1 Timothy 6:3-16 | Flee and Fight

Introduction: Setting Priorities

It's the book of 1 Timothy. I'm still recovering from this flu, I'm pretty much done feeling better; it's just this cough is persisting. So, apologies in advance, I ask that you be patient with me. We'll be looking at 1 Timothy chapter six.

Last week we looked at what Paul had to say about slaves submitting to their masters. And now, as Paul turns towards the end of his book, he summarizes the last few exhortations for Timothy to remember in terms of his priorities that he ought to have in his life. So again, we'll be looking at 1 Timothy. I'll read from the second half of verse two all the way to verse 16. This is what God's word says:

Let those who have believing masters not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but serve them even better, since those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved.Teach and encourage these things. If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called and about which you have made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all, and of Christ Jesus, who gave a good confession before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to keep this command without fault or failure until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. God will bring this about in his own time. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, 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 eternal power. Amen. — 1 Timothy 6:2-16 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, we do pray for us this morning that you guard us from being conceited in understanding nothing. Help us not to be distracted by unhealthy and unfruitful disputes, but to listen to your word. We only do that by your strength. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Everybody wants more. The internet has increased consumerism exponentially. And a lot of people fault the internet for doing all sorts of problems. The computer, the internet, social media, they're all mirrors. They just expand what you see already in your heart. And more than that, algorithms are trained to figure out exactly what you want and how to get it to you as easily as possible.

With this increase in accessibility, there's also an increase in scrutiny. You don't have to go into Walmart and pick whatever they have on the shelf. You can research and read reviews and optimize every single purchase. It's not just that you and I can get stuff more easily than ever before with Amazon Prime or whatever you may use to order the stuff that you get, it's also that we can get the best stuff, whatever we want. There are entire forums on the internet dedicated to finding the stuff that you can buy for life, products that will last, that have value beyond whatever hype cycle that you may be swept up in.

And personal confession, I love that stuff. I love trying to figure out the best value purchase and things I know will last a long time, purchases that make me feel good about it and I could justify in front of people. I will spend hours of my precious time trying to figure out what will last me the longest amount of time. I will waste my life trying to maximize the value of my life. And the irony is that between the things that last and my time, it's obvious what's more valuable, which is my time, my life. And yet the currents of consumerism capture my focus and distract me from what really matters.

I wonder what kind of priorities you have in your own life. What do you prioritize with your attention, with your focus? Are the things that you spend your time on worth putting your time in? Paul understands this kind of struggle. It's kind of a debate and war that happens between our priorities, and he exhorts Timothy to extinguish the flames of worldly desire while pursuing the things that really matter. Which is going to be our main idea for this morning: Paul wants us to keep our priorities straight. He does it by shining the supernatural light onto the things that we engage with in our daily life. Specifically, Paul wants us to understand two things: the mortality of this world and the immortality of Christ.

The Mortality of This World and Worldly Disputes

We'll first start by looking at the mortality of this world. Look again at verse 3 with me. Paul says:

If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain. — 1 Timothy 6:3-5 (CSB)

Jesus draws a clear line in the sand. You cannot claim to love Jesus and not believe in his teaching. Have you ever met someone who's obnoxiously smart? Like someone who's smart but kind of you hate that they're smart, who's constantly nitpicking at every single word that you say, who seems to be able to hear whatever words come out of your mouth, find the one gap or hole in your argument and pierce right in there, make mountains out of molehills where you're never allowed to misspeak? Or they seem like they're more focused on winning the fight than learning the truth.

And you could claim that you mean well or that you're trying to follow your conscience, but Paul has really clear words for what that is. It's pride and it's stupidity. To Paul, that type of conversation, that type of hyper-precise thinking and nitpicking doesn't come from a humble exploration of truth, but from arrogant ignorance. See what he says? He says that he's conceited and that he understands nothing. This isn't an open-handed exploration of truth; this is an unhealthy interest in disputes.

When you're more fascinated in who's right than what's right, you've taken a debate that's trying to explore and gain understanding and you've devolved it into a dispute. You get swept up in the stadium battle between opponents, and winning begins to matter more than understanding. That's exactly what seems to be happening here in the church in Ephesus, people that are paying attention to arguments and not really paying attention to what's actually true.

It's no wonder that this kind of person-to-person sparring also leads to person-to-person divisions. He lists there in verse 4, envy, quarrelings, slander, evil suspicions, constant disagreements, because Christians are looking at fellow Christians and concluding that they are the enemy. And that constant disagreement also leads to constant comparison. And they begin to look at religion as a means to get what you want, a way to beat your competitors and rise amongst the ranks.

For the church in Ephesus, it seems like a constant barrage of disagreement is also mixed with this promise that the faith would provide worldly riches, material gain, that trusting in God would make you rich. People do this all the time. You can just go on TBN, which I do not recommend. You can see televangelists after televangelist peddling this kind of false truth that trusting in Jesus will get you rich.

You also see this happen in soft ways too. People credit all their worldly blessings to the Lord's blessings. Whenever something goes bad in their life, you end up faulting the devil. People who promise that trusting in the Lord will result in worldly blessings in this life, "Trust in God who will get you the job that you want, who will give you the health that you so desire." People will promise that if you just invest a little seed of faith, that you will gain health, wealth, and prosperity.

Even social media Christian influencers will talk about all the worldly success that they've gained once they've fully surrendered themselves to God. For a religion that talks in Scripture over and over again about suffering, persecution, and the need for endurance, Christianity begins to be viewed as a means to get ahead. Beware of wealth because "the wolf of Wall Street" prowls around in sheep's clothing, masquerading in the name of Christianity, proclaiming the name of Christ while teaching you to love the world.

To give the world your devotion and your attention because when you obsess over what the world values, you will devolve into the world's values. When you feel like you're deficient and you lack and that God somehow promises you more and you don't have it, it begins to feed your discontentment. You start to view other Christians that have more with jealousy, and you begin to view them as the enemy. And you expend all this energy starting to argue, getting obsessed with menial things that don't matter, trying to prove yourself right, trying to get ahead, trying to expel yourself of all your toxic enemies that you lose sight of the one thing that actually matters: Jesus.

You see this kind of temptation didn't start with the television, it's been there since the early church, forgetting what really matters in exchange for what you can see in the world. You see the way that Paul contrasts evil there with righteousness in verse 3? It's not just that people—it's not about those who are obsessed with arguments versus those who aren't obsessed. He's not telling you to just forget about figuring out what's true; he's contrasting false doctrine with those who have sound teaching.

In other words, whenever someone tries to get you to fall in love with the world, it's not just a simple temptation, it's an argument over truth. It's someone trying to tell you that this thing is what actually matters. And the way that you combat that kind of false teaching, those kinds of arguments that start to sweep you astray, when you start hearing about this person's argument with this person over this issue, you start to spend hours listening and hearing and talking and discussing about the drama, the way that you combat that isn't by turning your brain off but by knowing what actually matters, by having godly priorities, by knowing what the Bible itself teaches.

To be so confident in God's Word that you can hear nonsense arguments and distractions and you can know with the fact that those things are ridiculous, that they're not worth your time, that you can look at their behavior and be not remotely surprised at their devolved disagreements and you can know with confidence that Jesus is right. In other words, you can just stop listening to them, you can turn off your TV, you can unfollow those people, you can politely divert the discussion from disagreements that don't matter. "Let every man be a liar and let only God be true."

So let me ask you, do you know His voice? Would you be able to tell the difference between sound teaching and false teaching that starts to lead you astray? Would you know His Word well enough that you can discern between sound teaching from false doctrine? Are you familiar enough with God's Word that you can tell if a note is out of key? Are you able to reject someone's false doctrine, not because you think that you're better than them, or that you're smarter than them, not out of condescension or hatred, but because you just know what's true and you're not willing to waste your time?

Are you more interested in the truth of God's Word or what people have to say about God's Word? Are you swept up in what this Christian leader said about that Christian leader? Or are you interested in what your master and Lord Jesus Christ has to say? When you get caught up in unimportant drama, it's like being stuck in a stuffy room full of just worldly disputes. The temperature goes up and up, and no one benefits from anything. And I want to encourage you, if you find yourself in that situation, open a window. Let the cool breeze of Scripture breathe truth and refresh you, because that's exactly what sound teaching does.

Godliness with Contentment

Paul makes that exact contrast in verse 6, read with me. He says:

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. — 1 Timothy 6:6-10 (CSB)

Godliness with contentment is great gain. The satisfaction of godliness is unlike anything that the world can give you. In fact, for Paul, it's not just that godliness with contentment is better than looking for stuff in the world. He says that godliness with contentment is great gain. And it itself is what gives you gain because the world is inherently limited. Verse 7 tells us that we bring nothing into this world and we can bring nothing out.

Life is a lease. And when the lease is up, you have to return everything. Nothing that you have will last. Leads to layoffs or retirement, cars break down, families lead to funerals. Everything that we obtain in this life, even our own breath, will eventually leave. Everything in this world will expire. And if you pursue the things of this world, you will too.

Paul says that those who want to be rich fall into temptation. That's a trap. It's a pit of quicksand that will capture you and will never let you out. Ecclesiastes 5:10 says:

The one who loves silver is never satisfied with silver, and whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income. This too is futile. — Ecclesiastes 5:10 (CSB)

The gaining more money only makes you crave more money. It's a vacuous hole that sucks in everything that you love and care about. You thirst for foolish desires, and once you drink it, you only end up more thirsty. And the pursuit of more and more will only lead to less and less happiness and fulfillment, and will ultimately end in your own destruction.

So what's the solution? Does Paul just want us to be poor, to refuse money and embrace a life of poverty? And to be clear, I think a lot of people who are poor struggle with this as well. I don't think Paul is just saying that those who are rich fall into temptation. Notice what he says there. We want to be precise with this word. He says that those who *want* to be rich fall into great temptation. It's not the money itself. It's the desire for it. It's not about your wallet. It's about your heart.

So just to be clear, people who are poor often have to make decisions between what you need and what you have. In that type of decision making often brings forward or brings to light things that happen in your heart. In many ways, the poor are less seduced by the world because a lot of things in the world are simply out of reach. And for the rich who are able to obtain, you could kind of delude yourself over time that you can keep gaining more and more and get more and more ahead. That being said, you can be poor and grovel and groan and grasp for money for all of your life and be completely seduced by the promise of wealth. That is a universal experience that happens all over the world. You just have to look at the California Lotto to realize that the promise of riches is enough to seduce anybody regardless of your economic circumstance.

But Paul is not focusing on the amount of dollars that you have. His focus is on what you desire. He says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Do you love money? Do you love it? Then if you love money, it will draw you in, it will addict you to it, it will abuse you until it leads to your own death. And the danger of the love of money is that you can always justify your love of money by your love of some other good thing.

"I love my family, that is why I have to make more money." "I love my hobbies, that is why I have to make more money." "I like the peace of mind that I have, that is why I need to make more money." Money is a representation of power, and it is a chameleon sin. It will blend into whatever you think that you want. You can even use righteous ends to justify your greedy sin, "I want to save the world for Christ, which is why I need more money." And even though your lips may claim to have good rationale for the things that you want, inside your heart, the love of money begins to grip. The love of money is like a pyramid scheme that will eventually bankrupt you.

And so what do we do? How do we combat this allure that money can provide? Well, the answer is to be godly and content. This is what Paul says there in verse 6. He says, godliness with contentment is great gain. He doesn't say that the way that you overcome the love of money is to lose all your money. He also doesn't say that the way that you overcome the love of money is by gaining more money so that you have enough of it. He says that the solution to greed is godliness with contentment.

That if you want to free yourself from the grasp of the love of money, it's not from gaining more things but by understanding things. To look at the world and to see the limited nature of it. To realize that everything that you have isn't going to last. You see wealth. This promise of greed is like the monster under your bed. It only has as much power as you give it. It's only as powerful as you let it. What Paul is doing is with Scripture, he's kind of taking a flashlight and making you look under it and see that there's no monster. There's no power there. There's nothing there for you.

See, if you truly understand that your wealth is limited, that you come into the world with nothing and that you leave the world with nothing, wealth loses its glimmer. Material things have their uses. They can clothe you and they can feed you. That's important things. But what money can't do is save you. It can't feed your soul and it won't last forever. If you want to be content, if you want to be truly happy, you have to stop looking at the world. Because the world won't last. If you want true contentment, if you want great, real, permanent gain, you don't look at the world, you look at Christ.

The Immortality of Christ and the Fight of Faith

It says that godliness with contentment is great gain. So Paul shifts his focus from the futility of the world to the permanence of God in our second point, the immortality of Christ. Look at verse 11.

But you, man of God, flee from these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called and about which you have made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all, and of Christ Jesus, who gave a good confession before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to keep this command without fault or failure until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Timothy 6:11-14 (CSB)

If Timothy is to be a man of God, he can't just reject these things. He is to flee from these things. He has to run from the love of money, from envy, from gossip, suspicion, disagreements over nothing. He needs to flee like you would from an enemy at war. This is a concerted, deliberate effort to decide, "I'm going to have nothing to do with these things."

In addition to running from evil things, he is to run towards righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. That the things of value that last are the values of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, righteousness before God, and godliness in the way that you treat your neighbor, faith in God, and the love that you show for one another, endurance in holding on to the faith, and gentleness in your disposition towards others. This is the polar opposite of everything that the world tells you to do. The world tells you to love yourself and to detach yourself from anyone who brings you down.

Instead of falling in love with the world, Paul tells Timothy to be faithful to Christ, which means instead of sowing divisions amongst God's people, we are called to love one another, to pursue these things. And this kind of priority requires work. It's a pursuit. For Paul, he'll go as far as to call it a fight. He tells Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith." See, this is a war. This is a spiritual war that's happened since the Garden of Eden, and the battleground is your heart.

Do you have a wartime spirit when it comes to your heart? Are you thinking about it? Are you willing to give up comforts for the sake of the cause? The nature of a fight is that there is a fight. There's a real conflict. There's tension. There's pain. There's real sacrifice for the sake of following Jesus. Are you willing to do more to follow Jesus than you would like? Are you willing to sacrifice your convenience for the sake of Christ-like obedience? If you only follow Jesus when it's easy to follow Jesus, that is not a fight. That's just hypocrisy. Saying one thing and doing another, committing treason against the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Paul is telling Timothy to take arms and fight the fight of faith because this kind of fight is a good fight. It is a cosmic battle between good and evil, between right and wrong, and between life and death, and the war is over your heart. What you believe, what you love, are you willing to pursue Jesus at the cost of everything? If you're willing to fight, if you're willing to work and push against the currents of this world, the promise is that you can grab a hold of eternal life.

You see it there in verse 12, you can take hold of it. The promise of the gospel is that if you make this sacrifice and you pursue Jesus with all that you have, you will obtain something that will far outlast anything that exists in this world. Paul isn't talking about working to earn your salvation. This isn't Paul trying to put you on a workout regimen so you can become buff enough to make it through the trials of this life and make it into heavenly kingdom. The promise of the gospel is not that you can obtain eternal life if you just work hard enough.

You notice in verse 12 it says, this eternal life "to which you were called." Timothy has an eternal calling. Timothy would not be pursuing eternal life if Jesus had not first taken hold of him. In other words, what Paul is saying is that this salvation that you received, that God called you to, isn't just something that happens to you passively. It isn't just that Jesus saves you. He transforms you in such a way that you are motivated to act and pursue eternal life that's ahead of you. Paul picks up on this very idea in Philippians chapter 3 verse 12. He says this:

Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 3:12-14 (CSB)

That is the calling of the Christian. If Jesus has taken hold of you, you will take a hold of him. You will forget what's behind and pursue what's ahead. You would pursue this goal, and Paul's reminding Timothy of what really matters. Forget what's temporary. Take hold of what's eternal. Grab a hold of eternal life, of everlasting, permanent life. He's reminding Timothy of this commitment that he made in front of many witnesses, likely in front of his church at his baptism, where he made his profession of faith.

And more than that, in front of God and Jesus. Jesus Christ did not waver in front of Pontius Pilate. Timothy is to keep the faith in the face of all of his enemies. We're getting towards the end of the book, you read 1 Timothy and you realize things at the church in Ephesus were a mess. People questioning Timothy's qualifications for the ministry. People slandering one another. People getting seduced by the world and pursuing wealth. And Paul is telling Timothy, "You stand up in the face of all that opposition and you keep the faith."

Not by utterly destroying your enemies, but by standing on what you know to be true. Think about the strength that it takes to look in front of your critics, the ones who speak poorly of you, who mock you, who share lies about you, and choosing to speak the truth without fault or failure, to say, "I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing." That takes strength. That takes intentionality. That type of strength takes faith. And that's exactly what Christ himself exhibited in the face of his enemies, in the face of the enemy. Jesus remained faithful to his Father.

When we had all abandoned him and fallen in love with this world and our sin, Jesus remained faithful even to the point of death. He kept the command of faith without fault or wavering. And Jesus in his obedience died, paying the penalty of sin for you and I, and rising victorious from death three days later. Jesus fought the good fight of faith and emerged from the dead, taking hold of eternal life and reigning over all the earth. That's the good news of the gospel.

We don't trust in ourselves and our own ability to do that. We look at our Savior who already did that, who provides all the grace that we need in him, who provides us his precious blood that washes us clean of our sin. It makes us whole before him, who accepts us as righteous on the basis of the work of Jesus, not based on who we are. And that work that Christ does doesn't just save us, it becomes the model by which you and I live our Christian life.

God's Sovereignty and Our Contentment

Do you see what Paul is doing to Timothy here? When he tells him to stand without fault or failure until the appearing of Jesus, just like Jesus did in front of Pontius Pilate, do you realize what he's doing for Timothy? He is framing all of Timothy's earthly conflicts, all the petty stuff, all the mess that he's dealing with from Monday through Saturday. And he's shining the light of heavenly confidence on it. That these petty disagreements, these conflicts Timothy is dealing with, ultimately doesn't have to do with those arguments at all, it has everything to do with his faith in Jesus. Do you trust Jesus who won eternal life? If you do, then you will do what he did.

There is no charge that Paul commands Timothy that Christ himself did not already do. Jesus was not tempted by evil. He did not love the world. He pursued righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Jesus took hold of eternal life and kept the commands of his Father perfectly. And every day that you and I choose to do the same thing, every day that you wake up and you say, "I don't want to follow the world, I'm going to follow Christ," you are following the footsteps of your Savior. And we will need to keep following, keep fighting, keep fleeing until the day that Jesus comes back.

But when will that be? Paul answers in verse 15, read with me.

God will bring this about in his own time. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, 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 eternal power. Amen. — 1 Timothy 6:15-16 (CSB)

So it's almost like Paul can hear Timothy's voice hearing all this, with all this opposition. I mean, how many times have you and I had to deal with conflicts where we ask, "Okay, how much longer is this going to happen?" And Paul, hearing Timothy's voice, looks at him and says, "It will happen when God wants it to happen. It will happen in his own time." And that sounds deeply unsatisfying. That sounds like godliness without contentment. How long are we going to have to keep fighting?

How much longer do I have to deal with physical pain, with the thorns of sin? How much longer do we need to keep pouring ourselves out and exhausting ourselves for the sake of following Jesus? How do you and I find the strength to be content while fighting this fight of faith, day after day after day? I'll tell you what Paul doesn't do. He doesn't sugarcoat things to Timothy. He hasn't just brushed over things as though things are going to get easier immediately. He hasn't diminished the problems that Timothy is dealing with. He isn't telling him, "Oh, it's not a big deal. You'll just get over it." He doesn't tell him that Jesus is going to come right away and make everything better.

What Paul does is he turns Timothy's eyes away from himself and reminds him who God is. Do you know who God is? And stop looking down and start looking up. He is the only King who reigns over all. He is the only one who lasts. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. There is nothing that happens on the earth that is not under his authority and jurisdiction. He stands far above all darkness in unapproachable light. He is the very source of life, eternally existing past, present, and future, and all glory and all power belongs to him.

Do you trust in this God? Do you believe him? Do you believe in him more than your visible possessions? Do you trust that kind of King, that kind of immortal, invisible, almighty King as your King? You see, the only way that you and I can be truly content is if you actually believe that this almighty, immortal, all-powerful King, if you believe that this King works for your good, if you believe that almighty God loves you, that he cares for you, if you believe in your heart that Jesus is better than anything else that this world could possibly offer.

It's not that we're avoiding things that make us happy. The call for the Christian is not to be miserable. The call for the Christian is to delight in the things that matter. That God is the only thing in life that can actually make us truly happy. Do you know him? Do you treasure him? Have you heard what he values and do you value those things? Because if you desire God, the good news of the gospel is that in Christ you have him.

And if you have God, you will have all that you will ever need. As Paul says in Romans 8:

What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? — Romans 8:31-32 (CSB)

The way that you and I can delight in godliness is if God is your delight. If you're able to say, "Jesus is enough for me, I have Christ and that he is all that I need." And the only way that you can be convinced that Jesus is worthwhile is if you're convinced that Jesus is true. That sin is real and that Jesus is a real Savior, that you have a hope that goes beyond your heartbeat.

See, this is why Paul tells Timothy to agree with the sound teaching in verse 3. Because this is why doctrine matters. Because when you hear that truth and you know it and you remember it, you can see God and find all the satisfaction that you need in him. If you forget that, if you forget that God is ultimately what matters, then you will get distracted and you will devolve into conceited, dumb, argumentative people who will wither away constantly envious, constantly quarreling, slandering, suspicious, and disagreeing with one another. We will place our hope in this world and we will wither away with it. But if we place our hope in Christ, then God says that we will have all that we need.

You know what's more valuable than silver or gold? Righteousness. You know what will last beyond your life on this earth? Godliness. You know what displays the value of Christ to a watching world? Faith, love, endurance, gentleness. All of these things are offered to us in Christ. And more than all of that, we are offered eternal life. Not because of our works, but because we have Christ. All of us that trust in Jesus have everything that you will ever need. You have more than what you need. You have the most valuable possession that you could ever seek in this world. Jesus is worth it. He is worth it. He is all satisfying, all good, all glorious. He is worth giving everything to follow. And if you look at Jesus, if you turn your eyes upon Him and look full in His face, His light, His glory, then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Let's pray.