"A Faith That Prospers" - I Timothy 6:6-19 - September 26, 2004

One morning I was at the YMCA doing my morning workout. I noticed one guy stayed on a treadmill the whole time I was there while I moved from machine to machine. I thought to myself, "He must really be bored." He was sweating profusely but going nowhere.

For a lot of folks these days life is like being on a treadmill. You know the feeling, you just seem to be spinning your wheels, doing the same routine over and over. Life doesn’t get any better and everything seems meaningless. It doesn’t matter how much energy you spend, you end up at the same place.

How can life have meaning? How can we get off the endless treadmill and feel that we are accomplishing something? Some just try to go faster, but that takes more energy and resources. We have been conditioned to believe that more is better and will make life more promising. When that doesn’t happen we get frustrated and eventually lose hope.

The catch-all phrases in our society are: "You just have to work harder," or "Take more risks," or "Go for the gusto," or "Get everything out of life you can." According to Paul these would be false teachings and they will not make life more meaningful. In fact he says, "we are trapped by our senseless and harmful desires." To get off the treadmill, Paul tells us to "fight the good fight of faith."

Fight the good fight of faith? What does Paul mean by that? I believe he is saying that first of all we have to get off the treadmill by being people who are focused on a "spiritual" life instead of a material one. Paul makes two very strong statements in this text which support that belief. He reminds us that (a) "We brought nothing into this world so we can taking nothing out of it."

In the Southeast, many people lost their homes and all their worldly possessions because of the recent hurricanes. One fellow who was interviewed said that he and his family moved to higher ground, away from the shoreline, where the wind, waves and rain destroyed their property. He said, "There is nothing to do but move on, leave and start over somewhere else." Some of their neighbors weren’t as fortunate because they failed to leave during the storm. They were afraid that someone might steal their stuff. It took a deadly hurricane to change this man’s thinking. Mother nature had forced him off the treadmill.

Paul said that when we are trapped by senseless and harmful desires we will eventually "plunge into ruin and destruction." Why wait? Why not get off the treadmill now before we are forced off by something beyond our control?

Paul also said that (b) "Love of money is the root of all evil." Notice he didn’t say that money was the root of all evil. He said that it is the "love" of money that is the problem. Here he is talking about our devotion. Where is your allegiance? What is it that consumes your energy and time? Paul says that we should pursue, "righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness."

To be spiritual people means to be people who live in faith. Prosperity comes not from the abundance of our possessions but from living in faith. Earlier in I Timothy Paul said, "God did not give us a sprit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and love and self-discipline." (1:7) We can fight the good fight of faith because God has given us the ability to be spiritual beings.

When hurricane Charlie charged through central Florida my youngest brother and his wife left their house and stayed at the nursing home where my sister-in-law is a staff person. While they were helping the transfer of elderly folks to a shelter and attending to their needs, the storm damaged their house. For ten days they had to live with relatives. Now granted, it was my brother’s wife’s job but he could have just as easily stayed home and protected his property. Instead, he opted to care for others. To fight the good fight of faith is to jump off the treadmill of the material life and walk the spiritual path of love.

Secondly, we can fight the good fight of faith by changing our perceptions, feelings and ultimately our behavior about what is real. Paul was speaking to an audience who were being misled. People play games. They distort information. Others promote a false sense of security. Some deliberately lie because they have their own agenda.

The current presidential campaign has been overwhelmingly negative. Each political party wants you to buy into their ideology and support their candidate. Consequently there have been many distorted facts and "untruths." Take for example the latest debacle with President Bush’s National Guard record. CBS aired a story that contradicted what we had been led to believe. It turns out that the story was supported by some documents that were not authentic. A former National Guard officer came forth and said the documents were fake. It turns out that CBS was duped. Finally, CBS came out with the truth and apologized for airing a story based on evidence they couldn’t validate.

Although CBS didn’t do their homework in the beginning, they acknowledged their mistake, apologized and told the truth. When we are truthful, we are fighting the good fight. Sometimes the truth is painful. But, at some point we need to make the leap from the world of make believe and live in the world of reality.

Is it real to believe that government can meet all our needs? When will we cease lamenting over the past, "the good ole days" and live in the present? Or when will we quit criticizing others for the treadmill we have created for ourselves? All we can do is fight the good fight of faith, trusting in God and living in truth. As it says in John 8:32, "and the truth will make you free."

Finally, real prosperity comes not from what we can accumulate in life but what we can give away. To fight the good fight is to be generous with our stuff, our love and our lives.

One day a wealthy city man took his son on a trip to the country, supposedly to visit a relative; in actuality, however, the trip was to show his son how poor country folks live. They stayed the weekend in the home of a relative who was a very humble farmer. At the end of the trip, as they were en route back home, the father asked his son, "What did you think of the trip?" The son replied, "Very nice, Dad." Then the father asked, "Did you notice how they lived?" The son replied, "Yes."

The father continued, "What did you learn?" The son responded, "I learned that we have one dog in our house, and they have four. Also, we have a fountain in our garden filled with goldfish, but they have a trout stream that has no end. And where we have imported lamps in our garden, they have the stars! And while our garden goes to the edge of our neighbor's fence, they have the entire horizon as their back yard!"

At the end of the son's reply the father was speechless. The son then said, "Thank you, Dad, for showing me how poor we really are." (from Homiletics, September, 2001)

Are you living on a treadmill? You can keep spinning your wheels or wait until some storm comes along and knocks you to the ground. Or, you can fight the good fight of faith as Paul says, and make a leap of faith from the material world to a spiritual one, living in truth and being generous with all you have.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio