If you were fortunate enough to be an explorer of some untouched land, you would come across sights hitherto unseen by human eyes. If we imagine your phone or technology fails, and you can no longer take photos or video of what you are seeing, you can try to sketch it, if you have some ability in drawing, but most of what you see you will have to just remember. When you return to civilisation, you will now have to describe to people plants, animals, and landscapes that no one has ever seen.

How will you do that? No one has ever seen these creatures before, and you don’t have any pictures. What you will almost certainly do is begin describing these animals by comparing them to qualities found in other animals the people have seen. You will tell them the skin texture is like that of a rhino, but the colour was like a wildebeest. The head was shaped more like a deer, but the ears were like that of a pig. Well, now this strange creature is taking shape in people’s minds by the use of the imagination. The mind is seeing the unseen, by using images from the seen. The known is helping you bridge the gap to the unknown. In fact, this is how we always learn, when we are learning about a place we have never been to, or a time in history that is not with us now, or a time in the future that hasn’t happened. We imagine the unknown, the unseen, the past, or the future, and even the hypothetical by using what we do know, what we already know to understand what we don’t.

In many ways, all of the Bible is like exploring that untouched land. It introduces us to a God we have not seen, describes historical events we were not there to see, describes a future time and place that have not come to pass. It describes beings and spirits we cannot see (or yet see) with our physical eyes.

How does it do this? Like you would do in describing the new animal, it uses images from what we do know to help us understand what we haven’t seen. It tells us God is like a King, like a Father, like a Shepherd protecting and caring for sheep, like the Captain of an Army, like Light, like Water, Like a Potter With Clay, Like a Heavily Protected House or Complex; He is like a Path that is straight and flat, Like a Lion, Like a Lamb. Through these, and hundreds of others, we understand God, His nature, His purposes, His will.

But not only does the Bible help us to understand the nature of God. The Bible also uses these images to help us understand the Christian life. The Christian life is also like that unexplored land. Before we become Christians we have never known or seen a life like that. Even the event of becoming a Christian is something not externally visible. So again the Bible gives us images. Becoming a Christian is like being declared not guilty at a court case: justification. It is like being born, coming alive, it is like being adopted into a family, it is like being cleared of a debt, it is like being selected for special purposes, it is like being rescued from drowning.

Once you are a Christian, the Bible then has many images that help you understand what this Christian life is like. After all, we are not born Christians, we become them, and then we must understand what sort of life this is. How you imagine the Christian life will explain much of your approach to it. It will explain the affections you have towards it.

And we live in a culture hostile to faith, hostile to Christianity. The world also has images it uses to describe what life is like, what reality is like, and it puts those images into its music, and its movies, and its books and blogs and podcasts and memes. They say, picture yourself, and your place in the world this way. This is the meaning and purpose.

If those images are false, then they mislead both the mind, and the heart.

But Paul particularly has three favourite images, which he used repeatedly in his letters, and even uses those three to summarise his life at its end, when writing 2 Timothy. He uses those three images again in a kind of penultimate charge to Timothy. As this great letter on conducting the church correctly winds down, Paul’s closing words include a kind of mini-summary of the Christian life. He is charging his young protege to live the Christian life successfully, to not fall, to not be disqualified, and he employs these three images here.

So here is a gift from God to us: a reminder of what the Christian life really is. A recharge and a refreshment if we have lost our way, lost our motivation, lost our drive. Here is from God’s inspired Word, three pictures of the successful Christian life.

I. Christian, You Are A Travelling Pilgrim

But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

Here are the two main verbs: flee and pursue. Run away from one thing, and run towards another. What comes to mind when you hear those verbs? Motion, and specifically, direction. The Christian life is a journey, a walk, a pilgrimage in which you are moving away from one thing, and moving deliberately towards another. The Christian is a traveller.

You can’t read the Bible for very long without running into this imagery. God walked with Adam in the Garden. Enoch walked with God. Noah walked with God. Abraham was instructed to walk before God and be blameless. Jacob referred to his life as a sojourn, and pilgrimage. Soon, the Bible uses this to speak of your whole way of life. Proverbs particularly talks about the way, the path, the walk of the righteous.

When Jesus comes, one of His images for Himself is that He is the Way. Early Christians in the book of Acts were called followers of the Way. And then Paul loves this image, and talks about walking in newness of life, walking in the Spirit, walking in love, walking by faith, walking worthily, walking wisely.

To understand the Christian life, you need to see it as a life of motion, of travelling, with a clear direction. Now here Paul tells Timothy that the Christian life is one of getting away from some things and moving towards others. Specifically, Timothy must flee these things. What things? The things warned of in the previous verses: foolish and harmful lusts, sorrows that pierce you through, temptations and traps of discontent and covetousness. In the Christian life, you should be trying to get away from some things, avoid them, escape them.

This is not the only place Paul uses the language of “flee”.

• Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22)
• Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. (1 Corinthians 10:14)
• Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)

Not all fleeing is cowardice. When it comes to sin, the flesh, the world, fleeing is wisdom, common sense. It is what Joseph did when he left his robe in the hands of Potipher’s wife attempting to seduce him. It is what the psalmist pictured when he said,

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; (Psalm 1:1)

But mere separation without a positive direction becomes isolation. We cannot only be people who live to avoid certain things, who oppose or shun certain things. We must then vigorously pursue something else. What is that thing? If we are forsaking sin, fleshliness, worldliness, then we must be pursuing Christlikeness, Christian maturity, spiritual growth, holiness, sanctification. Here Paul gives us a summary of the Christian life in six words that really are three pairs. Righteousness and godliness, faith and love, meekness and gentleness. What you do, why you do it, and how you do it.

Righteousness and godliness are the overall character: your words, thoughts and deeds, becoming more like Christ’s. That’s what you pursue.

Faith and love are the overall posture: a life of treasuring God by faith, loving Him whom we have not yet see. That’s why you pursue it.

Patience and gentleness are the overall temperament: an attitude of faithful, enduring, steadfast power under control, mild, sober spirits. That’s how you pursue.

So as you think on your life, you are to imagine it as a journey. Not the meandering, aimless journeys of the postmoderns, where aimless movement is seen to be virtuous. No, the Christian is a pilgrim in pursuit of God. That means all of life is both negative and positive. Moving away from what is unlike God: whether it is things, activities, people, places, ideas, and moving towards what makes me more like Christ.

That means you can ask yourself travel questions like, how far am I in progressing to be like the Lord Jesus? How much ground have I covered in the last year? Where was I in Christlikeness this time last year? What have I moved away from? Who or what have I distanced myself from, and to whom have I drawn near?

Jesus told us what to expect when you make this your pilgrimage:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.

Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13–14)

Ever been in a crowd, and then realised you forgot something, or that you’re in the wrong place, and now you have to walk into and against the crowd? It is hard, and people get annoyed with you, and it is slow-going. But that’s the Christian life. And it may be why Paul addresses Timothy the way he does. Timothy is here called the man of God, which could mean a man selected by God, or a man like God. But the most likely meaning, and the one we find often in the OT is the one who advocates for God. He stands up for God when others don’t. He speaks up for God when others are silent. He takes a stand for God.

So Christian, you are a man of God, a woman of God. You are expected to walk away from the city of destruction towards the celestial city, away from sin, towards Christlikeness. And you should not expect the majority to be going where you are going. That’s what makes you a man or woman of God.

Now, if one image could capture the whole reality, then the Bible would just use that one image. But reality is more complicated than that, and requires multiple images to capture the reality of the Christian life.

II. Christian, You Are a Fighting Soldier

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Now the image changes from walking to war, from movement to militarism, from the ideas of travelling and pilgrimage to the idea of competing, combatting, struggling. And of course, this is all over the Bible. From Genesis 3:15 where God promises that the seed of the woman, the Messiah, will crush the Serpent’s head, the Bible is filled with military images. The history of Israel was full of actual combat. The Psalmists speak of God as a shield, a stronghold. The most used title of God in the OT is Lord of Armies. The book of Revelation shows that before the Lord’s Millennial kingdom there will be a decisive battle.

Fight! The word means to struggle, battle. It is the parent of our English word agonise. Strain, push, give 100% to win. There’s some debate over whether Paul is calling to mind the battle imagery as he does in Ephesians 6 where he tells us to take up the whole armour of God, or the competing sports imagery of 1 Corinthians 9 of one who competes in the Olympic Games, which involved running and boxing. But either way, it comes to the same thing in war or in sport: you have an opponent, and you want to defeat your opponent and obtain victory.

But here Paul tells us it is not just any fight. It is the good fight. In 1:18 he called told Timothy to wage the good warfare, (1 Timothy 1:18) It is the same Greek word that is used for beautiful. This is a noble, excellent, worthy, fight, an admirable fight, the right kind of fight. It’s important to add that because there is a kind of pacifism out there that teaches all fighting is always wrong, all war is always wrong. But that can’t be true, because evil started the fight. Rebellion in Heaven began the war, and cowardice or capitulation to evil is another form of evil. So there is a kind of fight and a kind of war that is not ugly or evil or intrinsically sinful. It is the good fight.

Specifically, the Christian life is the fight of faith. Our fight is for the faith for our own faith and Subjectively, we fight to maintain our trust, assurance, on Christ on the promises. Objectively, we fight for Christianity and truth and sound doctrine.

Objectively, we contend for the faith. We do not fight people, according to Paul, we fight ideas, ideas raised up against the knowledge of God. We fight against spiritual forces, so our defensive and offensive weapons are the weapons of God’s Word, and faith, and righteousness, and truth, and salvation. In other words, true spiritual warfare is bound up with being a mature Christian.

When you are a mature Christian, you oppose false teaching, you teach the truth, you spread the gospel, you want the church to grow and expand.

Subjectively, you already know that internally, your soul often feels like a battleground. Internally, the Christian life is a fight against unbelief, and doubt, and spiritual laziness or apathy, disinterest. We fight against all the forces that dull our faith, numb our faith. You fight for your own joy in the Lord, for your assurance of salvation, for your endurance.

If you act like a Wimbledon spectator of your own soul, watching the ball bounce from belief to unbelief, then you are not fighting. You are supposed to wrestle yourself out of unbelief, and carnality, and shallowness, and foolishness, and false doctrine, and despair, and fight your way through into to joy. No one promised you victory every day or every second day. You were promised a fight, and the sooner you get in there, the sooner despair turns to resolve, and gloom turns to courage.

That’s the idea behind the next phrase which might sound confusing: lay hold on eternal life. Does Timothy already have it? Yes, he does, that’s why Paul can call him a man of God. But the idea here is that Christians are supposed to act out what is true of them, practice their position, and flesh out in present-tense faith what is true of them. It’s what Paul means when he say,

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. (Philippians 3:12)

A true Christian fights for his faith, struggles to keep his faith to the end. That’s one of the signs of real faith: it keeps fighting, however many individual battles it may have lost. That’s why Satan hates the true Christian, because however many times he has struck that Christian to the ground, however wounded and dazed that poor Christian may be, his God-given faith will lead him to stagger back up to his feet and say, “I still believe”.

At the back of this fight for faith are the realities of divine election and human responsibility. Paul mentions both in one verse. He says Timothy, as a Christian you were called to eternal life. God chose you, and then at a certain time in your life, drew you, persuaded you, opened up your eyes. But he also says, Timothy, you then publicly confessed a good confession of your faith in Christ in the presence of many witnesses. This is almost certainly a reference to Timothy’s baptism, and it is where we get the notion that a Christian must give his testimony, his confession of faith before witnesses. Notice it is not just a private conversion. It is a truly personal conversion that goes public, and shares it with others.

There are the two: divine calling, and human faith, demonstrated publicly. This should all give Timothy assurance. You were called by God, you have confessed your faith, so fight for your faith, lay hold on eternal life. Here is a technique to use for your own fight for faith. Internally, I know God called me and drew me. Externally, I confessed my faith before witnesses who heard and verified it.

If you were a professional athlete, or a professional soldier, what do you expect to be part of life? Struggle. Conflict. Competition. Striving for victory. You are not going to be bewildered that you have opposition. You are not going to be surprised that there are competitors and enemies. You are not going to be amazed that it can be exhausting, and brutal, and painful.

And you can similarly ask yourself war, or competition, or struggle questions: What influences seem to be winning in my life? Where do I feel the most intense conflict right now? What aspects of truth do I particularly need to defend in my heart and mind? What errors do I need to combat? What area of my life do I need to go to war for and reclaim for Christ? What fiery arrows from the evil one seem to have penetrated and are poisoning my mind and affections? Have I surrendered some area of my life that I should never have? Perhaps speech, thoughts, or ambitions, or use of the body, or time? Put simply, what am I fighting against, and what am I fighting for?

III. Christian, You Are a Protecting Guardian

I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,

that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing,

which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,

who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:13–16)

Now Paul has many truths to state here about Christ and the Triune God, which we’ll return to, because they are like the grand backdrop of these three commands.

But the command is the first part of verse 13 and verse 14: I urge you to keep this commandment without spot, blameless until the Lord’s appearing. Timothy must keep this commandment. Since Paul doesn’t specify or limit what commandment, he likely means the whole body of truth in this epistle, and by extension, the truth. The whole counsel of God, the revealed will of God.

But what Timothy is supposed to do is keep it.

If you keep something safe, what are you? You are a custodian, a guardian. Timothy is supposed to see the Christian life as one of guardianship, custodianship, where you receive something, don’t break it, and pass it on. This is another very different angle of the Christian life. In one sense, the Christian life is travelling, moving, migrating. In another sense, the Christian life is fighting, striving, defending, attacking. But here is a far more protective image.

Receive the faith, preserve the faith, protect the faith. He tells Timothy how and until when. He is to do so without polluting it or bringing blame upon it. And he is to do so until the return of Christ. That means he is supposed to be someone who faithfully learns and practices the Word, and so transmits it faithfully.

In other words, Timothy is supposed to be a conservative, in the sense we use it in our church. By conservative, we don’t mean something right-wing as opposed to left-wing. By conservative we mean you conserve things, like a conservationist conserves nature reserves. So a conservative conserves, receives, preserves, and transmits something without damaging it. Without altering it. Without polluting, distorting, changing. A conservative sees the commandment, the Word, the faith like a precious item that he has been made custodian of for a time.

All the language in the Bible about being loyal to the covenant, a faithful steward, of receiving and relaying the truth is the language of conserving the faith.

Now when you understand the image, you realise the Christian faith is not my faith. I don’t own it, it is not my personal possession. It belongs to someone else and I am entrusted with it. I don’t get to re-invent it for myself. I am not at liberty to edit it, modify it, delete things I don’t like. The Christian life, from Christian doctrine is an inseparable whole.

Imagine yourself the curator of expensive artefacts at a museum, or security for the crown jewels. What questions does a custodian, a protector ask himself? Is the thing I’m protecting safe? Is it still in the condition I received it? Does it need any restoration? Is it under threat? To whom can I entrust this?

That’s also what you’re asking as a Christian. Have I received, and absorbed the faith once delivered to the saints as it was given? Do I know thoroughly Christian doctrine, Christian worship, Christian living? Have I done my utmost to keep the truth and commandments, by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit? Has the faith become spotted or polluted in my hands? Is what I evangelise to unbelievers, and what I disciple other believers the original, true, full Christian faith? And on that note, who can I pass this faith on to? Whom can I entrust the truth with? Who can I train to replace me, to succeed me, to carry on for me, and beyond me?

That’s what the Christian life is. You are a pilgrim, you are a soldier, you are a conservationist. You travel, you contend, you conserve. It is a Christian walk, and a Christian war, and a Christian stewardship. This is how Paul summarised his life at its end:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7)

As you absorb these, they become part of your faith, part of your daily understanding, and they in turn become Christian affections and actions.

But Paul concludes all this with a beautiful doxology, because he wants Timothy, and by extension all his readers to understand that we are to live this Christian life in the presence, and by the power of God The Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Just as you are to imagine your Christian life rightly, so here closes with ways of imagining the God we are travelling towards and fighting for, and being stewards of.

This God is Life. God who gives life to all things; who alone has immortality. God gives life, and grants eternal life, but he alone has it in Himself. We are alive, we have life; but He is life. Every moment you blink, and speak, and feel, and think, your life comes from the source of life. You are a device with rechargeable batteries; He is the power source with no end.

God is Lord. Jesus Christ’s appearing,

which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,

The Lord decides His own return, no one can force Him or compel Him. Why? He is the only Potentate, a word which means Supreme Ruler, the Sovereign. Of the kings, princes, emperors, sultans past, present and future, He is their king. Every lord, baron, duke, prime minister, president; He is their lord. Final and absolute authority rests in Him. He will have His way on earth as it is in heaven. By the way, that’s why He is blessed, which means happy. He is perfectly joyful, overflowing with happiness, because nothing frustrates Him and nothing limits Him.

This God is Light. Dwelling in unapproachable light whom no man has seen nor can see. Light expels darkness and illuminates. Light shows us what is, and so it brings comfort when we are looking for the way, and discomfort when we are trying to hide. God is light, His person and presence brings perfect clarity. He shows you what is, and what is right and wrong. He sees everything as it is, knows everything as it is, and will expose everything as it is.

Jesus called Himself the light, and He spoke perfect truth. He testified perfectly in front of Pontius Pilate, bringing only light and truth.

Humans in our fallenness cannot and have not seen God in His glory; even Moses was only allowed to see the reflection of glory as it passed by. But the promise of Scripture is that one day, in resurrected bodies, God’s light will no longer be overpowering for us.

And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. (Revelation 22:3–4)

Who is this God I walk before, and contend for, and whose truth I protect? He is perfect life, the absolute Lord, and ultimate light. In His presence, by His power, through His promises we live this Christian life of pilgrimage, warfare, and preservation.

To Him be honour and everlasting power.