“Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:15)
We often think of faith as a source of peace and comfort (and it is). But faith is also a calling to work (sometimes hard!). Faith connects to faithfulness. We trust in the grace and goodness of the God we meet in Jesus. But we are also called to be moved from our old life into a new one as the risen Christ lives and works in and through us.
So Paul urges Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith” and to “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” Words like “fight” and “take hold” sound like hard work and work which we take on with urgency and intentionality.
Faith and eternal life are the two things that Paul links here. They are often linked in our society but not in good ways. We think of faith as believing in Jesus. Then eternal life is the reward for that – we go to heaven when we die. While there is an element of truth in this, most of us have been offered shallow understandings of how faith and eternal life are linked. In the process, many of us have not been offered the challenge in the same way that Paul offers it to Timothy.
Paul understands eternal life as something that happens in the present tense. John’s Gospel lifts up the same idea. Eternal life is not something we get after we live this life. Eternal life is a way of living this life (here and now!). Too many of us miss the life God is calling us to right here, by complacently being glad that we have eternity with God in the bank. And while God’s love is bigger than death and on both sides of the grave, we often look forward too much to the other side of the grave and don’t do the work of being the people God calls us to become on this side of death.
Paul is concerned about the way he sees people of the world living – for their own glory and ends. They use power to hurt or control others. They seek wealth and personal fame. They use mean-spirited and unethical tactics to get what they want. Paul wants Timothy to resist such things – they are not of God.
Instead, Paul urges Timothy to live out his faith by taking hold of the eternal life that is already his. Eternal life lives out of the values of God’s reign – it embodies heaven in our lives on earth. We live with love, generosity, care and concern so that our lives are vehicles for God to work. And we do so in ways that point beyond ourselves to God. It is God’s glory that we seek and we live with gratitude and grace so that God is at the center of our lives. Eternal life happens every time God is at the center of our lives – because in those moments the God who is eternal is the focus.
We have a guiding principle at Zion that says that we are “Growing in faithfulness to be more Christ-like.” This principle is the first one on our list for a reason. It is the focus of the life we live and the basis for all that follows. It might just as easily say “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” Because the more like Jesus we become, the more God becomes the center of our lives. In the process, that which is eternal takes hold of us right here – right now.
