Goodness, Gracious
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
But as for you, person of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 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. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
Sermon
For those who have been in our adult formation classes each week, we’re going to put our new skills and insights to work today. For those who haven’t been in our adult formation classes each week, you know who you are, and you’re about to be dragged along anyway.
So… here we have a big, long text from 1 Timothy. To be honest, I think everyone can read this passage and have a thing or two make them bristle. You might be on board with the stuff on money, but less so on part about contentment with nothing more than clothing and food. You might be on board with the contentment part, but less so on the good works part.
If we hone in on one of those—like we will today—the questions multiply even more. As many as the different ways we perceived this text, there are dozens of ways we might take a single word. We find six repetitions of this adjective. The adjective is “good.”
If we interrogate this single word by poking and prodding it, asking questions of it again and again, we’ll build a port from which we set sail.
“Good…”
In English, there are so many ways that we use the word “good:”
There is the virtue of good — like “she’s a good person.” This is something that is moral.
There’s a functional sense of good — like “your car has good breaks.”
There’s a skillful sense of good — “Cate is a good singer.”
Then there’s the way it describes pleasure — “we had a good time at the party”
But then… there are “trustworthy or good friends,” “beneficial or good vegetables,” and a “valid, believable, or good excuse. We use good as an adjective, adverb, noun, and exclamation!
And even worse, in today’s passage, the Greek uses a different word one time to make it a verb!
A good fight, a good confession, some good works, and a good foundation — what does “good” mean??!
“If we interrogate this single word by poking and prodding it, asking questions of it again and again, we’ll build a port from which we set sail.”
Today, there’s a rich interplay between the idea of wealth, the Christian life, and the text before us today. “Good” doesn’t mean one thing here, either.
The “good” baked into our Bibles connects what is valuable with what is virtuous. In other words, those godly things like faith, love, endurance, and gentleness become what is “good” and what is valuable. Faith, love, endurance, and gentleness become the treasure we seek. The way we live our lives confesses what we truly value and treasure.
…
In 2012, a man named Jonathan Kleisner joined the New York Fire Department at the age of 41. He earned $18 an hour, for a salary of $32,000 with a wife and two children. He was a second-career paramedic, with no intentions whatsoever of becoming an officer. Instead, he completed training after training in order to become a rescue medic in the Bronx.
After 14 years, Jonathan remains a paramedic today. He was a first responder to the deadliest fire in 30 years in New York City. He has been with people who have suffered gunshot wounds, who were trapped under elevators, and children on death’s door.
But what makes Jonathan’s story peculiar is his origin. Before becoming a paramedic, Jonathan was a commodities trader managing his own investment fund on Wall Street, earning millions of dollars a year. No expense was too great before becoming a paramedic.
Jonathan said this about his time on Wall Street: “I was a person who created nothing, gave nothing to anybody.” He felt it was nihilistic and self-serving.
…
Jonathan’s life before working as a paramedic made a confession. His life became a confession of self-absorption, emptiness, and nihilism. He stated that he wasn’t making a difference; there was no contribution to the wholeness of others.
We see that his sense of what is “good” was warped. What was good was nothing more than what was valuable. That is what drove him into the ground.
When he changed careers, his definition of “good” was reoriented. Instead of staring at stock tickers, he was kneeling beside wounded children. Suddenly, those virtuous moments beside the ill and injured were what became valuable, just as we see in 1 Timothy. And from that slow, gradual inner transformation, he started making a different confession: a good confession.
The act of giving away wealth, subsidizing first responders, and helping others wasn’t what brought goodness into his life; it was a growth toward virtue. It was from the inside out.
“[In Christ], faith, love, endurance, and gentleness become the treasure we seek. The way we live our lives confesses what we truly value and treasure.”
Like Jonathan, our lives are always making a confession. Sometimes that is the good confession—that virtuous, loving, faithful, patient, gentle confession—and sometimes it is not. For most of us, our confessions are a little blurry, and always in between the good confession and a less-than-noble confession.
I think that’s why the writer of this epistle says “fight the good fight.” It’s not really a fight in a violent or warlike way; it’s more closer akin to an athletic match, or even a struggle. We are engaged in a struggle and match of virtue: will we be able to pull the virtuous and the valuable together? Will we continue to play the game of discipleship so that our lives will become an increasingly good and virtuous confession?
This struggle, this playful game, this arm-wrestling of faith begins within us and works its way outward.
We have an offering each and every week because letting go changes us. It’s not really about the giving of money; it’s about giving our whole lives. In giving ourselves to God, and in making offerings of our lives, we play this game and fight this match. Just as dough is kneaded on the kitchen counter, we gain structure in our inner lives and elasticity in our souls by letting go of money, and time, and expectations, and self-centeredness. Our lives are kneaded on the kitchen counter when we call someone on the prayer list, or when we help a youth go on the mission trip. We let all of our material, worldly, upside-down attachments into the arms of God, and in doing so, find ourselves engaging in that game of faith: building up our love, faith, gentleness, and generosity. It’s what helps virtue appreciate in value, and our attachment to money depreciate.
Whether it’s through volunteering somewhere, investing in our community, giving our attention to someone, or writing a note of encouragement, we find ourselves understanding those as “good,” rather than what is lucrative or profitable.
“Just as dough is kneaded on the kitchen counter, we gain structure in our inner lives and elasticity in our souls by letting go of money, and time, and expectations, and self-centeredness. Our lives are kneaded on the kitchen counter when we call someone on the prayer list, or when we help a youth go on the mission trip.”
Early on, Jonathan had a phrase tattooed as part of a sleeve. The Latin phrase is Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. In many ways, it echoes the words of 1 Timothy, and Jesus’ parables about money. It’s his confession, in a way. In English, the phrase translates to this: “Thus passes the glory of the world.” The glory of the world fades; but what is truly good, and truly rich, will never die.
When this congregation was formed in 1786, it was poor. It held a statewide lottery that failed. Its first building was foreclosed upon. It owed its first minister his salary for decades. But it held onto what was virtuous — worship, education, its integral role in Newton and Sussex County.
That is what stuck, and what kept this church around. In properly calibrating our understanding of what is “good,” what is truly valuable, and what is truly virtuous, we find ourselves properly calibrating our confession. “This is what we believe,” and “this is what are true riches.”
Sources
Christopher Maag, “The Millionaire Who Left Wall Street to Become a Paramedic,” The New York Times, 2 September 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/nyregion/rescue-medic-wall-street-.html?searchResultPosition=3
