Searching for Truth

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Our flesh hates truth; children avoiding truth to dodge getting discipline; attempts to distract and avoid; but there will always be truth

Our world is trying its hardest to change what truth is(there is no truth, you live your own truth, feelings are more important)

running from truth

(people question if truth can even be found)truth can be found; truth is defined in God’s word

There are several words used to describe God’s word; sufficient, infallible, inerrant (basic understanding that founded denominations)

But these could just be summed up with one idea of it being true; when scripture is true, it proves itself to be sufficient, infallible, and inerrant

We, as baptist have statements of faith and our BF&M 2000 sums up what we believe about scripture very clearly

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation. - BF&M 2000

in our lives, our actions and thoughts are determined by what guides our life (world leads to worldliness, scripture leads to righteousness)

Main Point - God’s word was written to shape our lives

And our view of God’s word will determine how we live our lives

authoritative and sufficient(a-is has authority over how we live our lives; s-for all of life’s problems, we can go to God’s word)

Probing question - Do you view God’s word as authoritative and sufficient? (be able to answer YES by the end of sermon)

If we don’t view God’s word as authoritative and sufficient, then we will become our own authority and find other things to be sufficient

6 points (not long ones)

God’s Word is Truly God’s Word

All scripture is breathed out by God

Theopneustos - God breathed; theo - God, pneustos - breath(pneumonia)

When talking to people who question Christianity, this is a big hangup (a book written by men) (maybe you are here and feel this same way)

So how do we reconcile that this is God’s word while it had human authors? (ans: inspiration)

There are two types of inspiration of the scriptures; 1. God speaking directly to authors 2. Supernatural influence through Holy Spirit

1. God speaking;

Ezekiel 24:2 “2 “Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.”

Exodus 17:14 “14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.””

God would tell them to write things down

2. Supernatural influence (every place in scripture that is not specifically God telling them to write something down)

I would love to explain everything that has gone into the many translations that we have today, but time is not my friend during this sermon(I encourage you to find a translation that you can read easily)

I was at a youth rally years ago where the speaker was trying to make a point that a bible is nothing but pages and words if you do not apply it to your life. He proceeded to take the bible and read pages out of it. This wasn’t the best way to make the illustration and he was asked not to come back. But the point he was making was a correct point. We should never treat this as just a book

See, as much as people want to treat scripture as a novel, it isn’t. See, we do not ascribe authority to scripture. There is nothing I can say or do that can give or take away any authority that it has. I have not given it authority. It has given itself authority by the authorship of God.

This is not mans word, this is God’s word. And we should treat it as such.

God’s Word Teaches Us

verse 16; All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching

You should never stop learning; always a student; reading is a great way to learn

If you are a good reader, you can learn anything

talk about reading with kids at the elementary school

But, we could study the bible for 100 years and never know it all.

This should not deter us from studying scripture but it should encourage us to study it even more. Believers should have an innate desire to study God’s word.

Why is it important to study God’s word?

As Christians, we claim allegiance to God. We love God, we worship God. But how can we claim to love and worship a God that we don’t even know.

This is why we study God’s word. It teaches us many things, one of which is who God is. Our world today claims to love a God that they have failed to know. (“my God would never…”) In reality, it has become idol worship because they have created their own God that looks nothing like the God of the bible.

It is important to be in God’s word and reading God’s word. But it is also important to let God’s word be in us as well. I have heard it said that we not only need to read God’s word but we need to let God’s word read us too.

God’s word teaches us

God’s Word Rebukes Us

I am using the word rebuke here because it is just a tad more common to us than reprove. They have nearly identical definitions, the only difference would be the tone of the disapproval. But with both, there is a stern disapproval.

Rebuke(not a word we use every day) - express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof

This may not be a common word, but this is definitely a common practice

Kids parents at a softball game rebuking the umpire(had to stop a game until parent left last year)

See, we have no problem rebuking others, but what about receiving rebuke? That can be a completely different story

The gospel tells us that we are all born sinners(because of Adam’s sin). Because of this sin, we need to be reconciled to God. This happens through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When we repent and believe in Christ as our savior, we are saved.

The gospel does not teach that we are perfect after we are saved. Because of this lack of perfection, this means we still have a lot of work to do.

When we let God’s word read us, this is where it tells us where God disapproves of things that are going on.

Parents have to rebuke children. If a parent never shows disapproval of their child’s actions, then the child will continue to do stupid things and never grow up. (etc. touching a hot burner)

God’s word does this for us. It tells us not to do things to protect us as believers. What is it protecting us from? It is protecting us from our sinful nature rearing it’s ugly head over and over again.

One of the things God’s word does is it rebukes us

God’s Word Corrects Us

just as much as we don’t like having disapproval of things, we often do not like being corrected

English Standard Version Chapter 3

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction

training at clayton; it was my job to teach people how to do their jobs, if they were doing it the wrong way and all I did was tell them, “hey, you aren’t doing that right”, and I just left it like that, what good would I be doing the person?

We need correction. We often times have the desire to do things that we don’t need to do. God’s word will rebuke us of these things, but it also corrects us.

Often times, it is the simple command for us to flee from sin. God, through his word will give us correction about the things that we do and pursue

1 Timothy 6:11–12 “11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

back to hot burner; if you only tell your kid not to touch it, is that enough? nah, when they are about to touch it, you go over there and you jerk them up

This is why it is important to let scripture to have authority over your life. (daily time in scripture)(my greatest desire is to walk through scripture with people, talk about this more in a little bit)

let the word correct us

God’s Word Trains Us

When we are going through this passage, we see a sequence here.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

God speaks his word, his word teaches us(how?) by rebuking and correcting us. But it doesn’t stop there. God’s word also uses these things to train us.

God’s word trains us by teaching us, telling us when we are doing something wrong, correcting us when we don’t listen.

I think we could all agree that the most important time for us corporately as a church is this time right here where we gather together, worship together, open up God’s word together, and listen to God’s word together.

We use God’s word in our time together to train us. We don’t just get together each week to have fun and have a good laugh and to hang out. We can do that any other time at any other place. Our time here is special because we specifically take this time to let God’s word teach us and train us.

Why do we do this? Paul writes here that God’s word is used to train us in righteousness.

For us to desire to be righteous means that we are desiring to be like Jesus Christ. He is our ultimate example of righteousness.

Paul recognizes this and in different places in his writing tells his readers to imitate him and he imitates Christ (I know you want to be like Jesus, so do I, so do what I do)

This is why God’s word is at the center of what we do. The songs we sing are about Jesus, not us. The scripture we read points us to Jesus. The prayers we pray lift up the name of Jesus. Everything that we do must be about training us up in righteousness.

Conference yesterday; talked about churches who struggle and getting them to a place of health; 500 people in a service does not make you a health church; it is about hearts in people and not butts in seats; the foundation of a healthy church is prayer and the word

God’s word is used to train us in righteousness

A big emphasis in the next season of our church is discipleship. The focus of discipleship is God’s word and it training us in righteousness.

And why is this the center of what we do?

God’s Word Equips Us

We use God’s word to train, but what good would we do for people if they weren’t equipped.

Tools in our tool box; spiritual disciplines (prayer, service, worship, evangelism, generosity, and bible intake)

God’s word gives us the tools that we have to be equipped.

This helps us to be a complete person for God’s glory

part time christians(heard a comedian)

This isn’t being a complete Christian. But when we let God’s word get into us by getting into it. When we let the word teach us and rebuke us and correct us and train us, we are letting God’s word complete us by equipping us for every good work

Now, good works don’t save us

this is fruit bearing

Galatians 5:22–23 ESV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

root vs fruit

the root is God’s word

the fruit is good works

we need to be a whole Christian

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” – A.W. Tozer

God’s word equips us to be the Christians we need to be

conclusion

asked a question earlier - do you view God’s word as authoritative and sufficient?

Scripture has laid out a very good case that you need to do this. So do it. Submit yourself, your life, how you think, how you live, what you do, to the authority of scripture. See that you can go to it with anything and it will give you instruction

You can’t let God’s word have authority over you if you are not a follower of Jesus

Gospel presentation (repent and believe)

Maybe you are here and you are a believer and you have a hard time with God’s word having authority over your life because you rarely read the bible

Challenge - we can’t let God’s word have authority over us if we don’t know God’s word

reading scripture can be intimidating(I know), I want to help you with this.

if you fail to plan, you plan to fail; you need a plan when reading God’s word

I am providing you with a scripture reading plan that will take us to the end of the year together(one chapter a day)(my 11 year old daughter is doing this)

The thing is, I don’t want you doing this alone. (if i left it up to my daughter to do it on her own, she won’t do it)We need accountability with things like this. I am here to help with that. Either I can be that person you text with every day and say, hey I did my reading today, or I will help find you someone to do that with. I am not going to be that person if you are a female, but we have women in our church that will help you with that.

This is one of the best things for us to be doing for us to become more and more healthy Christians and a more and more healthy church

My prayer for each of us, no matter how long we have been believers or how good we are at reading scripture is that we take a step forward with our walk with Christ in the area of knowing and reading God’s word.

We do this because we love Jesus

We are going to sing My Jesus I Love Thee. (my gracious redeemer, my savior art thou) As we sing these words, pray that God continues to draw you into a deeper love for Jesus through his word working in your life.