the goalie’s not paying attention, they might get hit upside the head.
The last couple years I’ve been working with our kids’ sports camp in the summer, and I help out with soccer. And boy, how many times do kids get knocked down because they’re not paying attention, they’re not protecting the goal, they’re not staying alert? The job of the goalie is to stay alert. You ever watched a bunch of little kids playing soccer? There’s not a whole lot of alertness going on.
They follow the ball around, and it’s about 30 kids who are just going wherever the ball goes. Nobody else is anywhere on the— you know, a person could be down at the other side of the field saying, hello, pass me the ball. Nobody’s paying attention. And certainly whenever the ball goes towards the goal, whoever’s in goal is not paying attention. But it’s not just kids that do that.
Adults do that too. I found a number of YouTube clips that were too long for me to show you of just goalies in professional soccer not paying attention, in professional hockey not paying attention, not doing their job. I read about one story, and I couldn’t find video evidence of this, but a few years ago there was a soccer game that ended 149 to nothing. What was the goalie doing?
You have one job: protect, guard, watch over this net.
And he’s saying that same idea here. Timothy, as a man or woman of God, you’re to keep, to watch over, to protect something. What is he to protect and watch? This commandment. And I think what he’s referring to there is the things that he’s just talked about— to fight the good fight of faith, to take hold of eternal life, and to flee from unrighteousness and to pursue righteousness.
I think it’s those things. Timothy, you made your confession. Keep on confessing. Keep on keeping watch until Jesus comes back. We see that in verses 14 and 15.
Till the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. When will that happen? It says in verse 15, God will bring it about in his own time. We don’t know. But you’re not to stop being attentive and watchful and keeping vigilant.
To keep watch over this confession that you’ve made if you’re a Christ follower, if you’re a man or woman of God. Keep doing this. Don’t stop. In fact, all of these verbs in this passage are in the active sense of keep on doing these things. That’s what he’s talking about here.
And how are we to keep this confession, this command, without spot or without blame? This last week, we— you may have heard the news of some new baseball players who were voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And every year that this comes around, As a baseball fan, there’s always an outcry against people who have taken performance-enhancing drugs, and we’re not going to vote those individuals in. It’s hard to know sometimes who those individuals are, but there’s always people that just say that those accomplishments that baseball players or athletes are accomplishing are tainted if they take shortcuts in order to get there. Paul’s saying, don’t take any shortcuts here.
This confession that you’ve made Don’t sully the name of Christ. Don’t sully your reputation by letting down your guard. You’re to keep this command and this confession without spot or without blame, to keep it pure, again, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hearing about all this stuff just is wearing me out. I’m sure it’s probably wearing some of you out going, I got to do all this stuff as a man or woman of God?
How are you doing right now as a How are you doing right now at fighting faith, the good fight of faith? How are you doing right now at keeping the confession that you made to decide to follow Jesus? How are you doing right now at fleeing and pursuing and wrestling and all of these things? It’s hard.
It’s hard. And yet, I think that’s why Paul gives a doxology, so to speak, here in verses 15 and 16 to say, when you are weary, As a man or woman of God, don’t forget whom you serve and who is with you. Verse 15 and 16: He is the, the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
I’m sure when Jesus appeared before Pilate, who was the governor of the region, before he was crucified, Jesus was asked by Pilate, are you the King of the Jews? And Jesus, in the face of death, never wavered. He could have taken the easy route, but when Pilate said, are you the King of the Jews? Jesus said, I’m a king, but my kingdom is not of this world, and this is the reason for which I came into the world, to be the king. He never wavered, and he’s saying, Timothy, or you, child of God, man or woman of God, don’t waver.
You serve an awesome God. Never lose sight.
Always come back to who God is. Always come back to his calling on your life, and he will give you his strength, and he will enable you to fight the good fight of faith and to keep doing so until his son reappears. Let’s pray. Father, I thank you for your word and how it gives us practical encouragement. And I pray for help for anyone here today who is weary of fighting and wrestling and keeping watch.
I pray that you’d help us to persevere, to pursue endurance, to pursue faith, to pursue you, to be the man or woman of the men or women of God that you’ve called us to be. I pray that you’d help us this week to be reminded of this particular message, and each time that we get discouraged, to come back to the reality of who you are. Thank you, God, that you fight with us, you fight for us, and that we’re not alone in this good fight of faith. We love you, God. Give us opportunities this week to share your love with people around us.
We pray in your Son’s name. Amen.
