The Word Equips

Prayer

Why the Word - the Word Equips

This morning we’re continuing our sermon series on Why the Bible, looking into why the Bible is so foundational for us as believers. This is very much part of our Reformed heritage, one of the central pillars of which is “sola scriptura”. Scripture alone. The Scripture alone is the authority of our lives, it’s the bedrock we stand on.

We stand on Scripture because, as we talked about in our first week in this series, that it is the Word that reveals. It’s through both the written word, the Bible, and the incarnate word, the Word made flesh, Jesus, that God makes himself known to us.

And we stand on Scripture because it is the Truth. That was our focus two weeks ago, that the Bible is infallible, incapable of being wrong, so we can trust it completely and should heed what it teaches us and put it into practice. Lived obedience to Jesus.

And as we talked about last week, we stand on Scripture because it is God-breathed. It is of the Spirit. In fact, it is only through the Spirit of God that we can teach spiritual realities, and that we can receive or understand spiritual realities. We can only know and understand who God is through his Spirit working in us.

That bring us to what we want to look at this morning. We are going to return to 2 Timothy 3 and look at the whole passage in greater detail. Our goal is to see another essential aspect of the Word, which is that it equips. Of course that’s only true if we engage in good teaching, in orthodox teaching (right teaching). One of the things that Paul is constantly warning against in his letters is the danger of false teachers, and his letters to his protege, Timothy, is no different.

Right at the beginning of his second letter to Timothy, Paul writes this, 2 Timothy 2:1-2, You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the thing you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. In other words, make sure that you take what I taught you, pass it on to people you trust, who will then pass it on reliably. All of which is great wisdom for us as well, we want to keep passing on faithfully the teachings of Jesus.

And Paul says that because of this, 2 Timothy 2:14-18, Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.  17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,  18 who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 

Notice that Paul emphasizes the exact same thing we saw Peter did in his letter last week - the importance of reminding God’s people of the truth of His Word. Even then false teachers were so prevalent that the church leaders knew they had to constantly remind their people of what Paul describes as “the word of truth.” Because they were already seeing the impact of false teaching, of people are being led astray. Paul’s fear is that it will spread.

And I want to point out something here, we’ll come back to this later, but notice what Paul writes in vs. 16, “Avoid godless chatter (false teaching), because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.” There’s a direct connection between what we believe to be true - and how we act. If we embrace false teaching, godless chatter, it will lead to godless behavior.

Equipped for God’s Work

Alright, so that brings us to the main passage for this morning - last week we looked at the final two verses, but today I want us to look at the entire passage. 2 Timothy 3:10-17, You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch,  Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.  12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,  13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We’ve already touched on this, but Paul lays it out explicitly here. What we see is that there are two consistent themes that run through all that Paul is writing about in this letter to Timothy, and these two themes are interconnected, they cannot be separated, you can’t have one without the other. And it’s this - what we know, how we think is directly connected to what we do, how we behave.

This is why the Word is so essential, because of that interconnection - if we’re going to live a godly life, if we’re going to be faithful to Jesus, we must be engaged in truth, in good teaching. It’s the Word that equips us, as Paul writes, for every good work. That interconnection runs through this whole passage, right from the beginning, Paul starts with pointing to himself as an example, “You, however, know all about my teachings, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings.” Paul points to both what he taught (my teachings) AND to how he lived (my way of life).

Reverse is true, vs. 13 - “while evildoers and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” As evildoers and imposters spiral deeper and deeper into their lies, the deceits they keep promulgating amongst themselves, their behavior, their evil, goes from bad to worse. Really, this is no surprise, when we fall into sinful behavior, there’s always skewed thinking involved, we’ve found some way to justify it or rationalize it, that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny if we look at it honestly.

Paul encourages Timothy here to stick to being faithful to the truth, vs. 14 - “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of (in other words, what you know to be true), because you know those from whom you learned it.” Again, that’s the point, the connection between what we believe and what we do. Paul is pointing to the trustworthiness of the people who have poured into Timothy’s life - that their behavior, how they lived, matched what they taught. They lived with integrity. And Paul knows that Timothy can only live faithfully to Jesus Christ if he continues in what he’s already learned from those folks.

Included not just Paul as his mentor, but also his mother and grandmother, whom Paul points to in 2 Timothy 1:5, I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. It’s interesting that Paul uses the language of faith living in them, it wasn’t just something that Timothy and his mom and grandma believed, intellectually, it was a lived faith. Their faith was made manifest in their lives. So Timothy was taught it and saw it lived out from his earliest years, from infancy.

We know this to be true, that kids learn as much from, if not more, from what their parents actually do as they they do from what their parents teach them. This is how we learn from each other. And it tells us that if you want to learn and grow as a follower, an apprentice of Jesus - you should, of course, look first and foremost to him (and what he teaches and how he lived his life), but also from those you admire, both in terms of their teaching and how they live.

Paul refers to Timothy as his dear son in the faith, because Paul was intentional about helping Timothy grow as a disciple, a follower of Jesus - who now, though young, has a leadership role in the church. And Timothy looked to Paul as a father figure in terms of his faith - someone who could help him mature as a believer.

It’s helpful to ask, Who is a Paul in your life? Who is someone you look up to, what they teach and how they live that helps you continue and grow in what you’ve learned? Likewise, who could you be a Paul for? Who is your Timothy, someone you’re pouring your life into, teaching them the truths of the faith, and being an example of how to live as a follower of Jesus? There is no more effective and powerful way to pass on faith in Jesus Christ than that relational dynamic.

Faith in Jesus Christ is both taught and caught. And if we want to be a church that leads others into the abundant life that comes through Jesus, we have to make those relational commitments. Willingness to teach others about Jesus and what it means to follow him, and a willingness to share our life with them, be with them enough that they can see how we treat others, what’s important to us, to see our faith lived out.

And just like any parent-child relationship, we don’t have to be a perfect role model or be able to explain everything perfectly (what parent can do that?!), but I hope and pray we’re maturing enough in our faith that we do have something to offer others, we can help them - at least at a basic level - what it means to know and follow Jesus. And just like parenting, you never feel fully prepared for it, but that shouldn’t keep you from doing it. This is our call, our mission, to share in God’s work in bringing his word to others.

Here’s where the Scripture, the God-breathed Scripture, comes in. It’s God’s primary way of speaking his Word to us in order to, as Paul writes, equip us for good works. To be the people God created us to be, to do the good, he uniquely created each of us, as he writes in Ephesians 2:10, For we are God’s handiwork, created (handcrafted) in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. This is what Scripture is particularly useful for. We can’t become the type of people who would help others learn to follow Jesus without it.

It is useful for us in our minds, what we know, how we think. That’s what Paul means when he says that the Bible is useful for teaching and rebuking. Remember, all Scripture is God-breathed, it’s in these words that God, through his Spirit, speaks to us. Teaches us. Rebukes us.

I was listening to a debate the other day between a believer, Glen Schrivener and an atheist, Stephen Woolford, I’m pretty sure that’s his name. And the question they were debating was whether religion always poisons the well. Makes things worse. We’d be better suited off without religion. There’s no shortage of bad things that Stephen can and did point to in terms of things that have been done in the name of religion. He made some compelling arguments. It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking all religion is bad.

Thankfully, the Scripture teaches us why he’s wrong. Simply put, as we read in Romans 3:23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one who does good, not even one. Stephen was working off the false assumption that in a world without religion, the well (humanity) would be pure and clean and good. That it’s only religion that poisons the well. But we know the truth - it’s all people, no matter your religion or philosophy or ideology - we’re going to muck it up. The well gets poisoned because of the sinfulness of all of humanity.

And I point that out because it’s just one simple teaching that God reveals to us through his Word. But it changes how we understand ourselves and others. Understood properly, it reveals to us why we so desperately need the grace of Jesus Christ - and why we have no reason to be judgmental (because we’re all in the same boat). It humbles us. I hope you can begin to see how thinking the right things changes our behavior.

Scripture is so useful not just for teaching, but for rebuking, for confronting us where we have wrong thinking, correcting our errors. I love this example in Mark 8:32-33, where Jesus first tells his disciples about all that he must suffer and endure - rejection, being killed, rising three days later. Then this - He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

It’s so good - Peter thinks he has to correct Jesus, that can’t be true! Then Jesus turns around and rebukes Peter. Guess who was right?

Reminder to us that Jesus is the perfectly wise teacher, and he will teach and rebuke us as we most need. Peter was clearly in the wrong, being so brash and sure he was right. So Jesus rebuked him strongly. But we see other times where Jesus speaks gently, compassionately. I’m thinking of the woman caught in adultery. He cleverly dismisses her accusers and then turns to her, Does no one condemn you? No one, sir. Then neither do I. Go and sin no more.

Trust that it is God’s desire to use us (equip us for good works), and that he will teach and correct us as along the way. And he will do so in a way that best fits us, always for our good. At times that may mean hitting us over the head with a 2 x 4, at other times, a gentle rebuke, or a word of encouragement - perhaps because we’re letting false fears dictate our actions. To trust in Jesus is to trust him to speak into our lives through his word, through his Spirit - and what he speaks into our lives is for our good.

The Word is useful, it equips us, not just in how we think, in knowing the truth, teaching and rebuking us, but also in our actions, what we do, in correcting our behavior and training us in righteousness. In our last few moments, I want to remind us of some of the things we talked about last fall, when we went through the series, Practicing the Way.

One of the things we talked about that was the reality that we are already being formed into a particular type of people. That’s happening, whether you’re aware of it or not through our daily habits, through relationships we engage in, the stories we’ve come to believe, the environment we are in. The big question is, are those things forming you into the kind of person you want to be? Is it forming you to be like Jesus?

We talked about the idea of Intentional Spiritual Formation - engaging in spiritual practices (habits), community, teaching, and in the center of it all, the Holy Spirit. Those are the things necessary for being trained in righteousness (notice it’s in training in righteousness, not trying to be righteous - slow gradual, at times, painful work). But absolutely necessary for being equipped for good works. Being formed into the likeness of Jesus. Doing the things he did.

I’m not a big reader (rather watch movies or conversations on Youtube or podcasts), but I’ve been so thankful for book study we’re doing, the Good & Beautiful You. James Bryan Smith has been a Paul for me in this season. Carry with me, “the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection”… Keep engaging in faithful teaching...

Closing Prayer