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