“Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” —1 Timothy 6:12

It’s essential to say that the man of God is a fighter. In the strongest sense of the term, he’s a battler, a warrior, and a soldier. Paul speaks with that kind of language in 2 Timothy 2:3: “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”

The Man of God Is Known by What He Is Fighting For

You’re battling the world, the flesh, and the Devil—sin in us, and sin around us—battling error and corruptions of the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 16:8–9, Paul decides to stay in Ephesus knowing that, “there are many adversaries.” It’s a battle; it’ll never be anything but a battle. 

We go to battle with the armor of a soldier and we fight, agōnizomai, present imperative. We keep on fighting, present tense again, agōnizomai. The word, “agony,”comes from that word. It’s a constant, agonizing fight. Always, always battling; never does the battle wane. It takes conviction: it takes discipline. You have to be like an athlete who runs to win, like a boxer who doesn’t beat the air, but strikes his opponent, (1 Corinthians 9).

We are literally fighting the good fight. The verb and the noun are related. We are agōnizomai the agōn. We are agonizing through the agony, the spiritual conflict. We are defending the truth, which is constantly being assaulted.

Listen to the words of Jude who says, “You [must] contend earnestly for the faith”—that’s the content of biblical truth—“which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 3).

You’ve got to fight for the faith; it’s a battle. To do that, 1 Corinthians 16:12–13 says, “Stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” We are storming the fortresses of error. It’s intense, and it never stops. But we’re fighting for the faith. That’s an objective term. We’re fighting for the Christian faith in the noblest cause in the world: the truth of God.

If you’ve been at Grace Church for any time, you know we’ve been engaged in that fight. Every time some doctrinal error starts to move in the life of the church, we address that from the Word of God. Every book I’ve written was written to defend the faith. I wanted Christian people to know the truth. And so, first, it was The Gospel According to Jesus, and then The Gospel According to the Apostles, and then The Gospel According to Paul, and The Gospel According to God, always defending the true gospel against false gospels. Ashamed of the Gospel, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore—book, after book, after book—The Truth War, The Charismatics, Strange Fire. We’re fighting constantly for the faith.

That’s life in ministry. And what drives that? Paul says, “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tm 6:12). There was a day when Timothy made a profession of faith in Christ, and he confessed Jesus as Lord, and it was before many witnesses. And then there was a moment when he was called into ministry be- fore elders who laid hands on him, and he professed not only Jesus as Lord, but Jesus as his Lord and himself as the servant of Christ to preach the truth. And so, Paul reminds him, “Timothy, you made this good confession to be the servant of the Lord, to be the slave of your Master, to be faithful to Him. Now get a grip on the eternal life to which you were called.”

Here is the separating reality: the man of God is linked to things eternal. That’s where our focus is. Our battle is with the things that have eternal impact. The man of God rises above the petty struggles of politics. The man of God rises above the pitiful, perishing, useless things, and he fights for what is eternal. And what is eternal is divine truth, and the souls of men and women. The man of God fights for heaven’s causes against the threat of hell. That’s the perspective you need to live as a man pleasing to God.

Get a grip on the eternal things to which you were called. You can’t get caught up in anything less. You might be preaching only one or two times a week, but what are you doing the rest of the time? You’re fighting that same battle on another level. You’re fighting it in personal discussions with people who are struggling with the truth, or by writing a book, developing a radio or television program, or going to a conference where you can speak publicly to issues like these. Your whole life is a fight—it’s a battle for the truth.

It’s such an exhilarating battle that I never get weary. If I don’t look in the mirror, I don’t know how old I am. I have the same amount of energy I’ve always had, and the fight is as exhilarating to me as it’s always been—because I’ve read the end and I know who wins. The victory is already assured. I just want to march in the triumph with my Lord.

The Man of God Is Known by What He Is Faithful To

“I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” —1 Timothy 6:13–14

And what was His confession before Pilate? “My kingdom is not of this world.” Paul charges them to do the same by keeping the commandment, tēn entolēn, without stain or reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is “the commandment?” It simply refers to the Word of God. The Word of God is the divine commandment. It’s like saying, “According to the law.” It’s the whole revelation of God. Paul charges the man of God to guard it without stain or blemish.

The man of God is marked because he is faithful before God, the Creator and Sustainer of all life, in whose presence he serves. He is faithful before Christ Jesus, his Lord and Master, who witnessed His confession of faithfulness to the heavenly kingdom before Pilate. He is faithful to that heavenly kingdom that belongs to God and the Lord Jesus Christ; and he will keep the truth without stain, and without blemish. That’s why it says in 1 Timothy 3:1 and Titus 1 that his life has to be above reproach. It’s an amazing obligation. He will be faithful to the accurate proclamation of divine truth. He’ll be faithful, without stain, without reproach, till the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How long do you do this? How long are we supposed to be faithful? Until Jesus comes. Until the epiphaneia, the shining appearing of Jesus Christ. He’s coming, and when He comes, “At the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see,” referring to God. “To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen” (1 Tim 6:16).

The life of a faithful minister has at its end a doxology. That’s how it ought to end. What amazing praise for such a high calling when it’s offered to God as an acceptable sacrifice. Because the man of God is fleeing, following, fighting, and faithful, the end of his life is a doxology. The end of his life will culminate in praise to God.

There’s another possibility. In 1 Kings 13, there’s a story about a man of God who was disobedient: “Thus says the Lord,”—to this man of God…

"Because you have disobeyed the command of the Lord, and have not observed the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you, but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He said to you, ‘Eat no bread and drink no water;’ your body shall not come to the grave of your fathers.’ It came about after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, for the prophet whom he had brought back. Now when he had gone, a lion met him on the way and killed him, and his body was thrown on the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion also was standing be- side the body. And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown on the road, and the lion standing beside the body; so they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

Now when the prophet who brought him back from the way heard it, he said, ‘It is the man of God, who disobeyed the command of the Lord; therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him." —1 Kgs 13:21–26

That’s a sad picture, isn’t it? A snapshot of a man of God who ends tragically. I would rather end with a doxology than be a photo of a corpse.

I’ve had on my desk a marvelous little statement that I started reading when I was very young. This is what someone suggests for pastors.

"Fling him into his office. Tear the office sign from the door and nail on the sign, ‘Study!’ Take him off the mailing list. Lock him up with his books and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before Scripture, and broken hearts, and the lives of a superficial flock, and a Holy God. Force him to be the one man who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all night long. Let him come out only when he’s bruised and beaten into being a blessing. Shut his mouth forever spouting remarks, and stop his tongue forever tripping lightly over every nonessential. Require him to have something to say before he dares break the silence.

Bend his knees in the lonesome valley. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for God. Make him exchange is pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. When at last he dares enter the pulpit, ask him if he has a word from God. If he doesn’t, dismiss him. Tell him you can read the morning paper yourself. You can digest the tele- vision commentary and think through the day’s superficial problems. You can manage the community’s weary issues and bless the sordid baked potatoes and green beans ad infinitum better than he can. Command him not to come back until he’s read and reread, writ- ten and rewritten, until he can stand up, warn and forlorn and say, ‘Thus sayeth the Lord.’

Break him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity. Smack him hard with his own prestige. Corner him with questions about God, cover him with demands for celestial wisdom, and give him no escape until he’s back against the wall of the Word. And sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left: God’s Word.

Let him be totally ignorant of the down-street gossip, but give him a chapter and order him to walk around in it, camp on it, sup with it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward, until all he says about it rings with the truth of eternity. And when he’s done, burned out by the flaming Word, when he’s consumed at last by the fiery grace blazing through him, and when he’s privileged to translate the truth of God to men and finally transferred from earth to heaven, then bear him away gently, and blow a muted trumpet, and lay him down softly, place a two-edged sword on his coffin, and raise the tune triumphant. For he was a brave soldier of the Word. And ere he died, he had become a man of God."5

That’s the man we desire to be. That’s the man God blesses.

 

References

[5] Doud Shafer, Floyd. “And Preach as You Go.” Christianity Today, March 27, 1961.

An excerpt from The Man of God: The Essential Pursuits of a Godly Servant by John MacArthur (Grace Books, 2019), 34–45. Read the full e-book online.